A major teaching tool of A Course in Miracles is the simple question, What is it for? That table on which you ate lunch - what is it for? The relationship with the one with whom you ate lunch - what are they for?
In any situation in which you are uncertain, the first thing to consider, very simply, is "What do I want to come of this? What is it for? The clarification of the goal belongs at the beginning, for it is this which will determine the outcome (T-17.VI.2:1-2).
This question bothered me for many years, largely because it was so amenable to egoic interpretation. What is this table/this meal/this partner for? It’s for my happiness and inner peace. What makes me happy and peaceful? Getting what I want, being comfortable, forward progress et cetera.
For me, the question was so quickly taken over by ego and turned to egoic ends that it seemed foolish to even bother.
Yet if you closely read that section (Setting the Goal in Forgiveness and the Holy Relationship), you will see that the question is designed to undo our confusion about cause-and-effect and, by undoing it, allow us to come into direct contact with another ACIM maxim, i.e., the secret to salvation is that I am doing this - this being suffering of any kind to any degree - to myself (T-27.VIII.10:1).
In other words, “what is it for” does not ground out in me getting what I want.
If the situation is used for truth and sanity, its outcome must be peace. And this is quite apart from the outcome is (T-17.VI.5:2-3).
Another way to frame this is to say that we ask the question what is it for but the Holy Spirit is the one who answers.
. . . you are choosing not to be the judge of what to do . . . you will not judge the situations where you will be called to make response. For if you judge them, you have set the rules for how you should react to them (T-30.I.2:3-5).
To the ego - to most of us in the world - this seems counter-intuitive. Of course I know what lunch with a friend is for. Of course I know what the table on which we eat lunch is for. Don’t be ridiculous.
And yet.
. . . you do understand that a telephone is for the purpose of talking to someone who is not physically in your immediate vicinity. What you do not understand is what you want to reach him for. And it is this that makes your contact with him meaningful or not (W-pI.25.4:4-6).
We evaluate things as good or bad based on their personal value to us as we define ourselves. But A Course in Miracles invites us to see that this approach is flawed because we don’t know what we are. Things are neither good nor bad but only meaningless. They are meaningless because we evaluate them in terms of specialness rather than holiness. It's about what we can get, not what we can give.
Thus, under the guise of "what is this for" we are really asking, “what am I,” which ACIM calls "the universal question of the world" (W-pI.139.6:3). When it is answered, then the illusion of choice (yoked as it is to our preference for judgment) is undone.
Here is the end of choice. For here we come to a decision to accept ourselves as God created us. And what is choice except uncertainty of what we are? (W-pI.139.1:1-3).
I cannot answer what a table is for unless I know what I am because what a table is for is relationship. And the whole reason I am studying A Course in Miracles is because I do not know what I am and therefore cannot be in relationship. Moreover, the Course insists that I cannot answer the question of what I am for - or what is anything for - alone.
It is more than just our happiness alone we came to gain. What we accept as what we are proclaims what everyone must be, along with us . . . Look lovingly on your brothers and sisters, that they may know that they are part of you, and you of them (W-pI.139.9:4-5, 7).
I can look lovingly on some of my brothers and sisters, but not all of them. Why not? It's not a moral failure; ACIM is not interested in that sort of thing. It's just that I'm still okay keeping things personal and special. Why?
You can defend truth as well as error . . . it is a question of what it is for. Everyone defends his treasure, and will do so automatically. The real questions are, what do you treasure, and how much do you treasure it? (T-2.II.3:1, 3-5).
Fair questions. Honest answers?
I still treasure personal autonomy. I still treasure guilt and pain and the martyrdom they allow me to perform for you. I still treasure loneliness. I still treasure specialness.
Given that, is it hopeless? Is there anything I can do?
Yes.
I can persevere in my self-examination - in this inquiry into "what is it for" and "what am I" - so that I can bring to light the deeper and deeper levels of selfishness that oppose the peace and love that are our natural inheritance.
It is not a crime against God or nature to treasure loneliness and pain. That happens. But when I see that I treasure them, then something new can happen. I can ask the Holy Spirit to show me another way of thinking about these things - a way that is conducive to actual peace and actual happiness.
The Holy Spirit’s answer always points to relationship - in particular, relationship in which we care deeply about our capacity to be of service to the other, to be genuinely helpful, which can only happen when we know that whatever peace is, it must be shared. We have to give it away, in the very context in which relationship appears.
Any relationship given to serving the other - to creating a space in which they can remember that they are not separate from God Who is Love - seeks holiness, not specialness. Therefore, it is holy. Service is Atonement, because the Atonement principle is love (T-2.II.4:3) and so the Atonement is an act of love (T-2.II.4:3). It is our shared commitment to learning how to undo what opposes peace and happiness where the opposition actually is - in our mind, not the world.
The Atonement is a "total commitment" (T-2.II.7:1) to becoming defenseless by beating our interior swords into plowshares. We don't resist confusion; we don't insist on revelation. We are simply present to one another in a way that supports our shared inquiry into the blocks to our awareness of love as our inheritance (T-in.1:7).
We are in this together, and could not ask for better company. Thank you, always, for sharing this path with me.
Love,
Sean
Sean again,you clear the ground for me or at least a little. I've been going over the same ground as you for these past few days coming up against ego and finding it difficult. Retreating from this question you pose and then going again. What am I ? The course tells me that I'm a holy son of god why do I feel uneasy with that because I still don't want to let go of my self image. Even though it's painful sometimes pure torture. Yet I know that all is well deep down im just playing a game bluffing with a hand of nothing. It's silly it's ridiculous defiance which some part of me enjoys. My eyes have been opened I can't unsee but I want to enjoy the last dregs of my image painful or as it can be. But as you say sean it's not a crime and I believe as you say something new can happen and already has. This post has broken new ground for me. Thanks again Sean
Thanks for sharing this with us Sean. I hope your health is being restored. God bless us everyone.