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Lesson 10: My thoughts do not mean anything.

My thoughts have been torturing me these past few days. They keep arising and telling me what I should have done, what I should have said, how I should have acted, and, for the most part, are berating me about how poorly I am doing at this whole spiritual growth thing.

My first year doing the workbook, this lesson in particular produced angry thoughts. “What do you mean my thoughts don’t mean anything? They mean everything! I mean thoughts become things, right? So, they must have meaning!”

Yes, indeed, thoughts do become things, which makes this lesson pretty pivotal in the whole journey through the Course. If our thoughts become things, then ought we not try to exert some control over those thoughts – or at least seek to be detached from them so we can discern between right and wrong thinking?

Continue reading “AYoMW: Jan. 10, 2020 — Out, out damn thought!”

Lesson 9: I see nothing as it is now.

I heard a recent interview with A Course in Miracles teacher and author Marianne Williamson where she reiterated that the Course is not a religion. It has no dogma, no creeds, no real theology and doesn’t demand that you believe in anything in particular, except, perhaps a higher power – whether you call that God or the Flying Spaghetti Monster. One of the most profound mischaracterizations of the Course is that it is some woo-woo, New Age, feel good religion where you deny reality and think happy thoughts all day long, every day for the rest of your life.

Nothing could be further from the truth. I have discovered, in the few years that I have done the workbook and read through the text, that the Course is the most challenging spiritual mind training I have ever undertaken.

I can compare it, somewhat, to my experience in seminary. I had been told, before entering my master’s program, that seminary often makes atheists out of otherwise religious people – and I experienced this phenomenon from some of my classmates who became wildly disillusioned with their faith because seminary taught them things that the church simply refuses to teach its members. Mainly because such knowledge – such understanding – requires us first to let go of what we think we already know, and that can be dangerous to church growth.

Continue reading “AYoMW: Jan. 9, 2020 — Not understanding is the beginning of understanding”

Lesson 8: My mind is preoccupied with past thoughts.

I’m finding it difficult to start today’s reflection, mainly because I’m too busy thinking about yesterday – the pleasant memories along with those that upset my peace of mind. I’m thinking about the things I enjoyed doing as well as the things I didn’t get done, the things I should have said, the places I could have gone, the people I could have connected with, but didn’t.

Our egos love to help us misconstrue and misuse time. “The mind’s preoccupation with the past is the cause of the misconception about time from which your seeing suffers. Your mind cannot grasp the present, which is the only time there is,” reads today’s lesson.

Because our mind is incapable of grasping the present, we rely on the past to keep us occupied – or on the future, dreaming of a better moment than this one somewhere down the road. For all my preoccupation about things left unsaid or undone yesterday, I can’t change one moment of my past – and the Course tells me that continuing to dwelling on past events and feelings right does me no good, and prevents a miracle from entering my reality.

Continue reading “AYoMW: Jan. 8, 2020 — Can’t get you out of my mind …”