The Test for Truth

. . . on learning to let go of specialness

Our willingness to learn is conditional upon our ability to accept that we do not know and therefore need to learn. Nobody takes a course because they've already mastered the content. And nobody can learn from a course if they believe they already know it.

A Course in Miracles frames this fact with our decision to attend one of two teachers - ego or the Holy Spirit.

Whenever you think you know, peace will depart from you, because you have abandoned the Teacher of peace. Whenever you fully realize that you know not, peace will return, for you will have invited Him to do so by abandoning the ego on behalf of Him (T-14.XI.13:3-4).

Hence this directive: ". . . the essential thing is learning that you do not know" (T-14.XI.1:1).

What is it that we do not know? That we both have and are the power of God, which is perfect peace (T-14.XI.2:5). That we have no problems that are not already solved, including the problem of death. That pefect happiness is ours - not for the taking, but for the sharing, for it has already been given to us and giving it away is how we remember we have it.

With your pefection ever in His sight, the Holy Spirit gives the gift of peace to everyone who perceives the need for peace, and who would have it. Make way for peace and it will come (T-14.XI.14:6-7).

In order for this to happen, we have to get out of the way. We have to accept that we cannot teach ourselves, or others, because our learning - however fun and interesting, however deep and wide - has merely reinforced the original error of separation: that we are bodies in a world, in charge of our own survival.

. . . you have taught yourself how to imprison the Son of God, a lesson so unthinkable that only the insane, in deepest sleep, could ever dream of it. Can God learn how not be God (T-14.XI.2:2-3)?

It is hard to completely let go of our desire to teach ourselves, which rests on our conviction that there is something we know that God and God's Children do not. At the bottom of our lack of peace is the simple insistence that we are special - that we understand what others do not, and are thus entitled to just a little bit more of God's love than others.

Take what A Course in Miracles calls the “Test of Truth.” There are only two questions, each of which must be answered either "yes" or "no." Be rigorously honest (and monosyllabic) in your answers.

First, are you "wholly free of fear of any kind" (T-14.XI.5:2)?

Second, does every person you meet - from spouse to neighbor to stranger in the grocery store - and every person you even think of, living or dead, share in this total absence of fear, which is perfect peace (T-14.XI.5:2)?

We are here together, supporting one another in studying A Course in Miracles and working to bring its principles into application because our answer to those questions is "no."

Notice yourself saying that it's impossible to be "wholly free" of fear. Or that people you think of cannot possibly be affected merely by your thinking of them.

Notice, too, how discouraged you feel by not yet knowing perfect peace. Notice how you want to quit the course, forget about God, and give up on learning altogether.

And notice as well your resolution to begin again, to redouble your efforts, to really commit this time and thus get it right.

All of those responses, without exception, are equally unhelpful. They still reflect past "learning," in which you concluded that you are a body in the world and in charge of your own protection.

Say, instead, this small prayer:

I do not know what anything, including this, means.
And so I do not know how to respond to it.
And I will not use my own past learning
as the light to guide me now (T-14.XI.6:7-9).

This prayer will undo - even if only briefly, even if only momentarily - your confusion and despair and thus leave space for the Teacher of God, who is the Teacher of peace, to remind you of what you both have and are. What happens in that instant of release to your problems? Your suffering? What happens to your hurt and guilt and fear?

. . . see the mighty works that He will do through you, and you must be convinced you did them through Him. It is impossible to deny the Source of effects so powerful they could not be of you. Leave room for Him, and you will find yourself so filled with power that nothing will prevail against your peace (T-14.XI.15:3-5).

For all its abstraction, A Course in Miracles is brutally practical. When we avail ourselves of its clarity and simplicity we are led directly to a peace that surpasses understanding, and a joy that cannot be contained.

We are in these bodies in this world - we are here in this shared dream of imperfection - in order to remember together that together we are Creation Itself, indivisible and beyond the reach of conflict or discord. Nothing else is true because there is nothing else.

Thank you, as always, for remembering with me.

Love,
Sean