One day back in the early 70’s when my son, Stephen, was a very young boy, we were driving around the town where we lived in central Illinois, and he was standing in the middle, just in back of the front seats in his customary position, taking everything in. Then he asked, looking at a factory, a dark building with few windows, dark and gray, stretching for a block, “Daddy, is that a school?” Having been a junior high English teacher, I laughed at the aptness of his comparison. After all, factories are organized to turn out finished products completely alike in appearances, and schools seem intent trying to stamp out finished students who look alike in spite of the fact that each student is as remarkable individual.
Not to worry, though, because we have both come to learn through
A Course in Miracles that, in fact, there are no factories, there are no schools; there is no world. Through the Course we have learned, systematically, to train our minds to distinguish the difference between what is real and what is unreal, as Jesus sums up in His Introduction.
Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God.
It is quite possible, in fact, it is necessary to let go of the belief that what you see, hear, taste, touch, and smell is real, and that what you do not see, hear, taste, touch, and smell is real. This is the great undoing, enabling homo sapiens to evolve in to homo illumina, the wise ones into those filled with light, experiencing oneness with God. Coming into this experience of oneness is completely natural because it is our inheritance; we are as God created us.
Thomas Merton once expressed it this way.
My dear brothers and sisters, we are already one. But we imagine we are not. So what we have to recover is our original unity. What we have to be is what we are.
To demonstrate that this is our birthright, individuals across the centuries have come into this experience of being what we are in truth in a variety of ways. One great example is Joel Goldsmith (1894-1964). What I love about Goldsmith is his ability to express the Truth I have learned through the Course with a different set of metaphors. The other day, Stephen brought to my attention a wonderful chapter in Goldsmith’s book, The Art of Spiritual Healing, entitled The Language of Spiritual Healing. I was so inspired by this chapter because of the way he found his own language to express his experience.
The Infinite Way is a spiritual teaching consisting of principles which anyone may follow and practice, irrespective of his religious affiliation. The Infinite Way reveals the nature of God to be one infinite power, intelligence, and love; the nature of individual being to be one with His qualities and character, expressed in in¬finite forms and variety; and the nature of the discords of this world to be a misconception of God's expression of Himself in His universe. These are universal principles based on the message of the Master, Christ Jesus, who taught that man can realize his oneness with God through conscious com¬munion with God, thereby bringing about peace on earth, harmony, and wholeness. Joel Goldsmith, The Art of Spiritual Healing (San Francisco, Harper, 1959), p. 40.
He goes on to express how to reverse our deeply-ingrained belief that our senses are showing us what is real by teaching us to look through what we apparently see to what is real.
You train yourself to see people, not as they look, but to see through their eyes, back of their eyes, realizing that there sits the Christ of God. As you do that, you learn to ignore appearances, and instead of trying to heal or reform someone, or improve him, you are really bearing witness to his Christ-identity. (Goldsmith, p. 42)
It matters not what the outer senses may testify. Something within has to sing a song, and the song it must sing is, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. . . I in the midst of you am mighty.” (Goldsmith, p. 43)
He goes on to make his meaning absolutely clear.
In the work of The Infinite Way, the words "real" or reality" pertain only to that which is spiritual, eternal, im¬mortal, and infinite. Only that which is of God is understood to be real or is recognized as reality. With this definition of reality in mind, it should be easy to grasp the statement that we cannot see, hear, taste, touch, or smell reality. (Goldsmith, p.50)
It all comes down to our awareness, to our conscious awareness. Goldsmith expresses it perfectly in one sentence:
The mind is an instrument of awareness. (Goldsmith, p. 43)
Our mind, our consciousness, can, in truth, be aware of only one state, the peace of God, our real Self. However, our consciousness can appear to be aware of another state, an unreal state, the state of fear and conflict brought to us by our senses. Goldsmith demonstrates with every sentence how to use this instrument truly, being aware of what is real, spiritual, eternal, immortal, and infinite, in the middle of a world made up by our senses.
It requires the faculty of the Soul to behold reality. Reality pertains only to that which is discerned through an inner awareness. Jesus referred to this as, “Having eyes, see ye not? And having ears, hear ye not?” In other words, there is that which must be seen and heard with the Soul faculties. (Goldsmith, p. 50)
As a healing practitioner, he makes a very useful distinction between existence and non-existence.
When we speak of sin and disease as unreal, we do not mean that they are nonexistent. We are not just fooling ourselves and using our imagination in saying that they are unreal or untrue, but if a person has ingrained in him from infancy that the material is the real and the material body the whole, then to him the disease is existent. When sin, disease, and death are called unreal, it is not a denial of the so-called existence of these things: It is a denial of their existence as a part of God or reality. (Goldsmith, p. 51)
The beginning of wisdom is the realization that these conditions need not exist. Freedom from them comes not from seeking relief from God, but through seeking God and rising to that dimension of life in which only God is. There is not freedom from discord; there is not freedom from sin, false appetites, or desires; there is not freedom from poverty: There is only freedom—freedom in God, freedom in Spirit. (Goldsmith, p. 51)
Towards the end of this essay, he makes it all crystal clear by using the metaphor of a mirage.
Let me illustrate this. If you were traveling on the desert and saw, as is often the case, that the road ahead of you was covered with water, and if that were your first experience in the desert, you would automatically stop your car because obviously you could not drive through a sea of water. Your first thought would probably be, "What shall I do? How will I get through that water? How can the water be removed from the road?"
You look around and do not see any help. Then you look back again at the road, and if you look long enough, intently enough, you awaken to the fact that there is no water there. What you have been seeing is a mirage, an illusion. You smile, start your car, and go forward. As long as you were seeing water on the road, you would sit there helplessly waiting for that water to be removed, but the moment that you understood it to be a mirage, an illusion, the water disappeared, and you were free to go forward. (Goldsmith, p. 53)
The mirage of the water does exist because, for a moment, it is your awareness. But that awareness of its existence does not make it real. My awareness of the reports of my senses does not make the reports real. My awareness of the existence of sin and disease does not make them real. Only by shifting my awareness to the peace of God do I experience what is real.
When I make this shift to the awareness of my Real Self as God created me, then sin and disease cease to exist. It is always on or off, 0 or 1, all or nothing, love or fear. That which exists or does not exist is dependent on my awareness. And I can always ask for help to shift my awareness from seeing water to experiencing the peace of God. This is healing. This is forgiveness.
Healing takes place, not through the intervention of some God, but through arriving at a state of consciousness in which sin, disease, and death have no reality, a consciousness which no longer battles these forms of discord and no longer tries to get rid of them. Our attitude toward them is the same as our attitude toward the water on the desert after we have discovered that it is not water, but an illusion, or mirage. (Goldsmith, p. 54)
. . . you awaken to the fact that there is no water there. You smile, start your car, and go forward.
When my awareness shifts to the peace of God, my heart fills with gratitude, I smile and go forward.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Seeing a Game Within a Game is an Act of Charity
Last Sunday evening, my wife, Christine, and I went to see the movie, The Women. It was aptly named because not one male character ever appeared with any of the women. The movie depicts the ebb and flow of friendship among four women—Sylvie, a magazine editor, Alex, a lesbian, Edie, pregnant for the fifth time, and Mary, a devoted wife, doing volunteer work, organizing charitable events, working for her father, and being a mother. Within the context of this circle of friends, the film focuses on Mary dealing with the dissolution of her marriage and her triumphant struggle to become her own person.
Mary (Meg Ryan) learns of her husband’s infidelity, becomes estranged from her daughter, initiates divorce proceedings, hits bottom, begins her recovery, and starts her personal business designing clothes. All this time she is developing her potential, finding the self that she let go of in her attempt to step back and be the perfect wife.
Finally, she mounts an incredibly successful fashion show, reconciles with her daughter, and at the end, her husband pleads for a second chance.
During the movie, I found myself saying, “I’m watching a game within a game.” I picked up that phrase from my son, Stephen. Just that afternoon we had watched a football game between the Green Bay Packers and the Detroit Lions. He is a loyal, but long-suffering, fan of the Lions, having grown up in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and I am a fan of the Packers, having switched loyalties after living in Wisconsin for years.
I was cheering for the Packers, and I was surprised to hear him cheering for the two wide receivers for the Packers, Greg Jennings and Donald Driver, particularly when they made spectacular plays that doomed his hapless Lions. When I asked him about it, he said, “I’m watching a game within a game.” He went on to explain that he and eleven of his buddies were playing “Fantasy Football” on their computers. At the beginning of the season, each of them selected a team of twelve players from all the teams in the National Football League and charted their performances in games throughout the season. That afternoon, he was pitted against his buddies, each one surveying the NFL landscape to see how their fantasy teams were faring.
Now I understood the concept of a game within a game. Each time Jennings or Driver caught a pass or scored a touchdown, Stephen earned a certain number of points based on the yardage and the scoring. For example, in this game, his two wide receivers earned a total of 27.9 points, helping his fantasy team win this weekend’s competition. Although the Lions lost the game that afternoon, he won the head-to-head matchup. This goes on for the entire season, and at the end the winner collects $1000.00.
Whew. That’s why I found myself watching the movie and seeing a game within a game. That is, my mind is sufficiently trained to see that there is always only one Game going on. Regardless of what seems to be going on in the fantasy, the dream, I am always driving towards the goal of recognizing that I am the holy Son of God. I am my true Self as created by God; I am not the self I made with false perception. My salvation is the recognition that this is already accomplished; this is the real Game. I am not saved by improving my false self—the game within the Game.
So, while I cheered for Mary’s effort to come into her own as a woman, building her self-esteem, and giving her points for her pluck and determination, I was well aware of the real Game going on, the real Game that is always going on. While she appeared to be racking up points in the aptly named “Fantasy,” she is always, already safe at Home, and the only real outcome is to come into this recognition. Her pluck and determination simply need to be redirected.
Perhaps, there will be a sequel entitled, This Woman’s Game. In this movie, Mary realizes that her hard-won sense of a strong, independent self begins to fall apart again, as it inevitably will because nothing in the dream, nothing in the fantasy, sustains you. This time when she hits bottom, instead of trying to shore up her false self, she will, miraculously, hear the still, small Voice in her mind whisper to her that she is not a victim of this world; that, in fact, she invented the world she sees; there is another way of looking at the world; she could see peace instead of this. Now that she is playing the real Game, she can come into the recognition of her true Self, God’s holy child, realizing that there is nothing to fear. She is now and forever sustained by the love of God.
Finally, whether I am observing a game within a Game while watching a football game, or sitting in movie theatre, or interacting with those around me, I am, actually, performing an act of charity, seeing the Christ in others because charity is a way of perceiving the perfection of another. (T-2.V.9:4) This is seeing with vision. And with this vision, I look upon the world and on myself with charity and love. (W-p1.56.2:6)
“Game On!”
Mary (Meg Ryan) learns of her husband’s infidelity, becomes estranged from her daughter, initiates divorce proceedings, hits bottom, begins her recovery, and starts her personal business designing clothes. All this time she is developing her potential, finding the self that she let go of in her attempt to step back and be the perfect wife.
Finally, she mounts an incredibly successful fashion show, reconciles with her daughter, and at the end, her husband pleads for a second chance.
During the movie, I found myself saying, “I’m watching a game within a game.” I picked up that phrase from my son, Stephen. Just that afternoon we had watched a football game between the Green Bay Packers and the Detroit Lions. He is a loyal, but long-suffering, fan of the Lions, having grown up in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and I am a fan of the Packers, having switched loyalties after living in Wisconsin for years.
I was cheering for the Packers, and I was surprised to hear him cheering for the two wide receivers for the Packers, Greg Jennings and Donald Driver, particularly when they made spectacular plays that doomed his hapless Lions. When I asked him about it, he said, “I’m watching a game within a game.” He went on to explain that he and eleven of his buddies were playing “Fantasy Football” on their computers. At the beginning of the season, each of them selected a team of twelve players from all the teams in the National Football League and charted their performances in games throughout the season. That afternoon, he was pitted against his buddies, each one surveying the NFL landscape to see how their fantasy teams were faring.
Now I understood the concept of a game within a game. Each time Jennings or Driver caught a pass or scored a touchdown, Stephen earned a certain number of points based on the yardage and the scoring. For example, in this game, his two wide receivers earned a total of 27.9 points, helping his fantasy team win this weekend’s competition. Although the Lions lost the game that afternoon, he won the head-to-head matchup. This goes on for the entire season, and at the end the winner collects $1000.00.
Whew. That’s why I found myself watching the movie and seeing a game within a game. That is, my mind is sufficiently trained to see that there is always only one Game going on. Regardless of what seems to be going on in the fantasy, the dream, I am always driving towards the goal of recognizing that I am the holy Son of God. I am my true Self as created by God; I am not the self I made with false perception. My salvation is the recognition that this is already accomplished; this is the real Game. I am not saved by improving my false self—the game within the Game.
So, while I cheered for Mary’s effort to come into her own as a woman, building her self-esteem, and giving her points for her pluck and determination, I was well aware of the real Game going on, the real Game that is always going on. While she appeared to be racking up points in the aptly named “Fantasy,” she is always, already safe at Home, and the only real outcome is to come into this recognition. Her pluck and determination simply need to be redirected.
Perhaps, there will be a sequel entitled, This Woman’s Game. In this movie, Mary realizes that her hard-won sense of a strong, independent self begins to fall apart again, as it inevitably will because nothing in the dream, nothing in the fantasy, sustains you. This time when she hits bottom, instead of trying to shore up her false self, she will, miraculously, hear the still, small Voice in her mind whisper to her that she is not a victim of this world; that, in fact, she invented the world she sees; there is another way of looking at the world; she could see peace instead of this. Now that she is playing the real Game, she can come into the recognition of her true Self, God’s holy child, realizing that there is nothing to fear. She is now and forever sustained by the love of God.
Finally, whether I am observing a game within a Game while watching a football game, or sitting in movie theatre, or interacting with those around me, I am, actually, performing an act of charity, seeing the Christ in others because charity is a way of perceiving the perfection of another. (T-2.V.9:4) This is seeing with vision. And with this vision, I look upon the world and on myself with charity and love. (W-p1.56.2:6)
“Game On!”
Sunday, September 07, 2008
The Glistening of the Light
The sunlight of my Presence is on your paths! (God Calling, 8/26)
I am walking home after my cooking shift at the Cheese Factory Restaurant on a Sunday afternoon in early fall. Just across the bridge over the Dell Creek, I cut through the blacktop parking lot of a real estate office.
The surface of the asphalt is still wet from the morning rain, and the sun is at just such an angle that the surface is glistening. As I step into the glistening, it disappears and the next step sparkles as I step into it, and I proceed to walk into sparkly light, my thoughts disappearing and my mind becoming light.
Around you angels hover lovingly,
to keep away all darkened thoughts of sin,
and keep the light where it has entered in.
Your footprints lighten up the world, for where
you walk forgiveness gladly goes with you.
T-26.IX.7:1,2
Our shining footprints point the way to truth,
for God is our Companion as we walk
the world a little while. And those who come
to follow us will recognize the way
because the light we carry stays behind,
yet still remains with us as we walk on.
W-pI.124.2:4,5
When I am in light, there is no thought.
When I am in thought, there is still light because there is only light; it is just that a thought blocks my awareness of light’s presence.
With each step I became increasingly aware of the light that we are.
His step is light, and as he lifts his foot
to stride ahead a star is left behind,
to point the way to those who follow him.
W-p1.134.12:5
I am walking home after my cooking shift at the Cheese Factory Restaurant on a Sunday afternoon in early fall. Just across the bridge over the Dell Creek, I cut through the blacktop parking lot of a real estate office.
The surface of the asphalt is still wet from the morning rain, and the sun is at just such an angle that the surface is glistening. As I step into the glistening, it disappears and the next step sparkles as I step into it, and I proceed to walk into sparkly light, my thoughts disappearing and my mind becoming light.
Around you angels hover lovingly,
to keep away all darkened thoughts of sin,
and keep the light where it has entered in.
Your footprints lighten up the world, for where
you walk forgiveness gladly goes with you.
T-26.IX.7:1,2
Our shining footprints point the way to truth,
for God is our Companion as we walk
the world a little while. And those who come
to follow us will recognize the way
because the light we carry stays behind,
yet still remains with us as we walk on.
W-pI.124.2:4,5
When I am in light, there is no thought.
When I am in thought, there is still light because there is only light; it is just that a thought blocks my awareness of light’s presence.
With each step I became increasingly aware of the light that we are.
His step is light, and as he lifts his foot
to stride ahead a star is left behind,
to point the way to those who follow him.
W-p1.134.12:5
Sunday, August 17, 2008
My Declaration of Release
I am the holy Son of God Himself; (191)
this situation does not define me.
The word situation derives from the Latin, situare, meaning “place.” A situation is a set of circumstances appearing to exist in space and time. Define comes from the Latin, definire, meaning “limit and determine.” The definition of my Self as God's holy Son will not be limited by my projected images in space and time. This is my declaration of release from worldly situations.
By refusing to be limited, I
come into the experience of being
limitless, a state of mind beyond space
and time, resting as God created me,
standing behind the drama of ego mind.
Father, my thanks to You for what I am;
for keeping my Identity untouched
and sinless, in the midst of all the thoughts
of sin my foolish mind made up. And thanks
to You for saving me from them. Amen.
W-pII.229.2:1-3
Saturday, July 19, 2008
We Are Always Dealing Only With Thought
The other day, early in the morning, I was sitting on the couch, tying my shoe laces, about to walk out the door, and I looked up and saw movement though the window. I thought, “That’s my damn neighbor walking his dog whose barking often wakes me up during the night.” I finished tying my laces and looked up again, and there was no one there, only my reflection in the window. No neighbor, no dog. Only me catching my movements in the window. It happened real fast. So did the thought.
So, there we are. It’s all in that story. The thought, for example, "My damn neighbor," always comes first. There is only thought. I am always only looking into a mirror, reflecting back to me my thoughts.
This is actually a good thing because it demonstrates that I am totally responsible for what I see in the mirror. My thoughts are the cause; the images are the effect. I am not a victim of these images. I can change them by changing my mind.
It gets even simpler. There are only two kinds of thoughts. Thoughts are either true or false, real or unreal, loving or fearful. Jesus expresses it this way in His Course in Miracles.
Thoughts can represent the lower or bodily level of experience, or the higher or spiritual level of experience. One makes the physical, and the other creates the spiritual. (T-I.1.12:2,3)
And He expresses it this way in Lesson 199, I am not a body. I am free.
Freedom must be impossible as long
as you perceive a body as yourself.
The body is a limit. Who would seek
for freedom in a body looks for it
where it can not be found.
(W-p1.199.1:1-3)
The mind that serves the Holy Spirit is
unlimited forever, in all ways,
beyond the laws of time and space, unbound
by any preconceptions, and with strength
and power to do whatever it is asked.
(W-p1.199.2:1)
Seeing my "damn neighbor" is clearly a thought from a level of experience that has no source in reality, bound by my preconceptions. For a split-second, I actually had a choice between the lower or higher levels, but the thought came so rapidly, unconsciously, naturally, automatically, habitually that I did not catch it, and it carried its own emotional baggage. It is always moment to moment. In the state of mind of the peace of God, I would have looked through the image and caught the reflection of my true Self, experiencing the spiritual level of my mind. This is because I am as God created me.
I am the holy Son of God Himself. (Title, Lesson 189)
And the key thing here is to observe that this is a thought; we are always dealing only with thought, and this realization that I am God's Son is a thought from the higher level of experience.
One holy thought like this and you are free;
You are the holy son of God Himself.
(W-p1.191.6:1)
Your Self and God’s Self are the same—Himself, your true Identity.
However, if you were to think this thought, “I will deny this Identity,” a bodily level of experience, then you will look into a mirror and see images and form associations and make judgments based on preconceptions.
Deny your own Identity, and you will not escape the madness which induced this weird, unnatural and ghostly thought that mocks creation and laughs at God. (W-p1.3:1)
Yet, you are simply playing a game with thought.
Yet what is it except a game you play
in which identity can be denied?
You are as God crated you. All else
but this one thing is folly to believe.
In this one thought is everyone set free.
In this one truth are all illusions gone.
(W-p1.191.4:1-5)
It is folly to damn my neighbor. This is all going on only in one place, my mind. There is only my mind. There is only your mind. There is not a world “out there,” and my mind “in here.” There is only my mind, either projecting thoughts from a lower level, or reflecting thoughts from a higher level.
And I always have choice, because my mind is the mechanism of decision.
Your mind is the means by which you determine your own condition, because mind is the mechanism of decision. It is the power by which you separate or join, and experience pain or joy accordingly. (T-8.IV.5:7,8)
As God’s most holy Son, all power is given you in Heaven and on earth. (W-p1.20.3:7) The obvious question is with this power why does the mind habitually choose for hell over Heaven?
What just came to mind is Hamlet because he, too, poses a question to begin his famous soliloquy.
To be, or not to be—that is the question.
He assumes that the human condition is hell, and his only choice is to endure it, or commit suicide. He is caught in the bodily level of experience, not realizing that he does, indeed, have choice. He sees himself as a victim of the world, not realizing he is the cause. The reason is that his thoughts come to him so rapidly, unconsciously, naturally, automatically, habitually that they obscure his real thoughts from a higher level of experience, those from his True Self.
Seeing the world in this manner, he finds himself a victim.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin?
In these lines he catalogues the human condition of looking into a mirror, darkly.
To die, to sleep--
No more--and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to.
'Tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished.
Since these are thoughts that have no source in reality, it is wrong to conclude that death is the way out; the fact is that we are the holy Sons of God who cannot die, and the real way out while we are on earth is to become aware of our real thoughts by asking the Holy Spirit for help to relinquish thoughts of the bodily level that seem so real.
What is helpful in reading Hamlet’s soliloquy is that it eloquently describes the world from the human, egoic perspective. These are his thoughts. After all, that is the meaning of a soliloquy, to be an actor alone on stage speaking his thoughts directly to the audience. (If you wish to read the soliloquy in its entirety, please scroll to the end of this post.)
It is also helpful because we can adapt Hamlet’s phrase to be or not to be to make clear the truth of our being. Now I can say to be means to experience becoming aware of, my real thoughts, experiencing that I am God’s holy Son, I am a Thought of God, I am being his presence on earth.
Into His Presence would I enter now. (Title, Lesson, 157)
Nothing is needed but today’s idea
to light your mind, and let it rest in still
anticipation and in quiet joy,
wherein you quickly leave the world behind.
(W-p1.157.4:3)
This is the experience of to be, being in the world, but not of the world.
Not to be, however, means to deny my Identity as the holy Son of God and see in the world the projections of my unreal thoughts. We can begin to see through our images when we become aware of what we automatically do in our lower level minds, as we decide for insanity instead of truth.
Jesus, of course, having been a man himself, knows of our habitual addiction to bodily thoughts and designed His early lessons to help us see, first of all, exactly what we do with our thoughts from moment to moment, and secondly, how to forgive them.
Here is as Review of Lesson 11 in Lesson 53, My meaningless thoughts are showing me a meaningless world.
Since the thoughts of which I am aware do not mean anything, the world that pictures them can have no meaning. What is producing this world is insane, and so is what it produces.
Alone on stage, Hamlet reveals his thoughts, the ones of which he is aware, but this awareness does not make them real. In fact, they are obscuring his real thoughts. By remaining unaware, he is choosing not to be.
Reality is not insane, and I have real thoughts as well as insane ones. I can therefore see a real world, if I look to my real thoughts as my guide for seeing.
Lesson 12. I am upset because I see a meaningless world. Insane thoughts are upsetting. They produce a world in which there is no order anywhere. Only chaos rules a world that represents chaotic thinking, and chaos has no laws. I cannot live in peace in such a world.
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
…a sea of troubles.
We can go beyond Hamlet and see that we have a real choice, not one between living and dying, but between what Thoughts are valuable and what thoughts are valueless.
I am grateful that this world is not real, and that I need not see it at all unless I choose to value it. And I do not choose to value what is totally insane and has no meaning.
Lesson 13. A meaningless world engenders fear. The totally insane engenders fear because it is completely undependable, and offers no grounds for trust. Nothing in madness is dependable. It holds out no safety and no hope.
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to.
But such a world is not real. I have given it the illusion of reality, and have suffered from my belief in it. Now I choose to withdraw this belief, and place my trust in reality. In choosing this, I will escape all the effects of the world of fear, because I am acknowledging that it does not exist.
Lesson 14. God did not create a meaningless world. How can a meaningless world exist if God did not create it? He is the Source of all meaning, and everything that is real is in His Mind. It is in my mind too, because He created it with me.
Why should I continue to suffer (the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune) from the effects of my own insane thoughts, when the perfection of creation is my home? Let me remember the power of my decision, and recognize where I really abide.
Lesson 15. My thoughts are images that I have made.
Whatever I see reflects my thoughts. It is my thoughts that tell me where I am and what I am. The fact that I see a world in which there is suffering and loss and death shows me that I am seeing only the representation of my insane thoughts, and am not allowing my real thoughts to cast their beneficent light on what I see.
Although Hamlet dies fearing the sleep of death and what dreams may come, Horatio, his friend glimpses the truth. Holding Hamlet in his arms as he utters his last words, The rest is silence, Horatio says,
Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince,
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.
Yet God's way is sure. The images I have made cannot prevail against Him because it is not my will that they do so. My will is His, and I will place no other gods before Him.
It is really quite simple, to be or not to be. A friend said to me a long time ago, “All I know is that when I am feeling peaceful (to be), I say ‘Thank you,’ and when I am in conflict (not to be), I ask for ‘Help.’ ”
Moment to moment, it is always “Thank you” or “Help,” and it is always your decision to lose yourself in thought or find your Self in Thought.
And by the way, when you do find yourself lost, you can always say “Stop it,” reminding me of this 6-minute routine by Bob Newhart that is very practical and very funny.
Please click here to see this routine.
HAMLET: To be, or not to be--that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep--
No more--and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep--
To sleep--perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprise of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action. -- Soft you now,
The fair Ophelia! -- Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remembered.
(III.1:58-92)
So, there we are. It’s all in that story. The thought, for example, "My damn neighbor," always comes first. There is only thought. I am always only looking into a mirror, reflecting back to me my thoughts.
This is actually a good thing because it demonstrates that I am totally responsible for what I see in the mirror. My thoughts are the cause; the images are the effect. I am not a victim of these images. I can change them by changing my mind.
It gets even simpler. There are only two kinds of thoughts. Thoughts are either true or false, real or unreal, loving or fearful. Jesus expresses it this way in His Course in Miracles.
Thoughts can represent the lower or bodily level of experience, or the higher or spiritual level of experience. One makes the physical, and the other creates the spiritual. (T-I.1.12:2,3)
And He expresses it this way in Lesson 199, I am not a body. I am free.
Freedom must be impossible as long
as you perceive a body as yourself.
The body is a limit. Who would seek
for freedom in a body looks for it
where it can not be found.
(W-p1.199.1:1-3)
The mind that serves the Holy Spirit is
unlimited forever, in all ways,
beyond the laws of time and space, unbound
by any preconceptions, and with strength
and power to do whatever it is asked.
(W-p1.199.2:1)
Seeing my "damn neighbor" is clearly a thought from a level of experience that has no source in reality, bound by my preconceptions. For a split-second, I actually had a choice between the lower or higher levels, but the thought came so rapidly, unconsciously, naturally, automatically, habitually that I did not catch it, and it carried its own emotional baggage. It is always moment to moment. In the state of mind of the peace of God, I would have looked through the image and caught the reflection of my true Self, experiencing the spiritual level of my mind. This is because I am as God created me.
I am the holy Son of God Himself. (Title, Lesson 189)
And the key thing here is to observe that this is a thought; we are always dealing only with thought, and this realization that I am God's Son is a thought from the higher level of experience.
One holy thought like this and you are free;
You are the holy son of God Himself.
(W-p1.191.6:1)
Your Self and God’s Self are the same—Himself, your true Identity.
However, if you were to think this thought, “I will deny this Identity,” a bodily level of experience, then you will look into a mirror and see images and form associations and make judgments based on preconceptions.
Deny your own Identity, and you will not escape the madness which induced this weird, unnatural and ghostly thought that mocks creation and laughs at God. (W-p1.3:1)
Yet, you are simply playing a game with thought.
Yet what is it except a game you play
in which identity can be denied?
You are as God crated you. All else
but this one thing is folly to believe.
In this one thought is everyone set free.
In this one truth are all illusions gone.
(W-p1.191.4:1-5)
It is folly to damn my neighbor. This is all going on only in one place, my mind. There is only my mind. There is only your mind. There is not a world “out there,” and my mind “in here.” There is only my mind, either projecting thoughts from a lower level, or reflecting thoughts from a higher level.
And I always have choice, because my mind is the mechanism of decision.
Your mind is the means by which you determine your own condition, because mind is the mechanism of decision. It is the power by which you separate or join, and experience pain or joy accordingly. (T-8.IV.5:7,8)
As God’s most holy Son, all power is given you in Heaven and on earth. (W-p1.20.3:7) The obvious question is with this power why does the mind habitually choose for hell over Heaven?
What just came to mind is Hamlet because he, too, poses a question to begin his famous soliloquy.
To be, or not to be—that is the question.
He assumes that the human condition is hell, and his only choice is to endure it, or commit suicide. He is caught in the bodily level of experience, not realizing that he does, indeed, have choice. He sees himself as a victim of the world, not realizing he is the cause. The reason is that his thoughts come to him so rapidly, unconsciously, naturally, automatically, habitually that they obscure his real thoughts from a higher level of experience, those from his True Self.
Seeing the world in this manner, he finds himself a victim.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin?
In these lines he catalogues the human condition of looking into a mirror, darkly.
To die, to sleep--
No more--and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to.
'Tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished.
Since these are thoughts that have no source in reality, it is wrong to conclude that death is the way out; the fact is that we are the holy Sons of God who cannot die, and the real way out while we are on earth is to become aware of our real thoughts by asking the Holy Spirit for help to relinquish thoughts of the bodily level that seem so real.
What is helpful in reading Hamlet’s soliloquy is that it eloquently describes the world from the human, egoic perspective. These are his thoughts. After all, that is the meaning of a soliloquy, to be an actor alone on stage speaking his thoughts directly to the audience. (If you wish to read the soliloquy in its entirety, please scroll to the end of this post.)
It is also helpful because we can adapt Hamlet’s phrase to be or not to be to make clear the truth of our being. Now I can say to be means to experience becoming aware of, my real thoughts, experiencing that I am God’s holy Son, I am a Thought of God, I am being his presence on earth.
Into His Presence would I enter now. (Title, Lesson, 157)
Nothing is needed but today’s idea
to light your mind, and let it rest in still
anticipation and in quiet joy,
wherein you quickly leave the world behind.
(W-p1.157.4:3)
This is the experience of to be, being in the world, but not of the world.
Not to be, however, means to deny my Identity as the holy Son of God and see in the world the projections of my unreal thoughts. We can begin to see through our images when we become aware of what we automatically do in our lower level minds, as we decide for insanity instead of truth.
Jesus, of course, having been a man himself, knows of our habitual addiction to bodily thoughts and designed His early lessons to help us see, first of all, exactly what we do with our thoughts from moment to moment, and secondly, how to forgive them.
Here is as Review of Lesson 11 in Lesson 53, My meaningless thoughts are showing me a meaningless world.
Since the thoughts of which I am aware do not mean anything, the world that pictures them can have no meaning. What is producing this world is insane, and so is what it produces.
Alone on stage, Hamlet reveals his thoughts, the ones of which he is aware, but this awareness does not make them real. In fact, they are obscuring his real thoughts. By remaining unaware, he is choosing not to be.
Reality is not insane, and I have real thoughts as well as insane ones. I can therefore see a real world, if I look to my real thoughts as my guide for seeing.
Lesson 12. I am upset because I see a meaningless world. Insane thoughts are upsetting. They produce a world in which there is no order anywhere. Only chaos rules a world that represents chaotic thinking, and chaos has no laws. I cannot live in peace in such a world.
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
…a sea of troubles.
We can go beyond Hamlet and see that we have a real choice, not one between living and dying, but between what Thoughts are valuable and what thoughts are valueless.
I am grateful that this world is not real, and that I need not see it at all unless I choose to value it. And I do not choose to value what is totally insane and has no meaning.
Lesson 13. A meaningless world engenders fear. The totally insane engenders fear because it is completely undependable, and offers no grounds for trust. Nothing in madness is dependable. It holds out no safety and no hope.
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to.
But such a world is not real. I have given it the illusion of reality, and have suffered from my belief in it. Now I choose to withdraw this belief, and place my trust in reality. In choosing this, I will escape all the effects of the world of fear, because I am acknowledging that it does not exist.
Lesson 14. God did not create a meaningless world. How can a meaningless world exist if God did not create it? He is the Source of all meaning, and everything that is real is in His Mind. It is in my mind too, because He created it with me.
Why should I continue to suffer (the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune) from the effects of my own insane thoughts, when the perfection of creation is my home? Let me remember the power of my decision, and recognize where I really abide.
Lesson 15. My thoughts are images that I have made.
Whatever I see reflects my thoughts. It is my thoughts that tell me where I am and what I am. The fact that I see a world in which there is suffering and loss and death shows me that I am seeing only the representation of my insane thoughts, and am not allowing my real thoughts to cast their beneficent light on what I see.
Although Hamlet dies fearing the sleep of death and what dreams may come, Horatio, his friend glimpses the truth. Holding Hamlet in his arms as he utters his last words, The rest is silence, Horatio says,
Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince,
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.
Yet God's way is sure. The images I have made cannot prevail against Him because it is not my will that they do so. My will is His, and I will place no other gods before Him.
It is really quite simple, to be or not to be. A friend said to me a long time ago, “All I know is that when I am feeling peaceful (to be), I say ‘Thank you,’ and when I am in conflict (not to be), I ask for ‘Help.’ ”
Moment to moment, it is always “Thank you” or “Help,” and it is always your decision to lose yourself in thought or find your Self in Thought.
And by the way, when you do find yourself lost, you can always say “Stop it,” reminding me of this 6-minute routine by Bob Newhart that is very practical and very funny.
Please click here to see this routine.
HAMLET: To be, or not to be--that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep--
No more--and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep--
To sleep--perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprise of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action. -- Soft you now,
The fair Ophelia! -- Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remembered.
(III.1:58-92)
Thursday, July 10, 2008
"Screen of smoke" or "smoke screen?" The Absolute Precision of Jesus' Language in His Course in Miracles.
It is simply miraculous that Jesus brought from out of time His Course in Miracles through the scribe, Helen Schucman. Though reluctant, she persevered over a seven-year period to write down in shorthand the words of A Course in Miracles. On a daily basis her colleague, Bill Thetford, took her transcription and typed it up into words and sentences and paragraphs. The prose and poetry of this masterpiece is impeccable, demonstrating that it could have come only from out of time.
Nevertheless, students occasionally joke about certain words and phrases because of their connotations in English. For example, Lesson 140, Only salvation can be said to cure, is usually called the “ham lesson” because cured ham is considered a delicacy. In the Reviews of Lessons 171-180, this phrase begins and ends the repetition of the daily Lessons, God is but Love, and therefore so am I, sometimes brings laughter because of the wordplay of “but” and “butt.”
Over the years, students have rolled their eyes when they came across the phrase, a screen of smoke, in Lesson 133, I will not value what is valueless.
All things are valuable or valueless,
worthy or not of being sought at all,
entirely desirable or
not worth the slightest effort to obtain.
Choosing is easy just because of this.
Complexity is nothing but a screen
of smoke, which hides the very simple fact
that no decision can be difficult.
What is the gain to you in learning this?
It is far more than merely letting you
make choices easily and without pain.
(W-p1.133.12)
Students, of course, think it should be “smoke screen” and smirk and say things like, “Well, after all, Jesus’ first language wasn’t English, but Aramaic.”
Finally, after all these years, I came across the phrase “screen of smoke” in another context, and I flashed on this phrase from the Course and saw the absolute precision of Jesus’ language. This epiphany occurred while reading an article in The New Yorker about ancient cave paintings in France and in Spain. Here are three paragraphs that provide a context for the insight.
During the Old Stone Age, between thirty-seven thousand and eleven thousand years ago, some of the most remarkable art ever conceived was etched or painted on the walls of caves in southern France and northern Spain. What those first artists invented was a language of signs for which there will never be a Rosetta stone; perspective, a technique that was not rediscovered until the Athenian Golden Age; and a bestiary of such vitality and finesse that, by the flicker of torchlight, the animals seem to surge from the walls. In the course of some twenty-five thousand years, the same animals—primarily bison, stags, aurochs, ibex, horses, and mammoths—recur in similar poses, illustrating an immortal story.
In the century since the modern study of caves began, specialists have tried to understand the culture that produced them. Of course, over the years, a number of theories have been developed. One group of specialists developed the theory that cave painting largely represents the experiences of shamans or initiates on a vision quest to the underworld. The caves themselves served as a gateway. Where the artists or their entourage left handprints, they were palping a living rock or summoning a life force beyond it.
Jean-Michel Geneste, a leonine man of fifty-nine with a silver mane, told me about an experiment that he had conducted at Lascaux in 1994. He decided to invite four elders of an Aboriginal tribe, the Nganinyins—hunter-gatherers from northwestern Australia—to visit the cave, and put them up in his house in the Dordogne. (Judith Thurman, First Impressions: What does the world’s oldest art say about us?, The New Yorker, June 23, 2008, p. 59)
And now here is the paragraph that brought into perspective the unerring accuracy of Jesus’ language.
Before visiting the caves, they first had to purify themselves, so they built a fire, and pulled some of their underarm hair out and burned it. Their own rituals involve traversing a screen of smoke—passing into another zone. When they entered the cave, they took a while to get their bearings. Yes, they said, it was an initiation site. The geometric signs, in red and black, reminded them of their own clan insignia, the animals and engravings of figures from their creative myths. (Thurman, p. 60)
There it is. Their rituals required traversing a screen of smoke—passing into another zone. In His Lesson, Jesus is teaching us how to pass from one world into another, passing from the false world to the true world.
There are no satisfactions in the world.
(W-p1.133.2:5)
He is expressing how easy it is to make the transition from valuing the valueless to valuing what is of value, passing in effect, from one zone to another, shifting from the false, egoic state to our true state of mind where only the truth is valued. To do that, we simply part the veil, move to another state; it is as simple as passing through a screen of smoke.
“Smoke screen” has a different connotation. It suggests “an action taken to mislead somebody or obscure something.”
Jesus shows us, however, that the ego’s complexity can be walked through as simply as we can walk through a thin screen of smoke, leaving behind the ego’s valueless state and entering into our true state of mind, the only state of any value, the only state there is.
Nevertheless, students occasionally joke about certain words and phrases because of their connotations in English. For example, Lesson 140, Only salvation can be said to cure, is usually called the “ham lesson” because cured ham is considered a delicacy. In the Reviews of Lessons 171-180, this phrase begins and ends the repetition of the daily Lessons, God is but Love, and therefore so am I, sometimes brings laughter because of the wordplay of “but” and “butt.”
Over the years, students have rolled their eyes when they came across the phrase, a screen of smoke, in Lesson 133, I will not value what is valueless.
All things are valuable or valueless,
worthy or not of being sought at all,
entirely desirable or
not worth the slightest effort to obtain.
Choosing is easy just because of this.
Complexity is nothing but a screen
of smoke, which hides the very simple fact
that no decision can be difficult.
What is the gain to you in learning this?
It is far more than merely letting you
make choices easily and without pain.
(W-p1.133.12)
Students, of course, think it should be “smoke screen” and smirk and say things like, “Well, after all, Jesus’ first language wasn’t English, but Aramaic.”
Finally, after all these years, I came across the phrase “screen of smoke” in another context, and I flashed on this phrase from the Course and saw the absolute precision of Jesus’ language. This epiphany occurred while reading an article in The New Yorker about ancient cave paintings in France and in Spain. Here are three paragraphs that provide a context for the insight.
During the Old Stone Age, between thirty-seven thousand and eleven thousand years ago, some of the most remarkable art ever conceived was etched or painted on the walls of caves in southern France and northern Spain. What those first artists invented was a language of signs for which there will never be a Rosetta stone; perspective, a technique that was not rediscovered until the Athenian Golden Age; and a bestiary of such vitality and finesse that, by the flicker of torchlight, the animals seem to surge from the walls. In the course of some twenty-five thousand years, the same animals—primarily bison, stags, aurochs, ibex, horses, and mammoths—recur in similar poses, illustrating an immortal story.
In the century since the modern study of caves began, specialists have tried to understand the culture that produced them. Of course, over the years, a number of theories have been developed. One group of specialists developed the theory that cave painting largely represents the experiences of shamans or initiates on a vision quest to the underworld. The caves themselves served as a gateway. Where the artists or their entourage left handprints, they were palping a living rock or summoning a life force beyond it.
Jean-Michel Geneste, a leonine man of fifty-nine with a silver mane, told me about an experiment that he had conducted at Lascaux in 1994. He decided to invite four elders of an Aboriginal tribe, the Nganinyins—hunter-gatherers from northwestern Australia—to visit the cave, and put them up in his house in the Dordogne. (Judith Thurman, First Impressions: What does the world’s oldest art say about us?, The New Yorker, June 23, 2008, p. 59)
And now here is the paragraph that brought into perspective the unerring accuracy of Jesus’ language.
Before visiting the caves, they first had to purify themselves, so they built a fire, and pulled some of their underarm hair out and burned it. Their own rituals involve traversing a screen of smoke—passing into another zone. When they entered the cave, they took a while to get their bearings. Yes, they said, it was an initiation site. The geometric signs, in red and black, reminded them of their own clan insignia, the animals and engravings of figures from their creative myths. (Thurman, p. 60)
There it is. Their rituals required traversing a screen of smoke—passing into another zone. In His Lesson, Jesus is teaching us how to pass from one world into another, passing from the false world to the true world.
There are no satisfactions in the world.
(W-p1.133.2:5)
He is expressing how easy it is to make the transition from valuing the valueless to valuing what is of value, passing in effect, from one zone to another, shifting from the false, egoic state to our true state of mind where only the truth is valued. To do that, we simply part the veil, move to another state; it is as simple as passing through a screen of smoke.
“Smoke screen” has a different connotation. It suggests “an action taken to mislead somebody or obscure something.”
Jesus shows us, however, that the ego’s complexity can be walked through as simply as we can walk through a thin screen of smoke, leaving behind the ego’s valueless state and entering into our true state of mind, the only state of any value, the only state there is.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
A Favorable Wind Gently Carries You Home
A couple of days ago, I had a rather long conversation with an individual, and during the course of this conversation I became increasingly angry at some of things he said. I was surprised at the extent of my anger and contempt.
The next day, I played it over in my mind. I actually listed the things that he said that pissed me off. I imagined scenarios where I really trashed him. I imagined another where I got into a teaching, even though he is barely familiar with A Course in Miracles. Then I turned on myself and asked how I could get so angry for so long when I have been at this mind-training for some time now.
Finally, I asked for help and sat down to read something that would remind me of the truth of what I am and what he is, the holy sons of God. I picked up, or rather I realize in retrospect , I was guided to pick up a folder of readings by Raj/Jesus who speaks through Paul Tuttle at the Northwestern Foundation of A Course in Miracles. I just love this material because Raj/Jesus reads a section of the Course and comments on it through Paul during a Study Group meeting. It is simply Jesus commenting on what he transcribed to Helen Schucman, only using a different set of metaphors, making it incredibly personal while expressing the truth of His unworldly masterpiece. I “happened” to select the transcript of March 13, 2005, as Raj/Jesus reads the section, “Two Evaluations,” Chapter 9, Section VII.
Early on, Raj/Jesus cites this sentence from the Course:
Every minute and every second gives you a chance to save YOURSELF.
(T-9.VII.1:6)
He goes on to comment:
You’re presented with the opportunity to see and be in your Sanity again. Every single thing that confronts you is nothing less than the Kingdom of Heaven seen clearly, or through a glass darkly. (Raj/Jesus Transcript, March 13, 2005, p. 2)
After reading those two sentences, I simply melted into the peace of God with no trace of anger or contempt. The dark night of the soul was over. It is always a matter of remembering and forgetting.
When I was reminded that the conversation presented me with an opportunity to choose to see clearly, or see through a glass darkly, I was free to choose, and melting into peace was the choice.
At this point, I became curious about the origins of the word, “opportunity.” The key is to see “port” hidden in the word. In Latin, opportunus, means “favorable,” deriving from ob portum veniens, meaning “coming toward port with a favorable wind.” What I had labeled as extremely negative, seeing through a glass darkly, was, in fact, an opportunity to see clearly, returning Home with a favorable wind.
And now, sitting here experiencing the peace of God, I am grateful for this individual and our conversation, and I trust when it happens again I will remember to look at it as an opportunity, a chance.
Do not lose these chances, not because they will not return, but because delay of joy is needless. God wills you perfect happiness now.
(T-9;VII.1:7,8)
Now, I am not making this up; as I am sitting here typing this, he just knocked on the door. He is my landlord, and he came, unexpectedly, to take care of some problems created by the recent flooding here in Lake Delton, Wisconsin. I took a deep breath, invited him in, and he, typically, said some things that would ordinarily have provoked me, but this time, I managed to look at him clearly, and we had a rather enjoyable conversation.
You can never forgive a person. You can only ask for help to let go of your unreal thoughts about him, projected from your insane, egoic mind.
Do nothing, then, and let forgiveness show
you what to do, through Him Who is your Guide,
your Savior and Protector, strong in hope,
and certain of your ultimate success.
He has forgiven you already, for
such is His function, given Him by God.
Now must you share His function, and forgive
whom He has saved, whose sinlessness He sees,
and whom He honors as the Son of God.
(W-p11. 1 What is forgiveness? 5)
Now, Dear Reader, I invite you to practice forgiveness, just in case your ego-mind sometimes makes up a storm, driving you out to sea.
Please bring to mind an individual who seems to be out there, causing you to see through a glass darkly.
Imagine looking at him through the ego’s eyes, the body’s eyes, projecting on him all of the scorn and anger from this state of mind, separate from God. Just allow the negative stuff to surface without resistance. Resist not evil.
Thank you.
Now, look at him with the vision of Christ, looking through his body to the Christ that he is, seeing a reflection of your true Self, joining with the Christ that you are. Namaste.
Thank you.
Obviously, I have no idea how this worked for you. Just stopping for a moment, stepping back, is sometimes enough to experience a shift in your mind.
It turns out then that everything can be used to undo perception, enabling you to learn to see with vision. Sometimes, when I find myself persistently looking through the body’s eyes, I practice by literally closing my right eye and looking at his image through my left, representing the egoic state of mind. Then I imagine looking through his image with my right eye, representing Christ’s vision. This literal shift from left to right, from misperception to vision is sacred.
Brother, this day is sacred to the world. Your vision, given you from far beyond all things within the world, looks back on them in a new light. And what you see becomes the healing and salvation of the world. The valuable and valueless are both perceived and recognized for what they are. And what is worthy of your love receives your love, while nothing to be feared remains.
(W-p11.164.6)
Regarding this exercise, I find it helpful to look at the connotations of left and right in our culture. “Left” comes from Old English, lyft, meaning “weak.” And worse, “sinister” comes from the Latin, sinister, “on the left side, unlucky, inauspicious.” While “right” comes from the Old English, riht, “go straight.”
The act of forgiveness, this shift from one state of mind to another, to the only true state, can be expressed in a variety of ways.
Conversion.
Transformation.
Correction.
Redemption.
Atonement.
Salvation.
Resurrection.
Release.
Relinquishment.
Letting go of the unreal.
Being carried Home.
Loosing the world.
Undoing.
Remembering and forgetting.
Healing.
Raj/Jesus expresses it in reference to wishing to see the Evidence of Love.
Now, “I wish to see the Evidence of Love” doesn’t mean looking at somebody who’s behaving badly and say, “Man, I wish to see the Evidence of Love there. I wish they would change. I would like to see them behaving nicely.” That isn’t what it means. What it means is, I wish to see them without looking through a preexisting definition I am holding about them. I wish to see there what I know is the Truth about them. I wish not to see my misperception of them. I wish to see what revelation, insight, has uncovered to me about them which I am seeing there, in spite of the way I used to interpret their behavior, and in spite of the way they see themselves.
You see what I’m saying? When you say, “I wish to see the Evidence of Love,” it’s you engaged in an act of projecting the True Consciousness of them there, instead of getting hung up on your perceptions of what’s going on based on your own tiny, fearful frame of mind, coupled with their behavior that is based on their tiny, troubled frame of mind. To say, “I wish to see the Evidence of Love there,” doesn’t mean, “I wish they would change.” It means I wish to see them in a new way. I wish to extend to them whatever Consciousness of Truth God will reveal to me. You see? It’s far different from saying, “Gee, it would really be nice if they were a little more pleasant to be around.” That’s not wishing to see the Evidence of Love. There’s no gift in it.
“I wish to see the Evidence of Love” means you are going to take the proactive step, we’ll say, of insisting upon asking for the Vision that will let you see or grasp the meaning of the fact that if there’s anything there at all where your Brother or Sister is, it has to be God. The moment you do that, the lens through which you’re looking shifts and you are looking for something different. You are looking to see the Evidence of Love there. You’re looking to see the more of What’s Really There than what you had seen, or even what your Brother thinks is there and calls himself or herself. Are you getting what I’m saying?
To wish to see the Evidence of Love is not a wish to stand in receipt of something. It’s a wish to make a gift of a new way of seeing that is gathered not from your memory, but a willingness and an expressed desire to have the Holy Spirit reveal to you What Is Truly There, just as the Holy Spirit, your Right Mind, looks at you and sees What’s Truly There and extends it to you, and does not believe what you think you are and all the feelings you have associated with what you think you are. And that’s why your communion with the Holy Spirit is always healing. And that’s why the Holy Spirit can turn everything, every situation to your advantage. You have the OPPORTUNITY with your Brothers and Sisters to be that which turns whatever is happening in their life to their advantage.
(Raj/Jesus Transcript, March 13, 2005, pp. 5,6)
And now I understand what it means to say I am responsible for what I see. It is significant that the following quotation comes from a section in the Course entitled, “The Responsibility for Sight.”
I am responsible for what I see.
I choose the feelings I experience, and I decide upon the goal I would achieve. And everything that seems to happen to me I ask for, and receive as I have asked. (T-21.II.2:3-5)
All along it has been difficult to understand how I could possibly be responsible for the things happening to me, particularly the bad things. Why would I ever ask for that? And now I realize I am responsible when I choose to see through the body’s eyes. I can just as well choose to see with vision. My choosing is my responsibility. My choice is the cause; I get the results, fully responsible for the choice.
Sometimes I go about pitying myself
and
all the time I am being carried on great winds across the sky.
(A Native American Saying)
And so I say to myself:
Each moment is an opportunity
to be carried gently home by the wind.
The Raj/Jesus transcript is available at the Northwest Foundation for ACIM.
Scroll down to the March 13, 2005, transcript.
Click here for the website.
The next day, I played it over in my mind. I actually listed the things that he said that pissed me off. I imagined scenarios where I really trashed him. I imagined another where I got into a teaching, even though he is barely familiar with A Course in Miracles. Then I turned on myself and asked how I could get so angry for so long when I have been at this mind-training for some time now.
Finally, I asked for help and sat down to read something that would remind me of the truth of what I am and what he is, the holy sons of God. I picked up, or rather I realize in retrospect , I was guided to pick up a folder of readings by Raj/Jesus who speaks through Paul Tuttle at the Northwestern Foundation of A Course in Miracles. I just love this material because Raj/Jesus reads a section of the Course and comments on it through Paul during a Study Group meeting. It is simply Jesus commenting on what he transcribed to Helen Schucman, only using a different set of metaphors, making it incredibly personal while expressing the truth of His unworldly masterpiece. I “happened” to select the transcript of March 13, 2005, as Raj/Jesus reads the section, “Two Evaluations,” Chapter 9, Section VII.
Early on, Raj/Jesus cites this sentence from the Course:
Every minute and every second gives you a chance to save YOURSELF.
(T-9.VII.1:6)
He goes on to comment:
You’re presented with the opportunity to see and be in your Sanity again. Every single thing that confronts you is nothing less than the Kingdom of Heaven seen clearly, or through a glass darkly. (Raj/Jesus Transcript, March 13, 2005, p. 2)
After reading those two sentences, I simply melted into the peace of God with no trace of anger or contempt. The dark night of the soul was over. It is always a matter of remembering and forgetting.
When I was reminded that the conversation presented me with an opportunity to choose to see clearly, or see through a glass darkly, I was free to choose, and melting into peace was the choice.
At this point, I became curious about the origins of the word, “opportunity.” The key is to see “port” hidden in the word. In Latin, opportunus, means “favorable,” deriving from ob portum veniens, meaning “coming toward port with a favorable wind.” What I had labeled as extremely negative, seeing through a glass darkly, was, in fact, an opportunity to see clearly, returning Home with a favorable wind.
And now, sitting here experiencing the peace of God, I am grateful for this individual and our conversation, and I trust when it happens again I will remember to look at it as an opportunity, a chance.
Do not lose these chances, not because they will not return, but because delay of joy is needless. God wills you perfect happiness now.
(T-9;VII.1:7,8)
Now, I am not making this up; as I am sitting here typing this, he just knocked on the door. He is my landlord, and he came, unexpectedly, to take care of some problems created by the recent flooding here in Lake Delton, Wisconsin. I took a deep breath, invited him in, and he, typically, said some things that would ordinarily have provoked me, but this time, I managed to look at him clearly, and we had a rather enjoyable conversation.
You can never forgive a person. You can only ask for help to let go of your unreal thoughts about him, projected from your insane, egoic mind.
Do nothing, then, and let forgiveness show
you what to do, through Him Who is your Guide,
your Savior and Protector, strong in hope,
and certain of your ultimate success.
He has forgiven you already, for
such is His function, given Him by God.
Now must you share His function, and forgive
whom He has saved, whose sinlessness He sees,
and whom He honors as the Son of God.
(W-p11. 1 What is forgiveness? 5)
Now, Dear Reader, I invite you to practice forgiveness, just in case your ego-mind sometimes makes up a storm, driving you out to sea.
Please bring to mind an individual who seems to be out there, causing you to see through a glass darkly.
Imagine looking at him through the ego’s eyes, the body’s eyes, projecting on him all of the scorn and anger from this state of mind, separate from God. Just allow the negative stuff to surface without resistance. Resist not evil.
Thank you.
Now, look at him with the vision of Christ, looking through his body to the Christ that he is, seeing a reflection of your true Self, joining with the Christ that you are. Namaste.
Thank you.
Obviously, I have no idea how this worked for you. Just stopping for a moment, stepping back, is sometimes enough to experience a shift in your mind.
It turns out then that everything can be used to undo perception, enabling you to learn to see with vision. Sometimes, when I find myself persistently looking through the body’s eyes, I practice by literally closing my right eye and looking at his image through my left, representing the egoic state of mind. Then I imagine looking through his image with my right eye, representing Christ’s vision. This literal shift from left to right, from misperception to vision is sacred.
Brother, this day is sacred to the world. Your vision, given you from far beyond all things within the world, looks back on them in a new light. And what you see becomes the healing and salvation of the world. The valuable and valueless are both perceived and recognized for what they are. And what is worthy of your love receives your love, while nothing to be feared remains.
(W-p11.164.6)
Regarding this exercise, I find it helpful to look at the connotations of left and right in our culture. “Left” comes from Old English, lyft, meaning “weak.” And worse, “sinister” comes from the Latin, sinister, “on the left side, unlucky, inauspicious.” While “right” comes from the Old English, riht, “go straight.”
The act of forgiveness, this shift from one state of mind to another, to the only true state, can be expressed in a variety of ways.
Conversion.
Transformation.
Correction.
Redemption.
Atonement.
Salvation.
Resurrection.
Release.
Relinquishment.
Letting go of the unreal.
Being carried Home.
Loosing the world.
Undoing.
Remembering and forgetting.
Healing.
Raj/Jesus expresses it in reference to wishing to see the Evidence of Love.
Now, “I wish to see the Evidence of Love” doesn’t mean looking at somebody who’s behaving badly and say, “Man, I wish to see the Evidence of Love there. I wish they would change. I would like to see them behaving nicely.” That isn’t what it means. What it means is, I wish to see them without looking through a preexisting definition I am holding about them. I wish to see there what I know is the Truth about them. I wish not to see my misperception of them. I wish to see what revelation, insight, has uncovered to me about them which I am seeing there, in spite of the way I used to interpret their behavior, and in spite of the way they see themselves.
You see what I’m saying? When you say, “I wish to see the Evidence of Love,” it’s you engaged in an act of projecting the True Consciousness of them there, instead of getting hung up on your perceptions of what’s going on based on your own tiny, fearful frame of mind, coupled with their behavior that is based on their tiny, troubled frame of mind. To say, “I wish to see the Evidence of Love there,” doesn’t mean, “I wish they would change.” It means I wish to see them in a new way. I wish to extend to them whatever Consciousness of Truth God will reveal to me. You see? It’s far different from saying, “Gee, it would really be nice if they were a little more pleasant to be around.” That’s not wishing to see the Evidence of Love. There’s no gift in it.
“I wish to see the Evidence of Love” means you are going to take the proactive step, we’ll say, of insisting upon asking for the Vision that will let you see or grasp the meaning of the fact that if there’s anything there at all where your Brother or Sister is, it has to be God. The moment you do that, the lens through which you’re looking shifts and you are looking for something different. You are looking to see the Evidence of Love there. You’re looking to see the more of What’s Really There than what you had seen, or even what your Brother thinks is there and calls himself or herself. Are you getting what I’m saying?
To wish to see the Evidence of Love is not a wish to stand in receipt of something. It’s a wish to make a gift of a new way of seeing that is gathered not from your memory, but a willingness and an expressed desire to have the Holy Spirit reveal to you What Is Truly There, just as the Holy Spirit, your Right Mind, looks at you and sees What’s Truly There and extends it to you, and does not believe what you think you are and all the feelings you have associated with what you think you are. And that’s why your communion with the Holy Spirit is always healing. And that’s why the Holy Spirit can turn everything, every situation to your advantage. You have the OPPORTUNITY with your Brothers and Sisters to be that which turns whatever is happening in their life to their advantage.
(Raj/Jesus Transcript, March 13, 2005, pp. 5,6)
And now I understand what it means to say I am responsible for what I see. It is significant that the following quotation comes from a section in the Course entitled, “The Responsibility for Sight.”
I am responsible for what I see.
I choose the feelings I experience, and I decide upon the goal I would achieve. And everything that seems to happen to me I ask for, and receive as I have asked. (T-21.II.2:3-5)
All along it has been difficult to understand how I could possibly be responsible for the things happening to me, particularly the bad things. Why would I ever ask for that? And now I realize I am responsible when I choose to see through the body’s eyes. I can just as well choose to see with vision. My choosing is my responsibility. My choice is the cause; I get the results, fully responsible for the choice.
Sometimes I go about pitying myself
and
all the time I am being carried on great winds across the sky.
(A Native American Saying)
And so I say to myself:
Each moment is an opportunity
to be carried gently home by the wind.
The Raj/Jesus transcript is available at the Northwest Foundation for ACIM.
Scroll down to the March 13, 2005, transcript.
Click here for the website.
Saturday, June 07, 2008
The Eye of the Storm
Earlier today a tornado set down nearby, and right now it's early evening and another warning siren just went off, and soft thunder is rumbling in the dark sky, and the wind is coming up.
I am reminded of a poem I wrote some time ago, and I am posting it now.
THE EYE OF THE STORM
AND THE PEACE OF GOD
Flying research missions into the eye
of the hurricane, intrepid pilots
report of bravely hurtling through the eye
wall, the outer layer, a maelstrom, a
grinding stream, battered by torrential rains
and terrifying, one-hundred mile winds.
Suddenly, they break through, dazzled by blue
sky and sunlight, the calm at the center
of the storm, a clear space, sometimes forty
miles in diameter, where the winds are
light, the sky is sunny, stillness at last.
In wonder, they gaze up at the sides, the
blue-white clouds of the eye wall, towering
thousands of feet, gradually sloping
away, the walls of a great stadium.
This place at the center can be likened
unto the place in our center, God's peace.
There is a place in you where this whole world
has been forgotten; where no memory
of sin and of illusion lingers still.
There is a place in you which time has left,
and echoes of eternity are heard.
There is a resting place so still no sound
except a hymn to Heaven rises up
to gladden God the Father and the Son.
Where Both abide are They remembered, Both.
And where They are is Heaven and is peace.
Think not that you can change Their dwelling place.
For your Identity abides in Them,
and where They are, forever must you be.
The changelessness of Heaven is in you,
so deep within that nothing in this world
but passes by, unnoticed and unseen.
The still infinity of endless peace
surrounds you gently in its soft embrace,
so strong and quiet, tranquil in the might
of its Creator, nothing can intrude
upon the sacred Son of God within.
T-29.V:1,2
This poem was born from the seed of this
one revelatory Thought: Each moment in
time presents an opportunity for
conversion to eternity. The world
of time and illusion, like the eye wall,
just false perception, can be broken through.
The world is false perception. It is born
of error, and it has not left its source.
It will remain no longer than the thought
that gave it birth is cherished. When the thought
of separation has been changed to one
of true forgiveness, will the world be seen
in quite another light; and one which leads
to truth, where all the world must disappear
and all its errors vanish. Now its source
has gone, and its effects are gone as well.
The world was made as an attack on God.
It symbolizes fear. And what is fear
except love's absence? Thus the world was meant
to be a place where God could enter not,
and where His Son could be apart from Him.
Here was perception born, for knowledge could
not cause such insane thoughts. But eyes deceive,
and ears hear falsely. Now mistakes become
quite possible, for certainty has gone.
The mechanisms of illusion have
been born instead. And now they go to find
what has been given them to seek. Their aim
is to fulfill the purpose which the world
was made to witness and make real. They see
in its illusions but a solid base
where truth exists, upheld apart from lies.
Yet everything that they report is but
illusion which is kept apart from truth.
W-p11.3 “What is the World?” 1-3
The wind and rain and terrifying sounds
of the eye wall can be likened unto
the false world, made from sourceless thoughts, unreal,
simply mechanisms of illusion.
As sight was made to lead away from truth,
it can be redirected. Sounds become
the call of God, and all perception can
be given a new purpose by the One
Whom God appointed Savior to the world.
Follow His Light, and see the world as He
beholds it. Hear His Voice alone in all
that speaks to you. And let Him give you peace
and certainty, which you have thrown away,
but Heaven has preserved for you in Him.
Let us not rest content until the world
has joined our changed perception. Let us not
be satisfied until forgiveness has
been made complete. And let us not attempt
to change our function. We must save the world.
For we who made it must behold it through
the eyes of Christ, that what was made to die
can be restored to everlasting life.
W-p11.3 "What is the World?" 4,5
Just as pilots know now that the eye wall
will give way to the eye, we now know that
false perception will give way to God’s peace
when we ask the Holy Spirit for help,
certain that we are headed towards peace
no matter the terror of our storm thoughts,
trusting that “This is not so,” knowing we
will break through to the eye of the storm, now,
seeing with the eyes of Christ, proclaiming,
I AM THAT, I am the eye of the storm,
the stillness and the peace of God at last.
I am reminded of a poem I wrote some time ago, and I am posting it now.
THE EYE OF THE STORM
AND THE PEACE OF GOD
Flying research missions into the eye
of the hurricane, intrepid pilots
report of bravely hurtling through the eye
wall, the outer layer, a maelstrom, a
grinding stream, battered by torrential rains
and terrifying, one-hundred mile winds.
Suddenly, they break through, dazzled by blue
sky and sunlight, the calm at the center
of the storm, a clear space, sometimes forty
miles in diameter, where the winds are
light, the sky is sunny, stillness at last.
In wonder, they gaze up at the sides, the
blue-white clouds of the eye wall, towering
thousands of feet, gradually sloping
away, the walls of a great stadium.
This place at the center can be likened
unto the place in our center, God's peace.
There is a place in you where this whole world
has been forgotten; where no memory
of sin and of illusion lingers still.
There is a place in you which time has left,
and echoes of eternity are heard.
There is a resting place so still no sound
except a hymn to Heaven rises up
to gladden God the Father and the Son.
Where Both abide are They remembered, Both.
And where They are is Heaven and is peace.
Think not that you can change Their dwelling place.
For your Identity abides in Them,
and where They are, forever must you be.
The changelessness of Heaven is in you,
so deep within that nothing in this world
but passes by, unnoticed and unseen.
The still infinity of endless peace
surrounds you gently in its soft embrace,
so strong and quiet, tranquil in the might
of its Creator, nothing can intrude
upon the sacred Son of God within.
T-29.V:1,2
This poem was born from the seed of this
one revelatory Thought: Each moment in
time presents an opportunity for
conversion to eternity. The world
of time and illusion, like the eye wall,
just false perception, can be broken through.
The world is false perception. It is born
of error, and it has not left its source.
It will remain no longer than the thought
that gave it birth is cherished. When the thought
of separation has been changed to one
of true forgiveness, will the world be seen
in quite another light; and one which leads
to truth, where all the world must disappear
and all its errors vanish. Now its source
has gone, and its effects are gone as well.
The world was made as an attack on God.
It symbolizes fear. And what is fear
except love's absence? Thus the world was meant
to be a place where God could enter not,
and where His Son could be apart from Him.
Here was perception born, for knowledge could
not cause such insane thoughts. But eyes deceive,
and ears hear falsely. Now mistakes become
quite possible, for certainty has gone.
The mechanisms of illusion have
been born instead. And now they go to find
what has been given them to seek. Their aim
is to fulfill the purpose which the world
was made to witness and make real. They see
in its illusions but a solid base
where truth exists, upheld apart from lies.
Yet everything that they report is but
illusion which is kept apart from truth.
W-p11.3 “What is the World?” 1-3
The wind and rain and terrifying sounds
of the eye wall can be likened unto
the false world, made from sourceless thoughts, unreal,
simply mechanisms of illusion.
As sight was made to lead away from truth,
it can be redirected. Sounds become
the call of God, and all perception can
be given a new purpose by the One
Whom God appointed Savior to the world.
Follow His Light, and see the world as He
beholds it. Hear His Voice alone in all
that speaks to you. And let Him give you peace
and certainty, which you have thrown away,
but Heaven has preserved for you in Him.
Let us not rest content until the world
has joined our changed perception. Let us not
be satisfied until forgiveness has
been made complete. And let us not attempt
to change our function. We must save the world.
For we who made it must behold it through
the eyes of Christ, that what was made to die
can be restored to everlasting life.
W-p11.3 "What is the World?" 4,5
Just as pilots know now that the eye wall
will give way to the eye, we now know that
false perception will give way to God’s peace
when we ask the Holy Spirit for help,
certain that we are headed towards peace
no matter the terror of our storm thoughts,
trusting that “This is not so,” knowing we
will break through to the eye of the storm, now,
seeing with the eyes of Christ, proclaiming,
I AM THAT, I am the eye of the storm,
the stillness and the peace of God at last.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
I Am Saved, or Damned, Simply by a Thought
Yesterday, I found myself in conflict with a good friend. Since I went to bed with it unresolved, I started thinking about it as soon as I woke up this morning, feeling sad and fearful. Just after getting out of bed, I prepared coffee in our French press and started reading Lesson 96, Salvation comes from my one Self. Even while doing the lesson, I kept hearing this nagging, frantic voice in my mind saying things like, “You’re not a good friend;” “You really fucked up this time.” This was obviously the voice of the ego.
Ordinarily, I try not to use the term “ego” because this usage tends to objectify it, making it easy to disown, as if it were outside of me. When, in fact, I am the ego when I think I am that, while in truth, I am That, the holy Son of God. It is remarkable that the word “ego” comes from Latin, the personal pronoun meaning “I.”
When I realized what I was doing to myself by paying attention to this painful voice, I put down the Workbook, grabbed my notebook and began transcribing what was going on in my mind, trying to slow things down so that I could be aware of just one thought at a time.
The ego is always eager to pounce, particularly when I am feeling down.
The pounce is in the form of a thought.
This thought is the ego’s attempt to keep me down, literally, as I hang my head in shame and fear.
This is the ego’s attempt to defend itself against God.
While my head is down, I am not likely to look up to see the face of Christ, not likely to look up to ask the Holy Spirit for help.
While feeling the pain of this attack thought, I encourage other attack thoughts by indulging in past memories and associations, and the ego keeps pouncing.
This defensive strategy works me over pretty well, until I recognize the ego’s intent.
In this recognition, I do look up and ask for help.
The Holy Spirit is the bridge between the ego’s defensive intent and my awareness of my true Self.
The Holy Spirit’s help also comes in the form of a thought, reminding me that I am invulnerable, the holy Son of God.
I am created perfectly; I am not as I made my egoic self, a cruel parody of my birthright, my true Self.
Salvation, too, is simply a thought, just as the ego’s pounce is a thought.
We are always dealing only with thoughts.
Right now, the Holy Spirit’s Voice is an easy choice, reminding me of the truth of what I am, and I am saved from the attacking voice, experiencing the peace of God, as the conflict with my brother dissolves.
I do not know whether or not he is still having conflicting thoughts.
He is totally responsible for his thoughts; I am totally responsible for mine.
While experiencing peace, I cannot project pain; while experiencing peace, I have an opportunity to join with him.
I can now join because conflicting thoughts are not in my awareness.
Actually, it is more accurate to say that conflicting thoughts do enter my awareness, but now I just don’t pay them any attention. I saw a good analogy in the newspaper today. A woman said, “It’s like a ticking clock keeps you up at night. You eventually fall asleep, not because the ticking stops, but because you figure out how to stop hearing it.”
When I figure out how to stop hearing attack thoughts, I, of course, wake up, rather than fall asleep, but it does not mean that they are not still ticking away.
In this waking state, I can now extend an invitation to my friend to join because I am clear in my mind, and my clarity is my responsibility, his state is his.
The chances are good now that the light will do the work, and we will join.
And then I put down my notebook and picked up the Workbook again to finish Lesson 96, Salvation comes from my one Self.
I invite you now, Dear Reader, to read today’s lesson in blank verse, meaning ten syllables per line, with the accent on every other syllable, for examples:
we WILL at TEMPT to DAY to FIND this THOUGHT W-p1.96.8:1
Lesson 96 follows, below, in blank verse. You will observe that the first paragraph is in prose. Jesus has been making the transition from prose to blank verse in the recent lessons. Starting with Lesson 91, Miracles are seen in light, Jesus has been increasing the stanzas of blank verse, while decreasing the paragraphs of prose. Finally, the first lesson entirely in blank verse is Lesson 98, I will accept my part in God’s plan for salvation. Each lesson from 98 to 365 is entirely in blank verse, the rhythm echoing the beating of your heart.
To take a look at all of the passages in the Course in blank verse, please go to my website to peruse Steve Russell’s book, The Rhythm and Reason of Reality.
Although you are one Self, you experience yourself as two; as both good and evil, loving and hating, mind and body. This sense of being split into opposites induces feelings of acute and constant conflict, and leads to frantic attempts to reconcile the contradictory aspects of this self-perception. You have sought many such solutions, and none of them has worked. The opposites you see in you will never be compatible. But one exists.
The fact that truth and illusion cannot
be reconciled, no matter how you try,
what means you use and where you see the problem,
must be accepted if you would be saved.
Until you have accepted this, you will attempt
an endless list of goals you cannot reach;
a senseless series of expenditures
of time and effort, hopefulness and doubt,
each one as futile as the one before,
and failing as the next one surely will.
Problems that have no meaning cannot be
resolved within the framework they are set.
Two selves in conflict could not be resolved,
and good and evil have no meeting place.
The self you made can never be your Self,
nor can your Self be split in two, and still
be what It is and must forever be.
A mind and body cannot both exist.
Make no attempt to reconcile the two,
or one denies the other can be real.
If you are physical, your mind is gone
from your self-concept, for it has no place
in which it could be really part of you.
If you are spirit, then the body must
be meaningless to your reality.
Spirit makes use of mind as means to find
its Self expression. And the mind which serves
the spirit is at peace and filled with joy.
Its power comes from spirit, and it is
fulfilling happily its function here.
Yet mind can also see itself divorced
from spirit, and perceive itself within
a body it confuses with itself.
Without its function then it has no peace,
and happiness is alien to its thoughts.
Yet mind apart from spirit cannot think.
It has denied its Source of strength, and sees
itself as helpless, limited and weak.
Dissociated from its function now,
it thinks it is alone and separate,
attacked by armies massed against itself
and hiding in the body's frail support.
Now must it reconcile unlike with like,
for this is what it thinks that it is for.
Waste no more time on this. Who can resolve
the senseless conflicts which a dream presents?
What could the resolution mean in truth?
What purpose could it serve? What is it for?
alvation cannot make illusions real,
nor solve a problem that does not exist.
Perhaps you hope it can. Yet would you have
God's plan for the release of His dear Son
bring pain to him, and fail to set him free?
Your Self retains Its Thoughts, and they remain
within your mind and in the Mind of God.
The Holy Spirit holds salvation in
your mind, and offers it the way to peace.
Salvation is a thought you share with God,
because His Voice accepted it for you
and answered in your name that it was done.
Thus is salvation kept among the Thoughts
your Self holds dear and cherishes for you.
We will attempt today to find this thought,
whose presence in your mind is guaranteed
by Him Who speaks to you from your one Self.
Our hourly five-minute practicing
will be a search for Him within your mind.
Salvation comes from this one Self through Him
Who is the Bridge between your mind and It.
Wait patiently, and let Him speak to you
about your Self, and what your mind can do,
restored to It and free to serve Its Will.
Begin with saying this:
Salvation comes from my one Self.
Its Thoughts are mine to use.
Then seek Its Thoughts, and claim them as your own.
These are your own real thoughts you have denied,
and let your mind go wandering in a world
of dreams, to find illusions in their place.
Here are your thoughts, the only ones you have.
Salvation is among them; find it there.
If you succeed, the thoughts that come to you
will tell you you are saved, and that your mind
has found the function that it sought to lose.
Your Self will welcome it and give it peace.
Restored in strength, it will again flow out
from spirit to the spirit in all things
created by the Spirit as Itself.
Your mind will bless all things. Confusion done,
you are restored, for you have found your Self.
Your Self knows that you cannot fail today.
Perhaps your mind remains uncertain yet
a little while. Be not dismayed by this.
The joy your Self experiences It
will save for you, and it will yet be yours
in full awareness. Every time you spend
five minutes of the hour seeking Him
Who joins your mind and Self, you offer Him
another treasure to be kept for you.
Each time today you tell your frantic mind
salvation comes from your one Self, you lay
another treasure in your growing store.
And all of it is given everyone
who asks for it, and will accept the gift.
Think, then, how much is given unto you
to give this day, that it be given you!
Ordinarily, I try not to use the term “ego” because this usage tends to objectify it, making it easy to disown, as if it were outside of me. When, in fact, I am the ego when I think I am that, while in truth, I am That, the holy Son of God. It is remarkable that the word “ego” comes from Latin, the personal pronoun meaning “I.”
When I realized what I was doing to myself by paying attention to this painful voice, I put down the Workbook, grabbed my notebook and began transcribing what was going on in my mind, trying to slow things down so that I could be aware of just one thought at a time.
The ego is always eager to pounce, particularly when I am feeling down.
The pounce is in the form of a thought.
This thought is the ego’s attempt to keep me down, literally, as I hang my head in shame and fear.
This is the ego’s attempt to defend itself against God.
While my head is down, I am not likely to look up to see the face of Christ, not likely to look up to ask the Holy Spirit for help.
While feeling the pain of this attack thought, I encourage other attack thoughts by indulging in past memories and associations, and the ego keeps pouncing.
This defensive strategy works me over pretty well, until I recognize the ego’s intent.
In this recognition, I do look up and ask for help.
The Holy Spirit is the bridge between the ego’s defensive intent and my awareness of my true Self.
The Holy Spirit’s help also comes in the form of a thought, reminding me that I am invulnerable, the holy Son of God.
I am created perfectly; I am not as I made my egoic self, a cruel parody of my birthright, my true Self.
Salvation, too, is simply a thought, just as the ego’s pounce is a thought.
We are always dealing only with thoughts.
Right now, the Holy Spirit’s Voice is an easy choice, reminding me of the truth of what I am, and I am saved from the attacking voice, experiencing the peace of God, as the conflict with my brother dissolves.
I do not know whether or not he is still having conflicting thoughts.
He is totally responsible for his thoughts; I am totally responsible for mine.
While experiencing peace, I cannot project pain; while experiencing peace, I have an opportunity to join with him.
I can now join because conflicting thoughts are not in my awareness.
Actually, it is more accurate to say that conflicting thoughts do enter my awareness, but now I just don’t pay them any attention. I saw a good analogy in the newspaper today. A woman said, “It’s like a ticking clock keeps you up at night. You eventually fall asleep, not because the ticking stops, but because you figure out how to stop hearing it.”
When I figure out how to stop hearing attack thoughts, I, of course, wake up, rather than fall asleep, but it does not mean that they are not still ticking away.
In this waking state, I can now extend an invitation to my friend to join because I am clear in my mind, and my clarity is my responsibility, his state is his.
The chances are good now that the light will do the work, and we will join.
And then I put down my notebook and picked up the Workbook again to finish Lesson 96, Salvation comes from my one Self.
I invite you now, Dear Reader, to read today’s lesson in blank verse, meaning ten syllables per line, with the accent on every other syllable, for examples:
we WILL at TEMPT to DAY to FIND this THOUGHT W-p1.96.8:1
Lesson 96 follows, below, in blank verse. You will observe that the first paragraph is in prose. Jesus has been making the transition from prose to blank verse in the recent lessons. Starting with Lesson 91, Miracles are seen in light, Jesus has been increasing the stanzas of blank verse, while decreasing the paragraphs of prose. Finally, the first lesson entirely in blank verse is Lesson 98, I will accept my part in God’s plan for salvation. Each lesson from 98 to 365 is entirely in blank verse, the rhythm echoing the beating of your heart.
To take a look at all of the passages in the Course in blank verse, please go to my website to peruse Steve Russell’s book, The Rhythm and Reason of Reality.
Although you are one Self, you experience yourself as two; as both good and evil, loving and hating, mind and body. This sense of being split into opposites induces feelings of acute and constant conflict, and leads to frantic attempts to reconcile the contradictory aspects of this self-perception. You have sought many such solutions, and none of them has worked. The opposites you see in you will never be compatible. But one exists.
The fact that truth and illusion cannot
be reconciled, no matter how you try,
what means you use and where you see the problem,
must be accepted if you would be saved.
Until you have accepted this, you will attempt
an endless list of goals you cannot reach;
a senseless series of expenditures
of time and effort, hopefulness and doubt,
each one as futile as the one before,
and failing as the next one surely will.
Problems that have no meaning cannot be
resolved within the framework they are set.
Two selves in conflict could not be resolved,
and good and evil have no meeting place.
The self you made can never be your Self,
nor can your Self be split in two, and still
be what It is and must forever be.
A mind and body cannot both exist.
Make no attempt to reconcile the two,
or one denies the other can be real.
If you are physical, your mind is gone
from your self-concept, for it has no place
in which it could be really part of you.
If you are spirit, then the body must
be meaningless to your reality.
Spirit makes use of mind as means to find
its Self expression. And the mind which serves
the spirit is at peace and filled with joy.
Its power comes from spirit, and it is
fulfilling happily its function here.
Yet mind can also see itself divorced
from spirit, and perceive itself within
a body it confuses with itself.
Without its function then it has no peace,
and happiness is alien to its thoughts.
Yet mind apart from spirit cannot think.
It has denied its Source of strength, and sees
itself as helpless, limited and weak.
Dissociated from its function now,
it thinks it is alone and separate,
attacked by armies massed against itself
and hiding in the body's frail support.
Now must it reconcile unlike with like,
for this is what it thinks that it is for.
Waste no more time on this. Who can resolve
the senseless conflicts which a dream presents?
What could the resolution mean in truth?
What purpose could it serve? What is it for?
alvation cannot make illusions real,
nor solve a problem that does not exist.
Perhaps you hope it can. Yet would you have
God's plan for the release of His dear Son
bring pain to him, and fail to set him free?
Your Self retains Its Thoughts, and they remain
within your mind and in the Mind of God.
The Holy Spirit holds salvation in
your mind, and offers it the way to peace.
Salvation is a thought you share with God,
because His Voice accepted it for you
and answered in your name that it was done.
Thus is salvation kept among the Thoughts
your Self holds dear and cherishes for you.
We will attempt today to find this thought,
whose presence in your mind is guaranteed
by Him Who speaks to you from your one Self.
Our hourly five-minute practicing
will be a search for Him within your mind.
Salvation comes from this one Self through Him
Who is the Bridge between your mind and It.
Wait patiently, and let Him speak to you
about your Self, and what your mind can do,
restored to It and free to serve Its Will.
Begin with saying this:
Salvation comes from my one Self.
Its Thoughts are mine to use.
Then seek Its Thoughts, and claim them as your own.
These are your own real thoughts you have denied,
and let your mind go wandering in a world
of dreams, to find illusions in their place.
Here are your thoughts, the only ones you have.
Salvation is among them; find it there.
If you succeed, the thoughts that come to you
will tell you you are saved, and that your mind
has found the function that it sought to lose.
Your Self will welcome it and give it peace.
Restored in strength, it will again flow out
from spirit to the spirit in all things
created by the Spirit as Itself.
Your mind will bless all things. Confusion done,
you are restored, for you have found your Self.
Your Self knows that you cannot fail today.
Perhaps your mind remains uncertain yet
a little while. Be not dismayed by this.
The joy your Self experiences It
will save for you, and it will yet be yours
in full awareness. Every time you spend
five minutes of the hour seeking Him
Who joins your mind and Self, you offer Him
another treasure to be kept for you.
Each time today you tell your frantic mind
salvation comes from your one Self, you lay
another treasure in your growing store.
And all of it is given everyone
who asks for it, and will accept the gift.
Think, then, how much is given unto you
to give this day, that it be given you!
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Things I Say to Myself to Wake up from the Dream and Sink into the Peace of God
Walking around in the dream, I too often forget the truth of what I am. Remembering that I am God’s holy Son requires great vigilance and determination and dedication. The temptation to forget that I am already safe at Home is very powerful. It is always a matter of forgetting and remembering, moment to moment.
It’s like walking into a movie theatre, finding your seat, settling in while the lights dim and the credits roll, then watching the images projected onto the blank screen, getting caught up in the story, losing all sense of your surroundings, until the ending credits begin to scroll down the screen and the lights brighten. You slowly come to our senses, putting on your familiar persona like your coat, and walk out of the theatre, forgetting that there’s absolutely no difference between the images on the movie screen and the images that are now flooding your screen. They are equally unreal.
I find myself walking through the day usually absorbed in these images. When I become aware of this absorption, I ask for help to remember that they are simply thoughts I have made, thrown out onto the blank screen by my personal projector.
God has given you the means for undoing what you have made. Listen, and you will learn how to remember what you are. T-10.V.11:6-7
It helps me to remember what I am by saying these things to myself.
. . .state of mind
I frequently repeat this sentence from Brother Laurence, “It’s not what you do, it’s the state of mind in which you do it.” This reminder quickly takes me to the realization that there is only one state of mind, the peace of God, but there appears to be another, the state ruled by a little speck in my brain called the ego, having no source in reality. From this state are projected thought-images that are over the moment they occur.
. . .not of the world
In that sense, I am in the world, but not of the world. I am walking around in a projected world, but I am not of this world because I can choose to ask for help to be in the state of mind of the peace of God. In this state I am lifted out of the world of my projections.
. . .the eyes of Christ
When I am in this state, the only state there is, I see through the eyes of Christ. I am always looking into a mirror. Through Christ’s eyes I experience the reflection of peace, joy, love, light, truth, perfection, oneness, reality.
. . .the body’s eyes
When I see through the body’s eyes, I experience fear, guilt, conflict, pain, anxiety, depression. It is always either/or, Christ’s eyes, or the body’s eyes. It’s on or off; it is always my choice, Heaven or hell.
. . .joining with my brother
I experience hell when I see my brother’s body and his behavior and find myself making judgments, using the pronoun you, attacking and blaming him, putting everything outside of myself. I experience Heaven when I look through his body and behavior and see the face of Christ reflecting back to me, using the pronoun I, taking full responsibility for what I am experiencing. In this state of mind we join, and I can experience His bright reflection.
. . ."I” need help
I always need help, and it always helps me to take a look at who this “I” is. First of all, there is only one I, the one created by God. But this separate “I” can appear to be seduced by the ego, taking on the ego’s persona and allying with it. I need help to break away from this unholy alliance and join with my Christ Self, and then I am at safe at Home, still as God created me.
. . .familiar versus the Real
This seduction is a result of my conditioning as a body. I find that trusting the body’s senses of sight and sound and smell and taste and touch make a world that is completely familiar, natural, habitual, normal, ordinary, and universal. I forget that this is an unholy alliance made by my projected thought-images. I come to learn that what cannot be sensed is Real, and what is Real is perfectly natural.
. . .the Holy Spirit
Thank God, help is already here in my mind. The Holy Spirit’s is the bridge between my states of mind, my state of dreaming and my state of reality and peace. It is simply, and profoundly, a matter of remembering and forgetting. When I truly ask for help to remember, all of the power of the universe rushes in to help me because that is what I am as God’s Son. When I forget, I am making up a world where nothing is happening. An image appears and quickly vanishes; it’s over. As a waiter said to me the other day as he served me my lunch, after he had recited to me a long list of personal woes, “I said to myself, it ain’t happening.”
. . .gratitude
When I come into the awareness of the only thing that is really happening, now, I am filled with gratitude. When I am grateful and my mind is still, I find that I am most receptive. In this state, I can more easily hear the Voice for God speaking to me all through the day. This Voice prompts me, and I simply do the next thing.
It’s like walking into a movie theatre, finding your seat, settling in while the lights dim and the credits roll, then watching the images projected onto the blank screen, getting caught up in the story, losing all sense of your surroundings, until the ending credits begin to scroll down the screen and the lights brighten. You slowly come to our senses, putting on your familiar persona like your coat, and walk out of the theatre, forgetting that there’s absolutely no difference between the images on the movie screen and the images that are now flooding your screen. They are equally unreal.
I find myself walking through the day usually absorbed in these images. When I become aware of this absorption, I ask for help to remember that they are simply thoughts I have made, thrown out onto the blank screen by my personal projector.
God has given you the means for undoing what you have made. Listen, and you will learn how to remember what you are. T-10.V.11:6-7
It helps me to remember what I am by saying these things to myself.
. . .state of mind
I frequently repeat this sentence from Brother Laurence, “It’s not what you do, it’s the state of mind in which you do it.” This reminder quickly takes me to the realization that there is only one state of mind, the peace of God, but there appears to be another, the state ruled by a little speck in my brain called the ego, having no source in reality. From this state are projected thought-images that are over the moment they occur.
. . .not of the world
In that sense, I am in the world, but not of the world. I am walking around in a projected world, but I am not of this world because I can choose to ask for help to be in the state of mind of the peace of God. In this state I am lifted out of the world of my projections.
. . .the eyes of Christ
When I am in this state, the only state there is, I see through the eyes of Christ. I am always looking into a mirror. Through Christ’s eyes I experience the reflection of peace, joy, love, light, truth, perfection, oneness, reality.
. . .the body’s eyes
When I see through the body’s eyes, I experience fear, guilt, conflict, pain, anxiety, depression. It is always either/or, Christ’s eyes, or the body’s eyes. It’s on or off; it is always my choice, Heaven or hell.
. . .joining with my brother
I experience hell when I see my brother’s body and his behavior and find myself making judgments, using the pronoun you, attacking and blaming him, putting everything outside of myself. I experience Heaven when I look through his body and behavior and see the face of Christ reflecting back to me, using the pronoun I, taking full responsibility for what I am experiencing. In this state of mind we join, and I can experience His bright reflection.
. . ."I” need help
I always need help, and it always helps me to take a look at who this “I” is. First of all, there is only one I, the one created by God. But this separate “I” can appear to be seduced by the ego, taking on the ego’s persona and allying with it. I need help to break away from this unholy alliance and join with my Christ Self, and then I am at safe at Home, still as God created me.
. . .familiar versus the Real
This seduction is a result of my conditioning as a body. I find that trusting the body’s senses of sight and sound and smell and taste and touch make a world that is completely familiar, natural, habitual, normal, ordinary, and universal. I forget that this is an unholy alliance made by my projected thought-images. I come to learn that what cannot be sensed is Real, and what is Real is perfectly natural.
. . .the Holy Spirit
Thank God, help is already here in my mind. The Holy Spirit’s is the bridge between my states of mind, my state of dreaming and my state of reality and peace. It is simply, and profoundly, a matter of remembering and forgetting. When I truly ask for help to remember, all of the power of the universe rushes in to help me because that is what I am as God’s Son. When I forget, I am making up a world where nothing is happening. An image appears and quickly vanishes; it’s over. As a waiter said to me the other day as he served me my lunch, after he had recited to me a long list of personal woes, “I said to myself, it ain’t happening.”
. . .gratitude
When I come into the awareness of the only thing that is really happening, now, I am filled with gratitude. When I am grateful and my mind is still, I find that I am most receptive. In this state, I can more easily hear the Voice for God speaking to me all through the day. This Voice prompts me, and I simply do the next thing.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
The Inevitability of Hearing the Voice for God
A couple of days ago I came across an article in The New York Times by a journalist, Sara Rimer, “Gatsby’s Green Light Beckons a New Set of Strivers.” Apparently, the novel, written over 80 years ago, is speaking to high school students now, particularly immigrants.
BOSTON — Jinzhao Wang, 14, who immigrated two years ago from China, has never seen anything like the huge mansions that loomed over Long Island Sound in glamorous 1920s New York. But F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel, The Great Gatsby, with its themes of possibility and aspiration, speaks to her.
She is inspired by the green light at the end of the dock, which for Jay Gatsby, the self-made millionaire from North Dakota, symbolizes the upper-class woman he longs for. “Green color always represents hope,” Jinzhao said.
“My green light?” said Jinzhao, who has been studying “Gatsby” in her sophomore English class at the Boston Latin School. “My green light is Harvard.”
Gatsby, of course, is the doomed dreamer in the novel who is obsessed with his love for Daisy, a woman he courted eight years previously, and now believes that he can repeat the past and win her love, again. When we first encounter him in the novel, he is staring at the green light at the end of her dock across the bay, symbolizing his romantic dream.
This article brought back memories for me because in March of 1965 I wrote a critical essay and lesson plan on The Great Gatsby, “A paper submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Teaching from The University of Chicago.” Over the years, through all the moves from city to city, I managed to keep a copy of that essay. I found it yesterday and read it for the first time since I wrote it so long ago. Just holding it in my hands takes me back. It is a copy of the original that was submitted, a carbon copy, thin, yellowing paper with gray carriage marks of the typewriter, dark, shadowy columns running down each page. Sometimes letters are hard to read because I had used Whiteout to type corrections on the original. I had typed it on my portable Remington, a thoughtful and practical gift from by parents for my high school graduation.
This seventeen-page essay actually holds up quite well after all these years. I can see that my young, scholarly self took his task seriously. In preparation for writing it, I had read Fitzgerald’s other novels, his short stories, and a dozen books of literary criticism. My young self argued his thesis rather tenaciously.
Now, there is only one reason for this nostalgic look at this past event, and the word “nostalgic” is just right, because the word means “a longing for home,” from the Greek nostos, meaning "homecoming," and algos, "pain." The home I am referring to here is being Home in God.
This world you seem to live in is not home
to you. And somewhere in your mind you know
that this is true. A memory of home
keeps haunting you, as if there were a place
that called you to return, although you do
not recognize the voice, nor what it is
the Voice reminds you of. Yet still you feel
an alien here, from somewhere all unknown.
Nothing so definite that you could say
with certainty you are an exile here.
Just a persistent feeling, sometimes not
more than a tiny throb, at other times
hardly remembered, actively dismissed,
but surely to return to mind again.
W-p1.182.1
One of my favorite themes is that we are always being spoken to by this Voice, whether or not we hear it. It is inevitable as God’s Son that we hear His Voice, even though we are doing everything in our power to defend ourselves against hearing His Voice. In fact, hearing it is completely natural, and not hearing, or defending ourselves against it, is completely unnatural.
It is quite possible to listen to God's Voice all through the day without interrupting your regular activities in any way. The part of your mind in which truth abides is in constant communication with God, whether you are aware of it or not. W-p1.49.1:1-3
The part that is listening to the Voice for God is calm, always at rest and wholly certain. It is really the only part there is. 2:1,2
Sink deep into the peace that waits for you beyond the frantic, riotous thoughts and sights and sounds of this insane world. You do not live here. We are trying to reach your real home. We are trying to reach the place where you are truly welcome. We are trying to reach God. 4:4-8
Now back to writing my essay on the novel.
The thesis that I tenaciously articulated is a result of hearing the Voice in the form of an idea that struck me. Across the years this has remains a vivid memory for me.
I remember facing a deadline and sitting down at my typewriter on a Saturday night in my room where I lived in a house on Harper Avenue, a few blocks from the University of Chicago campus. I had worked on the paper for five hours. But when I finished, I was in despair because I knew it had not come together. It lacked a clear focus, I had begun rambling and, basically, summarized the chapters as I went through the novel. I stood up, grabbed the sheets of paper and tore them up.
It was midnight, and out of fear and depression and despair, I decided to take a walk along the nearby beach of Lake Michigan, just across Lake Shore Drive. Of course, my critical voice was attacking me, telling me that I wouldn’t be able to graduate; I wouldn’t be able to move on with a career; I would just be stuck.
At that time, of course, I had no idea that I could ask for help. I thought that I was totally alone in the universe. I didn’t have the slightest idea that I was God’s Son, no idea that I was anything except this wild illusion, frantic and distraught, but without reality of any kind, constantly distracted, disorganized and highly uncertain. W-p1.49.2:3
Nevertheless, walking along the beach, my hands in my pockets, my head down, I was suddenly struck with an idea in the form of a soft voice, telling me to focus the entire paper on the question of the reliability of the first-person narrator, Nick Carraway. This just seemed to click. "Eureka!" My despair lifted, I looked up at the stars and felt renewed.
The next day I woke up running the idea, the gift, through my mind, and it felt just right. Since the reader is seeing all of the events through Nick Carraway’s eyes, I could focus on him, his value structure, and how he evaluated the behavior of each of the characters. With this key firmly in mind, I sat down the next day, after a peaceful sleep, and rather easily typed the essay.
Here are some excerpts from the essay, demonstrating the implementation of the idea that came to me on the beach, a gift from the Voice for God.
Nick Carraway, our guide in the form of a first-person narrator, is deeply involved with the other characters. Participating in the action and evaluating events with knowledge of what preceded and what followed them, Nick proves to be a completely reliable narrator. When he describes Tom and adds that “There were men at New Haven who had hated his guts,” we accept this as a significant appraisal of Tom. When he steps back and openly reacts to a character after describing him or her, he helps the reader see the character more clearly. For example, after describing Jordan Baker, he says, “Almost any exhibition of complete self-sufficiency draws a stunned tribute from me.” His response to Daisy, evident in his description of her, fixes her in the reader’s mind for the rest of the novel, “Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth, but there was an excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to forget.”
By gradually revealing more and more about Gatsby through Nick, whose judgments remain consistent with the reader’s, Fitzgerald manages to keep Gatsby unreal and mysterious. Had Fitzgerald revealed more about Gatsby in the beginning, this effect would have been lost. He had to maintain this effect to prepare the reader to accept Gatsby as the tragic dreamer who eventually “breaks up like glass against Tom’s hard malice.”
So there we are. In spite my limited self, I had heard the Holy Spirit speak to me. No mind training. No Bible training. No Transcendental Meditation. It is inevitable, meaning “something that is certain to happen,” from the Latin, inevitabilis, meaning “unavoidable.” It is completely natural. We are as God created us.
What am I?
I am God's Son, complete and healed and whole,
shining in the reflection of His Love.
In me is His creation sanctified
and guaranteed eternal life. In me
is love perfected, fear impossible,
and joy established without opposite.
I am the holy home of God Himself.
I am the Heaven where His Love resides.
I am His holy Sinlessness Itself,
for in my purity abides His Own.
W-p11.14.1
What is the Holy Spirit?
The Holy Spirit mediates between
illusions and the truth. Since He must bridge
the gap between reality and dreams,
perception leads to knowledge through the grace
that God has given Him, to be His gift to
everyone who turns to Him for truth.
Across the bridge that He provides are dreams
all carried to the truth, to be dispelled
before the light of knowledge. There are sights
and sounds forever laid aside. And where
they were perceived before, forgiveness has
made possible perception's tranquil end.
W-p11.7.1
So, I did graduate from the program, and my first job was teaching English in a junior high school in Westport, Connecticut. Pursuing my dream within a dream, my green light was to blend my passion for teaching with earning a living. Four years after I graduated from the Master’s Program, my Supervisor, Janet Emig, called me in Westport, telling me of a new opportunity at the University of Chicago. They were starting a new program called The Teaching of Teachers, and it led to a Ph.D. from the Education Department. She thought I would be a good candidate. And much to my surprise, she said that she found herself often using my critical essay as an example when she was assigning the paper to her students.
So, after four years of teaching in Westport, I continued pursuing my particular green light. I felt the nostalgia of returning to Chicago, and somehow the Voice on the beach and the writing of the essay and Janet’s remembering it and her call were all taking me home, in retropspect, taking me Home. In September of 1969, just after Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon, my wife, Kim, and our two children, Lori (4) and Stephen (6 months) jumped into our ’65 Volkswagen Beetle, and I followed them in a U-Haul Truck, heading for Chicago.
It’s all good. In spite of ourselves, it is inevitable that we are going Home, a journey without distance to a goal that has never changed. T-8.VI.9:7
BOSTON — Jinzhao Wang, 14, who immigrated two years ago from China, has never seen anything like the huge mansions that loomed over Long Island Sound in glamorous 1920s New York. But F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel, The Great Gatsby, with its themes of possibility and aspiration, speaks to her.
She is inspired by the green light at the end of the dock, which for Jay Gatsby, the self-made millionaire from North Dakota, symbolizes the upper-class woman he longs for. “Green color always represents hope,” Jinzhao said.
“My green light?” said Jinzhao, who has been studying “Gatsby” in her sophomore English class at the Boston Latin School. “My green light is Harvard.”
Gatsby, of course, is the doomed dreamer in the novel who is obsessed with his love for Daisy, a woman he courted eight years previously, and now believes that he can repeat the past and win her love, again. When we first encounter him in the novel, he is staring at the green light at the end of her dock across the bay, symbolizing his romantic dream.
This article brought back memories for me because in March of 1965 I wrote a critical essay and lesson plan on The Great Gatsby, “A paper submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Teaching from The University of Chicago.” Over the years, through all the moves from city to city, I managed to keep a copy of that essay. I found it yesterday and read it for the first time since I wrote it so long ago. Just holding it in my hands takes me back. It is a copy of the original that was submitted, a carbon copy, thin, yellowing paper with gray carriage marks of the typewriter, dark, shadowy columns running down each page. Sometimes letters are hard to read because I had used Whiteout to type corrections on the original. I had typed it on my portable Remington, a thoughtful and practical gift from by parents for my high school graduation.
This seventeen-page essay actually holds up quite well after all these years. I can see that my young, scholarly self took his task seriously. In preparation for writing it, I had read Fitzgerald’s other novels, his short stories, and a dozen books of literary criticism. My young self argued his thesis rather tenaciously.
Now, there is only one reason for this nostalgic look at this past event, and the word “nostalgic” is just right, because the word means “a longing for home,” from the Greek nostos, meaning "homecoming," and algos, "pain." The home I am referring to here is being Home in God.
This world you seem to live in is not home
to you. And somewhere in your mind you know
that this is true. A memory of home
keeps haunting you, as if there were a place
that called you to return, although you do
not recognize the voice, nor what it is
the Voice reminds you of. Yet still you feel
an alien here, from somewhere all unknown.
Nothing so definite that you could say
with certainty you are an exile here.
Just a persistent feeling, sometimes not
more than a tiny throb, at other times
hardly remembered, actively dismissed,
but surely to return to mind again.
W-p1.182.1
One of my favorite themes is that we are always being spoken to by this Voice, whether or not we hear it. It is inevitable as God’s Son that we hear His Voice, even though we are doing everything in our power to defend ourselves against hearing His Voice. In fact, hearing it is completely natural, and not hearing, or defending ourselves against it, is completely unnatural.
It is quite possible to listen to God's Voice all through the day without interrupting your regular activities in any way. The part of your mind in which truth abides is in constant communication with God, whether you are aware of it or not. W-p1.49.1:1-3
The part that is listening to the Voice for God is calm, always at rest and wholly certain. It is really the only part there is. 2:1,2
Sink deep into the peace that waits for you beyond the frantic, riotous thoughts and sights and sounds of this insane world. You do not live here. We are trying to reach your real home. We are trying to reach the place where you are truly welcome. We are trying to reach God. 4:4-8
Now back to writing my essay on the novel.
The thesis that I tenaciously articulated is a result of hearing the Voice in the form of an idea that struck me. Across the years this has remains a vivid memory for me.
I remember facing a deadline and sitting down at my typewriter on a Saturday night in my room where I lived in a house on Harper Avenue, a few blocks from the University of Chicago campus. I had worked on the paper for five hours. But when I finished, I was in despair because I knew it had not come together. It lacked a clear focus, I had begun rambling and, basically, summarized the chapters as I went through the novel. I stood up, grabbed the sheets of paper and tore them up.
It was midnight, and out of fear and depression and despair, I decided to take a walk along the nearby beach of Lake Michigan, just across Lake Shore Drive. Of course, my critical voice was attacking me, telling me that I wouldn’t be able to graduate; I wouldn’t be able to move on with a career; I would just be stuck.
At that time, of course, I had no idea that I could ask for help. I thought that I was totally alone in the universe. I didn’t have the slightest idea that I was God’s Son, no idea that I was anything except this wild illusion, frantic and distraught, but without reality of any kind, constantly distracted, disorganized and highly uncertain. W-p1.49.2:3
Nevertheless, walking along the beach, my hands in my pockets, my head down, I was suddenly struck with an idea in the form of a soft voice, telling me to focus the entire paper on the question of the reliability of the first-person narrator, Nick Carraway. This just seemed to click. "Eureka!" My despair lifted, I looked up at the stars and felt renewed.
The next day I woke up running the idea, the gift, through my mind, and it felt just right. Since the reader is seeing all of the events through Nick Carraway’s eyes, I could focus on him, his value structure, and how he evaluated the behavior of each of the characters. With this key firmly in mind, I sat down the next day, after a peaceful sleep, and rather easily typed the essay.
Here are some excerpts from the essay, demonstrating the implementation of the idea that came to me on the beach, a gift from the Voice for God.
Nick Carraway, our guide in the form of a first-person narrator, is deeply involved with the other characters. Participating in the action and evaluating events with knowledge of what preceded and what followed them, Nick proves to be a completely reliable narrator. When he describes Tom and adds that “There were men at New Haven who had hated his guts,” we accept this as a significant appraisal of Tom. When he steps back and openly reacts to a character after describing him or her, he helps the reader see the character more clearly. For example, after describing Jordan Baker, he says, “Almost any exhibition of complete self-sufficiency draws a stunned tribute from me.” His response to Daisy, evident in his description of her, fixes her in the reader’s mind for the rest of the novel, “Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth, but there was an excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to forget.”
By gradually revealing more and more about Gatsby through Nick, whose judgments remain consistent with the reader’s, Fitzgerald manages to keep Gatsby unreal and mysterious. Had Fitzgerald revealed more about Gatsby in the beginning, this effect would have been lost. He had to maintain this effect to prepare the reader to accept Gatsby as the tragic dreamer who eventually “breaks up like glass against Tom’s hard malice.”
So there we are. In spite my limited self, I had heard the Holy Spirit speak to me. No mind training. No Bible training. No Transcendental Meditation. It is inevitable, meaning “something that is certain to happen,” from the Latin, inevitabilis, meaning “unavoidable.” It is completely natural. We are as God created us.
What am I?
I am God's Son, complete and healed and whole,
shining in the reflection of His Love.
In me is His creation sanctified
and guaranteed eternal life. In me
is love perfected, fear impossible,
and joy established without opposite.
I am the holy home of God Himself.
I am the Heaven where His Love resides.
I am His holy Sinlessness Itself,
for in my purity abides His Own.
W-p11.14.1
What is the Holy Spirit?
The Holy Spirit mediates between
illusions and the truth. Since He must bridge
the gap between reality and dreams,
perception leads to knowledge through the grace
that God has given Him, to be His gift to
everyone who turns to Him for truth.
Across the bridge that He provides are dreams
all carried to the truth, to be dispelled
before the light of knowledge. There are sights
and sounds forever laid aside. And where
they were perceived before, forgiveness has
made possible perception's tranquil end.
W-p11.7.1
So, I did graduate from the program, and my first job was teaching English in a junior high school in Westport, Connecticut. Pursuing my dream within a dream, my green light was to blend my passion for teaching with earning a living. Four years after I graduated from the Master’s Program, my Supervisor, Janet Emig, called me in Westport, telling me of a new opportunity at the University of Chicago. They were starting a new program called The Teaching of Teachers, and it led to a Ph.D. from the Education Department. She thought I would be a good candidate. And much to my surprise, she said that she found herself often using my critical essay as an example when she was assigning the paper to her students.
So, after four years of teaching in Westport, I continued pursuing my particular green light. I felt the nostalgia of returning to Chicago, and somehow the Voice on the beach and the writing of the essay and Janet’s remembering it and her call were all taking me home, in retropspect, taking me Home. In September of 1969, just after Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon, my wife, Kim, and our two children, Lori (4) and Stephen (6 months) jumped into our ’65 Volkswagen Beetle, and I followed them in a U-Haul Truck, heading for Chicago.
It’s all good. In spite of ourselves, it is inevitable that we are going Home, a journey without distance to a goal that has never changed. T-8.VI.9:7
Saturday, February 09, 2008
Resting in the Expanded Consciousness of Holiness
Yesterday, it took four hours for my son, Stephen, and I to drive the 125 miles from the Wisconsin Dells to the Milwaukee Airport because of the record-setting snowstorm. We were totally stopped several times because of overturned semi-trucks. I learned the next day that over 800 motorists were stranded, and the National Guard was called out to help the motorists and clear the highway.
I dropped him off and decided to return right away because his Toyota Tundra had handled very nicely in the snow and ice. As he pointed out to me, because of the four-wheel drive and the tires, he could actually accelerate in the snowy passing lane, maintaining steady traction.
When I arrived on the outskirts of Madison, I was moving along rather well. Suddenly, I slammed on the brakes, and the Tundra became a huge sled, out of control on an icy, three-lane highway. I slammed on the breaks because I suddenly realized that I was about to back end a semi-truck. What happened is that ground suddenly became figure. What I saw as a car’s tail lights at a safe distance ahead suddenly became a semi’s tail lights a few feet in front of me. It was a perceptual distortion that often happens to me at night driving along the highway, staring at tail lights. Ordinarily, the sudden shift from ground to figure is trippy, but this time. . .well, I was completely present during the spin, my head staying completely calm and clear and alert. I said to myself, you just turned the steering wheel hard to the right, now you’re going to have to turn it hard to the left. I noted that there weren’t any cars coming up on me, and all I had to do is ride out the smooth slide, gliding down a three-lane highway. Finally, I came to a stop, facing three-quarters to the rear; I just turned around and proceeded on my way. My heart rate did not accelerate, and my head remained peaceful and clear, during and after the event. I just said, “Thank you, Jesus.”
This morning I was astonished to read the first paragraph of Lesson 38, There is nothing my holiness cannot do, from Jesus' Course in Miracles.
Your holiness reverses all the laws of the world. It is beyond every restriction of time, space, distance and limits of any kind. Your holiness is totally unlimited in its power because it establishes you as a Son of God, at one with the Mind of his Creator.
Two days before this event, I was completely inspired by reading a classic book given me by a friend, The Lazy Man’s Guide to Enlightenment by Thaddeus Golas (1924-1997), first published in 1972. I read it from cover to cover in a three-hour sitting, taking copious notes. I was so excited reading it because it is the Course with different metaphors. Golos uses the metaphor of contracted and expanded awareness, and holiness is expanded awareness.
Golas expresses it this way.
Contraction is felt as fear, pain, unconsciousness, ignorance, hatred, evil, and a whole host of strange feelings. At an extreme he has the feeling of being completely insane, of resisting everyone and everything, of being unable to choose the content of his consciousness. Of course, these are just the feelings appropriate to mass vibration levels, and he can get out of them at any time by expanding, by letting go of all resistance to what he thinks, sees, or feels. When we are completely expanded, we have a feeling of total awareness, of being one with all life. At that level we have no resistance to any vibrations or interactions of other beings. It is timeless bliss, with unlimited choice of consciousness, perception, and feeling.
Expanded awareness is speeded up vibration. When we are at this vibration level, everything around us in time and space moves slowly, and now we are truly in the world, but not of the world. That was my experience in the spinning sled.
Golas expresses the contrast of slow vibrations.
Note carefully that when your vibrations are slow, or contracted, events seem to happen fast, and you will feel that events are happening too fast for you to control them. And you may therefore feel impelled to try that much harder to exercise control. The slower your vibrations, the more unpleasant your life: you will contend with more conflict, mass, and pain. Events will happen too fast for control, yet time will seem interminable because you can see no way out. But the faster you are vibrating and the more messages you get back from your environment, the slower events will appear to be happening, and the more you will feel you are in control. The more you love, the faster you vibrate, then the less need you feel to control anything, and you are not fearful of change and variety. You experience everything deeper and slower and more lovingly.
The higher the ratio of expansion to contraction in yourself, the more expanded and loving you are, the faster you vibrate. And when you raise your vibration level, you can neatly sidestep collisions, both psychic and physical, and quite literally change the world for the better. Love is the strongest magic of all.
There is nothing my holiness cannot do because the power of God lies in it.
It is timeless bliss, with unlimited choice of consciousness, perception, and feeling.
The purpose of today's exercises is to begin to instill in you a sense that you have dominion over all things because of what you are.
Thank you, Father.
I dropped him off and decided to return right away because his Toyota Tundra had handled very nicely in the snow and ice. As he pointed out to me, because of the four-wheel drive and the tires, he could actually accelerate in the snowy passing lane, maintaining steady traction.
When I arrived on the outskirts of Madison, I was moving along rather well. Suddenly, I slammed on the brakes, and the Tundra became a huge sled, out of control on an icy, three-lane highway. I slammed on the breaks because I suddenly realized that I was about to back end a semi-truck. What happened is that ground suddenly became figure. What I saw as a car’s tail lights at a safe distance ahead suddenly became a semi’s tail lights a few feet in front of me. It was a perceptual distortion that often happens to me at night driving along the highway, staring at tail lights. Ordinarily, the sudden shift from ground to figure is trippy, but this time. . .well, I was completely present during the spin, my head staying completely calm and clear and alert. I said to myself, you just turned the steering wheel hard to the right, now you’re going to have to turn it hard to the left. I noted that there weren’t any cars coming up on me, and all I had to do is ride out the smooth slide, gliding down a three-lane highway. Finally, I came to a stop, facing three-quarters to the rear; I just turned around and proceeded on my way. My heart rate did not accelerate, and my head remained peaceful and clear, during and after the event. I just said, “Thank you, Jesus.”
This morning I was astonished to read the first paragraph of Lesson 38, There is nothing my holiness cannot do, from Jesus' Course in Miracles.
Your holiness reverses all the laws of the world. It is beyond every restriction of time, space, distance and limits of any kind. Your holiness is totally unlimited in its power because it establishes you as a Son of God, at one with the Mind of his Creator.
Two days before this event, I was completely inspired by reading a classic book given me by a friend, The Lazy Man’s Guide to Enlightenment by Thaddeus Golas (1924-1997), first published in 1972. I read it from cover to cover in a three-hour sitting, taking copious notes. I was so excited reading it because it is the Course with different metaphors. Golos uses the metaphor of contracted and expanded awareness, and holiness is expanded awareness.
Golas expresses it this way.
Contraction is felt as fear, pain, unconsciousness, ignorance, hatred, evil, and a whole host of strange feelings. At an extreme he has the feeling of being completely insane, of resisting everyone and everything, of being unable to choose the content of his consciousness. Of course, these are just the feelings appropriate to mass vibration levels, and he can get out of them at any time by expanding, by letting go of all resistance to what he thinks, sees, or feels. When we are completely expanded, we have a feeling of total awareness, of being one with all life. At that level we have no resistance to any vibrations or interactions of other beings. It is timeless bliss, with unlimited choice of consciousness, perception, and feeling.
Expanded awareness is speeded up vibration. When we are at this vibration level, everything around us in time and space moves slowly, and now we are truly in the world, but not of the world. That was my experience in the spinning sled.
Golas expresses the contrast of slow vibrations.
Note carefully that when your vibrations are slow, or contracted, events seem to happen fast, and you will feel that events are happening too fast for you to control them. And you may therefore feel impelled to try that much harder to exercise control. The slower your vibrations, the more unpleasant your life: you will contend with more conflict, mass, and pain. Events will happen too fast for control, yet time will seem interminable because you can see no way out. But the faster you are vibrating and the more messages you get back from your environment, the slower events will appear to be happening, and the more you will feel you are in control. The more you love, the faster you vibrate, then the less need you feel to control anything, and you are not fearful of change and variety. You experience everything deeper and slower and more lovingly.
The higher the ratio of expansion to contraction in yourself, the more expanded and loving you are, the faster you vibrate. And when you raise your vibration level, you can neatly sidestep collisions, both psychic and physical, and quite literally change the world for the better. Love is the strongest magic of all.
There is nothing my holiness cannot do because the power of God lies in it.
It is timeless bliss, with unlimited choice of consciousness, perception, and feeling.
The purpose of today's exercises is to begin to instill in you a sense that you have dominion over all things because of what you are.
Thank you, Father.
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