Saturday, April 13, 2019

"I, me, mine..."


"All through the day:
I, me, mine,
I, me, mine,
I, me, mine.

All through the night:
I, me, mine,
I, me, mine,
I, me, mine.

Now they're frightened
of leaving it,
everyone's weaving it;
coming on strong all the time:
I, me, mine,
I, me, mine,
I, me, mine..."

Someone once asked me why George Harrison was my favorite Beatle. There are many reasons - most of them quite spiritual. But, I think it is his writing of,  "I, Me, Mine,"  that still catches my breath, 50 years after its first recording.

It is not a particularly lyrical song. But the message is deeply spiritual. When asked about the message behind the song, Harrison once replied:


""It is about the ego,
the eternal problem."

Wow. In the video linked above, George expands, briefly, on this eternal problem.

The ego -- a false sense of self that is defined by an encapsulating layer of skin - that is the eternal problem. We believe that everything inside of that layer of skin is "me," and everything beyond it, is "other." 


We feel an inherently spiritual impulsion to expand our understanding of what infinite being includes, but we go about it in all the wrong way.

Rather than the dissolution of those self-boundaries, and an expansion into the all-oneness of spiritual identity, we seek to possess more -- to include more.  To stuff our sense of  "self" with more.  We pursue what leads to a bloated sense of being. My house, my children, my favorite Beatle, that great idea -- well, it is mine. And on and on it goes.  Mine, mine, mine.

George sings,

"Now they're frightened of leaving it,
everyone's weaving it,
coming on strong all the time..."

And we are. We are taught from earliest childhood to accumulate. Accumulate friends, information, toys, awards. We have been told that control over this accumulated self-sense is the ultimate goal. I manage my time. I am in charge of my finances. This idea is mine - mine to claim. This particular image that I hold of myself - it is my favorite. 


When we lose control of this self-important version of who we are -- we feel small. When we think that we have less "mine" than someone else, we feel like a failure - by comparison.  It is this separateness from one another - and therefore, the Source of all Being - that defines "sin" -- a word that comes from the same root as the word, "sunder -- to separate."

But this is also the root of our greatest fears. I fear that my thinking is creating my reality. I worry that my beliefs are leading to my health issues in my body.  I am concerned that my limited sense of things is creating lack in my life -- or in my children's lives.

I remember an experience that I had more than three decades ago. I was working at my desk. I'd been struggling with a painful headache for days. I felt like a failure. Who did I think I was? How could I sit there and take calls from patients who were asking for help, when I hadn't been able to heal myself.

While I berated myself for all that I didn't understand about God's power -- for why else would I not be healed -- my office phone rang. I answered it and the person at the other end of the line was, in fact, someone asking me to pray with them. They went on to describe the physical symptoms they were facing. And yes, they were exactly the same ones that I was struggling with.

On the one hand, I was so honored that she was led to call me. I had long-felt that if a call came to my office, God had well-prepared me to take it. I agreed to pray for her, and hung up.

As I sat there listening for what was spiritually true about this dear person, it occurred to me that I believed that there were two different personalities needing healing.  There was "my challenge," - based on my beliefs, and "her challenge," - based on what she was believing.  


When in fact, there was just one all-inclusive Truth-based sense of being.  What was true, was true for both of us. In fact, all of us. It was so clear to me. The illusion of two separate skin-encapsulated beings, stuffed in their own membranes of genetic history and personal narratives, with personal minds that could believe something on their own -- was ludicrous.

"Why," I asked myself, "was I honored when a patient called me for help, but felt like a failure when facing the same symptoms "in" my own body?" It was the false perception that each of us was defined by a layer of skin, and that everything inside of my skin was me. And therefore, it was my mind that was responsible for my experience.  And she, for hers.  Silly ego.  


The lie of separation -- personal sense -- when dissolved in the solution of spiritual oneness, disappears within the truth of our common "wholeness" -- which is the root of the word "health." This oneness leaves no room for comparisons. It refutes any sense of hierarchy -- of personal privilege or specialness.

This lie -- of egoic thinking -- that suggests itself to us day and night is insidious.  It is what Mary Baker Eddy is referring to in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures when she writes:


"Mortals are egotists.
They believe themselves to be
independent workers, personal authors,
and even privileged originators..."

They also believe themselves to be owners, possessors, the parents [and children] of one another, the accumulators of personal wealth, ideas, solutions, prayers, bodies -- lives.

This personal sense of existence is so contrary to an understanding of true individuality -- a word that has its root in the concept of un-divided-ness. We are not the apportioned personalities -- pieces of divinity. We are not divided from the wholeness of universal good.  We are not subject to personal success or failure.

In We Knew Mary Baker Eddy - Expanded Edition, William Rathvon shares his memories of conversations he had with Mrs. Eddy. I am especially reminded of these two brief statements from late 1910:


"Depersonalize self.
To personalize thought,
limits spiritual growth."


and

"What you need 

more than self-forgetfulness,
is self-nothingness." 

It reminds me of Eddy's own self-published statement from page 282 of Miscellaneous Writings 1883 - 1896:


"Remember, it is personality,
and the sense of personality
in God or man, that limits man."

I think that George Harrison and Mary Baker Eddy might have enjoyed one another's company. I have certainly been blessed by both of them.



offered with Love,




Kate



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