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exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity

Soulmate, Myself:
Omega Point

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the magic rock

This hefty little rock has been one of my treasures for about 30 years. I’ve kept it near through all of my travels.

But now you will ask, why do I want this rock? Are there not sufficient copies of such not far from my front door?

Ahh, but you see, this is no ordinary rock. This rock, right here, is from Grandma Becker’s farm - when there was a farm. I picked it up just in front of where the old white barn stood, about a hundred yards from this picturesque stream meandering through the pasture.

There are rocks, and then there are rocks, and this one is the latter. This is a magical enchanted rock, with powers to transport one back in time to a childhood idyll.

the magic rock, appended with memories

When I see this rock, I don’t see a rock, as such, but happy halcyon days of early life. It’s a rock you pay a few dollars more for, as it comes appended with all sorts of pleasing memories, visions, and flashbacks.

But then, what about everything else we see? - or think we see. Are we really seeing it, for what it is?

Might everything come to us mediated and colored by memories, recollections, and subliminal associations? - and, as we are tempted to suspect, not all of it might be of the warm-and-fuzzy sort.

the Course In Miracles forcibly asserts that the principle just presented is the root cause of why people believe what they do, and why they’re caught in cultish organizations of this world

Lesson number eight of the Course’s “Workbook For Students” comes with a heading, “My mind is preoccupied with past thoughts”; and lesson nine is prefaced with, “I see nothing as it is now.”

With the help of the “magic rock,” I think we understand. Because the unenlightened mind is burdened with the past – the non-stop play and replay of “sad movies” in the head – we see only the past, not the object of vision as itself. “No one really sees anything,” says the Course.

Further, with commentary from the Course, in this state of illusion, the mind “is not really thinking at all” – not in any meaningful sense. “The truth is blocked.” In our daily lives, we “seem to be thinking about” this-or-that, but what we’re really doing is dysfunctionally projecting a large battery of mental images of the past onto the canvas of what we see, or think we see, in the world around us. It's all a grand violation of "clear thinking."

This is a very large subject, but few could be more vital to our well-being and spiritual maturity. However, for our purposes here, we want to know how the principle of “the mind preoccupied with past thoughts” affects our quest for true love and the Sacred Beloved.

As there are a multitude of competing factors in play, a discussion might be the best approach to the subject. Let’s ask Kairissi and Elenchus to help us.

Kairissi.  I must say, I’m a little taken aback by the gravity of this topic.

Elenchus. It’s not what we thought; but then, it would be that way if we’re not really seeing things as they are.

K. The “magic rock” is a good teaching device. However, while it’s not hard to understand these things in the abstract, it all becomes problematic with our own thinking. Then we want to make excuses as to why it doesn’t apply to us. We think we do see things just fine and exactly the way they are.

E. And the Course is really big on quashing this bit of self-deception.

K. I guess I can see how it really does apply to everything that crosses our path – because everything, if you’re older than seven, comes with a host of mental associations. And, because this is a difficult world, most of these are not that pleasant.

E. And even though some of them could be pleasant, the ego will go out of its way to bring to the fore, in technicolor, the nasty memories.

K. It’s interesting that the Course says that this mental association with pain from the past is the reason why people believe the things they do; and, by extension, why almost everyone is caught in some form of cultism.

E. People don't believe this, either. They don't believe that the painful past has any bearing on present belief-systems. The average person would say, "I believe what I believe because it's true, and that's that." But it's not really that way. People adopt various forms of cultism as a broken reed of protection against the threats of a painful world.

K. Can you make this clearer, Elenchus? Why does the painful mental association become reason for people’s belief-systems?

E. I think it’s like this: I’m reminded of Mark Twain’s old saying about the cat that sat on a hot stove, and won’t be doing that again anytime soon; however, it won’t be sitting on any cold stoves anymore, either.

K. Yes, of course. So I guess we could say that the cat has developed a belief-system about stoves in general.

E. It's painted them all with the same black brush. From that moment on, the cat will never meet a stove it doesn’t like. All stoves become colored with the memory of an unpleasant past.

K. This is a good illustration of how belief-systems are manufactured. They represent our fears. We can see how people might gravitate toward certain prejudices: once singed, forever shy. Their belief-systems are designed to protect them from previously encountered pain.

E. I think it does work that way. The Course puts money on it.

K. Ellus, let’s discuss how this off-kilter dynamic affects romance and marriage.

E. Should we expect to see the “cat on a hot stove” in play here?

K. Maybe it’s more like “cat on a hot tin roof.”

E. Tell what you see.

K. John meets Mary at church.

E. Actually, Mary arranged for John to meet her. That’s why she joined the choir.

K. I see. But, be that as it may, the question is, do they meet authentically?

E. Explain “authentically.”

K. When they meet, what is each really seeing?

E. Is it like the "magic rock"?

K. I would say it is. When they meet, when they see each other, if they are led by the ego, they will not be seeing the “real person” of the other. What they’ll be seeing is a projection of their own needs and cravings, now superimposed on the other.

E. Let’s translate “needs and cravings” as “can this person make me happy?”

K. It’s an “interview-hiring” process. The ego is thinking “I’ve been singed on a hot stove in the past with others who’ve wasted my time, didn’t have much to offer, were a little crazy, couldn’t hold down a job, would make a lousy partner in my house and to my kids, would embarrass me to my relatives, etc., etc.”

E. And so the ego really isn’t interested so much in meeting the real person of the other, but only insofar as the potential mate might be a candidate to “make me happy.”

K. This is what John and Mary don’t understand. They think they really do see the real person of the other. They think they really are meeting authentically. And so they marry, and they’re very excited to have their wedding day. So many have failed at this, they know, but because of the emotional high they feel, they’re sure they’ll be the exception that proves the rule. But then, so quickly, maybe even on the wedding night, doubts begin to crowd out the sense of elation. The one they married is now discovered to possess certain flaws that went unnoticed when both were “putting their best foot forward.”

E. We all dress up in our Sunday-best suits for the “interview.” In other words, the person they thought they were marrying never really existed. It was all an illusion, a stage-play, managed by the ego, a superimposition of the ego’s needings and cravings onto the potential mate in a quest to overcome the pain of aloneness. And then comes the dismaying realization of “the love that has a nasty habit of disappearing overnight.”

K. It was never there in the first place. Each became a canvas for the other onto which were painted the hopes and dreams of the ego’s effort to “make me happy.”

E. We have talked about some of these things before. And I wonder if I might introduce a new aspect to this discussion.

K. Please.

E. Over the years, I have read many accounts offered by ones on the other side. And some of these reports speak of a version of marriage over there that seems very worldly, very common, and very dysfunctional. What seems to be happening - not in all cases but among some John-and-Mary couples - is that, when they cross over, there's a tendency to say, “Well, I guess we have to continue the same routine over here. We were married there, and so why not press on? What would the children and grandchildren say if we don't?” And so many do continue; for a while - until it becomes unbearable. They labor under a materialistic view of marriage. They haven’t figured out that the John-and-Mary dynamic is not enough to make it through eternal life.

K. Ellus, as you spoke just now I was forcibly struck by a shattering thought: not only is the inauthentic John-and-Mary interplay not enough to endure the terrors of eternal life, but even to live as a single person on the other side, living from the “false self,” is not enough to successfully negotiate the terrors of living eternally.

E. This is a profound and disheveling realization. The article on “the 500 tape-recordings from the other side” makes this clear. There’re lots of people over there who are drifting into a kind of insanity because their lives are founded upon the ego, the “false self.”

K. John and Mary are far too immature to even understand what they’re up against right now. Marriage, I mean the true marriage, is so much more than “I need you to make me happy.” Well, we do need this, but it has to be done on a more substantial level. We need the true mate to help us “see the face of God” without which we shall not find the psychological/emotional strength to endure living forever. And so this, in fact, is a life-and-death issue. But John and Mary have no knowledge of what’s really in play here.

E. I’d like to focus on a phrase from the Course which might put all this into perspective; that is, offer reason why we should be concerned about living authentically, meeting a potential mate on the "soul level," and not just for prosaic domestic-business contract concerns. The Course makes the declarative statement that, when we view all things colored by the past, “the Truth is blocked.” When we allow unsettling images of previous pain to muddy our thinking, "the Truth is blocked."

K. This is a grand pronouncement. How is the Truth of God blocked?

E. When we design our lives simply to avoid pain -- and this can happen so easily on a subliminal, unconscious level -- then we'll see only the pain of the past.

K. We're trying to avoid "hot stoves."

E. And when we do, as the Course instructs, we're not really thinking, we're just reacting. And so there's no open channel to Heaven's direction. Lacking, therefore, God's private tutoring for our lives, even our eternal lives, we fall into greater miasma of materialistic view; of which "the 500" amply demonstrate. All of which devolves to an inability to defuse the terror of living forever.

K. These issues are tremendously important, Ellus; far more so than simply finding a partner to escape aloneness. While this latter should not be minimized, unless our eyes open to the Truth, God cannot communicate with us, and then we will not be able to fulfill our destinies, that of becoming mature sons and daughters of God.

E. And if we can’t do that, then we can’t make it through eternal life; the insanity of "the 500" will overcome us.

K. I’m seeing something more clearly. We’ve learned that we must “open a channel” to God, allowing Heaven to teach us. When we open our minds to Spirit, we come into increasingly greater perceptions of the Truth. But here’s what I hadn’t understood before. Finding the true mate, the Sacred Beloved, is part of this very same process. Discerning the identity of the absent Twin is akin to discerning any aspect of the Truth.

E. This is a beautiful simplification. Finding the true mate is a big part of finding the Truth.

K. When we “open a channel” to God, and begin to “see” clearly, that is, without the past, the “memories of the hot stove,” clouding our thinking, we gradually come into a realization of all aspects of the Truth, of God's will for our lives; and these revelations, eventually, will include the identity of that one particular person, the lost Twin, who uniquely mirrors one’s own soul’s energies. The true mate's presence is no optional, take-it-or-leave-it facet of our future -- the sacred Twin is absolutely required -- or we will not be able to survive the terror of living forever.

E. Tell all of us, Kriss, summarize one more time, why finding one's Twin Soul is a life-and-death issue.

K. Mother-Father God made one particular person, one counterpartal other, for each of us, as Darling Companion. And without this special "made in the image" mate, we cannot fulfill our destiny to emulate Mother-Father God. Further, in this deficit, God cannot communicate the most precious, the most wonderful, lofty, and rarest elements of Divinity's essence. We were made to receive these things. And if we don't have them, well then, we won't be able to live forever in a joyful and peaceful state of mind, with all desires filled.