06.02.06
0401 - Stages
Posted in the Branch at 10:25 pm by James 
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from Issue 004 — Nov 2001
Over the course of many years of hosting study groups and other forums, be they in person or over the Internet, it has long been apparent that there are many misunderstandings regarding how one actually does do the Course. Sometimes these misunderstandings are quite explicit. Someone may simply come out and ask, “How do I practice the Course?” More often than not, they are not explicit at all. They are hidden behind a seemingly innocent statement such as, “I wasn’t able to pick the book up this week” or, “I am doing the workbook for the third time because I didn’t get it right the first two times.”
I am sure you can recall others that someone, perhaps yourself, may have said. I know I have uttered a few in my time.
In this article I would like to share some of my thoughts on the ways one may practise the Course. This is by no means the definitive view on how to practice the Course. Rather, it is a general exploration that may be of benefit regardless of one’s own mode of practice. As such, this article is only addressed to those who consider themselves, students of the Course.
To assist in this discussion I shall divide the practice of the Course into four stages. Let me be clear, this division is mine and constructed solely as an aid to the discussion at hand. Whether you identify strongly with one, or just detect an element within you is entirely a matter for you. In any event, if you do see yourself somewhere among these stages, it can provide you with a chance to ask yourself, “what is my purpose, what am I trying to do?”
The first stage of practicing the Course isn’t practicing the Course at all. People in this stage are certainly interested in the Course but really that is all they are, interested. Among this group of seekers are those simply using the Course as a source of aphorisms, one ingredient of their spiritual pot pourri. To be fair, many people engaged in this practice do not consider themselves a Course student. Unfortunately though, there are also many who do. These self proclaimed Course students refrain, for whatever reason, from actually taking the Course for what is, a course. They believe that they can receive all that the Course offers by just taking a bit here and another bit there, perhaps reading from it every now and then, attending study groups or workshops, indeed doing everything but what it asks. At best I would call these seekers, spiritual shoppers, trying before buying. At worst, they are seriously deluded! They have yet to make a commitment to the teaching as a serious possibility. Indeed they have chosen to ignore the actual form of the teaching, thinking that they know better than the author of the Course itself. Make no mistake; we all begin our spiritual journey as shoppers. It can be a way of adjusting slowly to a teaching. Of trying to determine if a teaching is the “right” teaching. What these shoppers often fail to realise is that the longer they shop, with any particular path, the more likely they are really trying to find a way of adjusting the teaching to themselves.
Let me emphasise that the majority of us begin our spiritual journey this way and this, in itself, is not a problem or even an issue. It only becomes a problem if we engage in it as if were a path in its own right. To be honest, to be engaged in a prolonged shopping spree can be considered a path: A path to nowhere. By all means one should shop around for a spiritual path, just like anything else. Just know that while doing this you are only shopping.
Before leaving discussion of the shopping stage I might add one more observation. Many shoppers sincerely believe that taking a bit from this path and another bit from another is a valid path. After all they say, “All roads lead to Rome.” What they fail to realise is that by jumping from one road to another and back again won’t actually get them to Rome, it just demonstrates that they can jump from road to road. There are very, very few people who can successfully synthesise more than one spiritual path. Invariably those few who have been able to do this have only done so after getting to ‘Rome’ and then wandering back to check out the other roads.
The second stage of doing the Course is comprised of those who have chosen to commit to actually giving it a go. They read the Text and the Manual for Teachers and actually spend a year doing the Workbook exercises. These are students in the traditional sense of the word. Their commitment is to do the whole Course, not just the bits and pieces they select. They have realised, not always consciously, that regardless of how many beautiful spiritual shops one can find, nothing really happens until they go through the door and enter.
The whole course is all three ‘books.’ It is not reading bits from the Text. It is not reading the Workbook for some daily inspiration while not doing what it actually asks. It is reading the Text from the beginning. Reading the Manual for Teachers. It is doing the Workbook exercises, as given, in the order given, and not getting stuck because something doesn’t make sense. There are many who think that simply reading the three ‘books’ is enough. Let me assure you it isn’t. The Text provides the theoretical foundation for everything you will be introduced to in the Workbook and can serve as a source of comfort, inspiration and understanding for many years to come. The Manual for Teachers provides very practical responses to questions that will arise as you attempt to apply the Course’s principles in your life. But the Workbook will provide the initial experience of what all the words are actually on about. Doing the Workbook gives that which all the reading in the world will not provide. It gives you an experience of your ego, bare and naked, as well as an experience of something other. An experience of the machinations of the ego and what lies beyond such childish games, when you are willing to entertain a different thought. The resistance to doing the Workbook can at times seem great. All sorts of reasons will surface to seemingly justify your stopping, getting stuck or even tossing it completely aside. Indeed it could be argued that unless this resistance rises you are not actually doing the Workbook at all! The important thing to remember is to not let the very resistance that you are being introduced to, derail your progress. Simply be patient and keep moving on. No more is asked (although there are some who feel that even this is too much.)
After completing all three ‘books’ of the Course, what then? Many students feel a bit adrift at this point. Many feel a bit let down. The heavens didn’t open, the thunder did not roar. So they mistakenly think the answer lies in doing the Workbook again, and again, and again…. They forget something that is said towards the end of their year of study.
“This course is a beginning, not an end.” [W.ep.1:1]
Instead of moving on to the real, life long practice of the course, they unknowingly go back to the beginning and start again. It can be likened to not wanting to take off the training wheels. Not a flattering image, but apt.
We are now speaking of the third stage or group. Most of the people here still consider themselves students of the Course, but although in doing so they are honestly stating that there is more to learn, more often than not they are actually placing a limit upon themselves. In a subtle way many of them are deciding that they will never be anything else. They decide to continue to “do the Course,” rather than to apply the Course in their lives. Being stuck in the Workbook cycle is only one such expression of the perpetual student. Another expression is thinking you are not doing the Course if you don’t keep reading the books. Please do not misunderstand me here. You will of course continue reading and learning from the books for many years to come. Indeed, the Text provides a depth that for the majority of us will only be revealed after years of study. Simply do not confuse this with ‘doing’ or more correctly, applying the Course.
Similarly, during this period of ‘graduation’ one may continue to attend study groups, workshops and the like. Again, it is important to remember that these activities, which are fine in themselves, do not constitute the applying of the Course. This is really a time when the graduate is expected to apply the principles the Course has taught (increasingly) to every aspect of their lives. Perhaps a better term to describe this would be apprenticeship. A time of questions and answers. A time of ease and unease. A time perhaps where you begin to appreciate that you really do have a chance to peel away the layers of illusion you have spent your life, up until this time, laying down, only to forget that you did. During this time, reading from the Course, studying it perhaps with a renewed appreciation of its mastery and beauty, can be of immeasurable support and comfort. This time can also seem to be very cruel as we imagine we are being asked to do something we are unable to do. To give, that which we cannot give. When we mistakenly believe sacrifice is asked of us, even though we have constantly reminded that Love asks no sacrifice.
Another aspect of this time is well described in the Manual for Teachers in the subsection called “Development of Trust.” A time when there are moments where you think you have grasped it, only to lose it again. At times you may even feel as if you are being tested. Then there are the other times when you think you will never get it, never understand.
As a result, many ‘apprentices’ both overtly and covertly begin to condemn themselves for their apparent failure to do what they think is asked: for their failure to understand what they are even seeking. The message of the Course now seems too fantastic, the metaphysics too removed from “real” experience and practicality. A time of doubt, invariably directed to the Course, but actually of their very self. This struggle is described in many places throughout the Course, perhaps most pointedly in Chapter 21, Section VII, “The Last Unanswered Question.”
“Yet hate must have a target. There can be no faith in sin without an enemy. Who that believes in sin would dare believe he has no enemy? Could he admit that no one made him powerless? Reason would surely bid him seek no longer what is not there to find. Yet first he must be willing to perceive a world where it is not. It is not necessary that he understand how he can see it. Nor should he try. For if he focuses on what he cannot understand, he will but emphasize his helplessness, and let sin tell him that his enemy must be himself.” T-21.VII.5:1-9] (Emphasis mine)
Now is the time of accepting that perhaps you have been trying too hard. That rather than do the little the course asks, you are doing too much. You have been assuming a function that was not yours. Contrary to all the thoughts you hold about yourself this is the time to let go of the label of student and accept the mantle of Teacher of God. You have been one for quite some time, but have refused to accept it. You have been demonstrating the false humility of the ego, rather than accepting the grandeur of Spirit. Now you have entered that stage described in the Manual for Teachers as “…a period of unsettling” [M-4.I.A.7.1]. A stage that you may remain in for a long, long time.
This is the time when you seriously begin to give up your ideas of what Truth is and leave it to the One Who Knows. In a sense, you could call this the final or fourth stage in terms of your commitment to the journey you have undertaken along the path to home. Here you are finally willing to accept you don’t know. Here you are finally willing to have faith in something “you” may never understand. Here you are willing to give up the idea that you need to understand. Here you can truly call yourself, not a student of the Course, but a Teacher of God.
This is the fourth stage in my arbitrarily divided progression. Some mistakenly may believe it is the last, and it is, but not in the commonly accepted sense. It is the last in that you are no longer solely identified with the impulse to evaluate, to engage in measuring your advances or retreats. No longer just driven by the impulse to judge, evaluate or even try to determine where you are on this journey. Yes, the thoughts may still be there, the impulse to judge may still arise, but they no longer fool you. But perhaps more importantly, and contrary to what many ‘students’ of the Course think, you are not seemingly doing anything different in your life to what you did before! There is no crusade, there is no need to drop all the everyday aspects of your life, like relationships, your job, your friends, your hobbies and begin some new spiritual guru like stance. You are not even required to “teach” the Course! You are simply asked to do the little that is asked of you, no more, and most certainly, no less. Do it every moment you can, in the ‘life’ you are currently living. In other words, ‘don’t give up the day job.’ Not even the scribes of the Course did that.
This is the final commitment to Truth. A commitment you make anew each and every moment of each and every day. A time not of claiming perfection here, but of being willing to teach perfection wherever you find yourself and thus learn it for your self. [See M-in.5:5-6]
Where are you in these four stages? Have you just crossed a threshold, or are you in a seemingly perpetual dance before the border of one. Are you the perpetual shopper, claiming they are a student; or a Teacher of God, refusing to step in front of his class.
To be a Teacher of God asks very little. That it seems very hard to do so little, is understood. That you are able to do the little asked is guaranteed. You only need the faith, for faith leads to trust, and trust is the foundation characteristic of the Teacher of God.
The Course only asks of you one thing in relation to what you are doing. Ask yourself, “what is the purpose?” Wherever you are in your journey with the Course, know what you are doing, and to the best of your ability, know why. If you are still shopping, is it because you have yet to find what you want, or is it you do not want to find it at all. If you have stepped through the door and have committed yourself to giving it a go, are you doing so on its terms, or yours? And, if you have finished the Course, graduated, so to speak, what are you doing now? Still repeating your student ways in a forlorn attempt to “understand,” before you will accept it? Wherever you are, whatever arises to cause you to pause and perhaps step backwards rather than forwards, allow it not to give you cause to judge against yourself. Just see it, and then get on with it. Or, in other words, to borrow from the slogan of a particular brand of footwear:
“Just do it!”
©2001 JH