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Lesson 132: I loose the world from all I thought it was

Here’s the part where I throw this book across the room.

I have struggled for the past two days to write something about this lesson that doesn’t make me sound like a woo-woo, new age freak. I may, indeed, fail at that task, but hear me out. I think if I could actually internalize this lesson, I would instantly become enlightened. Sadly, I am still too wrapped up in my belief in this world to do that, in this moment.

The Course, of course, understands. It even says so in this lesson. Some of us are not ready to accept that this world is an illusion … that we truly are in a dream world of our own making. We weren’t plopped down into this world as it was going on. We created it from the moment we believed it was real. That’s what this lesson says, anyway.

I’m not sure I’m on board – but that’s why I’m still here, dreaming the dream, playing my role in the world I’ve created. You’d think I would have chosen a better role, but here we are, dreaming together a crazy, mixed-up, mean, cruel and often beautiful and generous world.

Continue reading “AYoMW: May 11, 2020 — Ok, you lost me …”

Lesson 131: No one can fail who seeks to reach the truth

By every measure of this ego’s world, I am a failure. I am not famous. I am not rich. I am not powerful. I have not accomplished all that much in the grand scheme of things. There are people half my age who accomplished fame, fortune and achieved powerful offices in government, entertainment and other institutions.

I am not one of those.

I used to worry about this. I used to berate myself for being lazy. “Yeah, you got ONE book published, but what about those writers who turn out a book every year, ore even every six months? What a loser.”

Continue reading “AYoMW: May 10, 2020 — Break your jar of God”

Lesson 130: It is impossible to see two worlds.

If it’s true that this world is not our home, why does it feel so damn real? Today’s lesson has an answer: fear. When the tiny, mad idea that we are separate from God entered our thoughts, fear tagged along behind and overtook our mind.

We are so convinced this world of our physical senses is real that any suggestion that it is an illusion is dismissed as utter insanity. Of course, this world is real. I can touch it, I can smell it, I can taste it and hear it and see it. The thought that there is something beyond this physical reality is so alien to us, we tend to lock people away who constantly seek to look beyond this physical field of existence and call them crazy.

It’s not crazy, it’s reality. Buddhism and other Eastern religions have recognized the illusory impermanence of the world we live in. Even Jesus said it was crazy to store up worldly possessions when our bodies all meet the same fate in the end. We see what that kind of preaching got him.

Continue reading “AYoMW: May 9, 2020 — Becoming the noise”

Lesson 129: Beyond this world is the world I want.

The ego’s gravitational pull on us is strong. This is why A Course in Miracles is so long … and so repetitive. It says the same thing over and over again, using different words and examples. It has to, because we are so tethered and dedicated to this ego world that it seems strange – crazy, even – to consider wanting something else, especially something as seemingly nebulous as God’s realm.

The Course speaks the truth, however – there really is nothing in the world that will truly satisfy us. The ego keeps offering up alternatives – wealth, power, possessions, relationships, jobs, homes, exotic vacations. It’s all a fantasy. We truly could have everything we want in this world – everything the ego tells us we should want, at least – and we would still find it all fleeting and impermanent.

We store up our earthly goods in bank accounts and investments these days and not in barns like the old days, but they still rot away and disappear at some point.

Continue reading “AYoMW: May 8, 2020 — Connect with your inner nag”

Lesson 128:  The world I see holds nothing that I want.

As a Southern Baptist child, I was raised constantly hearing the slogan: “This world is not my home.”

While A Course in Miracles would agree with that sentiment, it would not agree with the particular construction of the concept as practiced in the religion of my youth. You see, we would declare that we were strangers in this strange land, but the place we called our home was simply a more glorified version of the same world, except we all lived in mansions just off of streets of gold.

The social and class systems of my inherited religion’s heaven were the same as the egoic social and class systems here on earth. There were neighborhoods in this heavenly realm that you could aspire to if you lived a good earthly life – even as a stranger in a strange land. If you lived by all the Bible’s precepts and kept your nose clean, you could enter the gated heaven’s most elegant gated communities. If you didn’t do you best here, you might end up in heaven’s suburbs, but you were careful to avoid heaven’s slums.

Continue reading “AYoMW: May 7, 2020 — Don’t let this world grab your sweet ass”

Lesson 127: There is no love but God’s.

Back when Donald Trump was running for the highest office in the US, I was watching Marianne Williamson’s then-weekly talks on A Course in Miracles. Her book, A Return to Love, had primed me years ago for the Course‘s ideas but I was really beginning to dig into the book and workbook during this time and was absorbing all I could from teachers of the Course such as her and Ken Wapnick.

Her talks were given to an unsurprisingly liberal audience that filled a church in New York City each week to hear her. She talked about the election a lot in those days and after Trump managed to enter the White House by the electoral college, she began, in earnest, to use him as a teaching tool for the Course.

Everyone, including Williamson, was dismayed at what had happened in the election and many were grappling with their feelings about the turn of events and their personal feelings about the man who had taken over the office. Some were very worried, of course, and still others could not get over their visceral hatred for Trump.

Williamson, who repeats herself a lot in these talks – but still is questioned about the same old things in the Q&A portion – said the same thing over the course of many of her talks after the election. She talked about how much God loved Trump. Perhaps she did this to get the predictable gasp from the audience, but I think her constant mentioning of this idea – that God loves someone we personally find reprehensible – as a way to reinforce today’s lesson: There is no love but God’s.

Continue reading “AYoMW: May 6, 2020 — Yes, God even loves those you love to hate”

Lesson 126: All that I give is given to myself.

In the Manual for Teachers section of A Course in Miracles, we’re told: “The teacher of God is generous out of Self-interest.”

Which is a great jumping-off point for those who criticize the Course as mumbo-jumbo spiritual bypass, but they neglect the next sentence:  “This does not refer, however, to the self of which the world speaks. The teacher of God does not want anything he cannot give away, because he realizes it would be valueless to him by definition.”

Why does the teacher of God not want anything they can’t give away? Because those who understand that giver and receiver are the same – and that there’s really only one of us here – knows that whatever can be given away will ultimately return to the giver. Perhaps not in the same form – but it will return.

Think of a time when you have been genuinely loving or generous to another person. How did it make you feel? Pretty good, probably. That feeling we receive when we give is proof that giving and receiving are the same. Works in the opposite direction, too. When we’ve been mean or hateful to others, we feel badly. Our egos tell us we’re justified in our hatred and fear, but we feel so hateful and fearful afterward. Nobody, no matter what they tell you, feels good after hating on others. What they’re feeling is the ego’s love of revenge and specialness.

Continue reading “AYoMW: May 5, 2020 — The sweet madness of generosity”

Lesson 125: In quiet I receive God’s Word today.

As someone who suffers from tinnitus, my world is never silent. I use a white noise machine at night to cancel out the noise in my head so I can sleep. A quiet room is torture for me because it simply increases the level of screeching that already exists inside my own head.

I went to the doctor about it several years ago and got the big medical shrug. They don’t know what caused it (probably loud concerts I attended as a teen and young adult) and they have no cure for it.

“Suck it up, buttercup,” could have been written on the prescription pad, since that was basically their conclusion.

As a result, meditation is difficult for me. I can’t sit quietly anywhere, since quiet doesn’t exist in my world. I have turned to kirtan chanting to settle my mind and disrupt my ego’s racing thought patterns. It works well most of the time, but I still try to sit silently (but not in silence), especially with the workbook exercises.

Continue reading “AYoMW: May 4, 2020 — Quiet? What’s that like?”

Lesson 124: Let me remember I am one with God.

A woman I know who travels a lot has been sheltering-in-place with her partner in their RV since March. She ventured out recently for supplies and was accosted by a man in a parking lot who pointed to her out-of-state plates and demanded to know why she was traveling during this time of pandemic.

The man, she noted, was not wearing a mask or any other protective gear, but did remain more than six feet away from her. She did not reply to the man (what good would an explanation do, anyway) and got into her car to avoid a confrontation. Once safely inside her car, she says she looked at him and thought “man who is scared, expressing himself.” Then, she thought to herself, “love one another.”

She waved at the man as she left the parking lot, giving us a case study on how to apply today’s lesson. Not only did she remember she was one with God, but saw the enraged man in the parking lot as who he was as well – a frightened body calling for love.

Continue reading “AYoMW: May 3, 2020 — Bumping into God in a parking lot”

Lesson 123: I thank my Father for his gifts to me.

There are so many things I want to change about myself. Certainly, I’d like to be taller and better looking, but generally, I stick to the things I can change about myself – my temper, my tendency to constantly self-criticize, my weight … the list is pretty much endless. As soon as I think I’ve got one thing changed for the better, a whole litter of new flaws pop up to take its place.

The line in today’s lesson that jumped out at me was this one:

“Give thanks … that you are changeless, for the Son He loves is changeless as Himself.”

Changeless? This lesson tells me I don’t have to change anything about myself – my true, divine Self, that is. I am already perfect, already innocent, already centered in the truth of my true Being. Nothing needs to be done or changed because nothing is ever amiss.

Continue reading “AYoMW: May 2, 2020 — Don’t go changin’ …”