humility Archives • School for A Course In Miracles

Musings: The Healing Purpose

June 20, 2013

The following was a letter to a friend who was in prison for a crime committed during one of his many bouts with addiction to cocaine. He wanted to wake up but was fixated on his particular dream.

I had known my friend for ten years and during this time he had been incarcerated four times. This time it was for ten years. Prior to this he had been incarcerated at least five times, all while on a cocaine rampage. He was released at the age of 50 having spent most of his life in prison.

Without purpose that can be applied regardless of the circumstances of his life, his situation would have been cause for desperation. My point in sharing this letter is that without purpose we are all hopelessly caught in our pitiful little dreams, be they pleasurable or painful.

Dear Friend:

This answer to your concerns about your incarceration comes from the heart. May it go to the heart, find its mark, and be helpful.

The brick and mortar prison that you find yourself in is a metaphor for the situation we all find ourselves in. The prison I am referring to is the mind that is ruled by the ego.

The ego is the thought of separation taking form. It is a prison house of our own making. Self-centered and selfish the ego sees everything in relationship to itself. The ego thinks the body is its home.

As if imprisonment were not bad enough the ego’s practice is to inflict pain or suffer pain instead of helping one another to escape. Of course I am speaking metaphorically. The escape from the prison house we have all made is accomplished only by learning that the person we think we are, that long lasting separate entity, is not what we are.

No one asleep and dreaming knows the way out of the dream he is dreaming. After all he believes it is real. He needs help.

The escape is through the mind and everyone, regardless of the circumstances of his life must come to that realization. Humans tend to make comfort, safety and security their goal and when they get them they think they have escaped the prison of separate interests. What they have attained is a pleasant form of fear.

Changing the circumstances of our life is not a change at all because it is the mind that needs to change. It is not hard to see that we take the thought system that we live by with us wherever we go. It’s all about us. To use a common analogy, changing circumstances is like shifting around the deck chairs on the Titanic. What difference will it make? The mind ruled by the ego is a sinking ship. It needs a new captain, not a change of location.

Once you have made the decision to become a happy learner from The Teacher for Truth the outcome is certain. You will escape the dream. How long the journey takes depends upon your trust in The Teacher and your willingness to bring the darkness in you to Him.

Choosing between the ego thought system of self-absorption and The Teacher’s thought system of healing is the only power the mind has. The rest of the time it’s idling, going nowhere.

Our relationships provide the opportunities for us to learn what’s in our mind. The ego’s thought system of separation goes like this:

1. The other guy is the guilty one.

2. If it weren’t for him (the other guy), my life would be peaceful and happy. (Conclusion: My anger is justified.)

3. I’m right. He’s wrong.

4. Somebody should pay, and it’s not going to be me. I’m innocent.

5. The other guy should be the one to suffer.

Behind every encounter some version of the above is always going on when the ego is ruling your mind. It only takes one person to stop playing this game. You. To do this you must have the desire to learn from a different teacher—the one that would free you and your brother together.

The Holy Spirit’s thought system, which you have chosen to learn because you are a student of A Course in Miracles, sees your brother differently. He sees

1. The other guy is innocent regardless of his behavior because he is not a body.

2. He is present in your life to help you escape from your dream of isolation.

3. There is no loss to anyone. Both parties gain.

4. Your attitude toward your brother is your attitude toward yourself.

5. You and your brother are joined in mind. Changing your mind changes all minds.

“Together or not at all” is the Holy Spirit’s mantra.

You get to choose between the ego and the Teacher of Truth. That makes you the ultimate Decision Maker. All power and glory is in your hands. It is the only freedom you have in this world.

To choose the Holy Spirit as your Teacher you must recognize when the ego is in charge, acknowledge that you no longer want it to rule your mind and ask the Holy Spirit for His Teaching instead. It’s really simple to tell which you have chosen. When you operate under the ego’s rule you don’t feel loving and happy. Simple.

Everyone you meet is your savior from isolation. By seeing our relationships in this way, every day becomes an exciting chance to remember our true undivided nature. Purpose is everything!

Everyone engaged in dreaming is trying to get rid guilt by dumping it on someone else. Refuse to blame the other guy for your misery. (The real source of your misery is your choice to be a self-centered, special, individual entity.) Ask The Teacher for help. You are not going to be able to rehabilitate yourself.

“Humility … does require that you be not content with less than greatness that comes not of you.” – A Course in Miracles, T.381.

Blessings,

Lyn

Musings: About Lyn Corona

April 5, 2013

I don’t feel that I am overstating my capabilities when I say that I am a learner. Not in the traditional way of accumulating information to gain some advantage, but out of a deep curiosity about what lies beyond a self-centered perspective from which most of us view the world.

I was eleven years old the first time I had an “unusual experience” that gave me my first taste of an alternative point of view. I lived in the country, 14 miles from town, and being an only child I spent a lot of time on my own in nature. This particular time I was engaged in a favorite pastime at which I had developed great skill.

There was a river that ran through our property, and when the water was low enough, the larger rocks were exposed so that I could jump from rock to rock in a steady rhythm, running upstream like a salmon. Only one foot at a time could land on each rock and the game was to go as fast as possible without loosing my balance and dumping into the river. This particular time I suddenly found myself located outside my body in a timeless zone that was perfectly still and peaceful while my physical body kept jumping rocks. I never forgot the experience.

I was a freshman in high school the first time I heard the word enlightenment. I had no idea what it meant, but I caught the scent, like a hound on the trail of something big. The next time I was at the local library I checked out the only two books that seemed somewhat related to the topic. I remember one of the authors was Alan Watts. Nothing I read in those books satisfied my desire to know what enlightenment was. I continued my search off and on for years, knowing someday I would find something that could explain enlightenment and the timeless zone that I knew was more real than anything I had experienced since the river.

It was in the latter part of the 70’s when A Course in Miracles came into my life. I had just finished reading Jane Robert’s mind-blowing The Nature of Personal Reality which set the stage for the entrance of the Course. I immediately recognized it as the answer to my questions about why I was here, what gives meaning and purpose to life, why I was suffering and how it could end. And also how to get to the timeless zone and stay there forever.

As a beginning student of A Course in Miracles, I developed my own practice of learning. I was living in the mountains about 40 miles west of Denver so I didn’t know there were such things as study groups. As far as I knew the Course was a self study program. The only help available was through asking the inner Teacher to show me the meaning of a lesson or a complicated passage from the text. I would ask and somewhere in the course of my day there would be an incident or an encounter that would give me the understanding. The Teacher became very real for me, always answering in some form I could understand.

I started offering classes, workshops and retreats on the Course in 1986 and with a few brief sabbaticals have continued to do so until this day. Over the years I established several centers for the study of the Course, have been an itinerant teacher traveling the U.S, and most recently joined with some of my colleagues in establishing the School of Reason (now School for A Course in Miracles for students and aspiring teachers of A Course in Miracles. I also began this blog. The point of all our doings, mine or anyone else’s, is that they are a curriculum for our learning and vehicles for sharing another way.

The most repeated lesson in A Course in Miracles is “I am not a body. I am free”. Thank God, I can finally say it and know that it is true and not just some fluke that happened on the river one day. We don’t reside in a body and on some level we all know that this is true. That shift, from body to mind, is what A Course in Miracles is all about. It is a shift from a self-centered point of view to a transcendent presence that is mind. It’s a miracle.

It is not only possible to be in the world but not of it; it is essential. Our lives can reflect the ease and freedom of our real residence out of time where we are whole eternal minds in perfect communication with a non-physical universe of spirit comprised only of intangible Love.

The step out of time and into eternity (the timeless zone) calls for humility and the willingness to learn another way. We have to admit that we don’t know how to get there from here. Instead of it happening accidentally, like it did for me on the river, we have the inner Teacher that knows the way, and unlike my early experience that did not last, we can learn to reside there forever.

Here, in this world, is where our transformation takes place. We don’t die to get to Heaven. We just wake up. Enlightenment is not a place to travel to. It is right here. Right now.

School for A Course in Miracles is organized under the non-profit (501(c)3, Ark of Peace, which was founded in 1990 by school director, Lyn Corona, for the purpose of extending the message of peace through forgiveness as presented by A Course in Miracles. Since the inception of the Ark of Peace, for a few years it had a retreat center called Heaven on Earth in Pine, Colorado; a Miracles Center (1991) on South Pearl, which later moved to 924 Logan St.; The Pearl Street Abbey, a residential community for teaching and learning the Course; The Satsang Cafe, with an upper room for Course classes; and now the School for A Course in Miracles (formerly School of Reason)and the Ken Wapnick Memorial Library– all to fulfill its mission to extend the teachings of the Course.

Musings: Don’t Take Yourself So Seriously

April 20, 2012

“Humility will never ask that you remain content with littleness. But it does require that you be not content with less than greatness that comes not of you.”

– A Course in Miracles, Text, p. 381

Here are some suggestions to get over yourself:

1. Do not compare yourself to anyone else because there is no one else. Your talents and skills are best used in serving others. These two statements– serve others and there is no one else– appear contradictory until you realize you presently appear in many pieces (bodies). Serve all and know The Self.

“Don’t worry about anyone else. It’s all you.”

2. Don’t use your talents and skills to hold others hostage to a personal self. Use your talents and skills for the good of all and make sure those who come to you are encouraged to do this same.

3. Have no expectations. If others recognize your contributions, so be it. If others do not recognize your contributions, so be it.

4. The less you compete the more desirable you become. Give attention and admiration to others instead of looking for it for yourself. Competition does not evolve into mighty companionship.

5. Resign as your own teacher and admit that you have failed to come up with a design for your life that works. You are not in charge of what you mistakenly call “your life”. Admit that you are in over your head and don’t know how to get out. Relax and learn that you are already out.

6. Commit to work that has nothing to do with your personal gain or advancement. Working with others toward common goals that transcend special interests reveals your grandeur. Grandeur is of God.

7. Discover who you by not adjusting yourself to meet others needs. Let beingness reveal itself to you. This Pearl Worth Any Price is what is wanted and needed first and foremost. Any action that comes from here will be truly helpful.

“I thought the problem for me was you. Then I realized the problem for me was me. The next thing I knew I was free.”

8. Take frequent short breaks and remember to breathe.

9. Take time to connect with people. It doesn’t need to be a spectacular event. The reason to connect is to express appreciation. An earnest smile at seeing yourself will do.

10. Stop trying to get somewhere. It’s a waste of time. You are already whole and complete.

Musings: Three Things

March 14, 2010

I am not a scholar of A Course in Miracles. For a while I thought I might be but that’s not “the way of Lyn”. I’m glad to get that out of the way.

The scholar for the Course, in my opinion, is Dr. Kenneth Wapnick. His brilliance and dedication to the principles of the Course are unparalleled. He is the Founder of the Foundation for A Course in Miracles, along with his wife Gloria. Extensive scholarly material is offered at their website at FACIM.org.

Even though I am not a scholar I do not underestimate the importance of understanding the theoretical foundations presented in the text of the Course. Once you understand the two thought systems the Course presents—the ego’s and the Holy Spirit’s (The Teacher)—and their respective implications, you will be able to open to any page in the often complex material and know exactly what is being said. I owe that understanding to Dr. Wapnick.

Beyond the metaphysics, the more important awareness is on the content of the mind. Is it love? Or is it fear?

If it is love, the intent is to be truly helpful, to join with the other person on common ground, and to look beyond separate interests.

If it is fear, the intent is to attack or to defend (which is an attack), to separate, or to makes oneself special or different in some way.

It is easy to tell what our motivation is by how we feel. If we are basking in peace it was love in action. If we feel anxious and uneasy, then it was fear in action.

Although I have studied, taught and practiced the Course for 35 years all I can say with certainty is that I am a more willing learner now than when I began. That may be my sole qualification for offering our School for A course in Miracles.

Lyn is sort of a combination inviter/pointer with a little bit of cheerleader mixed in. I am not The Teacher. The 365 Lessons make way for The Teacher and I am inviting you to consider doing the lessons.

1. It takes humility to be a learner. Humility is for the ego, not spirit. A meaningful message from the Course in that regard is:

“Humility will never ask that you remain content with littleness. But it does require that you be not content with less than greatness that comes not of you.” – T. 381

These are a few things that seem to have disappeared from my résumé in recent years:

I can’t find personal ambition any more. The possibility of being helpful to those who want to find inner peace is enough reason for doing this.

I don’t waste time and energy making sacrifices. I do what I am inspired to do.

Pessimism. Can’t find it any more. I always think things are going to work out, even when I know they are not. “A happy outcome to all things is sure,” just not according to my plan.

I am not “against” anyone or anything. I find being wholeheartedly “for” something to be much more invigorating.

2. Is the Course for you?

My intention is only to be truly helpful but I can’t guarantee that you won’t be offended by what you read and hear in these pages.

Spiritual paths are often treated like hobbies, pulled out of a drawer when you have some spare time. This just means that the learner hasn’t really decided what he wants to learn yet.

A Course in Miracles offers a real alternative and I hope to make that choice clear so that a would-be-learner can decide if he wants the outcome the Course is leading him toward. It is not for everyone. There are many paths that lead to truth.

No one can give you the desire to turn your back on the conventional wisdom of the world with all of its pains and pleasures. You have to see for yourself that it is the only answer that will save you and the world simultaneously.

How many teachers (learners) does it take to save the world? One. That would be the impersonal you, the one the Course is taking you to.

3. Bad Habits and Cures

Humans have bad habits that are inconsistent with what they say they want. If we knew what our bad habits were, they wouldn’t have us anymore. They are hidden and buried in someone else just so we might keep them. That’s how the fictitious ego preserves itself.

To recognize the illusions in which we believe, we need husbands, wives, parents, children, friends, lovers, authority figures, and enemies to show them to us. Salvation is a collaborative venture. We awaken “together or not at all.” For this reason we should be fully appreciative of everyone, our enemies as well as our friends.

I believe it is in our nature to lean ever so slowly toward love. We are terribly threatened by it for many reasons, one of them being that love is indiscrimate. It is given equally, to all, without exception. The ego only approves of special love.

I feel some urgency to share anything that can help us let go of our self-centered ideas of love and move on to the real thing. I also want to invite others to do the same. It does appear that time has about run out on our learning opportunity as a species.

We have the potential to transcend our self-centered viewpoint but it remains to be seen whether we will just continue squabbling as individuals and as nations.

The perpetuation of our species, another specialness idea, is not the goal here. It is the idea of separate interests in our mind that must be undone in order to save a world that exists only within our minds. I would prefer not to annihilate another thing.

Another bad habit of humans is that they always think it’s about the other guy. If these other folks would just change, the world would be a better place. No. It’s just you. When you leave separate interests behind and awaken to reality you may find that nothing needs to be fixed.

You can’t fix what isn’t real. What’s real doesn’t need fixing.

The behavior that follows a mind that has transcended separate interests is loving and kind to everyone. It doesn’t walk away from the chaos. It shines its loving light for all to see. That certainly can’t hurt the world. Then we will be able to say and mean “a happy outcome to all things is sure.”

Musings: Becoming a Learner

February 21, 2009

The pleasure of helping others learn started in first grade. I attended a one-room schoolhouse/church/town library combined in rural New Hampshire. A huge black wood-burning stove was the unifying amenity in an otherwise stark room that housed 21 students, grades 1 through 4, and our little desks along with 1 teacher and her very large library desk.

Mrs. Amos, my teacher, was a tall, thin, very erect woman with flame red hair that she wore in a sausage roll at the nape of her neck. Gold wire rim glasses magnified her large, soft brown eyes making them appear to be out of proportion to her thin face. The low heeled lace-up brown shoes on her feet were practical and sturdy like Mrs. Amos herself.

Mrs. Amos gave me my first experience of loving to learn. She innately knew what each child needed to contribute to be an active participant and she gave them that chance. Pudgy Goodwin brought in the fire wood and stoked the stove satisfying his need to move a lot and also to offset his lack of interest in academics. Georgiana Greenwood had a garden in the south facing windows where she was experimenting with sprouting seeds under different conditions. Janet Pierce, trouble maker that she was, got the perfect job for her—taking care of the stinky pens that housed the mice, hamsters and gerbils.

You would think our humble little school would have lacked opportunity, but Mrs. Amos had a huge bag of tricks at her disposal, and she used them all. We listened to classical music on Friday afternoons (music appreciation) , followed by all 21 of us playing our Tonettes (band practice). Our art room consisted of a closet with an easel and shelves filled with paints that Mrs Amos bought with her own money. The art closet was a special place because we could only get 2 or 3 “artists” in there, and only if we shut the door. Once that was accomplished it was more like a hideout and it was here that I heard some things I had never heard about before.

Mrs. Amos gave me the task of tutoring classmates in reading. I loved words and they co-operated by almost never stumping me as to their pronunciation and meaning. It was here on the back stairway that led to the library on the second floor that I first felt the pleasure of helping others learn.

I am still a learner. What I want to learn has changed however. Thirty or so years ago A Course in Miracles showed up in my life. It told me that I didn’t know what I was. It seemed to me that was a pretty important thing to know and a serious question to ask. “What am I?”

Most of us ask a question having already decided the answer so we are not really learners at all. To ask this question sincerely we have to come to it with empty hands—no prior understanding, no intended outcome, no idea of how or when the answer will arrive and what it will mean for us.True humility calls for the reliquishment of all our assumptions. It is the admission that I do not know.

The most important question is “What am I?” Living in the mystery, not knowing the answer is an exercise in trust. This holy ground is where God has His Way with me and I experience the ultimate pleasure of His Will of perfect happiness for me.