ARTICLE
| March/April 2010 |
Everyone Has
The Answer Now
by Jon Mundy, Ph.D.
Since the Holy Spirit answers truly
He answers for all time,
which means that everyone has the answer now.
ACIM, Chapter 6. IV. 3:4
A master received a visit from a professor who wanted to learn about enlightenment. The master poured his guest a cup of tea and kept on pouring while the cup overflowed. The professor saw it and finally could no longer keep quiet. “The cup is overflowing; you can’t pour any more into it!” The master replied, “Like this cup, you are overflowing with your ideas. How am I to teach you when you don’t have an empty cup?”
As a man and also one of God's creations, my right thinking,
which came from the Holy Spirit or the Universal Inspiration, taught me first and foremost that this Inspiration is for all.
I could not have it myself without knowing this. The word "know" is proper in this context, because the Holy Spirit is so close to knowledge that He calls it forth; or better, allows it to come. . .
ACIM, Chapter 5. I. 4:6-9
Re-cognizing Truth
Every now and then you’ll meet someone who is relatively new to the Course who has taken to it, as we say, “like a duck to water.” They begin to get it right away and that comes more from emotional or spiritual preparedness rather than intellect. A lot depends upon a willingness to see things differently. What is called for is a new vision, a way of seeing that leads to a deep “Ah-ha!” and a recognition that there is something other (more than) the world we see. Everyone wakes up someday, the only question is when? Eventually, all dreaming ends, all illusions are set aside, and everyone returns to the Truth.
A primary quality of the mystical experience is called the “noetic” quality. Noetic means that we come to re-cognize or re-call something that was always there. Jesus always spoke in parables, because, he said, “in hearing they do not hear and in seeing they do not see.” (Matthew 13:34). The ego-mind is so filled with itself that it cannot hear or see anything other than its own dreaming of the world.
All that we ever see or seem is but a dream within a dream.
Edgar Allan Poe
Projection makes perception is one of the most important lines in the Course. This simple, three word sentence, which appears twice in the Course is straightforward, profound, and yet, not easily understood because we are so persistently engaged in projection that we do not see that we do it all the time. Everything is a projection – an assertion, from the first cry of the infant coming out of the womb, onward. The ego, by definition, is a projection. Projection makes perception and perception means interpretation. It is not a fact. It is not truth.
Nothing that you think are your real thoughts resembles your
real thoughts in any respect. Nothing that you think you see
bears any resemblance to what vision will show you.
Lesson 45. 1:4-5
In Plato’s Dialogue, the Meno, he tells us that the soul is eternal, knows everything, and only has to "re-collect" what it already knows. In a similar way, the Course says, “the thoughts we think we think are not our real thoughts” (Lesson 45). Our fantasies, soap operas, stories, and dramas are not real. Our real thoughts are those we hold in line with the Mind of God. A reflection of this knowledge is available to everyone. We already have it so it is not a matter of learning but a matter of re-membering or putting the pieces back together again. We re-cognize, therefore, what is already there.
An Opportunity for Objectivity
In June of 2007, I contracted Viral La Cross Encephalitis from a mosquito bite which brought on a temperature of 106, and produced a grand mal seizure. I went into a coma; was put on life support, and stayed there for several days. I came out of the coma late at night by myself in a hospital room. I could not talk at first but only stare. The first thing I did was to pick up my right hand and bring it around to my face. I then thought, “This is a hand. I wonder how I know what this thing is called.” I wondered how I knew about language and words. Everything was fascinating; my hand, the pictures on the wall in the room. Even the next day seeing my wife Dolores’ beautiful face and her gorgeous red hair. Everything had about it a wonderful expectant shine. The most interesting thought of all was – what was it that was having this experience? For a little while, the world stopped and I was able to see it without the contamination of interpretation. There was no past intruding on the present and no bewildering future. Several days went by before I had the thought, “Oh, you have bills to pay,” “Oh, you have to get well.” “You have to get out of here.” Dolores later said that one of the most amazing aspects of the whole experience was that I had stopped planning, just like our cat, Pockets. He lives, it seems, conflict free and he does no planning.
A healed mind does not plan.
It carries out the plans that it receives through
listening to wisdom that is not
its own.
Lesson 135. 11:1-2
Plotinus (205-270), spoke of “Another Intellect,” different from that of reason. It is not, he said, irrational; rather, it is “trans-rationality.” For Shankara (788-820, India) and Eckhart (1260-1326, Germany), the way of salvation is the way of knowledge or revelation; revelation being an intensely personal experience and a direct contact with the transcendent that has nothing to do with words. Revelation transcends time and can happen in an instant. Theoretical physicist, Dr. Stephen Hawking (1942-Present, England) said his greatest insight into the cosmos came suddenly one evening when he was getting into bed. No doubt he had done a great deal of thinking before that moment but when it came it came in a flash.
The ego is the questioning aspect of the post-separation self, which was made rather than created.
It is capable of asking questions but not of perceiving meaningful answers,
because these would involve knowledge
and cannot be perceived.
ACIM, Chapter 3. IV. 3:1-2 (bold mine)
When someone “receives” a poem, they often feel that it has been given to them. Saint Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179, Germany), and Saint Teresa of Avila (1515-1582, Spain) both said they received their books in an instant. Mozart (1756-1791, Germany) said he would receive (hear) an entire sonata in an instant. There was no need to think it through. In the same way, the Course was given to Helen Schucman. It was just a matter of putting it down on paper. No “composition” was called for. Vision enables us to know what we have all already seen, not in time but eternity. The Holy Spirit's teaching is, thus, a lesson in our re-membering, re-collecting, re-cognizing or, putting back together again what the Spirit already knows.
We are not concerned with intellectual feats nor logical toys.
We are dealing only in the very obvious, which has been overlooked
in the clouds of complexity in which you think you think.
Lesson 39. 1:3-4
In The Critique of Pure Reason of 1781, German philosopher, Immanuel Kant (1724-1894, Prussia) posited the existence of two kinds of knowledge, a priori knowledge and rational knowledge or reason. The intellect is based on information, facts, and associations gathered from life. That which is a priori, we know intuitively and accept as true. Everyone knows, for example, that there is such a thing as “love” though there is no “form” of the thing in the world. We must then go beyond the mind to get to the Mind, to Knowledge, and thus, to Being.
Rationality can take you only so far.
Wei Wu Wei
(1895–1986, England),
a Taoist philosopher.
Ji-Un, a Singon master, was a well-known Sanskrit scholar. When he was young, he used to deliver lectures to his brother students. His mother heard about this and wrote him a letter. “Son, I do not think you became a devotee of the Buddha because you desire to turn into a walking dictionary. There is no end to information and commentary, glory, and honor. I wish you would stop this lecture business. Shut yourself up in a little temple in a remote part of the mountain. Devote your time to meditation and in this way attain true realization.”
It is hard to understand what "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you" really means.
This is because it is not understandable to the ego, which interprets it as if something outside is inside,
and this does not mean anything.
The word "within" is unnecessary. The Kingdom of Heaven is you.
ACIM, Chapter 4. III. 1-4
Jesus, in the Gospels says, “The Kingdom of Heaven is inside you.” To find out what is “really going on,” it’s not necessary to take in any more information. We are all suffering from information overload. To find out what is really going on, go out into the desert, sit down, and wait; and after a while, you’ll have some idea of what is really going on but not because you have taken in any more information. We are suffering from information overload. When we stop thinking (which stops the world), we find out what is really going on. Knowledge, the Course says, precedes time and perception.
Perception is a process of accepting and rejecting, shifting, and changing. Perception is uncertainty. I see my friend at a distance in the shopping mall. As I approach, I see it’s someone else. Perception has not given me the correct information. When we see a house from one side, we “make up” the other sides. It is my assumption that the other sides are there. If I’m watching a movie, what I’m seeing may be the façade of a building. Or, I might be seeing something projected onto a screen behind the actors. The truth is, there is nothing there. Is there something there in a dream, if it is only a dream? We do not know how projective we are and not until we stop projection are we able to see. A new student, after just a few weeks of working with the Course came to me and said, “I’m beginning to realize how incredibly judgmental I am.” And I said, “That’s great! You’re getting it.”
Yet projection will always hurt you.
It reinforces your belief in your own split mind,
and its only purpose is to keep the separation going.
It is solely a device of the ego to make you feel different
from your brothers and separated from them.
The ego uses projection only to destroy your perception
of both yourself and your brothers.
ACIM, Chapter 6. II. 3:1-2&7 (Bold mine.)
Not long before he died, depth psychologist, Dr. Carl Jung, (1875-1961, Switzerland) was interviewed by Sir Laurence Vander Post (1906-1996, South Africa), for the BBC, in London. Near the end of the interview, there is this wonderful moment when Dr. Vander Post asks Dr. Jung if he believes in God. Jung pauses for a moment and then says, “Believe in God? No, I know.” When we know, questions cease. Belief is weak, uncertain. Beliefs can change. Knowing is sure. Knowledge is a priori. It is timeless. It is wordless. It is certain. It is not divided. It is beyond subject and object. Subject and object implies “self’ and “other.” Knowing is Oneness. It is a direct experience of Being. Only oneness is free of conflict (T-3. VIII. 6:8). Knowing is a deep and profound insight into essence. It is stable, unchanging, and conflict free. It is not bodily or sensuous — yet it is known, and known without doubt.
You do not need judgment to organize your life,
and you certainly do not need it to organize yourself.
In the presence of knowledge all judgment is automatically suspended,
and this is the process that enables recognition to replace perception.
ACIM, Chapter 3. VI. 3:5-6 (bold mine)
Zen Buddhism speaks of a state-of-mind beyond both thought and “no-thought.” It is a state in which the labeling of things has ceased. As Zorba the Greek says to his wealthy American companion while dancing on the beach in Crete, “There is only one thing wrong with you boss! You need a little madness!” In order to see, we’ve got to step out of the rigid egoistic thinking. We have to break free of orthodoxy and solidified reasoning. A Shinto priest, when asked about his theology, told journalist Bill Moyers, “I don’t think we have a theology. We dance.”
If you attack error in another, you will hurt yourself.
You cannot know your brother when you attack him.
Attack is always made upon a stranger.
You are making him a stranger by misperceiving him,
and so you cannot know him.
ACIM, Chapter 3. III. 7:1-4
Loving and Knowing
It says in Genesis that Adam “knew” Eve. When we love someone, we see them as they are. We see past the façade; we see their innocence and for this reason, we love them. We cannot know someone when we attack them. To attack someone is to make them a stranger. When we love, we see the others wholeness and innocence, which is the only way we can know them in truth. This is the way God knows us. I remember looking at Judy, my high school sweetheart, and thinking that she could do no wrong. She would not even have known how. She was just purity and innocence. I had the same experience, many years later when I fell in love with my wife Dolores. Love is not something we can figure out. Loving is remembering oneness.
A memory
that is not alive to the present does not
“remember” the here and now, does not “remember”
its true identity, and is not memory at all.
Thomas Merton (1915-1968, France then the US)
The memory of God is impossible for the ego. If God is real, the ego is not. If the ego is real, God is not. The Holy Spirit is the bridge between perception and knowledge. By using perception in such a way that it reflects knowledge, we remember God.
Take
paradox from the thinker
and you
have a professor.
Soren
Kierkegaard
Paradox
According to D.T. Suzuki (1870–1966, Japan), the man who brought Zen Buddhism to the West, knowledge cannot be described as it stands above or outside of the boxes of words and reason. According to Suzuki, “When language is forced to be used for things of the transcendental world, it becomes warped and assumes all kinds of oxymora and paradoxes.” Satori, the spiritual goal of Zen Buddhism, is an experience free of concepts. The Course is filled with paradox:
Use the mind to go beyond the mind.
To say, "Of myself I can do nothing" is to gain all power.
We forgive what no one ever did.
We overlook what is not there
A miracle is the doing of undoing, or the undoing of doing.
If you want to see – close your eyes.
Matter does not matter.
Awakening is rest.
To die is to awaken.
As we forgive the world our guilt – we are free of the world
To find yourself – lose yourself.
What we thought we were seeking is seeking us.
The best way to get somewhere is to let go of the need to be anywhere.
Watching Projection
Watch projection. Just look at it. See it and stop it. Try watching people in a mall without judgment. Try not to analyze or interpret. Fat, skinny, tall, and short are things which the eyes see. See people instead, see love instead, see innocence instead. Watch complaining, judging, analyzing, attacking, criticizing, and fault-finding. Changing vision from the ego’s perspective to that of Spirit’s, is the beholding of a wholly sinless and innocent world. As we see a sinless world, the love God has for us becomes us. Correct perception sees innocence, sinlessness, and freedom, and becomes knowledge. Innocence is Truth. Nothing but truth exists. Truth is all that the innocent see. Selfishness, judgment, complaint, and attack make the world look fuzzy and unclear.
A baby was left alone on a blanket in someone’s backyard while the mother ran into the house to answer the phone. When the mother returned, she found that a snake had crawled onto the blanket and the child, thinking it a toy, had picked up the snake and was shaking it as one would a rattle. The child was safe and by this time the snake was dead. The innocent of eye never saw the problem.
Revelation is literally unspeakable because it is
an experience of unspeakable love.
ACIM,
Chapter 1. II.
2:7
When the ego is silent, life is effortless. At any moment of any day, the real us that we are—our true selves—that little spark can choose which direction we will go. If in doubt about a decision, ask: “Will this bring peace of mind, or will it take away my peace of mind?” The decision is right when it brings peace. Repeatedly choose peace, and peace will come.
There is nothing partial about knowledge.
Every aspect is whole, and therefore no aspect is separate.
You are an aspect of knowledge, being in the Mind of God,
Who knows you. All knowledge must be yours,
for in you is all knowledge.
Chapter 13. VIII. 2:1-4
Perfect vision casts out sin.
It cannot see what is not there.
Peace,