tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-145956102024-03-14T09:26:51.750-04:00ACIM&AbrahamExploring ACIM in context of Abrahamic tradition.<br>
"Questioning every value that we hold," with new readings of old familar terms<br>
Exploration of biblical lore as metaphor, honoring the spirit of Johan Willem Kaiser, whose work was to lead me to recognize the authorship of the Course.RogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.comBlogger110125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14595610.post-44405309315086439712016-12-23T23:45:00.000-05:002016-12-30T00:07:46.695-05:00Exiting Deceptions and Illusions<blockquote class="tr_bq">
And it came to pass, that in the morning, behold, it <i>was</i> Leah: and he said to Laban, What <i>is</i> this thou hast done unto me? did not I serve with thee for Rachel? wherefore then hast thou beguiled me? And Laban said, It must not be so done in our country, to give the younger before the firstborn. (Gen.29:25-26)</blockquote>
Jacob's service with uncle Laban is just one of the stories of the ego's empty promises and deceptions. The ultimate is the realization of Faust, having sold your soul to the devil and gotten nothing for it. Or indeed, it is the story of the slavery in Egypt, and the many doubts we have even after leaving "the fleshpots of Egypt," and the food that kept us satiated but made us sick. Many myths tell the same or similar story, as this is truly archetypical.<br />
Ultimately, we find ourselves in the position of the prodigal son:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="reftext"><a href="http://biblehub.com/luke/15-14.htm"></a></span>And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want. And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him. And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! (Luke15:14-17)</blockquote>
In recent days, I watched the documentaries on <a href="http://www.aetv.com/shows/leah-remini-scientology-and-the-aftermath" target="_blank">Scientology by Leah Remini</a>, as well as the documentary <a href="http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/going-clear" target="_blank">Going Clear</a>. I found myself identifying with the profound disillusionment of the people who somehow pull themselves together enough, in spite of the abuses and the relentless brainwashing, to one day get up and leave. I've known that feeling, and sooner or later we all do, although some cases seem to be more extreme than others. This new wave of reporting about Scientology also includes a BBC documentary, by Louis Theroux, called <a href="https://youtu.be/s-9qUjE40wM" target="_blank">My Scientology</a>, which builds on Going Clear and which takes a very interesting off-beat approach to exploring the workings of Scientology and the dynamics behind it. Taken together, these documentaries definitely turn up the heat on the empty promises of Scientology.<br />
<br />
In the last few years I've extensively delved into another viciously deceptive cult, <a href="http://mlmtheamericandreammadenightmare.blogspot.in/" target="_blank">network marketing</a>, which, much like Scientology, sucks its victims dry, even while promising them the sun, the moon and the stars. Recently <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6MwGeOm8iI&t=15s" target="_blank">John Oliver turned up the heat on MLM</a>, as he had done earlier with the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y1xJAVZxXg&t=490s" target="_blank">televangelist preachers of abundance</a> who merely exploit the tax-exempt status of their "churches" to their own benefit, as well as with <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBUeipXFisQ" target="_blank">Trump University</a>. Eventually, many of the victims arrive at a point of reversal, hitting rock bottom, and the victim stories tun into stories of people getting up, and leaving the most abject slavery, such experiences can be a wake-up call for many.<br />
<br />
Another modern parallel that comes to mind is <a href="http://www.biography.com/people/rubin-carter-9542248" target="_blank">Rubin "Hurricane" Carter</a>'s biography, and the book and movie "The Hurricane," there, it is quite obvious that the change is entirely inside, as he could not leave prison even if he wanted to, but as he comes to realize that the problem is inside, not out, and that he is the warden of his own prison. His attitude begins to shift, and eventually that translates in to change in form when his conviction is overturned.<br />
<br />
Never mind how far we wander away from home, eventually there always comes that moment of "there must be another way," as it is known in Course lore, referring to the moment when Bill Thetford admitted to Helen his utter despair with the way their professional relationships within their institution were working, or rather, not working, as in being dysfunctional in the extreme. I found myself being astounded and impressed with the clear-mindedness of Leah Remini and some of the people she interviewed, as well as the stories of how they came to the point of giving up everything and following that inner feeling that anything was better than what they had been doing, combined with the feeling that they had wasted their lives.<br />
<br />
Of course this is never true, for whatever you needed to wake up is irrelevant once you start waking up. And it does not matter what kind of a cult or addiction, gang, or indeed corporation was your path. It is very impressive how much we are able and willing to learn in order to lose ourselves in the world, and to get away from who we are in truth. Yet, just like drugs, in the end it loses its effectiveness, and we need more and more until it destroys us, or, we admit defeat and get out. Eventually, you must realize that it no longer works, and that it actually never worked and begin looking for "another way." And though sometimes you have to leave where you are, sometimes you don't, but you do have to change your attitude and expectations, and realize that the truth is within, and nothing <i>out there</i> can ever give it to you - as soon as you fall into that, you've just fallen into slavery, again. The final realization of "is that all there is?" was famously expressed through the role of Shakespeare's Prospero:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1f1f1f; margin-bottom: 1.3em; margin-top: 1em;">
<span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-weight: 700;">Prospero:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Our revels now are ended. These our actors,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">As I foretold you, were all spirits, and</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Are melted into air, into thin air:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">And like the baseless fabric of this vision,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The solemn temples, the great globe itself,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">As dreams are made on; and our little life</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Is rounded with a sleep.</span></div>
<cite style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1f1f1f; font-size: 18px;"><a class="owl-eyes-link" href="https://www.owleyes.org/text/tempest/read/act-iv-scene-i/root-71984-50/81089" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #39aeda; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Tempest Act 4, scene 1, 148–158</span></a></cite></blockquote>
When that total disillusionment is acknowledged for what it is, the journey home begins. In our Western world the most vivid parable for the journey home was the book of Exodus, and recently Robert Rosenthal, M.D. delivered a modern retelling of it that really explores the significance of the myth of Exodus, titled <i>From Plagues to Miracles</i>.<br />
<br />
The documentaries on Scientology were particularly interesting, because there is such a clear picture that it promises a Münchausen scenario, that we could pull ourselves up out of the muck by our own hair, except of course with the twist that we needed to surrender to this guru L. Ron Hubbard, and his proxy David Miscavage, in order to learn how to do it, and in the process give up everything, becoming totally dependent on the cult-environment and alienated from the world. In other words, in Scientology the ego is our guru, and boy, does it let us have it. Particularly clear was the illustration of how the confusion over being personally responsible for your situation is used against you, once the false serlf-identity is mistaken for who we are. Surely we are responsible for what we perceive and experience, except that choice is not a choice of the false identity, our ego-self, but is made by the mind at a level that is now in the subconscious, and the journey home is nothing but the journey of making the unconscious conscious, and forgiving everything, everybody, until we finally realize we are only forgiving ourselves for having made one wrong choice and thereby undoing it. In short, instead of the endless fancy "promotions" and achievements that the world offers, and which lead us nowhere, all we need to do is to stop trying to be what we're not.<br />
<br />
Like in Exodus, we hanker back many a time to the Fleshpots of Egypt, and often times we find ourselves replacing one idol with another, until eventually, like Odysseus killing off the suitors, we abandon all idols, and merely return to the truth of who we are. All the value systems of the world are illusions, some just seem harsher than others, but none of them are true. In the Course's words: we take the second place to gain the first - we let the Holy Spirit lead the way, which invariably means we no longer hasten to a form, but abandon every personal preference to finally just be free, by letting Him lead the way.<br />
<br />
The journey home in truth is a journey without distance, simply because we only need to learn that what we were seeking outside could never be found there, the truth is within, it is we who ran away from it, and now it merely needs to be remembered, and rediscovered.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The journey to God is merely the reawakening of the knowledge of where you are always, and what you are forever. It is a journey without distance to a goal that has never changed. Truth can only be experienced. It cannot be described and it cannot be explained. I can make you aware of the conditions of truth, but the experience is of God. Together we can meet its conditions, but truth will dawn upon you of itself. (ACIM:T-8.VI.9:7-10)</blockquote>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">A Course In Miracles, ACIM, The Disappearance of the Universe, Gary Renard, Kenneth Wapnick, Gnosis, Apocryphal books, Nag Hammadi, Dead Sea Scrolls</div>RogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14595610.post-72251539456418315572016-05-27T16:17:00.002-04:002016-06-02T08:58:57.252-04:00The Politics of the Big LieThere is almost no better story on the lies of the ego than the story of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laban_%28Bible%29" target="_blank">Ucle Laban in Genesis</a>, the story of false promises is the story that 'makes the world go round.' False promises galore everywhere. It is the bedrock of the twelve tribes of Israel, man's life in the ego's world of time and space. In modern literature there is Goethe's story of Faust, and of selling one's soul to the devil. And, infamously, there is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie" target="_blank">Hitler's notion of the Big Lie</a>, which Wikipedia sums up as follows: "Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it." In the end it became most famous because of Goebbels' use of it, as expressed in this quote: "The essential English leadership secret does not depend on particular
intelligence. Rather, it depends on a remarkably stupid
thick-headedness. The English follow the principle that when one lies,
one should lie big, and stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at
the risk of looking ridiculous." (see Wikipedia article).<br />
Later on it was to get worked out in literary form to its logical extreme by George Orwell, in the form of Newspeak, with terms like "truth ministry."<br />
<br />
All of these are merely reflections of the central feature of the ego thought system, the phenomenon the Buddhists call "monkey mind," and as describe in the Course, when it speaks about how our mind is split in duality between ego and Holy Spirit, between wrong and right mind:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Remember the Kingdom always, and remember that you who are part of the Kingdom cannot be lost. The Mind that was in me [is] in you, for God creates with perfect fairness. Let the Holy Spirit remind you always of His fairness, and let me teach you how to share it with your brothers. How else can the chance to claim it for yourself be given you? The two voices speak for different interpretations of the same thing simultaneously; or almost simultaneously, for the ego always speaks first. Alternate interpretations were unnecessary until the first one was made.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The ego speaks in judgment, and the Holy Spirit reverses its decision, much as a higher court has the power to reverse a lower court's decisions in this world. The ego's decisions are always wrong, because they are based on the error they were made to uphold. Nothing the ego perceives is interpreted correctly. Not only does the ego cite Scripture for its purpose, but it even interprets Scripture as a witness for itself. (ACIM:T-5.VI.3:1-4.4)</blockquote>
</blockquote>
In other words the strategy of the separation thought (ego) in the mind is simply to control the press, as is always done by dictatorial regimes. The ego's illusion is that there are different truths for different people and we can make truth what we want it to be. This is why there is no hope unless and until we come to the realization that something is not working, and eventually nothing is working, and we end up looking for "another way."<br />
<br />
<h3>
One lie or many lies?</h3>
The bottom line is that there is really only one lie at the foundation of the ego thought system, and that is that we are not as God created us, or, to put it differently, that ideas do leave their source - two different ways this issue is expressed in the Course. To that extent then, the level confusion of thinking we're the dream figure, and not the dreamer of the dream is the fundamental lie our ego is constantly trying to cover up, by keeping us 'entertained' with our bodily adventures in this world of time and space. And to the extent that the decision to identify with the ego is buried in our unconscious, the adventures of our life serve to keep the decision for the ego deeply buried, and keep us busy moving the deckchairs on the titanic. The constant mind chatter serves no other purpose than maintaining the ego's temper tantrum in all of its high-pitched intensity, so our mind should stay engrossed in the dream, for there's simply too much to do and worry about. Clearly Plato's allegory of the cave, which is implicitly referenced in the Course is one of the clearest cultural myths: we are glued in the seats of the theater of the world, fixated on the screen, and totally identified with the adventures of our hero on the stage - our false identity and bodily self - incapable of even turning our head around to see the light, and to realize that the images on the wall are mere shadows cast by the light outside, and figments of our imagination. Not only that, we'll muffle or kill off anyone who would attempt to tell us otherwise.<br />
<br />
Since in the ego thought system the refraction of light ensures that what was one appears as many, the one lie takes on many forms, and we can spend the rest of our lives fighting the lies of the world, like Don Quijote and Sancho Panza, fighting the windmills. We will be totally preoccupied with fighting the evil in the world ("out there"), and never have to wake up to the fact that all the lies of the world are just a cover over the one lie our ego does not want us to see, our choice of "selling our soul to the devil," to put it in Faustian terms. Or, in abstract philosophical terms our choice for duality instead of oneness. In oneness, truth is true and everything else is a lie, and in duality truth is different for everyone, and hence it is always a Darwinian battle of one or the other.<br />
<br />
My favorite saying to describe this condition is the old latin adage:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Mundus vult decipi, decipiatur ergo. (Eng.: The world wants to be fooled and therefore she will be. Cited in St. Augustine, <i>De Civitate Dei</i>, and often ascribed to Petronius.)</blockquote>
And the reason we want to be deceived, is because we are projecting out the deception we accuse ourselves of, where we shattered the peace of Heaven, and launched our own substitute reality, but we won't accept responsibility for our actions and project it on others instead, leaving us in the victim role, proclaiming our innocence. In other words, the ego's addiction to victim scripts (including being deceived) is sustained in the Freudian sense by the secondary gain of obfuscating our self-accusation of being a guilty sinner who has shattered the peace of Heaven. The corollary to that is that the world loves helping helpless victims because again it covers up our self-accusation of similarly being guilty sinners who shattered the peace of Heaven.<br />
<h3>
Original 'sin' and originality, or lack thereof...</h3>
The Buddhist term "monkey mind" becomes more brilliant the longer you think of it, for the ego, by definition has never had an original thought. The thought of separation is the thought of copying God, and starting to play God on our own, or as the Course puts it, I want it thus! - here is the quote in full:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Dreams are perceptual temper tantrums, in which you literally scream, "I want it thus!" And thus it seems to be. And yet the dream cannot escape its origin. (ACIM:T-18.II.41-3)</blockquote>
With a litttle bit of humor we could say that the ego is the original copy cat, so that, if indeed monkeys like to mimic behavior, the monkey mind does nothing else than 'playing God,' in a substitute reality of its own choosing, which is the dream that serves to forget our reality in Heaven. And, unsurprisingly (for those who've studied Freud a bit), in the dream we then project out the deception and become victim of a thousand deceptions. All of the monkey mind (to use a Course term, "the thoughts you think you think") is nothing but 'Newspeak,' for its very purpose is to obfuscate our reality:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
It is because the thoughts you think you think appear as images that you do not recognize them as nothing. You think you think them, and so you think you see them. This is how your "seeing" was made. This is the function you have given your body's eyes. It is not seeing. It is image making. It takes the place of seeing, replacing vision with illusions. (ACIM:W-15.1) </blockquote>
<h3>
Some favorite lies and what to do about them</h3>
What to do about them is of course to forgive them. It is the only way out, however, that does not mean foregoing the need to get to the bottom of them, except if your mission is forgiveness, what will happen is that in the process of the 'dressing down,' you will uncover ever deeper layers of your own need to be fooled, and all the emotional attachments that keep the ego's amusement park (a.k.a. the world) going. The best ego strategy is the victim role. Nothing is more effective than if you have somebody else (the scapegoat) to blame for all your troubles - the unconscious goal is to absolve yourself of all responsibility, and feeling like an innocent, blameless victim.<br />
In my own life, and in our culture in general, there are always lies aplenty, and they are all useful classrooms, if you put the Holy Spirit in charge, and not the ego, because with the ego all they are is a battlefield on which everybody loses. Some examples:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>The never ending story of cults, religious, political and business. Steve Hassan and his <a href="https://www.freedomofmind.com/" target="_blank">Freedom of Mind</a> resource center are the go-to resource in this area.</li>
<li>The 'healthcare' racket, a.k.a. the medical industrial complex is another cultural lie that is slowly devouring us all. A lot of healthcare spending is really sick care, for there's more money in keeping us sick, at least as long as we can pay the bills... but that's increasingly questionable. The seminal book on this subject is perhaps Ivan Illich's 1976 book, recently re-released under the title <i>Limits to Medicine: Medical Nemesis: The Expropriation of Health</i>. There's a lot afoot in this area, but there seems to be a budding awareness that taking responsibility for ourselves is somehow key to it all, and Jan Willem van Aalst recently summed it up with a wonderful post on <a href="https://miraclesormurder.wordpress.com/2016/05/21/the-victim-gland/" target="_blank">The Victim Gland</a>.</li>
<li>Currently in the US, there's the battle of pyramid schemes, which are a form of business cults, complete with their own Newspeak. One of the best sites is that of British critic David Brear, <a href="http://mlmtheamericandreammadenightmare.blogspot.in/" target="_blank">MLM, The American Dream Made Nightmare</a>. His own family was devastated by the association of his brother with Amway, and David is performing a real public service by helping to unravel the Newspeak, for in the MLM version of Newspeak, the 'dream stealers' are the people who have figured out that 99.9% of people lose money in pyramid schemes. This industry has gone to incredible lengths to subvert the language in a way that would have done Goebbels proud. The bottom line is that the 'MLM business opportunity,' is simply yet another way for fools to be separated from their money. It is also a festival of victimhood.</li>
<li>Another classic of course was the denial of the link of smoking and lung cancer, which is now being repeated on the e-cigarette and hookah front.</li>
<li>Still going on is the scam of fluoridation of drinking water. In my native Holland it was introduced in the 1960's, but after the scientific fraud behind it was uncovered in the 70's, the practice was discontinued. When I arrived in the USA in '79, I was surprised to find they had not received the memo yet, and the levels of complication and CYA tactics to cover up how fluoride even ended up in our drinking water are beyond belief.</li>
<li>Clearly, all addictions of any kind are forms of 'living the lie,' and the results are devastating. Yet the cover-up is very clever. 80 heroin deaths a day in the US is a national crisis, but 1,600 daily deaths from cardio-vasculare disease are somehow business as usual, and even the government continues to support bad nutritional and agricultural policies and advice. Evidently, the addiction to the Standard American Diet (SAD) is alive and well, and officially endorsed.</li>
</ul>
Nothing will ever be resolved unless and until we start to recognize that all of these are just so many forms of idolatry, of substituting yet another "Big Lie" for the truth, and... that it takes two to tango, so victims and victimizers need each other to keep the amusement park (kudos to <a href="http://www.wisefoolpress.com/" target="_blank">Jed McKenna</a> for that term!) in business.<br />
<br />
One day it may dawn on us what Exodus meant in 20:3: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." Simply put, truth is one, only truth is true, and anything else is a lie, but we're all slow to give up "other Gods," until we start generalizing and seeing through them wholesale, meaning the differences between all the scams of the world are insignificant, and once the sameness is understood, the magic of Maya is losing its lustre. Eventually, we will give up <i>wanting</i> to be deceived, as we learn, through forgiveness that truth has not changed by our nightmare dreams, and all we need to do is wake up. Hence the Course speaks of: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The world stands like a block before Christ's face. But true perception looks on it as nothing more than just a fragile veil, so easily dispelled that it can last no longer than an instant. It is seen at last for only what it is. And now it cannot fail to disappear, for now there is an empty place made clean and ready. Where destruction was perceived the face of Christ appears, and in that instant is the world forgot, with time forever ended as the world spins into nothingness from where it came. (ACIM:C-4.4) </blockquote>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">A Course In Miracles, ACIM, The Disappearance of the Universe, Gary Renard, Kenneth Wapnick, Gnosis, Apocryphal books, Nag Hammadi, Dead Sea Scrolls</div>RogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14595610.post-41486864123787826342015-01-14T08:49:00.001-05:002015-02-28T06:51:03.738-05:00The Undreaming Chronicles by Alex MarchandMost of us come to the Course with some background in formal religion of one sort or another, Christianity, Islam, Judaism are the most prominent, but scientific agnosticism is certainly one of them. Or, as the late Kenneth Wapnick used to joke, Marx was right that religion is opium for the people, but he ignored the fact that communism (a form of scientific materialism) was a religion too. On and on.<br />
Many of us are motivated to take up <i>A Course in Miracles</i>, because we sense very quickly that it untangles some of the seemingly unsatisfactory issues that have come with our previous conditioning. Typically, in a religious context, those tend to be the 'mysteries of the faith,' where we were told that certain things were off-limits, or it was even dressed up as here was where 'faith' came in. In the materialistic/scientific world view these unresolved issues typically manifest as problems that have not been solved yet, and where conflicting hypotheses are being entertained, and we are supposed to (here come the 'mysteries of the faith' again) have faith in the method, and that ultimately these questions will all be answered. If our background and conditioning is more psychological/social, we are stuck with the dawning of contradictions around the real human motivations and talents, from the ridiculous to the sublime, of self-destructive and aggressive behaviors, where we come no further than survival of the fittest, and why everyone ultimately thinks the world revolves around them, and everyone else is dispensable - the Hitler within all of us, something again we never like to look at.<br />
<br />
But then we stumble on to <i>A Course in Miracles</i>, or perhaps some other non-dualistic teaching, and gradually it becomes evident that all the seeming contradictions, the annoying 'mysteries of the faith,' are really the result of applying a dualistic interpretation to a non-dualistic reality (teaching), and suddenly all of the seeming contradictions in the teachings of Jesus disappear like snow before the sun, once we realize that he was teaching non-dualism. The theologians who made a Christian out of Jesus, starting with Peter and Paul, really busied themselves perverting the original non-dualistic teaching into a dualistic religion, and exploited the unexplained that resulted from their twisted interpretation as the 'mysteries of the faith,' that could bind believers to the emerging church. This is always the moment when specific teachers become lionized, just like Jesus was 'promoted' to being the only Son of God, completely contrary to what he taught. Within the Christian context, it was perhaps the re-discovery of the Thomas gospel which was the catalyst for returning to the non-dualistic teaching of Jesus. Gary Renard's trilogy (<i>The Disappearance of the Universe</i>, <i>Your Immortal Reality</i>, and <i>Love Has Forgotten No One) </i>deals with this extenstively, and my own <i>Closing the Circle: Pursah's Gospel of Thomas and A Course in Miracles</i> explores the historical dimensions in depth, and demonstrates how via Thomas we come back to Jesus before he was a Christian, and who sounds remarkably like the author of <i>A Course in Miracles</i>.<br />
<br />
It would appear that Ken Wapnick's magnum opus on Freud will be lost in the mists of time, as he was unable to finish it, but we should note that Joe R. Jesseph, Ph. D., a psychiatrist who was on the staff of the Foundation for <i>A Course in Miracles</i> for a long time, and who worked closely with Ken on this project, has already given us <i>A Primer of Psychology According to A Course in Miracles</i>, which really does for psychology what I described above about religion, which is to demonstrate rigorously how the whole of psychology collapses into a simple framework, once the non-dualistic framework is even beginning to be understood by us. Simply put, the key insight is that 'consciousness' so-called is a paranoid schizophrenic phenomenon which is designed to keep us from experiencing reality, so that all theories, psychological or otherwise, that are built on the gratuitous and erroneous assumption that 'consciousness' is the norm and the foundation, must shatter when confronted with reality, which in turn results in the experience of many conflicting theories. In this case the 'mysteries of the faith' simply are revealed as the stubborn belief that the individual reality is a valid starting point, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, and that somehow the whole of 'psychology' will get us anywhere, in spite of all the many contradictions.<br />
<br />
Where it will get us is one day to wake up, and begin looking for another way, if we don't buy the story any longer, for it simply does not add up...<br />
<br />
In terms of the scientific tradition, the 'mysteries of the faith' are again the many contradictory, not to mention sometimes mutually exclusive theories and hypotheses that never add up to a unified theory of everything, for the simple reason that they rest on the dogma of material reality, which is as irrational as the belief in the reality of the individual, and individual reality. Individual reality is what the sophists wanted, and which Plato rightfully ridiculed them for. After all, there cannot be many truths, as that is a contradiction in terms, and completely undoes the concept of truth in the first place.<br />
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Along comes Alex Marchand, a talented graphic artist, who delighted Course students some time ago with his wonderful graphic novel, and one of the best introductions to the Course you could find: <i>The Universe is a Dream: The Secrets of Existence Revealed</i>. Since then he has been up to no good (LOL), and has started to publish a series of books, <i>The Undreaming Chronicles</i>, of which so far books 1 and 2 have appeared, respectively subtitled <i>Revelations from the Holy Planet</i>, and <i>The Library of Time</i>. (Highly recommended to get them in paper form, not in e-book format, or at least get both.). In this new series of books, Alex systematically develops the same vision of how all of the seemingly unresolved issues in the scientific framework disappear like snow before the sun once we shift to a non-dualistic understanding as a point of departure, instead of positing the hapless physical world as the foundation of anything. In short, Alex's contribution resolves the 'mysteries of the faith,' in the materialistic (and Newtonian) religion of science, by offering us a larger, non-dualistic framework, which suddenly resolves all the seeming contradictions, and reveals in full glory how and why 'evolution' and 'creationism' are at loggerheads--because they both are religious myths, which are ways of explaining something that only obfuscate the truth if they are mistaken for the real thing. Alex builds on the work of Thomas Campbell (www.my-big-toe.com), and Brian Whitworth, representatives of a new notion, called "digital physics," which offers a Theory of Everything, and a coherent way of seeing the world as an expression of an idea, not as reality. This is delightful and enjoyable material. Stay tuned.<div class="blogger-post-footer">A Course In Miracles, ACIM, The Disappearance of the Universe, Gary Renard, Kenneth Wapnick, Gnosis, Apocryphal books, Nag Hammadi, Dead Sea Scrolls</div>RogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14595610.post-72422954222802509102014-07-17T23:33:00.001-04:002014-07-18T08:05:14.361-04:00Clarity from AdvaitaSri Ramakrishna taught, in the spirit of the Advaita tradition that we all go through stages in our spiritual development, from dualism to semi-non-dualism and eventually to pure non-dualism. This kind of concept is right in line with the Course's emphasis on not skipping steps.<br />
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As I have covered in a recent blog, the Course's version of the "creation myth," (how did the impossible happen?), for many people may offer certain advantages in clarity compared to the Advaita tradition. The Course posits that the tiny mad idea (the separation thought, the ego), was our (the Son's) idea, and that the problem was not having the idea, but taking it seriously. The Course then appeals to our innate ability to change our mind as a straightforward "way back" to our Home in Heaven. This "change of mind" (Greek: "Metanoia,"), is the core teaching of Jesus, both what remains of his teachings 2000 years ago, and in ACIM today.<br />
This particular aspect of the Course's explanation of our current predicament, is psychologically extremely powerful and helpful to us in returning to our mind where the problem is, rather than trying to fix the outcomes in the world, where the problem isn't and thus cannot be fixed either. It helps us in taking responsibility for entertaining the separation thought seriously, and now enables us to start to doubt our choice, and help to undo it, for which the Course offers us a stepwise training program, centered on "forgiveness," which properly understood is not dualistic forgiveness of someone out there (the Course would call that "forgiveness to destroy,") but forgiveness of myself for projecting my guilt on someone else, and taking it back to let the Holy Spirit be the judge for me instead.<br />
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The secret of salvation is but this: that you are doing this unto yourself. No matter what the form of the attack, this still is true. Whoever takes the role of enemy and of attacker, still is this the truth. Whatever seems to be the cause of any pain and suffering you feel, this is still true. For you would not react at all to figures in a dream you knew that you were dreaming. Let them be as hateful and as vicious as they may, they could have no effect on you unless you failed to recognize it is your dream.</blockquote>
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This single lesson learned will set you free from suffering, whatever form it takes. The Holy Spirit will repeat this one inclusive lesson of deliverance until it has been learned, regardless of the form of suffering that brings you pain. Whatever hurt you bring to Him He will make answer with this very simple truth. For this one answer takes away the cause of every form of sorrow and of pain. The form affects His answer not at all, for He would teach you but the single cause of all of them, no matter what their form. And you will understand that miracles reflect the simple statement, "<i>I</i> have done this thing, and it is this I would undo." (ACIM:T-27.VIII.10-11).</blockquote>
In <i>The Disappearance of the Universe</i>, Gary Renard through the voice of Arten, proposes a similar developmental path from duality, to semi-dualism, to non-dualism (such as Vedanta), and finally pure non-dualism as represented by Jesus, in the sense of the total reunification of the Father and the Son (see DU, pp. 30-37). non-dualism is realizing that the world is an illusion, as indeed the Advaita teaching of <i>lila (</i>the godhead playing a game of "who am I" with himself) and Maya does. Pure non-dualism is reflected in the Course in the notion that "there is no world." (ACIM:W-132). Realizing that all these steps are a necessary part of the process is important, and is in-line with the Course's notion that we should not skip steps, lest we trip ourselves up. This is an evolutionary process while you are in it, and you need to respect your attachment to seeing things a certain way, until experience shows you that you are not giving up anything, but rather confining yourself to a constrained point of view, and you can't help but let it go.<br />
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Lately, I have been talking with Dutch teacher Jan van Delden, whose path was via Advaita in the tradition of Sri Ramana Maharshi, but who lately realized why <i>A Course in Miracles</i> often is so helpful to people because the forgiveness process teaches us gradually to turn to the Holy Spirit, and incrementally to let go of our ego attachments, in the context of our normal daily lives. Recently, Jan has shifted to teaching the Course for that reason. I already reported how his Advaita teacher at the end of his life had agreed with Jan's personal intuition that the origin of Maya (the life we dream), is our idea of separation, not a game of God, for that would impart some degree of objective reality to the world again. Much later, after the death of his teacher, Jan then found the Course via the work of Margot Krikhaar. However, his Advaita background, along with his in depth study and understanding of the spiritual metaphor of Homer's <i>Odyssey</i>, in turn help him explain the Course in a vibrant, new and different way.<br />
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Via Ken Bok I recently became aware of Mooji, and I have been taking in some of his material, which is also quite wonderful and helpful exactly because the language is different from the Course. Interestingly, Ken's interview with him sort of shows that transition, where at first the difference in terminology seemed to be a hurdle, but gradually better and better communication happened, until it ended in an experience of total surrender for Ken, which he has also shared with us, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqhj-XLIJVA" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
One of the many things I found very helpful in Mooji's presentation was his reaction to the death of his guru, Papaji:<br />
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<span style="background-color: ivory; color: navy; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.5px; text-align: justify;">A month after returning to London, Mooji received news that the Master had passed away. Of this Mooji declares: "That Principle that manifests as the Master is ever HERE NOW. The True Master never dies, it is the mister that dies. The true Master, that Sat Guru</span><a href="http://www.mooji.org/biography.html#notes" style="background-color: ivory; color: #ff6600; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.5px; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none;">*</a><span style="background-color: ivory; color: navy; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.5px; text-align: justify;"> within, alone is the Real".</span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: ivory; color: navy; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.5px; text-align: justify;">(</span><span style="color: navy; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="line-height: 19.5px;">http://www.mooji.org/biography.html)</span></span> </blockquote>
Interestingly, with the Course we are first being pointed to the existence of an "Inner Teacher," and gradually learn that he may show up for us in various manifestations through people, places and things, as we learn to tune in to the Voice more and more because engaging in forgiveness process would gradually lower our resistance, our defenses.<br />
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And again, the language of Advaita is different from the Course, but Mooji's approach to questioning our ego is quite interesting, and could be helpful to people:<br />
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<span style="background-color: ivory; color: navy; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.5px; text-align: justify;">So unsparing is his scrutiny and uncompromising stance, that the 'I' concept is inescapably exposed as a mental construction, when viewed from the formless awareness we are.</span> </blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: ivory; color: navy; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.5px; text-align: justify;">(</span><span style="color: navy; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="line-height: 19.5px;">http://www.mooji.org/biography.html)</span></span></blockquote>
Yet another Advaita teacher caught my attention recently: <a href="http://www.theopensecret.com/" target="_blank">Tony Parsons</a>. His way of talking about True Empathy (his term: Compassion) versus False Empathy (his term: Complicity), is quite instructive, and really in synch with the Course, except I like the words even better - in particular the word complicity, for that's what it means to play into the ego's conspiracy, which is always about tempting the son of God to believe he's a body, in other words the conspiracy is about making the world real at all costs, and suffering and sacrifice does a great job of that.<br />
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In the end all ways lead to Rome, and it won't matter which way you came. The Course respects all paths, but simply suggests that you "stick" to yours in terms of being consistent in your practice. Skipping around on the buffet line is simply another ego stalling tactic. But simply listening to other ways of saying the same thing helps deepen our understanding, and can sometimes bring to light issues we had not been clear on for ourselves, for hearing it in different words, requires a more intent, conscious listening effort.<div class="blogger-post-footer">A Course In Miracles, ACIM, The Disappearance of the Universe, Gary Renard, Kenneth Wapnick, Gnosis, Apocryphal books, Nag Hammadi, Dead Sea Scrolls</div>RogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14595610.post-30552891677166444002014-07-08T07:52:00.002-04:002014-07-28T17:47:39.271-04:00Advaita Vedanta On My MindSomehow the first teachings I explored outside of the Christian mystical tradition I was brought up with, were Lao Tzu and the Tao Teh King, and the teachings of Sri Ramakrishna as well as Sri Ramana Maharshi. In the context of the sort of theosophical atmosphere of my upbringing, these were perhaps obvious connections, and now after studying ACIM for almost 25 years, it seems even more obvious to me now how it all fits together.<br />
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Recently, I became aware of Ken Bok's visit with <a href="http://www.mooji.org/" target="_blank">Mooji</a>, in the context of "Il congreso del perdon," in Madrid, Spain in 2012, which apparently included both Advaita teachers (mainly Mooji) and some ACIM teachers, mainly spanish. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QSqs921s7M" target="_blank">Ken interviewed Mooji</a>, and one of the interesting features was certainly to notice how the very idiosyncratic idiom of both traditions can get in the way, if you don't watch out.<br />
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Evidently ACIM and Advaita would agree on such ideas as: only truth is true, and everything else is false. In many ways Advaita and the Course come very close, and there would be no fundamental disagreement, but there is a vast difference in form that may not be easy to bridge for some. Being fully conversant with the terminology of both is not a trivial task. The Course says "God is, and then we cease to speak..." (ACIM:W-169.5:4) Only the absolute is, all else is but appearance, maya, illusion. Again, Advaita would have no problem with that statement.</div>
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Besides the differences in terminology, and in process, it seems to me that at the abstract level of the teaching, there is only one specific issue that really separates the two, and that is the answer to the question which the Course would humorously refer to as: "How did the impossible happen?" I was reminded of this not too long ago by a former advaita teacher in Holland, Jan van Delden, who more recently got involved with <i>A Course in Miracles</i>, in part because of the way it deals with that particular question, and in part because as a path it gives people a level of handholding that is unprecedented in any other spirituality. Curiously, his own process involved mostly Advaita, but also a strong experience of recognition and guidance from Homer's <i>Odyssey</i>, which is nothing but a parable for the "homeward journey' we all have to make, not just the hero from the Trojan war. It is a symbol of our journey home, just as much as the book of Exodus is in the Old Testament, or in fact the gospel story itself. </div>
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Jan shared with me how towards the end of the life of his advaita teacher, Jan told his teacher how he suspected that the dream that is our life in the world is made up by us, that we are the dreamer of the dream - which is an essential concept of the Course, and the very reason salvation is even possible. Namely, if we had an insipid idea, and we're suffering the consequences, we can also choose to change our mind, and the Course in effect offers us the tools to help us change our mind. The Advaita way of talking about the same thing varies between the Godhead playing a game of hide and seek, "who am I," or variations on that theme. (See a discussion of the major variations <a href="http://www.advaita-vedanta.org/avhp/creation.html" target="_blank">here</a>.) As Eliot Deutsch points out in his book <i>Advaita Vedanta: </i>"For Advaita Vedanta, then, the phenomenal world is <i>maya</i>, and it is produced by <i>maya</i>. But it is not on that account merely a figment of one's imagination." (Deutsch, p.31) </div>
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ACIM on the contrary says simply: There is no world, as here:</div>
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But it is pride that argues you have come into a world quite separate from yourself, impervious to what you think, and quite apart from what you chance to think it is. <span style="background-color: yellow;">There is no world! This is the central thought the course attempts to teach.</span> Not everyone is ready to accept it, and each one must go as far as he can let himself be led along the road to truth. He will return and go still farther, or perhaps step back a while and then return again. (ACIM:W-132.6, highlighting added)</blockquote>
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In short, in the language of metaphor, God does not even know about the world, he did not create it, because it is not there, just as much as your dreams at night simply disappear when you open your eyes. To ACIM the thought that God created the world is definitely part of the problem set, because it grants the world an objective reality it does not have.</div>
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An Advaita site goes sofar as to criticize ACIM over this issue as follows: </div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #0000cc; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">ACIM's theology is also grounded in the idea that </span><strong style="background-color: white; color: #0000cc; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">people's experience of the world is a cognitive mistake or error.</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #0000cc; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"> This is very different than the best of Indian Advaita, which teaches this same idea as a preliminary doctrine </span><strong style="background-color: white; color: #0000cc; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">but ultimately counsels that the world is a dream or illusion emanated by God (<em>Brahman</em>), not by the ego, and that it is an emanation out of pure Divine playfulness or <i>lila</i> (pronounced<i> </i>“leela”) and loving Grace, not a "mistake." </strong></blockquote>
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<strong style="background-color: white; color: #0000cc; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">(</strong><span style="color: #0000cc; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px;"><b>http://www.enlightened-spirituality.org/ACIM_critique.html)</b></span></span></blockquote>
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It seems to me there is simply a different teaching approach behind both systems, and this is a clear example of why you can't mix and match, for you'll get duck soup.</div>
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Just like ACIM says "God is, and then we cease to speak" so in Advaita, Brahman is "one only without a second," as the Upanishads would have it. But then the differences arise. The Course sees the world as an "attack on God," (ACIM:W-pII.3.2:1), and how it gets there is that the Son, all the while being one with his creator, entertains a "tiny mad idea," the idea of separation, following which he represses the memory of Heaven (called the Holy Spirit in the Course), and fully identifies himself with the separation thought (ego), and to escape the pain in his mind, because he is driven mad by guilt over his attack on God, he then projects a physical world, that is the expression of the separation thought. In short, all the world is, is the expression of a silly little idea we had, and when we stop fighting it, which only makes it real, we can forgive it, and eventually undo our belief in it, as we remember the reality of who we are in truth and it fades away into the "nothingness from which it came." In short, we never ever were separate from God, but we thought we were because we entertained the "tiny mad idea," and took it seriously. So yes, in the Course the world is maya, and sustained only by our belief in it, because its origin lies in the guilt that arises from the thought of a separate identity, the ego thought.</div>
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In Advaita, the way that story of the origin is told, it takes on a little more objectivity, as if Brahman, as Ishvara, had the idea of the world, which grants it some objectivity, almost in spite of the fact that anything besides Brahman is treated as illusory, maya. In a way it is as if Isvara is somewhat of a parallel of the creator God, Ialdabaoth in the gnostic tradition, be it that Ishvara is merely another aspect of Brahman. In the way the Course describes it, Ialdabaoth is a projection of the ego, the separation thought, and is the progeny of Sophia in gnostic myth, or, to describe it more psychologically he is the angry God of the Old Testament, who we fear, because we have projected our guilt over the thought of separation onto him. It is this imaginary God we are running from. The real God is not angry about the separation thought, or the world - He does not even know there is a world, or a "you," ALL of that is a figment of your imagination. Ken Wapnick liked to sum this up as: "The world is a maladaptive solution to a non-existent problem." For there never was any separation, it was only a dream, our only job is to have the "little willingness," to doubt the reality of it and then ask the Holy Spirit, and our inner teacher, Jesus to guide us on the journey home. "It is a journey without distance to a goal that has never changed." (ACIM:T-8.VI.9:7)</div>
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On the other hand, when I hear Mooji state it as; "<i>You </i>are the supreme and perfect self. Playing a game of how do I find myself," it is clear that to some degree the distinctions between the two at the abstract level are small and subtle. At that level he is addressing our real Self, just as does Jesus in the Course, (or, more precisely the "decision maker" to use Ken Wapnicks, term - the faculty to choose between ego and Holy Spirit. If you would just add that it was a stupid little game, and to hear in your other ear Jesus saying how we can laugh the consequences of that stupid little idea away with him, the two schools of thought are very close indeed. The reality of it is that different forms and different paths are necessary within this world of differences, and to quote something Jesus said to Helen: you should not judge your brother's path, nor should you take it as your own. And to look at the process of learning the Course, one becomes aware more and more that we all learn it by misunderstanding it first, for the resistance is enormous. So we all constantly misinterpret the Course, because our ego is fighting it, and then we get to correct ourselves again, and again and again. Some of us may go off for a while even making a business out of our misinterpretations, which has given rise to a whole "Course in Miracles Industry," as Ken Wapnick used to call it. It does not matter. They are all ways of working with the material, and we will go deeper and deeper as we go along, and at some point we will realize there simply is no going back, the pain of the ego system is simply too great. The fleshpots of Egypt have lost their appeal for good.</div>
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On a practical level, the Course is a path that engages with the world, with your dream life and your relationships, by teaching you to not make decisions with your ego, but to learn gradually that it is all thought, and that what matters is to let go of the ego's urge to think that anything at all must be done, and instead every thought needs to be forgiven first, to the point where we are no longer acting from the ego, but purely under the guidance of our inner teacher. The Course does not teach abandoning the world, but engaging with it, just with a different teacher, the Holy Spirit, not the ego:</div>
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You who have tried to learn what you do not want should take heart, for although the curriculum you set yourself is depressing indeed, it is merely ridiculous if you look at it. Is it possible that the way to achieve a goal is not to attain it? <span style="background-color: yellow;">Resign now as your own teacher.</span> This resignation will not lead to depression. It is merely the result of an honest appraisal of what you have taught yourself, and of the learning outcomes that have resulted. Under the proper learning conditions, which you can neither provide nor understand, you will become an excellent learner and an excellent teacher. But it is not so yet, and will not be so until the whole learning situation as you have set it up is reversed. (ACIM:T-12.V.8, highlighting added)</blockquote>
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I discovered Mooji through my friend Ken Bok just now, and I've been listening to some of his YouTube videos intently. It has mobilized my profound interest in Advaita Vedanta all over again, although I was already on that track because of my communication with Jan van Deelden. I find it most helpful to listen and read the Advaita material with the full appreciation that they are different systems, so much so that it can actually be helpful to notice how the same things are approached in different ways. I feel very much at home in the Advaita material, and I'm enjoying re-reading stuff I had rarely looked at for forty years, but the Course is definitely my path, for it helped me with some critical things that no other discipline has ever given me. Which means nothing special, except that it is clearly my path.</div>
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To outsiders looking at the Course, the difficulty is equally great. The idiosyncrasies of the Course and its very specific idiom are such that it is easy to misread it. The fact that it is written on such a high level, makes it hard, but also, to the casual reader it is very easy to overlook the levels within the Course. Level one, which is "God is," "Truth is true," "Heaven," "God," "Oneness," "Spirit," and Level two, the level of the world we experience, which is a dream, and all duality is metaphorical, but what we learn with the Course is that, by asking our inner teacher for guidance, we can learn to reinterpret the metaphor, and it can become our classroom, and the vehicle for our journey home. </div>
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I am going to enjoy my re-discovery of the world of Advaita for a while... Thinking back to my first acquaintance with Advaita Vedanta teachers, I remember that it was a conscious decision on my part that I somehow sensed the solution was not to go and meditate in a cave in the Himalayas, but I wanted to be in the world. That was a very deliberate choice, and so it could be no surprise that I ended up finding A Course in Miracles later in life, a path that very much teaches that the journey is right where you are, and that inner change is the only thing that makes a difference:<br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="background-color: yellow;">Projection makes perception. </span><span style="background-color: white;">The world you see is what you gave it, nothing more than that. But though it is no more than that, it is not less. Therefore, to you it is important. </span><span style="background-color: yellow;">It is the witness to your state of mind, the outside picture of an inward condition. </span><span style="background-color: white;">As a man thinketh, so does he perceive.</span><span style="background-color: yellow;"> Therefore, seek not to change the world, but choose to change your mind about the world.</span><span style="background-color: white;"> Perception is a result and not a cause. A</span>nd that is why order of difficulty in miracles is meaningless. Everything looked upon with vision is healed and holy. Nothing perceived without it means anything. And where there is no meaning, there is chaos. (ACIM:T-21.in.1, highlighting added)</blockquote>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">A Course In Miracles, ACIM, The Disappearance of the Universe, Gary Renard, Kenneth Wapnick, Gnosis, Apocryphal books, Nag Hammadi, Dead Sea Scrolls</div>RogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14595610.post-79045150153044612332014-06-08T00:19:00.002-04:002014-06-08T07:42:39.715-04:00The Amorality of A Course in Miracles<blockquote class="tr_bq">
What has been given you? The knowledge that you are a mind, in Mind and purely mind, sinless forever, wholly unafraid, because you were created out of love. Nor have you left your Source, remaining as you were created. This was given you as knowledge which you cannot lose. It was given as well to every living thing, for by that knowledge only does it live. (ACIM:T-158.1)</blockquote>
The other day, I had an interesting discussion with one of my Dutch Course friends, about why the word "conscience," or "scruples" does not occur in the course, apart from one mention of "unscrupulous." It seems to me that this is because it is merely an ego-inspired euphemism for "guilt." Particularly in the process of growing up in this world, our "conscience" is conditioned further into a set of moral values, with which we convince ourselves that we can decide good and bad, and thus please the ego's angry, vengeful God, Ialdabaoth. As this evolves it is further "civilized" into religious, philosophical or political mores or ethics. In short, first we cover up the guilt with the euphemism of "conscience," and then we give it social acceptability, because by knowing right from wrong, we become socially conditioned into well adjusted "grown-ups," capable of making our own decisions. Jesus in the Course gently, but firmly, disagrees, and speaks of our judgement as "sharp-edged children's toys," and makes clear that we are hurting ourselves with them, and makes it very clear that we come to his course as spiritual toddlers, who are best off by resigning as their own teacher, and learning to leave judgment to the Holy Spirit.<br />
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Resign now as your own teacher. This resignation will not lead to depression. It is merely the result of an honest appraisal of what you have taught yourself, and of the learning outcomes that have resulted. Under the proper learning conditions, which you can neither provide nor understand, you will become an excellent learner and an excellent teacher. But it is not so yet, and will not be so until the whole learning situation as you have set it up is reversed.</blockquote>
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Your learning potential, properly understood, is limitless because it will lead you to God. You can teach the way to Him and learn it, if you follow the Teacher Who knows the way to Him and understands His curriculum for learning it. The curriculum is totally unambiguous, because the goal is not divided and the means and the end are in complete accord. You need offer only undivided attention. Everything else will be given you. For you really want to learn aright, and nothing can oppose the decision of God's Son. His learning is as unlimited as he is. (ACIM:T-12.V.8:3-9:7)</blockquote>
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The ego always, and in all ways, tries to mimic heaven, so as sons of the ego, we believe we have consciousness (mind with a lower case "m"), and we give ourselves a life, driven by our belief in the ego's unholy trinity, of sin, guilt and fear. That belief in sin, guilt and fear is rationalized within the ego system in the form of a "religion," a "philosophy," a "world view," or a "conviction," it can be theistic, atheistic, or agnostic, but in one form or another it makes the world and the individual real, and keeps us focused on the putative life we have in time and space. As an individual who believes they are living in this world our first job then is to preserve the guilt, for the guilt is what makes the separation real, and guarantees our existence as a separate individual. The first step in domesticating guilt is to give it a nice name, "conscience," and a socially acceptable function, typically something like the "golden rule," in one form or another. We stay firmly shackled to the ego as long as we identify with the Hero of the Dream, who conscientiously makes the "right choices," about his (dream) life. And it usually takes us a long time before we encounter a challenge that really knocks us off balance enough to realize, as Helen and Bill did: "There must be another way," and begin the process of learning that we are the Dreamer of the Dream.<br />
<br />
The Course says:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Now you are being shown you <i>can</i> escape. All that is needed is you look upon the problem as it is, and not the way that you have set it up. How could there be another way to solve a problem that is very simple, but has been obscured by heavy clouds of complication, which were made to keep the problem unresolved? Without the clouds the problem will emerge in all its primitive simplicity. The choice will not be difficult, because the problem is absurd when clearly seen. No one has difficulty making up his mind to let a simple problem be resolved if it is seen as hurting him, and also very easily removed. (ACIM:T-27.VII.2)</blockquote>
Let's for a moment do a double take on the Course's story of how we got where we are:<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>First there was the oneness of Heaven, God, Spirit, and nothing else, the complete unity of Creator and created, the father and the son.</li>
<li>Within that unity this "tiny mad idea" (TMI) seemed to arise, which in one of the gnostic myths is designated as "Sofia" (meaning "wisdom," an evident euphemism for the non-overly bright Tiny Mad Idea).</li>
<li>And Sofia has a son, called Ialdabaoth. He is the creator God of Genesis, and <i>this </i>world, the dualistic world of form is described in the gnostic myth as the "after birth." We are the sons of that God, as portrayed in the Bible with the creation of Adam and Eve, and everything that follows.</li>
<li>The Course fleshes this sequence out a little further: the Tiny Mad Idea gives rise to the separated mind, which promptly suppresses the memory of Heaven, by repressing the "Right mind," the home of the Holy Spirit, and it identifies with the wrong mind, the ego mind, which is what the Buddhists like to call the "monkey mind," that seemingly never ending hairball of insane thoughts, all driven in the end by sin, guilt and fear. </li>
<li>This separate ego individuality is driven by guilt, and it projects ("sets up," if you will) a life experience with a past (sin) and a future (which we fear), in order never to have to be present to our unexamined guilt feelings. I has also projected an angry god, and a world and a body, where we think we can escape the vengeance of this god.</li>
<li>In this individual life we now must make choices, and Ialdabaoth is the paranoid schizophrenic "God" (of this world) that we project, and of whom we are afraid, because we think we killed him in order to gain our individuality. We maintain that guilt by making it seem useful, mostly in the form of "conscience," which properly considered only concerns itself with what is good for the individual, tempered by some cultural rules to prevent total mayhem (such as the golden rule, etc.). </li>
<li>In short, conscience is nothing but our pledge of allegiance to the ego-god, Ialdabaoth, and by making "conscientious decisions" as the ego would have us believe, we constantly reaffirm our pledge of allegiance to this ego-god. Our "conscience," our guilt, keeps us under the spell of the ego's god, making choices that make the world real, all to prevent that we should ever make the only real choice we have, the choice for the Holy Spirit, for then the ego-charade is up.</li>
<li>This goes on until we realize it's deja-vu all over again, and we end up looking for "another way," and that is when we are shown as per the quote above: that we <i>can</i> escape by seeing through the setup of meaningless choices between left and right in the world, to make the only choice that can liberate us, for the Holy Spirit instead of the ego.</li>
</ol>
<br />
The Course therefore is indeed amoral in the sense that it teaches that the ego choices, and our "conscience" is irrelevant, which does not mean that it is immoral, for the guidance of the Holy Spirit is sure to have the best interests of all in mind, and guide us to the most loving choices at all times.<div class="blogger-post-footer">A Course In Miracles, ACIM, The Disappearance of the Universe, Gary Renard, Kenneth Wapnick, Gnosis, Apocryphal books, Nag Hammadi, Dead Sea Scrolls</div>RogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14595610.post-60641442517087331282014-05-25T09:16:00.003-04:002014-05-25T09:18:38.333-04:00Ken Wapnick and the Course, a refresherSince the end of December, 2013, Ken Wapnick is no longer with us in physical form. Yet he remains ever present to me. "Harpo" he called me affectionately, as a reminder not to take myself too seriously, and always showing me that laughter is healing, and specifically that the tiny mad idea cannot withstand laughter. We can laugh it away it with Jesus. The last time I saw him in person was at one of the last workshops in the lush environment of Roscoe, NY. I never managed to visit him in the new desert location of Temecula, CA. But I spoke to him on the phone once in a while, and inevitably he pick up the phone with: "Harpo?"<br />
<br />
Thanks to some Dutch friends, I was able to attend the first new academy class in Temecula, CA after Ken's passing, from March 8th through 16th of 2014. One of their group had canceled, apparently because Ken would not be teaching. My gratitude knows no bounds that I was able to attend this workshop, "I am not a breadbox," based on Helen Shucman's famous "breadbox" episode, which demonstrated that she intuitively grasped the teachings of the Course even before it had been dictated to her.<br />
<br />
Then, a month after the workshop, I had the opportunity to listen to a tape of Ken's last workshop before his illness took him out of commission, "Taking the ego lightly." Again another reminder of how serious Jesus really is about nothing being serious, when he says about the tiny mad idea, and its "real effects," the world, (T-27.VIII.6:4) that: "... together we can laugh them both away,..." Another flashback to Ken's habit of calling me "Harpo," always to remind me to take the ego lightly. A reminder of the voice of the Holy Spirit who is whispering in our ear that this is all a joke.<br />
<br />
Subtly, in this last workshop, he also reinforces the Course's debt to Platonic and gnostic mythology, by equating the Tiny Mad Idea (TMI) in the Course, to the gnostic image of Sofia, and how she (it) gives rise to the Demiurge (Ialdabaoth) the ego's God, who we regard as the creator of the world, while the world itself is merely the "afterbirth," the eventual effect in form of the tiny mad idea, but really nothing to write home about.<br />
In that light the gnostic roots of the Course really come alive, and in that sense the Course is a beautiful reminder that the main problem of gnosticism was taking it all too literally all over again, and losing itself in idle speculation, instead of continuing to learn to tune in to that little voice whispering in our ear.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">A Course In Miracles, ACIM, The Disappearance of the Universe, Gary Renard, Kenneth Wapnick, Gnosis, Apocryphal books, Nag Hammadi, Dead Sea Scrolls</div>RogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14595610.post-48809402158938094562014-01-13T12:33:00.000-05:002014-01-13T15:22:54.637-05:00Twelve Gates to the CityThe "Twelve" always are a symbolic expression of the multiplicity of the world, and in that sense the gates of the heavenly Jerusalem are the same as the Twelve signs of the zodiac, the twelve tribes of Israel and the twelve apostles. Together they symbolize all of us, as we see ourselves in a world of differences, and on the Journey home we will pass through the gates of the Heavenly Jerusalem, to unite with Jesus as the one Son, thus Jesus is always the Thirteenth amongst the Twelve. In that sense, the path of forgiveness is the journey back home, in which, as we forgive and let go of our differences, we are passing through the gates of multiplicity, and we return to unity, there to join with Jesus.<br />
<br />
In the last few days my friend Annelies Ekeler wrote a beautiful tribute to Ken Wapnick, who died recently, based on a post on her blog (in Dutch) titled <i>The Gate of Unbelief (<a href="http://illusje.wordpress.com/2014/01/10/de-poort-van-ongeloof/" target="_blank">De Poort van 'ongeloof</a></i><a href="http://illusje.wordpress.com/2014/01/10/de-poort-van-ongeloof/" target="_blank">'</a> in Dutch). In her blog post she makes the point that the ego's obstacles--the obstacles to Peace, as the Course calls them--eventually all become open gates we can pass through if we just give our emotions to the Holy Spirit, which is the essence of forgiveness. This is always grounded in the realization that we are never upset at a fact or a thing, but at our interpretation of it, which is indicative that we have put the ego in the driver's seat (again), and now we can make another choice.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
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. Regardless, too, of the intensity of the anger that is aroused. It may be merely slight irritation, perhaps too mild to be even clearly recognized. Or it may also take the form of intense rage, accompanied by thoughts of violence, fantasied or apparently acted out. It does not matter. All of these reactions are the same. They obscure the truth, and this can never be a matter of degree. Either truth is apparent, or it is not. It cannot be partially recognized. Who is unaware of truth must look upon illusions. (ACIM:M-17.4)</blockquote>
And then it all came together, and I began listening to some of my favorite versions of "Twelve Gates to the City," here are some of them:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>by the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uR7tvPeiYJE" target="_blank">Reverend Gary Davis</a>, an old blues traditional</li>
<li>by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yExCglafN9E" target="_blank">Pete Seeger</a>, to document the transition in to folk</li>
<li>by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYRJ-Mr6gS0" target="_blank">Bob Dylan</a>, in a very recent performance</li>
<li>by the <a href="http://youtu.be/TR9tKt6e3c0" target="_blank">Davis Sisters</a>, a modern gospel version</li>
<li>by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxAYR_mI8s8" target="_blank">Dave van Ronk</a>, like Pete Seeger, but more bluesy </li>
</ul>
<div>
And so it became an inspiring morning on this 13th of January, reflecting on the Twelve going back to One, who but seems like the Thirteenth, but was really the First to awaken, who is leading the Twelve back home through the gates of forgiveness.</div>
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">A Course In Miracles, ACIM, The Disappearance of the Universe, Gary Renard, Kenneth Wapnick, Gnosis, Apocryphal books, Nag Hammadi, Dead Sea Scrolls</div>RogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14595610.post-22136311848782366812014-01-03T13:26:00.001-05:002014-01-03T14:20:29.773-05:00Margot Krikhaar, "The Great Liberation," an OverviewAs mentioned earlier, this book is Margot's more formal teaching of the Course, and it is meticulously put together in a way that aims both to explain the Course's sometimes arcane metaphysics, and also address and if possible prevent the many ways it is commonly misunderstood.<br />
<br />
The book has just seven chapters, though some are more extensive than others... and the first few very carefully lay the ground work for the teaching. Chapter one sets up the basic parable of the nothingness of individuality in the form of one little wavelet in the ocean, which momentarily thinks it is reality. Chapter two deals with the purpose of this book, and addresses some of the more obvious ways in which the Course tends to be misconstrued.<br />
<br />
If the book is taxiing on the runway in Chapters 1 and 2, in Chapter 3 it takes off, and Chapter 3 concludes with a series of channeled definitions of major Course terms, which can be very helpful indeed. They are also a sort of final wrap-up for the journey--the book has reached cruising altitude. For the rest, Chapter 3 carefully sorts out the usual confusion about what makes the Course a non-dualistic teaching, and why some other people end up calling the Course's non-dualism, dualism, as long as they are unaware of their own unexamined dualistic premises. All in all, Margot treats these issues in simple, straightforward language, which is a good refresher for anyone studying the Course, but which also means that the book could be an introduction for someone who did not know the Course before. Likewise, the issues around level confusion are clarified in very simple language. Thankfully, Margot says nothing original, she sticks to the Course. What makes the book unique is Margot's very personal and casual way of explaining things, which makes them very accessible, which is her intent exactly.<br />
<br />
There are times when I find myself disagreeing with Margot, except it is somehow not material. For example, when she says that the Course is a "fairly recent" spiritual path, I disagree. To me the Course is the same thing Jesus taught then, and now, except it is worded in more modern language. Back two thousand years ago, he did not have the psychologies of Freud, and Rogers to fall back on, but the teaching is unchanged. I guess that boils down to just different ways of looking at it. The Course's form is obviously modern.<br />
<br />
By Chapter 4 we hit paydirt, and Margot has a brilliant and clear explanation of the Course's mythology of the ego, and compares the fool's gold of the ego system to the thrills of the rides in an amusement park. Eventually they lose their charm, and we need to outgrow them. She uses very simple but evocative examples to explain the four splits in the mind by which we find ourselves in our human experience in this world. As a whole, Chapter 4 uses simple and straight forward examples and parables that convey the brilliance of the Course's understanding of the dynamics of the ego very concisely. This explanation includes a lucid treatment on the ego experience of linear time as a necessary expression of the mechanism of sin, guilt, and fear, and an equally lucid paraphrasing of the ego's dictum of "seek but do not find."<br />
<br />
Chapters 5, 6 and 7 are the meat of the book, and present a very thorough treatment of the Course teachings by contrasting the thought system of the ego and the Holy Spirit and exploring the ways in which we keep ourselves confused between the two.<br />
<br />
The book draws on the simple personal style of Margot's first book, <i>Awakening in Love</i>, but extends the material to a formal introduction to the Course, in line with the evolution of Margot's own teaching of the Course in her native Holland. It was not to be long, because Margot passed away within a few years after she started teaching, but this book is part of the permanent legacy she left behind, and it will be a welcome help to many Course students.<div class="blogger-post-footer">A Course In Miracles, ACIM, The Disappearance of the Universe, Gary Renard, Kenneth Wapnick, Gnosis, Apocryphal books, Nag Hammadi, Dead Sea Scrolls</div>RogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14595610.post-81996769005446411622013-08-29T10:44:00.001-04:002013-08-29T10:44:50.714-04:00Margot Krikhaar on Money<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Temptation has one lesson it would teach, in all its forms, wherever it occurs. It would persuade the holy Son of God he is a body, born in what must die, unable to escape its frailty, and bound by what it orders him to feel. It sets the limits on what he can do; its power is the only strength he has; his grasp cannot exceed its tiny reach. Would you be this, if Christ appeared to you in all His glory, asking you but this: </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Choose once again if you would take your place among the saviors of the world, or would remain in hell, and hold your brothers there. </i>(ACIM:T-31.VIII.1)</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<br />
Recently, I hosted a group reading on a webinar of Margot Krikhaar's article "<a href="http://www.margotkrikhaar.nl/pdf/All_the_money_belongs_to_everyone.pdf" target="_blank">All the Money Belongs to Everyone</a>," and it was recorded and is now available on YouTube: <a href="http://youtu.be/1u3wfnM9Pgs" target="_blank">Discussion of Margot Krikhaar's Money Article</a>.<br />
<br />
The first and most obvious thing is that the whole topic of money is rife with opportunities for level confusion, yet, even the records we have of Jesus's teaching outside the Course are pretty clear: Give to Caesar what is Caesar's. That was always clear, except it becomes a lot clearer when you understand the concept of levels in the Course. As Margot says in the introduction, she came to realize in her work in the corporate world (healthcare), that issues about money are not at all about money but about the content behind it, and about the attachments and attitudes of people. Money of course in the world is very involved with individual survival, and our attitudes towards it are a reflection of that. Thus the confusion is that we're having money problems, which are a wonderful distraction from the one real problem we do have: we have chosen the wrong teacher, and money or any other issue in the world are just a distraction to keep us from ever looking at that one faulty decision we made in the mind.<br />
<br />
Ken Wapnick's little book on <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1591421942/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1591421942&linkCode=as2&tag=rogsblo-20%22%3EForm%20versus%20Content:%20Sex%20and%20Money" target="_blank">Form versus Content, Sex & Money</a> also focuses on the temptations for level confusion by the ego's two favorite topics, sex and money. Both of these present us with endless problems and challenges that root our attention in the world, as they appear central to our survival, and have almost unlimited power to distract us from making the one decision in the mind, to choose once again, to dump the teacher of folly (the ego), and to choose the voice of the Holy Spirit for our guide, as the opening quote above suggests. In short, money and sex are merely ego topics par excellence, but no different than many other opportunities for distraction, and every problem we face invites us into an opportunity for choice, and the choice is always between moving the deck chairs on the Titanic with the ego (changing the form), or changing the content, by shifting to the Holy Spirit for our guidance, which is the miracle.<br />
<br />
As Margot insightfully points out in her article, it makes no difference if the money is yours or not, for even being in apparent control of money for another party, or in an organization, provides opportunities for abuse of power that reinforce the ego's agenda. It also makes no difference if your issues are simply managing money, or the lack of it. Both are simply opposite sides of the same coin. It gets even funnier when people have power struggles over money in the not for profit world. And naturally, although Margot does not mention it, the Marxist solution attempt is faulty also, since to focus on the distribution of the physical means, the money itself, eventually does not solve the problem - it is merely another way of moving the famous deck chairs. The only thing that does solve the problem is changing teachers, and choosing the miracle over the ego's madness, at which point we simply handle our money or lack of it in an unselfish manner and stop reinforcing the ego, and heaping on more guilt all the time.<br />
<br />
From my own recollection, during my time in the corporate world, I remember an interview with some woman who was struggling through the financial aftermath of a stellar career that had been abruptly ended, and among other things getting some financial counseling. She had been making over a million dollars a year (in the eighties), and her attitude in her own words was: "I thought that money was the stuff people throw off the back of trains." While she was good at managing other people's money, not so her own. Only later, with my experience with the Course, did all of this start to make any sense, including my own keen awareness during periods of relative affluence, that money does not make you happy, and that I frequently felt guilty buying things I thought I richly deserved (listening to the ego!), which is exactly what the ego wants: to keep us feeling guilty. Guilty that we do have money, guilty that we don't have money, and everything in between, as long as the guilt increases, the ego is still in charge.<br />
<br />
In short, the whole point is that everything becomes easier if we learn to listen to the Holy Spirit instead of to the ego, including all the thorny issues of money and sex. Ken Wapnick has also frequently commented when people think the Course is not practical, and/or you could not be a Course student and run a business effectively, that the opposite is often the case, for if you are truly coming from your right mind and following the guidance of the Holy Spirit, you are not going to get side-tracked by all of the ego's emotional blackmail and games, and see through the issues, and instead of getting confused (level confusion), by focusing on the apparent problems on the level of form and effect (money), you will be focused on the issues behind the appearances at the level of cause. By following the guidance of the Holy Spirit, you will remain the voice of reason in the midst of the wildest storms, which is the only way you can truly handle situations in a way that serves everyone's highest interest, and therefore does not create more guilt, but clears up the ego's obfuscations instead.<div class="blogger-post-footer">A Course In Miracles, ACIM, The Disappearance of the Universe, Gary Renard, Kenneth Wapnick, Gnosis, Apocryphal books, Nag Hammadi, Dead Sea Scrolls</div>RogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14595610.post-48442073458704123912013-07-06T11:10:00.003-04:002013-07-07T22:44:36.415-04:00Translating Margot Krikhaar's Second Book "The Great Liberation" It is a total delight to be working on Margot Krikhaar's second book, <i>The Great Liberation, </i>which to all intents and purposes was the platform for her formal teaching of the Course. The first book was more "girl next door does the Course," and as such invited the reader to look in the kitchen of one who steadfastly practiced the Course and experienced her complete awakening in this lifetime.<br />
<br />
Subsequent to the first book, Margot quickly became a prominent teacher of <i>A Course in Miracles</i> in Holland. This second book reflects her thorough preparation for her teaching and the complete integration of her own learning, to which readers of her first book were a witness.<br />
<br />
Although this second book is much more rigorous and structured than the first, it retains Margot's delicious sense of humor and her light touch. Early on she describes the two broad categories of how people can get off on the wrong foot with their practice of the Course. Essentially, one is to totally focus on the theory and forget the day to day practice, by which it becomes a vaporous intellectual exercise that is all in your head. And the other is the route of ignoring the theory and working only on an emotional level with all the seemingly reassuring statements in the Course, and misusing them as affirmations or mantras. Naturally there are many variations on these themes.<br />
<br />
Margot's treatment of these extremes of reacting to the Course are spot on, based on what I have seen personally in my years working with ACIM. Most specifically though, it made me reflect on my own experiences in my early years with the Course. Personally, I had studied a lot of the "apocryphal" literature and its provenance, and had been acquainted with the Thomas gospel early on, when it was translated for the first time in the late fifties (in Dutch, in 1959). Along with it, I had read a fair amount of Plato, and Plotinus in Greek, and was in the habit of reading my New Testament in Greek, though my primary focus remained on the Gospel of Mark, which I believe to be relatively the least embellished of the canonical gospels. I had also studied some of the early Christian history, and various Gnostic teachers, only to become more confused as I went along.<br />
<br />
In my younger years, I'd experienced my parents leaving the very liberal protestant church they had belonged to and where I was baptized (Remonstrant Brotherhood). They left within 2 years after my birth, though they clearly retained a sense of a relationship with Jesus and his gospel but seen in a very different light, and with a sense that his church was within, and not in some building. When the first public presentations about the Thomas gospel took place, I remember a certain level of excitement when they went to a speech by Prof. Gilles Quispel, who was the first translator. There was an excitement about the notion of getting to know how Jesus sounded in the original, before he was turned into a little Christian by Paul c.s. in later years.<br />
<br />
My mother had spent some time with the Oxford movement before settling in the Remonstant Brotherhood for a few years, and my father's spirituality was more widely framed, with religious and spiritual traditions from around the world, including Hindu teachers like Sri Ramana Maharshi, and Sri Ramakrishna, as well as Buddha, Lao Tse, and (then) modern authors from Tolstoy and Dostoyevski, to Romain Rolland, Áldous Huxley, and Herman Hesse. Professionally, he was a psychiatrist, and very much in touch with the spiritual undertones of what he did. Never mind all that, it seemed as if my mother in particular had a very strong sense of awe for certain "mysteries of the faith," and she would convey an attitude that mirrored the "Ours is not to reason why." type of respect. There were questions you weren't supposed to ask. Her conviction seemed to be that revelation was our only hope, but I was never satisfied with that. So, when I finally found <i>A Course in Miracles</i>, at age 40, it came as quite a relief, and I could wholly appreciate Helen Shucman's famous exclamation: "Finally, God for intellectuals." In the Course there is never a question you can't ask, although Jesus can be quite annoying with his answers, at times pointing out that our questions are not really questions, but trick questions that are really veiled statements.<br />
<br />
For me the Course instantly clarified the whole early history of Christianity, about which I've written since then in my book <i>Closing the Circle: Pursah's Gospel of Thomas and A Course in Miracles</i>. For one thing it became clearer than ever how much Jesus was never a Christian, but just bombarded into one by those who came later and exploited his teachings for their own ends, in similar ways to what is happening with <i>A Course in Miracles</i> today. He was certainly never a Gnostic; the later gnostics merely co-opted some of his vocabulary, but to consider Jesus a gnostic in the formal sense would be completely anachronistic.<br />
<br />
The big thing for me was that the Course answers every question and explains everything, and never stops its full accounting of the ego system, which only serves to lift the veils of "mystery" which that insane thought system uses to protect itself, and clothe itself in an appearance of meaning, when it has none. At the limits of what can be explained, the Course has established complete confidence and accountability with the reader, and merely states that only experience can go beyond the words, so if they made sense so far, you might want to try to do what the Course is saying. In other words, the whole thing provides a full and complete transparency and accountability, and nowhere appeals to blind "faith," but to experiential validation.<br />
<br />
There are times when the ego just short-circuits with the material of the Course, and for a moment it seems incomprehensible, but always those blockages are resolved if we trust our experience, and they can be gone beyond. The answer always is that things must be first forgiven and then understood.<br />
<br />
Margot's book is very much informed by her own experiences as we already know from her first book, and the fact that she speaks from that deep knowledge of the Course's process makes this book, while it is a rendering of the Course theory primarily, into a valuable guide for many who are first becoming aware of <i>A Course in Miracles</i>.<br />
<br />
Copyright, © 2012 Rogier F. van Vlissingen. All rights reserved.<div class="blogger-post-footer">A Course In Miracles, ACIM, The Disappearance of the Universe, Gary Renard, Kenneth Wapnick, Gnosis, Apocryphal books, Nag Hammadi, Dead Sea Scrolls</div>RogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14595610.post-43400795965877121622013-06-17T13:06:00.000-04:002013-06-17T06:46:07.843-04:00Margot Krikhaar Resources in EnglishAs the readership of Margot Krikhaar's <i>Awakening in Love</i> is starting to grow, I wanted to bring together some notes on resources about her in English.<br />
<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>The publisher, Inner Peace Publications in the Netherlands does have an <a href="http://www.innerpeacepublications.nl/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=63&Itemid=61" target="_blank">English language section</a> on their website, where you can find information, not much different than what I'm listing here. The easy way to navigate there is to go to <a href="http://www.innerpeacepublications.nl/">www.innerpeacepublications.nl</a> and to select English. </li>
<li>Margot Krikhaar's own website also has an English language section, here: <a href="http://www.ontwakeninliefde.nl/">http://www.ontwakeninliefde.nl</a> (click on English) there you will among other things find several articles that are very worthwhile to complement the book, they are (NB. Live links to download pdf's):</li>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.margotkrikhaar.nl/pdf/Past_the_sentinels_of_darkness_V1.00.pdf" target="_blank">Past the sentinels of darkness</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.margotkrikhaar.nl/pdf/What_happens_after_physical_death.pdf" target="_blank">What happens after physical death?</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.margotkrikhaar.nl/pdf/Column_The_end_of_time.pdf" target="_blank">The end of time</a></li>
</ul>
<li>A <a href="http://www.margotkrikhaar.nl/pdf/dear_margot.pdf">letter to Margot</a>, by Dineke Dekker, which she read at the ceremony on the day Margot Krikhaar was cremated.</li>
<ul>
</ul>
<li>Some reviews are starting to appear on Amazon, and perhaps soon on other ebook sites.</li>
</ul>
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At the time that I started writing this post, Margot was in the terminal stages of breast cancer, and some of the articles, particularly the ones about physical death and the end of time, are really inspired by her process with this illness, and can be very helpful to anyone who is dealing with those challenges, as we all will at one time or another. Since then I've updated the information, because of the new website, and added the new "Letter to Margot."</div>
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I am also about to begin work on the translation of Margot's second book, <i>The Great Liberation</i>, which should see the light before the year is out. As I start working on this book, I will no doubt periodically be blogging about it here.</div>
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<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">A Course In Miracles, ACIM, The Disappearance of the Universe, Gary Renard, Kenneth Wapnick, Gnosis, Apocryphal books, Nag Hammadi, Dead Sea Scrolls</div>RogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14595610.post-41602566263048448502013-06-07T07:19:00.003-04:002013-06-07T07:19:54.216-04:00Double Dutch, Early Course, Early Christianity All Over Again<i>A Course in Miracles</i> stands in the context of the Abrahamic religions, as Jesus did in his time: it transcends the framework, as Jesus once transcended his Jewish environment, without ever seeking to deny it. He merely went beyond it. But it was not until those who came after him that there was evident need to separate from Judaism, and then later of course Muhammed again took issue with the Christian interpretation of Jesus, as much as Christians had disagreed amongst themselves since the early days.<br />
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The emergence of Christianity, which was eventually consolidated around the theological interpretation of Jesus by Paul c.s. was merely the world's way of trying to put the genie back in the bottle. But the resurrection meant that it was too late for that, for ever since the baptism in the River Jordan, when Jesus heard the voice say: "Thou art my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased." Jesus was fully awakened, and he may have been before that time, but as some early Christian sects understood it, that moment was the resurrection. This was one of the more fascinating topics of disagreement in early Christianity - the disagreement about if the resurrection happened before or after the crucifixion, and as usual, theology became a huge distraction. Finally, this is a point that the Course clearly identifies with, namely that at the time of the crucifixion, Jesus was long since fully awakened and knew completely that he was not his body.<br />
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For those who are steeped in the Judaeo-Christian tradition it soon becomes clear that the Course uses that religious tradition for contrast, because it simply is the dominant context in the Western world. In content however, the Course is completely universal, and among others, students of the Bhagavad Gita could find themselves at home in it as well.<br />
<br />
Personally, I "discovered" the Course in 1991, some 16 years after its initial publication. From 1991-1999, I studied intensely with Ken Wapnick and the Foundation for A Course in Miracles in Roscoe. It was in those years when the legal challenges occurred which eventually led to the voiding of the copyright on the first edition of the course by a somewhat cavalier judge in New York. So I watched that whole story unfold. I became aware of some of the many groups who sought to reinterpret the Course according to alien criteria, ranging from certain forms of Course fundamentalism all the way to various cultish phenomena. It always occurred to me that it was a replay of early Christianity, with comparable kinds of dogmatism creeping in and altering the message. And such is only natural after all; it is merely the ego at work.<br />
<br />
Towards the late 90's I began to watch Course activities in Holland mostly through participation in some online groups. My primary motivation was a desire, as an expat, to keep my native language fresh. To a degree, I was amazed at how all the issues that we
went through here were being repeated there, and sometimes it seemed as
intense and disturbing as the arguments we had lived through in the States.
Inevitably, this included almost every variation of what we had lived through in the
early years of the Course in the US, including people advocating for the stolen
versions of early drafts of the Course as somehow more authentic, as well as various other strains of
Course related teaching, ranging from a Course Calvinism which wants to take everything the Course says literally, to various other mixed forms. In short, nothing had been learned from the American
experience, and all the same issues seemed to have to be re-lived. Again the ego has a field day using the distractions of the form to avoid awakening by any means necessary.<br />
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Watching these developments from afar often brought to mind early
Christianity for me, when nobody was following Jesus, but everyone was
interpreting him their own way, starting with Paul, who simply produced the
most seemingly ego-friendly version of Jesus, and literally rendered him suitable for Ceasar. At times it struck me like the opening
scene of 2001 Space Odyssey, where the monkeys dance around that mysterious
black cube. In my perception, this picture completely changed once the voice of Margot Krikhaar appeared on
the scene. Even the work of Gary Renard, although undoubtedly very helpful in
straightening out the message of the Course in the vernacular, still had the aura of being American even after the Dutch translations appeared. But with
Margot the Course became Dutch in every sense, and found its authentic Dutch voice. Here was the girl next door practicing the Course, and experiencing a complete awakening.</div>
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At first, when I read Margot's first book, it seemed to me that it did not lend itself for easy translation, and perhaps its market was really just Holland. Later, a plan arose for a translation, and I was honored to be chosen as the translator. The translation was indeed hard, due in large part to the very casualness and informality of the book, but now it is finding a new audience in the English speaking market, and, not only that, I am once again lucky enough to be the translator. Interestingly, I am starting the translation of Margot's second book, <i>The Great Liberation</i>, immediately upon completion of Gary Renard's third book, <i>Love Has Forgotten No One</i> into Dutch. As always, synchronicity is at work again, for Margot's work touches a lot of the same themes as Gary's and working on the two so closely together is highlighting that for me.<br />
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As it is Gary Renard also personally went through a period of controversy a few years ago, but later he experienced at a Course conference in San Francisco, how many of these battling Course factions came together through his book, which cuts right through to the the essence of the Course, forgiveness, forgiveness and forgiveness. In short, most of us may argue with the Course at first, but in the end forgiveness carries the day, and that is exactly the point, and it is the reason why Jesus ask us in the Course to forgive him for not being what our ego wants him to be. In that light all the upheaval served the purpose of forgiveness.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Forgive
me your illusions, and release me from punishment for what I have not done"
(T.19.IV.B.8:1</b></span></blockquote>
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<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">A Course In Miracles, ACIM, The Disappearance of the Universe, Gary Renard, Kenneth Wapnick, Gnosis, Apocryphal books, Nag Hammadi, Dead Sea Scrolls</div>RogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14595610.post-53616097460593487322013-05-25T09:10:00.000-04:002013-05-25T09:10:44.440-04:00In Memoriam Margot Krikhaar<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<br />
Wednesday May 22nd, 2013 Margot gently laid her body aside. Her job in this world was completed, it was time to leave the earthly stage.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In accordance with Margot's wishes, the cremation will take place in private, among a small circle of friends and family.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
For those who want to express their condolences, there is an opportunity to do so in a <a href="http://www.condoleanceregister-uzn.nl/registers/2013-05-22/margot_krikhaar/condoleanceregister.html" target="_blank">digital condolence register</a>.</blockquote>
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In some way, the translation of the Course into Dutch was not complete until the work of Margot Krikhaar appeared, for with her work an original Dutch process of assimilation began. It was very symbolic that she studied the Course in Dutch, when it was published in that language in 1999, and understood it like no other, experiencing her awakening in 2007. In short order, after the appearance of her first book, <i>Awakening in Love</i>, she became a leading Course teacher in Holland. That first book to all intents and purposes represented "the girl next door does the Course," and it is so personal and disarming, but at the same time shows that the Course "works," even if you read it in Dutch, as long as you just practice what it says. In short, at that point the Course was no longer a foreign object, but had thoroughly landed in Holland. At the same time her very personal, and very disarming account of her work with the Course is now reaching English readers as well, and will undoubtedly help many.<br />
<br />
Presently, I am at the outset of translating Margot's second book, <i>The Great Liberation</i>, which was the essence of her teaching of the Course, and has all the disarming simplicity and directness as the first book, while at the same time being more formal and systematic. It is a more polished work, and it certainly shines like the brightest diamond, and presents the Course in a very easily comprehended, linear presentation. It was during her work on the second book that Margot was diagnosed with advanced stage breast cancer, and she ended up fairly quickly having to build down her teaching work, finish up the book and some articles, and planned her succession in the form of a foundation that was to manage her literary estate. Finally this week she passed away.<br />
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As soon as I read the book <i>Awakening in Love</i> for the first time in manuscript form, I felt as if the Course had gotten a Dutch voice. My personal observations of the Dutch Course scene, from my expat-perch in New York, provided my context for these observations. It was in the late nineties some time that I began to follow some Course discussion groups in Holland. For me the motivation simply was that I liked to stay current in my native tongue, and I might as well be reading something that interested me. I was amazed how all the issues that we had previously gone through in the US, were being rehashed in Holland, and at times it seemed as intense and disturbing as anything I had lived through in the States. Even the work of Gary Renard, which is also an account of very personal experiences with studying the Course, and which very much stays on message, could not escape being a translated book, simply because it was. But Margot bought the Course in Dutch when it came out, and simply set about practicing it, without any concern for the raging controversies, and with the account of her experiences the Course simply had landed in Holland, and found an original, Dutch voice.<br />
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I had known the manuscript of <i>Awakening in Love</i> for a few years before it was published by IPP. Annelies Ekeler and Margot took the book around to every publisher they could think of. I had written a letter of recommendation for the book. Finally, Margot asked Annelies if she would function as the publisher. After it was published, it never occurred to me that it should be translated, but once that project got under way, I began to notice the positive responses the book was getting, and I knew it is destined to be helpful for Course students anywhere. It is simply a very powerful personal account of what it means to study the Course, and to truly practice forgiveness, in a style that makes it easy to recognize ourselves as we go through our own process. Magot's account simply invites empathy and recognition.<br />
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We owe Margot a debt of gratitude for the clarity and honesty with which she shared her own journey with us, and it is clear that through her work directly and indirectly she is present with us any time we want. I am confident her books will be invaluable to many, and hers undoubtedly was a life well lived. One can only be grateful that in the end she was able to leave this world and her body in a peaceful way, with a practical demonstration of what it means to "gently lay the body aside." Her extensive and public diaries about the experiences with her illness will also be very helpful to many who are dealing with similar issues, as are her articles. The end was the purest demonstration of what we really mean with Requiescat in Pace, except in this case it's no longer a matter of may she rest in peace, for we know she is resting in peace. It is no longer a wish, it has become a certainty, in as much as she had long since found inner peace, which was evident throughout her dealing with her final illness as well as her passing away. As much as Margot taught the Course through workshops and books, she taught it by living it.<br />
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Copyright, © 2012 Rogier F. van Vlissingen. All rights reserved.<div class="blogger-post-footer">A Course In Miracles, ACIM, The Disappearance of the Universe, Gary Renard, Kenneth Wapnick, Gnosis, Apocryphal books, Nag Hammadi, Dead Sea Scrolls</div>RogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14595610.post-18875204080896760952013-04-28T12:06:00.002-04:002013-05-09T09:24:19.836-04:00In Memoriam D. N.<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It is a delight to see the work of Margot Krikhaar spreading slowly, ever since the book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009AHT5H8/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B009AHT5H8&linkCode=as2&tag=rogsblo-20" target="_blank"><i>Awakening in Love</i></a>, was published in the summer of last year. With little publicity, excepting some events in a small circle, clearly, the word is getting out.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">For me personally, I have been delighted with the feedback ever since we had a small gathering at the place where I give my Manhattan workshops on the Course, in September of 2012, and I have gradually begun to get feedback from all the participants in that event. Some time in January of 2013 my friend D. N. reported to me that he was rereading the book, and he was deeply, deeply moved by it. I knew him as a man of few words, but certainly as one person who was never at a loss for words, and his mastery of the English language stood him in good stead in his profession as a lawyer. But that time he choked up and he was simply at a loss for words, and I knew something profound was going on with him.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">D. had known of <a href="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=rogsblo-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=B0018A01L4&ref=tf_til&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" target="_blank"><i>A Course in Miracles</i></a> since it first appeared, and in fact his wife told me at one point that she got their first copy from Judy Skutch in Washington when it just appeared. D. was one of the many people who found it hard to get "into" the Course, although it evidently attracted him. He was one of many people for whom the reading of Gary Renard's <i><a href="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=rogsblo-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=B000SEII0M&ref=tf_til&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" target="_blank">The Disappearance of the Universe</a></i>, was the breakthrough he had needed, which opened up the Course to him. Since then he had studied Gary's work intensely, and subsequently became a student of the work of Ken Wapnick, and now he started reading Margot Krikhaar's book.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">When he told me about his experience of re-reading the book, he was just about to take off on vacation to Hawaii, that Island state where Gary Renard hoped to live one day, only to see his ex-wife Karen beat him to it. As it was, D. left for Hawaii with his family, and they were going to attend a dream workshop while there, but obviously they were also there to enjoy nature. One day, D. had a beautiful dream, in which he found himself in a large hall, in something like the Waldorf-Astoria, between two groups of people with different color t-shirts, and: "<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Then an old man with a long white beard entered, and D. knew he was the Leader of Planetary Consciousness. The people all moved away from him, while D. went towards him. Then he woke, singing The Gambler." As it was, the day that he had this dream, and shared it with his family at breakfast, was to be his last day in this sublunar world.</span> Later in the day, he went swimming and was gripped by a riptide, and did not make it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I was told of this dream later by his now widow, and for me it chimed in powerfully with the emotion I had seen and heard in him about Margot's book, and it would appear to symbolize a decision in the mind of leaving the dead to bury the dead, of leaving duality what it is, and choosing oneness instead. Naturally, that does not necessarily have to coincide with leaving the body and making your transition, but it certainly suggests a deep level of peace of mind at the moment that he did, which evidently is the objective of ACIM. Margot's book is a powerful testimony in its own right, and clearly my friend welcomed the reinforcement of the relationship to our inner Teacher which is so evident in the book. Based on his life-long interest in Tibetan Buddhism (an interest I did not know I had in common with him), his last rites were performed by a Buddhist priest on Hawaii, and he was cremated there, and his ashes spread on the ocean.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">More recently I attended a memorial service for him, which was truly a celebration of a rich life, and I was delighted to hear that this man, who had been a successful corporate attorney, had expressed that he wanted to be remembered as a spiritual person, more so than as a lawyer. He was a very dear friend to me, who I had met when he hosted a dinner for Gary Renard at one of Gary's New York workshops, where I was the organizer. The moment of him telling me about his second reading of <i>Awakening In Love</i>, will be with me forever.</span><br />
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Copyright, © 2012 Rogier F. van Vlissingen. All rights reserved.<div class="blogger-post-footer">A Course In Miracles, ACIM, The Disappearance of the Universe, Gary Renard, Kenneth Wapnick, Gnosis, Apocryphal books, Nag Hammadi, Dead Sea Scrolls</div>RogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14595610.post-21835337624665539982012-12-29T15:23:00.001-05:002012-12-29T16:20:10.819-05:00Margot Krikhaar's Awakening in Love RevisitedThe first half of this year was for me a time of deep immersion in the translation of Margot Krikhaar's book <i>Awakening in Love</i>, which has now been on the market as an e-book since the fall of 2012 - see <a href="http://www.innerpeacepublications.com/">www.innerpeacepublications.com</a> and/or visit your favorite e-book site.<br />
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Surrounding the book, there seems to be an intensifying conversation for many people about intensifying our work with the Course, and making it more personal. There is no doubt in my mind that the Course is as comprehensive as it is for a reason, but equally the expanding literature around the Course serves a purpose. The standard bearer is of course Ken Wapnick, and the merit of his work is that it explains the Course with the Course, and by seeing every sentence and every paragraph in the context of the overall work, students are prevented from going off-track, which has been the risk of much of the secondary literature.<br />
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Gary Renard and some writers who have followed in his wake (Mike Lemieux comes to mind) has the role of popularizer--something everybody thought could never be done--by putting the Course teachings in the vernacular and also by offering the view "in the kitchen" of his own life, of learning by doing, and of forgetting to forgive, and starting over on a constant basis. Next to Gary's growing body of work, Mike Lemieux's <i>Dude, Where's My Jesus Fish</i> provides almost the Cliff notes to DU and YIR, and a lot of humor besides. Laughter is definitely a healing power!<br />
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Margot Krikhaar's book is in a category all its own, and she also sticks to the message of the Course. What makes it unique and interesting is that she did it in another language (Dutch), and she only got her start with the Course when it appeared in a Dutch translation, which was not till 1999. However, she must have been really ready. Like many of us, she had explored a lot of things along the way to her encounter with the Course, but when she found it, it was love at first sight. She had had some cursory exposure to it, but it clicked once she had the book in her hands in Dutch. She started from a Catholic upbringing, which is not something I personally identify with, but other than that almost all of her experiences, which she shares with her reader in this book, were very evocative in triggering memories of what I might have been doing at similar stages of life. The book covers Margot's life up to the point of discovering the Course, and what happened afterward through to her experience of awakening. After the current book appeared, Margot quickly emerged as one of the leading Course teachers in Holland, though more recently she has had to give that up for health reasons.<br />
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On September 12th, 2012 we had a special evening of my regular NY Course workshop at the New York Theosophical Society on East 53rd Street in Manhattan. That was more or less the starting signal for sales of the e-book. For now the book will ONLY be available as an e-book until volumes justify doing a print edition. The session brought together nearly all of the people who had been directly involved in the production of the translation, starting with the publisher, Annelies Ekeler, and the woman who financed the translation, as well as myself and two proofreaders who had worked on it with me. As I've shared elsewhere on this blog, for myself the project had been a big forgiveness lesson, and I'm sure the same goes for many of the other participants. That's only natural, and the payoff came in new inspiration and an expansion of learning.<br />
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Annelies Ekeler, is the dream publisher for this type of material, and IPP is becoming an interesting feature in the Course process in Holland, with both two titles by Margot, and a title from Ken Wapnick, and more on the way. Starting with this book, now also with the reverse, bringing Dutch books to the international market.<br />
Besides being the inspired conductor of the little orchestra of this publishing house, she also is an active teacher herself, and a blogger on the Course, in her native Dutch. I want to share a piece she wrote recently, which I'm translating hereby:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
It is not how 'heavy' your life is or the amount of suffering which determines when the mind awakens within itself, it is the mind which determines when the projection of sin, guilt and fear stops. Awakening is not a reward for suffering, or the cleaning up of your karma, nor a reward for many lives of suffering, or a reward for sacrifice, awakening is not the result of giving and taking. Awakening is also not the result of doing your best, working hard, and it also is not a reward from a God who feels especially benevolent towards you. Awakening is also not a special reward for a chosen one, nor is it a reward for daily prayer, contemplation or meditation.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The above catalog of everything awakening is not, can however be useful as forgiveness material, by taking back all of these ego-thoughts in the mind, where they can dissolve into the Oneness of Spirit through forgiveness.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Awakening is the decision of the mind to no longer believe in, or choose for, sin, guilt, and fear, but to forgive these, so that the mind awakens to itself, where it has never left.</blockquote>
I was very happy when Annelies sent me this concise summation as a reminder, and I am happy to share it here at the outset of a year in which we want to study Margot's material in my weekly workshops at the Theosophical Society. These words are a very powerful reminder of the basic nature of the forgiveness process:<br />
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<ol>
<li>The problem is not out there, but in here</li>
<li>In here I can look at it and decide that it's no longer what I want</li>
<li>Now I can ask Jesus or the Holy Spirit for their vision of the situation, and let it go into their hands.</li>
</ol>
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It is never about anything else but practicing how to give up my interpretation of the events, and trust in the better guidance from the Holy Spirit instead. It is simple, but not always easy, or the Course would not need 1,300 pages, nor would we need all the other literature. As it is, I'm thankful for the Course, and the many good books we now have to help us truly practice what the Course says, and Margot's book is high on my list.</div>
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Copyright, © 2012 Rogier F. van Vlissingen. All rights reserved.<div class="blogger-post-footer">A Course In Miracles, ACIM, The Disappearance of the Universe, Gary Renard, Kenneth Wapnick, Gnosis, Apocryphal books, Nag Hammadi, Dead Sea Scrolls</div>RogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14595610.post-90974733998915659912012-08-20T07:17:00.000-04:002012-08-20T07:19:44.263-04:00Of John the Baptist and the Prophet Elijah<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<br />
The beautiful relationship you have with all your brothers is a part of you because it is a part of God Himself. Are you not sick, if you deny yourself your wholeness and your health, the Source of help, the Call to healing and the Call to heal? Your savior waits for healing, and the world waits with him. Nor are you apart from it. For healing will be one or not at all, its oneness being where the healing is. What could correct for separation but its opposite? There is no middle ground in any aspect of salvation. You accept it wholly or accept it not. What is unseparated must be joined. And what is joined cannot be separate. (ACIM:T-28.VII.2)</blockquote>
As the Course makes clear throughout, everything happens in the context of our relationships, and in this life every relationship starts out as a special relationship, because the ego is our primary driver, until we begin to change our minds. A special relationships starts from the perception of lack, which inspires the idea that the other has something that I don't, and thus the impetus to the relationship is the filling of that lack. Inevitably, the day comes when the relationship partner disappoints, because he or she is always more and/or different than we bargained for. At that point relationships are broken off, and new ones started. If we should be so lucky, one day it will dawn on us that the game never changes, and moreover that it gets boring after a while.<br />
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With <i>A Course in Miracles, </i>the very practicality of forgiveness as the way out of this hell, is taught by learning to separate fact from fiction, in the sense that the ego's emotions are always fiction, because they are an interpretation of circumstances on the basis of the self-interest of an entity--our presumed individual identity--that is impermanent at best, and hence they merely are <i>such stuff as dreams are made of</i>.<br />
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Forgiveness, Course style, untangles the tangled emotions and eventually frees us from their stranglehold and leads us on the way back home. Along with the process of learning to see our brother sinless, by letting go of our grievances, we are learning to see the face of Christ in our brother, which is the face of who we are as an innocent Son of God. In the final stages of this process, we experience by definition with one particular brother the letting go of our last projections, as part of our forgiveness process. This is the deepest point, the proverbial darkest hour before the dawn, and in the Biblical account of the baptism in the River Jordan, it is symbolized by that baptism, an immersion in the "river of life" of our emotions, to the point of suffocation, before we see the Heavens break and hear God's Voice say to us that you are my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased. At that point we are then hearing the voice of guiltlessness, because we have then remembered who we are.<br />
<br />
In this sense then Elijah or John the Baptist, as the Messenger who precedes the savior, symbolize that one brother on our way back home who becomes our final teacher by evoking a depth of emotion in us, which we then choose against, one last time, and that is when the Sky breaks, and we finally see the savior. The name Yehochanan (John) is very symbolic, God gives blessings--in it lies the recognition that our very salvation lies in these final forgiveness lessons, and that what the ego judged so badly, is in fact our biggest forgiveness lesson, and our final way out of the ego's hell. This happens only at the point of total immersion to the point of suffocation in that river of ego emotions, all rooted in fleeting awareness of time that is the River Jordan.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The fourth obstacle to be surmounted hangs like a heavy veil before the face of Christ. Yet as His face rises beyond it, shining with joy because He is in His Father's Love, peace will lightly brush the veil aside and run to meet Him, and to join with Him at last. For this dark veil, which seems to make the face of Christ Himself like to a leper's, and the bright Rays of His Father's Love that light His face with glory appear as streams of blood, fades in the blazing light beyond it when the fear of death is gone. (ACIM:T19.IV.D.2)</blockquote>
The key to the "parables" that come to us, and also of the story of the baptism in the River Jordan is the realization that it is all about us. We are not forgiving anybody our there, we are forgiving ourselves for our mistaken choice for the ego, which choice merely resulted in the false perception that we were outside of Heaven, a perception we then "make real" by seeing a whole universe of individual identities "out there" who are all outside of Heaven, and fighting each others for the spoils of the "nothing" that is the world. As long as we are not willing to forgive our silly mistake, we keep seeing the world in terms of "survival of the fittest," and ourselves in conflict with all our brothers. In that deepest ego-pit, that moment of immersion in our deepest emotional despair to the point of suffocating, we finally let go of our judgment of the world. This is the final decision moment when we let go of the last vestiges of our ego's judgments, and learn from our baptist that God gives Blessings, and as we finally relinquish the ego completely, we emerge from the pits to see the "face of Christ," in all our brothers, because we ourselves remember who we are in truth. In the Course's words "I am still as God created me." (ACIM Lessons 201-220: I am not a body, I am free. For I am still as God created me.) In the words of the New Testament, "Thou art my Son, in whom I am well pleased."<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
And now we say "Amen." For Christ has come to dwell in the abode You set for Him before time was, in calm eternity. The journey closes, ending at the place where it began. No trace of it remains. Not one illusion is accorded faith, and not one spot of darkness still remains to hide the face of Christ from anyone. Thy Will is done, complete and perfectly, and all creation recognizes You, and knows You as the only Source it has. Clear in Your likeness does the light shine forth from everything that lives and moves in You. For we have reached where all of us are one, and we are home, where You would have us be. (ACIM:T-31.VIII.12) </blockquote>
Copyright, © 2012 Rogier F. van Vlissingen. All rights reserved.<div class="blogger-post-footer">A Course In Miracles, ACIM, The Disappearance of the Universe, Gary Renard, Kenneth Wapnick, Gnosis, Apocryphal books, Nag Hammadi, Dead Sea Scrolls</div>RogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14595610.post-10220200014514705492012-07-15T16:30:00.000-04:002012-07-15T16:30:47.758-04:00Exodus Revisited<i>A Course in Miracles</i> firmly stands in the context of the Abrahamic religious tradition, and it is for that reason that I named this blog as I did. I also realized that life had prepared me for appreciating that context to a great degree because I had intensely studied the scriptures earlier in my adventures of searching for God. I had learned Hebrew to read the Old Testament as it should be read, I had read my New Testament in Greek ever since my early teenage years, all as a way of getting closer to the text. I periodically studied the Quran, though I never got into Arabic. More often I dabbled in Sufi traditions, where I was often deeply touched by the intense spirituality of such masters as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansur_Al-Hallaj" target="_blank">Al Hallaj</a>, who taught me the depth of the word Islam, surrender, and <a href="http://www.tiernobokar.columbia.edu/" target="_blank">Tierno Bokar</a>, who teaches so clearly that jihad is simply the inner struggle of dealing with the temptations of the ego. As the Course would have it, those always boil down to attempts to convince the son of God he is a body.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Temptation has one lesson it would teach, in all its forms, wherever it occurs. It would persuade the holy Son of God he is a body, born in what must die, unable to escape its frailty, and bound by what it orders him to feel. It sets the limits on what he can do; its power is the only strength he has; his grasp cannot exceed its tiny reach. Would you be this, if Christ appeared to you in all His glory, asking you but this: </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i style="background-color: white;">Choose once again if you would take your place among the saviors of the world, or would remain in hell, and hold your brothers there. </i></blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white;">(ACIM: T-31.VIII.1) </span></blockquote>
</blockquote>
At a sufficiently high level of abstracation, one can appreciate the connections of the Course teachings to the Bhagavadgita, to Advaita Vedanta, and Buddhism, and there are plenty of connections worth exploring for those who are familiar with those traditions, but very clearly, first and foremost, the Course is pitched at those who stand in the Abrahamic traditions, and primarily the Judeo-Christian one, which has so much permeated Western culture.<br />
<br />
All of the great religions have their so-called esoteric, or mystical traditions, which for the most part are but the lay rendering of spiritual growth discussed in terms of their specific traditions, and which rest on some level of appreciation of the symbolic nature of those traditions, viewing them as parables of an inner process, which is the journey to spiritual awakening. Fundamentally the whole notion of "esoteric" arises only from looking at spiritual traditions without understanding, from an ego frame of reference and at times it then deteriorates into ritualistic meta interpretation of the parables of tradition, of which the Jewish Kabbalah is one of the extreme forms.<br />
<br />
In the book of Mark, Jesus speaks of the opening of the understanding, which he performs on the apostles. In <i>A Course in Miracles</i>, there is mention of the fact that: "And it is recognized, that all things must be first forgiven and <i>then</i> understood" (ACIM:T-30.V.1:6). This is tantamount to the same teaching, since forgiveness means joining with Jesus, and choosing his judgment in lieu of the ego's judgment. The path of forgiveness means practicing discipleship of Jesus, and following his teaching. Even if we may fall down many times, we can get up again, and keep on working on it. It is the path of practice and it is the inner journey, the journey from the head to the heart, or as the Course would have it "a journey without distance to a goal that has never changed" (ACIM:T-8.VI.9:7). In terms of the teachings, their meaning is revealed to us from experience, and in the process the symbolism of much of our tradition begins to speak to us on a whole new level, exactly because we start to appreciate the symbolism of our own life, for when we forgive, and join with Jesus in the process, we start to see past the form to the content.<br />
<br />
Along these lines a fascinating new book appeared recently by Robert Rosenthal, titled <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1401931308/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=rogsblo-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1401931308" target="_blank">From Plagues to Miracles</a>, and in it the author looks at the book of Exodus, and the account of the journey towards salvation Old Testament style, which of course is just another form of the inner journey which <i>A Course in Miracles</i> is all about. The book is clearly based on an integration of both the author's own inner journey, including his familiarity with <i>A Course in Miracles</i>, and his experience as a psychiatrist and psychotherapist, so that both his own experiences and patient experiences feed into helping us see through the symbolism, and open up a deeper understanding of the nature of the journey for ourselves. At this point we transcend the form of the manifest story, and we get in touch with the content, the inner story, again with our own inner experience as the central teaching/learning opportunity.<br />
<br />
This book is a gem, and I shall write about it more in depth in due course. It is firmly rooted in the tradition of <i>A Course in Miracles</i>, without making familiarity with it an issue, so the reader can appreciate it with any background. It is also the story of the author's own discovery of the significance of Passover, as a universal symbol, completely from the awareness, as the traditional etymology of the word Israel (Ish-Ra-El, the man who sees God) would suggest, that it is an expression of mankind (the sonship) in exile, in the diaspora, and in the Egyptian exile in particular. As such it is the precursor to the story of the prodigal son in the New Testament, and its relevance never diminishes, as our growing inner experience lets us relate to it more and more deeply.<br />
<br />
Copyright, © 2012 Rogier F. van Vlissingen. All rights reserved.<div class="blogger-post-footer">A Course In Miracles, ACIM, The Disappearance of the Universe, Gary Renard, Kenneth Wapnick, Gnosis, Apocryphal books, Nag Hammadi, Dead Sea Scrolls</div>RogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14595610.post-60045135627637441782012-06-13T16:13:00.000-04:002012-06-14T23:38:16.781-04:00If Books Could Kill...In a Dutch book review of Margot Krikhaar's <i>Awakening in Love</i>, the reviewer made the point that the book is dangerous to the ego, and he therefore cautions you to stay away from it if you intend to hang on to your ego. Of course, in the context of the Course, this is high praise indeed. Margot has quite the knack of sharing the experiences of her own Course practice--all the way up to the point of her own awakening--in such personal language that it absorbs the reader totally and, most importantly, invites us in and has us look at our own life and practice of the Course. Inescapably, the process is bound to work in the end, if nothing else because the ego-thought system "may be fool-proof, but it is not God-proof," as the Course puts it. (ACIM:T-5.VI.10:6)<br />
<br />
The process of translating such a book of course brings with it a profound involvement with the text, far beyond the normal reading experience, which worked for me like a total immersion and a baptism. I use those terms quite in the spirit of the NT account of the baptism in the River Jordan, where it is reported that Jesus was baptized 'under Yehochanan' (John the Baptist). When that image comes back to mind, I am always reminded of the commentaries of the author Johan Willem Kaiser, who has been one of my most important teachers in this lifetime. He points out that the name 'Yehochanan' means something like 'God gives blessings,' or 'God gives graciously,' and as such it has everything to do with the end of feeling like a victim of the world--which goes hand in hand with the letting go of the ego's judgments--and instead accepting whatever is in front of our eyes as the very best classroom for helping us find our way home together with our brothers, guided by the Holy Spirit. Being baptized 'under' such a teacher, then, means simply that someone shows you the way to the acceptance of every successive forgiveness opportunity as indeed a blessed classrom for learning to trust--trust in the Voice for God, which is never absent but becomes audible only as we stop shouting over it. The journey is developing trust in the process--and in our Inner Teacher, which is how Jesus presents himself in the Course.<br />
<br />
Being baptized in the river of life (the River Jordan), is symbolic of 'looking at the ego' with the light of the Holy Spirit, and most of us do indeed need some kind of teacher. For me Margot certainly became such a teacher through her book, and the experience of working on it in many ways resulted in a deepening of my practicing of the Course and my willingness to look at the ego's workings honestly and with the forgiving eyes of the Holy Spirit. And inasmuch as outside the Kingdom it all comes to us in parables, the symbolism of baptism becomes clearer as you go along, and, though she does not use that particular image, Margot talks about it constantly in her book--in terms of surrendering more and more, and allowing ourselves, to sink deeper and deeper into the ego's pit, under Jesus' loving guidance. In the imagery of the Course, underneath the deepest layer, which is our ego's fear of God, lies nothing but the Love of God. And therein lies the biggest difference between the psychotherapeutic notions of Freud, and the model of the Holy Spirit's thought system as it is taught in the Course. When we are done peeling the layers of the ego-onion, what is left is not <i>nothing </i>(as Freud would seem to have it) but indeed <i>everything </i>(as in the Course), the Love of God. In the imagery of the NT gospel account (Mark1:10), it is that moment of total immersion in baptism (to the point of suffocation), followed by the Heavens opening up and the Voice of God declaring that what we are is indeed "His beloved Son, in whom He is well pleased" (ACIM:T-4.I.8:6). The following passage also makes clear why we experience this as a journey, a gradual process.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Nothing and everything cannot coexist. To believe in one is to deny the other. Fear is really nothing and love is everything. Whenever light enters darkness, the darkness is abolished. What you believe is true for you. In this sense the separation <i>has</i> occurred, and to deny it is merely to use denial inappropriately. However, to concentrate on error is only a further error. The initial corrective procedure is to recognize temporarily that there is a problem, but only as an indication that immediate correction is needed. This establishes a state of mind in which the Atonement can be accepted without delay. It should be emphasized, however, that ultimately no compromise is possible between everything and nothing. Time is essentially a device by which all compromise in this respect can be given up. It only seems to be abolished by degrees, because time itself involves intervals that do not exist. Miscreation made this necessary as a corrective device. (ACIM:T-2.VII.5:1-13)</blockquote>
From a translation standpoint, this particular project exceeded all levels of difficulty I could have ever imagined, for the casual--and often sketchy--use of language, which is exactly what gives the book its relaxed and familiar style, makes a rendering it in another language especially challenging. Another aspect of difficulty that I had not really anticipated when I accepted the project, was the fact that I am working with an absolutely brilliant proofreader but one who, nevertheless, is totally unfamiliar with Dutch, and thus was in no way able to cross check my translations against the original text. This resulted in 'false positives' that were not translation problems per se, but were actually features of the text--except that in some cases these very non-problems still highlighted the fact that what was a casual usage in the original was even more challenging in the translation, demanding perhaps a poetic rendering but, at the same time, a somewhat more rigorous formulation to avoid potential misunderstandings that might arise in English.<br />
<br />
In one extreme case, in the section "From 'I' to Self" in Chapter 9 of Part II, there was a level of subtlety involved that could not be resolved without profound discussion and consultation with the publisher (Annelies Ekeler) and eventually with Margot Krikhaar herself, who at this time is seldom available any more but her input was invaluable in this case to enable some creative word choices in order to clarify the meaning in a way that would have exceeded all every day translation logic. But in this particular situation, lots of inspiration and Margot's input were invaluable in bringing about some creative word choices that would help the translation. The solutions for such cases required a most attentive joining in listening to what was really being said and 'hearing' on all levels, because what was seemingly clear in Dutch risked total loss of meaning in translation and hence, in the end, needed some poetic word choices to avoid such pitfalls.<br />
<br />
A particularly big challenges arose around the Dutch word 'ik' which can be either the personal pronoun 'I' or the noun 'ego' in English. At the same time, both the Dutch nouns 'ego' and 'ik' would be rendered in English as 'ego.' As such, this can in turn also cause confusion in English because of the Course's usage of 'ego,' as a technical term for the thought system of separation, when it refers simply to the 'individual self' in the conversational sense ('your ego' instead of 'the ego') - the body-identified 'self' (with lower case 's')--which the Course calls the 'hero of the dream,' the bodily identity we think we are in this life.<br />
<br />
As a result of this potential loss of meaning and clarity, some alternative translations were the result in this particular section--again, to avoid the loss of meaning and clarity, which might have crept in had only the most 'obvious' translation been chosen. There is such a thing as being technically correct, in the literal sense, while failing to do justice to the content. And so we had some interesting conversations, arguments and consultations over these quandaries...<br />
<br />
At this time, I am happy to say, we are in the final stages of cleaning up the book, and prepping it for production, and I thought it might be helpful to share some of these reflections on my own process with this book--which is such a lively account of the Course process--simply because, if for no other reason, these experiences are fresh in my mind at this point.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Laws must be communicated if they are
to be helpful. In effect, they must be translated for those who speak
different languages. Nevertheless, a good translator, although he
must alter the form of what he translates, never changes the meaning.
In fact, his whole purpose is to change the form so that the original
meaning is retained. The Holy Spirit is the Translator of the laws of
God to those who do not understand them. You could not do this
yourself because a conflicted mind cannot be faithful to one meaning,
and will therefore change the meaning to preserve the form."
(ACIM:T-7.II.4)</div>
</blockquote>
<br />
Copyright, © 2012 Rogier F. van Vlissingen. All rights reserved.<div class="blogger-post-footer">A Course In Miracles, ACIM, The Disappearance of the Universe, Gary Renard, Kenneth Wapnick, Gnosis, Apocryphal books, Nag Hammadi, Dead Sea Scrolls</div>RogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14595610.post-60234590857521733922012-05-12T08:55:00.002-04:002012-05-12T18:24:49.234-04:00Brother, you do believe them...<blockquote class="tr_bq">
You would maintain, and think it true, that you do not believe these senseless laws, nor act upon them. And when you look at what they say, they cannot be believed. Brother, you <i>do</i> believe them. For how else could you perceive the form they take, with content such as this? Can any form of this be tenable? Yet you believe them [for] the form they take, and do not recognize the content. It never changes. Can you paint rosy lips upon a skeleton, dress it in loveliness, pet it and pamper it, and make it live? And can you be content with an illusion that you are living? (ACIM:T-23.II.18)</blockquote>
In the book Awakening in Love, Margot Krikhaar writes about it like this:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
It was during the course of a meditation, when I encountered my own most basic self-image, that I noticed how deep our convictions go. That happened because I felt a lot of longing to get closer to God but, at the same time, bumped into the profound conviction that I was absolutely not worthy of it. I had never identified consciously with the traditional images like ‘being a miserable sinner’ or ‘having to pay for it in hell.’ But those images appeared to be amply present in my unconsciousness. In the meditation, I suddenly saw myself as a very dirty, filthy wad, the kind of thing you might find in the street and that everyone would kick or walk on. That was very shocking, to see so clearly how I saw myself in the end. And therefore, that is how I have always seen myself! That was what the ego had always told me about myself, and I had swallowed it whole. And of course such a dirty, filthy wad does not deserve to return to Heaven; it does not belong there at all. Such a wad deserves only to live on in Hell until death. We need a lot of self-forgiveness! Our false convictions about ourselves go very deep. But we need only look at all these self-images—without judgment—and ask the Holy Spirit for correction. That is the only thing needed. (<i>Awakening in Love</i>, Part II, Chapter 9 - unpublished manuscript, expected publication June 2012)</blockquote>
It is alwasy interesting to see how different people deal with the Course and the seemingly Christian concepts in it and, and the ways in which we react to them. How we shield ourselves against the realization that the Christian theology is the perfect embodiment of the ego thought system, and indeed we all do believe it, regardless if we think we are atheists, Christians, Jews, or Hindu. This becomes another example of Thomas Merton's famous dictum of the journey from the head to the heart being the longest journey. Consciously, we may think that we have not bought the Christian theology, because we have left the church, were never in the church, were from another faith, or whatever, but once we start working with the Course it becomes obvious that Christian theology is the perfect model for the ego system of wanting to have our cake and eat it too - in this case wanting our individuality without the responsibility and guilt over shattering oneness, which is the fundamental premise of individuality in the first place. This deeply unconscious premise of the ego thought system predisposes us to a model in which some kind of an external savior takes the fall for the problem and saves us - he dies for our 'sin.' And what we don't get is that this thought system keeps the guilt going around, for now we secretly feel guilty that someone else took the fall for our choice to separate from Heaven and run our own show.<br />
<br />
In my years with the Course it took me a long time to really even begin to start to get this at an experiential level, for intellectually I long since had thought that I understood that it was an absurd, not to mention cowardly, thought to have Jesus be sacrificed for our sins, and I would have thought I never believed that story. Other people may have lived with Christian beliefs, but once they really get into the Course they start somehow remembering that as little kids the story seemed pretty absurd to them, but naturally growing up as good healthy egos, they bought into it any way, until they finally stumble into the Course, and suddenly start remembering their initial disbelief of the theological explanations that their Church provided. And then the Course may suddenly seem to make a lot of sense with its very different view of this story. However, at that point we are at the beginning, not the end of an awakening process, and the real work is in learning to look at this belief system with the loving presence of Jesus as our Inner Teacher besides us and to finally learn to forgive these beliefs, which are nothing but the justifications and rationalizations of the tiny mad idea. As long as we are caught up in the paranoid schizophrenic thought system which is the ego, we fiercely defend against anything that questions our particular theology. It is a beautiful cover of protection that we simply accept a self-concept of being 'miserable sinners' and are dependent on an external savior, who - of course - never comes. Without the forgiveness process this thinking is too entrenched, and covered up in many ways, but with forgiveness the insanity of it can finally be seen for what it is, and let go.<br />
<br />
Copyright, © 2012 Rogier F. van Vlissingen. All rights reserved.<div class="blogger-post-footer">A Course In Miracles, ACIM, The Disappearance of the Universe, Gary Renard, Kenneth Wapnick, Gnosis, Apocryphal books, Nag Hammadi, Dead Sea Scrolls</div>RogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14595610.post-18578473687251451012012-04-21T11:56:00.000-04:002012-04-21T11:56:38.519-04:00Fool's Logic and the Iceberg of GuiltIn Chapter three of Part II of Margot Krikhaar's <i>Awakening in Love,</i> she writes extensively on the very important issue of what it means that forgiveness is all about what happens in the mind, and that observable effects may or may not be part of our experience. Here is a key paragraph:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Besides: even when you have solved all unconscious guilt in your own mind, you still could encounter physical or other problems. You still have a physical existence in this world of appearances, which is projected by the collective ego. So you are still subject to physical and material ’laws.’ But no longer will you be identified with them, and therefore you will continue to feel inner peace. (Margot Krikhaar, <i>Awakening in Love</i>, Part II, Chapter 3)</blockquote>
And in the surrounding discussion she addresses these issues in various ways based on her own experience, moreover, her own life has since become a living demonstration of the issue. Like Ken Wapnick and many others besides she also resorts to the image of the iceberg of guilt, making the point that of necessity, in our dream lives we can only deal with the issues that surface above the waterline of the unconscious, the tip of the iceberg. So in the same passage she also writes:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
As a result, forgiveness in this lifetime extends itself to all lives and into all of time—past and future. For those lives are all illusory and only a result of unconscious guilt. That guilt is in the mind, outside of time and space, and it is the mind that projects all of these lives. A change at the level of cause—in the mind—automatically results in a change in the projected film: the lifetimes in the world. While your forgiveness seems to take place at the level of the life in which you find yourself (and has positive results here as well), the real work of salvation takes place at the level of the mind, where you are in reality.</blockquote>
Since the ego is always focused on the form, it will always demand to see results in the form, which is the essence of the story of Jesus' tree temptations in the desert. The ego really wants nothing better than to fault Jesus for not changing the form, and to ignore the change in the mind, which is the level of cause. The effects of forgiveness are far reaching, because they happen in the mind which is outside of time and space, but our awareness at that moment is all preoccupied with one infinitesimally small part, our life, and we have no insight in the process of undoing that is gradually loosening the strings of the laws of the ego, and letting us out of prison. So while it is our experiences in form which present us with forgiveness opportunities in this lifetime, the point of the forgiveness work is not to move pieces on the chessboard, or to move one particular mountain as we perceive it. The point of the forgiveness work is in the mind to undo the decision that led us to perceive that our reality is this limited world of chess pieces on a board, that we call our 'life,' and while 'mountains' may be part of that experience, they are not our reality.<br />
The result of forgiveness then on this level may equally be that certain mountains do move and others do not, our inner experience will increasingly be peaceful through the practice of forgiveness, so it will be indifferent where those perceptual mountains are, because we realize by then that our happiness is not dependent upon them.<br />
Margot's life since then has become a demonstration of these issues, as she was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer that had already metastasized to her organs at the time of her first diagnosis, and she has shared these experiences in a blog. Meanwhile she also finished up her second book during the time she was already dealing with that situation. Her other materials, including her blogs about the meaning of health and healing, will be published posthumously. Suffice it to say here, that she reported early on that she sensed that somehow at the level of the mind she had already come to the conclusion that this experience was simply her way of leaving this life, that her job was essentially over, and she was at peace with it. Which IS the point: the "mountain" (of guilt) moved indeed, so any 'mountains' in the perceptual world no longer bother us the way they used to, or rather, the way we used to think they did.<br />
<br />
Copyright, © 2012 Rogier F. van Vlissingen. All rights reserved.<div class="blogger-post-footer">A Course In Miracles, ACIM, The Disappearance of the Universe, Gary Renard, Kenneth Wapnick, Gnosis, Apocryphal books, Nag Hammadi, Dead Sea Scrolls</div>RogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14595610.post-55862339037471895172012-04-09T11:39:00.000-04:002012-04-09T13:56:11.322-04:00The Voice of the Holy SpiritIn her book <i>Awakening in Love</i>, and specifically in the first Chapter of Part II of the book, Margot Krikhaar gives some salient examples on how confused we often are in the process of learning to discern the Voice of the Holy Spirit from the Voice of the ego, and, she highlights how seductive the voice of the ego can often be, including appearing completely reasonable, and quite convincing. So the learning process is about listening past that ego voice, and becoming willing to tune in to the soft still Voice that is the legitimate voice of the Holy Spirit.<br />
<br />
The Course has many, many useful ways of expressing this issue. Here is one example:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The two voices speak for different interpretations of the same thing simultaneously; or almost simultaneously, for the ego always speaks first. Alternate interpretations were unnecessary until the first one was made.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The ego speaks in judgment, and the Holy Spirit reverses its decision, much as a higher court has the power to reverse a lower court's decisions in this world. The ego's decisions are always wrong, because they are based on the error they were made to uphold. (ACIM:T-5.VI.3:5-4:2)</blockquote>
</blockquote>
Margot in her book refers to the voice of our 'inner critic' which is often mistaken by many for the voice of the Holy Spirit, when it is really the voice of judgment and thus of the ego. We might also remember how any religious overtones in our upbringing have a tendency to condition us to mistaking our 'conscience' for the Holy Spirit. Conscience in this context is entirely a concept of the ego, and the very instrument that keeps the cycle of Samsara, the cycle of sin, guilt and fear, alive.<br />
<br />
In her description, Margot uses a wonderful concept, namely that in sorting out these thoughts, you can detect how some of these ego-based reasonings have you move 'away from yourself.' Even by having every appearance of being ever so reasonable, including an appeal to 'common sense,' and we might think again about the Samaritan woman: her forefathers since Jacob had drunk from the well, so why was there anything wrong with drinking from the well now? So the ego-appeal lies in 'it was always done this way,' and 'if it's good enough for my dear father, it's good enough for me.' As always these are all ego thoughts, ripples on the surface of the water that prevent you from looking into the deep. Relying on them means you are not listening to the Voice of the Holy Spirit, but getting distracted by superficial appeals to circumstantial logic, instead of ever getting in touch with your True Self.<br />
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Thus the un-learning process of the Course helps us to move past all this 'conditioning' and back to the authenticity of who we are in truth - in the words of the Course: "For I am still as God created me (ACIM-W-218)" - when the ego always incites us to act from anything else but our authentic Self, whereby we continue permanently enslaved and beholden to the ego and its advice, almost by definition since our ego choices are bound to create more problems than they solve. In short the ego continues to serve up the water that makes us thirst again, while the still, small Voice that points us to Jesus, who offers that water that will not make us thirst again. Eventually we will recognize that we are in the position of the Samaritan woman, and join her in her choice.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
You cannot understand the conflict until you fully understand the basic fact that the ego cannot know anything. The Holy Spirit does not speak first, <i>but He always answers</i>. Everyone has called upon Him for help at one time or another and in one way or another, and has been answered. Since the Holy Spirit answers truly He answers for all time, which means that everyone has the answer <i>now</i>. (ACIM-T-6.IV.3)</blockquote>
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Copyright, © 2012 Rogier F. van Vlissingen. All rights reserved.<div class="blogger-post-footer">A Course In Miracles, ACIM, The Disappearance of the Universe, Gary Renard, Kenneth Wapnick, Gnosis, Apocryphal books, Nag Hammadi, Dead Sea Scrolls</div>RogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14595610.post-26852723634259046062012-03-20T11:56:00.000-04:002012-03-21T15:50:23.727-04:00The Problem and the SolutionThe Course always takes you deeper and deeper at every successive turn, on that longest of all journeys, the proverbial journey from the head to the heart, from conceptual to experiential truth. This time around lessons 79 and 80 seemed to touch me deeper than ever, with their message of how all the seeming problems and decisions on the level of the world (level two in Course terminology) are mere ego ploys to divert our attention from the one decision we need to make, the choice of the right teacher, Jesus or the ego.<br />
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Most importantly, in the end the choice is not even a choice, for as we let our new discernment do its work, by looking at the ego with Jesus, and forgiving its silly diversions one after the other, the choice for the ego turns out to be not an option in the end. Who wants a bad copy if you already own the original - love is our natural inheritance as the Course reminds us again and again. The problem is not finding it, the problem is to stop blocking it.<br />
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At that point it turns out that all this time that 'longest of all journeys' was really a 'journey without distance to a goal that has never changed,' (ACIM:T-8:VI,9:7) and 'Enlightenment is but a recognition, not even a change at all.' (ACIM:W-188.1:4)<br />
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In the New Testament tradition the same issues are addressed in many different ways. I am particularly fond of the image from the Gospel of John of the Samaritan woman with Jesus at Jacob's Well, making the choice between the ego's water that makes you thirst, the projections of thought which merely move the deckchairs on the Titanic, and Jesus' water of the spirit, which will not make you thirst again. She then realizes that all of her special relationships were mere empty shells, and could not hold a candle to the Holy Relationship Jesus holds out to her, which again is the only real choice, and in the end not even a choice at all, because it is the only thing that is.<br />
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Another variant is the parable of Jesus' healing of the paralytic in Mark Chapter 2, here in the KJV:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Mark 2</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
1 And again he entered into Capernaum after some days; and it was noised that he was in the house. 2 And straightway many were gathered together, insomuch that there was no room to receive them, no, not so much as about the door: and he preached the word unto them. 3 And they come unto him, bringing one sick of the palsy, which was borne of four. 4And when they could not come nigh unto him for the press, they uncovered the roof where he was: and when they had broken it up, they let down the bed wherein the sick of the palsy lay. 5 When Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee. 6 But there was certain of the scribes sitting there, and reasoning in their hearts, 7 Why doth this man thus speak blasphemies? who can forgive sins but God only? 8 And immediately when Jesus perceived in his spirit that they so reasoned within themselves, he said unto them, Why reason ye these things in your hearts? 9 Whether is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk? 10 But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (he saith to the sick of the palsy,) 11 I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine house. 12 And immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went forth before them all; insomuch that they were all amazed, and glorified God, saying, We never saw it on this fashion.</blockquote>
</blockquote>
Borrowing liberally from the exegesis of J. W. Kaiser, in his book 'Experiencing the Gospel' (not available in English), we might note that Capernaum etymologically is the place of consolation through forgiveness. What comes to him there is one who is wrapped up to the point of total spiritual paralysis in the matters of the world, of physical life. That one is us, it is me, the reader who reads this (for that is the meaning of being taught in parables), and we cannot even get to Jesus but by asking for help, and being lifted up into his presence. We need to get above the battleground with Jesus, before we can see that the problem was not what we made it out to be. In that process we are letting go of our concepts, our definitions of what the problem is, so we can come to look at it anew with his eyes.<br />
Letting go of every attempt to do it ourselves, allows us to be lifted into his presence over all the seeming obstacles of the world. By truly abandoning our definition of the problem, we come to Jesus with the little willingness to suspect that our ego might have it all wrong, then we can truly accept his forgiveness. In the recognition that is born from that, we can arise from the paralysis (NB, the Course points out that the choice for the ego is the choice for the crucifixion, the choice for the Holy Spirit is the choice for the resurrection), knowing once and for all that it is spirit over matter, so that we no longer let the world determine who we are, which led to the paralysis, but follow the spirit first, so that the forms we seem to experience in the world serve us on our way home, instead of the other way around, us serving the world, in slavery to the ego, and ultimately in the deadly paralysis of the ego's choice for the crucifixion. Instead, we can now make the choice for the Holy Spirit, for the resurrection, by heeding Jesus' command: Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine house.<br />
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Copyright, © 2012 Rogier F. van Vlissingen. All rights reserved.<div class="blogger-post-footer">A Course In Miracles, ACIM, The Disappearance of the Universe, Gary Renard, Kenneth Wapnick, Gnosis, Apocryphal books, Nag Hammadi, Dead Sea Scrolls</div>RogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14595610.post-761835019043899272011-12-20T21:19:00.003-05:002012-03-12T09:47:07.580-04:00My Kingdom is not of this worldPerhaps more than any other word of Jesus in the historical literature, this expression became the frequent victim of level confusion, in one of the ego's favorite defenses against Jesus' teachings, in which it always substitutes the concrete for the abstract, the specific for the concept, the thing for the idea.<br />
Plato already understood that the ideas, the mind, is infinite and forever, and cannot be traded for one or another expression of the idea, as much as you can steal a table, but you can't steal the idea 'table'. And therein lies the rub...<br />
In Margot Krikhaar's <i>Awakening in Love</i>, she deals with this issue extensively, and as always in a thoroughly practical manner, particularly in Chapter 10 of the second part of the book. She covers all the variations of ego-distortions, including one of the ego's favorite games, of rejecting the world, pointing out that all such ego-strategies do nothing but make the error real. As a result they make it harder, not easier to follow Jesus to his Kingdom which is not of this world, as in fact they obfuscate the choice by substituting a specific action for the acceptance of the idea.<br />
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What makes the ego so upset are notions like 'I need do nothing' (ACIM:T-18.VII), not to mention the level of insult it feels at passages such as these:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
It is this that makes the holy instant so easy and so natural. You make it difficult, because you insist there must be more that you need do. You find it difficult to accept the idea that you need give so little, to receive so much. And it is very hard for you to realize it is not personally insulting that your contribution and the Holy Spirit's are so extremely disproportionate. You are still convinced that your understanding is a powerful contribution to the truth, and makes it what it is. Yet we have emphasized that you need understand nothing. Salvation is easy just <i>because</i> it asks nothing you cannot give right now. (ACIM:T-18.IV.7)</blockquote>
It should finally dawn on us that the reason a camel will sooner go through the eye of a needle than a 'rich man' will enter the Kingdom, is simply because you cannot hang on to the values of the world, and seek first the Kingdom all at once. It is one or the other, so as long as you maintain your investment in two mutually exclusive strategies, you will lose your investment. Ask any trader on Wall Street.<br />
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The point is that when we do become aware of our own contradictory investments, we should not consult with our ego, but ask Jesus or the Holy Spirit. There is nothing we can do to flick the switch, except flicking the switch, and that means asking the Holy Spirit and not the ego to look at our resistance a different way. Looking at it with Jesus or the Holy Spirit is what will whittle down the resistance, any actions the ego comes up with will only postpone that one choice by always again substituting something that will never work.<br />
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Thus the 'other' choice is not doing the opposite in worldly terms, but it is not getting trapped in the choice that never is a choice, by not making the choice by ourselves, but referring it to One Who can guide us out of the maze, exactly because we are then giving our ego the day off. We can always know we've chosen the ego if we are once again engaged in rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, and caught up in believing that this time it will make a difference. The ego as always is the magician, Maya, who makes it seem as if the choices it offers are real choices, yet either choice always means we chose the ego - that is the ego's 'gotcha'. The choice for 'another way' and a different teacher, simply means not buying into the ego's choice for two sides of the same coin, but stepping back from buying in altogether by referring the matter to the Holy Spirit for guidance, which means we are withdrawing our investment from the conflicts of the world, and putting our faith in the teacher whose Kingdom is NOT of this world. Whatever we then do on the practical level is done without investment, only because of the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and thus comes without the hidden price of sin, guilt and fear.<br />
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To come back to Chapter 10 in Margot's book once more, in it she shares a visionary experience she had as part of her process, which makes it very clear again that experiences will come to us, in the exact form that is most helpful, to help us along the way. In the process it becomes equally clear why in the end it is inevitable that we all choose for Jesus and the Holy Spirit, as the experience grows that the options the ego has to offer aren't any real choices at all.<br />
Logion 47 of the Thomas Gospel (Pursah version) says:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
A person cannot mount two horses or bend two bows. And a
servant cannot serve two masters, or that servant will honor the one and
offend the other.<br />Nobody drinks aged wine and immediately wants to
drink young wine. Young wine is not poured into old wineskins, or they
might break, and aged wine is not poured into new wineskins, or it might
spoil. An old patch is not sewn onto a new garment, since it would
create a tear.</blockquote>
The Course puts it this way:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The alternating investment in the two levels of perception is usually experienced as conflict, which can become very acute. But the outcome is as certain as God. (ACIM:T-2.III.3:9-10)</blockquote>
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Copyright, © 2011 Rogier F. van Vlissingen. All rights reserved.<div class="blogger-post-footer">A Course In Miracles, ACIM, The Disappearance of the Universe, Gary Renard, Kenneth Wapnick, Gnosis, Apocryphal books, Nag Hammadi, Dead Sea Scrolls</div>RogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14595610.post-22486784074665895692011-11-16T08:22:00.001-05:002011-11-28T07:14:28.522-05:00Baptism in the River JordanIn the second book of Jed McKenna's enlightenment trilogy, <i>Spiritually Incorrect Enlightenment</i>, the author visits a study group on the Bhagavadgita, and ends up making the point that studying the story is pointless unless and until you realize the story is about you, i.e. the reader. That's the only reason why it's relevant.<br />
The same could be said for the Gospel, as in fact J.W.Kaiser, whose work I hope to translate completely into English, says in his 1950 translation and commentary of the Gospel according to Mark. He fully and completely proceeds from the viewpoint that the story that is being portrayed is nothing else but the pictorial expression accompanying the inner experiences of one who follows Jesus. In other words, the only way to read the story is to realize it is about you.<br />
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And the teaching never varies, though the imagery varies according to time and place, be it Krishna and Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra, Jesus in Galilee, Socrates in the allegory of the cave, or many other 'stories' that tell us of the way through the narrow gate. Today, we have <i>A Course in Miracles</i>, which expresses Jesus' teachings in language for the twenty-first century. It is framed in very psychologically profound language, and deals in the same terms, that the outside world is nothing but the out-picturing of an inner condition. "Projection makes perception" is what the Course says. And in the traditional Jesus literature it is the notion that to everyone 'outside the Kingdom' it all comes in parables.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Projection makes perception. The world you see is what you gave it, nothing more than that. But though it is no more than that, it is not less. Therefore, to you it is important. It is the witness to your state of mind, the outside picture of an inward condition. As a man thinketh, so does he perceive. Therefore, seek not to change the world, but choose to change your mind about the world. Perception is a result and not a cause. And that is why order of difficulty in miracles is meaningless. Everything looked upon with vision is healed and holy. Nothing perceived without it means anything. And where there is no meaning, there is chaos. (ACIM:T-21.in.1)</blockquote>
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The reversal, the turning point, is born only from surrendering the ego's point of view completely, and the Course is geared to making our path lighter by offering the incremental approach of forgiveness and the miracle, which puts us on the path towards accepting the atonement. The transition never seems that easy in practice, for the ego is heavily defended against allowing us to look at its mechanics, since it knows they can't stand the light of day, and we are fanatically convinced that our life depends on clinging to the ego, and therein lies the 'dark night of the soul.' The guarantee that we'll get through it lies in the fact that we've already made the choice by that time, but what resists is the ego, which cannot go with us on that journey, and keeps trying to convince us it will be the end of us. Therefore the process is not so much the killing of the ego as some traditions would have it; it merely becomes moot, literally, because it just does not make any sense.<br />
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In the Course, the first stage is the 'little willingness' which is the beginning of doubting the ego, and realizing it's not what it's cracked up to be - the arbiter of all reality. It is only the arbiter of its 'reality,' and beholden only to its perceived self-interest, which is an inferior substitute for the reality of what we really are. In fact the Course makes clear that as long as we offer our little willingness to the Holy Spirit, we will not go this journey alone:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Never approach the holy instant after you have tried to remove all fear and hatred from your mind. That is <i>its</i> function. Never attempt to overlook your guilt before you ask the Holy Spirit's help. That is <i>His</i> function. Your part is only to offer Him a little willingness to let Him remove all fear and hatred, and to be forgiven. On your little faith, joined with His understanding, He will build your part in the Atonement and make sure that you fulfill it easily. And with Him, you will build a ladder planted in the solid rock of faith, and rising even to Heaven. Nor will you use it to ascend to Heaven alone. (ACIM:T-18.V.3)</blockquote>
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In the New Testament there is the story of the baptism in the River Jordan, under John, whose Hebrew name, Yehochanan, means 'God gives blessings', or 'God gives graciously', and he is the symbol of what the Course calls the 'happy learner' and Jed McKenna describes as human adulthood - living in the growing awareness that everything we encounter is in fact a blessed learning opportunity on our way back home, and is always our very best learning opportunity by definition. In the acceptance thereof we've already let the ego go, for it would have us believe that it first has to judge everything that comes on our path in terms of benefits or detriment to our ego individuality. In our darkest hour it is good to remember, that all the mountains of seeming fear are nothing but the projections of the ego's resistance: we certainly can be stubborn.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>It is this that makes the holy instant so easy and so natural. You make it difficult, because you insist there must be more that you need do. You find it difficult to accept the idea that you need give so little, to receive so much. And it is very hard for you to realize it is not personally insulting that your contribution and the Holy Spirit's are so extremely disproportionate. You are still convinced that your understanding is a powerful contribution to the truth, and makes it what it is. Yet we have emphasized that you need understand nothing. Salvation is easy just <i>because</i> it asks nothing you cannot give right now. (ACIM:T-18.IV.7)</blockquote>
Eventually the path leads through the deepest pit of the ego, and becomes the full fledged baptism in the events of our life -- the 'River Jordan' -- to the point of suffocation, because the ego cannot go along on that journey in any way shape or form. It means letting go completely, in spite of all the seeming terror of the ego's deepest pit. In Margot Krikhaar's book <i>Awakening in Love</i>, she shares her process with the descent into the ego's pit in very simple and straightforward language in Chapter 7 of the second part of the book, titled "Learning to look at what never was allowed to be seen." She documents also her experience that we do not go through this alone.<br />
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What is choked off is the ego identity, and what is reborn is the recognition that 'thou art My Son, in whom I am well pleased'. Or, in the words of the Course, we will finally wake up fully to the knowledge that we are still 'as God created us', and there will no longer be a way back to the ego, for it was nothing but an illusion of separate individuality, and never the truth. In Jed McKenna's analysis of Herman Melville's <i>Moby Dick</i>, it is Ishmael, the observer self, which wakes up from this descent into hell, or in this case the shipwreck, to realize 'nothing happened.' Therefore also the question people have at times: "What guarantees that we won't make the same mistake all over again?" is moot. The answer of the Atonement is: "What mistake?"<br />
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Copyright, © 2011 Rogier F. van Vlissingen. All rights reserved.<div class="blogger-post-footer">A Course In Miracles, ACIM, The Disappearance of the Universe, Gary Renard, Kenneth Wapnick, Gnosis, Apocryphal books, Nag Hammadi, Dead Sea Scrolls</div>RogierFvVhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06620302882101332152noreply@blogger.com0