Hakuna matata

“Hakuna, matata; Hakuna, matata!”

I woke the Monday after the change to daylight savings time to find the ego surreally cavorting around my still-darkened bedroom, belting out the famed Lion King tune.

“It means no worries for the rest of your days,” he sang.

“Scram,” I said.

I sat up and rubbed my eyes; the sense of having been engaged in a really important conversation with our inner teacher about the difficulty I seemed to be having lately with including myself in the forgiveness I seemed to be making progress with extending to others rapidly fading.

“It’s our problem-free, philosophy,” the ego sang.

“I can’t hear you,” I said, in no mood for blissninnies. Upset anew over the elusive nature of right-mindedness, still apparently–on a level beyond my awareness in a galaxy far, far away–convinced the real Love I was seeking lay always just out of reach, in a part of my mind I seemed able to access when teaching and writing about the Course or even when interacting with seemingly difficult costars lately but not so much when interacting with the physical and psychological body I believe I inhabit.

“Hakuna, matata, Hakuna matata,” the ego sang, staggering around the room like a derelict cartoon meerkat.

I found it doubly irritating he had hijacked a song from my inner, past playlist, an acapella duet my delightful, little daughter and I used to croon 24/7 to the profound annoyance–I’m sure–of anyone within unlucky earshot. My little girl was in college now—sniff, sniff–and I had pretty much exhausted all worldly versions of problem-free philosophies; recognizing at last that the only seeming problem lay in the mind of the dreamer of a world filled with problems. Problems we were far better off first acknowledging and then learning to see truly with a part of our mind that can truly see as expressions of the one defense against indivisible Love they reflected.  Instead of trying to shout them down with platitudes, a la you know who. Unfortunately, those lyrics didn’t fit comfortably into a Disney score.

By the time I’d showered, tended to the dog, wolfed down breakfast, and sat down at my computer with my cup of Joe, the ego had at least quit with the grating musical numbers. But he was still quite the chatty little Carl and had done a 180 in his approach, morphing in his chameleon-like way this time into a TV drama-type courtroom lawyer. And so I decided to take a shot at trying to hear my call for love in his relentless interrogation.

“Has it ever occurred to you that regular readers of this blog might be wondering just about now what the F’s wrong with you anyway?” he began.

“Nope,” I said, although, unfortunately, it all too often had.

“I mean, if the Course is so freaking simple, why can’t you just do what it says and be done with it already? Allow your inner Holy Highness”

“Holy Spirit”

“Whatever; to undo all this gunky, funky guilt you keep talking about and open your imaginary eyes on the heart of the perfect, eternal oneness within which you claim to continue to beat?”

I sighed. “It’s a journey,” I said. “A process; and not always a graceful one.”

“I see. Even though there is no time, according to the big, blue book.”

“A journey without distance,” I said.

“To a place you never left. Right. I’ve read that, too.”

“I didn’t know you’d read any of it.”

“I always do my homework, missy. Anyway, we’re one, remember? Seamlessly fused, am I right? ‘A oneness joined as one.’ ”

“Ha; you’re good,” I said.

“So I’m told. Constantly. Now, let’s review the progress you’ve made with this Course.”

I started to roll my eyes and caught myself. There really is no point in rolling your eyes at the ego; you’re just never going to win that contest. “Never try to judge your progress with this Course,” I said, instead. Of course, I’d been doing exactly that earlier. Note to puny little s self.

“Right. But I mean, I’m just wondering how things are going in those special relationships you’ve found so trying?”

“Much better, thank you.”

“Seriously?”

“‘Nothing so blinding as perception of form,’” I said. After all, I was finally learning we can never look to form for evidence of inner healing because, well; there is in truth no form. Healing is always, only in the mind we never left. A mind that can learn it is already whole and healed by choosing the inner teacher that remembered to smile at the impossibility of the thought of separation from the seeming beginning.

“OK; what say we cut to the chase. Is it not true that at the moment when the so-called ‘tiny, mad idea’ arose in the so-called one (wink; wink) Son of God’s mind, you—Susan—took it seriously, destroyed perfect wholeness, burned down the house on your way out the door, and set in motion an entire projected universe of fragmented forms competing for survival? And then tried to pin the crime on some other nut case to prove you exist at God’s expense but it’s not your fault?”

“‘In my defenselessness my safety lies,’” I said.

“Ha! And you accuse me of resorting to platitudes.”

“Eavesdropping is never a wise idea,” I said.

He folded his hands—bowed his head, and lowered his voice. “Listen, sweetheart. I’m just going to have to be blunt, for your sake. One of us has completely lost it here, and I’m like a hundred and ten percent sure it’s not me. I mean, have you seen the way your friends look at you when you try to explain this new need-free philosophy you’ve been practicing?”

Unfortunately, I had.

“Like you’ve grown two heads; that’s how,” he said. “And need to be smacked upside both of them. Ladies and gentleman of the jury,” he continued.

And I suddenly saw the two heads he was talking about clearly. His balding, bobble head–the part of my mind that still clung to the unworthy identity of a Susan unable to awaken through forgiveness–and the abstract, headless, disembodied part of my mind that knew only my identity as one with our creator, awake in God beyond this dream of exile from infinite, all-inclusive Love.

I turned away from him then. The big, blue book lay open to workbook lesson 330: “I will not hurt myself again today.”

“Let us this day accept forgiveness as our only function. Why should we attack our minds, and give them images of pain? Why should we teach them they are powerless, when God holds out His power and His Love, and bids them take what is already theirs?”

In truth; at least here in the embodied condition I still think I’m in—the power to remember my true identity stems from my power to choose between the ego/wrong mind and the Holy (Whole) Spirit/right mind. My power to choose against the ego’s attempts to convince me with his elaborately presented but nonetheless imaginary, insane body of evidence that guilt is real, God is not, and this Course is so not working for Susan. As if there was something outside me to work. As if I could awaken to undifferentiated, eternal Love as an individual.  As if the “tiny, mad idea” that we could fragment perfect wholeness we took seriously that allegedly started this whole imaginary flight from home had had any real effects.

The ego appeared to have vacated the premises. The “important” conversation with the inner teacher of forgiveness ACIM-style I’d been having earlier in my sleeping dream resumed as words on a page. I read on, a decision-making mind, with new-found willingness to know. And with no more worries (at least for now) about Susan’s progress with this Course.

“The mind that is made willing to accept God’s gifts has been restored to spirit, and extends its freedom and its joy, as is the Will of God united with its own. The Self which God created cannot sin, and therefore cannot suffer. Let us choose today that He be our Identity, and thus escape forever from all things the dream of fear appears to offer us.”

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I am now speaking regularly at ACIM Gather radio, Wednesdays, 5-6 p.m., EST.
Here are links to two recent talks: ACIM Gather talk 1 ACIM Gather talk 2

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