Saturday, August 2, 2008

Money and the Guilt

[Green text is from other sites. Blue text is from comments on this blog.]

The text below is from fACIM's wonderful Q&A. (No longer a functioning answer service, but still a fantastic resource. Try using the alphabetical index.)

Q #113: I seem to have this recurring problem of never making enough money or never getting enough work for my business, especially during these periods of recession, although I am a highly-educated professional. Although over the years of practicing the process of forgive ness on this, I now have more and more peace when this problem occurs, I still get irritated and wish that I could get rid of this problem altogether and not have it occur again. From the perspective of A Course in Miracles, is there anything I else I can do to “cure” this issue? Will looking at the guilt or the origins of the guilt help in any way? What do you suggest?

A. We can only comment in general about the type of situation you have described, but it may be of help nonetheless. First, the purpose of the world is to be a place where we have an endless num ber of problems to solve. It is a smokescreen designed to hide the real problem, which is the decision we are constantly making in our minds to live separately, apart from God, as individuals, and to hold others responsible for our condition. Whether we are plagued by one recurring problem or by a multitude of problems does not matter. Problems come up in our lives because we need them to be there -- obviously, on an unconscious level. Therefore, if we are unaware of the real source of our problems (the decision in our minds) it would be fruitless to hope for a problem-free life; we would just be fighting against ourselves. Moreover, part of the ego’s strategy is to have us keep hoping that our problems can be solved, and that the day will come when we can live problem-free in the world.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's really it--the idea that we can live in a problem-free world. It isn't that we can't shape the dream experience. We most certainly can. But it's the nature of the medium to be temporary. Whatever is created here is born, flourishes for better or worse, declines and dies. That's the medium. We can influence what is born but we cannot make it permanent, no matter how wonderful.

So after a while, one would think, we'd get tired of the game. We prefer, it seems, to decorate our prison cells than take the freedom that is our birthright.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Yes, we just can't face the The Guilt.

Even if one does manage to make a life which is all but perfect, it doesn't help, one can still feel totally awful, because The Guilt is not faced.

Anonymous said...

Right. Because if we did, there would be nothing frightening about freedom. We would have no projected enemy.