Seek not outside yourself
"The body is nothing, more or less, than the thought system of the ego in form." by Ken Wapnick
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The way to get back to God and to awaken from this dream is through the ego. You can’t do an end run with the ego, you can’t kind of skirt around it, you have to go through it. Which means you have to look at it. You have to walk through seeming terror as the course says. And God’s on the other side. But you have to walk through seeming terror, that’s the exact phrase. The Holy Spirit will walk you through seeming terror, and God’s on the other side.
In that same section Jesus talks about the circle of fear, which you could also subtitle the circle of guilt or the circle of specialness. It’s all the same thing. That’s what makes a course in miracles a course in miracles, as different from all other spiritualities, is that it really exposes in painful and graphic detail what the ego thought system is, which is the thought system that is the foundation for our physical, psychological existence. God is not the foundation of our physical, psychological existence, truth is not, this thought system is.
But the lie underlying all this is that I can find completion, I can find happiness, I can find peace outside of me. There’s that very very important section near the end of the text; “Seek not outside yourself”. That’s what specialness is all about; seeking outside of ourselves. It began with our original and basically the only special relationship we have – with our ego, in which we’re seeking outside of God for something that would complete us. So one way of looking at the original separation fallacy or the tiny mad idea is that something was missing in the Son when he was in Heaven. And what the Son decided was missing was that he lacked individuality, he lacked a differentiated self, he lacked uniqueness, he lacked specialness.
And when the course tells us that in the separation we asked for special favour from God and He didn’t give it to us – demand is actually a better word – we demanded special favour from God and He didn’t give it to us. The special favour was that God would recognise and notice our specialness, our individuality. Well God obviously could not do that because there is no individuality in Heaven, there’s no differentiated self in Heaven. And so that’s when the dream begins, we then believe we can be outside of Heaven.
So that’s the original form of seeking outside oneself. And we sought the ego which really is the part of our mind that believes in delusions. And then the ego has us literally seek outside the mind, because it projects itself out and goes through the same thing again, saying “There’s something missing in you” – what the preface to the Course talks about as the scarcity principle, there’s something scarce in us, there’s something lacking in us, there’s something missing in us, there’s something wrong with us that can’t be completed within ourselves; we have to go outside of ourselves.
So what goes for love in this world – romantic love – is “I’m incomplete, you’re incomplete, but when we join we become whole.” That’s the lie. That’s the lie that we can be made whole, that we can be made complete, that we can find happiness and peace let alone love, outside of ourselves.
The very body that we think we inhabit is all about specialness. Our bodies are always, always in a continual state of lack. Oxygen, food, liquid and then emotional sustenance. We’re always in a state of lack. The body was literally made that way. The body could not exist without seeking outside itself. That tells you something. And if the body is the embodiment of the ego, if the body is the projection of the ego, then it makes perfect sense. Since the ego was the thought: “There’s something outside of me that will complete me, that will give me what God cannot give me”, and that something is the ego itself – that will give me the individuality God would not give me, when that thought is projected out the same dynamic exists. The body is nothing more or less than the thought system of the ego in form.
So the body was made to say “I have to seek outside of myself in order to survive, for oxygen, for food, for liquid.” Just on the gross bodily level. Then there are all the emotional needs that demand we seek outside of ourselves. “I’m lonely without you. I feel unappreciated, I don’t feel respected, I don’t feel loved, I don’t feel cared for. I need you.” Whether it’s a little child with its parents or whether it’s an adult with a lover, a friend, spouse, whatever or its own children. “I need something and I can’t get it within myself because it’s missing in me so I have to go outside of myself to get it.”
That’s why it’s so comforting when it works. Because in the instant when my specialness needs are met my anxiety level disappears or goes down, diminishes, and I feel better. Until it builds up again and then I need more attention from you and I need more love from you. No different from what happens when our stomach screams “I’m empty, fill me” So we fill it and we feel comforted. If you have a good meal you feel good. A few hours later what happens? “Feed me, I’m hungry, I’m empty.” That’s what happens. Our lungs do it every 20-25 seconds. Now we’re thirsty so we take a nice drink of water or something else and we feel good until… and that’s how the body is physically, that’s how the body is psychologically. “Yes, you told me you loved me today, what about tomorrow?” “You gave me an A in my paper today, how about the next paper I write?”
It’s always… it has to be something more. There’s always something that has to be generated outside of us to fill this void inside. The lie is that it can be done. The lie is that we could really be satisfied by something other than the love of God. The reason we cherish the body so much is because the body witnesses to that. “The love of God is not gonna feed me, the love of God is not gonna put a roof over my head. So therefore I need something other than the love of God”, and at the bodily level of course, that’s true.
So that’s why it’s always helpful just to look at the body objectively and see what it is. It’s one gigantic mouth. Every aspect of the body, every cell, is one gigantic mouth screaming “Feed me”. Why is the body like that? Because the mind is like that. The part of us that wants to be separated always needs to be fed. And the refrain that repeats and repeats and repeats is “God’s love is not enough”, “Heaven is not enough”, “My identity as spirit is not enough. I need something outside of me to complete me, to make me whole.” That’s the lie.
(Taken from the audio recording “The Quiet Center: Through Specialness to Love” by Ken Wapnick – published by the Foundation for A Course in Miracles.)