We have no idea of the enormity of the problems our desire for specialness has brought us. The whole world was made because of our 'need' to be special and even now is maintained because of that need. In the world we are experiencing, everything is unique and was deliberately made to be different continually reinforcing the separation. It is the base motive behind national self-interest and all groupings of people. In its simpler form it can be seen as a special relationship with our partner, our sporting club or just a group of special friends we would prefer to be with. It is the underlying reason why cults are formed so that everybody who has a common belief can live together, separate from the rest of the community who think differently. It is not uncommon for many of these cults to believe they have access to the special ear of God that entitles them to receive privileges not available to others.
There is nothing new about this; in fact it began when the ego began. Religions over the centuries fostered this separation by declaring that their way was the only way. In their teachings, God, Jesus and Holy Spirit or whoever their particular name was, only cared for these special people. As a child, in Sunday school I could never understand why God opened up the Red Sea for the Children of Israel to pass through and then proceed to drown the following Egyptian troops? I wondered what kind of God would do this, if he equally loves all His Children? Great if you are an Israelite, but not so good if you are an Egyptian! We have never been satisfied to be totally loved by a Father who loves all His Sons equally. We wanted more, much more: We wanted to be treated as the special one by God, the one wish He could never grant.
Often Course students have applied this same thinking to their own pathway, regarding Holy Spirit as some type of Spiritual Santa Clause who looks after His own. Their 'guidance' often benefits them and disadvantages others. We are always experiencing a script that we ourselves wrote. Why then do we ask Holy Spirit to change something occurring or not occurring in our life? If we do, we are virtually saying we are victims of our present circumstances and we do perceive our own best interests with absolute knowledge of the overall picture in which everybody benefits. Why would Course students get special favours from Holy Spirit and an easier run through life while others less fortunate miss out? The Course itself puts it this way:
"No one can lose and everyone must gain whenever any gift of God has been requested and received by anyone. God gives but to unite. To take away is meaningless to Him. And when it is as meaningless to you, you can be sure you share one Will with Him, and He with you. And you will also know you share one Will with all your brothers, whose intent is yours." workbook p. 341
There comes a time we all question why we need to get what we think we want when it always ends up with misery and pain. We say all we want to do is to maximise pleasure and minimise pain and yet we don't even know the difference between pleasure and pain.
Call pleasure pain, and it will hurt. Call pain a pleasure, and the pain behind the pleasure will be felt no more. Sin's witnesses but shift from name to name, as one steps forward and another back. Yet which is foremost makes no difference. Sin's witnesses hear but the call of death. text p. 538
All Course students have experienced the disappointment of not receiving an expected healing even though we believe we have forgiven. We may even believe we have converted a special relationship to a Holy one, only to be let down when we find ourselves feeling a victim, once again "unfairly treated". What are we doing wrong? Does the Course not mean what it says? It is not the Course we need question but rather our readiness to accept what it says. When we experience feelings of disappointment we can be sure we are trying to walk ahead of Truth, confusing our experience in this world with the truth of Heaven.
We say we understand the Course's statement
"There is no world" and yet, here we find ourselves in bodies experiencing this world.

"There is no hierarchy of illusions"

There is even a tendency for many to believe that as Course students we will never become ill or at least not seriously ill. Some found it hard to deal with the passing of Helen and Bill and well-known teachers of the Course in the 80's after long illnesses. It is hard for us to grasp that there is no hierarchy of illusions and there is no difference between a cut finger and a life threatening illness. Sometimes in a strange upside-down way, we can accept a bout of mild indigestion and yet believe we can suddenly cure a cancer with our mind. If our belief is strong enough we can remove one form of magic with another but according to the Course, this is not healing as we are still retaining unforgiveness and guilt in our mind. The making of the whole world and bodies to witness that world began with a magic belief and the very fact that we think we are here in these separate bodies demonstrates that we have at least in part bought into the whole ego system of separation and guilt. As Ken Wapnick pointed out at one of his recent workshops the mere fact that we need air to breath and get hungry when we haven't had food for a certain time, constantly establishes without doubt that we believe we are bodies not spirits.
Nobody made us come here and while we remain here in bodies, we must be constantly deciding not to awaken. As Sons of God, we were given free will even to miscreate if that is our wish. The Holy Spirit does not command or demand, as He could never oppose the free will given us by God, so He patiently waits for us to question our erroneous beliefs and reinforces every loving and forgiving thought which will lead us back to God. Along the way to awakening, we begin to realise that although this is not our home here we can still function in the world knowing we are in it but not of it.
There is a way of living in the world that is not here, although it seems to be. You do not change appearance, though you smile more frequently. Your forehead is serene; your eyes are quiet. And the ones who walk the world as you do recognise their own. Yet those who have not yet perceived the way will recognise you also, and believe that you are like them, as you were before. workbook p. 284
A visit to my dentist some months ago and a reaction to an infected tooth led to an examination by a doctor and the discovery of a growth in the upper bowel area. I was told that although the growth appeared to be benign, I should have an operation to remove it.
I pondered on how I was to look at things clearly and in truth as various emotions scrambled for dominance in my mind particularly regarding my right minded thinking on the matter. One magic thought I had was being able to tell others how I used powerful mind power to will this away and how a subsequent examination would reveal the problem had miraculously disappeared. But I had spent many years trying to be special by training my mind to get me what I thought I wanted at the time. I recalled how when I had my own business, I used to boast that I had never had a cold for 14 years. There was nothing holy in that situation nor did it have anything to do with forgiveness but merely showed to me that I made running my business my top priority and being disabled would not give me what I want.

'Mind over matter' is not the answer

I then remembered recently picking up "Science and Health" by Mary Baker Eddy and reading that Christian Science was not a case of "Mind over Matter" but the constant awareness of our being the perfect child of God. While Christian Scientists have a very different approach to Course students on "materia medica" the essence of that common truth stuck in my mind. To the Course student, the use of magic is not bad or a sin but merely nothing. It says that when we are in our most advanced state we will no longer believe in magic but for most of us who have not reached that state, it's use can temporarily relieve us of the symptoms and reduce our fears so that we may be more able to ask for real help with our thinking from Holy Spirit.

Guilt is the cause of all illnesses

A Course in Miracles® says that our guilt is the cause of all illnesses. Some of our guilt we are very aware of, but many of us have no idea just how deeply hidden or how extensive it is. With the Course's training we are learning to look at it in small portions as it presents itself in every feeling we experience other than pure love. In the meantime I had to accept that I am not special and I am still here experiencing the separation just like everybody else having by no means completed ridding myself of all my guilt.
I knew, in this instance, I was not to deny what I had been told by the doctors, but merely to go along with what I felt was the normal thing to do. To me, that meant proceeding with the operation. I had the choice of approaching the situation with love or fear and decided to accept it all as a part of my pre-written script I knew I was going to play out. In doing so, I asked Jesus to help me with my thinking during the experience. To do this, I knew I would need to surrender to the realisation that he is the teacher and I am the pupil, not the other way around. Sure I could disguise my denial, giving some 'holy' reason for not going ahead but I was mindful that "All Things are Lessons You Would have me Learn" It was a time to trust that a happy outcome would be the end result and that this was an excellent opportunity of demonstrating what I believe. Right up to the time I was being wheeled in to the operating theatre I felt Jesus was with me. The actual operation took a little longer than expected but was a complete success technically.
I did have a bout of specialness a few days after the operation when they were progressively reducing the amount of morphine they were giving me and one morning I asked for it to be cut right out instead of the normal procedure of tapering down the dosage. By that night I was almost begging for some more injections and requested to be put back on it and have it reduced gradually just like all the other 'normal' people. During this time, even though I could blame no one as it was me who decided against further pain killing medication I had a fleeting moment when I accused Jesus of abandoning me, leaving me in pain, but apart from that instance of projecting my insanity on to Him, I did feel his comforting presence right throughout my stay in hospital.
Although I was undergoing something I had never been through before, I had the strangest feeling that I had experienced every detail of my stay there before and that I was merely playing it through again. I knew that whatever happened to my body I would be all right but I felt certain this was not the script where I was to let go of my body. It confirmed to me without doubt what the Course says about everything that happens to us we are experiencing again.

Love and quiet courage are everywhere

I realise now I always had a fear of hospitals as places of pain and suffering ("hospitals of fear") and was judgemental of those who were admitted as being weak. My hospital stay taught me that is not hard to see love and quiet courage everywhere, not as a joining in each others belief in sickness but as a witness to genuine caring for someone other than ourselves. It was all around me, in patients, nurses, loving friends and visitors who called to give their friend or family member a lift. Sure, there was some fear present too, but seen as a call for love it is a lot easier to help people than judge them. I also felt I learned from the attitude of doctors and nurses that my body was not the least bit precious, just regular pipes, tubes, blood vessels and organs like everybody else.
Soon after my arrival I met a large motherly cleaning lady who informed me she had worked at the hospital since migrating from Yugoslavia 22 years and ago. She seemed never to be without a smile and a word of encouragement to everybody that she encountered while she diligently polished the floor in each ward. It seemed to me that she didn't need A Course in Miracles®. I made a point of telling her what a bright light she was, and on the day I checked out I was walking with Pam down the passageway for the last time she approached me, holding her arms out wide and we gave each other a big hug. It was a nice climax to my stay there.
I had completed 10 days of practical 'hands on' experience using the Course, which has only helped strengthen my conviction that this is my pathway and it, definitely works! Not by changing things that normal people go through in this life but by seeing them through love and not fear. It never occurred to me to mention the Course by name but I felt that I was to quietly concentrate on changing my perceptions about any negative thoughts I felt rising in my mind about anybody. Being in this new all encompassing hospital environment I seemed more able to consistently focus on truth than I can in everyday life with its many ego distractions.

Taking Truth to the illusion

The Course constantly reminds us not to take truth to the illusion but rather take the illusion to truth. In other words trying to use our considerable mind power, as Sons of God to work this illusion around more to our liking will only bind us closer to this world of separation. Not one of us is special, not even Jesus although he is now free of his ego while we have yet to achieve that state. However, in the meantime we all can access him and Holy Spirit at any time. Not one of us has any more right to God's Love than any other.
By admitting we just don't know what to do and submitting our problems to the one who knows the answer we find not only that is it easier but also the result will bring us peace. We then will be able to see love in everything going on around us no matter what our physical senses tell us, releasing us from all sorrow and pain.
This Earth is a kindergarten, not a university. We are learning to be led by our elder brother Jesus, not race ahead of the truth we are not yet ready to master as he has done.

Bill McDonald