As we continue through our series on forgiveness this year, we will focus on Lesson #92 from A Course in Miracles which says, “Miracles are seen in light, and light and strength are one.”
This is a lesson with several moving parts in it. It is encouraged to read it through in its entirety a couple of times in order to get the full picture of the passage, but in essence, this lesson can be broken down into three main parts.
In the first part, there are a number of dichotomies that it outlines for us. For example, between light and darkness (which is especially important as it alludes to the pivotal theme of this lesson: miracles are seen in light), truth and illusion, strength and weakness, love and fear, and forgiveness and condemnation. The course doesn’t list these contrasts the way I have listed them here, but this is merely my interpretation of the passage.
The second part can be seen as the cause of these dichotomies. When we look at light, love, and forgiveness, those that lie the “power-side” of the dichotomies, we can find that those come from a source of light that is deep inside of us. The negative side such as weakness, darkness, fear, condemnation come from things having to do with the body. It is important to note that the course is not demonizing our bodies or implying that the body is bad, but it is trying to highlight that in its system of teaching, the malicious ego will utilize the body to hurt us and disempower us.
So it really depends on the way that we approach life: whether we are following the influence of the ego in which we approach the body, which will cause us a lot of pain and suffering, or whether we use the spirit as the compass through which we understand our bodies, in which case, our body can be seen as a very useful form of clothing - one to protect us from the elements and the vessel that gives us this human experience in the physical world.
When we consider these dichotomies, we can choose to regularly check in with ourselves and distinguish which frame reference we are living in: the darkness or the light. As a body comprised of flesh and blood, we have a reality of perceived worldly needs, and when influenced by the ego, we can get bogged down in such pains and suffering. However, it is possible to transcend this frame of thought and attain a foundation on higher ground, rooted in love, light and truth.
To further elaborate on how the body can limit us and how the spirit can free us, we can compare these different modes to those found in the movie, “The Matrix.” The body and all of the things that body is preoccupied with in the external world is like the “simulation” we are living in. The ego wants to pull us into the simulation and get us so caught up in all of the different aspects of the simulation, that we can no longer recognize that it is a simulation and we actually believe it’s real. And so the illusion of the physical simulation that we live in and the body’s attunement to that then becomes the reality that we are struggling with, and as a result, we are no longer in touch with our “Neo-like” capacities. Neo was the hero in the film who has a gradual series of awakenings to what the simulation was about, and his role from waking up from the simulation, or the nightmare of the simulation. And this is where the light, miracles, and forgiveness come in.
We can conclude that we, too, are living in a similar simulation and use this movie as a metaphor for the distinction between the truth of love and the illusions of fear. If we are enamored with and wrapped up in “the matrix,” we will not have access to the light and strength inside. Consequently, forgiveness won’t make any sense to us and instead invest in condemnation and attack on the things we observe in “the matrix” or the things we see in the illusory world rather than going deeper and deeper into the inner source light which will give us the understanding of helping others to wake up from “the matrix” as well, which is where the forgiveness principle come into this lesson. It’s about helping people wake up from the nightmares that they are living in as well and perpetuating light in the world.
One difficulty is that these realities seem so real to us, and only until you wake up that you can you realize that it may not be real and may not make any sense. Furthermore, all of the terrible things going on in the world contribute to the collective nightmare that we feel we are experiencing as a society. Consider all of the physical, mental, emotional, and financial crisis going on in our world today, which leads to a number of subsidiary stress factors such as chemical dependency, violence, and irrational behavior as a result of fear. Not to minimize the global events that lead to these consequences, but it’s important to become aware that these pains can be mediated by tapping into the source light in order to harness the strength to endure, prevail, and apply love in order to amplify the light in the world. Using this strength will actually enable us to make more logical decisions in times of perceived turmoil, and this is an excellent skill for leaders, CEOs, entrepreneurs, and ultimately all individuals, as we all have a practical role in making this world a better place.
An example for this principle in my own life is what I refer to as my “German story.” In 1992, I had just started my Ph.D. program in psychology and religion at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. It had taken me ages to get ready for this program because I had studied biology as an undergrad, whereas this program was in an entirely different field of study. So I cobbled together two masters degrees prior to starting the program in order to having the adequate background, which took me seven years to assemble for the program. There was an additional language requirement in which I needed to pass a scholarly French exam and a scholarly German exam in order to be accepted into the program. This was a two-hour exam in which we were given a scholarly piece of writing to translate into English with at least 70% accuracy. I passed the French exam, but when it came time to take the German exam, I failed it miserably. I didn’t even get one sentence down on paper. I was sweating, anxious, and hyperventilating though the entire exam. I was worried and concerned that this exam would be the end of all my effort to enter the program.
I studied and took a summer course and it continued to be a nightmare for me. After the summer course, I took the exam again and failed just as badly as the first time. I studied even more, and one day I was browsing in a bookstore and I stumbled upon a $14 hypnosis program to learn German. I thought I had nothing to lose. I was listening to it daily for 30 days in a row, and repeating again when finished. During this hypnosis experience, I was presented with some deeply rooted fears that I had forgotten were under the surface. Most notably, when I was 10 years old, I was sent to boarding school and one of my classes was German. Meanwhile, I was being bullied and hazed by the other children and being away from home for the first time at such a young age, I felt very vulnerable and helpless. This was clearly a factor in my stress toward learning German as an adult.
This can be compared to the Pavlovian principle of the conditioned and unconditioned response. The German language was a trigger and the fear and anxiety was the conditioned response I was having. Upon having this epiphany, I was gradually able to study more effectively. On my own, I took practice exams almost daily in order to face my fears head-on. I took the exam for the third time, and I failed, but with milestones of improvement. The fourth time was the charm and I finally passed it. The nightmare was done!
The solution came to me in such a unique way that I believe spirit guided me to that audio hypnosis program to uncover that inner trauma and help me to overcome my nightmare challenge. So I encourage you to be open to undergoing hypnosis if there is something in your life where you are experiencing blockages. Some of my clients imagine that hypnosis is the odd treatment with a swinging pendulum and suddenly you will fall asleep and bark like a dog, doing unconscious and embarrassing actions, but that’s not what hypnosis is. It is a series of gentle guided meditations designed to take you into that inner source and then help you to reinforce this idea that you are waking up from the nightmarish “matrix” and reframe your reality, empowering you for success. Hypnosis and affirmations are referred to as skills in mind-training, which is how you can prevent yourself from getting sucked into the “simulations” in life. Mind-training is an active practice that allows you to strengthen your mind, just as you strengthen your body when you go to the gym.
One website that I can recommend (without there being any benefit or affiliate reward on my part) is called www.hypnosisdownloads.com where you can buy hypnosis recordings which can help you accelerate your mind-training.
To wrap up this message, you can visualize the dichotomies alluded to in the lesson as a T-chart with the negative frame of reference on one side (fear, darkness, weakness, and illusion) and on the other side, you can group the positive side (love, light, truth, and strength). These distinctions, when contrasted, present a dualistic separation that the ego would lure us to imagine is the battle that we must endure: a boundary that must be overcome daily. However, in reality, absolute truth is non-dualistic and so above this T-chart of dualism, you can visualize an overarching rainbow or umbrella which holds the terrain of absolute truth which we can ascend to at any time and is a constant and unconditional state of love, light, forgiveness, and strength to help you break away from the nightmares in your life and receive miracles outcomes.
