An Open Window Observing The Battleground

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An Open Window Observing the Battleground

by Rev. Tony Ponticello

From time to time I like to share with everyone some of the communications we get at our office in San Francisco. Being at the hub of this organization, with its purpose of teaching and learning A Course In Miracles, provides me with a unique vantage point that I would like to offer. A phone call from a man who lived on a large populated island off the East coast, really brought to mind how fortunate I am to be living in the midst of a spiritual community of dedicated Course students. He had been a Course student himself for eight years and was having difficulty with some of the teachings. In his isolated location, away from major metropolitan areas, he knew of no Course groups or dedicated Course students with which to converse. He was not in touch with a Course community and he felt the need to talk briefly to a long term student/teacher. "Does the Course really mean it when it says that the world isn't real?" was one of his questions. "Or does it mean that only our body is an illusion but the world itself does actually exist?" was another. He told me, "When I tell my 'shrink' that the world exists only in my imagination he doesn't understand me." Now I felt as if we were really getting to the heart of the matter, a belief system difference with a psychiatrist could pose an interesting dilemma. Trying to live with your feet in the doors of two different worlds, two different thought systems, is very difficult.

The answers I gave him aren't the important issue. What is significant is that I realized how grateful I was I lived within a community of people that had this type of thinking as their day to day belief system. Perhaps, we can't always connect with the truth of the words, but we try the best we can, and we do have people to discuss these ideas with who won't give us strange looks! I can't imagine being an eight year student and not having anyone with which to have a Course conversation! Miracles wouldn't be real for me then. The main reason we, at the Community Miracles Center, have dedicated ourselves to the publishing of this monthly periodical so regularly (102 issues in 102 months) is to provide just this type of regular conversation for people who live in places where the Course isn't spoken. People like this man from the island in the Atlantic can feel regularly connected to Miracles students and can read (and hear internally) these ideas.

By-the-way, I advised him it probably would not be a good idea to try to get his psychiatrist to understand that the world wasn't real. (In fact his 'shrink' might really decide he needs a great deal more psychotherapy if he attempted that!)

The relationships we have with our fellow spiritual travelers have a wonderful potential of being true, holy relationships because we have joined with these people for truly holy purposes, to remember God together and to share this memory with the world. These are teacher/student interactions with the roles switching back and forth with the apparent need. The Course talks about the thousands of years that are saved whenever we join in these holy, teaching relationships. "Each one [teachers of God] begins as a single light, but with the Call at its center it is a light that cannot be limited. And each one saves a thousand years of time as the world judges it." (M 3/3) Saving thousands of years -- I like that idea! That's why I'm so grateful for being surrounded by a community of Course students, both the physically close, fellow students here in the San Francisco area and all of you out there in the different parts of this country (and even in other countries) where these pages are read. We have joined in purpose and the potential for holiness is great! Our relationships are the temple for the Holy Spirit to do His work (see T 407/437) and thousands of years are being saved every time we join in the shared experience of remembering God and our holy purpose of salvation. Reading Miracles Monthly together can provide us that experience if we so choose. "Through your holy relationship, reborn and blessed in every holy instant you do not arrange, thousands will rise to Heaven with you." (T 357/383) Thousands of years -- thousands of lives, it doesn't get any better than that!

A Half Century of Sanity

Thinking of time and years was triggered for me recently with a news story featured in all the major media. We just passed the fifty year anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Yes, here is an interesting event, a half century has passed since the United States dropped two atom bombs on Japan. How do we Course conversant students see this? The news media had its own spin on the anniversary. Was it necessary for the U.S. to have used these weapons of mass destruction? Wasn't Japan about ready to surrender anyway? Each of these explosions killed over 100,000 people -- one bomb and over one hundred thousand people were dead. Would the U.S. have done this if it had really known the full extent of the radiation horror that was released? More people died of the subsequent, lingering, radiation sickness than during the actual blast. Did we know? Should we have known? The news media spun on in its sensationalistic and speculative way.

I, however, was given an entirely different spin when I went to Holy Spirit and asked Him for my right perception. I was filled with pride! I was so proud of us all; we've gone fifty years and not dropped another one of these things! That's quite an accomplishment and one that deserves acknowledgment and celebration. For fifty years the world had the ultimate loaded gun in its hand, and we haven't pulled the trigger. Hurrah for us! The temptation for those in power must have been quite intense at times! Yet, some sanity, some wisdom, some spirit guidance has won out through all this and no one has used another one of these atomic weapons since the first two were dropped over a half century ago. It shows me that we are learning.

I believe the whole memory of war, especially the type of war where we would use these weapons, has begun to fade in the mass consciousness of the world. I think that this is a remarkable healing. We've put some limits on our aggression. Certainly, we have a long way to go, but we have started the process of peace, and we should acknowledge ourselves for that.

There's a tendency, as always, to focus in on the negative and to forget all the wonderful positive progress towards peace the world has made. When I thought back, many world changing, peaceful signposts stuck out in my memory. The "Iron Curtain" has come down and Germany is now one country again. That's remarkable when you remember what was going on there just ten years ago. Oppressive communism has dissolved in the Soviet Union. In fact, there is no more Soviet Union, no more domineering "evil empire"! I don't know if there ever really was an "evil empire" but that's how we thought of the U.S.S.R. Remember Khrushchev, Kennedy and the Cuban missile crises in 1962? That was only thirty-three years ago! We're normalizing our diplomatic relationship with Viet Nam! Can you imagine that? Just a little over twenty years ago we (the U.S.) were trying to bomb these people back to stone! Now, American companies are scurrying to get a piece of the Viet Nam pie. It's Coca-Cola® and Levis® for the masses. We're beginning to normalize our relationship with China. Finally our government is deciding that this huge country with its 1 billion people (or more, who knows) actually exists! Isn't that special! Soon everyone will be drinking Coke and wearing 501's. "For a teaching assignment such as His, He must use everything [my emphasis] in this world for your release." (T 298/320) The Course is really right on with this one! Who would have thought soda pop and canvas pants would become instruments of peace? The Middle East situation is definitely healing. Israel is sitting at the negotiation table with the Palestinians, with Jordan and with Syria! Remember the "Six Day War" in 1967 happened only twenty-eight years ago. Definite steps toward world peace are being made! Who can deny it! Why would we want to?

What I like about these recent peace initiatives in the world is that it's really what the Course calls true forgiveness. The world seems willing to acknowledge that these difficulties existed in the past: that we hated each other in the past, were mortal enemies in the past, tried to massacre and murder each other in the past -- but that the past is over. No country has to admit to any guilt and no punishment needs to be exacted. Nothing has to be solved. No countries have to pay restitution for imagined war crimes. The world is willing to acknowledge the problems and then put them aside. The world seems much more willing to let the past be gone than it ever has been before in history. World governments are learning that the old way of holding grudges and nursing enemies just doesn't work. Hallelujah! The world is saying, "O.K. it's a new day. Let's just start anew." Many countries are practicing global forgiveness! I want to acknowledge this and congratulate us, the world community!

Half Empty or Half Full

You see, I really believe that the reason the world is progressing like this is because we're all individually progressing like this. This is our personal spiritual work that we're seeing reflected in the world scene. The individual is progressing and it's spiritual communities like ours, the Course community with its many holy teaching/learning relationships that are evolving the world at this quickened pace. Thousands of years are being saved. Don't you see it too? The world is reflecting our spiritual growth.

Now, some will say, "Tony, are you blind! What about Bosnia and Croatia. That war is just horrible! There's still plenty of war g oing on!"

Of course there's still war. I don't mean to imply that we've completed our healing. The Bosnian situation is tragic. However, when I ask for a new perception from Holy Spirit I see that we probably handled this better than we would have 25 years ago. That could easily have been another Viet Nam. It has many of the same characteristics. It's really a civil war. We could have easily moved in masses of troops and fought another seven year war with murky objectives and with no true knowledge of what was actually going on. Can anybody say now that one side in the Bosnian conflict is really the "good" guy and the other side really the "bad" guy. Both sides seem very vicious and I don't know anyone who understands this conflict. I know I don't. Isn't that progress? We're not even trying to understand this insanity! People say that we should have done more! I don't agree; I glad we did as little as we did. Our track record is not that good. Remember Viet Nam, we really thought we understood that conflict didn't we? How right were we? We did a lot more in Viet Nam.

Yes, this is a terrible situation, but is the glass half empty or half full? I prefer to choose the half full perception! My half full perception is that I saw many world leaders looking at the situation and saying "We don't know what to do here! This situation is beyond our control!" Isn't that progress? I think so. Isn't that better than thinking we're the big policemen that go in everywhere around the world and solve the world's problems through military force! Yes, I think we've shown a little progress here. Admitting worldly powerlessness and turning issues over to a higher authority is a basic recovery tenet!

How I Learned To Stop Worrying About And Love the Bomb

Recently the paper ran an article about how the United States, under the leadership of President Clinton, was going to seek a total global ban on nuclear testing. This was interesting to me. Even though we have signed nuclear test ban treaties before there have always been allowances for small nuclear tests, or underground tests, and never has all testing been banned. Now, the U.S. is going to champion that cause. It was, in a way, Clinton's response to the fifty year anniversary of the atomic bombs mentioned earlier. It was the government pulling back, another step from the nuclear precipice. Isn't that worth acknowledging? The five major nuclear powers will now discuss this, but France and Great Britain have already signified their agreement. Russia and China have some considerations but a process is underway to handle them. This must indicate that we, as a country, are not as terrified of our world neighbors as we once were. "For no one walks the world in armature but must have terror striking at his heart." (W 245/252) The terror is leaving our hearts a little. Isn't this miraculous? A few years ago America and Russia both agreed to take out of service a vast array of nuclear weapons that were pointed directly at each other. Planes that were always flying, ready to drop nuclear bombs if they didn't get a call back signal, stopped flying. (Remember the movie Dr. Stangelove?) These were our first steps away from the nuclear "cliff." Now, we're taking a few more. Nuclear disarmament is an idea whose time has come. Isn't it grand? Where is your perception, half empty or half full? We're healing. We're not having to be right or wrong. We're saying, "Hey, this is a bad thing. I'm willing to let it go. Are you willing to let it go?"

Don't forget though, this shift isn't happening anywhere but in our own minds. This is a reflection of the work we are all doing. We're learning to let things go with true forgiveness, not having to be right, and we see the world's leaders reflecting this "better way." The congratulations are due to us.

As always, there are the "nay-sayers." They say, "Don't sing Clinton's praises. He could have done a lot more than he's doing. These are just political maneuvers. Don't forget those campaign promises that he didn't fill. Where are the gays in the military? Where is that national health coverage?" (I find these issues amusing. I always liked that being openly gay was a great way to get out of the military and I believe that national health coverage would only entrench the A.M.A.'s perception of allopathic medicine even deeper. At least without national health coverage, alternative medicine and healing has a chance!)

Of course Clinton's not perfect, but let's look closely at this Course section. "Dream of your brother's kindnesses instead of dwelling in your dreams on his mistakes. Select his thoughtfulness to dream about instead of counting up the hurts he gave. Forgive him his illusions, and give thanks to him for all the helpfulness he gave. And do not brush aside his many gifts because he is not perfect in your dreams. He represents his Father, Whom you see as offering both life and death to you." (T 543/585) The Course wants us to look at our leaders and really see the good they do. We, of course, see that they are not perfect. There are still negatives associated with them, but the Course asks us to focus on the good instead. Is this what we do? The reason they don't appear perfect to us is these leaders, these authority figures, symbolize God and we think of God as giving us both life and death. That's our problem; it's not the truth. This is the duality we've projected onto God. We think God gives us life but then we think that God takes it away too! We project this ambivalence onto all our brothers and sisters and especially onto those we see in authority. We see them as doing good, but then doing some terrible things as well. Yet, the only reason we have this perception is our basic confusion we have about God.

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Where's the Death?

When we talk about life and death and are truly honest about it, the only place there appears to be death is out in the external world we experience as in front of us. In the external world we look out on. Yet, none of us truly experiences him or herself as part of this external world. I don't mean in a lofty, spiritual sense either. I mean in a practical, obvious sense. Where we perceive ourselves to be is not outside in the external world, we are in an inside reality. Where are "you?" Are "you" outside in the world or inside something we abstractly call our minds? It's really as if "we" are behind an open window that looks out, through our eyes and other senses. We see that which is outside ourselves, don't we? We all know that our sense of identity rest somewhere deep within. "I" am not in the external world. "I" am in an internal reality that merely looks out at the world, gathers other sensory information and filters it all through concepts we believe about ourselves.

When I go into myself, when I close my eyes and go within, there's no death inside where "I" am. Death is absolutely only an external image. Inside I find only life. Where's the death inside? There isn't any! Nobody dies in my internal world. If I want to talk to somebody I just bring an image of them to mind and talk to them. There is no loss in my internal world. If something seems to go away it's just because I'm not thinking about it. If I think about it again, there it is! There are no lovers who have jilted me in my internal world. I close my eyes and chose to have the fantasy and they're still there! (And still turned on to me, which must be a fantasy, but they're definitely there and willing if I chose to think of them that way.) There is no loss, no death in the internal reality where "I" am. The loss and death only seem real in the outer world where, in true obvious honesty, I know that "I" am not! Death is only in the outer world illusion. The trouble is that I falsely identify myself, conceptually, with the external illusion. Yet, the true experience is "I" am somewhere inside. "I" am not a part of that death illusion. This is what the Course is talking about. Death is just an illusion. My inner truth does not have an experience of death or loss.

My relationship with God, my Creator, exists in my inner reality, not in the outer illusion. When I get more in touch with this truth I heal. Then I don't see God as giving me death and life together. Inside there is only life. Inside there is God. God is only life! If this becomes our basis for identity, the outer begins to reflect this changed perspective of self and worldly life begins symbolically to heal as well. This is what I believe is happening.

The world is evolving as a reflection of our own evolution. I see the rhetoric and the conversation about an "evil empire," or external enemy, has faded. We don't have the mass enemies to rally around anymore. We don't have Japan or Germany or Russia or communist China to get us all worked up and "united." The disadvantage is that without an external enemy we tend to turn our projected guilt within and we start doing battle with ourselves. Nothing like a good external enemy to get us all "joined" in a common purpose is there? People speak of the good old days when the country was one, in World War II when we all united. Well, of course, we had a perceived external threat! It was easy to rally, but the Course is on to this tendency. It says, " as blame is withdrawn from without, there is a strong tendency to harbor it within. It is difficult at first to realize that this is exactly the same thing, for there is no distinction between within and without." (T 187/201) Isn't this just what we see going on in our country now? We aren't worried about other countries invading us, now our enemies are right in our midst. Fanatics bomb our federal buildings and more than one hundred men, women and children die! Militia groups arm themselves to the hilt and await the coming military collapse and final anarchy. The Christian right sees the decadent anti-family gays as a perverted evil run amuck in the cities of sin. (San Francisco being a fine example of sin's festering place in their eyes.) Gays see conservative politicians as Nazi-like evil beings intent on crucifying them as a convenient scapegoat. The conservative politicians see the liberal news media as mercilessly blaspheming them in the eyes of the public and on an on the circle of blame goes. Where the guilt, stops nobody knows.

Some people see this tendency and think this means things are getting worse. I think just the opposite. I think it's a sign that we're progressing. We've stopped seeing the enemies out there in the other countries designing to snatch away our resources and enslave our people. (Men digging in dangerous mine shafts and women forced into sexual slavery for pleasure and breeding purposes come to mind.) Now the enemy is right within our own people! This is what the Course is warning us about. We've stopped blaming without; now we're blaming within. Yet, I have faith this too will fade when we begin to see personally, within ourselves, the folly of self blame. Isn't this just what we've done on a personal level? It used to be our parents' fault, the churches' fault, the government's fault and let's not forget the most important one, our lover's fault. "I would have been happy if he just had not been afraid of commitment. If she had only stopped drinking my life would have been different." Then we embraced personal responsibility and realized, "Oh my God, no, it's my fault! I brought this on myself!" Yet we must learn that it's nobody's fault. There is no blame or guilt to be had. There are just mistakes to be corrected. As we undo our self blame, I firmly believe, we will see our country reflect this healing and stop factionalizing and looking for internal villains. Bringing the guilt within is just an unfortunate step in the healing progression. We will move out of it collectively when we move out of it individually. The country is merely a macrocosm of the individual. We will embrace together all of our societal elements, from gays to Christian right wingers, from paramilitary groups to the liberal press, and when we do we will have enormous resources to tackle the problems of terrorism, drug addiction and crime.

The Big Apple

Speaking of crime, I was in New York City recently and was amazed at how safe it felt. I read an article that told of how the murder rate in New York was down 33%. That's an amazing drop, a miraculous manifestation! This has been credited largely to mayor Guiliani and a progressive police commissioner who have started promoting police officers for reductions in crime statistics and keeping the peace instead of just for making arrests! What a novel idea. Let me tell you from personal experience, you can feel it on the streets. The energy is safer! At first I naively thought San Francisco officials should take note and adopt some of New York's policies, but then I remembered something I heard a couple of years ago. It was a prophecy that came through one of the popular channeled entities. I don't remember which one now. If someone knows, please inform me. The prophecy states the world is going through some intense social problems and the way we will get through these issues is that individual communities will band together and find creative solutions that will work in their communities. A slight problem will manifest, though, because other communities will think that what worked for their neighbors will work for them, but it won't. When they try to apply their neighbors' solutions to their communities they won't be effective. However, what will work is that, individually, the communities must get together themselves, assess their strengths and find their own personal creative solutions and implement them. This is the only way the social problems will be overcome. I remember this prophecy really impressing me at the time. I thought, "This just what A Course In Miracles was speaking of. There aren't any formulas for how to solve our problems. Yet, individually, we can all find guided solutions that will work." I don't think San Francisco can copy New York's solutions. They won't work here. There is a different "socio-cultural" mind set here. Yet I do believe we can band together ourselves and find ways to handle the problems we do have, the crime, the terrible homeless explosion, the drug addiction, alcoholism and the aggressive pan handlers. Again, the answer lies within. "Seek not outside yourself. For it will fail " (T 573/617) We will do it. I believe in us.

Who Left the Window Open?

The Course says some interesting things about war and battle. The Course tells us we can rise above the battleground. Let's begin with this quotation, "Mistake not truce for peace." (T 461/496) This one helps us not to get stuck in something that appears as peace and in truth isn't. The world thinks the bargains we strike with one another while we temporarily "cease fire" are peace but this isn't so. Bargaining is not true forgiveness. We don't forgive if . We forgive. We do it for ourselves, not to get them to change. As I stated earlier, I see the world starting to do this. We're not forgiving Viet Nam because they've admitted their guilt. We're just letting go of that past. It's over. Bargaining is still in the battleground. If the bargain is kept the fighting may still, but it's all so conditional. "There is no safety in a battleground. You can look down on it in safety from above and not be touched. But from within it you can find no safety." (T 461/496) We must continue the healing and not be deluded by bargains and truce. Only real forgiveness will bring us the peace we deserve. We rise above the battleground. We realize that who "we" are is not actually contained in the external battle. Who "we" are is the consciousness that looks through the window and perceives the battle outside. We are a vast mind, an infinite, eternal expanse of intelligence and life. We perceive this world through an open window, if we remember that, truce will not delude us.

Then the Course gives us some very clear, concise ideas of what to do when we get tempted to forget all this. "When the temptation to attack rises to make your mind darkened and murderous " when we get that temptation to forget we really are not the external battle and therefore are not really in danger " remember you can see the battle from above." (T 462/497) So here's the first thing to do. We need to remember that we can see this battle from a higher perspective, from above or beyond it all. We need to remember that we don't have to be hooked in this way of perceiving. This passage continues, "Even in forms you do not recognize, the signs you know." Sometimes we don't immediately recognize that we are getting hooked in, but there are little clues that indicate we are being caught and we can identify them. "There is a stab of pain, a twinge of guilt, and above all, a loss of peace. This you know well." (T 462/497) This is what the Course wants us to be monitoring: that little stab of pain, that little twinge of guilt and that little loss of peace. When we feel these things we need quickly to identify we've lost our perspective of the battle from above and have gotten hooked into its seeming reality again. We've forgotten where "we" really are. We've believed that we exist back in the world. Then it concludes, "When they occur leave not your place on high, but quickly choose a miracle instead of murder." (T 462/498) What we need to learn to do is a process of self correction and we have to learn to click it in faster. We have to do it before things get totally out of hand. We have to do it when we get that first little stab of pain, that first little twinge of guilt and that first little loss of peace. We have to remember that there is a higher way to look at this situation. We have to offer the way we are looking at it to the Holy Spirit. We have to ask for a miracle; ask for a shift.

As we continue to do this correction process, as we do it quicker and quicker and not let things get so out of hand in ourselves I think we will continue to see the world evolving and growing towards peace. Fifty years ago we dropped atomic bombs on our brothers and sisters because we saw no other way. The other way existed but our conceptual perspective wouldn't allow the notion of it. We believed the battleground and it was very real for us. Course students do not have to stand in judgment of the people who made those decisions. However, we can learn from what those decisions brought to pass. More important still, we can congratulate ourselves because for a half century we have let another perception take hold in the collective unconsciousness. This is a perception that tells us that there must be a better way. We must be choosing it, because we see the results of true forgiveness all over the world. Don't be confused by the manifestations of problems that still appear. Remember where "you" are. "You" are behind an open window observing these situations. "You" are not in the world's battlegrounds, no matter how real the images seen through your window may appear. Don't leave your place on high. Leave the battleground instead. The world will continue to heal as we each individually do our part. World peace is an idea whose time has come.

It is a miraculous blessing that we have this holy relationship which allows us to share these healing ideas. Thousands of years are being saved right this instant. Did you just feel them slip away? I did. God bless us all.

©copyright 1995, Rev. Tony Ponticello.
All rights reserved.

This article has 5,251 words.

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Rev. Tony Ponticello
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This article appeared in the August 1995 (Vol.9, No.6) issue of Miracles Monthly. Miracles Monthly is published by the Community Miracles Center in San Francisco, CA. The CMC is supported solely by people just like you who give donations and purchase books and products through us.

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Last update: March 9, 2006 by Rev. Tony Ponticello. (syntax checked 3/06)