Hope is the thing with feathers
Before I hope that you have a happy new year full of hope and
happiness, let me hover over the meaning of 'hope'. The Course emphasizes that we interpret every word, thought and
event either to reinforce illusions or to dispel them. We
make this choice so swiftly and subliminally that we do not seem to be choosing at all. But you can usually tell when
your thinking has lapsed back into self-delusion, because something does not
feel right: I must have decided wrongly,
because I am not at peace (T5 VII 6.6)
So there are two ways of understanding what it is to hope. What we mostly mean by hope
is only wishful thinking. It is the limp kind of hope that wishes
everything would magically arrange itself to suit yourself. You can hope you do well
in the exams or the interview, as if optimism will compensate for not doing
your homework. You can leave your umbrella at home and hope it will not rain;
but if it does, there is no reason to blame the weather for spoiling your day. Superstitious
hoping is especially directed at what you do not want to happen - 'fingers crossed', 'touch wood' - in an attempt to wave a magic wand at
imaginary forces of destiny: 'I hope I won't get sick', 'I hope I won't mess
up,' 'I hope someone else won't mess up', 'I'm praying I won't miss the last
train.' This kind of hoping sets yourself up for disappointment, gears your
mind to expect exactly what you feared, and proclaims it is not your fault how things turn out. 'I never asked
to be born!' 'Just my luck!' 'Isn't it always the way?!'
To hope that something thrilling will happen, or that
something awful will not happen, is to lay the responsibility for your peace of
mind on other people and on external events. 'Hoping' in this sense is to reduce yourself or someone else to being a hapless victim of circumstances. 'Hoping' is
how we dodge being present and decisive as each situation unfolds. This kind of
hope is an expression of uncertainty, and only adds to the anxiety it is meant to
dispel.
If you imagine what might happen, very often the
outcome is startlingly close to what you imagined. So you might as well imagine what you would like to happen. This is at least empowering, if you
have believed yourself a victim of circumstances. It is a way of reminding yourself that There are no idle thoughts. All thinking
produces form at some level (T2 VI 9.13). But a tranquil mind is not
attached to any particular outcome, and knows it does not know what is best for
anyone. If you really 'hope'
for peace and joy, do not look for them in the future, but let them come to
mind here and now. Then 'hoping' becomes irrelevant.
There is another way of understanding hope that is not uncertain. It is grounded in conviction, because it is a remembering of what for
you is most true and lovely. This kind of hope does not depend on anything changing outwardly. It is the answer to any form of fear
or horror, because the mind is free to affirm love and beauty at any moment, even
in the apparent absence of both.
Hope 'springs eternal' because it
is the mind's memory of its own reality. Reality can be denied, ignored and resisted,
but it remains unaltered. It will find a way to reach you, sudden and surprising as
a blackbird singing in the night; in that instant when for a moment the heart lifts and fear falls
away. Hope asks nothing, does nothing. It only restores the soul to itself. We
do not need to 'hope' that hope will join us for another year. It is already here, perched
in the mind. It never stops - at all -
“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -
And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -
I’ve heard it in the chillest land
And on the strangest Sea
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.
And on the strangest Sea
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.
Emily
Dickinson
The Useless Journey, or the Journey Home?
Workshop 8: Saturday 2nd
May
Remember the old riddle about the two doors guarded by two
guardians? One door is the way to happiness, the other to hell, only you don't
know which is which. One guardian always speaks the truth, the other always
lies, but you don't know which is which. They will answer just one question.
How can you find out which door to go through?
For centuries Christianity has told us that we must choose
between the road to heaven and the road to hell. The Course uses the same metaphor to say the same thing, but with a crucial difference. Religion presents
heaven and hell as equally real. Heaven is a promise of future rewards for good
behaviour, while hell threatens a terrible retribution for our sins. The
Course, however, tells us that good behaviour is nothing to do with true
happiness, and that sin and hell do not exist except in our frightened and
childish imagination. The only real choice we have is between freedom from
illusions or a self-inflicted suffering. That is, you can use your mind lucidly
and focus on what is only true, life-giving and loving; or you can use it fearfully
to disconnect, to perceive yourself as attacked or justified in attacking. The
first is creative and enduring, a 'journey home' to completion. The second is a
painful and ultimately self-defeating process of disintegration. It is a 'useless
journey' because it is a mistake, a mirage, a dead end.
There are two teachers
only, who point in different ways. And you will go along the way your chosen
teacher leads. There are but two directions you can take, while time remains
and choice is meaningful. For never will another road be made except the way to
Heaven. You but choose whether to go toward Heaven, or away to nowhere. There
is nothing else to choose. (T26 V 1)
The trouble is that from where we stand, there seem to be a
million directions. Our self-appointed 'teacher' is the slippery ego with its
one agenda: to keep us disconnected, deluded and in denial.
Its dictates, then,
can be summed up simply as: "Seek and do not find." This is the one promise the ego holds out to you, and the
one promise it will keep (T12 IV 1)
Do you realize that
the ego must set you on a journey which cannot but lead to a sense of futility
and depression? To seek and not to find is hardly joyous.
The 'useless journey' is the life spent seeking for
happiness where it cannot be found. We each think our life story is unique, but
the blueprint is the same for all. To live in the ego's world is to repeatedly act
out the ego's drama of alienation, guilt, regret and finally death.
The dreaming of the
world takes many forms, because the body seeks in many ways to prove it is
autonomous and real. It puts things on itself that it has bought with little
metal discs or paper strips the world proclaims as valuable and real. It works
to get them, doing senseless things, and tosses them away for senseless things
it does not need and does not even want. It hires other bodies, that they may
protect it and collect more senseless things that it can call its own. It looks
about for special bodies that can share its dream. Sometimes it dreams it is a
conqueror of bodies weaker than itself. But in some phases of the dream, it is
the slave of bodies that would hurt and torture it.
The body's serial
adventures, from the time of birth to dying are the theme of every dream the
world has ever had (T27 VIII).
There is another use for the body,
though, and for its life in this apparent world. The mind can escape its own
illusions by waking up to reality. But first it must want to. It must become aware that it is asleep and chasing dreams and
being chased by them, before it can decide it has had enough futility and grief,
and wake up. The Course is only another dream, but it is a dream that prepares
us for waking. It represents one of 'many thousands' of such processes of inner
change, like a lucid dream that introduces a dawning awareness into the
dreaming mind. This process is the 'journey home'. There is nowhere to go except
to stop going nowhere. There is no
journey, only an awakening (T13 I 7).
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...Together we can meet its conditions, but truth will dawn upon you
of itself (T8 VI 9).
This will be the last in this present series of workshops The Two Uses of Time. For details and
bookings, email anna@unlearningschool.com.
Magic, or Miracles?
Cross your fingers, touch wood, don't step on the cracks on
the pavement, wear your lucky amulet...if you laugh at such superstitious
nonsense, do you all the same feel uneasy, a thin chill of dread, as if you
have defied the gods? Perhaps not. But do you ever talk of circumstances or
people as being 'lucky' or 'unlucky'? We do not often question common idioms
like 'heaven-sent' or 'Sod's Law', over-used adjectives like 'incredible!!!'
and 'amazing!!!' - let alone examine our personal repertoire of strategies and
defences. How much do your beliefs, your state of mind and your expectations
affect your falling ill, and your recovery? Where do you draw the line between knowledge
and supposition? Where does the body end and the mind begin?
The Course uses the terms 'magic' and 'miracle' quite
specifically to mean the way you use your mind: mindlessly, or mindfully; to
project guilt, or to extend love; to perpetuate fear, or to heal; to connect,
or to separate. Magic serves the ego's secret purposes, while miracles undo the
ego and all its effects. But before we can let go of 'magic thinking' and
become 'miracle minded', we need to explore what the words do and do not mean
in this context.
And then we can ask, how do these ideas apply to your
relationships? To your health and happiness? To your understanding and peace of
mind?
Workshop 7: Saturday
11th April
For inquiries and bookings, contact
anna@unlearningschool.com.
Childish, or Childlike?
The next workshop in our present series about making choices is on Saturday 14th March.
With reference to Peter Pan, Pinocchio and the Selfish Giant - and other stories - we will talk about innocence and illusion, the fear of growing up, and our own child selves, past and present.
The difference between being childish and being childlike has nothing to do with age, and everything to do with truth and love. We are sentimental about childhood, and remain childishly fearful and self-preoccupied as adults. Yet we allow ourselves to lose touch with the essentially childlike qualities of vitality, trust and innocence that give our lives integrity and meaning. Spiritually speaking, we repeatedly throw out the shining baby and keep the grimy bathwater, until we learn to know the difference and to make another choice.
This world you seem to
live in is not home to you. And somewhere in your mind you know that this is
true. A memory of home keeps haunting you, as if there were a place that called
you to return, although you do not recognize the voice, nor what it is the
voice reminds you of. Yet still you feel an alien here, from somewhere all
unknown. Nothing so definite that you could say with certainty you are an exile
here. Just a persistent feeling, sometimes not more than a tiny throb, at other
times hardly remembered, actively dismissed, but surely to return to mind
again.
No one but knows
whereof we speak. Yet some try to put by their suffering in games they play to
occupy their time, and keep their sadness from them. Others will deny that they
are sad, and do not recognize their tears at all. Still others will maintain
that what we speak of is illusion, not to be considered more than but a dream. Yet
who, in simple honesty, without defensiveness and self-deception, would deny he
understands the words we speak? (W182)
Inquiries and bookings: anna@unlearningschool.com
No without Guilt
Next workshop coming up, on Saturday 7th February - note for this month only, the workshop is on the first Saturday in the month instead of the second as usual.
Workshop 5: No without Guilt
Specifically, the workshop will include:
- Why we feel guilty when we say No
- Why the world opposes us at every turn
- Authority: why coercion never works
- How (not) to correct errors in someone else
- How (not) to correct errors in yourself
- Temptation: the cure that always works
- How (not) to change the world
- What it means to 'deny the denial of truth'
- How No becomes Yes
At least, that's the plan so far.
See you soon! Or if No - some other time.
With love,
Anna
Yes without Sacrifice
This next workshop is about
selfishness and unselfishness, giving and receiving, and why love is the opposite of sacrifice. If you lose out,
if you suffer at all, it cannot be from loving or giving too much, but too
little.
To have, give all to all
We will consider
the difference between the 'unhealed healer' and one who is 'truly helpful'.
The unhealed healer thinks that being nice, or trying to please, or wanting to fix
other people's problems, or taking their problems seriously, is being loving. But
His ego will always seek to get something
from the situation. The unhealed healer therefore does not know how to give...
So how can you be 'truly helpful' instead, and why should you? Because your own healing depends on it.
We will be looking
at what 'healing' means and how it happens, according to the teaching of the
Course. Here are some clues:
1. Only the mind
needs healing
2. Only your mind needs healing
3. Sickness and
pain have a purpose. When we have no more use for them, they disappear
4. Healing is not
something you do, but more about what you stop doing. When you question your
assumptions, let go of a fear, or drop your opposition to something or someone,
you make a space for a different perception to come about.
Workshop 4: Yes Without Sacrifice
10.30 am - 2.30 pm
Andover, Hampshire UK
Enquiries and bookings: email anna@unlearningschool.com
Thorns and Lilies
The reward for being a unique,
individual self is that you are special and apart from everyone else. The cost
is that you are apart from everyone else, and confined to your own special, blinkered
point of view. You have sentenced yourself to a life of solitary confinement and
thrown away the key.
'Hell is other people,' Sartre said.
Other people show us ourselves in a shameful light, and we return the favour. We
long for relationships to bring us fulfillment and happiness, yet nothing causes
us so much complicated pain, guilt and grief. How can we bridge our differences?
How much do we want to?
Forgiveness is the closest we can
get to love in this world, the Course tells us. But we cannot understand what it is talking about until we change our minds about what our relationships are for, and who we are relating with; and what forgiveness really means. We have made an ugly and meaningless thing of the most true and loving interchange with another person that we are capable of experiencing.
What is the world's idea of forgiveness? To
cast your sin in stone and then 'say no more about it'...only to throw it at
you if you offend again. The world says 'I forgive you, because I am a morally
superior person, but you don't
deserve it.' Or, 'I forgive you, but I
never want to see you again.' Or, 'I forgive you, but God or karma will get you in the end, and serve you right.' This
is not forgiveness, but only a convoluted form of revenge.
You
stand beside your brother, thorns in one hand and lilies in the other,
uncertain which to give. Join now with me and throw away the thorns, offering
the lilies to replace them (T20 I 2).
The person you love, and the
person you love to hate, and all those people you do not think about at all until they
intrude on your personal space, hold the key to your happiness in their
oblivious hands. The ark of peace is
entered two by two (T20 IV 6.5). Peace of mind is not achieved by any one
alone, but by any one in true relationship with any other. And that means changing your mind about how you think of him, her, all of them. Including yourself.
Saturday 13th December: Thorns and Lilies
Workshop 3 in the series The Two Uses of Time
10.30 am to 2.30 pm
31 Harrow Way, Andover SP10 3RQ
£35
See you soon.
Asking for More
When I was growing up, we were taught '"I want" doesn't get.' But now the fashion has swung right the other way. The message today is: 'Follow your dream, do what you love, go for it, the sky's the limit.' So you are free to ask, what do I want? In fact, it is essential, for if you do not know what you want, how can you make decisions at all? But we can be conflicted about what we want, let alone about asking for it.
We are all incomplete and striving
for completion. Even if we know that what we want is something intangible - like
a happier state of mind - we still look for specific solutions to fix any lack
as we experience it. From the large needs we all know - for food, for money, for
supportive relationships, for health, for shelter and warmth - to the minor and
personal ones like wanting to paint your room a different colour or get a new
umbrella to replace the one you left on the train, we are always wanting something.
But we may not know what exactly,
or why, or how much we want it, or what to do about it. In this workshop we
will look at all of these; along with the meaning of scarcity and abundance,
the power of the mind to choose, and what the choices are. What is the
connection between the ambiguous granting of wishes in fairy stories, the
lilies of the field, the famous scene in Oliver
Twist and the two voices described in
A Course in Miracles: one which gleefully whispers 'Seek and do not find'
(T12 IV 1), and the even more silent one which promises 'If you ask you will
receive' (T11 VIII 5)?
What do you want, what do you not want, how can you know what is best
for you anyway - and where do such questions lead you? Begin writing your wish-list
now! for it will keep changing as you get closer to the heart of what you want.
Saturday 8th November
10.30 am to 2.30 pm
31 Harrow Way, Andover SP10 3RQ
£35
Let me know if you would like to come and have not already booked.
Please send your payment in advance to confirm a place.
I can send you an easy Paypal invoice by email, or my bank
details for online transfer; or send your cheque made out to Anna Powell, to 31
Harrow Way, Andover, Hampshire SP10 3RQ. Thank you!
See you soon.
The Two Uses of Time
The latest series of workshops is all about the power of
choice. In our world we are spoiled for choice, ever pressed to make decisions,
vote between one uncertainty and another. But what choices do you really have,
on what basis do you choose between them, and in the end, what difference does
it make? We will be looking at how the radical teaching of A Course in Miracles points past all our doubts, desires, striving
and moral arguments to the peace that comes with one single certain thought: The
truth is true. Nothing else matters, nothing else is real, and everything
beside it is not there (T14 II 3.3).
But what has that to do with your
actual experience, when the washing machine breaks down or your money has run
out, when the kids are screaming or your relationship has gone cold, when you
are lonely, sad, sick or in pain? Everything! this is a very practical course,
and one that means exactly what it says (T8 IX 8). These workshops are
about finding a better way of thinking, and of living wholeheartedly from the
reality in you outwards. Within a small informal group, whether you are a
Course student or not, here is an opportunity to discuss and consider some of
its far-reaching ideas and see for yourself the transformative effect they can
have.
The power of decision is your one remaining freedom as a prisoner of
this world. You can decide to see it right (T12 VII 9).
The workshops begin on Saturday October 11th with The Two Uses of Time. Time is 'meaningless',
'a vast illusion', only 'a little hindrance to eternity'...But try telling that
to your boss, or turning up late for an important appointment. The Course does
not ask us to contort our thinking to try and believe the impossible, or to
deny the reality we live in: since you do believe in it, why should you
waste it going nowhere, when it can be used to reach a goal as high as learning
can achieve? (T26 V 2).
All workshops are held at 31 Harrow Way, Andover SP10 3RQ - please ask if you would
like directions. The railway station is conveniently close, and for anyone
coming from London there is a train from Waterloo around 9.50.
Doors open from just after 10 am, to give people time to
arrive and have a cup of coffee or tea before the workshop starts at 10.30.
Please bring something to contribute to a shared lunch. We will stop for lunch
around 12.30 for an hour, then continue with discussion and questions until the
workshop ends at 2.30 pm.
Numbers are limited, so if you have not booked already
please let me know if you would like to come. Each workshop is £35 for the day,
or only £180 if you book in advance for the series. Please send cheques made
out to Anna Powell to 31 Harrow
Way, Andover,
Hampshire SP10 3RQ, or email me for an easy Paypal invoice or for bank details.
Thank you! See you soon.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)