In this YouTube video, Doug Sparks and Bruce Rawles go on a metaphysical romp through the seemingly endless variety of forms that resistance takes in our surreal dream we call life. We talk about how we need to look – without self-recrimination – at our resistance to learning and applying the ideas in A Course In Miracles in our daily lives if want to have consistent peace.
“We are ready to look more closely at the ego’s thought system because together we have the lamp that will dispel it, and since you realize you do not want it, you must be ready.” (ACIM, T-11.V.1:3)
A few of the many topics touched upon:
- our favorite Course teacher, Ken Wapnick who brilliantly points out how to undo resistance
- foreground and background; looking at our unconscious resistance; how we ask for help to bring it to the foreground
- our various ‘isms” and divisive distinctions that support resistance
- Alan Watts, Ram Dass, Buddhism, Carlos Castaneda, etc. pointing to looking at duality
- the elephant in the room: our resistance to listening to our Inner Kindness Teacher
- Forgiveness and Jesus (by Kenneth Wapnick, Ph.D.)
- plain brown wrappers
- symbol and source
- ego’s strategy of keeping us mindless – key to the resistance
- trying to overcome neuroses, but also trying to prove the therapy doesn’t work
- looking without condemnation at the part of our mind that does NOT want to learn (ACIM)
- smiling at the resistance when we notice we believe we’re a body; a separate individual “self”
- gratitude to Sigmund Freud … and Ken Wapnick
- wanting to see our interests as the same will undo the resistance
- judging others is how we continue the (largely unconscious) resistance to Truth, to Peace
- schisms, factions, polarizations, “we/they” permutations are among favorite resistance flavors
- condemnations and investment in differences become the classroom we bring to Holy Spirit; the darkness we bring to the light
- recognize that differences in form don’t have to involve differences in identity (mind)
- bringing our resistance (in all its diverse forms) to our Inner Kindness Teacher
- comparisons that we make “big deals” about are typical forms of resistance
- People’s Front of Judea vs. Judean People’s Front – we all are just as silly every day
- unconscious sabotage of peace (via confrontational or passive-aggressive behavior) = resistance
- thinking that others make us feel unhappy (or happy) is absurd
- the double-edged sword of judgment attacks my mind since ideas don’t leave their source
- the guilt – projection – attack cycle just reinforces feeling worse, defensiveness leading to more attack
- unconscious mind analogous to the submerged portion of an iceberg
- practice, practice, practice … with light-heartedness
- a helpful practice: admitting when we’re frightened of (real) Love … and forgiving ourselves
- forgiveness: willingness to stay with discomfort and own it to get Holy Spirit’s help to undo it
- keep bringing our fear back to the realization: “I am never upset for the reason I think.” (ACIM, W-5)
- hierarchy of illusions undone: “There is no order of difficulty in miracles.” (ACIM, T-1.I.1:1)
- … contrasted with ego’s assistance that “… truth is different for everyone.” (ACIM, T-23.II.2:1)
- sacred cows: enshrined bastions of fear (resistance)
- hangnails may less difficult than holocausts (or cancer) on the level of form, but in our right mind they are both resistance to Truth, Peace, and Kindness; insistence on dream hierarchy
- sin = separation, substitution, specialness
- insanity: our attraction to suffering, pain, and misery; our inner saboteur “proves” we’re a body rather than a mind
- we’re all hanging onto the feeling of being mistreated (seeming to be a separate individual, but not responsible for the suffering that I want to be someone else’s fault
- “It’s not my fault” – Ken Wapnick’s interpretation of every newborn baby’s first utterances
- To be honest (non-resistance), I have to be responsible for everything I think, say, do
- driverless cars are just one more new opportunity to either forgive or diversify blame targets
- “In order to judge anything rightly, one would have to be fully aware of an inconceivably wide range of things; past, present and to come.” (ACIM, M-10.3:3)
- Holy Spirit is like a hypodermic needle that removes bubbles under wallpaper rather than merely moving the bubble elsewhere; ego is a master at not really solving the problem, but diverting our attention
- Holy Spirit cuts through the Gordian Knot in our minds and shows us that Pandora’s box is illusory
- Bizarro cartoon by Dan Piraro – The devil replies to an enthusiastic new arrival in hell who seems glad to see TV screens: “There’s nothing but television here.” (a setup of special love sure to devolve into special hate)
- We made the world so that we could point an accusing finger and everyone and everything (including our own bodies) as the cause of my upset (ignoring the resistance to clearly seeing the set-up in our mind of choosing the teacher of guilt a.k.a. ego)
- Everyone country, every person (macrocosm and microcosm) projects their unconscious guilt as the “blame game” without realizing that it just perpetuates misery … needlessly!
- No matter how far you zoom in or out on our insane dream the crazy thought system is the same
- there’s just one problem – choosing the wrong teacher – and one solution – choosing the right teacher (Holy Spirit or the Jesus of the Course)
- It’s always up to us; we just need to remember how we feel:
- “How can you know whether you chose the stairs to Heaven or the way to hell? Quite easily. How do you feel? Is peace in your awareness? Are you certain which way you go? And are you sure the goal of Heaven can be reached? If not, you walk alone. Ask, then, your Friend to join with you, and give you certainty of where you go.” (ACIM, T-23.II.22:6-13)
- “There has been much tragedy in my life; at least half of it actually happened.”― Mark Twain; ACIM’s rebuttal would correct this to “none of it happened”
- “The ego isn’t the problem; the ego doesn’t exist. The problem is our being attracted to it, our choosing it as our thought system and therefore making it real for us.” – Doug Sparks
- Ken (Wapnick’s) story about helping an intruder who broke into his apartment including escorting him to the front door as a friend.
- We’ll all inevitably want to stop condemning and believing in lack because it makes us miserable to pretend there is a “shortage” of innocence. There’s plenty of innocence to go around in Truth, but innocence doesn’t even appear in ego’s dictionary!
- We custom-designed the world to distract us to support the “me first” competitive paradigm of separate interests
- There are unlimited resources in the mind; the way we get love is by giving it away.
- “The secret of salvation is but this: that you are doing this unto yourself.” (ACIM, T-27.VIII.10:1)
- The ongoing choice to condemn, judge, and justify is a huge category of resistance.
- “I am choosing to feel. this way.” – Bruce Rawles
- Doug has a superb online (zoom) Course class on Wednesday mornings; details are below.
“If you loved Jesus (and ACIM) you wouldn’t need it (the Course).” – paraphrased comment Doug shared from Ken Wapnick’s teachings.
This video was recorded on June 23, 2020.
Visit DougSparks.ACIMblog.com for more insightful videos, audios, essays, discourses, poetryesque, snippets, and quips about A Course In Miracles. Doug facilitates an excellent online Zoom class on Wednesday mornings drawing from his extensive familiarity and fluency with the work of Kenneth Wapnick; contact Doug for details if interested.