Session 1 In our first class, Joel invites us on a journey into our very own consciousness. This journey is not for the faint of heart, as he tells us. It requires “diving deep into ourselves” in order to discover the hidden pearls that lay far below the surface of ourselves. Let us take heart…
Comments
39 responses to “A Parenthesis In Eternity: Part One Class Page”
In reading Chapter 10, I have one question, on pg. 136 – 3rd paragraph, where Joel is referring to living in the fourth dimension of consciousness, “to seek supply, companionship, a home or employment is to seek an improved dream an improved illusion. ” Is he referring to the ego mind? unfortunately, I have to work – I would love to stay home and meditate more – I do want to let go of this world- be in the world but not of it
Angela
Hi Angela,
I don’t know about your meditation practice, but I do know that all of the mind healing you practice at work, with customers and colleagues, heals my mind. And I am grateful for your work. 🙂
Hi Angela, yes, Joel is referring to the ego mind. But he’s not saying that we will not be active in the world, just that we don’t need to tell God what to do, what we need, problems for Him to solve, or who to heal. All we need to do is be still, relax, melt into His Presence, knowing it is our Presence, and then He will see to the rest.
When we make it our business to seek only Him, He takes care of all of our business. “The Adamic dream” ceases to be a priority or a distraction to us.
We no longer live, Christ lives our life. Our life is no longer our life, it’s God’s life. Our job is no longer our job, it’s God’s job.
I can feel Joel’s words as if they are coming from the deep within. I am committed to “real repentance” which John has mentioned in other classes as a turning towards God with life-changing consequences —a choice for God—a choosing again. (Did I get that right?)
I am “determine[d] to have an end to this human bickering, greed, jealousy, and fear” (p. 107, Kindle). I know that when I choose wrongly, “it has to be undone and cannot be left to accumulate”. I am committed to rising above the stubbornness of the Mary character. I am re-dedicated to my meditation practice.
There are so many passages that I love. The ones I love most of all are those about our spiritual companions. I am so grateful for the spiritual companions I have had throughout my life, even before I knew the role they were playing in my spiritual development. That especially includes all the Mighty Companions I have in this, and other, classes. My deep within is touched by your deep within. It includes those who taught me the karma of choosing fear, or greed or jealousy or victimhood. Ones who taught me through calls for love.
“In each parenthesis within the circle, we draw to ourselves the atmosphere and environment in which we can best unfold: the particular parents who can give us the lessons we need whether they be harsh or gentle ones, and the companionship needed for our development. (p. 109, Kindle Edition).
Thank you all!
Namaste, my Mighty Companions
I can only echo the sentiment, Mary! It is such a blessing to all of us to have you as an integral part of this community. Thank you for your unwavering dedication, selfless service, and huge compassionate heart!
Deep bow…
And, yes, you are correct on the repentance question.
Mary, well stated and I stand as witness to your devotion and love. I – the decision maker, am deeply honored/humbled to have such a community that holds/creates sacred space to expand back into the one truth that leads us back home. Namaste to all my teachers…
was reading chapter 9 and I have questions on Karma. Am I creating negative Karma as a recovering addict who does not go to meetings as I find that many relapse, come in drugs or high and have difficulty in believing that there is a God who if sought can relieve them of their addiction. Their lives run on the ego and not God, they live their lives by the ego running riot in everything they do. But what about me! Am I holier than thou to judge those unable to release their ego mind? I have to admit that I don’t know the area, don’t know where meetings are – I have gone to some online meetings – this is our fourth year in South Carolina.
I am trying to understand Karma – I know that it is an Eastern Religion as it is part of Buddhism.
Anyway, I would love your pearls of wisdom
I learned something today….my spiritual ego as I think its god talking to me but it is a judgement or to do something – I have realized that God doesn’t want me to do anything and he is non judgmental.
Marie Torrisi
Hi Marie,
Our discussion tonight will cover the topic of karma and reincarnation. There is some difference between karma, as it is commonly taught in Eastern traditions, and how The Infinite Way addresses it. Essentially, the Sanskrit word karma just means “action.” So with every action there is a reaction, cause and effect, reaping and sowing. We are doing it all to ourselves. With every thought, word, and action we are either sowing to the Spirit or to the flesh, and building our future experience.
As far as you attending meetings or not is not for me to say. That is your personal choice. I can only add that when we truly give our lives over to the Holy Spirit we will see our human relationships arranged and rearranged according to His judgment. We will recognize His work by the quality of characters that show up in our life movie. We will recognize them by their fruits: do they desire only to do the Will of God, live a pure life, serve others, have rigorous self-honesty, and honor truth above all illusions?
I finished reading Chapter 8 and it was so beautiful. One reading that really caught my attention was on the bottom of page 105 – “Just do your work each day, the work that is given you to do. Do it in the best way you know how, but do not do it for a living; do it for love. Let the living be the added thing. This is helping me to see that while I am home praying, reading and meditating, I work 3 days a week and in those 3 days I sometimes easily thrown off by me. wanting to get to work on time; doing my job well and sometimes reacting to co-workers. I will take this with me each day and let go doing it for a living and let the living be the added thing.
Excellent! That is such an important insight, Angela, with such far reaching and long term impact. That frees you up to know that Spirit is the source of your supply and you simply have to relax, let go, and let Him use you.
Angela,
I just finished reading Chapter 8 myself. I love how you bring it home in your shares.
For me, I am thrown off by wanting to understand. I forget who I am and identify with the mary ego body when I am desperately trying to figure things out, instead of trusting in God. I have succumbed to that in a couple of recent classes, and that choice, to try to understand with ego mind, gives immediate effect: pain in my gut, guilt, for thinking thoughts apart from God (not possible), and for separating from God, which of course I never did. I know my way out, but sometimes I choose to wallow it the wilderness anyway.
Joel says to keep forgiving until the healing is done. Seventy times seven, as the Bible says (somewhere). And Grace will bring the healing.
Grace brought me that healing this morning, in the words channeled by Joel. There are so many; here is the one about patience. I love that he reminds me that I made this mess:
If there be forty years of wilderness before you reach the Promised Land, be patient, be patient. You have made this wilderness through which you must be led. If there is the experience of the cross, accept it. You have brought it upon yourself, and it is just another way out of the wilderness. Whether you make your bed in hell or in heaven, I in the midst of you will never leave you, nor forsake you. Even if you are the thief dangling on the cross, I will take you with me this very day into paradise (p. 96, Kindle edition).
Thanks for the love, Angela.
To say that this week’s reading was inspirational would be an understatement. Three big things hit me, and I would love to hear discussion on them.
1. The way Joel describes our descent into duality—our separation from God, in ACIM terms, and my blocks to my awareness of love.
…the devil over here, and the God up in heaven over there, and you began to be separated from your consciousness. Soon you were so completely divorced from your consciousness that you went through life without ever drawing on it. Then you began blaming those who did not give you what you wanted or needed, when all the time your very own consciousness was the source, the substance, and the activity of your every experience.
(p. 69). Kindle Edition.
2. The seeming paradox of the individual and the One, the Whole.
“Once you understand that God is infinite, divine, spiritual, perfect consciousness, yet individual, you have come close to knowing God.”(p. 69). Kindle Edition.
And,
“Consciousness is the essence and the substance of all that is. This, however, would be as meaningless as saying that God is the substance of all form or that God is the essence of our being, unless we understand that we are talking about individual consciousness—not a consciousness, nor the Consciousness, but our consciousness. With that as a basis, our only concern is our own state of consciousness because that is what determines our individual experience.” (p. 75). Kindle Edition.
And,
“There is only one I permeating every person, constituting all individual life, whether human, animal, vegetable, or mineral. That one I is the Soul of all being, the creative principle, the activity, the cause, the life, and even the body itself. It is both cause and effect. It is I which is the sacredness of our being, the Consciousness of our being. That it is that governs us. I in the midst of us is mighty.” (p. 86). Kindle Edition.
3. Joel’s instruction on remembering Who we are:
“The human being has to “die” in order that the I which is his true identity may be revealed in all Its purity, completeness, and fullness.” (p. 82). Kindle Edition.
And,
“Spiritual teaching must enter the heart; it must be in the Soul: it must be felt rather than reasoned or thought; it must be intuitively understood. Only then can we take the word I into the sacred and secret place of the most High and dwell there with It. If we dwell in the secret place of the most High and abide with that I, let the I abide in us, let that I flood our consciousness, It will impart Itself to us and say: “Know ye not that I am God? ‘Be still, and know that I am God’; I in the midst of thee am mighty. I will never leave you, nor forsake you.” (p. 84). Kindle Edition.
You got it, Mary! Every passage you quoted was already in the queue for discussion tonight… no kidding.
One Mind.
Joel says, on page 58 in my Kindle edition says “…any evil set in motion does not touch the one toward whom it is directed but returns instantly to the sender.”
Then, a few paragraphs later (p. 59) he says “…we begin to lessen the world’s belief that you and I are distinct from one another, and that we can do good or evil to one another.”
I seldom question my belief that we can do GOOD to one another. But of course if there is only one of us here, if God constitutes our One Self, we can do neither good nor evil to ‘one another’. ‘One another’ ceases to have meaning.
I love how Joel returns to the idea of releasing God in a couple of passages, notably on my p, 61,
“When we stop believing that God is going to reward or punish us, we will leave God alone to function: we will not try to advise or tell Him what to do, when to do it, or how to do it. This will be honoring God by giving him credit for knowing His own business and being willing to perform it.”
Lastly, in the last paragraph of the chapter (p.65), Joel reminds me of ACIM, when he says “In that exalted state of consciousness … in the recognition that we are never the actor or the doer, but that only God is acting and doing through us, we have stopped sowing. Karmic law is then forever nullified.”
Joel’s work deepens my love of the Course.
I am really looking forward to our conversation on karmic law tonight. There are very important distinctions that Joel will point out that allow us to see through all the complexity of our world and understand how human consciousness inevitably produces a self-made prison because of its choice to stay hypnotized by the belief in a separate selfhood. Karma, ego, rebirth, and time are inextricably linked until we have that great Recognition, what the Course calls the Atonement. Then, as Mary points out, “karmic law is forever nullified.”
I enjoyed reading Chapter 5, and agree we need be devoted to practicing morning and evening. I do this every morning to start my day and evening. As far as Karma and Karmic Law – I understand that all religions follow this, and I struggle with if you do something bad and make amends; it erases bad karma. I choose to follow the Course were everyone is my brother, and I am love – even if my brother is acting irrationally. I would like more understanding on this Karma. I am really practicing being present in the moment and not reacting, ex I had a very short schedule today and am working 3 days a week. I could have gotten very fearful, but I let go and knowing it will all work out. So important to practice
Angela,
I love how you share about your practice in your work life. I am enriched by all the work you do.
One Mind.
I agree, Angela, in one way or another karma seems to be a universal law that is a central teaching of most religious traditions. I can also see your point about “simply making amends.” Joel does seem to say that when he writes, “This was not right;” “I know better than that;” “I am done with that.” He then say, “Whenever we make a confession within ourselves, we have annihilated the evil results of karmic law.”
So it seems like he is saying bad karma is simply annulled just by “making amends.” However, in the very next paragraph, he says that we must “turn to the Master.” It is He that can so transform our human consciousness that we override the effects of our negative karma. Our scarlet sins become as white as snow. I love how he puts it: “In other words, if we decide to cling to our humanhood, we can be assured that the karmic law is continuing to operate, but any moment we choose to do so we can come out from among them and be separate and apart. Then the past is past–done away with.” That is exactly how the Course defines the miracle.
Thank you John, I know that for me, I was a people pleaser for most of my life, until the Course – Sarah had the same complex – I gave up all of me to be loved. I feel the Karma of that is giving + to get – you get 0 – and well when you realize it – I tried and prayed for the courage to do it differently. Today I pray every day to be kind no matter what. I have so many teachers in my life – yesterday was a lesson in guild and shame – I was able to realize it and forgive my belief for thinking that I needed to be perfect.
Hello all, from across the pond:-) it has been very meaningful for me to listen in from afar…yet close in heart. Here are my 2 favorite passages so far:
p22 “The moment we relax and stop trying to bring God to our mind or body, that moment we shall find that God has always been there”.
p 50 “There will be an overturning (and overturning and overturning…) in our consciousness, and it will appear to us as a warfare between the flesh and the Spirit, a warfare between disease and health, between lack and abundance, and finally between the two I’s: the I that we are as a person and the I that is God. And oh, the human being “dies” so hard! He wants to perpetuate himself; he wants to be something, to do something, to know something. Thus, the warfare goes on until finally that human being is shaken so thoroughly that he awakens to the fact that of himself he is nothing, but that the I which is God is all….When, in this nothingness of the individual, the Father speaks–takes over, heals, redeems, and instructs–then the Father lives that life…..and eventually “I live; yet not I, but Christ”….realizing the truth that we are nothing, that we can do nothing and be nothing of ourselves.” With gratitude and blessings, Katharina
Just Playing around a bit!!!
Hah!
Q…Hahahah, Please
Be my Teacher!…
I want to become
More aware… that my
Spiritual consciousness
Be ever and ever
Juicier and richer!…
That the “old me”
That saw only thru
The body’s physical senses;
Yes, let that “saw”
Of the past be empowered
In the here and now
With a spiritual vision
That Lovingly + Joyfully,
Invisibly + Gently cuts thru
The Appearance of matter,…
So that our minds be healed
With the awareness,
A Graceful Gift,
Of a whole + Holy,
Continuous living experience
…Only of those Things
That in Eternity
Really Matter!
Q.Thank You! So Hahahah,
Do we “hear” your Laughter
Here + forever After?
A. The answer is waiting
For us within,
In our Heart of Hearts,
If to us,
It Really Matters! Hahahah!
Alex,
Thank you for sharing your “Playing” with us. It is lovely!
Mary
Thank you, Alex. Your poetic words go right to the heart of what it looks like to ask for Vision. “The answer is waiting…” and, “if it really matters” to us we will enter in. This reminds me of Jesus’ words: “Let it be done unto to you according to your faith.” We always get what we believe in and what we want to experience.
Joel says: They discovered, centuries before Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that there is within every person what has been called the Christ, the spiritual man, the divine Self, the infinite Ego, the Son of God, and although each of these ancient mystics coined new words and new terms to express this Withinness, they are all descriptive of the same experience.
(pp. 35-36). Kindle Edition.
I don’t think of I have heard/read him call this “within-ness” Soul. Is soul something different? Is there some significance to Joel’s not using that term?
I like the term “within-ness” because it doesn’t carry with it prior notions of what it symbolizes, whereas “soul” seems to carry many different meanings to our seemingly separated selves.
I must correct myself. He later calls this the indwelling Something, of course the Christ Within, and here he uses the term “soul”:
“All the art, science, mathematics, and religion have come out of the Soul of man through his turning within and bringing forth glories that have never before been known on earth, and there are still greater things yet to be revealed.”
(pp. 42-43).Kindle Edition.
Thanks Mary. I found it under Spam mail.
Love and Blessings for EveryOne!
❤️🙏
I really enjoyed the reading, and this week has brought so many insights to my beliefs. The feeling of worries and concerns standing in the way of my awareness. Yes, it takes courage to let go of the ranting of the ego for the peace of God and to know that everything is exactly how it is supposed to be and there is nothing to worry about.
Absolutely, Angela. As you know, The Infinite Way teaches that all of our worries come from the belief in the “two powers.” That there can exist good AND evil, light and darkness, health and sickness, abundance and scarcity, etc. This is by nature a worry prone condition. In truth, there is only one Power, God, the all Good, everything else is a mesmeric belief and does not exist. This is why we study and practice these teachings: “that the same mind that was in Christ Jesus may also be in us.”
AS I unpack “releasing God”, I realize I do not know how to pray, and “praying ceaselessly” is even more challenging
Also, am interested in the use/meaning of the related words, “image”, “imagery”, and “imagination”
And I loved this quote:
We must let imagery and poetry have their way with us,
Goldsmith, Joel. A Parenthesis in Eternity (p. 21).
The “release” is directly related to “dying daily.” As we let go of all of our concepts, especially about who God is, then our mind gradually comes to rest and relax into the silence. This is the stage of” “take no thought.” From the clear and open mind, the power of God can then flow through us. As Joel puts it: “God is made manifest in silence and in stillness. It is a power that we cannot not use, but which we can permit to flow from us by our recognition and realization of it” (p.26) Elsewhere he says, “[I]n silence let us accept God’s grace. Silence is the only form of spiritual prayer. True, we may us words and thoughts to lift ourselves into an atmosphere where we can be still, but the words and thoughts we are using are not prayer: they are merely aids to lift us to the heights where prayer can be experienced” (p.24)
Thanks John for all the depth of understanding that you offer us!
❤️🙏
Joel says, in the discussion on freedom, that “there are just as many spiritual teachers on the inner plane as there are on the outer, if not more” (p. 20).
He speaks of the teachers as ‘many’. So not just Holy Spirit, but all beings of the One Mind. Other traditions speak of angels, Ancients of Days, and other higher beings. So if I have the courage to release my old beliefs, All of reality gently helping me to remember Who I am.
Love that.
Yes, Mary. I found such joy reading and re-reading that statement. It confirmed what I have believed and felt to be true in my own life for a long time. So much is happening beyond the range of our senses that we can scarcely even fathom it. And… the beautiful, nondual wisdom that Joel “lays down” states that: ” There are not two: there is only one…. There is only one Life, infinite Life; there is only one Consciousness, infinite Consciousness; there is only one Soul, infinite Soul.” The Many is the One.
Yes, yes, yes! Thank you!
Ken Wapnick refers to the Course on the subject of our legions of spiritual guides:
The Course teaches: “Helpers are given you in many forms, although upon the altar they are one. … But they have names which differ for a time, for time needs symbols, being itself unreal. Their names are legion” (C-5.1:3,5-6). Jesus is the name of one of God’s helpers, the one who, as we have already seen, “was the first to complete his own part perfectly” (C-6.2:2). Certainly there could be others who have followed, including those who have already passed beyond “lower” ego states and can help those of us still stuck “below,” all the while they are completing the little ground yet needed to be worked through.
Wapnick, Kenneth. Forgiveness and Jesus: The Meeting Place of ‘A Course in Miracles’ and Christianity (p. 397). Foundation for “A Course in Miracles”. Kindle Edition.