Many times during our year of meeting to work the 365 lessons of the workbook at the back of A Course in Miracles text, we got stuck on one concept in particular.
One member of the group–the one who struggled the most with ACIM and most often couldn’t understand what the heck the lessons were getting at–spent a lot of time fretting about the state of the world.
She asked us again and again, “When you read about what is happening in X country, doesn’t it break your heart? How can you close yourself to their suffering?”
I see this a lot. I see that the people most resistant to looking inward to discover the locus of control over their own mental state are the same ones who spend a lot of time focusing on outside causes for their distress. And they are in distress much of the time.
Over and over we tried to tell her, using one set of metaphors and then another, “You are where you are needed.”
“Be the change you wish to see in the world.”
Why spend nights worrying about those people when you are not the one the Universe has put THERE. You have been put HERE. There is plenty of stewardship needed right in this city. Be here now, not lost in a hologram created by your mind.
There are a zillion other ways of saying it, but none reached her.
Today I am reading When Fear Falls Away: the Story of a Sudden Awakening by Jan Frazier. This passage jumped out at me since it speaks to that very idea that we batted around on so many Sunday evenings in this room.
It is even easier to read the newspaper. Now that I’m unmoved over the daily horrors. I cried over the Russian children who were taken hostage in their school, the image of their running bodies, and the bullets they took into their backs. It broke my heart. I have not grown heartless; if anything, because of being rid of useless encumbrances like fear, I am freer to feel for those children, for their parents (at least, the ones who survived to bury the little bodies). I felt grief sharp like a knife run into my chest–but then I was done with it. It did not consume me. This is not heartlessness. I don’t think I always would have understood that, but I understand it now. I understand that being able to let go of hurting does not constitute a lack of compassion.
Yes
Eloquently expressed.
yes but it is a very hard concept for some reason. yet, course is all about changing our minds right? about choosing peace and love over hate. which we can do if we change our minds when we get hooked on the world’s tragedies. or maybe i dont relaly get it either. frankly i find it hard to read the book and there are no groups around here. yet CIM seems to say so much that is similar to other traditions and ways of thinking like Byron Katie and buddism.
Suki, Yes, it is very hard material to get through, especially the text. I don’t necessarily recommend it because you can get the same teachings elsewhere, as you point out. K
reading this thinking feeling thinking wondering acknowledging knowing caring caring caring.