What Am I?
Our special theme says, “We are the bringers of salvation. We accept our part as saviors of the world, which through our joint forgiveness is redeemed.”
If we look very carefully at this excerpt from our special theme, we will see that one answer to the question, “What am I?” is, “I am not a divine individual.”
Some students of A Course in Miracles make the mistake of thinking of themselves as a divine individual. In other words, they believe the world is a projection of their individual mind. When they believe this mistaken idea, they also think that as they heal as an individual, all ego appearances will disappear from the world.
However, let’s look closely at what our special theme says:
We are the bringers of salvation. We accept our part as saviors of the world, which through our joint forgiveness is redeemed.
When I was a young teen, my favorite Bible scripture was Isaiah 11:6-9. It says:
The wolf will live with the lamb,
the leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the yearling together;
and a little child will lead them.
The cow will feed with the bear,
their young will lie down together,
and the lion will eat straw like the ox.
The infant will play near the cobra’s den,
and the young child will put its hand into the viper’s nest.
They will neither harm nor destroy
on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.
My religion at the time was Jehovah’s Witnesses. They taught that Satan would be destroyed in a battle described in the book of Revelation. After Satan’s destruction, the Earth would become the paradise that God intended in the beginning, before Adam and Even ate of the tree of knowledge. Jehovah’s Witnesses called the renewed paradise the “new world.” I was taught that this scripture described what the new world would be like.
Jehovah’s Witnesses are not that far off with this portion of their religious understanding.
Since the ego is the cause of all suffering, all suffering must end when the self-centered ego ends. However, the self-centered ego is not in the mind of one individual alone. The self-centered ego is in the mind of humankind. It is our “joint forgiveness” that could result in the reflection this scripture points to.
We each need to participate in our individual awakening, because humankind’s “joint forgiveness” appears to happen one individual at a time. As an analogy, let’s imagine the individuals in humankind as cells in one brain, the brain of humankind. As healing and awakening spreads through the brain, individual brain cells are renewed and freed of cancerous darkness. When the healing has spread through the entire brain, healing and renewal are complete.
As individuals, we are each like a cell in the symbolic brain of humankind. We have been called to the spiritual path, because it is our turn to be healed and renewed as part of the broader awakening. However, the awakening isn’t complete until all cells have been healed and renewed. As long as ego remains in some cells within the mind of humankind, the projection that comes from the mind will continue to include appearances that come from the ego.
My eyes, my tongue, my hands, my feet today have but one purpose; to be given Christ to use to bless the world with miracles.
Please read today’s workbook lesson in full. Notice a phrase, sentence or excerpt that you feel particularly attracted to and go into it more deeply through writing.
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