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Study of Manual for Teachers 6-6-12

6-6-12
27. WHAT IS DEATH?

1 Death is the central dream from which all illusions stem. Is it not madness to think of life as being born, aging, losing vitality, and dying in the end? We have asked this question before, but now we need to consider it more carefully. It is the one fixed, unchangeable belief of the world that all things in it are born only to die. This is regarded as “the way of nature,” not to be raised to question, but to be accepted as the “natural” law of life. The cyclical, the changing and unsure; the undependable and the unsteady, waxing and waning in a certain way upon a certain path,-all this is taken as the Will of God. And no one asks if a benign Creator could will this.

Lies about death: The only thing certain in life is death and taxes. Life sucks and then you die.

A Course in Miracles make a dramatic departure from the most accepted concept of them all; that what we experience here is life and the inevitable result is death. Everyone pretty much believes this, even many of us who are coming to doubt it hold onto the concept in one way or another.

My mother died a year ago. I know mom didn’t really go anywhere. She wasn’t here to begin with because there is no here. All of this that we think of as life is just a story in our mind. It has no existence outside of mind.

The way I think of it (and this is not real either, just a way to envision it) is that the story of mom was the focus of attention for awhile and now the attention is elsewhere. There was never a person in a body living a life, and there was never a death. And certainly, God had nothing to do with either of those things.

On the other hand, In the story of Myron her mom died and Myron misses her mom very much. I am very involved in the story of Myron, and I experience these things as if they are real. I seem to be able to know it isn’t real and yet to live it as if it is real, and so far there is not a total unwavering decision about this. Its like I’m sitting on a fence, leaning first one way then the other.

What I don’t waver on, what I am certain of, is that God is not involved in this. I look to the Holy Spirit in my mind to give me clarity about it, to comfort me, to direct me, but not to influence the outcome. To ask Him to influence the outcome would be to accept that God is the cause of death and so a very cruel God. Instead I ask that my mistaken thoughts about the nature of life and the existence of death be corrected.

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