The Whole

Doing this writing on the Course’s practices is a grand experiment – or maybe a puny one. It’s just that I got done with “giving and receiving as one” and don’t think I spoke of it from the heart at all. Because what my heart knows about it wasn’t in there even obliquely.

Here’s what I mean and it goes to why I haven’t done this kind of writing before and why I’m questioning if I’m going to keep doing it now. When you take things apart, you miss the whole.

It was as if I “remembered” the whole today and then everything I’d written seemed so trite. True enough in a certain way, but not the whole.

I’ve said many times that there’s some way this Course comes to us as a whole. This is what has, for me, made it so fundamentally different. I’ve never gotten “stuck” in places, and I don’t know if I can explain what I mean but what I’ve written here gives me a chance to try, even if no one’s been listening all along (which may turn out to be a good thing).

Each time I’ve gone “back” to A Course of Love – doesn’t matter which book it is – I find something incredible. I’m awed.

A friend just wrote me about re-reading The Dialogues and he said – “I can’t understand why this isn’t a classic.” That’s how I feel when I go back. And being as I give talks once in a while and imagine that someday more people will be in awe and they’ll invite me to come and share with them – I wonder about all of this. These thoughts come, and they don’t come without an inner sense of excitement for how a day or a weekend could be spent on one particular thing: on “Dialogue” or “Freedom” or these beliefs/practices.

And then invariably I hit this wall of PARTS.

It seems if you pick things out and try to find the substantial in them, you’ve got less than the whole and it doesn’t work. You’ve missed the essence.

Case in point – these blogs on the belief/practices. This may just be me not being a scholar, or the way I came to these practices looking for something to help, or my lacks as a writer – but what I’ve written by focusing on this “part” of the whole…and doing 3-4-5- blog entries on Giving and Receiving as One, hasn't revealed the essence of it.

These chapters I'm writing on are, after all, in The Treatises, and the treatises aren’t the course or the dialogues. The Treatises – it is said right out somewhere – are practical. We are to have “gotten it” in A Course of Love, and then that inner knowing is followed up by these practical lessons. The Dialogues begin with a little more of that, like the confidence we’re sorely lacking, all the human stuff that gets in our way. But then they soar away/and twist back/and soar away again.

It is so confounding and so brilliant the way this Course begins at the end and ends at the beginning! Let’s just sweep you off into Never Never Land and then hand you back down into the jaws of life on the ground.

When we go “back” to A Course of Love after reading The Dialogues it’s like culture shock. When we’re into The Dialogues, just getting the hang of being on the mountain, we’re trust back to level ground. We’re upped and downed for nearly a thousand pages. Taken on a trip full of reversals and switchbacks and replacements, heights and depths, All and nothing.

We end in the land of “somewhere new” and we can’t quite go back, as I’ve tried to do, and pick out a few chapters, and stick with what’s in them.

Which leads me to what I wanted to say and that is that giving and receiving as one is so much bigger and broader than what I’ve said.

The essence of giving and receiving as one is the very act of intimacy, of being received, and of receiving. The ACT of holding your heart open for another and being open to be held. This is the embrace. Love to love inviolate. This is the deep mystery of our secret selves, perhaps our souls, meeting soul to soul.

Yes, there are practical aspects and I have needed to go back and touch them, to remember them. But that’s what I do. “I” touch “them.” When I’m not doing that, something vaster touches me.

The practical things aren’t what hold my heart. They’re not the things that moved me, touched me, let me feel received, or opened me to receive. “Helpful” isn’t holy. It’s not the miraculous.

Practices and beliefs may be needed at times, but they’re not the grand meltdown of the whole into one messy, murky, convoluted entity called me or you awash in the embrace of something glorious that lies far beyond the helpful.

No Relationships are Special

I remember how, on first receiving these short forms of these major themes, I felt that each contained a bit of the other, and as if none of them said what I would have expected them to say. This is true in this very short discussion of leaving special relationships behind.

I like that it’s short and sweet and that again the major thrust is on being who we are:

“Dedication to the goal of being who you are may at first seem selfish, but it is “the most sincere form of relationship. Relationship based on anything other than who you are is but a mockery of relationship.”

Being honest now is a “call to truth.”

Keeping our focus on being who we are aids us in this practice. There's no need to analyze our relationships for evidence of specialness. Our examination remains with ourselves and with living from the truth.

This treatise on the nature of unity begins with a discussion of treasure. What is treasured, both within and without, leads to an exploration of callings. Callings, Jesus said, come in many forms. We can feel a call – as to be a musician, doctor or priest. That’s one kind of calling.

In relationship, some of these calls come as demands and sometimes we’re “called out” in relationship. At times we might need to “call out” those we are in relationship with. It’s not that we ignore the richness or the conflict found in relationship, but that, in a sense, we mind our own business (or our own hearts). In sticking with what we truly feel, by listening openly to what is shared with us, by the very “give and take” of relationship, we are aided in seeing things about ourselves that we might not want to see. In sharing honestly with others, we can aid them. Keeping our integrity, we can’t lose or rob another.

“Your loyalty must be totally to the truth of who you are and not continue to be split by special relationships. While your love relationships will provide a rich learning ground for you now, they must also now be separated from all that would continue to make them special.”

Next: Loss, Gain and Change

(Sharing from the beliefs/practices in "A Treatise on Unity and Its Recognition," the second treatise in the second volume of A Course of Love. First on "No Relationships are Special.)

Giving, Receiving, and the discipline to express our true selves

The part of this belief that is about accepting needs has been challenging for me to put into practice in relationship. I may be pretty good at writing about my true feelings, but ask me to sit down with my husband and have an honest discussion about getting needs met, or to kindly but firmly express what I feel comfortable giving to other family members, and my mouth gets dry, clamps itself shut, and my cheeks flush as a heat rises in me. In not having the discipline to voice my needs, I am not being myself, and it is not even for reasons of censoring negativity or ceasing to judge. It’s about really needing practice at doing something I’ve avoided doing my whole life.

In this area, I’m happy to look at practice as being about developing skills and having the courage to practice them until I’m good at it; it becomes a little easier; or maybe even if it’s always hard. What I have found is that I no longer want to act in many of the ways that I do. I’m aware, painfully aware of this. Sometimes I feel as if an action is not good for me, sometimes that it’s not good for another, but after a while you’ve gotta’ see that both are the same thing. That’s a revelation and a relief. And I’ve begun to get a little better at seeing this since reminding myself of these beliefs/practices.

Our minds have a way of perpetuating our usual means of relating even after our hearts’ wisdom would have us leaving these ways behind. Mental patterns seem set in stone—imbedded in certain relationships like the air we jointly breathe, and so “in our faces” every day, day after day. This, too, is our opportunity to practice; to practice in life.

A call to practice is just that…it’s not a pronouncement that we’re failures or that we’re not coming from our hearts, or that we’re egoic. Our feelings can, at times, be precisely a confusion about what our hearts feel. As we reunite with our hearts, we can become so aware of our feelings that we’re like putty; getting shaped and at times sapped by every emotion that we meet.

Here is what Jesus has suggested as a means of practice:

“Bring the thoughts and feelings that arise to the place within your heart that has been prepared for them. Do not deny them. Bring them first to your Self, to the Self joined in unity at the place of your heart. From this place you learn to discriminate, to separate the false from the true…. With truth and illusion separated, you develop the discipline to express your true Self, as you are now. This is the only way the Self you are now has to grow and change. This is the only means the Self you are now has of giving and receiving as one. This is the only means available to you to replace the old pattern with the new.”

When we’re not honest, we get mad at other people half the time before realizing that we’re really mad at ourselves.

The very idea of practice being something we all need can take the sting from our unreadiness or initial less-than-successful attempts. We are “making known” not learning to play the piano or kick a ball.

As I’ve practiced extricating myself from my own pattern, some real shifts have occurred. I remember that I’m really doing everything that I do because of love…which ultimately is true…and then I can stop being so irritated that my husband leaves his socks on the floor or my daughter leaves her dishes lying around. When I pick them up, I feel more relaxed about it, and then the people around me are more considerate, and on and on.

Giving and receiving is not, I have found, saying: I do this for you/now you do that for me! No matter how much I’d like it to be, and to support these kinds of bartering feelings I’ve harbored, it’s simply not a wash.

Giving and receiving as one is deeper than that. It’s like drawing on that well of our truest feelings – the kindness and compassion that motivate us. When we trust that we’re acting from that place – not just for those we’re in relationship with – but for ourselves too, some of the things that bug the shit out of us will take care of themselves.

And yes, we’ll find the courage to talk about the others!

“Needs” are distinguished from “wants” by the simple idea that all needs are shared, and that this fact of life isn’t hidden to us. We’re aware of it. Our most basic human needs are shared. Not one human needs more water, air, food, love, freedom or dignity than another. Our needs are equal. Our essential equality is unquestioned.

This is where we begin to live out that certainty.

( Giving and Receiving as One, and the quote used here are from "A Treatise on the Nature of Unity and Its Recognition," the second treatise in the second volume of A Course of Love.)

Giving, Receiving, and Being

(Part 4: Giving and Receiving as One and the practices/beliefs from The Treatises of A Course of Love, 2nd treatise: "A Treatise on the Nature of Unity and Its Recognition")

One of the ways that accomplishment stands out as the “beginning” for me, is that it allows these other beliefs/practices to take root. What a reversal in itself – to have accomplishment come at the beginning.

Right away – at the onset of this Course of Love – we start to hear about our accomplishment. Let go of the ego, we are told. For sure let it go as our identity. We start hearing that we have a true identity. The ego is who we think we are. Our true identity is of God (by whatever name).

Kabbalist Marc Gafni and others, call our true identity our soul. In Soul Prints, Gafni says: “The human being is created Bezelem Elohim – in the divine image. What this means is that every human being is infinitely unique, dignified, and valuable. Our lives are about finding and living that uniqueness, affirming that dignity, and expressing and sharing our value in the world.” (xix)

It follows then, that continuing to think that what makes us feel human and unique is of the ego – whether these are uncomfortable feelings or distinct passions – isn’t going to jive with belief in our accomplishment, our uniqueness, or our needs. Belief in the ego (at least as ego is described in ACIM and ACOL) is like saying, “I’m not my true self…yet.”

Jesus says, also from the very beginning, that it is our true selves, not our egos to whom this Course is given. He says, in fact, that our egos can’t learn it.

And so…if our most vulnerable and human feelings are accorded to the ego, none of these beliefs or practices are going to sooth us, bring change, or propel us forward. Clinging to the ego breeds feelings of “not there yet.” “Not there yet” feelings keep us from being who we are.

“To proceed into each relationship as who you truly are, is to bring everlasting change to each and every relationship and thus to all.” 7.12

I watched a video of Earl Raj Purdy giving a class in A Course of Love yesterday. His style could be described as “all Earl” but it had shades of a rap artist and a Baptist preacher, an entertainer and a comedian. It was so lively. I felt, just briefly, as if Earl had what it takes and I don’t. But I was smiling even as I had the thought – so pleased was I that Earl was being “all Earl.” That’s what it’s all about. That’s what our many different expressions in the world are all about. That’s how – as each of us are uniquely who we are – we speak straight to the heart of anyone hearing our message.

Now Earl contributes his expression to getting out of the way and letting God speak through him, and I might attribute mine to getting out of my own way and then coming back. No matter how you say it, this is the journey most of us are on. We get out of the way of the ego and come back to our true selves (or the God within) – and there – we live, love, and express our Source in a way that only we can. It doesn’t really matter how we say it, think of it, or feel it, as long as we’re making that journey to being the unique expressions of love that we are.

As Earl read from ACOL Chapter 23: The Freedom of the Body, he read about our fear that when we lose our separated self, we’ll lose our individuality. He demonstrated that this is not so.

“To proceed into each relationship as who you truly are, is to bring everlasting change to each and every relationship and thus to all.” 7.12

Next: some observations from my own life about the challenge of needs

Giving, Receiving and Needs

Giving and Receiving as One (part 3)

A key in our cultivation of wholeheartedness is receptivity. Many of us are much more comfortable giving than receiving. Our tendency is to feel good about ourselves when we are able to give. But receiving? That is not always so comfortable. Receiving the help that meets a need can make us feel particularly uncomfortable – even weak or dependent. As strong as our desire is to have our needs met – our preference can still be not having any needs that can’t be meet through our own effort.

But this isn’t the way we were created.

According to Jesus, the overall plight about which we are mad and confused, and the major reason that we feel misled, is this way in which we were created. All our lives we seem to be assured that the ultimate maturity is either having no needs or being able to meet them ourselves. But our reality as humans doesn’t mesh with this goal. Human beings exist in relationship. For the first years of our lives, we need constant care. Even beyond those early years, we wither without love and care.

It is easier to accept that our being resides in relationship than that our relationships are necessary. Need has become a dirty word, associated with unhealthy dependency and lack.

The belief in giving and receiving as one can help us see need in healthier ways. And the practice can take us beyond the acceptance of needs to trust in needs being met.

“Real trust is not a trust that waits and hopes but a trust that acts from who you truly are. Real trust requires the discipline of being who you are in every circumstance and in every relationship. Real trust begins with your Self.” 7.16

The funny thing is that, in cultivating an identity for ourselves that is called “spiritual,” our tendency can be to become great deniers of needs, even those that are about expressing our true feelings. Our thoughts can tell us that some feelings aren’t worthy of our “true” self. A desire to hide all but our most attractive emotions can grow. If a thought is considered negative or bad, it is denied. From a desire not to judge, honest observations are withheld. This can lead to walking a tightrope of internal censorship. Suddenly we’re not being who we are at all!

Our thinking is full of unconscious patterns that can make us blind to the changes that begin to occur in us as we cultivate wholeheartedness. When our thoughts are joined with the feelings of our hearts, our intentions become more pure and there is less cause to suspect our motivations. We can call it like we see it. We must.

The discipline required in A Course of Love is the discipline to be who we are. Who we are can’t be denied in favor of who we will be. Being who we are “requires trust in self and honesty in relationships.” 7.19

Next I’ll share some personal observations.

(These sharings based on the beliefs/practices in “A Treatise on Unity and Its Recognition,” the second treatise in The Treatises of A Course of Love.)

Giving and Receiving in Relationship

Instead of focusing on “others,” our practice, as we cultivate wholeheartedness, is to focus on relationship; on our relatedness. When our lives are centered in both unity and relationship, we are released from an idea of oneness that stands in counter-distinction to more than one.

In wholeheartedness, our relationships are essential; holy; and our interconnectedness is seen as the nature of our reality. Relationship is like a bridge joining opposite shores. It is a bridge to knowing and being known, and an end to feelings of separation and isolation. “Those you would view as being in relationship with you are not separate from you. The relationship is your source of unity.” (7.5)

Our relationships are not only physical, and so unity and relationship must exist together…a link between the closeness and intimacy of the physical world, and the equally close and intimate reality that doesn’t depend on what the eyes can see and hands can hold.

The amazing connections that I feel with people all over the world through A Course of Love feel like a demonstration of the power of relationship released through wholeheartedness.

Yet even in relationship there are needs. Jesus tells us that one of the ways in which we can embrace this belief and live it out is by accepting needs. An unlikely “tool”– one that is mentioned along with the tool of meditation – is needs. Our tools are anything that will help us bypass thoughts of independence as separateness –(unfortunately, the very ideas we were raised with!).

Needs, as related to giving and receiving as one, are what I’ll share next.

(This is part 2 of a discussion on the practice of Giving and Receiving as One as presented in The Treatises of A Course of Love, specifically, "A Treatise on Unity and Its Recognition.")

Giving and Receiving as One

(Continuing with the beliefs/practices from "A Treatise on Unity and Its Recognition," the second treatise in the second volume of A Course of Love: The Treatises of A Course of Love.)

The first sentence in this chapter on “giving and receiving as one” says this:

“We have talked much in this course of your desire to be independent without looking at the condition of dependency that you consider its opposite.”

It’s easy to think…okay…we’re not jumping right into what this belief is all about.

I’ve found this so often in A Course of Love. If I want to get at the basic thing that’s being said, I have to really dig. It seems that if you’re looking for definitions or something laid out in a straight line, this isn’t the course for you. Yet in the end, there’s logic to the theme, and sometimes I think, maybe this is the heart’s logic – a meandering that eventually ties loose ends together but doesn’t start out to make a point.

Part of the reason for this, I suppose, is that none of these beliefs are new. We’ve heard about them all throughout A Course of Love.

So, on along in the 11th paragraph, I found the germ of the idea and thought I’d start there and then back up. Here Jesus said that our “ability to go out into the world and remain who we are relates to giving and receiving being one in truth in a very concrete way. For to go out into the world with the desire to give, either expecting to receive in certain measure or to receive not at all, is to follow the old pattern, a pattern that has been proven to not have any ability to change the world.”

“You cannot be independent and still be of service. For as long as you believe in your independence you will not accept your dependence. You will not accept giving and receiving as one….” 7.13

We are to accept our needs and believe that our needs are provided for by a Creator and a creation that includes all others.

This is how we find ourselves looking at our fear of dependency. “Others” are the great unknown, those beyond our control, those who can influence and affect us:

“Others represent the accidents waiting to happen, love that is not returned, the withholding of things you deem important. This fear that you feel in relation to others is as true of those you hold most dear to you as it is of those you would call strangers. It is the very independence of others that makes your own independence seem so important to you. Dependency is not consistent with your notions of a healthy self. What, then is the alternative? The alternative is believing in giving and receiving as one.” (7.2-7.3)

Next – from “others” to “relationship”

Accomplishment and Discovery

This is my final post on the belief/practice of Accomplishment, as presented in "A Treatise on Unity and Its Recognition" from A Course of Love.

Earlier in this treatise, Jesus spoke of how, when we become aware that we have a talent, we say that we discover that we have a talent…as to sing or draw. We might also say that we discover we have a way with numbers or with animals.

This example of what we discover within is also about assuring us that not everything we are, or do well, or have to give, comes of learning. We can discover, for instance, our passion, or our goodness, our commitment or our devotion. We can discover our hearts’ desires.

In the same way, when we understand that unity is a given, when we feel and experience it in our lives – our acceptance and expression of unity creates our new reality.

“You are creating the state of unity as a new reality for your Self…. You are changing the world you perceive by perceiving a new world. You are changing from who you have thought yourself to be to who you are.” 6.9

As our ideas or thoughts change, they change us as we have known ourselves, and the world as we have known it.

This internal change is then the cause of external change. That’s what practice is for as well: first changing our inner world and the way we think and talk to ourselves, then living in such a way that the internal and the external merge, and finally realizing it in the sense of making it real. Jesus actually said that through practice, we gain experience, and from experience we gain true conviction. We gain first an ability to live our beliefs, and then that ability becomes an aspect of our identity and accepted as the nature of who we are in truth.

This is repeated several times. We gain experience, experience becomes ability, ability becomes identity. In other words, we don’t think in terms of beliefs anymore. We simply are the belief. We are the accomplished.

How much time will be saved if we quit seeking accomplishment outside of ourselves?

Our self as it was created and remains is our accomplished self. “The Christ is the accomplished Self.” 6.10