The Goal of Peace: Dissolving Ego
by Nancy Bowers, RScP
“
You perceive the world and everything in it as meaningful in terms of ego goals. These goals have nothing to do with your own best interests, because the ego is not you. This false identification makes you incapable of understanding what anything is for. As a result, you are bound to misuse it.” A Course in Miracles, W pl 25, 2.1-5
“2 In any situation in which you are uncertain, the first thing to consider, very simply, is “What do I want to come of this? What is it for?” The clarification of the goal belongs at the beginning, for it is this which will determine the outcome. In the ego’s procedure this is reversed. The situation becomes the determiner of the outcome, which can be anything. The reason for this disorganized approach is evident. The ego does not know what it wants to come of the situation. It is aware of what it does not want, but only that. It has no positive goal at all.” A Course in Miracles, T-17.VI.2.1-9
I fall into the arms of God and allow myself to be enveloped by a love so pervasive that I am filled to the brim and cannot help but weep. Here is the place of safety. Here is the realization that, despite appearances, there is nothing wrong. Nothing to fix. Nothing I need do beyond allowing myself to be steered by Love. I listen. Spirit’s gentle voice is my GPS.
What is my goal? Love. My goal is to be what God would have me be, do what God would have me do. My goal is unity. My goal is peace.
Ego cares only about my own selfish interests. It cannot see that if my interests clash with those around me, I have abandoned love. I am not choosing to unite with my brothers, I am choosing conflict. I am not hearing the calls for love. I am not granting others the freedom of their perspective. I am not curious and open. I think I know. I am abandoning the possibility that different ideas can co-exist because I am stuck in the desire to be “right.”
“I could see peace instead of this.” (Lesson 34, A Course in Miracles)
To see peace, I must choose peace. I must set the goal at the beginning.
“4 Only what you have not given can be lacking in any situation.” ACIM, T. 17 VII.4.1.
I choose peace. I choose love. I give up thinking I know anything. I repeat, once again, the Prayer of St Francis of Assisi:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me bring love.
Where there is offence, let me bring pardon.
Where there is discord, let me bring union.
Where there is error, let me bring truth.
Where there is doubt, let me bring faith.
Where there is despair, let me bring hope.
Where there is darkness, let me bring your light.
Where there is sadness, let me bring joy.
O Lord, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love,
for it is in giving that one receives,
it is in self-forgetting that one finds,
it is in forgiving that one is forgiven,
it is in dying that one is awakens to eternal life.
And so it is.