Dissociation and A Course in Miracles
The concept of dissociation is an important one in A Course in Miracles. Dissociation occurs when the mind splits off two mutually exclusive thoughts. E.g. The thought of atonement and the thought of separation. In more generic terms: the right and wrong minds.
“The ego and spirit do not know each other. The separated mind cannot maintain the separation except by dissociating.” (T-4.VI.4:1-2)
An example of our experience of this dissociation is when we split off the metaphysics of A Course in Miracles from the practice of A Course in Miracles. We read things in the Course (E.g. “There is no world!” W-pI.132.6:2, and “The body does not exist…” T-2.V.1:9), and then practice forgiveness between our body and another body in a “worldly” situation.
The metaphysics: “There is no you.” (Body/world)
split off from,
The practice: “God please help me.“ (This body/worldly situation)
We’re not asked to deny our experiences as bodies – in fact, as long as we think we’re here we can’t – we’re simply asked to use them right-mindedly. That means using them as a mirror to get back to our decision for guilt in the mind. The only relationships we “truly” have within the split-mind are our relationship with the ego (the only special relationship), and our relationship with Jesus, or the Holy Spirit (the only holy relationship). All other relationships are but shadows of these two. The special relationships that seem to take place here, given a holy purpose, can lead us back to our mind and to our mistaken decision to dissociate from the holiness and love in our right-mind.
So long as we hold the wrong-mind apart from the right-mind we’re protecting its seeming reality. It is only when we finally bring our decision for the wrong-mind to the right-mind, ending dissociation, that the unreality of the wrong-mind is recognized and dissolves into the nothingness from whence it seemed to come. This process is called the holy relationship. Its culmination is the “real world”, beyond the split-mind, where there is no right or wrong-mind to choose between, and the decision maker itself disappears, no longer being necessary or relevant.
This makes way for One-Mindedness and the fullness of Love.
Posted
on Thursday, August 2nd, 2007 at 4:35 pm.
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