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 and Disclaimers

My second example of Accomplishment (stated as a belief and a practice in "A Treatise on Unity and Its Recognition, third installment on Accomplishment).

In Brene Brown’s book The Gifts of Imperfection, she tells a story of a woman who made fantastic jewelry. The woman had a booth at a conference Brown attended, and she was excited to go look at her wares. She was wearing a pair of her earrings. But when she talked to the woman, saying how gifted she was and didn’t she just love being a jewelry artist, the woman said, “Oh, I’m not really an artist. I don’t make a living at it. It’s just something I like to do.”

I’ve been like that too.

Now, this isn’t all the time. But when I’m with a friend who introduces me as someone who has published six books – the friend standing there, sort of glittering with pride – the first thing I want to say is, “Oh yes, well, my books aren’t popular and I don’t make a living at it.” Why do I want to do that? It’s like I want to cut short any admiration, any assumption that, having published six books, I’m actually a successful writer. And I’m as quick to say I’m not a spiritual teacher if an introduction implies that I am. You’d think I have no sense of accomplishment.’

It’s very odd because I do feel accomplished…and I don’t…which I think is what the whole thing we call “integration” is all about.

I know people just bursting with wisdom and talent and a desire to give. They know full well that they’re bursting with it, but what they don’t know is how to share it, how to share who they are. So they’re wondering – when am I going to be accomplished? Or when am I going to know who I am and what is mine to give? It isn’t a matter of not feeling wise or talented or spirited. It’s not that we have no sense of our accomplishment or that we don’t know we’re beloved. It’s more that we feel a vocational disconnect.

My friends who are bursting with wisdom, talent and a desire to give are doing it all the time. At least they’re inspiring me! Knowing them makes me feel absolutely grateful! I’m just delighted that we’re connected, that they share with me, that I know these incredible people.

Any of us can have a sense of our worthiness as a person or of the true importance of our work and yet feel this disconnect that leaves us feeling shy about claiming our accomplishment.

Maybe we’re not going to fulfill our potential until we find a way of expressing our inner sense of accomplishment. Or maybe we’re in a gestation period. It could be we’re finding our wings by sharing with each other. And it could be that we’re living on the edge, the cusp of the new, where who we are is a little ahead of the times. There’s all kinds of reasons of timing for the feeling of “not there yet.” Many of them are soulful. We’re finding our way.

Of course, this belief in accomplishment doesn’t only apply to worldly things, but it is in the way we see ourselves and our expression in the world – not just in the big stuff, but in our daily lives – that some of us most need to live out this belief.

It does no good to beat ourselves up for behaving foolishly. Disclaimers aren’t a great thing. They do just what the word implies – they disclaim who we are. I know this. I don’t plan to do my disclaiming thing anymore. I don’t need to hinder myself.

But I want to acknowledge that many of us have an inner yearning that says we must meet with that which we need to feel fulfilled. Essential worthiness and need fulfillment aren’t contradictory.

The story isn’t that of seeing one side of the coin as “bad” and the flip side as “good” but holding the tension of our yearning and our accomplishment.

We are enough, we are accomplished, even when we hinder ourselves, behave badly, or disclaim our gifts. That’s what we are to accept. To look at accomplishment, to see it, to catch a glimpse of how we feel, of what leads us to say the things we do, to demur or to boast or do any of those things that aren’t quite true to who we are, is to begin the work of acknowledging that we’re already accomplished, and no more so than anyone else.

I’ve seen that when I’m standing firmly in accomplishment, it results in a feeling of empowerment. I know that’s what I’ve felt from time to time, and it’s a wonderful feeling.

But it comes and goes.

This is why I’ve turned to practice. Why we practice. So that when such feelings arise, they stay a while.

We are already accomplished. The practice is for our benefit. So that we might feel empowered more often. This is great for us personally, and it aids us in giving our gifts to the world. Without that empowered feeling, we struggle more.

But we’re still accomplished. Born that way. Can’t ruin it.


Next – this belief/practice as it relates to our movement from learning to discovery.

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".)

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.