The news…the “news” (I put it in scare quotes because I often feel it’s being used to persuade instead of inform 🙂 ), always inspires a lot of Course in Miracles work.
The tenet, there is another way to see this, popped up today, along with a lot of teachings about perception and projection. A Course in Miracles teaches that, what we call conscious experience is actually perception (often mis-perception) and what is being perceived is actually our projection.
This always gives me pause…I can accept the possibility that my experience might be perception, but that my perception is actually my projection is very difficult. But, if it is true that the only reality is the perfect wholeness of the Son of God, as God created Him, then experiencing “others” can’t be reality, and that it is perception is logical. (Yes, that central tenet is a big one – I want to believe it, and try to take little steps along the path.)
And, if consciousness is perception, what would be the foundation for, the source of, the perception? Since I’ve experienced that perception seems unique, and seems to vary between myself and “others,” again, it seems logical the source of the projection could be internal to me. That everything I see, experience, and feel is my projection is profound…
But, A Course in Miracles, and all the wisdom teachers constantly emphasize, you must prove it to yourself for it to be your truth. How does one prove, “there is no one really here but my perception of my projections?”
The tool I’ve been using is imagining each situation as a story, with all the “others” being characters I’ve written, specifically to elicit an experience, a feeling, an “energy.” Whether the situation is evoking,self-righteousness, or helplessness, or feeling a victim, or rage, guilt, whatever…when I back-up, imagine I wrote and cast the story, I’m amazed at the correlation between the “story” and beliefs I can feel I’m holding.
When I can tell myself, with some level of confidence, that I see this is my story, and it shows me I feel inferior/superior to others, or I feel guilty or fearful…when I can connect with that, I actually find myself being able to truly, heartfully, gratefully thank the “others” in the story for showing this to me, and then begin to let it go and see only loving brothers and sisters in the Christ, the Son of God of which I am a part.
Does it disappear and resolve immediately? Occasionally yes, often it takes more iterations, more practice for me. But does it feel true? At the heart level, the inner voice knows it must be so.
Always the head, the thinking, the rogue ego — my “go to” reset becomes, “there is another way to see this.”