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(Volum 11 Number 1 March 2000)
Gloria Wapnick
Kenneth Wapnick, Ph.D.
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In the past, we have written in these pages about the blatant expressions of hatred that abound in our world -- both the world at large and the more personal world of our everyday relationships. It is the ostrich in us that would pretend that this world's viciousness is only an aberration, while burying our heads in the sand of rose-colored glasses, that see only the fruits of denial, not the fruits of the Spirit. While it is certainly true that many spiritualities emphasize looking at the good, based on the presumption that God created the world and the people in it, it is also certainly true that this is not the focus of A Course in Miracles. Quite clearly, the Course parts company with those spiritualities that claim this dualistic metaphysics, and states the exact opposite: God did not create the world, the body, or form of any kind. Rather, we are taught by Jesus in A Course in Miracles that the world is the ego's dream of fear that we have chosen as replacement for God's Love, and the miracle (or forgiveness) is the means by which the awakening from this dream is accomplished. Thus we read:
...the basis for the miracle...means that you have understood that dreams are dreams; and that escape depends, not on the dream, but only on awaking.... The dreams you think you like would hold you back as much as those in which the fear is seen. For every dream is but a dream of fear, no matter what the form it seems to take. The fear is seen within, without, or both. Or it can be disguised in pleasant form. But never is it absent from the dream, for fear is the material of dreams, from which they all are made (T-29.IV.1:3; 2:1-5).Correctly understood, these sentences point out that the purpose of A Course in Miracles is not to help us make our dreams -- our physical lives here in the world -- a fulfillment of the hopes contained within the individual dramas and roles that we have assigned to ourselves and others in the dream. For example, people who seem to get what they want -- the pleasant form -- will testify to their life experiences as being tremendously fulfilling. As the world judges it, they have made it. Nonetheless, it is still the case that "every dream is but a dream of fear, no matter what the form it seems to take." As Jesus tells us in the manual for teachers, based upon Freud's famous statement about the artist: Power, fame, money, physical pleasure; who is the "hero" to whom all these things belong? Could they mean anything except to a body? Yet a body cannot evaluate. By seeking after such things the mind associates itself with a body, obscuring its identity and losing sight of what it really is (M-13.2:6-9).This is exactly what the world's dream does: Its purpose is to first make a body, then reinforce our identification with this body, culminating in the body becoming the "hero" of the dream, whose every need -- unconscious and conscious -- demands fulfillment. Many times, the goals of power, or fame, or money, or physical pleasure -- separately or collectively -- are cloaked in a religious or spiritual costume, hiding their real intent. Therefore they appear to be something other than what they truly are -- illusory and deceptive, as is the world's dream. To legitimatize these hidden agendas -- especially the religious and spiritual nature of the delusional roles we assume for ourselves -- God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, or some other holy figures are brought in and quoted as speaking to us, confirming our special mission to humankind. Needless to say, special missions need special followers, and so seekers are seduced and need to be convinced of the inherent holiness of their special leader or teacher. All this manipulative and pseudo-spiritual activity is thus used to justify the attitudes and behavior that are in truth nothing but the rantings of the unconscious ego, screaming out in its dream of want, as the following passage from the text explains:
Dreams are perceptual temper tantrums, in which you literally scream, "I want it thus!" And thus it seems to be. And yet the dream cannot escape its origin. Anger and fear pervade it, and in an instant the illusion of satisfaction is invaded by the illusion of terror. For the dream of your ability to control reality by substituting a world that you prefer is terrifying. Your attempts to blot out reality are very fearful, but this you are not willing to accept. And so you substitute the fantasy that reality is fearful, not what you would do to it. And thus is guilt made real.The truth is that followers of a guru or self-styled spiritual leader or teacher -- examples of the dream figures stated above -- often skip over the hard steps that comprise the authentic spiritual path of leaving behind one's ego. There is often the magical hope that simply being in the presence of the teacher is sufficient. A corollary to this distortion of the spiritual path comes when a teacher or student, guru or follower, believe that attending special sessions, performing "sacred" rituals, or adhering to "holy" time schedules will somehow bring about the desired result. The problem in all these instances is the level confusion of mind and body. Holiness is a state of mind, and has nothing to do with the body, or what the body does or does not do. The true spiritual aspirant may use externals as a means for expressing a change of mind, but never loses sight of where the problem and the answer lie. Students of A Course in Miracles can easily trace its emphasis on finding and undoing the negative back to the pioneering work of Sigmund Freud, which was discussed in previous articles. The problem is never with our inherent holiness as God's Son, the formless and eternal Christ, but rather with our having made the decision to choose against such holiness, producing the dream of separation that led to form and our individual identities. This defense effectively keeps the holiness from our awareness, along with all the dream roles we assign to ourselves. This approach of the ego rests on very solid psychological foundations: If we are not aware of our mind's decision to be separate, inevitably leading to guilt and hatred, then the law of the mind dictates that such repressed hate be projected, but with no awareness that this has been done (see, e.g., W-pI.136.3-5). We are taught in the Course that "frightened people can be vicious" (T-3.I.4:2), for it is a corollary to the mind's law that unrecognized fear -- the core of all the world's dreams -- leads to projected hate and viciousness. Indeed, the history of the world and its current situations bear striking witness to this unfortunate truth, whether we are speaking of the political, social, economic, cultural, or religious spheres. And it is astounding that very few recognize that the insanity of attack leading to murder -- whether verbally or behaviorally expressed -- can in no way be justified and defended on humanitarian, religious, or spiritual grounds. To compound this error, ancient and contemporary spiritual documents, including A Course in Miracles itself, are frequently cited to support such attacks. Yet the bizarre nature of these oxymoronic dynamics -- spiritual attack -- escapes many. In the early centuries of the so -- called Christian era, many Gnostic teachers and writers stressed that ignorance-not understanding the nature and purpose of the world -- was the central problem that needed to be corrected. One is reminded of the wonderful Valentinian formula:
What liberates is the knowledge of who we were, what we became; where we were, whereinto we have been thrown; whereto we speed, wherefrom we are redeemed; what birth is, and what rebirth (quoted in Love Does Not Condemn, dedication page).Two millennia later, it is sad to report that the same problem is still too much with us, to borrow Wordsworth's evocative phrase. Even our great technological advances in communication, such as the information superhighway, can serve to exacerbate the error of ignorance, for now ignorant distortions and disinformation can be used to more expeditiously and efficiently propagandize, all in the name of knowledge and freedom, while in many cases the facts and true intentions are never revealed or discerned. In the section "The Fear of Redemption" (and we can substitute awakening for redemption here), Jesus states:
You may wonder why it is so crucial that you look upon your hatred and realize its full extent. You may also think that it would be easy enough for the Holy Spirit to show it to you, and to dispel it without the need for you to raise it to awareness yourself (T-13.III.1:1-2).It is an inherent part of the Course teaching that the unconscious of the wrong mind must be brought to awareness. Once in awareness, we can then make the choice to justify or rationalize the hate, thus keeping the ego intact, or to ask Jesus or the Holy Spirit to help us let go of this hatred by realizing the pain of keeping us in the dream that holding on to hate effects. That is why Jesus emphasizes that we "are not seriously disturbed by (y)our hostility" (T-13.III.1:7). Indeed, our hatred brings us the defensive pleasure of knowing that someone else is guilty, not ourselves. Yet one can see this perverse dynamic at work in many spiritual groups and movements -- past and contemporary -- where members luxuriate in finding persons -- real or imagined -- to "justifiably" attack, judge, condemn, hate, and sometimes even punish. It cannot be underscored enough that this letting go of hatred, the first step in the process of healing, is not possible unless we are first aware of it. As Jesus told Helen Schucman and William Thetford in a personal message to them at the close of the first year of Helen's scribing of the Course: You do not realize how much you hate each other. You will not get rid of this until you do realize it, for until then, you will think you want to get rid of each other and keep the hatred.... Look as calmly as you can upon hatred, for if we are to deny the denial of truth [a reference to T-12.II.1:5 ], we must first recognize what we are denying.... Surely you are willing to look upon what you do not want without fear, even if it frightens you, if you can thereby get rid of it?... Be not afraid of this journey into fear, for it is not your destination. And we will walk through it in safety, for peace is not far, and you will be led in its light (Absence from Felicity, 2nd ed., pp. 297-98).These statements that Jesus made through Helen to her and Bill about their relationship highlight just how important it is to look at the hatred of our ego, which seems to be a journey into fear, but is really a journey of awakening to the love which is our true state. Because of the dynamic of denial, we are simply not aware of the toxic nature of our hatred, a poison that infects our minds and reinforces delusions of being unfairly treated, a misperception, again, that we use to justify our hatred and attack of others. And so the process of awakening -- otherwise known as forgiveness -- can be summed up in this way:
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