ACIM: ego backlash and not taking ourselves too seriously is a conversation with Susan Dugan and Bruce Rawles. Here is the related interview of Ken Wapnick by Susan Dugan that we talked about. Susan’s video page has other related video conversations in this series.
A related Q&A from the Foundation for A Course In Miracles Online Learning Aids is #35 which explains why things can seem to get worse when we start paying more attention to ego’s shenanigans. Here’s the Q&A text:
Q #35: It seems the more I study A Course in Miracles, I begin to think I am going backward instead of forward. My mind is more noisy than ever. Why is that?
A: The Course has a helpful perspective on this: “Put yourself not in charge of this [wakening to knowledge] for you cannot distinguish between advance and retreat. Some of your greatest advances you have judged as failures, and some of your deepest retreats you have evaluated as success” (T.18.V.1:5,6). The fact is we really do not know where we are in our progress; we do not even know if we are going backwards or forwards It is important to remember this in our study of the Course so as not to waste a lot of time and effort judging or evaluating ourselves. Most likely the “noise” in your mind that seems to be more than ever was there before your study of the Course; the difference is now you are aware of it. Now you know you have a mind and that it is a noisy mind, and that is exactly what the Course is helping us to learn. We begin our practice by learning not to deny that we are using our noise to drown out the “still small voice” (T.21.V.1:6) of the Holy Spirit. Since denial is part of our defense strategy as egos, beginning to hear our noisy minds is the beginning of undoing denial. As we deepen our commitment to study the Course, our noise may actually seem to get louder because of our resistance. Our ego identity feels threatened by what we are learning and puts up a fight in a variety of ways, one of them being a noisy mind. This is also a ploy of the ego to convince us to stop our pursuit of the truth, because it tells us we are “getting worse.” Our task is to begin to pay attention to the chatter in our minds because it is telling us what we believe. The whole point of the mind training of the Course is to uncover the thoughts, judgments, beliefs and lies hidden in our minds causing us to feel guilty and fearful. The good news is that “The still, small Voice for God is not drowned out by all the ego’s raucous screams and senseless ravings to those who want to hear It” (T.21.V.1:6). We will hear His promptings when we have heard and forgiven all of our objections.