LIVING & LEARNING
called the ‘Obstacles to Peace’ that explores our devotion to our physical and psychological bodies, the bodies we hallucinated when we accepted the ego’s lie that we had separated from our oneness and deserved punishment for our sin. According to this underlying myth at the foundation of the Course, the repressed guilt we feel over our alleged crime combined with the continued appeal of our bogus individuality keeps us perpetuating a story arc of birth, physical and psychological pleasure and, ultimately, suffering, and death that both horrifies and enthralls us. For months I had been watching the
ego thought system, threatened by the Course’s truth, attack my body, hell-bent on proving its fearful reality. Even as I asked for help from my inner teacher, the part of my mind also currently activated in the stranger beside me, sat in absolute shock that a person it loved could die, and, most importantly, that its own body that appeared to house its spirit might at any moment meet the same fate despite its best efforts to do the right thing. I recalled an interview with a locally
famous dance instructor I had conducted for a newspaper article I’d written. The dancer had grown up in Mongolia and escaped massacre by a warring tribe with his family only to end up in Europe imprisoned in a Nazi camp before American liberation and immigration to
New York and eventually Denver. Despite the horrific trials of his early life, in our interview he kept returning to the death of his brother last year, followed by his own recent brush with mortality. “He dropped dead”, he said, again and
again. I had given him my fingers to cling to. “I almost died”, he said, over and over, speaking of his heart attack. His eyes looked like I imagined the man’s sitting beside me in the diner would look if I dared to catch them head on. Pupils like black holes. Confidence in anything and everything shattered. How can a world exist without you?
How can a world exist without me? A Course in Miracles answer is always the same. What world? The dualistic world we projected when the mind split is no more real than the bodies we projected and continue to project to populate it. And yet, we so covet the idea of our unique identities, and so fear the fantasised retribution of a wrathful God we invented, that we continue to believe in the vulnerability of the physical shell we seem to inhabit. No matter how much we read about and try to remember our oneness when confronted by a loved one’s death or our own catastrophic illness, we cower in fear, and cling to our identities as if they could offer dear life, as if they could offer any life at all. In the final section of the Obstacles to Peace, Jesus tells us that our identification
with the body, our paradoxical fear of and attraction to pain, is answered in the holy instant when we call on the memory of wholeness in our mind to help us look at the denied guilt we project on our bodies – attacking another’s as I do when guilt surfaces and I believe my daughter or my husband have failed to meet my expectations, ignored my feelings, or deliberately undermined me, or attacking my own as I do through sickness, injuries, ageing, and ultimately death. We can’t get out of here and home
to God alone. We must look at the relationships seemingly in our face. We must recognise the underlying guilt over the one true problem expressing itself again in an attack on your shell or my own, and choose again for our right mind. By watching our negative feelings arise
day in and day out, moment to moment, and returning them to the light of the right mind, our belief in what your body seems to be doing to me, or my body seems to be doing to you or to me begins to fade. Eventually, we will stand hand and
hand at the threshold of the oneness we never left, ready once more to allow the magnificence of our true nature, completely certain that we give up nothing by disappearing into the one eternal love, and instead find everything that seems to have been missing for such
a long time in this dream of specifics that never has a happy ending. The man at the counter beside me
asked for wasabi and finished his lunch, staring out into the space that seemed to have claimed his friend, thinking about a car parked in his driveway he may never be able to bring himself to start. I wanted to ask about his friend, let him cling to my fingers if it would help – but a part of my mind still believes I don’t know him. I gathered up my pad and pen, paid my bill, plunged out into the cold, slipped into my car, and drove home.
This is an edited extract from Susan’s new book, Extraordinary Ordinary Forgiveness, published by O-Books – an intimate, humorous account of one
woman’s journey harnessing the extraordinary power of A Course in Miracles’ forgiveness in an ordinary life.
A student and teacher of A Course in Miracles, Susan has been blogging for two years about its transformative mind healing and she is co-founder and faculty member of the School of
Reason for A Course in Miracles teachers and students in Denver, Colorado, USA. She appeared in the documentary A Course in Miracles: The Movie.
THE MANIFESTATION PROCESS™ Full Day WORKSHOP with JULIET MARTINE
Would you like to manifest a great new job, loving relationship, improved health, or fi nancial prosperity? Have you seen ‘The Secret’ but fi nd it doesn’t always work?
That’s because we’ve all been missing a vital step. At these exciting new THE MANIFESTATION PROCESS™ Workshops, leading expert Juliet Martine will share with you where we’ve all been getting it wrong, and exactly how to get it right.
Learn Juliet’s ground-breaking new 4 step process to successfully and easily manifest what you want into your life as a matter of course rather than effort. Guaranteed to blow your mind, this life-changing workshop will have you manifesting what you want into your life within a matter of hours!
“OMG! My new job just appeared out of nowhere! I wouldn’t have believed it possible before now. Unbelievable, miraculous! I can’t believe how easily things are fl owing into my life now. Thankyou!” Jenn. “This process smashes ‘The Secret’ for revelations and is bound to take the world by storm!” Kara
Workshop Dates: Syd (April 10, June 19) Melb (July 24), Launc (May 28), Hob (May 29), Gold Coast (Aug 7), Perth (Aug 21)
Info & bookings
www.julietmartine.com.au or contact 0413 199649 for further information
Download this magazine as an e-book:
livingnow.com.au
Australasian College of Kinesiology Mastery Accredited Professional Kinesiology Training
Start an excing, rewarding and fulfilling career today with our Internaonally Recognised Kinesiology Training Programs. Our unique and first class training empowers students to become independent Kinesiology Praconers and/or Instructors, all within 12-24 months.
In partnership with ICPKP Australasia RTO No:90826 and VETAB accredited, ACKM offers the following qualificaons:
Cerficate IV in Kinesiology (HLT42807) Diploma of Kinesiology (HLT51507)
Plus
• Cerficate in Touch For Health (IKC) • Kinesiology Instructor Training Program (IKC) • Short Courses in Self Help & Wellness
Become The Best Possible You! FREE WORKSHOP An Introducon to Kinesiology, a mind body approach in helping you reach your true potenal.
Book Now! -
www.ackm.edu.au
www.ackm.edu.au For more informaon, course outlines & an invitaon to
ACKM’s FREE workshop call us on: (02) 9438 3833 APRIL 2011 11
90314i137
87993i133
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21