September 13, 2009
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Alone And Chosen
Logion 49 is certainly one that makes you stop and think. It picks up some familiar themes. To be “alone and chosen” is a curious expression, at least at first.
Evidently Jesus was much misunderstood by being taken too literally at a lot of levels, and this word “alone” ties in to some of them. The clue lies in such things as Logion 113, which plays upon a familiar theme of looking without seeing, by pointing out that the Kingdom is not some place else or in the distance, but rather it is all around us but we’re not seeing it. As A Course in Miracles makes very clear in different ways, one of our problems is that we value the valueless, that we invest in the wrong stuff, the things of the world. And one of our key techniques of shutting out God and his Kingdom is through special relationships, so we should not be “alone.” Which then was mistaken as an instruction that we should renounce the world, and later this was combined in monastic life with celibacy – an invention of the 11th century, by the way. It’s just one of the many ways in which the ego demontrates how it is a maladaptive solution to a non-existent problem (as Ken Wapnick likes to call it), or to put it differently, how we validate the problem and make it real by means of our solution. But Jesus quite apparently was among people and was married (to Mary Magdalen), but what he explained in the famous statement which is Logion 99 in the Thomas collection, in which he ignores the “special relationships” of the world, and emphasizes that those who do the will of the Father are his brothers, and sisters, and his mother. In short he is not invested in specialness, but in our spiritual brotherhood, in joining in the sonship, and his mission was to invite us to do the same.
Thus by being “alone” in that sense, of “not invested in specialness,” i.e. all that values the ego, which constantly needs to be validated by specialness, we are available to hear what A Course in Miracles calls the Voice for God, the voice of the Holy Spirit. This is also why the Course is very clear that the way out is not to go sit in a cave in the Himalayas, but rather to accept all our relationships as a classroom for going home, if we give them to the Holy Spirit, instead of letting the ego run the show. Thus, being “alone” in this sense of not being “busy” with the world, we are free for our mind to tune in to radio station WHS, instead of WEGO (that’s a Gloria Wapnick special), which we’ve done most of our lives, and which had made us miserable. And again “the chosen ones, are merely the ones who choose right sooner.” (ACIM:T-3.IV.7:14), and we are thus chosen by choosing to listen to that Voice.
Comments (3)
Unless my classroom is right there in a cave in the Himalayas…
Perhaps another clue to the meaning of the word “alone” (which I learned in your class, if I understood you correctly) comes with the second sentence of the logion itself: “For you have come from it, and you will return there again.” From that, I understand “alone” to refer to our natural state of Oneness from whence we came, or, as Jeff Foster seems to like to call it, the state of “absolute intimacy,” which I think is a lovely term describing the state of Heaven. (Incidentally, his is a term that gave me a hint as to why we so much fear our Creator’s total unconditional, ever-extending, all-embracing eternal Love! How overwhelming to us, when what has been so thoroughly ingrained in us by the ego’s counsel is the belief that we are eternally guilty of that most horrendous “crime” of shattering Heaven (as if that were even possible!) and therefore totally undeserving of that Love and even have to go to tremendous lengths at competing for it. Absolute intimacy! I’m beginning to get why we couldn’t withstand a sudden awakening!)
Funny how the ego would interpret the word “alone” to call for a life of celibacy when the ego also tells us that God told us to be fruitful and multiply!…My the ego is confused!!! Another good reason not to trust a voice that so obviously contradicts itself and makes no sense!
@elalight - absolutely!