For me at least Hitler has been one of my favorite ways of looking at
the ego thought system, and somehow I just managed to finish the major
biography in about six months. It took me about six years to read the
first quarter of it, and then I suddenly read the remaining three
quarters in six months. For good measure I then plunged into Richard J.
Evans' history of the Third Reich. Having grown up just after WWII, and
in Rotterdam where the results were still very visible all around from
the original bombardment during the German Blitzkrieg-invasion in 1940,
and the town was being rebuilt still when I went to high school. I had
to bicycle for about 40 minutes through the center city, where you could
still always see the charred outer walls of the remaining old
buildings, while the inner city was all new construction. And there were
endless stories at the dinner table of how my parents and their parents
survived under the occupation.
I note here that this is one
thing the Thomas Gospel does not give us, the full view of the insanity
of the ego thought system, although it will touch on the fact that the
(ego-) world resists what Jesus has to teach. So this is also why
Pursah in Gary Renard's The Disappearance of the Universe, makes it very clear that the Thomas sayings are just little vignettes, not the full thought system, but that A Course in Miracles clarifies
the whole thought system. And the Course in turn spends a lot of time
teaching us how the ego system works, and teaching us how to look at it
with forgiveness, which in the end means not taking it seriously at all.
So The Mouse that Roared is in
the end a better analogy for the ego than anything else, it turns out
to be just totally ridiculous, which we do not see as long as our denial
protects it. Hence the Course consistently advocates that it is looking
at the ego with Jesus (forgiveness), not with judgment, which
ultimately deflates the "power" of the ego, and thus enables us to
choose once again, for the thought system of the Holy Spirit, which
Jesus advocates. What the Course calls the little willingness, is that
willingness to consider that Jesus was right and we were wrong. Until we
are willing to see that, we continue to be impressed by the ego's
antics. And we all have that little Hitler inside, for that is all the
ego is, it is the one true slave driver, who keeps us in bondage, and
the external oppressors we experience in the world are only the
reflection of that inner choice, for if we were free inside, we would
not be impressed. Jesus was the example of that, for he knew there was
nothing to be defensive about, since he was no longer buying into the
illusion that there is anything at all of value here.
To come
back to WWII for a moment, which is full of interesting lessons of how
the ego works, the German magazine, Der Spiegel, just published an
excellent series of articles under the title Why Wasn't Hitler Stopped,
at this time which is the commemoration that the Polish Invasion is now
70 years ago, paying special attention to how appeasement enabled
Hitler to do what he did, and how at many times in the run-up he was all
bluff. The French could have easily wiped him out in the annexation of
the Alsace-Lorraine, etc. It is interesting to see how with the growing
distance there is more and more willingness to see the mistakes that
were made on all levels. That also tells you that it will take several
generations before people will get honest about the wars being fought
today. What often gets too little attention are experiences of grace
such as the stories of Corrie ten Boom and her sister, and also Victor Frankl's
experiences. In the end the story is always a form of resurrection
story, in which spiritual renewal is born out of the destruction. The
way out lies through the fear, for the fear is maintained in power by
running from it. That seems counter intuitive, but it's always through.
The answer is not bravery, or bravura, but forgiveness, that is the only
thing which takes the air out of the balloon, and we have nothing to
forgive but fear itself (pun intended - it was just a silly mistake).
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