Your Outward Life Will Look the Same
Back in the summer of 2005 I went to see my therapist to help me sort out what was my grief over my father’s recent death and what was just regular mid-life stuff. She’s not a student of A Course in Miracles but she is a great therapist and I don’t go to her for spiritual stuff but for practical stuff – like what I was going through then. I saw her for a few weeks and at one point I found my mind flooded with story ideas. Once upon a time I wrote (terrible) fiction and I have always been filled with story ideas. But this was so overwhelming I had to make notes on some of the stories just to get my mind to shut up. I shared this with my therapist and she got this far-away look in her eye that I recognize as someone listening to the Holy Spirit and then she asked me, “What are you not doing that you need to be doing?”
At first I thought she was saying I was supposed to write novels, which I had no desire to do anymore. But then a few days later I realized she asked that question without any agenda of her own. She wasn’t meaning to tell me anything, she was genuinely asking what I was supposed to be doing. I thought about it and realized that the only time in my life that I felt that I was fulfilling my Purpose was when I connected to God in meditation. So I got back into putting side time to commune with God every day, just opening my mind to God with no questions or problems or thoughts. And lo and behold! A few months later, with hardly any thought, I was putting up a website offering my services as a mentor to students of the Course and I started writing these articles.
Over and over I have come back to my purpose in life is to connect to God. Anything that happens in my life from there is then an expression of that connection. Outwardly my life looks like any life but it is coming out from my sense of connection to the Holy Spirit. To the ego, the world and your life in it are about separation so they are ends in themselves. It’s all about what’s happening “out there”. But to the Holy Spirit, the world and your life in it are a means, not an end. Everything is a means for extending God’s Love in your awareness so that you remember that you are One with God. The outward expression of your life, then, is irrelevant.
Sometimes students ask me what I say to others who are in crisis or distress. Certainly I don’t tell them that what they are experiencing is an illusion! But what I do within myself is remember that only God is Real and that what is appearing is not real. And the words that come out of my mouth are often the conventional words everyone says in such instances: “I’m sorry you are going through this. Is there anything I can do to help?” And I do a lot of listening. Often, people can tell where I am coming from and they will tell me later that I offered them great comfort though I remember that the words I said were not much. Though my words were ordinary they were coming from the Holy Spirit.
You cannot judge from external appearances where you or someone else is coming from. Only you know if what is being expressed in your life comes from your connection to the Holy Spirit or from ego’s need to distract you from God. Outwardly it’s going to look like the same stuff either way. You will have relationships and a job and a house, etc. The outward expression of your life in the world means nothing. Only the ego is concerned with that. But what is going on within you is everything.
At first I thought she was saying I was supposed to write novels, which I had no desire to do anymore. But then a few days later I realized she asked that question without any agenda of her own. She wasn’t meaning to tell me anything, she was genuinely asking what I was supposed to be doing. I thought about it and realized that the only time in my life that I felt that I was fulfilling my Purpose was when I connected to God in meditation. So I got back into putting side time to commune with God every day, just opening my mind to God with no questions or problems or thoughts. And lo and behold! A few months later, with hardly any thought, I was putting up a website offering my services as a mentor to students of the Course and I started writing these articles.
Over and over I have come back to my purpose in life is to connect to God. Anything that happens in my life from there is then an expression of that connection. Outwardly my life looks like any life but it is coming out from my sense of connection to the Holy Spirit. To the ego, the world and your life in it are about separation so they are ends in themselves. It’s all about what’s happening “out there”. But to the Holy Spirit, the world and your life in it are a means, not an end. Everything is a means for extending God’s Love in your awareness so that you remember that you are One with God. The outward expression of your life, then, is irrelevant.
Sometimes students ask me what I say to others who are in crisis or distress. Certainly I don’t tell them that what they are experiencing is an illusion! But what I do within myself is remember that only God is Real and that what is appearing is not real. And the words that come out of my mouth are often the conventional words everyone says in such instances: “I’m sorry you are going through this. Is there anything I can do to help?” And I do a lot of listening. Often, people can tell where I am coming from and they will tell me later that I offered them great comfort though I remember that the words I said were not much. Though my words were ordinary they were coming from the Holy Spirit.
You cannot judge from external appearances where you or someone else is coming from. Only you know if what is being expressed in your life comes from your connection to the Holy Spirit or from ego’s need to distract you from God. Outwardly it’s going to look like the same stuff either way. You will have relationships and a job and a house, etc. The outward expression of your life in the world means nothing. Only the ego is concerned with that. But what is going on within you is everything.
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