“Take the first step outside of the known reality of your conscious awareness, the learned reality of your separate consciousness, and into the realm of shared consciousness.” (ACOL, Dialogues, 8.12)
We are not meant to be independent, as much as that flies in the face of the conditioning that our culture has given us. Our culture welcomes the gradual growth of young people, believing that when we as a young adult are standing on our own two feet, independently, we have arrived at a certain level of maturity. And we make our own judgments. Both the thoughts of mature independence and the thoughts of personal judgment are erroneous, if we believe anything that Jesus is telling us in A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love.
We are not meant to be separate from one another in independence that increases our isolation; we are to share with others in a shared consciousness that we do not, as yet, even fully comprehend. We have psychic attunement with each other, and this is a sign of our shared consciousness. We don’t make our own decisions, our own judgments; we listen to guidance—in the case of ACIM, from the Holy Spirit; and in the case of ACOL, from the inner Christ Self.
This shared consciousness, once we are aware of it, will mean much to our progress in a new reality, a true reality. We are herein invited to take the first halting steps into that new awareness, this new business of sharing with others. Our minds, under egoic influence, want to be separate, and believe that a shared mind is infringement of our liberty. We need to think again. How nice would it be to know that others are there for us, in our deepest understandings, as given us not only by our mind but also by our heart?
We don’t have to stand in “splendid” isolation. We are not meant to be alone. Our brothers and sisters are given us in this world for a purpose, and that purpose is the communion of their spirits with our own. We have less to worry about when we know that we are not required to be isolated in independent living. We need each other. In our heart of hearts, we know this already, and now we can act on it, knowing that we are moving into grace when we do.
Thanks for your insights. I just read a quote that surely fits:
“It is nearly impossible to hate anyone whose story you know.”
-Andrew Solomon
Amen 🙂