Daniel Day 17 - Water?

From ACIM:

• Let the Love of God shine upon you by your acceptance of me (Jesus).
• When you unite with me (Jesus) you are uniting without the ego...Our union is therefore the way to renounce the ego in you.
• Would you know the Will of God for you? Ask it of me (Jesus) and you will find it...
• Ours is simply the journey back to God who is our home. Whenever fear intrudes...it is because the ego has attempted to join...sensing defeat and angered by it, the ego regards itself as rejected and becomes retaliative.
• Never accord the ego the power to interfere with the journey...reach beyond all attempts of the ego to hold you back...Reach therefore for my (Jesus') hand because you want to transcend the ego.

Three ideas on my mind today: how union with God is very quiet; realizing the deeper depth of surrender to Jesus I desire; how the thought of drinking only water for the morning at work scares me, but it is an ego fear and mirrors our money fears.

Since beginning the Daniel Fast, I reduced my caffeine intake to green tea in the morning. Also, I have been eating only raw food without preservatives, organic as much as possible, no sugar or leaven. These things have helped my emotions (ego) to quiet down. At first, the idea of giving up coffee made me fear being dull. Now, the state of peace in which I currently am, is quiet, wordless, emotionless, dull. My ego really hates residing in peace. When I am in peace, I know I have joined with Jesus because peace is what Jesus gives. It is hard for me to understand that the lack of strong emotion is peace and union with God. I have spent so many years searching for divine ecstasy; when Jesus' peace is simple and quiet.

My ego has spent years accusing Jesus of not loving me because I can't really sense Jesus emotionally. I realize how much of the ego's desires I have yet to release and how much I want Jesus to guide my life. All my fear and hatred and dissatisfaction and doubt stem from the ego, not the Voice of God. I want Jesus to guide my thinking. When Jesus is guiding my thinking, good decisions and peace are the natural course of things. Uniting myself with Jesus means we operate as one; with no discernable difference. This means my ego cannot detect Jesus. The ego is transcended, yet angry because it received no special satisfaction from God. People are continuously defeated by backward thinking which says that true alliance with Christ means a special relationship with God.

I am on a Daniel Fast, which means water and vegetables. For this morning, I wanted to drink only water because it would help me to remember to pray. The idea scares me; but I think it is my ego that is scared. As I drink only water and pray, ego is transcended. My focus is beyond the ego. That is the secret of ACIM "forgiveness;" look beyond what the ego is seeing and saying. Beyond the ego, present in every person, is Christ, the divine presence, God. Boy, do I want to know that.

This morning, we had thunderstorms. I sat at my table, listening. Some rain started quite suddenly and then it stopped extremely suddenly, leaving silence instead. Peace is very silent. The talent to tolerate silence can be cultivated through the spiritual practice of renunciation and simplicity.