Logion 42, "Be passersby," although it is in the middle of the collection may be the punch line of the entire Thomas Gospel. For to learn the view from "above the battleground" as the Course calls it, is to wake up from the dream.
Those with the strength of God in their awareness could never think of battle. What could they gain but loss of their perfection? For everything fought for on the battleground is of the body; something it seems to offer or to own. No one who knows that he has everything could seek for limitation, nor could he value the body's offerings. The senselessness of conquest is quite apparent from the quiet sphere above the battleground. What can conflict with everything? And what is there that offers less, yet could be wanted more? Who with the Love of God upholding him could find the choice of miracles or murder hard to make? (ACIM:T-23.IV.9)
To get into the fight, means to fully identify with the dream role, i.e. choosing to be asleep. With at least the dawning of an awareness that I'm not my body, that I'm not the role, eventually I can actually play it even better, because I'm no longer so hung up on making it a success, but rather I'm accepting it as my next classroom where I can learn that this is not what I am. That is surely what it means to "follow Jesus," to a "Kingdom not of this world," for in choosing forgiveness, I stop justifying my wrong minded choices, and while I still may make them for a while, they gradually no longer have the power over me that they once had. Very deliberately, the Course states its objective as the achievement of peace of mind, not enlightenment. What the Course is for, is to direct our steps in the right direction, so that like with the old Greek saying that the way to the top of Mt. Olympus is, to make sure every step you take is in that direction, this is what the Course helps us do, to get on the road to Peace. Enlightenment then, is to some time realize that there's nobody there to be enlightened, because we're not even here, that's just a dream we were having. Moreover, as the Course also points out and we are destined to realize sooner or later, we are the dreamer of the dream, and once that sinks in, how could you ever be afraid of all the figures in the dream, because you dreamed them, or be concerned at all for the hero of the dream, once you realize you dreamed him/her too?
Comments (7)
Nice entry.
good man
J. Krishnamurti, from his Commentaries on Living, says,
"You are nothing. You may have your name and title, your property
and bank account, you may have power and be famous; but in spite of all
these safeguards, you are as nothing. You may be totally unaware of this
emptiness, this nothingness, or you may simply not want to be aware of it;
but it is there, do what you will to avoid it. You may try to escape from
it in devious ways, through personal or collective violence, through individual
or collective worship, through knowledge or amusement; but whether you are
asleep or awake, it is always there. You can come upon your relationship
to this nothingness and its fear only by being choicelessly [probably meaning having no opinion about it] aware of the
escapes.
"You are not related to it as a separate, individual entity; you are
not the observer watching it; without you, the thinker, the observer, it
is not. You and nothingness are one; you and nothingness are a joint phenomenon,
not two separate processes. If you, the thinker, are afraid of it and approach
it as something contrary and opposed to you, then any action you may take
towards it must inevitably lead to illusion and so to further conflict and
misery. When there is the discovery, the experiencing of that nothingness
as you, the fear -- which exists only when the thinker is separate from
his thoughts and so tries to establish a relationship with them -- completely
drops away. Only then is it possible for the mind to be still; and in this
tranquility, truth comes into being."
From a talk he gave early in his career: "In everything, in all men, there is the totality, the completeness
of life... By completeness I mean freedom of consciousness, freedom from
individuality. That completeness which exists in everything cannot progress:
it is absolute. The effort to acquire is futile, but if you can realise
that Truth, happiness, exists in all things and that the realisation of
that Truth lies only through elimination, then there is a timeless understanding.
This is not a negative. Most people are afraid to be nothing. They call
it being positive when they are making an effort, and call that effort virtue.
Where there is effort it is not virtue. Virtue is effortless. When you are
as nothing, you are all things, not by aggrandisement, not by laying emphasis
on the 'I', on the personality, but by the continual dissipation of that
consciousness which creates power, greed, envy, possessive care, vanity,
fear and passion. By continually being self-recollected you become fully
conscious, and then you liberate the mind and heart and know harmony, which
is completeness."
Quotes taken from http://www.miracles.org.nz/nothing.htm
@lklanglois - Yes! He had some great lines! He was definitely one of my early teachers, and I've know many people who've known him.
Yes, really terrific.
My battles and attempts at problem-solvings of late have been getting too complicated and exhausting, and I’ve been losing at every turn, with no solutions in sight. Well, thank you for the reminder. I’m going to be a Passerby today!…At least until I forget again.
Spot on, again...