Different from what we've done before, we're not going to really spend too much time talking
about what "A Course in Miracles" says. I think we'll probably spend more time in talking
about what "A Course in Miracles" does not say. And the general topic that we'll be addressing
tonight will be some of the confusions and misconceptions that we have observed over
the many years that seem to have already begun regarding the Course. I think most of these
errors that we'll be discussing center about one basic theme, and that's what we have called
level confusion. So what we'll do at the beginning...and Gloria will spend some time talking about
what this confusion is...and then we'll go through some of the ways that this confusion
has been manifest in people and how people have read the Course, understood the Course
and practiced it. So when we think about this whole issue and then we try to place it in
terms of, for example, spiritualizing matter, there are many systems and spiritual paths
around today, and have been in the past, that spiritualize matter. That would not be the
Course position because if you're spiritualizing matter, you're doing exactly what the Course
says can't be done because the world was not made by God. So you're only adding to the
problem. Instead of clearing your mind out of the original error, you're reinforcing
that error. The same thing goes with making anything holy or unholy in this world. The
Course says the body is neutral and you can't make anything holy or unholy in this world
because it simply can't be. In fact, at one point in the workbook...it's in the workbook,
isn't it?...where the Course says there is no world. That's the central teaching of the
Course. There is a belief that there is a world but there can't be anything outside
of Heaven because Heaven is totally reality, total love. How am I investing in this world
and how am I couching and rationalizing things in this world to make me feel better? And
one of the major ways we do that, and the temptation is constantly always there, is
to separate the Sonship into good guys and bad guys. And that's the temptation practically
every second of the day. We take the guilt in our mind and rather than asking for help
for the Holy Spirit to let go of that guilt, we project it out and we see a world of good
and bad guys. And all that does is not only reinforce our guilt, but uphold the denial
of God. Because we are all part of God and by separating out part of the Sonship and
blaming part of the Sonship for any problem is just to reinforce the entire world of make
believe. This is only a game we're playing here. And it's very important that we don't
make these victims and victimizers and good guys and bad guys and don't include ourselves
either as a victim or a victimizer, because each time we do that, we will just reinforce
our own guilt and we will never get free of it. And so as we look out on the world and
remember that this world was made as a defense against God, and if there was a sign over
it which said "God cannot enter here." We have to think how in our daily life, every
second of every minute of the day we are making the same error in some clouded form. And it's
not easy because the temptation is always to take sides, especially if you listen to
the news. I know that's when all my buttons go off. And you listen to the news and the
temptation is like this instantaneous...like that's the bad guy, he just went and raped
and murdered, etc., and this is the poor, good person or whatever. And as soon as you
do that, you reinforce the separation, that original mad thought gets reinforced somewhere
in your mind and you end up blaming part of you, because we're all joined as one. And
if I blame you, I blame myself. If I attack you, I attack myself. But the ego doesn't
let us know that. And so we end up listening to the ego's voice rather than the Holy Spirit
who would always remind us that we're all joined and we're all one. And that's what
I think the Course is asking us to do...to examine everything, all our values. And you
can't just do that as a one-shot deal. You have to constantly monitor your mind and see
what are you investing in and what are you valuing and what are you upholding that's
a denial of the truth. And then ask the Holy Spirit to help you change your mind. If we
have to give a name to what Gloria is talking about, especially in terms of what happened
right at the beginning when the separation seemed to occur, it would be a distortion
of the Course principle which is so important in its practice, namely, to bring illusions
to the truth. And a distortion of this is to bring truth to the illusion. That certainly
is what the sleeping son of God did right at the beginning by trying to in a sense squeeze
his being into this body or this cylinder, when the abstraction of God's love became
specific. And of course, when the Course talks about love in this world, that's what's referred
to as specialness or special relationships. That same dynamic of bringing truth to the
illusion is something I think that if we had to probably summarize all of the Course confusion
or confusions surrounding what the Course says, I think that would be the category we
would use. What the Course teaches us is so beyond what any of us is ready to truly accept
that we all succumb to the temptation rather than to extend to the scale that the Course
gives us is to scale the Course down to where we are. So that as we read through some of
the material and we come across something and our minds say this is terrible, I can't
believe this is true, the way this translates to is that this is not what the Course is
saying. And it's like blinders just goes down and we either immediately forget what we just
read or we somehow distort what it is saying so that it fits our basic needs. I think it
is instructive to recognize that that's exactly what the early followers of Jesus did to what
he taught. Rather than grow into the shining vision that he held out, a vision in which
there are no victims and victimizers, where there's only love in this world - rather what
happened is that message gets scaled down and was understood in terms of the understanding
and the past of the followers so that a teaching that had only love in it very quickly included
a teaching that had suffering and sacrifice and guilt as its central cornerstones. I think
we find the exact same occurrence now. It takes a different form, but the message that
Jesus has given us in the Course contains that same vision of pure love and of pure
unity in this world. That of course is the last thing in the world that the separated
egos, the specifics that we have made real, could ever tolerate. And so what we do is
we say no, that's really not what the Course means. One of the key places in which that
occurs which we've already mentioned is the tendency to spiritualize matter. We have found
it to be actually rather astounding as we travel around to hear how many people...intelligent,
bright, sincere, thoughtful, somehow not understand that there can be no reconciling truth and
illusion, spirit and form, spirit and matter. There is absolutely nothing whatsoever that
can be holy about this world because again, as Gloria said, this entire physical universe
was made as a specific attack and defense against the abstract love and total Oneness
of God and His Kingdom. The entire Course teaching on forgiveness rests on this foundation.