The Saner of the Two Has to Do the Work

When I contemplate world troubles, I often think, “If only they could see things from my perspective, the world would be a better place.” Do you do that? I do it too much. Once I can change them to my way of thinking, voila! Better world!

Whooooo boy! That is some serious ego-thinking there.

Last night, my ACIM study group ended with a comment from our facilitator, Hal Lafler. He stated, in the Course, it states, (and he was paraphrasing), “Whoever is the saner of the two gets to do the work.” When I heard that, I wrote it down immediately. It was one of those, “Ah-ha!” moments for me. I love when I get those moments. You could go through a whole study group and hear things that you have heard before and be begging to hear something new, something different – I know that, I know that – BOOM! Something new!

When I got home, I broke out the ol’ Course Concordance and looked up “saner.” This is what I found:

“Whoever is the saner at the time the threat is perceived should remember how deep is his indebtedness to the other and how much gratitude is due him, and be glad that he can pay his debt by bringing happiness to both.” (Text Ch. 18, V,7,1)

In other words – the saner of the two has to do the work!

How about that for a mind shift!

Here is the thing, how do you know you are the saner of the two? This is what jumps out at me when I see this statement. Because it doesn’t really matter who is the saner of the two, if both people think they are the saner one, they are still coming from Love.

You see, I look at the world in general, sometimes, and think, can it get any more screwed up than it already is? I mean, seriously? It is hard to remember, sometimes, and I am not saying that I am completely able to do this, because, even though I feel a resonance with ACIM, I don’t completely understand everything yet. But one thing is clear, I need to stop expecting others to do the work that I want them to do – I am the one that has to do the work! If I think that someone else has work to do, then I am coming from ego.

Have you ever had someone try to “fix” you? This is especially an issue in physical love relationships. I was in a relationship where my significant other thought that I needed to do more things to make her happy. I knew that no matter how much I did for her, that I would never be able to make her happy because she was reliant upon me for her own happiness. She is the only one who can make her happy. When I realized this, my physical relationship with her was over. Now, my spiritual relationship with her will never be over because we are one. However, if someone else thinks that you need to do some work to improve yourself, or make things better for them, they are coming from ego. The same is true in reverse.

If you think that some else needs to change in some way to make things better, you are coming from ego. The only person who needs to change is YOU.

Let me see if I can be more clear. You cannot change what occurs around you, you can only change how YOU perceive them. It all starts in YOUR mind.

Now, for the part I don’t understand about that quote – feel free to help me out here! What is my “indebtedness to the other” and why is “gratitude…due him?”

Is it simply because we are one and that he is going to help me, help us, return to our true thinking? Is it because this is causing me to do work that I owe him gratitude? Am I understanding this correctly?

Thank you for reading.
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Just a quick update. I have been going through some personal depression issues that I feel like I am working through effectively, at the moment. This is part of the reason for my lack of recent posts. Part of me has not felt worthy of writing this blog, which is only natural, because the ego doesn’t want me to think that my posts are doing any good for others. Ego was telling me that it was silly to post if I had such little traffic on the blog. Ego wanted me to have more followers.

I have come to the realization that I don’t write this blog because I want to be famous, or because I want to make a lot of money doing it, I do it because it makes me feel good. When I started writing the blog, I admittedly, had a bit of an ego boost early on due to some very positive feedback. It made me feel like I was onto something, and I started to think of the income-making potential of such a venture. In retrospect, it is all very silly to me. When it comes right down to it, I already have everything I need. If I think I don’t, I am coming from ego. I may not be able to control my physical circumstances, but I can certainly control the way I feel about it.

I have also been feeling, how could I possibly feel like I have something to contribute when I haven’t even finished reading the Course?!

My answer to that came to me from a simple note from a friend. If I have one person who finds benefit from what I write, am I not doing what the Course suggests? The Course says, a teacher’s “qualifications consist solely in this; somehow, somewhere he has made a deliberate choice in which he did not see his interests as apart from someone else’s.” (Manual for Teachers, 1,1,2)

My interests are not separate from my brothers and sisters. Therefore, I write. I write because what I write has an impact on me. If it has an impact on me, surely it will have an impact on at least one other person. And when it comes right down to it, that is all that matters.

Namaste