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Healing
Ourselves
Reprinted from
Healing the Cause - A Path of Forgiveness by Michael Dawson.
Page
references are from A Course in Miracles.
T = text W = Workbook M=Manual
S = Song
of prayer P = Psychology (ACIM supplements)
Chapter Five
If we decide to
follow the ego's advice to get ill, we shall, in the next
moment, deny having made that decision. I can clearly remember a
time when I became conscious of the choice I had to become sick
or not.
Whilst talking with a group of people one day, I noticed the
first symptoms of a cold. As I thought to myself that I should
go and take some medicine, I became aware of a'voice' saying to
me,"Careful! If you do that, you might lose your cold." It was
amazing for me to realise that part of me wanted that cold. I
could also see the'advantages' of being sick. I could imagine
myself tucked up in bed with a pile of my favourite books which
I never found the time to read. It would also give me an
opportunity to take a rest from what I considered a heavy
workload. I decided I wanted to make a conscious decision about
whether to be sick or well. Taking out my diary, I looked at my
appointments over the next few days. I wanted to keep these
appointments instead of going to bed, even though my favourite
books were a great draw! Over the next few days, I had a few
mild cold symptoms which did not interfere with my work. In the
language of the Course, I had chosen a miracle. This enabled me
to drop the ego's thought system which portrayed me as a victim
of circumstances and instead view the situation through the eyes
of the Holy Spirit and forgive myself.
We always'look inside' our mind first and then project what we
find onto the circumstances of the world. To forgive ourself and
others, we need to choose to look with the Holy Spirit's thought
system and not the ego's.
One night shortly before going to sleep, Salice and I had an
argument. My ego told me I had been unfairly treated and I
should separate from her by not communicating. Salice's ego had
apparently given her the same advice, for neither of us was now
talking to the other! I got out of bed and went to the bathroom.
I saw a pack of Workbook Lesson cards and felt the impulse to
take one. The title of the Lesson was ëI could see peace instead
of this'. (Lesson 34) The significance of the Lesson was not
lost on me and simultaneously another line from the Course came
into my mind: ëDo you prefer to be right or happy?' (T573;
T29.VII.1:9) For a moment I considered my two options and then
said to myself,'I'd rather be right' and put the Lesson card
down again. Feeling miserable but justified in my pain, I
returned silently to bed and fell asleep.
In the morning I woke up still feeling separated from Salice, as
she did from me. I returned to the bathroom and remembered
picking up the Lesson card from the night before. Out of
curiosity I read the title again,"I could see peace instead of
this", and remembered the choice I had to be right or happy. I
became still for a moment and this time I chose to be happy. I
felt the impulse to share what was happening to me with Salice.
She was sitting quietly at the table and as I sat down next to
her I said,"I want to let you know that I'm not handling my side
of this dispute very well." At this statement Salice began to
cry and we began to share honestly with each other how we had
been feeling.
Through this process we were able to understand each other's
fear and found ourselves quickly moving into a state of mutual
openness, care and affection. In the language of the Course, we
had joined and felt at peace. At these moments I always wonder
why I choose to be right and not happy. However, I am also aware
that it is taking me a shorter time to forgive than it has done
in the past. What would upset me for days may only last a few
hours now. I am also aware that some issues which triggered pain
in me in the past no longer affect me. Progress on the spiritual
path may be measured by how much of the day is spent listening
to the ego compared to the voice of the Holy Spirit.
Eventually, only the Holy Spirit will fill our mind and then
there will be no more temptation or choice, for there will not
be two voices to choose between. The decision maker will have
disappeared with the ego, and the Holy Spirit will fill our mind
with God's love and wisdom. We shall simply know what to do from
moment to moment. The Course describes this state of existence
as being in the real world and this is the goal of the Course.
To achieve this goal we must practise forgiveness over and over
until we at last see there is nothing to forgive.
Forgive the world, and you will understand that everything
that God created cannot have an end, and nothing He did not
create is real. In this one sentence is our course explained.
In this one sentence is our practising given its one
direction. And in this one sentence is the Holy Spirit's whole
curriculum specified exactly as it is.
A Course in Miracles M50; M-20.5:7-10
How Do I Forgive?
It is impossible to forgive another, for it is only your sins
you see in him. You want to see them there, and not in you.
That is why forgiveness of another is an illusion.
Song of Prayer S10; S-2.I.4:2-4
We can only begin the process of forgiveness when we start to
realise how much alike we are to the person we wish to forgive.
When we cannot forgive someone, it is because we cannot forgive
ourselves for the same problem, albeit in another form. For
example, a woman may dislike her husband's aggressive outbursts
of anger, whilst she may never exhibit such outbursts herself.
However, her anger will be just as strong as his but will be
found in a different form. For instance, when she feels angry
she may withdraw herself and cut off from people emotionally,
successfully suppressing her anger. Or her anger may be
expressed aggressively when she is alone. A common example for
many people is when they are driving a car and someone changes
lanes or stops suddenly. Anger can well up in us and in the
safety and privacy of the car we may yell or swear angrily at
the other driver. The woman dislikes her husband's anger because
it mirrors her own which she has not forgiven in herself.
Forgiveness recognises that what we thought was done to us, we
truly did to ourselves, for only we can deprive ourselves of the
peace of God. As the Course teaches, we forgive others for what
they have not done to us, not for what they did, and true
forgiveness recognises an attack as a call for love. Forgiveness
is thus a shift in perception. Our only problem is the belief in
separation from God; our only healing is by joining with each
other through forgiveness.
The Three Stages of Forgiveness
Kenneth Wapnick has identified in the Course three stages or
steps on the path of forgiveness which I find helpful in
understanding the nature of true forgiveness. I have used these
steps as the basis for the following discussion on forgiveness.
Firstly we must take back the projections which we have made
onto the world and take responsibility for our own pain. See
Figure 5.2.
We must stop pointing
our finger at people and situations and accusing them of hurting
us and see that they are mirroring to us the areas we have not
healed and forgiven in ourself. In fact these people and
situations merit our thanks for showing us what is in our
unconscious mind. Without them we would not see the forces that
drive us.
The secret of salvation is but this: That you are doing this
unto yourself. No matter what the form of the attack, this
still is true. Whoever takes the role of enemy and of
attacker, still is this the truth. Whatever seems to be the
cause of any pain and suffering you feel, this is still true.
For you would not react at all to figures in a dream you knew
that you were dreaming. Let them be as hateful and as vicious
as they may, they could have no effect on you unless you
failed to recognise it is your dream.
(T545; T-27.VIII.10)
Our attacks are not limited to people who are behaving
inappropriately and obviously acting from their ego. We are also
capable of attacking people who have done nothing to us. I
recently watched a television documentary about the life of Mao
Tse Tung. During the period of his cultural revolution he
encouraged the working classes to seek out and persecute
authority figures. In one particular village the people
experienced a problem carrying out Mao's command as they had
already killed the landlord several years earlier. The programme
mentioned that over a million landlords had been killed by the
peasants at the beginning of Mao's rule in China. They
remembered, however, that the landlord had a son. Although he
did not hold any office of power or authority in the village,
and lived as one of them, they sought him out and tortured him
to death.
This story clearly illustrates the need of our ego to find fault
outside ourself. We want to find sin in the world so we have
something onto which we can hook our projections. If we looked
fully at the insanity of the ego's thought system, we would no
longer follow it. The ego is well aware that its continuity
depends on us not looking deepÛly into our mind and it tells us
to look in the world for the cause of our distress. The Course
reminds us that'to the ego, the guiltless are guilty'. (T224;
T-13.II.4:2) To usurp God's power, break up Heaven and create an
alternative to God's creation is a sin, and we should feel
guilty. If, like Jesus, we don't feel guilty, we are
invalidating the ego and telling it that its creation is an
illusion. This is the greatest sin we can commit against the ego
and warrants death in its eyes. That is why Jesus was killed,
although he had harmed no one.
The ego encourages us to attack everyone, whether they have
attacked us or not. We need to see sin in the world so we don't
have to confront the ego's thought system in our own mind. This
is why our newspapers and television news programmes are largely
filled with disturbing news. We want to read it and see it so we
can say,'They are the wicked ones, not me. They deserve God's
punishment, not me. They are the cause of the pain in the world,
not me.'
As we actively seek for enemies outside ourself, we
simultaneously strengthen the guilt within our mind and so the
ego's vicious circle of guilt and attack is complete. This trap
is so hard to break free from that without the Holy Spirit's
help we could never do it. Before the Holy Spirit can heal our
mind, we must first discover what it is that needs healing. If
we believe the problem lies in the world instead of in our mind,
the Holy Spirit can do nothing to help us.
When we realise that there is no one or nothing to blame'out
there' and that the problem lies within us, we usually fall into
the trap of feeling guilty. This is because we make a decision
to listen to the counsel of our ego which has a very low opinion
of us. Our ego tells us we should feel guilty for our sins, for
in this way we will take the world of separation seriously. It
is very easy to fall into the ego's trap of judgement. Guilt
always demands punishment and this prevents us from releasing
our pain. Our ego does not care if we blame the world or ourself
for our unhappiÛness. Either way we are reinforcing our belief
in the ego's thought system and its survival is all that it
cares about.
During this second stage of forgiveness (Figure 5.3) we begin to
realise how deeply attached we are to our guilt. It appears to
be a sacrifice not to feel justified in being a victim and the
desire is to hold on to our anger, jealousy or greed.
Although guilt is
painful, it is what we are familiar with and we prefer it to the
increase in self-responsibility we know will come to us when we
lose our attachment to being a victim. We can now choose to
decide that guilt no longer serves us and that we would like it
to be undone. As we have so identified with our false ego-self,
we do not know how to undo our guilt. As an example, let's
imagÛine a couple who are having an issue around jealousy.
The wife is upset with her husband because of his jealous
nature. He denies that he is jealous, saying that what she sees
as emotional outbursts are only his feelings of love for her.
Although his wife is often upset by his possessiveness, she
unconsciously approves of it and translates his need of her as
love. One day the husband realises that his own thoughts of
insecurity are producing his jealous feelings and that his wife
is not to blame for his unhappiness. He also realises that if he
forgives himself and lets his jealousy go, his wife might become
so threatened at losing his'love' that the relationship might
end. At this point his ego will rush in and guide him to keep
his jealousy or he might lose everything.
The husband is now caught in a difficult situation, for to allow
his jealousy to go appears to him as a sacrifice. Thus this
second stage of forgiveness can be more difficult to accomplish
than the insight needed in the first stage. If, however, he
chooses to listen to the Holy Spirit, he will realise that the
healing of his jealous nature will take him further along the
path of peace. Perhaps his wife will leave him but he has
prepared the way to be with people who do not mistake jealousy
for love.
Our little willingness to change, to shift our perception, opens
the way for the third stage of forgiveness. In this final stage
our guilt is undone by the Holy Spirit as we allow His light and
peace to shine away our guilt. The following prayer from the
Course contains within it the three stages of forgiveness. The
Course urges us to use it whenever we are not joyous.
I must have decided wrongly, because I am not at peace.
I made the decision myself, but I can also decide otherwise.
I want to decide otherwise, because I want to be at peace.
I do not feel guilty, because the Holy Spirit will undo all
the consequences of my wrong decision if I will let Him.
I choose to let Him, by allowing Him to decide for God for me.
(T83; T-5.VII.6:7-11)
The first two sentences of the above prayer describe the first
step of forgiveness and how we must take responsibility for the
way we feel. If our peace has gone, it is because we have given
it away and not because it has been taken from us. The third
sentence of the quotation reflects the second step of
forgiveness, when the decision is taken to see our sins as
errors which can be corrected. In this step we stop listening to
our ego's counsel that we are guilty and deserving of punishment
and choose instead to have our errors healed. The last sentence
of the quotation describes how the Holy Spirit will come to heal
our mind once we have invited Him in. See Figure 5.4
The first two steps
of this forgiveness process are taken by us. In the first step,
we take our projections back and stop judging the world. In the
second step, we stop judging ourselves and ask for help. This
now makes way for the third step that is taken by the Holy
Spirit. We have invited His light into the darkness of our guilt
and He shines it away by His very presence, just as a dark room
cannot remain dark when light is brought into it. In this
analogy we can recognise that light is real, and that darkness
is simply the absence of light. We cannot bring a'lamp of
darkness' into a lighted room and make the room dark but we can
bring a light into a darkened room and make it light.
Whenever we agree to invite the Holy Spirit into our mind, the
ego's world of darkness must disappear into the nothingness that
it really is. It is often difficult to remember that there is
always the Holy Spirit's love waiting to respond to any genuine
call for help. It is easy for us to fall into the trap that we
have to sort out all our problems ourselves. Our ego firmly
believes it knows how to do this. In contrast, the Course tells
us that the ego only knows how to create problems and we must
get help from outside its thought system if we are to experience
peace. The third step of forgiveness reminds us that we can only
be helped by the Holy Spirit. Our only responsibility is to
understand that we have given our peace away and that the errors
in our thinking can be corrected by the Holy Spirit, once we
invite Him in.
An experience I had some time ago illustrates the above three
stages of forgiveness. I had been experiÛencing a pain in my
chest for two days. It was not unfamiliar to me as I had
experienced this feeling many times before in my life. It would
come when I perceived myself as being unfairly treated and
sometimes would last up to three days. The pain weighed me down
with an intense feeling of sadness and heaviness. As I lay on my
bed wondering why I was going through this all again I decided
to look honestly at the'advantages' I knew I must be gaining for
holding on to the pain.
My new willingness to look at myself soon revealed the sweet
pleasure of self-pity and the desire to close my heart so I
would not be expected to give so much to others. I felt inside
that I no longer wanted to carry this pain around and was ready
to release it and accept the increase in self-responsibility
which now did not seem like a sacrifice. It was not serving me
any more and I could give it away. I brought my awareness and
acceptance to the heart area and offered the pain to the Holy
Spirit. I asked Him to take it, knowing that it would give Him
joy to receive it. To my own astonishment the pain disappeared
in under a minute. In fact I worried that the pain would return
at any moment. But it didn't, nor have I suffered such long
periods of chest pain again.
I remember seeing advertisements on billboards saying,'Cast your
burdens on the Lord'. I thought this an impossible idea and knew
it could not work. It was surely up to me to sort everything out
in my life. As my perception and awareness of the Holy Spirit
grew, I realised what love He must have for us and that He views
our activities as a mother would her child having a nightmare.
She would not condemn the content of her child's nightmare but
seek gentle ways of waking the child up. How much more then
would God love to take away our self-created nightmares if only
we would let Him. To practise forgiveness we must first stop
judging the world and then stop judging ourselves. As we do
this, our ego defences are lowered and automatically the love
and the light of the Holy Spirit will shine our guilt away.
When we allow ourself to wake up from our ego nightmares by
practising forgiveness, we shall discover that we are still as
God created us, perfect and eternal, and that nothing can harm
us. What then will there be to forgive? As the Course says:'And
that in complete forgiveness, in which you recognise that there
is nothing to forgive, you are absolved completely.' (T298;
T-15.VIII. 1:7) This realisation that forgiveness is an illusion
does not come until the end of the process of forgiveness.
Whilst we believe we are separated from God, forgiveness is a
helpful illusion that will awaken us from all illusions.
Our Resistance to Forgiveness
It is often thought by people new to studying A Course in
Miracles that their lives will become more peaceful as they
begin to practise its teachings. However this does not always
follow. In fact things may seem to get worse, not better. Before
practising the principles of the Course, they will probably have
heeded the ego's counsel and denied the guilt they feel and
projected it onto others. Now they attempt to bring their
unconscious mind to consciousness, which starts the process of
undoing denial, bringing their guilt to the light of the Holy
Spirit to be forgiven. To become aware of the ego's darkness in
the mind is not an easy process.
The principles of forgiveness as described in the Course are
relatively simple to understand and bring us great rewards if we
apply them. It is also true that most of us find it very
difficult to own our pain and ask for help. To help us
understand why this is so, the Course goes to great lengths to
show how subtle and devious the ego really is. We are largely
unconscious of the way it operates owing to the wall of denial
we have constructed. The Course encourages us to look behind
that wall and learn to laugh gently at what we find there.
As we practise forgiveness, at the same time we shall be
lessening the importance we have given to the ego. Having
identified so strongly with the ego's thought system, it seems
as if we are sacrificing something very dear to us. As we bring
our darkness (illusions) to the light (truth) the Course states
that we will experience'periods of unsettling'. These are times
of discomfort and anxiety that we must inevitably feel in the
process of shifting from the ego's thought system
(wrong-mindedness) to the Holy Spirit's thought system
(right-mindedness).
First, they (God's Teachers) must go through what might be
called'a period of undoing'. This need not be painful, but it
usually is so experienced. It seems as if things are being
taken away, and it is rarely understood initially that their
lack of value is merely being recognised.
(M8; M-4.I.3:1-3)
This quotation is taken from a section which describes the six
stages in the development of trust. Jesus cautions us that four
of these stages are normally experienced as difficult and thus
we should not underestimate the challenges involved in spiritual
growth.
It would be helpful to take a closer look at our investment in
the ego and what it seems to offer us. As we start to question
the'gifts' it holds out to us, our practice of forgiveness will
become easier. Our ego will tell us that we are the most
important person in the world. We have special needs which must
be fulfilled and we feel justified in using whatever means are
necessary to achieve this. The Course tells us that the source
of this justification comes from an insane belief stored in our
unconscious mind. This belief states that we are lacking the
things we need because they have been stolen from us. (See'The
Laws of Chaos' in Chapter 23 of the Text) This thought justifies
the use of any means to get back what we feel is rightfully ours
in the first place. Forgiveness teaches the opposite of this and
states that we have given away our remembrance of our spiritual
reality in exchange for the experience of individual uniqueness
ó the need to feel special and different from others.
When we decided to forget our true state of unity within the One
Mind of God, competition and judgement had to follow. To
maintain a sense of individuality we must continually compare
ourselves to others and look for differences. If we meet someone
who seems better than us in some way, then we must make them
into our enemy or put them onto a pedestal and appear to look up
to them. However, at a deeper level of our mind we will hate
them for being better than us. The Course states:'Only the
special could have enemies, for they are different and not the
same. And difference of any kind imposes orders of reality, and
a need to judge that cannot be escaped.' (T465; T-24.I.3:5-6)
When we come across someone whom we judge as inferior, there
will be a desire to keep this person the way they are so we may
appear superior by contrast. The Course describes this dynamic
as follows:
Against the littleness you see in him you stand as tall and
stately, clean and honest, pure and unsullied by comparison
with what you see. Nor do you understand it is yourself that
you diminish thus.
(T466f; T-24.II.1:6-7)
This quotation reminds us that when we compare and attack our
brothers we are also attacking ourself. Our attacks are always
centred on another's body or their behaviour and thus our belief
in the reality of the body is strengthened and our awareness of
spirit is weakened.
The Course states:'You would oppose this course beÛcause it
teaches you you and your brother are alike.' (T466;T-24.I.8:6)
Forgiveness teaches us that our egos are all the same, as is our
Christ nature. This is the last thing our ego wants to hear. For
the ego to retain its desire for specialÛness, it must perceive
differences between itself and others. If someone goes to a
party, the last thing they want to find is someone else wearing
the same outfit as them.
Our original desire to be separate and different from God is
perpetuated in our continuing desire to be separate from others.
Forgiveness would undo this thought and eventually return to our
awareness our oneness with each other and God. This is perceived
by our ego as an act of treachery which deserves punishment. To
welcome the state of unity back into our awareness means the
death of the ego and this it must fight with all its resources.
The ego is deceived by everything you do, especially when you
respond to the Holy Spirit, because at such times its
confusion increases. The ego is, therefore, particularly
likely to attack you when you react lovingly, because it has
evaluated you as unloving and you are going against its
judgement. The ego will attack your motives as soon as they
become clearly out of accord with its perception of you. This
is when it will shift abruptly from suspiciousness to
viciousness, since its uncertainty is increased.
(T164; T-9.VII.4:4-7)
We might experience a day when we feel open to the love of the
Holy Spirit and feel a deep sense of peace and well-being. We
may even think this state could last forever. However, we might
wake the following day feeling depressed and alone and wonder
why things have changed so much. To allow this shift to occur,
we must be persuaded by our ego that to continue listening to
the Holy Spirit is dangerous. The ego reminds us that it is
safer to stay as we are as change will involve sacrifice and,
even worse, there is an avenging god awaiting us at the end of
our journey ready to punish us for our many sins. We are told
that if we follow the path of forgiveness, we shall have to look
at all the horror and darkness within our mind, and that we
shall not survive this experience. The journey of forgiveness is
not an easy one, but its success is guaranteed by God, for it is
His will that we return to Him.
False Forgiveness
No gift of Heaven has been more misunderstood than has
forgiveness. It has, in fact, become a scourge; a curse where
it was meant to bless, a cruel mockery of grace, a parody upon
the holy peace of God.
(S9; S-2.I.1:1-2)
The Song of Prayer pamphlet describes a number of false
conÛcepts about forgiveness which are
called'forgiveness-to-destroy'. (S11f; S-2.IIf) Firstly, there
is what might be called the'holier than thou' form of
forgiveness. In this, the offended person adopts a posture of
spiritual superiority and seeming charity and decides
to'forgive' the inferior individual who has offended him. The
person is effectively saying,'Out of the kindness of my heart I
forgive you for what you have done to me, but don't do it
again.' With this form of forgiveness the'forgiver' does not see
the problem is within him and loses an opportunity to heal
himself of what the other person is mirroring to him.
Forgiveness-to-destroy has many forms, being a weapon of the
world of form. Not all of them are obvious, and some are
carefully concealed beneath what seems like charity.
(S11; S-2.II.1:1-2)
Another form of false forgiveness can be described as that of
the'martyred saint'. In this form, a person believes he is a
sinner and deserves God's punishment, which he accepts with
apparent humility and lack of defence. However, this is a
statement of belief in the ego and not in God, for only the ego
counsels us we have sinned. We may actively seek to be martyred
so we can display our'saintliness' to others. However, behind an
exterior of smiling acceptance lies the anger and bitterness we
feel towards the other person. Thus the ego uses false
forgiveness to reinforce our belief in it.
A further form of'forgiveness-to-destroy' is based on bargaining
and compromise. As long as another person is meeting most of our
ego needs, we are willing to forgive their transgressions
against us. When our needs are no lonÛger met, there is no
reason left to forgive them and our denied hate now rises to the
surface in the form of an attack.
Holy Relationships
As you come closer to a brother you approach me, and as you
withdraw from him I become distant to you. Salvation is a
collaborative venture. It cannot be undertaken successfully by
those who disengage themselves from the Sonship, because they
are disengaging themselves from me. God will come to you only
as you will give Him to your brothers.
(T63; T-4.VI.8:1-4)
Relationships are necessary to show us what needs healing under
our barriers of denial. This is true for all forms of
relationship. Every time we come into contact with another
person we have an opportunity to look within and forgive the
illusions we hold about ourselves. Without the mirroring of
others, it would be impossible to find all the guilt we have
denied. This guilt which we all carry is buried deeply within
our mind and protected by a wall of denial. As a further defence
we project what we deny onto the world and especially onto other
people.
The ego tells us that it is not we who have a problem but the
people with whom we enter into some form of relationship.
However, in the eyes of the Holy Spirit these very same people
are our teachers, for without them it would be impossible to see
what we have denied. We need something outside our closed mind
to show us what is really inside it. When we are shown something
we do not like about ourselves, our ego tells us to attack the
other person. This is the same as throwing a brick at a mirror
because we do not like the reflection we see.
In earlier times, messengers were used to convey important news
to heads of government. It was not uncommon for the messenger to
be executed if he brought news which was upsetting. Not wishing
to take responsibility for the effects of the message upon
themselves, the rulers projected the cause of their pain as an
attack by the messenger. In the same way, our friends, enemies,
parents, lovers, employers or children will continuously bring
us messages about what we have denied about ourselves and have
blamed on them instead.
Any time we feel even the slightest irritation in someone's
presence, our hidden guilt is being triggered. If at that
moment, instead of attacking the other person, we asked the Holy
Spirit to help us find peace again, we would, in that instant,
undo the ego's thought system. There would be a shift from
desiring a special hate relationship to desiring a holy
relationship. The other person has now become our teacher and no
longer our enemy.
Without other people acting as mirrors to what is locked away in
our unconscious mind, we would find it very difficult to uncover
all that needs forgiving in ourselves. As we take responsibility
for our own feelings, we begin to see, with the Holy Spirit's
help, that what disturbs us in the world is nothing but a
reflection of what disturbs us about ourself.
If our attitude to another person can be one of
self-responsibility, truth, forgiveness, joining,
defencelessness and shared interest (i.e. awaking from the dream
of separation), then we have created what the Course calls a
holy relationship. We have invited the Holy Spirit into our
relationship. This is a very difficult attitude to maintain, for
it is opposite to that advised by the ego. However, we can have
the goal of a holy relationship, accepting that many times we
will take our ego's advice and attack again.
This is especially true at the start of a holy relationship when
the ego tries to convince us to return to the special
relationship of love or hate that we once had. As the goal of
our relationship begins to shift from special to holy, it will
often feel that we have lost something important.'Where has the
romance and passion gone?' a lover may exclaim. A son or
daughter may say,'My parents were everything to me but now they
no longer seem so special!' As our desire to have special people
in our lives begins to disappear, the ego warns us to return to
what once seemed to work for us.
The holy relationship, a major step toward the perception of the
real world, is learned. It is the old, unholy relationship,
transformed and seen anew . . . the only difficult phase is the
beginning. For here, the goal of the relationship is abruptly
shifted to the exact opposite of what it was . . . This is
accomplished very rapidly, but it makes the relationship seem
disturbed, disjunctive and even quite distressing . . . Many
relationships have been broken off at this point, and the
pursuit of the old goal re-established in another relationship .
. . You will find many opportunities to blame your brother for
the'failure' of your relationship, for it will seem at times to
have no purpose. A sense of aimlessness will come to haunt you,
and to remind you of all the ways you once sought for
satisfaction and thought you found it. Forget not now the misery
you really found, and do not breathe life into your failing ego.
(T337f; T362f in 2nd ed.)
Kenneth Wapnick has stressed it is important to realise that as
the holy relationship is an attitude we develop towards other
people, it only takes one person to have a holy relationship.
What helps me recognise the truth of his statement is to imagine
myself trapped alone on a desert island. Would it be impossible
for me to have a holy relationship as there are no other people
around? Would this opportunity for growth now be lost to me? If
I realise, howÛever, that what is important is my attitude of
mind to the memories I hold about people, I realise that all the
forgiveness I need to practise is still necessary. In the same
way, if a person I hated suddenly died I could still achieve a
holy relationship with that person if I learned to forgive
myself.
Your partner may not share your spiritual path and may even be
hostile towards you. However, you can still have a holy
relationship with them. Learning to be at peace around an angry
person will produce accelerated growth. This is not to say we
must remain with anyone with whom it no longer feels right. The
Holy Spirit has no concern for the form of the relationship,
whether we stay together or part from each other, but is
concerned with how we will best learn our lessons of
forgiveness.
Jesus has a holy relationship with everyone, whether they have
one with him or not. Because of this he was able to be at peace
during his capture, trial and crucifixion. Even as the soldiers
hammered nails into his body, he could only see sleeping Sons of
God asking for his love. This he gave by not attacking them or
defending himself. Knowing himself to be eternal, formless
spirit and not the body, he knew he could not be attacked and
therefore there was no need for defence. It is only when we
identify with our body that we feel we need to defend ourself.
As we come to realise our true reality and that'nothing real can
be threatened' (Intro, Text), we will experience the peace that
Jesus knows.
I was once told a story that illustrated in a powerful way what
forgiveness and a holy relationship really is. During the
liberation of a particular concentration camp at the end of the
Second World War, the allies discovered a prisoner who seemed in
particularly good shape considering the conditions he had lived
under. They presumed he had lived in the camp only a short
while. When he told them he had been there for four years, they
suspected him of collaboration with the Germans. However, when
they saw how the other inmates treated him with respect, they
knew there must be another explanation. They asked him for his
story and this is what he told them.
During the time of the uprising of the Jews in the Warsaw
ghetto, he and his wife and children were captured. The soldiers
shot his family in front of him but did not shoot him. He asked
to be shot as well but they refused, saying he had language
skills which they could use in the concentration camp. At that
moment he knew that unless he forgave them, and therefore
himself, he would become like Hitler. With this act of
forgiveness, he could see the fear in the soldiers and saw it as
an appeal for his love. He had accepted the judgement of the
Holy Spirit. During his years in the camp, he perceived no
difference between the victims and the victimisers. Both groups
were in fear and thus were asking for his love. He did not take
sides, seeing everyone as the same. This enabled him to retain
his sense of inner peace and strength by maintaining a holy
relationship with all whom he met. This story also illustrates
how everything in this world is neither good nor bad but simply
neutral. Everything can be used by the Holy Spirit as a
classroom in which to learn forgiveness, peace and joy.
You have no idea of the tremendous release and deep peace
that comes from meeting yourself and your brothers totally
without judgement.
(T42; T-3.VI.3:1)