29. DU Top 20
Our understanding of the Course, of Jesus’ teaching is progressive. The more we study, the more we practice forgiveness, the deeper our understanding becomes. Jesus told his disciples that he couldn’t tell them everything because they weren’t ready. The Bible talks about the concept where spiritual novices are fed “milk” while more advanced students are fed “meat”. When you are ready for spiritual meat, when you are ready to leave the world and seek reality instead, when you are ready to get off the reincarnation roller coaster ride once and for all, The Disappearance of the Universe by Gary Renard, is a must read. It is obviously a very important tool, part of the Holy Spirit’s plan, as we journey to mastery. It is a feast of pure non-dualism, a feast of spiritual meat. Here’s a taste. Enjoy!
Since there is obviously nothing in this world that is perfect and eternal, J was able to see the world for what it was — nothing. But he also knew that it appeared for a reason, and that it was a trick to keep people away from the truth of God and His Kingdom. DU39
Remember, if you believe God has anything to do with the universe of perception and change, or if you believe that the mind that made this world has anything to do with God, you will sabotage the process of mastering the ability to listen only to the Holy Spirit’s Voice. Why? One reason has to do with your unconscious guilt, which is something we’ll eventually have to deal with. Another is that a prerequisite of gaining the power and peace of the Kingdom is to give up your own pseudo-power and your own rather precarious kingdom . How can you give up your miscreations if you believe they are God’s Will? And how can you relinquish your weakness if you believe it is strength? DU40
And there you have the number one reason why the thinking of the world and the thinking of J are mutually exclusive — because J’s reality was not the body, and the world’s thinking is completely based upon an identification with the body as your reality. Even those of you who glance past the body still maintain the idea of an individual existence, which is actually little different than having a body. In fact, it is with this idea of separation, and all that arises from it, that you sentence yourself to continue in the universe of bodies. DU44
You have no doubt heard elsewhere that A Course in Miracles is asking you to choose love instead of fear. That’s true, but it’s certainly not enough. A thousand writers have written about people choosing love instead of fear since the Course came out in the ’70s . But if you tell people to choose love instead of fear, they’ll think you’re telling them to choose their love, and that’s not what the Course is teaching. As you will learn , the love of the world and its people is what the Course calls special love, and the love of the Holy Spirit is quite a different thing. The words love and fear in the Course represent two complete and mutually exclusive thought systems, both of which need to be understood if you’re ever going to know what it really is that you’re choosing between. DU108
All this is a result of a predicament where people have a deep, hidden need to project their unconscious guilt onto somebody else, and any excuse will do. We’ve been talking about extreme examples, but people do this in a thousand subtle ways. They don’t know they need to, or why. If they did then they wouldn’t do it. You’ll be learning more about this situation, and you’ll realize exactly why insane actions such as genocide are a routine part of the story of man’s inhumanity toward man. You’ll also learn that true forgiveness is the only way to break the pattern. DU113
Because of the power of the mind, you need to appreciate the power of your belief. It was your belief in the idea you could be separate from God — your taking it seriously — that gave it so much seeming power and realism. As the Course says:
Freedom from illusions lies only in not believing them. DU138
Not only do you have this tremendous resistance to facing what you think is your awful guilt underneath the surface, but simultaneously, your ego is terrified that to do so successfully, and change your mind about it, would result in losing its identity as a separate individual. It’s going to take some willpower on your part to admit to this thought system within yourself as you observe it in action, and then allow the Holy Spirit to undo it as you forgive the symbolic images of it that you see outside of you. DU176
The very best way to keep itself going is to suck you into reacting to the script so you’ll make it real in your mind. The ego wants conflict, and if you react with any negative emotion, that’s conflict. It’s your judgment that keeps the ego system alive, but your forgiveness will free it. So you have to be on your toes. DU199
Being aware of these things made me begin to appreciate the magnitude of my mind. I knew that all the decisions for illusion had been made unconsciously, and then the corresponding symbols of those decisions were acted out in the false universe. The decision to be separate and guilty came first, and then the universe had instantly put up its smokescreen . This all seemed so real to each individual observing from his or her particular point of view in the dream that it would take training to forgive what they thought were authentic happenings and think with the Holy Spirit instead. DU207
I am Christ in reality, and so is everybody else, and we’re all one. Like you said earlier, on this level we all see the same dream, but from a different point of view. I think Freud said everybody in your dreams at night is really you, so day or night it’s always a symbol of me over there who’s seeing my own dream from a different vantage point. My job is to rejoin with myself through forgiveness and become whole again. DU216
We’ve already quoted the Course as saying the guiltless mind cannot suffer. So when the Course says you cannot be hurt, it means that practicing the kind of forgiveness that knows you cannot really be hurt will eventually result in the same ability as J had, not to suffer or feel pain. How significant will your problems be then? DU217
That’s right. This isn’t about being a do-gooder, not that there’s anything wrong with doing good deeds if it turns you on. The Course is about being a right thinker. A lot of Christians ask nowadays, “What would Jesus do?” There’s only one correct answer to that question, and it would always be the same. He’d forgive. Forgiveness has to do with what you think. What you do isn’t the important thing, even though it’s a result of what you think. It’s what you think that will either keep you dreaming or help get you home, not what you do. DU218
So He takes the same illusions or images I’ve made and uses them to get me home. That’s perfect, like turning the tables on the ego by using the same stuff the ego made to undo it. In order for that to happen, I have to do something you quoted the Course as saying earlier; I need to bring my illusions to the truth instead of giving truth to my illusions. The Course also says J is a Savior because he saw the false without accepting it as true. If I do that, then not only will I be a Savior like him, but my mind will be healed by the Holy Spirit at the same time. DU219
If you’re really going to turn the tables on the ego and achieve the thought reversal that the Course talks about, then you have to remember what we discussed last time. The ego has tricked you into thinking you’re getting rid of your unconscious guilt when you project it onto others by making them wrong, or condemning them or blaming certain circumstances for your problems or the world’s problems, or whatever. Instead, what this really does is cause you to hang on to your unconscious guilt forever. Are you beginning to understand how important forgiveness is for you? DU220
Let’s be very clear again; God did not even create part of the world. We just quoted the Course as saying there is no world! How could God have created part of it if there isn’t any? It’s not the Holy Spirit’s intention to do anything except wake you up from your dream that there is a world! That’s true whether it seems to be temporarily good or bad. DU223
One of the necessary changes in my thinking along the road to the ultimate experience was the acceptance of the idea that the mind projects everything, observes its own projection from a different and seemingly separate point of view, and then interprets that perception as an external fact. The body, being itself an idea of separation, existed only in the mind as a way to experience separation! All my life I had assumed that my eyes saw the world, my body felt it and my brain interpreted it. DU228
As we go along, try to remember that. As we’ve said, when you forgive others, it’s really you yourself who is being forgiven.
I’m going to talk about components of forgiveness. That’s because, as we’ve said, forgiveness is an attitude. Everything you learn becomes incorporated into that attitude until forgiveness happens automatically. For most people, especially during the first few years, forgiveness requires that you think about it. You become a master by having forgiving thought processes. These right-minded thoughts eventually dominate your mind instead of the ego. A situation occurs or someone comes along whom you need to forgive, and following the lead of the Workbook, you’ve learned to have right-minded thoughts about the person or situation. Using your understanding of the Course’s entire thought system, including the Text and the Manual, contributes to and strengthens your attitude of forgiveness. DU232
When J spoke to you and said, “Renounce the world and the ways of the world; make them meaningless to you,” he meant that what you’re seeing doesn’t exist. It’s nothing because it’s not really there. How can nothing mean anything? If you make it mean something, good or bad, then you’re trying to change nothing into something. The only thing you should make it is meaningless. DU342
As I joined with J, I felt almost embarrassed for a minute about feeling better in the face of what appeared to be happening. Could it really be that simple? Could I actually deny the ability of anything not of God to affect me? Was there really no hierarchy of illusions, including any manner of death? Could I sincerely be vigilant only for God and His Kingdom ? Were all the images of the world just temptations designed to persuade me that I was a body so I’d judge others and keep my unconscious guilt, my reincarnation dream-life cycle and the ego intact? Was the Holy Spirit’s forgiveness really the way out, leading to the peace of God, my return to Heaven and the disappearance of the universe?
I finally knew for sure that the answer to all of these questions was yes. DU394
Sometimes your dream seems like a nice one, but then without warning it becomes a nightmare. That’s the re-enactment of the separation from God. Yet neither the bad or the good that seemed to precede it are true. As the Course reminds you:
…Fairy tales can be pleasant or fearful, but no one calls them true. Children may believe them, and so, for a while, the tales are true for them. Yet when reality dawns, the fantasies are gone. Reality has not gone in the meanwhile. DU397
The Disappearance of the Universe has the same echo of our Self that the Course does. It clearly came to us, through Gary, because we were ready for spiritual meat. Read it. Study it. And then read it again. Your level of understanding will grow with every bite. Bon Appetit.