 I've had a terrific problem in the very limited of our reading of that in the book, with this concept that seems to be presented of ego as sort of an evil thing as opposed to all my also limited psychological readings which says, we've got a hell of a strong ego, we must be very personal and all that, and it's a real conflict in my comprehension. You sound like you're well prepared to deal with that. Well, we'll talk about the ego, but let's unveil the thing, let's go right at it. The thing about the ego too is something, it's like you don't attempt to fight it or combat it because it loves the fight. And the course is just saying is just look at it. Once you can really look directly at it, like fears, the only reason fears seem to be maintained is because we try to look away from them. You ever had a dream where you're being chased by something, you're just having the same dream all the time, you don't want to turn around and look at it, and basically do this is just saying, you're full of all. We can look right at it and it will be gone like a puff of cloud. But to address your question too about the ego strength and integrate and so on and so forth, that's pretty much when I studied psychology and started going through that, that was pretty much basically a psychoanalysis is basically saying that between the head all these unconscious forces and the supra-ego, the force of morality, there's an ego and that system is kind of like a mediator. And in that sense, if it's a mediator between these two combating forces that are in the mind, then that's where the idea of ego strength comes in, of wanting to build up ego strength. But what Peronian psychology really never got at was it just was really describing the dark side of the mind. It says yes, there were these intersection forces and there were these, you know, the moralities and everything, but that was all the three parts that were described as the ego and the supra-ego were all part of the ego. And then there's another part of the mind which Peronian psychology really didn't get into, which was spirit. That's one thing when I was in psychology, it was kind of like I just kept looking for where's spirit? Or where, how do we integrate religion or spirituality with psychology if they seem to be antithetical? Or science, a lot of times when I would go into science, I would wonder where does science fit into all this? And then I got into reading quantum physics. And some of the quantum physics that started talking in terms of the sound of psychological perception and that there's no reality in the world apart from what you think. Experiments with particles, when they tried to do double-blind experiments and they tried to take the experimenter out of the experiment and they would find that the thought and the thinker of the experimenter were moving the particle. And that they could no way remove the mind of the experimenter from, so it's like, oh, it's almost, all these things start pointing to there's no, it's subjective that the mind is influencing everything. So to get at that thing of, that's what really started, I started to see was that that whole thing about psychology wasn't really helping, it was very pessimistic that there had to be another part of the mind that I started reading when I was reading into Eastern philosophy and I started reading books about the higher self. I started to say, yeah, that resonates there. There has to be a higher self as opposed to just a small self. And so that gave me a sense of stuff. There was something beyond that. Okay, but I think it went through the young man's approach as well. How did your approach to deal compare with the other? Yeah, Young seemed to really tap in to start to get in. He took this idea that Freud came along with the unconscious, called the collective unconscious, and he started to see that there was something, you know, the higher self, there was something beyond this unconscious. This higher self, Young said, was able to communicate through dreams and through symbols, with love, you know, architecture and so forth. And that in many ways, that was ways of kind of awakening towards this higher self. So I feel that Young really started to articulate more that there was something beyond. And when you really get into the course, I mean it fits well with Youngian psychology in the sense that Youngian psychology said that there was this unconscious with all these beliefs that were kind of under the surface. And that you had to get in touch with the beliefs. And that's what the Course of Miracles is saying, because Jesus was saying that there are a lot of unconscious beliefs. And until you can look at them, until you can become aware of them, then they like they run you. You had to ask about defining ego and there's one point at the back of the text where Jesus says that you can't have a definition for something that is nothing, which is kind of interesting, you know, that's kind of like if I define it for you, you know, like giving it a reality. But he says we can point to the opposite. And the ego's opposite in every single way in shape is a miracle. So then after he talks about the ego is the nothingness that it is, he starts once again pointing to the positive or pointing to the identity, the right mind. But the thing about death and the ego too, you know, somebody asked me the other day, you know, somebody said, so it has to die. I said, well, you can look at it that way, but it's like you have to believe that it has ever lived before you can believe that it can die. I mean, you know, the more I say to the ego, it's almost like it just gets unveiled for what it is. I've seen people work with the Course and they say love your ego and hate your ego. And a lot of times people will perceive when they're reading the book, it seems like, boy, this thing is up to no good. But in a sense Jesus says that you may the ego by believing in it and you can dispel the ego by withdrawing your belief in it. You may the ego by believing in it and you can dispel the ego by withdrawing your belief in it. That's what bothers me a little bit. I think I feel sometimes there's so much emotion put into trying to destroy this ego like it's an entity. I mean, like it's replaced the devil and I can't do that. And he actually described this at the beginning. There's a point early in the text where he kind of goes through and he really describes the ego pretty well. And then he says, I had to do that so you wouldn't dismiss it too lightly. And that's when he starts introducing at that point that it's obviously it's just a belief and you made it to know it. But in the early part, the very early part it's kind of like so it's not just brushed away because that's part of the ego's defense mechanism is to just kind of brush fear under and kind of dismiss fear or repress it or deny it and then all of a sudden it just comes up. And this is of course in dispelling the ego, not in trying to kill it. That's what bothers me because, you know, some seem to be being fought and I don't I think it would be easier to withdraw your energy from that belief that some men try to fight it. In the end, that's all that's dispelling the ego is is remembering to laugh at it. And then it's not like you kill it at the end is you laugh at it. You laugh it away. You laugh it away, you know, it's a joke. Now when the mind is in the sleeping state, you know, then it's like part of its mind is where the Holy Spirit lives and the Course calls it the right mind and this is sanity. This is the connection back to Christ and to the Father and then the dark side of the mind is where the ego resides. So to say that to even say love the ego, you know it would be kind of to say to love nothing, you know to truly love something it has to be it has to exist. So the Course is definitely not saying love the ego and it's definitely not saying hate the ego because as we were mentioning earlier when you fight against it it seems to roar even more. It is important to see that the ego is up to no good in the sense that the purpose of the ego is sickness, fragmentation, guilt, sin, death and the Holy Spirit's purpose is healing and it's important to start to tell the difference between the two because until we can tell the difference between the two then we'll still think that the ego has something to offer us and as long as we believe it still has something to offer us then we'll still invest in its way of thinking and we'll still feel guilt we'll still feel pain and separation. And much of the Course talks about the ego not because it's real but because the sleeping mind believes it's real and to the extent that it believes in it it has a hold on it. So Jesus is just saying this is how this works. This is what to look for. This is what's going on for the mind that believes in the ego. When you can start to see what it is and recognize it for what it is then that's the way out. The ego doesn't know love. The ego doesn't understand love. That's why it's almost impossible to love something that is not loveable and does not love that. Yeah, but isn't ego our personality? No, it's your personality. All of our personalities do have our differences. Some people seem to be aggressive or outgoing. Some people seem to be shy and reserved. All the different skills. Some people seem to have great mental skills and other people seem to be more feeling and sensitive. When you talk about personality there is enormous variation. And these personalities seem to conflict at times too. Sometimes people think of them as complimentary but a lot of times in husband and wife or boyfriend or girlfriend or even in family there seems to be stark personality differences. And whenever there's conflict it's not the Holy Spirit that's involved. It is the ego. I mean there is an ego basis. And basically the personality self or the self-concept with the small S instead of the big capital S for Christ is part of a construction that when the separation seemed to happen the mind was so afraid of this life that it tried to run away from it into the darkness as far as it could have. So it started to stack beliefs because it's so dark and horrifying the thought that you can separate from your creator disconnect from your source. It was the most horrifying thought conceivable. It wasn't true in all of its sense but the mind believed it. It was horrifying. So the mind instantly the Holy Spirit was given his answer. So now we have a mind used to wholeness and completion in the Kingdom. It's used to wholeness all the time. Now it's got two completely irreconcilable thought systems. The Holy Spirit and the Egos in it. And the mind's used to wholeness it's intolerable to try to hold on to both of these at the same time. So what the mind did is the world was made up as like a movie screen. When you go to the movies and you see the screen and all the different images of it the world was made up as a screen and the Egos that project the split out there on to the screen and then you can forget about the split in the mind. And you can see the duality out there in the world. That is a duality that's not separate. So basically once the mind falls asleep it sees the world of duality. Male, female. Good, bad, right wrong. Hot, cold, fast, low, wide, skinny. Victim, victimizer. Victim, victimizer. It's kind of, that's part of this big optical illusion to instead of looking in my mind and saying I have a split in my mind that has to be healed that the trick is oh, the splits out there you know in the world and there are good people and there are bad people. There are it would feel like the Kelvin movie the good guys and the bad guys. And therefore as soon as I split the sunship all my brothers into camps and see the world of duality out there then I can project and blame and be angry at the victimizer and I can pity the victim. Of course it's saying it's a trick it's a scam. Whenever you blame your brother you blame the IRS or blame your parents or blame your spouse or blame your dog or blame the weather or blame your boss or whatever that you're trying to hurl the guilt or you're trying to hurl the feeling of unworthiness that you feel away onto them. It really doesn't solve anything it doesn't get rid of the problem because when you do that the mind also believes that somehow people are going to creep projections are going to creep back and then it starts getting real dissented kind of like if you've ever felt guilty or angry at somebody and attacked them and then it's feared that they were going to call or whatever you know as soon as the attack goes out then it's like oh my gosh what have I done you know I've got to be real defensive. Pride, Ethel. That's a good question because it's like a lot of the messages I got when I was growing up you know take pride in, take pride in, take pride in and it's like wait a minute is pride good or bad or sometimes good sometimes bad and it's on page 97 Jesus talks about the ego the basis for the world and the body and that's one of the three the three main things the ego uses the body for in a real subtle way the way it maintains the guilt is because pride is always based on form there's a body identification I'm proud of my ethnic heritage I'm proud to be an American I'm proud of my Cincinnati Reds I'm proud to have some real degrees status, proud of my wealth you can see where it's all form based and the reason that pride is so sneak is because just like you said survival that's what the ways of the world are the ways of the world you know bigger, better, more the fame, the wealth, the recognition, the