Marianne Willamson A Return to Love Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles

The Ego defends against love, not fear. Pain in relationships can be a perversely comfortable pain, in that it is one we know. We're used to it. I once heard a tape by Ram Dass, an American spiritual teacher, in which he told of seeing a newspaper article about an abused baby being taken away from his mother. As a police matron tried to take the baby, he kept struggling to remain in his mother's arms. Although his mother was the one who beats him, she was the one he knew. He was used to her. He wanted to remain in familiar territory.

This story illustrates our relationship to our own egos. The ego is our pain, but it is what we know, and we resist moving out of it. The effort it takes to grow out of painful patterns often feels more uncomfortable than remaining within them. Personal growth can be painful, because it can make us feel ashamed and humiliated to face our own darkness. But the goal of personal growth is the journey out of dark emotional patterns that cause us pain, to those that create peace. Psychotherapy,: Purpose, Process and Practice says that at their peak, religion and psychotherapy become one. They both represent the relationship between thought and experience, and are used by the Holy Spirit to celebrate one of the most glorious human potentials: our capacity to change.