Garden
The Quiet Garden of Forgiveness
Love, too, would set a feast before you, on a table covered with a spotless cloth, set in a quiet garden where no sound but singing and a softly joyous whispering is ever heard. T-19.IV.A.16:1
“There is a garden at the foot of this lovely statue with masses and masses of soft white lilies and little paths between to slowly walk and talk with Jesus. There is a fountain nearby and the forever trickling sound of water reminds us to leave the desert of wrong-minded thinking.” (Winnie)
Forgiveness is truly at the heart of the practice of A Course In Miracles. All of us have had moments of shifting our perception of a difficult situation, and finding peace. On this page I offer you the space to tell us about the stories that have stayed in your mind, times when you felt a real change occur in the way you were looking at a problem or upset. Maybe you were encountering aggressiveness in somone, or were being judged and belittled. Perhaps it was a loved one who had left you, or even a pet that had died. Or maybe there was fear, a threat in your life to you or to a loved one. In all these situations, at one time or another you have found peace beyond the pain, release from shame and sadness, and comfort and freedom in their place. There was always a presence there with you, the company of one who loves you and guides you to see differently. If you have had moments of finding that clear presence, please share it with us here.
A little more technically speaking, these would be moments when you reversed the projection and saw that the problem was not outside you, but with you, your perceptions and thoughts. A sudden moment of clarity perhaps when you saw that the upset was having pushed Love away, and not really what was happening outside you. Or perhaps it was just a moment when despite the upset or problem, you felt safely accompanied and that helped you remain unaffected by the problem, to get a little distance from it.
Please try to write concisely if your story requires a lot of explaining (and teach me something about brevity!). Also, please try to share from the heart and not from the head. It is always nice to hear the simple sincerity behind these inspiring stories.
Looks good to me Mister mayor.(:
Oh I have just the perfect little (?) forgiveness story…some half hour ago, I biked down at an instition for old and sick to read for them – I had made an appointment with the county-adm, and all was perfectly set up. It turned out that the ego had set that up.
So i got down there, and met one VERY confused lady who started to try to explain why I should not read after all. I was aware that this was my dream, and a wonderful opportunity to forgive myself for dreaming it and needing this – and after a few seconds a wave of gratefulness flowed in. The lady slowed down in a way, and I managed to tell her what my conditions for reading was, but i don’t think she was able to hear anything at all…I saw her fumble with the phones and fidget and the stress and I felt a great tenderness at seeing my own superstressed behavior – I got many thoughts about how brave she was for working in this tough institution, she had a disability and looked like 80, but i guess that was only the wear and tear – and the wonderful thing was that i did not feel responsible to calm her down and be helpful, I could just say stuff like ” stuff happens”, and lightly introducing the “gnome-theory” that there are invisible gnomes in all instituions who specialize in mixing up papers and driving us crazy – she liked that idea, and calmed down LOL ( and maybe I am even right about that)
well, I still feel the gratefulness – how lucky am I to KNOW that the outside is really inside, and that I today had the opportunity to forgive all of that confusion –
love to all
Nina
:::giggles:::short afterword to the forgiveness-story above:
after writing this I went to the bus station. A nabour exited the bus as I entered it, looked at me and said: hello, sunshine!
YESSS that’s how i felt – and isn’t it cool that it shows too (-:
Early in the morning I had an opportunity to look at things differently. My mom had about a month out of the Country, and this morning by my sister I knew she arrived on Friday. Well, today is Tuesday, and she did not, at least, call me. When I heard my sister`s information the pain was immediate. A deep, deep pain. My first reaction was beginning to blame my mother, but in that instant I remembered something Jamie was telling us a lot in the last classes. And instead of covering my pain with a long list of useless words against my mother, I decided to stay with the pain and accepted it as my own choice. In that moment I was aware of the huge terror I have to return Home, and simply accepted it. The pain remained but in peace, I did not have to struggle anymore looking for someone to blame. And for a brief moment I understood the beautiful lines from the Course: “Forgiveness is still, and quietly does nothing. It merely looks, and waits and judges not.”
Love, Lisi
Thanks, Nina and Lisi; Two lovely stories. Nina, a really interesting choice of words, “how lucky am I to KNOW that the outside is really inside”. You’re so right. I think we are lucky to have found a philosophy which helps us to understand this relationship. I figure we won’t be able to get very far unless we see that what’s going on outside is not the real problem.
Lisi, such a wonderful story. Thank you. Family stuff can always be so hard. And you managed to see the fear in turning towards Love, and just accepted it. Wow. I feel quite warm because of that. Reminds me, reminds me… and I need that reminder now.
Nina…I just loved the confusion forgiveness. I pictured the elderly woman and your encounter with her…and everything all mixed up. And then the “sunshine” comment. This is my life right now…silly and undecipherable…and then it goes over to something wonderful and meaningful. Back and forth…back and forth. Thank you so much for telling us about this!
Hugs!
Nina, Yesterday I had to visit a local government agency to have some apaerwork completed. Things did not move along as quickly or as smoothly as I had hoped, and there was a bit of a language barrier between the worker and me. I found myself recalling the story you shared here, and I found myself growing free of my agitation. Before long I came to realize that I had brought all of this impatience and chaos into the building with me….that on another day I might have welcomed the opportunity to sit for 30 minutes with nothing to do. Here I was expecting a bureaucracy to move at my pace and to accommodate my preferred timing. My ego can be very, very demanding, you know. But I took your story with me, and I made it my own, as well. Thank you for that little nugget.
Murrill, today you make my day (-: – I often fall into the bleakest blackest space the day after days like yesterday, now your post brought such joy to me that I literally sense some of the blackness evaporating – thank you!
Nina, I think that being reminded that I can choose makes all the difference.
I’ve put this comment in here from Lisi. It appeared on another page but I really thought it would look nice here. Many thanks to Lisi for this inspiring contribution.
Lisi:
Just coming down from the Monastery. New really insightful post. As it was about a dream made me remember my own dream last night. It`s a kind of repetitive, weird dream I have had for years. I think since I was a child. But yesterday´s I think it was in relation to the practice of yesterday´s lesson: Forgiveness is the Key to Happiness.
I was in a strange city desperate because I have to found someone. A man in the street gave me a key and told me: what you are looking for is inside this building and here is the key. Go for it. I came inside and found a very tall building, some kind of round building with stairs going up all around and hundreds and hundreds of doors. But the strange thing was that all the doors did not have a lock in which I can put the key in an open it. I was really anxious going up and down and looking toward all doors and suddenly a very gentle voice said: you will see the lock when your desire for peace is from you heart. I answered that I really want peace, and the voice told me: If you really want peace you first have to see war and by looking at it one day after day you are going to learn to wish peace with all your heart. Now you wish peace, but you also wish a lot more things. Look at all of them, once at the time, without hurry, gently, and then, sometime after you really tired of all this, the lock will appear and your key will fit perfectly. Don`t be disturbed now for your lack of peace, wait for it calmly and patiently. In that moment I awoke and I had a feeling of great relief. In the past when I had that dream, when I awoke had a feeling of anxiety and fear. But this morning it was different. I have my work to do, but I am not alone, and I am not going to make by myself, and this thought gave me great relief.
Lisi your story about your mother was wonderful, just wonderful 🙂
“the pain remained but in peace, I did not have to struggle anymore looking for someone to blame.” When that happens, i find that pain loses its sting and gratitude rushes in quickly to mop up the tail.
” And for a brief moment I understood the beautiful lines from the Course: “Forgiveness is still, and quietly does nothing. It merely looks, and waits and judges not.”
“The pain remained but in peace, I did not have to struggle anymore looking for someone to blame.” From Lisi’s pondering above, I picked out the same line as Winnie. By Jove, I think that says it all. The pain remained, but in peace. Reminds me of the that line somewhere in the Manual about escaping from our limitations but still living with them. I could never understand that line till Ken/Jamie (?) explained it to me. The limitation is still there, but we don’t experience it as limitation. The pain can be there, but it just becomes a sensation without a blame, victim or guilt component. Just an experience that doesn’t become a barrier between us and the memory of Love behind it.
This morning walking along the corridors of the Monastery I revisited a post I have revisited many, many times.
Today I awoke with a deep feeling of emptiness, and solitude, a very acute pain that I could not label with one of my “favorites”. Nothing obvious around to blame. And decided for a walk up, toward the Monastery.
First surprise, new class: “A Gentle Path”. I downloaded, but the feeling remained. And began to walk along the corridors and suddenly, I remembered the “Eden´s Cradle Song”. I rushed there and began to listen to the beautiful music and my eyes and my heart, little by little, very slowly, began to read:
“Just be patient.
If you are not patient
you will scare yourself.
Don´t run ahead of Jesus.
Wait for him with his light.
Walk with him…..”
I felt my eyes and cheeks damp, but I also felt Jesus comforting presence all around. And I remembered the only one I have to forgive is myself. Really comforting room.
Love, Lisi
oh Lisi that was just beautiful ! …………and the comfort you received flowed straight on and into me…..
On the subject of walk dont run which i have gotten good at, i wonder and ponder the the fine line between going slowly and gently, and not going at all.
I awoke in the night and talked about this to Jesus. Specifically in regard to my eating habits, i asked him am i just deluding myself into thinking i should have another bite of chocolate, `cause after all i dont wanna rush things { tee hee} or am i earnestly looking …… I told Him that i really didnt know, if my ego was disguising itself as gentleness or whether i am making progress….
Anyways i left the whole matter with Him ………
I might be off here, Winnie, hope you forgive me if I am – but there comes this question to me, what do you think would happen to you if you stopped eating sweets AT ALL… what does it give you that you think God can not -?
I mean , are you eating with ego or with jesus?LOL
(nervously looking out for the moderator-eraser-)
It would defy my purpose to give them up Nina. Jesus is using this set-up as the perfect classroom for me. Only yesterday He whispered in my ear.. “If you knew that this special relationship you have with sugar is a triumph over God would you want it?”
Unhesitatingly i said “yes”….. although i admitted to Him that i certainly didnt feel that way consciously, but i do not doubt the Truth.
Later He whispered “If you knew this special relationship was an attack on God, would you still want it”
I knew i was again answering “yes” and am grateful i can calmly hear the ugly truth about myself and will continue to look slowly and gently.
Winnie: Your post really resonated in me. Immediately made me think about the beautiful description of forgiveness in the workbook: “Forgives is still, and quietly does nothing…It merely looks, and waits, and judges NOT.” And I think you are judging not as you are calmly hearing the ugly truth about all of us looking at it slowly and gently while you wait for the fear to abate.
Lots of hugs and all my love, Lisi
Winnie: I like the “and waits” part.
xoxo
Nina
Bernard, after reading your explanation of what you were looking for as examples for the Forgiveness page, a very old memory came back to visit. It was 1972 I believe, and I was in Korea up near the DMZ, the line separating north from south. I was attending a combat school where I learned to fire all kinds of weapons. I was a Sargent in the security police force, and thought I had it going on. I was firing mortars down in to some rice paddies, and I noticed a small boat moving away from where I had been lobing the mortars. It all seemed so unreal, I never knew if someone was hurt or even killed, no one even seemed to care.
In the past when I had this memory I would quickly tuck it away, making noise in my head until there was no trace of this thought to steal my sanity. Tonight I knew it never happened, it wasn’t me. I set the whole thing up I guess like in the story Anil told, so I could savor the guilt. Tonight, at least for now I feel no guilt, for if I did, I know I would make it real once again at least to me.
When I got back to the “World” and was stationed near Canada at a Air Force Base in upper Maine, I was a good airman (solider) for close to a year. I had been in the service for almost three years by then, and one day I went to work and basically said that I couldn’t take it any more. I refused to carry a weapon, I told them I loved my country and what it stood for, but that I wouldn’t be killing anyone any time soon.
I thought the event in Korea, and the war still raging in Vietnam were the main reason for reusing to carry a weapon. I think though, even then I knew that none of it was real. I knew I called the shots, I created my heaven or hell, So in my world, my creation, There would be no gun. I was able to still get an honorable discharge, but lost all my stripes and was fined a lot of money. Tonight, and nowadays in general I feel ever so much more myself. There is a little slippage going on and that is just fine by me.
God bless us everyone
Sorry Winnie, another story! 🙂 Sorry Bernard it is a long one!
wonderful story Lawrence …
Here’s a little beginner forgiveness story. Though I know there’s no order of importance, Lawrence your story feels so deeply important in comparison.
I was lying awake last night building up a big attack on my dentist – The Terrifying Enemy – the one who wasn’t going to listen to my dilemma on dental crowns..!! Yep the one who was already condemning me over my bio-energetic compatibility issues…(oh boy!). I was sleepless in preparation for today’s epic battle of the ego wills – sharpening swords, checking over my armour. Scary, nervous system trembling stuff.
This morning I quietened down, looking for the forgiveness opportunity – “There is no cruelty in God and none in me” was my lesson…so, if we are all One, no cruelty in my dentist either??
and remembering ….it’s impossible to see two worlds at the same time…I am not a body… and Paulo learning that every outcome can be a win-win – neither party need lose out when solving a dilemma…
Once I’d remembered that I’m not a body and this is a dream the dental dilemma faded into insignificance, whatever the outcome would be absolutely fine..that left me free to remember my dentist as a brother exactly the same as me – both of us perfect..by the time I got to the surgery I was back to a loving mind and had an easy conversation with a perfect outcome. I blessed my loving dentist brother (and his assistant) during the injections and drilling and we all left friends. Here I am numb in the mouth but happier than I’ve felt all week.
Sarah, cool forgiveness story! If I were somebody or had any authority, I would dub you Happy Numb Mouth! I can relate how you worked your mind into a lather…I do this frequently…my big MO is planning things out, which is a big defense against truth. Anyway, cool that you took a look at what you were doing…and able to find that peaceful place. How cool is this? Ever feel this coming on and catch it and say to yourself, “Nooooo…not going there…stop right here…not going down that road.” For the first few
minutes of that, it’s like a feeling of a deflated balloon to me…like I really WANTED to go down that “fired up” road, so I miss what that would have been. Thankfully, that passes. If I were a judging person, I’d say
my doing this is rather sick (the addiction to being fired up). Which brings me around in a circle to my lesson for today (I’m behind the calendar): Sickness is a defense against the truth. To me, sickness doesn’t just mean bodily impairment…I got a whole lot of sickness going on in a whole lot of ways. All defenses against the truth. But I keep looking at it. Look…and look…and look.
Hugs!
Lawrence: Thanks for your beautiful story. I always like to read and learn from them, and I don´t care if they are long, because they are from your heart.
Sarah: Thanks for sharing this forgiveness story. We are learning that we can have peace no matter what is happening outside, once we take Jesus hand and accept responsibility for what we are experiencing.
Hugs and love, Lisi
Oh Laura yes…and any insights on working with The Planning Lather gratefully received.
Thanks Lisi, I feel such a beginner here – just feeling my way..
Hugs and love to you both Sarah
Sarah. Thank you for your story, and since the subject of dentistry has come up…..last week I had a toothache and stopped in at my local outpatient VA clinic. I hadn’t paid attention to my timing, and I showed up during the lunch hour. A rather annoyed nurse directed me to the dental clinic several miles away at the VA hospital. She was, shall we say, not exuding nurselike caring (in my opinion).
Well, yesterday I needed to get a pre employment TB test, so back I went to the o/p clinic, where I was directed to the same “unfriendly” nurse. I introduced myself as “that guy who interrupted your lunchhour last week,’ and apologized for my error. She pretended to refuse forgiveness, but the reality was that she was very loving and we had a marvelous little “visit.” I’m looking forward to seeing her again so she can read the test.
All I had to do was choose differently: love rather than fear, spirit rather than ego. And it was so effortless to become peaceful so long as I wasn’t “in charge.” Once again, a lesson that love creates itself, and nothing but.
blessings
zb
Zenbear…awesome! I love the turning around of the situation you did. Totally an example of “seeing differently.”
I’ve got a biggie lesson, and need some help.
twice I have been in the same bus as an older man who is not quite right in his head. He hums loudly and falsely, is VEEEERY smiling and has a thing for very small children, like 2-3 years old – he goes right in their face and speaks incoherently and grabs their arms, and their mothers either freeze up or kindly and firmly tell him that their child does not like it, and he does not get it and does it again.
LOOKING at it, I want to kill him and scream and kick him to death and such things. And I think that interwening MIGHT be risky if he’s insane. The children look terrified of him, and I remember that little child feeling so very well, so I thin the best thing for me is to know this is a lesson for me and that I safely can tell Jesus all the belief I have about him and the children and all my hateful feelings and all the fear – and i just wonder, am I supposed to intervene to help those children. when their parents does not do enough to get him away?
I am certain some of you see this in a balanced way, and you see that I don’t – please help –
Dear Nina: I read your post with interest and I think it could be a big lesson as you mentioned. What I think, trying to answer the help you ask, is that behaviorally nobody could tell you what to do because that should be the consequence of your joining with Jesus in the mind and, of course, of your forgiveness practice. I think that your reaction is not really because you have the remembrance of an abused child, that is only a smokescreen, I think your reaction is because the man pictured you the image we all have in the unconscious mind that we are the home of evil, darkness and sin, as Jesus says is Lesson 93. And that picture of ourselves is so terrified that immediately we projected out and see the evil and the darkness in the man. The man in the form could be doing something wrong but what we are seeing in him are our own sins that we haven´t forgive yet. And this sins in reality is only one, the belief that we separated from God. From this sole belief stems all what we feel and witness. But the good news are that when we join with Jesus, he says to us: “little child you are confused and you have been very arrogant. Nobody can murder God, nobody can abandon Him. You are safe in His Heart. You are with Him. In that moment we experience the man, the children and us are the same we are just a childish mind confused with fear. But now at last we have the hand that always comforts us.
Hope this help, lots of hugs and love, Lisi
Lisi, thank you so much for engaging in this and pointing me to the right mind.
See, I don’t see the man as evil and dark at all: just deluded, I see him as stuck in an old story, just as part of my mind is stuck in her story too. And you help me to clarify the question: I see, when I see him, that his spirit is innocent – and what bothers me are the tremendous feelings of panic from the child, and the tremedous urge I feel to snatch her away from all that.
But maybe I could ask instead what you would do if you encountered this man and this panic in children (and yesterday with parents which did nothing to stop him) – what would you tell yourself, in that situation?
thanks again!
Nina
As always, the answer always come to me – either form my fellow villagers, or as now, from Ken, answering q 396 at the Monastery. What a wonderful and clear description of what true help would be like:
(2) Deeply embedded in our unhealed minds is the belief that we are in competition with God, and therefore there would always be a need to prove that we can do at least as well as He, if not better.(—) (M.10.3,4).
(3) Also deeply embedded in our minds is the desperate need to validate our belief that separation and duality are real — that there is indeed a world in need of saving. A very effective way of reinforcing the belief in separation is to see people as fragile, deprived, vulnerable, helpless, victimized, and dependent on some outside source to help them. If you perceive that you have just the thing they need, then you have seen yourself as separate — you have something they do not have. And not far behind that is the thought that someone or something is responsible for the plight of these poor innocent people: blame, the ego’s favorite means of maintaining conflict and banishing peace.
(4) If you perceive yourself and others who seem to be struggling as sharing the same ego beliefs as well as the same right-minded beliefs, you would not charge in to fix them, because as a good Course in Miracles student you would know that accepting the Atonement for yourself is your only responsibility (T.2.V.5:1), which you would be practicing by not seeing your interests as separate from theirs. If you charge in anyway, then you have become frightened of the implications of undoing the separation and have switched to your wrong mind, which automatically sees separate interests. When you are in your right mind, you would empathize with the strength of Christ in them, and you would respect the power of their minds to decide whether to listen to the ego or the Holy Spirit, and in so doing you would be reinforcing in yourself, the power of your own mind. In that holy instant, you would be guided to do something, or to do nothing; but it would not be coming from you as an individual self perceiving other individual selves.
Nina, Lisi, and Ken’s Q&A…wow, this totally gave me a different way of seeing today. Thank you so much.
Hugs!
Precious Lawrence … I grew up as an Air Force brat (father was a lawyer/legal officer) … and I was later married to an Army officer (temporarily). I believe that most military people are extremely brave … and in their hearts believe they are doing the right thing to protect those they love … which makes it so.
So I completely understand the risk you took … the deep nuances of how very brave you were to go against the system … as you describe in your #19 post. You were miles ahead of me on the path.
And now the bravery comes in handy again … as you look at it all … and forgive.
Sending you hugs of Peace …
P.S. Was your Maine station at Presque Isle? When my family was stationed at Lake Charles AFB I had a good friend whose father (the base chaplain) was transferred to Presque Isle, a decade ahead of you. (Sorry, folks, Lawrence has me reminiscing about my Air Force brat days.)
Winnie, I was looking through one of Ken’s little books, one of the more particularly annoying ones entitled Sex and Money (which, as you might guess, doesn’t have much to do with the really juicy stuff) and this idea of his came to me:
We seek in food an intense sensation that will obliterate from our minds the other intense sensation we are really looking for. A remembrance of deep, deep safety and peace is what our hearts are really wanting, but this seems still out of reach, that is, a part of us knows it can’t come along. That part of us says, “If I can’t come, we aren’t going, and that’s that! BUT let’s munch some of this yummy stuff over here, and that’ll be just as good, I promise. That’s also an intense experience. Okay, not quite the same, but pretty good nevertheless.”
Sometimes I’m tempted to think it sucks that there is no true and real pleasure in the things I still think would make my life somehow more complete. There’s that niggly little detail which spoils all the fun, you know, the ‘it doesn’t really exist, it’s just a picture + interpretation, and so are you, by the way.” And then I (figuratively) shake my head and ask would I really trade all of Heaven for this (special thingummy). And then there’s this tiny, tiny flame deep down which gives me a hint that actually maybe I could learn that these things don’t really have the power I give them, and maybe I don’t really want them too, either.
Monk’s post on the Ego wants a cracker is really good on this.
I like ‘and waits’ part, too, Nina. In fact, I think I could repeat it over and over. I think Monk pointed this out in a class once, or Ken did, that the important part is the quiet, silent waiting. Infinite, patient waiting.
I just love all these questions about fixations. I mean, the stepping stones on my path are labelled by the names of my special objects and situations, all the different things I think are going to make a difference, no matter how infinitesimally small, on my life. Like this Village, for example. Did I ever think it would make a difference to me? Naaaaah. Or changing jobs. I’d like to write a blog on this, something like “If only, when…”. If only I could eat more chocolate and not get quite so sick… Or, “when I finally get my activities worked out, then…” then somehow something will be better. I don’t know what. Go figure.
Zenbear, a really nice story. But my question is, what would have happened if the nurse had not changed attitudes and had met your kindness with another slap in the face? Maybe that applies to all of us on this page coming with our forgiveness stories. What happens if we feel a real shift within ourselves and we enter a place of deep peace, but nothing changes on the outside, and perhaps on the contrary things ‘deteriorate’ in appearance? My personal feeling is that there is no equation inner forgiveness=outer shift. In fact, in my experience that does not actually happen very often (at least, not in my life). The peace is the only true reward, I think, and in its vision we manage to stay outside the specifics of the situation (above the battleground) yet still remain kind and a source of calm, even when the outside falls apart even more.
Lawrence and Sarah, great stories, too!
Hi Bernard –
Lots of juicy posts from you post-Amsterdam. A heartfelt thank you for making this place available to us.
Agree with you on this, for sure – I have also never yet seen a situation where my inner work has resulted in any outer “betterment”. In fact, things have truly got much worse, in this my earthly life, since I’ve come across this blue book teaching.
In complete fairness, though, if I were to evaluate my chronological 41 years, I would have to say that my life probably always was just as sucky – I was just sleeping through more of it, and now that I seem to be a wee bit more alert, key words – *seem*, *wee bit* (:…..
perhaps, it just “seems” to be getting worse.
Toots.
Nina, a fascinating situation, and very challenging, too. I think there are so many angles from which to look at this, a number of which Lisi mentioned, and which you brought up via the Q&A (always perfect). Another thought (for what it’s worth) is that deep within us all there is a memory of some deviant attack, something very out of the ordinary that has happened. Today anything that happens that is totally not-normal can frighten us because it is symbolic of the completely unnormal thing we are convinced has happened. Hence (perhaps) why societies tend to want to keep things very much along the straight and narrow. The panic of the child may be related to the man, or to something else. A child can panic at so many things (as can we). We all have a tendency to want to protect the child, as if we can protect human innocence (which could be read as human individuality or specialness) from attack (the return of God to reclaim his possessions). I only think that you’d have to be there to know what you’d actually do. It would be spontaneous once you had removed some of the fear and projection. Nothing is ever in danger, despite appearances. But that doesn’t prevent us from taking action to work with people’s limits. Maybe you would rush up and grab the man’s hand gently and introduce yourself in a friendly fashion, communicating somehow that his behavior was scaring the child, but that you harbor no judgment.
This reminds me of a wonderful story that many of you have probably heard a number of times, but it bears re-telling. I think of it often. It is told in the first person by the person to whom it happened, but I’ll tell it briefly here in the third person.
A black-belt student of Aikido visiting and studying in Japan was travelling home on the subway one night when a very large and drunk man entered the wagon. He started yelling and swearing at everyone and even provoking some people to outright conflict. In short, he was looking for a fight. The Aikido student was steeling himself for immediate battle to defend these poor people being so cruelly taunted by this lout. Just as he was about to enter the battle, a tiny, wizened old man piped up from a seat..
“It looks like you’ve been to a party, young man.”
“I’ve been drinking.”
“Oh, I like a drink now and then. What were you drinking?”
“SAKE!” he yelled.
“Ahh, sake, yes a favorite drink of mine. My wife and I often sit under the cherry tree behind the house and have a little glass in the evening just as the sun is setting. Very nice.”
As the Aikido observed this strange conversation, the great man quieted down and suddenly dropped his head in his hands and began to weep. Big heaving sobs wracked the man and he sat down next to the little old man. He explained to him that he had lost his wife not many months before and since then had been unable to find any happiness in life. In a short time the great man had his head on the little old man’s lap who sat there stroking it tenderly.
The Aikido student recounted that he was aware he had just met in the guise of a tiny old man in the subway one of his greatest Zen teachers, and a true master of the fundamental principle of Aikido of kindness.
This story, which has always stayed in my mind, gave me the outline for the character of the Blacksmith in Paulo and the Magician. Some of you who have read it will immediately see the parallel with the chapter The Blacksmith and the Angel.
Now I have tears in my eyes: I also read this story about ten years ago and loved it – it taught me so much.
Terry Dobson was the name of the Aikido student concerned. A lurker by the name of Acimpunk whispered it to me in an email today. He sends his love and is just waiting for the right moment…
I hadn’t heard that story before, thank you for sharing that with us and a rather late welcome back Bernard. I really enjoy your thought process, the gentleness and the way you keep on track with what the course teaches. It is what we all need, and get from Ken, Monk and now you Mr. Mayor.
I like the story of the old man. I like how he sees the divine in the the great man as opposed to the rest of it. I have for some time practised that on a smaller scale. But recently I read and have taken to heart the practice of applying that with more love and concentration when possible. It really does diffuse a situation, even a minor one when you see the Christ in your brother and tap into that.
But having said that, after reading you post and Anils post, I have to agree with what you said, there is no equation “inner forgiveness=outer shift.” But, I believe things can get better for others involved and will before you see a change in your dream. Your reward, if it can be called that, is peace, a quiet and gentle knowing of sorts that you are on the right track, and home will be your reward at the end of dreaming.
I might not get this exactly right, but I love what the Course says about Jesus, something like: Jesus was a man who saw the Christ (or face of Christ)in everyone he saw, and remembered who he was. How beautiful is that! And, I think that is what the story is about, seeing the Christ in your bother or sister and thus seeing him in yourself. One other thing, things of course can fall apart for all involved, but if you see the divine in all involved, or just make a serious effort to, then your foundation is rock and you stand on solid ground.
God bless us every one
Hi Bernard.
while my own experience has been that people tend to respond “in kind,” I also understand… when I’m in my right mind… that outer shifts need not be either determined by my inner peace of mind (forgiveness), or vice versa. Just as ego and spirit don’t actually determine each other, I find it gets easier and simpler with practice to take responsibility for my own “inner shifts” without expecting the world to congratulate me. Granted, this remains mostly an intellectual awareness, but … gotta start somewhere. It pleased me to reflect that my decision to choose love rather than fear had nothing at all to do with any expectations. Other than my own inner peace.
I truly enjoy being quiet and observing the world theater (of the absurd), trying to be aware of my own scriptwriting responsibilities. I also enjoy snacking on a tub of popcorn while being “entertained.” And if I offer you some of my popcorn, and you decline….I’m really not offended. I will still enjoy the treat, forgive myself for using a “substitute,” and pat myself on the back for not adding extra butter or salt.
Sometimes I think I embrace my insanity a little too closely.
blessings
zenbear
Ohh…zenbear… I love what I hear you saying.
Blessings to all Indeed,
Annie
Hey Bernard! In regard to your Post #34, I have a quote that I keep in my iPhone that I look at quite often. It says: “The Course states unequivocally that as we change our thoughts, their outer counterparts — the details of our daily lives, including others’ behavior — will change automatically.” Not sure where I read this, but for me, I am seeing this happen more and more often, as I plow through ACIM. At first, and ongoing, is the delightful peace. And then it seems, suddenly (and you will know it), others’ behavior is miraculously changing before your eyes. For me, and probably everyone, it just has to happen once. It is quite a dramatic shift (probably to get our attention big time), but the next time is much quicker. Hope this helps. Pink Clouds
Zenbear, great, just great! I love your popcorn talk. And I’ll accept popcorn from you any day. I think in fact I was a bit harsh in my comment above (34). Perhaps I should have said that the inner peace is the only true reward, but that doesn’t prevent things from getting ‘better’ on the outside. There’s probably a good chance they might, if we take off our need to see signs punishment and victimization. Other people will have more reason to respond to us kindly if they sense no opposition in us, and no need to find a problem. But I think this would more like be the outer-circumstance-icing on the inner-peace-cake.
Hi, Sally! Good to see you back here. (Sally was one of the first people to post a comment on, I think, the author page some time ago) I think there will be some obvious positive changes outside when we start to loosen our need to blame and when we welcome some inner peace. And it’s lovely to see this happen when it does. If only that happened all the time!
I remember Ken putting us on our guard, however, with respect to these changes only because they might tend to become a goal in themselves, and that is not the objective of the Course. Jesus wants us to meet him where He is, not just have better lives here. That might happen, and that would be great. But that’s not really the objective of the Course. As Ken has told us a number of times, we only have to look at the life of Jesus to find someone whose circumstances didn’t particularly improve over time. In fact they dramatically deteriorated, but that didn’t have any effect on him, because His mind had become entirely associated with the Holy Spirit (Peace). As He says in the Course, we are asked to choose peace faced with circumstances far less threatening than those he faced. If we allow ourselves to regain our original state of One-mindedness together with Jesus, then anything could happen here and all we would feel is tremendous peacefulness.
I love it when people are nice to me when I drop my issues with them. But I think it will be even nicer the day when I don’t even notice whether they were nice back to me or not, because it just wouldn’t matter. All I would see in them is their need for Love. They wouldn’t need to be nice to me, and it wouldn’t make any difference to me. That will be a nice day…
Sorry about the long post, everyone! (Another, I know…)
Pinky jinx bernard! I think I just said something kinda similar over in the square – but without the eloquence.
sheese!! What gives with you guys feeling guilty and apologizing about long posts? Where are the post Police??? And where are the laws defining how many characters can be used up to which point and anything beyond that point is “to LONG”??? Do it with HS and it will never be to long or to short it will be just right(:
This is said in a gentle and joking way ya know.
I was reading with a lot of interest all the last posts here on the Forgiveness Section. I was a little confused about pondering No. 25 and No. 42. And thank you Bernard, Anil and Al for your posts, they really clarify what I was thinking. There are some points from the Course that help me a lot and I would like to share them with you and see what you think about.
There are two parts in the Course where Jesus says: “The ego ALWAYS speaks first and ALWAYS is wrong. And the Holy Spirit is the answer. I think if we take that as a rule of a thumb is of great help, because if we maintain, the most we can, that in our mind, it’s going to be more difficult for the ego to catch us. As Ken repeatedly says, the Course is not teaching us how to listen to the Holy Spirit, but to be aware of our ego and then bring it to Jesus or the Holy Spirit for correction. That entails, if I am very vigilant, that in any “adverse” situation, the first voice I am going to hear is my ego’s and it’s only then when I can choose the Alternative. In Lesson 138 Jesus tells us that in reality there is only one Alternative, the Holy Spirit, because in the world we move around with the ego.
In my experience I can only change my perception successfully after seeing that my brother’s problem [anger, attack, etc.] is in truth my own. Not necessarily in the form but for sure in the content. When I experience that both of us are but the same deluded and insane mind then, I can experience joining and peace, but and external shift from the other person or circumstance is not usual. And the peace I am talking about is the peace of the recognition that I am choosing whatever I am witnessing, and in many occasions the pain or anxiety remains, but now there is nothing to blame.
I agree with Bernard, Anil and Al, that after sometime of working with the Course, things seems to go worst or as Ken says, they were already worst but we did not know it.
About that beautiful part in the Manual that says, as Lawrence quote, “Jesus was a man who saw the Christ in everyone”, that is wonderful, really, and I think that should be our long term goal. But we must notice that it says, He saw the Christ in all, not, they saw the Christ in him. They crucified him !!And from that we can deduce that an external change in the others not only is not easy but it is not necessary.
The other confusion I have is about Sally’s quote. I don’t remember I have ever read that in the Course, but I do remember Jesus words that cautions us, “Seek not to change the world, but seek instead to change your mind about it”
And, very, very sorry, a very long post.
Hugs and love to all, Lisi
Sally, I’d like to hear about your experiences with the Course. It sounds like some nice things have happened to you as a result. You talk about a ‘dramatic shift’. Was that something specific that happened?
Hey Lisi, I found that quote in “Never Forget to Laugh”, by Carol Howe. It is a beautiful book about Bill Thetford. She had been friends with him for many years and there is some wonderfully informative stuff in there about him. She has also been a student since 1977, (looks like she was part of that original crowd out in California) and so has alot of insight, and she has also been teaching it for a long time. I think her site is http://www.carolhowe.com. When a quote like that “pops” out at me, that is a always another sign for me to look at things, and I know that is was important enough for me to put it in my phone. Bernard asked me to post about my experiences with the Course, and I will do that, but I realize it will be long long long, hah. Enjoy, and hopefully that clears up your confusion. It always helps me when I can write things out. I have been a big email person (sending them to myself the past couple of years) so that I have some kind of log to look at. Bernard’s blog is my first attempt at posting.
Hi, Sally. Yes, apparently Carol Howe knew Bill quite well, and though I haven’t read the book, I believe she says some very beautiful things. On the other hand, when she says in her book, “The Course states unequivocally that as we change our thoughts, their outer counterparts — the details of our daily lives, including others’ behavior — will change automatically,”, well, this kind of statement is actually up for debate. The Course actually appears to say a number of things in different places which are not, in form, consistent with its global message. This is what we might call Jesus’ “poetic licence”, or his way of schmoozing us to come along for the ride. Even very experienced teachers can have a hard time sticking to the pure non-dual message of the Course, and begin to think that there is something going on in the world around us. That is why I tend to stick with Ken’s guidance on these matters, only to keep the confusion to a bare minimum. As powerfully tempting as it is to think something is happening here (and can still happen to improve things), and as terribly convincing as our experiences can seem to us in all their passion or despair, nothing is ever really going on. This is a totally frightening message on one hand, and a completely liberating one on the other. I appreciate Carol Howe’s experience, but with respect to this statement I would tend to go with Ken’s spin on the matter of inner shift=outer effect. I think he would say, “That’s not where the action is.”
Forgiveness…I ahve the last two weeks done some volunteer-work down at the Institution for the sick and elderly here at Rykkinn. Thought I might bring a good book and read for people. The initial chaos i described earlier, with a v e r y nervous and stressed therapist down there, spread to unimagined heights the next time I was there ( the first reading-time) – nobody had given the staff the message that i would come, nothing prepared, they dragged in some dement people from the corridors, and three very old ladies – they all leaved after half an hour. The staff was brusque and unfriendly, gave snippy remarks, and i felt small and idiotic and a complete failure.
Good forgiveness-opportunity, wouldnt you say?
So I have for a week seen the staff-members in my mind, and said” you are Spirit, healed and whole and innocent. all is forgiven and released” – and I have seen in my mind that the most threatening-seeming person really cared very much for her patients and thought I judged them. I then realized that I did judge the dement ones – I pick up that they are not “at home”,and something else seem to be there instead, and that has scared the shxt out of me, reminding me of insane persons in my childhood.
Just having this wonderful script, where i now was brought back to those old fears and could show them to Jesus – that was good – and after doing that, being able to see this seemingly harsh nurse as really caring.
And so today, I met three of the staff – included the “harsh” one – and their faces were glowing with love, completely radiant, they didn’t know the best they could for me, and for the first time, I had ONE person that REALLY enjoyed the reading – and who was NOT afraid of the “sad” bits.
And I recognize how screwed up my perception has been: today things were as chaotiv logistically as before, but inside I was completely relaxed and trusted and they did not know the best they could do for me.
And maybe this was a symbol 🙂 : the lady who enjoyd my reading, and who I had a great time with, had only half her body left.
Lawrence, now THIS is long post, and not a coherent one – rather messy I think -and I am so grateful that you have showed me that the form is not important, the sincerity is.