A Relationship of Perfect Certainty

. . . what else could you possibly want?

A Course in Miracles is about relationship. It is about seeing clearly beyond the body to the relationship which occurs at the level of the mind and to which the body is merely an accoutrement, like a pair of shoes or a handbag. There is nothing wrong with shoes and handbags! But they do not satisfy our deep longing for connection.

True relationship means that we do not project our guilt and fear onto our brothers and sisters. But it also means that we don't accept their projections of their guilt and fear onto us.

Accepting the Atonement for yourself means not to give support to somebody's dream of sickness and of death. It mean that you share not his wish to separate, and let him turn illusions on himself. Nor do you wish that be turned instead on you (T-28.IV.1:1-3).

This reflects a way of being in the world that is predicated on peace rather than conflict. We are not trying to win an argument. We are not trying to protect or defend a reputation. We are simply willing to be taught another way of relating, one that is revealed as we refuse to give effect to projection wherever it appears.

Whatever form this willingness takes in the world - and it must take a form for we are not yet beyond form - its foundation is the stillness we remember when we look within and glimpse (at first it is merely a glimpse) the total innocence of God's Creation.

Tara Singh knew.

God loves His children
and He only has one child.

Love is His child.

His child is a state of being,
not a physical vessel.
You are His child when you are not separated
from another.

(Gifts from the Retreat 173)

A mind is sick when it forgets its fundamental oneness with God. Then it devolves into dreams of separation, always shifting and changing, always reinforcing the underlying sickness by refusing to give attention to the dreamer. The Course teaches us that the way to certainty is to refuse to dream at all. But to do this, we have to recognize the dreamer is our own self.

You find yourself by not accepting [dreams] as causing you, and giving you effects. You stand apart from them, but not apart from him who dreams them (T-28.IV.2:2-3).

If you want to see yourself clearly, says A Course in Miracles, then you have only to look at your brother and sister, and when you perceive a gap - as between bodies there must appear a gap - shift your focus to the level of mind, where the gap is sooner or later revealed as an illusion.

The Holy Spirit is in both your minds, and He is One because there is no gap that separates His Oneness from Itself. The gap between your bodies matters not, for what is joined in Him is always one (T-28.IV.7:1-2).

I cannot be sick if you refuse to see me as anything less than God's Child. Your seeing me that way restores to my awareness my reality in Creation. What else could I give but the same in return? What other function could our joining have?

Tara Singh always points to the transformation that occurs when we refuse to play by the world's rules for relationship and instead accept the laws of God and Love. We become lights unto the darkness.

A Man of peace who wants nothing,
has no plans, no projects.

He brings you to the God within
and makes you what you are.

He does not make you dependent.

He makes you aware of your own glory.

(Gifts from the Retreat 167)

When we actively love as God loves, this is what happens! It’s not a mystery. Nor is it reserved for the favored or the mighty. It’s simply the function of what we are in truth, when we no longer consent to hide our light beneath a bushel.

Therefore, our work is to refuse to project our guilt and fear onto others. We notice when we are doing it, and then we stop. "There I go projecting again . . . " Noticing is healing; we need do nothing more.

Our work is also to refuse to accept the projections of others. When they demean us, insult us or attack us we refuse to accept their judgment - of us and of their self. It doesn't mean we stay and take it, but it does mean we surrender the specialness upon which all attack and defense rely.

Join not your brother's dreams but join with him, and where you join His Son the Father is . . . You willingness to let illusions go is all the Healer of God's Son requires (T-28.IV.10:1, 8).

Let us lay all our burdens down. Let us beat all our swords into plowshares.

I don't say it's easy. Sometimes it's even boring. But the peace and happiness this understanding and practice begets - like a gentle tide slowly rising - carry us away from the world and its hurt and confusion unto "what waits in perfect certainty beyond salvation" (T-28.III.1:1).

Thank you, always, for being here with me.

~ Sean