Where am I on this path?

The section Development of Trust (ACIM:4.I.A) is extremely helpful and yet also confusing, and it is confusing mostly because we are so inclined to mis-use it by trying to determine just where we are in our process. To that question however, there is in reality only one answer:

You are at home in God, dreaming of exile but perfectly capable of awakening to reality. (ACIM:T-10.1.2:1)

As long as our minds are at all concerned about being somewhere where we think we are not, we are completely wrapped up in the illusion of time and space, and thus not dealing with reality.

It is for the same reason that the Course is so very clear that its goal is not knowledge, but rather peace. Neither is the goal of the Course enlightenment or awakening. To this point it says:

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.9:6-11)

In short, what we can learn is choosing peace, by learning to not choose the ego, simply because we don't want it anymore after looking at it honestly with Jesus. In the light of his truth it looses its charm, and thus we learn to un-choose it. Hence also the Course's notion of Atonement without sacrifice. Giving up nothing is not a sacrifice. And we are home because we never left.

Our job is merely to accept the atonement for ourselves, to accept that the ego did not happen, the rest will speak for itself. To put it differently our job is to get out of our own way, and to stop sabotaging ourselves. This is a critical part of the Course, since it takes away the notion of spiritual journeys, and investments of time. Only our fear is holding us back, and that we overcome gradually through the forgiveness process. But the truth is not a place you go to, you merely unlearn running away from it. For the same reason the discussion of enlightenment is also silly, since there is nobody to be enlightened in the first place, again, we merely need to give up pretending to be who we are not.

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

A New Exploration of the Manual for Teachers

This coming Wednesday, October 14th we will start a new cycle in my ACIM workshop at the NY theosophical society, studying the Manual for Teachers.

Starting on this one more time, brings up memories of my first experiences with the Course, and the enormous resistance against it, particularly for the tremendous sense of responsibility it seemed to saddle me with.

• What do you mean I made up the world?
• What do you mean Jesus and I are the same?
• What do you mean I did this to myself?
• What do you mean I'm a teacher of God, I don't want to?

I actually was sitting in a workshop in Roscoe with Ken Wapnick, when it finally began to dawn on me that Jesus does mean it very literally that the only difference between him and me (the reader) is in time. That he can help us because he went ahead, but there is nothing he could do that we can't. And I surely thought that I knew better already, after all I was not a Christian, but studying Jesus in his own right as best I could all my life, etc. I thought I knew, but clearly I did not hear.

It is fundamental to the Course to understand that the only hope is to know that the only thing that can be changed is my decision to identify with the ego, and the only way it can be changed is by letting the Holy Spirit in by stopping to choose the ego, and asking for help, which must come from outside the insane ego system. And this is where the Course can help. It is crucial to know that this is the only way we can be helped, to help ourselves to quit helping ourselves and asking for help instead.

And then in turn by doing it ourselves, and practicing the Course's principles in the daily classrooms of your life, you finally realize that it is really true that the only way to teach the Course is by learning it ourselves, certainly not by teaching any classes. The practice of learning it's curriculum is the only means we have to help our brothers on the way home. And so it is not a burdensome responsibility with which it wants to saddle us, but rather it is the only way of meaningful communication, which places us back into the stream of life.




Copyright, © 2009 Rogier F. van Vlissingen. All rights reserved.

Is Guidance a Dirty Word?

In Dutch newspapers there has been an uproar in recent days about the release of the report of the Beel commission, which dates from 1956, when there was a practical constitutional crisis seemingly caused by the contact of H.M. Queen Juliana with a woman, described in the press mostly as a "faith healer," Ms. Magaretha "Greet" Hofmans. The details do not matter if you were not closely involved, but the upshot is that there were accusations floating around this issue when it happened that suggested that this woman might have undue influence on the Queen. That impression was certainly not obviated by some of the things the Queen said about the situation, and thus there was an appearance of impropriety that needed to be avoided in order to forestall a crisis of confidence. In the end the Queen was forced to sever relations, including severing relations with all her staff who had been part of the developments, in order to make a clean slate, and so the incident faded into the background. Questions about what really happened always remained however. And at least the publication of this official report from that time, pursuant to the Dutch equivalent of a freedom of information request, is certainly a helpful step in clearing things up.

Without going over all the details of this story which remain irrelevant, there is one central theme which remains, and that is that in this society, as adults we are responsible for our own decisions. Therefore I never have time for people who "feel guided" to do something. That is just about the worst copout you can think of. The truth of it is, that if you truly let yourself be guided by the Holy Spirit in your decisions, that you will not increase guilt with your decisions, and you will not feel guilty in any way for your subsequent actions, which allows one a wonderful sense of freedom, but it never ever does mean that one does not take full responsibility for one's actions. Abraham Lincoln's lovely expression for this is " the better angels of our nature," and decisions made with this guidance have that incomparable feeling of being in the flow, and having no resistance or guilt associated with them. Those are the times when we know we're doing the right thing, and have no problem taking responsibility for our actions. Thus the experience of such guidance does not diminish but rather enhances the sense of full commitment to and responsibility for one's decisions, without any need to become either defensive or apologetic, ever. The ego's decisions by comparison always remain debatable, which is why we can become fiercely defensive, when we meet opposition to them, exactly because we are not sure of ourselves (the ego being our false self in the first place), and we promptly proceed to get into those scenes, which Shakespeare masterfully characterized as " The lady does protest too much, me thinks," which is always a dead giveaway for the ambivalent kind of decision making we do with the ego.

Rather, the need to inform others that we felt guided to do something misses the point entirely, and at worst seems only to make others feel inferior, seeming to impress them with what a holy person we are. Thus it becomes a not so subtle put down, in the same vein as some vegetarians deem themselves superior to others, and try to sow guilt wherever they can, instead of just simply doing it because it makes us feel better, and leaving others alone.

Ken Wapnick offers a wonderful way of undoing this particular fallacy, when he points out that we all channel all the time--either the ego or the Holy Spirit. Which it is will have a major impact on how we feel, but is irrelevant to the outside world for all practical purposes. The Course's forgiveness process does not involve going up to a person and telling them that you forgive them, because ultimately you're not forgiving them, but yourself, and in that same vein learning to let the Holy Spirit guide our actions is irrelevant to others, for it only has to make do with learning to accept the atonement for myself.




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