We're going to speak this morning about the phrase "Chop wood, carry water." This comes
from the east...I think it is a Buddhist tradition. And the story typically goes that a spiritual
aspirant goes to the guru and asks "How can I advance and become enlightened?"
and the guru answers "Chop wood, carry water." Meaning you have to do the daily work and
that there's nothing behavorial that is beneath you, that is non-spiritual...that it's in
our daily interactions with our world that our spiritual advancement occurs, and the
Course would certainly concur. There's a line I frequently like to refer to that comes
at the end of Lesson 193 that says God will take the final step Himself. Do not deny Him
the little steps He asks you take to Him. Lesson 161 speaks about how we
see a little to learn a lot. And what this refers to, as well as many, many other passages in
the Course, is that if we truly want to awaken from the dream and undo our identification
with the ego and deny the reality of guilt (denial in a positive sense), then we have
to do our daily work of monitoring our mind, being vigilant for all of our ego thoughts,
for being aware of our resistance...how much we don't want to forgive, how much we don't
want to let go of judgments. And to avoid all of the kind of highfalutin spiritual
stuff that people get caught in...Jesus told me this yesterday, I had this revelation and
God spoke to me, I had this wonderful experience of light, and on, and on, and on. Not that
any of these experiences are necessarily not valid or not authentic, but they can be really
detriments and can really derail you on your spiritual journey. What you want to work with
is that you want to chop wood and carry water. You want to notice how judgmental you are
of people who drive on the highway or freeway. You want to notice how easily irritated you
get if a waiter or a waitress at your restaurant doesn't act the way you think he or she should
act. How annoyed you get when things don't go quite right at home or at work. And how
quickly you lose your peace and attribute that loss of peace to factors external to
you. It's in the daily working...it's in the day in and day out, minute by minute, even
second by second, vigiliance for your ego and not tolerating any of what Jesus told
Helen early on in the text...not tolerating any of your mind wanderings. Mind wanderings
refers to when we let our minds wander from themselves out into the world. In other words,
it's projection. And we kind of attribute all of our distress or disease to factors
outside of ourselves...ignoring the fact that if I'm not happy, if I'm upset, it's only
because I chose the wrong teacher. My mind chose the ego instead of Jesus or the Holy
Spirit. That is always and only what is the source of our distress or the source of our
happiness and peace when we make a different choice and choose the right teacher. But what
helps us to do that...what helps us to get in touch with the decision-making part of
our mind is to chop wood and carry water. Don't make a big deal about what the world
calls a big deal. Don't try to become a great spiritual teacher, or a great spiritual healer
without doing the basic work. I am reminded how often in the history of the Course's publication...since
the publication...even right from the beginning, people would start teaching the Course without
having even read it. Or maybe reading it once or twice and then teaching it without doing
the basic work of learning to forgive one's ego through the process of forgiving other
people...of recognizing our tremendous investment in judgment and specialness as a way of life
and our means of identification rather than see this as all a defense. It's a defense my mind
is choosing against remembering the reality of who I really am. I frequently will tell
people that if you have aspirations of being a great concert pianist, then you just can't
pick up Beethoven, Chopin, or Bach and start playing it. You have to practice. You have
to practice exercises and you have to study and you have to do the day in and day out
work, which at one point might end up with you becomiong a concert pianist. There's a
famous story that takes place in New York city, someone asks someone how do you get
to Carnegie Hall and the answer is practice, practice, practice. And so, how do you awaken
from the dream and return Home to God...you practice, you practice, you practice. You
chop wood and you carry water. You monitor your mind for the little upsets as well as
the major upsets. You not only have to forgive the kind of life-long special relationships,
but you have to forgive the casual acquaintances that you have, what early on in the manual
Jesus refers to as the first level of teaching. People that we just meet once or twice...someone
who sells us a shirt, or someone who bumps into us once. In other words, since everything
out here is an illusion and everything begins and ends in our minds, no matter what we project
out will always be some aspect of our guilt that comes from the mind's decision, again,
for the wrong teacher. So big or small...significant or insignificant...everything is grist for
the mill. And everything is an opportunity for us to learn how to forgive so we can
indeed return Home.