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January-March, 2012

May I Never Set You Back on Your Journey

by Rev. Myron Jones, O.M.C.

In Chapter 4, Section 1 of A Course in Miracles we are told: The Bible says that you should go with a brother twice as far as he asks. It certainly does not suggest that you set him back on his journey.

As I read this passage I asked myself, “How have I set my brother back on his path?” It came to me that I could do this if I correct my brother. Our ACIM group has guidelines to keep this from happening. They are as follows:

We make our group a safe place to explore and grow by not correcting each other, and by not instructing each other. We report our own experience rather than saying what someone else’s experience should be or mean. We are a silent, supportive presence for each other.

I bring this up because these are the guidelines I try to follow in all areas of my life. And when I veer from these guidelines, it is because I am listening to the ego. When I listen to ego, I really believe that I am right and that I know what is right for the other person. I believe it is very important that I share what I know, and that the other person hears this. When I listen to the ego, I am delusional, but convinced of my delusion.

When I first read the Course, I realized that I had everything wrong and that I did not know anything. As I continued to study I would experience shifts in my understanding and for awhile I would think that now I understood. I must have been really obnoxious to my family and friends as I explained to them how wrong they were about everything.

As I continued my study I would understand differently and off I’d go, thinking I knew something and believing people should listen to me. After this happened many times, I finally began to see the pattern and thankfully slowed down on telling people how it is. I began catching myself when I wanted to correct my brother, and I would stop before I said too much. I stopped debating the meaning of passages from the Course. But, I confess, that is not always my first inclination. The ego-thinking mind has been collecting a lot of information over the years of study, and it really wants to dispense that information, and it really believes it is important that it does so.

Now I seem to have come full circle. I am back to realizing that I don’t know anything. Now when I think my brother is wrong, I ask the Holy Spirit how He hears this. I ask what He would have me understand. There is truth in my brother just as there is truth in me, and I can hear the truth if that is what I want. I cannot hear the truth, however, if I am busy enumerating his errors.

What I understand now is that telling someone how wrong they are is like stomping on a new green shoot because its not growing fast enough. How arrogant of me to have ever believed that I knew how fast it should grow. And did I think stomping on it was going to help it find its growth?

When I tell my brother he is wrong and I am right I may as well tell him that he is less than me, that he just doesn’t get it, that I don’t trust him and so he shouldn’t trust himself either. Telling my brother he is wrong by trying to convince him I am right is setting him back on his journey. It is setting me back, too, as it is creating a stronger belief in separation in my own mind.

So while my first thought might be to correct (the ego often speaks first), the truer thought is a sincere desire to be empty of all the mind thinks it knows so that the Holy Spirit can give me words that will be truly helpful, words that will fertilize the new shoot rather than stomp it down. Becoming willing to know nothing and to allow the answer to be given is the only sure way I know to avoid setting my brother back on his journey.

Another way I can set my brother back on his journey is to encourage his guilt. I’ve seen myself do this to my children and in other relationships. This happens when, in any way, I say to them, “You hurt me” — when I try to convince them that they made me feel bad, or hurt my feelings, left me alone, or that they owe me.

It can be easy sometimes to find proof that I am right, that what they did was hurtful. I could find enough apparent proof to convince others that I have been hurt by them, and so gather witnesses to their guilt. And if I am determined to play victim or martyr I can certainly find someone to buy into my story, to shore it up and make it seem more real.

As I am saying that someone did me wrong, I am also saying that someone is guilty. Anything which reinforces guilt sets my brother back on his journey and, of course at the same time, it sets me back. Believing in guilt anywhere creates the experience of guilt in my life.

This is an excellent time to remind myself of this, because as I am writing this we are in the Christmas season. When the holidays are upon me, I have family and friends visiting, extra expenses, crowds, heavy traffic, many stressors, creating the perfect environment to trigger my stuff. And this is the opportunity I need to see how much I still believe in my victim stories, my martyr stories, and my guilt stories.

This Christmas required a bit of effort to arrange a time when we could all get together. It seems everyone has gone off on their own, some in different towns, some with new partners. There is the need to divide the holiday between families, and to make it all work. I noticed a sadness and resentment that I have to share. It seems I want things my way. If I decided I love this story, this poor mom story, and wanted to keep it, no matter how hard I try to keep my feelings to myself I would let it slip out that I’m not happy and its their fault.

I had to ask myself if I really wanted to tell my children that they are guilty of not making me happy. I have to laugh as I read this, it is so ludicrous. But I felt it and know the belief was in my mind.

I was reminded of another way I could hold my kids hostage to my happiness when I read this quote from Byron Katie.

It says: “If your happiness depends on your children being happy that makes them your hostages. So stay out of their business, stop using them for your happiness. And that way you are the teacher for your children: someone who knows how to live a happy life.”

The reason I find this an especially helpful thing to remember is that my children are very much on my mind during this Christmas season. One child is short of money, another without her partner. They all have their own challenges going on and I am tempted to try to fix their problems, or to want them to be happy or at least I want them to show me their happiness.

This need to see them happy for me to be happy leads to all sorts of unhelpful behavior. Advice giving is one of those behaviors; the belief that I know something they need to know. The belief that they are not as wise as I am and they need to listen to me. These beliefs lead to words that can set them back on their journey.

My prayer for the holidays: Holy Spirit, help me remember that my children are exactly where they need to be on their path. Help me to remember that my happiness or unhappiness has nothing to do with their life situation. Help me to remember to step out of their business and to trust them to grow at exactly the rate they should grow. Teach me what it means to be devoted to these my brothers and to go with them twice as far as they ask. Guide me in my words and deeds that I might never say or do anything to set them back on their journey.

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