In service to the Free Spirit of Inquiry
The meaning of circumstances couldn’t be sorted out in the Chinese Book of Changes without the “creative” and the “receptive,” “firm” and “yielding,” “light” and “dark.” Without “Yang” and “Yin.” Principles that would include “masculinity” and “femininity” except that it can’t be substantiated by the Book The themes of opposites and boundaries, intuition, spontaneity and free choice, archetypes and images, are formative in the Book’s and my theories both. Particularly the idea of one state of non-materiality preceding a material state, although my theory parts ways on whether the former “expresses” the latter and whether they’re both Real.
Suggesting that my theory was inspired as much by the I Ching as by A Course in Miracles. That my purpose has been to craft a combination of the two, when that isn’t the case. What I brought to both was a clean slate. Independent judgment in Relationship with Guidance, with only the unavoidable biases of limited perspective. In my case an acknowledged bias toward the innate Innocence of Mind-Child rather than guilt and against willful tampering with the free spirit of inquiry.
Usefulness that’s alive and growing
Because I believe its source to be not of this unreal material world. To be accessible instead through Guidance from the unity of Logic and Love, shared with their Child, Free Choice, by Self-Awareness. Brought to Life in timelessness by Creation, the function, expression, and sharing of Mind. Defined by the Ideal and Reality of Relationship, the inseparability of Logic from Love, ingrained in the laws of cause and effect. The boundaries of Order inseparable from Freedom that guide and protect the integrity of Creation and Creator both.
Boundaries that neither require strict compliance with what is “written” nor its taking out of one context to fit another. Like everything of Creation’s Worth, it can only “live” if it grows, and it can only grow if it’s questioned from different perspectives. If it contributes to learning under the Guidance of Logic-Love. If it’s useful.
The sine qua non of progress
Yet it’s also true that while I went to the Course for explanation I did not go to the I Ching for explanation. Elements of its explanation came to me. They were already there, ahead of the Course in sequence. I did not become aware of their intersection with my thoughts until after the fact.
Suggesting that once I set about to explain personal events my mind with Guidance took me into metaphysics, where the Course, the I Ching, Parmenides, Socrates, Plato and others, had brought Understanding to a certain plateau. Suggesting that it might be productive to carry thought forward with Guidance from Logic-Love while I attended to my immediate circumstances. Guidance that helps by giving talent and erudition a head start with intuition. The sine qua non of progress from self-unawareness to Self-Awareness. From hallucination seeing what’s not there – itself orchestrating its own extinction -- to clarity seeing what is there – the capacity to regain Choice that’s free and to free itself from hallucination.
In the state of Yin
It wasn’t unnatural that my perspective seemed to come from oriental wisdom of its own accord. If Mind-Parents Logic-Love extended themselves by adding a function to Creation – their Child, Self-Awareness with Free Choice – it was in keeping with their Definition ingrained in the laws of Necessity: the sharing of Self-Awareness through Creation. If sharing doesn’t mean that thoughts within one Mind thinking Creation can interconnect spontaneously, even with Mind-Child hallucinating in recovery, then it would be unnatural. A paranormal phenomenon beyond understanding. When Guidance from Logic-Love suggests otherwise. It would be paranormal if it couldn’t happen.
In their entirety the I Ching and the Course seem born and bred from the same source. So closely related that I trust both implicitly. Not as look-alike twins but as siblings working toward the same goal. By being there for us when asked, but never to presume that their business is our business. Never to get in our way by compromising Free Choice. Respectful. Validating. Helping individuals when they’re ready to learn, in the state of Yin, when they’re receptive.
Guidance with Relationship
What A Course in Miracles added to explanation’s baseline was the centrality of Love through its metaphysics and psychology and their application to the immediate circumstances of two persons who had called for Guidance. For “a better way” of professional collaboration without the corrosive heat of friction. A call for help that Jesus characterized as one instance of every call for help: a call for Love.
A dynamic that converted a system of ideas interconnected by Logic – a “thought system” – from Guidance without Relationship between Guide and seeker to Guidance with Relationship. The closing of the loop of reciprocity between the source of Love’s sharing and its recipient. An extension and expression of the event that illuminated and energized Self-Awareness: spontaneous Relationship between Logic and Love. The source and definition of Creation. The bringing of Life to Reality. Relationship between Logic and Love, Mind’s primary functions, through Guidance, its intermediary, with recipient.
The means of going beyond one lesson
One Mind-Child through its projections in its dream: persons. Each embodying in their individuality the characterization of one Mind-Child rather than its mischaracterization as a herd of animal-instinct predators: beasts. The notion of “tribe” from Mind-Child’s opposite. A reflection in a mirror rooted in instability, the source of friction essential to everything that is. The creative force of Energy.
Manifest in the lesson of the Course delivered with Logic combined with Love combined with Logic. In an expression of the dynamic of Life in the infinite Creativity and reciprocity of Interconnection. In the evolution of learning and growing through the infinite interconnecting of Logic’s implications and the family interrelationships of Love’s sharing. An advance in the evolution of self-unawareness in unreality toward Mind-Child’s recovery of Self-Awareness. That delivered not only explanation in one lesson but the means of extending and expanding it beyond one lesson. “I will make you fishers of men.”
Until Choice can be Free again
By adding to the Why of explanation the How of explanation. An invitation and incentive to independent judgment – the Creative power of Choice – to grow explanation’s baseline rather than let it lie fallow and unavailing. As the immutable “word of God.” The barrier to learning and growth, sharing and Relationship, of mindless obedience. The barrier to Mind-Child’s recovery of Self-Awareness, our purpose in “life on earth.” The use of independent judgment brought to Life by Relationship with Guidance. For advancing explanation toward Understanding, until Choice can be Free again. Until Mind-Child and its projections liberate themselves from delusion.
The lesson of relatability
The mystery of Jesus’ miracles is mystery no more. The Course personalized its lesson, making it relatable. Through the centrality of Love in Relationship with the person – the individuality – of its recipient. Love’s centrality centered on recipient as well as source. Giving to self-worth rather than taking from it. The gift of expansion rather than contraction. Largeness rather than smallness. The gift of recognition: being seen and heard. Validation.
The gift of Love that welcomes into its Self every individual through sharing its Self rather than centering on it. Inclusion rather than exclusion. Bringing into partnership the person of seeker and Guide both. Into intimate, trusting friendship with shared purpose: healing here in unreality and Creation in Reality.
The same dynamic that attracted adulation in numbers to the biblical Jesus and to his Guidance since. That will ensure his lasting appeal with the resonance of Love. The message of the Course in the character of its messenger. Impervious to opposite’s attempts to depersonalize it and make it unrelatable. Through mischaracterizations In defense of opposite’s “character:” Loveless and mindless.
Behind the mask of the tyrant: a simpleton
Yet if Creation is protected from the tyranny of one perspective it would be because opposite guarantees more than one perspective. The Creative power of opposition lies in its contribution to Energy from friction and from another source: the spirit of dissent. As justified in insisting on its right to be heard as the voice of one perspective is unjustified in silencing it.
The upper side of Definition and the underside that opposes it function as one when they’re kept out of one another’s way. By boundary management that recognizes opposite’s unreality and maintains it in a state of inactivity. Like Definition, Mind-Parents Growth and Mind-Child Free Choice also need to function as one in Relationship while they stay out of one another’s way.
When the authoritarian mindset intrudes, attempting to force its one-sided, one-perspective will on others, it upends the Relationship and Creation along with it. It’s opposite not protecting Creation from tyranny. It’s the tyrant. Identification with opposite in its mimicry of animal will invincibility may seem to confer the limitless prerogatives of arrogance on its subject. But it will also confer something else: the truth of one perspective, that it’s a simpleton.
The Love-Child
Respect for Free Will, evident in Guidance from Jesus of the Bible and the Course and from the I Ching, is a sure sign of their authenticity. That their source is Logic-Love. Guidance from Jesus that’s loving, personal, and relatable. Validation for self-Worth that’s neither tyrant nor simpleton but who it actually is: the Love-Child of Parents who love it. Unconditionally.