OceanofPDF .comDedication
To Mickey Maudlin,
for quiet guidance and the opportunity of a lifetime. OceanofPDF .comEpigraph
You are a perfect creation, and should experience awe only in the Presence of the Creator of
perfection. 4The miracle is therefore a sign of love among equals. 5Equals should not be in awe of
one anothe r because awe implies inequal ity. 6It is therefore an inappropriate reaction to me. 7An
elder brother is entitled to respect for his greater experience, and obedience for his greater wisdom. 8He is also entitled to love because he is a brother , and to devotion if he is devoted. 9It is only my
devotion that entitles me to yours. 10There is nothing about me that you cannot attain. 11I have
nothing that does not come from God. 12The differ ence between us now is that I have nothing else. 13This leaves me in a state which is only potential in you. * (A  Course in Miracles,  Text, 7 )
OceanofPDF .comContents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Preface
Introduction
Chapter One: The Mystic Jesus
Have You Been Saved by JEEZUS?!? In His Name
What Is the Christ? The Only Story Ever Told
Mary’ s Love
Miracles
The Separation
The Holy Spirit
The Atonement
Enlightenment
Chapter Two: Reflections of Light
Apocalyptic Beginnings
The Power of the Morning
Being Saved
The Destination of EnlightenmentPositively You
More Powerful than All the Powers of the World
The Small Still Voice Within
Prayer
Your Holiness
Cinderella
The Meaning of Now
Chapter Three: The Temples of Relationship
Relationship to God
Relationship to Self
Relationship to Others
Forgiveness
Giving Up Grievances
Relationship to the World
Soul Growth
The Pillars of a Well-Lived Life
Chapter Four: He Did Not Die
Jerusalem
Detroit
Crucifixion
All of It Is Happening Now
Tomb Time
Easter
Violence Against God
The Christ in You Cannot Be Crucified
Sickness
Death
The Crucified World
Chapter Five: Resurrection
The Alchemy of Easter
The Remembrance
If God Is in the Cockpit
He Did Not Ignore
The MountainAwakening from the Dream
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Praise
Also by Marianne W illiamson
Copyright
About the Publisher
OceanofPDF .comPreface
I AM NOT  A Christian scholar , nor am I a Christian. I would not be qualified ,
therefore, to write about the Jesus espoused by the ecclesiastic traditions of
the Christian church. Rather , this book  is based on my more than four decades as a student of
A Cours e in Miracles . The Course  is a self-study program of spiritual
psychotherapy based on universal spiritual themes, employing traditional
Christian concepts expressed in nondogmatic, psychotherapeutic ways. It is
a psycho logical training in the relinquishment of a thought system based on
fear in favor of a thought system based on love. I was a young woman in my twenties when I first picked up A Cours e in
Miracles , searchi ng for meaning and purpose in my life, no different from
anyone at that age then or now. I was intrigued by these words in its
introduction:
The Course can ther efore be summed up very simply in this way:
Nothing r eal can be thr eatened. Nothing unr eal exists. Herein lies the peace of God. Though I found those words compelling, I saw the pages of the book
were filled with traditional Christian language. I didn’ t relate to the
Course ’s terminology and simply thought it wasn’ t for me. A year later I was in such emotional turmoil that the terminol ogy in a
book didn’t matter to me, and I picked it up again. I was looking for content
that would soothe my soul and I didn’ t care what the words were. This
wasn’ t about theology , it was about my life.It quickly became clear that the Course  is not a religion but only
psychological guidance in the ways of forgiveness and love. I had always
been interested in universal spiritual concepts, sensing there is one Truth
spoken in many different ways. Many of the universal themes contained in
the Course  I had encountered elsewhere, including in my own religion ,
Judaism. But what the Course  had offered me that I hadn’ t found before
were practical ways to apply these concepts to my daily life. From the beginning I was bemused by the fact that no author was
named on the cover of A Course in Miracles . The more I read it, however ,
the more I saw an interesting number of statements written in the first
person. “‘No man cometh unto the Father but by me’ does not mean that I am in
any way separate or different from you except in time”* (T-2). * I remember
reading that and thinking, Wait, what? Once I read “I am the Atoneme nt”*
(T-7), I was like, Okay , I get it. As a child I never heard much about Jesus one way or the other. I was
just told we read “the other Bible.” For Jews, there is a distinc t difference
between a reaction to Jesus and a reaction to Christian ity, whic h should
come as a surprise to no one. Jesus was a Jew; he was one of us. Institutional forces within the Christian religion, on the other hand, have
often been a source of violen t antisemitism and murderous oppression
through millennia. None of that has anything to do with Jesus, however . Christia nity and
Jesus are two distinctly different things. At times, the Christian religion has
been known to uphold the highe st ideals of Jesus, while at other times and
places it decidedly has not. At times, as it says in the Course , “some bitter
idols have been  made of him who came only to be brother to the world”*
(MT-88). My interest in Jesus has never included a desire to convert to the Christian
religion, a fact natural enough to me but that had required an explanation to
my parents. When I first became a student of the Course , they were
understandably perplexed. I remember my mother saying to me haltingly ,
“So, help me understand. You’re going to stay in California . . . and give
talks . . . about Jesus . . . to Gentiles ! ?” I slowly nodded. After a few
seconds she simply shook her head, raised an eyebrow , and asked me what I
was going to wear .My father seeme d more concerned. One day he took me aside and said
very intently , “It’s the same God , isn’ t it?”
I said, “Y es, Daddy! Of course it is!”
I remember his looking at me sternly and saying pointedly , “Okay , I just
don’t want to hear anything about a dif ferent God.”
No, it’ s decidedly not a dif ferent God! Permission granted. As I read the Course , I found  the concepts so fascinating that I naively
assumed my Christian friends must sit around and talk about things like
Christ, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus all the time. I figured I just didn’ t know
that because they didn’ t do it when I was in the room! Silly me. What I
came to realize was something quite different. Many Christians  I knew had
even more aversion to all that Chris tian terminology  than I had had. I was
simply ignorant of certain concepts; they were ambivalent about them. The Course  frees Jesus from  the grip of an institutional authority that
seeks to monopolize and ultimately constrict his identity . For some the
Course  deviates from Christian principles, while for others it explains them
in a way that makes sense for the first time. As it says in the Course , its
practitioners come from “all religions and no religion.” They are simply
those who have heard the call for a higher , transformative love. I learned that many Christians as well as non-Christians are filled with a
lot of questions about Jesus. Reading the Course , I was learning some new
ideas, while some of my friends were unlearning old ones. I have seen
thousands of people over the years, both Christian and non-Christian, find
profound psych ological and spiritual value in A Course in Miracles . The
mystic Jesus is reflective of themes at the heart of all the great religions of
the world. He is not a divider into religious silos but rather a connector of
human hearts. A Course in Miracles  does not ask us to believe in God, or in Jesus. It
asks us to believe in each other . It argues that belief itself is meaningless,
but that experie nce is everything. Some believe A Course in Miracles  is a
work of genius created by a clinical psychology professor named Helen
Schucman at Columbia University in the 1960s and 1970s, while others
believe it was written by the Holy Spirit speaking through her. The power of
the Course  is expressed not through the identification of its author but in the
practice of its principles. I feel grateful that I came to the Course  with no previou s understanding
of who Jesus was or is. My mind was devoid of preconceived notions, andat no point during my more than four decades of studying it have I felt
called away from my own religion. What the Course  is askin g us to convert
is our hearts, and that is all. If anything, my study of A Course in Miracles
has connected me more deeply to the mystical roots of Judaism. This book is about the Jesus I know as a student of A Cours e in
Miracles . All the concepts you will read here are based on my
understanding of his teachings. Everyone has their own experience of A
Course in Miracles  and of its author . This is simply mine. OceanofPDF .comIntroduction
MANY  YEARS AGO, I went through a painful ordeal. It was a very rough
period of my life. During that time I had an odd experience. As I lay awake night after
night unable to sleep, I began to sense a strange energy—a shadowy
presence like that of a very thin, tall man, sitting upright at the end of my
bed perpendicul ar to how I was lying. He was simply there. Not doing
anything. Not looking at me. Just there. I had been a student of A Course in Miracles  for a while at that point,
and I was familiar with feeling God’ s presence. But I hadn’ t had any
specific sense of relationship to Jesus. Now , seeing this figure at the end of
my bed, I began to wonder . . . During that period I knew I was in trouble psychologically; I could see
it on the faces of my family  and friends when they looke d at me. I
experienced what today would be called a nervous breakdown. I didn’ t realize it at the time, but what I was going throu gh was
something that most people feel to some extent, but which many have
grown adept at covering over. The gap between the world we’re living in
and the world our hearts are calling for is growing into an increasingly
unsustainable stress point. Today, almost forty years later, we are living a
life so at odds with who we are. Cracking under the strain of it all feels
more like the rule than the exception. Our society calls it a mental health
crisis, but in fact it’s a spiritual one. There is a profound disconnection
between the love in our hearts and how we are living on the earth.The truth of our being is not reflected in the world we see around us, so
much as it is contradicted, obscured, and even violated by the world. The
realities of the modern world do more to bruise than to heal the wounded
soul, and the purpose of our lives is to repair the damage. My mother didn’t know what to do with a daughter who couldn’ t stop
crying, and she told me she would send me to therapy . “My friend Buzz
says you need to see someone,” she said. I responded, “Y a think?”
“But none of that crazy California stuff you do!” she said. (I had been
living in New York, but my mother labeled anything nontraditional
“California.”) “I want it to be a medical doctor . A Jewish psychiatrist.”
Fine, Mom , I thoug ht, just try to help me, please . And when I walked
into the psychiatrist’ s office, one of the first things I said to him was “Look,
I’m a student of a set of books called A Course in Miracles , and you need to
know that. If you’re going to tell me that’s crazy and delusional and what I
need is serious psychiatric help but that’s not it, then this isn’t going to
work.”
To my amazement and eternal gratitude, he leaned over in his chair and
said, “I just finished the Workbook.” He was a student of A Course in
Miracles . It was during that time that I felt the presence at the end of my bed. And
it was also during that time that I proposed a kind of deal to God. In a
moment of despair , I told Him that if He would help me put my life back
together , then I would dedicate the rest of it to Him. Slowly but surely , and with the help of that amazing psychiatrist in
Houston, I healed. I felt as though my head had exploded into thousands of
little pieces, sending shards of my skull out into the outer regions of the
universe. It took time, but when my skull came back together it felt like
something had entered my brain that hadn’ t been there before. My
perceptual framework was somehow rearranged. As the months passed, I forgot about that moment when I had proposed
a deal to God. In fact, I started feeling like my old self again. I didn’ t sense
a presence at the end of my bed anymore, but I still felt something  that I
couldn’ t quite put my finger on. It was as though I had been accompanied in
my grief . Now , however , what had felt so comforting before began to feel
kind of weird. What had felt like a reassuring presence began to feel like a
bit of an intrusion as I was going about my day .In fact, I tried to shoo it away . “Look, I’m extre mely grateful to you. But I’m fine now, really . I’m sure
you have many , many other people to help, and I think you should go do
that! Thanks so much. Really . Bye-bye!”
I was trying to blow of f Jesus. Then not long afterward, an interesting thing happened at a cocktail
party I attended in Houston. The party was at a big house filled with smaller
rooms. The party sort of floated from one room to the next. At one point I entered a room and saw about three or four men dressed
in tuxed os, drinks in hand, standing around talking to each other. And in
what must have been a waking  dream—ancients would have called it a
mystical experience, perhaps—one of the men turned his head and looked
at me. In that moment, I gasped. For I knew who he was. He simp ly looked at me, sayin g without any emotion whatsoever , “I
thought we had a deal.”
And that was it. I have found over the years that I’m far from alone in having had a strange
introduction to Jesus. The prepackaged religious Jesus doesn ’t work for
everyone, including some Chris tians. For many he has become like a fossil
enclosed within a glass case, displayed in a museum but somehow lacking
spiritual force. The world needs help—few are doubting that now—but religious
dogma seems like an inadequate response to the challenges of our time. People long for a sense of spiritual immediacy , not some promise of a
vague and far-off heaven. Nothing narrow , rigid, or inauthentic grabs the
modern soul. If there’ s someth ing that bears witness to our horror at the
pain of living, that speaks to our yearning to escape the traum a of simply
being in this world, and delivers us to realistic hope that things could
actually get better , then we’re definitely open. But not to stultified notions
of an otherworldly benefactor who stands by while humanity suffers. Nope. Too late for that. There’ s a sense among millions that that might have
worked for others at another time, but it won’ t work for us. In turning away from the dogma of organized religion, however , people
don’t necessarily mean to be turning away from God. Many are scanning
the landscape now for new, more vital spiritual experiences, including a
revelation of Jesus that is more relevant to their lives. They’re finding thisrevelation both inside and outside the Christian religion . Surely there’ s
something beyo nd the false choice between a calcified notion of a “Son of
God” and the modern de-juiced assignation of “a great teacher .” We’re
looking for a deliverer not just from our individual sins but from the world’ s
insanity . And nothing less will do. We understand that the problems of our world cry out for something
deeper than either the shallown ess of institutional religion or the bromides
of popular culture. The quest for that something deeper relates to every
collective challe nge we face now, and people know it. This book is an
exploration of the role of Jesus in helping us find what that is. Just as Jesus two thousand years ago came to speak not only to Jews,
the Jesus of today comes to speak not only to Christians. The idea that he
belongs only to Christians, or to practitioners of any other religion, for that
matter—who therefore get to determine precisely who he is and what he
should mean to us—is an idea whose time is passing. While Christianity
claims a kind of monopoly on Jesus, there’ s a growing sense that he belongs
to no one and yet to everyone. The mystic Jesus is a universal Jesus, an aspect of nature itself. I
experience the sun, but no one owns the sun. I experience the breeze, but no
one owns the breeze. I experience love, but no one owns love. Natural
forces can neither be contained nor propertied, and Jesus is a natural force. The mystic Jesus is a path of consciousness, an understanding of how
the universe operates and how we can mentally align with its purposes. The
contemporary mystic is guided by an internal radar that exists within us all,
literally a gift from God. Whether we call that guidance conscie nce, ethics,
our covenant with God, the voice of the Holy Spirit, or Jesus, its wisdom
and illumination is the salvation of the world. When Jesus said, “My kingdom  is not of this world,” that is what he
was referring to—that his kingdom is not an outer but rather an inner
domain of existence, what today we call the psyche. His is a mindset of
love, which he shares with us when we ask him to. The only thing to be
saved from is our own misguide d belief that we are separate and alone in a
random and meaningless unive rse—for that is the source of all fear. The
reason Jesus can be called savior of the world is because he saves us from
our sick thinking about the world. Jesus is a guide to another way of
thinking—thus the builder of another kind of world.The world is a reflection of our thoughts; therefore the primary thing to
be saved  from is our own misg uided thinking. The salvation of the world
lies in the corre ction of the thinking that dominates this world, a kind of
thinking that is rooted in fear and leads inevitably to fearsome
consequences. The problems of the world as we know them are simply
symptoms of a deeper problem: us, and the ways of thinking that trap us in
the hell of our own making. It is thinking based on fear, positing us as
separate from everything—from anything larger than ourselves, from each
other , and from the world at large. This thinking is deeply untrue and deeply
insane. It wound s the world because it breaks the heart. It causes inevitable
suffering because it is so at odds with the truth of who we are. We need to
correct that thinking, and then we will correct the world. We need to heal
our wounded souls, and then we will heal the world. It is imperative that we stop behaving in ways so violently destructive to
ourselves and to others and to the planet on which we live, or humanity will
not survive itself. Our violent behavior stems from our violent thinking; it is
our thinking, therefore, that is killing us. Yet how do we change at this
point? Is anyone seriously thinking that traditional psychotherapy , or
psychopharmacology , or theology is going to save us? “A universal
theology is impossible, but a universal experience is not only possible but
necessary”* (MT -77), says the Course . And what is that experience? What is the shift in thinking that will lead
to a change in behavior that will lead to a different kind of world? The
spiritual path is simply the journey of the heart, and as the world embarks
on that journey then our world is going to change. There are many guides on that journey , and Jesus is one of them. The
mystic Jesus is not a theologica l construct; he is a spiritual force. He is a
presence within us through which we can forge an intimate relationship
with God, ourse lves, and each other. He becomes a lived exper ience as we
practice the principles that are the core of his message to the world. He is an
intercession from  a thought system beyond our own, a master healer of the
human race. Jesus is a bridge to another kind of thinking, better thought of as a living
inner guide than as a stained-glass icon. He is a reminder of who and what
we truly are. He stands in the breach between the neurotic, weak, fearful, and
judgmental you and the strong and powerful, forgiving and most gloriousyou. He can lead you from one to the other . His mind, joined with ours, can
shine away the fear -laden sense of self that plagues us. That is the revelation of the mystic Jesus. He will lead us through the
darkness in our mind, to the light that God placed there and that cannot be
erased. The mystic Jesus is not an idol. He is an evolutionary Elder Brother ,
not forcing himself on anyone but available to everyone. The subject of this
book is who he is, and who we ourselves become when our thoughts align
with his. In 1992, I published a book called A Return to Love . In the chapter on
forgiveness, I told my readers I totally understood that forgiveness could be
hard. Why? Because I had once been stood up for a date to the Olympics! I kid you not. In fact, not only was that the most extreme example I
could come up with at the time for how hard it could be to forgive; I even
remember others telling me that that was their favorite section of the book! Oh my, what innocent times those were. I had not yet been  deeply
deceived in life, and I had not yet deeply deceived myself. I was giving
myself kudos for forgiving someone who had merely stood me up for a
date. I really had no idea—yet—how hard for giveness could be. Over time, life did to me what it does to everyone who lives long
enough: it showed itself to me. And I’ve learned things I could never have
learned had I not come to experience the harshness of the world. I’ve
learned that behind my mistakes, and behind the mistakes of others, lies a
corrective mechanism that some call grace. As life got tougher , I began to realize that the cliché is true: you get
bitter or you get better . If our habitual reaction to the loveles sness of the
world is to toughen up, to wall ourselves off, then we will only experience
more pain. For we actually create what we defend against, attracting to
ourselves the very thing that we fear might happen. But we can choose a
better way; we can replace our fears with love. Our safety lies not in
defensiveness but in defenselessness. Perfect love is inviolable: we were not
created to be vulnerable to the lovelessness in ourselves or others. It’s not a
mantle of attack but a mantle of forgiveness that will protect us from life’s
storms. Instead of trying to fight the world, we can realize the victory has
already been won. We need not get more haggard and more weary as the
years go by. Accepting the Atonement, seeing that only love is real, wecome to understand that we might as well calm down. In any instant, we
can accept what’ s true. And there we are released. That is the mindset of enlightenment, the gift of the mystic Christ. OceanofPDF .comChapter One
The Mystic Jesus
AN EVENT  OCCURRED two thousand years ago that changed the world,
ultimately bringing to an end one era of human civilization and beginning
another . The birth, teachings, crucifixion, and resurrection of one man, a
Jew named Jesus, have overshadowed the march of history . In his name
some of the greatest elements of civilization have emer ged, and in his name
some of the worst elements of civilization have emer ged. He did not set out
to found an institutional church,  yet one arose that has claimed for millennia
a monopoly on who he is. Now , at a time of historic change, in order to pave a sustainable way
forward, humanity needs to question everything that went before. Interpretations, philosophies, laws, concepts, assumptions, entire ways of
being left over from the past are being reviewed, transformed, and renewed. And they must be. Humanity has reached a point in the road where the path
of least resistan ce is a path toward global destruction. For we are stuck in
ways of thinking and behavi ng that are rooted in war—w ar against
ourselves, again st each other , even against the earth itself. These ways are
not working. New ways are being born. Since Jesus is fundamental to the worldview of billions of people on the
planet, an inqui ry into his identity and power plays a signifi cant role in
rethinking the world. The Jesus of traditional Christianity has a musty smell
for many , while the mystic Jesus has a raw, transformational, and very
modern power . The mystic path is the path of the psyche, and it is there that
we are most shackled. We are shackled not by external chains but by
spiritual ignoran ce, by a misund erstanding of who we are and why we are
here. Jesus is a key to the unlocking of our internal imprisonment. Ratherthan lacking practical relevance, the mystic Jesus has a shatteri ng effect on
the illusions of meaninglessness  that plague us. When looked at freed from
the filter of centuries of predetermined interpretation, he does not fall away
into insignificance but rather shines forth in an almost startling modern
light. Jesus is as meaningful today as he was when he was born. In the
words of St. Augustine, he is “ever ancient, ever new .”
He was born two thousand years ago, but in very real ways we’re only
beginning to understand. As the twenty-first century lurch es ahead with full force, collec tive despair
increases every day. From climate change to war to authoritarian uprisings,
the era before us feels less like the promise of a bright future and more a
demand that we pay for past mistakes. From environmental recklessness to
military and economic imperial ism to authoritarianism run amok, our past
sins seem  to be pressing down on us like IOUs that have all come suddenly
due. Humanity is overwhelmed by its karmic debts, as thoug h there are
simply too many to pay back and retribution is now inevitable. That’ s certainly one way to look at it, of course. In truth, however , humanity is very much at choice as to what will
happen next. Two starkly different futures stand before us: either the
immeasurable suffering of huma n civilization in continuous decline, or the
advent of a new world now struggling to be born. One is a world of global
destruction, the other a world of global rebirth. Both are possibilities; in
fact, both are already occurring. Global decline results from humanity’ s accumulated greed and
lovelessness, our continuing to do things the way we’ve been doing them. The possibility of rebirth emer ges from our eternal yearning for the good
and the true, and our willingness to radically change. The former violates
the web of life, while the latter supports and aligns with it. From climate
change to increasing nuclear and military threats, the world that’s declining
is declining fast, while the world that’s emer ging is emer ging a bit too
slowly . Right now we’re in a frantic race for time. This book is about the miracle of transformative change, a deliverance
from our psychological propensity to self-annihilating thought and
behavior . Such change is both deeply religious as well as deeply
psychological. As A Course in Miracles  says, psychotherapy and religi on
are at their peak the same thing. Both at their best are a healing of the mind,reconnecting the mind and heart in a way that rebalances the psyche and
heals one’s life. The mystic Jesus lies at the heart of that change. He is a
generator of a celestial speedup, a process by which we leap beyond the
confines of our current stage of evolution to become the people  we need to
be in order to save the world in time. OceanofPDF .comHave You Been Saved by JEEZUS?!? Decades ago, strolling through New York’s Central Park one beautiful
sunny day, my friend and I were approached by someone who in those days
was called a “Jesus freak.”
“Sister ,” the earnest stranger said to me beseechingly , “have you been
saaaved ?”
By that time I’d been a student of A Course in Miracles  for a while. “Well . . . ,” I said slowly . “That actually depends on what you mean
when you say that. If you mean, have I been saved by a higher power from
the crazy , neurotic thoughts that otherwise perform like toxic forces to
destroy my peace of mind, then I guess, yes, I would have to say that I
have!” I nodded knowingly . “Psychologically , of course.”
“But have you been saved by JEEZUS ? !”
“That’ s a very interesting question you’re asking,” I said. “Because if
you think of Jesus as in fact a personification of Love, a force of
consciousness that is the ultimate Reality within me and all human beings,
then I guess, yes, I have been saved by Jesus. I mean, it totally  changed my
life! But if you’re talking about a doctrinal, dogmatic principle of
institutionalized religion then I would have to say no, not really ,
because . . .”
Our new friend looked thorough ly flummoxed, almost as if he’d seen a
ghost. I remember my boyfriend taking me firmly by the arm and saying,
“Marianne, let’ s just keep walking.”
The young man we encountered that day was talking about something
very different than I was. He had found his understanding of Jesus in an
institutionalized setting, his Jesus narrowly defined by a specific dogmatic
interpretation. I found mine in A Course in Miracles . And at Christie’ s . . .In 2017, I was living in New York and received a phone call from my friend
Maria. She told me she had a friend who worked at Christ ie’s auction
house, which had Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi  on display. Would I
want to see it? I had read abou t the picture that morning, how a painting of Christ
considered by scholars to be a Leonardo original had just been purchased
by a mystery buyer. The painting was on display at Christie’ s but was going
to be removed that afternoon. I was curious to see it, and I was grateful to Maria for calling. She and I
agreed to meet at the auction house, where we were led by her friend to the
short line still left at the end of the viewing period. We were just chatting
casually as though this was any other museum or gallery visit—until I stood
before the painting, that is. Within a moment, I was stunned. Here was a painting of Jesus, dressed in blue Renaissance robes,  making
the sign of the cross with his right hand and in his left holding a clear
crystal orb signa ling the celestial spheres of heaven. I gazed at the painting,
and it was beau tiful, of course. But as I continued to gaze at it something
mysterious began to happen; the painting turned into something more. I have never had an experience quite like it. I’d seen Leonardo ’s Mona
Lisa and Michelangelo’ s Pietà  and David , plus many other great pieces of
art. I have visited some of the greatest museums in the world. But I had
never seen anything like what I saw that day. I was somehow deliver ed
beyond the painting . Salvator Mundi  became  some kind of portal to what
lay behind it, to what Jesus is on some level that had never before been
revealed to me. I saw something I didn’ t even know existed. It sounds kind of silly, but it was words that I experien ced. It was as
though I was transported inside two words, as though they were not just
words but somehow realms of experience. The words themselves were
simple enough: they were “tenderness” and “power .”
I saw that Jesus is both those things in infinite degree. He is a gentleness
more tender than the kisses of a billion babies, and at the same time a power
so powe rful it creates and manages universes. How such thing s exist I do
not know , but I saw them when I looked at Salvator Mundi. I was left alone to stare at the painting, the last person to see it before
movers came to take it away . Maria and I left Christie’ s, but my thoughts
were still with the painting and my experience as I looked at it. I wascurious who the mystery buyer  might be, and I kept scouring the internet
for information. Who, I kept thinking, was the human being who would get
to have this tr easur e in their possession? A couple of hours later the buyer ’s identity was announced, and I was
shocked. For the purchaser was none other than Mohammed bin Salman,
the dicta torial Saudi Arabian prince who would soon be involved in the
alleged murder of Jamal Khasho ggi. MBS had bought the painti ng for $450
million as the centerpiece of the new Louvre Abu Dhabi. It all just felt so wrong. How could MBS, of all people, be the
purchaser? How  could a brutal dictator be able to purchase such a priceless
jewel? Then after a minute or two, my thinking changed. What could
possibly be a more powerful thing? This wasn’ t wrong; it couldn’ t be more
right. Jesus is Salvator Mundi , after all. Where else, and with whom else,
would the savior of the world possibly wish to be? OceanofPDF .comIn His Name
With all the churches that have been built in the name of Jesus, and all the
wars that have been fought in his name, why is there so little love in his
name? With roughly a third of humanity professing devotion to Jesus of
Nazareth, why is the world such a desperately sorrowful and violent place
for so many of the world’ s inhabitants? The problem is not with Jesus; the problem is with us. Peopl e praise
him and espouse him and build edifices to honor him. Yet the world remains
in spiritu al darkness. While billions say they believe in Jesus, belief means
nothing in the absence of lived experience. It is a deeper manifestation of
his love for which the world yearns now . “It is time to inject a new dime nsion of love into the veins of human
civilization,” said the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. That dimension
of love is a mystic and universal love, emer ging anew from the human heart
and illum inating the human brain. Calling on Jesus is one way to invoke
that love. In order to understand the emer gence of this mystic Jesus, it helps to go
back in time. Then we can unde rstand more clearly how his light became so
obscured to begin with. Following the death of Jesus, two major arteries of thought developed
around his life and teachings. One would become the ecclesiastical
Christian church. This tradition emphasizes doctrine and dogm a, plus the
role of the church in overseeing and guiding our relationship to God. This
artery represents an external, or exoteric, orientation, with the church a
material gatewa y—and gatekee per—to the understanding of our spiritual
reality . A second artery , often rejected by traditional Christian churches, has
nevertheless exerted a continuous pull on the human heart. Mystics such as
Teresa of Ávila, Julian of Norwich, Meister Eckhart, Teilhard de Chardin,the Celtic saints, and the Gnostic Gospels contained in the Nag Hammadi
manuscripts have elucidated teachings of Christ based not on the
externalized doctrines of an organized church but on an inner relationship
with the divine. Mystic teachings represent an internal, or esoteric,
orientation: a spiritual path to a more enlightened understan ding of the
deeper meaning of our lives. Mystics have been appreciated by many
throughout history , yet they’ve often been driven under ground, both
literally and figuratively . At times they’ve been marginalize d and even
violently rejected when refusing to bow to the church’ s drive for power and
control. A contest between the two orientations has raged for centuries—
sometimes violently , sometimes subtly—and in a way still does. The mystic
Jesus emer ging today arises from our collective consciousness, responding
to a modern yearning for a healing of our hearts and minds not found in
religious doctrin e alone. A Course in Miracles  is part of the ancient mystic
legacy , particularly relevant for an age when the nature of the psyche, and
of the lar ger universe, are core to our quest for meaning. The mystic Jesus is an aspect of consciousness, alive in each of us, not
as an abstraction but as a lived experience. The dark night into which the
baby Jesus was born in Bethlehe m is very much the dark sky of our modern
world, and the star that heralds his birth is signaling the birth of something
new within us. In our arrogance we think so much has changed in the past two
thousand years, but in some fundamental ways it has not. Humanity is still
stumbling about  in darkness. With our young killing each other and killing
themselves at such an alarming rate, the earth itself bucklin g under the
weight of our misuse, and weapons we’ve created perched to incinerate us
all in the space of an hour, we cannot truthfully tell ourselves that things are
going well. The savagery and barbarism of times past are reflected in horrifying
ways among us now, our minds gripped in a vise from which we seemingly
cannot escape. For all the genius that has graced the world throughout
human history , intellectual knowledge and the expertise of our greatest
minds have not saved us. Nor will they. The power of the brain is
extraordinary , but by itself it will not save us from ourselves. The heart
alone is our salvation.The mystic Jesus is a deeper alignment of heart and mind, redirecting
human intelligence and remindi ng us who we are. He was a historic figure,
of course, but he is ahistorical as well. He was present as a man on the earth
two thousand years ago, and he is present as a spirit within our psyches
even now. He is a name for the unalterable love that all of us share, out of
which we were created and through which all of us are one. OceanofPDF .comWhat Is the Christ? Imagine a time in life when you were happiest. Wasn’t it a time when any
feeling of separation from the world, or separation from another human
being, had vanished? Whether hiking in the wilderness or sailing on the
open sea, whether witnessing the birth of a baby or holding a lover in your
arms, wasn’ t there a moment when you felt you had a glimpse of what life
was meant to be? Everyone alive has a haunting memory of a primordial oneness , like an
ancient melody we can’t quite get out of our heads. “A memory of home
keeps haunting you, as if there were a place that called you to return,
although you do not recognize the voice, nor what it is the voice reminds
you of”* (WB-3 39). It is a song that beckons us, the sound of which we
cannot escape. And we seek through whatever means possible to reclaim it. Drugs, alcohol, sex, shopping, whatever activity provides even a
momentary escape from the dullness of our ordinary human existence,
we’re all over it. We know on some level that the world as we find it here is
not the world that we wish to inhabit. For this world is not our spiritual
home; its roots are not deep enough to sustain us. We come from
somewhere beyo nd this world, from an oceanic realm of bliss that is the
Mind of God. In that primordial bliss we were created, and to that
primordial bliss we long to return. Our disconnection from that state of
being has left us in chronic though subconscious hysteria and grief. We long
unceasingly for the memory of who we are. God is an infinite ocean of Love, not figuratively but literally , of which
we are part and from which we cannot be separated. We are ideas in His
Mind, and “ideas leave not their source”* (WB-242). We have the power to
forget what’ s true, but we don’t have the power to establish what’ s true. We
are like children  of the wealthiest, most powerful father who have forgottenour identity and the inheritance that comes with it. We wander endlessly in
search of something that cannot be found but only realized. The world as we know it perpetuates our forgetfulness, constantly
disrupting our relationship to God by disrupting our relationship to each
other . Not remembering Him, we do not remember ourselves, and not
remembering ourselves, we do not remember one another . The world
teaches us we are separate from  Him and from That on which our very
existence depends. The world teaches us that we are who we are not and
that we are not who we are. It teaches us that the world is meaningless,
when in fact we are its meaning. Our souls are wounded, and in our
woundedness we suf fer. Healing, therefore, lies in remembering who we are. We are more than just bodies who die; we are spirits who live forever . We are not just an accumulation of worldly experiences, some good and
some bad; we are an unalterabl e innocence that lies forever at the heart of
who we are. And through the presence of God within us, with our love we
are infinitely powerful. In making that shift from a crude and delusional to a transcendent sense
of self, we chan ge everything. Enlightenment is a shift in self-perception
from body-identification to spirit-identification, paving the way out of
spiritual darkne ss into spiritual light. On the level of the body, we are
weighed down by the world; on the level of spirit, we are lifted above it. On
the level of the body , we are separate; on the level of spirit, we are one. Imagine a wheel with an infinite number of spokes. Now imagine that every
person in the world is a spoke . Normally , we’d identify spokes by their
position on the wheel, where they are separate from all the other spokes. Yet our ultimate  identity is not our position on the rim. Our spiritual
reality is where the spokes begin , at the hub of the wheel. There  we are one
with all the other spokes, at a mystical source point that is both our
beginning and our end. One name for that source point, that mystical
oneness, is the Christ. The Christ is a name for our ultimate Reality , the
bedrock spiritual foundation of who we really are. If you go deep enough into your mind and deep enough into mine, we
share mental images that Carl Jung called universal archetypes in our
collective unconscious. The idea of the Christ mind takes things one step
further . At the deepest level, we don’t just share images; we actually shareone mind. That is the esoteric  meaning of the line “There is only one
begotten Son.” In the realm of bodies, there are billions of us on the planet. On the level of spirit, only one of us is here. To traditional Christians, Jesus the man was the one begotten Son. To
the myst ic, the Sonship is more than one man. It is the joining of all of us. It
is God’ s creation, through which we are united eternally with God and with
each other, never to be separate  except within an illusion of the mind. The
evidence of the physical senses reveals a world of separation; the evidence
of the heart reveals we are one. And the illusion of our separation does not
just deceive; it causes us great pain. We find real comfort only in the truth
of the heart. When I first began studying the Course , I was in my midtwenties. For
many people, that is a most difficult decade. The innocence of childhood is
replaced by what is often a brutal awakening to the realities of the modern
world, causing a distress to the psyche that can be quite extreme. This
anxiety is not always a dysfunctional response to the insanity of our time,
but rathe r a functional one. It is a call to spiritually awaken. Just as physical
pain is a signal to attend to a physical wound, psychic pain can be a signal
to attend  to a spiritual one. All of us at one point or another receive an
urgent call from the depth of our souls to remember who we are and why
we’re here. We are love, and we are here to love. We are mind, and on the
level of mind we are one. Everything else is false information. The world we live in has atomized our existence, turning everything
into a commodi ty and every person into a consumer . It is dominated by
soulless forces that seek to demystify the ultimate mystery of our existence. It has trapped our minds in mental cages, filters through which we are
trained to perceive ourselves and others in misguided ways. Within those
filters there is no higher meaning. There is no transcendence. There is no
rest for the soul. The journey of enlightenment is not a learning but an unlea rning—
unlearning those attitudinal strictures that have boxed us in and stolen our
joy. We come to see that we are not just material beings, trapped in the
confines of our mortal existen ce. As creations of God, we are so much
more. “Christ” is a word for that “so much more”: our higher Self, our
spiritual reality , our life beyond the limitations of the body . To think we are nothing but the physical self is simply an illusion. Just
as a plane taking  off appears from the ground to get smaller as it flies intothe sky, just as the earth feels still although it’s moving at thousands of
miles per hour, and just as matter is made up of tiny particles we can’t see
with the naked eye, the reality  of the spiritual self, while unseen by the
physical eye, is our ultimate reality nonetheless. Christ is the inner self that
lies seem ingly trapped beneath the illusions of the world. To remember it is
a form of “salvation” because it saves us from an illusion of who we are. The Light in which we were  created and through which we are
inseparable from  God and from each other is real whether we believe it or
not, just as the earth is round though many believed it was flat. We’re like
people in a very bright room putting our fingers in front of our eyes and
complaining that it’s dark in here. The ego is merely the false belief that we
are separate. It is a self-perp etuating illusion chaining us to repeated
misperceptions of ourselves and those around us; enlightenment is the
process by which we burst free of those chains and by so doing help free
others. Enlightenment begins as an abstract concept, then takes a journey
without distance from the head to the heart. Of course, it seems “real” to us
that someone was unkind or mean to us, that we were rejected or failed to
achieve somethi ng we desperately wanted, or that an important relationship
failed. Of cours e, it seems “real” to us that innocent people are murdered,
unjust wars occur , and people starve to death. Those things are real in our
mortal experience, and they should not be ignored. But such dramas are
happening within a world that is itself a veil in front of a truer truth—a
world of three-d imensional reality that, while real in one sense, is not our
ultimate Reality . They are the manifestations of humanity having forgotten
who we are, and they will change accordingly when we wake up and
remember . As we move further into a new millennium, who among us does not feel
a sense that the world as we know it is fundamentally askew , as evidenced
not just in our individual lives but in the very way that we are living on the
planet? Who doesn’ t recognize  that constant examples of violence and
destruction are symptoms of a deeper disquiet? Who isn’t looking in some
way for a higher purpose, a deeper sense of meaning, and a transformed
sense of self? Such questioning is when the spiritual quest begins. And once it begins,
the path opens before us. Asking deep in our hearts for a way past theinsanity of the world, we are led—often circuitously , always mysteriously
—to something that opens the inner door . The mystic Jesus is one name on that door. He is someone whose mind
was purified of any thoughts of separation, or illusion, and who has been
authorized by God to help the rest of us achieve that state should we so ask. In no moment does he succumb to the lure of ego, and with his help we can
learn not to succumb to it either . The door having been opened within him,
he has the powe r to help open it within us. He is not the only path to God,
but if he is yours then you come to realize it. He is an Internal Teacher , an
evolutionary guide back to the primordial oneness to which our souls so
long to return. He is called Jesus the Christ because he lived in the world of
illusion yet remembered a higher truth. He perceived this world yet saw
beyond it. He lived outwardly on the material plane yet inwardly on the
spiritual. In him the two became as one. Since all minds are joined, the spiritual achievement of anyone then
becomes availab le to all. In remembering the mystic Jesus, we remember
who we are and who others are in relation to us. In calling on him we
invoke our true selves, the memory of which saves us from the misguided
thinking that otherwise torments us. All false beliefs emer ge from the misperception that we are separate. A
thought that we are separate is like a shadow before the sun, keeping us in
emotional darkness. We think we are worse than others, or we think we are
better than other s; we think they are judging us, or we are judging them; we
attack and defen d in a chronic, self-perpetuating loop. We live in a constant
hell of believing we are separate from those from whom we cannot be
separate. We long for love, we long for the feeling of that primordial
oneness, yet we constantly think and behave in ways that make the
separation seem real. Guilt is the ego’s most powerful tool, and the pain it causes us is its
peak experience. Jesus is like a rope that will lift us from a bottomless well
of anxiety , an escape from the hell of our own self-hatred. In teaching us to
forgive each other , he shows us how to love ourselves. Do unto others what you would have others do unto you, becau se what
you do to them you actually are doing to yourself. The Golden Rule is
golden for that reason: what I think about you or do to you, I am thinking
about or doing to myself.In a realm beyond what our physical senses perceive, there is no place
where you stop and I start. In judging you I am judging myself; in attacking
you I am attack ing myself. Whatever I give to you I am giving to myself. As we realize this higher Truth, notions of separate identities and
conflicting need s are dissolved into the nothingness from whence they
came. As we realize we are spiritually one, we become “generous out of
self-interest”* (MT-14). Our perceptions are recalibrated, giving us a far
different sense of our responsibility to others. So simple. Yet so much easier said than done. The illusions of the world are strong, none more so than the perception
of some one’s guilt. Knowing that beyond a person’ s mistake lies the
innocence of their soul is easy enough to accept in theory, but boy, it’s very
hard at times to get there. Sometimes taking the leap from knowing a
person is spiritu ally innocent to perceiving them that way is more than we
can achieve by ourselves. Jesus is someone with the authority , should we request it, to enter our
minds and share with us his ability to love unconditionally . Sometimes it’s
easy enough to just lighten up, to let something go. But someti mes it’s not
so easy at all. Someone truly  betrayed us, or triggered the deepest of
childhood woun ds. It feels at such times that it would take a miracle for us
to forgive. The mystic Jesus is that miracle. “Your mind and mine can unite
in shining your ego away , releasing the strength of God into everything you
think and do”* (T -64). He cannot enter our thought system uninvited, for that would be a
violation of our free will. But if we take a moment, even a mom ent, and call
to him, he will “respond fully to your slightest invitation”* (T-90). He is
authorized by God to help us in any moment we’re willing to see beyond
the separation. Our good intentions are not enough, but our willingness is
everything. Whe n we’re sincerely willing to see beyond the veil of illusion
—the thoughts of guilt we are all so good at—to the innocent truth of who
all of us are, we experience a shift in perception. That shift is a miracle,
changing us on the level of thought and ultimately changing our lives. Let’s say you’re having an argument with someone you love. They’re
attacking and you’re defending  yourself, or you’re attacking and they’re
defending. Usually in such cases, of course you’re sure you’re  right! The
wheel of suffering goes round and round, nailing you to the cross of your
own misery and destroying the fabric of your relationship. People todaywill give you an endless array of terms for what’ s going on between you,
from “trauma,” to “victimization,” to “post-traumatic stress disorder ,” to
“narcissism.” All of which might be true, and might need to be looked at. But none of those terms, or their analysis, will deliver you from the hell of
your own suffering until you make your way to forgiveness. For in holding
on to someone else’s guilt, we are holding on to our own. Our willingness
to see through to another person’ s innocence—extending our perception
beyond the level of their mistake to knowledge of who they truly are—is
the for giveness that sets us free. Just stop for a moment. Be willing to interrupt the cycle of what might
be by now a somewhat vicious back-and-forth. Take a deep breath and
remember that “beyond this world there is a world I want”* (WB-235)—a
Reality that lies beyond this world. Silently bless the other person; perhaps
inwardly atone for your own participation in the ridiculousness of how you
have both behaved. If you ask Jesus to help you, he will. Tell him you’re
willing to see this person the way he does—they in their innocence, and you
in yours . Just take that one instant, send love, pray for a miracle, and then
notice what begins to happen. Prayer is the medium of miracles* (T-3), and
it never goes unheard. Dear God,
Please show me how to see this differ ently . Show me how to see beyond the illusions of the world. I am willing to see this person’ s innocence, and I am willing to see mine. Dear God, I am so trigger ed. I cannot see past my feelings of insult or injury . But I am willing to. May the mind of Jesus overshadow mine, and lift me as he is lifted,
that I might be set fr ee. Amen
As you do this, subtle shifts will begin to occur . Something will be said,
other things will not be said. Things will change. All minds are joined, and
on a subconscious level the other person experienced your bless ing. As you
released your judgment, you released yourself. You didn’ t need more
analysis here. You needed a miracle. And you received one. The world as we know it is dominated by the ego’s thought system and it
can be overwhelmingly strong . Its lure is like a heat-seeking missile,
constantly on alert to the tinies t evidence of another person’ s guilt. Why?Because as long as I think you’re guilty—of anything, even the slightest
thing—then I will not see you are one with me. I will then feel pain that in
my spiritual ignorance I think is due to something that you did. In fact my
pain is due to my denying your innocence, for in denying your perfection I
am denying my own. Free will allows us to do this all day every day, and most of us to some
extent do. We attack, we judge, we defend, we withhold— constantly
deflecting the love that is our natural inheritance. There is, however ,
another way. “Eventually everyone begins to recognize, howeve r dimly , that
there must be a better way. As this recognition becomes more firmly
established, it becomes a turning point”* (T-22). The mystic Jesus is exactly
that. Think of him as a better way. The most powerful thing we can do when
we’re in mental torment about anything is to say to ourselves the following:
“I am determine d to see this differently”* (WB-32). Our greate st power to
change the world lies in our power to think about it dif ferently . The mystic Jesus is a bridge of perception between who we are when
we are lost in ego, and who we are when we are at home in God. He is like
someone who helps us cross the river when we’re too tired to go on. He’s
not above us, but he is ahead of us in time, like a gentle guide reaching out
to a stumbling child and lifting us above the rocks. Jesus closes the gap between who we truly are and who we too often
think we are. When we think and behave in ways that are not true to our
real selves—tied to fear-based reactions based on wounds from the past—
he enters into the breach between our eternal reality and the false, fractal
self that would replace it. He cannot enter without an invitation, for free
will reigns supreme. But we cannot call on him in vain. Having fully ascended into the ethers of pure love, Jesus has gained the
authority to override the ego’s dictates. Having achieved full actualization
within himself, he has the power to intercede on our behalf when fear has
hacked our internal operating system and hides the truth of who we are. When Michelangelo was asked how he created a statue, he said that
when he went to the quarry to look at pieces of marble, he imagined that
God had already created the statue of David  or Moses , or the Pietà  and so
forth. Michelan gelo saw his job as removing the excess marble that
surrounded the perfect statue already existing within it. We’re both the statue within the marble as well as the sculptor who
makes it visible. Hiding inside the marble is the truth of who we are. Godhas already created the perfect you and me, for we are thoughts within His
Mind. Our mission is to rid ourselves of the accumulated marble that has
been added since we got here, all the layers of dysfunction and fear
resulting from our exposure to the pain of the world. We are then left “naked and unashamed,” stripped of the layers of fear
and false hood now surrounding our true self. Like plaque that can build up
in the body and decrease blood flow to the heart, a mental plaque builds up
within our minds. Our spiritual purpose is to unlearn the fear built up in our
psyches, to remember the innocence and love that is the truth of who we
are. As our true self is the statue within the marble, Jesus is a sculptor who
can work with us to make it visible. If you were able to drop your fear, your
anger , your neuroses, your anxiety , your character defects, your judgments,
your addictions, your armor , your defensiveness, your attack thoughts, and
your sense of victimization, there would be one thing left: the real you. And
that is the Christ within. Jesus is one who became that true self. He is the actualized potential of
what a human being can be. He is both a template and a guide to the self we
wish to be in the world. Jesus is an example, a teacher , and a gift. He is a
mystic power that can take us home. OceanofPDF .comThe Only Story Ever Told
The life of Jesus is like a hologra m that reveals to us the mysteries of the
universe. The more we penetrat e the mysteries of his life, the more deeply
we understand our own. The story of the spirit is the story of the psyche, not
only his but also ours. His birth, life, crucifixion, and resurrection are not
just the stuff of exoteric religion; they are codes and clues and harbingers of
a different kind of existence. They are not just metaphor s; they are
principles that activate a reality that lies beyond this world. Beyond this world there is a world we want, a world revealed not by the
outer eye but by an inner eye. That world is an eternal reality unseen
because it is eclipsed, hidden as with a veil by an egoic, fear-based
worldview . The world beyond that veil is a world of endless love, the one ultimate
reality , the Mind of God. It isn’t evident because it’s hidden from our view ,
yet we are the ones who are hiding it. We hide it with the kinds of thoughts
we think. We have denied ourselves vision of that world by denying it is
there. The light we seek is not something to be found but something to be
chosen, not something we can get but only something we can give. It’s not
some other place but rather another realm of perception. It is the same life
we are living now , transformed by love. The opening of the inner eye is not symbolic; it’s what happe ns when
the veil is removed and we can see. My inner eye was opened, if only for a
moment, when I looked at Salvator Mundi. I glimpsed another world in all
its tenderness and power . It was a world invoked by forgiveness, in which
our willingness to bless each other is far stronger than our temptation to
blame, and the power of an infinite love casts out the power of fear . The mystic Jesus casts out fear, thus breaking the chain of evil and
returning us to our right minds. In the presence of his love, the feardissolves. And the spirit is reborn. Jesus was a man, yes, but he is also a spirit as alive today as he was two
thousand years ago. The birth of Jesus as a physical being was the birth of
the historical Christ; the advent of divine love into our thinking is the birth
of Christ into the world today . He does not appear now as a man but as a
state of consciousness, which does not make him any less real. The very
concept of reality is transformin g as we move further into the twenty-first
century , humani ty evolving beyond the limited framework of primacy given
to external factors at the expense of internal forces. Once we recognize that
the world of matter is simply a world of effects, the causes of which lie in
consciousness, we begin to pay much more attention to the goings-on of the
inner life. We will not stop war or environ mental degradation or world hunger or
rampant addicti on or any of the stresses that plague us today until we
address the inner dynamics—t he perversions of heart—that give rise to
them. The probl em of world hunger, for instance, is not hunge r itself; the
problem is that the people of the world find it tolerable that a child should
starve. There is no dearth of food. There is only a dearth of willingness to
put love for our fellow human beings before our acquiescence to a system
that in essence doesn’ t care if children starve. Global poverty is a symptom,
not a cause. Its cause is our collective disconnection from adherence to the
principles of a moral cosmos. That Jesus works with us on the level of
cause, on the plane of consciousness, does not make him less relevant but
even more relevant to the practical concerns of humanity today . The Second Coming is synonymous with the evolution of humanity into
our self-actualiz ed state. The Second Coming isn’t the reappearance of
someone who left and will return; it’s a remembrance of what has never left
but has been obscured. The mystic Jesus is the Alpha and Omega that
always was and always will be. His reappearance in the world  means our
remembrance of who we are. How many times have people said to me, “I don’t know who I am,” or
“I can’t find a place for mysel f in this world,” or “I don’t think I even
belong here.” The world blinds us to who we are and why we’re here. The
world as we know it is not home to the true self, and we cannot find
ourselves within its walls. Even at its best it is a rickety , shoddy house
compared to the light-filled mansion that exists within.Yet the point is not to ignore the world or to reject it. We are here to
transform it. Our purpose is to become the light that casts out the darkness,
to be harbinger s of a different world by becoming different people. The
more we understand the deeper  meaning of events, the more powerful we
are at transforming them. The deeper meaning of any situation is a universal longing for love. All
of us long for it; all of us are looking for it. The miracle occurs when we
realize we ourselves are here to provide it. We can see God’ s love only when we are willing to expres s it. We
cannot find what we are looking for without realizing who we are. I think of
all the years I was struggling so hard to “find God,” not realizing that I
would see His love manifest in my own life only when I sough t to make it
manifest in the lives of others. Any wall we build to keep out others will
keep God out of our conscious awareness. The only way to find His love is
by giving it away . The mystical birth of Jesus is the opening of the heart. Just as Mary
gave birth to the historical Jesus, the mystic Jesus enters the world through
us. He is born any moment that we are willing to give birth to him. He is
born again in any moment of unconditional love. This isn’t simply an
abstract idea; it’ s a practical moment we either do or do not choose. In every moment we are making a choice, whether we make it
consciously or we make it unconsciously . We can either open our heart or
close it, and our lives unfold accordingly . In every instant we are generating
a thought, and every thought will have an ef fect. How often we choose to blame instead of bless, judge instead of accept,
take instead of give. And why? Because we were trained to think that way. The ego constan tly tempts us to separate ourselves off from the rest of the
universe. But the mystic Jesus has the power to override the ego’s dictates,
to save us from our chronic temptation to withhold our love. Choosing to
align with him, we cocreate with God a dif ferent kind of world. Our power to work miracles lies in our choice to think differently . Choosing forgiveness, choosing to extend our perceptions beyo nd the level
of someone’ s guilt, choosing to see ourselves as present in any situation to
be the presence of love, we align our minds with the Mind of God and rise
above the ego. The thinking of the world is no longer like quicksand that
sucks us into it. The vibrations of higher consciousness—that is, thoughts oflove— make us invulne rable to the chaos that dominates the world. In fact,
they make us its transformers. And that is the miracle. A miracle begins as a shift in our thinking, a
change on the causal level of things that then transforms the realm of
effects. Even the tiniest candle casts out darkness. “All expressions of love
are maximal”* (T-3), like a tincture of God’ s power that makes all the
difference.
_OceanofPDF.com_The_Mystic_Jesus_The_Mind_of_Love_-_Marianne_Williamson.txt
Summarize the following text section accurately and concisely. Maintain specific details and numerical information, and use anti-repetition mechanisms:

        OceanofPDF. comDedication
To Mickey Maudlin,
for quiet guidance and the opportunity of a lifetime. OceanofPDF. comEpigraph
You are a perfect creation, and should experience awe only in the Presence of the Creator of
perfection. 4The miracle is therefore a sign of love among equals. 5Equals should not be in awe of
one anothe r because awe implies inequal ity. 6It is therefore an inappropriate reaction to me. 7An
elder brother is entitled to respect for his greater experience, and obedience for his greater wisdom. 8He is also entitled to love because he is a brother, and to devotion if he is devoted. 9It is only my
devotion that entitles me to yours. 10There is nothing about me that you cannot attain. 11I have
nothing that does not come from God. 12The differ ence between us now is that I have nothing else. 13This leaves me in a state which is only potential in you. * (A  Course in Miracles,  Text, 7 )
OceanofPDF. comContents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Preface
Introduction
Chapter One: The Mystic Jesus
Have You Been Saved by JEEZUS. In His Name
What Is the Christ. The Only Story Ever Told
Mary’ s Love
Miracles
The Separation
The Holy Spirit
The Atonement
Enlightenment
Chapter Two: Reflections of Light
Apocalyptic Beginnings
The Power of the Morning
Being Saved
The Destination of EnlightenmentPositively You
More Powerful than All the Powers of the World
The Small Still Voice Within
Prayer
Your Holiness
Cinderella
The Meaning of Now
Chapter Three: The Temples of Relationship
Relationship to God
Relationship to Self
Relationship to Others
Forgiveness
Giving Up Grievances
Relationship to the World
Soul Growth
The Pillars of a Well-Lived Life
Chapter Four: He Did Not Die
Jerusalem
Detroit
Crucifixion
All of It Is Happening Now
Tomb Time
Easter
Violence Against God
The Christ in You Cannot Be Crucified
Sickness
Death
The Crucified World
Chapter Five: Resurrection
The Alchemy of Easter
The Remembrance
If God Is in the Cockpit
He Did Not Ignore
The MountainAwakening from the Dream
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Praise
Also by Marianne W illiamson
Copyright
About the Publisher
OceanofPDF. comPreface
I AM NOT  A Christian scholar, nor am I a Christian. I would not be qualified,
therefore, to write about the Jesus espoused by the ecclesiastic traditions of
the Christian church. Rather, this book  is based on my more than four decades as a student of
A Cours e in Miracles. The Course  is a self-study program of spiritual
psychotherapy based on universal spiritual themes, employing traditional
Christian concepts expressed in nondogmatic, psychotherapeutic ways. It is
a psycho logical training in the relinquishment of a thought system based on
fear in favor of a thought system based on love. I was a young woman in my twenties when I first picked up A Cours e in
Miracles, searchi ng for meaning and purpose in my life, no different from
anyone at that age then or now. I was intrigued by these words in its
introduction:
The Course can ther efore be summed up very simply in this way:
Nothing r eal can be thr eatened. Nothing unr eal exists. Herein lies the peace of God. Though I found those words compelling, I saw the pages of the book
were filled with traditional Christian language. I didn’ t relate to the
Course ’s terminology and simply thought it wasn’ t for me. A year later I was in such emotional turmoil that the terminol ogy in a
book didn’t matter to me, and I picked it up again. I was looking for content
that would soothe my soul and I didn’ t care what the words were. This
wasn’ t about theology, it was about my life. It quickly became clear that the Course  is not a religion but only
psychological guidance in the ways of forgiveness and love. I had always
been interested in universal spiritual concepts, sensing there is one Truth
spoken in many different ways. Many of the universal themes contained in
the Course  I had encountered elsewhere, including in my own religion,
Judaism. But what the Course  had offered me that I hadn’ t found before
were practical ways to apply these concepts to my daily life. From the beginning I was bemused by the fact that no author was
named on the cover of A Course in Miracles. The more I read it, however,
the more I saw an interesting number of statements written in the first
person. “‘No man cometh unto the Father but by me’ does not mean that I am in
any way separate or different from you except in time”* (T-2). * I remember
reading that and thinking, Wait, what. Once I read “I am the Atoneme nt”*
(T-7), I was like, Okay, I get it. As a child I never heard much about Jesus one way or the other. I was
just told we read “the other Bible. ” For Jews, there is a distinc t difference
between a reaction to Jesus and a reaction to Christian ity, whic h should
come as a surprise to no one. Jesus was a Jew; he was one of us. Institutional forces within the Christian religion, on the other hand, have
often been a source of violen t antisemitism and murderous oppression
through millennia. None of that has anything to do with Jesus, however. Christia nity and
Jesus are two distinctly different things. At times, the Christian religion has
been known to uphold the highe st ideals of Jesus, while at other times and
places it decidedly has not. At times, as it says in the Course, “some bitter
idols have been  made of him who came only to be brother to the world”*
(MT-88). My interest in Jesus has never included a desire to convert to the Christian
religion, a fact natural enough to me but that had required an explanation to
my parents. When I first became a student of the Course, they were
understandably perplexed. I remember my mother saying to me haltingly,
“So, help me understand. You’re going to stay in California. and give
talks. about Jesus. to Gentiles. ” I slowly nodded. After a few
seconds she simply shook her head, raised an eyebrow, and asked me what I
was going to wear. My father seeme d more concerned. One day he took me aside and said
very intently, “It’s the same God, isn’ t it. ”
I said, “Y es, Daddy. Of course it is. ”
I remember his looking at me sternly and saying pointedly, “Okay, I just
don’t want to hear anything about a dif ferent God. ”
No, it’ s decidedly not a dif ferent God. Permission granted. As I read the Course, I found  the concepts so fascinating that I naively
assumed my Christian friends must sit around and talk about things like
Christ, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus all the time. I figured I just didn’ t know
that because they didn’ t do it when I was in the room. Silly me. What I
came to realize was something quite different. Many Christians  I knew had
even more aversion to all that Chris tian terminology  than I had had. I was
simply ignorant of certain concepts; they were ambivalent about them. The Course  frees Jesus from  the grip of an institutional authority that
seeks to monopolize and ultimately constrict his identity. For some the
Course  deviates from Christian principles, while for others it explains them
in a way that makes sense for the first time. As it says in the Course, its
practitioners come from “all religions and no religion. ” They are simply
those who have heard the call for a higher, transformative love. I learned that many Christians as well as non-Christians are filled with a
lot of questions about Jesus. Reading the Course, I was learning some new
ideas, while some of my friends were unlearning old ones. I have seen
thousands of people over the years, both Christian and non-Christian, find
profound psych ological and spiritual value in A Course in Miracles. The
mystic Jesus is reflective of themes at the heart of all the great religions of
the world. He is not a divider into religious silos but rather a connector of
human hearts. A Course in Miracles  does not ask us to believe in God, or in Jesus. It
asks us to believe in each other. It argues that belief itself is meaningless,
but that experie nce is everything. Some believe A Course in Miracles  is a
work of genius created by a clinical psychology professor named Helen
Schucman at Columbia University in the 1960s and 1970s, while others
believe it was written by the Holy Spirit speaking through her. The power of
the Course  is expressed not through the identification of its author but in the
practice of its principles. I feel grateful that I came to the Course  with no previou s understanding
of who Jesus was or is. My mind was devoid of preconceived notions, andat no point during my more than four decades of studying it have I felt
called away from my own religion. What the Course  is askin g us to convert
is our hearts, and that is all. If anything, my study of A Course in Miracles
has connected me more deeply to the mystical roots of Judaism. This book is about the Jesus I know as a student of A Cours e in
Miracles. All the concepts you will read here are based on my
understanding of his teachings. Everyone has their own experience of A
Course in Miracles  and of its author. This is simply mine.
Mickey Maudlin
Who is the book dedicated to?
A mystic and universal force, not a personification of love
What is the author's understanding of Jesus?
To provide practical ways to apply universal spiritual concepts to daily life
What is the purpose of the Course in Miracles?
She was initially skeptical due to the traditional Christian language, but later found it to be a valuable resource for her own spiritual growth
What is the author's initial reaction to the book A Course in Miracles?
Jesus is a universal and mystical force, not a person, and is a guide to a higher state of consciousness and love.
What is the author's perspective on the concept of Jesus?