The Different Way

"The Way is not hard, but it is very different. Yours is the way of pain, of which God knows nothing. That way is hard indeed, and very lonely. Fear and grief are your guests, and they go with you and abide with you on the way. But the dark journey is not the Way of God's Son. Walk in Light and do not see the dark companions, for they are not fit companions for the Son of God, Who was created of Light and in Light. The Great Light always surrounds you and shines out from you. How can you see the dark companions in a Light such as this? If you see them, it is only because you are denying the Light. But deny them instead, for the Light is here and the Way is clear." -- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 11, Section III, 4:1-10

"All inharmony of mortal mind or body is illusion, possessing neither reality nor identity though seeming to be real and identical... God is everywhere, and nothing apart from Him is present or has power." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 473, Lines 1-3, 8-10

The nature of our fragmented mind, and thus our fragmented perception, is that it is very hard to see through our own projections. It is very hard to reverse yourself by yourself. Impossible really. Because the Truth is, we are not by ourselves. We are not alone. We are, collectively, the fragmented mind that is hallucinating this world. As seeming individuals, we are lost. That's why the search for enlightenment is so futile. It's an endless search, a set-up with no real outcome, just dreams of spiritual teachers who know more than we do, books or movies or people that hold the answers, the keys to the prize of enlightenment. Maybe the next one will be the real thing! The spiritual search is just another twist on the endlessly selfish, ego-centered search for completion and fulfillment. Even in spiritual clothing, this is walking with the dark companions of self-seeking and illusory autonomy. The more we withdraw into our own story and see it in competition with other stories, spiritual or not, the more we sink into the darkness of story, dreams within dreams. And the ego will justify itself regardless of appearance, will rationalize so loudly and convincingly that the still, small Voice of God that is your Reality is ignored and unheard.

The answer to all of this is returning to our Right Mind, our Oneness with God. Forgiveness is the key to the reversal of projection, the great undoing of what never was. This is why we need each other within the dream. The appearance of illusory others as projections is designed to keep our spiritual amnesia firmly in place. Only by forgiving our own projections and forgiving ourselves for wanting to be separate can we truly join in Mind and Spirit with the Self that we have always been. We are All the Son of God, and can only Re-Member our Self and know Completion by realizing this.

As ACIM says, the way is not hard, but it is very different. Whenever we are tempted to withdraw into isolation, to judge the illusions we see outside ourselves to be in competition with the Truth we seek, it's time to forgive our own projections. Our stories and projections about ourselves and others and the world around us are all what ACIM calls the dark companions. They are imaginary substitutes, dark because they are a negation, non-being. Darkness doesn't exist... it's the seeming absence of light, only a seeming. Time to turn toward the Light in all, and let IT tell us what is True. No meaning we give to things will ever lead us anywhere but deeper into illusion... all stories lead to other stories. The different way is walking in Light... the end of story, the end of a separate self, the complete Remembrance of Oneness in the Love that We Are. Love doesn't need a story. It Shines forever as the clear Light of Truth.

"Real freedom depends on welcoming Reality, and of your guests only the Holy Spirit is Real. Know, then, Who abides with you merely by recognizing what is here already, and do not be satisfied with imaginary comforters [your stories and projections], for the Comforter of God is in you." -- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 11, Section II, 8:7-8