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.

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, 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

Accomplishment

Accomplishment

Jesus said that we are never separated from our accomplishment.

I pray that I become aware that I am never separated from my accomplishment. I need help seeing that nothing I have done, or haven’t yet done, can keep me from it. I need reminders that the accomplished self is who I am, even right now, with all my faults and failings. I desire more than anything to carry this idea of being accomplished into my life so that I don’t have to worry about what, or who, I will be. So that I can relax, be as I was created, and serve with the gifts I’ve been given. I exist in unity. In unity, I know I can express who I am safely and beautifully. I can remain as I was created and grow into my full expression of that creation. I do not want to lie to myself and pretend to feel this way when I do not, and so I know I’m looking for the grace that will take me beyond belief to knowing and living my accomplishment. That, for me, is the practice.~

Our learning has us used to thinking that what we would like to accomplish stands apart from us in time. Someday…we’ll be accomplished. We believe that when our treasures, such as talent, have come into full expression (when that book is published!)…then we’ll be the accomplished. When we have reached enlightenment…then we’ll be accomplished.

But this belief in accomplishment says I Am rather than I will be.

Our beliefs can tell us of all that can be accomplished – or – of what is already accomplished. In this idea of accomplishment, stated as a belief and a practice, we are given the example of the tree that exists fully accomplished within the seed. The tree grows and changes but that does not mean that it does not begin and remain what it is.

There is a great emphasis from Jesus on time within these beliefs. Learning is what takes place in time and is what it is for. Accomplishment exists in Unity, devoid of time. It takes some getting used to – to envision our potential as something that is already accomplished – but the germ of the idea, like that of the acorn that becomes an oak, is that of an already existing accomplishment that doesn’t depend on time. Our accomplishment doesn’t wait but is fully there. It grows into it’s own…into it’s full expression.

Next I’ll share a couple of ways I’ve seen this belief (or the lack of it) affecting my life.

(Beliefs and Practice from The Treatises of A Course of Love, "A Treatise on Unity and Its Recognition".)