Chemicalization

"He who would speak the truth should have one foot in the stirrup." -- Indian Proverb

"Denial is not a river in Egypt." -- Bad Joke

Today's topic, chemicalization, requires a light-hearted touch, since when we're experiencing it, it is usually no laughing matter. Mary Baker Eddy defined chemicalization as the process we go through waking up... and we often experience it as both a physical and mental molting, though neither are real. The point is not to deny what we are experiencing, but to recognize it as the struggle between old beliefs and stories about what is real, and what we have come to know as Truth through spiritual awakening. You cannot see the Truth while believing in illusions, and so the awakening is usually experienced as a kind of struggle within one's own being. Of course, we are wrestling with phantoms of our own creation, but we still feel beat up.

We feel bruised and judged because we are judging. We are identifying ourselves as separate and dissecting ourselves and the rest of the world into infinite parts that can be labeled and judged, including our supposed self, which is really a fiction too. A Course in Miracles reminds us that "only the ego blames at all. Self-blame is therefore ego identification, and as much an ego defense as blaming others. You cannot enter God's Presence if you attack His Son." (ACIM, Chapter 11, Section IV, 5:4-6)

As we Awaken to Who We Are, we realize the self concept we've carried for so long isn't even real. As ACIM so elegantly puts it, "Salvation can be seen as nothing more than the escape from concepts." (ACIM, Chapter 31, Section V, 14:3) Who We Are is not a concept, but Reality. So the ego is nothing but a concept of fictional separation from the One, illusory autonomy that is willing to literally fight to the death to pretend to exist. Hence the lovely experience of chemicalization.

He who is willing to tell the Truth to him or her self truly does need one foot in the stirrup, to be willing to ride wherever, whenever needed in that unfolding. It's a wild ride, but the only one worth taking.

"You may believe this course requires sacrifice of all you really hold dear. In one sense this is true, for you hold dear the things that crucify God's Son, and it is the course's aim to set him free. But do not be mistaken about what sacrifice means. It always means the giving up of what you want. And what, O teacher of God, is it that you want?" -- A Course in Miracles, Manual for Teachers, 13; 6:1-5