Once we feel the presence, we know the truth. From that point on, no matter what we do, even if we completely run the other way or refuse to deal with that presence, we are never the same. Once we feel it, we then can know what this work is about. Until then it is all the mind trying to figure it out and figure it out in the complicated ideas of dreams and symbols and metaphors and collective unconscious and interpretation.
But when we feel it, it is like a lightening bolt crashing through the psyche. Or it is like an electrocution - it shatters all the ignorance inside of us for a moment. We might forget: we might never remember again. But in this work, that is the beginning of the end of the pathology. Once we feel the presence, it is the beginning of a new life, if we continue to make the choice to go with it.
Often when we feel the presence, a follow-up dream may be offer the potential for the killing of the pathology in us. This does not happen randomly. It happens when we feel the presence. It does not matter if we are an atheist or a devout Catholic or a Buddhist or Jewish or anything because we felt it in the bone. This can open the process to Dying to Self because His love provokes us to engage the enemy like nothing else does. This is why the love of the Divine is so initially destructive.
It is like Jacob fighting with the angels. One of the steps in this work is we all become like Jacob. We come to a place where we fight or are at war with ourselves. We are at war with pathology. We are at war with God. It is a courageous thing to be Jacob, no matter how difficult the process because Jacob never doubted the existence of the angel. Once we have a connection with the Divine, even if only for a moment, our illusions are shattered and we feel the truth of that moment. Even if we struggle for the rest of our lives to obtain it or even if we choose not to, it is okay. It is our choice. But we can be Jacob if we want to be and if we are willing.
But if we do not know that feeling, if we do not know that presence of the love or whatever we want to call it, we could battle all we want but we are like Don Quixote battling windmills. We are just guessing.
Every dream has the potential to show us how we are Jacob struggling with our angel within ourselves. We need to be aware of the Jacob factor of our egos, that we are Jacob and we are struggling. We are not as bad as we think we are but we are not as good as we think we are either.
All of us fight with God. If we think we are not fighting with God, we are in the worst shape of all. We have to acknowledge that fight. People often are hard on themselves for fighing, but this is wrong because we are in the fight for our lives, as a Jacob. The pathology wants to say, “Well see? You are bad!” But really Jacob is a holy man because he is fighting for his wholeness. This is what makes him a holy man. If he did not fight with the angel, he would be lost.
We all start out lost. We have to realize that our conflict is between God and ourselves, whether it is dealing with our traumas and our own hurts, or whether we focus on what does not matter. Perhaps it is the history of our existences and regressive past lives, if there are such things. But we have to come to the point where we really can have the courage to acknowledge that struggle.
We have to strip off the illusion of how wonderful we are and how terrible somebody else is or how terrible we are. It is the whole gyroscopic lie. Who cares who is right and who is wrong? The fight is the fight within ourselves.
It is a hard step for many people. They struggle to get to a place where they are actually willing to be Jacob, then they want to be right or they want to be wrong or they want to run. They do not want to say, "Whoa, this is one hell of a fight! I am not sure I want to be in here!"
When we talk about commitment to our work and our struggle with that commitment, we could not commit more than to where we are in the moment. Just being where we are right now is a total commitment. When we want to beat ourselves up, we can remember, “Oh, I am Jacob fighting the good fight! I do not have to be perfect, I do not have to figure it out and I do not have to succeed right now.” Jacob's gift, God's gift to Jacob, is we can have the courage to fight.
Marc Bregman