Don’t Be In Awe of Others

There have been many books that have helped me in my journey through life.  The Bridge Across Forever by Richard Bach, was the first book to open my eyes to the possibilities beyond the religions I had been exposed to as a teenager.  Jonathan Livingston Seagull, by the same author was a spiritual awakening for me.  The tears of joy I shed over that book will never be forgotten.  There was something beautiful about Jonathan Livingston Seagull’s own journey that just resonated with me.  The Celestine Prophecy opened me up to a more new age type scenario, at least more new age than I had experienced up to that point, that, while it never completely resonated with me, it did lead me through a period of inner growth.  Conversations with God had a significant impact as Neale Donald Walsch, its author, managed to ask, and get answered, many of the questions I had been asking myself.  I had the good fortune of meeting Walsch at a Natural Law Party Convention near Washington D.C.  He was just about as humble and down-to-earth as any person I have ever met.  He is one of the very few “famous people” I have met that truly treated me like an equal.

But nothing has had an impact on me the way A Course in Miracles has – and I have never even finished it.  I will probably refer to A Course In Miracles more than anything else in this blog.  The insight, the growth that I have gone through, the depth to which it took me in my spiritual journey has been unparalleled.  And, as I said, I haven’t even been able to finish it yet.  This is 15 years after having started reading it.  It was impacting my life in such profound ways, that I actually felt like I was moving too fast.  The beauty of the book is that it is okay for it to be that way.  Some people finish it in a year, I think those people are few and far between.  But most take longer – though not necessarily as long as I am taking.  I have actually restarted it.  I have been away from it for so long that I feel like it would benefit me to start again.  I couldn’t have just continued, but I had to go with what I was feeling, and I chose to begin again.

My favorite quote in the second section of the Text was this, “You are a perfect creation, and should experience awe only in the presence of the Creator of perfection.  The miracle is therefore a sign of love among equals.  Equals should not be in awe of one another because awe implies inequality.”

A miracle, by the way, according to ACIM, is a “change in perception.”  Nothing more, nothing less.

Now, a word of caution.  I have never been able to read ACIM at my regular reading speed.  In fact, I find that I only experience comprehension when I read it at about one-third the speed I normally read.  That, in and of itself, struck me as interesting.  Normally if I have to read something slower, I get bored out of my mind.  With ACIM, I just understood better.  So, if you didn’t understand the quote I just added, please try reading it again a bit slower.

“Equals should not be in awe of one another because awe implies inequality.”

Wow!  This is basically one of the biggest problems with religion today – too many people are in awe of other human beings.  Human beings.  Why?  It doesn’t make sense to me.  I admire people, but I have never really been in awe of someone – I think that was one of the reasons that mainstream religion just never worked for me, I refused to be in awe of the preachers and ministers with whom I came in contact.  ACIM says that we are all equal – not only are we equal, we are also ONE.  Admittedly, this has been one of the harder concepts in the Course for me to grasp.  I still struggle with it.  But there is so much that resonates with me between the blue covers of this book, that I am allowing myself the space to believe this.

I will be writing more on this in the coming weeks.  ACIM isn’t the only thing that I will discuss, but I have started reading it again, so it goes without saying that it will be getting a bit of airtime in this blog. ;-)

Namaste