A Course in Miracles gives us a way to leave behind our dramas, which arise from being immersed in the ego’s thought system. I explained this system in a previous blog.
The way the Course gives us to stop suffering is the thought system of the Holy Spirit. I have already mentioned on many previous occasions that for the Course, there are only two emotions: love and fear and that when we are in fear, which is reflected in guilt, we are in the ego. On the contrary, when we are in love, we are with the Holy Spirit.
I will explain this with examples.
Imagine you’ve been trying to lose weight and haven’t lost a pound. You are walking down the street, and you meet a friend who tells you how fat you are. You can react in two ways, both of which arise from the ego’s thought system, or guilt which is one of the expressions of fear:
- You get upset and tell her how ugly her clothes fit her. You answer like this because in your mind, you think you are fat. When you project it outside, and someone reflects it to you by telling you, you blame them for how you feel, and you attack back. This behavior is going to keep you in the ego feeling bad. Or,
- You start to cry, feeling like a victim, and tell her she hurt you, that she is very cruel. Here you make her feel guilty, which is nothing more than a projection of the guilt you have inside for being cruel at another time. This behavior also keeps you in the ego feeling bad.
The Course says that there is another way to react, which is with the Holy Spirit. There are only two emotions, either you are in love or the ego. One excludes the other. You cannot be in both at the same time.
No one full of love attacks another person, for all they can see and feel is love. The Course teaches that a person is either giving love or asking for love. If you see someone acting from the ego and you immediately think that that person is not happy and that is the way he has to ask for love, you will feel compassion instead of anger. If you feel compassion, you will treat them with love. I always tell my granddaughter that the more unbearable or cruel a person is, the more they are suffering inside.
This way of looking at things is the thought system of the Holy Spirit.
Now I’m going to change the above scene:
- You are walking, and when they call you fat, you immediately think, that person must feel terrible, and that is why they are unloving. Let me give them love.
- You immediately ask the Holy Spirit what you must do to give them love. And when you feel the answer, that’s what you are going to do.
- You will feel very happy and the other person too because they receive the love they need and don’t even know they needed.
That moment, where you manage to change the way you see things from ego to love, is the holy instant of the Course and results in forgiveness.
Although the process seems simple, it takes a long time to complete. We have so much guilt in the unconscious that to remove it all at the moment would be terrifying. That is why life presents us with many opportunities to do it little by little. So have a lot of patience and give love whenever the opportunity presents itself. You will be a lot happier.