School for A Course In Miracles

"The universe of learning will open up before you."

School for A Course In Miracles

“The universe of learning will open up before you in all its gracious simplicity.” T-14. II. 6:4
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Musings: Six Stages of Developing Trust in The Holy Spirit

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Six Stages (or Steps) on

The Ladder of the Development of Trust

… from The Manual p.9-11

(Start at bottom of this post with #1 “The Undoing”… and then move up the ladder to the top at #6 “Achievement”)

6) Period of Achievement: The Real World…we ‘go Holy Instant’, and stay there. This is what the Manual calls “advanced teachers of God”. This is when the nine other characteristics of God’s Teachers automatically become part of us. We then share our awareness of the sameness of God’s Son with all persons and all things in all situations.

5) Period of Unsettling: Dark night of the soul… Ken says it’s when all hell breaks loose. We begin to realize that our own belief in an ‘individual self’ is still holding back our awakening to our true Self . It is similar to lesson 93, when we realize that we still are holding on to a not-self of “evil, darkness and sin.” We are learning to lay all judgements aside…in every circumstance, even about who we think we are (at this stage, a decision maker who could choose the something else of an ego).

4) Period of Settling Down: Time of “reasonable peace”… we have learned that asking Jesus for help not only hasn’t killed us or even taken anything away, but we are actually feeling pretty good and hopeful, being able to ask for his vision whenever things push our buttons again. It’s the calm before the storm, or the eye of the hurricane.

3) Period of Relinquishment: Giving up what doesn’t work… we are starting to see that things that used to seem valuable to us, like getting the stuff we thought we wanted (special love), and blaming and judging others (special hate) and keeping away what we don’t want, may not really be working for us. But we are not quite ready to give some of that up. So there can be a sense of sacrifice during this time. What we really learn to relinquish is not stuff or certain behaviors, but we simply let go of keeping Jesus and his perception of us and the world out of our awareness.

2) Period of Sorting Out: Learning what’s valuable, what isn’t…by asking Jesus to help us see that we are not upset or temporarily happy for the reason we think. We used to think certain things/people caused us pain or pleasure, and then the inevitable pain when the other shoe dropped. Now we are beginning to see that what only brings us true peace is inviting  Jesus into our awareness, to help us look at our misplaced investments (distractions). 

1) Period of Undoing: Changing teachers… from the ego’s ladder that goes nowhere (“lookin for luv in all the wrong places”), we get on the ladder of the Holy Spirit that takes us back to the right mind. We ask Jesus for help to be our new teacher.

Recent Replay of Course & Coffee Chat on the six stages of trust: 

 

(click here)

Musings: Making Our Weak Commitment Strong

water drip“AN UNTRAINED MIND CAN ACCOMPLISH NOTHING.”

The ideas shared in lessons 181 to 200 of A Course in Miracles are designed to help us in “firming up our willingness to make our weak commitment strong.” In other words, we know we want to change our minds, but we are dealing with the entrenched thought system of the ego which is set as the default mechanism for our thinking and decision making.The ego rules when we are not certain of our goal and the means to accomplish it.

Each of these lessons will lead us home, but first they will expose our mistaken choice for the ego so it can be seen and gone beyond. What remains unseen is still there, functioning beneath the surface of our awareness, where it remains only to be projected outside the mind.

Lesson 181- I trust my brothers who are one with me.

This lesson is not about trusting other bodies to do what is honorable, fair and good. Your brother is not his body or its behavior, although the ego, whose triumph over God is the body, would love you to think so. This lesson is referring to the sinlessness of the Christ mind which we all are and which is always worthy of trust. The ego, whose mantra is “one or the other”/”kill or be killed”, can never be trusted.

Students of A Course in Miracles, trying to do the spiritual thing, will often take a lesson like this—I trust my brothers who are one with me—and try to trust the body and its behavior even though it is ruled by the tyranny of the ego.

It is entirely possible, in fact it must be practiced vigilantly, to trust the One Self that we are while not denying the harmfulness of the ego’s decisions which are always based upon self interest. The distinction lies in understanding that the lessons in the Course, are about the content of your mind, and the content you believe to be in your brother’s mind, and not the forms that we seem to take, along with the form’s behavior. The basis for practicing forgiveness is  understanding the difference.

A Course in Miracles is written to the mind that has the power to choose. There is a choice to be made and only you can make it. Only the time you choose to make it is up to you. Eventually everyone will make it because it is the only real choice. The alternatives are not up to you either. (See the Introduction to A Course in Miracles below).

The power to choose is meaningless unless you know what you are choosing between. The alternatives can be expressed in different ways: dreaming or waking; fear or love; illusion or truth; death or life. The choice is always the same: to place your mind under the true Authority or the tyranny of the ego.

The purpose of every lesson is to make the alternatives clear to you so you can make the better choice.

Introduction to A Course in Miracles

“This is a course in miracles. It is a required course. Only the time you take it is voluntary. Free will does not mean that you can establish the curriculum. It means only that you can elect what you want to take at a given time. The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence, which is your natural inheritance. The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite.

This course can therefore be summed up very simply in this way:

“Nothing real can be threatened.

Nothing unreal exists.

Herein lies the peace of God.”

Musings: Becoming a Learner

 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.