All One
Posted: July 18th, 2007, 3:45 pm
Over the past few months I have been re-reading the Text volume of A Course in Miracles (ACIM), and I have to say I am once again very impressed by it. I first undertook A Course in Miracles in July of 1977, which was two years after its publication. Anna and I had read about it in Psychic magazine (later renamed New Realities, and now out of business, I believe). I have written elsewhere in this forum and on TZF generally about my experience with ACIM, so here I will leave it at that.
What is impressing me about this current exposure to ACIM is a re-confirmation of the realization that all Teachings of Truth are fundamentally identical; even more than “fundamentally identical”, they are thoroughly identical.
Years ago, when I was first exposed to the various traditions that crossed my path as a seeker… Zen, the Gospels, Hinduism, Islam, Sufism, Buddhism, and so on, besides ACIM … I perceived a lot of differences among them, although even then the similarities seemed glaringly apparent to me. I remember thinking over the years as I read one or another of the many books that have come our way, “Haven’t I read this same idea somewhere else?” But still, back then it was easier to perceive the differences among traditions than the similarities. Now, just the reverse is true. The similarities are glaring; the differences, one has to search for, even almost generate oneself.
And the differences that do emerge or that are imagined or forced, are easily recognized as cultural or historical, and so, from a seeker’s point of view, really little more than curlicues with no substantive import, and easily distilled out.
Thus, reading today from ACIM is like reading from Nisargadatta, Ramakrishna, Rumi, the Gospels, the Chistian mystics, the Gita, the Tanakh, Ibn ‘Arabi, and so on. The experience, the lesson, is one and the same.
It is all one Text, all about the Same One Thing, all Teaching the Same One Lesson, all pointing in the Same One Direction, all Presented by the Same One Teacher.
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After posting this item, I read a few pages in Ramesh S. Balsekar's excellent consideration of Nisargadatta's Teaching titled Pointers from Nisargadatta Maharaj. There, he writes that when he asked Nisargadatta for approval to publish the book he had written, the Teacher agreed, noting, "I know that you are aware that all writing originates with consciousness, that there is writing but no authors".
Writing but no authors. Nice.
As to what Nisargadatta means by consciousness, here's what Balkesar writes elsewhere in the book: "there is no power on earth that is greater than this consciousness, this sense of presence -- I am, to which the illusory individual must direct all his prayers; and then this very consciousness will provide the illusory liberation for the illusory bondage of the illusory individual by revealing its true nature -- which is none other than the seeker himself, but not as an individual!"
Or, in Ibn 'Arabi's words, "thou art not thou, thou art He without thou". Or, in the Gospel's language, "where I am going you cannot come".
What is impressing me about this current exposure to ACIM is a re-confirmation of the realization that all Teachings of Truth are fundamentally identical; even more than “fundamentally identical”, they are thoroughly identical.
Years ago, when I was first exposed to the various traditions that crossed my path as a seeker… Zen, the Gospels, Hinduism, Islam, Sufism, Buddhism, and so on, besides ACIM … I perceived a lot of differences among them, although even then the similarities seemed glaringly apparent to me. I remember thinking over the years as I read one or another of the many books that have come our way, “Haven’t I read this same idea somewhere else?” But still, back then it was easier to perceive the differences among traditions than the similarities. Now, just the reverse is true. The similarities are glaring; the differences, one has to search for, even almost generate oneself.
And the differences that do emerge or that are imagined or forced, are easily recognized as cultural or historical, and so, from a seeker’s point of view, really little more than curlicues with no substantive import, and easily distilled out.
Thus, reading today from ACIM is like reading from Nisargadatta, Ramakrishna, Rumi, the Gospels, the Chistian mystics, the Gita, the Tanakh, Ibn ‘Arabi, and so on. The experience, the lesson, is one and the same.
It is all one Text, all about the Same One Thing, all Teaching the Same One Lesson, all pointing in the Same One Direction, all Presented by the Same One Teacher.
------
After posting this item, I read a few pages in Ramesh S. Balsekar's excellent consideration of Nisargadatta's Teaching titled Pointers from Nisargadatta Maharaj. There, he writes that when he asked Nisargadatta for approval to publish the book he had written, the Teacher agreed, noting, "I know that you are aware that all writing originates with consciousness, that there is writing but no authors".
Writing but no authors. Nice.
As to what Nisargadatta means by consciousness, here's what Balkesar writes elsewhere in the book: "there is no power on earth that is greater than this consciousness, this sense of presence -- I am, to which the illusory individual must direct all his prayers; and then this very consciousness will provide the illusory liberation for the illusory bondage of the illusory individual by revealing its true nature -- which is none other than the seeker himself, but not as an individual!"
Or, in Ibn 'Arabi's words, "thou art not thou, thou art He without thou". Or, in the Gospel's language, "where I am going you cannot come".