The Purging (Continued)

Last night I had the third nightmare that seems to be a part of the purging I must endure to facilitate the coming renewal and release from the illusion of guilt.

The Nightmare
Two brothers who lived two houses up the street were out to get “John” and me. Therefore I gathered some chains from the yard and brought them inside (chains to imprison me?). They saw me and ran to break in just as I slammed the front door, but one of them got a hand in and I unsuccessfully attempted to break its fingers. A second reached in to attack my groin, but I swiveled away. “John” was in the back of the house and I shouted: “They’re on the porch. Hurry!” “John” was a huge giant of a man and he ran around the house to get them. Some mother and child were in the kitchen of the house. I felt they now would be safe.

This is another ‘kill-or-be-killed’* (and/or imprisonment) dream. What triggered it? I had been impatient with M and making a correction of it as well as my brief envy of C. But I think the major cause was my plea during meditation before bed. I said to the assembled ‘spirit guides:’ “BRING ON THE PURGING.”

It was not that I wanted to push to achieve the inevitable. Rather, I wished to be open to its happening—a desire not to flee from it, but to accept it, to welcome it.

I see no redemptive figure in the dream, only the projection of the Ego’s hatred; of conflict, struggle, a sense of vulnerability, fear and threat. My desperate call for “John’s” help—is symbolic of my ego idea that power solves all conflict, ends all fear and presumes to make guilt moot.

Of course force fails; it generates more guilt since it is by definition separation; enemies do not join when force prevails. The premise of the nightmare was that attack was real and merited counterattack and defense.

It was again clear to me that if I wished peace from the fear and guilt that I had constructed, asking for help was necessary. And of course, as I did so during the meditation that followed, serenity returned to my mind.

It seems clear to me that until the dregs of the repressed unconscious guilt are brought to the healing light of the Holy Spirit’s gentle forgiveness (forgiveness of what has not been done or thought), there can be no complete redemption. Right now this seems to be what I am in the midst of. I must say the process necessitates faith that the outcome of healing is assured.

*ACIM Manual 17, 7:11

Copyright 2008, Frank E. West