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A Course in Miracles

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Blog #2

 

Living a Radical Life

Chapter 1 - A Disturbing Idea

Part 2 of 4

Book Blog

These read in reverse order, starting at the bottom with Blog #1.
Blog #4 - Chapter 1, Part 4
Blog #3 - Chapter 1, Part 3
Blog #2 - Chapter 1, Part 2
Blog #1 - Chapter 1, Part 1

Random Bloggery

There is no particular order to these.

Blog A - Introduction to the book
Blog B - Current World Events
Blog C - Atheists and the Course
Forget it!

 

OK, so with that tiny, mad idea came a host of implications. When the Son of God thought the tiny, mad idea, there had to be a way to really grasp it and follow through with it. Not to be God means to be apart from God, and the only way to really know that, for the Son of God to really experience the mad idea fully, was to forget the truth about himself and lose all memory of who he really is. Of course, being separate from God is impossible on the face of it because there is nothing that is not God. God is everything. The only way for the idea of separation from God–and the reality of this dream universe–to occur would be for it to occur, not in reality, but only as a thought or an imagining of separation; a dream of separation. When this idea came to the Son of God, the vast power of the Son of God's intention and focus immediately gave birth to an immense dream world where separation could exist; separate consciousnesses, separate objects, and above all, the single most powerful and frightening thought ever considered–loss of all memory that he is really God.

 

Forget it!
© James K Anderson   
Because the Son of God is still God, separation from God also meant the Son of God had to "separate" from himself to challenge the idea of perfect oneness, and to provide a venue for the specialness he craved. As I said, for this to be truly experienced, the Son of God had to imagine the existence of a place of separation where this idea could thrive. It had to be a "place" (since there was no precedent for the idea of a "place") and it had to contain, and have built within it, a structure of rules that didn't need God for it to function, which would also fulfill the idea of separation from God–a self‑sustaining place that appeared without an explanation that needed no God. We call these rules the laws of physics or the laws of nature, and they must never stop working, because that would break our firm belief in the reality of this place. So the Son of God imagined a neutral, three‑dimensional "place," a world of form, where objects could exist separate from each other; where one object could not be in two places. In order for one object to occupy more than one space, another fascinating concept was imagined–time. For an object to be in two places, it had to move from one place to the other–over time.

 

Without time, a three‑dimensional place of separation falls apart. Time is needed in order to facilitate the movement of solid objects, and also to allow for interaction between the multiple things that occupy space. And further, two separate objects could not be in the same place at the same time. The idea was that, since we are now imagining separateness, each separate piece had to be somewhere where there was nothing else. The body you now occupy completed that desire. The Son of God split into billions, or even trillions, of pieces of individual consciousnesses and they are now all separate from each other, occupying their own meaty, leafy or rocky containers. Time also means that this universe is in constant motion and change, and can never be completed. This dream was unfathomably all‑encompassing and detailed, with every subatomic particle playing its part in the play. It is as real as it can be, within itself, because the power of the mind of the Son of God is unlimited, just as God's mind is. In other words, it's real because we want it to be real, so we can experience a different "truth" apart from God. The only reality this dream has is the one we give it, through the immense power of our mind. But to God, it's only our temporary, unreal and tiny, meaningless dream.

 

This place that the Son of God imagines is absolutely neutral, and harbors no need of God. It only contains whatever the separate consciousnesses decide it contains, fulfilling their own individual versions of desire, for the separate consciousnesses are merely tiny fragments of the mind of the Son of God. The only way for the idea of separation to work is if those separate consciousnesses do not remember who they are, for if a tiny part of their minds remembered they were God, they couldn't really immerse themselves into the idea of the original, tiny, mad idea; they would not experience what it was like not to be God. So, we fell asleep to our true self, and pretended to wake up inside of a strangely upside‑down dream.

 

Since we don't remember we are God, that means we also don't have any memories of God that in any way come close to the truth. Since we don't remember our creator, our vast, natural curiosity had to come up with a scenario to explain where we humans and this universe came from. So we had to create a creation story. We created an idea of God, or rather, we created hundreds of ideas about different types of gods and/or no gods at all, including the god of scientific research. We created as many scenarios about our origin as we liked, because we are free to do that in this dream. Some of those scenarios speak of gods, some do not. We believe in a tremendous variety of gods, all with widely different attributes. Collectively speaking, together we have usurped the throne of God, and way deep down inside all of us, we are feeling extremely guilty about it, because we know how far away from the truth this whole world is. We have created a dream in which we are responsible for ourselves individually, and therefore, we can believe in a god or no god, but what we really believe without question, is that we are small, separate beings, living alone in a scary world.

 

The thought we have placed into our own minds to replace God–to separate ourselves from God–and to become our own creators, is called the ego. The Son of God created these unreal sons, living in an unreal world. It is the manifestation of our "specialness." The ego's entire purpose is to support the tiny, mad idea, to convince us that we are in this alone, that we are special, and "I" am responsible only for quot;me." Oh sure, there may be a god, but the Christian god many of us are most familiar with and all the other versions of God that are thriving today on the planet are reflections of our ego. We haven't created a God of oneness who is unconditionally loving, as much as a god who, at the least, is very intimidating, demanding, contradictory and mysterious–and scary. More like the Wizard of Oz.

 

We wiped our memory of our reality by falling asleep to it. We shifted our focus so totally into this tiny, mad idea that it became our only reality. This is our dream! But it's almost impossible for us to know this because it was made using the incredible mind of the Son of God, who made it out of a desire not to remember that it is a dream.

 

All I Have To Do Is Dream

 

I understand that the idea about this being a dream or illusion is very daunting. So let me ask you this; What makes you think that this isn't a dream? This is a good way to begin to undo the idea that this world is real. There are only two main differences between your nighttime dreams and this waking dream, as far as I can discern. These two things keep you from realizing this is a dream. The first one is consistency. For this dream to serve its original purpose, it has to be consistent so you can have faith in its stability and not question its reality. Clever Son of God! If things started getting weird and inconsistent, like an episode of the Twilight Zone, you would start to question it, and your doubts would begin to crumble its foundation, and that would undermine its purpose. There is nothing more earth shattering than understanding that this is a universe that has been designed very specifically for a particular purpose. The consistency is the linchpin of its hold on us.

 

 © James K Anderson
Dream

Every day, when you wake up, it has followed the flow of time, and everything that happened overnight made consistent sense. Everything is the same; the world is still spinning, the people on the other side of the world woke up and lived their lives. The only differences from yesterday are the easily understandable things that have happened during your sleep; other people moved things around, it snowed, the world stock markets went up and down according to their natures, the news events from all across the world, etc. All the people you know seem to have the same personalities as yesterday, and they remember and share what you remember about this world. Everything that happens, no matter how large or small, is easily understood, because it always flows from the previous day and the weeks and months before. It appears that the dream doesn't stop when you are asleep, for the world seems to continue seamlessly around the clock. You left it for a few moments of sleep, and re-entered it like jumping off and back on a carousel. The laws of the universe have held everything in place. The rules always function, and the rules account for everything. The powerful grip of these rules means that patents can be filed, businesses can make and sell things, physicists can keep looking at the rules more intensely, and trains can run on time.

 

The consistency is the only reason we have to go to school–to learn how it works day in and day out, and to learn what other people discovered about this world in the past that still works today. It is empirically provable. Whatever you do stays done. Knowing that everything continues is what keeps us believing in it. Whatever you remember life to be like the previous day, remains. Your car keys are always right where you left them the night before–OK, so maybe that's a bad example. The consistency of this dream is the only thing that gives it credibility. If it were not consistent, there would be nothing to learn, because nothing would be predictable. There would be no schools because it would be pointless teaching something that was constantly changing. There could be no lawyers, or scientists, or any other vocation, because what consistency really means is that this dream is based on the past. As long as we believe in the existence of the past, this dream will reflect it. All of our ideas about this world (scientific, psychological, etc.) are only valid because we know that what we discovered last year is still valid today. We may modify our ideas, but that's because we are really understanding them better; and therefore, understanding ideas from the past better.

 

Without consistency, this world would instantly fall apart. We could never draw any conclusions–about anything. This life would have absolutely no point and no substance. This life would be like your nighttime dreams, and you would wander aimlessly inside of it. And we, powerful pieces of the Son of God, are using our incredibly powerful minds to give this consistent dream reality. Our focus on it, our belief in it, and our steadfast buy‑in to it, are making it real–but only making it real to us humans. We created this dream to convince ourselves that we are separate from God, so we can really live that tiny, mad desire of knowing what it is like not to be God, what it's like to be incomplete and unique. We had to make this world believable! It has to be consistent! This is the single most powerful aspect of the dream. The consistency of the dream has the power to convince us that it is real. The Son of God constructed this dream world so well, that ironically, this unrelenting consistency and logic is the source of all the arguments for science against God, as well as all of the arguments for an amazing god who created such a complex universe. This remarkable complexity of this universe will support anything you can think up. You are free to choose. Pretty clever stuff.

 

Difference #2

 

The other difference between this waking dream and our nighttime dreams is that we know our nighttime dreams are dreams, because every morning we wake up from them! But when you are dreaming them at night, you firmly believe you are living within that dream. It is as real to you as this waking life. It is all you've got at the moment you're in it. But we have not awakened from this waking dream; at least not yet, so we've got nothing to compare this dream to. There is no way to know you're in a dream until you're out of it! That is the incredible power of our minds. After the Buddha became enlightened, he came to a place where they didn't know him, and a group of men asked him if he was a god? He said, "No." They asked him if he was a reincarnation of a god, and he said, "No." He also said, "No" when they asked him if he was a wizard, or a man. Finally, they asked, "Then, what are you?" and the Buddha said, "I am awake!"

 

 © James K Anderson
Difference

So, you've probably heard that story before, but have you really understood the implication of it? He woke up! The very name "Buddha" means "awakened one." Yet, the impact of the idea that this world is a dream has not gotten any real traction throughout history, no matter how often we hear it. We continue to go through our lives being Buddhists or Christians or Jews but never understand the idea that we are literally here to wake up from a dream, because that idea gets buried and twisted within all of the other many ideas of every belief system. It is the single most important concept to understand. On its face, it is a completely ridiculous idea! The grip this dream has on us is powerful and unquestionable. But then again, no matter what you believe, you still have to pay the rent. Not to mention all of the other things that revolve around your imaginary body's needs. We are very easily distracted by our clever and conniving egos, but the goal is to wake up!

 

Now, think about this in a thoughtful way; do these two differences between your nighttime and daytime dreams really convince you that one is a dream and one isn't? Is there anything of any real substance to convince you that this waking life you have is more real than your nighttime dreams? Do you think that if you are really the Son of God, that any suffering at all could possibly be the result of God, or the wish of God? Do you think there is anything real outside of God? Do you really think this is real? Really? Do you really think that an unconditionally loving God would create a world that contained any anguish for His Son? If you are a part of God, and share the mind of God, then you must admit to yourself that anything you can conjure up with your infinitely powerful mind can appear to be real. This is just a dream. It's a dream that is constructed just a little bit better than your nighttime dreams, because it was created for a specific purpose by an immensely powerful, collective mind, so it has us all sucked into it in a persuasive way.

 





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