26.02.06

0501 - Welcome

Posted in the Branch at 6:06 pm by James  Print This Post

from Issue 005 — Jan 2002

And a happy New Year

So this is Xmas
And what have you done
Another year over
And a new one just begun
And so this is Xmas
I hope you have fun
The near and the dear one
The old and the young

A very Merry Xmas
And a happy New Year
Let’s hope it’s a good one
Without any fear

I sometimes think it funny how themes from one’s generation run through one’s mind. Well actually it isn’t really that funny as our entire experience here is just a thought running through our mind.

For many of us, thoughts of Christmas (be they good or bad) have been uppermost in our minds. It is perhaps a time when our addiction to the past becomes more evident than at other times in our lives. I remember a Christmas some 20 years ago that I spent in Poland. My first and only white Christmas. I remember being asked to paint a poster for the New Year. A Polish tradition I was told. It was to depict the past year as an old man and the New Year as a baby, innocent and full of hope and promise. I was surprised, as I had thought these particular symbols to be the product of western advertising, just as the image of Santa Claus that adorns shop windows and department stores this time of year. But I was assured that the symbols were quite traditional. Another example of shared thought.

Both the words of John Lennon’s song and my memory of a Christmas long ago end with the New Year. How it is seen as a time when we can let go of all that went before and make a change for the better. A real change at that! I am sure the more perverse among us can probably review their life as a series of New Year’s resolutions that never happened. Maybe this year’s will be different. Maybe.

Jesus speaks of this at the very end of chapter 15 of the Text that was written at the end of December 1966. Here he asks Helen, and us, to make this New Year different by making it all the same. A deceptively simple statement, but one that contains the very essence of the Course. This is another way of saying make each day New Year’s Day, every moment the stroke of midnight, every instant a holy instant. We don’t of course. That would require us giving up our next precious treasure, our belief in ourselves as separate unique individuals, or to be more correct, our desire to be so.

Interestingly there are parallels between the idea of making a new year’s resolution and how and why one may do the course. On the surface these may appear to be very commendable, a sure sign of growth and advancement. Yet underneath they carry the same seed, the same error. In relation to the Course , this error is often expressed through the belief that one does the Course to become a better person. That one measures their progress by how much kinder they now are, loving they now appear, tranquil they have become. While not speaking against any of these attributes, I am speaking against the hidden agenda sitting as the idea behind them and using this idea as one’s motivation for doing the Course.

A theme that has run through most of the articles published in this newsletter has been one of review. Here it is no different. Although wanting to better oneself is a good place to start (though no better than any other) it is something that eventually has to be set aside and left behind as a motivator as one deepens their participation in this path we call “A Course in Miracles.” Remember the Course is a course in mind training (T-1.VII.4:1), not behavioural control. It is about us examining the motivation behind what we do (see T-17.VI.2:2 & T-24.VII.6:1). It is not, and I repeat not, about becoming a better person or to be more precise, a better ego. Why make the error a better error? Yet this is what many Course students see as their aim in doing the Course . They think it will make them a better more loving, kind, helpful (please insert your own favourite positive attribute) person. In other words a more acceptable ego! More acceptable to whom you might ask? To other ego’s usually, to God, ultimately.

While holding onto this “make myself better” motivation they proving to themselves that they are not. Another way to say this is that they are attempting a path that is based on the premise that they are already perfect by reinforcing their imperfection. And what better way of proving this: make another New Year’s resolution, which they probably will not keep.

But do not despair. Like anything we have made in this world the Holy Spirit can use it for us rather than against us. A New Year’s resolution is no different. A desire to be a better, more loving person is no different. Even the desire to be a better ego can be used by the Holy Spirit as a starting point, now, at the very place you think you find yourself to be. Just as the truth of who you are is not dependant on what you do, the lie of who your are not is also not dependant on it. Figures in a dream do what figures in a dream do. You are not being asked to change these figures, to make them do something else. You are being asked, all the time, to simply see them for what they are. Figures in a dream. To realise that all those times of anger, upset, excitement, judgement, disappointment, in fact any time we feel emotional, is simply a time we have forgotten the dream is a dream and insisted instead it was the truth.

We are asked only to be vigilant for the truth. It doesn’t need us to insist it, to explore it or defend it. So let’s make this year different by making it the same. Let us, whenever we recognise our insistence on the dream being true, ask to see it differently. And, perhaps more importantly, let us forgive ourselves each time we don’t.

A very Merry Xmas
And a happy New Year
Let’s hope it’s a good one
Without any fear

Lyrics from Happy Xmas (War Is Over)
by Yoko Ono & John Lennon

James

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