Ask Amy: Forgiveness – Am I Doing It Right?

Q:  Ever since I began studying the Course, I have been questioning my forgiveness practice. Am I doing it right? It’s hard to tell. Your technique of slowing down, breathing, feeling what I feel, placing my hand on the “troubled area” and giving it to the Holy Spirit has helped me. After the first time I tried this, I felt like a major chunk of guilt was released. But how do I know?

A:  How do you know if you’re doing the forgiveness practice right? Well, Jesus says you will feel lifted up and carried ahead. He says you will smile on everyone you see and walk with lightened footsteps; your mind will be lit with happiness and love. He says that forgiveness sparkles on your eyes as you awake and soothes your forehead while you sleep.

Notice that all these descriptions reference the body. Even though Jesus is very clear in the Course that the only illness is mental illness, that does not preclude the necessity to work on the level of the body. When you give your body to the Holy Spirit, He uses the body to undo the body. For instance, Lesson 353 instructs:

“My eyes, my tongue, my hands, my feet today
Have but one purpose; to be given Christ
To use to bless the world with miracles.”

Remember, you, the person, cannot assess whether you’re doing it right. In fact, the clue that this is an ego question is the word “doing.” The ego is the do-er. Your true nature is Being. Trust the clicks of recognition that move through you as you practice forgiveness – those clicks are deeper than the individual self and can be relied on.

Those clicks are holy instants, when Grace frees you from grievances and you see everyone as “not guilty,” including yourself. Guilt is the glue that keeps us stuck to the ego thought system. People often tell me, “I feel guilty,” not “I think I’m guilty.” Guilt is felt in the body, and exercises that bring our attention to the body dissolve sticky ego illusions.

Jesus assures us that if you are sincerely practicing the Course, you cannot fail. The ego does its best to have us doubt and deny genuine spiritual experiences. Don’t fall for it. Trust that the major chunk of guilt that you felt was released, actually was.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with my body-oriented approach to the forgiveness practice,
you can watch my video, “The Purpose of the Body” on YouTube and read articles from my blog series, “How to Use the Body While You Think It’s You.”

This Q&A appears in the Ask Amy column from the Nov-Dec 2016 issue of Miracles magazine. Miracles is a well-loved staple in the ACIM community. For a subscription, email [email protected] or call 845-496-9089.  Click here to purchase digital copies.  To ask Amy a question, email miracles (at) amytorresacim (dot) com

Today’s Miracle: I love your hair!

It’s my birthday and I’m entering Stater’s, my local supermarket, pushing my shopping cart and feelin’ good. As I step into the store, a beautiful very pregnant woman dressed all in white, with two angelic small children at her side, beams at me and says with true delight, “I love your hair!”

“Thank you!” I say, open to fully receiving her love and my whole body does a little happy dance as I spin off down Aisle 5 for some toilet paper.  As I look at the delectable array of tempting brands Quilted Northern, Charmin, Scott, and feel so grateful to live in a place with plumbing and great water pressure (I never take this for granted), a very handsome young man comes up to me and says, “I like your look! Your gray and white pants go so well with your hair! You look sharp.”

My Lord, it’s a very shiny bright happy birthday indeed.  Or, as I like to think of it, Unborn Day 🙂

You know, a person easily could have dismissed those comments, or misinterpreted them, or even been offended — if the ego was in charge. But see how wonderful it is to be 62 years of age with silvery white hair when, as A Course in Miracles puts it, “Around you angels hover lovingly” and “What was a place of death has become a living temple in a world of light.” (T-26)

Thank you, everyOne, for your beautiful birthday wishes. May you become aware of miracles rippling through your everyday life, starting right now!

The Path of No Path by Peter Russell

Spiritual teachers with non-dual leanings often say that there is no path to enlightenment. There is nowhere to get to; you are already enlightened, you just do not know it. There is no need for a technique or practice; they will only keep your mind trapped in the illusion of relative phenomena. Do not meditate; do nothing.

There certainly is a profound truth embedded in such statements. When awakening occurs, there is the realization that there really was nowhere else to get to, no higher state of consciousness to achieve. The world remains as it is, and your experience remains as it is. What shifts is your relationship to experience, or rather your non-relationship to it. The identification with a constructed sense of self is no longer there. “You” are not thinking, seeing, breathing; thinking, seeing, and breathing are just occurring. It is obvious that it always was this way; but all our wanting, striving, clinging, avoiding, and self-identification obscured this simple fact.

In this sense there is nothing to do. The very opposite: it is our doing that is the problem. When we let go of all attachments as to how things should or could be, we wake up to the truth of what is. Even the word enlightenment is misleading; it implies some other, “higher”, state of consciousness. This is what makes the statement “you are already enlightened” so confusing. But to say you are already awake, but not awake to your own wakefullness, or you are already aware, but not fully aware of awareness, makes more sense.

From the awakened perspective, it is true that there is nowhere to get to. This is why many teachers say: Do nothing. Stop. Don’t meditate. Don’t try and get somewhere other than where you already are. There is nowhere to go. Nothing to do. There is no path.

And yet… Many of these teachers did tread a path. Some spent years investigating the true nature of our apparent “I-ness”. Others followed a path of total surrender, or a deep deconstruction of experience. My own glimpses of the truth have come in periods of deep meditation, when the mind is totally relaxed and still. Then I see so clearly that there is nothing to do and nowhere to go. And yet, if had not followed a path that allowed me to drop into a deep stillness and let go of my habitual mode of experience, I would not have fully appreciated this truth.

So from the unawake perspective—which is where I am most the time, and probably most of you are most the time—there are paths to follow. And, until such time as they are no longer needed, the paths that help the most are those that develop the skill of letting go, allowing the mind to relax, releasing all effort, all trying to get somewhere. So, do not meditate with an intent to reach some enlightened state of being. But do take time to let the “doing mind” die away, to sink into your own being. Take time to learn to do nothing.

I recently took Peter Russell’s online meditation class and highly recommend it.  Click here to explore Peter Russell’s teachings.

Ask Amy: The Meaning of Emptiness

Q:  What is the spiritual meaning of “emptiness” and how do I achieve it?

A:  Emptiness, in a spiritual sense, means identity-less freedom. The ego tells us that to be identity-less is to not exist, and that emptiness is to have nothing, physically and emotionally. Actually, Emptiness is the ultimate discovery that you are not the body. A Course in Miracles tells us over and over again, “you are not a body, you are free, for you are still as God created you.”

Emptiness is an Advaita Vedanta/non-duality term. ACIM does not speak of God-Mind as Empty. But this is just a matter of semantics. The Course uses words like God, Mind, Christ, Self, Love, Timelessness, and many more, which point to the same Emptiness. Also, Jesus refers to holy instants and the Atonement.

He explains that holy instants help us step outside of time and glimpse Timelessness (Emptiness), because a glimpse is all we can handle, at first. The Atonement, which is the denial of all that is not Emptiness, undoes us completely so that we rest in God (Emptiness), our natural state. “In timelessness you rest, while time goes by without its touch upon you, for your rest can never change in any way at all.” (W-109)

As far as “achieving” Emptiness, that is unnecessary. Each of us is willfully unaware of ever-present Emptiness until grace or prayer begins the awakening process. Your question indicates the waking process has begun in you. The ego will try to “achieve” Emptiness, but this is just a ruse to maintain control. Emptiness does not need to be achieved, for It is what you already are.

That being said, some ways to discover Emptiness, are:

* Practice the ACIM workbook;

* Pray, in this way: “Help me recognize what I already am,” “Rid me of ego and replace me with You,” etc.;

* Read self-inquiry books, including Who Am I? by Ramana Maharshi, I Am That by Nisargadatta Maharaj and Wake Up and Roar by Papaji;

* Attend satsang. These days attending satsang is as easy as watching YouTubes of Mooji, Eckhart Tolle, Gangaji and many others. If you are willing to travel, you can experience the energy field of satsang in person.

“The way to correct distortions is to withdraw your faith in them and invest it only in what is true.” (T-3.II.6:1) This undoing process inevitably purges the ego, and all that remains is the real you–Emptiness.

This Q&A appears in the Ask Amy column from the May-June 2016 issue of Miracles magazine. Miracles is a well-loved staple in the ACIM community. For a subscription, email [email protected] or call 845-496-9089.  Click here to purchase digital copies.  To ask Amy a question, email miracles (at) amytorresacim (dot) com

The Journey by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice —
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voice behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do —
determined to save
the only life that you could save.

* * *

This poem by Mary Oliver helped save my life many years ago.  It can do the same for you, if you let it.  Thank you, Mary.

The Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

This poem by Oriah Mountain Dreamer helped me be true to myself many years ago.  It can do the same for you, if you let it.  Thank you, Oriah.

FINAL LESSONS

Introduction

Our final lessons will be  left as free of words as possible.  We use them but at the beginning of our practicing, and only to remind us that we seek to go beyond them.  Let us turn to Him Who leads the way and makes our footsteps sure.  To Him we leave these lessons, as to Him we give our lives henceforth.  For we would not return again to the belief in sin that made the world seem ugly and unsafe, attacking and destroying, dangerous in all its ways, and treacherous beyond the hope of trust and the escape from pain.

His is the only way to find the peace that God has given us. It is His way that everyone must travel in the end, because it is this ending God Himself appointed. In the dream of time it seems to be far off. And yet, in truth, it is already here; already serving us as gracious guidance in the way to go. Let us together follow in the way that truth points out to us. And let us be the leaders of our many brothers who are seeking for the way, but find it not.

And to this purpose let us dedicate our minds, directing all our thoughts to serve the function of salvation. Unto us the aim is given to forgive the world. It is the goal that God has given us. It is His ending to the dream we seek, and not our own. For all that we forgive we will not fail to recognize as part of God Himself. And thus His memory is given back, completely and complete.

It is our function to remember Him on earth, as it is given us to be His Own completion in reality. So let us not forget our goal is shared, for it is that remembrance which contains the memory of God, and points the way to Him and to the Heaven of His peace. And shall we not forgive our brother, who can offer this to us? He is the way, the truth and life that shows the way to us. In him resides salvation, offered us through our forgiveness, given unto him.

We will not end this year without the gift our Father promised to His holy Son. We are forgiven now. And we are saved from all the wrath we thought belonged to God, and found it was a dream. We are restored to sanity, in which we understand that anger is insane, attack is mad, and vengeance merely foolish fantasy. We have been saved from wrath because we learned we were mistaken. Nothing more than that. And is a father angry at his son because he failed to understand the truth?

We come in honesty to God and say we did not understand, and ask Him to help us to learn His lessons, through the Voice of His Own Teacher. Would He hurt His Son? Or would He rush to answer him, and say, “This is My Son, and all I have is his”? Be certain He will answer thus, for these are His Own words to you. And more than that can no one ever have, for in these words is all there is, and all that there will be throughout all time and in eternity.

LESSONS 361 – 365

This holy instant do I give to You.
Be You in charge.  For I would follow You,
Certain that Your direction gives me peace.

And if I need a word to help me, He will give it to me.  If I need a thought, that will He also give.  And if I need but stillness and a tranquil, open mind, these are the gifts I will receive of Him.  He is in charge by my request.  And He will hear and answer me, because He speaks for God my Father and His holy Son.

Let’s practice together!  Click here for more information and to sign-up for Workin’ the Workbook, my online class which supports the ACIM Workbook practice.