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Stillness;
Readings on Going Beyond the Words Editor's note: This transcript has been lightly edited to bring clarification to certain points of the dialogue and for easier readability. For this reason, it does not match the corresponding audio mp3 word-for-word. However, the overall content and the expressed ideas remain unchanged. David: We will just continue on with the direction on communication. The term that was coming to me was the passive nature of correction. So just as communication being entirely internal, there's a couple of passages coming to mind as a springboard for coming to just see the passive nature of correction. The first one is from page 7 of The Song of Prayer and it’s talking about humility. “Humility brings peace because it does not claim that you must rule the universe, nor judge all things as you would have them be. All little gods it gladly lays aside, not in resentment, but in honesty and recognition that they do not serve... The truly humble have no goal but God because they need no idols, and defense no longer serves a purpose. Enemies are useless now, because humility does not oppose. It does not hide in shame because it is content with what it is, knowing creation is the Will of God.” So we've heard the quote before, Love does not oppose. This is just another version of it, humility does not oppose. What also came to mind was a review section in the Course; the Workbook on page 388. Friend: Part 2 that follows lesson 220. David: It’s almost like moving into the final phase of the Workbook after 220 lessons have been completed and really it emphasizes the silence that we were talking about yesterday and how there's probably two forms of practice that commonly come out of working through the latter part of the Workbook. One of them is where you have a central thought. So there's still an attempt to use a thought to guide the mind into the meditative state. Another form would be just more like a free form of not trying to think of anything, not trying to even hold onto a central thought. Friend: Emptying the mind. David: And that’s the form that is the one that leads into the revelatory state. That’s the form that becomes your common means of practice. The other forms, whether they were visualizations or moving your eyes around the room or even holding onto the central idea, are all preliminary to coming to the most common form. And that’s probably the form of meditation the advanced teacher of God should embrace and try to practice the most. I thought we might just go through this review. I'll read a paragraph from page 363 in the Text, from the I Need Do Nothing Section. “Save time for me by only this one preparation, and practice doing nothing else. ‘I need do nothing’ is a statement of allegiance, a truly undivided loyalty. Believe it for just one instant, and you will accomplish more than is given to a century of contemplation, or of struggle against temptation. To do anything involves the body. And if you recognize you need do nothing, you have withdrawn the body's value from your mind. Here is the quick and open door through which you slip past centuries of effort, and escape from time. This is the way in which sin loses all attraction right now. For here is time denied, and past and future gone. Who needs do nothing has no need for time. To do nothing is to rest, and make a place within you where the activity of the body ceases to demand attention. Into this place the Holy Spirit comes, and there abides.” T-18.VII And then from the Workbook, page 391 on forgiveness, it says in the fourth paragraph, “Forgiveness, on the other hand, is still, and quietly does nothing. It offends no aspect of reality, nor seeks to twist it to appearances it likes. It merely looks, and waits, and judges not.” W-220 And the beginning of the fifth paragraph, “Do nothing, then, and let forgiveness show you what to do, through Him Who is your Guide, your Savior and Protector, strong in hope, and certain of your ultimate success.” W-220 I think all those passages really just point to the sense of it being a passive correction. Not an active correction in any sense. I think a little bit of a glimmer of it was when we had that little situation at the lake. Then on the way home just the sense of silence, without even having to try to make an active correction. We talked a little bit and our friend asked, “Is there anything I'm to do here?” In most cases it’s like you start to see that it’s not truth battling against illusions or the light and darkness. It’s just being able to see that only illusions can battle. In that awareness and in that recognition you don’t attempt to take a side. You don’t even attempt to perceive that an injustice or an unfairness is taking place because you realize that if you perceive injustice or if you perceive someone being unfairly treated that it is just another way of saying that you're denying the Father. There could be no injustices and God Being Who He Is. It just has to mean that injustices and conflicts are all misperception. So we'll start on page 388. “Words will mean little now. We use them but as guides on which we do not now depend. For now we seek direct experience of truth alone. The lessons that remain are merely introductions to the times in which we leave the world of pain, and go to enter peace. Now we begin to reach the goal this course has set, and find the end toward which our practicing was always geared. Now we attempt to let the exercise be merely a beginning. For we wait in quiet expectation for our God and Father. He has promised He will take the final step Himself. And we are sure His promises are kept. We have come far along the road, and now we wait for Him. We will continue spending time with Him each morning and at night, as long as makes us happy. We will not consider time a matter of duration now. We use as much as we will need for the result that we desire. Nor will we forget our hourly remembrance in between, calling to God when we have need of Him as we are tempted to forget our goal.” W-Part II A beautiful sentence, “We will not consider time a matter of duration now.” And the bottom of the fourth paragraph continues: “We say the words of invitation that His Voice suggests, and then we wait for Him to come to us. Now is the time of prophecy fulfilled. Now are all ancient promises upheld and fully kept. No step remains for time to separate from its accomplishment. For now we cannot fail. Sit silently and wait upon your Father. He has willed to come to you when you have recognized it is your will He do so. And you could have never come this far unless you saw, however dimly, that it is your will. I am so close to you we cannot fail. Father, we give these holy times to You, in gratitude to Him Who taught us how to leave the world of sorrow in exchange for its replacement, given us by You. We look not backward now. We look ahead, and fix our eyes upon the journey's end. Accept these little gifts of thanks from us, as through Christ's vision we behold a world beyond the one we made, and take that world to be the full replacement of our own. And now we wait in silence, unafraid and certain of Your coming. We have sought to find our way by following the Guide You sent to us. We did not know the way, but You did not forget us. And we know that You will not forget us now. We ask but that Your ancient promises be kept which are Your Will to keep. We will with You in asking this. The Father and the Son, Whose holy Will created all that is, can fail in nothing. In this certainty, we undertake these last few steps to You, and rest in confidence upon Your Love, which will not fail the Son who calls to You. And so we start upon the final part of this one holy year, which we have spent together in the search for truth and God, Who is its one Creator. We have found the way He chose for us, and made the choice to follow it as He would have us go. His Hand has held us up. His Thoughts have lit the darkness of our minds. His Love has called to us unceasingly since time began.” W-Part II And the next paragraph down... “Now is the need for practice almost done. For in this final section, we will come to understand that we need only call to God, and all temptations disappear. Instead of words, we need but feel His Love. Instead of prayers, we need but call His Name. Instead of judging, we need but be still and let all things be healed. We will accept the way God's plan will end, as we received the way it started. Now it is complete. This year has brought us to eternity. One further use for words we still retain. From time to time, instructions on a theme of special relevance will intersperse our daily lessons and the periods of wordless, deep experience which should come afterwards. These special thoughts should be reviewed each day, each one of them to be continued till the next is given you. They should be slowly read and thought about a little while, preceding one of the holy and blessed instants in the day.” W-Part II |
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