Yoking the Mind to God's

 

The Sanskrit word “Yoga” first appeared in the Katha Upanishad, a sacred Hindu text dating back somewhere between the 5th and 3rd centuries BCE. The word means “yoke,” as in the collar a farmer might use to hitch two animals to a plow or cart. The yoke not only joins the beasts together, it also combines their strength, unites them in purpose, and lightens the workload of both.

Thus, by “yoking” our minds to God, we share our Creator’s Strength, Purpose, and Will. In doing this, we lessen the pain and suffering we manifest through wrong-minded thinking and wishing. By yoking our minds to God’s, we also become the Holy Spirit’s messengers, light-bearers, and miracle-workers.

While the latter isn’t a specific goal of most schools of Yoga, it IS what Jesus refers to in Matthew 11:28-30, when he says:

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

In the Course, Jesus clarifies his meaning as follows:

Remember that “yoke” means “join together,” and “burden” means message. Let us reconsider the biblical statement “my yoke is easy and my burden light” in this way. Let us join together, for my message is Light.

According to Dictionary.com, the word “burden” can, in fact, mean “the main point, message, or idea.” Thus, what Jesus intended to convey in Matthew 11:28-30 is exactly what he teaches in the Course: to extend our Inner-Light or Holiness into the world, we must join together at the level of mind. We must, in other words, “yoke” our minds together in Holy Relationship to extend God’s Saving Grace into the ego-deluded minds of our brothers.

This is, Jesus tells us repeatedly, the ONLY way to save the world. Trying to change anything at the level of form is a complete waste of time, he also explains, because everything we perceive “out there” is nothing more than the symbolic projections of what’s in our minds.

Change our perceptions and the projection will disappear. Poof – gone and forgiven in a Holy Instant.

Since the word first appeared in the Katha Upanishad, many different schools and philosophies of Yoga have sprung up all over the world. And, as with all forms of the Holy Spirit’s curriculum, each subsequent revision of “Yoga” twisted the core truths a little bit more until we ended up with “Hot Yoga” and even (God help us) “Goat Yoga.” These bizarre methods may be “therapeutic” on some level – insofar as the Ego Mind defines “therapy” – but they have nothing whatsoever to do with yoking the mind to God’s. Neither do they honor the EIGHT LIMBS first prescribed in the original Hindu texts describing the theory and practice of Yoga.

As stated at the start of this post, the earliest of those texts is the Katha Upanishad. One of the mukhya, primary, or first twelve Upanishads of Hinduism, the Katha takes the form of a dialog or conversation between a boy named Nachiketa, who is the son of a sage, and a deity called Yama. In Hinduism, Yama is understood to be the God of Death, the Keeper of the Karmic Record, the King of Justice who decides where Souls go after death, and the guardian spirit of the Southern Direction. In the Book of Revelations, Yama is, I believe, the rider on the black horse who carries the scales of justice. In the vision described in the New Testament, he is, however, associated with famine (scarcity) rather than death.

In the Katha Upanishad, the conversation between Nachiketa and Yama evolves to a discussion of the nature of man, knowledge, Atman or Higher Self, and Moksha (liberation of the Atman). One of the most widely studied Hindu texts, the Katha Upanishad asserts (like Jesus) that “Atman (Soul/Higher Self) exists” and that seeking knowledge of that Higher Self is both the intended purpose of mortal existence and the path to “Highest Bliss.” These ideas (rightly) contradict Buddhism’s assertions that “Soul, Self does not exist” and one should seek “Emptiness (Śūnyatā), which is Highest Bliss.” The detailed teachings of the Katha Upanishad have been paradoxically interpreted as Dvaita (dualistic) and Advaita (non-dualistic).

The second-oldest text advocating the practice of Yoga is the Bhagavad Gita or “Song of God.” Like the Song of Songs in the Hebrew Bible, The Gita takes the form of an epic poem. Also like the Song of Songs (and most scriptural texts), The Gita is allegorical in nature. Dated to around 500 BCE (roughly the time of Haggai and Zechariah), the narrative verse is part of the Mahabharata, one of two major epics of ancient Indian history and/or mythology. The other is the Rāmāyaṇa. Like the Bible stories about the two temples, the Mahabharata appears to chronicle historical events, but is ACTUALLY an allegorical explanation of how the separation came about and will one day be resolved.

Like the Katha Upanishad, The Gita takes the form of a conversation between two characters – in this case, Prince Arjuna and Lord Krishna – a deific character who has helped the prince’s family out of various scrapes over many generations. The dialog takes place on the edge of a battlefield. The battle taking place is a “righteous” war between the Pandavas and Kauravas – the two families discussed in the Mahabharata. A Pandava, Prince Arjuna has arrived at the scene in his chariot, which is driven by Krishna.

As the narrative opens, Arjuna is conflicted over joining the battle. On the one hand, he feels obligated to help his family; on the other, he despairs over the violence and death he might cause, witness, and/or experience. Immobilized by indecision, the Prince seeks the counsel of Krishna. In Course terms, Arjuna stands at “the branch in the road,” unsure which way to go. In the ensuing verses, Krishna advises the Prince on a broad range of topics related to the theory and practice of Yoga.

The battlefield setting – together with his role as charioteer – casts Krishna as the “Christ-as-warrior” figure in the epic. More accurately, Krishna plays the “guru” who teaches Arjuna how to become a spiritual warrior.

Before we go deeper into the teachings, let me just say that of all the spiritual texts I’ve read thus far, The Gita comes closest to the Course in spirit. In Chapter Six, for example, Krishna explains to Arjuna that meditation, which trains the mind to overcome the enemies of mita (limitation) and chitta (ego-learning and conditioning), is a spiritual warrior’s most powerful weapon. Asceticism, meanwhile, does nothing to bulwark the Higher Mind against attack from the lower mind. These ideas agree with the Course, which also advocates “going within” to undo the limitations imposed by the Ego Mind’s thought-system and conditioning. Like Krishna, Jesus also says asceticism – a predominantly bodily discipline based on sacrifice – is a waste of time. Training the mind to silence the Ego’s endless chattering is, he tells us, a more productive spiritual practice.

Krishna goes on to explain yoga sādhanā – the spiritual methods for reuniting the mind with God. A sādhak or yogi, he tells Arjuna, should strive to keep the mind as steady in meditation as a flame or lamp in a windless place. This is, in fact, a great and useful metaphor, which I refer to often while meditating. Thusly restraining the mind is difficult, Krishna acknowledges, but not impossible with dedicated practice. Whenever the mind wanders, we simply must bring it back to the object of meditation: "yoking" our mind with God’s. Through this practice, says Krishna, the mind gradually becomes purified enough to enable transcendence.

When Arjuna asks what happens to those who fail to steady their minds in this way, Krishna assures him that anyone who strives to commune with God will eventually achieve the goal. Jesus also says this in Workbook Lesson 131 (No one can fail who asks to reach the truth), among other places in the Course.

Krishna then explains that God keeps track of our spiritual progress in each life. With each new incarnation, we start out where we left off in the last one. Like grade-levels in school, we advance with each subsequent “term” (lifetime) until we graduate. In The Disappearance of the Universe, the Ascended Masters who dictated the book confirm that this is indeed how the at-one-ment system works. In a future post, I’ll explain how the Powers That Be (not God per se) track our curricular progress.

Chapter Six of The Gita ends with Krishna telling Arjuna that a yogi (one who strives to unite with God) is superior to the ascetic (tapasvī), the scriptural scholar (jñānī), and the ritual-focused worshiper (karmī). The highest among all the yogis, he then adds, is the one who engages in loving devotion to God (bhakti) and fulfills his duty to uphold right order (dharma) through “selfless action.”

What Krishna means by “selfless action” is activity motivated by spiritual guidance rather than by the false or ego self. Spirit-motivated action is, in fact, the ONLY kind that does NOT generate karma -- the by-product of our belief in guilt. As Hinduism correctly teaches, karma – both good and bad – binds us to the Wheel of Rebirth. To hop off the wheel – i.e., graduate from the Atonement Academy the world actually is – we must expunge the Karmic Record. We must, in other words, owe or be owed nothing in the Great Deceiver’s Ledger of Accounts. And yes, the Course says pretty much the same thing in a slightly more round-about way.

How do we efface our karmic debts? The short answer is: by seeing ourselves and all other lifeforms ONLY as the Pure, Holy, and Innocent Son of God. The longer answer is: through the joint practice of True Forgiveness and Non-Action or Yoga-Nidra. True Forgiveness erases our old debts (guilt from the past), while Yoga-Nidra prevents the accumulation of new debts and/or credits (guilt in the future). What is Yoga-Nidra? NOT what most modern-day yogis believe. What Yoga-Nidra actually entails is doing NOTHING in the world of form without direct spiritual impetus. And yes, the Course also advocates this practice, in a slightly more round-about way. I’ll talk more about Yoga-Nidra in the next post.

For now, let’s get back to The Gita. In many other chapters of this must-read manual for awakening, Krishna discusses the three Gunas or “modes of existence” we covered briefly in the post on Hinduism. In case you’ve forgotten, they are Sattva (pure and good), Rajas (egoic and selfish), and Tamas (evil and destructive). These three energies, as I said, are woven into and color everything in Brahmanda. They are also the forces that drive and influence each individual’s personality, emotions, thoughts, world view, and actions.

Presumably, the Gunas of Hinduism represent the three phases of “undoing” or “corrective learning” the Elohim powers guide the Buddhi through as it climbs the chakra-ladder. Thus, we might compare the Gunas to elementary school (Tamas), high school (Rajas), and college (Sattva). To overcome the perception of duality on every level, Krishna tells Arjuna, he must rise above ALL three Gunas (like the Gods). What he means is that the Buddhi can be taught to be pure, good, and pious, but it can’t rise above the lower mind, to which it belongs. To attain liberation, the Atman or Soul must transcend Buddhi/Ego Consciousness and all its modes of learning in favor of Atmic Consciousness.

We must, in other words, strip away the Buddhi aspect of the Ego Mind in order to rise (on the ladder of consciousness) to the Atmic Plane. Rightly understood, killing the Buddhi also frees us from the ego-constructed self-concept. This, in turn, allows the purified Soul to emerge from the Cosmic Egg or Chrysalis. It then “flies up” to the Fifth Plane of Consciousness, where the Holy Spirit dwells within us.

Let’s now move on from The Gita to another highly revered text describing the theory and practice of Yoga: The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. A few hundred years newer than The Gita, The Yoga Sutras were compiled over many centuries either by various sages using a common pseudonym or by an avatar living in the world for many lifetimes.

In Hinduism, the word “avatar” describes a manifested deity, a released Soul in bodily form on earth, and/or an incarnate divine teacher. Basically, they are the Teachers of Teachers described in the Course's Manual for Teachers.

The Sutras are deliberately vague and esoteric, as the Course can also be. Like many esoteric texts, both reveal more as our minds open to the Higher Truths they impart. Also like many esoteric texts, The Sutras suffer from poor translation and unilluminated interpretation. In what follows, therefore, I will stay as true as possible to the original wording of the teachings and the meaning of that wording when The Sutras were written.

Early in The Sutras, Patanjali defines Yoga as “the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind, so that the Seer or Buddhi comes to know Itself and abide in Its own real, fundamental nature.” These undesirable fluctuations, he then explains, result from four lower-mind afflictions and/or distractions, which fall under the general heading of “ignorance.”

These four afflictions/distractions are:

1) “I-am-ness” or individual identity
2) Worldly desires
3) Aversions or fears
4) Attachment to physical possessions and pleasures

Patanjali then says:

The afflictions are to be suppressed by meditation. The suppression of distracting vrittis [thoughts] is attained by abhyasa and non-attachment. That suffering which has not yet come can be warded off. The cause of that suffering which should be warded off is the entanglement of the Seer with the seen. The problem is solved by getting established in samādhi, which is liberation. The seen consists of the elements and the sense organs. It is of the nature of Prakrti. Its purpose is experience and liberation of the jiva. The seen is for the purpose of serving Purusha.

First, let me say that what Patanjali describes agrees 100 percent with the Course. Second, let me define the new Sanskrit terms he uses and review the ones we already know.

—Seer and Buddhi, as I’ve explained, both refer to the observer or “witness” aspect of the dreaming mind that can recognize and choose between right-minded and wrong-minded thoughts and perceptions. Opinions differ as to whether the Buddhi is attached to the Ego Mind or to the Higher Mind. I believe it’s part of the egoic intellect, while Patanjali seems to be of the other opinion.

—Purusha can mean many things, depending on the source. For our purposes, it refers to the guiding Divinity, Holiness, Light, or Holy Spirit dwelling within the Spiritual Body or Higher Mind channel.

—Jiva means the same as Atman. It is, therefore, the Soul or Divine Spark of Creation within each person/persona. That Spark, Soul, or Jiva is the only part of us that God created and, therefore, the only part that’s real.

—Abhyasa refers to making regular efforts over a long period of time to maintain outside meditation the stillness and peace acquired in meditation. We establish peace and stillness in meditation by being present in the now-moment and focusing on God. So, abhyasa means practicing being in the moment and focusing on God when we’re not meditating, as well as when we are. Krishna also recommends abhyasa in The Gita, as Jesus does in the Course when he instructs us to practice the Holy Instant. The now-moment embodies the Holy Instant, through which we reconnect or “yoke” our minds back together with Eternity and God.

—Patanjali also mentions non-attachment or vairagya as an essential means of controlling the mind. Vairagya roughly translates as dispassion or detachment from the pains and pleasures of the material world. Two sides of the same coin, pain and pleasure arise from our attachment to or desire for “specialness” and the Ego Mind’s worthless temptations and miscreations. We detach ourselves from these desires not by giving anything up, but by coming to realize they have no value to the Spiritual Being we really are. They are, in fact, undesirable obstacles to achieving liberation. When we reach this point on the journey, we gladly give up these unwanted desires and attachments. Vairagya then becomes a matter of willing SURRENDER rather than unwilling SACRIFICE. Jesus describes the practice of vairagya throughout the Course, but especially in Workbook Lesson 133: I will not value what is valueless.

—As previously discussed, Prakṛti includes all the cognitive, moral, psychological, emotional, sensorial, and physical aspects of the illusory world and universe. It is the substance of everything within the illusion, Material World, or Cosmic Egg. When Patanjali says, the purpose of Prakrti is experience and liberation of the jiva, he means the visible world exists BOTH so we can experience “specialness” AND so the Holy Spirit can cure us of that insane desire. When he says, “the seen is for the purpose of serving Purusha,” he is affirming that the illusion's primary purpose is to heal the separation.

Patanjali packed a lot of meaning into that brief paragraph, didn’t he? What he’s essentially explaining is that the illusion exists to liberate the Higher Self from the illusion. It’s a school, in other words, for the Soul's deliverance from lower-mind miscreating. He also clarifies that the three best practices for detaching the jiva from the illusion are abhyasa, vairagya, and establishing ourselves in samādhi.

Jesus says the same thing in fewer words when he extols us, in the Bible and the Course, to “Seek God and His Kingdom – and nothing else.”

In the next few stanzas of The Sutras, Patanjali tells us that, to overcome the afflictions/distractions of “ignorance,” we also must purify our minds through the practices of tapah, japa, and bhakti. Since we’ve already covered bhakti (loving devotion to God), let’s explore the meaning of the other two Sanskrit terms.

Because tapah is often translated as “penance” or “austerity,” many schools of Yoga advocate asceticism (which Krishna and Jesus BOTH say is both unnecessary and pointless). In actuality, the word means “atonement.” When Patanjali wrote The Sutras, the word “penance” wasn’t associated with punishment, suffering, and sacrifice. Derived from the Latin word paenitentia, “penance” originally meant a change of mind, regret over an action, or the desire to be forgiven. Only centuries later, owing to misconceptions of “sin” perpetuated by the Ego’s religions, did the word "penance" take on negative connotations. Tapah, then, merely means the desire to live simply and contentedly, which is possible only when we are free of the burdens of guilt, resentment, and lower-mind desires, prejudices, and conditioning.

As I briefly explained in the post on the Tridevi, japa refers to the meditative repetition of a mantra or divine name. Silently chanting Aum or Om is the japa Patanjali recommends. In the Workbook for Students (Lesson 183), Jesus instructs us to repeat “the name we share with God” in meditation. He also, therefore, recommends the practice of japa. (Oddly, that critical lesson seems to be missing from the online edition of the URText). 

Is Aum/Om the name we share with God? Aum/Om is certainly ONE of the names, but not necessarily the one advocated by Jesus. What name does Jesus want us to repeat? We’ll get to that in due time, I promise.

The practice of japa isn’t just about repeating a word or name, however; it’s about summoning into our minds the Pure Presence or Holy Power that name or word represents. Technically speaking, it’s a highly effective form of prayer -- perhaps the MOST effective form, in fact. Being an onomatopoeia of the Cosmic Force, Aum/Om is a symbol for Grace. Aum/Om also mimics the vibratory tone of the Lamed or Christ Power of Elohim. Repeating Aum/Om, therefore, achieves two objectives. The first is that it “yokes” our Divine Spark or Lesser Light to the Christ or Greater Light, thereby increasing the flow of Grace, Manna, or Soma/Amrita into our minds. That Grace, Manna, or Soma/Amrita is the strength and sustenance that enables the Soul to see through the illusion and find the Way or Tao. Thus, the more Grace, Manna, or Soma/Amrita we take into our Inner-Instrument, the quicker we open the Soul's Spiritual Eye. And the quicker we open the Soul's Spiritual Eye, the quicker we move to the Atmic Plane. The second benefit of repeating Aum/Om in the silence of meditation is that doing so gradually re-tunes our vibration to the same frequency as the Lamed or Christ power.

Makes sense, right?

Okay, so … according to Patanjali, the practice of Yoga consists of three activities which purify the Higher Mind of the lower-mind’s imprisoning “ignorance.” These practices, when correctly understood, are:

Tapah = Changing our mind about the way we think and live, atoning for our past errors, and letting go of all our worldly and bodily desires

Japa = Repeating a name or mantra to invoke the Holy Presence, power, or vibratory tone the name or mantra symbolizes

Bhakti = Demonstrating loving devotion to God in thought, word, and deed -- or, in the words of Jesus, loving God with all our hearts, minds, and Souls

 

From here, Patanjali goes on to describe the eight “limbs” or practices that free us from the ignorance brought on by Prakrti. Boiled down to essentials, those eight limbs are:

Yama (restraint) the five DON'Ts of Yoga, which are: 1) Ahimsa: doing violence, harm, or injury to any living thing; 2) Satya: dishonesty, inauthenticity, or inconsistency in word, deed, or thought; 3) Ateya: taking or coveting what isn’t ours; 4) Brahmacharya: attachment to worldly desires and sensual pleasures, especially sexual lust; and 5) Aparigrapha: being possessive, greedy, selfish, or materialistic.

Niyama (observance), the five DOs of Yoga, which are 1) Shaucha: purity of thought; 2) Santosha: contentment, peacefulness; 3) Tapah: austerity and practical (results-producing) spiritual discipline; 4) Swadhyaya: spiritual self-study; and 5) Ishwarapranid-hana: offering one’s life to God.

Asana (posture), which means to adopt a sitting meditation posture that’s comfortable, sustainable, and effective – NOT mastering "poses" with names like “downward-facing dog” and the like.

Pranayama (breath control), which means refining the breath in meditation until it’s subtle, inward, smooth, and regulated. When my inner-guru told me to repeat “Om” (pronounced “O”) in a continuous loop with the breath, s/he was instructing me in the TRUE practice of pranayama. I’m sorry to shatter anyone's illusions (actually, I'm not), but fire-breathing, breathing through alternating nostrils, and other such body-oriented “pranayama” technique are ineffective egoic deceptions.

Pratyahara (sense withdrawal), which means turning the awareness inward, toward the mind and away from the body’s senses.

Dharana (concentration), which means fixing the mind on a single thought, mantra, or sound, and the visual focus on a particular area or point, such as the tip of the nose or between the eyebrows.

Dhyana (meditation), which Patanjali defines as “the uninterrupted flow of the mind – the content of the consciousness – in a single and unbroken stream.” Adi Shankara, the founder of Vedanta Advaita, describes dhyana as “a stream of identical vritti [thoughts] as a unity, a continuity of vrittis not disturbed by intrusion of differing or opposing vrittis.” So, dhyana is the practice of focusing the mind or “meditating” on a single thought, mantra, name, affirmation, or sound until that thought, mantra, affirmation, or sound blocks all other distracting thoughts and sounds. This is, essentially, what the Course’s Workbook for Students trains us to do (and also the practice Jesus describes in Workbook Lesson 183).

Samādhi (communion) is oneness with Spirit, the highest step on the Eightfold Path of Yoga. It is the unification of the meditator, the process of meditation, and the object of meditation, which is yoking our mind to God’s. To attain samādhi, we must withdraw the mind from the physical senses until the Ego dissolves, freeing the Soul to float upwards into the higher waters of Spirit. Jesus describes this experience in the Course, but I can't seem to find the citation at present.

Does Jesus teach any of these “limbs” in the Course? Oh, yes. He teaches all but pranayama — the only "limb" devoted more to physical activity than to mental stillness. And, as I’ve explained, the Holy Spirit instructed me in the true practice of pranayama in meditation. Being of the body, which exists on the lowest and densest plane or dimension of mind, the breath is NOT the great channel of spiritual energy many teachers and paths make it out to be. Breathing exercises during meditation do, however, help build focus and concentration (dharana). That is, in fact, their only useful purpose as a spiritual practice.

Real Breath is Neshama — the Inner-Divinity embodied by the Presence of God and Christ. This breath, which is Grace, Manna, or Soma/Amrita (as opposed to prana or chi), we draw in NOT through the corporeal body’s nose, mouth, or lungs, but through the psychic nadis of the Spiritual Body.

That Jesus studied Yoga in India during some of the years unaccounted for in the canonical gospels is documented in various ancient records. It has also been confirmed in several reliable books, including The Yoga of Jesus by Paramahansa Yogananda, Jesus in India by Mizra Ghulam Ahmadin, The Lifetimes When Jesus and the Buddha Knew Each Other by Gary Renard, and The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ by Levi Dowling. It should come as no surprise, then, that Christ’s teachings in both the New Testament and the Course incorporate many elements of Yoga.

When pared down to fundamentals, the Course revolves around seven “limbs” or central teachings, which are:

Right-Minded Reality, which we achieve by recognizing that the world we perceive is a dream, because only the Eternal and Perfect is of God. 

Right-Minded Choice & Desire, which we achieve by choosing the Holy Spirit’s thought-system over the Ego’s and desiring ONLY to return to God. In so doing, we cease abusing our God-given free will. In the process, we also must accept at-one-ment as the only purpose of life and deny the Ego Mind’s false opposites, dark daevas, and false idols.

Right-Minded Will & Strength, which we achieve by realigning our wills with God’s and choosing His Absolute Strength and Power over the Ego’s little and limiting substitutes. We also must relinquish our ego-instilled desires for “specialness,” individual glory, materialistic goals, and worldly power. 

Right-Minded Truth & Illumination, which we achieve by asking the Holy Spirit to correct our inverted perceptions, egoic judgments, and wrong-minded impulses. We also must seek and follow the Holy Spirit’s guidance exclusively, as well as value and seek Higher Truth and Illumination over the Ego Mind’s inferior intellectual “wisdom” and distractions. 

Right-Minded Authorship & Devotion, which we achieve by embracing our superior True Identity as the One Soul God created “in the beginning,” and withdrawing our investment in the false and inferior concepts of our “selves” as individuals and bodies. Eventually, we must release all our attachments to our egoic sense of “I-am-ness” and recognize our Oneness with God and all aspects of Creation. We also must revere God above the Ego’s false idols and worthless miscreations. Eventually, we must consistently demonstrate loving devotion to God and His Creations in thought, word, and deed.

Right-Minded Thought & Forgiveness, which we achieve, with the Holy Spirit’s help, by first owning and then extending our God-given Creative Will and Powers. To clear the Karmic Record, which binds us to the dream, we also must practice True Forgiveness and the Golden Rule in all our dealings with other people. 

Right-Minded Relationships, Sharing & Service, which we achieve by asking the Holy Spirit to transform all our relationships from “special” to “holy” – or from separate to one. We begin the process by striving to perceive our relationships only as mirrors of our thought-errors, teaching-learning assignments, and vehicles for seeing the Face of Christ in each other. As we advance, we begin to envision joining with other Souls to extend healing thought-gifts of Grace (i.e., Miracles) into the world, under the watchful eye of the Christ Presence. Gradually, we move from the physical world into that mental world more and more until we live there most of the time. In the Course, Jesus calls that “mental world” by many names, including the Golden Circle, the Holy Meeting Place, the Ark of Safety, the Holy Relationship, and the Real World.

Jesus may not use Sanskrit words like Purusha, yama, bhakti, or japa in his Course, but he absolutely teaches the same ideas. Truth is truth, after all, whatever form or language it may be packaged within.

Like all the other Spiritual Truths the Evil One gets its slimy paws on, the original teachings of Yoga and Hinduism have been mucked with over time. That’s why I’ve used the root sources whenever possible – and also why I investigated the scriptural and etymological origins of certain ideas, words, and phrases.

Some newer schools of Yoga claim, for example, that enlightenment can be attained “scientifically” -- i.e., without believing in a Higher Power. Buddhism and Theosophy also promote this preposterous notion to some extent.

The Gita, the Yoga Sutras, the Bible, and the Course all state very clearly that loving devotion to God (bhakti) is an essential practice for those seeking salvation. We also must uphold Higher Truth in thought, word, and deed (dharma), turn our lives over to God (Ishwarapranid-hana), and yoke our will to God’s (samādhi). How, then, can it be possible to achieve enlightenment without believing in God? To presume we can join or surrender to something we deny exists is patently absurd ego nonsense, pure and simple.

Or, as Jesus says:

Only if you ACCEPT the Fatherhood of God will you have anything, because His Fatherhood GAVE you everything. That is why to deny Him IS to deny yourself. Arrogance is the denial of love, because love shares and arrogance withholds. As long as both appear to you to be desirable, the concept of choice, which is not of God, will remain with you. While this is not true in Eternity, it IS true in time, so that, while time lasts in YOUR minds, there WILL be choices. Time itself WAS your choice. If you would remember Eternity, you must learn to look on only the Eternal. If you allow yourselves to become preoccupied with the temporal, you are LIVING IN TIME. As always, your choice is determined by what you value. Time and Eternity cannot both be real, because they contradict each other. If you will accept only what is timeless as real, you will begin to understand Eternity, and make it yours.

 

It is equally ridiculous to believe we can achieve enlightenment – or any form of inner-peace – without turning inward on a regular basis. Like Yoga, the Course is a path of meditative mind-training. The Workbook for Students provides the progressive meditative exercises required to align our thinking with the theoretical ideas presented in the Text and Manual for Teachers. Unlike Yoga, the Course excludes the body COMPLETELY from the reawakening process – except as a communications vehicle for the Holy Spirit. With regard to meditative postures, the only instruction Jesus offers is to sit up while doing the lessons to avoid falling asleep.

In future posts, I’ll compare what Jesus and Patanjali each say about meditation, continue our discussion of "yoking" in the context of relationships, and explore the concept of Yoga-Nidra, which ancient Chinese philosophers called "Wu-Weu" -- the spiritual discipline of doing nothing at the level of form. In the next few, however, we're going to switch gears and return to the Old Testament to explore what the often-discussed "temple" and "lampstand" actually signify. 

Genesis Reinterpreted

Now that we've dispensed with the preliminaries, let's decode the symbolism used in the first chapter of the Old Testament Book of Genesis. Does it really say that God created the world and everything in it in seven short days? No, because God's Will is done all at once, from Alpha to Omega, in the Holy Instant of Milta. More to the point, our Heavenly Father didn't DO anything Genesis describes directly, because the word "God" was an erroneous substitution for "Elohim," a plural Hebrew word meaning "Divine Grace."

I explained all of this -- and a whole lot more -- in Part 1 of this series. If you're coming late to the party, I strongly suggest you read that post before this one -- or, better yet, start from the very beginning with my post dated January 6, 2023.

Okay, so ... with the correct wording restored, the opening lines of Genesis read as follows:

In the beginning Elohim created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of Elohim moved upon the face of the waters.

Based on all we've established thus far, the Elohim powers could NOT have created Heaven and the planet we call "Earth" in literal terms for two indisputable reasons. The first of these is that Heaven, being eternal, has always existed. The second is that the dream-universe was, according to Genesis, “without form, and void” at this point in time. There were, in other words, no perceived galaxies, solar system, planets, or other astral objects -- and wouldn’t be for thousands (if not millions) more dream-years.

If, then, this description is valid, it must mean something OTHER than what it APPEARS to mean (which it absolutely does). That Elohim created “heaven” and “earth” when the void was “without form” tells us the Spirit of Grace re-engineered the dream-realm to serve the Shared Will of Father and Son BEFORE we imagined the drifting clouds of matter consolidating into solid forms. Thus, that “darkness was upon the face of the deep” indicates that, even before "the intrusion of fire and ice" blocked God's tonal transmissions of Agape, the Ego Mind's fear-based thought-system had jammed the channel through which God speaks to our Souls.

Moving “upon the face of the waters” does NOT mean Elohim flew over the oceans, as many Biblical interpreters (both scholarly and clerical) wrongly presume. If there were no planets, how could there be oceans?

The obvious answer is: There could NOT be. 

The "waters" in Genesis aren't the wet stuff; rather, they symbolize thought vibrations. Luminously interpreted, “Moved upon the face of the waters” simply means the Spirit of Grace acted in the formless void to change its purpose from miscreating through fear-based thinking to learning or remembering how to create again in accordance with the Law of Love.

As you contemplate these events, keep in mind that Elohim changed the world's purpose NOT by tinkering with the structure of matter, as many occult "scientists" falsely report, but by tinkering with the vibratory "wiring" within our image-projecting minds.

To confirm the accuracy of what I’ve just explained, let’s consult the Gospel of Mary, another of the early Christian texts unearthed at Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in 1945. Written by Mary the Magdala, the "beloved disciple" and wedded wife of Jesus, the Gospel of Mary first resurfaced in 1896, but events conspired to keep its discovery secret until two more copies were found many decades later.

In Mary’s gospel, Jesus says the following about the nature of matter: 

All nature, all formations, all creatures exist in and with one another, and they will be resolved again into their own roots. For the nature of matter is resolved into the roots of its own nature alone. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

Here’s what he means: Matter consists of vibratory thought-waves, projected outward in image-forms symbolizing the underlying idea. Although fear-based, that underlying idea is still creative thought or “spirit.” Thus, matter and spirit share a cause-effect relationship. They are not two separate things, but ONE idea in different stages of manifestation. To dissolve matter, therefore, we must purify our minds of the dense fear-based thoughts through which we project the illusion of form in collusion with the Ego Mind.

When we stop projecting the dark and dense emotions of fear and guilt, in other words, the illusion of solid matter will simply disappear. What will then remain is the only thing that’s REAL: The Great Light of God's Mind in which “all nature, all formations, all creatures exist in and with one another.” 

Got it? Good. Let’s get back to Genesis.

Here’s what happened next, according to the Old Testament account:

And Elohim said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And Elohim saw the light, that it was good, and divided the light from the darkness. And they called the light Day, and the darkness they called Night.

Did the Spirit of Grace create visible light at this point in time? No, because the Ego Mind projected the image of suns much later to support the illusion of physicality. What Elohim ACTUALLY did was shine Holy Light into the "dark void" of fear-dominated perception. Like most things in the Bible, “Day” and “Night” are symbolic references. “Day” represented the Light of God the Spirit of Grace brought into the dream to change its purpose, while "Night" symbolized the dark deceptions or unreal opposites the Ego Mind manifested to block the Higher Mind "receivers" of the Separated Ones.

The ancient Chinese Yin-Yang symbol represents this duality of this concept of Day (mind-awake) and Night (mind-asleep). Like everything else the Ego Mind touches, the symbol's real meaning has been distorted over time. Yin and Yang are NOT two opposing forces (such as male and female) working in harmony, as modern philosophers erroneously profess. They are two opposing forces, only one of which is REAL.

Originally, the word "Yin" meant "firm," while "Yang" meant "yielding." The "Yin" aspect of the universe encompassed, therefore, the perfect, eternal, and unchanging aspects of Creation, while "Yang" symbolized the ever-shifting dark opposites that blocked the "Yin" from our awareness. To see the truth of our being, early Chinese sages RIGHTLY advised, we must seek and honor only the "firm," "light," or "eternal" components of being. 

Thus, in the story of Genesis:

Day = Yin = the "firm" or "light" creations of God (mind-awake/knowing/Agape-inspired)
Night = Yang = the "yielding" or "dark" manifestations of the Ego Mind (mind-asleep/perceiving/fear-inspired)

Genesis continues as follows:

And Elohim said, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.” And [the] Elohim made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And [the] Elohim called the [upper] firmament Heaven.

Most ego-deceived Biblical interpreters take this to mean Elohim (or God) divided the sky from the oceans on Day Two of the (Re) Building Cycle. That is NOT, however, what it says at all. “Firmament” means “sphere” or “realm,” while the “waters,” as explained, were the two opposing thought-systems (Day/Light/Yin or Night/Darkness/Yang) the Separated Ones would be able to choose between after the Atonement Plan was activated.

To divide the Higher Mind “waters” or thought-vibrations from the lower-mind “waters” or thought-vibrations, Elohim established a “realm” in-between Heaven (Superconsciousness) and “earth” (Ego Consciousness). The Spiritual Triad is that middle “realm.” To return to Heaven-proper, we must first pass through that middle-firmament. This is what Jesus means in the New Testament AND the Course when he says, "Nobody can reach the Father except through me." Nobody can, in other words, restore their mind to Superconsciousness or Knowledge without first passing through the corrected perceptual state of Christ Consciousness.

Throughout the Course, Jesus calls this middle-firmament or Spiritual Triad the Inner-Altar.

To verify the accuracy of my interpretation, let’s look more closely at the Hebrew word translated into English as "Heaven." The word was Shamayin, which (like Elohim) is PLURAL. Etymologically, Shamayin combines two smaller words: sham or samu, meaning “sky” or “lofty,” and mayim, meaning “water.” What Shamayin means, therefore, is “lofty-water,” Higher Mind, or Higher Thought.

In Jewish theology, Shamayin has three levels. The highest is the dwelling place of the Lord of Hosts; the middle level houses “the living”; and the lowest tier is “the realm of the dead.” Most Jewish scholars and teachers understand these three levels as Heaven, Earth, and the Underworld. In actuality, they are the three “planes” or “kingdoms” governed by the Trinity Powers of Elohim, which are:

Throne of the Lord of Hosts = Seventh Plane, the dwelling place of the Spirit of Grace, who represents the Father part of the Will to liberate the Sonship from Ego-enslavement;

Land of the Living = Sixth Plane, the dwelling place of the Christ and Christ-Realized Souls (the “living” who’ve overcome “death” through "resurrection");

Land of the Dead = The Fifth Kingdom, the dwelling place of the Atman or Soul-Self and awakening Souls who’ve not yet "resurrected" -- i.e., “realized” their shared Christ Identities or Wholeness.

Let’s proceed to the third symbolic “day,” on which the Spirit of Grace reportedly did the following:

And Elohim said, “Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear”: and it was so. And Elohim called the dry land earth; and the gathering together of the waters they called seas: and they saw that it was good.

The meaning of this passage suffers greatly from unilluminated translation and interpretations. We now know that the “waters under heaven” are the lower-mind planes of Ego Consciousness. To gather them together in one place, Elohim organized the drifting and divided Souls into orders or "kingdoms" below the Spiritual Triad, but still in the “waters” of perception. Based on various things I’ve read, these orders are roughly as follows:

Fourth Kingdom = Humans
Third Kingdom = Non-Human Animals
Second Kingdom = Plants
First Kingdom = Minerals or Protoplasm (depending on source)

In the passage under discussion, the Hebrew word translated as “seas” was yammin or yamin, which means right hand, right-mind, or Higher Mind. The word translated as “dry land” was hey-yabbasah. Hey means “to reveal” or “true revelation comes from Heaven alone.” It refers, therefore, to the third power of Elohim: the illuminating Light of God within all living things. Yabbasah, meanwhile, means “dry,” “withered,” or “ashamed.” The word translated as Earth was Adamah, which has come to mean earth, soil, or ground, but didn’t at first. Originally, Adamah was the name of the allegorical Garden of Eden, the paradise God created for His Souls to practice creating.

Similarly, the Hebrew word adam has come to mean “man” or “humankind.” Originally, the word meant “red,” while its root (dam) meant “blood.” Adam, therefore, symbolized the Souls in Adamah. In the dream, Adam is represented by the Atman -- the Divine Spark or Christ-fragment in all lifeforms. In the dream-realm, that Spark is a chip off the old block, so to speak. As such, it's the same color as its Source: the One on the Ruby Throne referenced in the Book of Revelations.

This particular Genesis passage is, in fact, a great example of how off-base literal or unilluminated interpretations of the Scriptures can be. This confusing description has nothing to do with the land and water we perceive on Planet Earth. Rather, it echoes the allegory of Adam and Eve AND the Course, both of which describe how, under the Ego Mind’s corrupting influence, the Separated Ones believed they had shamed themselves in the eyes of God. To escape their disgrace, they fled (projected their split minds) into a lower realm devoid of the “waters” or "graces" of the Higher Mind. They descended, in other words, into the denser plane of ego-body consciousness. And it was then that they jammed their communications with God.

That Elohim gathered together the waters of yamin (the Soul’s repressed Higher Mind memories) means the Trinity Powers extended the Inner-Instrument into the lower realms of Persona and Matter. In so doing, they equipped the Separated Ones with an internal mechanism that would 1) restore their direct communication with God and 2) gently and gradually bring them back up the six levels they fell down.

On the proverbial third day, Elohim transformed the Ego Mind's barren worlds into habitable learning environments for the sanity-restoring At-one-ment curriculum. Shrouded in fear, guilt, and physical bodies, the Souls shared the belief they required food to survive, and thus made the need real in the dream. In Truth, they only needed the manna of God's Saving Grace, which the Christ Mind provided through its vibratory "Song of Heaven."

On the fourth day, according to Genesis, the following occurred:

And [the] Elohim said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the Day from the Night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth”: and it was so. And [the] Elohim made two great lights; the greater light to rule the Day, and the lesser light to rule the Night: they made the stars also. And Elohim set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the Day and over the Night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and Elohim saw that it was good.

This passage SEEMS to describe Elohim creating suns, stars, and moons; but we know that can’t be right because, like God, the Spirit of Grace creates through Divine Will. The two great lights Elohim "made" were the Christ Light and the Divine Spark or Atman, which "gave light upon the earth" from the Spiritual Triad or Inner-Altar. Being within us, these two lights divide the light (Spiritual Truth) from the darkness (Ego-manifested deception).

The next section of Genesis reads:

And Elohim said, “Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that [they] may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.” And they created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and Elohim saw that it was good … [and] blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.”

In the Course, Jesus tells us unequivocally that the Ego Mind made our physical bodies to perceive separation and the sense of limitation and littleness it engendered. Thus, Elohim could NOT have created birds and sea creatures, as this passage SEEMS to suggest. To decipher the real meaning, let’s again consider the symbolism.

Waters = the vibratory levels of thought, now organized into seven planes

Open firmament of heaven = the three higher planes of the Trinity Powers

Because this Biblical passage mentions whales and birds, we can infer that the Souls from the Third Kingdom (non-human animals) were now “falling” into bodies on the denser physical plane. So, Elohim said, more or less: “Let the corrective devices we’ve provided bring the fallen Souls back to the Spiritual Triad in great numbers.” They also encouraged the body-clad Souls to “be fruitful and multiply” so more of them could enter the new Atonement Academy they’d reengineered the dream-world to be.

“The whole [reproductive] process was set up as a learning experience in gaining Grace,” Jesus explains in the Course's URText. He also says that procreative sex was introduced as “a creative tool” for two primary purposes. The first was to enable Souls to make new homes for other Souls and lovingly “parent” them, as God parents us. The second was to allow Souls to “live” many lives with the goal of improving their "Records."

On the symbolic sixth and final day, Elohim did the same for the remaining Souls from the Third Kingdom, as well as for the human Souls in the Fourth Kingdom. Regarding human Souls, Elohim said:

“Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” So [the] Elohim created man in their own image, in the image of the Elohim created they him; male and female created they them. And [the] Elohim blessed them, and said unto them, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”

Let's stop here for a sec, because I need to explain that the Hebrew word translated as "dominion" in the passage above actually means "to lower oneself." Contrary to popular presumption, Elohim did NOT command human Souls to rule over the lower orders of body-clad Souls; they commanded us to right-mindedly perceive ourselves as EQUAL with all the other orders of Creation.

This is what Jesus attempts to express in Matthew 35:40, when he says, "Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." What we do to ANY lifeform, in other words, we do unto our own CHRIST-SELF (and will receive as we gave).

In the Course, Jesus also explains that we can't get back to Heaven until we RIGHTLY perceive that we are one with and equal to the Souls in ALL lifeforms. This is, in fact, how we "save" the lower orders of Creation. In the Manuel for Teachers, Jesus also lists "Gentleness" as a characteristic of Advanced or Enlightened Teachers of God. Gentleness, as defined by Jesus in this section, is identical to the Yogic "yama" or virtuous discipline of Ahimsa, non-violence, or harmlessness -- the guru-prescribed moral practice of not harming any living thing.

In case you're still on the fence about God's position on our treatment, consumption, and/or extermination of His Sons in the bodies of animals, fishes, and insects, read the rest of Genesis. In what is arguably the least cited passage in Biblical history, Elohim specifically instructs the Souls on earth to EAT ONLY PLANTS!!! 

The passage regarding the final day of the building cycle is also the one from which we got the crazy idea that God made human bodies in His mirror image. Since Elohim is a divine thought-force, the above CANNOT mean she/they made human bodies like theirs or that we physically resemble them or God (as we've already established). It has to mean, therefore, that the Graces did something to remind us of our resemblance to God in terms of our shared Holiness, Will, and Creative Powers -- the aspects and attributes of divinity we elected to forget when we chose earth over Heaven.

What did Elohim do to help us remember these aspects and attributes? The answer is: She/they installed an ingenious mechanism within us to accomplish God’s Plan over time and within the parameters of free will. In Course terms, that inner-instrument consists of the “Temple” (the lower four chakras or planes) and the "Inner-Altar" (the upper three chakras or planes).

Based on what Jesus explains in the Course, the Inner-Instrument also is equipped with the "tools" or components listed below. For ease in cross-referencing, I've added the now more familiar Hindu/Yoga terms for each of these elements in parenthesis where applicable. 

—An ever-sounding Call to Awaken (the Aum or Cosmic vibration)
—An embedded compulsion to return to God (Atman)
—A reasoning part of the mind that can learn Spiritual Truth, up to a point (Buddhi)
—A pre-set time (chosen by us) for the Shared Will to activate within our dreaming minds;
—A gentle force to uncoil that Will, once activated (Kundalini);
—An upward path for that Holy Will to follow as it uncoils over time (Sushumna);
—An inward-looking "eye" to enable correction (the Spiritual Eye);
—Two curative powers to “grease” the whole machine (the Great Rays within the Ida and Pingala nadis).

An invisible “body” sheathes these elements within us. That “body” is known by many names. Some call it the Astral or Subtle Body; others call it the Soma Pneumatikos. In the Course and the New Testament, as I’ve said, Jesus calls this Inner-Instrument "the Temple." He also states in no uncertain terms that the Temple to which he refers is NOT the physical body.

As I understand it, this Inner-Instrument and the physical body have nothing to do with each other, as each is projected by a different part of our dreaming minds. The Temple is projected by the Christ Mind, while the physical body is projected by the Ego Mind.

In the simplest possible terms:

Physical Body = instrument to enable lower-mind perception

Spiritual Body = instrument to restore Higher Mind perception

While experiencing ourselves in the world, we seem to wear this invisible Spiritual Body under our flesh-and-bone perceiving instruments. In reality, our "being" extends everywhere. With the addition of the Spiritual Body, Elohim made it possible for us to hear God again. We could not, however, hear God’s Voice yet. Before the Elohim powers could activate the plan, they had to wake up the Great Rays, which still slept in the Christ Mind. And that, in a nutshell, is how Jesus saved the world.

I'll describe all that Jesus did to earn the title "Savior" in a future post. For now, just know that even after Jesus awoke the Atonement Rays, the Christ Mind couldn’t communicate with its Soul-fragments unless invited to do so. The Elohim powers had erected the cell tower, so to speak, but we still had to turn on our phones to receive Christ's calls. Giving us this choice preserved free will -- or appeared to, at least. 

Other devices built into the Great Plan would eventually force the surrender of even the most stubborn hold-outs. I won’t go into what all of those devices are. Just know that nothing occurs by accident. Absolutely nothing. And all things work together for the greater good or accelerated awakening of everyone involved. To judge events without understanding the complex tapestry of whys, whatnots, and wherefores is to perceive them without context.

Okay, so ... that's my spiel on Genesis, but there's more to tell about the Elohim powers. Lots more. So, be sure to come back for the next installment in my "Who or What is Elohim?" series.

My Path to A Course in Miracles

Let's begin our journey together with a little background on your guide. Like many people, I followed a long and winding path to A Course in Miracles, which I began in earnest in March or April of 1997. Along the way, the Holy Spirit helped me remove several "obstacles" that stood between me and what turned out to be my True Path.

I began this life as a Catholic, but only attended weekly Mass and Catechism until age eleven -- the year before I would have received the Holy Sacrament of Confirmation. In high school, I became what was then called a "Jesus Freak," but gave up my Christian clique when they forbade me to hang out with my "worldly" friends. Thereafter, I explored many alternate paths before eventually returning to Catholicism in my mid-twenties. At that point, I actually learned the theology on which the religion is founded. Unable to accept some of these beliefs, I walked away from the Church of my upbringing (and many past lives)

For the next several years, I had no spiritual foundation. Consequently, I grew increasingly depressed and began contemplating suicide. Rather than act on this impulse, I called a psychologist, who saw me immediately. At our first session, he asked if I had a philosophy of life.

“Not really,” I answered. “As far as I can tell, life is meaningless and random.” I proceeded to share my cynical theory that human beings were the accidental offspring of horny aliens and apes. While I didn’t really believe this, I had no better explanation to offer.

He listened patiently before asking with a concerned smile, “Do you find that philosophy useful?”

When I answered that I didn’t, he advised me to work on developing a more heartening spiritual belief system.    

Thereafter, I explored several paths, none of which felt right. Fast forward to my mid-thirties. While taking an astrology class at a New Age bookstore in Pasadena, Calif., I noticed—and was drawn to—A Course in Miracles. Thumbing through its pages, I saw the Christian language within and, turned off by it, put the book back on the shelf.

A few months later, I was awakened one Sunday by a powerful inner prompt directing me to get out of bed and go to Mass at the local Catholic Church. I did as instructed and strongly felt the Holy Spirit’s presence at the service. I continued going to weekly Mass and, a few months later, I signed up for an adult confirmation class. At the start of the first session, the facilitator led the class through a guided meditation.

“Imagine yourself walking on a beach,” she began. “Now imagine that Jesus appears and walks with you. What do you say to him? What does he say to you?”

Normally, I don’t have much luck with visual meditations. But this time, I DID see Jesus walking with me on the beach. I spoke to him from my heart about my doubts. In response, he explained that faith was a choice. Then, he asked, “What do you gain by NOT believing in me?”

The next moment, I saw myself at a crossroads. The road to the left was a continuation of the one I’d been on, which had only made me increasingly unhappy. The road to the right disappeared over the distant horizon. I couldn’t see where it went, but I KNEW it would take me to a better place. As I chose the RIGHT road, I also chose to believe in Jesus.

Having removed this obstacle from my mind, the Holy Spirit used my then-boss to steer me toward A Course in Miracles a few days later. At the time, I had a stressful job in the public affairs office of an elite private college. I was divorced, unhappy, and Ego-bound. One day, my supervisor, who was not to my knowledge a “spiritual” person, came into my office and set a book on my desk.

“I was in a bookstore last night,” he said, “and got the strangest feeling I needed to buy this for you.” The book was Deepak Chopra’s The Path to Love. That night, I read the whole book, which resonated with me deeply.

The next day, my boss came into my office again. This time, he handed me a copy of a transcript from an NPR interview with Marianne Williamson, who, as it happened, was an alumna of the college I worked for. In the interview, not surprisingly, she talked about A Course in Miracles. Her descriptions spoke to me, so at lunch, I went out and bought the book. That night, as I read the Text and started the Workbook, I knew I’d found my True Path.

This happened in April 1997. I know because, for some reason, I dated some of the Workbook Lessons. On the evening of April 17, an inner-voice I knew to be the Holy Spirit’s spoke to me. A month or so before, I’d started an intense relationship with someone with severe emotional problems. When he ended the relationship as abruptly as he’d initiated it, I was heartbroken. While lying in bed agonizing over what to do, the Holy Spirit’s still, small voice said (inside my mind), “You’re asking the wrong questions. The right question is: What have I lost if I choose love?”

The question sparked an epiphany. In that moment, I understood, for the first time in my life, that we experience love not by GETTING it from someone else, but by GIVING it without reservation. If I continued to love this man, whatever form the relationship might take, I had lost ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

When I look back on these experiences, I can see (and hope you will too) how carefully and actively the Holy Spirit guided me to the Course. I also recognize how He helped me surmount two major obstacles to “choosing right.” Not my horny alien theory, but my rejection of organized Christianity and, with it, Jesus as my “savior.” Like many “recovering” Catholics, I had thrown out the baby with the bathwater. To reclaim the baby (Jesus), I also had to forgive the bathwater (Catholicism) for being contaminated by wrong-minded thinking.

All right, so ... that's my story -- or at least some of it. I'll share more of my spiritual history and experiences as we move forward. In the meantime, why don't you tell me a little about yourself in the comments. Are you doing the Course? If so, how long have you been at it? If not, what path are you following and why?