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October-December, 2007

Undoing the Ego — A Review of Take Me to Truth

by Rogier van Vlissingen

Nouk Sanchez and Tomas Vieira in their new book Take Me To Truth — Undoing the Ego share with us from their experience as they went their own (tandem) path of spiritual growth with A Course In Miracles by living it and applying it in their daily lives, and sharing the experience with each other and other people around them.

This book is many things. It is a powerful introduction to the Course in very non-religious terms, which may be helpful to some aspiring students. The book is also a comment on the practice of the Course’s Development of Trust section (in the Manual for Teachers, Chapter 4, M-4.A.3-8), and in the process it provides clarification on the Course’s teaching of the Holy Relationship. Both of these last two are very inspiring aspects of the Course’s teachings, as much as they befuddle many readers. The guidance provided in this book gives us an answer for living and learning by providing some very powerful hand holding to readers who may find themselves struggling with the same issues.

Take Me To Truth was born from living the Course, and it is an open invitation to the reader to do the same. The first most notable aspect of this book is that it is simply a good introduction to the Course, or perhaps I should call it an “on-ramp” to the Course, for it manages to introduce Course concepts effectively without any of the religious language in the Course. Since the seeming Christian terminology of the Course can be hard to take for some, this may prove very helpful. However I do believe that while the Course is not everyone’s path, if it is your path, getting clarity about your relationship with Jesus and/or the Holy Spirit is most likely part of that process.

A lot of cultural stereotypes, including the “bitter idol” we made of Jesus in Christianity is undone exactly through sorting out our initial tendency to misunderstand the terminology, which only appears to be Christian. This aspect would be my reason for calling the book more an on-ramp to the Course than an introduction in the narrow sense. Having said that, the authors accomplished something truly remarkable without any real compromise to anything the Course teaches. Their approach ensures that this book is not a “Course book,” in the narrow sense, for it ranges more widely than the Course, though the thought model of the Course is definitely its foundation. In short, people may read this book simply because it’s good, and it may happen to introduce them to the Course in a novel way, if they weren’t Course students already, but it’s not a necessity.

The book effortlessly incorporates the notion of Byron Katie’s “The Work,” which indeed is a very solid and also non-Christian sounding approach to the Course’s notion of thought reversal, of truly changing our mind through forgiveness. It is an elegant and simple process, which simply shunts the entire train of our thoughts on to a different track altogether. “The Work” is an utterly practical implementation of the Course’s forgiveness process. The book leverages other ideas as well. In particular,  the Enneagram as a personality inventory, which can be helpful in becoming more aware of one’s patterns in this particular life we think we are leading just now. Becoming more conscious of the games we (tend to) play is a very important step in any process of spiritual growth.

Next the book explores the dynamics of special relationships and the reasons why our special relationships can be the most powerful classroom for undoing the ego, since evidently all our own issues are comprised in them. Once again it clarifies an important Course teaching without getting caught up in Course language, doing it instead in straight forward everyday language. While the basis of the authors’ story is their making this journey together, they also pay at least some attention to what seems to be the more frequent situation, that one of the two in a relationship is working on a Course journey without any apparent participation or interest from the other party. At which point we may remember with Gary Renard that the only good relationship is a forgiven relationship, for it is only forgiveness which returns us home, and helps us to truly live the Holy Relationship in all our relationships.

Cooperation from significant others is not required, simply because in essence we are forgiving ourselves in the end, through learning, with the Holy Spirit (or the Universal Inspiration, as the authors call it), to see ourself in the partners in our special relationships.

Having thoroughly explained why our special relationships are our best classroom (because they mirror us), the bulk of the book could be read as a commentary onthe Course’s section on the Development of Trust, from the Manual for Teachers, again presented in straightforward language, without making it per se necessary to consult the Course. This remains quite a feat! Undoubtedly this section (Chapters 5 and 6) are the high point of the book, and if I were to describe the book to a Course student, I’d call it a commentary on the Development of Trust. To a more general audience I might represent it as a guide for undertaking a journey of spiritual growth in the context of our most important relationships.

These chapters are extraordinary. Most people, myself included, have quite a challenge with that particular section of the Course, and here it is, all in very clear, unambiguous language. The book correctly warns us that we don’t always go through these stages in an orderly fashion, but sometimes may find ourselves switching back to an earlier stage. This is probably the main reason why people have such difficulty comprehending this section, because it seems we can never figure out where we are in the process. This is a bit like a long dive, when you come up you can see how far you made it, but while you are under water, you just keep on going as long as you can. Most of us have a terrible tendency to go scuba diving instead of swimming across. As a result we work though the stages of the development of trust in a disorderly fashion, although we will gain clarity about it as we go along.  The explanations here are crystal clear, including a diagram on the misalignment of our needs and wants through this process, which I’m sure will shed a lot of light for many readers.

In conclusion, I could only say that this book is a truly inspired work, and an inspiring read. In the process of reading it twice this year, I experienced that first hand through a lot of integration that happened in the process of reading it.

The material from the Course and other sources is so well integrated, and the paraphrasing of the Course’s sometimes arcane usage is so crystal clear that I really do believe a general reader could successfully read this book without any need to consult the Course, which is high praise indeed. Having said that, I could not imagine why any reader who did not know the Course before, would fail to become interested in the process of reading this book. My point rather is that Take Me To Truth reflects such maturity and integration that this in and of itself is perhaps the best advertising that the Course actually means what it says. Jesus in the Course clearly states that his goal as a teacher is to make himself superfluous. On the other hand the ego’s teachers always teach at their pupil’s expense, as they need to build themselves up and thus they strive for dependence instead of true independence.

Jesus in the Course strives for equality, and this book demonstrates that he means it.

Finally, I believe we should understand what the authors call a Unified Relationship as a special case in the curriculum of the Holy Relationship.

For the Holy Relationship does not require two people, but only one, who can be “the saner of the two” in terms of the Course, to realize the Holy Relationship. There are no guarantees that our significant others in this particular time will come along at the same tempo in form, nor should students be dependent on that in any way. But evidently it can be very powerful if we can experience it in such a context, as these authors share with us. However, once we accept the Atonement for ourselves all our relationships would become a reflection of the Holy Relationship, though the experience in form may be odd and out of sync at times — no one would argue the crucifixion to be a peaceful experience.

© 2007, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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