In this excerpt Cohen discusses the “end of terrorism,” a timely focus given that yesterday was the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the U.S.
Humility is a virtue. Humiliation is not. Humbling yourself means allowing God to bring greater life to the world through you rather than letting yourself be a pawn in the ego’s* quest for blood. God champions your wellness and is doing everything He can to promote it. All else is a tragic misunderstanding of the will of God.
The world has become obessed with terrorism. Governments spend trillions of dollars on wars against terrorists, our beloved sons and daughters come home in caskets, and millions of innocent people are forced to undress in airports in order to ride on an airplane. Has it ever occurred to you that this is not how humanity was intended to live? Yet we can learn from even this most insane of scenarios: “All things are lessons God would have me learn” (Workbook, Lesson 193).
The answer to terrorism, personal and global, is found in the very place it lives: the fearful heart. Terrorism will end when we refuse to be terrified. The most insidious criminal is the inner terrorist, the part of your mind that bullies you or accepts bullying by others. An agitator in your psyche attempts to keep you small by encasing you in a circle of fear. You believe you are a tiny human body, alone, defenseless, and subject to the evil of the world. You believe people can hurt you without your permission, and you are powerless to create the life you yearn for. You believe you must go to a job you hate and tolerate obnoxious bosses, mean-spirited co-workers, and whiny customers. You accept that you must put up with demeaning relationships, struggle to survive, prove yourself to dead relatives, and hack your way through the jungle of life. Such inner terrorism is far more destructive to life on the planet than those who blow up cars and buildings. Psychic self-destruction turns bright, competent children with genius potential into hollow-eyed drones trudging through mind-numbing schools and then life-sucking jobs. The inner terrorist twists humanity into a writhing mass of fear, looking everywhere for love and finding it nowhere. So the world becomes a mockery of the heaven it was intended to be.
To all of this, A Course in Miracles says, “Peace to such foolishness!” (Workbook, Lesson 190:4:1). It assures us that as children of a loving, caring God, we deserve better. It emphatically tells us that crucifixion of self or others is not the will of God. "Perhaps you have misunderstood His plan, for He would never offer pain to you" (Workbook, Lesson 135.18:2). The will of God is entirely, utterly, eternally, only love. A Course in Miracles assures us that this is our will as well, therefore it must be done on Earth as it is in heaven.
– Alan Cohen
Excerpted from A Course in Miracles Made Easy:
Mastering the Journey from Fear to Love
Hay House, Inc., 2015
pp. 102-104
Excerpted from A Course in Miracles Made Easy:
Mastering the Journey from Fear to Love
Hay House, Inc., 2015
pp. 102-104
* In The Gift of Change, Marianne Williamson writes the following about the ego as understood in A Course in Miracles.
The word ego here means what it meant to the ancient Greeks: a small and separated self. When we identify with the ego it’s like looking at a hangnail and thinking, “That’s who I am.” The ego is an imposter self, masquerading as who we really are yet in reality the embodiment of our self-hatred. It is the power of our own minds turned against us, pretending to be our champion yet in reality undermning all our hopes and dreams. The ego is a delusional splinter that has cut itself off from our larger spiritual reality. It sets up a parallel mental kingdom in which it sees itself as different and special, always justified in keeping the rest of the world at bay. Seeing ourselves as separate, we subconsciously attract and interpret circumstances that seem to bear out that belief. That delusional kingdom is hell on earth.
When we remember who we are, when we stand firm in the light of our own true being as children of God, then the ego begins, however gradually, to recede. Darkness cannot stand when we truly embrace the light [i.e., right/divine understanding] – when we consciously foster it and devote ourselves to it. That is why recognizing who we are – that we are love, that we are as God created us – is the most important thing we can do in any instant. Love is our spiritual reality, untarnished by anything that has happened in the material world. . . . [O]nly when we reject the ego’s account of who we are, can we begin to discover who we really are.
And who we really are, is holy.
Our holiness is both the opposite of and the antidote to the ego. It is a state of being in which we have reconnected with our Source, remembering that in fact we never left. We were created by God in a state of holiness, we were born onto the earth in a state of holiness, and we will return to this state upon our death. All of us, however, in between our infancy and death, fell asleep to our true nature and experience the hell of our self-imposed separation from God. Remembering our connection to our Source awakens us and frees us from the nightmares we create. In any Holy Instant, the ego is made null and void. (Pp. 17-19)
See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Why A Course in Miracles Is Not “New Age”
• A Course in Miracles: A Gift of Peace
• Mysticism and Miracles
• Gifts of Abundance
• I Am One With the Beloved
• Being One With the Beloved, the Source of All Things
• Your Peace Is With Me, Beloved One
• Dwelling in Peace
• The Peace of God
• You Are My Goal, Beloved One
• Be In My Mind, Beloved One
• Stepping Out of Time and Resting Your Mind
• Resting in the Presence of the Beloved
• In the Stillness and Silence of This Present Moment
• The Beauty and Challenge of Being Present in the Moment
• Today I Will Be Still
• I Need Do Nothing . . . I Am Open to the Living Light
• Aligning With the Living Light
• An Expression of Humility
• Choosing to Awaken
Image: Michael J. Bayly.
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