This quote showcases the way that JHS (Jesus/the Holy Spirit) tries throughout the Course to pry us from our zealous focus on the illusory world, and bring it back to what’s real; our mind. While we’re all tempted to think our sense of failure comes from aspects of what we’ve done or failed to do in our life so far, here they are, unequivocally giving it to us straight, and calling it as it is.
Their message is that our sense of failure always, and only, comes from having chosen the ego as your teacher, and then identified with the ego as a body/your individual identity. This is where all your sense of failure comes from, no matter what external evidence you’re tempted to see as the cause of it. In other words, it’s not the fact that you flunked a test, got fired at work, made a bad choice, went through a relationship breakdown etc. (fill in the blank with your own particular reason/s) that you feel like a failure. It’s the fact that on a subconscious level, you chose to see yourself and your life, as interpreted by the ego. And the ego is the only wrong choice you can really make. What appears to happen or go wrong in your life- is not what causes you to feel like a failure, sad, insecure, angry, upset- it is only ever the choice to see what seems to happen through the ego’s lens of guilt, fear, and separation. This is the familiar ACIM theme of cause vs effect in play. The mind is the level of cause. The world/behaviour/external circumstances are simply the effect of the mind’s erroneous belief in the separation from God.
As always with the Course, there’s a happy flip-side to this: the great thing about identifying the problem is because it also points to the solution. If your sense of failure is nothing more than a mistake in identifying with the ego and thinking you are a body, then the way to correct this is- and thus eliminate your sense of failure- is clear. If you choose the Holy Spirit/ Jesus (JHS) as your inner guide, and stop identifying with the body, you’ll have to see yourself as They see you; as mind and spirit, one with God. This is the shift in perspective that heals. It’s a consciously chosen shift in your identification and awareness of both who you really are, and which internal teacher you want as your guide. Thankfully, we’re also assured that in choosing the right-minded Guide- the Teacher of God- we cannot fail because He cannot fail.
The full quote below helps to fill this out much more poetically:
“Refuse not the awareness of your completion, and seek not to restore it to yourself. Fear not to give redemption over to your Redeemer’s Love. He will not fail you, for he comes from One Who cannot fail. Accept your sense of failure as nothing more than a mistake in who you are. For the holy host of God is beyond failure, and nothing that he wills can be denied. You are forever in a relationship so holy that it calls to everyone to escape from loneliness, and join you in your love. And where you are must everyone seek and find you there.” (T-15.VIII.3:3-9)
Leave a Reply