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Word Gems
exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity
A Course In Miracles
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You have the right to all the universe; to perfect peace, complete deliverance from all effects of sin, and to the life eternal, joyous and complete in every way, as God appointed…
What can it be but arrogance to think your little errors cannot be undone by Heaven’s justice… [to see them as] sins and not mistakes…
Be certain any answer to a problem the Holy Spirit solves will always be one in which no one loses… The world solves problems in another way. It sees a resolution as a state in which it is decided who shall win and who shall lose… [however, only Heaven’s] justice can set up a state in which there is no loser; no left unfairly treated and deprived, and thus with grounds for vengeance. Problem solving cannot be [thus, which brings] another problem added to the first… The Holy Spirit’s problem solving is the way in which the problem ends… [because] no one can lose…
No one deserves to lose…
deep suspicion and chill of fear comes over them when they are told that they have never sinned
It is extremely hard for those who still believe [in] sin … to understand the Holy Spirit’s justice … And so they fear the Holy Spirit, and perceive the “wrath” of God [when it does not exist] … [they expect God] to strike them dead with lightning bolts … They believe that Heaven is hell, and are afraid of love. And deep suspicion and chill of fear comes over them when they are told that they have never sinned…
salvation is not needed by the saved
The Course is not above injecting a dash of sarcasm: "deep suspicion and chill of fear comes over them when they are told that they have never sinned."
But not everyone in the history of the world has been thus petrified or cynical. The carpenter from Galilee, peering out through labored eyes, perceived a world of abundance, a spacious plenty. In conversations with friends and family, he’d opine, “There’s enough for everyone in the world. God will give each one of us exactly what we want. And, if we could only see it, there’s no such thing as loss!”
“Whatdoya mean,” his annoyed listeners would retort, “there’s no such thing as loss! Loss is everywhere, where have you been! I don’t have this and I don’t have that; I lost out on this and I lost out on that!”
We understand. It’s a common view. The justice of this world issues as a zero-sum game; if there is a winner, there must also be a loser. And most of the time, only a few win and a great many lose.
But the Course would have us know that such ill-constructed counterbalance, founded upon the “scarcity principle,” has no place in the economy of God. It doesn’t work that way on the level where things are real.
So much of what we deem to be critical objects of desire, our "must-haves" for enjoying life, if we could perform the autopsy, we’d realize them to be merely neurotic dreams of the dysfunctional ego. With a clearer head, and in touch with the “true self,” we’d see that we really didn’t want them at all. What we really want is to be happy, but we have a skewed view on how to get there.
"Everyone seeks for what will bring him joy, as he defines it. It is not the aim, as such, that varies. Yet it is the way in which the aim is seen [that is in question]." Editor's note: see the relevant essay, a discussion of happiness as a universal quest, an idea going back to Aristotle.
But what about the things that represent authentic needs for the soul? The things that we were meant to have to find our wholeness and satisfaction – we seem to be in short supply of these, too.
Everything in its right time. The Course feels comfortable speaking of this "world of misery" but also that "no one can lose." How to reconcile the jarring juxtapositioning? As usual, the perspective of the Course is wider than ours. Right now we’re “in class,” under a predesigned limitation. But class will soon be out, and the long lazy days of summer, when we can do what we like, with the enabling means to make it happen, are fast approaching.
It’s interesting how the Course describes Heaven’s justice: When the Holy Spirit solves a problem, the Course declares, everyone wins, there are no losers; everyone gets what they need and authentically desire. However, when the world solves problems, somebody always loses, and this sets us up for a new round of conflict, because the “have nots” will feel hard-done-by and are now biding their time to attack, to get even and get back, what they feel is rightfully theirs. This is the history of the world.
The Course further elaborates:
"In the 'dynamics' of attack [i.e., the ego defending itself] is sacrifice a key idea [sacrifice here denotes something like sacrificial lamb, meaning, somebody's gotta lose so I can win]. It is the pivot upon which all compromise, all desperate attempts to strike a bargain, and all conflicts achieve a seeming balance. It is the symbol of the central theme that somebody must lose."
It need not be this way. All problem-solving lead by Universal Inspiration is not this way. The Course wants us to know that, contrary to what our fears and limited vision tell us - no one can lose. Our entire metaparadigm in this regard is in process of shifting because the "Holy Spirit has the power to change the whole foundation of the world you see into something else."
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