On Popeye and the Channeling Bonanza

Years ago, when the topic of listening to the Holy Spirit, and "feeling guided" came up, I found myself joking with a group that my mother always was sure she was channeling the Holy Spirit when she told me to eat my spinach as a child. At which point I'm reminded of the following paragraph in the Course:

Trust not your good intentions. They are not enough. But trust implicitly your willingness, whatever else may enter. Concentrate only on this, and be not disturbed that shadows surround it. That is why you came. If you could come without them you would not need the holy instant. Come to it not in arrogance, assuming that you must achieve the state its coming brings with it. The miracle of the holy instant lies in your willingness to let it be what it is. And in your willingness for this lies also your acceptance of yourself as you were meant to be. (ACIM:T-18.IV.2)

We presently seem to have entered an era of channeling bonanza, where in some circles it is acceptable and "done" to publicly announce that you feel guided to do or say either a or b. The common sense response to which should be, "So?" Over the years, Ken Wapnick has discussed this issue many times, and he likes to common-sensically point out that we're always channeling something, i.e. either the ego or the Holy Spirit, which should be completely evident if we see the body as merely a vehicle, but not as who we are, and just like there are only two emotions, love or fear, so there are only two ways we can speak, from love or from fear.

If we were ever truly and wholly coming from love, there would be no need to be here, as the above paragraph says pretty clearly, so we are here to learn. If we come from love, the results should be completely self-evident, as the following paragraph suggests:

Every brother you meet becomes a witness for Christ or for the ego, depending on what you perceive in him. Everyone convinces you of what you want to perceive, and of the reality of the kingdom you have chosen for your vigilance. Everything you perceive is a witness to the thought system you want to be true. Every brother has the power to release you, if you choose to be free. You cannot accept false witness of him unless you have evoked false witnesses against him. If he speaks not of Christ to you, you spoke not of Christ to him. You hear but your own voice, and if Christ speaks through you, you will hear Him.
(ACIM:T-11.V.18)

So if you are totally coming from love, then you will experience love, which will not need any elaboration, conversely, if it needs to be explained that something is coming from love, then it probably is not, at least not wholly. If nothing else to lay the burden on someone that you are telling them something which is "guided" amounts to really a subtle way of making the other person feel guilty, by implying that whatever they are saying may not be so guided, etc. So it is a way of intimidating the listener, of making them feel guilty, and therefore an ego-manipulation. My mother might have been coming from fear (about my health), or from complete love, and knowing that I would be OK whether I ate my spinach or not. We cannot know that, we need not know that, for that is between her and the Holy Spirit and moreover she is OK irrespective of any momentary delusions, which is the whole implication of the atonement principle. So there is no point to analyzing if someone else is being "guided" by the Holy Spirit or the ego, the point is I am here to learn my classrooms, and to find the way home.

Back to basics with the Course always means to begin with the central notion, stated at the outset, that our job here is to remove the obstacles to love's presence, which is our natural inheritance. (cf. ACIM:Introduction) In human interaction I am responsible for my actions, my words, etc. where I think they are coming from is purely superfluous information to everybody else. Moreover to put labels on it is the same mistake of level confusion, as why God does not hear a prayer in words, but only true prayer of the heart, and why the thoughts you think you think are not your real thoughts, as the Course points out in many ways (a.o. Lessons 15 and 45 in the Workbook). It is completely irrelevant if I think--in words--whether anything I say is either from the ego or from the Holy Spirit, for if I did not have to learn to tell the difference, I would not be here at all in the first place. Simply put, you will know the tree by its fruits, and our job is to learn to pick the right tree, accept the Atonement for ourselves.


Copyright, © 2008 Rogier F. van Vlissingen. All rights reserved.

It's Your Relationships, Stupid!!!

If for Bill Clinton it was "It's the economy, stupid!," then, for a student of the Course it is: "It's your relationships, stupid!" It almost sounds too simple, except for the fact that we resist simplicity at all costs, for the ego hides behind complexity, so as to maintains it power over us. It really is that simple.

The Course reminds us that "this is a very simple course" (T-11.VII.4:1), and other passages to that effect. The Thomas Gospel in several Logia speaks about what is right in front of our face, which evidently connect very well with the notion of projection that the Course teaches. Since we must project whatever we deny, what is in front of our face is an out-picturing of that which we deny or repress, and so we have another chance at forgiveness... or we could deny it again, if we so choose, until we start to realize that forgiveness might be the less painful option. Whatever we deny ends up back on the stage in front of our faces via the Holy Spirit's recycling program, to give us yet another opportunity to forgive.

We do not have to decamp to a hermit's cave in the Himalaya's, for from the Course's standpoint that would be a detour, we need to accept, wholeheartedly accept, that what is in front of our face is indeed the very best classroom we could ever have, for one compelling reason: it is our life, and instead of having the ego lead us into the labyrinth, we need to choose the Holy Spirit now to lead us out. The thread of Ariadne, Reason.

The beginning of healing is always right here and right now. Sometimes it just seems very hard to see, and it's good to realize this is because we are now looking at the stuff we heretofore did not want to see, and that is also the reason we need to look with Jesus or the Holy Spirit, unless we want to repeat the same outcome all over again. Hence learning to love our brothers like ourselves is really the outcome of the healing process that takes place in this forgiveness practice, for at that indivisible moment--the holy instant--when we suddenly see that we are accusing our brother of something we are doing ourselves, and that our brother is not merely like us, but is us, and reflects back to us our own twisted choice, which cannot be healed unless we first own making them. That moment of light the ego cannot endure, and therein lies the experience of healing.

It is at this point that we can see the true meaning of the Aristotelian concept of catharsis in drama, as the psychological cleansing that is supposed to be the payoff for the audience in tragedy. The point here is that all the actors in the drama represents fragments of the one mind, initially of the author, and then of the public that watches the play, so that in watching the play with true empathy, we should be enabled to see outside ourselves something we could not see within, but which tends to be a universal human issue, which we now get a chance to forgive, vicariously, so to speak, as long as we're willing to be vulnerable and recognize ourselves in it.

It is quite the same way with the characters in our own drama, they represent issues of our inner dynamic which we see outside, and no healing is possible before we accept responsibility for our experience. Likewise, every myth, legend, fairy tale, drama, has some element of offering another way of looking at this drama, and if we can only truly see ourselves in it, we have yet more forgiveness opportunities. For the healing is not in suffering through the whole episode ourselves, the healing is in the willingness to look at the ego with the Holy Spirit. His light dispels the choke hold in which the ego has us.
In the biblical story of Job we see, as he is caught up in his experiencing of the two sides of the ego's bi-polar God, which is the reflection of his own dualistic awareness, how it is first his wife and then his "friends" who represent merely the externalization, a projection of the ego's inner dialog, which is merely a defense against the experience, and the possible recognition, of the truth. In other words, Job's "wife" and "old friends," are clearly the special relationships, which are projections of the ego, which it uses to validate itself, and which will only serve to support our ego identity, and not who we are in truth. We all have a tendency to fall back on them, just when we are starting to tune in to that other voice, which is the Holy Spirit's.
In Job's story, only when Job stops listening to the "monkey mind," the thoughts we think we think, and comes to inner quiet, a fourth friend shows up and now he does he hear the Voice of Elihu (the name referring to God changes at that point in the story, and Elihu, as J. W. Kaiser points out means "This is my God"). Reflecting on this story can make us understand more deeply what the process of forgiveness really means, for it is only in the light of forgiveness that the ego "goes back into the nothingness from which it came," and there is room within us to hear the Voice for God.
In terms the Course uses, Job's "wife" and "friends" are also the ego's witnesses that we are right and Jesus is wrong--they are the ones we call upon to buy our sob story of how we are the victim of all the horrid people and circumstances in our lives, the ego's "dirge" as the Course says. Forgiveness in this light then means to gently ignore the voice of fear, and to hear the call for love, and to understand that all the useless well-meaning advice, admonitions, or even pressures are a reflection of our own fear, and forgiveness now offers us the other choice--right here, right now. In this healing we also transcend the dualistic experience of God, as the Good God, and the Devil, as our heart turns towards Elihu, "This is my God," through accepting this classroom as a forgiveness opportunity, and choosing the miracle.

One of my favorites which tends to come up in Course-related discussions is the situation of beginning students (as Ken Wapnick likes to point out, somewhere in the first 20-30 years of work with the Course), in respect of life partners who are not students, or worse yet are even dismissive of our new pastime. When this comes up I like to ask someone, "Why do you think you put a partner in your life who objects to your studying the Course?" Uh oh. And just in case... I am speaking from experience, it went like this (my ex-wife used to work in the library of a Jesuit university):
- "Oh, you're studying that book!"
- "What do you mean that book?"
- "Well, it's giving me a hernia, for it goes in and out of the library more often than any other book, and I have to put it back on the shelf all the time (this was when the Course was in 3 Volumes)."
As long as we can see that it is our own issue, then perhaps we can open the door to truly ask for help in seeing it differently, and things can shift...


I should point out that some of the present discussion was inspired by the work of J. W. Kaiser, a Dutch author on spirituality, whose work I'm translating into English. Particularly, his 1929 Monograph Introduction to the Study and Interpretation of Drama, Swets and Zeitlinger, Amsterdam 1929, and also his essay Beproeving (Eng. Temptation, in the book of Job), in the bundle De Mysterien of Jezus in ons Leven, Den Haag, Synthese, 1975 (Eng. The Mysteries of Jesus in our Lives). See also www.openfieldbooks.com

Copyright, © 2008 Rogier F. van Vlissingen. All rights reserved.

Miracles Mishagass

That was Bill Thetford's expression for the insanity that seemed to start swirling around ACIM right from the beginning. Today it has become a complete industry. I do not know how to deal with it, other than just ignore it, or address it clearly whenever it comes up.

One of my favorite comments from Ken Wapnick concerns the issue of some students who think they want to find a therapist who practices the Course, to which he invariably says: "If you need a therapist, please just pick a good one, and don't pick him because he would be a Course student." And that sums it up quite nicely, for a simple reductio ad absurdum would lead you to the notion that you would need ACIM-certified doctors, car mechanics, plumbers, and cleaning ladies, to name but a few. Conversely you might just as well look for a therapist with red hair. You can't make those decisions by proxy, never mind what they are.

It all adds up to the same insane confusion of content and form which led the early Christians to set themselves aside and make the teachings of Jesus into a religion, instead of practicing what he said, and following him in content, in spirit. Whether on the weekend you watch football, or study ACIM has nothing to do with the price of beans.

In the current literary landscape I would think perhaps the enlightenment trilogy by Jed McKenna, published at The Wise Fool Press might be the best antidote against this particular form of insanity. If nothing else they make it very clear by implication that ACIM has nothing to do with it. If it happens to be your path, it is a means to an end, it may serve some people, not others, but in the end it has nothing to do with the price of beans. There are many paths, as the Course itself clearly reminds us of, not to mention it's profound message in Lesson 189, when it says: "Forget this world, forget this course, and come with wholly empty hands unto your God." (ACIM:W-189.7:5) In other words, you use the railing to climb to the top of the stairs, but once you are there, you don't take the railing with you. You let go of it, and you walk onto the particular floor of the building you are in.

The perfect corollary to this is when the Course says in its Preface: "It is not intended to become the basis for another cult. Its only purpose is to provide a way in which some people will be able to find their own Internal Teacher." and a bit further down it elaborates even more:
"The Course makes no claim to finality, nor are the Workbook lessons intended to bring the student's learning to completion. At the end, the reader is left in the hands of his or her own Internal Teacher, Who will direct all subsequent learning as He sees fit. While the Course is comprehensive in scope, truth cannot be limited to any finite form, as is clearly recognized in the statement at the end of the Workbook:
This Course is a beginning, not an end...No more specific lessons are assigned, for there is no more need of them. Henceforth, hear but the Voice for God...He will direct your efforts, telling you exactly what to do, how to direct your mind, and when to come to Him in silence, asking for His sure direction and His certain Word (Workbook, p. 487)."

That really sums it up, right at the outset. Meanwhile the world blithely ignores these messages, and probably as I'm writing this, someone is developing Course-branded ski jackets or some such, but we would do well to be mindful of the fact that the only real thing to do is to dedicate ourselves to the relationship with the one Internal Teacher. If anyone can help you with the Course, fine, but the minute you lose focus on that Internal Teacher, you become a follower of people, not a student of the Course.

Along similar lines I remember a workshop I organized with Nouk Sanchez & Tomas Vieira, around their book Take Me To Truth, on a break I heard a comment from the audience about finding a better partner to study ACIM with, which for all the same reasons is not the point, for it is not about the words. It is about the inner practice. Of course it can be very helpful at times if you have someone who you trust in their work with the Course, who may be able to give you some useful feedback when you hit a bump in the road, but you don't have to be married to, or live with, that person for it to work. It is never about the person. It could be a comment you overhear on the bus one day, which gives you just the clue you needed, for the Internal Teacher will use any available channel, and our responsibility is just the willingness to listen, and follow the Internal Teacher.

In my own life, I had to confront this issue in a different way, when the person who I had seen as my spiritual teacher for about 25 years died. I was angry with God then. And yet at some level I did realize that I was confusing content and form, and that another channel would show up. Four years later I found ACIM, and through a dream experience I knew without a doubt that here was my answer. And the beauty is that the book itself says of itself that it's only a book, it is there only to be a help for those who use it, but the truth is within, as the likes of Socrates and Jesus, and Buddha have been teaching since the beginning of time.


Copyright, © 2008 Rogier F. van Vlissingen. All rights reserved.