After going through a particularly busy period recently I realised how preoccupied I can get doing things in this world.

When we are in 'busy mode' we are failing to confront the real issues of life by filling our time up with numerous activities all of which seem to be competing for our attention. Although we complain about our work load and look forward to a well earned break after we meet some deadline I often find when one task ends I have immediately invented some other urgent job to take its place.

Not that there aren't things to do in this world while we are here, but the activity of being busy is counterproductive to achieving results even in the dream. Being constantly busy is a defence against the truth and gives us no time to think of God or healing relationships. We don't want peace, we want the pressure that takes away the peace instead, as there is something within all of us that loves to be a victim of 'outside circumstances' of which we have 'no control'. Jesus knows we lead busy lives running around on this earth taking everything very seriously and suggests that we look at this honestly by reminding us that "Unwillingness (to do the lessons properly) can be most carefully concealed behind a cloak of situations you cannot control." WB p. 197

"Trust not your Good Intentions"

Being busy is addictive and often a smoke screen to cover our sense of guilt. We might think what we are doing is valuable but the Course asks us to "Trust not your good intentions: They are not enough."

Although we won't admit it, a primary motive for our being constantly busy with 'important work' is to 'give meaning to our lives', thereby increasing our sense of specialness. Tony Ponticello, Director of California Miracle Centre recently commented "I know that there are a lot of people working on `healing the sick' and `raising the dead.' Still, they're not willing to budge one iota on how to look at relationships." For some years now I have a message which appears when I boot up my computer screen saying: "There is nothing more important than teaching love" to help me not take myself and my work too seriously. I put it there because I constantly need to remind myself of my real priorities.

We may think we are doing important work here but the ego doesn't give up just because we are following a spiritual pathway, but rather aligns itself to our new interest, seducing us once again into believing we are special and we are 'making a difference' in the world, this time in a 'holy' guise. But we are only the messengers: we did not write the message. We are asked "To be truly helpful" not to increase our own specialness. Only by healing the relationships in our life will we become pure vessels of love. It isn't likely to happen overnight but it is inevitable.

Accepting the Atonement

According to A Course in Miracles® The sole responsibility of the miracle worker is to accept the Atonement for himself. text p. 22. It doesn't say we are to go out and save the world or set out to heal bodies including our own. Being an unhealed healer merely holds us back, because we inevitably believe we have special powers given to us by God that others lack. The teacher of God just does not join in his brother's belief in sickness by recognising the perfection in him, realising that one brother is all brothers. Evidence of success is important to the unhealed healer but the Course says healing waits on the patient's acceptance as he made up the idea of sickness and death. All he has to do is to decide "I have no use for this" and healing takes place. Saying these words alone without truly meaning them would have no affect, while we have such a big investment in our illness's and refuse to give them up.

Once we accept the atonement for ourselves we will have a different perception of the world and would see everything as an `expression of love' or a `call for love.' To the Holy Spirit our special function in God's plan is tailored individually to suit our particular needs. It may be different in form but in content it is the same. We are all `given a saviour' but we can't recognise him until we are willing to see the "Face of Christ" in him. By demonstrating we are not special we release him and so free ourselves.

Krishnamurti wrote in 1929 long before A Course in Miracles® was in the world "If you attempt to organise a belief, it becomes dead, crystallised; it becomes a creed, a sect, a religion, to be imposed on others. That is what everyone throughout the world is attempting to do."

This is a world of unreality expressed in form and as we think we are in form it is almost impossible not to think in terms of form. That is why we want to take a completely egoless teaching like the Course and try to formalise it in some way. It is not surprising that organizations based on the Course have proliferated in the world. This had to be expected as it is what egos always do. However, everything we do or make in this world can be used by the Holy Spirit to teach us how to forgive. We just lose the plot if we take the form more seriously than the message of the Course itself.

No matter what the form is or how important the world recognizes it to be, what we are doing here, has nothing to do with our special function which is to forgive and see our brothers with no separate needs to ourselves.

Bill McDonald