"Nine-Eleven? Give'em Heaven!"
After the towers of the World Trade Center came cascading down in New York City on September 11th most Americans and many others in the world began to feel like their beliefs in safety and security, twin pillars holding up the entire belief system making up their world view, had come tumbling down and left a pile of rubble inside themselves called fear. People around the world began to ask questions about causes and solutions. Many Americans are asking each other, "Why would they do this to us and what can we do about it?"
Because students at the Center For Total Enlightenment are acutely aware that before they began expanding beyond self identification they were always looking for love and salvation in all the wrong places, they immediately know that nearly everyone is looking for causes and solutions in all the wrong places also.
But where to look?
The answer is given in A Course in Miracles when we absorb what Jesus is offering between the lines rather than trying to resist such absorption by intellectualizing what Jesus is saying. The answer is also given when we work the lessons of the Course with absolutely full endeavor, absolutely full feeling. But let's look at an earlier version of A Course in Miracles known as the Old Testament.
Let's consider the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel, a story actually referred to in the sacred books of several dominant world religions.
Keep in mind that Babel means "confusion," and that prior to deciding to build the Tower of Confusion, the descendants of Noah were "of one language, and of one speech," spiritual code for being not in ego identification or self identification but in awareness of spiritual oneness.
"And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and dwelt there." (Gen. 11:2)
"Journeying from the east" is spiritual symbolic language for lowering one's infinite spiritual consciousness down into the illusion of time and space and separateness. "Living in the plain" is symbolic for no longer dwelling in the spiritual heights.
"And they said to one another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar." (Gen. 11:3)
Remember, Bible stories are stories of what goes on in your mind. This is a story illustrating what you do with your mind. "Making brick" is symbolic for forming concepts. "Burning them thoroughly" is symbolic for solidifying those concepts into beliefs. "Slime for mortar" indicates the ego-vested interest in having beliefs amalgamated into belief systems.
"And they said, Go to, let us build a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad." (Gen. 11:4)
The ego doesn't want to see itself as merely scattered thoughts in non-solid spiritual mind so it uses belief systems to build an entire illusory world and give itself a name by which to differentiate itself from all else. The ego literally attempts to magnify itself using the creative energy of God.
"And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; yet this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do." (Gen. 11:6)
Any kind of world can be built using this world-building tool of imagination, but nothing can make it real. Because of the sense of separation caused by this kind of ego operation, there is no true communication on earth. But in the inversion style sometimes used by Biblical writers, a problem created for itself by the ego (non-communication) is about to be presented as God's doing, in fact God's solution to the greater problem (the arrogance of the ego's reach).
"Go to, let us go down and confound their speech, that they may not understand one another's speech." (Gen. 11:7)
Again, it's not really the Holy Spirit who sabotages our ability to understand each other. We already do understand each other when we are in awareness of oneness and not in ego self identification. But this passage does hint at the truth that the Holy Spirit is willing to trick the trickster before the trickster's tricks do more harm, like a happy Halloween. What better way to show us the frustration of what we have attempted to build and move us to pray for a re-experience of the state of being where there is perfect communication?
No one would ever make the claim that the Bible was really looking into the future rather than the past and the towers of the World Trade Center were really the Tower of Babel, but it's interesting that Islamic terrorists are apparently religious fanatics who believe they do the work of God.
It's also no accident that American leaders since the towers crashed down have used language like, "You can't reason with them. So we have to go to war."
Of course it goes without saying that no one can hope to use reason between a belief system based on premise A and a belief system based on premise non-A. But has any seeker of truth ever asked: do belief systems per se, all belief systems, lead to war?
We are reminded of the story of the 3 little Course in Miracles teachers.
Once upon a time there were 3 little teachers of A Course in Miracles. Each of these teachers was born in a different decade, experienced very different early life experiences, suffered very different education and training, and had been blessed by very different degrees of spiritual opening. Therefore, they each read A Course in Miracles "through very different reading glasses" so each thought the Course was saying something different and formed a belief system accordingly.
This was no problem for the Holy Spirit, since the Course was designed to speak to may different states of consciousness, but alas it came to pass that between the adherents of these three belief systems regarding what A Course in Miracles teaches there started ... a war. True or false?
This story ends with you listening inside yourself and hearing whether a war really started in this situation between the followers of these ACIM teachers.
But the story of belief systems causing wars doesn't end there, does it?
What if someone researched back in history and found that every war ever fought came about because of belief systems?
"Belief systems cannot not be at war, even if the war is not apparent on the surface," says one spiritual teacher. But a student at the Center For Total Enlightenment puts it simply, "Belief systems?" she says. "Look at the starting letters ... B S."
Many would be tempted to resist this idea. "But there's no way to not have beliefs. I wouldn't be able to plan anything without beliefs."
Actually, when you learn to not form beliefs, a learning which takes some practice and diligence, you find your awareness of the Holy Spirit's all-knowingness is vastly expanded so you know everything you need to know when you need to know it. It doesn't take long to realize that knowing is extremely more powerful and efficient than believing.
Having looked at the nature of belief systems, we now have a clue for staying at peace even when everyone else is at war. Try this as an exercise: look inside yourself and find the place inside you that is already at peace and always has been. Then pay very careful attention and see what you do with your mind in order to move out of that place of peace. Maybe you'll find it's believing in something, believing you know what something is for.
Now you have an insight to be happy about. Now you don't have to fall into the trap of those unhappy brothers and sisters who circulate anti-war petitions or gather in streets waving peace signs while all the time totally at war inside themselves, thus teaching war by their state of mind.
Once you understand that ultimately all causes and solutions are inside yourself, it becomes easy to feel total safety without having to believe your security comes from outer conditions or circumstances. Somewhere inside yourself, if you are willing to feel it, is the feeling of total safety and security no matter how many towers are being demolished by terrorists or how many wars are being fought in your world.
If you need a reminder, say to yourself a hundred times a day, until you begin to feel the truth of it:
"I teach peace to the world by being the peace I AM ... and no B S!"
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CENTER FOR TOTAL ENLIGHTENMENT