Nita touched on one of the major challenges of these early exercises from the A Course in Miracles Workbook for Students in a comment on yesterday’s post, ACIM… Day 12.
Nita wrote:
I found it a little difficult to understand this because I never could see the world as meaningless. For me it always had meaning. And if you ask me what the meaning is I would find it difficult to describe. I guess for me the meaning is in simply being alive and feeling it with every single breath and bone in your body. I can’t explain it.
Maybe I missed something?
Thanks again for the comment, Nita.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who finds this challenging!
This is the big serious question for all these exercises… letting go of the concept of meaning and the meanings we have applied to our life is the mental equivalent of leaping off a cliff and having faith that everything will work out all right.
But it is also a first step into true freedom!
A Course in Miracles is walking us step by step through the process of letting go of the meaning we apply… and I suspect introducing us to True meaning… Absolute Truth… Energy Oneness… the Word of God.
These can all be reduced to concepts/words as well (which can point us toward the experience… but can never be the experience)… but when you have the experience… you know.
I’ll do my best to clarify.
Now as I say this, I have not yet completed the workbook myself (I’m just a few days ahead of my posts).
So I will explain this according to what I’ve already learned from meditation and self study… and the work I’ve done so far in ACIM.
To the best of my understanding… the world can be imagined as a blank canvas. The canvas itself may have texture, properties, tendencies, etc., but we rarely see that because we are paying attention to the paint which we’ve added to it.
Most people aren’t even willing to take responsibility for their own ‘paint’… the programming, beliefs, and assumptions that they hold which present to them the world they experience.
Accepting that the world you experience is largely of your own creation is the first step to ‘look beyond the paint’.
This is a real challenge.
Particularly the first few times… but once you get used to it… it makes more and more sense.
Very quickly, you might even start to enjoy stepping off the cliff of meaning… you might start to make it a fun and playful experience
Ultimately, this is just a step out of the comfort zone.
Some people are afraid to leave their house. They think that if they leave their house… it might not be there for them when they come back.
This is just ridiculous!
You can leave your house for hours, days, months, or years… and chances are very high that it will still be there when you come back.
The same is true of thought. Just because you step out of one way of thinking… doesn’t mean you can’t return.
You can always go back!
The only difference is, if/when you do decide to go back, you will be less addicted to that way of thought… you will be less habitually compelled to think that way.
You will be at a place of greater freedom!
Having said all this, your description of breath and feeling alive sounds like a reflection on the joy of being… and you’re right, we can find the greatest poets to write the most moving words you can imagine… and it is still only a pale reflection of the actual experience. I’m still studying A Course in Miracles… and my own experience… but my impression is the experience we’re calling the ‘joy of being’ runs deeper than the pretty or ugly pictures we paint onto the canvas of life.
Is the ‘Joy of Being’ the same thing as the Word of God or Energy Oneness?
It certainly seems so to me… but I am just a student… I look forward to see the next mystery revealed!
And incidentally, if there is ever any physical sensation of discomfort or fear, then I encourage you to use any of the breathing, EFT, or relaxation exercises on this site to help you move past the fear and continue to play with the games in ACIM’s Workbook for Students.
To simplify all of this… it seems there are stages we pass through:
- Lost in a world of self imposed meaning that we blame on others or the world itself
- Acceptance/recognition of the meaning we apply to the world
- Playing with the meaning we apply to change our experience of reality
- Recognizing there is something deeper going on beneath the ‘playing with meaning’
- Having deeper and more frequent experiences of God/Energy Oneness/Buddhahood/etc. as we go about our lives
- ?????
This line of thought partially feeds right into ACIM day 13… and I think you might find ACIM day 14 very helpful as well.
And one more thing, I don’t think you’ve missed anything… in fact
You have touched on something very important!
It helps to recognize this… as you go about the process of self change… and connecting with the Divine.
Please let me know if this helps.
keep smiling,
Ben
P.S. If you would like more information, you might find my posts on the Two Truths helpful:
A Quick Look at the Two Truths…
Discover the Power of the Two Truths…
As well as my posts on Energy Oneness:
