I was at the Foundation for A Course in Miracles yesterday for a workshop and I thought I would share my notes with you.
The title, "a qualified entente" comes from the section entitled "The Closing of the Gap," at the beginning of Chapter 29 in the Text.
The word "Entente," comes from the French and means agreement. Ententes are unofficial treaties. It's a limited agreement we make with each other to limit love within the special love relationship.
Formal religions make an agreement with God. It's a way of telling God I will love you sometimes and express my love in certain ways.
One thing that is very clear in this section (T-29.I.) is the distinction between mind and body. We don't give God our total mind, we give Him our bodies. We tell him we will love Him by keeping his commandments, but if we don't, he is entitled to punish us. This is why we think love is fearful and we don't trust it.
The very fact that we're in this world in a body is telling God "I don't love you," because the body was made as a limitation on love. The world where the body inhabits was made as a limitation on God.
This section also makes clear that in the back of everything we do as a body, is a fear of losing our self – our individual, unique, special, autonomous self - also called the ego. The ego is the belief that we are on our own, self-created instead of God-created.
In "The fear of redemption" section in Chapter 14 Jesus says you are not afraid of crucifixion, your terror is of redemption. Because if you let God in then you and the world you made would disappear. In the presence of Love there is no "I'; no self. This is the self that we cherish and protect by being in a body.
The body is the embodiment of the thought of separation. The body is the proof that we are separate. The body screams to God "I hate you".
If we found God and expressed our love to him, if we let go of our ego, our self would be lost. When we limit the love, we keep something to ourselves. We're always withholding something and we are not realizing the hate.
How many people can read this Course with the full awareness that they are not bodies? That is the qualified entente we make with the Course. I will study the Course, but I will never give up the fact that it is "I" am the one who is reading and practicing this Course.
That's what we do with God and ACIM. Jesus doesn't ask us to let go of our sense of self, but be honest about it. Jesus tells us not to hide anything from him. Don't hide your ego from him, just be honest about it. That is the only way you will eventually learn to let it go.
It's very helpful to realize that you have forged a qualified entente with Jesus and this Course, just as Christians, Jews and Muslims have done for millenniums.
There is a reference to this in CH 28, the "secret vows" that we make with each other. We make a pledge to make sickness and the body real. We are all doing the same thing with each other, hell-bent on preserving this individual self.
We meet in order to separate. We meet not to join and remember we are, first all the same, and then One, but we meet in order to separate.
I want to learn this Course as a body. I want to distort it so Jesus knows my body is here and he answers me in a very specific voice; the voice of the person that the Bible says lived 2100 years ago. He is telling me what I should do. What job I should take, what relationship I should enter, what I should do and say? And we actually think that is what this course is saying!
The course has us recognize that the body is literally nothing. What makes us so afraid in this Course is not God's love – because this is not a Course in God's love – what makes us so afraid is that the body is nothing.
This Course will help us find God by helping us to undo all the other places that we look for Him. But we are terrified of losing the self, so this qualified entente with A Course in Miracles is that I want to learn it as long as I can retain my sense of "I."
I want to keep the dream figure real, when the whole function of the Miracle is to get us back to the dreamer, which is the mind. That is what the Workbook lesson means, "God is in everything I see because God is in my mind."
The memory of God is in my mind. The purpose of God, which is forgiveness, is in my mind. So we all walk around with this right minded thought of Atonement that would remind us who we are, at which point the world would dissolve into nothingness. So I do everything possible to avoid getting back in touch with that right minded thought of Atonement. We all have subscribed to the ego's strategy.
We first make a wrong minded thought system that says separation is real and the Atonement is a lie that conceals the right mind. And then we make a world to conceal the wrong mind, which means we become mindless. If I am mindless, it's because I'm in a body.
It's all about making the body real. T-29.I.4:3 "It is the symbol (the gap that the body represents) of a promise made to meet when you prefer, and separate till you and he elect to meet again." It's always a promise with each other to uphold the body's secret vow, that the separation is alive and well. I reinforce that for you and you do it for me, and it doesn't matter if we do it in what the world calls love or in hate. Either way, there is still a body.
T-29.I.3:9 says "Thus you and your brother but shared a qualified entente, in which a clause of separation was a point you both agreed to keep intact."
In our contract with each other, that clause is real, and bodies are what prove that the separation is real.
This is why we hate this Course. And anybody who says they love this Course is a liar. You hate it because it violates the treaty. Why do people love the Bible or love to hate it? Because it does not violate the treaty. It says the body is real.
That's why nobody likes this Course as it is. What they like is when they change it, so it reads the way they want it to read. This is not about having a happier body. This is not about living more happily or peacefully in the dream. The Course's term the "happy dream," does not mean living in this dream as a body. The term happy dream comes from being a "happy learner," when you learn the Holy Spirit 's lessons of forgiveness. That's what makes you a happy learner. It has nothing to do with the state of your body or what goes on in your life.
You must really recognize that this Course violates the treaty. The Jesus who lives in your mind violates the treaty. How could you love Him them? He is betraying the sacred trust you put in him to uphold your body and individuality.
What are you? If you think you are a body, you are a projection of the thought system of separation. When you recognize that there is something very wrong with that identification, then your body becomes a classroom. It is still an illusion, but now its purpose is changed. Instead of being a limitation on love, it becomes a way of unlearning the thought that is a limitation on love. That's why Jesus tells us that the body is neutral. "My body is a wholly neutral thing," the lesson says. It can either be seen as a limitation on love or as a way of unlearning the limitation on love. At that point it is neutral.
What would really help is if you don't take yourself and the world so seriously. What are you defending? What are you upset about? What are you planning for? What are you protecting?
You want to use your body and your experiences here as a way to get back to your mind. That is meaningful. Otherwise, there is no hope. So what the ego tells us is a violation of the treaty - a violation that has to be punished - is merely a recognition that there is no treaty. There is no clause, nothing can be violated when nothing exists. What are you violating? You are violating an illusion.
But to the extent that we identify as a body; to that extent, we will defend this experience. And we will go so far in defending this experience as a person, as to change what this Course says. Rather than grow into where this Course is leading us, we bring this Course where we are. And we think this is ACIM.
Jesus tells us to take little steps. Practice. You have to re-train your mind because the fear is so great. It is terrifying to be told that you are not here.
We are terrified of being found, so we hide. So in order not to be found, we make up a body and a world in which we can hide.
In the Course, purpose is everything. It doesn't matter if I use my body to feel pleasure or pain. It makes the body real. That is the purpose. That is what keeps me from being found.
You can't grow up as a body. You have to grow beyond the body. The way you know you are making progress in this Course is when you cross one rung of the ladder. Beneath that rung is your experience as a body. Above that rung is when you finally recognize that the 'you' that Jesus addresses in the Course is not the you you see in the bathroom mirror. He's talking about the decision making mind. When you realize that's what he is talking about, you begin to read this Course differently. It's not about bodies.
"There are no coincidences in salvation".
ReplyDeleteYour blog on chapter 29, which I am currently four pages from the end, confirms my own experience about four weeks ago when my whole world was turned upside down. I have been a course student since 2002. From the day I started reading the course I was immersed. I love the way it is written and as I read the words I feel as though I am sinking into the pages and into another reality. But - and I emphasize BUT, four weeks ago I was reading a blog on ACIM mentor and Liz quoted a paragraph from The Manual for Teachers which basically said we are not currently dreaming the original dream, we are remembering it over and over, and as such, we think it is real. This may not sound like an important point, but to me it was because I was using the course in an attempt to make my body whole again. I had tried to reconcile the bible's teachings that Jesus healed the sick and raised the dead with the course's teachings. I then thought that what Jesus did was to change the dream for the sick and for the observers and thus the miracles. When I read that the dream was long over I (my ego) was crushed. Having lucid dreams I am aware that I can change the dream as I am dreaming it, but I don't think we can change the dream once it is over wit and we are simply remembering the dream. I went through a period of one week where I was in a state of depression. I finally came out of the dark with the help of the Holy Spirit that made me aware of what my ego had been up to. This is the second time I have experienced the Miracle regarding my ego and its attempt to use the course for its self. The first time was the attempt to use its great knowledge and understanding of the course to look good to other egos. I was more than happy to explain things they could not understand and then stand back and enjoy their platitudes of my deep understanding. Ha!
The remark about the secret Vow made in chapter 28 has me stumped though. I couldn't figure out who we made the vow with? If we are all a product of One Mind, was the vow made with himself (the Son of God)? Is this your take on this?
wow. Some good stuff here, and yet, I have to agree with halfneck, this raises some deep questions for me. I recently had an experience of being briefly "out of time" and I could see that when we are in time we really have no way to understand what it means to be out of it. As such, to say that the dream is over and we are just reliving it is the only way we can think about it with words, but this is not an accurate description, really.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to try to think about this some more and see if I can get a grip on what it is that is bothering me about the whole thing.
Hal,
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your experience. It's a fantastic example of how much we want to make the course about the body. What a nice healing. It's by watching our ego in action without judging ourselves for it that we overcome it and it sounds as if you're very aware of it.
The "secret vow" refers to the vow we make at this level, ego to ego, to reinforce each other's dream of separation. Within our "special relationships," we make a secret promise to make the body real for each other. We do this through special love or special hate relationships. Every time we become in contact with someone, there are only two options: we either support the dream of separation and uphold the ego's secret vow, or through forgiveness, we undo it. We uphold the "secret vow" when we react to each other by judging, blaming, etc. Anytime we perceive differences between us; when we feel inferior or superior, etc. we uphold the vow.
Thank you for stopping by!
Marian,
ReplyDeleteTime, as the Course refers to it, is definitely something that we have no way to relate to experientially from our experience which is rooted in time and space. I would love to hear more about your experience of being "out of time."
Ken's S-8 workshop last month was about time and it was extremely helpful. Maybe I'll review my notes again and see if there's something there I can share.
Aileen:
ReplyDeleteI'm happy to say that I have broken the "vow" many times by not interacting with other egos and the results are fun to observe. The other person will often looked perplexed because my ego did not respond in the usual manner i.e. a counter attack.
Thanks for your insight.
Marian:
The subject of time and space can better be understood in reference to infinity. Put yourself out in space and imagine you are in an infinite universe and ask yourself where is the center of that universe. Since that universe is inifnite there is way to measure anything because there is no begining or no end, therefore every location is the center. In an infinite universe space does not exist because we cannot menasure anything when there is no beginning and no end. Time can be understood in the same context. There is no beginning and no end of God. Without a beginning and without an end there is no way to measure time. Therefore there is only the present. I would venture to say that your experience of being out of time was more an experience of being in the present, or in the now.
Hal,
ReplyDeleteWhen you do break the 'vow,' many will take it as a threat to their thought system. Others, will 'learn' from the peace you feel. By your not reacting you are letting them know they can also have peace if they choose to. That is what the course means by 'teaching.'
Watch out though (you probably already know this, but to clarify for other readers), the secret vow refers to our mental reaction, and not what we actually do or say. Sometimes when we are attacked, say verbally, we may experience total peace and not react mentally. The action that we take will then be consistent with that peace and love that we feel within and it will be the most loving thing to do at the moment. Sometimes the most loving thing to do is to act as if we are reacting. Does this make sense? Not reacting can be a slap in the face.
In the Teacher's Manual in section 4, What are the characteristics of God's teachers, under Honesty, honesty is equated with consistency. What this means is that nothing you do or say contradicts the love in your mind. This means that if there is love and peace in your mind, that lack of opposition you feel, will inspire loving actions in whatever form they take. The key is to really be vigilant for lack of peace within us when we act.
Aileen:
ReplyDeleteYes, it all makes sense,thank you.
Hal
Hey Aileen,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing information. I think we study ACIM as bodies because we think we have personal problems, so as Ken writes, we want to solve personal problems and be a happy body within a world... right, in your dreams ;)
I notice I never get a solution when I think I have a problem... I must remind myself "I don't know what the problem is"... and when I do that, sometimes I get out of my limited body. And then I see that the thing I wanted some time ago, which would solve the problem, is actually not in my lifted state... so what the hell I wanted? Yes, another illusion...
What I find happy about the miracles, is that when I perform one, and act because of common interests, other person understands me, and his perception changes too! That is so wonderful! The real example how minds are joined. When I say words and not mean them, nothing happens, however when I say words and mean them from my heart, oooh! Wait for a miracle manifestation in outter world, baby ;)
Thanks, once again,
Gabrielius
Gabrielius,
ReplyDeleteIt is so true that when our actions are inspired by our perception of shared interests, healing occurs. Thank you for sharing :)
Aileen
Now that's a tough talk, no hearts and flowers there. I've been fighting the idea that "I" have to - what, dissolve, cease to be, etc. But how is that different from someone who just thinks, "we live, we die and that's it."
ReplyDeleteThe content is utmost interesting! I have completely enjoyed reading your points and have come to the conclusion that you are right about many of them. You are great, and your efforts are outstanding! acim audio
ReplyDelete