The Direction to Mount Olympus

How do you get to the top of Mount Olympus? Make sure your every step is directed that way.
How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice!

Or, the way Margot Krikhaar writes in her new book, Awakening in Love,  about doing the workbook lessons of the Course: "And remember that it is not about the tempo. It is about which way you are headed: in the direction of the light.

This all really boils down to the Course's concept of the "little willingness:"

Salvation, perfect and complete, asks but a little wish that what is true be true; a little willingness to overlook what is not there; a little sigh that speaks for Heaven as a preference to this world that death and desolation seem to rule. (ACIM:T-26.VII.10:1)  

So the change is that instead of being so wrongheaded all the time and giving our vote to the ego, we start giving our vote to the Holy Spirit, and on top of that to realize that when we get ourselves all wrong footed, we can start over at any time. The Course is full of examples of Jesus' infinite patience with us - he evidently understands the ego's resistance quite well.

Margot in her book shares with us all her own stumbles and challenges and at times it could be quite tough to imagine that anything good is going to come of all this, just like in our own life we can at times completely lose it in the process. The eventual outcome however makes it very clear that it is exactly right that all we need is a 'little' willingness, just enough to keep being pointed in the right direction. The willingness to leave decisions to the Holy Spirit, instead of arrogating on behalf for an illusory ego-self. What makes Margot's book so powerful is that she shares her process with all of this in a way that is totally disarming, and an invitation to look at ourselves honestly, and to stop covering things up, but instead to start looking at them honestly all the time, with Jesus' love to guide us, till one day we move past the ego. That is what the Course calls accepting the Atonement, and the best guidance on the process is like the old Greek saying that you get to the top of Mount Olympus by simply making sure that your every step is in that direction. All you ever have to worry about is the step you are doing right now. The same again is implied in the notion of Occam's Razor. Do not fall for the ego's complexity.

In the words of Lesson 188:

Why wait for Heaven? 2 Those who seek the light are merely covering their eyes. 3 The light is in them now. 4 Enlightenment is but a recognition, not a change at all. 5 Light is not of the world, yet you who bear the light in you are alien here as well. 6 The light came with you from your native home, and stayed with you because it is your own. 7 It is the only thing you bring with you from Him Who is your Source. 8 It shines in you because it lights your home, and leads you back to where it came from and you are at home. (ACIM:W.pI.188.1)

Copyright, © 2011 Rogier F. van Vlissingen. All rights reserved.