Perception lies

I used to pride myself on my understanding of the metaphysics of the Course, which I got from years of listening to Ken Wapnick. Now I'm realizing that the experience has to come first and the intellectual understanding follows; not the other way around. Many concepts that I took for granted before, are losing their meaning. For example, I used to write that the Holy Spirit is the "memory of God within our mind." That was helpful to me because I couldn't see the Holy Spirit as separate from my own mind. But now as I think of "Holy Spirit" I don't really know what that is beyond a name that we use to symbolize healed perception.

My experience is that there is only me. There is nothing external. It was me identified with the ego before and now it's still me, but a lot less identified with the ego. That force within me that used to oppose has somehow been replaced by this other force that accepts. Attachment to outcome is replaced with awe of how perfect things are as they are. A desire to control, replaced with no desire to control or manipulate and trust that life goes on with or without my control and without it, it's a lot happier. Concern with the body, replaced with little concern with the body. Attachment to rules replaced with freedom from rules. This shift is internal. I act the same; I speak the same; only the purpose behind what I do is different.

I'm not equally clear every moment and I'm not sure why or how that works. I still notice ego reactions come and go. They are few and far between and as they are looked at in real time, they seem to lose their power quickly. The underworld of negativity that used to surface once in a while does not seem to be there now. There is more space in my mind so I can see the ego clearly and a gentle forgiving attitude accepts my state of mind as it is in the moment and offers no resistance to it.

I've been more aware of how our experience lies. For example, my experience is that I feel guided all the time. I seem to know exactly what I'm doing in the moment. All I have to do when an invitation to do something comes (an external invitation or my own thought that invites me to do something) is ask myself: "is this what I'm doing?" And I actually "feel" at that moment if this is an "honest" action for me, or not. An honest action is an action that requires no sacrifice. It's action that is consistent with the love that flows freely when the ego is not there; it's actually and simply, what I want to do at that specific moment. A dishonest action is an action that I would do with the ego's motives of seeking love, giving to get, manipulating or impressing others, etc. This "guidance" that I could swear comes from some higher power, is an illusion. A part of me knows there is no one out there to guide me, yet somehow; my experience is that I "feel" guided.

I was over at FACIM over the weekend and Ken (Dr. Kenneth Wapnick) said something that resonated with me. He said, as I've heard him say many times, that "the Holy Spirit does not send you messages…." (Basically, the HS does not tell you what to do; it doesn't guide you. How could it? It would have to first validate you as a separate self if it did.) Those messages that we experience, (or in my case the feeling that I am guided) "…….are just a metaphor for acceptance of what is." When we are in harmony with what is, everything "seems" perfectly orchestrated as if a higher power had its hand in it. The reality is that it's our perception that determines our experience of the world. When we perceive without judgment, the world appears to be perfect and we can't see a problem with anything. But even healed perception is an illusion. It's just a stepping-stone.

Lesson 169 says that "Grace is acceptance of the Love of God within a world of seeming hate and fear. By grace alone the hate and fear are gone, for grace presents a state so opposite to everything the world contains, that those whose minds are lighted by the gift of grace can not believe the world of fear is real. (W-169 italics and bold mine)

As we look at the world with total acceptance, we come to see that every situation is perfect because it's for us. The right minded way of looking at the world is that it's for our use. Its only purpose is to help us become aware of our true nature. We can use every situation to lead ourselves out of suffering or root us further into it. So divorce, disease, war, loss, death, don't happen to us; but for us. We also understand that for others so when things happen to our loved ones, we see them as opportunities and not catastrophes. By looking at the world with a clear mind, we empower everyone we come in contact with to make the choice for peace for themselves. By our own acceptance of what is, we let others know that they also can choose to rise above suffering.

W-135:18-1 reminds us of this, "What could you not accept, if you knew that everything that happens, all events, past, present and to come are gently planned by One Whose only purpose is your good?" And that One is you!

 

 

Resistance and Listening to One Voice

Since I came back from the School for the Work, I haven't experienced resistance. Resistance is that heavy feeling I used to feel when what I was doing did not match what I thought I should be doing. I felt resistance often. If I had chores to do or a project to complete, I thought about them often during the day and I felt badly because I wasn't doing them when I thought I should. Some things I never did at all and the thought that I should have weighed me down.

For the last three weeks, my days have been flowing effortlessly. I wake up in the morning and wait. I may have a thought about what I will be doing during the day. There may even be a plan or a schedule; but plans, schedules, and ideas are just images that pop into my mind. My mind now understands that they are not real. I don't expect anything to happen until I'm actually doing it.

I notice I'm getting up. I stand and start walking. I follow my body to where it is going. If it's morning a thought may say "you're going to brush your teeth," and it seems likely that that is what I'm going to do, but I don't know for sure until my hand picks up the tooth brush and I'm brushing my teeth. I hear plans: "You should go to the grocery store," or "you should go to your yoga class." To these ideas my mind automatically responds: "that's a nice story…," because I know that ideas about what I should be doing are just that; ideas. I only know they are true when I'm pushing the cart into the supermarket or I'm laying down my yoga mat on the floor. My mind is in a perpetual state of not knowing.

There is a force within me that guides every move I make from the moment I wake up until I go to bed at night. I'm being lived. My only job is to trust that everything will happen as it should without my control. That trust increases daily as I witness how everything is taken care of perfectly and at exactly the right time.

I have somehow surrendered what I used to think was my own will and I'm living in harmony with the script as it comes. It's like watching a movie in which I'm temporarily identified with one of the characters. I'm looking at the script from a particular point of view, but I have no choice as to what will happen in the movie. The scrip with all its possible variations has already been written. The movie has been filmed. I'm just a spectator. The idea that I could have ever believed that I wrote my own script as I went along seems crazy now. I'm pretty sure that most of my suffering came from that one belief.

Experiencing no resistance means that whatever I'm doing is what I want to do. There are no "shoulds" or "shouldn'ts" and no wishes or regrets. Occasionally, there is a thought that opposes what I'm doing, or a judgment thought that creeps in, but it has so little glue that it doesn't stick. These thoughts remind me of how painful life use to be when I believed in them. For these thoughts, I carry a notebook where I write down the thought as it happens and later inquire into its reality using the The Work or, I simply watch the thought as it passes through my mind with a smile on my face as I've been doing for years through my practice of A Course in Miracles.

Thoughts and stories are beautiful! They keep me company. I thank them as they pass for keeping me entertained, but it is clear that they are just stories. I sometimes daydream about how much I might actually get accomplished in this life now that there is no resistance. But then I laugh because I have no idea what it is that I will accomplish. How can I know what I will be doing in ten years when I don't know what I will do in the next five minutes? I laugh because so far this unending source of energy has kept me organizing closets and letting go of bags and bags of stuff I don't seem to need anymore. I wouldn't trade my daily work in the house for anything. I'm having the time of my life. One day I re-potted all my house plants and planted a vegetable garden. I get excited about cooking new things and mixing foods I never knew could be mixed. I enjoy every minute I get to spend with my children. I don't seem to get tired. I yawn and lie down at times, but I haven't yet felt that feeling I used to get when I couldn't wait another minute to take a nap or to go to bed at night.

As I look back at my life prior to this shift, I see that I always did exactly what I was supposed to do in the exact moment I should be doing it. The anxiety I frequently felt was caused by my mind being at odds with what I was doing. My mind had its own ideas of what was right or wrong. It offered constant commentary on everything. If I was tired and slept in, my mind threw a fit because it thought I should be getting up and being more 'productive.' If my back hurt, it was upset because it thought it shouldn't hurt. If I ate too much, it felt guilty because it thought I shouldn't be eating so much. If I was depressed, it thought I should snap out of it.

What happened in my life was my path and though at the time I didn't always realize it, I followed it perfectly. Even what seemed like setbacks to my judging mind; was all necessary and part of a perfectly crafted curriculum. Every problem, every upset, every shred of anxiety and all the resistance I felt were gifts. They reminded me to forgive. Without them I couldn't be where I am.

My only function is and has always been to be in harmony with what is. As long as we argue with reality, we will experience resistance. If we fight resistance we reinforce the false suffering self in us. When we plow through resistance what we are saying is that we know better. And as long as we think we know better, we can't hear the true voice of our integrity.

This does not mean we don't take action; it simply means we don't get invested mentally in avoiding what is. Our purpose is to find joy in whatever it is that we are doing. Sometimes that is not available. The practice that led me to the shift I experienced was that of looking at resistance without judgment. That is forgiveness. It's forgiving yourself for reacting to your thoughts. It's forgiving yourself for making what is illusory, real.

Dreams and the practice of A Course in Miracles

A few nights ago I had a dream that upset me. I was in Buenos Aires, in one of the nicest avenues, except that in the dream it was grotesquely fancy. The street was lined with designer store fronts that were gilded with gold leaf and the side walk was tiled with white Carrara marble. It was crowded with shoppers carrying Christmas bags. I had just parked my car and I walked carefully carrying two stacked trays of ham and cheese croissant sandwiches and a fruit platter on top. I was taking the food to a meeting at the goodwill offices which were right up the street.

A woman accidentally swung a shopping bag over my trays and they fell to the ground. The croissants and fruit scattered all over. Within seconds, a half a dozen orphan children dressed in rags were diving for the sandwiches and the grapes which still rolled every which way on the crowded sidewalk.

I went up to a little boy of about six who was collecting green grapes in between the people's feet. I helped him pick up a few that had landed under a mail box. I said, "Sweetie, can you wash them before you eat them?" He looked at me with his big sad brown eyes; his face smeared with dirt, and nodded, then kept reaching for more. As I looked up, the shoppers wearing nice clothes and carrying bags with expensive gifts, walked by as if the children did not exist. Some walked around them; others pushed them to the side avoiding eye-contact. Nobody wanted to notice the children. It was as if the integrity of their perfect lives could be preserved ONLY if they didn't look.

When I woke up my eyes were wet. I had a feeling of helplessness that stayed with me even though the dream was over. My instinct was to move away from the pain, just like the shoppers in the dream, but I stayed with it for a few minutes and as soon as I became fully awake the pain left me, instantly.

It is tempting to believe that the circumstances within a dream can have an effect on us. Dreams can be convincingly real and while we sleep, they seem to be the cause of our suffering. For a while, I really believed I was sad because I felt sorry for the orphan children. But once I woke up I realized that in reality, there is no posh street with stores gilded in gold leaf; there are no croissant sandwiches, no indifferent shoppers and no orphan children. Even the character with which I identified in the dream, while she looked like me, in reality, does not exist. The real source of my pain is that I forgot I was dreaming and I got emotionally involved in a non-existent situation.

In the same way, what causes us to suffer in our lives is not what happens to us, but that we believe we are someone we are not. We believe we are separated selves living in the world apart from our Source. In Lesson 5 in the workbook we practice repeating that: "I am never upset for the reason I think." I think I'm upset because some circumstance made me upset, but the real reason I'm upset is that I believe I'm a character in a dream subject to the conditions of the dream.

The practice of A Course in Miracles is about remembering that we are the dreamer and not the character in the dream. Only the dreamer who caused the dream can choose to awaken. The goal of our practice is to get back to the mind of the dreamer because only he can choose to be whole again. But day in and day out instead of learning that we are the cause of the dream and not the victim of it, we give the world power over us by making it the cause of our pain and suffering. Every time we suffer, we demonstrate that the world must be real because it had the power to cause us pain. Only what is real can cause an effect.

The daily practice that can help us decrease our identification with the character in the dream is quite simple. Whenever something upsets us, we stop and look at it. We don't run away from the anxiety or the pain. If we do, we give the dream power and a reality it doesn't have. We first recognize that if we are upset, it must be because we are looking at the problem from the perspective of the character of the dream. The character of the dream believes the world is real and can have an effect on her. The character in the dream is identified with a vulnerable body she thinks she needs to protect. It's pretty scary being a character in a dream and believing the world can strike at any moment. So we look again, but this time instead of looking at the problem from the point of view of the character of the dream, we look at it with the part of our mind that knows our real identity. The Holy Spirit, which is the memory of God within our mind constantly reminds us that we "are at home in God, dreaming of exile but perfectly capable of awakening to reality." (T-10.I.2:1) And while the situation that upset us may not change, the anxiety and pain associated with it will fade because we will, at least temporarily, become aware that we are dreaming and that dreams can have no effect on our true identity.

It's very easy to become invested in the situations of our lives and to believe that by changing the circumstances we can have peace. This is nothing more than a trap. If I knew that waking up would instantly heal all suffering, why would I try to ease the pain by focusing on changing the circumstances? Had I been lucid in my dream of a couple of nights ago, I could have given every orphan child a loving adoptive parent. I could have clothed them and showered them with beautiful Christmas gifts. That would have made the dream much happier. I might have found a temporary feeling of peace and wellbeing like we have in our lives when we get what we want, but that peace is not the perfect peace of God which can only be experienced by knowing who we are in reality.

The practice of ACIM is not concerned with making the dream more pleasant. If the world is an illusion created by the ego to keep us mindless, why would we invest in changing it? As we obsess over global warming, war, poverty and we fear that we might catch the next flu virus, the ego is fulfilling its purpose of keeping us identified with the character in the dream. The Course doesn't tell us what we should or should not do. When we are called to help others, or if we want to champion a cause that we believe in, we should do it, but without joining in the suffering. We can use any activity we choose within the world for the purpose of overcoming the dream. All professions, causes and activities are equally suitable for that purpose.

What we don't want to do is focus on changing the circumstances because as long as we do, our investment will be on keeping the dream real rather than on waking from it. What we are here to demonstrate is that the dream can have no effect on the peace of God in our mind. Whenever I feel stress or anxiety, I look at my investment in the dream which shows up as attachment to outcome. Do I 'need' for a situation to be resolved in a certain way for me to experience peace? Whenever I notice a need, I can be sure I am looking at the situation from the perspective of the character in the dream whose happiness depends on the circumstances of the dream.

Once we make the shift from identifying with the character in the dream to looking at the world from the perspective of the mind, everything changes. If someone attacks me, I don't blame her because in the attack I recognize that like me, she is just trying to hold on to her false identity. I begin to realize that we are all the same. We all fear awakening from the dream. We all cling desperately to our false identities because they are all we know.

But the more we practice looking at our guilt and fear, which show up in the world in symbols such as orphan children, suffering victims of natural disasters, war, etc., and we recognize that what we are seeing is just a picture of the fear in our minds, we begin to awaken to our true identity. Progressively we experience more and more of the peace that is our natural inheritance.

 

From the section entitled "The Hero of the Dream." T-27.VIII.9: 1-8 In gentle laughter does the Holy Spirit perceive the cause, and looks not to effects. How else could He correct your error, who have overlooked the cause entirely? He bids you bring each terrible effect to Him that you may look together on its foolish cause and laugh with Him a while. [You] judge effects, but [He] has judged their cause. And by His judgment are effects removed. Perhaps you come in tears. But hear Him say, "My brother, holy Son of God, behold your idle dream, in which this could occur." And you will leave the holy instant with your laughter and your brother's joined with His.

 

 

The ego’s sense of ‘self’ and the need to defend

"You're a liar. You say one thing and then you say the opposite to someone else. You are the biggest fake," she says to me.

My reaction is instantaneous. Outrage. I feel misunderstood and I notice the strong 'need' to defend myself. I'm not a liar! I want to say. It's actually just the opposite. I may not be consistent in form (what I do and say) but that's because I try to act consistently with the content of my mind. Whenever I'm conscious, I try to respond from a loving space. Love inspires you to say what is most helpful and sometimes the most loving thing to do is to talk in their language and at their level; even if that means that what you're saying is not necessarily what you would believe.

I want to correct her, but I don't speak just yet. I pause instead.

I remember this section in ACIM:

When you correct a brother, you are telling him that he is wrong. He may be making no sense at the time, and it is certain that, if he is speaking from the ego, he will not be making sense. But your task is still to tell him he is right. You do not tell him this verbally, if he is speaking foolishly. He needs correction at another level, because his error is at another level. He is still right, because he is a Son of God. His ego is always wrong, no matter what it says or does. T-9.III.4:2-10

I realize that the goal of this interaction with my daughter is to tell her she is right, not necessarily verbally, but mentally. I remind myself that the goal of communication is never what is being said! The purpose of any conversation is either to join or to separate; to reinforce the dream of separation or to undo it. If you talk with your ego you will be unconsciously seeking separation. The opposition that you feel will be telling them they are wrong and you will be reinforcing the differences between you. It won't matter what you actually say, even if your words sound patient and loving, mentally, you will be telling them that they are wrong.

If I respond to my daughter out of a desire to correct her image of me, I will be doing it as an ego. This doesn't mean that I should never explain to her the way I think and act; it just means that I can't do it out of a 'need' to defend my 'self'.

As egos, our goal is to develop and protect our sense of self. We depend on our self-concept because as long as we believe we are unique separated selves, we remain safe from the knowledge of who we are in reality. The ego's strategy is to keep us focused on the question "Who am I?" As long as we look for the answer in the world; in what we look like, what we do, what religion we practice, what language we speak, who our friends are; we are effectively hidden from the knowledge that we are not a body, but one with our Source.

I see that my daughter's claim about me is just a temptation to react in a way that will reaffirm my identity as my separated self. But the situation has the potential to be an opportunity to release myself from my identification with the ego. The choice is mine. The ego's knee jerk reaction is to oppose and protect my 'self', my group, my country, my beliefs, my version of A Course in Miracles, or whatever it is that defines me as different.

But if I am able to just notice what is going on; if I can see the ego's purpose in every interaction, then I can do something about it. The truth is that I'm being played by my own hidden desire to remain separate. I'm not really upset because of my daughter's accusation. I'm upset because I believe I'm an ego that needs to maintain its sense of individuality by opposing everything and everyone.

Having identified the ego's purpose for this interaction with my daughter, I am free to choose again. As I notice my desire to oppose her, the interaction becomes a classroom in which the goal is to learn that I am a mind and not a body. As I join with the forgiving part of my mind, the opposition melts away. The desire to protect my 'self' disappears because I'm no longer identifying myself with the body who has an ego that needs to protect itself.

Through forgiving eyes, I realize her accusation is true. I search my mind and in less than five seconds, I find several examples in my life where Aileen has lied, or been inconsistent. Now that the desire to protect my ego has dissolved, I can wholeheartedly agree with my daughter.

"You're right, honey," I say. "I'm trying to be consistent, but it doesn't always work."

Her face fills with understanding.

There is such freedom in releasing myself, even for a moment, from a limited, defined sense of "self!" All that energy spent in defense and opposition is released and I feel light, happier. I remember that phrase from the Course "Do you prefer that you be right or happy?" and I definitely prefer to be wrong and "happy."

 

Withdrawing support from the dream

I usually shop for vegetables at a market that sells local vegetables at a very reasonable price, but in a hurry the other day; I ended up in a regular chain supermarket. Looking for fruit and vegetables I came upon my favorite tomatoes in the vine which I usually buy for 99 cents a pound, but to my surprise and outrage they were $2.99 a pound! Five feet to the right I saw pineapples for $1.39 a pound. I weighed one of them on the scale and calculated that each pineapple was at least $6.70; more than double of what I usually pay. The half gallon of organic milk that I pay $3 dollars for was $3.89 and so on and so forth….

As I walk up and down the aisles picking up what I need, there is a part of my mind that is noticing every opposing thought and laughing. I notice my mind throwing a mini tantrum over the quality of the produce, the prices, the layout of the store; almost everything about being in this store at this moment seems wrong. All these conflicting thoughts seem magnified and I realize how little it takes for a mind to react. I don't need the big issues like health care reform, or the war to get me going – an afternoon shopping trip at the 'wrong' store will do.

The practice of A Course in Miracles encourages us to watch our mind for all the little reactions. These reactions, or grievances, are what stand in the way of our experience of perfect Love and by noticing them we take away their power over us. That part of our mind that observes as the ego reacts to the world is our right mind. The right mind holds the memory of our true identity as one with God. Being in our right mind is watching ourselves react with the ego, but without judgment.

I am reading a book called "I Am That," about the teachings of Sri Nisgardatta Maharaj, an enlightened guru from India who lived in the 20th Century. He says that it's not by searching for truth that we awaken, but rather by understanding ourselves, or the ego we think we are.

He says: "What you are, you already are. By knowing what you are not, you are free of it and remain in your natural state," p. 26. And, "Study the prison you have built around yourself by inadvertence. By knowing what you are not, you come to know your Self," p.5.

The prison walls, which are made of judgment, fear, and even our most subtle opposition to what is, begin to crumble as we notice the ego's purpose operating within our mind. The ego's existence depends on our believing that the dream is real. It's by our reacting to the dream that we keep it real. So it's our not reacting, or for a while consistently watching ourselves react without judgment that undoes the ego and the "tiny mad idea" that according to the mythology of A Course in Miracles is the cause of the separation.

The Course says that "Into eternity, where all is one, there crept a tiny, mad idea, at which the Son of God remembered not to laugh." (T-27.VIII.6:2)

The tiny mad idea is the impossible claim that separation, time, and space can take the place of perfect Oneness. It's the suggestion that an illusory world, however convincingly serious, can take away our peace. It's what's behind the outrage over the price of tomatoes, the grief over the loss of something we cherish, or the belief that we are all different from each other. All reactions to the dream keep us equally focused on the world and make it real for us. The Text says it's the Son of God's reaction to the tiny mad idea - his taking it seriously -that gave birth to the thought of separation that caused the world as we experience it.

In his forgetting (to laugh) did the thought become a serious idea, and possible of both accomplishment and real effects. (T-27.VIII.6:3)

In my early days of studying the Course, I often felt trapped. I understood intellectually that this existence is just a dream, but I didn't know what to do about it. I imagined the tiny mad idea happening a long time ago and I thought of myself as suffering the effects of a choice I had no control over. But it's our present choice to accept and reinforce the thought system of separation that keeps it real. Every time we mentally oppose a thought, a person, a feeling, or a situation, what we are inadvertently doing is reenacting the moment when we took the tiny mad idea seriously.

Each reaction says the world is real because it can be the cause of our upset. If the world is capable of causing a reaction in us, it must mean it is real. Illusions can't cause real effects. The only way to undo the tiny mad idea is to laugh at it now. We laugh at it by looking at the world through the lens of the miracle which reminds us that there is no cause in the world. The images in front of us, however compelling and enticing, are not real and they can have no effect on us unless we give them power over us. A situation can affect our body, our financial situation, our property, but we it cannot take away our peace unless we identify with the dreamer in the dream. As the Chapter 27.II.7 says: "The miracle establishes you dream a dream, and that its content is not true."

It is important to understand that the forgiveness work that we do is always mental. It has nothing to do with the actions we take in the world. Not reacting doesn't necessarily mean that we don't react verbally or physically if we're attacked. What it means is that our focus is always in our own mind. We watch our ego involvement in every situation. We notice how much we want things to be different than they are and how much we believe that if things were different then we would be happy. We watch how when we feel anxious, our instinct is to leave our mind where the real solution is, and instead we put our full focus on changing people or situations so that we can regain our peace. For a while noticing is all we may be able to do.

As we become more aware of the ego in our mind we begin to see that it always responds with knee-jerk thoughts and reactions, but it's not who we are. We can watch it react all it wants with our right mind and still remain at peace. We don't have to attach ourselves to its drama. I like this quote from Sri Nasgardatta Majarah. He says: "My life is a succession of events, just like yours. Only I am detached and see the passing show as a passing you while you stick to things and move along with them," p.4.

The only way to begin to walk back up the ladder that separation led us down is to become conscious of how we support the dream in our daily lives. Watch your mind. Notice the thousands of reactions you have each day. Each one of them says the world is real. Through forgiveness we can begin to withdraw our support of the dream and increasingly, we will begin to see that the prison walls that seemed so solid, are nothing but a thin veil that cannot stand in the way of the Love and Peace that is our true nature.

What waits in perfect certainty beyond salvation is not our concern. For you have barely started to allow your first, uncertain steps to be directed up the ladder separation led you down. The miracle alone is your concern at present. Here is where we must begin. And having started, will the way be made serene and simple in the rising up to waking and the ending of the dream. When you accept a miracle, you do not add your dream of fear to one that is already being dreamed. Without support, the dream will fade away without effects. For it is your support that strengthens it. (T-28.III.1:1-7)

 

Teaching and learning. What will you teach: Peace or Conflict?

A Course in Miracles makes it clear that we can't help but teach. Most of us don't teach in front of a group or classroom, or write books or make movies that teach, but whether we are aware of it or not, we always teach.

….teaching is a constant process; it goes on every moment of the day..... To teach is to demonstrate. There are only two thought systems, and you demonstrate that you believe one or the other is true all the time. From your demonstration others learn, and so do you…..Any situation must be to you a chance to teach others what you are, and what they are to you." (T-Intro.1.6;2.1)

What we teach -- the content of our lessons -- is who we think we are at any given moment, not what we say or what we do.

We may be teaching a child how to tie his shoe, or we may be giving directions to a stranger on the street, or we may be listening to a friend who is in need. In all three cases it appears as if the goal of the interaction is to help, or to convey some kind of information. At the level of the body, this is true. But at the level of mind, there is an underlying purpose to every interaction and that is to either teach peace or conflict; we either support the dream of separation or undo it.

When we identify with the right mind, which is the memory of our perfect oneness with God, we identify with Spirit and Love. As One, we can't help but teach the Peace of God. When we choose to identify ourselves with the ego, we believe we are separate bodies with individual personalities subject to pain and suffering. When we choose the ego, we can't help but judge. Judgment separates us from others. It creates hierarchies that stand in the way of our perception of Oneness. By judging others, even in our most casual conversations the ego actively seeks to reinforce the dream of separation.

Even at the level of the most casual encounter, it is possible for two people to lose sight of separate interests, if only for a moment. That moment is enough. Salvation has come. (M-3.2.6)

Whatever you teach; peace or conflict, you teach also to yourself because you are strengthening it by sharing it with others.

"Everything you teach you are learning. Teach only love, and learn that love is yours and you are love." (T-6.III.4.8)

We can't hope to be helpful to someone who is in pain while we are identifying ourselves with the ego. As egos we harm instead of heal. Instead of looking at the problem from 'above the battleground,' we identify with people's problems and make them real for them and for ourselves. Our most loving attempts at being helpful will fail because the underlying message we give them is that the world of separation is real and therefore their pain is justified.

The simplicity of this very basic message from the Course became clear to me about a year ago when an old friend called me late one night. We only speak a couple of times a year and it's usually when he is hurt and depressed. Stephen suffers from depression. He takes antidepressants which, as he describes, only take the edge off the pain, but help him stay alive.

As we began to chat, even though he did not say it right away, I could tell that he wasn't well. I've told him to call me when he feels he's at risk of killing himself. The feeling I had was that this was one of those nights where he was considering whether he should stay or go. When he gets into these episodes, the pain feels so intense and real, he sees suicide as the only way to end it.

Stephen's problem is that he feels alone. His relationships seem to fail over and over again and he is tired of feeling lonely. He looks at the world through a thick layer of pain and suffering and the world proves to him on a daily basis that love is not real, and that people are not dependable. He is convinced he will never be happy. Every time we chat he offers proof that suffering is real. He will tell you with a straight face, that if he found the right companion who loved him, life would be different for him and he would have a chance to be happy. His misery has become a part of his identity and he is not willing to let it go.

As I listen, a part of me would love to 'fix' him. I would like to share what I've learned over the last seventeen years of practicing A Course in Miracles. I would love to shake him up a bit and impress on him that his life is just a story that he is making up. I'd like to explain how his feelings come from his interpretations and not from what is actually happening in his life. I'd like to share with him that happiness comes from within and that no circumstances can bring him lasting joy and peace. And while I'm at it, I would love to teach him the forgiveness of A Course in Miracles because it would really turn his life around. More than anything, I would like him to know that he has a choice.

The problem is that the "I" that wants and needs so desperately to help Stephen stay alive, is my ego. Over our twenty year friendship, I have to admit that I have tried to throw hints at him. Of course nothing I say ever seems to help. Only now do I understand why. The ego is not capable of helping because masked behind sweet well-meaning words; the only gift it can offer is separation. Stephen is not happy because he feels separated. So how could I possibly be helpful if I mentally reinforce his dream of separation?

There is NOTHING wrong with helping people in need, or joining a cause, or whatever it is we feel inclined to do in the world to help others. The problem comes when, for example, we join a cause because we feel an investment to help. Through the ego's eyes, we must have decided first that the world is real, and that suffering is real. Real help is not possible from the standpoint of separation. While we may be helpful at the level of form, we won't be offering the only lasting kind of help, which is the help that withdraws identification from the dream of separation. As long as we help with the ego we will be doing what the Course calls 'forgiveness to destroy.' The only way we can help is by teaching peace to ourselves first and then extending it.

As I listened to Stephen a year ago, having noticed the subtle ego involvement in my listening, I somehow let it go. As I let go of my ego I become fully present with him. Because there is no movement in my mind, no need to be helpful, no chatter, I can actually hear what he's saying. He tells me about another failed relationship and of the pain he feels. But beyond the story, I hear a call for love. As judgment ceases the perfect love that is always there, becomes manifest. There are no reactions, no judgments, no comparisons, and no investments. His words pass through my mind unobstructed, as flour through a sifter. There is nothing real to hold on to. I see him as he is, without his story.

He tells me he's thinking about killing himself. I hear him say it, but there is no pain; no desire to keep him here because it's so clear that he is not that body. He is Love.

When I speak, the words are not measured or calculated to produce an effect. Love inspires the words and what comes out of my mouth feels natural. I ask him if he thinks killing himself will really end the pain. He doesn't know that, he says. What if it doesn't?

We talk for over an hour. I allow him to take the conversation where he wants to. My ego's agenda is not manipulating the conversation. Finally, he says that he feels good now. He's tired and should go to bed. "I really feel good," he repeats.

As we hang up I feel Joy. This is what the practice of this Course is about. I'm beginning to see what it means when it says that "my only function is to accept the Atonement for myself." It's not with words that we teach, it's not with hands that we heal. All we do is ask for help to see things as they are in reality and having made the choice for what is peaceful and permanent, we demonstrate that the Christ is real and that there is a real alternative to the dream of suffering.

When you accept a miracle, you do not add your dream of fear to one that is already being dreamed. Without support, the dream will fade away without effects. For it is your support that strengthens it. T-28.III.1.6

 

Tennis and the choice for Peace

A few months ago, during a league doubles tennis match, the ladies I played against got angry at my partner for calling a ball out which they thought was clearly in. I also saw the ball land about five inches outside the line, so when they questioned me; I confirmed my partner's call. One of the women got even angrier and continued to make disparaging comments and accusations throughout the match. A part of me was focused on my own mental reaction. I always try to watch my mind as I listen to people because by my feelings I can tell if I'm responding to a situation with the ego or the right mind. If I feel upset in any way, that's a clear sign that I'm interpreting the situation with the ego.

As I watched my mind, surprisingly this time (I am not beyond reacting to one thing or another when I play tennis), all I felt was love and compassion because as Kenneth Wapnick quotes from (I think,) Plato, "we are all fighting a hard battle." The battle, of course, is with our own ego who works diligently at preserving our sense of individuality. (see: Be Kind for Everyone you Meet is Fighting a Hard Battle )

Seeing my opponents' anger, I recognized that they were no different than I am. Though at that moment they were angry and I was not, I certainly had the capacity to be angry. As long as we perceive ourselves as living in a body, we all feel the same pain and suffering associated with dealing with the ego's thought system of separation, guilt and attack. When we get angry at someone, all we are doing is acting according to the ego's plan, which involves projecting our anger onto others, so we can live the illusion that we are innocent and somebody else is responsible for our suffering. Anger is always the result of interpretation.

Perhaps it will be helpful to remember that no one can be angry at a fact. It is always an interpretation that gives rise to negative emotions, regardless of their seeming justification by what appears as facts (M-17.4:12) .

As I looked at these women and recognized that they were no different than me, it was easy to feel compassionate toward them. Their only mistake was that they had chosen to look at the situation through the ego's lens of separation.

By choosing not to react to their accusations, I was able to respond with kindness. My words, inspired by love, were unclouded by judgment or resentment. I experienced an amazing sense of freedom and peace as I talked with them. They eventually lost the match, but toward the end they had relaxed. They smiled more and they looked as if a weight had been lifted off their shoulders.

I've been listening to Ken Wapnick's workshops on tape about A Course in Miracles almost every day for the last three years. Through them, I'm beginning to see how simple the practice of A Course in Miracles can be. He often talks about how when we are faced with an attack, by our reaction, we either reinforce the attacker's choice for the ego and make the dream of separation real; or we undo the ego and its dream of separation by demonstrating that there is another way to look at the world.

When we react to an attack by feeling hurt, angry, or unfairly treated, by our pain, we send the message to the attacker that his attack must have been real because it had an effect on us. By suffering, physically or emotionally, we establish that the attacker is guilty of causing us harm and by doing so we reinforce his choice for the ego. Had I reacted to the angry woman with anger, even if my words had been civil, I would have mentally given her the message that her attack was real because it had an effect on me. If attack is possible, then separation must be real because one is against another.

When we don't react to an attack, by showing no signs of having been harmed, we tell people mentally, that their attack had no effect on us. That can only mean that in reality they have done nothing. Without the dark lens of blame clouding our vision, we are then able respond from a loving place, as if literally nothing has ever happened between us. Giving people the message that they are innocent is the most loving thing we can do. Not only will they be blessed, but the love that is extended through us will reflect back on us.

Within the practice of A Course in Miracles, every encounter is an opportunity to undo the dream of separation by demonstrating peace. We don't have to say a word. Even as we face the most vicious attack, simply by choosing not to suffer, we demonstrate that attack is impossible and therefore the separation never happened.

In Chapter 14 the section called "The Decision of guiltlessness," makes this point very clear:

Teach him, that, whatever he may try to do to you, your perfect freedom from the belief that you can be harmed shows him that he is guiltless. He can do nothing that can hurt you, and by refusing to allow him to think he can, you teach him that the Atonement, which you have accepted for yourself, is also his. There is nothing to forgive. No one can hurt the Son of God. (T-14. III. 7:3-6)

As I stood by the refreshment table after the tennis match to get a drink, the woman who had been the angriest during the match approached me and began to talk to me as if nothing had happened. She appeared to have completely forgotten her attacks on me. I listened to her, always keeping tabs on my own reactions, and soon, she was telling me about how difficult her relationship with her teenage son was and how stressed she was about it. She had learned through another player that I have three teenagers and she was asking me for advice. I sat with her for over a half hour and mostly listened. I saw clearly that her anxiety was caused by her unconscious choice to perceive the situation with the ego, but I didn't try to explain that to her. Instead, I comforted her in the simplest way. I knew that my own choice for peace was letting her know, louder than any words could, that there is an alternative to perceiving the world with the ego and that she could also make that choice.

Forgiving our parents: revisiting our self-concept

I had a very helpful dream about a month ago. I was having lunch with a friend when I noticed my father and his wife entering the restaurant. He saw me from the distance and rushed to greet me. He was visibly happy to see me. From a bag he pulled out a photo album and handed it to me. “This is for you,” he said and walked away.

The album was filled with photos that captured a moment from every encounter we’ve had since I was born until I moved out of Argentina when I was seventeen. It wasn’t very thick since my mother and father separated when I was 10 months old and I didn’t see him at all between the ages of two and sixteen.

As I leafed through the photos, what stood out was the love that I saw in my father’s eyes as he looked at me. As a child, though I tried not to think about it, the feeling I had was that if he loved me, he would make the effort to see me. Even though I had a happy childhood with an excellent mother, a part of me felt abandoned.

At the back of the album there was a scrapbook where my father had pasted articles that appeared in the paper about him including a very favorable eight page biography with photos highlighting his accomplishments. As I began to read, he appeared next to me. Looking into my eyes with a sweet, innocent smile he said: “Can you see me from this perspective?”

The thought that occurred to me as I woke up was that for most of my adult life, I didn’t know who my father was. All I was intimately familiar with were my thoughts about him. For a long time I looked at him and interpreted his actions through a thick layer of beliefs that I had developed about him as a child. Once we have a belief about someone, unless we are willing to re-examine it, it colors our view of them.

His actions only confirmed what I thought I knew about him. Our mind has a way of only noticing what validates our beliefs. Everything else, we literally don’t see. A Course in Miracles points this out early on in the preface:”What perception sees and hears appears to be real because it permits into awareness only what conforms to the wishes of the perceiver. (Preface X.)”

Though I had a fairly good relationship with my father, a part of me blamed him for having abandoned me and assumed that his having done so had a damaging and permanent effect on me.

Sometime in my middle twenties I began to notice what I thought was the effect of my father abandoning me. I saw that though I outwardly appeared confident and outgoing, I was dependent on people’s love and approval. I needed to be noticed and appreciated and it was difficult to open up to people. I unconsciously feared that once they knew who I really was, they would reject me, just as my father had rejected me as a child. I blamed my father for the fact that physical touch from people I didn't know well felt uncomfortable, almost painful.

It is not uncommon to blame our faults, our reactions, and behavior to the way adults in our lives treated us when we were children. Many other factors like order of birth, social situation, education, religion, also seem to have an effect on who we become. This is obviously true at the level of form – we appear to be; both physically and emotionally, the product of our genetics and our upbringing.

But as long as we blame our parents, or the environment we grew up in for our feelings, defects, shortcomings or our unhappiness, we are tying ourselves to a limited self-concept that roots us in the ego-thought system of separation. The gradual building of a self-concept is the ego’s purpose. The Course tells us that “The building of a concept of the self is what the learning of the world is for.” (T-31 V.1:5) From the moment we are born, we learn who we supposedly are. It’s that identification with the self that prevents us from ever knowing who we are in reality. As long as we continue to ‘learn’ who we are by looking at our past and blaming others, we will strengthen our identification with a false sense of self and continue to live in an illusion. As long as we think we know who we are, the ego is safe.

Forgiving our parents is a first step in the direction of letting go of deeply rooted self-concepts that color the way we see. In the dream, my father urged me to look at him from a different perspective. Forgiveness always involves looking at a person or at a situation from a different perspective. As adults we have the opportunity to re-visit every assumption and interpretation we made as children and look at it through more mature, forgiving eyes.

After a fairly insignificant event, anger which until then had been masked as mild annoyance, surfaced one day in 2002. Before then, I thought I had a good relationship with my father. All the beliefs that I had been unconsciously holding about him rose to the surface and poured out. The pain felt like an open wound that keeps bleeding and does not scar. I knew exactly why I hated him. A trial took place in my mind. My interpretation of every one of our encounters was used as evidence against him. The verdict was that he did not love me and he was responsible for the way I was. If anyone cared to listen, I was able to come up with all the evidence that would prove him guilty beyond doubt.

For a while I paid lip service to wanting to forgive, but the resistance was like a granite wall. A part of me did not want to let go of the pain. That was the first time I became aware of how the ego wants and needs to suffer.

Eventually, I noticed a tiny desire to choose against the pain and the process of forgiveness began. I prayed daily for a change of perspective. I asked the Holy Spirit, which is the memory of God in our minds, for a new interpretation. A six year journey began in which I looked at every assumption, interpretation and story I had made about my father and let it go. I began writing this blog one night last year after one of the many opportunities I had over the years to practice forgiving him. http://forgivingeyes.blogspot.com/2007_09_01_archive.html

Over time, it became clear that the reason I felt abandoned was not because my father left, but because I interpreted his leaving as irrefutable evidence that he did not love me. Through the forgiveness process, I saw that the reason my father chose not to see me was not that he didn’t care about me, but that he was dealing with his own set of difficult emotional problems that prevented him from being there for me when I was a child. I understood that he was doing the best he could. He himself had had a very difficult childhood.

As I forgave my father, I became free from the belief that I needed him to appreciate me and love me in order to be happy, self-confident, or at peace. It became clear that neither his words nor his actions could have an effect on me. It was always my choice to give him that power over me.

Sitting at dinner last week with my father, his wife and their three adult children, I experienced freedom for the first time. We had a delightful evening. My mind was quiet – there was no reaction to anything my father said or did. On the contrary, I felt this gentle loving sense take over me which felt almost impersonal, but thoroughly loving and compassionate. When I spoke, the words came out of this love so I spoke kindly and without effort. I was uncharacteristically interested in what they were saying. I was in the moment, celebrating every story, every joke. We sat around the table having the best time until after midnight. It was as if time stood still.

I was aware of the incredible freedom that comes from being in the presence of someone from whom you don't need anything. As I sat on a stool in the kitchen watching my father cook and later at the table seeing him laugh and talk, I saw only love in his eyes. There were no interpretations, no second-guessing. The fog had lifted and I saw him as he is.

My actions were natural and free. I didn’t need to impress him or do anything to earn his love. I felt loved, not because he loves me, but because love was in me.

“Salvation is nothing more than an escape from concepts” (T-31 V. 14:3)

The perfect set-up

“Everyone you offer healing to returns it. Everyone you attack keeps it and cherishes it by holding it against you. Whether he does this or does it not will make no difference; you will think he does. It is impossible to offer what you do not want without this penalty. The cost of giving is receiving.” (T-13 III. 5:4-7, italics mine)

Lying in bed unable to sleep a couple of nights ago I noticed myself getting increasingly angry as I thought about my daughter and a situation at school that I’ve been dealing with for over a week. At my daughter’s request, I’ve been trying to set up a meeting with her teachers so that we can look at ways in which she can improve in their classes. My daughter has ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder), which makes it difficult for her to focus and keep on task. It has been my experience that with a little willingness on her part and some minor accommodations from her teachers, she is able to compensate and do fairly well.

The problem is that her teachers have been unresponsive to my request for a meeting. A week and a half after my initial request, I was feeling powerless and frustrated; a victim of the circumstances. I blamed the teachers first for not caring enough and the public school system for offering me no real recourse. There are almost no consequences to a tenured high school teacher who doesn’t do his or her job. I know the system fairly well since I was employed by a public high school district as a teacher for over 10 years.

As I considered the magnitude of my anger, it seemed disproportionate with the size of the problem. Compared to the financial hardship that some people are going through right now, or some of the ongoing atrocities that happen in the world, my pity party over three unresponsive teachers seemed pretty trivial. It was tempting that night to just turn off the light and force myself to sleep, forgetting everything about it.

But having been in this path for a while, I know that covering up anger is not the way to go. Lesson 5 of the Workbook, “I am never upset for the reason I think,” encourages us to practice looking at all the forms of upset, as the same, regardless of their seeming magnitude. To help us prepare for the exercise, the lesson suggests we repeat: “There are no small upsets. They are all equally disturbing to my peace of mind.” Though it appears that it’s the form, or the specific circumstances, that make us upset -- in my case I believed I was upset because my daughter’s teachers didn’t seem to care about her -- in reality, the only real cause of all our upsets is that we are choosing to perceive ourselves as separate from our Source.

By perceiving ourselves as separate bodies – cut off from our Creator -- we live the illusion that we are in exile living in a cruel, dangerous world. The pain and guilt that the separation has caused us is barely hidden below the surface in our unconscious mind waiting for the right opportunity to erupt. In a way, we are looking for excuses, big and small, to project that anger or pain onto others.

Whenever we see the world as threatening, or as the cause of our upset, what we are looking at is nothing more than a picture of our unconscious mind where the guilt and pain over the separation reside. This is why the Text urges us to “See no one, then, as guilty, and you will affirm the truth of guiltlessness unto yourself.” The world provides us with an opportunity to look at our guilt, which is otherwise hidden in our unconscious mind. We see it in our interpretation of the events that we witness or in the people with who we become in contact.

As we recognize that we are not upset because other people make us upset, but because we are looking at them through a thick veil of guilt, we have the opportunity to hand over our faulty perception to the Holy Spirit (the memory of God within us) who through forgiveness will transform it. As we forgive others what we are doing is forgiving the guilt in our own unconscious mind and getting closer to the awareness of who we really are.

By looking at the situations in which we are upset as a mirror of the guilt in our unconscious mind, we begin to recognize that nothing external has the power to take our peace away. One of my favorite quotes in the text is "The secret of salvation is but this: That you are doing this unto yourself," (T-27.VII.10.1)

The Course tells us unequivocally that our anger (frustration, fear, sadness, annoyance, distrust, etc.) is NEVER justified. That does not mean that we should deny our feelings or ignore them or try to stifle them. When we feel them, we simply notice that we must be perceiving with the ego and we forgive ourselves for it. After all, that is what egos do and our goal is not to make our ego better, but rather to withdraw our identification from it.

The reason we don’t justify our anger is that when we blame somebody else for our unhappiness, our frustration, our anger, what we are doing is reinforcing the belief that the world real. For somebody to be guilty, he first has to be real. A character in a dream can have no power of its own to hurt us. If we experience any pain it is undoubtedly because we have given that character power to hurt us within the dream.

So every time we turn on the TV and allow that politician to push our buttons; or when our best friend, our spouse, or our child says something that hurts us; or when we become desperately frustrated because the environment is falling apart; or when we allow our child’s teacher to take away our peace; we are making the world real. We are choosing to believe that there is a power outside of God; that the separation is real, and that the world can have an effect on us.

As seen through the eyes of the ego, the purpose of all problems, no matter how big or small, is to create a perfect set-up for us to fall into the trap of believing that we are separate bodies, subject to powers beyond our control. The problems will come in whatever the most compelling form is for us to believe them. Our kids, our work, our loved ones, our beliefs, the environment, politics, all are suitable subjects and will provide us with plenty of perfect set-ups. Once we fall for the set-up – and we know we have when we feel anger, annoyance, frustration, sadness, confusion, fear, etc – we have fulfilled the ego’s purpose of reinforcing the separation. The ego’s only hope of survival is that we believe the set-up is real and that we react to it. As long as we fight, the ego will remain alive and well.

Forgiveness looks at the set-up, recognizes it as such and does not buy into it. It recognizes it as a dream that can have no effect on reality. The Workbook says that “Forgiveness recognizes what you thought your brother did to you has not occurred,” (W. PII. 1. 1) By forgiving the guilt we see in others, what we are really doing is undoing the guilt in our own unconscious mind. The Course entreats us to “See no one, then, as guilty, and you will affirm the truth of guiltlessness unto yourself. In every condemnation that you offer the Son of God lies the conviction of your own guilt. (T-13 IX. 6: 1,2)”

When we forgive others, we take responsibility for the interpretation we give to what we see. And while the situation may not change immediately, or at all, all the mental effects that we suffered as a result of it – all the anxiety, the anger, the frustration, the sadness – will dissipate and we will experience peace instead.

As I forgave the situation with my daughter’s teachers that night, a sense of love and compassion replaced my anger. I was able to see that these teachers are doing the best they can at the moment and even if it appears as if they are not interested in helping my daughter, it is still my choice to suffer. In reality, nothing has happened except in my mind.

When we met with my daughter’s school counselor yesterday morning, being free from all sense of blame, anger and frustration, I was able to listen to some options I hadn’t considered before. Every decision came easily, inspired by love rather than anger. We were able to come up with a solution that gave my daughter a huge sense of relief. Later yesterday, one of the teachers sent me an email agreeing to meet with me and my daughter today. During the meeting, unclouded by my previous judgment of her, I saw her as she is. Without the past to cloud my judgment, I saw her as loving, helpful and encouraging.

For all I know, this teacher was always the way I saw her today. I may have completely misinterpreted her emails of the past week. What I’ve come to realize is that it does not matter who is right or wrong, or even what happened. Every problem exists first and ONLY in our mind and only there can it be solved.

These ego set-ups when given to the Holy Spirit, their purpose changes. As we recognize them and we pass them over to our right mind for forgiveness, we begin to see people and problems as they are in reality and not as the ego set them up by projecting them into the world (T-27.VII.2:2). Given to the Holy Spirit these set-ups become holy opportunities to inch our way back home.


"Can you imagine how beautiful those you forgive will look to you? In no fantasy have you ever seen anything so lovely." (T-17 II. 1,2 Italics mine)

A Course in Miracles and the Spiritual Experience

On Sunday before Labor Day as I was going to bed, I plugged my cell phone to its charger and was about to turn it off, as I do every night, when I sensed I needed to leave it on. The thought crossed my mind that as long as my older son is in college (I had dropped him off three weeks before) I was never going to turn off my cell phone at night again. I’m sure you can relate to these small intuitions we sometimes get. They are not that significant, just little previews of the script the Course describes as already past and which we are simply reviewing.

A little after 2:00 AM the phone rang and I wasn’t surprised to see my son’s name on the screen. He has never called me in the middle of the night, but it seemed fitting.

I picked up the phone and right away I noticed that he was excited about something. His first words were “Mom, I know what Love feels like.” He then proceeded to tell me this story.

He was particularly awake that night and had nothing to do so he picked up the copy of ACIM that I gave him two years ago for his sixteenth birthday. (I gave it to him on impulse. I am pretty well aware that the study of ACIM is not particularly suited for young people. At the time, I told him that he could keep it in his bookcase and one day, maybe he would feel inspired to open it.)

As he lay in bed, he opened it and began to read Chapter 1. Though he had never read from it before, it seemed familiar to him. As he read he began to notice his body felt strange. Though he felt his legs on the bed, they didn’t seem to be his legs. His head felt very heavy and when he got to the passage quoted below on p. 10 of the text in the section called “Revelation, Time and Miracles,” he suddenly lost awareness of his body and felt surrounded by total, unconditional Love.

Spirit is in a state of grace forever.
Your reality is only spirit.
Therefore you are in a state of grace forever.


He felt safe and loved, as he has never felt before. He was moved beyond words - he now knew what being in God’s Love feels like. Then he noticed his hands. They seemed very far away and at that point he knew that if he chose to stay in that love, he couldn't be in his body anymore. He felt his heart beat racing with panic and the experience ended abruptly. For a few moments he couldn’t move his body and he had difficulty speaking. He wanted to say something to his roommate, but the words wouldn’t come out coherently and it took several minutes before he could function again. At that moment, in tears, he picked up his phone, went outside his dorm and called me.

As we spoke, he was shaking, but at the same time, was elated by the experience. He asked me: “Do you remember what you wrote as a dedication?” I admitted to him that I didn’t. He said that I wrote, “I love you more than you can imagine.” He said to me: “Mom, I know what that love is – a love that includes everyone and everything.”


We stayed in the phone for a long time. I comforted him as best as I could, trying to get myself (my ego) out of the way. I noticed my mind’s reaction as he spoke and forgave myself for it. By noticing the thoughts that crossed my mind as he spoke, I was able to listen without the ego's agenda. I was conscious of allowing my words to be informed by love rather than the ego.

A passage in the Text came to my mind and I shared it with him: “Fear not that you will be abruptly lifted up and hurled into reality. Time is kind, and if you use it on behalf of reality, it will keep gentle pace with you in your transition. The urgency is only in dislodging your mind from its fixed position here.” (T.16.VI.8:1,2,3) I assured him that he was safe and that he was not required to give up anything. The transition is gentle and gradual.

As I listened to him tell me his experience, I had the feeling that all the work I’ve done over the years to progress on a spiritual path was for that moment -- so that I could be ready for his call.

He drove home from college this past weekend and we spent all of Saturday together. He seemed very calm and introspective. He told me the story again in more detail. I asked him if the experience had had a lasting effect. He said that things didn’t seem as serious anymore. He’s an athlete and results have often seemed important. He said that he didn’t need people’s appreciation as much because he knows “where love comes from.” He also mentioned that in the past two weeks he has often had the impression he’s “seeing from somebody else’s eyes.” He feels more detached. Certain things like having money don’t seem so meaningful anymore.

I’m not sure my son will continue to read or study the Course. If he does, he will someday realize what its practice involves -- a commitment to undoing the ego-thought system one situation at a time. The experience he had may prove to be helpful in that he will have had a glimpse of what the end looks like. But it’s the systematic practice of forgiveness that diminishes our identification with our body and undoes judgment so that we can become aware of the love that is.

The introduction to A Course in Miracles clearly states the purpose of its teachings. It tells us that its purpose is not to teach the meaning of love, but rather to help us identify the blocks that stand in the way of our awareness of love’s presence.

Introduction 1:6 The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence, which is your natural inheritance.

It’s through the practice of forgiveness that we identify those blocks that are hidden in our unconscious mind; and with the help of our right mind we remove them one by one until we become aware of the presence of love that was always there.

Forgiveness is looking at the ego without judgment

As most of us who’ve studied A Course in Miracles for a while know, forgiveness is its central teaching. It is this practice which helps us, one situation at a time; withdraw our identification with the ego thought system so that we can become aware of our true Self as one Son of God.

As we become committed to the practice of forgiveness, we gradually begin to see everything through its lens. Forgiveness does not require us to do anything differently; it's simply an awareness that looks on what is happening and gently reminds us that what we’re seeing is not real. As Kenneth Wapnick often says, forgiveness is “looking at the ego without judgment.”

For the longest time as a student of the Course I didn’t know how to do this or what it meant. The intellectual understanding of it is helpful to a point, but it’s the practice that brings us the Peace which is our goal as students of the Course. I recently had a day in which I became especially aware of how forgiveness was operating in my mind.

Flying home from a workshop, I wrote in my journal about healing as a shift in perception. I wrote that to be able to experience a healing perception, it’s imperative to let go of the desire to be healed because if we allow the disease or the pain to take our peace we give it power over us by making it real.

As the plane begins its descent a strong feeling of nausea takes over me. In an instant it takes my sense of well-being and peace away. ALL I want is to get rid of this awful feeling.

For a second, I mentally laugh at myself. I realize that I’m not practicing what I just wrote in my journal. I’m feeling sick and I find it impossible to let go of my desire to be well.

When the flight attendant walks by, I call her attention and beg her for a diet coke. I don’t usually drink soda, but in my mind, that coke is going to settle my stomach. (My mother used to put it down a clogged drain, so it has to work on my stomach.)

As I wait for the coke I breathe in and out slowly noticing the nausea and praying I don’t lose it on the guy next to me who is engrossed in a bestselling thriller, completely oblivious to the colorful possibilities. Though I’m not at peace and I have not been able to let go of my attachment to the desire to feel well, I notice that I’m not condemning myself for it either. A part of me has been watching myself indulge in full body-identification without guilt. I’m not trying to change anything. I'm simply watching my ego act like an ego, but I'm not judging. I’m forgiving myself.

It’s as if I were watching the situation on a movie screen. The script has already been written. What’s going to happen is inevitable. Or maybe it’s one of those movies with several possible endings………but all of them have already been filmed. Will drinking a cup of coke help Aileen? Will she or will she not lose it on her seat? How will her neighbor react?

Though the script will unfold as it must, I become aware that though I don’t have control over the ending, I do have one choice. My choice is who I invite to sit next to me to watch the movie with me. It’s either Jesus (or the Holy Spirit), as a symbol of my right mind, or the ego.

Whenever we watch our movie with the ego, we're not really watching it anymore – we're in it, fully identified with the character on the screen. We’ve completely forgotten this is a movie and we think it’s all real and VERY serious. When we identify with the ego, we are the ego. There is no longer that forgiving perspective; we just react to the events of our lives. There is no space or awareness between what happens and our reaction.

It’s only when I watch my movie with Jesus that I gain this forgiving perspective. He’s the one who tells me…. Don’t take it so seriously, it’s just a movie…. and you’ve made it all up because you’re afraid of my Love…….

The coke comes. I drink it slowly and magically the feeling goes away as if it never happened. It served its purpose and now it’s gone.

Just a couple of hours later, I’m at my son’s last high school baseball game. He bats fourth, and it’s his turn to bat. After a couple of practice swings, he’s ready.

He has had a tremendous season. He’s ranked in the county, first in his league. Every at bat counts. There’s a guy in first base and two outs and as he swings, I mentally take a step back and I become aware of how much I want him to hit the ball. I can taste the elation of it flying high above the third baseman for a double. My peace and happiness at that moment are totally dependent on his hitting the ball – not for me, but because I want him to be happy.

He swings in the air and misses the ball completely. I feel it in my gut.

My son is ready to hit again and again I notice how much I want him to hit the ball. I’m totally attached to the outcome of this at bat. I WANT to see him running to first base. If I could will him there, I would.

Yet, I’m still watching my movie with Jesus next to me and I’m fully aware that this desire, like any want or desire in the world is costing me the Peace of God.

He swings and misses again.

He swings a third time and for the first time this season, he strikes out. I see a brief wave of disappointment cross his face and a part of me sinks.

As he’s walking back to the dugout, I mentally ask for a change in perception. I can feel how much this desire has cost me. But as much as I ask for a shift in perception – as much as I’m paying lip service to wanting peace – I know that on this day at this moment, I don’t really want it. I notice it in my body. It’s subtle, like drizzle slowly showering my skin. It’s fear. It has a soft paralyzing effect – like the inset of a panic attack.

It’s fear of not having a body that can go to baseball games. This is fun, I tell myself. It’s also insane! And I sort of see that, but having emotions is fun. I’m addicted to the uncertain, to the ups and downs of life. I see clearly how we are all confused when we believe we are enjoying what is really the excruciating pain of being separated from Love.

This fear we all encounter as we progress in the practice of this Course, is what the Course calls resistance. It's the secret wish not to make progress. It's resistance to the Love of God which we think will swallow up our individuality. This fear is inevitable because while our right mind is committed to the Course, the ego is terrified of our progress. To the ego our success is its demise.

Chapter 30 tells us that if we find resistance strong we should not "fight it.” So I don’t fight it. With Jesus still at my side, I simply watch myself not want the peace of God. Forgiveness is stepping back and watching ourselves choose the ego without judging ourselves for it. Jesus says that forgiveness “is still and quietly does nothing….It merely looks and waits, and judges not.” (W-pII 1: 4:1-3)

Through the lens of forgiveness we can look at ourselves with kindness, compassion and love because with Jesus at our side we are able to see that none of the feelings we’re feeling through our temporary identification with the ego are real. No situation has had any effect on Who we really are. We remain One innocent Son.

With Jesus holding my hand, I watch Aileen on the movie screen suffer because she loves being a body watching her son on his last high school baseball game. I watch her fear – her resistance to Love. And I forgive her for wanting this human experience so much.

Beyond Pain

I’ve been in one kind of pain or another for most of the last two years. Most of it is sports-related. It started with a case of "tennis elbow," that lasted about four months. Once I healed, I stretched a tendon in my left shoulder. After that came injuries to both Achilles tendons, then plantar fasciitis, and most recently a nagging lower back and hip pain that's been coming and going since last October, shifting from one spot to another.

Last Friday, after dropping off my son at his Spanish class in Buenos Aires—he’s here for a three-week course—I decided to run some errands before picking him up again. I had a lot of walking to do, and as I made my way through the city, I started to feel a burning sensation in my lower back and a dull ache in my left knee.

When this whole sequence of injuries began, I was frustrated. I made myself miserable thinking, This shouldn’t be happening to me. Until then, I’d never experienced chronic pain. Naively, I thought I was immune to it—or that if it ever did happen, I’d be mentally tough enough to bounce back quickly.

But the more I fought the pain, the more present it became. Before long, it started interfering with my everyday life. My days became tinted by how much pain I was in.

Looking back now, I can honestly say this experience has been humbling—and oddly helpful. I wouldn’t trade it. If I’ve learned anything over these two (very physical) years, it’s this: the more I resist pain, the more it hurts.  And the more it defines me. My focus has shifted from trying to heal the body to withdrawing my identification from it.

While at times I take steps to ease the pain with medication —what A Course in Miracles calls “magic”—, I’ve found I experience far less anxiety when I simply accept the pain. After all, I am identified with a body. Pain and discomfort, whether physical or emotional, are part of the deal. The key to loosening my identification with the body has been watching the pain arise and pass without resistance or judgment.  I'm beginning to see a difference between pain and suffering. 

As I wandered through the narrow streets of downtown Buenos Aires that day, the pain intensified. My back throbbed. My knee ached. I was limping. I didn’t even make it a full block before ducking into a café and sitting down.

There, I watched my mind go to war with the pain, then slowly let go as I slipped into peaceful acceptance. I remembered a line from Lesson 135 of the Course (135:18-1): “What could you not accept, if you but knew that everything that happens, all events, past, present and to come, are gently planned by One Whose only purpose is your good?”

The Course often uses anthropomorphic language to meet us where we are, obviously, a non-dual God doesn’t really have a “Plan".  Still, there is a curriculum for each of us. It is simply, exactly what happens in our lives. Each situation can be seen as a lesson in a perfectly crafted curriculum. Our life can be free from suffering simply choosing to accept our reality instead of arguing with the lessons.  There are no mistakes. 

Sitting at the café with a warm café con leche, I observed the pain come and go. If you’ve ever watched yourself think or feel, you know that once you see yourself doing something, you’re no longer fully identified with it. You become the observer. And in that moment, as I looked at and experienced the pain without judgment—that’s what forgiveness is according to ACIM—I glimpsed something deeper. I saw that this aching body isn’t who I am. 

I laughed out loud.

In the middle of one of the worst pain episodes I’ve had in a while, I felt... calm and at peace. The pain didn’t go away, but it stopped being the center of my awareness. My mind was no longer consumed by suffering. Looking around the café, everything appeared slightly veiled, less real, less urgent. The joy I felt came from the awareness that I wasn’t defined by this pain.  The "I" that I had constructed; the one that suffered; the one that argued with the reality of the physical sensations; was no longer there. I remembered a title from a Ken Wapnick's seminar: “Finding Joy in a Joyless World,” where he quotes from Chapter 6 of the Text (6-II:6): “How else can you find joy in a joyless place except by realizing that you are not there?” 

I finished my coffee, walked out of the café, and picked up where I left off. The pain was still there—but my mind wasn’t entangled with it. I walked for another full hour until it was time to meet my son.

That afternoon gave me a deeper understanding of what true acceptance is: allowing the body to feel what it feels while mentally withdrawing my identification with it. My body is free to ache—but it has no power to separate me from joy or peace; only the mind can cause suffering. 

Later that night, I picked up A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle and came across this passage on page 78:

“What is spiritual realization? The belief that you are spirit? No. That’s a thought. A little closer to the truth than the thought that believes you are who your birth certificate says you are, but still a thought. Spiritual realization is to see clearly that what I perceive, experience, think, or feel is ultimately not who I am, that I cannot find myself in all those things that continuously pass away.”

Yesterday, I woke up pain-free. Will the pain return? Probably. But right now, it doesn’t seem important. The lessons has been useful and I am willing to revisit it again, should it re-surface.  Real healing is always of the mind.

Living for enlightenment

I was in a workshop on listening earlier this month and during one of the discussions, the facilitator mentioned that when he plays golf, he doesn’t play for scoring; he plays for enlightenment. Instead of focusing on the score, he uses the game for the purpose of awakening. (Golf for enlightenment is the title of a book I haven’t read by Deepak Chopra)

As he was speaking, the thought came to me: “This is what I do: I don’t live for scoring, I live for awakening.” At some point during my years of practicing A Course in Miracles, I experienced a shift in purpose: from the ego’s purpose of separation, to the right minded purpose of forgiveness. As we practice and study ACIM, this shift is inevitable. When we practice forgiveness throughout our day, our purpose will eventually shift from trying to solve situations to our advantage to using the situation as an opportunity to undo the ego thought system with which we identify. Under the guidance of our right mind, we stop scoring and our purpose becomes awakening.

The concept of purpose is central to the teachings of A Course in Miracles. The word “purpose” appears 667 times; twice as many times as the world “miracles.” The Course says that the only question we should ask of any situation is “What is it for?” Only when we understand the underlying purpose for everything, can we use it for awakening.

Most of us begin our lives living for scoring. As we face new situations, we measure, compare, assess, categorize, evaluate, and then we solve the situation in a way that protects our best interest. We judge our worth by how successful we are at solving problems to our advantage and we are totally attached to results. Our purpose is do ‘do well,’ ‘to make it,’ ‘to get ahead.’ Our sense of self-worth depends on how well we score and our peace and happiness depends on our results. The purpose of our life becomes to score higher for ourselves, or for our group – our family, our church, our cause, our political party, our country and someday maybe even our planet. Scoring is based on judgment and it’s a full-time job that keeps our mind busy, completely unaware of our true nature in oneness with God. That is the ego’s purpose.

When we live for scoring, we define success by how close our results match our expectations. We are happier when we get what we want; we are unhappy, disappointed, sad, fearful, angry, apprehensive, annoyed, when what we see in front of us does not match what we think our lives should be. We are constantly arguing with reality. If what we are experiencing is not what we expect, we focus on changing our experience because we believe that we can only be happy when we get what we want. We drive our lives according our own judgment, unaware that we are serving the ego’s purpose.

At some point, if we continue to practice our forgiveness lessons, we may become subtly or overtly dissatisfied. We may begin to question the purpose of our life. Is life really about getting our way? We begin to notice that the happiness we experience when we get what we want is temporary. The next obstacle always seems to be around the corner. Or maybe we are getting what we want and we are still not happy. As long as we believe we know what life is for, the Holy Spirit’s purpose of awakening remains dormant in our minds, but as soon as we begin to realize that maybe we don’t have a clue what life is for, it surfaces.

Sometimes this shift is abrupt and can cause temporary confusion.

Chapter 17 talks about the effects this shift in purpose has on relationships as the Holy Spirit’s new purpose replaces the ego’s purpose.

When we offer a relationship to the Holy Spirit to use for His purposes the Course says (T CH 17 V 3:2) ….. “At once His goal replaces yours. This is accomplished very rapidly, but it makes the relationship seem disturbed, disjunctive and even quite distressing. The reason is quite clear…….In its unholy condition, your goal was all that seemed to give it meaning. Now it seems to make no sense.”

As the Holy Spirit's purpose takes over, we may become confused because suddenly all the goals we held dear for so long, are no longer appealing to us.

I experienced something like this three years ago. I was studying and practicing the Course more than ever before, but the more I practiced, the unhappier I seemed to be. It didn’t make sense at the time that as I increased my commitment to the Course, my interest in living decreased. While in the past I had been a doer, always enthusiastic about the next project or idea; I now couldn’t find fulfillment in any of my accomplishments. I was no longer enthusiastic about finishing projects, making money, raising kids, traveling, etc.., I still did everything that was required of my role – nobody noticed anything different about me -- but, I wasn’t happy. I felt trapped in the illusion and all I thought I wanted was to awaken from the nightmare.

A very perceptive friend suggested a Workshop called “Leading With Mastery.” “It’s a four day workshop where you are called to articulate your life purpose,” she said. Without asking any questions I bought a ticket to St. Louis where it was offered, and enrolled.

I won’t describe the workshop because it’s beyond the scope of this post, but I’ll share that I came away with a strong, lasting, sense of purpose that has kept me going until this day. By becoming aware of my purpose, I found my Joy again. There’s not a day that I don’t wake up looking forward to the opportunities for growth that it will bring.

I learned that purpose is the lens by which we filter our experiences. Purpose is what gives meaning to our life. As we face any situation in the world, we can choose to see it through the ego’s lens or the Holy Spirit’s. T CH 26 VII 8:5 says that “Forgiveness is the only function here, and serves to bring the joy this world denies to every aspect of God’s Son where sin was thought to rule.” When we choose the Holy Spirit’s purpose of forgiveness, we can use our life as a means of overcoming the illusion. Every adversity looked at through Holy Spirit’s lens of forgiveness, becomes an opportunity to let go of our identification with the ego thought system. We begin to see that whatever is happening in our lives has no effect on who we really are. Through our adversities we find our way home.

Since scoring is no longer our goal, we don’t focus on solving situations. Through the Holy Spirit's eyes we see there is nothing to solve -- because what's in front of us is just a screen; a projection of the guilt that is the result of our belief that we are separate. Our job is to forgive every problem or person that shows up is our lives so that one situation at a time, we forgive ourselves and awaken to the knowledge that we are One.

This shift in purpose is one hundred percent at the level of mind. It’s only concerned with our focus, not with our behavior. We are not doing anything differently than we would normally do. We are not required to change jobs, relationships, activities, hobbies because one situation is just as good as any other to forgive. One activity is not holier than another. It's our purpose that makes everything we do -- whatever it is -- holy. We can be taking out the trash, or waiting in line with the Holy Spirit or with the ego. That is our only choice.

Any time we focus on changing the form a lesson takes, we give it power over our peace and happiness and by doing so we fall back into the ego’s purpose which is to root us further in the dream.

When we are anchored in the Holy Spirit’s purpose of forgiveness, our actions become inspired by the Divine. Our life appears to be easier, more relaxed. It feels as if we're hitting from the sweet spot. Problems still show up, but we don't take them seriously because they have no power to take our peace. The solutions we come up with are led by the Holy Spirit's Love that we are beginning to identify with. We experience peace of mind because our mind is no longer busy seeking to separate. Through the Holy Spirit’s purpose we see an underlying connection between all people as we recognize that we all share a common interest.

Instead of a battleground, the world becomes a classroom. We see each encounter and every situation as a lesson that can lead us out of the illusion. We accept the lessons in the form that they appear because we know we have chosen the curriculum to suit our needs and we trust that there can be no mistakes.

This quote from Ch 24 VI: 4 sums it up. Note that whenever the Course refers to “healing,” it’s the healing of the mind that thinks it’s separate, not the body.

"Forget not that the healing of God’s Son is all the world is for. That is the only purpose the Holy Spirit sees in it, and thus the only one it has. Until you see the healing of the Son as all you wish to be accomplished by the world, by time and all appearances, you will not know the Father nor yourself. For you will use the world for what is not its purpose, and will not escape its laws of violence and death. Yet it is given you to be beyond its laws in all respects, in every way and every circumstance, in all temptation to perceive what is not there, and all belief God’s Son can suffer pain because he sees himself as he is not."

For another post on the subject of purpose click on the following link: http://forgivingeyes.blogspot.com/2008/01/living-on-purpose-egos-or-holy-spirits.html