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Being Kind to the “Little Ones”
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A Course in Miracles is not helpful to us if it cannot be lived and demonstrated, which is the meaning of true teaching (M-in.2). Repeatedly, Jesus asks us to do just that. For example, he tells us in the text:
Teach not that I died in vain. Teach rather that I did not die by demonstrating that I live in you (T-11.VI.7:3-4).And in the clarification of terms, he goes even further by asking us, in the third person, to become like him: You are His [the Holy Spirit's] manifestation in this world. Your brother [Jesus] calls to you to be His Voice along with him (C-6.5:1-2).In Helen Schucman's poem, “A Jesus Prayer,” already familiar to readers of The Lighthouse, we pray to Jesus that we may grow to become like him in the eyes of others: A perfect picture of what I can beThus do we demonstrate to others the love that Jesus represents to us. This love is the reflected image of the holiness of Christ, God's one Son. Since Christ can be described as perfect Wholeness and Oneness, all people must be included in this image -- friends and enemies, saints and sinners. Exploring how we become this reflection, and what it means to demonstrate it is the theme of this article.
We are told to be a reflection of holiness, not only because of its obvious healing effect on others -- reminding them that they can choose the same right mind we have chosen -- but because that is how we are healed. Yet it does not always seem as if we would need to be healed, because our inner experiences of God, Jesus, light, etc., can be so compelling as to eclipse any thoughts of the need for the daily work of forgiveness that is the sine qua non for undoing the ego. However, it is in our everyday experiences -- being in the ego trenches, as it were -- that the core of the Course's practice is found. Our “ordinary” pain and sufferings thus become every bit as important as the “more lofty” experiences of love, for they are the means whereby we can undo our deeply-buried or repressed ego thoughts of sin and guilt, fear and hate, which constitute the sum and substance of our difficulties: the secret enemies that cannot be addressed because their identity remains a secret, concealed by the power of repression. Projection makes perception (T-21.in.1:1) -- we first look within and choose either love or fear, forgiveness or hate. The choice is simple, but from the simple mistaken choice for the ego arises a world of quasi-infinite combinations of problems and solutions. However, they remain the same illusion, since there is but one error. As Jesus says in the text:
You who believe that God is fear made but one substitution. It has taken many forms, because it was the substitution of illusion for truth; of fragmentation for wholeness. It has become so splintered and subdivided and divided again, over and over, that it is now almost impossible to perceive it once was one, and still is what it was. That one error, which brought truth to illusion, infinity to time, and life to death, was all you ever made. Your whole world rests upon it. Everything you see reflects it, and every special relationship that you have ever made is part of it (T-18.I.4; italics added).Nonetheless, when the original error of separation is expressed in the many forms of our special relationships, we have the opportunity of returning to the true problem: the decision-making mind that chose separation over oneness, guilt in place of love. Yet, again, focusing on the experience of unity and love can so often fulfill the ego's purpose of defending against ever having to look at the mind's identification with guilt. Jesus cautions us against this strong temptation to deny the ego by covering it over with spirituality and love in our special relationships: Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all of the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. It is not necessary to seek for what is true, but it is necessary to seek for what is false.…If you seek love outside yourself you can be certain that you perceive hatred within, and are afraid of it. Yet peace will never come from the illusion of love, but only from its reality (T-16.IV.6:1-2,5-6).Paying attention, therefore, to our misperceptions of others -- employing the ego's judgment that is based on differences, as opposed to the Holy Spirit's vision that sees the inherent sameness of God's Sons -- directs our focus to the projecting mind that would have us see our sins in anyone but ourselves. Without the many chances for forgiveness offered by our “little” perceptions, there would be no possibility of gaining access to the mind that is the source of all experiences, judged either as trivial or significant, profane or sacred -- they are the same. Such pursuit of the royal road, to borrow Freud's famous phrase, leads us from the world to the mind, from the projections of our guilt to their internal source. Once our attention is returned within -- whether from major or minor projections -- we have learned a great deal and can happily choose again. However, if we are not aware of the decision for the ego, we can never change it. Thus does the ego keep the decision out of awareness, and so unchanged seemingly forever: The ego has no real answer to this [the mind's questioning of the ego's advice to hide out in a body] because there is none, but it does have a typical solution. It obliterates the question from the mind's awareness. Once out of awareness the question…cannot be answered because it cannot be asked (T-4.V.4:9-11).Penetrating the ego's defense of repression -- its most primitive and powerful -- is mandatory if we are ever to become free of it. This urgent need is underscored still further by recognizing the inextricable connection between repression and projection, first pointed out by Freud who observed the inevitability of projection once thoughts were pushed into the unconscious. The guilt we choose not to acknowledge and therefore release, inaccessible to our awareness, is perforce projected. As Jesus points out in “Atonement without Sacrifice,” the opening section to Chapter 3 in the text, it was this unawareness of guilt that led otherwise well-meaning Christians to develop an insane theology that proved to be so vicious to themselves and others: self-abnegation, persecutions, Crusades, and the Inquisition. They literally did not know what they were doing in their pursuit of sinful bodies -- theirs and others' -- heretics, and blasphemers; never recognizing the projection of their own self-accusations in the sins they were seeking externally. Indeed, Jesus referred to this when he stated that “This procedure is painful in its minor applications and genuinely tragic on a wider scale” (T-3.I.2:3). Unfortunately, history -- ancient and modern -- never tires of providing examples of the painful and oft-tragic consequences of not perceiving the twin dynamics of repression and projection for what they are. To undo this painful and tragic state of affairs, we need to practice our daily forgiveness lessons, in all the opportunities our separated minds have set out for us in their special relationships -- large and small.
What prevents us from being mired in the ego's web of specialness is paying attention to the “little things” of the world, not only the suffering -- minor or major -- in oneself, one's circle of intimates, and the world at large, but everyday things that annoy us and disturb our peace. In this way, the bodily pain that the ego invented to distract us from the mind's pain of guilt and fear, which comes from believing in the separation from God, is shifted in purpose to teaching us the principle of shared interests: we are one in suffering, guilt, and fear, as we are in the need to be released from pain and return home. As Jesus says of the teacher of God: His qualifications consist solely in this; somehow, somewhere he has made a deliberate choice in which he did not see his interests as apart from someone else's (M-1. 1:2).It is the need to exclude certain people from the Sonship, seeing some people's interests as separate, if not antagonistic to our own, that is the hallmark of the special relationship, which A Course in Miracles seeks to correct. Indeed, the distinction Jesus teaches us between false and true empathy is the contrast between the ego's thoughts of exclusivity and his all-inclusive forgiveness that embraces all people, without exception: The clearest proof that empathy as the ego uses it is destructive lies in the fact that it is applied only to certain types of problems and in certain people. These it selects out, and joins with. And it never joins except to strengthen itself (T-16.I.2:1-3).And so, as we go through our day, we continually need to ask ourselves: Do I criticize and judge some people's behavior, while overlooking the very same actions in others? Do I feel the suffering in apparent victims, and not see the repressed pain in apparent victimizers, forgetting that to Jesus, victims and victimizers are heads and tails of the same coin, in much the same way as pleasure and pain are one (T-19.IV-A.17:10-11)? All fulfill the ego's need to make its thought system of separation and differences real, expressed in the differentiations we always forge between separate bodies -- individuals and groups. Do I practice forgiveness in the “heavy” special relationships of my life, and tolerate the mind-wanderings of unforgiveness in the “light” casual relationships of my everyday experience: service people, drivers, pedestrians, or public figures? In this regard, I am reminded of one of the German language's greatest poets, Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926), who well understood the importance of the “little” in pursuit of the “great.” In the Seventh Elegy of his Duino Elegies, the pinnacle of his poetic genius, he wrote:
But a tower was great, was it not? O angel, it was-Rilke's angel is a perfect, other-worldly being, roughly analogous to what A Course in Miracles refers to as a Teacher of teachers (M-26.2), not to be confused, by the way, with the angels of Christianity, as Rilke himself emphasized. This visionary's message is that we are granted access to these great beings, not only by the profound creations of our most inspired artists, but by compassionate feelings for the “simple maiden” who is rejected by her lover -- Rilke's association to, among other women, the celebrated Venetian poetess of the Renaissance, Gaspara Stampa. Indeed, God can be found through our all- too-human relationships, forgiving the specialness we have projected onto others. Thus: “We need to see a little, that we learn a lot” (W-pI.161.4:8). This importance of seeing the purpose of forgiveness in all things -- little and great -- is also highlighted in Lesson 29, “God is in everything I see.” It is so easy to be seduced by the magnitude of form. Indeed, great works of art, let alone, again, one's personal experiences of God, the mind, the timeless, etc., have a compelling way of leading us away from the right-minded source of such experiences -- the decision to forgive. In this way, we distance ourselves from the practice of looking without judgment at our egos in action, Jesus' primary definition of forgiveness and the major focus of his course: Forgiveness…is still, and quietly does nothing.…It merely looks, and waits, and judges not (W-pII.1:4:1,3).We can therefore say that there is no order of difficulty in extending kindness, for all expressions of kindness are maximal (T-1.I.1). Repression being what it is, it is particularly easy for the devious ego (the part of us that likes being us) to deny our guilt behind the shelter of our practice of what The Song of Prayer refers to as forgiveness-to-destroy and healing-to-separate (S-2.II; S- 3.I). And so we often do not recognize the subtle ways in which our unforgiveness of ourselves emerges in slight, insulting remarks or looks, often in what we judge to be trivial circumstances or insignificant people. To counter this insidious yet most effective ego ploy, Jesus discusses the lack of order in situations of forgiveness. In an early section in the manual for teachers, he addresses different “levels of teaching,” and here is what he says about our “very casual encounters”:
The teachers of God have no set teaching level.… The simplest level of teaching appears to be quite superficial. It consists of what seem to be very casual encounters; a “chance” meeting of two apparent strangers in an elevator, a child who is not looking where he is going running into an adult “by chance,” two students “happening” to walk home together.…Each of them has the potential for becoming a teaching-learning situation. Perhaps the seeming strangers in the elevator will smile to one another, perhaps the adult will not scold the child for bumping into him; perhaps the students will become friends. Even at the level of the most casual encounter, it is possible for two people to lose sight of separate interests, if only for a moment. That moment will be enough. Salvation has come.…God's teachers work at different levels, but the result is always the same (M-3.1:1; 2:1-2, 4-8; 3:7).And so, there is no order of difficulty in forgiveness. Since there is no hierarchy of illusions, contrary to the ego's first law of chaos (T-23.II.2:1-3), every situation and relationship in which we find ourselves offers us the same opportunity of recalling our projections to reveal the guilt their purpose was to keep hidden. Thus are we able to look at the ego thought system anew, forgive ourselves for having chosen it, and choose again. Were it not for these daily situations -- Freud's royal road -- we would have no hope of salvation: the change of mind that heralds the end of the dream and our return home. This practice of forgiveness, then, fulfills our special function (T-25.VI), which we share with all we meet or even think about. “The Reflection of Holiness” in Chapter 14 in the text offers a clear exposition of this function of providing for the needs of “everyone who wanders in the world uncertain, lonely, and in constant fear” (T-31. VIII.7:1), offering them the holiness that is the just inheritance of God's Son. I shall focus on excerpts from the last four paragraphs, using them as the framework for the rest of the article.
In this world you can become a spotless mirror, in which the Holiness of your Creator shines forth from you to all around you.…You need but leave the mirror clean and clear of all the images of hidden darkness you have drawn upon it.…Clean but the mirror, and the message that shines forth from what the mirror holds out for everyone to see, no one can fail to understand (T-14. IX.5:1,5; 6:5; italics added).Once again, without these objects of projection and a Teacher to help us, we would be forever condemned to the ego's prison house of unforgiveness. These unforgiving thoughts that make their home in the special relationship protect our projections from all possibility of reconsideration (W-pII.1:2). Thus we would believe that the problem of our unhappiness finds its expression in what is external to the mind, of which we are no longer aware, and that the solution lies in modifying what is perceived outside in the mindless world of the body. Yet the problem is not to be found in the projected images we perceive in the mirror, but in the mirror itself. Jesus' injunction to us to clean but the mirror goes to the heart of A Course in Miracles: we are asked to deny the denial of truth (T-12.II.1:5). In other words, Jesus is teaching us not to affirm truth or seek deep spiritual experiences, but rather to look at how our minds have denied this truth, and thus to choose against the ego's denial by denying its legitimacy in our holy minds. Think about a movie projector in a theater. If a piece of dust falls on the lens, it will be seen on the screen as a black spot on all frames of all films, without exception. It would not matter if the film were a great Shakespearean drama or a Bugs Bunny cartoon. The same black spot would always appear in the sight of the audience, calling attention to the need to remove the dust from the lens of the projector. Only the insane would attempt to clean the film or the screen. Yet without the perception of the black spot on them, there would be no way of recognizing the source of the problem. Thus, Jesus asks us to disregard our perceptions of levels of meaning in relationships, and see the same meaning in all of them. Clean but the mirror. And we know the mirrors of our minds need cleaning by our judgments of others. As he tells us in the text: Damnation is your judgment on yourself, and this you will project upon the world. See it as damned, and all you see is what you did to hurt the Son of God. If you behold disaster and catastrophe, you tried to crucify him. If you see holiness and hope, you joined the Will of God to set him free. There is no choice that lies between these two decisions. And you will see the witness to the choice you made, and learn from this to recognize which one you chose (T-21.in.2:1-6).This is why Jesus devotes so much time in the early workbook lessons to mind searching. After all, we cannot clean a mirror we do not know we have. Thus, for example, in Lesson 21 he urges us to: search (y)our mind for all the forms in which attack thoughts present themselves, hold each one in mind… (W-pI.21.4:1).And, again, it is our projections of these attack thoughts that reveal to us what has been concealed in the mind, offering us the chance to choose again.
Could you but realize for a single instant the power of healing that the reflection of God, shining in you, can bring to all the world, you could not wait to make the mirror of your mind clean to receive the image of the holiness that heals the world.…All bring their different problems to its healing light, and all their problems find but healing there (T-14.IX.7:1,4; italics added).We are taught that When I am healed I am not healed alone (W-pI.137), which reflects an important underlying premise of A Course in Miracles: One brother is all brothers. Every mind contains all minds, for every mind is one (W-pI.161.4:1-2).There is but one speck of dust in our minds (the decision for guilt), and so there is but one problem that faces us in the world (the projection of our guilt). The forms in which this problem appear are irrelevant, as are the different movies that contain the projected “spot of darkness” (T-31. VIII.12:5) on the screen. This is why all relationships are “holy encounters,” and one is not any bigger or smaller than another -- salvation is total, or it is not at all. Thus Jesus tells us: When you meet anyone, remember it is a holy encounter. As you see him you will see yourself.… Never forget this, for in him you will find yourself or lose yourself. Whenever two Sons of God meet, they are given another chance at salvation. Do not leave anyone without giving salvation to him and receiving it yourself (T-8.III.4:1-2,5-7).“Do not leave anyone,” for that would mean leaving ourselves outside the Kingdom. One problem, one solution (W-p.I.80.1:5): the mind's decision for the ego is the problem, regardless of its form of expression; the mind's decision for the Holy Spirit is the solution, regardless of its form of expression. What could be simpler? The specifics of our lives are important only insofar as they lead us to learn the generalization that truly heals the fragmented Sonship. This is the principle underlying the practice of the workbook, as we read in its introduction: The purpose of the workbook is to train your mind in a systematic way to a different perception of everyone and everything in the world. The exercises are planned to help you generalize the lessons, so that you will understand that each of them is equally applicable to everyone and everything you see.…But do not allow yourself to make exceptions in applying the ideas the workbook contains…(W-in.4; 9:4).It is the temptation to “make exceptions” that constitutes the ego's weapon, convincing us that as long as we focus on our “important” special relationships, then slight annoyances, justified judgments, and mistreatment of “little” people are acceptable. Yet if salvation is total, what can these compromises mean but that we do not truly seek salvation, for we still fear becoming the reflection of love, the prerequisite to become what we are reflecting. Nevertheless, the light of Christ's holiness still calls, and it is our attraction of light to light -- seeing the light of shared interests that unites God's Son -- that truly heals the world, dissolving the guilt-stained spots of darkness that held the sickness of separation in place within the perturbed minds of those who think they sleep. Their darkened dreams, however, cannot long conceal the light of holiness that is God's Son and heals him as one, gently dissolving the illusory thoughts of sin, guilt, and fear, and restoring the memory of God, Whose Love we have been reflecting.
Those who have learned to offer only healing, because of the reflection of holiness in them, are ready at last for Heaven. There, holiness is not a reflection, but rather the actual condition of what was but reflected to them here. God is no image, and His creations, as part of Him, hold Him in them in truth. They do not merely reflect truth, for they are truth (T-14.IX.8:4-7; italics added).Recognizing the truth of this passage allows us to go from the reflection to what is being reflected: our Source Itself. This is the transformation to which Jesus leads us, at the same time he patiently keeps pace with our fear. Thus he does not judge us for our silly and maladaptive ways of keeping love away by excluding certain members of the Sonship from our forgiveness. Yet does he quietly remind us of what joy we are truly excluding, encouraging us to hear his words tell us that all that is needed for this shift to occur is to bring everyone with us, excluding no one. In another of Helen's poems, also readily familiar to Lighthouse readers, we read: Christ passes no one by. By this you knowAnd so, if we truly wish to remember our Source, and our home in Its Love, we need also remember that we first need to be Its reflection. The Course teaches us that seeing that our goal of forgiveness is shared with all people reflects Heaven's Oneness. Our healed minds cannot but extend that healing to all; otherwise, it cannot be true healing. We need to let love's gentle healing extend to all people, all the time, in all situations. Thus we read this beautiful passage from The Song of Prayer that describes the essence of healing: As witness to forgiveness, aid to prayer, and the effect of mercy truly taught, healing is blessing. And the world responds in quickened chorus through the voice of prayer. Forgiveness shines its merciful reprieve upon each blade of grass and feathered wing and all the living things upon the earth. Fear has no haven here, for love has come in all its holy oneness. Time remains only to let the last embrace of prayer rest on the earth an instant, as the world is shined away. This instant is the goal of all true healers, whom the Christ has taught to see His likeness and to teach like Him (S-3.IV.2).Jesus calls to us to be the reflection of this holy oneness, by extending his love to “each blade of grass and feathered wing and all the living things upon the earth.” These lovely symbols express the unity of his love as it blesses a world yet too fearful to open its eyes and awaken from the dream of death. Our weed-infested garden of individuality and specialness is now reborn to welcome all those who suffer, in loving expansion as we “reach out to everyone who thirsts for living water, but has grown too weary to go on alone” (T-18.VIII.9:8). As our elder brother himself had chosen, we too choose to no longer reflect love's truth, but to become that truth. And in that love are all distinctions gone, leaving only the oneness that was ours when we were created; a oneness to which we now joyfully return, leaving no one behind as we are guided by the reflection of the light that is, at the same time, our true Self, the journey's goal. To rephrase the beautiful passage from the workbook:
God's Light awaits us as we go to Him, and walks beside us showing us the way. It fails in nothing. It the End we seek, and It the Means by which we go to It (W-pII.302.2).
1) From the unpublished translation of W. Edward Brown.
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