Q: I think my concern - it's like really getting it clear
what the implications of the metaphysics of the Course are.
It’s main argument that truth has no opposite.
And this whole idea of helping the world and it's that idea, at least in the East
that there is no world, and if you serve it that you’re making Maya real.
You’re making the illusion real. You’re making the world real by helping here.
So they disassociated out and became monastics and had mystical experiences,
whereas that really wasn’t the teaching there either.
It’s more in the Bhagavad Gita that engagement and working in the world
you’re loving God through that action, through doing those things.
And through non-attached action. Is the Course like that, too?
Isn’t there danger in the Course. . .
Yes. Well, the danger in any non-dualism is that people
will then use it as a defense against dealing with their ego.
And I think that’s certainly very, very true with the Course.
I think that’s where - that’s probably one of the areas,
probably one of the most important areas where students have really gotten off.
Because they will use the idea that the world’s an illusion as a way not to deal with the world.
And the crux of the Course, as we’ve seen, is against the backdrop
of the illusory nature of the world – that we don’t deny what goes on here.
We just deny the ego’s interpretation of what goes on here.
And the idea – one of the things I used to always like to emphasize
when I would tell the story of Helen and Bill is that the Course
did not come to some holy nun in a convent someplace in the middle of nowhere.
It came to two psychologists that were locked in a bitter struggle with each other,
with a bitter struggle with everybody else in a medical center
that’s probably the greatest symbol of the ego’s hateful thought system,
in a city that is probably the world's greatest symbol of greed
and competition and specialness and hate.
That’s where the Course had its birth. That was the manger
that the Course was born into. And I think that there’s an important message in that.
And Helen and Bill, at the time that Helen was taking down this Course,
were the busiest that they were in all their years at the medical center.
They were so busy. And somehow they had to fit the Course
into their very busy schedule. It did not come at a time when they
had nothing to do and they could devote all their time to this.
It came when they were very busy. And they were very busy dealing with
issues and writing grants and editing journals, writing papers and dealing with each other.
So I think that’s always helpful to understand.
Again, everybody’s life is different and everybody’s limitations are different,
and everybody’s highway is different. And so some people may be asked,
may be guided to be not in the world. But I think those would be very, very rare.
I think in general, this is meant for people not to do anything different, except to forgive.
Another thing I always like to emphasize. This Course was never meant
to be a religion, never meant to be a church, certainly not meant to be a cult.
It is only meant to be a spiritual path for individuals.
That’s why there is nothing – nothing in this book about groups.
Nothing in this book about groups. Nothing in this Course about formal teaching.
Nothing. It’s all about the relationship you develop with the Holy Spirit,
to which you bring all of your special relationships.
This is meant to be done by individuals as an individual path.
It is not meant to be a religion. It is not meant, on the level of form, to consume your life.
You are meant to live, in general, with very, very few exceptions,
you live your life after the Course the way you did before the Course, in form.
The difference is you do it with a different teacher and you do it with a different purpose.
But you look like everybody else. You don’t leave your family,
you don’t leave your job, you don’t go to a desert halfway around the world
so you can meditate all the time. Again, that would be very, very rare.
This is meant, again, to be a path - individual spiritual study path.
That’s what it is. It is not meant to make people different.
It is not meant to have Course in Miracles' groups form that then become
oppositional to other Course in Miracles' groups, or non-Course in Miracles' groups
or anything like that. You’re not asked to give up your friends,
your families or anything, your interests. Nothing should change on the level of form.
One of the awful things that Course in Miracles' students do,
which leads me so often to say they’re the worst group on the face of the earth
is because they pretend to be so holy and so spiritual and so metaphysically correct,
which is no different from being politically correct, that they stop being human.
And they stop being normal and they stop speaking the language of other people.
So these are the ones, and I’m sure many of you know them,
who go to funerals with a big smile on their face.
With bright, sunny, radiant clothes, you know with a bottle of champagne,
because they’re celebrating nothing. Nothing happened.
While everybody is weeping and wailing and gnashing their teeth
and rending their clothes, and they’re smiling and happy
because metaphysically, they know nothing happened.
They’re not speaking the language of the people that they are purporting
to love and to help. And they’re pretending they’ve transcended all their limitations,
when it’s obvious if you act like that, that you haven’t transcended anything.
That’s just one example. There are unfortunately many, many more like that.
That’s what has led me to say many times, when you’re in trouble,
the last person you should ever call is A Course in Miracles' student.
Because you’ll get a lecture. You won’t get help.
You won’t get driven to the emergency room when your appendix is bursting.
You’ll get lesson 136 thrown in your face, “Sickness is a defense against the truth.”
It’s funny, except unfortunately, it’s true.
Q: The end of the story about the Plato’s cave, didn’t one of the prisoners
go out into the light and choose to go back in and tell the others that this isn’t real?
And they didn’t want to go out. So it’s fear that’s keeping our limitations.
One of the prisoners, who was Socrates, it doesn’t say that, but that’s clearly who it is,
one of the prisoners becomes freed and turns around and realizes what’s going on,
starts walking up, and actually makes his way up into the light, into the road,
and sees what the reality is. And then goes back to present
his fellow prisoners with the happy news.
They did not see it as very happy and they rose up against him and killed him.
Which of course is what happened to Socrates that was Plato’s beloved teacher.
And the point of that was Plato saying the world doesn’t want to wake up.
The world doesn’t want to learn the difference between appearance and reality.
And when a prisoner comes to point you to the light, he’ll be killed.
So that the Jesus myth is the same story. And you’ll find it in many other religions and spiritualities.
That people would rather murder the messenger of love and light and truth
rather than accept that message. And so that was, yes – that’s how the allegory ends.
And other times when I’ve presented the whole story,
it’s a way of really talking about people’s resistance, people’s fear of the truth.
And that’s the fear of losing this self.
So when I said a moment ago that everybody is motivated by the preservation of self,
that’s what forces us to then try to destroy, whether we do it physically or
we do it psychologically, try to destroy a message that would tell us something else.
So Jesus is not around any more to kill, but his message is.
So people will try to change the message. Not because they’re bad or evil.
They just like being shadows, like everybody else.
I don’t want to be told I don’t exist. I want a spiritual teaching,
I want a spiritual teacher, who will teach me that I exist,
not very happily, but I can make my existence better.
And that basically is what most religions and spiritual systems do,
certainly not all of them. But most of them do.
And certainly the more popular ones do. That’s why they’re popular.
We get to have our ego’s cake and eat it, too. I get to keep my individual existence,
but now I think I'm spiritual and holy.
Again, what makes this Course so difficult, really difficult, is because at some point,
you begin to understand what it’s saying.
Jesus is not telling you to be a happier shadow,
and how to relate to other shadows. People think forgiveness
is one shadow forgiving another shadow. That makes no sense.
This is not about living better or more happily or more peacefully in the dream.
That's not what he means by happy dreams. Happy dreams are forgiveness.
Nothing to do with this world.
So this is not about feeling better as a shadow and living better as a shadow,
and more happily, and healthily and wealthily as a shadow,
It’s about realizing what the shadow is keeping you from.
The shadow is keeping you from love, from the light.