Village Square II
In our AcimVillage, we have the plane tree that stands in the central village square. Its enormous branches spread out to cover an area wide enough to provide shade on a warm day for many a traveller or tradesman. Water bubbles and trickles from a stone fountain on the eastern side. It is under the plane tree and by the fountain that wandering sages have traditionally lead conversation with the local people, before setting off again on their way; it is here that the townspeople come to exchange views and thoughts on their beloved spiritual philosophy, learning from each other in kindness and wisdom.
Rules to ponder…
Study of A Course In Miracles benefits greatly from sharing our experiences in its practice. Here you can talk about what works, or doesn’t, for you, taking obvious care not to be ‘preachy’, please. We all learn best when someone talks from their own experience, rather than tries to tell us what we should be doing differently. Let’s take the position that none of us are teachers, we are all at the same point returning on the path Homeward. All of us will still be making mistakes for a while yet, so let’s be particularly humble and caring in how we deal with each other. Please keep in mind that this is a site dedicated to the approach Kenneth Wapnick takes to teaching ACIM. I shall certainly do my best to bring everyone back to the core principles as taught by him.
I would also like to point out that AcimVillage is the place to come to explore our judgments, but not to express them as judgments. If you feel you need to gripe, criticize and vent, even subtly, then contact me privately (at bernard@pauloandthemagician.com) where I will receive you with kindness and understanding. Please do not do so in the forums where I will inevitably moderate out this kind of post. Remember, you will feel better only when you are able to move past the investment in your judgments, not simply by unloading them for everyone to see. This means taking responsibility for your perceptions and acknowledging that ultimately no one has prevented you from feeling completely peaceful and safe, despite what might appear to be the unfortunate conditions of your life at this time. (I know, this is hard. Contact me if you’re struggling.)
So, two basic rules here. One, we avoid mention of other approaches to the study of ACIM (non-Wapnickian) as well as to other philosophies we might be studying. This is purely to achieve a stable, comfortable learning forum where we are all aiming at the same goal, using the same symbols and language to get there. This is not to cast any judgment on any other approaches or philosophies. ACIM is a sufficiently difficult path to undertake without bringing more confusion into our study than our minds already contain! If you have benefited from other paths and would like to share your thoughts, by all means do so. Just please do this in the privacy of your personal emails. It’s also my personal opinion (take it or leave it) that at some point a student of ACIM is much better off sticking with one set of symbols and one teacher, and working with these thoroughly, instead of getting too dispersed. Rule two, we try not to play ‘teacher’ with each other here, reminding ourselves to be humble and always equal with our brother.
Enjoy the discussion!
New Horizons
As of September, 2010, I’m proposing a direction for our study of the Course, which is to work together through Ken’s workshop The Meaning of Judgment. We’ll be using his transcript notes for this taken from the Foundation’s website (see link in the tool bar at the top of the page). Below you’ll find the notes for the section we’re currently working on. For previous sections, click on the ‘ACIM’ tab on the navigation bar, and then hover your mouse over the ‘Meaning of Judgment’ tab to choose the relevant section. I chose this particular workshop because it gets immediately into the real heart and practice of the Course while taking us through its basic principles at the same time. So, for those interested in finding out where the ‘rubber hits the road’, even though it might get a little confronting at times, then join us on this little adventure Homewards!
The Meaning of Judgment
Excerpts from the Workshop held at the
Academy & Retreat Center of the Foundation for A Course in Miracles
PART III
“THE FORGIVING DREAM” (T-29.IX), cont.
(3:1) All figures in the dream are idols, made to save you from the dream.
1. Everything we perceive and believe is outside us is part of the dream. These are the idols, and their purpose is to make the outside dream real to protect us from the dream within our minds, which we do not want to look at. Course students compromise this over and over again by trying in whatever way they can to make some aspect of the external dream reality. That is why many students place such great emphasis on seeing Jesus or the Holy Spirit as doing things for them in the world. That is a subtle way of making Them part of the illusion, whereas in the Course Jesus asks us to take the illusion to the truth, not to bring the truth to the illusion. We have a strong investment in making the outside dream real, because if it is real outside, we do not have to look at the dream within our minds. What better way to make it seem real than to have God or Jesus or the Holy Spirit operate in it?
2. That is why it is a mistake to confuse A Course in Miracles with New Age thought systems. The Course in no way compromises the truth that the entire physical universe is an illusion. But we want to make the figures in the dream reality, including the Holy Spirit and Jesus so we are protected from the underlying dream inside our minds.
(3:2) Yet they [all of these idols] are part of what they have been made to save you from.
3. These idols were made to save us from the idol we made within our own minds (the ego thought system) that says, “I have stolen from God and I now exist. I have what I have stolen. I no longer have to give it back, and I exist on my own. And now God exists outside me.” The ego begins with that initial thought of judgment, which is the beginning of the dream. It then becomes a full-blown dream within our minds that we are different from God, that we have stolen from God and sinned against Him. And our guilt over this now tells us God will punish us. This is the terrifying dream within our own minds. It is so terrifying that we do not look at it, but project it so that it now seems to be outside us. And anything that roots us further in the dream outside will nicely serve the ego’s purpose, even if it goes under the name of God, which is what religions have done for centuries. It is extremely tempting for people to do the same thing with A Course in Miracles — to bring part of the truth into the illusion, making the illusion real. If you do that, you will never get out of the dream, because you will not know it is only a dream.
(3:3) Thus does an idol keep the dream alive and terrible, for who could wish for one unless he were in terror and despair?
4. The “you” Jesus is referring to in these passages is the mind, the part of the mind that chooses — what I refer to as the decision maker. It is the part of our minds that has first identified with the ego thought system. It is a thought system of terror and despair that tells us we need to protect ourselves from the terror and despair by denying it, which means we would never look at it again. And then we project it and see it outside ourselves. That is why we need a world of specific people and specific objects. We project all of these thoughts of sin, guilt, and judgment so they are no longer seen within, but outside. As long as we believe in the reality of the idol, we will never know that the idol really rests within our own minds.
(3:4) And this the idol [anything in the world outside of us] represents, and so its worship is the worship of despair and terror, and the dream from which they come.
5. This is true for the idols of specialness we think are wonderful and make us happy as well as the idols of specialness we hate. Earlier in the text, in “The Obstacles To Peace” (T-19.IV), Jesus speaks about this in another form: “While you believe that it [the body] can give you pleasure, you will also believe that it can bring you pain” (T-19.IV-A.17:11). Pleasure and pain are opposite sides of the same illusion. Both of them make the body real because both say there is something outside us that can make us either happy or unhappy and bring us pain. The truth is that the only thing that can bring us happiness is choosing the Love of the Holy Spirit. The only thing that can bring us pain is choosing the ego. That is all. There is nothing else.
6. The lines here represent the same idea. That is why we become so invested in the world. It is easy to fall into this trap, even as a student of a course that teaches that there is no world, for we still believe that external behaviors somehow mean something. They mean nothing in and of themselves. Their meaning lies only in what meaning we give them. What is important is never anything external — not what bodies do or do not do — but our internal decision to choose either the ego and separation, or Jesus and joining. Once we focus our attention outside and believe what we do is important, helpful, healing, or loving, we are getting caught in specialness, worshipping the idol of specialness. We will think that we are serving a function of healing or love, but it really is an idol of despair and terror.
7. In worshipping the idols of specialness outside, we are worshipping not only terror, despair, and guilt, but the whole dream, of which terror, despair, and guilt are only components. We are worshipping the dream that we have what we have stolen from God and will never give it back, for now we exist as individuals on our own. We love terror, despair, and guilt, or we would not feel them all the time. We love them because they make real the thought of separation — the thought of the original judgment against God — which makes real our separate existence from God. That is why we have such a tremendous investment in our self-importance, in being a unique individual — it establishes that the dream is real. The state of terror or despair in our minds says the dream is real; the guilt and the sin are both real.
(3:5) Judgment is an injustice to God’s Son, and it is justice that who judges him will not escape the penalty he laid upon himself within the dream he made.
8. It is important to realize that the entire thought system of the ego is real within itself. It is not reality, but within the dream itself it is all very real. When we sleep at night and dream, we will experience the dream as very real. This entire world is a dream. As Jesus explains elsewhere (e.g., T-18.II.7-14), there is no difference between what we call our sleeping dreams and what he refers to as our waking dreams, such as we are experiencing right now. They are all the same — just different expressions of the thoughts within our minds. Within the ego dream, the fear of punishment is very real. Within that dream, our fear of experiencing harm — physical or emotional — is very real. We are not asked, as students of A Course in Miracles, to deny what our experiences are. We are asked, however, not to make these experiences reality. There is a crucial difference between those two approaches.
9. In other words, we all experience fear, and we believe our fear is due to something external to us that can impinge upon us. The ego interprets this as the wrath of God visited upon us — that is our experience. We may not consciously experience it as God’s wrath, but we certainly do experience fear as caused by something external to us. Remember, our own bodies are just as external to our minds as everyone else’s body is. But that does not make it reality. That is where the Christian Churches were mistaken; they took their experience of fear and wrote a theology about it. They said this is the reality of God: God sees our sin as real and has a plan to help us atone for it, basically a plan of murder. The plan then becomes one of suffering and sacrifice. If we believe we are sacrificing so God won’t be angry at us, then we will feel good about sacrificing. But that does not make it reality. Our experience is that the sun rises and sets but that does not make it reality. In reality, it is the earth rotating on its own axis that makes it appear as if the sun moves around the earth. And in fact, it is the earth that moves around the sun. Similarly, people may experience the Holy Spirit or Jesus doing things for them in the world, but that does not mean that they really are. Don’t confuse your experience with reality. The ego always interprets our experiences in order to construct a theology that serves its purposes, which of course is why we have the experience in the first place. Within our dream, whenever we make a judgment we are asserting that we are different from God; we have separated from Him, sinned against Him, and have stolen from Him. Our guilt over that will then demand that we not escape the penalty of God’s anger. This whole world, which is a world of change and death, then stands as the witness to the fact that what the ego has taught us is true. If our existence, which we call life, was ultimately stolen from God, then when God steals back the life we stole from Him we will be without life, which means we will be dead. That is the ego’s interpretation of our death.
(3:6) God knows of justice, not of penalty.
10. God’s justice of course has nothing to do with justice as we think of it. God’s justice states that nothing happened. If nothing happened, there is no guilt and no punishment. (3:7) But in the dream of judgment you attack and are condemned; and wish to be the slave of idols, which are interposed between your judgment and the penalty it brings. But we are not condemned by God. We are condemned by the projection of our own guilt, which makes up a God Who is angry. We then deny the whole dynamic and make up a world in which we are continually condemning and judging others, while believing they condemned and judged us first. But our judgment is within our minds; that is our guilt. We project it out and make up a world of idols that will punish us; and we actually think there is a world out there that affects us. This is all part of the dream, which seems very real from within the dream.
Extract from Chapter 18, The Little Garden, as I see it for our family:
“The Thought of God surrounds your little kingdom, waiting at the barrier you built to come inside and shine upon the barren ground. See how life springs up everywhere! The desert becomes a Village, warm and welcoming and quiet, offering rest to those who lost their way and wander in the dust. Give them a place of refuge, prepared by love for them where once a desert was. And everyone you welcome will bring love with him from Heaven for you. They enter one by one into this holy place, but they will not depart as they had come, alone. The love they brought with them will stay with them, as it will stay with you. And under its beneficence your little village will expand, and reach out to everyone who thirsts for living water, but has grown too weary to go on alone.
“Go out and find them, for they bring your Self with them. And lead them gently to your quiet village, and receive their blessing there. So will it grow and stretch across the desert, leaving no lonely little kingdoms locked away from love, and leaving you inside. And you will recognize yourself, and see your little village gently transformed into the Kingdom of Heaven, and with all the Love of its Creator shining upon it.”
I see us all coming here to practice creating our own little village inside our hearts, bringing the experience of sharing and warmth from this one within our minds. And then we go out into the world and without saying a word include all those we see into our world.
I thought this Ken video was really interesting. I particularly loved 5.07 (beautiful) and 8.18 (so funny!).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5kT–_C3Dk&feature=related
Free t-shirts for the Village:
I’m with Stupid (see finger pointing to the next person)
How great is YouTube-no need to catch a flight to Temecula.
But back to The Little Garden where all is safe and secure. The ridiculing t-shirts (all in good fun) are exchanged for a snuggiesutra…where two shall become one.
I know people I’m in complete denial…believe it or not the gap is closing (:
I like the T shirt which says the same thing but the arrow is pointing up, or for a guy, down.
Annie, I believe the gap is closing, I do, I do! It’s just that I’m afraid of getting caught in the middle like ham in a sandwich. But it’s really like a small child being enfolded in a quilt, I think.
Denial?? We’ll all just keep that little smile, that little light laughter, that little ‘other’ perspective, in the back of our minds while we’re spending our time doing everything else except but being ‘holy and spiritual’. (What do we have to do to look ‘holy and spiritual’? I’ve been wondering…)
Today’s lesson brought my very favorite of lines from our Course.
If you could accept the world as meaningless and let the truth be written upon it for you, it would make you indescribably happy.
By the way, recently I had to get a hospital ban on my wrist, and in the slew of questions for the records they asked me what my religion was. I said, ACIM, they said, what? I said, Course in Miracles. They looked perplexedly at the time space they had to write in. I thought of the only time they would need the info, and my poor husband’s mental condition if that happened, and thought that the kindest thing I could do for him was say it was ‘Catholic’. After all, I figure God (at least) has forgiven them there rituals — so I told her to put that down.
Indescribably Happy! Wow I never aim that high.
Ya the religion question…we are pioneers for sure. Took a few millenia to get the Christian thing to catch on. One day but most likely not in our lifetime.
So was the ban for an infusion or for a procedure? Do you even wish to speak about it? Won’t ask if you don’t want to talk about it.
It was for the dr appt down at cedars-sinai. They take themselves pretty serious there.
Never aimed for indescribably Happy?? Hop on, Annie, that’s where we’re going!!
Love and hugs, katrina
Bernard #4 …glad you like the t-shirt idea. I think changing the direction of the arrows is very in line with our Village mentality and will definitely help with the “how to look holy and spiritual” concept we are trying to present.
Group photo for our Village scrapbook will be scheduled after this Sundays Skype Session.
From The Remembered Song Jan 13,2011:More notes from Ken’s January workshop, “The Ego’s World: The Thunder of the Meaningless.
• Jesus is standing at his open door, asking us to come and live in his house with Him. Each day bring something….even if just a toothbrush or pair of socks. What grievance can I let go of today? Leave it in the house, bringing some small token each day, and eventually you and Jesus will be One.
I find this image so comforting.
Point number 5 of section III “Pleasure and pain are opposite sides of the same illusion.” It reminds me of another nondualistic saying – Winning and losing are the same; both are nothing. Which makes me ponder the manic depressive or, the new term, bi-polar setup of this so called world. Extreme highs and extreme lows. Winning = pleasure, losing = pain and how many times I thought that was true and yet I can remember times that I purposely set something up to fail because it was what someone else wanted me to be doing, example getting a certain job, but I didn’t want them to be unhappy with me so I would do things that they couldn’t see (like filling out the application sloppy and incomplete)that would cause me to “lose” without it being “my” fault in their perception yet to me I “won” because I didn’t end up with a job I wouldn’t enjoy and they weren’t mad at me either.
But I still “lost” because I would feel crappy about having “lied” about the whole thing. I finally gave up and started being “honest” about stuff like that and just gritted my teeth about the other person being mad or disappointed with me. It was some what better but not much.
Now I’m learning to take it to the Holy Spirit and let the whole crazy thought system be undone.
“Illusion recognized must disappear.” Thank God.
That’s great, Pam. I like that story of yours. Maybe there’s another step toward peacefulness after gritting your teeth. Maybe gritting and smiling at the same time?? Just trying to image it. Or keeping a smile in the background if it doesn’t actually lift the corners of your mouth? I just love those situations where you know someone is going to be mad or disappointed. They are such huge learning situations. I found out the other day that a friend of mine took a whole day (literally) on public transport (trains and buses) to pick up a telephone from her granddad because he insisted on giving it to her brother (and she was going there) and no one had the courage to tell him that her brother already had one. Sometimes we do crazy things just to prevent someone from getting upset. Why are we really so afraid of someone else’s anger or upset? What is it that upsets us so much and we lose all common sense and even get caught up in all sorts of lies and fibbing sometimes? Is that it reminds us that we think we upset and disappointed our Father in Heaven? We just hate facing the guilt of thinking we upset someone. We’d do anything, even lie, to avoid looking guilty, to allay someone’s hurt. Why do they have this secret power to manipulate us, why do we fall for it?
I just came back from an overnight stay in Limoges where I didn’t stop by to say hello to my parents-in-law (as custom requires). Pat and I felt this pressure not to tell them I was in their town because they’d get upset knowing I didn’t stop by. But we called them and mentioned it but insisted that I was ever so utterly completely busy that there really was not time at all to visit them even though I really wanted to. Aren’t we all strange creatures.
I’m going to go back and read that article that guy wrote about Not being a good substitute for Jesus…
First Commandment as I was taught in the Catholic Tradition:
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your Heart, and with all your Soul and with all your Mind”. “You shall have no other gods before me”.
Just doing a little mental house cleaning…bare with me. I feel like the Daily ACIM Lessons are helping me grasp the First of the Ten Commandments. I can honestly say with the Course exercises I believe I’m finally understanding what that line was/is asking of me.The difference is that J is not commanding but asking for our commitment ~ which doesn’t make it any less terrifying but he does kindly give us step by step instructions. I’m someone who needs specifics. To me the Bible instructions are like Ikea instructions…I just don’t get them.
As I scan over the first 50 daily practices I can see how its clearing the slate of all previous beliefs and “false idols” that I have been collecting, protecting and projecting.
Lesson 1: Nothing I see in this room [on this street, from this window, in this place] means anything.
Lesson 50: I am sustained by the Love of God
It’s day 15 today; the Lesson “My thoughts are images that I have made.” So everything that I think I just wrote above or below for that matter must be suspect as to which mind I chose to type with? How to know? I feel like signed up for an ACIM reality show where Jesus comes a knocking with a camera crew in tow at my mental doorstep and I have finally been exposed as a “thought hoarder”.
He’s here to show me there is a blank slate. Or as Ken in “Journey Through the Workbook” states;”if you really pay attention to these lessons they should strike terror in your heart, for they literally say you do not exist. You thus want to explore more and more how frightening these thoughts are, trying to identify how you defend against them. This is extremely important-watch how you defend against what these lessons are teaching you.”
He ends with: “Being faithful to the specifics of the daily exercises allows us to generalize the lesson of the inherent sameness of all things to each and every experience of our lives. Such generalization is the heart of forgiveness, and the key to achieving the peace that is Jesus’ goal for us.”
Same ol’ Same ol’…It’s a Good Thing.
Speaking of the workbook here’s a fun one to do – just “read” the table of contents for the workbook. (:
Also have you ever noticed that the text starts with 50 miracle principals and the workbook has 50 lessons before doing a review? Could there be a correlation? (-:
And the first 50 pages or so of the text – I’ve always said the whole course is there.
We once took a full year to go through 50 pages! One single page a week! And even that was too much!
Great Summary at Q&A today at The Remembered Song about trying to look at the EGO without judgement.
“The Course does not ask us not to judge, but rather to recognize the judgments we do make, including the judgment against ourselves for judging. This recognition is an important step in the process of undoing the ego’s defense strategy, so another choice can eventually be made. Willingness to see the ego in operation, and not call it by any other name, justify it, nor blame anyone else for it, is a way of not judging, as well as an invitation to the Holy Spirit to transform our perception.”
Hmm. Just noticed something.
The Ontological Guilt Experience, written as OGE. Like the EGO backwards, no?
And the response, just ‘O-Gee’ and that’s all. No biggie.
bernard, this is excellent and SOO helpful – since it is not-serious and includes wordgames (which I loove) O gee! thankyou, teacher in love and fun, and big hug
A number of text phrases came to mind as I read the part at the end about opening the gates to heaven together with the choice we can make knowing what we know about seeing differently.
this whole post was so healing for me Bernard…my mind welcomes and see’s the truth in your words and then it comes into my heart and it’s there for me to use for a specific pained perception/forgiveness opportunity.
thank you and lots of love
Here’s another but I can’t remember where I read this but I liked it and I’m paraphrasing, Ego is just an acronym for Earth Guidance Only. Ego only knows about the things of the world; it knows nothing about God or Heaven.
My twitter for the day…
True beauty lies in courageous self-honesty.
There is nothing more beautiful than our non-judgmental self-honesty.
Have a great day, everyone.
It was a long day if not a great one. Thanks for that short yet sweet note to end this day with Bernard. Hugs to all. Nighty night.
The Major always knows what we need – the village Mind is one (:
That is such a kind, right minded,simple and straight from your heart tweet. That is exactly where I’ve just recently discovered I am at in my course student journey, being willing to see how how truely unwilling I’ve been all along…courageous non judgemental self honesty is exactly what has been brought up as what will be most helpful. Thank you and love to all.
This year the workbook lessons with Ken´s comments are bringing to the surface a lot of life long hidden thoughts. Today´s lesson “I do not know what anything is for” is teaching me how wrong I always have been about all my evaluations. Just in these few hours, asking me what is my purpose in doing this or that, in almost 99.9% of the time the answer is some kind of gratification for myself, namely, physically or emotionally. Even when in the form I am doing something for someone the ultimate purpose is that I will feel good about what I am doing. This is really interesting and it is the answer why it is so difficult to make it all about the others, in content, not in form. In form, if the content is satisfying myself is quite easy. But this is just the first part of the learning, the second part, and one that is essential and wholly important is to learn to look at all this without judgment, namely, with Jesus by my side. And not always I am willing to let him help me. I still believe I could make a difference in my life and in my beloved ones life without help. I am discovering how arrogant I am and it scares me, so what is helping me the most in all this, not so wonderful discovering, is one of Ken´s advices, “but it is okay. It is not a sin. Maybe a little? madness but not a sin.”
Lots of hugs and much love to you all,
Lisi
Oh, great post, Lisi! No, call it not sin but silliness, and normal, inevitable silliness, too. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it – it is purely that doing so simply is not going to make us happy. There is no sin! We are free from that illusion! Be happy that you are seeing through this illusion now. What a wonderful awareness, yes, everything we do all the time as ‘ourselves’ is purely designed to maintain and reinforce our impression of being a separate self. When the truth is that there is only one ego-self, and only one Son of God. There is no sin in trying to maintain an illusion, is there? The content of our separate dreams is not particularly glorious, being filled with specialness, but that’s not a problem or a sin. Seeing it for what it is (all about ‘me’) simply helps me decide that there must be something more interesting, something more beautiful. And there certainly is. You are certainly that beautiful self when you allow yourself to simply look upon all this silliness lightly and with honesty. Allow yourself a moment to just be with that loving voice that looks upon all this together with you. Thanks!
Village Square Tweet:
“My mind is telling me that I’m doing this all wrong, my mind is telling me that what I want isn’t here, my mind is telling me that Love isn’t here.” And it is Love that is speaking these words with me right now.
Lisi, another thought that came to me at 5 in the morning…
You are only 99.9 percent in the wrong mind? Why not 100 percent? As if there is something wrong with being totally in the wrong mind. It has no effect! Ken keeps reminding us that being in the right mind is being in the wrong mind and being honest about that, seeing what’s going on, and not judging that. We judge it when we think our wrong mind has effects. You can have no effect, you are not that powerful! But can you handle that freedom from ‘sin’? I mean, would you be really comfortable with the idea that you can have no effect on others through your wrong mind? (No effect that they do not accept for themselves, using their power of decision-making). I’m thinking that our real problem is not with any ‘sin’ over our wrong mind, but the sneaky fear that if there is no problem with our wrong mind then it’s because it’s totally useless and powerless. I think at some point we need to see that our so-called great powers over others, our ‘powers’ of bringing pleasure or pain to others, are completely imaginary and ineffectual. We might like to think we have such powers but that only serves to maintain our illusion of separation within our own minds. And we manage to fool others for a while, too, who think that we brought them pleasure or pain. What happens if we start to see through this illusion? Then perhaps we’ll start to see through the whole illusion, that no one is doing anything to anyone! What then…?!
Nina has shared Myron Jones’ lesson page and I wanted to share a loving guidance thru her about today’s lesson —
“On the very deepest levels, you don’t know what anything is for. In those moments when you are sure that you are wrong about everything, let Me assure you that I know what it is for. Place your trust in me. I will lift you up. I will carry you.”
After many long years, a local Course group started up and I went to it. When they ‘uncovered’ that I was a Wapnick’er, there were some mumbles and grunting sounds, since they use Paul Tuttle’s Rajpur channelings. I’m making peace smilees, and thinking that I’ll just read my turn and see peace instead of tension I think I’m seeing. Then afterwards, I was off to the web to research. Whoa, did I find alot of discension. I just don’t know what to think. I don’t understand finding fault and separation — I must be better than them (aarghh!!) Maybe I just don’t know what anything is for.
I think I love the peacefulness here, but will probably keep going to the group cause they are here, and I need to learn how to make it about them.
Bernard: Really liked your reflexions. This part is so important that I am going to repeat it here:
” I think at some point we need to see that our so-called great powers over others, our ‘powers’ of bringing pleasure or pain to others, are completely imaginary and ineffectual. We might like to think we have such powers but that only serves to maintain our illusion of separation within our own minds. And we manage to fool others for a while, too, who think that we brought them pleasure or pain. What happens if we start to see through this illusion? Then perhaps we’ll start to see through the whole illusion, that no one is doing anything to anyone! What then…?!” When I finished reading your ponder I remember Jesus´ words in some part of the text, “And what are you going to think if you recognize that all this is just an hallucination?” The quote is not word by word, but it is exactly what you are saying. It is really a great relief and freedom to be able to recognize we have no power over other minds.
Hugs to all,
Lisi
Keep us posted katrina. I love when your soul ventures out and reports back. I think we seem to be peaceful because we are quiet or are we quiet because we are peaceful. Well, which ever way it is …it’s just my own projection now… isn’t it (:
I have to admit, I would like a little more noise in the Village. To much introspection makes for heaviness. Where are our Southern Hemisphere compadres to lighten our winter blues? Ms. Winnie we need your ukulele. Speaking of Ukulele’s am invited to a performance this evening down in Hollywood to watch Toni Russell perform on his ukulele. The other day I interviewed a patient who teaches music and the ukulele is one of the instruments she uses with her clients, who happen to be the children at City of Hope Hospital. She offered this information without any prodding.
I have no idea why the recurring theme of the ukulele is showing up in my life but I thought I should mention it. I’m guessing I’m just missing Ms. Winnie…Oh Winnie get on that internet and catch a wave to the Village please. We need your light (:
Have a great day everyone!
p.s. Pierre these croissants are awesome.
Lisi –
That’s interesting. Those lines are what I’ve been focussing on/drawn to over and over again, these last 4 days –
“What if you recognized that this world is an hallucination ? What if you really understood you made it up ?” (Text pg. 443 (Second edition))
Tweet of the day:
True freedom and innocence lies in powerlessness, in recognizing our powerlessness to bring pleasure or pain to anyone, to make any change or have any effect. All is still well in Heaven. We are free of the burden of thinking we are ‘powerful’.
Great, Katrina! The group sounds just perfect. ‘Nothing is happening!’ And the ‘real’ Course (for true-believers) doesn’t need to be defended. The smile says it all, absolutely all. It says We are one. It says, nothing we say or do in this crazy world can affect the beautiful oneness from which we come.
Riiigghhttt Mayor! Isn’t just like that hungry ego to follow me to my Course meeting to weave yet another ego story to deceive me into thinking the dead horse I decided to jump on is galloping down the track.
Gads, Pam, I forgot that Fractured Fairy Tales was my very ever ever favorite. I was in training for fracturing all my symbols into shards for a lifetime playing with the kaleidascope.
Annie – love the unprodded stories of the elderly. My daughter used to live on a ranch Arthur Godfrey bought in the area. However, no ukeleles were found in the horse barn.
dead horse …great image katrina!
another co.ink.ee.dink katrina is that Winnie’s son is call Godfrey…”God” for short and she is bringing her ukulele to the March Madness Conference. Love the 2 degrees of separation with Arthur Godfrey. What a crazy dream we have weaved just the way we like it!
Speaking of crazy dreams I decided that I may as well get up @ 4am cuz my daily mantra from the day before Lesson 27…”Above all else I wish to See” that I chanted to myself yesterday dropped a piece of a puzzle into place and with that excitement I couldn’t go back to sleep. I hate when that happens but a story is brewing in my head and I have this strong impulse to go and write about it.
And you my sweet family are the only ones who care to listen and before I go on I just want to thank you in advance for this kindness.
Where to begin? Have you heard about the Coopers Hawk trapped in the Congress Reading room this past week? The story just fascinated me, mostly because I have this love hate relationship with any living thing with feathers. The story goes that this Hawk entered through a window (broken?) and has been living in the dome of the reading room. The tweets from Washington were at an all time high…ok I made that up but I couldn’t resist. Well, the symbolism was to much for me to just ignore. The week our President has the State of the Union Address to deliver and all I want to hear is how the Hawk is doing. Then this morning the lesson of the day came to me from the birds perspective trapped in this fantastic dome that Jefferson designed with selves bursting full of knowledge and this predatory bird is starving. What does that say about our Nation? What does that say about our Soul? All that Knowledge down there catagorized with the impeccable duodecimal system can’t sustain us. And that’s when my mantra just slipped into place. Rise “above” this earthly creation if just for a moment or a week in the birds case and take a real “look” around at what is happening.
Is Jesus our faithful falconer baiting us with kindness…eventually we are going to surrender. We already know how this is going to turn out we all go home together. That’s God Will and so it Is.
I see today’s Lesson, number twenty eight is ” Above all else I want to see things differently”. Well, now that I’m safely in my Falconers care I may consider that perspective.
First, I’m going to make breakfast cuz I’m starving!
Todays lesson:
Today’s lesson:Above all else I want to see things differently.
I love this lesson – and I mean it each time i say it. Today, after showering, looking in the mirror, I noticed the white plastic-cord of the electric toothbrush reflected behind the vapor on the mirror – and the beauty of it filled me with ecstasy. At the same time, arising was an ego- knowledge that if I allowed myself to truly experience that beauty, I would die. Since I am still here, you know what I chose –
and still, the memory of that beauty seen with eyes of Love is still here – and I remember I knew that every need I ever had, would be extinguished if I could allow myself to live in that space of Seeing
Katrina, love that dead horse imagery, too. So true.
Annie, what’re you gonna write, huh, huh? Tell us all, pleeease. What a great story about the falcon and the way you wove it into a nice Coursey theme.
Lovely thoughts, Nina: “I remember I knew that every need I ever had, would be extinguished if I could allow myself to live in that space of Seeing.” Mmm.
Annie – you have a way about you !! (: (Bernard, whatever she writes, it will be good !! (:
Nina – thanks for that glimpse into that deep, beautiful experience you had. i could get a glimpse of the glimpse through your sharing in 36, and it made me feel even better (and i was already feeling pretty good this morning !!
Annie, I hadn’t heard about the falcon, poor bird — ensconced with elaborate architecture, worldly knowledge, noble tradition — and no doubt the window is still open, but trapped. Yes, a great story about our world giving us everything except the nourishment for our soul. Glad you shared the story in your head.
Morning 😀
That’s all I had to say…that was my story – one paragraph long. But it was bursting out of me like I just discovered Gold. So interesting how that happens. It really carried me all day yesterday and I put in a full days work without acting like someone who was sleep deprived.
I allowed a ray of light in. I allowed my soul to be captured like the hawk. The resistance was unnecessary yet I still must perceive Jesus’ as trying to trap me when in reality he knows whats best.
Like the Hawk- My soul is starving. And isn’t it interesting that to a Hawk a ‘Starling’ is just irresistable? Those are the birds that were brought in to lure the Hawk down from the dome. And did you hear they knew something was up because they didn’t move a muscle for the longest time. Then just a twitch in one of the birds and the Hawk decending in an instant. (No Starlings were hurt in the capture (: ) Again, I couldn’t resist the symbolism that the birds that were brought in to bait the Hawk have “Star” in their names…”Light”.
And yes Nina, I loved your insight too. It perfectly captured the lesson of the day. Your eyes fell onto an electrical cord and all the words you’ve collected over the years pierced that veil when you saw beyond the cord. Electrifying!
::smile::
From the Remembered Song, the twitter today:
The correction to being a blissninny is NOT to become a guilt-ninny.
Same mistake, different ninny.
Now that’s funny!
thanks, Bev for that.
It got me to travel to rememberedsong. And there I stumbled on #651. A real beauty of a question. And a real beaut of an answer from Mr. Wapnick. and a great relief to know my own special relationships (and my thoughts about them) are progressing exactly as the Course so presciently describes…
Morning everybody,
Just coming in a rush to say hello and drink some of Annie’s delicious coffee. I have had visitors all week long and they are leaving tomorrow morning. Interesting and helpful posts.
Yes, Bev, I loved that too, in fact, all the twitters are great, and really helpful along the day.
Thanks Bernard and Nina for the Einstein’s quotes, they are great.
Also I enjoyed all the discussion about the T.V. series and films.
a*, I really like the approach the Mr. E. is giving to his last movies. I have not seen Hereafter yet but I will, for your comments I think I will enjoy it. I really liked “Letters from Iwo Jima” and “Flags of our Fathers” I think they are the best war movies I have seen, because in reality they are not about war but about the people in it. And it is interesting that he wanted to picture both sides because if you watch them attentively you finally recognized that we are all one and the same. That the experiences of everybody are the same, that a Japanese misses his beloved ones the same as an American or anyone else, and in reality we can attest here that two seemingly different parts are just to sides of the same coin, namely, the deluded son of God.
Lots of hugs to you all,
Lisi
Annie, Just one word, thank you for your story. I really relived it again with you. I loved this: “Is Jesus our faithful falconer baiting us with kindness…eventually we are all going to surrender. We already know how this is going to turn out we all go home together That´s God Will and so it is.” Just beautiful.
Lots of love,
Lisi
Nina sent some of us this link to a really wonderful article: http://www.kundalinisplendor.blogspot.com/. Quite an amazing story, thanks, Nina.
Life just going on as normal here today. We had a family lunch and I could feel the same old tendencies coming back to separate and find differences and have expectations about how things should go. Then I said, Oh, to hell with that. There’s something else present here, now open your eyes! And then I did feel the edge coming off of the things that I thought were bothering me. They weren’t really big things at all, just little things that made me still feel different and separate. And when I no longer made a big deal out of them, the whole thing went very peacefully and easily. Everyone had a good time and went away with the warm fuzzies. What more do you want?
Warm fuzzy blessings to my Village family today.
bernard, reading that made me feel that not-serious edge sliding off too. So good reminder, I go to bed fuzzy-feeling now, and God knows i need that (-:
Natti all
Village Square Tweet:
The Course teaches us to reach for oneness through sameness, and to reach for sameness through forgiveness. So my prayer today is that I reach for sameness with my brothers through forgiveness of what I think are our differences. And peace returns quietly to my mind.
I’ve been thinking about the blue dot a lot lately; mainly in the shower. This third time through the text is a completely different experience for me. I can sense that J is like a wiser older brother guiding me home.I read this from the text a couple days ago:
T-4.II.4.3 No one dismisses something he considers part of himself. 4 You react to your ego much as God does to His creations,–with love, protection and charity. 7 The question is not how you respond to the ego, but what you believe you are.”My reaction ” Of course we defend what we believe we have made.” No wonder J is leading us to a different belief about ourselves.
Earlier T-3.IV.7.7 I cannot unite your will with God’s for you, but I can erase all misperceptions from your mind if you will bring it under my guidance.. 11 I cannot choose for you, but I can help you make your own right choice.”
So that brings me back to the blue dot where we have the power of choice. Yesterday I had a day where I reacted with the ego many times. However I would immediately remember that I was never upset for the reason I thought and I’d be cheerful and happy again. And then …another upset.
I felt like the blue dot was on a tight rope and would fall off into the “ego” side and then with J I’d get back up until I fell off again. There was a lot of OG around but I was very grateful by the end of the day that I had done very little wallowing. Loved reading all your experiences with J.
Great passages, Bev. It was nice getting a picture of your day spent between Mr. Og and Mr. J. That’s just the way it feels to me, too, vacillating from one to the other as I recognize when I’m no longer feeling really peaceful anymore (most of the time). And what you said at the end is really it for me – I seem to wallow hardly at all now. I use to be a great wallower, and now it seems to be only very slight, so imperceptible that it doesn’t show (according to Pat), and I can brush off my harsh ego condemnations and frustrations much faster. They’re there, but they come and go much faster and aren’t as sticky. Mr. OG is losing his glue.