Conversations & Questions

Conversations with Nick B (3)

Nick: I would be really interested in what Course interpreters/commentators you look to. You have mentioned Ken Wapnick, but what about any others?

Anna: When I first discovered the course, I knew no one else who had ever heard of it, let alone read it. The UK edition had no preface, no explanation of who had written it, no story or names attached, and there was no internet to turn to. The book didn't have line numbering, and it was only after a while that I realised there were three parts to it: it was a great labyrinth. So from the beginning it was for me an astounding and entirely personal thing that bloomed out of nowhere, a resounding answer to a little string of timid questions and inner experiences.

Nick: My feeling on the availability of resources now versus then is that it still feels a bit like that now. All the interpretive and guidance books I have read do not compare to engaging with the course itself. Despite some of the more glitzy interpretations and organisations, the course remains profoundly mysterious and 'austere' in its blue book binding and complete lack of surface 'glitz'. I mean to imply both its 'physical' appearance and its content here.

For me the arrival of the course in my life was also very mysterious and seemed 'perfectly timed'. There were various attendant 'signs' that made placing an Amazon order into a much deeper engagement with the order of the universe. I won't elaborate here and now, except to say , "except you see signs and wonders you shall not believe". Some rather startling synchronicities attended the relatively simple delivery of a book to my address.

If I am not careful my mind will divert me into reading endless interpretations instead of actually engaging with the course itself. In some respects I think that’s what my mind wants. Keep orbiting and circling the real deal and get diverted onto side paths and alleys. Not that these are not helpful but that they are not the ultimate source of engagement.

Anna: Yes, the course itself is teacher, guide, interpreter, signpost – though all it is pointing to is the knowing that is already within you. I think any such teacher is like a parent who runs alongside steadying a child's bike as they start learning to ride; and who lets go as soon as the child gets the knack and pedals off on their own.

Non-dualism 

Nick: Having studied some of this stuff for donkeys years and now arrived at the course, I must say (in a discriminatory and not judgemental fashion) that I feel Greg Mackie is right on the money in his essay on course non dualism and 'neo advaita' non dualism. http://www.circleofa.org/articles/CoursesNondualism.php?dig=course+non+dualism

A problem for me is that some 'neo advaita' teaching does advocate a unity of opposites. In other words the 'oneness' is manifested in both the apparently good and bad. The course does not acknowledge the 'bad' as having real autonomous existence. This allows some critics to read into both approaches that they diminish suffering by not acknowledging it. I don't think this is the case. What the mystical traditions are saying is that negativity is very 'real' when experienced, but ultimately it does not stand in opposition to the divine, which is an infinite ocean of satchitananda or pure life force or goodness. This means that the negative has not independent standing and is manifested by disorder in the psyche and is not ultimately real, in the sense that God alone is.

This level and degree of love just does not appear to be present in the writing of some ‘neo advaita’ teachers. I feel that Adyashanti has a very loving presence. Pure Brilliant Stillness (David Carse) is much more in line with my own (limited) experience. The oneness is definitely experienced as pure satchitananda and infinite goodness and pure life force and not some dry intellectual, cold and remote unity.

Anna: The great mythologist Joseph Campbell has a lucid grasp of the difference between dualistic Western and non-dualistic Eastern traditions (eg in Thou Art That). But the course seems to me to go beyond all traditional religion, as well as present science (neuroscience, psychology of consciousness). It goes further than Freud's psychology of conscious will versus unconscious wishing, and Jung's process of individuation which marries the positive with the negative.

The course neither tries to unify opposites nor seeks for one to vanquish the other. Nor is it about both sides cancelling each other out, though there is something of that in the way it uses right perception to correct wrong perception, and its image of going back up the ladder that separation led us down, and its countering of illusion by ‘denying the denial of truth.’ But the course also makes clear that this process of undoing is itself an illusion, because there is nothing to undo.

The course is truly non-dualistic in that it says there cannot be opposites or separate sides. There is nothing to reconcile. The idea that there could be more than one point of view is like a hypothesis that the mind raises and at once realises is invalid, since absolute oneness embraces everything as itself. But this hypothetical question ‘what if there were more than one?’ and its being answered: ‘all is still only one’, is the dream we are living. I think David Carse says something like this, that the separated world forever exists as a hallucination, as an infinity of possibility, and yet does not, never did, could not exist at all in reality. 

The world was over long ago (T26 V 4); the whole history of the universe and the ‘now’ in which we think we are separately living is an after-image, an already fading dream. All two-sided or multi-faceted concepts like me and you, like this and that, like positive and negative, all the interplays of opposites and variations, arose in a flash in the mind of the ‘Son’, in all their possible implications and permutations; and were simultaneously answered in the single thought 'all One'. The Father and Son are the same, mind is of Mind, Being is not being something but just is.

The course does not say this One is neutral or nothing, in the neo-Advaita sense, except that from the ego's terrified point of view, it is nothingness, it is oblivion, since Oneness means the disappearance of the ego and its whole separate universe. The course describes reality more as David Carse puts it – a never ending outpouring of love, light, a ‘perfect brilliant stillness’ that embraces everything.

This is still too scary or incomprehensible for us, which is why the course uses such dualistic language to teach a wholly non-dualistic thought system. It can cause all kinds of confusion, but it means we start from where we are and not from where we think we ought to be. The image of a loving relationship between Father and Child is dualistic; so is the concept of guide and traveller, of elder brother and younger sibling. But it’s something we can relate to personally. It gives us a bridge from where we think we are, an orientation towards the unimaginable state of ‘a oneness joined as one’. I think of the sameness of Father and Son as light pouring from a source of light: the source and the rays of light that stream from it are the same light. One is a continuation of the other, but there is no point where one stops and the other begins. It is essential to remember this, but for all practical purposes the idea of a Someone else within and beside the ‘me’ that I think I am is not only comforting, but the beginning of a shift towards realising that the little ‘me’ is a figment and the Someone is what I am.

The course is only neutral in the sense that ‘all my brothers are special’ (T1 V 3): a wording which wonderfully does not negate a jot of the individuality that we still cling to, but embraces and elevates our seeming separateness even while showing how meaningless it is. The whole approach of the course is loving, in that it never attacks our illusions, and is endlessly patient with our resistance to it.

Animal or vegetable?

Nick: My problem with Tony Parsons for instance is that in one book I have he says that eating watercress or eating meat is all the same thing. Clearly in the world of relative forms this is nonsense. We have to have some form of discrimination and hierarchy of impact in our moral decision making.This can either lead you to vegetarianism or not. The crucial thing is that taking a non dual stance and trying to wring meaningful moral decision making out of it can in some cases lead to a muddle.

Anna: Ken Wapnick also makes the point that in an ego world, everything 'lives' at the cost of something else, by consuming some other living thing. Whether it is animal or vegetable, physical or psychological, is only a matter of form; the 'kill or be killed' dualistic principle still applies. But since we do find ourselves here, we must make choices. The trap is only when we think our preferences are intrinsically (or morally) better; or feel guilty or anxious if our special preference is not available. Then we are right back in the ego's lap. To the ego, if the form is acceptable the content must be. Otherwise it will attack the form (T14 X 8). But appearances are only appearances and do not necessarily reflect anything true. You can have an aggressive vegetarian or a gentle meat-eater. Your own choices are not a basis for judging anyone else’s.

Level confusion

The same applies to all behavioural choices. Most students of the course will begin by taking the course's dualistic language literally and not hear it metaphorically. I think this is part of the genius of the course process: it always seems to speak to you wherever you are at the time. The only problem is when it leads to what the course calls 'level confusion' (T2 IV): an anxious attempt to spiritualize everything - like trying to be radiantly happy and loving all the time, or telling their sick friends they are doing this to themselves, or not planning anything and not dealing with situations because they have 'turned everything over to the Holy Spirit', or because everything is ‘only a dream’. 

I was interested to hear Gary Renard say that when he was called for jury service, he was dismissed again when he explained that he would not ever in conscience be able to agree with a 'guilty' verdict. We must each of us take whatever stand we are guided to take; but if his listeners were to take his choice as a general course principle, that would be an example of level confusion. It would be absurd if all juries automatically gave a 'not guilty' verdict because the course teaches us to see no one as guilty. It is confusing guilt and responsibility. To honestly assess the evidence as best one can, among others, is all that is asked of anyone in the juror's position, even though of course the evidence cannot be 'the whole truth and nothing but the truth': nothing in this world ever is. 

And how would you know in advance what your decision might be? As the course says (M21 5), we may be dismayed by what we are guided or say or do. Revelation is uninterested in personal vanities and social credibility. A Course in Miracles itself is a perfect example: Dr Schucman was highly embarrassed by it, fearing for her sanity. It is tricky enough to know when to trust the guidance anyway, and when we are only being nudged by our own plausible and treacherous wishful thinking. At least we can start with the humility to admit we do not know what is best for anyone or for ourselves, and the open-mindedness to encounter each new situation as it arises without prejudging it. Moral concepts are there for our protection and guidance, not to constrain us. As I was saying, at some point we must pedal off on our own. 

 

Conversations with Nick B (2)

The metaphysics

Nick: One issue that I am not clear over with the course is the metaphysical extent of the ‘Sonship’. I have read Robert Perry around this and he feels that it extends to all manifest existence. In other words the one Son of God disguises itself in all apparent forms, from human beings to what we call inanimate matter such as rocks and stones.

It’s easy to gain the impression that by Son of God the Course is referring to us apparent human beings as the sole repository of the Son-ship. Yet that does not seem to be Perry’s interpretation.

Not having read anything thus far in the Course to define it one way or another I wondered what your view was.

The view of Robert Perry seems to be in accord with that of Jainism and Manichaeism, whereby the divine light shards are scattered throughout all of manifest existence.

Anna: What the course says, unequivocally, is: There is no world! This is the central thought the course attempts to teach… Some see it suddenly on point of death, and rise to teach it. Others find it in experience that is not of this world, which shows them that the world does not exist because what they behold must be the truth, and yet it clearly contradicts the world. And some will find it in this course, and in the exercises that we do today (W132 8).

There is no ‘manifest existence’, only a dream in which a multitude of forms seem to exist alongside but separately, including these ghostly shapes we call ourselves. I would put it this way: the entire phenomenal universe is the Son's dream of himself, as if he were exploring every possible permutation and variation and degree of a theoretical alternative reality: anything and everything that contradicts the unchanging oneness of Reality. Animate or inanimate, all is part of the Son’s dream, all linked within the ‘Sonship’. For most practical purposes, as you say, the course is talking about relationships between human beings, since that is what we think we are. The early workbook lessons repeatedly remind us that what the course says applies to everything we perceive, equally and indiscriminately. But since those everythings are only images in the Son's dreaming mind, all that matters is how we relate to them: as one with us, or as apart. Either we become increasingly willing to wake, or want to burrow deeper into the dream for a while.

So it is not that splinters of divinity can be found here and there. The divine light has never been shattered, remains always all there is. It is that, dream as he might, the Son cannot ever completely blot out of his memory his awareness of this Reality. There is nothing of God in this world; but there is inevitably something of God in our minds, and it is this that links us to each other and to everything, when we let it affect our perception. We can’t stop it – it will shine out, ‘like shining from shook foil’ (Gerard Manley Hopkins). It will shake us. ‘There lives the dearest freshness deep down things‘ – only it lives not in the things themselves, which are only dreams, but unquenchably in the mind of the dreamer.

Conversations with Nick B (1)

Using the course

Nick: What I enjoy with the course is it 'compels' me to read it at a slow and steady pace. It has a rhythm that seems to 'demand' this on some level. I feel my breathing quieten and whole being relax whilst reading, which is a lovely thing.

I have  a strong sense that it is a 'required course', because though I have read perhaps more philosophically high falutin stuff, this really draws me back and engages me unlike so many other approaches.

It feels a privilege to go to a teaching where there is absolutely no judgement, no condemnation, no suggestion that it is the only way or even the best way, in short nothing negative of any kind. This is remarkable in a teaching and makes the course feel like a real refuge.

I have been thinking that I can hardly wait to get on to the workbook lessons, when the real stuff will start. However, when I step back from that it feels very much that the text itself is one big lesson. The very reading of it is enough to start inducing the centred and balanced mind that we all wish to be at all times.

Yet I have noticed that it seems to throw into stark relief any and all negativity within oneself. It seems at times as though the situation with these is getting worse and not improving. Also, there is the recognition that this is a perception, as negative states have the light shined on them.

What I appreciate so much about the course is that it seems constantly in mind as a reminder of the good/true and beautiful, even when one is scarcely living up to that in behaviour and moods. It feels like a prompt to be gently alert and mindful of attitudes and behaviours, but not in a moralising or judgemental way. Not that this is a mandate for just continuing with any negative attitudes or behaviours, just that the unpalatable religious judgemental and condemning attitude is not there.

This is fairly new to me; a means whereby ones attitudes and behaviours are allowed to be gently challenged but in a context of total love and acceptance. It doesn’t have to be a mindfulness that is tainted by guilt or fearing punishment, either by God or by Karma or whatever other permutation of the two. Does this make sense?

Anna: Yes, to all. 

Working with the course does often seem to make things worse, as it uncovers what we have managed not to look at. And yet it is reassuring at the same time because it is saying there is no reason to be afraid to look at anything. Like when a child is frightened of its own shadow http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=xwZJhvOGiCs : the more you investigate, the more empowering and even funny it seems http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bb-ivbrcEg&feature=related.

The course does give you a wholly non-judgemental presence to take with you wherever you go and whatever you do. And it is not, like most spiritual teachings, to be left quietly outside the door when you lapse back into negative behaviour, to be picked up again when you come sheepishly out of your secret sense-of-failure room. The course teaches you to take its awareness in there with you; invite that sense of loving kindness, of unlimited faith in you, or Jesus, or the Holy Spirit or whatever you call it, to come along and keep you company while you do or think your worst or grapple with doubt and guilt. This may sound like taking your mother with you to an orgy, but no - it's about questioning the attraction of guilt, about holding on to your sense of humour and respecting the lesson of the moment.

This is what the workbook lessons are for. They give you a thought to apply to whatever happens during the day, especially the more lousy moments. If you feel eager to start the workbook, what are you waiting for? There are no rules about the order you take the three books of the course, or about finishing one before you start the next. The manual is perhaps the easiest to read; the clarification of terms at the end can be very helpful to dip into; the early workbook lessons in particular leave plenty of time for reading the text as well. As you say, the text is a lesson in itself, and includes many specific problem-solving key ideas and formulae. But the workbook is designed to help you apply the theory very practically to your own life.

There are few guidelines in the course at all, and they are only to help us make the most of it. The guide is in you; that's the whole point. So you do it as you feel you'd like.

Nature

Nick: It is easy to feel that love of nature is swept away by the course metaphysics. However, on reading so far (only up to page 200) there is nothing to say that one cannot enjoy nature. Its simply that it is a dualistic projection in its 'nature' and not the ultimate reality. I find that it is easy for the ego mind to start dismissing elements of the course because it reacts to the teaching with arguments such as: 'The course says that nature is not divinely created, therefore I can no longer enjoy nature walks and even a certain mystical unity with nature. Therefore I shall feel resentment to the course and nature at the same time just to get even!' 

That is a simplistic narrative of the sort of thing that seems to go through my mind; all of it questionable and not based on a deep perception of the teaching, or my current level of understanding of it.

Anna: As for the love of nature: to love anything, anyone, anywhere is what you are for. What the course does is reclaim that joy; it is you that you are rejoicing in. The beauty truly is in the beholder and not outside you - there is nothing outside you. The course challenges only our false sentiments. The ego has no originality; it only copies, fragments and distorts. So our world mirrors back to us the beauty of what we really are - but never a true absolute beauty, only a reflected beauty that is shattered into degrees and parts. It can only be perceived in contrast with something we have judged against. It always also hides a shadow side, so that even what we love most we have reservations about. We thrill to the song of a bird, but not so much when we recognise the song as a territorial challenge. We feel delight and wonder at the sight of a perfectly formed rose, but not when it is wilted. A fall of snow may transform a landscape into a fairyland, or sunshine make a beach into a paradise, but our satisfaction is always selective. All preferences imply a favouring of one thing and a disparaging of something else. The course never takes away anything real, but it does enlarge our comprehension of what is real.

Sorry this is so long and probably only says what you already know. The course is an unparalleled training in how to think succinctly, but you wouldn't believe it from the way some of us can waffle on about it. Of course, that's partly to defend against it - but that's a whole other topic for another time.

Career change

Nick: Another key issue I have is navigating towards a potential mid life career change, and seeking inspiration and guidance to get this move 'right'. I wondered if there is anything that the course says that could help me navigate through this wish and for me to enter work over the next few years that feels more 'me'. Accepting that little me is an illusory and non existent projection ultimately!

Anna: When you spoke earlier of experiencing, through the course or otherwise, that quietening and deepening, that sense of refuge and relief in the freedom from judgement, you are talking about being in your right mind. At those moments you are fulfilling what the course calls your ‘special function’. Just to be in that state of mind is doing what is 'right' for you. This is when the Holy Spirit, or Jesus, or whatever name you give that self-transcending awareness in us, knits up the ravelled sleeve of your mind, knits up everyone else's too through you (since our mind is the same mind). It doesn't feel as though you are doing anything - just resting from the world really - but this is when you lay down new neural pathways, as it were, which will become more and more irresistible, leading you of themselves into a way of being in this world but not of it. And you have already been doing this for years.

It is very liberating, I think, to realise that whatever you actually do in career terms has not the least significance in itself. The complete permissiveness of this can be quite shocking to us, used as we are to believing that one way of life is more fulfilling or spiritually better than another. But it does mean you can relax and explore and play and cast off expectations and aspirations alike, and see how the wind blows you, without feeling guilty or that you should be doing something worthy.

Yes, fatherhood challenges a man's anxiety about what he is and what he has or ought to have achieved (but doesn’t everything?). So bear this in mind always, whatever you decide: 'Nothing you do or think or wish or make is necessary to establish your worth. This point is not debatable except in delusions…Your worth is established by God’ (T4 1.7). Your worth is not the slightest bit affected by anything you do or say or think or feel or achieve or don't achieve. It is already absolute, and 'this point is not debatable.' How your body spends its day is only the classroom in which you will learn to shift from fear to love, from grievance to forgiveness, from withholding to giving; and all those same lessons will turn up whatever you are doing (or apparently failing to do) outwardly. Learning them is your special function, the task that is 'for you alone', because only you can forgive what only you have condemned, or stop being afraid of what you have made fearful. 

You may think this leaves you no further on, in that it is still up to you to make day to day practical decisions for yourself and take care of yourself and your family. It does not answer the 'what' but it does emphasize the how and the why. I think the 'what' only seems hard to fathom while superfluous fantasies and lurking fears are floating around in our minds. We so burden ourselves with judgements about what we ought to do or fancy ourselves as being that it is hard to trust that, as the course says, although you do not know what is in your own best interests there is one in you that does know. Trust that, and any decision you make will become helpful.

There may be no need to leave your present work, if it turns out to be a way to where something inside you intends you to be going anyway. Despite the lacklustre elements, there is always opportunity to learn (or unlearn), whatever your circumstances. As the course says, 'The only thing lacking in any situation is what you have not given.' In other words, you might find that you are in fact already in exactly the right place and time for you, and only need what Helen and Bill called 'a better way' of being there. Wholeheartedness is a cause, not an effect, of your line of work.

If this option does not seem hopeful, or even makes your heart sink, it may be that you really want, have already decided, to move on; in which case, go for it! All I recommend is that you listen to your own words and feelings and trust them, rather than be over-cautious or try to make decisions as the world would chide you to make.

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Conversation with Anna Bradbury

Anna B: Thanks again for the workshop on Saturday - I always get some good insight from them. You said right at the end that when we want something but we don't get it, the Course tells us it's because we don't want it so we don't get it. Would you be able to enlarge on that for me and give me a Course reference if possible?

Anna P: Thank you for being there and for all your helpful input. This is the reference, Workbook Lesson 253: 'It is impossible that anything should come to me unbidden by myself. Even in this world, it is I who rule my destiny. What happens is what I desire. What does not occur is what I do not want to happen. This must I accept...'

Despite the Course's frequent use of language which seems to suggest that they do, it also makes very clear that this is a metaphorical way of speaking, and that in truth God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit do nothing at all in this world. They do not make things happen, or stop things happening. Absolutely everything that occurs in our apparent lives, and all our personal wishes and fears, are being dreamed by the Dreamer that we really are. The Dreamer first dreams the ego world into apparent existence, and from then on reacts to that dream by reinforcing it, or else begins to cancel it out with the 'counter-dream' of the Holy Spirit. 

As individuals, we seem to have little choice about what happens, but we do still have the power to choose how we interpret any situation. We can still choose to be either disappointed and aggrieved, for instance, or forgiving, at peace and joyful. In fact, the Course says this is all we can do, as dream figures. We may not know on this bodily level what our own mind is doing to us or why, but we can remember we are that mind, and 'decide to see (the situation) right' (T12 VII 9). This does not mean deciding for ourselves what is ‘right’ (ego), but asking within for help in seeing truly.

It is when our own mind shifts from thinking with the false self to thinking with the symbols and thoughts of the true Self that a miracle seems to happen and we experience that all is well again. The miracle is not done for us by any supernatural agency; it happens when the Dreamer that we really are has (so to speak) turned over in her sleep and is now dreaming the 'counter-dream'. 

There are also many times when the miracle does not seem to happen. T9 II 3: ‘Everyone who ever tried to use prayer to ask for something has experienced what appears to be failure. This is not only true in connection with specific things that might be harmful, but also in connection with requests that are strictly in line with this course. The latter in particular might be incorrectly interpreted as "proof" that the course does not mean what it says. You must remember, however, that the Course states, and repeatedly, that its purpose is the escape from fear. Let us suppose, then, that what you ask of the Holy Spirit is what you really want, but you are still afraid of it. Should this be the case, your attainment of it would no longer be what you want. This is why certain specific forms of healing are not achieved, even when the state of healing is...It is possible that His answer will not be heard. It is impossible, however, that it will be lost. There are many answers you have already received but have not yet heard. I assure you that they are waiting for you.’

So the message is, you carry on anyway, with all the trust and patience you can muster. When what you want does not happen, you can search your mind for any dark corners of unforgiveness or fear, but the main thing is to remember that 'a happy outcome to all things is sure' (W 292)  and that 'nothing real can be threatened.' Just to focus on this automatically helps to shift the mind from wrong thinking to right thinking, from feeling powerless to strong again.

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Questions & Objections

The following replies were written in response to questions and comments raised by a student of the course. To study the course is to run into a mire of questions. Some seeming questions are really only rebuttals. No answer will satisfy them at this time. Some are real questions which express a wanting to understand, but neither can these be fully answered. They reflect a stage of the questioner’s own path of learning and will be finally resolved by him or herself. But the course encourages its students to take nothing for granted and to remain open-minded, and it is helpful to discuss the difficulties that many of its students may meet.

If the world is an illusion, who are all those people out there?

E: I sometimes get confused as to whether there's anybody out there or if everyone is just a figure in my dream. The first workbook lessons tell me that this or that body has no meaning. So is everyone only ever a figure in a dream?

A: Everything happens in the mind because mind is the thinking aspect of spirit, and spirit, thinking, is all there is. All the world we see ‘out there’ is the effect of mind staring into its own imagination, as if into a kind of ‘What the Butler Saw’ peepshow.

When you are asleep and dreaming, the figures you see in your dreams seem to have a real three-dimensional life of their own. It is only when you wake that you realise they were figments of your own imagination. Even the ‘I’ who seems to be observing and interacting with them, the central character to whom everything happens and who you think of as yourself, is just another aspect of the dream; as an author invents a hero or main protagonist and describes events and other characters as if though his eyes.

The world we see in dreams seems entirely real, until that bemused moment when we wake. The Course tells us that the whole vast physical universe in which we live may be compared to a dream: a cosmic dream taking place within a single infinite mind. As in a dream, the self we think we are and all those wonderfully varied others that we see around us are not really independent of each other, but all connected, the products or projections of one mind. It is not ‘you’ as an individual that is dreaming everyone else; but nor are you the helpless effect of someone else’s dream, such as an idea in the mind of God. The whole point of the Course is that you are not the dream, but the dreamer; and so is everyone else. As the hero of your particular viewpoint, you are responsible for how you describe (in your own mind, and to others) the events and other characters as you see them.

One mind is dreaming that it/he/she is endlessly refracted into millions of separate parts. Each part is sub-dreaming their own version of the same dream by seeing it through the lens of their own unique point of view. Each part sees all the rest as different from himself, and himself as on his own. Each thinks the world is real because he sees it, just as we do in dreams. A Course in Miracles teaches us to begin waking from this dream by first changing our own view of it. As long as we see everyone as necessarily separate, our relationships will be undermined by conflict, comparisons and jealousies. We will select some people for special favour, reject others, be warily indifferent to everyone else until our personal interests are involved – and lonely. But as soon as we begin to see all of us as parts of one whole, sharing the same fragmented plight and each looking in different ways for the same outcome – not as separate bodies competing for limited resources, but as one mind gradually waking to a realisation of its own unity – we can override this alternating partiality and hostility and overleap even the deepest divisions between us.

So it makes no practical difference whether there is anybody out there or not. As long as there seems to be a you and a somebody else, then there is a relationship to be resolved; a separation that is a potential coming together of minds, a difference of form that hides a single identity.

If no one is out there, why did Jesus bother to heal and teach them?

E: If everyone's just a figure in a dream, why would people like Jesus accomplish healings on others? The Course says 'I need do nothing', but Jesus was pretty engaged in talking to the outside world about his ideas, and healing. … If the world is a projection and there isn't really anyone out there, why would anyone make a life's work of giving out the ACIM message?

A: When the Course talks about its students becoming ‘miracle workers’ and ‘teachers of God’ we immediately assume it means doing good works for other people, making the world a better place, preaching words of truth, guiding others in right behaviour, encouraging everyone to be more loving and peaceful and so on. Scriptures from all religions speak of saints and enlightened beings doing all this, especially Jesus. But the Course methodically corrects this kind of idea, which misleadingly suggests that some people are special or more ‘spiritual’ and that they work some kind of magic.

The Course is clear: no one can heal anyone else. It is always an inner choice we make for ourselves, just as the apparent disease was in the first place. And in any case, bodies cannot be healed; only the wound in our mind can be mended, and that inner change may be reflected outwardly in the body. Similarly, no one will learn peace from a teacher until they are ready to hear their own remembrance of the truth.

So the only miracle anyone can ever work is to let go of all grievances in his own mind. But what an astounding effect this has; think of the difference it makes to you when someone loves you, trusts you, is happy to be with you, joyfully hugs you physically or metaphorically. This is truly healing. Love is what the ‘teacher of God’ teaches, not by telling you piously that you should love your neighbour, but by joyously loving you himself. It is as if one prisoner by escaping through a hole in the wall demonstrates a way to freedom for other prisoners. Some will follow (and experience healing), some will be too fearful for now…Eventually everyone will make the decision to escape, in his or her good time. Everyone’s ‘life work’ is only to keep their own compass clean and holding true…Those who discover this serve as teachers only like beacons in the dark, or as Krishnamurti called them, ‘signposts’. We are all teaching, or transmitting, all the time, blethering fear and rage and false values; but when we quieten the voice of the ego in ourselves, others can hear better the Christ in themselves.

Is it trivial to ask the Holy Spirit for help with my personal difficulties?

E: I have a question about how to avoid falling into the trap of making the relationship with the Holy Spirit special. If you recall, Ken (Wapnick) advises us not to use the Holy Spirit solely for purposes like finding car parking spaces or where to buy tights. (Not that I could even if I wanted to, since I don't get 'spoken to' in that way though I am beginning to think that's a blessing in disguise. So to some degree this question is theoretical since I'm not ever aware of getting a response. Though I understand that direction often comes indirectly, through other people, or dreams, or songs, etc. Or just through holding off on the knee-jerk response.) 

My question is: for what kind of thing can I usefully appeal to the Holy Spirit since the Course Workbook does recommend, in various places, turning to the Holy Spirit for direction, and we're told that we don't ask for help often enough? I'm not entirely sure where to draw the line, especially since everything I'm engaged in is supposed to be illusory anyway. Is a moral dilemma any less illusory than a search for tights? If my children are bugging me, for example, can I quickly say, in my mind, 'HS help me with this one?'

A: The short answer to your last question is yes. The instant you become aware of rising irritation, or any kind of upset, it is time to blink and rethink...and fifty regretful years later, it is still not too late. Calling on the Holy Spirit is another way of saying ‘I must be wrong, because I do not like the way I am feeling now’ (ref)…and ‘there is one in me that does know’ (ref). It is a way of snapping out of the spell that a one-sided reading of the situation has cast on you. 

It is well-known that we can access ideas, insights and creative solutions best by first quietening the preoccupations and judgments of the conscious mind, and that answers occur to the more relaxed and receptive state of mind, or even in dreams. There are also therapeutic techniques that involve ‘talking’ to dissociated aspects of one’s own mind to resolve inner conflicts: for example to your angry self, self-sabotaging self, creative self. Or these may be imagined in archetypal form, as goddess, wise old man, inner child. The Course teaches a great deal more than this, but this integrative approach is one way of understanding the Course’s emphasis on asking, listening to, relating to the Holy Spirit.

In the Workbook lessons, the Course presents the Holy Spirit, and Jesus, and at times God, as if they were distinct personalities to whom we can and should turn for help and guidance. The aim is to let a willingness to be guided become the default response to every situation. It is to loosen our tendency to decide for ourselves from the very limited and partisan point of view of the ego. It is to change any ambivalent and even hostile feelings about these ultimate spiritual symbols, into a dear familiarity. Imagined as beings wiser and more loving than we perceive ourselves, they enable us to call up the wise and loving certainties in our own minds. The Workbook of the Course is practical, helping its students to deal with the problems they perceive on the level of the body, since that is where we think we are. Its trains us to shift from wrong mindedness to right mindedness, from grievance to forgiveness, from anxiety to confidence. To do this we need to be guided by an Idea that represents the better choice in every dilemma.

But in this sense the Workbook is only a primer. In the Course as a whole, especially the Text, the Holy Spirit means far more than a personal guardian angel. It means a different state of mind altogether, a consciousness of unity that is not disturbed by fluctuating appearances. The purpose of the Holy Spirit is not (only) to make our lives in the world more cordial and our problems more manageable. If the very idea of a ‘Holy Spirit’ is difficult for many to tolerate because of its specifically Christian associations, it represents a lesson in forgiveness that will extend to all forms of intolerance. Others may adopt it magically as a kind of personal Genie of the Lamp who may be called up to answer their needs and fulfil their wishes. Some guiltily make the Holy Spirit into a watchful extension of their own conscience, or superstitiously curry favour by trying to be ‘good’: and then feel aggrieved when the hoped-for rewards do not materialize. All these are forms of making the Holy Spirit ‘special’. As ever when the ego is the motivator, specialness can be recognized by a furtive anxiety and guilt on the one hand, and self-satisfaction on the other, a sense of being superior or at least different from others, a secretly gleeful consciousness of having something others do not have. There is nothing wrong with this (so no excuse for further guilt) except that it diminishes and falsifies the meaning of the Holy Spirit and does not give you lasting peace of mind.

We might like to bring the Holy Spirit (or some equivalent) into the world to make it better…and to stay in control of our experiences. We would rather have our perceived problems magically taken away than have to change our minds. We want help, but perhaps not at the cost of letting go of our judgments and defences. But the Holy Spirit and Jesus - for these names are almost synonymous in the Course - both represent a bridge to another world, a different way of seeing that calls for a complete relinquishment of our own agenda and personal values, in a spirit of acceptance and trust. In a spiritual spirit, that is. The Holy Spirit represents an alternative way of thinking and reacting. It is an aspect of our own minds, but it is the only part that holds true. It enables us to live in the material world for as long as that seems real to us, without being confused, frightened or distracted by it. It is what links us to everyone else and to the ocean of reality in which we swim and of which we have forgotten we are an integral part.

I can't dismiss all the wonder and beauty in the world as an illusion

E: I dislike being encouraged to see the world as a mistake - particularly as I have children. Sometimes I see them, looking so beautiful, with their amazing bodies, and well, I have to admire the ego if it made that! It can't be all bad!

A: It is never a mistake to see beauty and innocence. This is our reality, and we can learn to see it everywhere and in everything. ‘It will flame out, like shining from shook foil… there lives the dearest freshness deep down things’, as Gerard Manley Hopkins puts it.  But what we see is an interpretation, and this is where mistakes creep in. The point the Course is making is that beauty and this innocence are in and of the mind. We have disowned them, and now see them apart from ourselves or just now and then, in only partial glimpses before we shut them out again. That is what the world and separate bodies are: images experienced in our consciousness, and more selectively put together than we realise. The ego is not creative: it is a faulty lens, a divisive way of seeing that can offer only the appearance of delights, but always comparative, limited, double-edged. Partiality is just that – only partly love.

Any attachment to beautiful forms has a fearful side – the fear of loss, for you know they will not be children or have that bloom of youth for ever; fear of harm, fear of losing possession, fear for how this beauty and innocence compares with yours. And all admiration is incomplete. You will love one feature more than another part, they will look lovelier in this light or situation than others, will be more appealing when you are in a good mood than a bad one, less beautiful when their noses are running or they are not doing what you want. And to judge your children’s bodies more favourably is to evaluate your own or others’ bodies as less lovely, less worthy of love.

When the Course talks of loving others for their mind and spirit, it is not to disparage the lovely forms of bodies, but so that you do not inadvertently limit anyone to an appearance and an identity that you have imposed upon them; or divide your own mind into loving and unloving compartments. Every ‘brother’ represents another call of love to love. The world seems to show us something else, a mix of lovely and horrible, joys that can change, time and people in disconnected parts. This fragmentation and selectivity is the mistake, the Course suggests, for it blinds us to what is truly beautiful and to an innocence we cannot lose.

The Course makes me feel even guiltier than before

E: I’m already so self-critical, it’s disheartening to be told that the very fact I’m in a body proves how deluded I am. The Course makes me feel even worse about myself.

A: One reason why traditional religion has become so unpopular is that it tells us we are sinners. A modern secular society has no use for the concept of sin and is more worried about not having enough money or fun than burning in a mythological hell. On the contrary, these days all the emphasis is on positive feedback. We expect gold stars and smiley faces, our personal ‘rights’ and our various peculiarities and deficiencies to be respected, even provided for. We rely on parents, teachers, lovers and entertainers to make us feel good, and our scientists to tell us what astonishing, unique creatures we are. If we are miserable it may be for a host of reasons, but not because we are sinners.

Yet it does not take much probing to uncover an undercurrent of shame and inadequacy that runs through the human psyche like a guilty secret. How little it takes to embarrass or worry us: a spot on the nose, an unforeseen situation, something derogatory someone says about us, someone else’s moment of success. How gratifying it can be when another person makes a mess of things, and how excruciating when we do. An occasional word of encouragement is not enough to dispel the creeping uncertainty about who we are and whether we are good enough. We are hyper-concerned with appearances, and even the most confident among us are as defensive about their own self-image as they are judgemental of others’.

This self-doubting phenomenon is what the Course calls guilt. It uses the traditional language of Christianity to express a universal psychological unease. We may think we have grown out of a superstitious belief in our own sinfulness, because it is harder to recognize it outside the religious context. We do not see our many anxieties as symptoms of guilt, or our many activities as efforts to hide it. The Course makes the point that no book or person or circumstance can make us feel guilty: we do that to ourselves. ‘You think you are the home of evil, darkness and sin. You think if anyone could see the truth about you he would be repelled…’ (Workbook Lesson 93). The whole purpose of the Course is to dispel a self-hate that we neither want to look at nor to let go.

Guilt in the Course does not refer to wrongdoing. The Course is not concerned with what bodies do, only with how minds think. We often blunder, fall into temptation, say and do appalling things. We regularly fail to say and do wonderful things. And we suffer from guilt for all these…but in fact we are not really as worried by such weaknesses as our self-reproaches would seem to imply. Our imperfections are humiliating but, as we console ourselves, only human: in fact, humanising. To be ‘perfect’, whatever that means, if it were even possible, risks being (a) no fun and (b) alienating from everyone else. It is indeed rather noble of us, we might think, to feel guilty at all about our shortcomings, since whose fault is it if we make mistakes – fate, God, the devil? Our upbringing? Our genes? Swinging between argument and apologies, we hide our sense of guilt behind excuses and denials. We compensate for it with arrogance, or punish ourselves for it with sickness, misfortune, depression. Above all, we project it outside ourselves. In almost everyone and everything we see something to criticise, feel threatened by, not love. ‘You think you hold against your brother what he has done to you. But what you really blame him for is what you did to him’ (Text 17 VII 8.2). What we cannot do is see a wholly blameless world.

Unlike religious teachings which exhort us to do good and reprove us as guilty when we do not, the Course tells us it is the other way round. First we label ourselves as guilty and then we find ways to ‘prove’ it. We make ourselves feel bad on purpose. We do wrong, feel wrong, are afraid of being wrong, to reflect and reinforce the belief that there is something fundamentally wrong with us. That desolate vision is so painful that we then deny it, cover it up, try to mitigate it by repenting or punishing ourselves, or by seeing fault in someone else. Until you realise just how addicted you are to guilt, you will not understand the Course’s offer to free you altogether from conflicting concepts like ‘good’ and ‘bad’. Nor can you see that to attack yourself is no better or worse than to attack anyone else, and that neither is ever justified.

‘Of all the many causes you perceived as bringing pain and suffering to you, your guilt was not among them’ (Text 27 VII 7.4). There is one cause for every problem you have and for all forms of unhappiness, and it is the one you least suspected: a fundamental self-contempt. The Course never attacks nor accuses anyone, but it does peel away the excuses and cover-ups that have hidden this deep-down sense of guilt from our awareness; and we are not immediately grateful for that. ‘Prisoners bound with heavy chains for years, starved and emaciated, weak and exhausted, and with eyes cast so long down in darkness they remember not the light, do not leap up in joy the instant they are made free. It takes a while for them to understand what freedom is’ (Text 20 III 9).

The essential theme of the Course is that a sense of guilt lies at the root of all suffering. All pain, then, is a form of self-punishment. And yet this guilt is an illusion, an interpretation based upon a misperception. There is no difference whether you criticise yourself or reproach another, or how justified or irrational the blame seems: to see guilt anywhere in anyone or anything is the same mistake. Undo the guilt, and suffering falls away. This is why the Course teaches forgiveness as the answer to every problem we perceive. You can learn to forgive others for the guilt you see in them, by recognising that it is your own unacknowledged guilt that is really upsetting you. You can learn to forgive yourself for the guilt you see in yourself, and to forgive all the natural or supernatural forces that you imagine have made you what you are.

In this process of letting go of condemnation, you find yourself reprieved. That secret sense of guilt was only a way of partially seeing, of taking sides, of separating what is the same into parts and judging between them. Forgiveness is a reconnecting process which resolves the broken arcs into a perfect whole. Forgiveness recognizes that all polarities (bully and victim, top dog and underdog, judge and defendant, you and me) are the result of a faulty way of seeing, as through a split lens; and refocuses the mind to perceive unity instead. Where there is no difference, there is no conflict; where there is no conflict, there is no harm done; and where there is no harm done, guilt is truly meaningless. This realisation is the journey the Course leads you towards peace of mind. ‘You have not lost your innocence. It is for this you yearn’ (Workbook Lesson 182.12).