Honesty: Summary of a Class Presentation
In yesterday’s class my main point was that self-deception is the whole problem and self-honesty is the whole journey home.
I began with this quote from the original dictation: “There is nothing as tragic as the attempt to deceive oneself, because it implies that you perceive yourself as so unworthy that deception is more fitting for you than truth.”
Then I listed a number of forms of self-honesty vs. self-deception that are found in the Course. Here is a more complete list than I gave in class:
Honesty about our thoughts—about the “little scraps of meanness”
Honesty about our actions—about “whom your ego has hurt”
Honesty about our motives—looking beneath the smiles to the murderous intent, beneath the halo to the tarnish and rust
Honesty about our goal—about the outcomes we are really pursuing
Honesty about our pain—rather than hiding it with “games they play to occupy their time”
Honesty about our feelings—of not being at home here
Honesty about outcomes—the outcomes of what we have taught ourselves
Honesty about past outcomes—their “bitter cost and joyless consequence”
Honesty about our Workbook practice—not concealing our unwillingness beneath “a cloak of situations you cannot control”
Honesty about what will content us—admitting that our littleness can never be “blown up…into a sense of magnitude” that will content us
Honesty about judgment—admitting we are not in a position to judge
Honesty about understanding—admitting that we don’t understand
Honesty about the light—admitting that we have experienced light; admitting what that implies about reality
Honest seeking—for peace, for what interferes with truth
Honest questioning—not being so selective in what we are willing to question
Honest practicing—doing our Workbook practice “in willingness and honesty”
Honesty about the ego—being “willing to judge it with perfect honesty”
Honesty about the real problem—rather than getting caught up in problems that don’t really exist
Honesty about appearances—admitting that we get so deceived by appearances because we want to be deceived by them
Honesty about the real power of our mind—admitting that our mind is much more powerful than we have been telling ourselves
Honesty about our worthiness in God’s plan—not denying “with self-deceiving arrogance that we are worthy”
Honesty about our holiness—admitting to ourselves that our holiness, being real, can’t really be hidden in darkness
Honesty about our grandeur—no longer deceiving ourselves that we are little
Honesty about knowing who we are—realizing that “uncertainty about what you must be is self-deception on a scale so vast, its magnitude can hardly be conceived”
At the end of class I asked us to ask within for the form of honesty that we wanted to focus on. Many of us got “honesty about practice.” I got “honesty about outcomes.” So today I have been practicing, “I need great honesty today. I will consider the outcomes fairly” (paraphrased from Lesson 66).
I’d love to hear about how you found the class and if you have been applying anything from it afterwards.
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