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April-June, 2012

Jesus’ Teachings — Metaphor or Literal?

by Rev. Nouk Sanchez, O.M.C.

The whole aim of the Course is to teach us that we are mistaken about who we are. We are mistaken about the world, the laws of nature that seem to govern it, and we certainly don’t yet realize the singular purpose of the world.

We are not who we think we are. The world we appear to see is not real. We are not the helpless, fragile identity that is housed temporarily within a corruptible body. Nor are we dependents or victims of the laws of nature that appear, at times, to both support and threaten us.

The discovery of our true Identity cannot possibly be realized until all beliefs and values are exhumed, raised to the Light and systematically undone. These beliefs and values constitute the entirety of our defenses against knowing our true Identity. They act as a giant screen, blocking memory of our holy Self Who is a gloriously unlimited, uninterrupted, indestructible and powerful extension of God’s Love.

While I was researching the world’s definition of a ‘miracle,’ I found this: The miracle “contravenes the laws of nature.” Yet the laws of nature are not the Laws of God. The laws of nature, here in the ego dream, reflect the ego’s obsession with change and ultimately, with death. All things in nature must die. This belief is sacred to the ego. Life appears supported by the concept of death.

The laws of nature are the laws of the ego. We designed these in order to attack the memory of God’s Love as our one holy Self. When a miracle is seen to contravene the laws of nature, as Jesus did when he calmed an oncoming storm, or healed the sick and raised the dead, it is not doing anything out of the ordinary. The miracle, by reflecting our true state of wholeness, simply restores correct perception. And the miracle can restore the truth beneath the distortion that our body’s senses see.

Remember here that the body’s senses are made specifically to report what the ego sends them to find. Our entire world is built on the ego’s use of the body’s senses to go fetch what the ego projects. The ego world, which is run by the body’s senses instead of inner vision, is a closed-circuit, an insular paradigm that is made to reject all intrusions of Love.

Once we abdicate the body’s purpose to Spirit, the body takes on a divine purpose while we’re here in this dream. Part of this forgiveness process involves learning to deny that anything that is not of God’s Love has the power to hurt us or anyone else. Saying no to the ego is paramount in undoing the ego’s closed paradigm.

As our own fear of God’s Love falls away, so does the ego’s arrogance. The ego’s arrogance, expressed as false humility, is one of the last defenses that we willingly relinquish. False humility is one of the final guardians of our dream of death to go. It disappears as it is replaced with the last of the characteristics of the teachers of God — ‘open-mindedness.’ (Manual for Teachers) Acquiring open-mindedness entails learning to trust our Self. Not the ego self, but the holy Self. And we don’t come to know and trust this Self until we have undone much of the false self and its delusional value system.

False humility is a guardian of the small self. It’s the one that tells you you’re not good enough, not worthy. This is the ego in your mind that causes you to doubt your Self. It’s also the one that attempts to convince you that God’s invincible strength and innocence are unavailable to you. It wants to keep you victim of the world that it made ...and that is why it is one of the last ego sentinels to topple and fall. When false humility drops away, the memory of our joined power in God’s Love comes rushing in.

I feel that one of the areas where the spiritual ego hides best is in its choice to see the message of A Course in Miracles, as purely metaphor. It perhaps also views Jesus’ physical miracles as being symbolic but certainly not to be taken literally. So healing the sick and raising the dead might be viewed as being ‘safely’ symbolic. While they are kept symbolic, they pose no threat to the ego. God forbid if we became literal ‘miracle-workers’ ...because the world’s foundation, as we know it, would crumble rapidly. Jesus speaks of the necessity of accepting the miracle. He says that we must see the works he does through us or we won’t accept them as coming from him (the holy Self within us). We cannot set ‘limits’ on miracles… yet false humility does set limits.

“Yet you must see the works I do through you, or you will not perceive that I have done them unto you. Do not set limits on what you believe I can do through you, or you will not accept what I can do for you.” (T-11.V.9:2-4)

Jesus tells us that the miracle undoes error at all levels. He says, “A major step in the Atonement plan is to undo error at all levels.” (T-2.IV.2:1) This healing takes place first in the mind and if the fear of healing is not exaggerated, then the miracle is free to transfer to the effect (sickness in the body, or conflict, etc). However when we choose to believe that Jesus’ teachings are metaphor only, we deny the miracle full transfer to all levels (by Self-doubt). We may believe that ‘form’ is necessarily unimportant and therefore we unconsciously exclude it from healing. It’s worthwhile here to mention that our ‘will’ is as powerful as God’s. Thus, if we reject the miracle’s ability to transfer to form, God’s Will (which is that all levels be healed), cannot override our request to ‘limit’ the miracle.

It would be helpful to review our beliefs about the miracle. We might deny that ‘matter’ can be healed as beneficiary of a healed mind; we think that the laws of nature (ego) are more powerful than God’s Laws. Jesus clearly tells us that the miracle, if understood correctly, undoes the ego’s laws (laws of nature)! And it certainly is not bound by the ego’s laws… which it came solely to undo. This is what he says:

“How foolish and insane it is to think a miracle is bound by laws that it came solely to undo!” (T-27.VI.6:1)

Can you imagine embodying the power of God, to overcome the laws of nature (ego)? Sounds like the ultimate in blasphemy to the ego… because it is. In my own experience so far, I can see how much easier it is for the ego to view the Course’s message as largely symbolic. Of course! This divests us of the massive ‘paradigm-shifting’ responsibility to join with the Christ within, to use this body-dream to undo all the ego made through total forgiveness. This is the real meaning of the eventual disappearance of the universe.

This responsibility demands upending all the laws that we believe both support our life, and threaten it. Perceiving Jesus’ miraculous healings and the Course’s message as purely metaphor suits the ego by ensuring that true and limitless healing of both cause and effect is unattainable here and now. In short, I believe that this is an attraction to death. Death then is still seen unconsciously as escape or as peace. An escape from awakening to the Christ within.

Jesus, in his brief life in a body, was unprecedented in demonstrating the power of a healed mind, being the Christ Mind we all share. He overcame the ego’s most convincing dream symbols, the body, sickness, the laws of nature, and finally, death itself. He physically appeared in the dream to call us to follow him. And he dictated A Course in Miracles to further compel us to overturn the ego’s dream symbols and return to the perfect Love and joy that dwells within. Jesus says that all ‘forms’ of sickness can be healed by the miracle… or the miracle cannot heal at all. I believe his following statements are literal and certainly not metaphor.

“It must be true the miracle can heal all forms of sickness, or it cannot heal. Its purpose cannot be to judge which forms are real, and which appearances are true. If one appearance must remain apart from healing, one illusion must be part of truth. And you could not escape all guilt, but only some of it.” (T-30.VI.7:1-4)

“The guiltless mind cannot suffer. Being sane, the mind heals the body because it has been healed.” (T-5.V.5:1)

Becoming a miracle worker involves un-learning powerlessness and helplessness. It is learning that nothing in this world sustains our life, nor is there anything in this world that can threaten it. We cannot know this unless we truly ‘live’ the process of first recognizing and then relinquishing everything that is not of God’s Love and life. This… is forgiveness lived. Life is God and God is life. God therefore, is our life. Period.

Jesus came into the dream to lead us out of it. He did not teach only metaphor. He used the most compelling of all arguments to visually demonstrate that God’s Love is Who we are, and that this Love will overcome all the ego made to attack us and to keep us in a dream of fear. He healed the minds that believed they were sick by healing the cause in their mind. And knowing that both the cause and effects of sickness are always in the mind… he effortlessly demonstrated that the body can be healed, once the guilt in the mind was undone. In Jesus’ own words,

“A broken body shows the mind has not been healed. A miracle of healing proves that separation is without effect… Your body can be means to teach that it has never suffered pain because of him. And in its healing can it offer him mute testimony of his innocence. It is this testimony that can speak with power greater than a thousand tongues. For here is his forgiveness proved to him.” (T-27.II.5:1-2,6-7)

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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