Sunday, April 1, 2012

Fuel for an interior spiritual life- A Course In Miracles

There are many sources for fuel for an interior spiritual life. One such source is A Course In Miracles. The introduction to A Course In Miracles reads as follows:

This is a course in miracles.  It is a required course.  Only the time you take it is voluntary.  Free will does not mean that you can establish the curriculum.  It means only that you can elect what you want to take at a given time.  The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught.  It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love's presence, which is your natural inheritance. The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite.
This course can therefore be summed up very simply in this way:

Nothing real can be threatened.

Nothing unreal exists.
 

 Herein lies the peace of God.

When the introduction says that the Course is a required course it does not mean that A Course In Miracles is the only way to the Kingdom. In fact, the course explicitly states that there are many paths. What is meant by the "required course" is that sooner or later everyone should learn that the ego illusions that we entertain and cling to are not real. We return to the Kingdom by forgiving ourselves and others for clinging to our illusions that the ego world is real. The only thing real is the Kingdom of God which is love. True love, unconditional love cannot be threatened. It is what we are and we are extensions of God's divine love for the world.

As Unitarian Universalists we agree to covenant and affirm the free and responsible search for truth and meaning and we realize that this search can be different for different people at different times in a person's life. We are free to elect when we want to learn what. We must come to the awareness of Love at our pace and in our own time.

The Course is clear that it cannot teach the meaning of Love, but it can help us to overcome the blocks to our awareness of Love. Affirming and promoting UUs 7 principles can help us overcome those blocks to our awareness of Love's presence and in living the principles we can find peace.

As one studies the Course one comes to realize that the path to Love is forgiveness. We forgive ourselves and then we forgive others. The 3rd principle states that we covenant to affirm and promote the "acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations ( and I add "in the world")".

If we truly believe that the Love of God cannot be threatened, we have nothing to fear and can be at peace. Jesus tells us later in the Course that this is the true lesson of the crucifixion. His body could be tortured and killed, but His Love did not die but lived on in the stories that continue to be told about His great Love and faith in the Kingdom of God. It is Jesus' demonstration of this great Love when He said, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do" that manifests the principle that Love cannot be threatened or killed. It lives forever; always was, is now, and forever shall be. This is the great faith based on the awareness of Love beyond the temporal, egotistical nonsense that we call our lives. UUs, who live the faith, see beyond and forgive the nonsense and affirm and promote the worth and dignity of every person which is one way of acknowledging the spark of the divine in each one of us and in all of humanity. This is our Universalist Faith which we proclaim sincerely to the world.

We invite others to take the curriculum now. Now is the time. You can wait, but the sooner the better for humanity.

1 comment:

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