Pissed Off at a Cold God

It is essential for the preservation of the personal self that you believe that specialness is Heaven, not hell. – MACIM-16.5.4

When I was first a student of A Course in Miracles, I both loved and hated its message. It made me feel loved by God, but I was pissed off that what God loves is not the personal “me”. I wanted God to love my specialness, my uniqueness. I wanted who I was and what I did in the world to matter to God. How self-centered was God, loving the Part of me that is Part of God, but not the rest of me? Oh, it was so wonderfully liberating that it didn’t matter what I did in the world! And yet, it was so terribly crushing that what I wanted to be in the world didn’t matter one iota to God. God couldn’t even conceive of it.

Liberation has won out. This feeling of freedom is what kept drawing me to God again and again, until finally I accepted that I wanted it more than anything that the world had to offer. But I hear the same pouting upset from students when they realize that God is impersonal. I watch as they struggle to have the freedom that detachment from the world will bring them, while they try to hold on to the world at the same time. They don’t want the pain of the world, but they want to be involved in the world. They fear that others will see their detachment as “cold”, not realizing that it’s not others’ perception of them that bothers them; it is the personal mind in them that perceives detachment from the world as “cold”. Of course it does! You are the personal mind’s power source, but you are not the personal mind. Your realizing that is the end of it.

It cannot be both ways: You cannot be both involved with the world and detached from it. Here I am speaking of an internal state of awareness, not of what it looks like the body is doing in the world. To others, you will appear to be involved in the world to some extent. No doubt, they will see you as being as involved as they are. But when you are detached, within yourself you are not concerned with the world and its values and dramas. You rest in God, Which is not cold at all, but Warm and Loving and Welcoming. And you are only grateful that nothing personal is real.

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Read The Message of A Course in Miracles: A translation of the Text in plain language at www.themessageofacim.com.


Comments

will said…
This is such a difficult path to follow and understand. It involves years of effort. We all look for reassurance that we haven't wandered off the path
will said…
I wanted to add to my above comment. I have been reading/studying Kenneth Wapnick’s Journey Through The Manual of A Course In Miracles. I’m sure most everyone is familiar with his style of teaching. He breaks the course down into sentence by sentence commentary explaining what is being said.

In the Manual, section 11, How Is Peace Possible In This World? 2:6-9 it says, “God’s Word assures you that He loves the world; your judgment says it is unlovable. Who is right? For one of you is wrong. It must be so.” Thank goodness for a study guide. After 4 1/2 years of studying and practicing the course lines like this can still hook me. This is very difficult stuff. The point I wanted to make that as teachers there is sometimes the temptation to give pat answers that only further confuse the issue. It is the ego teaching. It is laziness I suppose. It takes effort to try and explain the course. It takes quiet time and meditation as a base. The ego always answers first and (in my case anyway) wants to further confuse the issue, cause anger and frustration. Anyway thanks for listening, I wanted to get some off this in front of me where I can see it.
TStrang said…
Dear Will,

I have found some relief by reading some of Ernest Holmes' books (Love and Law, Living the Science of Mind) and Joel S. Goldsmith's books (The Infinite Way, The Thunder of Silence). There might not be complete agreement between Holmes and Goldsmith and ACIM but all three sources have been extremely helpful to me. One thing I have gathered from Holmes' books that I did not seem to get from the Course is that "It is done unto you as you believe" is a literal teaching. If you keep telling yourself the Course is confusing and difficult it will be. I have gotten some relief by changing my thoughts to thoughts such as "I know the Truth because God knows the Truth and God's Mind is the Mind with which I think".

Sincerely,
Tamara
Marina said…
I agree with Tamara, everything that happens, we have asked for. And I do find that taught through out the course.

I think it's important not to have a goal. There is no goal. There is nowhere to go. All there is is being. Be with your conflicting split mind. Be with your guilt. Be with your love. Be with all of it and you will see it fall away because you begin to identify with being versus the conflicted mind. The correction can only happen within You since You are all there is. And it is not your job to correct yourself, only the holy spirit can do that. Being is what teaches surrender to me. When I rest in being, the correction comes. I need to nothing is one of the most powerful mantras for me from the course.
will said…
Excellent. Thanks

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