VI. From Vigilance to Peace, P 6
6 The Holy Spirit undoes illusions without attacking them, because He cannot perceive them at all. They therefore do not exist for Him. He resolves the apparent conflict they engender by perceiving conflict as meaningless. I have said before that the Holy Spirit perceives the conflict exactly as it is, and it is meaningless. The Holy Spirit does not want you to understand conflict; He wants you to realize that, because conflict is meaningless, it is not understandable. As I have already said, understanding brings appreciation and appreciation brings love. Nothing else can be understood, because nothing else is real and therefore nothing else has meaning.
Journal
I found out late yesterday that my beloved sister-in-law is dying. I always feel a little strange around death because my reaction to death is so different than it is for others who still believe in death. When my mom died some of my Course friends came to the wake and we laughed more than anything else. I know others who were there must have thought I was either unfeeling or maybe still in shock. I was happy for my mom. She was ready to move on.
I do miss her even now. I miss talking to her and seeing her and touching her. I still wouldn’t wish her back and never was I sad for her. When I am less identified with the body as self, I am certain that communication will be unbroken between those of us who are still embodied and those who are not. Then there will be no grief at all.
One of the problems that I face at times like this is that I resist the natural grief that comes with loss. If I feel no loss then there is no reason for grief. But I still do feel loss, at least for awhile, and I hate feeling the emotion that comes with that. I have always pushed it down and resisted it as much as I could. I realized this morning that it makes me feel afraid and vulnerable and that’s probably why I try not to feel it.
But in reading this paragraph I am reminded that it doesn’t matter why I feel like I do, and why I am afraid of my feelings. I don’t need to dig around in my childhood to come up with answers. I don’t even need to know what I should feel. All of it is a part of the illusion. Fear and grief and confusion have no place in God so none of it is real. The Holy Spirit will undo what I have done simply because I want Him to.
That doesn’t mean He will wave a magic wand and it will all be gone without any effort on my part. My part is to look at my fears and agree that I am through with them and ready for them to be healed. I can’t get out of that. It, however, doesn’t need to be a protracted experience. I’ve noticed that it goes by pretty quickly these days for the most part. Once I have done my part, then the magic wand trick comes out and, poof, just like that I am healed and all the confusion and fear falls away.
Whatever needs to be looked at and whatever I need to experience, I am ready. I want only to heal my mind and awaken from the dream. My friend Cathy sent me a helpful message this morning. Here is what she said.
“I know that you have the intellectual understanding about death. I would simply urge you to stay in the present moment and experience whatever emotions come up. Do not place an expectation on what emotions should look like, or feel like or which emotion is appropriate for the moment. Simply allow yourself to experience the seeming loss of a friend, sister, loved one. You may discover that you are mourning the loss of others; other people, other things; the loss of your separate identity as Myron. In doing so, you will allow those around you, in fact all of the Christ body, to mourn their own ‘losses’. This mourning is a healing when done in awareness.”