This afternoon we're going to talk about that line from the text where Jesus says "Trust
not your good intentions. They are not enough." We're all more than familiar with well-intentioned
people, what we sometimes refer to as the do-gooders of the world. These are the people
who try to alleviate people's suffering, ameliorate adverse environmental conditions, are always
trying to be kind and helpful to people in distress, et cetera. And while the Course
is certainly not against our being helpful, obviously that would be insane, what Jesus
is cautioning us against is our special relationship with being helpful. It's not enough just to
have good intentions if at the same time our ego is burrowing in and coming up within the
good intentions to turn them to its own purposes of specialness. In other words, I feel terrible
about myself but I will feel good if I could help other people. I feel that my life has
been a total waste but suddenly it would become meaningful if I could do something about ending
world hunger or I could join a very important cause. And while once again, Jesus in no way
is telling us what we should do behaviorally or not do behaviorally, he is as always pointing
a finger at our minds and saying that is where the problem is and that is where the solution
is. One very clear example of how subtly vicious do-gooders or well-intentioned people
can be—I'm not saying all people are like that but very often this creeps into it—is
that if I need people to be in trouble so I could help them so I will feel good about
myself, it is imperative that people suffer. It is imperative that people have problems
that only I can solve for them. In other words, my feeling good about myself is directly dependent
upon other people feeling bad. That's how you know that there's something "rotten in
the state of Denmark" to quote Hamlet. Something is indeed wrong if my sense of well-being
depends on somebody else's problems and distress and suffering. Once again, if I am to be a
true do-gooder and help people, there have to be people who want to be helped. What I'm
also building into this, to borrow a phrase from "The Song of Prayer" pamphlet, what I'm
also doing is I'm really practicing helping-to-destroy. Because just as in "The Song of Prayer," in
Chapters 2 and 3 on Forgiveness and Healing, Jesus makes the point that when we forgive
and heal from the ego, we are really teaching separation rather than joining. We're really
teaching differences rather the inherent sameness of God's Son. When I forgive you for your
sins, I am saying you are the sinner and I am forgiving you, we are different. When I
am saying I have certain power or a certain ability to heal you, I'm saying you are sick
and I'm the healer, we are different. The whole point of that pamphlet—indeed the
whole point of A Course in Miracles is to teach us that we are all the same. We are
all suffering. We are all in need of healing. We are all sick and we all have within us
the power to heal through our choosing our right minds. We are all the same. The forms
may differ but we are all the same. So if I have to have people be in pain or suffer
or there have to be conditions in the world that call upon my expertise and my benevolence
and my generosity, then I am saying these people are different from me. Therefore I
am really reinforcing the very seeds of sickness that we all share in rather than undoing them
because I am preaching differences. I am preaching separation. I'm preaching one person is better
than another or one person has a talent or an ability that is different from another's.
While on the level on the level of form in the illusion, that is certainly true, we are
all different on the level of bodies. But on the level of the mind which is the only
reality, if one could use such a word within the world of illusion, it creates or reinforces
the same illusion that we are trying to undo. And therefore if we think that that's where
Jesus is leading us as a student of A Course in Miracles, we will take the ball and run
the wrong way. And we may score a touchdown but it will be for the wrong team. So what
we need to be very mindful of is what our investment is, what our motivation is is in
helping other people. Once again, our good intentions are never enough. Our good intentions
have to be wedded with our right-minded decision to see whatever it is we are doing, whomever
we are with, as part of a larger classroom in which we are all students of the same lesson,
partaking of the same wisdom of the same teacher. And that is that nothing in this world can
affect us in any way, shape, or form. All suffering is the same because it all stems
from the same mistake that we believe we have separated from our Creator and Source. And
because all suffering is the same, all healing is the same—accepting the Atonement that
tells us the separation never happened and we have indeed never left our Father's house.
So the Oneness of Heaven is reflected in this world through seeing the universal sameness
of God's Son. We all share the same ego thought system. We all share the same thought system
of correction of the Holy Spirit and we all share the same power to choose between them.
We are the same. We are not different.