A Course in Miracles Complete & Annotated Edition (CE) Study Guide Week 14 CourseCompanions.com Chapter 5. The Holy Spirit Day 92: IX. The Eternal Fixation Day 93: X. The Decision for God Day 94: Review: Chapter 5 Chapter 6. The Lessons of Love Day 95: I. The Message of the Crucifixion (paragraphs 1-12) Day 96: I. The Message of the Crucifixion (paragraphs 13-25) Day 97: II. Projection and Separation Day 98: III. Everything Meets in God All commentary in this week s study guide is from Robert Perry, editor of the Complete & Annotated Edition (CE) of A Course in Miracles 1
Day 92: IX. The Eternal Fixation I can t tell you how much I love this section, and how glad I am that it s in this edition of the Course. In trying to capture its message, perhaps the best starting point is Freud. Freud peered deeply into the psyches of his patients and of humanity. But Jesus turns the tables here and peers deeply into Freud s psyche, something he says that Freud himself didn t really do. He tells us that Freud deep-down knew the real meaning of fixation, but he was afraid of it, and so he crafted a concept of fixation that both mirrored the real thing yet also protected against it. Freud s concept was that we could get fixated at certain key developmental stages in infancy and early childhood. If we didn t complete and release either the oral stage, the anal stage, or the phallic stage, we would be in essence stuck there, constantly pulled back there, so that our adult personality would be dominated by that stage. This, of course, is where we get the idea of being anal-retentive. This is someone who is permanently fixated at the anal stage. The beauty of Freud s concept, according to Jesus, is such that it has a number of learning advantages (5:1). He lists three: that the mind can be fixated at a point in development that is different than the current point in time, that this point could be more real to the mind than its current external reality, and that the mind was always being called back to the place of its fixation. These three learning advantages, Jesus says, could have been powerful release mechanisms. They could have been messengers of the real truth of fixation, but instead Freud used his concept to defend against true fixation, because he was afraid of it. What, then, is the real concept of fixation? According to Jesus, fixation is not about being fixated at some point in our infancy in this lifetime. It is about being fixated on our true infancy, on our beginning in God. You were eternally fixated on God in your creation, and the pull of this fixation is so strong that you will never overcome it (9:2). In other words, Fixation is the pull of God (4:2). What is this pull? In this world, we carry a chronic, undermining sense of anxiety. We feel as if we are on our own. We have to keep all the balls in the air. No one will do it for us. We are like Atlas, having to hold up the heavens on our shoulders. This is such a debilitating condition that we long for a state in which all the burdens and anxieties are gone. We long to rest in our Father, like an infant resting in its mother s arms. We want to lay our heads in the lap of a Parent Whose only desire is to shower us with care, so that all of our own cares are blissfully forgotten. All that s left is to bask in this love. 2
Do you feel this pull? Jesus says we will never, ever overcome it. We are eternally fixated, and this fixation will always be pulling us back. But he also says that we are in the same position as Freud. We too are afraid of this pull. Why? Because we think it is trying to reduce us to an infantile state. I can really identify with this. This morning in my meditation, I kept trying to just rest in God s care, and yet my mind was full of its own cares. I have a workshop to give. I have other events I m not yet prepared for. I have people to write. I have a book to market. I have a commentary to write (this one!). As I tried to cast all these cares upon God, fear kept coming up: But if I don t hoist all these things onto my own shoulders, how will they get done? How can I just play the blissful infant, resting my head in my Father s lap when there is so much I need to do? I m an adult; I m not a kid anymore. I do feel the pull of this fixation. It is always calling to me, but I also feel the recoil from it. It seems too good to be true, and so if I just give myself over to it, am I not in danger of being duped, of turning myself into a happy idiot? Thankfully, in this meditation, I was able to remind myself that, if there is one thing I know for a certainty, it is that the care of God is real. So if I know it s real, I asked myself, why not take the plunge and just let myself rest in it? Why not trust Him to shoulder my burdens for me? Why not yield to the pull? It ended up being a great meditation, long and restful. And afterwards, the commentary I was worried about just flowed. Hopefully, then, I can keep making the same choice as I go forward today. 3
Day 93: X. The Decision for God You could say that the central line in this section is Physician, heal thyself (6:1). To understand this section as a whole, it helps to know that much of it was directed at Bill, who felt that he clearly knew what Helen should do to heal herself, but when it came to healing himself just thought, Gee, that s really hard. When you read the section s opening remarks about healers who did not heal themselves, it helps to remember that the previous section was largely about one such healer in particular: Freud. If you remember, Jesus there said that Freud lost much of the potential value of his own thought system because, much like Cayce, he did not include himself in it (T-5.IX.3:1). The reference to Edgar Cayce is significant, because it was about the exact same issue. As we see in Cameo 15, Cayce poured forth great efforts to heal others, yet somehow excluded himself from that healing. He did not fail to recognize the value of the Atonement for others, but he did fail to accept its corrective merit for himself. There s obviously a pattern here. Indeed, in reference to both Freud and Bill, Jesus uses the term dissociation. Freud: This is a dissociated state, because the thinker cuts himself off from his thoughts (T-5.IX.3:2). Bill: Do you not think you might be dissociating yourself from your own awareness, since you are so clear about the remedy for others? (6:4). In both cases, someone knows what is true or best for others, but then dissociates himself, excludes himself, from that awareness. Once you are aware of this pattern, you start to see references to it all over the section: There have been many healers who did not heal themselves (1:1). Excluding yourself from the Atonement is the ego s last-ditch defense of its own existence (3:1). The one more thing that you must learn is merely that you are not the one more (5:3). The Last Judgment is really only the biblical reminder of the inevitability of self-inclusion (5:5). Do you see the pattern? We see clearly a truth that applies to others, but somehow we place ourselves outside of it. We dissociate ourselves from that truth. We decide that it does not apply to us, even if that means we reject our own healing. All I can say is that even though this was true of Cayce, Freud, Bill, and the many healers Jesus mentions in paragraph 1, I am very grateful that I am the exception, that this general truth that I see out there does not apply to me. I m kidding, of course. Something in me would love to think that, but it s obviously what Greg often calls a performative contradiction. I m engaging in the very kind of thinking ( that general truth does not apply to me ) that I m claiming I don t have! We all, therefore, need to take a hard look at ourselves here, for surely we are not entirely exempt from the nearly universal pattern of talking the talk better than we walk the walk. 4
So what do we do about it? Of course, the general solution is just to be willing to include rather than exclude ourselves. This means fully applying to ourselves the truths we believe in. Another way of saying this is including ourselves in the Atonement and in the Kingdom. Yet another way of saying this is including our mind in God returning to Him the mind He gave us (2:1), commending our spirit to Him just as He commended His to us (2:5). If this sounds vague, we can be grateful that the final three paragraphs of the section are devoted to a very practical application of this. The practice given at the end of the section is a beloved one among Course students. I heard that Marianne Williamson used to call it doing a page 90, after the page number it was on in the third edition of the FIP. But that practice needs to be seen in light of the two paragraphs that lead up to it, and those paragraphs in turn need to be seen in light of the section as a whole. If we do all that, we get something like this: How do we apply to ourselves the truths that we see as applying to others, and have possibly been urging others to apply to themselves? We first look at our own mood. Are we less than wholly joyous? If so, it s not because of anything that s been done to us. The real source of our lack of joy is something we would probably never guess. We lack joy because we have reacted with a lack of love to some brother that God created (7:1). This lack of love induces guilt and fear of punishment, and these feelings are what has dragged down our mood. How often do we see our own lovelessness as the source of our low mood? It helps, therefore, to scan your mind and see if a face or name sticks up from the landscape as the one you have reacted to with lack of love. Once you ve located the thought, then you do the practice in paragraph 9. This means that the entire practice is geared toward undoing your loveless reaction to this particular person. That lack of love is the wrong decision you ve made (9:2). That s the decision you now decline to feel guilty for (9:5). And when you let the Holy Spirit decide for God for you (9:6), what He s doing is undoing your loveless perception of this person and replacing it with love. I strongly suggest you decide that, while these ideas and this practice are lovely, none of this actually applies to you. No, what I suggest you do right now is look at your mood, scan your mind for the person you ve reacted to with lack of love, and then do the practice provided. Physician, heal thyself. 5
Day 94: Review: Chapter 5 This will be done in a video interview with Robert coming soon. :) 6
Chapter 6 Day 95: I. The Message of the Crucifixion (paragraphs 1-12) This is a section where you see the real mastery of the Course. To appreciate its genius, we first need to think of how the crucifixion is typically seen and how we see it or used to see it. There s no getting around the fact that the crucifixion seems to be a very frightening image. It s a picture of a pure and beautiful person, who has done nothing but good, being publicly tortured and murdered by the state in the most excruciating way. The traditional belief, of course, is that there was something redemptive in Jesus undergoing this brutal death. He was taking onto himself the punishment that all of us have earned. While this can seem like a great relief Thank God that got done to him instead of me there is inevitably an underlying sense of doom: I deserved that horrible death. How can that not instill fear? Then, of course, there is another image of the crucifixion in which we are supposed to imitate Jesus. We are supposed to follow him in the way of the cross to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow him (as we are told to do in Matthew 16:24). In other words, we too must lead a life of redemptive suffering and sacrifice. Again, how many of us can hear such a message without fear? In this section, Jesus offers a radically different interpretation of his death. He affirms that we should follow the example he set forth in his crucifixion, but the brilliance of the teaching is that he dramatically reinterprets what that example was. According to him, it was not about the redemptive value of him undergoing such extreme suffering. Rather, it was about his ability to see himself as immune to attack even under the most extreme conditions. The example he set, in other words, was not in letting himself be tortured and killed. It was not in the events themselves. Rather, it was in how he saw those events. The biblical record tells us that he met his death with defenselessness and forgiveness. According to his teaching in this section, that was because he did not see himself as actually under attack. He did not believe that he could be attacked. That is the example we need to follow. The practicality of this example can hardly be overstated. He says, You have reacted for years as if you were being crucified (7:1). We all feel under attack in this world. I ve done an exercise in workshops in which people list the things they feel under attack from in that exact moment. This is defined as any condition that they feel is hurting their peace. The lists they wrote down can run into the dozens, going all the way from financial challenges to the temperature in the room. 7
What Jesus is saying here is that we are supposed to look at his crucifixion and say to ourselves, If he could see himself as immune to attack under those incredibly extreme conditions, then surely I can see myself as similarly immune in the face of my far milder conditions. If he could do it then, I can do it now. Do you see how this changes the crucifixion entirely? It doesn t change a single thing that happened, but it changes its meaning altogether. It turns it from one of history s great symbols of fear to one of the most powerful symbols of release from fear. It tells us that we can greet every single moment free from fear, because of the immortal example he set. 8
Day 96: I. The Message of the Crucifixion (paragraphs 13-25) I m kind of glad I am reading this section in two halves, because the second half is in some ways quite different from the first. The second half focuses a great deal on Jesus imperfect disciples. Crucially, it explains how things went so wrong with Christianity. He has just told us that the real meaning of the crucifixion is nothing like what Christianity has taught. All he was doing, he says here, was demonstrating that even while under the most brutal attack he could remember his own perfect immunity and therefore teach all involved that they hadn t hurt him. This, I believe, is the meaning of that beautiful summary of the message of the crucifixion: Teach only love, for that is what you are (T-6.I.20:2). I think this means that he recognized that his own identity remained undamaged, and so he could teach his attackers that, not having hurt him, they were still innocent. And to teach that is love. In other words, his nature as love remained intact, so all he could do was extend love, no matter what the circumstances. But what an almost jarring interpretation of the crucifixion! Imagine taking every painting, engraving, and stained-glass window ever made that depicts the crucifixion and giving it this caption: Teach only love, for that is what you are. It changes everything. How did Christianity get it so wrong? Jesus implies here that it really all started with his disciples. They, unfortunately, were stuck in the same thought system as those who crucified him. The ones who crucified Jesus did so because they were projecting the ego in themselves onto an egoless person, a pure messenger of help and healing (16:3). Then, when they did that, Jesus disciples projected onto them. The disciples own lovelessness and guilt caused them to project blame and condemnation onto the ones who crucified Jesus, and then to call down the wrath of God on them (20:5). This same reason is why the disciples portrayed Jesus as speaking words of judgment and condemnation in the gospels (see the various examples in paragraphs 21 and 22). They depicted him as a spokesman for their own projection. And unfortunately, the only record we have of Jesus comes ultimately from them. They didn t write the gospels, but the ones who did write the gospels were relying on oral tradition that ultimately traced back to the disciples. So our entire record of him is filtered through the eyes of those who carried the thought system that his teaching was aimed at undoing. The results were predictable. It s crucial, then, that we make a clear distinction between Jesus and his disciples. The gospels are clear that they didn t understand him while he was alive, but the assumption 9
is that after the resurrection and after Pentecost, they finally got it. What if they never really did? His response is a beautifully forgiving one: I am sorry when my brothers do not share my decision to hear (and be) only one Voice, because it weakens them as teachers and learners. Yet I know that they cannot really betray themselves or me, and that it is still on them that I must build my church (14:4-5). He never abandons his principles. When those who hated him crucified him, his only response was love. When those who loved him defiled his legacy, his only response was love. In guidance to Helen about the resurrection (see Cameo 33), he said this about his disciples: They did not understand. But now I talk to you and give you the same message. You see that throughout this section. He is calling us to be his new disciples. He wants to build his church on us. He knows how imperfect we are. He knows we will often not understand him. But he urges us to grasp what his original disciples did not. He urges us to be his teachers, not his martyrs, and to teach love, not blame. In doing this, we can be sure that, just as with his original disciples, he will be grateful for our teaching and our devotion to him (23:1). And when we don t get it right, we can be sure that his only response will be love. 10
Day 97: II. Projection and Separation This brief section is an important statement about a topic that has been with us since Chapter 1: projection. And actually, it helps to remember what was said when projection was first introduced in that chapter: Projection still has this hurling connotation, because it involves hurling something you do not want, and regard as dangerous and frightening, to someone else (T-1.35.3:1). The idea here is that we regard the Lucifer in us as dangerous and frightening, and so try to hurl it outside of us, seeing it now as residing in others, not ourselves. Of course, there isn t an actual devil inside of us, so what we are hurling onto others, you could say, is our ego s murderous will. The focus in this section is on how projection relates to separation. My understanding of the process goes like this: We initially separate from God. We reject God and see ourselves as dissociated from Him. This means that our will is now split between our holy will to be with God and our unholy will of separation and attack. That unholy will, of course, is the murderous will I just referred to. It is incredibly uncomfortable to believe something like that is inside us. Think of how we respond when faced with the fact that we have attacked someone. Don t we instantly have a list of the best excuses, the most persuasive reasons why our attack was provoked by the other person? The idea that our attack was provoked from the outside is really a way of saying that its actual cause was in someone else, not in us. So the attacking will that caused this whole thing is labeled as conveniently outside of us, in another person. That desire to not acknowledge an attacking will in us, a desire we all feel, is the root of projection. What we do with that will, of course, is to project it onto someone else. Once we have, we now appear to be clean and innocent, free of the Lucifer within, while the other person now appears to be possessed by evil. That attacking will seems now just as obviously present in them as it is obviously absent in us. And isn t this our basic perception of the world? Now that we ourselves appear to be pure and innocent, while the other person seems driven by an evil will, it s clear that that person is different from us, lower than us, and finally separate from us. What can we do but reject this person? All of this comes from the simple fact that he or she is possessed by an evil will and we are not. So projection leads directly to rejection, and rejection is separation. It s ironic when you think about it. Our original separation left us with this sizzling hot potato inside of us the murderous will so the solution obviously seemed to be to hurl this hot potato onto our brother. But this led directly to separating from him. So the solution to separation is more separation. Projection, then, is obviously not a solution to the separation, but rather the device which keeps it going (3:4). 11
The Holy Spirit has an alternative to this whole process. The basic dynamic involved in projection is inherent in the mind, so we can t stop doing it in some form. The Holy Spirit simply has a whole different way of utilizing this dynamic, which the Course calls extension. In His process, we begin by seeing ourselves as perfect, not as defiled by a murderous will. We then realize that this perfection is shared, so we extend the perception of it to our brother, seeing him as perfect too. This strengthens the awareness of perfection in both of us. Now we love each other. Rather than pushing our brother away because he is different and lower than us, we draw near to him, because we are one. This may sound simple, but it s clearly a whole different foundation for relating to others. Right now, we relate to people from the basis of a global perception in which we are pure and innocent and others are possessed of an attacking will. Imagine relating to them from the basis of extension, where we look within and see perfection and look on them and see this same perfection. Rather than separating from others, we include them in ourselves. Rather than seeing them as lower (because of that destructive will in them), we see them as our equals. Rather than rejecting them, we love them. Ultimately, this way of seeing others implies that we are not actually in this world. To see myself as pure and holy implies I am still part of God. To see you as pure and holy implies that you are still part of God. And to be part of God necessarily means to be in God. In other words, it defines not only what I am but where I am. By setting side projection, then, I no longer feel apart from God. I overcome my original sense of separation. 12
Day 98: III. Everything Meets in God I read this section last night after a long day and it looked like a series of totally separate sentences strung together as if they were an actual paragraph. With each new sentence I said to myself That s a whole new topic. Then this morning, I read the section again with a fresh mind and the sentences all flowed together perfectly. What was happening is that I was seeing more deeply into each sentence, which meant I could see the meaning in it that connected with the sentence(s) before it. So if the sentences in the Course don t seem to go together, realize that you are not seeing deeply enough into each one. I really like the central image in this section of two parallel lines, one of them being the Holy Spirit s perception and the other being God s knowledge. The two lines are parallel because the Holy Spirit s perception parallels knowledge (1:3). We are meant to align our perception with the first line, the Holy Spirit s perception, and when we do, the two lines will ultimately meet we will be transferred to knowledge. We are taught in school, of course, that parallel lines never meet, but here we are told that they actually do, just as they look as if they meet in the distance, and just as they do meet at infinity, according to non-euclidean geometry. Imagine, then, that this is what you are doing as you practice the Course. You are aligning your perception with the line of the Holy Spirit s perception so that your mind can then transfer to the line of God s knowledge. The big question is: What does it mean to align our perception with the Holy Spirit s? This is where I find the section the most fascinating. There are statements scattered throughout it that paint an intriguing picture of the Holy Spirit s perception. Seeing the way that He does means: Seeing everyone as perfectly equal (1:1) Seeing everyone as perfectly united in themselves and with each other (2:6) Seeing everyone as not just a part, but as simultaneously the whole (2:6) Seeing everyone as perfect and therefore as needing nothing (6:5) Seeing everyone as having no difficulty achieving perfection, because that is what they are (6:5) Seeing the Holy Spirit in your mind and in every mind, so that you see sameness everywhere (8:3-4) Seeing the Holy Spirit with complete impartiality (9:3) Do you see how all these points come together? Everywhere you look you see equality and sameness and oneness. You see totally impartially. Each mind you look on is so identical to the other ones that it actually is the other ones. Each mind is all minds. Each part is the whole. The key quality that you see, then, is wholeness the parts united in the whole and the whole present in every part. 13
Can you imagine seeing like this? If you are in a place where you can see other people, try seeing them like this. Take a moment and go down the list and see if you can incorporate all of them. This may seem hard. How can we raise our perceptions to the point where they perfectly align with the Holy Spirit s? Isn t that impossible? But that, of course, is the voice of our ego. The ego can accept the idea that return is necessary, because it can so easily make the idea seem so difficult (6:1). Instead we should think this way: Only I have made return seem difficult. Strictly speaking, even return is unnecessary (6:2). If I can just see my mind as it is, I will realize it is still in God, because it never left. I never actually separated in the first place. I cannot experience perfection as a difficult accomplishment, because that is what I am. I think we need to balance both of these pieces: striving to align our perceptions with the Holy Spirit s and realizing that, in the process, all we are doing is uncovering the perfection that we already, effortlessly are. 14