Being Nothing

"The body is the central figure in the dreaming of the world. There is no dream without it, nor does it exist without the dream in which it acts as if it were a person to be seen and be believed. It takes the central place in every dream, which tells the story of how it was made by other bodies, born into the world outside the body, lives a little while an dies, to be united in the dust with other bodies dying like itself. In the brief time allotted it to live, it seeks for other bodies as its friends and enemies. Its safety is its main concern. Its comfort is its guiding rule. It tries to look for pleasure, and avoid the things that would be hurtful. Above all, it tries to teach itself its pains and joys are different and can be told apart." -- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 27, Section VIII, 1:1-8

Today's blog longer and is entirely about Chapter 27, Section VIII in A Course in Miracles. I urge you to read this entire section, and over and over. We know theoretically that we are not who we think we are. We know God created us in His Image, and that image is the reflection of pure Spirit. We know theoretically that our bodies are vehicles, a way to navigate in the world, like a car or a bicycle, and that the only real use for them is communication within the world. But what we don't want to see, don't want to acknowledge, is that the body is nothing at all.

"The dreaming of the world takes many forms, because the body seeks in many ways to prove it is autonomous and real. It puts things on itself that it has bought with little metal discs or paper strips the world proclaims as valuable and real. It works to get them, doing senseless things, and tosses them away for senseless things it does not need and does not even want. It hires other bodies, that they may protect it and collect more senseless things that it can call its own. It looks about for special bodies that can share its dream. Sometimes it dreams it is a conqueror of bodies weaker than itself. But in some phases of the dream, it is the slave of bodies that would hurt and torture it." -- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 27, Section VIII, 2:1-7

Winner or loser, lover or fighter, consumer or consumed... there are no real differences in the serial adventures of this fictional object we call the body.

"Thus you are not the dreamer, but the dream. And so you wander idly in and out of places and events that it contrives. That this is all the body does is true, for it is but a figure in a dream. But who reacts to figures in a dream unless he sees them as if they were real? The instant that he sees them as they are, they have no more effects on him, because he understands he gave them their effects by causing them and making them seem real." -- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 27, Section VIII, 4:1-5

The whole point to the endless stories we call life is to make it seem like life is happening TO us. If we really see for one second that it is all made up, we cease to feel like the effect of the world, like the victim, like the winner or the loser. We recognize the subject we have been calling 'me' to simply be another object, another character in the dream... and we recognize that we are the dreamer. And the dream is nothing at all. A fiction.

"How willing are you to escape effects of all the dreams the world has ever had? Is it your wish to let no dream appear to be the cause of what it is you do?" -- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 27, Section VIII, 5:1

Ah, here is clincher. How willing are we? How willing are we to really SEE? How willing are we to take responsibility for creating a universe of smoke and mirrors, and living our lives as willing slaves to nothing at all?

"Into eternity, where all is One, there crept a tiny, mad idea, at which the Son of God remembered not to laugh. In his forgetting did the thought become a serious idea, and possible of both accomplishment and real effects. Together, we can laugh them both away, and understand that time cannot intrude upon eternity. It is a joke to think that time can come to circumvent eternity, which means there is no time." -- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 27, Section VIII, 6:2-5

What a joke! That we spend every minute of every imagined day taking ourselves and our imaginary world so damn seriously! We want so badly for our illusions to have substance that we think the seriousness and drama gives them weight and substance. And how's that working for us?

"A timelessness in which is time made real; a part of God that can attack itself; a separate brother as an enemy; a mind within a body; all are forms of circularity whose ending starts at its beginning, ending at its cause. The world you see depicts exactly what you thought you did. Except that now you think that what you did is being done to you. The guilt for what you thought is being placed outside yourself, and on a guilty world that dreams your dreams and thinks your thoughts instead of you." -- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 27, Section VIII, 7:1-4

Circularity indeed. It's no accident that many indigenous cultures depict the world as a snake eating its own tail. Everything we see 'out there' is some form of Karma. Karma is not what happens TO us. It's the reliving over and over of what we imagine we have done, in dreaming ourselves separate from the One, separate from God and the Allness of Good. And it gets bigger and more complicated as the dreaming goes on, since we have completely buried the 'original sin.' We think it is the characters in the dream that we do things to, or that do things to us. And over and over we think that we must relive and redeem these actions, or take vengeance, or somehow get it right. And so Samsara, the endless wheel of suffering continues to turn throughout imaginary births and rebirths, throughout imaginary heavens and imaginary hells.

"The world but demonstrates an ancient truth; you will believe that others do to you exactly what you think you did to them. But once deluded into blaming them you will not see the cause of what they do, because you want the guilt to rest on them. How childish is the petulant device to keep your innocence by pushing guilt outside yourself, but never letting it go! It is not easy to perceive the jest when all around you do your eyes behold its heavy consequences, but without their trifling cause." -- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 27, Section VIII, 8:1-4

The heavier and more real the dream seems, the harder it is to see the joke. The only way to let it go is to forgive... we can't trust our own deluded sight and senses to know the truth from fiction. And so we have to forgive it ALL. And as we forgive and turn it all over to the Holy Spirit, the Voice for God that still resides in each of us in the midst of our delusion... as we forgive and let go, the Holy Spirit translates it all for the Awakening of all.

"In gentle laughter does the Holy Spirit perceive the cause, and looks not to effects. How else could He correct your error, who have overlooked the cause entirely? He bids you bring each terrible effect to Him that you may look together on its foolish cause and laugh with Him a while. You judge effects, but He has judged their cause. And by His judgment are effects removed. Perhaps you come in tears. But hear Him say, "My brother, Holy Son of God, behold your idle dream, in which this could occur." And you will leave the Holy Instant with your laughter and your brother's joined with His." -- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 27, Section VIII, 9:1-8

How comforting is this? To know that all we have to do is ask. To know that all we have to do is be willing to let it all be as it really is. Without the story, without the need to judge and blame and be right, without the need for anyone to be guilty (including ourselves), we can see the clear and simple Truth. We can breathe again and laugh at what once brought us pain. How is this possible?

"The secret of salvation is but this: that you are doing this unto yourself. No matter what the form of the attack, this still is true. Whoever takes the role of enemy and of attacker, still is this the truth. Whatever seems to be the cause of any pain and suffering you feel, this is still true. For you would not react at all to figures in a dream you knew that you were dreaming. Let them be as hateful and as vicious as they may, they could have no effect on you unless you failed to recognize it is your dream." -- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 27, Section VIII, 10:1-6

Being nothing is the nature of a dream. When we identify with a character in a fiction, we are being nothing. No wonder we spend our lives wanting to BE somebody. The sane part of us knows Who We Are. The problem is that we can never be somebody in a dream. A fiction will never be true. A fiction will never give us what we really want.

"This single lesson learned will set you free from suffering whatever form it takes." -- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 27, Section VIII, 11:1