Blog

Lesson 104: I seek what belongs to me in truth.

One of the spiritual exercises I have had recommended to me over the course of my spiritual seeking was this: Clean your house. This was long before Marie Kondo and her recommendation to keep only what brings you joy. This exercise was about sorting through your stuff, yes, but not with the goal of appeasing your emotions as much as clearing physical space as a sign that you were ready to let go of spiritual junk as well.

Today’s lesson is another way to get at the same idea: When we clear not just our rooms of whatever is cluttering it up and muddling up our mind and our lives, but our mind and heart of unnecessary illusions, we will make space for the Truth of our lives to emerge.

“Today,” this lesson says, “we would remove all meaningless and self-made gifts which we have placed upon the holy altar where God’s gifts belong.”

Continue reading “AYoMW: April 13, 2020 — Spirituality is for the birds …”

Lesson 103: God, being Love, is also happiness

I gotta tell you, kids, writing these reflections on A Course in Miracles’ workbook would be so much easier if all of our lives were not being mightily inconvenienced by a global pandemic. It’s so much easier to write about happiness when you can see evidence of it around you as people gather in parks, restaurants, bars, sporting events or concerts. It’s much easier to feel happy when you can leave your house without a face mask or have to que up at the grocery store to get your vital supplies.

Happiness is so much easier when happiness is evident outside of yourself, right?

I’ve been having a hard time with today’s lesson because the fear and anxiety of our time is catching up with me. I’m blessed – my main job as a writer has not been affected. I still have full-time employment. My spiritual community has had to move online but so far, our members are still supporting us financially, and I have no reason to believe they won’t continue doing that as long as they are able. I am in far better shape than a lot of other people I know, and I’m grateful.

Continue reading “AYoMW: April 12, 2020 — May the bluebird of happiness …”

Lesson 102: I share God’s will for happiness for me

There’s an old adage that goes: “Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional.” There are many who agree and those who pooh-pooh the idea out of hand, pointing out that all of life is suffering since we will never be successful at fully loving one another, no matter how much we try.

In the world of the ego, I suppose both views could be right. The ego likes to keep us in these kinds of competitive thought experiments. If we’re trying to hold on to the cognitive dissonance it creates, we’ll be debating both sides of the issue until the cows come home. This lesson doesn’t try to settle the argument. Instead, it seeks to show us the ultimate futility of the argument.

“You do not want to suffer,” this lesson says.  “You may think it buys you something, and may still believe a little that it buys you what you want. Yet this belief is surely shaken now, at least enough to let you question it, and to suspect it really makes no sense. It has not gone as yet, but lacks the roots that once secured it tightly to the dark and hidden secret places of your mind.”

Continue reading “AyoMW: April 11, 2020 — Suffering isn’t even an option”

Lesson 101: God’s will for me is perfect happiness

Hello, my name is Candace and I’m a Sinaholic.

Honestly, we need a good 12-step program to help us break our addiction to sin. If you were raised in a religious tradition such as the Southern Baptist church or Catholicism, you came by your addiction honestly. You may even have a genetic disposition to this disease as it has been passed down through the generations. Sin and guilt are the stock and trade of many religions.

I have seen a glimmer of hope, though. Several years ago, when I taught religion at a local community college, I had students in my comparative religion class create their own religion from scratch. Teaching here in the deep South I was ready to hear a chorus of objections, especially from my Christian students about the blasphemy of “inventing” a religion. Only one student, however, ever complained and he walked away in a thoughtful way when I asked him who had invented Christianity, since it didn’t drop from the heavens as a fully formed belief system.

My students created a bunch of funny and thoughtful religions which centered around everything from shopping, to money, to football. Interestingly enough, the one feature that every single one of those new religions lacked was a doctrine of eternal damnation. There literally was no hell in any of the systems the students devised.

Continue reading “AYoMW: April 10, 2020 — Addicted to sin”

Lesson 100: My part is essential to God’s plan for salvation

When I read this lesson, I feel a sense of resistance arise within me, especially when I read that our part in God’s plan for salvation is to be “happy.”

All of my fraudulent religious bells go off when I read that. I was raised, of course, in a religion that viewed happiness with suspicion. Happiness, I was taught, was not our purpose here. We are born into a fallen world of sin and as “stinking bags of worms,” as Martin Luther calls humanity, we are to toil sadly through this world in hope of landing in the promised land of heaven. There, and only there, will we find happiness, this religion taught me. Until then, look dour and do your work.

My suspicion concerning happiness comes honestly then. I was taught happiness was a byproduct of living “right” and not the goal of this life. Happiness was created by things outside of yourself – money, power, relationships, jobs. Find the right things out in this world and they will bring happiness.

Certainly, we have all experienced the happiness that new things outside of ourselves can bring, but it’s always fleeting. We trade the new car, the new house, the new job the new relationship when it no longer makes us feel the euphoria of the first few months or years that we possess it.

Continue reading “AYoMW: April 9, 2020 — Resisting happiness”

Lesson 99: Salvation is my only function here

We all come into this world with a sense that we’re here for a reason. Many of us spend our entire lives searching for something that will give our lives meaning, whether it’s through a job, a relationship, a thirst for power or wealth, or even a drive to do as much good as they can in the world. We fully believe that our purpose in this world is to do or be something that “makes a difference” in the world.

Could it be, though, that what we do out in this world isn’t really the key to finding our purpose? What if what we do, no matter how lowly or highly it is thought of by society, isn’t the point? What if the ultimate lesson of this life is to learn that no matter what we do or become in this world our purpose is only found in the spirit with which we do everything instead of finding the one thing we believe is our reason for living?

Success in this ego world is often judged by how much power, wealth and material toys we accumulate over the years. We climb the corporate and social ladder, and maybe somebody puts our picture on the cover of an international magazine to celebrate our creativity, wealth and power. What’s wrong with that? Nothing, unless the spirit you infuse that wealth and popularity with is one of fear, narcissism or selfishness. There are plenty of materially wealthy and powerful people in the world who remain miserable even as they are surrounded by a plethora of possessions.

Continue reading “AYoMW: April 8, 2020 — Fulfill your destiny”

Lesson 98: I will accept my part in God’s plan for salvation.

As I’ve noted before, students of A Course in Miracles, and other metaphysical paths, have been accused by others as being nothing more than spiritual navel gazers – unconcerned with the world, just sequestering themselves away to think happy thoughts. The reality is, it’s often not easy for us to accept our part in God’s plan for salvation. Ego fights us at every turn and tells us we’re wasting time that we could be using to DO something about the situation in the world.

Author and spiritual mentor Michael Singer – as well as the Course – see things a bit differently. Instead of engaging in frantic “doing” in the world, when anxiety arises, we must surrender our allegiance to the ego and its plans and accept our part in God’s plan for salvation. “We need do nothing,” the Course tells us – which means we’ll be guided to right action if we remain as we are – spirits in the material world who are seeking to bring about its salvation of by remembering who we are and accepting our function!

Singer says instead of engaging in spiritual navel gazing, our acceptance of our part in God’s plan for salvation is our duty. He says: “You have a responsibility to reach a state where you are calm, clear, open and filled with good energy so that you can come forward and do the best that you can with the moment that is unfolding in front of you.”

This is not a feel-good, happy slappy endeavor. It is our responsibility to do our inner work, not just for ourselves but to the world. We don’t do this kind of work to “gain” anything in the world, we do it to remember who we are – the calm, clear, open, good-energy filled center that can bring peace, love and joy into the world. It is through our clarity that we find what Buddhists call “right action” – the thing we are called to do (or not do) to be the most effective in every situation. Singer urges us to live this way so that every moment that passes before us will better because it did.

Continue reading “AYoMW: April 7, 2020 — Responsible navel gazing”

Lesson 97: I am spirit

Sometimes, when people tell me the truth about myself, I am startled. I had no idea that they thought of me in some way as maybe talented, or honest, or reliable or magnificent in some way. I begin to demur and say, “No, I can’t be that great. You must have me confused with someone else.”

The thing is, they don’t. Those who truly compliment us are simply seeing who we are and helping us see our real Self, which is infused with God’s magnitude, according to A Course in Miracles. My protestation of their compliment isn’t me being humble, the Course says, it’s me choosing my littleness – my ego over my real, Divine Self.

The Course asks, in Chapter 15, “Would you be hostage to the ego or host to God?” When we remember that we are spirit, and nothing more – not this body, this job, this relationship, this identity – then we become a host to God and free ourselves from the bondage of ego.

“You are the spirit lovingly endowed with all your Father’s Love and peace and joy,” this lesson says. “You are the spirit which completes Himself, and shares God’s function as Creator. He is with you always, as you are with Him.”

Continue reading “AYoMW: April 6, 2020 — Smells like team spirit”

Lesson 96: Salvation comes from my one Self

Minnesota singer and songwriter Peter Mayer sings in his song World of Dreams:

In the smallest measure of anything at hand
Entities of energy are alive in a whirling dance
Even our own bodies are not as we perceive
But made of the same stuff our thoughts are made
In this world of dreams

It’s an echo of today’s lesson that asks: “Who can resolve the senseless conflicts which a dream presents?”

Continue reading “AYoMW: April 5, 2020 — A world of dreams”

Lesson 95: I am one Self, united with my Creator

“Unless you are reminded of your purpose frequently, you tend to forget about it for long periods of time,” today’s lesson notes. It’s absolutely true. We get so wrapped up in the ego’s direction for our days that we forget who we truly are. The ego tells us we must go into the world and do things, achieve things, buy things, own things, sell things, maneuver around others to get to where we want to go. It’s a world of competition, lack and is simply “a ridiculous parody” of how we’re truly supposed to be living, says this lesson.

The ego has convinced us that all we are is our small “s” self. We see ourselves as “weak, vicious, ugly and sinful, miserable and beset with pain,” this lesson says, divided into many selves and convinced we are separate from God, praying to a “maker” that doesn’t exist, since it is one and the same with our ego.

We want to learn. We want to do better. We employ all the spiritual tricks our ego says will work. We feel like we make progress and then … we forget. The shiny objects of the ego begin to sparkle and we’re back where we started – listening to the ego’s version of reality that tells us all this spiritual stuff is for the birds anyway. Besides, those who reach “enlightenment” either die for their cause or become sequestered gurus. Who wants that, anyway?

Continue reading “AYoMW: April 4, 2020: Sign, sign, everywhere a sign”