There is nothing wrong with wanting a better body, more money, wilder and more vivid sensual experiences, awesome health, unbridled optimism. Part of being a body – and part of being a separate self – means wanting those things. It is those things.

It’s just that those things don’t exist and so, in the ultimate sense, they aren’t going to make you happy or satisfied. They’re sort of like mosquitoes. You brush one away and scratch the itch, but then another mosquito lands. On and on it goes. You can never swat all the mosquitoes.

There are helpful life hacks that can modify and amend our apparent physical experience. Diets, exercise regimens, meditation, psychotherapy, investment strategies, yoga . . . truly the list is endless. And partaking of it is fine. It’s more than fine. Given a buffet, why not help yourself to the myriad dishes?

Yet all these methods – including A Course in Miracles – subtly reinforce the very problem that gives rise to all the dissatisfaction and grievances that led to our searching for them. They take as fact the existence of the separate self. And so long as we are working on that self – even if very subtly – then we are going to experience depression and guilt and fear. Separation is depressing and guilt-inducing and fearful.

What am I saying here? I’m saying that if you feel like running, run, but don’t expect running to reveal the face of God. Even if you do happen to see the face of God while running, it’s not happening because you’re running. It’s happening because you are ready to see that you are always seeing the face of God. The same with becoming a vegetarian or a peace activist or a poet or anything else. Illusory projects directed at an illusory self will only yield illusory results. Those results come and go. Chasing after results – really, just believing there is one who can chase results – is the separation.

All we are doing in our study of A Course in Miracles is looking into the possibility that the separate self concept is an illusion. If it is, then the anguish that attends it is illusory also, and we are free. Is that so hard?

Often, when I say this, this way, someone asks: and what if we are wrong? What if the separate self is real?

To which the best answer is: how would you know? And who cares (with an emphasis on “who” rather than “cares”)?

If taking the separate self as real is the end of our inquiry, then that is a positive development!. It means that we can turn away from nondual paths and practices and seek out alternatives that are more consistent with what we have discovered. There is nothing wrong – and a great deal good and right – about that.

In either case, truly, there is nothing to fear or be worked up about. If we reach the Gates of Heaven, wonderful! If we don’t, wonderful! I love to bake bread; I have become somewhat skilled at it over the years. The apparent mistakes – the loaves that didn’t rise, the spices that didn’t mix well, the sweeteners that overwhelmed the dough – were all “errors” that informed my eventually consistent baking. Seen in that light, can I really say they were “errors?” I learned from them. Was there not – is there not now – simply baking?

If your life sucks, then go ahead and make it better. There is nothing wrong with this. But spare a thought for the underlying conceptual structure that makes your suffering possible: the discrete and separate entity known as the self, alone in a world that wishes it ill. Can you really and truly find that self? And if you can’t, why are you so worked up about its so-called problems?

Have your being outside this body of birth and death and all your problems will be solved. They exist because you believe yourself born to die. Undeceive yourself and be free. You are not a person.
~ Nisargadatta

Although the phrase would have been alien to him, Nisargadatta is talking about level confusion here. Level confusion is basically a way of saying that we are confused about what we are and our confusion has consequences.

Level confusion is like looking in the mirror, believing the image is the actual self, smearing toothpaste all over the glass with a toothbrush, and then wondering why your teeth still have caramel corn in them.

It is a central metaphysical tenet of A Course in Miracles that we are not bodies, but free (W-pI.199.8:7-8). This is true because a body is a container, a limit, and what you are cannot be contained or limited.

Nisargadatta again:

The person merely appears to be, like the space within the pot appears to have the shape and volume and smell of the pot. See that you are not what you believe yourself to be. Fight with all the strength at your disposal against the idea that you are nameable and describable. You are not. Refuse to think of yourself in terms of this or that.

Again, Nisardatta is not a student of A Course in Miracles and so the language and underlying metaphysics he uses are different. But the fundamental concept is not. Nisargadatta’s “person” is the level of the body and all its thoughts, ideals, goals, dreams, desires, et cetera. It is at this level that ACIM’s ego operates. Indeed, the world and the body are literally the ego’s formal argument for its existence.

The level of spirit is nondualistic, abstract and invulnerable. It was not born and it will not die. It is perfectly still and endlessly creative. It is the freedom to which both ACIM and Nisargadatta point.

Level confusion is when we conflate the attributes of one level with the other. For example, we walk up to somebody sobbing at a funeral and tell them that “death isn’t real.” Or we pretend our writing is being channeled through Jesus or another ascended master.¹

This reflects a confusion in our identity because of the implication that what what we are in truth is the same at both levels, so that “what is amiss at one level can adversely affect another” (T-2.IV.2:2). Your cancer – or your headache – are not spiritual problems. Jesus is a symbol in the dream. He is not a figure outside it waiting for you to wake up and join him in a crusade of lovingkindness.

Thus, we are not called to deny or ignore either our bodies or the world (which in fact are the same phenomenon, the one bringing the other forth). Rather, we are learning to see them in a new way. Our goal is to take them seriously as learning devices, rather than literally as the be-all, end-all of existence and experience.

The body is merely part of your experience in the physical world. Its abilities can be and frequently are overevaluated. However, it is almost impossible to deny its existence in this world. Those who do so are engaging in a particularly unworthy form of denial.

T-2.IV.3:8-11

The metaphysics of A Course in Miracles posit two levels of experience: the bodily level and the spiritual level. Mind – which is thought – is the author of both.

When thought represents the bodily level is “makes” the physical world, which is lower than the spiritual level, which thought “creates” (T-1.I.12:2-3).²

In this way, A Course in Miracles perpetuates a dualism long inherent in Christianity (especially its Platonic applications): namely, that body and spirit are separate, the latter is lovely and beloved of God, and the former unworthy and despicable. As Saint Paul wrote in his letter to the Galatians:

. . . the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.

Gal 5:17

Here is how A Course in Miracles puts it:

You see the flesh or recognize the spirit. There is no compromise between the two. If one is real the other must be false, for what is real denies its opposite.

T-31.VI.1:1-3

This implies a clear, non-negotiable and fundamental division that would have been very familiar to Paul (and, in its way, to Plato)! The options are body or spirit and the game is all or nothing. Choose one and the other is utterly and instantly foreclosed to you.

Nor is the course – like the overarching Christian tradition from which it arises – vague about which one it thinks you should choose.

No one who carries Christ in him can fail to recognize Him everywhere. Except in bodies. And as long as he believes he is in a body, where he thinks he is He cannot be.

T-25.in.2:1-3

It is important to understand that this binary – this high-stakes choice between spirit and body – is a metaphor that appears within the world. It, too, is part of the dream.

Being clear about this is essential to translating experience from guilt and fear to a happy dream in which it is at last possible for God to take the last step.³

Thus, a primary learning goal of the course, is to clear up what it calls “level confusion” – which is another way of saying, being clear about what is a dream and what is truth so that we remember what we are in truth.

How simple is salvation! All it says is what was never true is not true now, and never will be . . . How hard is it to see that what is false can not be true, and what is true cannot be false?

T-31.I.1:1-2, 7

But remember (sorry to keep hammering away at this point): all of this confusion occurs within the dream. It’s good to be clear and to understand but . . . all of that clarification and understanding is still just the dream. Rather than confuse it with awakening from the dream, we should simply allow it to make us happier in the context of the dream. A Course in Miracles has no other objective or function.

This discernment between what is false and what is true involves the rearrangement of perception so that body and spirit are equally held in “true perspective.” This heals us because sickness comes from “confusing the levels,” which is another way of saying “seeing them wrongly” (T-1.I.23:1-2).

This Mind/Matter split is a rigid binary from which A Course in Miracles does not deviate, though it does allow that when we accept it – when the levels are not confused but held in right perspective – healing can occur and manifest at both levels. That is, once you’ve turned your mind over to the Holy spirit, then your body . . .

. . . becomes perfect in the ability to serve an undivided goal. In conflict-free and unequivocal response to mind with but the thought of freedom as its goal, the body serves, and serves its purpose well.

W-pI.199.6:3-5

Thus, the body becomes a means to remember love and become happy in its remembering. It is neither an impediment to love nor a necessary element of love. It has no more importance to love than a fork has to the taste of the apple pie you’re eating. It’s just a means to an end that itself becomes a means to the greater end of happiness and, finally, oneness.

The body is the level of differences and distinctions. The problem is not that we see the distinctions – that’s inevitable because of bodies. It’s what bodies do. Rather, the problem is the underlying belief (in mind) that the distinctions are valuable in and of themselves. That is how they become real.

This is why we say that the real work of healing is at the level of mind, not the appearances (or symptoms) reflective of what mind is doing.

Thus, falling in love with a special someone is neither good news nor bad. Being healed from cancer means absolutely nothing with respect to God’s relationship with you. Channeled texts are not a sign of something you did or did not do in a past life. Waking up is neither better nor worse than not waking up.

God does not perceive differences at all (e.g., M-28.5:1-2). This is a radically different kind of love than what we experience and imagine in bodies in the world.

Bodies cannot get sick and so cannot be healed and so diagnoses of any kind – cancer-free or eight weeks left to live – are devoid of meaning.

Bodies are images that neither live nor die. They do not even have this life, let alone past lives.

Bodies – and the selves that appear confined to them – neither sleep or awaken, and so enlightenment (or any spiritual goal at all) is meaningless.

It’s at this juncture that folks tend to throw up their hands. If it’s all meaningless, then what is the point? Why do anything?

That’s the ego crying out for salvation. That’s its last dying wail, its plea for relevance. That’s ego begging you not to turn away from it forever.

“What’s the point” and “why do anything” are questions that only make sense from the perspective of ego. If you can see that – or be open to seeing that – then you can also see that Spirit has no interest in taking your so-called life away from you.

Rather, it will transform how you see that life, and in doing so teach you that seeing is what matters, not what is seen. And then it will teach you what vision is, and gently help you shift “seeing” to vision. Vision is what makes us happy.

The world will be transformed before your sight, cleansed of all guilt and softly brushed with beauty. The world contains no fear that you laid not upon it.

T-19.IV.A.15:2-3

Moreover, this transformed vision of the world is not ours alone. It is shared.

Love, too, would set a feast before you, on a table covered with a spotless cloth, set in a quiet garden where no sound but singing and a softly joyous whispering is ever heard. This is feast that honors your holy relationship, and at which everyone is welcome as an honored guest.

T-19.IV.A.16:1-2

In this meeting place we are joined with Christ, in fulfillment of an ancient promise (T-19.IV.A.16:4). Critically, this union is not predicated on either bodies or the world.

. . . would I offer you my body, *knowing its littleness? Or would I teach that bodies cannot keep us apart? No one can die for anyone and death does not atone for sin.

T-19.IV.A.17:5-6, 8

When we align with spirit, the way we perceive shifts, and in our shifted perception we see that loss is not possible. The happiness engendered in this insight – which is quiet, serious, and still – becomes the space in the false bondage of confusion slips off us.

“God takes the last step” is a promise made in terms that are understandable to bodies in the world. It is only at that level that we actually need help, for it is that level at which we think we live. It is at that level that we need the illusion of body and spirit as separate levels at all.

In fact, there is neither God nor steps nor firsts nor lasts. To ego this statement makes no sense. To what you are in truth, this statement does not exist. Therein lies the peace offered by A Course in Miracles.

1. I know, I know. This is a controversial example! Still, I stand by it. Attributing ACIM to Jesus is classic level confusion. But this is not a criticism of Helen Schucman; level confusion happens to all of us to one degree or another. It is a form of projection from which nobody is immune.[↩]
2. This is an old idea in the western philosophical canon; it derives from Plato’s ideas about Form. The world we sense is riddled with error; the real world is perfect and filled with Forms (or ideas) that are infinite and eternal. These Forms have correlates in the world of the senses, but those correlates are ultimately unsatisfying because they are fundamentally illusory. Through reason and logic we ascend from mere perception to actual knowledge of the pure Forms. This is the source of true happiness.[↩]
3. Of this “last step” we generally do not speak because it is literally unspeakable (e.g., T-1.II.2:7). It’s a good example of level confusion – trying to translate what is perfectly abstract into clunky and imperfect material terms and experiences.[↩]

We live in a state of self-imposed exile from God’s Love. It hurts; there is a better way. Are we ready to accept that way and go home?

A Course in Miracles is a way to undo the effects of our supposed descent into fear. It helpfully frames this undoing – this journey from darkness to Light, from separation to the quiet stillness of our God-created being – as a two-step process.

The escape from darkness involves two stages: First, the recognition that darkness cannot hide. This step usually entails fear. Second the recognition that there is nothing you want to hide even if you could. This step brings escape from fear. When you have become willing to hide nothing, you will not only be willing to enter into holy communion but will also understand peace and joy.

T-1.IV.1:1-5

The “darkness” referred to here might be thought of as “lack of knowing.” We have forgotten what we are in truth, and this fundamental error makes knowledge of truth impossible.

This error – this confusion of identity – is both made and sustained through projection and denial. We don’t see hatred in ourselves, we see it in folks outside of us. That’s projection. We frame the violence of yelling at our child as justified under certain circumstances. That’s denial.

When we realize that projection and denial don’t actually work, we become fearful. Deeply fearful. It means we have to look at hatred and violence in our own self. We have to own those feelings in our heart, our mind.

Think of a messy room. We don’t like looking at the mess, so we turn off the light. Now we don’t see the mess because of the darkness. But the mess is still there.

That’s the first step, or stage, of the escape from darkness – the recognition that darkness doesn’t actually solve the problems it pretends to hide. Therefore, it doesn’t really hide at all. It can’t.

The second step of the escape is the realization that even if darkness could hide something, there is nothing that we want to hide.

This is the insight that healing – or salvation – comes from releasing literally everything that appears to constitute the egoic self. There is no secret, memory, mystery, goal or fantasy that we would keep from being raised to light. We commit to releasing every last shred of guilt, hate and fear. We will look at all of it.

To learn this course requires willingness to question every value that you hold. Not one can be kept hidden and obscure it will jeopardize your learning.

T-24.in.2:1-2

When we say “yes” to this condition – when we are exactly that willing – then darkness no longer has any hold on our mind. It doesn’t work and that’s okay. We wouldn’t want it to.

Thus begins a sort of spiritual psychotherapy. We search for every scrap of resentment and hostility and dysfunction we can find and offer it to the Holy Spirit. If we’re scared in any way – however it appears, whatever the form – we look at it. If we’re hateful, we look at it. We look at it because looking at it is how it is undone. In the light of holiness – which is our willingness – nothing remains to mar the perfection of love. It is all undone.

As we do this work, we gradually remember the promise inherent in the first principle of miracles: there is no such as thing as a large or a small problem, and so they are all healed with equal ease. “All expressions of love are maximal” (T-1.I.1:).

No matter how egregious the hate appears, no matter how terrified we are of what we perceive in our self, love simply washes it away.

Why? Because it all arises from the same basic problem – the mistaken belief that what we are is a vulnerable body in a dangerous world. The miracle gently undoes this over and over, and eventually – in time, in bodies – we realize that we are ready to go home to God. We are ready to be done with piecemeal healing.

Empty your mind of everything it thinks is either true or false, or good or bad, of every thought it judges worthy, and all the ideas of which it is ashamed. Hold onto nothing. Do not bring with you one thought the past has taught, nor one belief you ever learned before from anything. Forget this world, forget this course, and come with wholly empty hands unto your God.

W-pI.189.7:2-5

And there – and then – because it is God’s Will and we share that Will – we remember that we are creations of love given only to create as we are created. And all is well and will be well and was well, forever and forever, amen.

A small group of friends and I have committed to doing the ACIM workbook this year, a lesson a day, and meeting once a week online to talk about how that experience is going, what we are learning, what is being revealed and so forth.

Today I did lesson one, which is a kind of simple yet elegant introduction to the function of A Course in Miracles.

We have these bodies and they bring forth a world. If we are attentive, we see that another way to say this is that the world brings forth these bodies. The two are in a consensual interplay that generates an apparently endless stream of images, sensations and stories.

All the first lesson asks us to do is consider that the various aspects of this streaming world have no meaning. We are not asked to deny their existence or relabel them as illusions or anything. Let them be.

We are simply being asked to consider that the world – which includes the body – has no meaning.

Of course, this is not strictly true. The world and the body mutually bringing one another forth have the meaning we give them. But who is this “we?”

The meaning given by ego – by the self that believes it is contained in a vulnerable body in an often-dangerous world – is wrong in a way that hurts.

It is this error that A Course in Miracles is given to correct.

When we remember what we are in truth – Creations of a Living God for whom only Love is real – then we will be able to envision the world and the body in clearer gentler ways. In essence, we will see past them to the Light of Creation Itself.

Yet for now – as near as we are still to the beginning – it is sufficient to merely be open-minded about meaninglessness.

When we can accept meaninglessness (which is easier to say than to do), then our openness to actual meaning – to God’s meaning, Love’s meaning, Truth’s meaning, One’s meaning – gently expands and peace and joy intensify accordingly.

This is the other way, upon which we have taken the first steps.

One way to know if ACIM is working in our apparent lives is to simply notice how happy or unhappy we are. All the course wants for us is a natural, serious and sustainable happiness. We bring this forth together as students committed to our own learning in communion with our like-minded brothers and sisters.

Together, we are an oasis of happiness and peace – of learning – welcoming all passers-by, because giving welcome is how we are made welcome in the Kingdom of Heaven, which is Love. Together we are not alone. Together we are the Kingdom.

I wish you a quiet, creative and devoted ACIM practice in 2021, one that brings you as much vision and inner peace as you are ready to accept for this hurt and dying world. I am deeply grateful for your presence, and offer my own in return. If I can be helpful in any way, reach out.

Love,
Sean