26.02.06
0601 – Welcome
Posted in the Branch at 6:29 pm by James 
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from Issue 006 — Mar 2002
Welcome to the sixth issue of The Branching of the Road and an issue concentrating on the theme of Easter. We (Linda and James) have once again taken one of our talks and prepared it for publication in the newsletter. This time we have made a few more revisions than with our Christmas article from the last newsletter. We also include the final instalment in Linda’s three article series exploring some of the difficulties encountered in trying to practise the Course.
The themes of Easter, the crucifixion and the resurrection, reappear throughout the Course. Our fascination with them, our misunderstanding of them and even our application of them as underlying themes in our own everyday lives are touched on in these discussions. Interestingly our study group has just begun to read through Chapter 27 of the text, “The Healing of the Dream.” This chapter begins with a section entitled “The Picture of Crucifixion.” Not the crucifixion, not even a crucifixion, but crucifixion as an ongoing act or doing. I do not wish to discuss the section in detail as I will leave that to you. Rather I wish to discuss one or two lines from the first paragraph.
We have well and truly reached a stage in the text where it seems that Jesus spends very little time beating around the bush and pandering to our fears. The scribe has well and truly acquiesced. The student is ready to hear.
You cannot crucify yourself alone. (T-27.I.1:5)
Another of those one-line summaries in the Course that point to the Truth. One line that, if heard, provides answer to all those movements towards separation and the denial of what we all share, indeed of what we all are. You cannot crucify yourself alone. A statement of our true relationship to each other.
You see it is not our antagonism towards our brother, our hates, our dislikes, our petty squabbles and disputes, that we need to let go of. Yes they will need to disappear, but not through our changing what we do to them or even with them.
At first read it does seem as if the Course is all about getting on with our brother, being nicer and more welcoming. And at one level it is indeed couched in those terms. But that is never where the focus is or where the solution can be found. It is a result, but not the answer.
This is a course in cause and not effect. (T-21.VVII.7:8)
It is very difficult to accept at first, but eventually one must come to accept it, the Course is never about changing one’s behaviour, your own or anybody else’s.
This is a course in cause and not effect. (op cit)
And the cause of all our suffering is very simply the guilt we have mistakenly accepted as our own. Remember the one resposibility of the miracle worker. Our one task is to accept the Atonement for ourselves. Our one task is to release ourSelves from the burden of guilt we have laid upon the Son, for in seeing ourself as anything other than God’s guiltless Son, we are crucifying Him. And in doing so, we are crucifying the rest of the Sonship, for we have not only denied our Truth, but theirs as well.
“Ah but I am not into crucifying myself,” I hear you say. Think again. Let’s just look at some of the ways we crucify ourselves. When was the last time you felt attacked or persecuted? When was the last time you felt unfairly treated? When were the last times you felt misunderstood, not heard, invisible? When was the last time you felt in the way, a something extra, superfluous? When was the last time you felt like you didn’t want to be here (wherever “here” happened to be)? When was the last time you wanted to hide, to run away? When was the last time you wanted to be dead? When was the last time you didn’t like the way you looked? When was the last time you felt particularly pleased about the way you looked? When was the last time you wanted to get out? When was the last time you wanted to embrace the world, witness your love and oneness? When was the last time you wanted to save your brother and end his misery?
In other words, when was the last time you felt motivated to do something because you felt separate from all around you?
You cannot crucify yourself alone. (T-27.I.1:5)
Any thought that belittles who you are is a thought of crucifixion. Any thought that belittles another is a thought of crucifixion. Any thought that speaks of vulnerability, speaks of crucifixion. Any thought that sees you in anyway different and apart from your brother, speaks of crucifixion. Think about this, even wanting to send Love out into the world, speaks of crucifixion for it can only have arisen from a belief that you (or the world) is seperate.
You can’t crucify yourself alone for you are not alone, and cannot be crucified. Any thought that speaks of crucifixion is simply not the truth.
So perhaps this Easter, you may become a little more aware of those times of crucifixion to which you may succumb, and in those times, when you are able, remember…
“I cannot crucify myself alone, for I am not alone and I cannot be crucified.”
James