Beyond Jesus
Forming a relationship with Jesus is central to the process of Atonement in A Course in Miracles. We need help from outside our own egoic thought system to move beyond it. However, we want to remember not to confuse “means and end”, falling into the trap of using our relationship with Jesus to try and compromise the ultimate purpose of the Course.
As we grow with the Course and deepen our understanding and practice of forgiveness, many right-minded experiences begin to sprout up in our lives. Some of them can be quite dramatic and beautiful, but all of them are an equally integral part of the process one experiences with this Course. They teach us we have a right mind. This is something we didn’t always know. We didn’t always know we had options. In the past we only perceived options within the world, reducing our choices to something along the lines of, “Would you like an ego-knuckle-sandwich, orrr… Would you like some mayo with that?” Both are going to hurt.
As Jesus becomes more real to us, our identity as love becomes more real to us. We realize this is the only choice that brings peace to our split minds. So experiences of his love are essential, but even more important is that we not use them to delay us from what we really want: complete transcendance of the ego. Transcendance of the split mind into One-mindedness.
When we brag about our right-minded experiences of Jesus, we are bragging about what is still within the realm of illusion. When we glorify them, use them for specialness, or even become enamored of them to the point of preoccupation, we have pulled the handbrake on our Atonement path. We are resisting transcendance in favor of preserving our individual identity.
Jesus is an illusion. The Holy Spirit is an illusion. Our right-mind is an illusion. Helpful illusions, yes, but still illusions. At some point we need to allow these illusions to fully serve their purpose of moving us beyond all illusions. Why would we be satisfied with the means? We want the end.
Over the last year I’ve shared with Ken (Wapnick) some really meaningful things I’ve been experiencing. Without fail he says, “That’s nice. That’s wonderful! Now forget all about it, and keep forgiving.”
What he is conveying to me is, “That’s a nice road sign… now don’t stop and hug the road sign and plant flowers around it, and make an altar out of it. Smile, and keep on driving.”
We want to take the hand of Jesus, but not for the purpose of dragging him to come and meet all our friends so we can prove to them how special and beloved we are. We want to take the hand of Jesus, but not so we can yank him around everywhere we go in the world as a badge of spiritual specialness. That is not what he would have us make of him.
His role is to help us remember who we are in Truth, and then move beyond the memory and into Truth itself; to help us move beyond the lighthouse and into the Light itself.
We want to take the hand of Jesus to move beyond this world, and then… beyond Jesus himself.
