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Mind and Universe in context of "A Course in Miracles"

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Submitted by: David M Boie davidboie@yahoo.com

Submit Date: 2005-07-31

It may seem that this submission does not belong in this Models of Mind & Consciousness section, as it does not address the physical or paraphysical worlds in terms traditionally negotiable to scientific intellect. However, when we view the Universe as a dream/nightmare projected by the Son of God, and based on the illusion of guilt, the ability of conventional science (Newtonian, Quantum, or even Integral) to address the most fundamental issues seems quite lacking. Integral science seems to lean toward enhancing our dream experience, rather than focusing on awakening from the dream, which is understandable. The fear of awakening, although delusional, exerts a strong influnce on the unfolding of human endeavor.

This perspective might be classified as Idealism, although it does not ignore the apparent stubborness of "physicality" in refusing to respond to our wishes. This stubborness, as it turns out, stems from the vast resevoir of Unconsciousness within the collective Mind of Humanity. Unlike much of Integral Science and the Human Potential/Capacity Movement, the Course in Miracles focuses on Perfect Happiness: the Peace of God that arises from the Self and is unaffected by "external" circumstances.

The temptation towards magical thinking is extreme once the Infinte Power of the Mind is contemplated, and we find ourselves thinking along the lines of manifesting Teleporters, Gold, Sexual Encounters, Food, etc. The question from an Enlightened sage might then be "What For...?" And the answer will always be something like, "Cause then I'll be happy..." But happiness does not come from externals, it comes from alignment with and Realization of Source... the Realization of our Absolute Unity with God.
 
The Course in Miracles is the topic of this essay, as it is the Path to Enlightenment chosen in this lifetime. The essay is a condensation of a work called "The Disappearance of the Universe" by Gary Renard, as seen through my own filters, with a bit of (perhaps helpful) personal perspective added. If this essay peaks your interest, check out Gary Renard's book, and if still interested, you may choose to begin studying A Course in Miracles. 
 
Yours Truly,

David

Note: A Course in Miracles urges that we not try to interpret it. These essays will only be useful to the extent that the understanding of reality presented here encourages and enables those who have wandered from the Course’s hard-line metaphysics into “softer interpretations” to reconsider the Course from an uncompromising prospective. This essay was written as a process of transforming conventional understanding so that it was not at variance with the teachings of the Course. Since only the Course is the Course, this essay will be radically flawed if it is attempted to be used as a substitute for the Course, or even as a “authoritative” clarifier of Course principles. It is none of these things. It is merely an attempt to re-contextualize the rigidities of the scientific intellect such that the Course can be given a chance to work in its own right.

“OF ‘COURSE…’”

This essay celebrates the sense of peace and happiness - intermittent, but increasing in frequency - that has accompanied the author's slowly becoming intimate with the metaphysics of A Course in Miracles: reading the Text, Manual and Supplements, doing the Workbook Lessons (sporadically at times), reading Gary Renard's book, and listening to the taped lectures of Kenneth Wapnick, Ph.D.

Intermittently, and more and more frequently as of late, genuine Miracles are revealed by honest communication between people... in psychotherapy, in friendships, in marriages... though distorted attempts at dialog continue to seem the norm. Lack of integrity and confusion in discourse corresponds with the appearance of a fog of illusion that hides the true face of our Brothers.

Psychiatry deals with the treatment of mental disorders, but genuine cures are few and far between - to the point where spontaneous cures are often dismissed as having been misdiagnosed in the first place. Cures of schizophrenia and schizo-affective disorder are also effectively hidden by the fact that anyone who is diagnosed with these serious mental conditions is normally strongly encouraged, if not required, to partake of a lifetime regimen of medication. If a schizophrenic decides to go off their medication to see if they are "cured" they do so against Doctor's orders, and this AGAINST attitude is part and parcel of what the Holy Spirit points to as the root of all sickness: our collective Authority Problem. Typically, the inevitable result for a schizophrenic who attempts to "buck the system" then is a gradual downward spiral into acute paranoia and psychosis. GOING AGAINST indeed seems connected with all paranoia, all fear, all psychic disturbance.

As one who has been diagnosed with schizo-affective disorder, I have faith that an exceptional Psychiatrist or Therapist can indeed heal mental disorders - even schizophrenia - through Loving psychotherapy. Ultimately, the healed schizophrenic who has realized Love understands that his medication functions as a symbolic trans-personal sedative. Since he typically has had a history of offending the general public, his openness to Love now allows him to graciously take the medication as a symbol of his fidelity to his Brothers... with no side effects, and no subsequent dimming of Vision (defined in this context as spiritual discernment – the capability to differentiate between Truth and illusion.)

In common usage, this curious term "discernment" seems to refer to the ability to tell Right from Wrong... and yet a famous Zen Buddhist saying reportedly goes: "the conflict between Right and Wrong is a sickness of the Mind." To a genuinely conservative Christian sensibility, this statement can at first seem blasphemous. However, Conservatives are, by definition, willing to question inherited tradition in the name of conserving the essence of those teachings given us by the Christ.

After allowing some careful questioning of inherited tradition, the profound wisdom of this Zen Buddhist saying comes shining through. If we loosely regard the moralistic terms "Right" and "Wrong" as respectively meaning "life-affirming" (anabolic) and "life-denying" (catabolic), then we can consider this saying in the light of Christ's teaching. In saying "Resist Ye not evil," Christ would seem to be teaching us that when we argue (especially about matters of Spirit) - we become embroiled in a life-denying struggle wherein both parties are, in a profound sense, only hurting themselves. When I argue, I deny life; I betray the truth of Who I Am; and - even if I seem to "win" the argument - I really lose.

All of Mankind thirsts for meaning, including those agnostics and atheists among us. Meaning is created by context, and by extension, Ultimate Meaning is given by Infinite Context. Sensing the imperative need for a governmental structure able to protect the anapervidic development of the citizenry, our Founding Fathers of these United States were graced with the wisdom to distinguish between spirituality and organized religion. By addressing God in the drafting of our Constitution, they addressed the absolute need for a spiritual foundation in the affairs of men and women striving to live sane lives. With the Establishment Clause, they provided room for freedom: freedom to seek spiritual fellowship and, when difficulties arise, authorization to freely discern those "wolves who wear sheep's-clothing."

{It seemed appropriate that this essay introduce a new term into English usage. The term in question is 'anapervidic,' and a working definition (as yet rough and un-authoritative) follows: "anapervidic -- oriented toward, or marked by the elevation of discernment." Perhaps a more appropriate term will be coined by authorities to go along with the general sense of meaning imparted by this definition, or perhaps not. Regardless, the appearance of this term in English usage coincides (though undoubtedly not coincidentally) with an advance in the undoing of the basis of all human illness: the sick thought system of the ego.}

We who have descended from Western roots have indeed been encouraged by the Supreme Teacher of the Way to Salvation: avoid engaging in arguments with Brothers who succumb to temptation and pressure us to do likewise. Whether this pressure seems to arise from our own distorted Self-image (ego) - or from other people we encounter in our apparent comings and goings - this does not really matter in the least.

What does matter is that when we do find ourselves pressured to worship a distorted image of Perfect Love (the error of idolatry, and the fundamental basis of all seemingly different forms of temptation) - we can gracefully bow out of aggressive confrontation, recognizing and admitting our profound ignorance of the Mystery of God, and the unfathomable depth of His Love. In the case of temptation by our own ego, this entails being gentle with the self - for the ego comes with being human - and the ego will indeed turn cruel and vicious as we begin to question both its reality and the necessity of our allegiance to its constant demands and judgments.

With regards to our Brothers who would have us worship a punishing God we can recognize that we too have a harsh, punishing voice within us that would paint our Loving Father as a cruel tyrant: a God who wishes to have His Vengeance upon us. Compassion wells up as we consider the suffering of our Brothers who surrender to a vision like this - we know we have been there before, and that, human consciousness being what it is, "there but for the Grace of God go I."

According to A Course In Miracles, that which we experience as hell is a nightmare - as convincingly real as any we have when we sleep - indeed, even more convincing. The Holy Spirit aims to retrain the Mind of the Child of God such that He is capable of discerning that all of the horrible crimes witnessed throughout history were actually "committed" both by Himself and against Himself, and hence were not crimes at all, but tragic acts of self-torture committed in a nightmare of a dream. The Holy Spirit teaches us that, although this purgatorial Earth is indeed but a nightmare, we nevertheless cannot just "snap our fingers" and wake up to an awareness of our presence in Heaven (a State of Being, incidentally, which our Spirit has never actually left.)

No, "snapping the fingers" is not an option... we are just too greatly committed to believing that the illusion of our guilt is "real." We need proof that this is all just a dream before we will consider the possibility of waking up to be a real one. That proof is manifest in the process of listening to the Holy Spirit. Because our guilt seems so real, we must unravel it in a slightly similar fashion to the way a person gets out of hell. Not nearly as painful, but similar in the sense that, eventually (though as gradually as we might choose), we must take total responsibility for the suffering we encounter daily in our self-created roles as the "victims" of external persecution.

The Holy Spirit requires that we eventually forgive all those we actively perceive to be our persecutors - not because it is "nice" and not in the sense that we are overlooking "real" sins as an act of charity - but because we are actually the ones who have scripted our Brothers performances as agents of persecution in our own personal nightmares. Hence, we are the source of those acts of self-victimization within the dream which seem to be attacks from the outside, and which seem to be committed by others against us. Consequently, Sin in the biblical sense is an illusion, although it is an illusion we take quite seriously. And so the illusion of "Sin" must be corrected by the illusion of "Forgiveness."

Much like a child believes it can hide from its parents by covering its eyes, the Son of God, who erroneously believes he is guilty for having had what the Course calls the "...tiny mad idea..." subsequently immerses His metaphorical head in this horror-story of a Universe that he imagines to be "real." God cannot see what the Son is projecting in His imagination, because for God only Love is Real. The Father is incapable of perceiving illusion, so He does not see the nightmare imaginings of His Son, just as human parents don't see the daydreams of their children.

Although God does not see the nightmare the Son is imagining, He can (metaphorically speaking) see the alternating intensity of dis-ease appearing on His Son's face. God ‘responds’ by not-responding directly – were God to change at all as a result of the Son’s Imaginings, He would only be making the Horror Story seem Real. Children get most afraid when their parents treat their fearful imaginings as if they were not just bad dreams. Thus, God does not change one bit as a result of the Son’s imaginings. Paradoxically, God’s silence (i.e. not making the Son’s nightmare real) provides for the answer to illusion… the Comforter or Holy Spirit appears in the Son’s dream as a result of God’s unalterable Love.

In this infinitely dimensioned (but nevertheless, bounded) narrative horror-storybook in which we live, the individual soul has various 'different' relationships with earthly authorities and subordinates. The narrative threads each soul encounters in its apparent travels unwind very much like those "Choose-your-own-Adventure" Books that came out when I was a child.

In the case of our 'world,' the entire "Choose-your-own-Nightmare" story is a Multiverse - a whole set of interconnected Universes linked by wormholes which in turn are activated by choices of forgiveness. This Multiverse is totally complete in its illusory entirety; all the possible twists and turns of the plot-line have foregone conclusions - the narrative text and scenery have already been completely "written, published and set in print." All apparent creativity in this universe is an illusion, and the only choice we make in any given moment is that of 1) entertaining grievances (taking the story and our apparent suffering in it seriously), or 2) realizing illusion (seeing the entire story, although admittedly terrifying at times, as a bad dream from which it is possible, indeed from which it is inevitable, that we will wake up.) The first choice keeps us mired in the muck a while longer, the second choice begins to lead us to the Light.

So long as we believe the world we have imagined is "real," we will be committed to preserving our illusory individuality (which we believe we have stolen from God). And thus, we secretly revel in our sickness and suffering, for it "proves" to us that God is cruel, and that we were justified in attempting to "kill Him" for the sake of our individuality. Of course all of this flows from our initial failure to laugh uproariously at that which the Course calls the "...tiny mad idea..."

The "tiny mad idea" is the idea that separation from God is possible at all, and that our Loving Father could possibly be changed or destroyed by what illusory notions the Son entertains. Mind you, we did not wish death upon 'God' until after we had imagined that we were guilty for having had the "tiny mad idea," a feeling of guilt which then made us angry, which then made the apparent necessity of having to imagine a wrathful god, which then made us fearful and so on, and so on.

All of humanity is manufactured by the Authority Problem with God, which gets projected outward as individual relationships where every person is both an authority and a subordinate in different contexts. In the process of 'forgiving' our Brothers for what we have scripted them do (the only way forgiveness makes sense rationally), we gradually transform our nightmare into "the Happy Dream" which both precedes, and is a necessary step to, our Final Awakening to Love.

However, although our guilt is an illusion, the vast majority of it remains Unconscious. With our limited conscious minds, we are bound to vastly underestimate how terrifying a picture our unconscious guilt is capable of painting. And so, nearly all of our self-imagined guilt remains Unconscious, and is unknowingly projected outward into a world full of both immense suffering and equally immensely evil people who are "not like us in the least." This guilt is far greater than we are currently capable of holding within conscious awareness, but remember, the Holy Spirit assures us that as horrible as this guilt may seem, it is ultimately a sick illusion, and, in Reality, we are very Holy beings capable only of Love. Indeed, though we are capable of dreaming that we are guilty, we are incapable of actually being guilty.

Indeed, out of Love, we punish ourselves for the belief that we have damaged our Father - whom we Love with an immeasurable intensity. The Son of God can only be motivated by Love, because He is only Love... which is what We are: Pure Love. We in truth have not damaged God in the least; the only seeming difficulty is that the Son does appear capable of taking his false imaginings seriously at least for the tiniest instant in eternity (which may admittedly seem like an eternity in time.)

Only after we have practiced forgiveness with ourselves and others quite extensively, and only after we have greatly stabilized in our perception of "the Happy Dream," only then will we be gradually confronted with the full depth of the illusory guilt we initially felt at dreaming that God could be a punisher. Thoroughly trained in the habit of forgiveness, we will be able ultimately to look upon this illusory guilt without the slightest trace of fear, and laugh at the prospect of ever believing it could be 'real.' Such Divine silent laughter will signal our awakening to our eternal presence in Heaven, and will be remembered as our eternal Song of Prayer and Peace offered in response to the Infinite Love of the Father... extending the Love of Him that created the Son, eternally and forever.

As a woman once tried to point out to me in her own fashion after having encountered the Holy Spirit: what is the only logical alternative to believing that this is but a nightmare as the Holy Spirit teaches? When our denial is suspended by coming face to face with personal suffering that we just can't rationalize away, un-warped logic demands that the mind answer:  If this world is Real and if God made it, then God must be cruel in His core essence.

Faced with this possibility, far more courageous souls than I have denied God all together - as the only possibility of any fleeting hope for integrity. Effectively saying "if God be cruel, then the glimmer of kindness and compassion I feel within me will deny Him, and this glimmer... however faint, however dwarfed by the evil that is also me... this glimmer will fight against all odds to know the Truth of myself and those I care for."

One person I know of has done this in American culture, and, by his own admission, he descended into the absolute pit of hell before he acknowledged the possibility that his perception could have led him astray. Descending there, as he tells it, the fleeting thought occurred: "What if there is a God?" After an eternity of torment at the hands of his own ego, the ego died and the Mind cried out, "If there is a God, then I ask Him for help." Immediately He was relieved of his torment, and upon awakening found that God was with Him, as Him. The conventional self of this former human being, as I listen to my projection of 'his voice' reporting the story, was no more... only the Presence of God remained.
 
Thanks to Dr. David R. Hawkins: psychiatrist, Mystic, Spiritual Researcher, and Teacher of the Way. Without you, I suspect I would not have begun actively listening for the Voice for God (which I perceive as coming from my fellow man at this point) anywhere close to this soon, though I suppose it was also my willingness to forgive that allowed me to hear your message.

And to you Brother...
We go together, you and I.

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