At the lowest aspect of dualistic thinking people see the world as black and white. You are always right and anyone opposing you is always wrong.
People define a belief system as infallible. They think their belief system springs entirely from the truth of Christ and is not influenced by the illusions of the mind of anti-christ.
This springs from the ego’s desire to set itself up as an authority figure that cannot be questioned. Such people are unreachable for a spiritual teacher.
The conscious selves of such people have refused to make decisions. The Conscious You has retreated into a self-made fortress, and it has assigned the ego as a guard.
The role of the ego is to build fortress walls that are impenetrable to anything that would require the conscious self to wake up and start making decisions again.
The ego will act as a computer that mindlessly carries out its programming, taking the person further and further into the extreme of black-and-white thinking. This will cause the person to be in continuous conflict with other people.
If the Conscious You is willing to take some responsibility, it can reverse the downward trend. Three factors that can impede this growth:
- The mental prison was built to “defend” the Conscious You from having to make decisions. The Conscious You might be emotionally attached to the security and comfortability of the prison.
- The ego wants the Conscious You to believe in the lie that if you don’t make any decisions, you can’t make mistakes. If you don’t make decisions, you are allowing the ego to make decisions for you. All of the ego’s decisions are mistakes.
- The ego’s survival instinct will seek to keep you inside the walls, where it feels like it has you and the world under some form of control.
Rising to a new level of the path means that you begin to see the fallacy of dualistic thinking.
The ego and the forces of this world will mount a major offensive against any person who begins to rise above duality.
Their weapon is the duality of the mind of anti-christ, which is very subtle.
Many spiritual people have started seeing the limitations of a black-and-white approach to religion. They realize there is more to know about the spiritual side of life than what can be found in black-and-white doctrines.
Too many spiritual seekers have become trapped in a form of dualistic thinking that is so different from black-and-white thinking that people believe it is above duality. Yet in reality, it is simply the opposite extreme of black-and-white thinking.
Earth is like a twilight zone. There is still so much darkness left that the light and the darkness can mix into shades of gray that make it very difficult to tell the difference between what is real and unreal.
There is no concept, truth or spiritual teaching on this planet that cannot be perverted by the human ego.
Whenever you take a major step forward on the spiritual path, your ego will repeat its never-ending game of seeking to create two extremes and polarize you towards either one.
The opposite extreme of black-and-white thinking is a form of thinking in which nothing is black and white because everything is gray. This gives rise to a number of problems:
- Spiritual seekers have distanced themselves from religious intolerance, but many have come to believe that religious tolerance means you must accept all religions as equally valid.
- Most spiritual seekers make it a virtue to be non-judgmental, but the extreme outcome is that they see almost any type of belief or behavior as acceptable.
- Most spiritual seekers see through hypocrisy and are sincerely striving to be loving towards everyone. However, they also believe that being loving means you should never challenge people’s illusions.
Many spiritual seekers have come to believe that in order to do God’s work and raise the consciousness of the planet it is enough to be tolerant and loving, but they do not see that this is simply another fortress built to prevent the Conscious You from making its own decisions.
They have allowed the chameleon of the ego to change color so that it blends in with their new world view, where being gray has become a virtue that is seen as being superior to being black-and-white.
The ego was born out of a relative definition of “truth,” and thus it cannot see any need to discern between what is God’s reality and a dualistic unreality. It only sees a need to discern what is right and wrong according to the dualistic belief system that it currently accepts as infallible.
The ego has replaced God’s reality with a belief system created by the mind of anti-christ.
It is not possible to make true spiritual progress unless you are willing to discern between what is real – meaning that it is Christ truth – and what is unreal—meaning that it springs from the mind of anti-christ.
Both black-and-white thinking and gray thinking give people a “perfect” excuse for not making an effort to discern between the non-dual reality and the dualistic illusions.
In the current conditions found on earth, discerning is not an easy task. Yet you are not required to be perfect; you are required to be willing to try.
The broad way is taken by many people because it is easy. It does not require their conscious selves to take responsibility and make decisions. It gives the impression that you can be saved without discerning.
When you step on to the path to Christhood you realize that there are ideas that are false because they spring from the mind of anti-christ.
As you begin to attain Christhood, you are no longer threatened by any ideas, so you have no need to judge or condemn other people. You never judge or condemn other people, but you freely challenge ideas and actions that are self-destructive and destructive towards other forms of life.
There is a phase where many people find it necessary to be non-judgmental. Yet too many people get stuck in it because they allow their egos to convince them that it should be permanent.
When you are trapped in duality, you define kindness a certain way, usually by saying that it is soft-spoken and never challenges people.
Both the Buddha and Jesus had come to set people free from the illusions of the ego. They often challenged the ego and its illusions. Jesus practiced Divine kindness, as do all other true spiritual leaders.
Divine kindness is based on Christ discernment and it clearly sees when people are trapped in a dualistic illusion. The ultimate form of kindness is to help people lift themselves out of their dualistic illusions so they are no longer trapped.
Because the ego has the effect of making people blind, it is often necessary to shake people awake, so they can start thinking again instead of blindly following the ego or an outer leader.
Divine Love is above duality, and that is why there is no fear in love. Instead, this perfect love will cast out your fears. As long as you identify with the ego, you will be afraid to accept unconditional love because you think you are unworthy of it.
Torment springs from the division between the Conscious You and God. Until the Conscious You overcomes this division, you will be in torment. You cannot overcome the division until you decide to take up your ability to discern.
The ego and the dualistic mind cannot fathom its own illusions, so it can never turn divine kindness into a system. Divine love is above what the ego can fathom. It can be practiced only through the mind of Christ.
The central characteristic of dualistic thinking is that it sets up a system in this world and then judges ideas and people based on that system.
The ego cannot create a system that can contain and confine God—but the ego will never understand this because to the ego God is simply a concept. As long as you allow your ego to try to fit God into a box, you cut yourself off from having a direct experience of the Spirit of Truth.
The first person to be trapped in your mental box is you. God will never fit into any mental box. Once you create a graven image, you will be bound by the image, for you can never go beyond the image to experience God directly.
Black-and-white and gray thinking both spring from the ego and its need to create the appearance that as long as you stay within the confines of its infallible belief system, you are guaranteed to be saved. There are absolutely no conditions in this world that will guarantee your salvation.
The Christ consciousness cannot be fit into or confined to any belief system created in this world. The only way to attain the Christ consciousness is to reach beyond all of the outer belief systems.
Any belief system in this world will be influenced by the mind of anti-christ. As long as people are not free from their egos, they will subconsciously impose the mental images of their egos upon any belief system.
If people claim their belief system is the only true one or is better than others, they demonstrate they have not risen above duality.
Copyright © 2013 Kim Michaels