Parliament? It's all in the mind

Today is a big day for politics and people in the UK. George Osborne, the new government's Chancellor of the Exchequer, is announcing cuts to public spending of £83bn as I write. That's a lot of money! I'm sitting on the sofa, listening to a long, long list of cuts that are to take place in my home country: 490,000 jobs are going in the public sector. (He's also drinking a lot of water as he speaks; thirsty work, I imagine).

No doubt, the press are going to have a field day, as will the Opposition. For days and weeks now, the tabloids and the broadsheets, the morning's news and the evening's will focus heavily on the impact that this man's decisions are having on your Everyday British Person.

The scene I am watching on the TV is utterly ludicrous - rows rows of green leather seats, filled with bodies, with lots more bodies who arrived a bit too late to get a seat having to stand on the green carpet. On one side sit the coalition government, and on the other, Labour and the rest of the opposition. Half of the people who were lucky enough to get a seat look stoic, sitting completely and defiantly still, their expressionless faces staring stonily across the ornate room, eyeballing their enemy with venomous disdain. Murmurs and tuts can be heard at various points in Mr. Osborne's speech, verbal outcries of disapproval at what he is announcing (no surprise there, then). 

Opposite them, MPs sitting behind the PM and the Chancellor are hollering "hear, hear", waving bits of paper at the Opposition, making hand gestures deliberately designed to irritate them, mocking and jeering. And these are the people running our country? This looks like a poshed up version of a class at school! (Notice my ego judgment here!)

What amuses me about this scene is that both sides are in ego. It's not a face off between spirit and ego, even though each political party would love to convince you and me and themselves otherwise. What I see in politics that I hate in myself is a self-righteousness that sneers and looks down on just about everybody else. It's a veneer of benevolence that poorly masks the vicious and poisonous attacks constantly taking place - in my life, it sometimes shows up as a spiritual mask, in which I like to portray that I am good and kind but really I am judgy and spiteful. 

Underneath my attack, I am always, always feeling sad, or lonely, or afraid, or ashamed, or guilty. The attack is my way to try to get rid of these icky, yucky sticky feelings, and the mask is my way of trying to stop the world from seeing the attack. Confused.com? Perfect! Just the way my ego likes it. 

But I digress. The scene I'm witnessing in Parliament  - a scene so common in this environment (geddit?!) that it's never even questioned - is not about truth, or forgiveness, or healing; it's just one part of the ego mind attacking another part, successfully detracting from the moment, from the presence of miracles, from accountability, and from each person's ability to choose their state of mind for themselves.

Powerlessness is such an insipid state of mind, and one which political decisions seem to catalyse, if not outright instill. The crucial word here is 'seem'. Because in the middle of these budget cuts, in the middle of redundancy, in the middle of VAT increases, of mass consumerism gearing up for yet another Christmas, I really do have a choice about how - and with Whom - I respond.

Sitting here on a beautiful Wednesday afternoon, listening to financial decisions that will impact the lives of everyday people - listening to the fear - I am firm in my decision: I choose love, and I choose peace. I can sense inside of me the wavering, the nudging of my mind towards the big red button that says PANIC, and the physical and emotional sensations that come with that: tightness of chest, shallowness of breath, an inability to see clearly, and an impending darkness that starts on the periphery but quickly encroaches until it covers my life with a film of black and grey like an oil spill does the ocean.

I know that there is another way. My very being knows it, because it's walked a different path so many times now. Although I can't see where my income is going to come from next month, although I am still dogged by fearful thoughts that issue various edicts detailing my demise, I choose this very moment to dive deeper into my practice, into my time in silence, into my studies of the Course, into my commitment to the Voice that I'm learning to give more and more of my attention to.

The only question to ask today is: 

Is this a time for fear, or is this a time for faith?

And the rush of relief that swamps me as I make my choice for faith - for life - comforts me like a mother to her distraught child. I am enveloped in soft folds of velvet and silk, but my vision isn't clouded; I am crystal clear. For just a second, I see. I see the sky, the spider webs half-ruined by the wind and the rain, utterly exquisite in their state of disrepair, the detail in each piece of furniture around me, and the moment becomes HD. My life for this moment is being lived in high definition.

Somehow, I don't need to go away from watching the budget cuts and learn every single thing about politics. I turn to the Course, and read words that remind me that the political battleground is truly within me, not outside of me, that whatever I'm seeing in the world is the result of a collective projection, and that I made it all up, which means that I can unmake it, too:

The body is the ego's home by its own election. It is the only identification with which the ego feels safe, since the body's vulnerability is its own best argument that you cannot be of God. This is the belief that the ego sponsors eagerly.


Yet the ego hates the body, because it cannot accept it as good enough to be its home. Here is where the mind becomes actually dazed. Being told by the ego that it is really part of the body and that the body is its protector the mind is also told that the body cannot protect it. Therefore, the mind asks, "Where can I go for protection?" to which the ego replies, "Turn to me."


Brother, there is another way to turn for protection. It's called inward. I'm taking that journey today, in tiny, seemingly invisible ways, and I'd love to be your companion on the journey home, too.

Here is my declaration. I hope you will find one that works for you.

I declare that I stand for the Truth of Innocence.

I think it's time for a bike ride. Ho!