On Tue, 6 May 2008 10:58:01 -0700 (PDT), george
hotmail.com> wrote:

I don't think the ego necessarily sees the world as "a horrible
place". That wouldn't jive with it's objective of getting us to play
a game of "seek but do not find". We are always playing that game.
It's about special love relationships, wealth, power, recognition, all
those carrots on strings we're chasing which never seem to satisfy
even when we succeed in getting them. "Seek ye first the Kingdom of
God" is alien to ego thinking so it reinterprets the tacked on "And
all else will be added unto you" to refer to the same old carrots and
off we go again, only now we're using righteousness to get what we
want. People can and do even use ACIM this way. They read the word
"abundance" and off they go again, using ACIM as a way to chase the
same old carrots. Any form of belief in the world, whether it is a
strong attachment or a strong desire to escape, is ego based.

"In the world but not of the world" strikes me as the only right
thinking way to see ourselves here. It reminds us that we're here on
a temporary tourist visa, so to speak, but doesn't give rise to the
"Well, life is short, might as well get as much as you can out of it"
mentaliity. Life is not short, it is eternal, and God is the love
that sustains us.

Deborah (BC)