Doubt and the Ego
Doubt is one of the things I struggle with the very most! It is often ‘on top’ for me. I always considered it to be an important part of the discriminative process – “should I be doing this? Is it right to be saying this?” I thought this questioning was all part of a ‘healthy’ dialogue which would eventually lead to making sound decisions about the way I think or act.
And, in my experience, this internal dialogue finds a way of creeping in at any given opportunity!
But doubt is never experienced by the silent heart!
Doubt is a function of the ego mind. The ego, in order to exist, needs us either to think we are special, so that we become clouded with what the Tibetan calls “glamour”, thus separating ourselves from others, or to think that we are in some way not good enough, so that guilt and doubt arise in our mind.
Doubt is a close friend and ally of guilt. In fact, doubt is a way the ego mind can take us into guilt. We wonder if what we are doing is right, good enough, useful enough, and so on, and then the mind slips right on into guilt – maybe this really is not good enough, maybe I’ve been too over the top, etc., etc. Guilt and doubt are both perfect opportunities for the ego to attack.
Because today I have been attacking myself with doubt, I decided the sensible thing to do would be to look at what A Course in Miracles had to say about it. I found no reference to doubt*, but I went to Chapter Twelve – The Problem of Guilt. As always, the Course went to the very core of the issue of that which lies behind guilt.
First, we must assume, or recognize ourselves, to be the silent heart or the soul, or as A Course of Miracles says, a Son of God. This is the phrase that is used in the book to describe our true Self. The rest we must assume is illusion, and belongs to the world of bodies (form). The ego thought system of course, resides in the latter.
In reality, a Son of God is never guilty, therefore there is no need for doubt!
And so we experience the pull of two forces – the one being the Real – that is, the pull of Source, calling us to return, and the other – the pull of the ego, insisting that we are guilty, in order that the ego can survive. This pull of two forces creates a deep and painful split.
We can either reside in the silent heart, or we can be in guilt, but never at the same time. We cannot believe the two ideas at once. We can choose to identify with either the concept of the Son of God and sinlessness, or with the concept of the ego mind. Both are concepts still, because the mind exists in the phenomenal world (the world of form). However, when we pass beyond the mind and into the silent heart, here we find the guiltless Son of God resides, and has always done so.
*A friend has just informed me that there are many references to doubt throughout the Course, since she has the Ken Wapnick Glossary-Index for A Course in Miracles, and is able to look up terms and references. I will get a copy!
