"Dear Pam and Bill,

What I am writing about is something that came up in the book "Dialogue on Awakening" by Tom Carpenter. Jesus said it was a good idea to act or pretend you are awakened. I thought it was a good idea & wanted to extend love to all living creatures as this was mentioned somewhere. Then I realised I need to buy some 'Ratsack' (a brand of rat poison) to kill some rats which are ruining a shed and its contents. How do I put these two thoughts together? Another thing I would like your thoughts on, is the need to sleep when I have been reading the text for a length of time. The sleep is a sound "dead to the world" sleep. I know other people have experienced this especially when listening to tapes.

Robin, Tasmania"

Dear Robin,

It is very easy to fall into the trap of confusing form and content. Tom is talking only about content, as all form is unreal. The first thing to do is to ask Holy Spirit for a peaceful solution on this issue and act accordingly. The Holy Spirit will not suggest anything that would increase your feelings of remorse and guilt. Survival of the fittest is the way this planet works. Nobody or nothing would be alive without something getting murdered, because that was the way the food chain was set up by the ego. It could be meat from cattle we eat: it could be fish, eggs, sheaves of wheat and carrots which were all once 'living things' as you say, so what can we eat?

Even washing your hands with soap or rinsing out your mouth with mouthwash kills millions of bacteria, probably the minutest forms of life, so it really is impossible to stop murdering something. As Course students we know that this is a dream and you have to forgive yourself for deciding to come here in the first place and remember that we are not bodies and all living things are part of the Sonship and in truth cannot die.

This whole world is upside down and we have a very strange set of values where we think that the life of a whale is somehow more valuable than that of a sardine because they are like us or rarer or bigger or more 'lovable'. What are endangered species anyway. Are we to honour the separation? Aren't we all 'endangered' species who will one day return to God?

It is true that the life of a rat is as valuable to God as a close member of our family but it would take a very advanced soul to realise that. So until we reach that state of awareness we just continue to do what ordinary people do in this world in the same situation, eating living things, spraying our flies, mosquitoes and cockroaches and placing 'Ratsack' to rid us of our brother rats, protecting our family's health in a normal way. At times, we have even wished to kill our two legged brothers in our house so our murderous nature should come as no surprise. The last thing we should do, is feel guilty about what we do in a dream.

I really don't know what we should be thinking when we spray but years ago one Course teacher joked as he slapped a mosquito on his arm to the horror of those watching. "I am just sending him on to his next stage of evolution".

I recently read a quote from that American philosopher Joseph Campbell, perhaps a little tongue in cheek. -

I'm not sure if I understand your question on sleep but I certainly have drifted off while reading or listening to the Course. I always felt it was my ego's resistance at the time. On the bright side, however, once we open ourselves up, Jesus is helping us all the time.

"I do not attack your ego. I do work with your higher mind, the home of the Holy Spirit, whether you are asleep or awake, just as your ego does with your lower mind, which is its home." text p. 59/65

So enjoy your sleep.

Ed.