Specialness insists on outcomes - it wants something out of life. More money, better job, less stress, inner peace. Specialness bargains and negotiates. It's busy; it's involved. It’s got a plan.
Holiness gives attention only to what is given. It asks for nothing else. Holiness sees one life beyond all appearances, so all appearances are welcome. They are equal. There is nothing to choose between.
Specialness brings forth dissatisfaction, a constant nagging sense that something is missing.
Holiness brings forth the silence in which peace and joy are remembered, pointing beyond themselves to God (e.g. T-5.III.10.5-7).
Holiness is the end of seeking.
This is another way of saying that specialness relies on time and judgment. It uses past learning to evaluate the present and formulate a plan for an improved future, which never comes.
Specialness, which is ego, projects. Holiness simply accepts.
The ego analyzes; the Holy Spirit accepts. The appreciation of wholeness comes only through acceptance, for to analyze means to break down or to separate out (T-11.V.13:1-2).
There is no escape from specialness in the context of the body and the world. It's what bodies do; it's what the world is. But we can notice specialness. We can give attention to it. We can become responsible and end the projection that is its lifeblood.
When we do this - when we give attention to specialness and accept responsibility for it - then we discover there is something beyond our conditioning and biases, our thoughts and desires.
A Course in Miracles calls this "something" the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is given to us as both a Teacher and a Guide (e.g., T-5.II.2:5). It is the answer to the problem of separation.
We meet the Holy Spirit in the silence our own holiness, the holy instant in which nothing is missing. Here, the Holy Spirit speaks to us, showing us how holiness generates peace and joy and extends them to all the world.
In this world you can become a spotless mirror, in which the Holiness of your Creator shines forth from you to all around you. You can reflect Heaven here (T-14.IX.5:1-2).
The daily lessons of A Course in Miracles are designed to facilitate this learning process. But they also boil down to a simple maxim, which is older than the course, older even then our historical record: be still and know that I am God.
Be still and know that I am God.
Most of us accept the truth of this. But perhaps it doesn't feel like our truth yet. It's like the difference between knowing that Boston is a real city and actually being in Boston. We can project it as an idea, but to actually live from it . . .
If we feel this way about "be still and know that I am God," it is because we haven't yet come to stillness. The first part of the statement clarifies our sole responsibility: we have to be still.
It's tempting to define stillness. To explain and describe it. To indulge the lovelessness of "I've got it and you don't." We can say a lot about stillness. Who among us hasn’t delayed in just this way?
But it's like going to Boston, right? We can write down an itinerary. We can read all the guide books. But at some point, we have to get on the highway and go to Boston.
Do we know how to be still?
Most of us, if we are honest, will say "yes, I know how to be still. I know where to go and what to do." Morning prayer, the daily ACIM lesson, a walk in the forest, less screen time, et cetera. Stillness is natural, ever calling to us.
But this fact also means that the reason we are not still - or have issues with stillness and thus do not yet remember that we know God - is because we choose not to be still.
We know what to do and we don't do it.
This is not a crime against God or Nature. The Divine Court of the Lord is not gathering to judge against us. Passing on stillness is an error we all make, like forgetting to floss. We know we should and we don't.
But we don't make a crisis out of not flossing. We don't go all the way back to Heraclitus looking for answers, methods, secrets, sacraments. We don’t fall to our knees and gnash our teeth and wail to the heavens.
We just floss.
It is that way with stillness as well.
We know how to be still. So let us be still. Let us be still and remember with perfect clarity what it means to know that "I am God." This is the knowledge we want, and is given to us to make it so. Why not?
The truth is, we can't be apart from God. Even when we forget that we are one with God, we are still one with God. Even our forgetfulness is not actually a problem.
A blindfold can indeed obscure your sight, but cannot make the way itself grow dark. And He Who travels with you has the light (T-31.II.11:8-9).
Specialness is simply our unwillingness to be happy, and our attempt to hold someone else responsible. It's nothing more than that.
When we let go of it, then holiness - which requires no effort at all - is what remains because it was always there. In holiness, we see the one life beyond all appearances, and thus come to joy and peace. We know God.
What we want is what we are; what we think we lack is what we have. Let us do nothing today but be quiet and grateful it is so. Let us simply give attention to the holiness given to us endlessly in love.
Together, let us be still, and in our shared stillness, remember God.
Stillness and the End of Separation
Great one! Love how you break things down. So very easy to understand.
I've had a big story around flossing. Of course no one would want to hear it. But like all that can be repurposed to speak around/about the Truth, even it has equal pertinence! Only for the last few years have I "just flossed", not avoiding or making myself or going through more years of "ugh don't like this" (or trying to make myself not do that, lol). I still "notice the absence" of all that, happily (obviously! thank you for providing more opportunity for that, big lol). But that's the pertinent point I wanted to bring up. It's that we don't actually get cudos for doing what is finally not doer-ized. The duality mode is just stuck jumping from side to side! - negativity stick or alluring carrot. A stillness where there's not a quest-ion about it just isn't ... well it just isn't'!, and certaintly not understanble for how it's going to make flossing happen or redeem why I didn't. But this story is available to parrallel how God (already a word too far) CAN be talked ab-out. The same principles can be recognized and honored in a way, a happier dreaming time, with the fables and fairy tales and flossing metaphors. It's not bad to not be still! But that CAN'T be "said"! It doesn't make sense to that to which non-stillness seems to be a real thing. And it wants to be told to be still, or why it's ok not to be (but is just pissed off for what to it is "pandering" - from it's unquiet perspective). After the Commandments and all other spiritual "saids", there's quite a quiet in the success of their failures. To finally be the one "who didn't fail" (and so why there was "success" in THAT), is great food for stillness. If I may not be Still "yet" (lol), I can talk ab-out it - because it is NOT bad (I just can't say it directly, we have to talk ar-out it, more lol). And we can share this with each other, be able to relate over it because we ARE the relating that understands. And I find I Am - still - at the center of all this story-ing anyway, with a wonderful friend, who repurposes for me "not feeling bad (nor "good") about not flossing"! It was wonderful to find the newsletter in my mailbox (there not having been some of your other dailies recently)! Thank you for relating.