I wrote about defensiveness and its proximity to projection in my newsletter this morning; please feel free to sign up.
When I become responsible for defensiveness, I project less, and the less I project, the more love and peace become the salient qualities of our shared living.
And, at some point in the happiness that arises thereby, I catch a glimpse of choicelessness and realizes that I have finally reached the beginning – the literal only step – of the journey-that-neither-begins-nor-ends.
Choicelessness is scary. Our conditioning is premised on concepts of free will; the idea that there is always something we can do in any situation to maximize it for our benefit (and the benefit of those we deign to love). An independent functional self is the literal ground of this belief system; neither can exist without the other.
To realize that there is no such self is – to the idea that there is such a self – utterly terrifying. Small wonder we tend not to question it or at least not question it very deeply. It is the void: empty, meaningless, ever ready to devour life whole, leaving nothing. Of course we turn away; of course we try to squirrel away a crumb.
We have to look at the void. But here’s the thing. At some point in the “Void-is-Horror” narrative, the narrative falls away and it is seen at last that the void is not dead; it is not nothing. Rather, it is a generative emptiness, utterly creative, utterly giving. And the love it extends – because it does not perceive differences – is truly unconditional.
This is so far beyond being a good person or a holy person or an awakened person. None of that matters at all. And it is a gift rather than a reward. Our work is not to earn anything, much less deserve anything, but simply to undo everything – everything – that obstructs our remembrance of this all-loving generative stillness.
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 thing the past has taught, nor one belief you ever learned before from anything. Forget this world, this course, and come with wholly empty hands unto your God (W-pI.189.7:2-5).
Are we ready for it?
It is for this moment, this question, that our study and practice of A Course in Miracles is given, and it is to this moment that it endlessly delivers us.
In a sense, to be crucified is simply to be yoked to body in the same way a body can be nailed to a cross. There is no escape, only death. Everything dies, blows away in dust, and is forgotten.
Yet resurrection is a form of remembering. It is a restoration to mind the knowledge of its wholeness, which is not associated with bodies at all, and thus beyond birth and death and the trials in between.
Thus, Easter is neither a day nor an event, much less a holy day or event. Rather, it is a way of thinking for which we are responsible, and for which we choose to be responsible because what else could love possibly want?
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It can be but myself I crucify.
Love the “void is horror” description.
I think its a razor’s edge sometimes.
The idea of “I need do nothing” balanced with “I am in charge of
my reality”.
In a way (that makes no sense to the egoic self), doing nothing is exactly HOW we become responsible for our perception of reality.
The perception is all that is really within our control, so to speak; reality itself hums along just fine. The idea we can be in or out of, or more or less in sync with, reality is a projection of the separated self idea.
Thanks for sharing! Hope all we well, Amy.
~ Sean
Thank you Sean, very clearly stated. This is also key in Buddhism: impermanence and emptiness. As the Heart Sutra says: “Form is emptiness, emptiness is form. Form is nothing but emptiness and emptiness is nothing but form”.
A minute before I read your post I received the following text from a Krishnamurti Foundation newsletter:
“To respond adequately, completely to a crisis – the word ‘responsibility’ means that. I cannot respond completely if I am frightened. I cannot respond completely if I am seeking pleasure. I cannot respond totally if my action is routine, repetitive, traditional, conditioned. So, to respond adequately to a challenge means that the ‘me’, which is the past, must end.
from Dialogue 3 with Allan W. Anderson in San Diego, California, 19 February 1974”
Well, I do not believe in coincidences…
Yes! No coincidences, just our openness to the cosmos and truth ever-widening all the time 🙂
Ximena Davila, a teacher and thinker whose work I admire very much, talks about the “vanity” of wanting to be present. She points out that only when we have emptied ourself of ourself are we able to be actually meaningfully present to the other – to really see them and know them and be of service to them, and that it is in this selfless sharing and extension that true happiness is found. But if we want it as our accomplishment, then . . . we’re still carrying ego’s water.
I am grateful to be surrounded by so many teachers – including you, Janine – who help me shed those painful ego layers and open, little by little, baby step by baby step, to the utter unconditional grace that we are always offering one another.
Love,
Sean
Yet resurrection is a form of remembering. It is a restoration to mind the knowledge of its wholeness, which is not associated with bodies at all, and thus beyond birth and death and the trials in between.
Very cool. Feel free to join us here: oneself.mn.co