This morning we're going to speak about a passage in Chapter 2 of the text that was
originally meant just for Helen, but obviously it's for all of us. It's when Jesus says to
Helen that she's much too tolerant of mind wanderings, and what he's speaking about is
projection, and even more specifically what he was speaking about to Helen and to all
of us is our tendency to have our minds wander through projection to the body and see all
of our concerns, all of our problems, all of the causes of our distress as being external
to the decision-making mind. And in fact the whole point of that passage in which that
occurs is to emphasize to Helen and to all of us that the purpose of this course is to
teach us to respect the power of our thinking, which really means the power of our decision-making
mind to choose between the ego and the Holy Spirit as our teachers. To choose whether
we will live a life; experience ourselves as prisoners in the classroom...excuse me,
experience ourselves as prisoners to the body or to see our lives as existing in a classroom
in which we learn the lessons of forgiveness that will take us home. Another way of looking
at that idea of being much too tolerant of our mind wanderings is to become increasingly
sensitive to when we're choosing the thought system of the ego. Whenever we have thoughts
of unkindness, thoughts of judgments, thoughts of pain, thoughts of believing other peoples
are pains for us, and to basically stop ourselves and say, "This is not okay." A big problem
that we all have as students of the Course is that we split off its teachings and we
don't let ourselves integrate what it's teaching us about letting go of judgments in our everyday
lives. So that we find ourselves being students of the Course or when people attend workshops
and classes here at the Foundation, actually we say to them that something happens to you
when you leave the classroom and go outside. It's like everything that you've been listening
to, everything that you know is true simply goes out the window and what remains is your
ego, and you continue to make judgments, indulge your special relationships without any thinking
or concern about what you've just been listening to, or by the same token what you've been
reading in the Course. And so what is really very helpful is to say to oneself, "This is
no longer okay. I will no longer tolerate my mind wanderings." Also in Chapter 2 Jesus
refers to something (to Helen and Bill's favorite)famous conversation about, "There must be another
way," when he says that we're all very tolerant of pain, that we all have a high tolerance
for pain but at some point we say, "There must be a better way. There must be another
way. It is no longer okay for me to live a life of suffering and a life of pain." And
so, as almost like a mantra that I think students of the Course would be very helped by is to
say, "It is not okay." Every time you have an unkind thought about anyone, about anything,
as soon as you can stop yourself and say, "This is no longer okay for me. I don't want
to hurt other people. I don't want to hurt myself," and unkind thoughts, whether they
are something that appears to be trivial or of great consequence, it is no longer okay
because it hurts us. It fragments the Sonship, it reinforces the idea that we are separated;
it strengthens the idea that we are bodies and not minds, and it makes the entire thought
system of the ego real thereby denying the thought system of Jesus, which is the correction.
So just as Jesus had told Helen, "You're far too tolerant of mind wanderings," I'm saying
now to you, no longer say to yourself it's okay to have thoughts that are hurtful, thoughts
that are separating, thoughts that are fragmenting the unity of the Sonship. As much as you can
throughout the day, minute by minute, even second by second say, "It is not okay to have
these thoughts. Why should I persist in making myself uncomfortable and unhappy and keeping
myself separate from the love that I have sworn I want to return to?" What has always
attracted us, what's attracted every student of A Course in Miracles is the love that is
its source, and the love that permeates every page, that often leaps off the page into our
hearts. Why do we want to separate from that and indulging our mind wanderings, indulging
our unkind thoughts and justifying them and rationalizing them and pretending that they
don't make a difference is no longer okay? So I think if every student of A Course in
Miracles could say over and over again, "My ego is no longer okay and I no longer want
to tolerate it," that's what would speed us along to the love that another part of us
yearns to return to and make our own.