Coming to the Simple Awareness

            As I’ve shared before, in my earlier Oneness experiences, I would feel I was one with whatever I was looking at or thinking about—person, place or thing. But as time went on and these experiences were less shocking, they lasted longer, and I experienced them more clearly. I discovered that I am not One with whatever I see or is on my mind, but Oneness is here…and there is something appearing before the body’s eyes or in the mind’s memory. This experience of Oneness is Spirit’s Wholeness, reflecting the Onlyness of God (Reality) beyond consciousness. It reveals that consciousness and the myriad forms appearing in consciousness are illusions that have no effect on Reality (God) at all.

 

“…There is no world! This is the central thought the course attempts to teach…Some see it suddenly on point of death, and rise to teach it. Others find it in experience that is not of this world, which shows them that the world does not exist because what they behold must be the truth, and yet it clearly contradicts the world. And some will find it in this course…” (W-132.6-8)

 

When one first has mystical experiences, either as near-death experiences (“some see it on point of death, and rise to teach it”) or spontaneously (“experience that is not of this world”), ego is still the center of consciousness. Ego tries to understand these experiences in its own way; it tries to integrate them into its consciousness, its world. Ego seeks to either bring the Love that is experienced in mystical experiences into its world, or it attempts to reach the other world (the real world) it saw. It may teach that we’re all supposed to love one another in its world. Or, in guilt, it may feel it is sinful and undeserving of that world and must repent to reach it. It may teach that souls (egos without bodies) must evolve through lifetimes to reach that world. Ego cannot acknowledge what those experiences reveal—the real world is already here. It is simply blocked from conscious awareness because ego occupies conscious awareness. Ego cannot understand that mystical experiences reveal that ego and its world are not real. Ego will never turn its world into the real world, nor will it ever attain the real world. Ego must fall away for the real world to remain in conscious awareness.

 

No part of God (Reality) is lost to God. No part of God is on a journey back to God. All sense of journey is the illusion of ego.

 

Buddhists describe the Gateless Gate: The journey seems to end at a gate. But once you pass through, you realize that there was no journey; there was no gate. That which went on a journey and seemed to reach a gate was an illusion--ego. That Which is beyond the gate has always been here—Spirit.

It is so refreshingly simple:

 

Only God is real. Anything else is an illusion and will fall away, either with the death of the body or in enlightenment.

 

Rejoice! There is nothing to attain!

 

“…when the goal is finally achieved by anyone, it always comes with just one happy realization; ‘I need do nothing.’” (T-18.VII.5)

 

This is the point at which someone will ask why they should be studying spiritual material or meditating or engaging in any mind training if it’s not to attain something. The answer is: You feel moved to study and meditate and train your mind as an expression of the Atonement, not for bringing it about.

A mystical experience sometimes precedes an “individualized curriculum” (expression of the Atonement) showing up. But for most, their expression of the Atonement just shows up, often during a time of seeking for answers. How A Course in Miracles came to be is a fine example of this. Bill Thetford asked for another way to be in the world with less strife with others, and Helen Shucman agreed to help him. As the quote from the Course above says, some will come to the conscious awareness that the world is not real through the practice of the Course rather than through mystical experiences. This was Bill Thetford’s life. (See Carol Howe’s biography of him, Never Forget to Laugh). He practiced radical forgiveness and in the end saw the real world. This may seem like his practice caused the effect of seeing the real world, but his practice was the real world (Spirit) working in him the whole time. This just did not break into his conscious awareness until the end of his life.

You are studying A Course in Miracles for a reason. It is a part of your individualized curriculum—your expression of the Atonement. So, you can relax into your spiritual practice, recognizing that it expresses Spirit already here in your consciousness (if not yet in your conscious awareness), rather than strive for something (ego’s world transforming to Love; ego’s enlightenment) that will never occur.

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