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

Accomplishment, Our own wisdom, Authenticity

Before I give you my every day examples, let me just say a word first about the overall idea of accomplishment so that I don’t give an erroneous impression. This belief is, simply put, that we’re already accomplished.

Not realizing this, and worrying over being accomplished is a problem for us. Early in A Course of Love (chapter 6) Jesus said that with peace, accomplishment is achieved in the only place where it makes any sense to desire it. With our accomplishment complete, we move on to the freedom and challenge of creation. I take this to mean that when we quit worrying or thinking about our accomplishment and feel it and believe it, we are free…and oh…then, what we can create! We’re not wasting our energy on something that’s a done deal.

Accomplishment is linked to peace. This course is about wholeheartedness: ending the divisions within ourselves, joining mind and heart “in wholeheartedness” and joining the human and divine so that we have one self. It all comes back to this. With wholeheartedness we can gain the peace that is inherent in our accomplished self.

But…we’re accomplished even when we’re about as far away from peace as we can be. That’s the paradox that we must embrace.

Now that I’ve given a bit of a broader perspective, here’s one of two ways I have seen Accomplishment at work in my life. This first one I’ll share today is about when it’s shown up in a way that I could easily see as a help. The second one, that I’ll share next, is about when it showed up in its opposite form, which I’ve seen as a hindrance.

Owning my own wisdom

Last year, when I was invited to give a talk, I was having a fine time preparing for it until I had a sudden realization. The realization was that I wasn’t owning my own wisdom.

I’d had an awareness of this for a while – probably for as long as I’ve been the receiver of this course. When I first ventured out into hosting a Course of Love group at a Unity church, the minister who inspired me to try was a woman who told me a story about owning her own wisdom. She’d felt the same way as me once upon a time – sort of tentative about it, and then she had a realization much like I’d had. After that, she practiced owning her own wisdom – or put another way, her accomplishment…by… well, practicing it in her ministry.

The realization that came to me last year was different than the earlier “awareness” that I wasn’t owning my wisdom. It was so clear that “it was time”. It was like a shift. As if I was suddenly a person who could no longer not do this – not be accomplished – or authentic.

The reason that I was no longer feeling at ease with preparing for my presentation after the realization was that I felt brand new, and too unfamiliar with my new self to be out and about trying to say anything coherent. The newness was total, as if a change had already occurred. It had happened. The realization seemed to come with a full blown agenda of its own. I couldn’t wait, couldn’t pass. It was time. I was ready and I couldn’t continue to ignore my readiness.

This is what I mean by the way things come to us in life. The talk was the call that told me I had something to say – not something derivative – but something that came of my experience, knowledge, heart, soul and that could be expressed as “my own” and in my own voice. And it coincided with the opportunity to practice it. I had to dig for my courage to do it. It wasn’t easy. But I did it. This was a life example. I accepted my accomplishment and put it into practice.

In A Return to Love, Marianne Williamson tells a story of asking a man to fill in for her when she was unable to make a presentation. He said, “I can’t give a speech as good as you.” She told him, “Of course you can’t. I have had a lot more practice at it than you.”

Our practice comes in many forms.

The call to our own wisdom, and being authentic are a couple of the ways I’ve seen this belief in accomplishment show up in my life.

Next: Disclaiming – my second example

The basics of practice

I’ve said I’d like to share some from the practices of “A Treatise on Unity and Its Recognition.” I’ll start with just the basics.

These are practices to cultivate wholeheartedness. They are very practical, human-centered ideas, stated as beliefs to be practiced:

"As you move into the world with the end of the time of separation and the beginning of the time of unity taking place around you, practice the beliefs that have been put forth in this treatise." 13.4

The beliefs are:

Accomplishment
Giving and Receiving as One
No Relationships are Special
No Loss but only Gain
We Only Learn in Unity
We Exist in Relationship and Unity
Correction and Atonement

What practice is:

“To practice…is to make known. Practice is the merging of the known and the unknown through experience, action, expression, and exchange. It alters the known through interaction with the unknown. It allows the continuing realization that what you knew yesterday was as nothing to what you know today, while at the same time, aiding in the realization that what you come to know has always existed within you …” (from The Dialogues, Day 15, Entering the Dialogue, p. 217)

Even though this definition of practice doesn’t emerge until near the end of The Dialogues, and even though it’s not an easily understood definition, I’m including it to suggest why, for me (as a person not prone to practices) it is so helpful. I’ve always tended to view practices as something you “do.” You sit down and meditate. You practice yoga or Qigong. When you say such things, many people will have an image of what you’re talking about, and so will you. Even with meditation and Qigong though, viewing the practice as only the hour in which you sit, meditate, or do exercises, is inaccurate. With this practice of beliefs, even such a view as the “hour of practice” doesn’t make much sense except perhaps in taking time to be attentive to them.

I’m always saying how in this course, our lives are to be our curriculum. These beliefs are to be practiced in life. Another view of practice that I like comes from The Dialogues. It’s the image of “carrying.”

“Carry,” Jesus said, “what you have been given.” Carry it like “air carries sound, as a stream carries water, as a pregnant woman carries her child.”

“What you have been given is meant to accompany you, propel you, and to be supported by you. You are not separate from what you have been given, and you do carry what you have received within you.” (p. 246)

So you can see where I couldn’t really begin without referring to these ways our practice is spoken of, even if they come later in this course.

I like particularly that what you have been given is to “be supported by you.” That really translates into support of ourselves…support or nurture as opposed to an idea of obligation or responsibility.

I guess you could say that what I’m looking to do through these practices, is get myself in a mood that supports what I’ve been given.


I’ll start next time with Accomplishment.

Deep Root Investigating (and The Practices)

As soon as I get any kind of idea of changing myself – with change basically meaning self-improvement (only phrased in a way I find more palatable), I get loaded down with negative feelings and a certain kind of focus that, believe me, does not help me change. The same is true of goals. If I get determined to accomplish something, I’m in trouble. All I do is think about it more.

Just ask my husband and kids how I act, and even worse, how I look when I get determined. I am told, “You should see your face.”

Being as I know this about myself, I lit on the idea – prevalent in AH Almaas’ Diamond Heart Series, Buddhist thought, and even Centering Prayer in a more roundabout way – of investigating what arises. If I find myself with a concern that’s weighing on me, or a feeling that seems to reach back and push buttons with memories from another time, I stay with it and investigate…but very loosely. I don’t declare myself to be investigating; I just stay with it.

I can’t say that this makes me feel good, but I will say that it brings insight, and the insight feels good. If I feel like I’m getting at the truth of the matter, I know that’s what I need. I’m seeing what I’m really dealing with.

So here’s the drill: I feel uneasy in some way…sometimes due to a particular circumstance, and sometimes for reasons that are very vague but still insistent. I investigate. You could say I feel worse, but I’m going deeply into the feeling as if pulled. I don’t feel crabby about what I’m feeling and I’m not berating myself for it, because it came up of its own and, the benefit I get for staying with it is it pulls me down where it needs to take me. I might feel all kinds of feelings – sad, or lonely, or humiliated, but I’m definitely interested. It’s like the feeling has roots and stories attached to it and what started out as a feeling caused by a spat with my husband sends me back to feelings that I had about my dad and some long buried pain that gets released for being looked at. It’s rarely an instant healing but it lets me see where the pattern originated and what it’s really about. Without seeing the origin of the pain, it is like treating the symptoms without finding the cause, and you might feel better, but only for a while, and only as long as you lean on the treatment.

I’d call this deep root investigating brutal but gentle and still, I prefer it to the self-improvement style of change.

A self-improvement idea would look like this in me: I’m going to once and for all figure out what I do wrong with men so that I never again feel this icky feeling, and so that I always keep my sense of self at the forefront. Something like that.

I’d start out crabby and remain crabby. Crabby, determined, hard, cold, already feeling wrong, and in my head. What might come out of it is new rules: I’m going to do this or that and if things don’t improve the consequences will be this or that. (My thoughts go to that sterile place often enough even without ideas of self-improvement – or maybe you could say with ideas of “others-improvement.”)

So you might ask why I’m writing of practices, and I’ll tell you the truth – I’m doing it because I’m still feeling the division between seeing the truth and living from it. I turned to these practices with the hopes that they can help me. I’m sharing them because maybe they can help you too.

The practices of A Course of Love are about coming to know the unknown, and so, right off the bat, they don’t have that disadvantage of coming at me like a self-improvement dictum. We all have our ways and this is probably the only way that might have a chance of working for me. (Our favorite spiritual messages are our favorites for a reason! They fit us!)

A Course of Love is all about wholeheartedness and I’ve been practicing wholeheartedness for over ten years. All that was said about it is in me, rattling around, messages sending me signs and clues and reminding me of who I am. The practices in the treatises are about the beliefs of this course and they’re there to lead us beyond belief to knowing. I don’t have a doubt about these basic descriptors of what it’s all about. But if I’m not living by what I know, then maybe there’s a disconnect somewhere, and this is what I turned to these practices to find.

Even as I say this, though, I want to add that I think it’s the rare person who is not working through things, basically, for a lifetime. It’s part of the beauty and challenge of being human and I truly wish spiritual texts didn’t make it sound so easy.

I believe what they’re saying is that once your motivation has moved from fear to love, you’ve done the hard part, and that’s the part that can happen really fast – even before you’ve realized it. In fact, realizing it – making real what it means to live from love instead of fear, is the basis of the rest of the course work – which is basically defined in ACOL as a life curriculum. (I would add, as a curriculum for our whole, entire lives!)

It goes something like this: Return to love. Then work out the details.

(Some of those pesky details, i.e. life practices, forthcoming.)

Consistent Practice

Tuesday. I am so grateful for Tuesdays, to have time to walk around and pick up all the detritus of the weekend, to spend one hour on wiping, sweeping, washing, and have the house back in order. It is a marvel to me and I wonder how anyone does without it.

I remember in my single mom days, visiting my cousin Lynn who had a husband and a home daycare. She got up an hour before the kids came and got everything in order. She had shag carpeting (it was the 70’s) and she even combed her carpet. It made me kind of sick to my stomach to hear all this. Could my whole chaotic and messy life be vastly different with one quiet hour and consistent use of it to keep order? It seemed too simple, too doable, and I knew I wouldn’t do it.

I have only recently gotten the quiet of empty-house Tuesdays. Not long after this new routine came about, I started using the first hour to putter around the house, setting things straight.

I have three mornings of empty-house quiet and I do the same thing on all three days, but on the others also throw in the laundry and do other chores that fall less easily in the category of puttering.

If I only had an hour, I wouldn’t do it. But I have six. The other five are mine.

I’ve been thinking about consistent practice lately as I review the practices detailed in the Treatise on Unity (from A Course of Love). They’re not exactly things you can do in an hour. There’s the proverbial “get still and listen,” which could encourage you to your meditation hour, but the practice examples are more situational while at the same time they’re based on beliefs that are too broad to pin down easily.

I thought maybe I’d share these in coming posts.

What stories tell me

I have this aunt called Aunt Margaret. My given name is Margaret too. I am the third generation of Margaret Marys after my grandmother and aunt. There is not yet another Margaret Mary, but there is a Margaret Rose.

My mother used to say, “If your Aunt Margaret would fix herself up, she would still be pretty. She has a nice figure.”

At Christmas, a brother I haven’t seen since I got my haircut told me I reminded him of Aunt Margaret. I remembered my mom’s comment.

Aunt Margaret’s hair was dark and going about halfway toward gray or white, wirey and shoulder length (like mine now is). She had a long, slim torso (somewhat like my dad and me) and wore jeans that she sinched around her waist, often with checkered, button up tops.

Her car was a big boat of a car. She had three husbands. The last one left her for her former daughter-in-law, then divorced. It is said that she climbed a tree to spy on them. If the story is true, it happened when she is older than I am now.

She was a feisty Catholic woman of a breed that still exists even if you wouldn’t know by the way the Church goes around acting. Sometimes you wish women would claim their power. The Church would change, or it would pretty much quit functioning without them.

Anyway, I told my brother that what he said was probably true, and that I didn’t mind so much, (I could still be pretty!), but I hoped I wasn’t like my aunt in another way. Then I recounted a story recounted to me by my Aunt Dee, my Uncle Owen’s wife. She said Aunt Margaret and Dad had gone to visit them and dad was sitting out in the yard on a trunk her dad made her. As soon as Aunt Margaret was out of earshot, he slapped his cowboy hat on his knees, swore, and said, “All I wanted was to visit and get a sandwich at the bar in town.” Aunt Margaret had other plans for seeing bed-bound relations (not exactly relatives) and saying the rosary over them. She’d say, “Come on, Jim, we’ve got to get moving.”

Another time when Aunt Margaret visited from Missouri and set about scrubbing Dad’s kitchen floor on her hands and knees, my dad was fit to be tied. She was simply a whirlwind of “doing goodness.” It was very tiring for my dad to be around.

My dad was a good man. He was known to visit the sick all on his own. He took me along when I was little to scary and sour smelling places. I could remember women of that era saying the rosary around those beds. They had dry lips that never stopped moving.

I didn’t want to be like them either. There was just plain something unrestful about them.

I feel at times that I’m predisposed to both following in their footsteps and trying not to.

When people write me about A Course of Love, I really like it when they say something about kayaking, or having a shoe fetish, or going to jazz clubs. I want a beautiful woman to tell me she loves clothes and jewelry, or a guy who hunts to admit to owning a gun. I like stories about pets. I like to hear about the lousy economy and the ire it arouses. It cheers me up to hear a good complaint about the healthcare situation.

What those stories tell me is that saying the rosary hasn’t been replaced by pious readings or meditation, and that doing good or being spiritual hasn’t put people on a one-track route to annoying their siblings.

Accepting...over and over again

How and why I write:

I love writing.
I never feel as if I get enough time for it.
I never feel as if I get enough time for it because:
It’s like a craving (or an addiction)
It’s more than writing
It’s about quiet time alone
It’s about feelings, soul, connection
I work a little
My husband likes to cook (and I do the clean up)
My adult daughter Angela is in school fulltime and she and her son Henry, the love of my life, live with us.
I have: two other adult kids, Mia and Ian and a large extended family
A dog Samantha, cats Simeon and Maximus, birds Quizzie and Jimmy Joe
A house, a yard, a car, bills

Because of this pretty normal, ordinary life, I get up early and listen for what comes in the dark, quiet, pre-dawn stillness.

This morning I realize that I accept certain things physically – like the ordinary life -- like having, at present, frozen shoulder, and all the various limitations of time, body, age.

I started thinking about this because a month ago I was excited about getting two of the three books of A Course of Love into digital book format for Kindle. Then I got stalled out by the frozen shoulder. Every day this task undone comes into my mind – the feeling of the need to get the final book done.

There’s a history to why the two books I have up are the 2nd and 3rd rather than the first and second, and why the first is difficult. Almost, (in print anyway) a never before told story.

It’s 2001 and New World Library, the first publisher of this course, is preparing for the American Booksellers Association Convention. They produce a sampler of the first chapter of A Course of Love. We (the four of us who’d formed a core group to get it out) started getting feedback. One said the tone was too strident. It would turn people off. Another noted that the first chapter was like an introduction. For these and various other reasons, we suggested that New World choose a different sample chapter, and the first chapter became “The Prelude.”

Getting back to the present, I hadn't ever adjusted my own manuscript to fit this change. In it, Chapter 1 is still Chapter 1 rather than the prelude, and thus, chapter 2 and each chapter thereafter, is not numbered in the same way as the book. Since each paragraph is numbered, this means going through the manuscript and renumbering each paragraph. It turns out that doing that is murder on my arm…a whole different thing that straight typing…which isn’t as easy as it used to be either.

I got the first five chapters done and then gave up. I accepted it. Now is not the time.

Yet everyday I think, maybe I could just do a page or two a day. And everyday I decide that, no, it’s not time.

I find this kind of thing fascinating…acceptance and the need…at least the one I have, to accept over and over. Things like acceptance aren’t cut and dried. This is what I’ve found. Like those I work with in eldercare, I chafe against limitations. I have things I want to do. I have strong feelings about some of them. Even without strong feelings and with a good excuse not to wash the floor, I still, at times can’t wait around for someone else to do it. I can use my left arm so it’s still possible. I’ve tried, but using my left hand with a mouse is a no go.

Over the years one of the biggest discoveries I’ve made is that timing is not something to mess with. I still fret over it (uselessly I know), but in the end it always makes me listen. It’s almost like an intuition aided by signs, which our bodies provide all the time. Basically it goes like this: if it’s too much effort, now is not the time. And as much as you’d like to have a reason, you don’t have to know the reason.

I think it’s called trust.

The Novel

I’ve been working on a novel. There. I’ve admitted it.

This is a very weird thing for me.

I started it years ago…so many that I can’t remember when. It started with a dream, and you know how there was that one novel written some years ago…was it the one that started the Oprah Book Club…where the woman got the whole thing from a dream? Well, anyway, even if I didn’t know about that book that sold millions, I’ve got a thing about stuff that comes from dreams, so I began it back then, and then abandoned it after a good first 30 pages or so, and then went back to it here and there.

The novel is called "The Hamburger Bun Project." The “Bun” is a utopian idea gone bad, the name arising from the look of the domed project where people escaped “the world” by creating their own.

It’s the kind of thing that lets me express all sorts of my spiritual ideas in a different context. I get to explore the question of utopia, if perfection is reachable, if “the world” can only be escaped, and what might happen when escape is taken as a real alternative. There were days, there for a while, when I was having a blast with it. It was just plain fun. It didn’t have to be good. I could worry about that later if it seemed as if it could be good.

My son, who I briefly tried to encourage a collaboration with a year or so ago, read the first 30 pages and compared it to The Catcher in the Rye. Of course, he knows that’s one of my favorite books of all times. I forced it on each of my kids. But I honestly didn’t think he was pulling my chain when he said it. Even so, that was a year ago at least. The flattery didn’t get me going on it. The time, with writing of any kind, has to be right.

But what I found, not in those initial fun days of working on it again, but as it started to bog down a bit, was that I was wondering if it was a worthwhile thing to be doing. Was I escaping? Was I escaping all of my usual self-absorbed questions about spirit and soul and meaning and daily angst? Was this a great thing or an escapade into fantasy? Was I discouraged with my spiritual writing and so turning elsewhere?

At any rate, the “self” questioning came back. It was then that I realized how great it had felt to live without it as I was immersed in that other world of the novel.

Writing can be a way of movement or a way of getting stuck. I’ve noticed that more than a few times. I’d guess most writers have. One day it can fill you with doubt that is crippling, and another day it can liberate you with a feeling just as extreme. The writing books and teachers, even the maniacal Anne Lamott, will tell you to just keep at it. If you haven’t got anything to write, just look out the window and write what you see. Or just make something up.

I’ve had this idea, that felt spiritual as it came and still does, of creating out of nothing. You get, after a while of carrying on with a certain theme, or writing as if to an audience, to feeling like you’ll burst if you don’t break free of writing “for something” or “for someone”…of writing for a reason. Writing always with a starting point. Writing as if you’re driving somewhere with a place to reach.

The blogs have provided a great freedom in that regard and every time I consider turning to the theme of writings of my past, no matter how much they call out to me at times, I pretty much set them aside when it comes to the blogs. People who read A Course of Love will sometimes write me about reading these blogs, of their surprise that I just share my ordinary life. I’m always kind of glad of that, even though, once in a while, I wonder “Why not? What am I avoiding? Am I avoiding something?”

Case in point. I was at a naming ceremony for my friend Lou’s grandchildren yesterday. The man who presided over the ceremony is a pipe carrier. He told a story about his first pipe and how his second one, the one he had with him, had come from an elder who passed it on as he was dying. “You can’t have two pipes,” he said, so he gave his old one to someone in a community without a pipe carrier. He said that the pipe wasn’t his, it was given him to help the people.

I feel that way about my work with A Course of Love even though I call it “my” course often enough. I feel that it was given to me to help the people. It’s just that when I say it, it doesn’t sound the same as when this man leading the ceremony did. People call him, as my friend Lou did. They offer him tobacco. They ask for his help. He lives within an existing culture where he has a place. I don’t.

You might say that no one’s clamoring at my door. Am I needed in all this? There was a message that was needed – I’ve no doubt about that – I do my best to keep it available and if I knew of something “to do” that would bring it to the attention of more people I suppose I might do it. But that hardly seems like spiritual help, and generally, when I get started in that direction something trips me up. I don’t know what it is.

Most of the time I feel fairly confident in the Course’s main message of “being who you are” and feel like that’s what I’m doing as best I can: being who I am and expressing who I am. Funny to think that might be enough, but what if it is? I don’t mean that arrogantly at all, just as one of those really profound spiritual questions/answers all wrapped up in one.

I was gifted with A Course of Love. There’s no other way of seeing that. I’ve passed the gift on to help those it will help. I give talks when I’m invited, things like that. What else is there to do? And I mean that literally. If there’s anyone out there who thinks they’ve got an answer, I’m seriously open to hearing it.

Writing The Given Self gave me a chance to be a bit of a helper and be myself at the same time. There are a dozen or so people who’ve told me I accomplished that feat with it, and that feels pretty good.

I don’t know where "The Hamburger Bun Project" will take me or even if I’ll finish it at this point, but I thought I might as well admit to it. Isn’t that the funniest thing…as if it’s a dirty little secret. I’m writing a novel. How weird.

Inner Urges and other Hard Stuff

In October of 2002, Richard Scruggs, an ex-Navy Seal from Florida, drove to Minnesota to meet me because I’d written A Course of Love. It was a very strange idea to me: that someone would drive from Florida to Minnesota to meet me. It was a strange idea to my husband too. “This guy could be a kook,” he said.

I’d read both ACIM and the books available about Helen Schucman’s experience before my course was even a glimmer of an idea. And because my Course of Love followed Helen’s Course in Miracles, and was presented to me as a new Course in Miracles, I knew this kind of thing could happen. But I was unprepared for it.

I was helped along a bit by Richard’s down to earth attitude. He seemed almost as excited about heading into St. Paul on Highway 61 when the Bob Dylan song of the same name came on his radio, as he was about whatever had drawn him to come.

In two days, visitors from Oslo, traveling for the same purpose, will be here.

My course has not yet sold 10,000 copies (at least not in the U.S. printings), and I’ve joked that it’s about the best kept secret in the universe. But for those for whom it speaks with that certain Voice that can’t be denied, it’s a big deal. Worth traveling for. Worth enduring Donny’s scrutiny.

Donny’s a short but burley American-born Lebanese guy who does heating and air conditioning for a living and whose favorite pastime is shooting. When he met Richard he just had to walk in and out of the house, making his presence known, getting that short chance to check out this guy who might, for all he knew, be a real weirdo.

Right after the passing-through, Richard suggested that we meditate and walked right into my suburban living room with the cream carpet where no one ever sits, to make good on his idea. At the time, meditating wasn’t something I did. A little later I played him my favorite ZZ Top tune direct from the TV room with its recliner and cat hair. It was so bizarre. I just didn’t feel as if I fit the picture of who I was supposed to be. And I wasn’t terribly peaceful either. I was more than a bit concerned about why my course wasn’t reaching people, and having every bit as much conflict as Helen had with those who’d helped me manifest it.

I was, in short, a bit of a mess.

Eight years later when my Oslo visitors suggested the visit, I was nervous for other reasons. After not having worked a paying job since the course came, the housing crash and recession left Donny’s business in a slump and I had to make a little money…just to make ends meet. There was no extra for things like carpet cleaning or entertaining out-of-town guests. With Angie and Henry here, life around my house is pretty chaotic too.

I almost turned down the visit from the two lovely people I’d been corresponding with, and who are hard at work on a Norwegian translation of the Course of Love series (the first foreign translation of the entire course). Then another friend told me this. He said I had to remember how close people feel to this Course of Love – so close that they’d travel halfway across the world. Their feelings were drawing them, he said.

So I relented. I told Storker and Tone of my circumstances and that we’d likely need to meet at the hotel if we were going to get any private time. Sensible arrangements were worked out…and I’ll still have them pass through the house to meet my husband and probably even to share a meal on the stained carpet with my chaotic family. I’m feeling okay about it, and didn’t even work myself into a tizzy trying to get things looking better than they are.

It’s the second time in recent months that I had to be frank about my situation. It’s worked out great both times and I highly recommend it. If you’re asked to give a talk and can’t wait months to be reimbursed for your travel expenses, you might as well admit it. If your hosts want you to come, they’ll likely send you a check for your plane fare before your charge card bill arrives.

But being honest about where you’re at is worth a lot more to you than that.

The funny thing though, and I want to admit this somewhere, is that it’s hard. I’ve been seeing a therapist about the conflicts of life, mainly life with my daughter and Henry. When I worry that I’m too hard on myself or too hard on my daughter, the therapist says, “It’s hard to live with adult children.” It’s normalizing to hear that. “Oh yeah, it’s just plain hard.”

It’s also hard to hear, as I heard from the speaker’s agent who turned me down, that “No one is interested in channeled writing.” I could quibble over the word “channeled” here, as I’ve done so often, but it’s beside the point. He called channeled writing “controversial,” and it felt like someone being frank with me. It wasn’t something I didn’t know. I told him The Given Self isn’t channeled, and he said I could send it along, but I knew it wouldn’t matter. I’ve been typecast, and “channeled writing” has been relegated to being a trend that has passed.

So on the one hand, I’ve got visitors from Oslo, and on the other a perfectly pleasant man whose job it is to know such things, telling me “No one is interested.” It doesn’t matter how interested my visitors are, and it doesn’t matter all that much how grateful I feel to have had my part in bringing A Course of Love to the world, or how proud I am to have written The Given Self “in my own voice.” Sort of like it doesn’t matter how much joy and delight I get from Henry. It’s still hard.

When I gave my talk last month…I encouraged other people not to let their messy lives stop them, not to fear being who they are right now, and not to forget that there’s wisdom that comes with adversity…not only when you’ve moved through it. It would have been nearly impossible to be there at all if I hadn’t been honest with my host, and it would have been a lot harder to say those things if I’d said no to my visitors from Oslo because of my carpet or the cash in my wallet.

My mother and mother-in-law are both impressed by the visit from the people from Oslo. No one around here thinks of me as special. “Those people would come all this way just to see you?” They don’t have the sense of what’s really happening as did my friend who wrote with the reminder. There may not be scads of people who know about this course or who think The Given Self is the cat’s meow, but those who’ll travel great distances (literally or figuratively) for the draw of spirit, are impressive.

Oh, impressive may not be the best word for it, but shoot, we all feel our draws and take up our travels, and there’s something that feels so darn good when you follow an inner urge. No matter how goofy it may sound to the folks at home who might wonder why you do the thing you’re bound to do, you are, somehow…bound…to make that trip, or that leap, or to say yes.

And when you do it, no matter if it feels like one of those, “I must be out of my mind” things, or even just one of those, “How can I when…” things, it feels pretty damn good.

Tripping

12:30 and I’m home from work early. A stroke of good luck, or timing, or I don’t know what, just that I’m home and no one else is and it’s a gorgeous 75 degree day, no heater needed in the cabin, the door open. I promised myself a half hour here before I go in and begin cleaning up my trip mess. So far have emptied Angie’s big purse onto the bathroom counter so I can get it back to her. I’m not even sure what purse to re-stuff. It’s changed to summer over the weekend. I’ve changed so much I don’t even know what to write. I’m excited inside, sort of like I was before the trip.

I’ve got so many thank you notes to write. How do you thank people adequately for coming home with a feeling of excitement? Newness? Possibility?

This was a trip to talk about A Course of Love but it was NOT about books. It was about people! Just one person and another and another. A whole community of loving people. I am still tripping!

Book Reviews and other Accidents

Read on for a review of The Given Self by Dr. Monte M. Page

Got the paper and brought it in my room. It’s 6:17 and I’m not really disappointed. It’s kind of funny really. The whole “Sunday Life” section of the paper is strangely about half the size of usual and Mary Ann Grossmann has no book column at all. The usual book “page” isn’t even a column long, and most of that is NY Times Best sellers. Below that there is the Literary Calendar of the Week with six items, of which my book signing is one. The order is alphabetical. Underneath that, which I swear I never saw before, are "Hot Tickets", the first of these being the Café Accordion Orchestra; and "Movies opening Friday", which begins with “Youth in Revolt”. That’s it. That’s the book page for today. Oh well. I would have been disappointed on a normal Sunday; disappointed even if I wasn’t hoping to be a little more a part of the book page than this:

Mari Perron: Minnesotan celebrates publication of “The Given Self,” her new book about living authentically. 7 p.m. Thursday, Barnes & Noble, Har Mar Mall, 2100 N. Snelling Ave., Roseville.

Life is accidental in so many ways. I remember writing a while back, that I’d hope a January 7 launch date wouldn’t be in the midst of freezing cold or a blizzard and that people might be ready, after the holiday rush, to think about newness in the new year. I’ve got a feeling the Pioneer Press staff is on vacation. They must be tired after having to fulfill all those deadlines for Christmas books and then the inevitable 10 best of the decade lists for the beginning of 2010.

I think that for me, the “book page” is a little about recognition among peers. You read something like that so faithfully for so long; see the advent of small presses and self-published books beginning to get more space; see the respectful way that good writing and fresh ideas are lauded; the way local authors get some space, and if you’re a writer, you hope to be there someday.

So I don’t know what to call the way I feel, since I wasn’t really expecting much and my feelings more general than specific, more of a longing for that peer recognition than for unknown folks to show up at a book signing.

Peer recognition feels like an honest sort of desire, a natural human longing to be counted among those you are drawn to and admire. You don’t have to be a writer to appreciate good writing or the kind of book review that tells you more than what a book is about. And so with that in mind, I post the only book review that The Given Self has received. It’s one of those that “tells you more.”

The Given Self by Mari Perron
A Review by Monte M. Page, PhD

I am a 74 year old retired Psychology Professor. I have spent a lifetime reading books trying to find out who I am, what the world is and how the two are related. Of course I’ve also tried to experience life full force in a quest for answers to those same questions and it’s been over 30 years since I realized that my quest was a spiritual quest. I don’t read nearly as many books as I used to. Quite frankly, I have found that most authors don’t have the answers to the questions I am asking. I read mostly channeled books these days as I find them to have the seriousness and the depth I’m looking for. For a long time, A Course In Miracles (ACIM) was the center of my spiritual quest.

It was about five years ago that I first encountered the name Mari Perron. She was the “scribe” for a series of channeled books starting with A Course Of Love (ACOL). I have called these books more advanced sequels to ACIM (see my article in “Miracles Magazine” May/June, 2009) Mari tells us that ACOL is intended to do for the heart what ACIM does for the mind (see her article in “Miracles Magazine” Jan/Feb, 2009). ACOL came to me, synchronisticly, just at a time when I was realizing that the heart was more important than the head in spirituality. Indeed, ACOL taught me that the goal of the spiritual quest was wholeheartedness or the integration of head and heart. ACOL was written in a formal, philosophical voice that claimed, along with ACIM, to be Jesus.

Now Mari is back, only this time speaking in her own voice. I had wondered what her life would be after the momentous experience of scribing ACOL. Would she be able to put it into practice or would she end up resentful and depressed as Helen Schucman, scribe of ACIM, had done. The Given Self answers that question. She is doing just fine and has some profound insights to share with the rest of us. She is presenting a new vision of spirituality that is less perfectionistic, lest otherworldly, more feminine, more compassionate and more livable. She is not recommending that we return to the small, separated and fearful self called “ego”.

At the same time she is debunking the myth of enlightened perfection. We have a true self and a given self that should be embraced along with our given world after we have purged the ego. She is really talking about a very advanced spiritual state called “the elevated self of form.” This comes right out of ACOL which, in the latter portions, challenged us to live free and wholehearted and to create a new self and a new world. I have thought for a long time that the upcoming shift in consciousness would be led by women and this book is an example of that. It’s interesting that the scribe of ACOL is the first one to write a book about really putting it into practice.

It is surprising how different in voice and style the ACOL is from “The Given Self”. This is one thing that convinces me that the channeled writings are miraculous. Mari’s own voice is very personal, autobiographical and subjective. This is on purpose and part of her message. She is illustrating that it’s ok to be who you uniquely are, your given self, in her very writing style which I like a lot. She also shows a bit of “attitude” at times. I think this is also deliberate to show that you can be spiritual, have attitude and really care about earth-plane stuff.

As a psychologist, I taught Theories of Personality for over 40 years. A central theme in modern personality theory for over a hundred years, starting with Freud, was the nature of the human self. Freud started out with a very small and almost insulting but somewhat accurate vision of the ego as an adaptive mental structure designed to both cope with and defend against internal and external stress. This is called the modern psychodynamic approach and without this foundation, neither ACIM nor ACOL would be understandable.

The psychodynamic point of view was perpetuated into a second generation called “Neo Freudians” and a third called “Ego Psychologists”. They gave the ego a more positive, powerful and creative spin but they were still talking about a “healthy ego”. Then, along came Humanistic Psychology which elevated the ego to almost saintly status with “self-actualization” and the “fully functioning person” (Carl Rogers).

Alongside this obsession with the ego self, there was a parallel and less mainstream development (starting with Freud’s best student, Carl Jung, moving up through Abraham Maslow and into Transpersonal Psychology) that saw human selfhood as more than mere ego. Jung, for example, saw the ego as a necessary and inevitable part of the human condition, but not who we really are. The” higher Self” (capital S self) was the true goal of human development. The Self was more balanced, whole and spiritual and emerged in the second half of life for those lucky enough to grow into what he called the “individuation process”. Mari’s given self reminds me somewhat of Jung’s Self. It also has the flavor of Rollo May’s “destiny” concept. The given self is the draw that pulls us towards our highest transpersonal development, but at the same time it is our unique and creative response to the genetic, environmental, personal, familial, cultural and national influence on our lives. No human being is without a given self, but it can be ignored, denied or repressed. It can also be confused with the ego.

There are two competing views of the spiritual goal. The first is what I call the “no self” option. I know a great deal about this one having spent nearly five years stuck in the crown chakra of the higher mind and thinking that was the goal of spiritual attainment. This has been imported into contemporary spirituality largely through Buddhism; or at least an Americanized interpretation of Buddhism. This point of view over emphasizes meditation which is merely a tool for opening the higher mind. This point of view says the world, including ourselves, is an illusion so ascend to the mountain top; take an other worldly perspective and leave the mess behind. I’ve been against that perspective for many years and at one time I developed quite a bit of “attitude” about it. I felt that this point of view involved an attachment to higher consciousness and “being enlightened” that was potentially unhealthy and not very practical as a solution to the human condition. I adopted the term “romancing the void” to describe this state of consciousness.

Mari subscribes to the other point of view. Towards the end of her book she states, “where we find ourselves is not a place of higher consciousness devoid of self, but a place of self imbued with higher consciousness.” This understanding goes beyond the open mind to the open heart. The goal of the spiritual life in this point of view is to embrace your true Self, your given self and the world in compassion.

These two points of views may not be incompatible. Rather than being in competition, they may be sequential stages. To me it is very important to get rid of the separated ego and this is a big deal that historically few have achieved. However, with the up-tic in spiritual interest and the advent of teaching tools like ACIM, this is something that is more frequent now. I view ACIM as a high-powered solvent for the ego. It makes sense that purging the mind of the ego would leave an experience of no self. But, is that really the goal of spiritual life? Or do we need to go on and open our hearts and reclaim our given selves as Mari is advocating? This is also, in my view, what Jesus Christ was and is all about.

I have one slight reservation with Mari’s presentation. She conceptualizes our loss of self as “identity theft “and the embrace of the given self as if it were a recovery of what was stolen from us. This is a catchy way of putting it but it doesn’t match my experience. My identity wasn’t stolen by contemporary alternative spirituality; I couldn’t wait to give it away. I did it because I was still rebelling against this crazy world. We are all responsible for our own choices. I think Mari knows this and for the most part we are on the same page, but I just think the identity theft theme might be misunderstood.

This is a very radical book. It probably will be quite controversial. Not everyone, even those in the new consciousness and alternative spirituality movement, will be ready for such a demythologized and liberating point of view. The author admits the book is not perfect. I say that the first editions of anything tend to be flawed. Mari has produced a masterpiece and the flaws are part of what makes it a masterpiece.

Mari is calling for a movement of people who have embraced their given selves and are “coming out” for God and as their given selves. This is not a call for crass and insensitive evangelism but a call to be authentic and to teach by the way we live. But, wait a minute, we can’t just “come out” to those who aren’t ready or won’t listen. Or can we?

I think I like this book so much because it speaks to my heart. It gives me words to understand myself and my own spiritual journey. I’m one who climbed the mountain of higher consciousness. I rode the ascending currents of the subtle mind until I attained “beginners mind.” I became attached to “choiceless awareness.” I became stuck in “the experience of no self.” Eventually I discovered this was a foothill and not the mountain. I then became a recovering mystic on a quest to reclaim my “given self.” On this second more sober trip, with the help of ACIM, ACOL and other tools, I allowed my heart to open and forgive this crazy world. I don’t feel like an “enlightened sage” anymore, but as plain old open-hearted me. I am much happier and much easier to live with.

Where our space is our space

The Given Self website is coming!

There’s snow on the ground this morning – or at least I think it’s snow. It’s little more than a frost, but the street is white with it. I saw the white street before I saw the white path to the woods, which is a little unusual. I’m sharing morning care of our grandson with Donny since his mom went back to work Monday. After the first day, we negotiated, he and I. We made a cooperative agreement that allows for me to still get my quiet hours (at least most days). Today isn’t one of them. That’s why I was in the front of the house rather than in the rear. I like it as a metaphor. The front of the house is the more social side; the back the more private.

I’m starting to work on getting a website posted for The Given Self. I’m trying to do it cheaply. I’ve been frustrated with my web designer because she hasn’t been getting back to me about changes to the Course of Love site. Once again, all I needed to do was get her on the phone to work it out. So we made agreements too.

Who knew such things could work? I’d all but forgotten. You talk to people. You say what you need. You come to agreements. Amazing.

These agreements of how we spend our time – that’s basically what they are – turn out to shape the fabric of our days. Like it says in A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love, all that’s needed is willingness. I’m not sure how to proceed when willingness isn’t there (or I can’t get someone on the phone – whichever the case may be). I’m still not sure how to work with stubbornness or people who balk at everything you say, or want to negotiate everything. I think that’s how I fell away from it…getting tired of it.

Sometimes I want to just make up my mind and run with it. There are areas of life where this is necessary, and they’re in those little sections of our lives, those hours of protected time, when our space is our space. Where we’re not up for grabs. Where we’re not dependent on any relationships but our own with ourselves, or with God, or with the muse.

This is a lot of what The Given Self is about.

An Elbow In the Ribs Can Get You Launched

I’ve fallen into a lull from which I know I need nudging, and not necessarily a gentle one – more like an elbow to the ribs nudging. I sent an email to a friend with “help” in the subject line hoping she’d assist me in getting focused on this book stuff. She called and gave me the kind of nudge that feels gentle at first – the kind that comes of a bunch of casual seeming questions like, “What’s your message?” – and “No, not the long version. What’s your book about in a sentence?” Things like that. I was lying on the couch while we talked but as soon as we hung up I felt that elbow in the ribs. Do you know how hard it is for a book writer to say anything in a sentence? I quickly wrote four pages trying to find my sentence. I came up with things like, “I wrote “The Given Self” because I need a life.”

I also made a document out of endorsements, a review, my bio, and some questions and answers. Then I made the call to the Barnes and Noble’s where I had my first book signing/launch event all those years (12) ago. After getting the recording that invited me to stay on if I wanted to speak to a book seller, I got a very nice young woman and asked if there was an event coordinator on staff. She said there was and gave me her direct dial number. This community relationships manager was thoughtful enough to leave her email on her message. And so, I’ve sent off my first “marketing package.”

I have a second-choice launch site in mind, which I won’t mention since second-choices always seem kind of…well…second best.

Talking to a friend yesterday and saying I was trying to arrange this thing she asked why I need one. I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t have an answer. I can’t even remember now what I said to her. But I know I need an event. It’s like a ritual. It’s a beginning and it’s an ending. It brings closure and it launches the next phase. Okay, it’s a way to get your family, friends, and potential readers in one place and sell books too, but I know it’s for inner reasons this time.

There wasn’t anything like a “launch” for my second book, “A Course of Love.” I didn’t really want one, had no energy to arrange one, and would have shown up only hesitantly if my California publisher New World Library had set one up. I was in the throws of that spiritual thinking that says you don’t do those “commercial” kinds of things for a spiritual book.

Afterwards…after the book came out so quietly that no one knew about it…then I had this feeling of loss…or something. It’s hard to describe or define the need you have for some acknowledgment of the great journey that a book is. Not having any fanfare is kind of liking coming home from a long trip and finding no one waiting at the terminal to welcome you. I can’t say why this is, but I’d just as soon avoid it this time.