Part of my practice of A Course in Miracles revolves around questioning – questioning myself, questioning my practice, my motivations, my goals. I don’t do this to be mean or judgmental. Sometimes that happens, of course. But mostly it is undertaken with the Holy Spirit, and the objective is simply to ensure that I am not wandering too far from the path that will lead me home. It is a way of being vigilant against mind-wandering.
The text and workbook lessons of A Course in Miracles often encourage us to be vigilant in this regard, always with a goal of deepening our relationship with the decision-making mind. This can be a long process, subject to fits and starts, and not without its moments of confusion and misapplication. That’s how it goes in the world of form! But that is okay. When we make the decision to utilize this spiritual tradition as our means of awakening, all else needed will be given in time. Indeed, questioning is sometimes the means by which both the need for the gift – and the gift itself – is revealed to us.
Critical to this process of questioning is the habit of doing it with a power that is not oneself – that is, doing it with the Holy Spirit or Jesus (or another spiritual symbol if that is more helpful). When we venture into unhealed neighborhoods, a healed guide is not thing to have! It helps ward off the subtle patterns of egoic thinking that can neatly unravel our progress and learning.
So questioning, then, is a form of vigilance – of form of accepting the gifts of God rather than resisting them. It is not the only form of vigilance – prayer, meditation, walks in the forest, Emily Dickinson poems et cetera abound – but it is a helpful one. It reflects our faith that we are not bereft, that if we slip we will be helped upright, and that no adverse consequences attend the appearance of our imperfection. For we are just as God created us, and this is all that we are bound to remember, and all that we need to remember.
