Symptoms refer to ill health;

Ill health refers to health

Health refers to Infinity

Infinity is the meaning of symptoms

I ask people about motives, either their own or someone else’s, and in short order, when the question is pushed past the obvious circular reasoning, I inevitably get the same answer: "I don’t know." We have come up against the "wall of ignorance".

A female client is completely disillusioned with her "verbally abusive" husband. After exploring the Karpman Victim Triangle with her in some detail about her own family history of victimization/perpetrator/rescuer experiences, I tried to help her see that there is choice. This became particularly clear when she said that she did not feel like having sex with her husband but that she would not tell him because she did not want to hurt and anger him. I asked her whether he has a choice about how he will take her statement. She was puzzled and said she did not know. I told her that if she were my wife and told me she did not have her heart in it and she did not want to have sex with me, that I would choose to thank her for her honesty, and I would agree with her that I did not want sex either unless my heart was in it. I told her that feeling hurt and feeling angry are choices.

"Abuse" is a perception, often by both parties. "Abuse" is a motive attributed to someone. Why would anyone be abusive? Pushed far enough, this question always produces an "I don’t know" answer. And this answer is absolutely correct, we don’t know. And neither do the social sciences know, even after a hundred years of analysis and research. Every cause and explanation given for violence, illness, crime, neurosis, psychosis, stress, divorce, dysfunction and unhappiness is circular in its reasoning, and ends up with "don’t know." We think we have found a scientific answer when we conclude that a certain behavior is "caused" by the environment or by genetics, but those again are only concepts or states of mind which need to be questioned. What is "environment" and what is "genetics" and where are they located? Aren’t they just energy fields which exist in our minds? And who says that those energy fields are not limited by our perceptions and choices?

And we think we have found a religious answer to these conditions when we conclude that a certain behavior is caused by selfishness, addiction or sin, when actually these are only states of mind designated by labels which need to be further questioned also.

If you radically question any psychological, scientific or religious concept or explanation of motive or cause, you will get into circular reasoning and finally into "don’t know." And that is exactly where the Mystery exists. And that is exactly where Infinity Vision is born.

As the Russia fairy tale called The King’s Archer explained it,

the King’s Archer had to cross the river of fire and go into the Land-Of-I-Know-Not-Where and to bring back I-Know-Not-What in order to save his beautiful wife. I interpret this to mean that we also, in order to rescue the beauty of life, have to cross the river of fiery experience, and go into the Land-of-I-Know-Not-Where to bring back I-Know-not-What (Infinity Vision).

My female client was so frustrated with my line of questioning that she finally said "I have tried everything (to fix this), and nothing works!" And then she added "It would take a miracle!" And I said to her "And miracles are something we don’t know much about, aren’t they?" I told her that we can’t fix something we know so little about. I asked if she was curious, and she said no. As A Course in Miracles puts it, we had rather be "right than happy."

The first breakthrough in the healing process comes when we begin to see that each person has and always has had control over his own life. No one else controls your perceptions, feelings and imaginative powers. You make all of your own choices. You are responsible for all of your experiences. No one makes you happy or unhappy. No one controls you or hurts you. You are in charge of yourself. No one abuses you , and you abuse no one. You cannot be rescued by anyone, nor can you rescue anyone. All of these are finite beliefs created and held by the finite mind, but fueled by infinite energy, they seem to be true. The only thing that traps you in the Karpman Triangle is your finite belief system. The only thing that creates your experience of pain is your beliefs, and it is only your beliefs that make you think you are a victim, a perpetrator or a rescuer. You are Infinite, and that is miraculous, and that is what you have not "tried" and that is what you "don’t know" and that is why neither science nor religion can explain causality. And without the Infinite, neither cause nor effect makes sense. And thus every symptom (effect) that we experience arises from the same single source, the ignorance of Infinity.

Our conventional wisdom which seems so true, so scientific, so religious, so obvious, and so comforting, is actually a trap. Granted that the self-image can offend and be offended, you are not your self-image. The self-image is just a snapshot of who you are. Your self-image is just the part you are playing in the current drama. And while playing your part, you "forget" that you are writing the script, and you attribute spurious motives to all of the characters, including yourself.

We do not understand our Infinite nature and we never will. All we can do is enter Never-Never Land and ask what is the truth that sets us free. If our current version of the "truth" isn’t working, then it is not the Truth. The Truth works. Each "truth" works a little bit and a little while, and then it quits and we have to move on up to the next revelation of truth.

You can get out of the victim triangle. You can step out of your part in the drama. You have gotten role-typed into believing that you are old or young, male or female, employer or employed, victim or villain, educated or uneducated, introvert or extravert, athletic or artistic, doctor or patient, atheistic or religious, selfish or unselfish, parent or child, virgin or slut, neurotic or normal, gay or straight, prisoner or guard, rescuer or rescued, friend or enemy.

You are all of these roles and none of these roles. You have imagined and pretended so thoroughly and effectively that you have even convinced yourself. You even forgot that this is a stage and that you are writing the script. You even convinced yourself that you don’t know about all of this. You even went to far as to consider suicide and to imagine homicide, and when you pulled the trigger, you really believed it was awful and real. And when blood spattered on the wall, you were dead sure of it.

And then the curtain was drawn closed and then it was re-opened, and the drama continued to Act forty-nine, with various new characters and similar plots, until the Great Awakening and the fun begins anew. There was a time in the distant land of childhood when we constantly played, constantly pretended, and constantly enjoyed exchanging parts, but then we forget and things got really "serious" and now we got a chance to be "re-born" .

When luck and moods seems to swing from one extreme to another and you step out of the drama, and take off the tragedy and comedy masks, you can cease being a re-actor. Your buttons are pushed less and less. Beliefs are the buttons that get pushed. You accept your own authority (author of your story) in your life. You are no longer an appeaser or a rebel. You no longer believe that you have to submit or dominate. Life is, after all, not a power struggle for survival