A Journey without Distance

Love is Perfect Stillness . . .

It feels as if we are on a journey. We are lost and becoming found. We are finding our way through a maze. We are scaling a ladder to Heaven. We are fallen, exiled, separated . . .

I write this way often. It's okay to use metaphors; they help us understand one another. And communication matters.

But in truth, the experience to which our study and practice of A Course in Miracles leads is less like travel and more like learning how to stand quietly in place. In stillness we give attention to what arises, allow spirit rather than ego to recognize it, and then watch as it, too, drifts away.

A Course in Miracles suggests that when we approach this juncture, this stillness, life can feel discombobulated. We know where we're going - and we're ready to go, we're more than ready - but we're still close to what we think will be left behind.

The gravitational pull of illusion remains tangible.

In the transition there is a period of confusion, in which a sense of actual disorientation may occur. But fear it not, for it means only that you have willing to let go your hold on the distorted frame of reference that seemed to hold your world together (T-16.VI.7:4-5).

All our travel metaphors are misleading because they imply we are in motion: that we are actually going somewhere or doing something. But in fact, we are simply experiencing "a transition in the perspective of reality" (T-16.VI.7:1).

In other words, nothing at all is happening save that an error in perception is being gently corrected. We aren't in charge of correction; we simply consent to it. And then begin to realizes what it means to see from our own holiness.

Really, we stop falling for the lies of the ego. We realize (and accept) that only "Truth is true" (T-14.II.2:5).

Does this make sense to you? Does it resonate, even faintly?

Together, we have begun the last steps of what A Course in Miracles calls a "journey without distance" (T-8.VI.9:7). And rather than fuss about the external details - who is with us, who has left us, what we're carrying and so forth - now is the time to simply focus on this last motionless journey: this brief passage across the bridge that isn't real, this brief ascent up a hill that doesn't exist, this return to a home that we never left.

Delay will hurt you now more than before, only because you realize it is delay, and that escape from pain is really possible. Find hope and comfort, rather than despair in this . . . you are no longer wholly insane, and you would soon recognize the guilt of self-betrayal for what it is (T-16.VI.8:6-8).

Be attentive then. Be kind; be helpful. Forgive yourself quickly and generously when you seem to fall short. There are no mistakes in salvation! (M-3.1:6) There is not gap between us, much less between our self and our Creator. Let the truth of what you are undo every lie, secret and problem you would place between you and God.

Joy and peace are what we are; we can neither give nor accept anything less.

Love,

Sean