Full Disclosure

"Covering iniquity will prevent prosperity and the ultimate triumph of any cause. Ignorance of the error to be eradicated oftentimes subjects you to its abuse." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 446, Lines 30-32

"I will there be Light. Let me behold the Light that reflects God's Will and mine. I will there be Light. Darkness is not my will." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 73, 10:2-3, 11:3-4

"And do I want to see what I denied because it is the Truth? This final question, which is indeed the last you need decide, still seems to hold a threat the rest have lost for you. Forget not that the choice of sin or Truth, helplessness or Power, is the choice of whether to attack or heal. For healing comes of Power, and attack of helplessness. And if you choose to see a world without an enemy, in which you are not helpless, the means to see it will be given you." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 21, Section VII, 5:14, 6:5, 7:1-2, 9:4

I woke up this morning with a vague sense of dis-ease. And I just sat with it, allowing thoughts to arise and not attaching to any of them. I find it funny that there is not one thing wrong with my life at this point, that everything is flowing and very good from a human perspective, and yet this sense of something missing still arises. A Course in Miracles repeatedly reminds us that this is what the false self is made of... the need to generate more, and it doesn't even matter more of what. This requires the need for something more. The need for something more requires a this and a that. Oneness is not conducive to desire and suffering.

So as I watched this dog and pony show unfold in my own delusional thoughts, I realized that the normal tendency is to cover up what is really going on with activity or with projection... as in, "look what he/she is doing!" So that we can dissociate from our need to be separate and feed our appetite for more. I just got a huge rush as I wrote that sentence. Herein lies the key.

Sometimes the appetite for more shows up as the need to do stuff around the house, fixing, rearranging, redecorating, feng-shui-ing... just so it's more something. Sometimes the appetite shows up as a compulsive need to hear more of other people's stories to try and get what they have, or to try and help them, acting wise as if we know something they don't. Sometimes the appetite shows up as a need to stay within the familiar (more of this, please), so that we are never really outside our comfort zones. I could go on and on here, since the ingenuity of the ego's desire for more is legion. It is especially sneaky in the so-called spiritual arena, where the appetite shows up as the desire to hear other people's stories about spiritual stuff, or to read more, or to try a new person or path. But even the desire to help others is this appetite for more in disguise... wanting to appear to be more spiritual, even to ourselves. This is truly delusional. Since God is All, who is there to be spiritual, or non-spiritual?

A Course in Miracles puts it bluntly: "One illusion cherished and defended against the Truth makes all Truth meaningless, and all illusions real." (A Course in Miracles; Chapter 22, Section II, 4:4) So the question of seeing ourselves with full disclosure becomes imperative for Awakening. Where am I hiding this lust for more that keeps the illusion of a separate self spinning with abandon? In the lust for food, for new experiences, for new people, for new stories? Or the lust for isolation and safety? Or the lust for 'harmless' pleasures like movies and books? This is the last unanswered question: do I want to see? Do I really want to know?

Wanting is not bad... it's a mistake. The mistake is that something more of anything will ever satisfy and complete the ego. The mistake is that this subterfuge keeps you caught in the illusion of a life, a separate material self with a so-called spiritual side. You remain as God created you, not as you imagine yourself. And yet your dream life is lived as you imagine you. As Jeshua ben Joseph put it: "Ye are Sons of God, and yet ye die like men." We choose this illusion of separation and suffering because we want more. It's the wanting that kills us. It's the wanting that perpetuates the illusion of self that lacks something. It's the Seven Deadly Sins played out as my life, and your life, and the lives of everyone who comes into this dream world. Grandiose saga or utter tragedy, a story of earthly love or of darkest revenge, the mechanism and the end result is always the spinning of illusion, and more illusion. More. Always more.

I can Awaken in any given moment, and see myself as God created me: Perfect, Whole, Complete in every way, now and always. All that is necessary is the desire for full disclosure. In the face of discomfort, dis-ease, dis-satisfaction, be ruthlessly honest: do I want to see what I denied because it is the Truth?

"Now must you choose between your Self and an illusion of yourself." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 22, Section II, 6:6