The horrific events of this week at Virginia Tech have made us all pause. Those of us who study the path of Reason found in A Course in Miracles, see it as but another reason to seek out this philosophy based on relinquishment of the world; or what is also known as the path of forgiveness. To a much larger extent than I ever dreamed possible, I have been freed from the emotional agony or state of confusion that often follows such events. I feel more able to find relative peace in a very conflicted world.
If you are a Course student, you know that the Course does not advocate having a plan for solving the problems of the world. It teaches that the only plan we need is one to heal our mind, for that is where the world really is. The Course tells us that there is no world out there. The only problem in the world is the belief in investment in it. This is because the world, as we learn in the Course, is the ego’s attempt to project our buried guilt outward. It is a place where we have chosen to hide from God due our belief that we separated from Him.
So, turning the other cheek as Jesus advocates, is the best way to find peace, because it is witness to the fact that you have begun to ‘forgive’ the world of illusions. All easier said, than done, for sure! This is why the message of the Course needs constant clarification….it is very hard to come to grips with this idea.
To accept the Atonement for ourselves, which is what the Course says is our only responsibility, is to forgive ourselves and others, and all we have projected out from our mind, into a world that then seems to witness to death and destruction. That means we do not worry if anyone else forgives or not, or lives a life worthy of sainthood or a life of murder! This can be extended to say that we also needn’t worry if we ourselves or loved ones are threatened by this sort of terror.
We who study the Course, do find ourselves believing we are at various levels of our present state of ability to forgive, and this example helps us to see the fallacy of this. The goal of the Course is to find Peace and to do so, we must remain in non judgment of all the world, and all events, as equally, unreal. An event like this, opens our eyes to see where we as Course students might still have a belief that there are SOME things we consider unforgivable. But to think this is to believe that God can be beaten, and we, the ego, have triumphed over Him. Evil won over Goodness.
Indeed, the world seems a place in which we need to choose between good and evil, wrong and right. But as Jesus says in the Course, there really is no choice if God is all powerful; how could there be? We only believe there is a choice. And this has led to a world in which see reasons to judge one another.
Can judgment lead to anything but finding sin? Can judgment heal? If you look always to the purpose of each thought, you will find you get what you sought for. If we look at the gunman at the college from a place of judgment, we see a reason to believe in sin. If we look at the victims from a place of judgment, we see a need to acknowledge who was more worthy to live, the criminal or the victim? elevating the deceased to a higher level in our mind than the criminal. Again, finding levels of ‘goodness’ and of worth.
THE TEMPTATION OF JUDGMENT
It is not uncommon for those who study this path of forgiveness to want to hold on to the choice that demands acknowledgment of wrong doing, repentance and judgment, because, most likely we’ve been taught to do so by our Christian faith. The Course, though claiming Jesus as its Teacher, teaches the opposite. Judgment and the need to repent keeps us from freedom and realizing our will and God’s are united.
It is easy to fall into the temptation of condemnation. It is easy to follow the footsteps of those leading the way in anger and the desire to publicly denounce terrorizing behavior, which of course, is not behavior that works in society, and no one in their right mind would disagree with that. What the Course says however, is that nothing works in society because nothing that the ego believes can be agreed upon! What is able to join, must be part of a whole to begin with. The ego is by definition, pieces independent from the whole.
It is obvious that it is not the judgment of behavior that leads us Home. It is only in the forgiveness of it that we are able to see no need for condemning, no need for anger or hatred.
In ‘The Lighthouse’, a newsletter from the Foundation for Inner Peace dedicated to the teachings of the Course, Kenneth Wapnick says this in regards looking at both the victim and those we perceive as inflicting the suffering:
“If we are sincere about helping those who suffer, we must be sure we are not angry at those we believe have inflicted the suffering. If we are, we but ensure that in our dream everyone will suffer throughout eternity. Utopian visions, however noble, have not worked because the inner work of forgiveness has not been done. And so if we truly wish to end suffering, we must first end our belief in suffering, which begins in the mind. When this belief is undone, there will be no unkindness in us for guilt will be gone; without self-judgment there can be no judgment of others for we have made up the only important decision there is; the decision to listen to the teacher of gentleness and kindness. ”How, then, can we not be gentle and kind? We will know we chose Jesus and not the ego by our embrace of all people; the ones who suffer and the ones inflicting it. Having accepted the atonement we have become true teachers of the peace that heralds the end of all suffering.”
In summary, we can rest assured it is not the Voice of Spirit within we are listening to when we want to condemn the murderer or preach about right and wrong behavior of any kind. Jesus tells us plainly in the Course:
“The voice of the Holy Spirit does not command, because it incapable of arrogance. It does not demand, because It does not seek control. It does not overcome, because It does not attack. It merely reminds. It is compelling only because of what It reminds you of. It brings to your mind the other way, remaining quiet even in the midst of the turmoil you may make. The Voice for God is always quiet, because It speaks of peace. Peace is stronger than war because it heals. War is division, not increase. No one gains from strife. What profiteth it a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? If you listen to the wrong voice, you have lost sight of your soul. You cannot lose it, but you can not know it. It is therefore ‘lost’ to you until you choose right.” T.5.II.7
So, in regards to solving the problems of the world such as gunman killing our youth, or bombs killing the Iraqi’s, we need only to see that we don’t want to ‘gain the world’ by trying to fix it. We want to leave judgment of it behind us because by this our state of peace will spread to all of God’s Sons and there will only be kindness, as Ken’s quote tells us. In the present, we need only try to understand by asking Spirit to hold our hand, that both the criminal and the victim need no judgment but only our Love and forgiveness.
The temptation is to listen to the cries of judgment and see them as righteous and good, instead of stopping and asking Spirit what to feel and consequently, how to act. This Voice that lives within us all, will give us discernment, allowing us to live in relative peace in a conflicted world, until we are ready to leave it all behind.
It would be healing for us all to think upon the Virginia Tech incident and others like it and read these words from the Course to us, with Spirit’s hand in ours:
“When you have looked on what seemed terrifying, and seen it change to sights of loveliness and peace; when you have looked on scenes of violence and death, and watched them change to quiet views of gardens under open skies, with clear, life-giving water running happily beside them in dancing brooks that never waste away; who need persuade you to accept the gift of vision? And after vision, who is there who could refuse what must come after? Think but an instant just on this; you can behold the holiness God gave his Son. And never need you think that there is something else for you to see.”
And to those words, I say AMEN!
“The voice of the Holy Spirit does not command, because it incapable of arrogance. It does not demand, because It does not seek control. It does not overcome, because It does not attack. It merely reminds. It is compelling only because of what It reminds you of. It brings to your mind the other way, remaining quiet even in the midst of the turmoil you may make. The Voice for God is always quiet, because It speaks of peace. Peace is stronger than war because it heals. War is division, not increase. No one gains from strife. What profiteth it a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? If you listen to the wrong voice, you have lost sight of your soul. You cannot lose it, but you can not know it. It is therefore ‘lost’ to you until you choose right.” T.5.II.7
So, in regards to solving the problems of the world such as gunman killing our youth, or bombs killing the Iraqi’s, we need only to see that we don’t want to ‘gain the world’ by trying to fix it. We want to leave judgment of it behind us because by this our state of peace will spread to all of God’s Sons and there will only be kindness, as Ken’s quote tells us. In the present, we need only try to understand by asking Spirit to hold our hand, that both the criminal and the victim need no judgment but only our Love and forgiveness.
The temptation is to listen to the cries of judgment and see them as righteous and good, instead of stopping and asking Spirit what to feel and consequently, how to act. This Voice that lives within us all, will give us discernment, allowing us to live in relative peace in a conflicted world, until we are ready to leave it all behind.
It would be healing for us all to think upon the Virginia Tech incident and others like it and read these words from the Course to us, with Spirit’s hand in ours:
“When you have looked on what seemed terrifying, and seen it change to sights of loveliness and peace; when you have looked on scenes of violence and death, and watched them change to quiet views of gardens under open skies, with clear, life-giving water running happily beside them in dancing brooks that never waste away; who need persuade you to accept the gift of vision? And after vision, who is there who could refuse what must come after? Think but an instant just on this; you can behold the holiness God gave his Son. And never need you think that there is something else for you to see.”
And to those words, I say AMEN!
