Wouldn't you agree that no real friend of yours would ever want you to hurt yourself? And wouldn't you also agree that if you did have a trusted friend that you later found out had lied to you, you wouldn't trust him again -- at least not the third, fourth, or fifth time? You know the saying: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me! For the sake of our studies, let me add one more line to this popular old saying: Fool me over and over again and I obviously don't recognize a foolish idea when I hear one! And that's just the point.
We are being fooled almost moment to moment by habitual thoughts and feelings that we have stopped listening to. This amazing insight offers us a good explanation why we end up as often as we do in those painful situations, in which the last words usually spoken go something like, "How in the world did I get myself into this mess?" Sound familiar? It should. And while the answer to this woeful question should rescue us from similar future sticky situations, it rarely works out that way. This is very important to admit to ourselves. The truth is we keep falling into the same old snares. Why?
There is an authentic answer to this question that may surprise you. The reason we haven't as yet realized Real Rescue -- and so usually wind up trapped in a tangle once more -- is because every time we ask ourselves how we've managed to get stuck again, we usually turn right around and tell ourselves the answer. And so the sad cycle starts all over. It doesn't have to go this way. With a little closer examination and the help of a few Higher Ideas, we can see that we couldn't have possibly come up with the "answer" that we did. Why? Listen to this new and true explanation as to why we seem to keep repeating the same mistakes in our lives: If we really knew the answer to that recurring problem of ours, we wouldn't have had it in the first place!
Look closely and you'll see that the answers you are always given as to why you are unhappy is that someone or something outside of you is making you feel that way. What's wrong with that answer? Everything.
There is no profit in blaming your painful position in life on other people or an uncaring world. This is the solution the false self wants you to swallow, because it knows that if it can get you to see life its way, then you will have no choice but to spend the rest of your life struggling with life. This is its conquest. First it blows you off course and then it gets you to blame ill winds. Its very existence depends on keeping you off balance and looking the wrong direction.
Start seeing through the blame game by learning to let go of all the familiar but self-abandoning answers the false self wants you to believe in. Own your own life.