It isn’t often we students of A Course in Miracles find something written over sixty years ago that lines up well with the Course’s fundamental teachings. So I want to share with you an allegory written by C. S. Lewis, who was one of the most influential Christian writers of the last century. The little book that I recommend is “The Great Divorce”, which Lewis wrote in response to William Blake’s “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell”. I have not read the latter, but judging from Lewis’s response, I’d say that “The Marriage” must, in the Course’s terms, “confuse levels” by trying to make both God and the world real (duality). The “divorce” referred to in Lewis’s title is the divorce of Heaven and hell. Through his allegory, he sorts out Truth from illusion (non-duality), just as the Course does. He even speaks of God as Reality and everything else as a dream!
The book is written in the first person, and the main character is never named. He has died and finds himself in a gray place that is sparsely populated, but he sees several people getting on a bus, so he joins them. Several people decide at the last minute to not get on. In short, the bus it taking him to a place that is just outside of Heaven. I don’t remember it being named, so I’ll call it “the plain”. The world in this story is referred to as “deep hell”; the gray place is “hell” if one remains in it, but if they go on they call it “purgatory”. Every one, it seems, initially lands in the gray hell, which is rather like a better dream of separation from God. One can have anything they want there just by wanting it. They also can get on the bus at any time to go to Heaven. It’s their choice. Most in this gray hell, however, have moved far away from the bus station, which is why the area around it seems deserted.
Upon reaching the plain, they are eventually met by Spirits, who are initially called “solid people” because those arriving from hell are ghost-like in this place. The Spirits are the ghosts’ guides to Heaven, if the ghosts are willing. And it is here that the protagonist overhears the various obstacles to God that are represented by the ghost’s stories. Reading this book, I recognized all of the forms of resistance to God that I have had myself, and that I see over and over again in others. (My life partner, Courtney, who is Christian, and who read this book before me a few weeks ago, says it has “changed her life” and brought her closer to God). This book is fantastic at pointing out the subtle forms that resisting God can take, and the many ways that we delude ourselves that we are close to God when we are really going in the other direction. I was particularly fond of the story of the clergyman who refused to accept that God is Fact because he enjoyed the “mystery” of God so much more! Hard as it is to fathom now, I can remember preferring the seeking to the finding for a long time myself.
I would say that we students of the Course live on the plain just outside of Heaven; our Guide is the Holy Spirit. Sometimes, when we feel particularly ornery, we get on the bus and return to hell and try to convince ourselves that it’s good enough because it’s better than the deep hell we were in before. But then we accept that hell is hell, and we get back on the bus and come up to the plain again. Eventually, we stay on the plain, and let the Holy Spirit help us remove our obstacles to God, and lift us Home.
This allegory is not perfectly in line with the Course; there are whiffs of traditional Christianity’s love of sacrifice, and it is never made clear that upon reaching God, individuality ceases to exist. But these are minor details. The book is great at sorting out Truth and illusion, and at making it clear that hell and Heaven are your choice, not something imposed on you. God is Pure Love, and the Spirits are Pure Joy, always laughing at the forms of resistance they encounter. They never take it seriously because they know the Truth!
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Read The Message of A Course in Miracles: A translation of the Text in plain language at www.themessageofacim.com.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
This Has Already Happened
“But this has already happened, right?”
This idea has come up a few times with students lately, always in relation to their life in the world. I think it’s because of this passage from the Manual for Teachers of A Course in Miracles:
“The world of time is the world of illusion. What happened long ago seems to be happening now. Choices made long since appear to be open; yet to be made. What has been learned and understood and long ago passed by is looked upon as a new thought, a fresh idea, a different approach. Because your will is free you can accept what has already happened at any time you choose, and only then will you realize that it was always there.” (M-2.3)
I think what throws off students is the “s” in “Choices” in the third sentence; the idea would be clearer in the singular. There is only ever one choice: Truth or illusion. You can phrase this in different ways: God or personal mind; Oneness or separation; Peace or conflict, etc. Read the passage above in context, and you will understand it much better. Here’s the paragraph that precedes it, and provides the context:
“In order to understand the teaching-learning plan of salvation, it is necessary to grasp the concept of time that the course sets forth. Atonement corrects illusions, not truth. Therefore, it corrects what never was. Further, the plan for this correction was established and completed simultaneously, for the Will of God is entirely apart from time. So is all reality, being of Him. The instant the idea of separation entered the mind of God's Son, in that same instant was God's Answer given. In time this happened very long ago. In reality it never happened at all.” (M-2.2)
You are reliving a single instant over and over again. In that instant is the illusion of time, with all of its diverse forms of choice, which mask the fact that their content is all the same. You seem to have to make new choices, but you are really making the same choice again and again: Are you going to believe in illusions, or recognize that they are illusions, and overlook them? When the Course says this has already happened it is not referring to what happens in the world; it means the whole illusion of separation from God was over the moment it seemed to occur. As a metaphor, if you have a dream when you are sleeping, when is what happens in the dream happening? It is never happening because it’s a dream! It’s over before it has even begun because it is nothing. When you wake up, you realize that what you thought was happening did not happen at all. Only in time do stories about time have meaning. They have not already happened; they have never happened.
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Read The Message of A Course in Miracles: A translation of the Text in plain language at www.themessageofacim.com.
This idea has come up a few times with students lately, always in relation to their life in the world. I think it’s because of this passage from the Manual for Teachers of A Course in Miracles:
“The world of time is the world of illusion. What happened long ago seems to be happening now. Choices made long since appear to be open; yet to be made. What has been learned and understood and long ago passed by is looked upon as a new thought, a fresh idea, a different approach. Because your will is free you can accept what has already happened at any time you choose, and only then will you realize that it was always there.” (M-2.3)
I think what throws off students is the “s” in “Choices” in the third sentence; the idea would be clearer in the singular. There is only ever one choice: Truth or illusion. You can phrase this in different ways: God or personal mind; Oneness or separation; Peace or conflict, etc. Read the passage above in context, and you will understand it much better. Here’s the paragraph that precedes it, and provides the context:
“In order to understand the teaching-learning plan of salvation, it is necessary to grasp the concept of time that the course sets forth. Atonement corrects illusions, not truth. Therefore, it corrects what never was. Further, the plan for this correction was established and completed simultaneously, for the Will of God is entirely apart from time. So is all reality, being of Him. The instant the idea of separation entered the mind of God's Son, in that same instant was God's Answer given. In time this happened very long ago. In reality it never happened at all.” (M-2.2)
You are reliving a single instant over and over again. In that instant is the illusion of time, with all of its diverse forms of choice, which mask the fact that their content is all the same. You seem to have to make new choices, but you are really making the same choice again and again: Are you going to believe in illusions, or recognize that they are illusions, and overlook them? When the Course says this has already happened it is not referring to what happens in the world; it means the whole illusion of separation from God was over the moment it seemed to occur. As a metaphor, if you have a dream when you are sleeping, when is what happens in the dream happening? It is never happening because it’s a dream! It’s over before it has even begun because it is nothing. When you wake up, you realize that what you thought was happening did not happen at all. Only in time do stories about time have meaning. They have not already happened; they have never happened.
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Read The Message of A Course in Miracles: A translation of the Text in plain language at www.themessageofacim.com.
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Confusion of Levels
You don’t give up what in the world is considered common sense when you become a student of A Course in Miracles. You don’t throw out what a lifetime of living in the world has taught you about it. The laws of the world hold for the world; the laws of God hold for God. (As the Bible puts it, “Render under Caesar what belongs to Caesar; render unto God what belongs to God”). Trying to cross those laws over into each other is what the Course calls “confusion of levels”, meaning you are confusing the mutually exclusive levels of your mind: God and the personal mind. For example, some students think that since your mind is One in God that you are supposed to change the social and political structure of the world-level of your mind to reflect this Oneness. This is not only unnecessary, since the world is an effect of your mind and changing it is meaningless, but also impossible. Diverse form cannot be One; that is why the world and God are mutually exclusive.
In the world, trust in others must be developed and justified over time, but every now and then I run across a student who interprets the passages in the Course about “trusting your brother” to mean that they should automatically trust everyone they meet. Those passages were very specific to Helen Schucman and Bill Thetford, who were in a reciprocal Holy relationship. The Holy Spirit was with them in their relationship and knew what was in each of their minds. It knew where and when they could trust each other. The lesson in this for the rest of us is that we can trust the Holy Spirit in our relationships with others, not that we should automatically trust everyone we meet. You are justified in trusting Truth and Its guidance, but trusting in illusions is foolish. Your trust belongs to the God level of your mind, not to the personal mind and what it perceives.
When the Course points out the thought systems of your seemingly split mind, it is simply stating how they work so that you can sort them out from each other and make a real choice between them. It is not saying that you should try to make the personal mind like God. For example, the Course points out that the personal mind is possessive; it’s all about ownership for the personal mind. Some students think that the Course is telling them to give up their possessions. This is confusing the levels of their mind because in the world (form) possession is necessary for survival. Even at the barest minimum you possess a body. Possession means nothing to the Holy Spirit, however, because Its awareness of What It is (and therefore has) is increased by Its extending It, or giving It, since It is Boundless, Formless Being. The laws of Boundless Being cannot be applied to limited form. The awareness that you are truly Boundless Being, however, will lead you to not be attached to possessions in the world in the recognition that they are temporary because they serve you only in time. Changing which level of your mind with which you perceive the world will change how you see the world but it will not make the world more God-like.
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Read The Message of A Course in Miracles: A translation of the Text in plain language at www.themessageofacim.com.
In the world, trust in others must be developed and justified over time, but every now and then I run across a student who interprets the passages in the Course about “trusting your brother” to mean that they should automatically trust everyone they meet. Those passages were very specific to Helen Schucman and Bill Thetford, who were in a reciprocal Holy relationship. The Holy Spirit was with them in their relationship and knew what was in each of their minds. It knew where and when they could trust each other. The lesson in this for the rest of us is that we can trust the Holy Spirit in our relationships with others, not that we should automatically trust everyone we meet. You are justified in trusting Truth and Its guidance, but trusting in illusions is foolish. Your trust belongs to the God level of your mind, not to the personal mind and what it perceives.
When the Course points out the thought systems of your seemingly split mind, it is simply stating how they work so that you can sort them out from each other and make a real choice between them. It is not saying that you should try to make the personal mind like God. For example, the Course points out that the personal mind is possessive; it’s all about ownership for the personal mind. Some students think that the Course is telling them to give up their possessions. This is confusing the levels of their mind because in the world (form) possession is necessary for survival. Even at the barest minimum you possess a body. Possession means nothing to the Holy Spirit, however, because Its awareness of What It is (and therefore has) is increased by Its extending It, or giving It, since It is Boundless, Formless Being. The laws of Boundless Being cannot be applied to limited form. The awareness that you are truly Boundless Being, however, will lead you to not be attached to possessions in the world in the recognition that they are temporary because they serve you only in time. Changing which level of your mind with which you perceive the world will change how you see the world but it will not make the world more God-like.
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Read The Message of A Course in Miracles: A translation of the Text in plain language at www.themessageofacim.com.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Further Lessons in Letting Go of Potential
Since I finished the translation of the Text of A Course in Miracles into plain language I have had the sense of being done with the world. The Holy Spirit says to me, “It’s time to come within now.” I wrote recently about how I see the next phase for me as being where I shift from living with the Holy Spirit to identifying with the Holy Spirit. Last week I wrote about realizing that I can let go of the obligation I have felt to fulfill the personal self’s potential. I now see that all of these things are connected. By letting go of that obligation I change the way that I see myself and my relationship to the world. I am learning how much more I can live present to the Holy Spirit without “potential” pulling me back into the world. Letting go of potential really means letting go of defining myself in terms of the world.
That obligation to grow a personal self apparently pervaded my thought system. It takes many forms and I keep bumping into it so that I can remove it. The other day I was thinking that it would be nice to not be afraid to say “no” when I am offered an opportunity to stretch my comfort zone. I feel guilty if I don’t take an opportunity to “grow” in a new direction. Then it dawned on me that I can say no without guilt and fear because “stretching my comfort zone” is just another way of saying “personal growth”. I also realized that I had projected the source of my sense of obligation onto the Holy Spirit. But even deeper than that projection was my real fear: That if I don’t keep moving forward and pushing through and growing the personal self, I am as good as dead. This, of course, is a lie the personal self must tell me to preserve itself. Letting go of the personal self is liberation from limitations, which is Life.
Looking back I can see that the Holy Spirit has developed in me what needed to be developed so that I could best learn from It. But this was not personal growth. Whatever I’ve had to learn within myself or in the world to reach this stage has come without the personal self because the Holy Spirit did it. The only effort I experienced was my own resistance. When I think back to the period of relinquishment, which was when I was training to be a life-coach, I remember how many times I tried to go in a certain direction and the Holy Spirit would pull me back, saying, “Not that way; this way.” The Holy Spirit’s way was always effortless and fit easily into my life. I think I was a little disappointed because a part of me wanted to be challenged so I could grow “Liz”. But my resistance and disappointment always gave way to the infinitely more valuable Peace that I experienced following the Holy Spirit. And so it is now, as I root out all these little ways of holding on to a personal self that are buried in my mind.
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Read The Message of A Course in Miracles: A translation of the Text in plain language at www.themessageofacim.com.
That obligation to grow a personal self apparently pervaded my thought system. It takes many forms and I keep bumping into it so that I can remove it. The other day I was thinking that it would be nice to not be afraid to say “no” when I am offered an opportunity to stretch my comfort zone. I feel guilty if I don’t take an opportunity to “grow” in a new direction. Then it dawned on me that I can say no without guilt and fear because “stretching my comfort zone” is just another way of saying “personal growth”. I also realized that I had projected the source of my sense of obligation onto the Holy Spirit. But even deeper than that projection was my real fear: That if I don’t keep moving forward and pushing through and growing the personal self, I am as good as dead. This, of course, is a lie the personal self must tell me to preserve itself. Letting go of the personal self is liberation from limitations, which is Life.
Looking back I can see that the Holy Spirit has developed in me what needed to be developed so that I could best learn from It. But this was not personal growth. Whatever I’ve had to learn within myself or in the world to reach this stage has come without the personal self because the Holy Spirit did it. The only effort I experienced was my own resistance. When I think back to the period of relinquishment, which was when I was training to be a life-coach, I remember how many times I tried to go in a certain direction and the Holy Spirit would pull me back, saying, “Not that way; this way.” The Holy Spirit’s way was always effortless and fit easily into my life. I think I was a little disappointed because a part of me wanted to be challenged so I could grow “Liz”. But my resistance and disappointment always gave way to the infinitely more valuable Peace that I experienced following the Holy Spirit. And so it is now, as I root out all these little ways of holding on to a personal self that are buried in my mind.
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Read The Message of A Course in Miracles: A translation of the Text in plain language at www.themessageofacim.com.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
The Gift of Letting Go of Potential
I have never been interested in fame, fortune, or power but there were certain assumptions people made about me when I became a life-coach back around 2000. One of them was that I was looking to become the next Dr. Phil, or some equivalent world-renowned life-coach. It’s true that some with whom I studied life-coaching were looking for recognition, either on a large or a small scale. Many were actively and openly looking for ways to get on Oprah! But my idea of success has always been inner peace, not a particular life style. Since I’ve written the translation of A Course in Miracles I find these assumptions (projections?) happening again. Some think that I wrote the book to become some sort of great guru, if not in the world at large, at least in the Course community. But in fact I still want only what I already have, which is everything I’ve ever really wanted: A loving life-partner, a sweet little home, and lots and lots of time for contemplation and meditation. I like my little mentoring practice and only want it to fill out. For me, awakening to God has always been an inward path that requires a quiet, simple outer life with a minimum of distractions.
The problem was that I was finding myself getting defensive whenever someone suggested that I was on track to become some well-known teacher in the world. What was that defensiveness about? Did I secretly want recognition? Fortune? Power? As often as I looked I could not find any part of me that wanted any of this. Then it occurred to me that this experience was just like the conflict I felt in high school. I’ve always been an introvert, not out of fear but out of preference. I always found the inner world of the mind far more interesting than the outer world. I could never understand the desire to be popular, though my two best friends longed for it. I didn’t understand why other kids joined clubs and organizations. When school was out I felt set free to pursue my own quiet interests – why would I want to waste my precious free time in these groups? But I felt a conflict that was more than just being different because I really was okay with who I was. Something within me was nagging at me to reach a potential that deep down I knew I had. I could be anything I wanted. And this is the same conflict that was coming up for me thirty years later. It’s not that I want recognition or power or money but that a part of me wants me to stretch Liz, not necessarily to the limit, but enough to see some of what she’s made.
So the defensiveness I felt when others suggested my goal was something other than the quiet life I really want came out of the obligation I felt, in my identification with a personal self, to discover that personal self’s potential. I felt guilty wanting a simple, quiet, inward life when I had a potential to discover. Of course, as soon as I recognized this conflict I realized how meaningless it is to develop a personal self, which isn’t me. It only makes sense to develop my awareness of What I really am. Initially I felt some grief because I enjoyed making “Liz”: stretching her wings, making her grow, testing her potential. But the grief passed quickly and was replaced by a subtle relief that left me feeling light as air. Making a personal self is a lot of work! This is one of those examples the Course speaks of where I thought something was being taken away and I found a gift instead.
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Read The Message of A Course in Miracles: A translation of the Text in plain language at www.themessageofacim.com.
The problem was that I was finding myself getting defensive whenever someone suggested that I was on track to become some well-known teacher in the world. What was that defensiveness about? Did I secretly want recognition? Fortune? Power? As often as I looked I could not find any part of me that wanted any of this. Then it occurred to me that this experience was just like the conflict I felt in high school. I’ve always been an introvert, not out of fear but out of preference. I always found the inner world of the mind far more interesting than the outer world. I could never understand the desire to be popular, though my two best friends longed for it. I didn’t understand why other kids joined clubs and organizations. When school was out I felt set free to pursue my own quiet interests – why would I want to waste my precious free time in these groups? But I felt a conflict that was more than just being different because I really was okay with who I was. Something within me was nagging at me to reach a potential that deep down I knew I had. I could be anything I wanted. And this is the same conflict that was coming up for me thirty years later. It’s not that I want recognition or power or money but that a part of me wants me to stretch Liz, not necessarily to the limit, but enough to see some of what she’s made.
So the defensiveness I felt when others suggested my goal was something other than the quiet life I really want came out of the obligation I felt, in my identification with a personal self, to discover that personal self’s potential. I felt guilty wanting a simple, quiet, inward life when I had a potential to discover. Of course, as soon as I recognized this conflict I realized how meaningless it is to develop a personal self, which isn’t me. It only makes sense to develop my awareness of What I really am. Initially I felt some grief because I enjoyed making “Liz”: stretching her wings, making her grow, testing her potential. But the grief passed quickly and was replaced by a subtle relief that left me feeling light as air. Making a personal self is a lot of work! This is one of those examples the Course speaks of where I thought something was being taken away and I found a gift instead.
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Read The Message of A Course in Miracles: A translation of the Text in plain language at www.themessageofacim.com.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Correcting Thoughts
The way that I learned A Course in Miracles was to take my questions to the Holy Spirit and let them go. I was always answered, if not immediately, then within a day or two. Eventually, I extended this practice to everything else in my life. I also eventually heard the Holy Spirit faster and more clearly to the point that I can have discussions with It. But the one thing that never worked for me was asking the Holy Spirit to change a particular Peace-robbing thought about me, another, or a situation. Eventually I learned to affirm the Truth in place of the negative thought and this invited the Holy Spirit into my awareness. It finally occurred to me that doing these affirmations was the Holy Spirit’s means of correcting my thoughts! I had been too passive, expecting the Holy Spirit to come into my mind like something separate from it.
You are constantly engaged in self-talk. The source of your experience is these thoughts that you are hearing, consciously or unconsciously, and believing. If you are experiencing Peace then you know that your thoughts, and the beliefs that they engender, reflect the Truth. If you are not experiencing Peace then you know that your thoughts are erroneous and that they are engendering beliefs that you need to correct. But recognizing that your thoughts are mistaken is only the first step. The next step is the actual correction that allows Peace to return to your awareness. This correcting step is countering the erroneous thoughts with Truth. This is not the same thing as fighting or arguing with the personal mind, which would only make it real to you. It’s simply stating the Truth to replace the error. For example: “I am unworthy of God. I am too lowly for God to care about me or my little problems” is corrected to “I am One with God. What is One with God cannot be unworthy of God! How silly is that? Of course God is here to guide me. God cannot abandon Its Self and God Wills I be happy again.” You have to consciously change your self-talk to reflect the Truth. When you do this, really think about what you are saying so that it sinks in and eventually becomes your belief.
Correct an erroneous thought as specifically as possible because the personal mind’s thoughts are very specific and this is how it gets to you. Sometimes you will have to go deeper to find out what the personal mind is really saying to you. It may not, for example, say outright that you are unworthy of God. You may simply find yourself resistant to asking for the Holy Spirit’s guidance. But if you look into your thoughts you will find that the reason you aren’t turning to the Holy Spirit for guidance is that you don’t believe It is really here or you believe that It will reject you. So you have to get down to and correct the underlying thought that is robbing you of your awareness of Peace. (For example, revisiting the experiences you have had of the Holy Spirit to reaffirm its Presence, or reminding yourself that the Holy Spirit is the True you and therefore cannot reject you). Some thoughts will dissipate as soon as you look at them because you will immediately see that they are absurd; other thoughts you will have to correct again and again because they are deeply ingrained. But you don’t want the personal mind to have the last word. Even if you cannot yet trust the Truth and accept Peace right now, you want to build the habit of affirming Truth to change the way that you think. Your willingness to affirm Truth is the way that you invite Truth into your experience.
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Read The Message of A Course in Miracles: A translation of the Text in plain language at www.themessageofacim.com.
You are constantly engaged in self-talk. The source of your experience is these thoughts that you are hearing, consciously or unconsciously, and believing. If you are experiencing Peace then you know that your thoughts, and the beliefs that they engender, reflect the Truth. If you are not experiencing Peace then you know that your thoughts are erroneous and that they are engendering beliefs that you need to correct. But recognizing that your thoughts are mistaken is only the first step. The next step is the actual correction that allows Peace to return to your awareness. This correcting step is countering the erroneous thoughts with Truth. This is not the same thing as fighting or arguing with the personal mind, which would only make it real to you. It’s simply stating the Truth to replace the error. For example: “I am unworthy of God. I am too lowly for God to care about me or my little problems” is corrected to “I am One with God. What is One with God cannot be unworthy of God! How silly is that? Of course God is here to guide me. God cannot abandon Its Self and God Wills I be happy again.” You have to consciously change your self-talk to reflect the Truth. When you do this, really think about what you are saying so that it sinks in and eventually becomes your belief.
Correct an erroneous thought as specifically as possible because the personal mind’s thoughts are very specific and this is how it gets to you. Sometimes you will have to go deeper to find out what the personal mind is really saying to you. It may not, for example, say outright that you are unworthy of God. You may simply find yourself resistant to asking for the Holy Spirit’s guidance. But if you look into your thoughts you will find that the reason you aren’t turning to the Holy Spirit for guidance is that you don’t believe It is really here or you believe that It will reject you. So you have to get down to and correct the underlying thought that is robbing you of your awareness of Peace. (For example, revisiting the experiences you have had of the Holy Spirit to reaffirm its Presence, or reminding yourself that the Holy Spirit is the True you and therefore cannot reject you). Some thoughts will dissipate as soon as you look at them because you will immediately see that they are absurd; other thoughts you will have to correct again and again because they are deeply ingrained. But you don’t want the personal mind to have the last word. Even if you cannot yet trust the Truth and accept Peace right now, you want to build the habit of affirming Truth to change the way that you think. Your willingness to affirm Truth is the way that you invite Truth into your experience.
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Read The Message of A Course in Miracles: A translation of the Text in plain language at www.themessageofacim.com.
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Why "One With" God?
A couple of weeks ago a student asked an important question: Why do I say “You are One with God” instead of “You are God”? Aren’t they the same thing? Yes, but there is a reason for making a distinction between these statements, just as there is a reason why A Course in Miracles makes a distinction between the “Son of God” and “God”, between "Christ/Holy Spirit" and "God", between “perception” and “Knowledge”, and between “miracle” and “revelation”. It is a distinction between the levels of your mind, which seems to be split between not-God, where you have the choice to experience God or not, and God, Where there is no choice because All is God.
Knowledge cannot change but perception can. God in God’s Totality is the level of Knowledge. This is the level of “You are God”. If you have a direct experience of God you have a “revelation”. In a revelation of God there is only God. The Son of God is the level of perception and here you have a choice between perceiving a reflection of God or the illusion that not-God is real. When your mind shifts towards God it is called a “miracle”. The highest your perception can rise to is a full awareness of God (Christ/Holy Spirit), which is just short of Knowledge of God. Because it is not God in God’s Totality this is the level of “You are One with God”.
There’s also a practical reason to use “You are One with God”, especially for a new student of the Course. When you are almost wholly identified with a personal self, the personal mind will misuse the statement “You are God”. It will find a way to use it to glorify itself and will deliberately misinterpret this statement to mean that the personal mind is what is God. This is always a risk for students who have not yet had enough experiences of their True Self in God to realize that It is a different experience from the personal self. “You are One with God” keeps you grounded in the awareness that there is a distinction between perceiving God and a total experience of God. It keeps the personal mind from grasping onto God for its own identification. In time, when you have shifted enough away from a personal identity, there is no distinction between “You are One with God” and “You are God” because then you are fully aware that the personal self and God are two completely different parts of your mind.
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Read The Message of A Course in Miracles: A translation of the Text in plain language at www.themessageofacim.com.
Knowledge cannot change but perception can. God in God’s Totality is the level of Knowledge. This is the level of “You are God”. If you have a direct experience of God you have a “revelation”. In a revelation of God there is only God. The Son of God is the level of perception and here you have a choice between perceiving a reflection of God or the illusion that not-God is real. When your mind shifts towards God it is called a “miracle”. The highest your perception can rise to is a full awareness of God (Christ/Holy Spirit), which is just short of Knowledge of God. Because it is not God in God’s Totality this is the level of “You are One with God”.
There’s also a practical reason to use “You are One with God”, especially for a new student of the Course. When you are almost wholly identified with a personal self, the personal mind will misuse the statement “You are God”. It will find a way to use it to glorify itself and will deliberately misinterpret this statement to mean that the personal mind is what is God. This is always a risk for students who have not yet had enough experiences of their True Self in God to realize that It is a different experience from the personal self. “You are One with God” keeps you grounded in the awareness that there is a distinction between perceiving God and a total experience of God. It keeps the personal mind from grasping onto God for its own identification. In time, when you have shifted enough away from a personal identity, there is no distinction between “You are One with God” and “You are God” because then you are fully aware that the personal self and God are two completely different parts of your mind.
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Read The Message of A Course in Miracles: A translation of the Text in plain language at www.themessageofacim.com.
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