How and Why to be Holy

. . . notes from a recent ACIM discussion group

Today we are looking at lessons 35 through 39 in the Workbook of A Course in Miracles. They have a common theme, and the theme is our holiness. So we are going into the question of holiness, our holiness, and what it means to live in and from and through that holiness.

What does it mean to be holy? The origins of the word relate to wholeness, which is a state of being in which all apparent parts are unified in harmony. An apple is whole unto itself - stem, skin, flesh, seeds. So is the human body. So is a thunder storm.

So we could say in a sense that to be holy is to be in harmony with the overarching system or state of being of which one is a part.

In this sequence of lessons, the system of which we are a part is God's Mind or, implicitly but more accurately, the thought system of God. And to be in harmony with that system is to know that one is a part of that system, and to not be confused or in denial about it.

And the way to be in harmony - to bring confusion to an end, denial to an end - is to not want to be anything else but what we are in truth. We want to know ourselves as God knows us; we want to see our lives as God sees them. Nothing is missing; everything is given. Can we see it?

I think that is a way of framing the work to which A Course in Miracles calls us - to ask, over and over, to go into over and over, what are we in truth? I'm not a body, there is no world, grievances hide the light of the world in me, et cetera. All these clues and pointers!

Well, one of the first things we notice when we do this work - or at least one of the first things I notice - is that we do a lot of projecting, a lot of fantasizing. We do a lot of dreaming, and the dreaming is vast, intricate and intense. We make up a world, a story, a bunch of stories, a self . . .

. . . you surround yourself with the environment you want. And you want it to protect the image of yourself that you have made. The image is part of this environment. What you see while you believe you are in it is seen through the eyes of the image. This is not vision. Images cannot see (W-pI.35.2:2-7).

I talk more about this particular concept in this post.

Our holiness is obvious to that which has vision but we have constructed an alternative - an image, an idol, which is our self in the world - and have conflated our self with the image. It is a kind of willful blindness and, when we forget we are doing it, it becomes the sleep of forgetfulness. The image is a body in a world - it is effectively a story, it has these relationships, it contributes to this culture, it is contingent on this or that context - which altogether make and reinforce a sense of a separate self experiencing things like depression, helplessness, generosity and virtue (e.g., W-pI.35.6:2-10). Nobody is free from this.

All of those labels (depression, kindness, et cetera) rest on an underlying assumption of guilt, to which our holiness stands in opposition, becoming, by extension, our salvation from guilt (e.g., W-pI.39.1:1).

Holiness and innocense are effectively synonymous. But innocence has a slightly different meaning. It comes out of the Latin relating to injury and has the meaning of "not causing harm," of being a state in which causing harm or sustaining harm - really, being in conflict at all - is impossible.

This is a helpful clue to understanding the basic idea of Lesson 36, which extends the concept of holiness from what we are to what we perceive (e.g., as Krishnamurti emphasized, the observer and the observed are one). We can only be in conflict - can only harm or be harmed by - that which is external to us or separate from us. And the emphasis here is that our holiness, which is our innocence, encompasses literally everything the body perceives (which, by the way, includes the body doing the apparent perceiving) (e.g., W-pI.36.3:6, 8).

So there is only an illusion of separation, therefore only an illusion of attack, and therefore only an illusion of a need for defense. Nothing real can be threatened, nothing unreal exists (T-in.2:2-3).

This encompassing is not a thing we do - it's not a funciton of our will. "Oh, I think I'll extend my holiness to the apple tree and the vexatious neighbor and white supremacists in Europe." It is a function of what holiness is; it is a function of what innocence is. Our intentions - our goals, our plans, our ideals - are beside the point. We did not create ourselves (T-1.V.1:8); therefore, we did not establish our purpose. It is given to us in creation.

Your purpose is to see the world through your own holiness. Thus are you and the world blessed together. No one loses; nothing is taken away from anyone; everyone gains through your holy vision (W-pI.37.1:2-4).

Basically, our purpose is to see the other as a Child of God, which is to see them as wholly equal to us, where "equal" means there are no distinctions upon which to base a judgment or evaluation (e.g., W-pI.37.1:5-6). Then our oneness, which is our shared wholeness - our re-membered innocence - is naturally restored to awareness for all of us (e.g., W-pI.27.2:5, 6:4).

What is holy asks nothing of the other because it knows that is has everything. Therefore, there is nothing to demand.

The question - which guides our practice - is, is it true for us? Are we demanding something of another or have we ceased to need anything save what is given? And mostly, if we are being honest, we are going to have to say it is not true. We are asking the other for something. It may be quite subtle, may be quite mild compared to how it was last year or fifty years ago, or back in the dark ages or on the ancestral savanna, but still. The demand is there. We are scared and guilty, and so we are plotting and executing, we are winning and losing, we are sacrificing or forcing others to sacrifice - we are making demands - and so we are not at peace. The world is not at peace.

We are not resting in love but striving in its opposite, in guilt, fear and hate.

This is discouraging! It is more than discouraging, really. Coming to this clarity - seeing the reality of it, how far we have to go - is what instantiates the existential crisis which, as terrifying and destabilizing as it is - and it is truly hic sunt dracones territory - is the basis for healing. It is the space from which we begin at last to embrace and accept the truth of our identity, which is to reject - actively - what is false about our identity.

The truth of our identity - which is what our holiness teaches us, shows to us and allows us to accept and become responsible unto - is that it "reverses all the laws of the world" (T-pI.38.1:1).

It is beyond every restriction of time, space, distance and limits of any kind. Your holiness is totally unlimited in its power because it establishes you as a Son of God, at one with the Mind of his Creator (W-pI.38.1:2-3).

Earlier in this sequence of lessons we are encouraged to bring our holiness to bear on the very conditions that seem to be our lives - our virtue, our depression, our games, our work, our service. So those sentences above shouldn't be read as merely analogy; we can take them literally. And when we do, they beget a heady brew. Our holiness can remove all pain, end all sorrow and solve all problems, for us and everyone else (W-pI.38.2:4-6).

We have to go slowly here, right? Because we see that and we're like, damn, I could win the lottery. I can have that Corvette, lose this gut, sail around the world, write an Oscar-winning screenplay, sleep with fill-in-the-blank, cure my dog of cancer, bring about world peace. All of it.

That's ego talking. That's ego feasting on its interpretation of the Course. Because all of those "gets" can easily be traced back to fear and guilt. They have to do with the body, with the world, and with the story of the self which together are the separation. Critically, they miss the only aspect of our holiness that actually matters - that it is "the power of God made manifest" (W-pI.38.2:1).

And in God all things are already given, peace is already accomplished.

This loops back to our starting point: what does it mean to be holy? What is our holiness? What is it for?

And the answer is, our holiness is our salvation. It is the salvation of the seemingly-separated self, and all other selves, and of the world. It is the end of all that, and the beginning of true peace and happiness.

Your holiness is the answer to every question that was ever asked, is being asked now, or will be asked in the future. Your holiness means the end of guilt, and therefore the end of hell. Your holiness is the salvation of the world, and your own (W-pI.39.4:1-3).

Salvation is not abstract. It is practical. The Course, as Helen Schucman often said and as Tara Singh taught, is meant to be lived, to be applied in a context rather than theorized about (preface viii). To study and practice ACIM is an active way of remembering that we are extensions of God in Creation and then living that way so as to remind others that they, too, are extensions of God in Creation.

This remembering and reminding - this living - has a form. It is the form - the manifestation - of love, or Atonement (which is the formal remembering of love) that actually and truly teaches us what Love is, what innocence is, and what the end of fear is.

The value of the Atonement does not lie in the manner in which it is expressed. In fact, if it is used truly, it will inevitably be expressed in whatever way is most helpful to the receiver (T-2.IV.5:1-2).

Here, "manner" is a reference to the "form" the Atonement takes - the language, the actions, the environmental context, the participants, all of it. The point is made slightly differently in "The Rock of Salvation."

Your special function is the special form in which the fact that God is not insane appears most sensible and meaningful to you. The content is the same. The form is suited to your special needs, and to the special time and place in which you think you find yourself, and where you can be free of place and time, and all that you believe must limit you (T-25.VII.7:1-3).

That is what these lessons are gently teaching us to do. To find the form of living in which it is most obvious to us - because it most easy to extend to others - that God is not insane, that Atonement is possible, and that the apparently radical love to which the Course calls us is not a fantasy but is rather inherent in us, longing only to be released unto the world where it can heal us all.

All our talking and sharing is useful to precisely the extent that it reminds us of our shared function of remembering our holiness. Dialogue is a form of application because it is a form of teaching and learning the Atonement (which, again, and slightly re-phrased, is the formal re-membering of our identity as love). That is why we are here; that is why we join. What else could possibly matter?

Love,
Sean