My Kingdom is not of this world

Perhaps 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.
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...
In Margot Krikhaar's Awakening in Love, 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.

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:

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 because it asks nothing you cannot give right now. (ACIM:T-18.IV.7)

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.

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.

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.

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.
Logion 47 of the Thomas Gospel (Pursah version) says:

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.
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.

The Course puts it this way:

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)

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

Level Confusion

In the meantime, I'm working on the translation of Chapter 5 of the 2nd part of Margot Krikhaar's book, Awakening in Love. Among other things this chapter speaks to the idea over level confusion, a concept in the Course that is sometimes hard to understand at first. It is a concept also that goes back through the entire Judaeo-Christian tradition, and is constantly horribly misunderstood. In the hands of the ego, it predictably becomes another tool of sin, guilt and fear. The original intent is very clear however, and the Course points the way to restoring it, though in the end the complete restoration will be experiential.

The fundamental idea of level confusion is based on the Course's teaching of 'Level One'--the level of abstract truth, which speaks of Heaven, God, Oneness, Mind, Love, Reality, etc. as our only reality, and level two as the dualistic experience of the world which only flows from an illusory decision to separate. At level One, there is no world, there is only a oneness which is one and all inclusive and of which we are a part. This is however not our daily experience. So the Course also speaks to us on 'level two' which is the level of our concrete experience in the world, which we mistake for reality to the extent that we are identified with our egoic individuality, where we believe the body and the world are our reality, and we are not in touch that we made them up ourselves--not on the level of the conscious mental processes which are associated with brain activity, and which we mistake for our mind. The Buddhist calls it 'monkey mind.' The projection of the holografic reality happens in the mind, on a level outside of our individual bodily experience in the time/space hologram. Subconsciously, we would say, because we are completely dissociated from the mind, limiting ourselves to the conscious thinking of our 'monkey mind.'

The process of forgiveness as the Course offers it, and which is a restatement anno 2000 of what Jeshua taught in Palestine 2000 years ago, in effect is a way to dissociate our dissociation, the separation thought, the ego. In the Course's terms it helps us to 'deny the denial of truth'. (ACIM:T-12.II.1:5) Our 'stinking thinking' operates always and only at the level of WIIFM (What's In It For Me). It is shortsighted and geared to survival, and places us firmly on the battlefield alongside Arjuna. And the first sign of waking up is to realize the absurdity of the battle, of brother killing brother, and then turning to our Inner Teacher. He may be Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita, or Kuan Yin in the Buddhist tradition, or Jesus in the Western tradition as in the Course. He is the Symbol of Heaven, of God's Love.

In an ego conflict, the threefold forgiveness process of the Course points the way out:

1. To start to question the ego's kill or be killed dynamic, and instead ask ourselves: "Would I accuse myself of doing this?" That opens the door, because it shifts our attention back from the world (effect) where we are unable to change anything, to the mind (cause), the only place where we can change anything...
2. Is to look at the situation with Jesus, i.e. without guilt--having just made the first step to objectivity by at least questioning our ego's foregone conclusions. We may not know how to stop ourselves, but we can always:
3. Ask our Inner Teacher to see things his way instead, and by withdrawing our judgment we will have made room for the judgment and guidance from the Holy Spirit. A that point the ego has stepped out of the way. 

What this also means, is that we have backed away from Level 2 and returned to Level 1, by joining with Jesus, and almost literally asking him if we can borrow his glasses, for ours are pretty foggy at times like that. At that level the guidance will always be the most loving solution for all concerned, not the unilateral and conflict-prone pushing of one party's interest. We have shifted out of fear and into Love.

The ego does all it can to prevent this kind of a disastrous outcome. So when we ask for Love, which is always our deepest will, this is a threat to the ego, for at Level 1, Love is all there is, and the ego is out of business. So, much like in the elections, the ego constantly offers us seeming alternatives, which are really all the same, because they implicitly reaffirm our choice for the ego. So when the ego hears us calling for Love, it--like the expert juggler that it is--promptly comes up with a love object of some sort, an idol. That could be anything that tickles our fancy, sex, food, drink, drugs, important functions, fame, fortune, Nobel prizes and whatever it takes to keep us convince of the importance of what we are doing in the world. The ego pulls a rabbit out of a hat, to distract our attention and keep us unaware that we are reaffirming the ego's power over it by whatever choice we make from the ego's menu, which is always at level 2, and which will have more options than the menu of the Holy Spirit, which has just one option: Love. 

In short, the ego is the provider of substitutes, surrogates, idols, something to worship, in lieu of the content, it  is the Wizard of Oz, it is the Emperor without clothes, the Hyacinth Bucket of the soul, insisting it is a Boucquet, and investing all available energy in keeping up appearances, and keeping us focused on problem solving in the world, lest we should ever remember we have a mind, let alone start to wake up. Perhaps the most monumental such substitution is the Pope in the RC Church, whose title is 'Vicar of Christ", according to the operative theology, he holds a spot for Jesus when he returns. By virtue of that title alone, he is the denial of the resurrection, and the theological model goes hand in hand with the notion that the Second Coming should be the return of Jesus in he body in this world, whereas the Course, in line with its overall metaphysical framework, has the opposite notion, that the Second Coming is about us folowing Jesus and joining with him in the resurrection (in the mind). The Course's definition of temptation is convincing the son of God that he is a body. The Course's version of the Lord's Prayer points the way out.

Forgive us our illusions, Father, and help us to accept our true relationship with You, in which there are no illusions, and where none can ever enter. Our holiness is Yours. What can there be in us that needs forgiveness when Yours is perfect? The sleep of forgetfulness is only the unwillingness to remember Your forgiveness and Your Love. Let us not wander into temptation, for the temptation of the Son of God is not Your Will.  And let us receive only what You have given, and accept but this into the minds which You created and which You love. Amen. (ACIM:T-16.VII.12) 

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

A House is not a Home

Salvation is no more than a reminder this world is not your home. Its laws are not imposed on you, its values are not yours. And nothing that you think you see in it is really there at all. This is seen and understood as each one takes his part in its undoing, as he did in making it. He has the means for either, as he always did. The specialness he chose to hurt himself did God appoint to be the means for his salvation, from the very instant that the choice was made. His special sin was made his special grace. His special hate became his special love. (ACIM:T-25.VI.6)

The ego's game is substitution, and always level confusion, it offers us a specific something in lieu of content and meaning, always passing off something inferior (form) for the real thing (content/meaning). And once it conned us the first time, it then helps us focus all our energies into maintaining the substitute in lieu of the real thing, until it kills us, which it inevitably will. Our real home is in Heaven, and the ego is always very focused on providing us with something to call home in this world in its place. And the National Association of Realtors has been happy to lend a helping hand by appealing to human emotions - and murdering the English language in a way that would have done Goebbels proud - by insisting we are buying a home, when the only thing you can buy is a house, really. This type of stuff is just emblematic for the level of effort the ego makes to obfuscate truth and to pass off its substitutes for the real thing, and in the process it always limits us to one concrete manifestation of what it is we are looking for. As one of my favorite con-artists used to say: "Logic and reason are just the horse the emotions ride in on." The realtors have understood that one a long time ago.

In recent US domestic political and economic history the whole thing converged into a toxic brew, when with typical slight of hand, a confusion of cause and effect, home ownership was substituted for financial stability, and predictably created the opposite result, which is also emblematic for the ego - creating the very problem it pretends to solve. As Bill Clinton understood, it was also a way of getting votes; votes from the people he was feeding to the wolves, and campaign contributions from the wolves, and then whahappen...? The big print giveth and the small print taketh away: the ego always gives in order to take, and it is completely inimical to the laws of spirit, which say giving and receiving are the same. We are now blessed with shelves full of books on what caused the economic collapse of 2008, and of course they all miss the point as long as they do not get to this fundamental issue of substitution and level confusion. Once you get that, it is clear that it is the ego which is the disease, and like a cancer - the emperor of all maladies, as a recent book calls it - always ends up growing out of control until it kills us, which is its real purpose.

Thus this financial bubble, like other similar bubbles, and like physical cancers are just wild growths that are parasitical to the organism, and kill it. It is just part of the insanity of the system that self destructive activities like this are counted in the plus column as far as GNP is concerned, and Marx would relish the moment to reaffirm his astute observation that capitalism would gladly sell us the rope to hang ourselves, forgetting only that communism would do the same thing just as happily--just think of the arms race. For all of that, the answers only come once we become ready to admit that this world is not our home, never mind how well we decorate it. All these crises are the same, and the only question is when are we ready to seek where the answers are: always inside, never out. Charles Mackay' Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, is as relevant today as when it was first written, but we won't learn from it until we finally wake up to the fact that all this insanity is merely the logical result of one wrong decision we made - the choice for the tiny, mad idea of the separation - which moreover can be corrected. As long as we keep trying to fix the problem outside, we'll merely create the next crisis.

In short, there is nothing extraordinary about these popular delusions, and there is no wicked witch forcing us to get caught up in them, unless we go looking for the wicked witch, by once again choosing the ego over the Holy Spirit. And it invariably takes us for a ride. Thus the power of Maya, the power of the wicked witch, of the Wizard of Oz, collapses into naught if we choose not to get enchanted by it but rather look at it with forgiveness, and change our mind:

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.

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 have done this thing, and it is this I would undo." 

(ACIM:T-27.VIII.10,11)

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