ARTICLE
| January/February 2010 |
Above All Else
Strengthening
Motivation to Change
by Jon Mundy
All good teachers realize that only fundamental change
will last, but they do not begin at that level.
Strengthening motivation for change is their first
and foremost goal. It is also their last and final one.
Increasing motivation for change in the learner is
all that a teacher need do to guarantee change.
Change in motivation is a change of mind, and
this will inevitably produce fundamental change
because the mind is fundamental.
Chapter 6. V. (b) 2:1-5
A Hindu student approached his master while the master was standing in a river and told him that he wanted to be enlightened. The master reached out, grabbed the student by his neck, plunged his head under the water, and held it there for a couple of minutes. The student struggled mightily to get free. Finally, the master let go. When the student caught his breath and could talk again he said; “Why. . . .why did you do that?” The master asked, “When you were under the water, what did you want more than anything else?” More than anything he said, “I wanted to be able to take a breath.” “Then,” the master said, “when you want to be enlightened as much as you want a breath of air, you can be enlightened.”
The world is the way we see it. That does not mean that is the way that it is – it’s just the way we see it. Miracle-mindedness means bringing the mind in line with the Mind of God. One of the things you love about the mystics is their profound love and devotion to God. God becomes the main desire of the heart and there is a desire to see it above all else.
Become in all things a God seeker and in all things
a God finder at all times and in all places.
Meister Eckhart (1260–1326, Germany) is often regarded
as the greatest of the Medieval Christian mystics.
The Inner Teacher is here to help us change our minds in a comfortable, non-judgmental atmosphere. To change, we must first realize that:
1. There is a need for a change.
2. The mind can be changed; and,
3. There is a “better” way to see things.
The holy instant is the result
of your determination to be holy. It is the answer.
The desire and the willingness to let it come precedes its coming.
You prepare your mind for it only to the extent of recognizing
that you want it above all else.
Chapter 18. IV. 1:1-3
Do We Want to Change?
A man is praying to God and says, “Dear God, I want peace.” God responds, “When you get rid of the ‘I’ and the ‘want,’ you will have peace.” The first question is what is the wanting creature? What is it that needs anything? What if there were no “wanting creature?” According to psychologist, Eric Erikson, (1902-1994 Denmark then US), we can only change when we “own” change. We are committed or we are not.
On May 7, 2001, I had a tumor the size of a lemon removed from my insides. The day after, I awoke to see the oncologist standing at the foot of my bed. His first words were, “Mr. Mundy, I have to tell you that the cancer has spread.” It had gone into my lymph system and was spreading throughout my body. After that, I had to decide if I was going to follow a natural therapy program or was I going to go the way of chemotherapy. I asked Dr. Ken Wapnick his opinion and he said if I was to do the natural process, I should do it all the way. As with any spiritual discipline, to get results, it must be done all the way. As it turned out, I did both chemotherapy and a natural method started by a Dr. Richard Schultz, who also made it clear, “Either do this program or don't do it, but don’t do it halfway.” Eleven months later, I was cancer free.
We cannot be totally committed sometimes.
Chapter 7. VII. 1:4
I did not pray that God would spare my body. That is not real prayer. Real prayer is, “Thy Will be done.” Only the ego needs anything – a child of God is already fulfilled. Wanting anything implies that something is missing. If we are praying for a specific outcome, if it’s something “we” want, it will not come unless our greatest desire is that of God.
Belief that there is another way of perceiving is the loftiest idea of which ego thinking is capable.
That is because it contains a
hint of recognition that the ego is not the Self.
Chapter 4. II. 4:10
Motivation and Need
A frog fell into a pothole and couldn't get out. Even his friends couldn't get him to muster enough strength to jump out of the deep pothole. Finally, they gave up and left him to his fate. The next day they saw him bounding around just fine. Somehow he made it out. “How did you do it? We thought you couldn't get out." The frog replied, "I couldn't but a truck was coming and I had to."
A therapist friend tells the story of a client who was suing her company for discrimination and had developed panic attacks and a phobia of driving. When her dog got seriously ill and no one was around, she had to drive him to the vet. From that time on she was able to drive.
We often do not change until we are sufficiently provoked to change. If we need food, or water, or we need to go to the bathroom, our motivation to fulfill our need is directly proportional to the level of our physical discomfort. When circumstances become unbearable, we are motivated to change. When love falls away from a marriage, when our health breaks down, when debt becomes unmanageable, we might change. We do not, however, need to wait for provocation to come our way to make a change.
Reawakening Spiritual Vision
You can temporize and you are capable of enormous
procrastination, but you cannot depart entirely from your Creator,
Who set the limits on your ability to miscreate.
. . . . . . . .
Tolerance for pain may be high, but it is not without limit.
Eventually everyone begins to recognize,
however dimly, that there [must] be a better way.
As this recognition becomes more firmly established,
it becomes a turning point. This ultimately reawakens spiritual
vision, simultaneously weakening the investment in physical sight.
Chapter 2. III. 3:3-8
Whenever something tragic like cancer, a divorce, or bankruptcy happens, we can either change or regress into despair. We can always slip into denial, projection, dissociation, and addiction. Hopefully, this will be an opportunity for change and we’ll begin to find our way out. Lesson number 20 from the Workbook is, "I am determined to see." Lesson number 21 is, "I am determined to see things differently." Lesson number 27 from the Course is, “Above all else I want to see things differently.” To be free, I must want to be free above all else. I must be willing to do what is necessary to change. Do I want the peace of God above all else? Or, do I want to do things in my own way—on my own terms—in my own time—until time runs out? The early nineteenth-century, American Transcendentalist, Henry David Thoreau said, “Most people die with their music still in them.” Willingness to turn things over to the Inner Teacher is the first step. We are simply to stop confusing the egos voice with God’s Voice. It is a matter of willingness.
If I have a headache, I take an aspirin and the pain goes away. Something from the outside changed things on the inside. Medicine treats the symptom but the cause has not changed. My headache is gone. The reason for the headache is not gone. If the mind has not changed, there has been no real change. According to the Course, all physical symptoms are caused by guilt in the mind. The guilty mind then projects a sick body. We can fix the symptom in the body, but if the guilt in the mind is not fixed, the same symptom or a new one will reappear.
A participant in one of my workshops on forgiveness suffered from migraine headaches. They started, she said, when she was in a bad relationship. Although the relationship had ended, it was not resolved. She was continually angry and unforgiving. She realized during the workshop that she did not have any choice. She was going to have to forgive herself and the man in question. She decided to be free of the whole mess—to let it all go. Later she reported that to her surprise, the headaches had not returned and having let it all go, she now felt marvelous free.
Learning and wanting to learn are inseparable.
You learn best when you believe
what you are trying to learn is of value to you.
Chapter 4. V. 3:5-6
If I am studying Spanish because I know that I am going to spend time in Spain, I am much more motivated to actually learn Spanish than I will be if I do not plan on someday using the language. If I am going to play a piano for a recital, my motivation to learn to play a particular piece of music is obviously increased.
Discipline and the Mind
You want to be happy. You want peace.
You do not have them now,
because your mind is totally undisciplined,
and you cannot distinguish between
joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, love and fear.
You are now learning how to tell them apart.
And
great indeed will be your reward.
Lesson 20. 2:3-8
The word discipline comes from the word disciple. A disciple is a follower of a teacher or a teaching. The teacher brings a teaching. Jesus is a Rabbi—a teacher. Our minds are “totally” undisciplined. Being undisciplined, we have work to do before we can be healed and whole. How much time is given to compulsions, to hungers of the body we “seem” unable to control? And, who is the “we” who cannot control it? When we dissociate, get caught in a projection, or side-tracked by some habituated activity, we do not even attempt to try to control our minds. An addict does not attempt to control an appetite. The addiction wins.
There is no need to learn through pain.
And gentle lessons are acquired joyously,
and are remembered gladly.
What gives you happiness you want to learn and not forget.
Chapter 21. I. 3:1-3
We tell ourselves that we’re working hard to support our family, when our family would rather have more of our time. We tell ourselves, we’re having fun when we’re drinking or gambling too much, all the while lying to ourselves. Compulsions are always of the ego, and the ego always lies. With Spirit in charge, we give up on our compulsions as simply as we give up tricycles when we get a bicycle. The ego struggles, but Spirit teaches lessons, gently.
Self-respect is the fruit of discipline; the sense of dignity grows
with the ability to say no to oneself.
Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972, Poland then USA)
Aversions and Desires
Epictetus, the ancient Greek Stoic Philosopher, said peace comes from living a simple life in which we learn to control the mind and to trim away both aversions and desires. Aversions are that which we project against. The miracle-minded are called upon to be free of all denials and projections. Aversions are things we can’t stand and try to stay away from. Desires are things we try to get more of even to obsessiveness. Aversions and desires are extreme behaviors and forms of misperception.
Wanting something or wanting to push something away from us, makes the thing real—reinforcing the idea that this world is real. When we fall in love, we want to be with that person, we desire that person more than anything. Then, when we get divorced, we try to push that person out of our lives. A friend tells the story of a young man who fell in love with a girl who had this "cute little gap" between her front teeth. Later, when they broke up, she became "that gap-toothed bitch." Both extreme behaviors, both judgments, first good then bad, both reinforce the idea that something or someone exterior to us can make us happy or unhappy.
Just as polishing iron can turn it into a mirror so can
a mind conditioned by discipline eliminates its mental rust.
Ghazzali (1058-1111, Sufi Mystic)
To let go of the sloth, the pollutants, the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence, the “stuff” that is getting in the way of spiritual progress, calls for consistent discipline, control, and restraint. This is not hard work. In fact, it is much easier than not working. Not working leads to despair and depression. We will eventually awaken so why not awaken now?
When you have learned how to decide with God,
all decisions become as easy and as right as breathing.
There is no effort, and you will be led as gently as if
you were being carried down a quiet path in summer.
Only your own volition seems to make deciding hard.
Chapter 14. IV. 6:1-3
Mind-Wandering and Mind-Training
We can probably all think of times when our Inner Teacher urged us to go one way; we went another and later, wished we had not. If something goes “against our better judgment,” it’s a good idea to stop, look, and listen. We are much too tolerant of “mind-wandering.” We may call it meditation but mind-wandering is often simply “dissociation,” self-indulgence, rehearsal of the past, and day-dreaming. Mind-wandering is projection. It takes us away from Oneness. A split or dissociated mind does not know what it wants. A unified and disciplined mind rests in contentment.
You have seen the extent of your lack of mental discipline,
and of your need for mind training. It is necessary that you be
aware of this, for it is indeed a hindrance to your advance.
Lesson 95. 4:4
“Ah, but,” you say, “I don't want to be brain-washed.” We are all already brain-washed and 99.9% of the time, we listen to the indoctrination that comes from the ego and a consensus reality created and sustained by television, in magazines, the radio, the internet, our neighbors, and more. Our minds are very undisciplined, very untrained. Our ability to listen to the Inner Teacher, depends on our willingness to question our wandering minds, our machinations, fearful fantasies, beliefs, and illusions.
. . . when the mind is occupied with a name or form it will grasp that alone. When the mind expands in the
form of countless thoughts,
each thought becomes weak; but as thoughts get resolved,
the mind becomes one-pointed and strong,
for such a mind Self-inquiry will become easy.
Ramana Maharshi
The Spiritual Teaching of Ramana Maharshi (Shambhala p. 7)
Watch your mind for the temptations of the ego,
and do not be deceived by it.
It offers you nothing. When you have given up
this voluntary dis-spiriting,
you will see how your mind can focus
and rise above fatigue and heal.
Yet you are not sufficiently vigilant against the demands of the ego
to disengage yourself. This need not be.
Chapter 4. IV 6:1-5
Over-Learning
There is a theory in education called over-learning. Repeat any activity over and over again and it will be encoded in the brain. When studying a foreign language, we learn a new word; but then we review it and learn it again and again. We hear it used in different sentences and in different ways. In this way, it is less likely that I will forget it. In the same way with music, I practice a piece until I know it; and then, I practice it again.
Though there is no requirement to do so, many students of the Course, once they complete the Workbook, do it over again. When they do, they find it becomes increasingly valuable because they are capable of hearing at a deeper level. We have “over-learned” the message of the world. We buy the story, the tradition, the conceptual matrix, the consensus reality created by society, the etiquette, the super ego; and then, we try to play the game by the world’s laws. All the while, there’s an inner knowing— “something” is wrong. We are living in an artificial world.
Over-learning means we don’t forget. As we learn the Course, as we get better at it, we literally become miracle-minded. Developing positive practices (like doing the daily Workbook lessons), leads in the direction of God, once again. It is a practice leading to mastery. If any practice is repeated enough, it will have its effect. There is no one who can sincerely do the Workbook lessons and not experience transformation in his life for the better. The less we let ego run the show, the less dis-spirited we will be, the more in-spirit we become.
This is a course in mind training.
All learning involves attention and study at some level.
Chapter 1. 4:1
Clarity and Commitment
Trying to give part of my commitment to God and part to the ego, I wind up with no definite results. A definite result is the experience of peace of mind. The more I pay attention to the Inner Teacher, the more I can't help doing what God would have me do. Being disciplined, the positive result is an automatic. The right hand does not have to let the left hand know what to do. The pianist does not think about where to place his fingers on the piano keys.
Say to the Holy Spirit only, "Decide for me," and it is done.
For His decisions are reflections of what God knows about you,
and in this light, error of any kind becomes impossible.
Why would you struggle so frantically to anticipate all you cannot know, when all knowledge lies behind
every decision the Holy Spirit makes for you?
Chapter 14. III. 16. 1:1-3