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Weekly Questions and Answers 11/19/2003
This week's questions/topics:
Q #310: How can a psychologist best help a patient?.
Q #311: Does everyone have a role to play in the world?
Q #312: Is it wrong or bad for me to miss or crave a relationship?
Q #313: Help! How do I avoid a recurring disastrous pattern in my life?.
Q #314: My anger and hatred of evil prevents me from forgiving.
Q #315: How can I deal with a poor self-image?
Q #310: I have been a student of A Course in Miracles for over 10 years, and I recently entered a Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology. One of the difficulties I have is that I am learning psychological material that is often at odds with the Course. On an intellectual level, I understand and can accept the distinctions. However sometimes I can't, and this causes me some frustration. I worry about how to help another, although I also recognize where the answer lies -- to turn and trust in the Holy Spirit. I even understand that much of what I am learning can be helpful if placed under the direction of the Holy Spirit -- the problem is that I often forget. I guess my question is: if I'm inclined toward a particular psychological orientation and practice, say psychoanalysis or narrative therapy, is it okay to follow my interest, but with the Holy Spirit as guide? A: It is never the form but only the content that can ever conflict with the Course. In other words, it is the purpose for which you use the particular psychological orientation and practice that determines whether or not it will be at odds with the Course, and not its particular theoretical model of mental illness and health, with its specific applications. Use it for ego purposes, and you will judge and attack the differences it helps you identify between yourself and your clients. Use it for the Holy Spirit’s purpose and you will see it as a means for uncovering the ego’s patterns and plots and schemes and connivings, both in your client and in yourself, so that they can be released to the healing light of forgiveness. So study whatever therapeutic model appeals to you and become as good at its practice as you possibly can. For training in the symbols of the world enables you to accept a teaching role in the plan for the healing of the Son’s mind (W.pI.184.9:1,2). Just never forget that the only true healing comes from the one Therapist Who knows no healing is necessary. Your role is to become an instrument for that healing by first allowing your own guilt and attack thoughts to be healed. When your own blocks have been removed, the healing love can then simply flow through you (T.9.V.7,8).
Q #311: It is obvious that Helen and Bill had specific, individual purposes in bringing A Course in Miracles to the world, besides the purpose we all share, which is to forgive and to wake up to knowing ourselves as the one Son of God. I can presume, as the Course says, that we all have an individual part to play in God's plan for salvation; but does that also mean a part in the world? A: Since the Courses teaches that the world is an illusion, made by the mind of the separated Son as an attack on God (W.pI.155.2:1, W.pII.3.2:1), it follows that it would not tell us that God’s plan for salvation means we have a specific role to play in the world as individuals. It is important to remember that the Course is addressing the mind; specifically, the decision making part of the mind, because nothing exists outside of it: "Mind reaches to itself. It is not made up of different parts, which reach each other. It does not go out. Within itself it has no limits, and there is nothing outside it. It encompasses everything. It encompasses you entirely; you within it and it within you. There is nothing else, anywhere or ever" (T.18.VI.8:5,6,7,8,9,10,11). Every reference to our role or function in the world, therefore, must be interpreted with these metaphysical principles in mind. There is only one role assigned to us by God: to be His innocent Son. The Holy Spirit’s function is healing the mind of the thought of separation, and our only function is accepting this healing through forgiveness. Many passages in the Course seem to imply that each individual has a specific and unique role from God: "To each He (the Holy Spirit) gives a special function in salvation he alone can fill; a part for only him" (T.25.VI.4:2), (See also:T.25.VI.7). However, this "part" is to accept the Atonement for himself. It is "special," in other words "specific," because we have chosen to identify with our individual bodies in the illusion, and have assigned different roles to ourselves, and to every body. Although these specifics (being a son, daughter, parent, teacher, nurse, CEO) are irrelevant to the outcome, they are important because they make up the classroom the Holy Spirit uses to teach us the truth about ourselves. Each part of the Sonship, therefore, has to play his part by accepting the Atonement "as an individual" in his specific classroom and, as you mention, by ultimately accepting his only role and identity as God’s Son.
Q #312: I just finished a meditation on why I haven't had an intimate relationship for so long. Most of the reasons that occurred to me were ego-based. The one I didn't think was ego-based was that I'm just too lazy to put in all the effort it takes. I don't know if this is an appropriate question to be asking, but I think about relationships a lot and I don't seem to be able to help it. I know the Course says that special relationships are just a device to keep you away from the truth and I notice that the A Course in Miracles never addresses the issue of sex or sexuality directly, but I must ask for some guidance here. I have these desires and I don't feel like they're being met. It's hard for me to believe that it's wrong to have these feelings. I'm becoming very frustrated with my life and with this Course. Am I misinterpreting something? I think I must be missing something? Can you help? A: Yes, it does sound like you’re doing some misinterpreting. By the way, you don’t say what the other thoughts were that came to you in your meditation about having an intimate relationship, but the one you mention still sounds ego-based -- like someone’s mother making a judgment! Rest assured, Jesus or the Holy Spirit do not sound like our mothers’ nagging! And the truth is that fear is more likely the reason you’re not experiencing an intimate relationship, whatever answers you think you heard. It’s true special relationships were made by the ego to distract us from the Holy Spirit’s answer -- the Course refers to them as "the ego’s most boasted gift" (T.16.V.3:1) -- for they hold out the hope that we can find in someone else the special love that God could never give us (T.16.V.4). But once we seem to find ourselves in the world of separation, the Course does not teach that special relationships are to be avoided or given up. On the contrary, they become the necessary classrooms in which we learn our forgiveness lessons. In Jesus’ own words, "I have said repeatedly that the Holy Spirit would not deprive you of your special relationships, but would transform them (T.17.IV.2:3). So while the Course is telling us that our special relationships -- and that would include ones involving sex and physical intimacy -- won’t bring us the joy of Heaven, nowhere in the Course does Jesus say that those feelings are wrong or bad or sinful. And furthermore, through our participation in those relationships, we have the opportunity to heal the guilt in our minds that we have projected on to them. It could be that we feel victimized either by the special relationships we are in or have been in, or by the fact that we are not now in the ones we believe we want. In the end, the different forms are all the same, but along the way, our part is merely to be willing to be open to the relationships that are already a part of our lives. For each one, whether or not it involves physical intimacy, will offer us an opportunity to find the love that has always been ours, just buried and hidden beneath the guilt and sin in our own minds. You may wish to ask then, not for a specific relationship, but for help in releasing the guilt and the fear that seem to be preventing you from experiencing love. You may be surprised at what opportunities show up in your life when you have that willingness, but don’t make the mistake of deciding and defining in advance what those opportunities should look like. Trust that we always find what we need to practice our forgiveness lessons, as we are ready to take our next steps. You may find Ken Wapnick’s recent tape on "Form vs Content: Sex and Money" of value in thinking about your issues around relationships. You may also wish to take a look at Question #184 for a related discussion.
Q #313: I have just realized, with somewhat of a shock, that a series of events that happened in my life -- loss of friends, my job, my home -- about five years ago seems to be playing itself out again in the same way, under similar circumstances. Everything seems to be falling apart. I don’t want to repeat this because what followed five years ago was the bleakest, loneliest, poverty-stricken period of my life. I feel like I'm the victim of some big reality con and there seems to be nothing I can do to stop it and I'm terrified. It seems that my ego is trying to protect itself by massively intensifying its attack in order to stop me from letting it go by creating bad circumstances in my life. Is there anything I can do to stop what is happening? A friend has suggested that the first time this happened, maybe I should have chosen to go in a particular life direction but didn't and so now circumstances are repeating themselves so I can make the right choice this time. Maybe I'm getting carried away over nothing but if things do fall apart again and I can't change them, it would be nice to have some inner peace with what is happening. A: You do not say whether you are a student of A Course in Miracles, but your hunch as to what your ego may be up to suggests you have more than a passing knowledge of the Course’s principles. The Course itself says that "trials are but lessons that you failed to learn presented once again, so where you made a faulty choice before you now can make a better one, and thus escape all pain that what you chose before has brought to you" (T.31.VIII.3:1). But it is always and only ever talking about the content of our own perceptions of others, and the pain those judgments bring, and not the specific form of events as they seem to play out in our lives. And there is nothing in the Course that says you must repeat the cycle of pain and suffering until you get it right, as if there were some kind of karmic debt to be paid. This may be true within the ego thought system, but the whole purpose of the Course is to expose the insanity of the ego so we can make a choice for sanity against that thought system. So what is to be done? What we all must learn to do is to make conscious our own inner decision to see ourselves as guilty sinners who deserve to be punished for all of our transgressions, beginning with our supposed attack on our Father Who only extends His Love to us. That we believe down deep that we have attacked love is true, but we need to bring that belief into our awareness so we can question its validity, as well as the suffering and pain we believe it calls for. For there is no inevitability to the events of our lives. And even more to the point, there is no inevitability to the interpretation we give to the events of our lives. In other words, we may feel victimized by what seems to be happening to us in our lives, but that interpretation of victimization is nothing but that -- an interpretation. And if we’re willing to accept our role in giving that interpretation to external events, then we can join with Jesus and allow him to offer a different interpretation in which no one is guilty, including, and especially, ourselves. So if you can begin to recognize that it is your ego that is fanning your fears about the future, based on a faulty premise about yourself, you can begin to question whether you want to continue to listen to that voice. For that voice never wishes any of us well (T.15.VII.4:3). But there is another Voice, once you dismiss the ego’s, that only ever wills your perfect happiness (W.pI.101).
Q #314: A problem that will not go away, no matter what I do, concerns evil in people in my life: abuse, neglect, selfishness. I want to forgive, but in all honesty I cannot, because inside I am angry and I hate evil. Prayer gives me lots of affirmation of love. I want this love from people. I am also afraid of people. How can I pass through this wall that obstructs my peace? A: This type of situation is usually difficult to work through. It requires a great deal of patience and gentleness with yourself. Forgiveness, of course, never means that you deny the "objective facts" -- the abuse, neglect, and selfishness. It asks that you bring your anger and your feelings of victimization to the loving, non-judgmental presence within you, and just observe yourself holding others responsible for your lack of peace. If you try to forgive when you really don’t want to, you are fighting yourself and you will wind up feeling more guilty, which is not a kind thing to do to yourself. Holding on to blame and anger is not sinful and has no effect on Jesus’ love for you; it just prevents you from being peaceful and experiencing that love, as you already know. That is all. When you are in touch with your feelings about evil, you might remember Jesus’ advice to us concerning the original choice to separate ourselves from God: "Call it not sin but madness, for such it was and so it still remains. Invest it not with guilt, for guilt implies it was accomplished in reality. And above all, be not afraid of it" (T.18.I.6:7,8,9). If you hate evil, you are afraid of it and have forgotten that when love looks on it, it sees only a tiny, mad idea having no power to affect love in any way. That means that the truth about you has been untouched by what you have perceived as evil in others. The part of you that is afraid of that truth continues to see evil as real and powerful, and capable of making you weak. Finally, a therapist or counselor might help you recover some of your inner strength and work with you on your fear of relationships. You could then look at the deeper issues and apply the principles of A Course in Miracles.
Q #315: I have a problem relating to other people. When I speak with them I feel like a stone and the situation seems to be so unrealistic. I feel embarrassed when people speak to me, or they want anything, or when I believe that I did something wrong. How can I deal with this situation? I perceive that it is my fear of Jesus and a defense against my inner guilt, but I feel so helpless. A: Yes, your difficulty relating to other people is probably coming from your inner guilt. Guilt results in a poor self-image that makes you feel inferior to others and afraid of them. Just keep working on your lessons and ask for help in releasing your guilt. Be gentle with yourself and be confident that there is a loving, healing presence within you that sees beyond your guilt and fear. Manage your anxiety as best you can. Then, as you feel better about yourself, the anxiety will gradually disappear. You might also consider getting help from a professional counseling service. They often have effective ways of helping you with your self-esteem and self-image.
Weekly Questions and Answers 11/12/2003
This week's questions/topics:
Q #303: What exactly is "grace" and how does one attain it?
Q #304: What exactly is "the authority problem"?.
Q #305: Still more about "I need do nothing."
Q #306: Why might I be preoccupied with death?
Q #307: What is the explanation of a buzzing or vibrating feeling while meditating?
Q #308: Why does the Course seem to arouse such antagonism in non-believers?.
Q #309: How can we know if we are truly bringing the problem to Jesus?
Q #303: My question is about grace. I'm working on Lesson 168-9 of A Course in Miracles…which says grace is not learned and grace is not the goal this course aspires to attain.…grace is the means to get vision first with knowledge but an instant later…I'm just trying to understand exactly what grace is and how one should try to attain it. A: In the “Glossary-Index for A Course in Miracles” by Kenneth Wapnick, grace is defined as “our natural state as spirit” and “an aspect of God’s love in this world” (p.46). It may be helpful in reading passages in the Course which use the term grace, such as the Lessons you mention, to remember it is referring to the truth of who we are as spirit, and the reflection of God’s love present in our minds: “Spirit is in a state of grace forever. Your reality is only spirit. Therefore you are in a state of grace forever” (T.1.III.5:4,5,6). Grace is not, therefore, something that needs to be attained, nor can it be taught or learned. It is simply the truth that will be revealed of its own when we no longer believe in our guilty, sinful selves identified with the body. Our goal is to become aware of our true identity as spirit because it is what God created us to be. God’s grace, His gift, is the identity we share with Him. The process of forgiveness, whereby we uncover all the hidden beliefs about ourselves that are in opposition to this truth, is what will lead us to the awareness of this identity and acceptance of His grace. In other places, however, grace is spoken about somewhat differently. Grace is vision in that it is awareness of our natural state. In the passage you refer to, the Course tells us that the vision of who we are in truth will be followed instantly by knowledge of our Oneness with God, and in that instant awareness of the world disappears. That is our goal, that is grace. It is “an aspect of God’s love in this world” (Glossary, p.46) because our minds hold the memory of God’s love and the memory of our true identity as spirit, God’s innocent Son. Whenever we are willing to choose to identify with this part of our minds, rather than with the ego, we accept the grace that is ours: “Grace is acceptance of the Love of God within a world of seeming hate and fear” (W.pI.169.2:1).
Q #304: I keep thinking about what A Course in Miracles refers to as the “authority” problem. I understand it to mean that there is a constant struggle within me between what I believe is the “reason” for being here and for my life, and what God “believes” is the reason for my being here and for my life. Unfortunately -- like most concepts the Course teaches -- I have a feeling my understanding is missing the mark. Am I even close? A: Actually, you are not far off the mark at all. Someone once said: “If God is your co-pilot, switch seats!” Jesus tells us that the problem is much deeper than that: “The authority problem is still the only source of conflict, because the ego was made out of the wish of God’s Son to father Him. The ego, then, is nothing more than a delusional system in which you made your own father” (T.11.in.2:3,4). This obviously is insane, as Jesus himself remarks in the continuation of that passage; yet we continue to allow this conflict to rage in our minds and to project itself out all over the place in many forms, because we believe that to submit to God as our Author and Source would be a sentence of death. Or at the very least, we could not exist as we would like to. Jesus explains: “The projection of the ego makes it appear as if God’s Will is outside yourself, and therefore not yours. In this interpretation it seems possible for God’s Will and yours to conflict. God, then, may seem to demand of you what you do not want to give, and thus deprive you of what you want.…You are afraid to know God’s Will, because you believe it is not yours. This belief is your whole sickness and your whole fear” (T.11.9:1,2,3; 10:3,4). So to the extent that you value an individual, autonomous existence, you will unconsciously believe that you usurped God’s power in order to get and keep that existence and that He is coming after you to get it back. This is the one-or-the-other principle at the heart of the ego thought system, and fear is its unfortunate consequence. “To deny His Authorship is to deny yourself the reason for your peace, so that you see yourself only in segments. This strange perception is the authority problem” (T.3.VI.10.6,7).
Q #305: Does “I need do nothing” mean that it's not OK to consciously try to develop new habits to replace the old fear based ones, like avoiding eye contact or speaking softly or giving up too soon, etc....How can I get over these things if I don't do anything about them? Lesson 135 in A Course in Miracles says that planning for things is a defense and should be avoided. However, I feel that if I don't plan or practice ahead of time I won't be able to function: I won't know what to say or do when the moment arises. I am really quite stalled here. Perhaps I am misinterpreting all of this. Can you somehow clear this up for me? A: When A Course in Miracles says: “I need do nothing except not to interfere” (T.16.I.3:12) it is telling us primarily not to interfere, because that is what we do. It is not telling us to do nothing in the world or with the body. We need do nothing to be who we are (God’s Son), except remove all the beliefs that oppose that truth. That is why the Course describes the ego thought system in all its diverse forms and expressions. Lesson 135 of the workbook is a very good example of this. It exposes the defense system that is set in motion when the mind chooses to identify with the body. In no way does it suggest that any of the defenses or behaviors should be changed or avoided. That is not its goal. The goal of the Course is clearly expressed in the following instruction: “…seek not to change the world, but choose to change your mind about the world”(T.21.in.7:1). We can paraphrase this important line replacing “the world” with “the body,” “your behavior,” “your habits,” “your defenses.” This is a Course in mind training, and nothing else. Understanding this distinction is essential to understanding, and more importantly, applying the principles of the Course. Whenever the Course describes all the things we do as bodies, and the beliefs we hold, it does not tell us not to do them, nor not to believe them. It teaches by showing us the contrast between the effect of the ego belief system (pain) with the effect of the Holy Spirit’s thought system (peace). It tells us that what we do on the level of form neither causes nor resolves the problem of the separation on the level of the mind. Therefore, changing your behavioral habits because it will make you feel better about yourself is just as acceptable as any of the things we do to take care of our bodies, our houses, or our cars. As long as we believe we are bodies living in the world these things must be maintained in working order, and taken care as best we see fit. Until our minds are healed of all belief in the separation and in our identity as bodies, our only goal must be to uncover all our hidden beliefs so they can be exchanged for the belief system of the Holy Spirit. Then the mind that is free of guilt will use the body, as described in this lesson, without defenses. This does not mean that the body will then be perfect, or not need food, or sleep, or eye glasses. It means the mind will not confuse itself with the body and will not look to it for safety or for anything. In the process of healing, we are not asked not to plan, or to try to live as if our minds were healed while they are still sick. It is always important in reading the Course to remember that it is addressing the decision making part of the mind. We are asked to choose which teacher we will consult in making our plans. The Holy Spirit tells us that as we make our plans we can remember to search our minds for all of the insane beliefs that interfere with our being able to allow His wisdom to lead us to our truth. Webmaster's note: see also questions #293 #289 #90.
Q #306: I have been studying A Course in Miracles for about 14 years now and lately I keep thinking about dying. It comes to my mind all the time. It's not particularly scary; but why all this preoccupation with death? A: It is not unusual to have thoughts of death become more frequent as you diligently work with Jesus in undoing your ego. The part of you that is identified with the ego -- and has been for ages -- will experience itself as “dying.” Actually, all that is happening is that you are withdrawing your belief in the ego thought system. “As you approach the Beginning, you feel the destruction of your thought system upon you as if it were the fear of death. There is no death, but there is a belief in death” (T.3.VII.5:9,10). A major part of the process involves shifting your sense of who you truly are, so it would be evident that the “you” that is withdrawing the belief and has chosen Jesus as its teacher is not what is “dying.” That decision-making part of your mind is simply choosing to identify no longer with a false identity, but with the reflection of its true Self represented in your right mind by the Atonement principle. The preoccupation with death should diminish and finally disappear when there is no more fear of letting go of your identity as an individual. Without knowing more about you, though, we do not know whether this is the only source of the thoughts. In general, we would recommend consulting with a professional if these death thoughts persist for an extended period of time.
Q #307: I have been studying A Course in Miracles for over a year now. For the last few months, I have been having this strange and wonderful feeling -- my body starts physically vibrating during my morning and night meditations. I feel like something inside me is about to take off, like an airplane, a kind of inner weightlessness. After my meditation, I feel great and full of energy. But sometime this feeling that I am experiencing makes me think and think again. I wonder if other students are or have experienced the same thing I am. I also wonder if it is okay to feel that way. A: Although a variety of explanations could be offered to account for your experience with your body, all you need to know is that our own minds translate any experience of abstract love, such as we may experience in meditation, into a form that we can accept, since our ego-identified minds fear the abstract. At times the form may be, as you are experiencing, sensations in your body that you find pleasant, even pleasurable. What will be most helpful to remember as you have such experiences is that you want to be willing to let go of any judgments you may have about them as either good or not good. Or any thoughts to make a big deal out of them. If you enjoy the experience, there is certainly nothing wrong with that. You just don’t want to make an altar to the experience and then seek after that, for, as wonderful as it may seem, it still falls far short of what Jesus is holding out to us in his Course. For it is still only a specific symbol, a temporary form, through which you are allowing yourself to feel his healing comfort and unlimited love. For a related discussion, see Question #181.
Q #308: I'm not sure how to present this question, because anything I say will most likely be projection and/or an area of my own unrecognized guilt, some unconscious need for drama, to be a victim or martyr, some call for help in me. But please elaborate the Course's position as to why there is hatred and often times cruelty from others when the A Course in Miracles becomes one's path. This has been my path since 1986 and I don't thrust it upon others. If I am asked, I will talk about it. When I ask for help I often don't hear the answer or I'm too upset and caught up in fear. A: First of all, it will be helpful to distinguish others’ feelings and reactions from your own. For your own reactions are all that you ever really need to be concerned with. Any thought system which so uncompromisingly threatens the ego thought system, as the Course does, will have to be perceived as threatening to anyone who is still identified with the ego. So, as you work with the Course, whether you speak to others of its principles or not, they at some level will have to recognize the difference in you in those moments when you are practicing forgiveness and are identified with your right mind. And if they are threatened by that, then hatred and cruelty -- among a variety of ego reactions -- are “natural” and not unexpected responses to protect their ego identity. As Jesus points out, “frightened people can be vicious” (T.3.I.4:2). None of this really has anything to do with you or your own lessons in forgiveness, unless you in turn react to their reactions to you. For you are now in your wrong mind and are identifying with the guilt there over separation and attack on God that you believe is real. But this is nothing to feel embarrassed or apologetic about. All of us who still believe we are here in this world in the body have unhealed minds that believe in the reality of our own guilt. And any experience that allows us to get in touch with that guilt -- which will automatically be projected outward onto others if we are not aware of its origin in our own mind -- can be very helpful. So bless your brothers for being the screens for your own projections, for when you react to them with upset and fear, feeling like a victim or a martyr, you are uncovering what your ego has wanted to keep hidden from you, if you are willing to look at it that way. And whenever you remember and are ready, you can look at the no-longer-buried guilt with Jesus or the Holy Spirit, who will remind you that it is all made-up. You may initially be unable to access this help when you are in the middle of the confrontation with someone else, but the only thing that matters is that, at some point in time, you remember you have a different choice about how you can perceive that interaction. And that opens the door to the help that is always available to us.
Q #309: It keeps being emphasized in the answers here that we need to bring our ego thoughts to the love of Jesus in our right minds. How do we know we are doing that? What I mean is that it's not like talking to someone in human form where you can see them and hear them and speak directly with them and know you are doing it. A: Although we can never be certain in any moment if we have turned our minds away from the ego and joined with Jesus, one of the clearer indications is when we feel a release from the heaviness and strain of the judgments we have been holding onto. For that in the end is all that forgiveness is and, whether or not we are conscious of joining with Jesus, we have when we let go of our thoughts of condemnation and attack. When we are honest with ourselves, we can always be aware of the tension we are holding (in our minds, projected onto our bodies) when we are judging, whether it is the negative judgment of hatred and repulsion or the so-called positive judgment of desire and attraction -- the feeling that someone or something outside of us is what we want and need. Tension in all its myriad manifestations is always a signal of conflict and separation, whether we interpret it as good or bad. Jesus is not really a separate entity or being like your mother or a best friend, but rather is simply a presence we can experience, whom we can relate to in our minds, at a personal level, while we still believe we are persons. You perhaps have had the experience as you read his words in A Course in Miracles that Jesus is there with you and that he really is speaking to you. Don’t let your ego fool you into believing that is only your imagination. That experience is more real than all the experiences with other bodies that we seek after to stave off our loneliness. Joining and peace occur in the mind, and not between bodies. That is why we can feel very lonely despite being surrounded by others, if our thoughts are of separation and isolation. And we can feel quite content and complete just thinking of someone who is not physically present whose love and acceptance we are sure of. Jesus wants us to know that, no matter the vagaries and vacillations of worldly love, his love is always constant, always there. In those moments when we doubt it, we can simply pick up his book and read his words and his promises. There are many, but consider this one passage from the very end of the workbook: “You do not walk alone. God's angels hover near and all about. His Love surrounds you, and of this be sure; that I will never leave you comfortless” (W.ep.6:6,7,8).
Weekly Questions and Answers 11/05/2003
This week's questions/topics:
Q #296: How do I know if I have crossed into "The real world"?
Q #297: Is the Course saying my loving thoughts and my feelings of connection are not real?.
Q #298: Why are lilies a symbol of forgiveness?.
Q #299: What is meant by "happy dreams"?
Q #300: It seems that all healing necessitates attack.
Q #301: What is the special significance of giving something a name?.
Q #302: Is the Course saying we should, or should not, deny the reality of our bodies?.
Q #296: How do I know if I have crossed the bridge into the real world? Is it possible to cross over and come back? Can I get stuck half way across? Sometimes it seems like I am there. Sometimes not. Is there any sure sign, or sure signs, that I am there? How can I know without doubt or question that I am there? From what I know of ACIM, Jesus got there. Are there any other generally known people who have crossed to the real world? A: When you have crossed the bridge into the real world, you will simply know, without doubt or question. Until such time, you go back and forth between the wrong-mind and the right-mind. That is why it may sometimes feel as if you are there, and sometimes not. And no, you cannot get stuck halfway across. However, you can certainly procrastinate, which may feel like being “stuck.” Regarding other people having crossed into the real world, it is almost impossible to tell on this level. Our guilt determines what we “see,” so unless we are guilt-free, we would not recognize, with certainty, someone in the real world. Imagine being a witness to the crucifixion of Jesus, watching him go through the situation, and “seeing” him did so without pain, suffering, anger, or attack. Undoubtedly there were very few, if any, who “saw” the event in this way, because their guilt demanded they see it as has been written in the various gospel accounts. You may also want to refer to Question #101 for further discussion on this subject.
Q #297: I found workbook Lesson 4 of A Course in Miracles difficult in that I have some very loving thoughts. For instance, if I walk down the street and see a stranger who for a moment looks in my eyes and there is a sudden feeling of “real” connection am I to tell myself that this thought means nothing? Isn't this a moment of true reality? I'm confused. A: First, the early part of the workbook is primarily about helping us undo our wrong-minded thoughts, which is not to say that we do not have right-minded thoughts. The focus, though, is mostly on our wrong-minded thoughts. The thrust of these early lessons is to have us understand that there is an inner world and an outer world, and that the outer world is the projection of the inner world. Jesus is helping us begin the process of learning that we are not who we think we are, and reality is not what we think it is. He does not want us to settle for anything less than our true inheritance as God’s Son. Thus, he says in Lesson 4 that our “good” thoughts are “but shadows of what lies beyond, and shadows make sight difficult.” Our “real thoughts” are being covered by both our “good” and “bad” thoughts. The shadow would become meaningless if we were to value only that of which it is the shadow; and that is where Jesus is leading us. You do not describe that “feeling of ‘real’ connection” in any detail, nor do you say anything about what followed the experience. Speaking in general, then, that feeling could be of the ego (specialness) or of the Holy Spirit (we are all one). As a right-minded “connection,” it would be a shadow of your real thoughts, which have nothing to do with this world or this body. In the holy instant when we no longer perceive separation, we experience a reflection of true reality, but true reality is only of Heaven. Again, that is where Jesus is leading us. Why would we want a reflection or a shadow, when we can have the reality itself?
Q #298: Why have lilies become the symbol for forgiveness and not any other flower? A: Lilies traditionally are associated with Easter -- the time of resurrection and awakening. And as white, they have symbolized purity and innocence. Therefore, they make a wonderful symbol of forgiveness, which restores to us the awareness of our innocence, the prerequisite for awakening from the ego’s dream of death.
Q #299: Do you know anything more about the experience of the happy dreams in life? Is this a kind of process reversing our life, leading us out, undoing and healing of what has led us into the ego-experience? Can one damage or destroy this process and entirely return back to the ego or another ego? Does one recognize the end? A: These are questions that many students think about. It is helpful to remember that we are always involved in undoing something that never really occurred, and therefore the journey on which Jesus is leading us will conclude in our acceptance of that. So even though he maps out a strategy with various steps and stages, he knows that all of it is totally illusory. The happy dreams spoken of in the Course refer to the experience in our minds of no longer being identified with the world and bodies; we would be identified with the Holy Spirit’s correction of our mistaken thoughts and choices. We would take nothing seriously in our personal lives or in the world, in the sense that we would know that our peace could never be affected by anything external. We would know -- experientially -- that there is no reality other than the love of Jesus in our minds, which would then be the source of all that we do. In that respect, we would be at the end of the process of reversing our choice to be separate, thereby undoing and healing what led us into the ego experience. In that state, we would not be vacillating anymore, which means there is no wrong mind, nor even a decision-making part of the mind. We revert to an ego state only when we still value separate interests over shared interests. It is always a question of what we truly want and whether we are willing to pay the price of being separate. Our true Self is never affected by our choice to deny that Identity and instead be a self in the world, but we will be paying a heavy price to take on and maintain that false identity. Jesus helps us see that our lives are a result of a choice and that it has been a costly one -- to us.
Q #300: When I give an antibiotic to a patient, I may be joining with this patient on the level which he can accept. But in doing this I am attacking the germs (who made him sick, so he believes). Attacks are never justified. Sometimes it seems to me that joining with one person (the patient) means attacking someone else (the germs). What then can I do? A: A good question, suggesting that you desire to consider fully the implications of separate vs. shared interests, not merely limiting your focus to homo sapiens. And to add to the apparent dilemma, consider that with every breath we take, we are inhaling untold numbers of microorganisms to certain death. And that with each hand-washing or shower, whether we aggressively use antibacterial soap or not, we are inflicting large-scale slaughter on uncountable numbers of tiny organisms that apparently just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. And of course, to keep ourselves alive with food and drink, innumerable lives have to be sacrificed daily in the vegetable and animal kingdom. The way of the world is death, and murder seems to be unavoidable. The world of form has been made from the belief in conflict in the mind, giving apparent reality to the principle of “one or the other.” At the level of form, bodies and the world, conflict is unavoidable, despite our best intentions to eliminate or minimize it. That is why A Course in Miracles invites our focus to be on purpose or content and not form. When we act from an ego-based orientation that sees separate interests, our purpose is always attack -- regardless of our overt behavior -- which always reinforces the guilt in our minds. When we shift to the Holy Spirit’s perspective of shared interests, joining with the Sonship as a whole becomes our purpose, regardless of the actions we seem to be taking. And that is why Jesus asks us to join with him in our minds (e.g., T.14.V.9; T.15.III.11; T.15.VI.6:10; 7:1,2,5,6) -- before we seek to join with our brothers whom we still see as bodies -- whatever form of life they may seem to be. On our own, we always join from a belief that we are separate, while joining with Jesus in our minds helps us develop the recognition that we have never been separate -- a statement that can only make sense on the level of mind and ideas. Jesus knows what we believe, but he also knows that everything we believe we see is all made up and that death and destruction are not real. And so Jesus teaches us that we need to change our minds, not our behavior (T.2.VI.3). With that shift from the ego to Jesus as our teacher, we will know that nothing that is real is ever affected by changes in the inconstant world of bodies, including death. And thus the guilt we have been holding onto over our belief in separation diminishes over time, allowing each of us to be an increasingly clear channel of forgiveness for the mind of the Sonship as a whole, encompassing all the seeming fragments that we have experienced as individual “living” entities.
Q #301: What does it mean to give something a name? Could you explain why one then gets power over it? A: To give something a name is to establish its identity. It is a way of bestowing “reality” on someone or something. In other words, if I determine who you are, I make that definition of you real in my mind, which means I make you who you are. That is the power of giving something a name. It is the nature of the separation to name everything and everyone, herein lies the power of naming: You have made up names for everything you see. Each one becomes a separate entity, identified by its own name. By this you carve it out of unity. By this you designate its special attributes, and set it off from other things by emphasizing space surrounding it. This space you lay between all things to which you give a different name; all happenings in terms of place and time; all bodies which are greeted by a name” (W.184.1:2,3,4,5,6). This is the ego’s misuse of creative power. Naming things and people in this way is actually denying their true identity. It is a way of saying: “You are who I say you are, not who God says you are.” A Course in Miracles tells us that whatever names the ego uses to identify all things it makes, unless they are seen in the light of truth they remain nameless. One of the most important goals we have as students of the Course is to allow our definition of ourselves to be undone. We have all given ourselves the same name: “sinner.” When we are willing to question this, and recognize that we do not know who we are, we realize that we do not know our name. As we let go of all the names we call ourselves, and ask the Holy Spirit to teach us who we are, along with everyone and everything in the dream, we will become open to accepting that it is God’s creative power that establishes our identity. We are who He says we are, and so we have another name: “God’s innocent Son.” His Name is the Name we share: “A father gives his son his name, and thus identifies the son with him. His brothers share his name, and thus are they united in a bond to which they turn for their identity. Your Father's Name reminds you who you are, even within a world that does not know; even though you have not remembered it” (W.183.1:3,4,5).
Q #302: In chapter two of the text of A Course in Miracles, Jesus says. “...it is almost impossible to deny its (the body’s) existence in this world. Those who do so are engaging in a particularly unworthy form of denial.” Then in the workbook, lesson 199, he says to tell ourselves today and every day “I am not a body. I am free.” How can I do the lesson, keeping in mind the statement from the text? Also Ken says that awakening from this dream is a process and we should not try to skip over steps. It seems saying “I am not a body. I am free.” is trying to skip over steps. What is Jesus up to here? A: There are some points to keep in mind so that we can recognize Jesus’ purpose in saying things and asking us to do things that may seem to contradict each other in different parts of the Course. He knows our resistance to his message is still great and that we will not be open to everything he has to say. Yet it would be a disservice to us if he were not, at the same time, very direct about just where he is attempting to lead us and did not exhort us to join him in his way of looking at things, for he knows so much more than we do. That Jesus knows we will resist his more radical teachings is evident near the end of the introduction to the workbook when he observes, “Some of the ideas the workbook presents you will find hard to believe, and others may seem to be quite startling. This does not matter. You are merely asked to apply the ideas as you are directed to do. You are not asked to judge them at all. You are asked only to use them. It is their use that will give them meaning to you, and will show you that they are true. Remember only this; you need not believe the ideas, you need not accept them, and you need not even welcome them. Some of them you may actively resist. None of this will matter, or decrease their efficacy” (W.in.8:1,2,3,4,5,6; 9:1,2,3; italics added). And earlier, towards the end of the text, as he instructs us on how make decisions to have the day we really want, he cautions us, “If you find resistance strong and dedication weak, you are not ready. Do not fight yourself (T.30.I.1:6,7). And so Jesus presents us his uncompromising and challenging teachings while at the same time acknowledging that we may not be ready to accept them and that it will take time (e.g., W.pII.284). But he also knows that if we will just allow him to get his foot in the door to our closed mind, before we know it, we will be on the other side with him. And that is because there is already a part of our mind that knows and has accepted what he is leading us toward, but if we felt we really had no choice, our resistance would be that much greater. So a lesson such as Lesson 199 should be seen as an invitation to accept a different perspective on ourselves and the world, but never as a call to deny what we continue to experience as our reality, false as it may be.
Weekly Questions and Answers 10/29/2003
This week's questions/topics:
Q #291: How can I reconcile apparent differences between ACIM(r) and "The Pathwork"?
Q #292: Comments and thoughts on loneliness.
Q #293: More about "I need do nothing" versus "practical reality".
Q #294: Will a simplified version of the Course be available for children?
Q #295: How do I cope when loved ones are heavily invested in victimhood?.
Q #291: My question is on differences between A Course in Miracles and The Pathwork, a series of lectures channeled by Eva Pierrakos from a spiritual entity referred to as the Guide. I’ve been trying to apply the Pathwork teachings to my life for five years. The Guide’s teachings, I believe, emphasize too much the importance of accepting ourselves exactly as we are -- not perfect. He says we are here (on Earth) to try to improve ourselves but we should never deny the fact that we are not perfect. In other words, accepting this fact is the first step on the way to become perfect. The Guide says that trying to identify ourselves with God without facing (or accepting) our shortcomings means to fool ourselves. If we want to get lost in God we must find ourselves first. These teachings have helped me know myself better but I don’t think I have become a better person so far. The Guide also mentions reincarnation in almost all his lectures. But when I found A Course in Miracles I became very confused and disappointed that the Jesus of the Course states that there is no reincarnation. Not because I wanted reincarnation to exist but because Jesus is denying something which the Guide speaks of so naturally, so sincerely, with such a wisdom, that I find it almost impossible not to believe in him. I think the same about Jesus (of the Course) but their teachings about reincarnation are exactly the opposite. I believe that truth is truth. How can I trust in Jesus or in the Guide if one of them is not speaking the truth? A: Before addressing either of your concerns, it may be helpful to clarify what Jesus in the Course means when he speaks of the truth. There are really two levels of meaning of the truth that are important to understand if you are going to make sense of the Course. At the highest level of the teaching, Jesus asserts in the Course quite unequivocally that the thought of separation, as well as anything that follows from that thought, including the world of time, space and form, is illusory. Only the formless, unlimited Love of God is real and true. And Jesus means this quite literally. But while this is ultimately true, Jesus also knows that this is not our experience, and so he speaks of what is true at a different, more practical level. Basically, any interpretation of any aspect of the world of time and space that helps us to practice forgiveness is true, while any interpretation that keeps us feeling guilty and fearful is false. Once we believe we are separate, individual selves, the issues that concern us, although ultimately illusory, are very real in our experience and need to be addressed in ways that are helpful to our healing. Almost all other spiritual teachings only address concerns at the level of our experience in the world and do not make the ultimate distinction that Jesus does between what is real and what is illusory. They represent different paths from the Course, and it can become quite confusing to attempt to integrate their teachings with Jesus’ teachings in the Course. At the level of form and concepts, spiritual paths may be different from and even contradict each other, but the only real truth is God, toward which all genuine spiritualities are leading, regardless of the specific forms and concepts they employ to lead one back. So let’s consider your second concern first -- about the difference between the Course and The Pathwork on reincarnation -- since that seems to have the more disturbing implications for you. “In the ultimate sense,” as we have just discussed, Jesus does say in the manual for teachers that “reincarnation is impossible,” (M.24.1:1), because it is a time-based phenomenon, and the Course says time is illusory. But if you read this same section in the manual carefully, you will see that Jesus does not deny the validity and usefulness of the concept of reincarnation at the level of our experience within time and space. That he does not simply dismiss it as untrue should be apparent from his other comments here. For example, in the same paragraph, in speaking of how the concept of reincarnation may be helpful, he observes that “if it is used to strengthen the recognition of the eternal nature of life, it is helpful indeed” (M.24.1:6). But he also cautions that it can misused to foster “preoccupation and perhaps pride in the past” and “inertia in the present” (M.24.1:8,9,10). Later in the same section, Jesus also counsels against getting involved with unnecessary controversy around the concept (M.24.3,4). But perhaps most helpful to resolve your personal conflict about Jesus’ position on the concept is the explicit question he raises and addresses towards the end of the section: “Does this mean that the teacher of God should not believe in reincarnation himself, or discuss it with others who do? The answer is, certainly not! If he does believe in reincarnation, it would be a mistake for him to renounce the belief unless his internal Teacher so advised. And this is most unlikely” (M.24.5:1,2,3,4; italics added). So on the level of our experience in the world, Jesus and the Pathwork Guide may not be in such terrible disagreement about reincarnation as you have supposed. It is just that Jesus in the Course is attempting to lead us ultimately to a level that transcends any concern with linear time and individual lives. And it is because of this goal that many students have resistance to his teachings and continue to find it so difficult to practice forgiveness. But along the way, Jesus will use whatever concepts have meaning and significance for us in order to help us find our way back home. And so his focus with reincarnation, as already alluded to, is on how we use it to go beyond the body and this lifetime and not simply as a tool for exploring aspects of ourselves in relationship to other lifetimes. Now to your initial concern about what you felt is the Pathwork’s overemphasis on accepting ourselves as imperfect. In many ways, the Course’s focus is similar and many students express a similar dissatisfaction with its emphasis on the ego -- it repeatedly encourages us to identify the negatives of the ego in our minds so that, with the Holy Spirit’s help, they can be undone and released. The Course does say that we are already perfect -- as Christ -- but not as the ego selves we think we are. And so while we are not here to improve ourselves and become perfect, Jesus is asking us to uncover all the ways in which we continue to insist that our imperfections are real -- the sin, guilt and fear that we have made very real, first in our minds, and then in our world and our lives, to prove that the illusory thought of separation is in fact real. In Jesus’ own words from his Course, “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all of the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. It is not necessary to seek for what is true, but it is necessary to seek for what is false” (T.16.IV.6:1,2). For further discussion of the Course’s perspective on reincarnation, you may wish to review Questions #24 and #153.
Q #292: What does A Course in Miracles say about loneliness? I have been feeling lonely very often in my life. Even in love relationships. I felt lonely as a child in my family and still do feel lonely very often in other family-like systems. How could I change my mind about feeling lonely? A: The Course describes loneliness as an inevitable outcome of the thought of separation (T.13.III.12:1; M.10:6:1,2,6). Jesus adds emphasis to this causal relationship by describing God, as well as His Son, as lonely as a result of the separation -- in four different passages (T.2.III.5:11,12; T.4.VII.6:7; T.7.VII.10:5,6,7; T.15.VIII.3:2). Obviously, Jesus is using poetic license -- his purpose being to provide an alternative view of God’s reaction to the thought of separation, in contrast to the ego’s fearful assertion that God is angry because we left Him (see Question #136 for more on this point). For God is unchanged by our insane thoughts and remains forever One and undivided. If we are honest with ourselves, all of us who truly believe we exist in the separated state of individuality, limited by and contained within our bodies, and isolated from everyone else, must feel lonely. For who could not feel he is apart from love and not experience loneliness? In the words of the Course, “As long as you perceive the body as your reality, so long will you perceive yourself as lonely and deprived” (T.15.XI.5:1). The ego insists that we can overcome our loneliness through the companionship of other bodies. But the joining we seek through physical proximity and intimacy in our special relationships can at best only dispel the painful feelings of isolation temporarily, for bodies can not really join, and the ego’s real but hidden agenda is always to reinforce our belief in our guilt (T.15.VII.12). For seeking to be with others to take away our loneliness only gives support to the ego’s lie that the separation is indeed real and that the body is our reality. For most of us, most of the time, the resulting loneliness is too excruciating, and so we seek to cover it over through denial, employing various distractions to keep us mindless. But we never question its premise -- the reality of the separation. It is only through raising that question that the only solution to our loneliness can be found (W.pI.41.1,2; W.pII.223.1). And the answer is found through experiencing the joining of minds, not bodies. Then we learn that we are not really separate, for that joining is always available to us. Jesus, in the following very comforting passage, reminds us that he is always with us, and so loneliness cannot be real: “I am come as a light into a world that does deny itself everything. It does this simply by dissociating [separating] itself from everything. It is therefore an illusion of isolation, maintained by fear of the same loneliness that is its illusion. I said that I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. That is why I am the light of the world. If I am with you in the loneliness of the world, the loneliness is gone. You cannot maintain the illusion of loneliness if you are not alone” (T.8.IV.2:1,2,3,4,5,6,7). Now we may doubt that the solution could be so simple, but Jesus assures us that it is. However. that does not mean that it is easy. Yet as we become more willing to see that our interests are not separate from our brothers and to release each of our judgments against both ourselves and others, Jesus and the love that he represents will become more real in our minds, and we will come to experience the truth of his words.
Q #293: In the text of A Course in Miracles it says: “Once you accept His purpose as the only one that you would fulfill, there is nothing else the Holy Spirit will not arrange for you without your effort...”; and in another place: “Leave all your needs to the Holy Spirit. He will supply them with no emphasis at all upon them”; and in the manual: “All the help you can accept will be provided, and not one need you have will not be met.” I have been struggling to understand this in the context of the world in which I cannot make clients call, students sign up for workshops, or books to sell, yet need greater income. The challenge is in needing to “do nothing” in Course language, leave my needs to the Holy Spirit, and trust that “just” by forgiveness and a willingness to be at peace, my bills will be paid, particularly when I am surrounded by hundreds of people who slave for 40 hours a week or more. Am I copping out to just let the Holy Spirit take care of my needs, send me clients or sell my books, while I meditate and be happy? A: There are other spiritual paths that teach and advocate that approach, but that is not what the Course teaches, even though the words you quoted, if taken literally, seem to mean that. The key idea is to concentrate on the content, not the form. The content is that there is a loving, caring, comforting presence in our minds, not the punitive Divine Judge religions have taught us about, nor a Merlin-the-magician type presence conferring miracles on those he deems worthy. At the end of the clarification of terms in the section on the Holy Spirit, Jesus helps us take a step beyond that -- as he does in dozens of other places in the Course -- by teaching us to distinguish between form and content, experience and reality, and symbol and reality: “He seems to be a Guide through a far country, for you need that form of help. He seems to be whatever meets the need you think you have. But He is not deceived when you perceive your self entrapped in needs you do not have. It is from these He would deliver you. It is from these that He would make you safe” (C.6.4:6,7,9,10). It is a question, then, of defining ourselves and our needs, and we will always be misled and entrapped if our starting point is that we truly exist as bodies in a physical world. However, if we remember that our seeming bodily life is a false identity having the purpose of concealing our true Identity as spirit, then our needs will be defined differently. We will recognize that our only real need is to awaken from the dream of separation and reunite with our true Self in Heaven, and that all the help we need to do that is already present within us. Forgiveness, then, becomes our only meaningful function while we still believe we are here (T.25.VI.5:3); and the only meaningful prayer we could ever utter would be for forgiveness, because, as Jesus tells us, “those who have been forgiven have everything” (T.3.V.6:3). So to accept the Holy Spirit’s purpose means to see every aspect of your life as a classroom in which you can learn to identify what you are doing to block your awareness of love’s presence, and then ask help of your Teacher to make another choice. Sharing His purpose, you would deal with the details and obligations of your life responsibly, while at the same time learning that the peace of God within you cannot be affected by anything that is going on externally. Attending to the details of our daily lives affords us endless opportunities to get beyond the form of our lives and to learn that we all share the same interests; we all share the same ego thought system and its correction in our right minds. This is our special function, and because of the way we have set up our lives, it is the most effective way of undoing the thought system of separation in our minds that is the ultimate cause of all our misery and unhappiness. To ask the Holy Spirit to fix what is wrong in our physical/psychological lives is to abdicate our responsibility for our unhappiness and thereby deprive ourselves of the only means we have of ever undoing our mistake and reuniting with the glorious Self of Christ that we all are. The sections in the “Song of Prayer” pamphlet might give you additional help, especially the first one, “True Prayer.” Also, we have addressed similar issues in Questions #72, #116, #259, and #266.
Q #294: At some point do you see an elementary version of A Course in Miracles coming out? I would like to see children be able to read this Course, since being so young, they have less baggage to release. And children grasp ideas easier and have a clearer, purer understanding of things. Since this is a life-long course, why not start early learning the truth? A: It’s a common ego trap to fall into the thinking that this Course could be or should be for someone other than myself, whether it’s a spouse, friends, politicians, children, etc. The trap is that it distracts me from simply applying its principles of forgiveness to myself and to all my relationships. If I do my part in the plan, releasing all my judgments, everything else will follow in whatever way is most helpful. But the plan is not of my own making, and even my best intentions to help others in their healing is really a subtle -- and sometimes not so subtle -- ego ploy for seizing control of the plan and putting myself in charge, thinking I know what needs to happen. You are making a few assumptions about children that would not be consistent with the Course’s metaphysical teachings. All of us, adult and child alike, share the same ego thought system. A child’s mind is no purer than an adult’s and no less burdened with the baggage of sin and guilt. The only difference is in the expression in form, not in the underlying content. So the Course would attribute the same full-blown ego to an infant, a child, a teenager and an adult. Each developmental stage simply expresses the ego’s underlying content in a different way -- generally more disguised and covertly as we “grow up” and are socialized to restrain our ego impulses. But the guilt that underlies the form is always the same until we are at a point where we begin to recognize that the world and all that it offers is not really anything we truly want. Usually, although not necessarily, this realization comes only with age and with disillusioning experience after disillusioning experience, as the world fails us in our expectations and we feel repeatedly victimized by forces outside of our control and want another way of being in the world. The Course process is one of looking at all the judgments and hatred in our mind that we project out onto the world to keep ourselves mindless, accompanied by a willingness to release them to the light of forgiveness that interprets all those external situations differently. And the judgment and hate have their origins in the mind, before any individual life has begun, and not in our experiences in the world, no matter how much the world and our individual experience seem to insist to the contrary. Once we have done our part in getting ourselves out of the way, then we are available to be an instrument of forgiveness for all those other confused minds that see themselves as if they were at various stages in the process of human development. When you speak of a more “elementary version of the Course,” I assume you mean a version that minimizes the Course’s more abstract metaphysical principles. But a teaching that does not use the Course’s metaphysical foundation as an explicit and integral part of its message would no longer be the Course. There are many spiritual paths that may lend themselves to the kind of simplification you speak of, but the Course is not one of them. It is written very deliberately in the form that it is because it is intended for adults. Adults can best teach it to children by demonstrating its principles through how they live their lives and raise their children, without ever necessarily even mentioning any of its principles.
Q #295: My question concerns being there for family members and friends when they are attached to victimhood and ailments (a judgment, I know). I think I understand what true empathy is: to comfort on the level they are, not to speak to them of Course teachings, but also not to reinforce their pain by validating it and making it real. For some family members, illness equals attention.… What is the stance of A Course in Miracles on distancing ourselves from family and friends who are clearly not a supportive, positive influence on our lives? What do we do when they are in so much pain and so miserable and so attached to victimhood that they think it's everybody else’s responsibility but theirs to change that? I'm stuck, please help. A: One thing that might help you get unstuck is to try to get beyond the specifics and see that you share the very same ego that your friends and family do, but that you also all share the same right mind as well. Perhaps you express your wrong-minded thoughts in a different form; but the content is identical. They resort to a specific form of magic to ease their inner pain, but you would use a different form of magic. In view of that, your response to them would reflect how you must be responding to your own ego. You would be learning either that the ego is repulsive and has power to block love and peace, or that it is nothing but a “tiny, mad idea” having no power to change our reality as the invulnerable Son of God, and therefore it is deserving only of a gentle smile. If you could get beyond the form of their complaints just for an instant -- “Nothing so blinding as perception of form” (T.22.III.6:7) -- you would hear their call for help and know that it is an echo of your own call for help. And then if you clearly knew that that call has already been answered with love, your ego would be out of the way, and you would just naturally -- and effortlessly -- do whatever is best for all concerned. There is no way of knowing ahead of time what that would be specifically, but it would just flow through you, and you would experience it as not coming from you. It might be that you would be guided to stay home and not visit, or to go and assist in some way. But you would take nothing personally. You would have no investment in their changing or being appreciative of your help; and you would feel energized, not drained and drenched with negativity afterward. Whenever you feel drained you have become personally involved -- identifying with victimization -- and more than likely have crossed over into sacrifice, which is always of the ego, because it expresses separation and a one-or-the-other attitude. If there is conflict within you, then the message you are giving is that they are right about themselves, thus confirming their worst fears. And finally, in that holy instant in which you are joined with the love of Jesus, you would not fall into the ego trap of thinking some illusions are more serious than others; you would clearly recognize that all illusions are the same in content. The ideal that Jesus, our model and teacher, holds out to us is to be able to regard everything as either a call for love or an expression of love. If you could do that for your family and your friends, you would be doing it for yourself. The Course teaches us in many different ways that giving and receiving are the same. This takes a great deal of practice and a great deal of patience and gentleness with yourself, because it is a complete reversal of our usual thinking and behavior. But if you believed that each interaction had the potential to bring you closer to being one with the love of Jesus, you would approach them enthusiastically, not with dread. Do the best you can knowing that, in the end, your success in this is guaranteed. If you make a mistake, it doesn’t matter; Jesus will help you correct it later. For further study, you could look at the subsection “The Function of the Teacher of God” in the manual for teachers, under section 5, “How Is Healing Accomplished?” (M.5.III).
Weekly Questions and Answers 10/22/2003
This week's questions/topics:
Q #285: How can I distinguish the voice of the ego from the Voice of the Holy Spirit?
Q #286: Why are there "no accidents in salvation" ?
Q #287: What is the meaning of "The Last Unanswered Question" ?
Q #288: What exactly is a miracle?
Q #289: What is meant by "I need do nothing"?.
Q #290: What is meant by "unacceptable" in relation to bodily impulses ?
Q #285: Sometimes when I ask the inner voice (Holy Spirit) to guide me, I think I get an answer and later I find out it was the ego who answered disguised as inner voice. How can I know when it is the real inner voice that is answering and not the ego? A: The answer to your question lies in another question: What is it you truly seek, and of whom? Much of our asking comes with hidden beliefs, goals, and desires, that we are not aware of. We are thereby seeking to make our bodies and the world real, and the ego responds enthusiastically. We can be sure the ego has answered because the response never truly satisfies our perceived need, much less our real need. In the situation you refer to, it is quite likely that the ego answered because the ego was asked. This is nothing to be upset about or afraid of. It is just that we are more deeply identified with the ego thought system than we think. As A Course in Miracles tells us: “You retain thousands of little scraps of fear that prevent the Holy One from entering…I wait in love and not in impatience, you will surely ask me truly. I will come in response to a single unequivocal call” (T.4.II.7:2,9,10). The very important words in this passage are “truly” and “unequivocal.” This means being clear, unhindered by diverse interests, unambiguous. As long as we believe in our identity as bodies, and believe that our problems are all the situations in the world that need to be resolved, we will ask with a hidden agenda, seeking something specific to allay our sense of lack, meet some need, or make life in the world more “heavenly.” Even our requests for the peace of God often hide our desire for happiness on our own terms. If the Holy Spirit were to respond to these requests, He would be reinforcing our belief in the separation. The Holy Spirit’s guidance is always on the level of content and not form. His goal is to teach that our only problem is the separation, and the only solution is undoing the thought of separation. If, in our imperfect asking, we are willing to join with the Holy Spirit’s goal, we will be able to make decisions in this world, while recognizing the “the scraps of fear” and ego interests we retain. We can learn that although decisions have to be made, our salvation does not rest on these decisions. This opens us to the Holy Spirit’s perception, and thus His guidance, without reinforcing our mistaken belief that the world and the body are the problem. Your question is discussed in Forgiveness and Jesus by Kenneth Wapnick. It is posed in yet another way: “The crucial question, however, should not be ‘How do I know when I am hearing the Holy Spirit?’ but ‘Why don’t I do what He tells me to do so that I can hear His Voice better?’” (Part III, “The Test for Truth,” p. 318). We are still unwilling to do what He tells us to do, and are still afraid of His guidance. If we were not it would be blazingly clear to us. While we are still afraid we do need to ask for help in seeing the hidden beliefs we hold on to in our perceived needs. Undoing our belief in the ego’s thought system takes patient practice. Meanwhile, our less than perfect asking is a preparation for the time when we will want only the Holy Spirit’s answer. The truth is we have called and He has answered. It is our fear of this that impedes our hearing. His answer for now is to show us the fear that keeps us clinging to our insane belief in the separation, the body, and the world. When we are ready to let them go we will know, and we will hear only His Voice: “His is the Voice that calls you back to where you were before and will be again. It is possible even in this world to hear only that Voice and no other. It takes effort and great willingness to learn. It is the final lesson that I learned, and God's Sons are as equal as learners as they are as Sons” (T.5.II.3:8,9,10,11). This will come when we are convinced that our only problem is the thought of separation, and the only answer is the Holy Spirit’s correction, which is undoing the belief in the separation.
Q #286: “There are no accidents in salvation.” I am puzzled by two apparently contradictory perspectives on this: (1) Anything in the world of form can be used by the Holy Spirit as a means for salvation, i.e., I can use any circumstance or event to practice forgiveness. So, in the flow of events -- which could be random and meaningless in themselves -- I can use anything for the purpose of self-transformation. (2) The Holy Spirit provides me with particular events so that I can learn specific lessons. This would suggest that the Holy Spirit makes at least certain aspects of the world: a view which appears to contradict the notion that the ego alone makes forms. It is my impression that commentators on A Course in Miracles do not favor option number two. Yet this seems to be implied in the quote. Please comment. A: In answering your question, it is helpful to realize that even in the illusory split mind, of which the world is only a shadowy projection, neither the ego nor the Holy Spirit does anything. And so neither is responsible for the forms that our lives may take and the events that seem to happen to us. Although the Course’s separation myth personifies them as if they were separate entities acting independently, the ego and the Holy Spirit only represent alternative interpretations or symbolic thoughts within our mind about the tiny mad idea of separation from God. It is the sleeping mind of the Son that gives form to the thoughts in his mind, using either the ego or the Holy Spirit as his guide for choosing and then interpreting those seemingly externalized forms. A few passages from the Course itself may help make the passive nature of both the Holy Spirit and the ego clearer. Early in the text, Jesus says, “The Holy Spirit is one way of choosing....The Voice of the Holy Spirit does not command, because It is incapable of arrogance. It does not demand, because It does not seek control. It does not overcome, because It does not attack. It merely reminds. It is compelling only because of what It reminds you of. It brings to your mind the other way, remaining quiet even in the midst of the turmoil you may make” (T.5.II.6:7;7:1,2,3,4,5; italics added). In the next section, Jesus observes that “the ego is the symbol of separation, just as the Holy Spirit is the symbol of peace” (T.5.III.9:4). The symbolic nature of the ego is described again later in the text when Jesus notes that “all that the ego is, is an idea that it is possible that things could happen to the Son of God without his will” (T.21.II.6:4; italics added). That the ego has no power in and of itself to do anything is apparent from this early passage in the text: “Only your allegiance to it gives the ego any power over you. I have spoken of the ego as if it were a separate thing, acting on its own. This was necessary to persuade you that you cannot dismiss it lightly, and must realize how much of your thinking is ego-directed.…The ego is nothing more than a part of your belief about yourself” (T.4.VI.1:2,3,4,6). So when the Course asserts that “there are no accidents in salvation” (M.3.1:6), it means that everything reflects a choice -- our own! Our sleeping mind makes all the decisions about what to experience and how to interpret those experiences. The “flow of events” is never “random and meaningless” because all things are chosen by us to serve either the ego’s purpose of separation and guilt or the Holy Spirit’s purpose of forgiveness and peace. Among the many passages in the Course that speak of the power of our minds, consider just the following two: “Your holy mind establishes everything that happens to you. Every response you make to everything you perceive is up to you, because your mind determines your perception of it” (T.10.in.2:6,7). “It is impossible the Son of God be merely driven by events outside of him. It is impossible that happenings that come to him were not his choice. His power of decision is the determiner of every situation in which he seems to find himself by chance or accident. No accident nor chance is possible within the universe as God created it, outside of which is nothing. (T.21.II.3:1,2,3,4). And so, while we may initially choose -- almost always unconsciously, out of our awareness -- an experience to reinforce our perception of ourselves as victims of a world over which we have no control, once the choice has been made we can make another choice and ask for the Help within to see our circumstances differently. And so we begin to learn that we are never the victim of the world we see (W.pI.31) and that no one or nothing else -- neither the ego nor the Holy Spirit nor Jesus nor God Himself -- intervenes within the dream we call our lives. For we alone are the rulers of our universe (W.pII.253). For further discussion on the power of decision, you may also wish to review Question #281. As to whether God or the Holy Spirit intervene in the world and our lives, you may want to look at Question #235. And on the Course’s metaphoric or mythical use of language, see Question #72.
Q #287: One section in the text of A Course in Miracles that is of particular interest to me is “The Last Unanswered Question” (T.21.VII). Could you comment on the meaning of this section? A: The main theme of this section is the power of our minds to choose -- ultimately, against the ego. Paragraph 7 makes it abundantly clear that this is a course about changing our minds not the world. It is a course in cause (the choices we make in our minds), not effect (behavior). Jesus explains that when we experience ourselves as powerless or helpless, we are giving witness to our denial of our true identity as a Son of God, who could never be powerless. Once this dissociation has been effected, the authentic power of our minds then is feared as the “enemy,” and an “army of the powerless” arises to do battle with this mortal threat. Jesus, of course, is describing the battleground in our minds, of which we are not aware because of the ego dynamic of denial and projection. Hatred seethes within us, but is always attributed to some form of evil without, which we then feel justified in attacking and destroying. Jesus is also referring to the ultimate futility and silliness of the seemingly powerful armies in the world. We must perpetuate this system in order to ward off an even worse fate, which is to acknowledge that there is no enemy outside, and that we made ourselves powerless by choosing to believe in the thought system of separation and sin. Reason would tell us that, if only we were to choose to consult it (consult our right minds). The three questions stated in paragraph 5 have to do with our choice to exist in this world in which we seem to be the innocent victims of forces beyond our control. Our feeling powerless to do anything about the conditions in our lives is purposeful. It keeps us from ever experiencing the true power of our minds to make another choice and deny our denial of the truth. Hence, the fourth question -- the last unanswered question -- is: “Do I want to see what I denied because it is the truth?” (T.21.VII.14). When we answer in the affirmative to the first three questions, we are saying that we have changed our minds and we really do not want to be victims of the world anymore. But the last question has us confront our decision for guilt and the reason we uphold it. Unless we reverse that decision for guilt, we will continue to deny the presence of love, and we will continually project that guilt. In addition to saying that our lack of peace or happiness is not the world’s fault -- it is our own fault -- we must realize that the guilt within us is a deliberate choice to deny the truth of the Atonement and then choose against it. Until we make that choice, we will vacillate all the time. To answer yes to the last question “must mean ‘not no’”; it is to decide that I no longer want to be who I think I am: separate, unique, autonomous, independent, free, and special. I no longer want to see myself as distinct from the Love of God.
Q #288: What is a miracle? Although they are carefully described, I am still wondering what they are. Do they resemble what we commonly think of as miracles? Do we know when they occur, or do they happen constantly without us being aware of them? Can you give any examples of miracles? A: First, a miracle has nothing to do with anything external. Miracles pertain only to what is going on in our own minds. In that sense, they are not at all what traditional religious systems have thought of as miracles. Traditionally, conditions in the body and the world have been viewed as the problem; and therefore miracles, simply put, were viewed as the healing or removal of those conditions, usually through some kind of divine or supernatural intervention. A Course in Miracles, on the other hand, teaches that the body and the world are projections of thoughts in our minds: “It [the world] is the witness to your state of mind, the outside picture of an inward condition... Therefore, seek not to change the world, but choose to change your mind about the world” (T.21.in.1:5,7). Now, if you could really accept that the world is merely a projection of a thought of sin and guilt in your mind, you would realize that trying to alter things in the world or the body is ultimately futile, and that changing your mind about the reality of sin and guilt is truly healing. That is why the workbook states: “A miracle is a correction. It does not create, nor really change at all. It merely looks on devastation, and reminds the mind that what it sees is false” (W.pII.13.1,2,3). The miracle corrects our thinking, not a condition in the world or the body. Yet this passage also implies that we are not to blithely dismiss our perceptions of the world either. Rather, we are to look at the devastation in our lives, or the world-at-large, and bring that perception to the loving presence of Jesus in our minds. There, in our choosing to join with that reflection of truth, we will remember that what we are perceiving is but the content of a dream, not reality. “The miracle establishes you dream a dream, and that its content is not true” (T.28.II.7:1). Once we are joined with the reflection of truth in our minds, we would be guided solely by that in responding to the situations in our lives. This takes a lot of practice, which is why we have a workbook with 365 lessons, at the end of which Jesus tells us that we are just at the beginning stages of this process of thought-reversal. The entire Course is about this. Our thinking right now is the reverse of what the truth is. What we are so used to calling causes are really effects. A miracle occurs when we remember and accept -- for just an instant -- that the cause of our and others’ lack of peace, sickness, deprivation, etc., is not something of the body or the world, but rather a choice we are making in our minds to identify with the thought system of separation and sin, guilt, and fear. “The miracle is the first step in giving back to cause the function of causation, not effect” (T.28.II.9:3). A miracle occurs when we do not take another’s attack personally, recognizing instead that we all share the same needs and goals; we all share the same insanity of the ego, and we all share the same sanity of Christ’s vision. Sometimes we are not aware of having made that shift in our minds, sometimes we are. Miracles occur as frequently as our willingness allows them to.
Q #289: I hear over and over that I am to hold an attitude of “I need do nothing.” I believe it is to allow the Holy Spirit to take it over. Can I stay in bed and be a saint, or am I good only when I am sleeping. A: The main point of “I need do nothing” is to help us change the pattern of our thinking. Practically all of the time, we think we know what our problems are, and then we just go about trying to solve them on our own. We define both the problem and the solution. We tell the Holy Spirit how to help us. Jesus is helping us to retrain our minds so that we will more consistently remember that all of our problems in the world and our bodies are made up by our decision-making minds in order to keep our attention away from the “real” problem, which is our choice to have the ego be our teacher instead of Jesus. We cannot make this shift if we do not stop and ask for help to perceive ourselves and our lives differently. Therefore, “I need do nothing” because there is no problem that needs attention. However, the point is not to be inactive, but rather to shift the purpose of everything we do from the ego’s to the Holy Spirit’s purpose. We want to train ourselves to think about the new purpose for our lives, which is to learn how to perceive our interests as the same as everyone else’s -- to concentrate on the content, not the form of what we do. Our interactions with one another provide many opportunities to practice this, and they reflect back to us whether we have chosen to undo separation or to reinforce it. So withdrawing from interactions and activities is not usually helpful. It may be that you would have to stay away from specific people or groups for a while, just as a person involved with substance abuse might have to make behavioral changes at first. So “to do nothing” also means to do nothing on your own. Don’t automatically assume that your perception of your problems is correct. When you identify with the reflection of truth in your right mind, you might still be very active in the world, but you would not experience yourself as the one who is acting. The love that is in your right mind would flow through you as the source of all you do, and you would experience everyone as the same, both on the level of the ego and on the level of the Atonement.
Q #290: I would like to know the meaning of the word “unacceptable” in relation to body impulses in T.4.V.2:5. I do not understand what this is trying to convey. A: It refers to anything the ego says is unacceptable. Examples would include sex and food -- whatever we tend to think is “bad,” “harmful,” “socially repulsive,” “unethical,” “unspiritual,” etc.
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