Perfect post as always Sean. Yes, always respond to a call for love with love as only love is real. It is the only way we can ever return to sanity, to reality, to peace. It is hard to love someone that has done something outrageous or cruel, but you are loving the Truth of who they are, the Love that they truly are. Our job is to remind ourselves and the world of the Truth of Itself. Constant hard work I know, as every day the ego would tell us a different story about our brothers. But we do know the truth and so we must work at the salvation of all our brothers and bring everyone, the outrageous and the cruel, back to salvation. Keep posting Sean as I love reading them, Much Love and blessings Suzy xxx
Thanks for this, Sean. Very thought provoking. It brings to mind something Judith Skutch wrote about a get-together she had with Willis Harman and Helen Shucman. Willis Harman asked Helen Shucman her true feelings about A Course in Miracles. She replied, “you see Willis, I know it’s true, but I just don’t believe it.”
I know what you are saying here is True, just as what Jesus said about loving our enemies is True. But in my humanity, in my ego, it’s really hard to accept that I am called to love a racist.
At the same time, knowing that choosing not to love is buying into the myth of separation…it certainly gives me something to think about!
Yes. Loving the racist is hard unless and until we see that WE ARE THE RACIST. And then the whole thing turns upside down and we can start to get a handle on the fear - which leads to the hate which leads to the violence which becomes cyclical, thus masquerading as inevitable, thus justifying our judgment and our stance, thus both bringing forth AND sustaining separation.
I struggle with this in some form or other every day.
I think the subtle trick that's easy to miss is that we are not condoning or embracing the hate-filled belief system and/or the violent behavior. We are skipping that step entirely to reach a different level of communion with the other. At THAT level, the hate and violence are orders of magnitude easier to address. But on this side of the communion - separation, maya, whatever we want to call it - it looks and feels the opposite.
I think the other aspect of the "subtle trick" is the humility of seeing racism as an error in thinking (rather than a flaw in character, as some kind of irreversible moral defect) and knowing that we are capable of making errors as well - and that, in fact, we may be making errors in other domains that are invisible to us because they feel "right."
"There but for the grace of God" feels less like a metaphysical statement than a gentle recognition that I don't deserve a lot of credit for where I am, and that humility and compassion are good bulwarks against further errors - whatever they may be.
Almost everything is broken but almost nobody is evil inspires me to risk this new way of being, in my half-assed, stumbling way :)
Thanks, as always, for reading and sharing Mark. I'm grateful for the company.
Sean, thank you for this timely writing. I think humanity has never been more in the middle of all this, then it is today. Your words have brought some understanding and clarity to me on not only coping with the tension of separation, but the attitude to adopt to help heal it, starting with myself.
I just completed Ken Wilber‘s book “Trump and a Post Truth World“ in my quest to try to better understand what’s seemingly contributing to more separation and decisiveness, and a way to move beyond it. He came at it from a different angle, but by the end, the solution is essentially the same as what you speak to here - both sides removing judgement and replacing loveless voids with love.
With both his perspective, and now yours, wrapping my head (and heart) around this, becomes incrementally clearer. Thank you for taking the time and effort to share.
You're welcome, Tom. Thank you for reading. It is very hard work - and there is a lot of confusion out there, to which I contribute no doubt and am often affected by. I do think there is some peace in realizing that the conflict is shared; anything that reduces the us vs. them, me vs. you energy seems to allow for at least the possibility of healing. Baby steps!
Thanks for being here & doing the work with me. I'm very grateful.
I really, really appreciated this - thank you, Sean. It's one of the aspects of the Course that seemed sort of all very well in theory, but in practice made little sense to me and really puzzled me. I have also at times felt it encouraging of an acceptance of abuse of power - I just didn't know how to orientate myself towards it. Something useful was beginning - beginning - to loosen around it for me, but your piece truly opens it out. Very big thanks. Julian
You're welcome, Julian. Thank you for reading & sharing. It has taken me a long time to get any clarity in my thinking and practice on this - in so many ways I am a beginner, especially in learning to trust - I am so grateful we don't have to do this alone 🙏🙏
Thank you for writing so eloquently on this. It does indeed take great patience and humility to 'say nothing' and 'just be' when in the presence of perceived hostility or opposition and shift my judgmental ego mind to the reality that we are all a child of God. The letting go of perceptions is paramount if I want peace so I'll keep stumbling my way to Oneness.
Perfect post as always Sean. Yes, always respond to a call for love with love as only love is real. It is the only way we can ever return to sanity, to reality, to peace. It is hard to love someone that has done something outrageous or cruel, but you are loving the Truth of who they are, the Love that they truly are. Our job is to remind ourselves and the world of the Truth of Itself. Constant hard work I know, as every day the ego would tell us a different story about our brothers. But we do know the truth and so we must work at the salvation of all our brothers and bring everyone, the outrageous and the cruel, back to salvation. Keep posting Sean as I love reading them, Much Love and blessings Suzy xxx
Thank you, Suzy. Your comments are always comforting to me; I am very grateful that we share this path the way we do.
Love,
Sean
Thanks for this, Sean. Very thought provoking. It brings to mind something Judith Skutch wrote about a get-together she had with Willis Harman and Helen Shucman. Willis Harman asked Helen Shucman her true feelings about A Course in Miracles. She replied, “you see Willis, I know it’s true, but I just don’t believe it.”
I know what you are saying here is True, just as what Jesus said about loving our enemies is True. But in my humanity, in my ego, it’s really hard to accept that I am called to love a racist.
At the same time, knowing that choosing not to love is buying into the myth of separation…it certainly gives me something to think about!
Judith Skutch is a fabulous storyteller :)
Yes. Loving the racist is hard unless and until we see that WE ARE THE RACIST. And then the whole thing turns upside down and we can start to get a handle on the fear - which leads to the hate which leads to the violence which becomes cyclical, thus masquerading as inevitable, thus justifying our judgment and our stance, thus both bringing forth AND sustaining separation.
I struggle with this in some form or other every day.
I think the subtle trick that's easy to miss is that we are not condoning or embracing the hate-filled belief system and/or the violent behavior. We are skipping that step entirely to reach a different level of communion with the other. At THAT level, the hate and violence are orders of magnitude easier to address. But on this side of the communion - separation, maya, whatever we want to call it - it looks and feels the opposite.
I think the other aspect of the "subtle trick" is the humility of seeing racism as an error in thinking (rather than a flaw in character, as some kind of irreversible moral defect) and knowing that we are capable of making errors as well - and that, in fact, we may be making errors in other domains that are invisible to us because they feel "right."
"There but for the grace of God" feels less like a metaphysical statement than a gentle recognition that I don't deserve a lot of credit for where I am, and that humility and compassion are good bulwarks against further errors - whatever they may be.
Almost everything is broken but almost nobody is evil inspires me to risk this new way of being, in my half-assed, stumbling way :)
Thanks, as always, for reading and sharing Mark. I'm grateful for the company.
~ Sean
Sean, thank you for this timely writing. I think humanity has never been more in the middle of all this, then it is today. Your words have brought some understanding and clarity to me on not only coping with the tension of separation, but the attitude to adopt to help heal it, starting with myself.
I just completed Ken Wilber‘s book “Trump and a Post Truth World“ in my quest to try to better understand what’s seemingly contributing to more separation and decisiveness, and a way to move beyond it. He came at it from a different angle, but by the end, the solution is essentially the same as what you speak to here - both sides removing judgement and replacing loveless voids with love.
With both his perspective, and now yours, wrapping my head (and heart) around this, becomes incrementally clearer. Thank you for taking the time and effort to share.
You're welcome, Tom. Thank you for reading. It is very hard work - and there is a lot of confusion out there, to which I contribute no doubt and am often affected by. I do think there is some peace in realizing that the conflict is shared; anything that reduces the us vs. them, me vs. you energy seems to allow for at least the possibility of healing. Baby steps!
Thanks for being here & doing the work with me. I'm very grateful.
Sean
I really, really appreciated this - thank you, Sean. It's one of the aspects of the Course that seemed sort of all very well in theory, but in practice made little sense to me and really puzzled me. I have also at times felt it encouraging of an acceptance of abuse of power - I just didn't know how to orientate myself towards it. Something useful was beginning - beginning - to loosen around it for me, but your piece truly opens it out. Very big thanks. Julian
You're welcome, Julian. Thank you for reading & sharing. It has taken me a long time to get any clarity in my thinking and practice on this - in so many ways I am a beginner, especially in learning to trust - I am so grateful we don't have to do this alone 🙏🙏
Love,
Sean
Thank you for writing so eloquently on this. It does indeed take great patience and humility to 'say nothing' and 'just be' when in the presence of perceived hostility or opposition and shift my judgmental ego mind to the reality that we are all a child of God. The letting go of perceptions is paramount if I want peace so I'll keep stumbling my way to Oneness.
Thanks for reading & sharing, April. It helps to have friends sharing the way with us - I'm stumbling right there with you 🙏🙏
Love,
Sean