The idea of resigning as image-maker or story-teller includes a great deal of openness and relief for me. Simply being aware of when I am engaging the "other" or the world in that way lately has pretty much been a game-changer on my end. I am incredibly grateful for you and your work in this area. Thank you.
One last niggling thought in regards to this discussion:
If the "other", the people we journey along side, our dogs and trees and flowers and rivers . . . if they are simply pointers towards Love, then they fill the role of mirror, in many ways - reflecting and showing us who we really are, perhaps. And when one sees Love or sees oneself, do they no longer need the mirror?
Thanks again for all that you have poured into this medium and discussion, Sean. I am beyond grateful.
Thank you for your attention to this inquiry, Sean. At first blush, I thought: yes! Of course! This all makes sense at levels which resist quantifying or qualifying.
Then Krishnamurti's voice started ringing along side what I felt you were saying, and in this tandem tune, I began to process what you were saying in the following way:
We are all in relationship; society doesn't exist without relationship. Yet, there is and always has been tremendous conflict, inter-personally and with the world. It's like, we can grasp that relationship and dialogue is the thing, but we some how process said relationships in a way which causes separation, derision, war . . . anything but peace.
I think this story-telling impulse you speak of, the interjection of ourselves as the main character, is related to the ways in which we make images of ourselves and the other. We write our story by creating our own ideas, our own thoughts and images of one another, in a way which results in our relationships being based on this image.
Psychologically speaking then, in these relationships, it is as if we are traveling in parallel lines, never really meeting inwardly, because we can only connect with the story (or image) and not with what or with whom is really present.
And these images are put together by thought. Right? I mean, the image I create of Sean, the world's greatest ACIM teacher, is made by my thoughts of _________ (fill in the blank.) My thoughts are images of you. And so I wonder: can thought be or know or understand Love?
In this line of reasoning, my relationship to you in this context is only based on whatever images I have created. So, even though you are teaching about, showing us the way in, and exuding Love, is that relationship really Love? Or is it simply a symbol of Love?
I guess maybe you are saying, either way, we do not have to invest in the characters of the story...Sean the Great Teacher, Jessica the One who wants to know it all right now ... LOL!
There is some other way to be in relationship. Some other way to be in the world.
It's like we are always obsessed with knowledge (through thought and image) but we fail to see how incomplete that is and how it causes us to live in the shadow of ignorance.
I think we are being called to examine the complex issues of life in which there is no leader or guru, no master or teacher, no image of anything other than the entire consciousness of mankind at the helm; Love as it's own intelligence and compassion.
And in that way, like a child, we become a light unto our own self.
Whew! Now who is being long-winded?!
I so appreciate this engagement, Sean. If you think I've missed what you are relaying, please continue to clarify and add.
We are always constructing images and situating them in narratives - that seems to be what the human does. I don't think so much of parallel lines that never meet, but more like Indra's Net, dimly perceived. And dialogue always feels alive to me, even if I am confused about who or what I am and, by extension, who or what the other is.
We can notice when we construct images of the other and we can notice the narrative in which that image is contexutalized and given meaning. The noticing to me feels connected to "choose again" - it feels like an invitation to investigate image-making and story-telling.
A Course in Miracles isn't really about getting beyond image-making and story-telling but rather to learn how to resign as image-maker and story-teller and then see waht happens.
With respect to knowing Love . . . bodies are limitations, and so is thought, and so in that sense, no. They can't compass Love. But they can POINT to Love (kind of like how a recipe POINTS to the end of hunger). So it's the pointing to which our attention is given and then - as our Zen friends so aptly note - not confusing the pointer with what is being pointed at.
I am curious about the "how" of this story-less awareness. Meaning, in your practical experience, does the act of adding nothing and doing nothing, paradoxically, require a discipline? I am thinking specifically of how many times a day I add interpretation to what is given all around me. Is the reminder that Jessica is NOT the central figure enough to dissipate the strength of the perceptions coming in on all the levels?
I was thinking about the paragraph in which you wrote about your lovely New Englandy evening of horses and sunflowers. Before you name each thing, before you attached a feeling, category or ownership to what you perceived, you asked: what is it?
I'm really asking, what is it? Is it . . . nothing? Nothing before we sully or confuse or obscure 'it'?
As always Sean, the fact that you exist as teacher and student of this Course and are willing to share, is a reminder to me of how our completeness is fully settled. Thank you.
I don't think there is any absolute answer to the question of "how," and the RELATIVE answer for some reason doesn't seem to satisfy anybody.
For some of us, the "how" is to study A Course in Miracles, do the workbook lessons, and have a few friends and allies around with whom to help others stay and be ourselves helped to stay accountable, spiritually speaking.
But there are lots of ways to know that "the Father and I are one." The many ways - Buddhism, Baháʼí, MBSR, psychotherapy, Focusing et cetera - are, collectively, a sign that the answer to "how" is ALWAYS relative to the one who asks.
That said, I think there MIGHT be an answer to "what is it," but the answer is a felt experience that precedes language, and can only be subsequently approximated in words like "awakening," "awareness" and "Christ."
That level, like communion, is less like getting the right answer to a math problem and more like finding a good friend. It includes - because it ACCEPTS - the other as necessary, as unconditionally involved in life, as radically equal. It's dialogic, relational.
So what is "it?"
It's Love.
And sometimes Love shows up in the world as beauty. Or gratitude. Or mercy or justice. Or insight or equanimity in confusion. . .
Love appears as that which settles what is restless in us, softens what is hard in us, counsels what is terrified in us, and "restores to our awareness the wholeness of the fragments we perceive as broken off and separate" (M-19.4:2).
Some people argue, "that's just another story, though. It's more content IN awareness, not awareness itself."
Well, yes.
But.
A Course in Miracles is an invitation not to resist the story and story-telling impulse (thank Christ). Rather, it's an invitation to stop believing we're personally at stake in the story. Right here in these bodies, in these worlds - as these ostensibly separate selves - we can be willing to become as little children and let the Holy Spirit TELL US ANOTHER STORY in which we figure VERY differently.
This other story is still a story but it's one that will awaken us from the dream of death. For some of us, it starts like this:
"God gave you all there is. And to be sure you could not lose it, He also gave it the same to every living thing as well. And thus is every living a part of you, as of Himself" (T-29.VIII.9-11).
So no, I don't think it takes discipline or a discipline. I think it takes willingness. I think it requires openness to entirely new - and thus confusing/frightening frames of perceiving and knowing - like the frame of "every living thing is a part of me." That's going to push us away from the course towards Lynn Margulis and Donna Haraway, Humberto Maturana and Donella Meadows. Or someone and something else altogether.
There are many symbols of Love; many ways to know that "the Father and I are one."
Long-winded notes toward an answer :) I'll get there someday.
I came across this beautiful bookmark prayer by St Teresa of Ávila:
'Let nothing disturb you.
Let nothing frighten you.
Everything changes.
God alone is unchanging.
With patience, all things are possible.
Whoever has God lacks nothing.
God alone is enough.'
Yes. This.
Thank you Kirstie - keeping it simple 🌻
The idea of resigning as image-maker or story-teller includes a great deal of openness and relief for me. Simply being aware of when I am engaging the "other" or the world in that way lately has pretty much been a game-changer on my end. I am incredibly grateful for you and your work in this area. Thank you.
One last niggling thought in regards to this discussion:
If the "other", the people we journey along side, our dogs and trees and flowers and rivers . . . if they are simply pointers towards Love, then they fill the role of mirror, in many ways - reflecting and showing us who we really are, perhaps. And when one sees Love or sees oneself, do they no longer need the mirror?
Thanks again for all that you have poured into this medium and discussion, Sean. I am beyond grateful.
Yes. After projection, reflection.
Thank you Jessica 🙏🙏
~ Sean
Thank you for your attention to this inquiry, Sean. At first blush, I thought: yes! Of course! This all makes sense at levels which resist quantifying or qualifying.
Then Krishnamurti's voice started ringing along side what I felt you were saying, and in this tandem tune, I began to process what you were saying in the following way:
We are all in relationship; society doesn't exist without relationship. Yet, there is and always has been tremendous conflict, inter-personally and with the world. It's like, we can grasp that relationship and dialogue is the thing, but we some how process said relationships in a way which causes separation, derision, war . . . anything but peace.
I think this story-telling impulse you speak of, the interjection of ourselves as the main character, is related to the ways in which we make images of ourselves and the other. We write our story by creating our own ideas, our own thoughts and images of one another, in a way which results in our relationships being based on this image.
Psychologically speaking then, in these relationships, it is as if we are traveling in parallel lines, never really meeting inwardly, because we can only connect with the story (or image) and not with what or with whom is really present.
And these images are put together by thought. Right? I mean, the image I create of Sean, the world's greatest ACIM teacher, is made by my thoughts of _________ (fill in the blank.) My thoughts are images of you. And so I wonder: can thought be or know or understand Love?
In this line of reasoning, my relationship to you in this context is only based on whatever images I have created. So, even though you are teaching about, showing us the way in, and exuding Love, is that relationship really Love? Or is it simply a symbol of Love?
I guess maybe you are saying, either way, we do not have to invest in the characters of the story...Sean the Great Teacher, Jessica the One who wants to know it all right now ... LOL!
There is some other way to be in relationship. Some other way to be in the world.
It's like we are always obsessed with knowledge (through thought and image) but we fail to see how incomplete that is and how it causes us to live in the shadow of ignorance.
I think we are being called to examine the complex issues of life in which there is no leader or guru, no master or teacher, no image of anything other than the entire consciousness of mankind at the helm; Love as it's own intelligence and compassion.
And in that way, like a child, we become a light unto our own self.
Whew! Now who is being long-winded?!
I so appreciate this engagement, Sean. If you think I've missed what you are relaying, please continue to clarify and add.
Love,
Jessica
Thank you, Jessica.
We are always constructing images and situating them in narratives - that seems to be what the human does. I don't think so much of parallel lines that never meet, but more like Indra's Net, dimly perceived. And dialogue always feels alive to me, even if I am confused about who or what I am and, by extension, who or what the other is.
We can notice when we construct images of the other and we can notice the narrative in which that image is contexutalized and given meaning. The noticing to me feels connected to "choose again" - it feels like an invitation to investigate image-making and story-telling.
A Course in Miracles isn't really about getting beyond image-making and story-telling but rather to learn how to resign as image-maker and story-teller and then see waht happens.
With respect to knowing Love . . . bodies are limitations, and so is thought, and so in that sense, no. They can't compass Love. But they can POINT to Love (kind of like how a recipe POINTS to the end of hunger). So it's the pointing to which our attention is given and then - as our Zen friends so aptly note - not confusing the pointer with what is being pointed at.
Everything after your "LOL" feels right on to me.
Love,
Sean
I am curious about the "how" of this story-less awareness. Meaning, in your practical experience, does the act of adding nothing and doing nothing, paradoxically, require a discipline? I am thinking specifically of how many times a day I add interpretation to what is given all around me. Is the reminder that Jessica is NOT the central figure enough to dissipate the strength of the perceptions coming in on all the levels?
I was thinking about the paragraph in which you wrote about your lovely New Englandy evening of horses and sunflowers. Before you name each thing, before you attached a feeling, category or ownership to what you perceived, you asked: what is it?
I'm really asking, what is it? Is it . . . nothing? Nothing before we sully or confuse or obscure 'it'?
As always Sean, the fact that you exist as teacher and student of this Course and are willing to share, is a reminder to me of how our completeness is fully settled. Thank you.
Thank you, Jessica.
I don't think there is any absolute answer to the question of "how," and the RELATIVE answer for some reason doesn't seem to satisfy anybody.
For some of us, the "how" is to study A Course in Miracles, do the workbook lessons, and have a few friends and allies around with whom to help others stay and be ourselves helped to stay accountable, spiritually speaking.
But there are lots of ways to know that "the Father and I are one." The many ways - Buddhism, Baháʼí, MBSR, psychotherapy, Focusing et cetera - are, collectively, a sign that the answer to "how" is ALWAYS relative to the one who asks.
That said, I think there MIGHT be an answer to "what is it," but the answer is a felt experience that precedes language, and can only be subsequently approximated in words like "awakening," "awareness" and "Christ."
That level, like communion, is less like getting the right answer to a math problem and more like finding a good friend. It includes - because it ACCEPTS - the other as necessary, as unconditionally involved in life, as radically equal. It's dialogic, relational.
So what is "it?"
It's Love.
And sometimes Love shows up in the world as beauty. Or gratitude. Or mercy or justice. Or insight or equanimity in confusion. . .
Love appears as that which settles what is restless in us, softens what is hard in us, counsels what is terrified in us, and "restores to our awareness the wholeness of the fragments we perceive as broken off and separate" (M-19.4:2).
Some people argue, "that's just another story, though. It's more content IN awareness, not awareness itself."
Well, yes.
But.
A Course in Miracles is an invitation not to resist the story and story-telling impulse (thank Christ). Rather, it's an invitation to stop believing we're personally at stake in the story. Right here in these bodies, in these worlds - as these ostensibly separate selves - we can be willing to become as little children and let the Holy Spirit TELL US ANOTHER STORY in which we figure VERY differently.
This other story is still a story but it's one that will awaken us from the dream of death. For some of us, it starts like this:
"God gave you all there is. And to be sure you could not lose it, He also gave it the same to every living thing as well. And thus is every living a part of you, as of Himself" (T-29.VIII.9-11).
So no, I don't think it takes discipline or a discipline. I think it takes willingness. I think it requires openness to entirely new - and thus confusing/frightening frames of perceiving and knowing - like the frame of "every living thing is a part of me." That's going to push us away from the course towards Lynn Margulis and Donna Haraway, Humberto Maturana and Donella Meadows. Or someone and something else altogether.
There are many symbols of Love; many ways to know that "the Father and I are one."
Long-winded notes toward an answer :) I'll get there someday.
Love,
Sean
This message is wonderful, Sean 🙏
Thanks for reading & being here, Jennifer 🙏🙏
~ Sean
Beautiful…thank you
Exquisitely offered, thank you.
Thanks, Kirstie . . . 🙏
~ Sean
🙏