Do We Have to Be Perfect to Achieve Christ-Consciousness?

“You are not flawed.  You are not wanting.  You would not be other than you are except when you give in to making judgments.  Look deeply and you will see that what you would call your imperfections are as chosen and as dear to you as all the rest.  (A Course of Love, 20.41)”

Affirmation:  “I am not flawed.”

Reflections:

1 – Puzzling Passage

The passage for today is puzzling upon first reading.  Would we really hang onto our imperfections, considering them not to be flaws?

2 – Give Up the Negative

The answer is in Jesus’s statements in A Course of Love which indicate that the negative things about ourselves can be given up when and if we decide that we do not want to have these qualities.  Even as negative a quality as anger can be so considered.  We decide that we don’t want to be angry anymore, and then (the time frame is not specified) we find that our anger has left us.  If, on the other hand, we do not denounce our anger, then it will stay with us.  And this latter point is what Jesus in all likelihood means when he talks of “imperfections” as “chosen and dear to us.”

3- Not Perfect

We do not have to be perfect to achieve Christ-consciousness.  This is a tenet of A Course of Love which is not emphasized in A Course in Miracles, in regard to Awakening.  We are told in ACIM that Jesus stands at the end of the pathway to correct the errors that we ourselves could not correct (an ACIM tenet).  And so, on first reading, it sounds as though the biblical injunction to be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect applies to Awakening (i.e., Christ-consciousness).

4 – Human as Well as Divine

Keep in mind, though, that we are human as well as divine.  And human beings will always make mistakes; it is the natural course of things.  Anyone thinking that he/she is perfect is very badly misled.  But would that mean that we cannot attain Christ-consciousness?  This passage would suggest that we can indeed reach Christ-consciousness, even when we are not yet perfect.  What a blessing this is!

5 – Christ-consciousness

Remember that the moment of reaching Christ-consciousness is at first seen in snatches, in glimpses, and then, ultimately, becomes a sustained experience.  Very, very few individuals have sustained the elevated Self of form (as A Course of Love calls it), but it is the mission of ACOL to lead more and more of us to that glorious culmination.  God makes this decision, though, about when we are ready.  And in the meantime, we must not try to hurry this blessing.  He knows when the time is right.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would claim the promise today that we do not have to be “perfect” to experience Christ-consciousness.  Jesus will handle anything that we are too weak to transmute into perfection.  Let us rest in that assurance, given us in A Course in Miracles.  And in A Course of Love, we learn that the idea of perfection needs more thinking.  Nobody would ever even see glimpses of Awakening if we had to be perfect.  And many of us have seen these glimpses.

Thank You for Your help today.  Don’t let me get mixed up with the theology of ACIM and ACOL.  Help me to follow Your way to the happiness that is a worthy function in my life.

Amen.