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Part 5
1. Self-worth and sinlessness
2. The
End of Seeking
3.
Requirements for Spiritual Awakening
4. Nisargadatta
Maharaj's Spiritual Awakening
from I Am That
compared to A Course in
Miracles
5.Rest and
Relax - love is
waiting to come in
6. Love and
Fear - are Both Real?
7. Seek
Not To Change The World
8. Breaking the
Spell of Thought
9. Jesus and A Course in Miracles
11. Don't ask
how to be at peace.
Rather ask, why do I leave peace?
13. Thinking
Is Not Going To Get You There
2. The End of Seeking.
Sometimes when I am waking in the morning, I may receive some
helpful advice. It's that time when one is partly awake,
and partly asleep. The thinking mind hasn't fully started up,
and this seems to give spirit a chance to get in. It seems
spirit will take any chance that it is given! Recently, I was
given a picture of the spiritual seeker on his journey back
home. He was walking along this very long path, which eventually
led to the top of a mountain. He was tired, but kept on moving.
However, as he was moving along the path, there was a hand
reaching down from above his head. This hand was trying to lift
him up, into peace and joy. But the seeker could not see this
hand, for he always had his eyes on the distant goal of the
mountaintop. One day the seeker was so exhausted by his search
he stopped on the path. He had surrendered, he had given up his
search. It was then he looked up and saw the hand above him. To
his amazement the hand reached down and lifted him back to
heaven.
Why wait for Heaven? Those who
seek the light are merely covering their eyes. The light is in
them now. Enlightenment is but a recognition, not a change at
all.
A Course in Miracles Lesson188
When people cannot find peace and happiness following the
goals of the material world, they often start a spiritual
search. After all, if you don't search how can you find
it? When I was in my 20s, I lived in London and had access
to some of the best spiritual bookshops there were. I felt if I
looked long enough, I would find a book that had the truth in
it. I found that this searching was both pleasurable and
exciting. All I had to do was follow this path and it will
eventually lead me to the truth that I was seeking.
One of the teachers I was drawn to was Jiddu Krishnamurti. I had
been following Buddhism for about five years before I first came
across his books. As I was reading his first book I was
delighted to see him putting organised religions into the
dustbin. But then he put Buddhism into the dustbin! I
found that very disturbing, as this thought system had given me
security. Krishnamurti seemed to be against all forms of
organised thought. Later I was to read the following:
I maintain that Truth is a
pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path
whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. That is my point of
view, and I adhere to that absolutely and unconditionally.
Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any
path whatsoever, cannot be organised; nor should any
organisation be formed to lead or coerce people along any
particular path. If you first understand that, then you will
see how impossible it is to organise a belief.
From part of the speech made by Jiddu Krishnamurti in 1929 when
he dissolved the Order of the Star (his own organisation).
A path can only lead to a fixed object. What if truth is not
fixed? What if truth is ever new? Our minds dislike things that
cannot be labelled and categorised and nicely ordered.
Minds like to be in control, it makes them feel secure.
Recently I received the following guidance:
We use our concepts of God to
direct and redirect ourselves and the direction of our lives.
It takes humans a long time to realize that there is no
concept for God and no direction to Him. The oneness we crave
dissolves the moment we set ourselves on a path. To stop in
the oneness requires dissolution of ourselves, so we keep
moving on our path hastily.
This guidance made it very plain that our identification with
the ego - the idea that we are separate - is kept safely intact
whilst we pursue the seeming noble search for God. As I
get older I have a great respect for the cleverness and the
subtlety of the ego. As the Course points out:
…. the ego's maxim, (is) "Seek
but do not find" T-16.V.6:5
To seek something we must know what we are seeking, otherwise
how would we recognise it? Truth is not objective, is not "out
there". People who spiritually awaken, who have lost a sense of
personal identity, are often surprised by what they find. It is
not as they imagined.
The mind cannot know truth; it's not designed for that purpose.
The mind is a wonderful tool for our day-to-day living. You
could not be reading this now without its help. The
American teacher Adyashanti refers to this type of mind as the
"toolbox mind". If you want to study science then you will
need to reach into your toolbox mind and get out the tools of
reason and logic. You won't get far without them. If we try to
use the toolbox mind to find truth, we will condemn ourselves to
a lifetime of fruitless search and desperation.
I think most people who desire to discover their spiritual
reality will embark on a spiritual search. I certainly
did. By the time I was in my 30s I had collected about
1500 spiritual books. My mind had become a spiritual
library. Books can be very helpful at the beginning, but
at some point they become a block. This also applies to A
Course in Miracles, as we can see from the following quotation
from the Course:
Simply do this: Be still, and
lay aside all thoughts of what you are and what God is; all
concepts you have learned about the world; all images you hold
about yourself. Empty your mind of everything it thinks is
either true or false, or good or bad, of every thought it
judges worthy, and all the ideas of which it is ashamed. Hold
onto nothing. Do not bring with you one thought the past has
taught, nor one belief you ever learned before from anything.
Forget this world, forget this course, and come with wholly
empty hands unto your God.
Lesson 189
Perhaps many of us do need to seek so we can discover that it's
fruitless and put it aside. The sooner we can see the trap of
spiritual seeking the happier we will be.
This is the irony, the great cosmic joke, the great secret of
"enlightenment." When the person who searches for enlightenment
dissolves, then and only then is the object of the search
revealed - having been obscured all along by the "me" who wanted
it.
The discovery that "personal
enlightenment" is a myth can be received as quite a shock.
From my own experience I can verify that the mind and
personality does not happily embrace this discovery when it is
first glimpsed, for it makes one look somewhat ridiculous. All
the searching, all the practicing, all the trying to "get" it,
is seen as worthless, is seen as having per perpetuated the
illusion of "me," as having obscured what was and is already
here, what all this striving and practicing is occurring
in-one's own limitless Self.
Surprised By Grace by
Amber Terrell
If we are honest with ourselves we will see that we want to
attain enlightenment. We want to add enlightenment to ourselves.
I am now enlightened we say. In the Bible this is referred to as
sitting on the right-hand side of God. Notice however that you
are still there. Now it's you and God together in heaven. This
is very comforting to the ego, because the ego is still alive.
The ego has attained enlightenment. But enlightenment is the
absence of the ego! Only when you, the me story, is gone can
your spiritual reality dawn upon you. This is why we keep
moving on the spiritual path. It's as if God can't hit a moving
target. Seeking truth can become a game and we are happy
to seek as long as we don't find it! We are no longer a material
seeker but are now a spiritual seeker.
Once you forget yourself, God
remembers you: once you've become His slave, then you are
free.
Rumi
One is more likely to awaken
through surrender than through seeking to waken. The effort to
awaken is the effort of ego, whereas to surrender is to give
up all efforts and to place oneself in the hands of a vast
force that is more powerful than any realization of non
duality. When one finally gives up one’s futile attempts to
make reality conform to one’s own wishes, and allows it to
unfold on its own terms, all the energy that was tied up in
foolish attempts to manipulate the universe is freed up.
Halfway up the Mountain - the
Error of Premature Claims to Enlightenment by Mariana Caplan.
Hohm Press 1999
All the above leads to the eventual conclusion that if you want
to avoid truth, seek it! It is the ego's arrogance that
thinks it knows the way to God. It first decides what God is,
and then designs a path to Him. The ego is happy for us to
work with A Course in Miracles for it can make our desired goal
appear a long way off and thus ensure we will remain faithful to
the ego and its advice. The Course, however, thinks
otherwise.
We don't know the way to God.
From Lesson 189
Is it not He Who knows the way
to you? You need not know the way to Him. Your part is simply
to allow all obstacles that you have interposed between the
Son and God the Father to be quietly removed forever. God will
do His part in joyful and immediate response. Ask and receive.
We do not remove the obstacles, instead we become aware of the
obstacles and agree to release them. These are the first two
steps of forgiveness, the third is automatic - the removal of
the guilt by spirit.
But do not make demands, nor
point the road to God by which He should appear to you.
Our demand of God is to make us happy here in the ego's world.
We resent God for not giving us what we want especially if we
think we are faithfull students of His Course
The way to reach Him is merely
to let Him be. For in that way is your reality proclaimed as
well.
We must forget about trying to change God into the one we want -
a God who treats us special. Humility is needed - we have been
wrong about everything - we know nothing about how to be in a
constant state of peace and quiet joy.
And so today we do not choose
the way in which we go to Him. But we do choose to let Him
come.
We realise we have made a mistake in letting the ego be our
teacher.
And with this choice we rest.
And in our quiet hearts and open minds, His Love will blaze
its pathway of itself. What has not been denied is surely
there, if it be true and can be surely reached. God knows His
Son, and knows the way to him. He does not need His Son to
show Him how to find His way.
Father, we do not know the way
to You. But we have called, and You have answered us. We will
not interfere. Salvation's ways are not our own, for they
belong to You.
We need to admit we have been wrong and we know nothing of the
way to God. Our job is to find the obstacles to God and let them
be removed.
What can we do?
If seeking is going to get us nowhere what can we do? To
we just give up? Is there anything we can seek? Yes! It's not
the truth, but the obstacles to truth.
An ancient Zem master nicely summed it up when he said;
Do not seek the truth, simply
cease cherishing illusions
The Course states it this way:
Your task is not to seek for
love, but merely to seek and find all of the barriers within
yourself that you have built against it.
It is not necessary to seek
for what is true, but it is necessary to seek for what is
false.
T-16.IV.6:1-2
So here we are back on the seekers path! However, now we are
seeking for something completely different. We are now seeking
all that blocks the awareness to truth, love, joy and
beauty. Thank God we can give up the search for the truth!
That's what we already are. No need to find love, that's how we
are created. What a relief!
All that is asked of you is to
make room for truth. You are not asked to make or do what lies
beyond your understanding. All you are asked to do is let it
in; only to stop your interference with what will happen of
itself; simply to recognize again the presence of what you
thought you gave away.
T-21.II.7:6-8
Of course, for our egos it's much more pleasant to search for
truth somewhere in the future. Searching the obstacles to
truth does not sound so glamorous. It's uncomfortable to look
within and find anger, guilt, shame, fear, lack of self-worth,
and a whole collection of unpleasant thoughts that the ego would
want to deny and project onto the world.
Conflict must be resolved. It
cannot be evaded, set aside, denied, disguised, seen somewhere
else, called by another name, or hidden by deceit of any kind,
if it would be escaped. It must be seen exactly as it is,
where it is thought to be, in the reality which has been given
it, and with the purpose that the mind accorded it. For only
then are its defenses lifted, and the truth can shine upon it
as it disappears.
Lesson 333
"Lead us not into temptation"
means "Recognize your errors and choose to abandon them by
following my guidance."
T-1.III.4:7
The truth, peace and joy we all crave is there and will be
revealed to us when we do our part. We cannot find this by
our personal striving. Humility teaches us that we need help
from outside our ego's thought system. The ego wants to do
everything by itself as it seeks to stay in control.
In the Course Jesus states that if you think you are a body then
you are insane. The insane need help from the sane. We have that
help and is just waiting for us to ask. It won't go against our
free will. We do not even have to heal the obstacles we find.
That will be done for us by spirit.
Do not hide suffering from His
sight, but bring it gladly to Him. Lay before His eternal
sanity all your hurt, and let Him heal you. Do not leave any
spot of pain hidden from His light, and search your mind
carefully for any thoughts you may fear to uncover. For He
will heal every little thought you have kept to hurt you and
cleanse it of its littleness, restoring it to the magnitude of
God.
T-13.III.7:3-6
We are being asked turn our daily life into a classroom of
forgiveness. The seeker's path continues, and now it's in the
mirror of relationships. Our daily interactions will often bring
up what's unhealed in our minds. Underneath our
unforgiveness lies the truth we have been seeking. It simply
needs to be uncovered by forgiving the judgement that overlays
it. Putting it simply, forgiveness is looking without judgement
at our egos and other people's egos. We are not being
asked to change our egos or other people's egos. That would be
to make them real. Nor are we being asked to love our egos for
that would repeat the same error. The ego is nothing but a
thought that we still cherish. That thought is that we prefer
separation and being a special individual to unity or oneness
with all. However, it's only in unity we will find what we crave
for.
The speed at which we return to the awareness of our spiritual
reality is up to us. We could have it now if we wanted to.
We need only let go the hand of the ego and hold the hand of the
Holy Spirit. This would mean giving up our victimhood,
judgement, justified anger, the desire to blame others, the
desire to be separate and our individuality. Most of us
are not ready to give up all that at once. Jesus is very aware
of that and is happy to lead us step-by-step on our forgiveness
path. To feel guilty that we still want to hold onto these
"gifts of the ego" is to allow the ego to come back in again
through a back door in our minds. Jesus asks us to gently smile
at the ego and not to take it seriously.
With a sigh of relief we can now take off our truth seeker's hat
and put it down. We still have something to seek, but it
will be easy to find! As we notice these daily obstacles and
learn to gently smile at them they will dissolve. And then
the light that is underneath them will start to show through.
This will encourage us to follow the path of forgiveness. No
need to think anything more about enlightenment. That will
come in God's time.
Grow as the flower grows,
unconsciously, but eagerly anxious to open its soul to the
air. So must you press forward to open your soul to the
Eternal. But it must be the Eternal that draws forth your
strength and beauty, not desire of growth.
For in the one case you
develop in the luxuriance of purity: in the other you harden
by the forcible passion for personal stature.
Light on the Path
3. Requirements for Spiritual Awakening
1. Desire awakening above
all
2. Don't get in its way
3. Do not prepare yourself
4. Our job
The following are some of
the more important requirements for spiritual awakening found
in A Course in Miracles.
1. Desire awakening
above all.
What The Ego Desires.
In this world, you believe
you are sustained by everything but God. Your faith is placed
in the most trivial and insane symbols; pills, money,
"protective" clothing, influence, prestige, being liked,
knowing the "right" people, and an endless list of forms of
nothingness that you endow with magical powers.
A Course in Miracles. Lesson
50
In the above lesson, Jesus
lists the things that most people in the world desire and
pursue. This is where salvation is thought to exist. We think
that if only we had our health, enough money and nice place to
live with friends to love us we would be happy. If we look at
where we place most of our time and energy, we will soon see
where we believe our salvation is. As that great teacher
Nisargadatta Maharaj once said, if you are content to accept
the lesser you will never go for the greater.
True Desire.
How much do you want
salvation? It will give you the real world, trembling
with readiness to be given you. The eagerness of the
Holy Spirit to give you this is so intense He would not wait,
although He waits in patience. Meet His patience with
your impatience at delay in meeting Him. Go out in
gladness to meet with your Redeemer, and walk with Him in
trust out of this world, and into the real world of beauty and
forgiveness. T-17.II.8 T354
The aim of A Course in
Miracles is for us to attain an inner peace and quiet
joy that the world cannot give or take away. This is
what the Course calls the real world. We could have it
now if we truly wanted it. There is no need for us to suffer,
sacrifice or atone for our “sins”, we simply need
to want it above all else. If we do not experience the real
world it is because we prefer something else. We desire
separation rather than union. But only in the experience of
union or oneness with all living things will we experience
that inner peace and joy. Our desire to be separate and
special individuals blocks our spiritual awakening. In
the text of A Course in Miracles there is a section on the
Obstacles to Peace. The first obstacle to peace is that we
don’t want it! To experience peace is to end the separation,
and most of us deeply desire to be individuals.
Fear of awakening.
We fear to awaken to
our spiritual reality. We believe the cost will be too
high. What we fear is the loss of our identity, our
specialness and our individuality. The actual cost will
be the end of our illusions.
You are more afraid of God
than of the ego, and love cannot enter where it is not
welcome. T-13.III.5:4
The unforgiving mind is torn
with doubt, confused about itself and all it sees; afraid and
angry, weak and blustering, afraid to go ahead, afraid to
stay, afraid to waken or to go to sleep, afraid of every
sound, yet more afraid of stillness; terrified of darkness,
yet more terrified at the approach of light. Lesson 121
The only thing that will
give us the peace we desire is to awaken from the dream of
separation from God. To wake up is a decision that we must
make. When we start to see that nothing in this world can give
us the peace we desire we are ready to work with forgiveness,
confront our fears and start the journey back home.
The holy instant (spiritual
awakening) is the result of your determination to be holy. It
is the answer. The desire and the willingness to let it come
precede its coming. You prepare your mind for it only to the
extent of recognizing that you want it above all else.
T-18.IV.1:1-4
Love waits on welcome, not
on time, and the real world is but your welcome of what always
was. T-13.VII.9:7
Release is given you the
instant you desire it. T-18.VII.4:3
2. Don't get in its way
All that is asked of you is
to make room for truth. You are not asked to make or do
what lies beyond your understanding. All you are asked
to do is let it in ; only to stop your interference with what
will happen of itself; simply to recognize again the presence
of what you thought you gave away. T-21.II.7
I had a friend once
who was rather impatient. When we went out for a drive
together I first had to unlock the passenger door. He had a
habit of trying to open the door while I was trying to release
the door lock from inside the car. His action invariably led
to the door re-locking in itself. I had to ask him to please
stand back and do nothing while I let him in.
You make it difficult,
because you insist there must be more that you need do. You
find it difficult to accept the idea that you need give so
little, to receive so much. And it is very hard for you to
realize it is not personally insulting that your contribution
and the Holy Spirit's are so extremely disproportionate. You
are still convinced that your understanding is a powerful
contribution to the truth, and makes it what it is. Yet we
have emphasized that you need understand nothing. T-18.IV.7.
In our daily lives we
believe that the harder we work, or the more that we study,
the greater the reward we will receive. Generally speaking,
this is true. If we carry this attitude onto our
spiritual path we soon run into trouble. Certainly
effort is required. To practise non-judgemental awareness, or
forgiveness, and asking within for help requires
earnestness. However, if we decide to add more to that
our ego has taken over the direction of our spiritual
practice. In the Course Jesus states that if we believe
our reality is a body then that is a clear indication we are
insane. How can the insane possibly know the way back to
heaven? Our job is to realize that we know nothing, to become
as little children, and allow ourselves to be led home. And
each one’s path is not the same as another.
(There is, however, no set
pattern, since) training is always highly individualized.
M-9.1:5
Is it not He Who knows the
way to you? You need not know the way to Him. Your part is
simply to allow all obstacles that you have interposed between
the Son and God the Father to be quietly removed forever. God
will do His part in joyful and immediate response. Ask and
receive. Lesson 189
In this last quote we
are told what our work is, and also what our work is
not. We are asked to become aware of the obstacles to
peace and agree to release them. This release or healing
is not done by us, but by the Holy Spirit. These are the
three stages of forgiveness. Firstly, we recognize the problem
is in ourselves and not in the world. Secondly, we decide we
no longer want this problem even though it may well have been
our identity. With this decision, the third and automatic
stage of healing takes place.
But do not make demands, nor
point the road to God by which He should appear to you. Lesson
189 cont.
Our temptation here is
to ask Jesus or the Holy Spirit to make us happy in our ego's
world. Our prayers can be mistakenly directed to the welfare,
comfort and security of our body. The Course tells us
that the highest prayer is to learn forgiveness. Or we may
design our own spiritual practice and insist God follows our
path to us.
The way to reach Him is
merely to let Him be. For in that way is your reality
proclaimed as well. And so today we do not choose the way in
which we go to Him. But we do choose to let Him come. And with
this choice we rest. And in our quiet hearts and open minds,
His Love will blaze its pathway of itself. What has not been
denied is surely there, if it be true and can be surely
reached. God knows His Son, and knows the way to him. He does
not need His Son to show Him how to find His way. Lesson 189
cont.
In the text of A
Course in Miracles is a section on the Laws of Chaos. They
describe the insanity of the ego’s thought system. Here we are
told that the ego in its arrogance has decided what God is and
what it thinks of us, its wayward children. It describes
an angry, and vengeful God which will need to be appeased by
suffering, penance and sacrifice. This God often appears in
the old Testament of the Bible. The guilt of the seeming
separation from God, that we all carry, is easily triggered by
these statements and can lead to us creating a painful and
suffering spiritual path to God. The Course insists that
God has never judged us for we have never truly sinned. The
world we appear to be living in is a dream or more accurately
a nightmare. Nothing real happens in dreams. The Spirit in us
is eternal and cannot be changed or damaged and thus sin
is impossible. Heaven will be returned to our awareness just
as soon as we we want it.
Father, we do not know the
way to You. But we have called, and You have answered us. We
will not interfere. Salvation's ways are not our own, for they
belong to You. L189
To come to the knowledge
that you have not, you must go by a way that you know
not. (St. John of the Cross. Ascent of Mount Carmel )
Reading the lives of saints
and mystics may have its place in our lives, though it would
be better if we had never read them. But a million times more
important is our awareness of every interior movement and
change, even the most subtle, because this is where it is at,
this is where the Spirit is continually moving us,
transforming and informing us in its own particular way. This
is where we will learn everything we ever need to know, and to
do this, we must clear our minds of everything else.
Bernadette Roberts - The
Path to No-Self
3. Do not prepare yourself
Following on from what
has been previously written, it now becomes apparent that
there is no need for purification and atoning for sins before
we can experience the peace and joy we desire. In fact,
our seeming help to the Holy Spirit only gets in the way of
our awakening.
We have repeated how little
is asked of you to learn this course.
T-21.II.1
Trust not your good
intentions. They are not enough.
But trust implicitly your
willingness, whatever else may enter. Concentrate only on
this, and be not disturbed that shadows surround it. That is
why you came. If you could come without them you would not
need the holy instant. Come to it not in arrogance, assuming
that you must achieve the state its coming brings with it.
T-18.IV
It is the Holy Spirit that
removes "sins", not us. Our task is to become aware of
them and allow them to be healed.
The miracle of the holy
instant lies in your willingness to let it be what it is. And
in your willingness for this lies also your acceptance of
yourself as you were meant to be. The holy instant does not
come from your little willingness alone. It is always the
result of your small willingness combined with the unlimited
power of God's Will. You have been wrong in thinking that it
is needful to prepare yourself for Him. It is impossible to
make arrogant preparations for holiness, and not believe that
it is up to you to establish the conditions for peace. God has
established them. T-18.IV cont.
Thus the Course is not
asking us to go out and do "good works" for God. The only good
works we need do is to practise forgiveness of ourselves.
The sole responsibility of
God's teacher is to accept the Atonement for himself.
Atonement means correction, or the undoing of errors.
When this has been accomplished, the teacher of God becomes a
miracle worker by definition. Question 18. Manual for
Teachers.
If our path of forgiveness
is to do what society would call good works, we would need to
remember learning forgiveness is the first aim of our work.
In preparing for the holy
instant, do not attempt to make yourself holy to be ready to
receive it. That is but to confuse your role with God's.
Atonement cannot come to those who think that they must first
atone, but only to those who offer it nothing more than simple
willingness to make way for it. Purification is of God alone,
and therefore for you.
Rather than seek to prepare
yourself for Him, try to think thus: T-18.IV cont.
What follows next can
be considered as an affirmation in getting ourselves out of
the way so that the Holy Spirit can do His work through
us. It can be hard for us to realize that our
contribution to our spiritual practice is so small compared to
that of the Holy Spirit. What is being asked of us here
is humility.
I who am host to God am
worthy of Him.
He Who established His
dwelling place in me created it as He would have it be.
It is not needful that I
make it ready for Him, but only that I do not interfere with
His plan to restore to me my own awareness of my readiness,
which is eternal.
I need add nothing to His
plan.
But to receive it, I
must be willing not to substitute my own in place of it.
T-18.IV cont.
4. Our job
Your task is not to seek for
love, but merely to seek and find all of the barriers within
yourself that you have built against it. It is not necessary
to seek for what is true, but it is necessary to seek for what
is false. T-16.IV.6
A Course in Miracles can be
looked upon as a negative path in the sense that miracles do
not do anything, they undo misperceptions. The Course asks us
to resign as our own teacher, because we have been badly
taught. We can use the analogy of the sun covered over by
clouds. We are not being asked to find or create a sun,
but simply to notice the clouds and allow them to be
dissolved.
Your part is only to offer
Him a little willingness to let Him remove all fear and
hatred, and to be forgiven. On your little faith, joined with
His understanding, He will build your part in the Atonement
and make sure that you fulfill it easily. And with Him, you
will build a ladder planted in the solid rock of faith, and
rising even to Heaven. T-18.V.2:5-7
It is our co-operation
with the Holy Spirit, and allowing Him to lead the way,
that is now required.
Never approach the holy
instant after you have tried to remove all fear and hatred
from your mind. That is its function. Never attempt to
overlook your guilt before you ask the Holy Spirit's help.
That is His function. Your part is only to offer Him a little
willingness to let Him remove all fear and hatred, and to be
forgiven. T-18.V.2
The Bible tells you to
become as little children. Little children recognize
that they do not understand what they perceive, and so they
ask what it means. Do not make the mistake of believing
that you understand what you perceive, for its meaning is lost
to you.... You do not know the meaning of anything you
perceive. Not one thought you hold is wholly true.
The recognition of this is your firm beginning....
T-11.VIII.2.
The implication of
this last quotation is that we are all completely confused. We
have completely misunderstood. We believe what our eyes see
and what our ears hear and what our brain thinks. Just as our
dreams last night seemed so real to us until we woke up, so
this ‘waking dream’ also appears real. Jesus tells us we dream
24 hours a day. The only way we can keep our seeming
separation going and hold onto our individuality is to live it
out in a dream. He even states at one point in the course that
there is no life outside of heaven (T-23.II.19.1). Without a
sane guide, the Holy Spirit, we would never escape this rather
convincing dream.
The presence of fear is a
sure sign that you are trusting in your own strength.
The awareness that there is nothing to fear shows that
somewhere in your mind, though not necessarily in a place you
recognize as yet, you have remembered God, and let His
strength take the place of your weakness. The instant you are
willing to do this there is indeed nothing to fear. Lesson 48
Undoing Denial
The approach to life’s
problems by our ego is always the same and is in fact quite
simple. First it tells us we are not the problem it’s the
world (denial) and then tells us to accuse the world for our
loss of peace (projection). The Course's solution to our
problems is the exact opposite to that of the ego.
The Holy Spirit asks of you
but this; bring to Him every secret you have locked away from
Him. Open every door to Him, and bid Him enter the
darkness and lighten it away. At your request He enters
gladly. He brings the light to darkness if you make the
darkness open to Him. But what you hide He cannot look
upon. T-14.VII.6
While we insist our
problems are in the world we cannot be healed by the miracle.
Anger at others may cause them to change their behaviour to
suit us, but our problems will simply continue.
Conflict must be resolved.
It cannot be evaded, set aside, denied, disguised, seen
somewhere else, called by another name, or hidden by deceit of
any kind, if it would be escaped. It must be seen exactly as
it is, where it is thought to be, in the reality which has
been given it, and with the purpose that the mind accorded it.
For only then are its defenses lifted, and the truth can shine
upon it as it disappears Lesson 333
It is much more
comfortable for us to see problems in the world and not in
ourselves. To look within our minds and see the negativity
that needs to be healed is uncomfortable and often a painful
process. Previously, we have seen ourselves as innocent and to
discover instead all the negativity that lies in our minds is
not an easy process. This is why we denied and projected in
the first place. Now we’re being asked to take our projections
back, undo our denial and allow them to be healed. This can be
particularly difficult for people who consider themselves
'spiritual'. They may believe they have gone far beyond anger
whilst they have just buried it deeper in their unconscious.
The greatest Guru is
helpless as long as the disciple is not eager to learn.
Eagerness and earnestness are all-important. Confidence will
come with experience. Be devoted to your goal - and devotion
to him who can guide you will follow. If your desire and
confidence are strong, they will operate and take you to your
goal, for you will not cause delay by hesitation and
compromise.
Nisargadatta Maharaj
4.
Nisargadatta Maharaj's Spiritual Awakening
from I Am That compared to A Course in Miracles
If I had to choose a couple
of spiritual books to take with me onto a desert island they
would be A Course in
Miracles and Nisargadatta Maharaj's I Am That. Nisargadatta's
book consists of transcriptions of dialogues between
Nisargadatta Maharaj and people who visited his small house in
Calcutta. He struck me as a man who had spiritually awakened,
no longer had a personal "I" and was aware the world was a
dream. The Course would say he lived in the real world, the
Course's term for how the world will appear when our
forgiveness lessons are complete. Nisargadatta's path included
forgiveness as he practised and advocated a non-judgemental
awareness of everything that arose. He sometimes referred to
this as being in the "I Am" state, instead of falling into the
trap of thinking "I am this" or "I am that" as in the case of
thinking "I am this body", "I am a daughter", "I am a sinner",
"I am a student," etc.
Watch your mind, how it
comes into being, how it operates. As you watch your mind, you
discover your self as the watcher. When you stand motionless,
only watching, you discover your self as the light behind the
watcher. The source of light is dark, unknown is the source of
knowledge. That source alone is. Go back to that source and
abide there.
Nisargadatta Mahara
Forgiveness
...
is
still,
and
quietly
does
nothing.
.... It merely looks, and waits, and judges not.
A Course
in Miracles W-pII.1.4:1,3
A quiet mind is all you
need. All else will happen rightly, once your mind is quiet.
As the sun on rising makes the world active, so does
self-awareness affect changes in the mind. In the light of
calm and steady self-awareness, inner energies wake up and
work miracles without any effort on your part. Do understand
that you are destined for enlightenment. Co-operate with your
destiny, don't go against it, don't thwart it. Allow it to
fulfill itself. All you have to do is to give attention to the
obstacles created by the foolish mind."
Nisargadatta Maharaj
Only be
quiet. You will need no rule but this, to let your practicing
today lift you above the thinking of the world, and free your
vision from the body's eyes. Only be still and listen. You
will hear the Word in which the Will of God the Son joins in
his Father's Will, at one with it, with no illusions
interposed between the wholly indivisible and true.
A Course
in Miracles Lesson 129
Below is a dialogue between
a visitor who asked Nisargadatta Maharaj about his spiritual
awakening. I have also added some other replies on the same
subject he gave to different visitors. Relevant quotations
from A Course in Miracles (in italics) have been added.
Dialogue:
Questioner: Are we permitted
to request you to tell us the manner of your realisation?
Maharaj: Somehow it was very
simple and easy in my case. My Guru, before he died, told me:
Believe me, you are the Supreme Reality. Don't doubt my words,
don't disbelieve me. I am telling you the truth - act on it. I
could not forget his words and by not forgetting - I have
realised.
Why wait
for Heaven? Those who seek the light are merely covering their
eyes. The light is in them now. Enlightenment is but a
recognition, not a change at all.
A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 188
Learn,
then, the happy habit of response to all temptation to
perceive yourself as weak and miserable with these words:
I am as
God created me. His Son can suffer nothing. And I am His
Son.
Thus is
Christ's strength invited to prevail, replacing all your
weakness with the strength that comes from God and that can
never fail.
A Course
in Miracles T-31.VIII.5.
You are
as God created you, and so is every living thing you look
upon, regardless of the images you see.
T-31.VIII.6.
Q: But what were you
actually doing?
M: Nothing special. I lived
my life, plied my trade, looked after my family, and every
free moment I would spend just remembering my Guru and his
words. He died soon after and I had only the memory to fall
back on. It was enough.
When I met my Guru, he told
me: ‘You are not what you take yourself to be. Find out what
you are. Watch the sense ‘I am’, find your real Self. I obeyed
him, because I trusted him. I did as he told me. All my spare
time I would spend looking at myself in silence. And what a
difference it made, and how soon! It took only three years to
realise my true nature. My Guru died soon after I met him, but
it made no difference. I remembered what he told me and
persevered.
Error cannot really threaten
truth, which can always withstand it. Only the error is
actually vulnerable. You are free to establish your kingdom
where you see fit, but the right choice is inevitable if you
remember this:
Spirit
is in a state of grace forever.
Your
reality is only spirit.
Therefore you are in a state of grace
forever. T-1.III.5.
Q (a different visitor):
Please tell me which road to self-realisation is the shortest.
M: No way is short or long,
but some people are more in earnest and some are less. I can
tell you about myself. I was a simple man, but I trusted my
Guru. What he told me to do, I did. He told me to concentrate
on 'I am' - I did. He told me that I am beyond all
perceivables and conceivables - I believed. I gave him my
heart and soul, my entire attention and the whole of my spare
time (I had to work to keep my family alive). As a result of
faith and earnest application, I realised my Self within three
years. You may choose any way that suits you; your earnestness
will determine the rate of progress.
Q: It must have been the
grace and power of your Guru.
M: His words were true and
so they came true. True words always come true. My Guru did
nothing; his words acted because they were true. Whatever I
did, came from within, unasked and unexpected.
Nothing can prevail against a Son of God who
commends his spirit into the Hands of his Father. By doing
this the mind awakens from its sleep and remembers its
Creator. All sense of separation disappears.
T-3.II.5.
Q: The Guru started a
process without taking any part in it?
M: Put it as you like.
Things happen as they happen - who can tell why and how? I did
nothing deliberately. All came by itself - the desire to let
go, to be alone, to go within.
Save time for me by only
this one preparation, and practice nothing else. “I need do
nothing” is a statement of allegiance, a truly undivided
loyalty. Believe it for just one instant, and you will
accomplish more than is given to a century of contemplation,
or of struggle against temptation.
To do
anything involves a body. And if you recognise you need do
nothing, you have withdrawn the body’s value from your
mind....To do nothing is to rest, and make a place within you
where the activity of the body ceases to demand attention.
Into this place the Holy Spirit comes, and there abides....
For from this centre will you be directed how to use the body
sinlessly. T-18.VII
Q: You made no efforts
whatsoever?
M: None. Believe it or not,
I was not even anxious to realise. He only told me that I am
the Supreme and then died. I just could not disbelieve him.
The rest happened by itself. I found myself changing - that is
all. As a matter of fact, I was astonished.
Whenever you are tempted to
undertake a useless journey that would lead away from light,
remember what you really want, and say:
The Holy
Spirit leads me unto Christ, and where else would I go? What
need have I but to awake in Him?
T-13.VII.14.
Then
follow Him in joy, with faith that He will lead you safely
through all dangers to your peace of mind this world may set
before you. T-13.VII.15.
But a desire arose in me to
verify his words. I was so sure that he, could not possibly
have told a lie, that I felt I shall either realise the full
meaning of his words or die. I was feeling quite determined,
but did not know what to do. I would spend hours thinking of
him and his assurance, not arguing, but just remembering what
he told me.
Have
faith in only this one thing, and it will be sufficient: God
wills you be in Heaven, and nothing can keep you from it, or
it from you. Your wildest misperceptions, your weird
imaginings, your blackest nightmares all mean nothing. They
will not prevail against the peace God wills for you. The Holy
Spirit will restore your sanity because insanity is not the
Will of God. T-13.XI.7.
Q: What happened to you
then? How did you know that you are the Supreme?
M: Nobody came to tell me.
Nor was I told so inwardly. In fact, it was only in the
beginning when I was making efforts, that I was passing
through some strange experiences; seeing lights, hearing
voices, meeting gods and goddesses and conversing with them.
As we go
along, you may have many "light episodes." They may take many
different forms, some of them quite unexpected. Do not be
afraid of them. Workbook Lesson 15
Once the Guru told me:
'You are the Supreme Reality', I ceased having visions and
trances and became very quiet and simple.
They are
signs that you are opening your eyes at last. They will not
persist, because they merely symbolize true perception, and
they are not related to knowledge. Workbook Lesson 15
I found myself desiring and
knowing less and less, until I could say in utter
astonishment: 'I know nothing, I want nothing.'
To learn
this course requires willingness to question every value that
you hold. Not one can be kept hidden and obscure but it will
jeopardize your learning. No belief is neutral.
T-24.in.2.
You do
not know the meaning of anything you perceive. Not one thought
you hold is wholly true. The recognition of this is your firm
beginning. You are not misguided; you have accepted no guide
at all. Instruction in perception is your great need,
for you understand nothing.
Recognize
this but do not accept it, for understanding is your
inheritance. Perceptions are learned, and you are not without
a Teacher. Yet your willingness to learn of Him depends on
your willingness to question everything you learned of
yourself, for you who learned amiss should not be your own
teacher. T-11.VIII.3.
There was no 'me' left to
strive for. Even the bare 'I am' faded away.
The other thing that I
noticed was that I lost all my habitual certainties. Earlier I
was sure of so many things, now I am sure of nothing. But I
feel that I have lost nothing by not knowing, because all my
knowledge was false. My not knowing was in itself knowledge of
the fact that all knowledge is ignorance, that 'I do not know'
is the only true statement the mind can make.
Think
not you understand anything until you pass the test of perfect
peace, for peace and understanding go together and never can
be found alone. T-14.XI.12:4
Your
learning gives the present no meaning at all. Nothing you have
ever learned can help you understand the present, or teach you
how to undo the past. Your past is what you have taught
yourself. Let it all go. Do not attempt to understand any
event or anything or anyone in its "light," for the darkness
in which you try to see can only obscure. T-14.XI.3:4-8
Q: Were you genuinely free
of desire and knowledge, or did you impersonate a jnani
(enlightened teacher) according to the image given to you by
your Guru?
M: I was not given any
image, nor did I have one. My Guru never told me what to
expect.
If you imagine yourself as
separate from the world, the world will appear as separate
from you and you will experience desire and fear. I do not see
the world as separate from me and so there is nothing for me
to desire, or fear.
Q: More things may happen to
you. Are you at the end of your journey?
M: There was never any
journey. I am, as I always was.
Yes, I appear to hear and
see and talk and act, but to me it just happens, as to you
digestion or perspiration happens. The body-mind machine
looks after it, but leaves me out of it. Just as you do
not need to worry about growing hair, so I need not worry
about words and actions. They just happen and leave me
unconcerned, for in my world nothing ever goes wrong.
To me nothing ever happens.
There is something changeless, motionless, immovable,
rock-like, unassailable; a solid mass of pure
being-consciousness-bliss. I am never out of it. Nothing can
take me out of it, no torture, no calamity.
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. T-8.VI.9.
Q: What was the Supreme
Reality you were supposed to reach?
M: I was undeceived, that is
all. I used to create a world and populate it - now I don't do
it any more.
The world and the mind are
states of being. The supreme is not a state. It
pervades all states, but it is not a state of something
else. It is entirely uncaused, independent, complete in
itself, beyond time and space, mind and matter.
........There is nothing to recognise it by. It must be
seen directly, by giving up all search for signs and
approaches. When all names and forms have been given up,
the real is with you. You need not seek it.
Plurality and diversity are the play of the mind only.
Reality is one.
What I
see reflects a process in my mind, which starts with my idea
of what I want. From there, the mind makes up an image of the
thing the mind desires, judges valuable, and therefore seeks
to find. These images are then projected outward, looked upon,
esteemed as real and guarded as one's own. From insane wishes
comes an insane world. From judgement comes a world condemned.
Workbook
Lesson 325
Q: Where do you live, then?
M: In the void beyond being
and non-being, beyond consciousness. This void is also
fullness; do not pity me. It is like a man saying: 'I have
done my work, there is nothing left to do'.
I see no difference between
you and me. My life is a succession of events, just like
yours. Only I am detached and see the passing show as a
passing show, while you stick to things and move along with
them.
Having realised that I am
one with, and yet beyond the world, I became free from all
desire and fear. I did not reason out that I should be free -
I found myself free - unexpectedly, without the least effort.
This freedom from desire and fear remained with me since then.
Another thing I noticed was that I do not need to make an
effort; the deed follows the thought, without delay and
friction. I have also found that thoughts become
self-fulfilling; things would fall in place smoothly and
rightly. The main change was in the mind; it became motionless
and silent, responding quickly, but not perpetuating the
response. Spontaneity became a way of life, the real became
natural and the natural became real. And above all, infinite
affection, love, dark and quiet, radiating in all directions,
embracing all, making all interesting and beautiful,
significant and auspicious.
Q: You are giving a certain
date to your realisation. It means something did happen to you
at that date. What happened?
M: The mind ceased producing
events. The ancient and ceaseless search stopped - l wanted
nothing, expected nothing - accepted nothing as my own.
I think the above
quotations from Nisargadatta Maharaj give a valuable insight
into the real world, which is the goal of A Course in Miracles. I
will finish this article with a favorite quote of mine from
Nisargadatta where he highlights the paradox of the awake
person who is both everything and nothing.