No-Mind is a Worldly Concept; the Holy Instant is an Unworldly Experience: A Savior's Dialectic

Philip Chard, a psychotherapist, writes a regular column, “Out of My Mind,” that appears in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. His most recent article (May 22, 2007) is entitled, “Paying no mind to the ego can help reduce stresses.” He tells of a woman, Connie, an advanced student of meditation who can induce "no-mind," a state of consciousness in which one's sense of self temporarily fades or evaporates. Consequently, she experiences interludes when there is no discernible "me" in her awareness.

She was able to draw on this discipline when she was confronted by her boyfriend-turned-stalker.

Eyeball-to-eyeball with this bully, she intuitively used her spiritual training to remove her "self" from the confrontation.

"I stood there, got centered and entered a no-mind state," she recalled. "In any ego sense, I mostly disappeared."

This goon screamed at her and brandished his fist, but Connie remained steadfast in no-mind awareness. There was a tense pause until, inexplicably, he backed away, gave her an irritated but bewildered stare and then took off.

This appears to be a victory for Connie, and it seems that training in no-mind meditation offers protection from ego conflicts and bad things that happen in the world. This is a rather seductive account.

But before you begin searching for a meditation center in your area, I would invite you to take a hard look at the premises of this story. The word “premise” comes from the Latin praemissa, meaning “to set before.” A premise, then, is a proposition that forms the foundation of an argument. The foundation of her story is based on four main premises:

1. There is a world.
2. We are victims of the world.
3. There are other people out there.
4. My ego-personality is real.

Before I take on the premises one-by-one, let’s imagine that you are hearing the story by listening to Connie tell it as if she were having a sleeping dream. That’s right. You are sitting by her bed listening to her narrate the story deep in a sleeping dream.

“I am walking along a deserted street at night, and suddenly I run into my ex-boyfriend who has been stalking me. He begins yelling at me. ‘You are a horrible person. You treat me terribly. I am so disappointed.’ He raises his fist as if he’s going to strike me. I just stand there, entering into a no-mind state. He continues yelling, then he pauses, steps back, gives me a bewildered look, and runs away.”

Because you know that she is simply recounting a dream, the story does not have the impact and seduction that it might have once had. And, if we take it one step further, when Connie awakes from the dream, the events will quickly fade away into the nothingness from which they came.

As you listened to the narration of the dream, it was obvious that it was all going on only in her mind. As the center of the dream, all the images were seen through her eyes. She was peopling her world based on her past experiences. She was describing a world of time and space that existed only in her mind.

You may be catching a glimpse of a well-kept secret that there is absolutely no difference between a sleeping dream and a waking dream. If Connie were to wake up from her dream and see you sitting there, she is, in fact, not waking up at all; she is simply falling into another dream. Look at the parallels: Everything is going on only in her mind. She is peopling her world with images based on her past experiences. She is making up a world of time and space based on what she sees, hears, tastes, smells, and touches. And her basic premise is that seeing is believing. It seems that the waking dream is more real than the sleeping dream, but this is not so.

Now we are in a position to take a hard look at the premises of Chard’s article, and replace them with new premises based on the transformation of your mind.

1. There is a world.
New premise: There is no world out there separate from our image making.

2. We are victims of the world we see.
New premise: We cannot be victims of a world we made up in the first place, unless we choose to be.

3.There are other people out there.
New premise: There are not people out there, separate from the peopling I do in my own mind, projecting images.

4. My ego-personality is real.
New premise: My ego-personality is the dreamer of the dream, both sleeping and waking.

The only way to see the truth of these premises is to recognize that there is no difference between a sleeping and a waking dream. This recognition requires the experience of non-dreaming state of mind, a place in your mind where you experience the peace of God. It is quite possible to discover this state through the mind training provided by Jesus’ other-worldly masterpiece, A Course in Miracles.

Listen to Jesus describe dreams.

Dreams show you that you have the power to make a world as you would have it be, and that because you want it you see it. And while you see it you do not doubt that it is real. Yet here is a world, clearly within your mind, that seems to be outside. You do not respond to it as though you made it, nor do you realize that the emotions the dream produces must come from you. It is the figures in the dream and what they do that seem to make the dream. You do not realize that you are making them act out for you. In (sleeping) dreams these features are not obscure. You seem to waken, and the dream is gone. Yet what you fail to recognize is that what caused the dream has not gone with it. Your wish to make another world that is not real remains with you. And what you seem to waken to is but another form of this same world you see in (sleeping) dreams. All your time is spent in dreaming. Your sleeping and your waking dreams have different forms, and that is all. Their content is the same. They are your protest against reality, (This is the key—dreaming is a defense against experiencing the peace of God, your Reality as the truth of what you are). In your waking dreams, the special relationship is your determination to keep your hold on unreality, and to prevent yourself from waking. And while you see more value in sleeping (unreality) than in waking (Reality), you will not let go of it. T-18.5

This description by Jesus of the similarity of sleeping and waking dreams may still not be enough to convince you of the truth. It might be helpful to demonstrate exactly “how” it is that we dream.

Projection makes perception.

The word “projection” comes from the Latin, projectum, meaning “something thrown forward.” We throw an image-thought into the “world,” and then see it there. Perception comes from the Latin percipere, meaning “to seize completely”. So, what we decide to seize from what we “see out there” is that which we threw “out there” in the first place. It’s as if we are playing catch with ourselves. We throw a ball into the air and then we run under it and catch it. Throwing and receiving is like projecting and perceiving, and this happens so rapidly that we forget the connection. We go around and around in a causal loop, forgetting that we are the cause, and what we see is the effect. Our thoughts are the cause, and the "world" is the effect of our thoughts. That is why we can say there is no world, other than the world you see made up of your thought-images.

The world you see is what you gave it, nothing more than that. But though it is no more than that, it is not less. Therefore, to you it is important. It is the witness to your state of mind, the outside picture of an inward condition. As a man thinketh, so does he perceive. Therefore, seek not to change the world, but choose to change your mind about the world. Perception is a result and not a cause. And that is why order of difficulty in miracles is meaningless. Everything looked upon with vision is healed and holy. Nothing perceived without it means anything. And where there is no meaning, there is chaos. T-21.1

When you perceive through the eyes of the ego, you see chaos. When you look through the eyes of truth, you see with vision. That is what it means to change your mind. You can shift from the causal loop of perception to vision, when you ask for help to relinquish your images that are defending you from the peace of God. This vision is your inheritance because you are as God created you, His most Holy Son. And you are not alone. The Holy Spirit’s mission is to help you awaken from your dream.

Correction is for all who cannot see. To open the eyes of the blind is the Holy Spirit's mission, for he knows that they have not lost their vision, but merely sleep. He would awaken them from the sleep of forgetting to the remembering of God. Christ's eyes are open, and he will look upon whatever you see with love if you accept his vision as yours. T-12.V1.4:1-4

To look with vision rather than with ego eyes means to look through appearances since appearances are simply our thought-images projected out. Here is an analogy to convey what it means to say that you can see through and experience a reflection of your peaceful state of mind. Yesterday, on a bright summer morning, I was sitting on our deck reading the Course, and I came across these two sentences:

When the peace in you has been extended to encompass everyone, the Holy Spirit’s function here will be accomplished. What need is there for seeing then?

T-19.1V.3:6,7

At that moment, experiencing gratitude and peace, I looked up and saw peace reflected because I was staring at the lush green of the pine boughs and the leaves of the lilac bushes and the trees, and it all appeared blurry, seeing everything as One. I was looking with soft eyes because I was, inadvertently, looking through the thick lenses of my reading glasses. This is what it means to look through appearances because I was not distinguishing one thing from another, naming this and that, thereby experiencing (seeing) the reflection of the peace of God. This is what it means to see with the vision of Christ.

The Holy Spirit keeps the vision of Christ for every Son of God who sleeps. In his sight the Son of God is perfect, and he longs to share his vision with you. He will show you the real world because God gave you Heaven. Through him your Father calls his Son to remember. The awakening of his Son begins with his investment in the real world, and by this he will learn to re-invest in himself. For reality is one with the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit blesses the real world in Their Name. T-12.1V.4:5-10

When you have seen this real world, as you will surely do, you will remember Us. Yet you must learn the cost of sleeping, and refuse to pay it. Only then will you decide to awaken. And then the real world will spring to your sight, for Christ has never slept. He is waiting to be seen, for he has never lost sight of you. He looks quietly on the real world, which he would share with you because he knows of the Father's Love for him. And knowing this, he would give you what is yours. In perfect peace he waits for you at his Father's altar, holding out the Father's love to you in the quiet light of the Holy Spirit's blessing. For the Holy Spirit will lead everyone home to his Father, where Christ waits as his Self. T-12.V1. 5

And now with these premises firmly “set in front of our eyes,” we can take a look at Chard’s column with the eyes of Christ, engaging in a Savior’s dialectic. “Dialectic” comes from the Greek dialektike, meaning “the art of investigating truth through discussion.” In the following discussion, we are looking through the falsity of the illusion with the truth of Christ’s Vision.
In the following dialogue, Chard’s column is in italics.


PAYING NO MIND TO THE EGO CAN HELP REDUCE STRESS

When the ego state of mind seems real, it can be either stressful or peaceful. If it’s stressful, slipping into no-mind seems to be a peaceful alternative. It is, in fact, exchange, a way to reconcile the opposites. It is, in fact, a denial of the role you are playing in the dreaming of the dream.

Connie knows how it feels to mentally disappear.

An advanced student of meditation, she can induce "no-mind," a state of consciousness in which one's sense of self temporarily fades or evaporates. Consequently, she experiences interludes when there is no discernible "me" in her awareness.

The “self” that fades is the ego, and her awareness shifts away from stress to another ego-state, but Connie still remains in her dream because her awareness has not shifted to her only Real state of mind, her Christ Self, where she can see with vision.

In Him you have no cares and no concerns,
no burdens, no anxiety, no pain,

no fear of future and no past regrets.

In timelessness you rest, while time goes by

without its touch upon you, for your rest

can never change in any way at all.

You rest today. And as you close your eyes,

sink into stillness. Let these periods

of rest and respite reassure your mind

that all its frantic fantasies were but

the dreams of fever that has passed away.

Let it be still and thankfully accept

its healing. No more fearful dreams will come,

now that you rest in God. Take time today

to slip away from dreams and into peace.
W-p1.109.5

Resting in God is different than copping a moment of respite in no-mind awareness. For a moment, you seem to be not a victim of a world that seems real, while resting in God, on the other hand, is experiencing timelessness, the holy instant, an unworldly experience.

For many, that's a scary prospect, but non-meditators get a taste of no-mind when they are totally absorbed in an activity. At such moments, self-awareness dissipates, time slows and the boundary between me "in here" and a separate world "out there" blurs.

We have already established that there is no separate world out there.

The images you make cannot prevail

against what God Himself would have you be.

Be never fearful of temptation, then,

but see it as it is; another chance

to choose again, and let Christ's strength prevail

in every circumstance and every place
you raised an image of yourself before.

For what appears to hide the face of Christ

is powerless before His majesty,

and disappears before His holy sight.

T-31.V111.4:1-3

No-mind is more than detachment. Imagine your identity as a drop of water and the rest of the universe as an ocean. When you experience no-mind, that drop (self) falls into the sea (all) and merges with an omnipresent unity.

This can be a helpful analogy, if you see that identity refers to the Self, as God created you, and that awareness of your Self is a holy instant, just as seeing with soft eyes shows us an omnipresent unity.

In the holy instant nothing happens that has not always been. Only the veil that has been drawn across reality is lifted. Nothing has changed. Yet the awareness of changelessness comes swiftly as the veil of time is pushed aside. No one who has not yet experienced the lifting of the veil, and felt himself drawn irresistibly into the light behind it, can have faith in love without fear. Yet the Holy Spirit gives you this faith, because He offered it to me (Jesus) and I accepted it. T-15.V1.6:1-6

In quiet listen to your Self today,
and let Him tell you God has never left
His Son, and you have never left your Self.
W-p1.125.8:4

This state is certainly not no-mind; this is the holy instant.

In addition to furthering spiritual development, no-mind has practical applications, as Connie discovered in dramatic fashion.

Almost a year after breaking up with her boyfriend-turned-stalker, he confronted her in a potentially dangerous altercation. This misogynistic brute assailed her with a torrent of verbal abuse and physical intimidation.

Eyeball-to-eyeball with this bully, she intuitively used her spiritual training to remove her "self" from the confrontation.

"I stood there, got centered and entered a no-mind state," she recalled. "In any ego sense, I mostly disappeared."

This goon screamed at her and brandished his fist, but Connie remained steadfast in no-mind awareness. There was a tense pause until, inexplicably, he backed away, gave her an irritated but bewildered stare and then took off.

As dramatic as this confrontation is, it is crucial to remember that it is a dream sequence. Sinking into no-mind is a substitution for experiencing the Christ Mind, the eternal Self. The difference between the experiences of these mind states is about as subtle as the “b” in subtle because they feel quite similar. However, recognizing the different frames of reference is the key. The reference for the value of no-mind goes to the premises that there is a world, I can be a victim of this world, there are other people out there, and my ego is real. The reference for Christ Mind is that there is no world separate from my projected/perceived thought-images, I am not a victim of this world because I made it up, the other people are figures in my mind, and the ego personality has no source in Reality.

"Guys like him want to hurt your ego," she speculated. "Maybe when mine went away, he lost his target."

Like Connie, meditators sometimes employ no-mind consciousness to address real-world challenges. Because mental dysfunction is often tied to one's sense of self, loosening the ego's control can reduce emotional distress and alter vexatious interpersonal dynamics.

. . . real-world challenges. Real-world is an oxymoron.

Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God.
T-p1.Intro.2:2-4

We are not born with a defined identity. Instead, through years of interaction and social brainwashing, we acquire one that, while necessary, is largely contrived.

As philosopher Alan Watts pointed out, "Our precious 'self' is just an idea, useful and legitimate enough if seen for what it is, but not our real nature."

. . .useful. Yes, we can learn to utilize our dreams by forgiving them, by relinquishing them. In the moment of letting go, we can come to experience the truth of what we are. This requires open-mind, not no-mind.

How do the open-minded forgive? They have let go all things that would prevent forgiveness. They have in truth abandoned the world, and let it be restored to them in newness and in joy so glorious they could never have conceived of such a change. Nothing is now as it was formerly. Nothing but sparkles now which seemed so dull and lifeless before. And above all are all things welcoming, for threat is gone.

Recognizing the dream, the illusion, takes away the apparent threat, and in the moment, the awareness of something else can enter in, the peace of God.

No clouds remain to hide the face of Christ. Now is the goal achieved. Forgiveness is the final goal of the curriculum. It paves the way for what goes far beyond all learning. The curriculum makes no effort to exceed its legitimate goal. Forgiveness is its single aim, at which all learning ultimately converges. It is indeed enough. M-4.X.2

While not easily learned, the ability to enter no-mind awareness reduces one's identification with the ego. Consequently, this skill can be applied to many challenging ego-driven scenarios - interpersonal confrontations, managing stress, defusing anger, etc.

If we simply take “time out” in a no-mind state, we are still making the ego real. However, the practice of no-mind is valuable if it enables you to reduce the identification with your ego-state and replace it with the recognition of your Christ-Mind.

Philosopher Thomas Carlyle said the ego is "the source and summary of all faults and miseries." When that source is put in its proper place, those faults and miseries often diminish accordingly.

When it comes to the ego, less is clearly more.

It is never a matter or more or less; it’s always a matter of Real or unreal.

An Essay Commemorating the 80th Anniversary of Lindbergh's Flight to Paris, May 20, 1927

Charles Lindbergh’s heroic solo transatlantic flight provides a prototypical example of utilizing the power of purpose to reach a destination. The first part of this essay demonstrates how the power of purpose enabled Lindbergh to reach his destination, defined as a place to which one is journeying. The second part elucidates how the power of single purpose enables you to realize your destiny, defined as your journey to God, awakening to the truth of what you are, the Holy Son of God.

Part 1. Reaching Your Destination

On May 20, 1927, at 7:30 am, Lindbergh, twenty-five years old, settled into the cockpit of his plane, The Spirit of St. Louis, to begin his preparations to takeoff down the runway of Roosevelt Field, New York, attempting to be the first man to make a solo transatlantic flight, ending in Paris.

His plane, made of fabric and wood, was small, fragile, and delicate, but heavy, weighing two and a half tons, carrying extra fuel in oversized tanks, its little tires bulging on the wet, clay runway.

His description of his cockpit captures the smallness of his plane as he faces the prospect of flying 3600 miles in 36 hours, alone. This is from his Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Spirit of St. Louis.

I relax in my cockpit—this little box with fabric walls, in which I’m to ride across the ocean. Now, if all goes well, I won’t move from it for a day and a half, until I step out on French sod at the airport of Le Bourget. It’s a compact place to live, designed to fit around me so snugly that no ounce of weight or resistance is wasted. I can press both sides of the fuselage with partly outstretched elbows. The instrument board is an easy reach forward for my hand, and a thin rib on the roof is hollowed slightly to leave clearance for my helmet. There’s room enough, no more, no less; my cockpit has been tailored to me like a suit of clothes. The Spirit of St. Louis, 1953, p. 191


But there is no guarantee that the plane will even make it off the ground. These are the early days of aviation. After all, the Wright brothers’ first flight occurred as recently as December 17, 1903. Lindbergh had started flying only five years earlier, barnstorming in Texas, parachuting, wing walking, landing in fields, sleeping under a wing, making his own repairs.

At 7:45, he begins his journey down the runway, men pushing on the struts, as he gains speed one by one the men fall away.

The halfway mark streaks past---seconds now to decide—close the throttle, or will I get off? The wrong decision means a crash—probably in flames---I pull the stick back firmly, and---The wheels leave the ground. Then I’ll get off! The wheels touch again. I ease the stick forward—almost flying speed, and nearly 2000 feet of field ahead---A shallow pool on the runway---water spews up from the tires---A wing drops---lifts as I shove aileron against it—the entire plane trembles from the shock---Off again—I let the wheels touch once more. Spirit, p. 186

The Spirit of St. Louis takes herself off the next time—full flying speed—the controls taut, alive, straining—and still a thousand feet to the web of telephone wires. Now, I have to make it—there’s no alternative. It’ll be close, but the margin has shifted to my side. I keep the nose down, climbing slowly, each second gaining speed. If the engine can hold out for one more minute---five feet---twenty---forty—wires flash by underneath---twenty feet to spare! Spirit, p. 187

In his cramped quarters his survival depends on strict concentration and vigilance every second for thirty-six hours.

But The Spirit of St. Louis refuses to be left unattended for five seconds. As soon as I look down at the charts the plane starts cutting up like a spoiled child piqued at a moment’s neglect. Spirit, p. 345

I reach for the canteen. No, just reaching throws the plane off balance. I don’t need water. It’s more important to keep the needles centered, every time I use an extra muscle they go jumping off. Spirit, p. 380


What sustains Lindbergh for the next 3600 miles is an intangible quality, single purpose. Above all else, he is determined to reach Paris. Single purpose includes more than determination, dedication, and resolution. It requires a goal and the heading that enables you to reach your destination. Keeping track of the play between heading and destination is the function of the chart.

What endless hours I worked over this chart in California, measuring, drawing, rechecking each 100-mile segment of its great-circle route, each theoretical hour of my flight. But only now, do I realize its full significance. A few lines and figures on a strip of paper, a few ounces of weight, this strip is my key to Europe. With it, I can fly the ocean. With it, that black dot at the other end marked “Paris” will turn into a famous French city with an aerodrome where I can land. But without this chart, all my years of training, all that went into preparing for the flight, no matter how perfectly the engine runs or how long the fuel lasts, all would be as directionless as those columns of smoke in the New England valleys behind me. Without this strip, it would be as useless to look for Paris as to hunt for buried treasure without a pirate’s chart. Spirit, p. 196

From New York, the compass course points to 63 degrees east, Paris. But the calculation involved the initial heading of 60 degrees east, taking into consideration the curvature of the earth, wind, weather, power, and load.

Allow for whatever wind is blowing, and in another hour you will be approaching the shore of Nova Scotia. With one more change of course, you will strike land near the mouth of St. Mary Bay—provided the instructions have been interpreted correctly and followed accurately. After the thirty-seventh instruction has been carried out, you will see the city of Paris lying ten miles ahead. Circle a tall tower near the center of the city, take up a course to the northeast, and within ten minutes you will find a great aerodrome called Le Bourget! Spirit, p. 196

Lindbergh encounters storms, fog, icing, heavy winds, and thunderheads. He overcomes these obstacles by sheer determination, constantly calibrating the distance between heading and destination.

But his greatest obstacle is sleep deprivation. He had been awake for twenty-three hours before even settling into his cockpit. By the time he falls asleep in Paris, he had been awake for 63 hours. During his Eighteenth Hour of flight, he reports:

I’ve lost command of my eyelids. When they start to close, I can’t restrain them. They shut, and I shake myself, and lift them with my fingers. I stare at the instruments, wrinkle forehead muscles tense. Lids close again regardless, stick tight as though with glue. My body has revolted from the rule of its mind. Like salt in wounds, the light of day brings back my pains. Every cell of my being is on strike, sulking in protest, claiming that nothing, nothing in the world, could be worth such effort; that man’s tissue was never made for such abuse. My back is stiff; my shoulders ache; my face burns; my eyes smart. It seems impossible to go on longer. All I want in life is to throw myself down flat, stretch out—and sleep. Spirit, p. 354

I must keep my mind from wandering. I’ll take it in hand at once, and watch it each instant from now on. It must be kept on its proper heading as accurately as the compass. Spirit, p. 236

Finally, he enters a stage where he cannot trust his senses. He is determined to trust only his instruments.

My plane is getting out of control! The realization is like an electric shock running through my body. It brings instant mental keenness. In a matter of seconds I have The Spirit of St. Louis back in hand. But even after the needles are in place, the plane seems to be flying on its side. I know what’s happening. It’s the illusion you sometimes get while flying blind, the illusion that your plane is no longer in level flight, that it’s spiraling, stalling, turning, that the instruments are wrong. There’s only one thing to do—shut off feeling from the mind as much as your ability permits. Let a wing stay low as far as bodily senses are concerned. Let the plane seem to maneuver as it will, dive, climb, sideslip, or bank; but keep the needles where they belong. Spirit, p. 374

Then, an extraordinary thing happens during his Twenty-Second Hour.

While I’m staring at the instruments, during an unearthly age of time, both conscious and asleep, the fuselage behind me becomes filled with ghostly presences—vaguely outlined forms, transparent, moving riding weightless with me in the plane. I feel no surprise at their coming. There’s no suddenness to their appearance. Without turning my head, I see them as clearly as though in my normal field of vision. There’s no limit to my sight—my skull is one great eye, seeming everywhere at once. Spirit, p. 389

At another time I’d be startled by these visions; but on this fantastic flight, I’m so far separated from the earthly life I know that I accept whatever circumstance may come. In fact, these emissaries from a spirit world are quite in keeping with the night and day. They’re neither intruders nor strangers. It’ more like a gathering of family and friends after years of separation, as though I’ve known all of them before in some past incarnation. Spirit, p. 390

There it is. Sustained by single purpose, he accepts whatever circumstance may come. This is a miraculous acceptance. When he completely surrenders his reliance on physical cues, he is sustained only by ghostly presences from another realm. He is well sustained, indeed. When he crosses the tip of Ireland during the Twenty-eighth Hour, he is only three miles off course!

And, nearing Paris during his Thirty-third Hour, he sees the airport, Le Bourget, three hours ahead of schedule.

That line of beacons is converging with my course. Where the two lines meet—the beacons and my course—less than a hundred miles ahead—lies Paris. Spirit, p. 485

Lindbergh, staying the course, lands 33 hours, 30 minutes, and 30 seconds after leaving New York, having flown 3614 miles.


Part 2. Realizing Your Destiny

Now that you have firmly in mind, Gentle Reader, the enormous power of purpose in achieving a goal in this world, this essay takes a dramatic turn by asking a “What if” question. What if Lindbergh were to utilize the incredible power of single purpose to achieve, not a destination in worldly terms, but to realize his destiny? Destiny is derived from a Latin word stare, meaning "to stand." We are predetermined to stand firm in our journey to God. Our primary obstacle to our journey is our fixed belief that the body is real.

Even Lindbergh, having had the extraordinary experience of being sustained by the reality of the ghostly presences, falls into the human trap of believing that his body is real, and that the presences from another realm are unreal. To express his sense of bodily reality, he uses the analogy of a stage play.

It’s as though a curtain has fallen behind me, shutting off the stagelike unreality of this transatlantic flight. It’s been like a theater where the play carries you along in time and place until you forget you’re only a spectator. You grow unaware of the walls around you, of the program clasped in your hand, even of your body, its breath, pulse, and being. You live with the actors and the setting in a different age and place.

It’s not until the curtain drops that consciousness and body reunite. Then, you turn your back on the stage, step out into the cool night, under the lights of streets, between the displays of store windows. You feel life surging in the crowd around you, life as it was when you entered the theater, hours before. Life is real. It always was real. The stage, of course, was the dream. All that transpired there is now a memory, shut off by the curtain, by the doors of the theater, by the passing minutes of time. Spirit, p. 465

Although he directly experienced a reality beyond his body, its breath, pulse, and being, he still convinces himself, as perhaps you are convinced, that only the body is real. Life is real. It always was real. But he is whistling in the dark. He now knows that there is something more real, another realm, beyond physical reality. His lack of sureness is signaled by his weak of course in the next sentence: The stage, of course, was the dream.

Just as Lindbergh constantly turned to his chart to stay the course, we can turn to our Chart, Jesus’ Course in Miracles, to maintain our journey to God. Jesus’ unworldly masterpiece, available since 1975, consists of a Text of 31 chapters, a Workbook of 365 lessons, and a Manual for Teachers.

Just as Lindbergh knew that it would be futile to hunt for buried treasure without a pirate’s chart, we know that it is useless to look for the treasure that we are beyond the physical body without following with single purpose Jesus’ Course. Here is Jesus’ Introduction to His Course in Miracles.

This is a course in miracles. It is a required course. Only the time you take it is voluntary. Free will does not mean that you can establish the curriculum. It means only that you can elect what you want to take at a given time. The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love's presence, which is your natural inheritance. The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite. This course can therefore be summed up very simply in this way:

Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.

Herein lies the peace of God.T-In.1,2

Our primary block to the awareness of love's presence is our rigid, habitual, instinctive belief that we are only bodies, and that what we see, hear, taste, smell and touch is real. Look, again, at how Lindbergh tries to convince himself of his bodily reality.

Striking Ireland was like leaving the doors of a theater—phantoms for actors; cloud islands and temples for settings; the ocean behind me, an empty stage. The flight across is already like a dream. I’m over villages and fields, back to land and wakefulness and a type of flying that I know. I’m myself again, in earthly skies and over earthly ground. My hands and feet and eyelids move, and I can think as I desire. My mind is able to command, and my body follows out its orders with precision. Spirit, p. 466

He stubbornly finds reality only in the body and mind, My mind is able to command, and my body follows out its orders with precision, even though he just experienced being forced to let go of relying on his eyes, ears, and touch, and accept, instead, help from unworldly presences, more real that his body, letting go of the known, trusting the unknown.

By studying Jesus’ chart, we learn a fundamental lesson:


I am not a body. I am free.
For I am still as God created me.
Review V1:Intro.3:3-5

Although it is almost impossible to express in words, it is necessary to attempt to express what it means to declare,

For I am still as God created me.

To begin with, just look at that sentence, again: Still, meaning both, “I continue to be,” and “I am the stillness.” What God created is formless—Truth, Light, Tranquility, Peace, Love, Eternal Joy, Wholeness, Perfection, Purity, Infinity, Stillness.

Now, when you ask, “What am I, if I am not a body?” this can be your answer:

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, What am I? 1


Since this expresses what I am as formless, what is it that I am not?

I am not a body. I am free.

It appears that I am form, a body, existing in time and space, seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, and tasting, verifying my objective existence, my body tailored to me like a suit of clothes. The ego directs the body, making up an illusory world.

My hands and feet and eyelids move, and I can think as I desire. My mind is able to command, and my body follows out its orders with precision.

It only seems that the body is real. When you realize that there is a Reality beyond the body, it is called healing, and then you are free in this realization. When you come into this experience of freedom, the body is no longer your primary frame of reference, and you are healed.

Now is the body healed, because the source
of sickness has been opened to relief.
And you will recognize you practiced well
by this: The body should not feel at all.
If you have been successful, there will be
no sense of feeling ill or feeling well,
of pain or pleasure. No response at all
is in the mind to what the body does.
its usefulness remains and nothing more.
W-p1.136.17


If you are of single purpose, you will be healed journeying to God.

The journey to God is merely the reawakening of the knowledge of where you are always, and what you are forever. It is a journey without distance to a goal that has never changed. Truth can only be experienced. It cannot be described and it cannot be explained. T-8.V1.9:6-9

We are predetermined to stand firm in our journey to God because it is a journey without distance, simply being a realization that we are still as God created us.

What God has willed for you is yours. He has given His Will to His treasure, whose treasure it is. Your heart lies where your treasure is, as His does. You who are beloved of God are wholly blessed. T-8.V1.10:1-4

Although Lindbergh did not realize it at the time, when he totally gave up and accepted whatever circumstance may come, he was commending his spirit into the Hands of his Father.

Nothing can prevail against a Son of God who commends his spirit into the Hands of his Father. By doing this the mind awakens from its sleep and remembers its Creator. All sense of separation disappears. This single purpose creates perfect integration and establishes the peace of God. T-3.11.5

In spite of his stubbornness to hold onto his body as real, Lindbergh betrays to us his intuition regarding reality by an analogy.

And there’s something else, which seems to become stronger instead of weaker with fatigue, an element of spirit, a directive force that has stepped out from the background and taken control over both mind and body. It seems to guard them as a wise father guards his children; letting them venture to the point of danger, then calling them back, guiding with a firm but tolerant hand. Spirit, p. 361

Listen to the story of the prodigal son, and learn what God's treasure is and yours: This son of a loving father left his home and thought he had squandered everything for nothing of any value, although he had not understood its worthlessness at the time. He was ashamed to return to his father, because he thought he had hurt him. Yet when he came home the father welcomed him with joy, because the son himself was his father's treasure. He wanted nothing else. God wants only His Son because His Son is His only treasure.
T-8.VI.4

Fortunately for us, Jesus has charted a course to enable us to overcome our primary obstacle, the belief in the reality of the physical body and of the world. Obviously, Jesus must begin His Lessons by confronting this belief. Look at His very first lesson of 365 lessons:

(1) Nothing I see means anything.
The reason this is so is that I see nothing, and nothing has no meaning. It is necessary that I recognize this, that I may learn to see. What I think I see now is taking the place of vision. I must let it go by realizing it has no meaning, so that vision may take its place. W-51.1

Are you beginning to see how it works? You are sitting here, reading these words, and you are being confronted with the proposition that nothing you see means anything! You are, seemingly, being asked to give up everything you learned to trust. Now, perhaps for the first time, you may see the value of single purpose. You are asked to be constantly counter instinctive. You are being asked to trust in something you cannot verify with your senses. Fear not, your instinctive reliance on your senses will be replaced by vision, if you are determined that this be so.

These phantoms speak with human voices—friendly, vapor-like shapes, without substance, able to vanish or appear at will, to pass in and out through the walls of the fuselage as though no walls were there. Now, many are crowded behind me. Now, only a few remain. First one and then another presses forward to my shoulder to speak above the engine’s noise, and then draws back among the group behind. At times, voices come out of the air itself, clear yet far away, traveling through distances that can’t be measured by the scale of human miles; familiar voices, conversing and advising on my flight, discussing problems, of my navigation, treasuring me, giving me messages of importance unattainable in ordinary life. Spirit, p. 389

. . .ordinary life is the life of bodily senses.

That is only Lesson 1, look at Lesson 2.

(2) I have given what I see all the meaning it has for me. I have judged everything I look upon, and it is this and only this I see. This is not vision. It is merely an illusion of reality, because my judgments have been made quite apart from reality. I am willing to recognize the lack of validity in my judgments, because I want to see. My judgments have hurt me, and I do not want to see according to them. W-51.2

First you see something out there, and then you judge it. You see these words, and you are in constant judgment of them. But it is you who gave them all the meaning they have for you. You are caught in an illusion. You are not seeing with vision.

Just look at the titles of the next 5 Lessons:

(3) I do not understand anything I see.

(4) These thoughts do not mean anything.

(5) I am never upset for the reason I think.

(6) I am upset because I see what is not there.

(7) I see only the past.

If you think Lindbergh was of single purpose, look at how you must hold the course by being forced to be counter instinctive to everything you have ever known. Fortunately, the chart is superbly laid out for you to follow. You need do nothing but hold to the single purpose of coming into the experience of the peace of God. You are not sustained by your senses.

Practice the lessons with single purpose, and in 50 days you come to this lesson:

(50) I am sustained by the Love of God.
As I listen to God's Voice, I am sustained by His Love. As I open my eyes, His Love lights up the world for me to see. As I forgive, His Love reminds me that His Son is sinless. And as I look upon the world with the vision He has given me, I remember that I am His Son. W-60.5

My goodness, the first 50 Lessons of Jesus’ Course are all you need to come into the realization that you are the Holy Son of God as He created you, His treasure.

And yes, you have help, help abides with you always. The Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost, as real as Lindbergh’s ghostly presences, guides you always.

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. What is the Holy Spirit?

Lindbergh followed his course with dogged determinatiion, crossing the tip of Ireland only three miles off course, arriving in Paris three hours earlier than charted. Your safe passage home is guaranteed, if you follow Jesus’ Course with single purpose.

You are as certain of arriving home
as is the pathway of the sun laid down
before it rises, after it has set,
and in the half-lit hours in between.
Indeed, your pathway is more certain still.
For it can not be possible to change
the course of those whom God has called to Him.
Therefore obey your will, and follow Him
Whom you accepted as your voice, to speak
of what you really want and really need.
His is the Voice for God and also yours.
And thus He speaks of freedom and of truth.
W-Epilogue.2




transatlantic flight Charles Lindbergh Lindbergh prototype power purpose destination God journey to God awakening truth Son of God The Spirit of St. Louis takeoff Roosevelt Field New York first man solo transatlantic flight Paris Pulitzer Prize cockpit Le Bourget aviation Wright Wright brothers parachuting Texas crash flying runway flying speed survival plane single purpose intangible quality Nova Scotia aerodrome sleep deprivation awake mind

Choosing Between Two Opposing Thoughts is Hobson's Choice

In the mid-1950’s, a doomsday cult of true believers in Chicago gathered at the home of Mrs. Marion Keech who was receiving mysterious messages in the form of “automatic writing” from alien beings on the planet Clarion. The most recent messages revealed that the world would end soon by a great flood. The cult members convinced themselves that by believing strongly enough in the prophecy, they would be spared, rescued by an alien spacecraft. They demonstrated their commitment by leaving jobs and spouses and colleges and giving away money and possessions.

Meanwhile, a psychology professor, Leon Festinger and his colleagues, had been working out a theory of cognitive dissonance that accounted for the tension that comes from holding two opposing thoughts at the same time. They predicted that the individual experiencing the tension of the dissonance would attempt to overcome it by rationalizing one thought in favor of the other. The word “dissonance” comes from sonare, meaning “sound,” and dis, meaning “to be apart from.” It is a metaphor from music describing unpleasant combinations of notes.

Festinger saw this cult’s belief in the prophecy as an opportunity to study how the cult members would rationalize the inevitable failure of the prophecy. He and his colleagues infiltrated the cult and reported their findings in a book published in 1956 entitled, When Prophecy Fails.

The great flood was to occur before dawn on December 21. On the evening of December 20 the members gathered at Mrs. Keech’s house, expecting a guide to come and direct them to the waiting spacecraft. In his book, Festinger reported the following sequence of events:

12:10 am. Still no visitor. The group sits in stunned silence. The cataclysm itself is no more than a few hours away.

4:00 am. The group has been sitting in silence. A few attempts at finding explanations have failed. Mrs. Keech begins to cry.

4:45 am. Another message by automatic writing is sent to Mrs. Keech. It states, in effect, that the God of Earth has decided to spare the planet from destruction. The cataclysm has been called off: “The little group, sitting all night long, had spread so much light that God had saved the world from destruction.”

Afternoon, December 21. Newspapers are called, interviews are sought. In a reversal of its previous distaste for publicity, the group begins an urgent campaign to spread its message to as broad an audience as possible.

While I am struck by the phrase, The little group, sitting all night long, had spread so much light… because I am well aware of the powerful effect of uniting and going inward with a common purpose, I want to continue with the argument that Festinger proposed--Two conflicting thoughts: the world will end, the world did not end. When it appeared that the prophecy would fail, great dissonance occurred, but it was overcome by the new belief that their dedication had saved the world because they spread so much light. And now they would reinforce this new belief by proselytizing their message.

Festinger was inspired to investigate the theory of cognitive dissonance as it presents itself moment by moment in our daily lives, accounting for much of the activity of our “monkey minds.” Dissonance occurs in situations where an individual must choose between two incompatible thoughts, or cognitions. The greatest dissonance is created when the two alternatives are equally compelling. For example, a habitual smoker is bombarded by information that smoking is extremely bad for your health. He finds himself saying, I must stop; I really want to smoke. These conflicting thoughts occur all through the day, producing almost unbearable tension. The rationalizing mind appears to offer some respite. He can rationalize not smoking with these thoughts:

My health will improve.
I will no longer experience shortness of breath.
My lungs will begin to clean out, and in time, will be normal.
I will save money.
I won’t have to put up with nonsmokers’ disdainful looks.
I will be free of being chained to a habit.

If these thoughts are acted upon, they produce a consonance, overcoming the dissonance. The word “consonance” also comes from sonare, and con, meaning “sounding together,” producing harmonies that are pleasing to the ear. But this harmony is only temporary if he is truly unable to stop smoking. And this could be justified in this manner:

Smoking is not really affecting my health.
I can still work effectively, in fact, quite well because I am more relaxed.
Smoking keeps me from gaining weight, and I can eat whatever I want.
I love the moment of lighting up.
I like hanging out with my buddies who smoke.
I’ve been smoking so long, I can’t imagine what it would be like not to.

Whatever side he takes, it appears that consonance trumps dissonance.

(Dear Reader, I urge you now to take a moment, look into your mind, and identify your most recent, or ongoing, attempt to find consonance in the face of two opposing thoughts.)

Thank you.

The only reason for taking such a hard look at this rationalizing behavior is that it is a major preoccupation that keeps us separate from God. We are preoccupying ourselves with thoughts that have no source in reality. Once again, we are caught in “egoland,” hostage to the ego, defending ourselves against God.

When I preoccupy myself, my small self that has no source in reality, with choosing between two alternatives, I have forgotten that this self allied with the ego has established a place in my mind separate from God. I have chosen to be hostage to the ego, yet Jesus tells me in His Course in Miracles:

I do not know the thing I am, and therefore do not know what I am doing, where I am, or how to look upon the world or on myself. T-31.V.17:7

And yet, I continue to defend my self against God by setting up two conflicting thoughts and spend my time rationalizing one thought over the other. Just look at the synonyms that describe this preoccupation to find consonance: justify, equalize, negotiate, mediate, compromise, bargain, compensate, adjust.

There is a tendency to think the world
can offer consolation and escape
from problems that its purpose is to keep.
Why should this be? Because it is a place
where choice among illusions seems to be
the only choice. And you are in control
of outcomes of your choosing. Thus you think,
within the narrow band from birth to death,
a little time is given you to use for you alone.
T-31.1V.1:1-4

Jesus goes on to say:

Real choice is not illusion. But the world has none to offer.

Although consonance seems to trump dissonance, the truth is that

GOD TRUMPS CONSONANCE.

All its roads but lead
to disappointment, nothingness and death.
There is no choice in its alternatives.
Seek not escape from problems here. The world
was made that problems could not be escaped.
Be not deceived by all the different names
its roads are given. They have but one end.
And each is but the means to gain that end,
for it is here that all its roads will lead,
however differently they seem to start;
however differently they seem to go.
Their end is certain, for there is no choice
among them. All of them will lead to death.
On some you travel gaily for a while,
before the bleakness enters. And on some
the thorns are felt at once. The choice is not
what will the ending be, but when it comes.
T-31.1V.2

Hence, the title of this article--you constantly face Hobson’s choice. The origin of this term is said to be in the name of one Thomas Hobson (1544-1631), from Cambridge, England, who kept a livery stable and required every customer to take either the horse nearest the stable door or none at all. The choice his customers were given was “this or none.” You have no choice in this duality.

However:

There is a choice that you have power to make
when you have seen the real alternatives.
Until that point is reached you have no choice,
and you can but decide how you would choose
the better to deceive yourself again.
(Consonance is deception)
This course attempts to teach no more than that
the power of decision cannot lie
in choosing different forms of what is still
the same illusion and the same mistake.
T-31.1V.8:1-4

The temptation to bargain in the face of self-made conflict is great. All that is required in the face of this temptation is to remember that we are as God created us; we are His most holy sons. We are the Self He created, not the small self we made.

The images you make cannot prevail
against what God Himself would have you be.
Be never fearful of temptation, then,
but see it as it is; another chance
to choose again, and let Christ’s strength prevail
in very circumstance and every place
you raised an image of yourself before.
For what appears to hide the face of Christ
is powerless before His majesty,
and disappears before His holy sight.
T-31.V111.4:1-4

I am reminded of a friend who was a counselor for many years. When she recognized in a client this pattern of rationalizing opposites, she used the term “ambivalence,” from the German, Ambivalenz, meaning “the presence of two opposing ideas, attitudes, or emotions at the same time.” In the face of this dissonance, this tension she counseled, “Learn to bear the tension.” That is, just stand still for a moment, do not choose, and in that moment of standing still, you are allowing for something else to enter in, inviting Christ’s strength to prevail.

This is the way Jesus expresses it in His Lesson 155, I will step back and let Him lead the way.

The world is an illusion. Those who choose
to come to it are seeking for a place
where they can be illusions, and avoid
their own reality. Yet when they find
their own reality is even here,
then they step back and let it lead the way.
What other choice is really theirs to make?
To let illusions walk ahead of truth
is madness. But to let illusion sink
behind the truth and let the truth stand forth
as what it is, is merely sanity. (2)

This shift from insanity to sanity, from illusions to truth, from dreaming to reality, is the miracle.

God’s miracles are true. They will not fade
when dreaming ends. They end the dream instead;
and last forever, for they come from God
to His dear Son, whose other name is you.
W-p1.106.4:4-5

Experiencing the truth of what you are will set you, God’s most holy Son, free from making meaningless choices between illusory opposites.

Walking in Form Informed by the Formless

After extensive, determined mind-training, desiring to see only what is beyond form, we finally take to heart Jesus’ teaching in His unworldly masterpiece, A Course in Miracles, that what we see in worldly form is just an illusion.

We learn to trust that seeing something in form does not make it Real.

It is quite possible to rest in this state of mind of the peace of God, while we walk in form, trusting that the only thing Real is this state of mind.

This is what it means to say,

I am not a body. I am free.
For I am still as God created me.
(Title, Lesson 201)

As God’s creation, this state is still, peaceful, joyous, loving, truthful, and free of form, formless.

This is our home.

I like the way Juliet Binoche, the great French actress, expressed this in the vernacular today in an interview in a newspaper. "As a child I moved from place to place, and I had to find my home inside myself. When I bring my home wherever I go, I am at home wherever I am."

Slipping into this still state, silent, because the raucous shrieks of the ego have disappeared, we are receptive to hear the Voice for God, speaking to us all through the day.

Now, in this moment, it is quite possible to be still a moment and walk through the illusion, just doing the next thing, feeling totally at home, walking in form informed by the formless.

When you are still an instant, when the world
recedes from you, when valueless ideas
cease to have value in your restless mind,
then will you hear His Voice. So poignantly
He calls to you that you will not resist
Him longer. In that instant He will take
you to His home, and you will stay with Him
in perfect stillness, silent and at peace,
beyond all words, untouched by fear and doubt,
sublimely certain that you are at home.
(Lesson 182, paragraph 8)

Please click on the link below to hear Doug Christlieb play the piano and sing his own composition, I will be still an instant and go home.

Click Here for song

A Letter to my Son, Stephen: Learning from Dogs

A few days ago my son, Stephen, 37, called from where he is now living, Aspen Colorado, to tell me of an incident that occurred regarding the three dogs he is looking after for a friend. The dogs are of a mixed breed, Australian sheep dog and border collie, black and white, weighing about 40 pounds each. Sarah, the alpha female, is the mother of Hula, a male, and sister to Haily.

Suddenly, and completely out of character, Sarah attacked Haily, her jaws clamped tightly shut on her throat, drawing blood. Stephen’s adrenaline hit, picking up both dogs by their necks and separating them, throwing Sarah outside, incurring a bite on the arm, and during the melee Hula bit him on the leg.

It was over in a flash, and Stephen went and sat down, his heartbeat slowly returning to normal.

The reason he called me was to talk about a question forming in his mind that, since he is the cause, what is going on in his mind that would make up a world of vicious dogs? Now, Stephen is a serious student of A Course in Miracles. He spent a period of time in residence at Endeavor Academy, and he does the lessons daily, determined to train his mind systematically to a new way of thinking. He had spent enough time at the Academy to know that a “brother” (a resident at the Academy) would often glibly answer his question with, “It’s your mind, Dear One.” Actually that’s not very helpful, if you just stop there.

We talked on the phone for a while, and after we hung up, I just couldn’t get it out of my mind, and I finally grabbed a notebook and began to formulate a more thorough answer to his question. This is the letter that I e-mailed to him.

Wednesday 31 January, 2007

Dear Stephen,

I am so grateful that you are taking a look at everything that happens from the perspective of mind-training. You’re right, a brother is likely to say it’s your mind. Usually, it is said when I am upset, and it pisses me off because it seems so glib, and at the time not very helpful. What, exactly, does it mean, anyway?

It does say in today’s lesson, the inner is the cause of the outer. (Lesson 31, I am not a victim of the world I see) My favorite expression of this occurs in Chapter 21.

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-21.11.2:3-5)

Let’s start with the idea that embedded in your mind is a motion-picture camera. It is located in a few square centimeters in the back of your head where the holographic universe is formed. Now, this camera just does what it does, automatically; it simply records what its lens, your eyes, rests upon, glances at.

No two cameras are the same. You project one thing and another person standing beside you projects another. What is projected is all meaningless. Nothing I see means anything. Now, here’s the deal.

Not only do you see images flooding your mind, but you are hearing constant commenting. This is voice of the ego, lulling you into a constant state of judgment.

What you choose to focus on in the panorama is entirely up to you. This is where mind-training comes in because to an untrained mind, there is nothing to see other than what you are looking at, and how you respond seems to be your only choice. Your ego-mind, your self-concept, is completely allied with what you see. That is, what you see, the world, appears to be the cause, and you are the effect. You seem to be a victim of the world you see.

That’s the value of the Zen idea, “What we are looking for is what is looking.” That is why I always go to state of mind to understand what is looking. Before mind-training, there is no differentiation between the ego state of mind and the world you see. The ego is the director. And what you see is an exact projection. This is an unexamined premise completely taken for granted. This is what the inner refers to. The inner state of mind. Thus, the inner causes the outer, truly.

Much to our surprise, as we persevere in mind-training, we learn that there is another state of mind, in fact, the only state of mind, and this state is the True Self, the Christ mind. For I am still as God created me. Of course, it is a joke of cosmic proportions that we manage to keep our True Selves hidden from our awareness. But we do learn that we have choice. What we end up seeing, then, is either a projection, or a reflection, a projection of your limited self-concept, your ego, or a reflection of your True Self.

. . .and I decide upon the goal I would achieve.

I, the mechanism of decision, am always in a position to decide between seeing either through the eyes of the ego, the self-concept, or through the True Self, the eyes of Christ. I can choose crucifixion or resurrection, separation or salvation. In every moment, I can ask only for help to let go of, to forgive, the state of mind of the ego that is in alliance with the camera showing me a meaningless world, an illusion, a dream, a holographic universe that simply does not exist, in spite of its apparent solidity.Images seem solid.

I am seeing vicious dogs attacking each other. I am the cause. What’s going on in my mind that would present such a world to me. “It’s your mind, Dear One.” Yes, but, the real meaning of the inner causes the outer is that you can choose what you want to see. Your awareness of the inner state of mind is either the truth of what you are; or the falsity of what you are.. The choice is to see with the ego’s eyes or with Christ’s eyes. Through the eyes of Christ you always see only the reflection of your peaceful state of mind. You look through the images to peace. Now, you can’t actually see peace; it’s more of a feeling, a slipping into another frequency. Real vision is not only unlimited by space and distance, but it does not depend on the body’s eyes at all. The mind is its only source. (Lesson 30.5:1,2)

In this state of mind, there is, of course, no ego-commentary. There is only stillness. For I am still as God created me. It turns out that the constant noise of the ego state is a preoccupation that serves as a defense against seeing through the eyes of Christ.

Now you can see that you are definitely on the mark because your mind is trained, sufficiently, to stop and be still and ask, what’s going on in my mind that would cause vicious dogs? Humans around you whose minds are untrained are incapable of asking such a question.

This recognition that what seems natural and real is not so is the miracle.

So, you caused the vicious dogs only in the sense that your camera was running. You took action and did what you had to do. Then you sat quietly for a moment. You became still. (Lesson 155, I will step back and let Him lead the way.) And then you began to formulate a question that would guide you to your True Self, and you asked for help.

“Good onya, mate.”

Now, read Chapter 21, Section 11: The responsibility for sight. It will kick your ass.

Cool.

Love,

Dad

* * *

Last night, Stephen called to tell me the happy, tail-wagging end to this tale. He said that he walked around for a couple of days holding a grievance against the dogs, even though they were all-friendly to him, acting as if nothing had happened, when of course, nothing had happened for them, being blessed by not being egos, having no past to hold onto. So, he sat down with each of them and loved them up and forgave them, laughing at the foolishness of holding a grievance against dogs. They simply remained in their loving presence, reminding me of this poem by Denise Levertov (1923-1997), Come Into Animal Presence.

Come into animal presence.
No man is so guileless as
the serpent. The lonely white
rabbit on the roof is a star
twitching its ears at the rain.
The llama intricately
folding its hind legs to be seated
not disdains but mildly
disregards human approval.
What joy when the insouciant
armadillo glances at us and doesn't
quicken his trotting
across the track and into the palm brush.

What is this joy? That no animal
falters, but knows what it must do?
That the snake has no blemish,
that the rabbit inspects his strange surroundings
in white star-silence? The llama
rests in dignity, the armadillo
has some intention to pursue in the palm-forest.
Those who were sacred have remained so,
holiness does not dissolve, it is a presence
of bronze, only the sight that saw it
faltered and turned from it.
An old joy returns in holy presence.

The rabbit and the llama and the armadillo are simply present, not having to contend with a false state of mind. They don’t have a choice. They don’t have a decision to make. They are always, already, present, now.

Those who were sacred have remained so.

In this sense, they provide a perfect analogue, a similarity to our peaceful state of mind. Their animal presence is sacred, holy, whole. The title of the poem, Come Into Animal Presence, is an invitation to the reader, an invitation not to be with them physically, but letting them be a reminder to enter into our own peaceful state of mind. Animals do not falter; they don’t have a choice. Only we, observing them, could turn away from our natural presence, deciding for another state:

only the sight that saw it
faltered and turned from it.

What always draws me back to this poem is the word insouciant, meaning “light-hearted unconcern.” I love to walk through the world feeling insouciant, my heart filled with light.

“Lightheartedness” does occur once in A Course in Miracles. It appears in the Manual for Teachers where Jesus is describing to the teacher of God what it means to relinquish the valueless.

Through this, he learns that where he anticipated grief, he finds a happy lightheartedness instead; where he thought something was asked of him, he finds a gift bestowed on him. (M-4A:5:8)

And now I know why I have always liked the name of the main character in Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Holly Golightly.

October 5, 1987, Saying Goodbye to my Therapist: We are Always Being Guided

Yesterday, during a conversation at lunch, a friend said that she remembered a story I had told her some time ago about the day I resolutely stood up in the middle of a therapy session and terminated therapy after four solid years, one session each week.

I remembered that twenty years ago I had written an article describing that experience, and I went home hoping to find it. Finally, after much searching, I found on the back of a closet shelf an old box gathering dust, containing several yellowing manuscripts. Leafing through them, I was relieved to find the manuscript, Saying Goodbye to my Therapist. (Not only did I find it, but I found in an envelope in the box the floppy containing the article, having typed it on a Tandy computer).

Gratefully, I sat down and read it, marveling at the earnest, hard work I had done, looking for peace in the midst of pain. But what struck me most was the extent to which I was always being guided. I was guided by dreams, intuitions, insights, the therapist’s comments, bright reflections in the books I was reading, images, events—all characterized by the Jungian term “numinous,” meaning “filled with a sense of the presence of divinity.”

And now, Dear Reader, I invite you to read this manuscript in its entirety, un-edited, without commentary.

Yesterday, I repeated a ritual that I had followed for almost four years, two hundred sessions. I walked into Dr. William Schirado's red Victorian house at 4:25 for a 4:30 appointment on Friday afternoon. I sat on an old, comfortable couch, a bookcase on the left, a fireplace off to the right. At exactly 4:30, he opened the door I was facing. I said "Hi," he said "Hi," and I stood up, grabbing my briefcase, moved to the door, and turned left down a short hallway, and into the session room, a small room, probably eight by eight. I put down my briefcase and sat in a wingback chair. To my left was the couch, to my right an old desk, on the floor an Oriental rug. Across from me Dr. Schirado sat almost motionless for fifty minutes. Behind him were two windows with lace curtains that opened onto a large, fenced-in yard. In his meditative silence, he became a screen upon which I projected portions of my endless mind chatter and on that screen I could see mirrored more clearly my projections. Over the four years I learned to distinguish between the "what is" of the external world and my projections onto the world.

Back in late November of 1983, I had found his name in the yellow pages. At that time, I was voraciously reading Carl Jung, and Dr. Schirado advertised himself as an "analytical psychologist," the brand of psychology practiced by Jungians. It turns out that he is eclectic, and whatever his therapeutic training, he was exactly what I needed. During the first session, nervously facing the deep silence of the therapeutic encounter, I described a recurring fantasy. On a cold night with the sky full of stars, I would take a down sleeping bag and go to the woods, find a giant pine tree, and sleep under the branches, while the woods filled with softly falling snow. He said, "Sounds like you're looking for peace rather than running away from something." He said we could "wonder together" about these images in my fantasies and dreams. Warmth replaced the tautness in my stomach, and I, temporarily, felt safe. I developed the practice of writing down dreams every morning. One time I had a dream about foreigners milling around in his waiting room as I was sitting on the couch. Then, with one of those wonderful flashes of intuition, I realized that the foreigners represented parts of me that were foreign and beginning to surface. In the uncanny rightness of dream imagery, the setting was his office where I was getting in touch with different parts of myself. I began to realize how we develop our personal metaphors.

A big breakthrough occurred a few months after beginning therapy. I was preoccupied with the question, what stance do you take towards the world so that you can always maintain your balance? I was thinking in terms of images from the martial arts, hence the metaphor "stance." Walking down the street after lunch one day, "processing is taking a stance" popped into my mind. You process your way through events and that, in itself, is taking a stance. For me processing meant making a connection between an event in the outer world, and my emotional response to the event, and the connection between my response and similar responses in the past. It meant being very attentive to images clustered in the response. My focus shifted from the "what is" in the external world to my response to it. With the focus on my response to events, the question of control over external events no longer was an issue. I felt more in charge of my life.

Then, as usually happens, just as I thought I had it figured out, I was tested. I experienced a sudden, shocking job loss. I was told at what started out to be a routine lunch that I was being terminated. I left the restaurant in a daze, drove aimlessly for a couple of hours, and went to see Dr. Schirado. I just walked in, no phone call in advance. The only time I ever did that. The timing was right; he had an open slot. I numbly walked in, sat down, and tried to piece together what had just happened. He said, "Raise the stakes." I said, "What?" He went on to say it is as if a god in charge of processing said, "So, he thinks processing is the key, that is my area, I'm going to raise the stakes because he took some of my power." That was a powerful image, and I now had a way of looking at the situation. I learned that even in pain and in suffering, I could find a perspective. Focusing on what was going on in me was the lifeline. No one could take away my responses, and in those responses was the key to empowering myself. I started a journal that day. I filled it with dreams, ideas, excerpts from books and articles. I call these journals, "Raise the Stakes," and I am writing this draft in journal twenty-one.

I had been coming here now for almost four years, 4:25 Friday afternoon, the week is over, the weekend is about to begin. Let's review the week. Now in the last session, I was thinking about the second time I went skiing. I was visiting a friend in Denver, and we went to the mountains. We went to the bunny hill first, and I remembered how to snowplow. Then my friend showed me the stem turn. That is, if I am angling to the right down a slope and want to turn left, I put my weight on the inside, or left, ski, shift my body to the left, raise the right ski, and bring it down parallel to the other one about two inches apart. If I am angling to the left, I put my weight on the inside, or right, ski, shift my weight, and so forth. After a few minutes of practice, he said you're ready, let's go, and he took me up 5,000 feet. I learned a lot coming down. After I made it to the bottom, he said let's go to the top, 10,000 feet. The image that day was that processing is like doing a stem turn. Knowing how to turn, I felt powerful because I was ready for whatever conditions the mountain presented. Who has the power, me or the mountain? Going down a dangerous slope, lined with trees, drop offs, and other skiers, could I hold onto my personal power and turn as the conditions required, or would I give my power to the mountain and wipeout? If I could maintain my balance and confidence and center,, I could hold onto my power. To this day that image is helpful when I start to give my power away in a tense situation.

Now I was in the waiting room for probably the last time. I went over in my mind the words carefully--I am going to "discontinue" therapy for an indefinite period of time. To say I was going to "stop" was too final, too abrupt at this point. But I was surprised that I was beginning to feel resolute. There was a rightness about it. I realized that for the last three sessions, I had been mostly recapping situations had already processed. Today's session could have been more of the same. Then I recalled that recently I had been marveling about a decision that Mr. J. Krishnamurti made in 1929. A young enlightened man in India, he was thought by his followers to be an incarnation of Jesus. At the age of thirty-four, he was the head of the Order of the Star, an organization that he been founded eighteen years before. He had thousands of followers. On August 3, 1929, in the presence of three thousand members of the Order, he announced his determination to dissolve the Order. He did this with no fear of consequences. He just walked away. Even before I began thinking consciously that it was time to discontinue therapy, I kept thinking about the resoluteless of this act. On a deep level a shift had been taking place.

I had also been thinking about a passage in an interview with Ken Wilber, a man who has single-handedly developed a unified theory of levels of consciousness. He was describing the moment of moving from one level to another in the hierarchy of consciousness growth.

It's exactly like an apple falling from a tree. The apple gets riper and riper, then suddenly falls. And it falls completely--half of the apple doesn't stay behind. But notice that the apple has to go through a very specific process of growth and development to get to the point that it is perfectly ripe and ready to fall. It does not go from a seed to a fully ripe apple in an afternoon. Its growth is stage-like, its falling is sudden. 1

The passage first struck me because it seemed to affirm my spiritual practice. Day to day, I seemed to be moving at a snail-like pace, but looking back over the four years, I could see definite movement. The daily practice of reading, meditating, processing, writing in my journal, and studying dreams seemed to be paying off. And in the waiting room another meaning emerged. I knew that the image of the falling apple was telling me that it was time to drop. I felt resolute and a certain excitement.

During the session I was groping to understand what it meant to top therapy. I said that the ghosts were still there, and that it was not a matter of exorcising them. It is just that I had brought them from the darkness into the light, and they were not nearly as frightening as they were in the shadows. He said that I would not want to lose them because they were a part of me. I would not be me without the ghosts.

Sensing that probably twenty minutes remained in the session, I started talking about a book I had just read to fill the time. A long silence followed, and then he said, "Do you have anything else to say?" I knew that to the end he was saying absolutely the right thing at the right time. I realized that if I were discontinuing therapy there was no need to fill out the hour. But, as always, it was my choice, and he was gently helping me see that. I said, "Yes and no"--"no" there was no more to say just to fill the hour, and "yes" there was something else to say.

"I feel gratitude to you for our work together. I feel sadness that it is over," choking up I went on, "I never felt a wrong tone. You were always on the mark." I was silent for awhile and realized that it was my choice again. Standing up, I said, "That's it." "Fair enough," he said, standing up. As we had done almost two hundred times, I went to the couch to write out a check, and he went to the desk to write out the bill. We stood up, and I gave him my check, and he gave me his bill.

"I personally feel that you have done a lot of honest, hard work, and I am grateful that we were able to work on it together," he said. My eyes filled with tears. I shook his hand and said, "Thank you." I went to the door, opened it, walked down the short hallway, opened the outer door, turned, and instead of saying, "See you next week," I said, "So long." He nodded and smiled. I walked out, and he closed the door behind me.

Raymond H. Comeau

October 5, 1987

ENDNOTES

1. Catherine Ingram, "Ken Wilber: The Pundit of Transpersonal Psychology," Yoga Journal 76 (September/October, 1987) , 45.