In a 1909 letter to Jung, Freud criticized an analytic colleague for not truly understanding his theory of dreams. This colleague was seen by Freud as misrepresenting his work, treating dreams in a superficial manner. To accentuate his point to Jung, Freud then quoted the following lines from Schiller's poem "Das Lied von der Glocke" ("The Song of the Bell")(1):

Woe unto those who lend the light
Of heaven to the eternally blind.
For him it does not shine, it only burns,
Turning towns and countries into ashes.(2)

Freud (and obviously Schiller, too) here reflects the almost universal experience of those who come into contact with the truth—"the light of heaven"—without adequate preparation, as well as their attack on those who have brought them the light. Our primary focus in this article is on the former, although we shall also briefly discuss the latter.

There is, on the one hand, the deep and strong attraction to the truth (using the lovely phrase from A Course in Miracles: the attraction of love for love [T-12.VIII]) that yearns for the ego to be proven wrong about itself and about God. And, on the other hand, there is also the deep and strong fear on our ego's part that it will be proven wrong. This leads to the experience Schiller described above of being consumed or destroyed— burning and turning into ashes. The commitment to the ego's blindness to the truth makes this dread of destruction inevitable, as we see described in the following statements from A Course in Miracles:

As you approach the Beginning, you feel the fear of the destruction of your thought system upon you as if it were the fear of death (T-3.VII.5:10).

The death of specialness is not your death… (T-24.II.14:4).

You think you are destroyed…(W-pI.93.4:4).

It is because of this fear that Jesus cautions his students to approach A Course in Miracles slowly and carefully, as seen in this note at the end of Chapter 1 of the text:

This is a course in mind training. All learning involves attention and study at some level. Some of the later parts of the course rest too heavily on these earlier sections not to require their careful study. You will also need them for preparation. Without this, you may become much too fearful of what is to come to make constructive use of it.… Some of the later steps in this course, however, involve a more direct approach to God Himself. It would be unwise to start on these steps without careful preparation, or…the experience will be more traumatic than beatific. (T-1.VII.4:1-5; 5:7-8).

Those who choose blindness out of fear of the light (truth) cling to their individual existence and specialness. Therefore, they believe that the light as well as its symbols will destroy them. Inevitably, they require a defense against the light and its bearers or representatives ("Woe unto those who lend the light of heaven to the eternally blind."). In an oft-quoted passage that clearly expresses the ego's strange and insane reaction to the truth, Jesus says in the Course:

Many thought I was attacking them, even though it was apparent I was not. An insane learner learns strange lessons. What you must recognize is that when you do not share a thought system, you are weakening it. Those who believe in it therefore perceive this as an attack on them. This is because everyone identifies himself with his thought system, and every thought system centers on what you believe you are (T-6.V-B.1:5-9).

And so believing they are children of darkness ("You think you are the home of evil, darkness and sin" [W-pI.93.1:1]), their belief in the thought system of separation (sin, guilt, fear, and attack) must inevitably lead these separated ones to perceive the light of perfect Wholeness and Oneness as threatening: guilt and attack become "safe," and forgiveness and peace "a threat." We thus find ourselves in the logically untenable position of clinging to what alone will hurt us, while bitterly attacking what can only help us. This is the meaning of that pointed passage in the text, where Jesus likens us to babies demanding what the adults in our lives know would harm us:

Undermining the ego's thought system must be perceived as painful, even though this is anything but true. Babies scream in rage if you take away a knife or scissors, although they may well harm themselves if you do not. In this sense you are still a baby. You have no sense of real self-preservation, and are likely to decide that you need precisely what would hurt you most (T-4.II.5:1-4).

The question therefore is: Why this insane fear of the truth? It is one of A Course in Miracles' important contributions to world spirituality that it supplies the answer in a way that St. Paul's famous problem,(3) for example, was never really answered—an answer, incidentally, that was incapable of being understood or accepted in a pre-Freudian age. Simply stated, we are afraid of the truth because it threatens our inherent identity as children of the world. We identify almost exclusively with a thought system of separation, epitomized by our physical and psychological identities that clearly distinguish us not only from other cultures, races, nationalities, regions, religions, genders, families, etc., but also from every other individual who exists within these special groups. It is our bodies that are the instruments that maintain separate and special identities, and "prove" their reality, justifying their continued existence as devices of separation. And so we are told in A Course in Miracles that the littleness (or grandiosity) of such identifications is beloved by our egos, while the grandeur of our true Identity as Christ is, needless to say, blasphemous anathema, perceived as a sin against the holy ego— "To the ego, the guiltless are guilty" (T-13.II.4:2). Thus, we read these words in the text:

We said before that the ego vacillates between suspiciousness and viciousness. It remains suspicious as long as you despair of yourself. It shifts to viciousness when you decide not to tolerate self-abasement and seek relief. Then it offers you the illusion of attack as a "solution."…

The ego is immobilized in the presence of God's grandeur, because His grandeur establishes your freedom. Even the faintest hint of your reality literally drives the ego from your mind, because you will give up all investment in it.… The ego will make every effort to recover and mobilize its energies against your release. (T-9.VIII.2:7-10; 4:1-2,5).

By thus identifying with illusions—the darkness of guilt inherent in the belief that we inhabit separate bodies that exist in a specific time and space in the physical world—we inevitably fear the truth of a Self that totally transcends the material universe, not to mention negating the ego thought system of separation that gave rise to it:

What can correct illusions but the truth? And what are errors but illusions that remain unrecognized for what they are? Where truth has entered errors disappear. They merely vanish, leaving not a trace by which to be remembered. They are gone because, without belief, they have no life. And so they disappear to nothingness, returning whence they came. From dust to dust they come and go, for only truth remains (W-pI.107.1).

When one embarks on a spiritual path, one has committed to leaving the darkness of the ego thought system to approach the light-filled truth of God. While religious or spiritual paths differ widely in their understanding of the nature of the darkness and light, a process common to all paths can nonetheless be discerned. Spiritual or psychological novices may be quite surprised to find that not only is the process a difficult one, but that they paradoxically begin to experience darkness more than light, especially after the initial "honeymoon period" that so frequently occurs. Once again, the Course provides us with descriptions of this seeming paradox of sincerely desiring the light, yet at the same time choosing, if not embracing the darkness:

The more you approach the center of His [God] thought system, the clearer the light becomes. The closer you come to the foundation of the ego's thought system, the darker and more obscure becomes the way (T-11.In.3:4-5).

Your goal was darkness, in which no ray of light could enter. And you sought a blackness so complete that you could hide from truth forever, in complete insanity.… As the light comes nearer you will rush to darkness, shrinking from the truth, sometimes retreating to the lesser forms of fear, and sometimes to stark terror (T-18.III.1:4-5; 2:1).

This would explain St. Paul's dilemma, and why we seem to continually sabotage our lives in so many different ways— subtle and blatant. We cannot stand to be happy—truly happy. And so we all carry around with us a "grab bag" filled with unhappy memories and stories of how unfairly we have been treated. And these memories are available at an instant's notice—the unholy instant of the ego— whenever we need the "comfort" of our friends: "the 'loveliness' of sin, the delicate appeal of guilt, the 'holy' waxen image of death, and the fear of vengeance of the ego" (T-19.IV-D.6:3).

Remembering this phenomenon would be extremely helpful to students of A Course in Miracles. I have often emphasized how a background in some form of spirituality and/or psychotherapy provides a solid foundation for the Course. An important aspect of this foundation is understanding the process of spiritual and psychological growth (really one and the same). With very rare exceptions—"so rare that it cannot be considered a realistic goal" (M-26.3:4)—one does not journey to the light without experiencing great difficulties and pain. This is why Jesus devotes so much attention to this all- important, albeit difficult part of the process: the periods of unsettling (M-4.I-A.7:1) that students are often tempted to deny are even described in the Course. This part of the process is illustrated in the following representative examples:

In looking at the special relationship, it is necessary first to realize that it involves a great amount of pain. Anxiety, despair, guilt and attack all enter into it…(T-16.V.1:1-2).

Guilt must be given up, and not concealed. Nor can this be done without some pain, and a glimpse of the merciful nature of this step may…be followed by a deep retreat into fear (S-1.III.4:1-2).

Yet God can bring you there, if you are willing to follow the Holy Spirit through seeming terror, trusting Him not to abandon you and leave you there. For it is not His purpose to frighten you, but only yours. You are severely tempted to abandon Him at the outside ring of fear, but He would lead you safely through and far beyond (T-18.IX.3:7-9).

It should go without saying that the pain inherent in undoing the special relationship is not the Will of God, or the "plan" of the Holy Spirit. Rather, it is the certain consequence of our resistance to accepting the truth about ourselves.

Perceiving this threat, the ego has no choice but to retaliate in its own self-defense. If the ego's fear is of wholeness— abstract and non-specific—then separation, fragmentation, and the specific are exactly what the ego needs to preserve its existence: Here comes the special relationship to the rescue! Space considerations, unfortunately, do not allow for more than a brief statement of the dynamics of this specialness. Suffice it to say, these relationships are based very specifically on specifics —special people with special traits, abilities, assets, body parts, talents, etc.—all of whom or of which we believe can meet our perceived needs and fill the lack the ego has told us is our natural and most painful condition. The impetus for seeking them out is to disguise the underlying attraction to guilt in ourselves, for this guilt is what keeps our identity shrouded in the darkness of the ego's thought system of separation, lack, and individuality. To conceal this true intent—the ongoing decision to be separate from our Creator, the Source of our perfect Oneness as Christ—we then become attracted to guilt in others. We thereby seek to keep our cake of individuality as well as to enjoy its "sweetness" by making others pay for our theft, for we have now made our own sin real in them, rather than in ourselves. The darkness of our guilt thus becomes the reality of our world, wherein everyone who walks its sorry pathways is blinded by the attack—first of ourselves and God, and then others.

To undo these veils that blind us, Jesus asks us in A Course in Miracles to turn to him for help in learning to look at others differently— without the projections of our guilt—thereby learning to look at ourselves differently. This process, known as forgiveness, is what the ego fears, since its reflection of light sounds the ego's death knell: darkness cannot coexist with the light. Turning to Jesus (or the Holy Spirit) for help is the essence of the holy relationship, the answer to the ego's special relationship. Based upon the light of our oneness in Heaven, the holy relationship's presence in our minds heralds the end of the ego's dream of separation and fragmentation. Thus are we helped to perceive our inherent joining as God's one unseparated Son.

And as each of us learns to make this choice for light and accept Jesus' gift of forgiveness, we invite the world to share in this same gift of vision in place of the darkness of our unseeing world:

And now the blind can see, for that same song they sing in honor of their Creator gives praise to them as well. The blindness that they made will not withstand the memory of this song. And they will look upon the vision of the Son of God, remembering who he is they sing of. What is a miracle but this remembering? And who is there in whom this memory lies not? The light in one awakens it in all. And when you see it in your brother, you are remembering for everyone (T-21.I.10).

Jon Vickers, one of the truly great tenors of an earlier generation, shared in a recent interview his thoughts about the "gift" of his wonderful vocal instrument:

I am humble before the gift that was given to me.… The gift that I gave to an audience…[was to] reach my arms through the proscenium arch to pull the audience in, to embrace them, to say to them: "Come up here with me. Know these feelings, and you will have the reward of experiencing the absolute beauty of Fidelio, the greatness of the tragedy of Othello. Come up here. Share it with me" (New York Times, Nov. 19, 2000, Arts & Leisure section).

And we, too, are asked by our teacher to take his gift of vision and share it with the world, for thus we remember it is our own:

To your tired eyes I bring a vision of a different world, so new and clean and fresh you will forget the pain and sorrow that you saw before. Yet this a vision is which you must share with everyone you see, for otherwise you will behold it not. To give this gift is how to make it yours. And God ordained, in loving kindness, that it be for you (T-31.VIII.8:4-7).

Like Jon Vickers before us, we learn to share this gift, first by demonstrating the grandeur of its love through our forgiveness, and then, inherent in this demonstration, inviting our erstwhile special partners to rise above the ego's world, come up to this holy place of choice, and share the right-minded choices with us.

Thus, we learn as we teach that the light of Heaven is our friend, and learning to see is salvation: Indeed, we thought we were destroyed, but we were saved (W-pI.93.4:4). We remember that it is only the ashes of our illusory self that are the result of seeing the gentle light of forgiveness. Our true Identity as Christ, just an instant ahead, has always waited in its shining radiance for our remembrance. Now, along with all our brothers, we claim it in the Name of God's one Son. Our example teaches all, for it is the All that has taught us: The light has come, and it is our Self:

And from this light will the Great Rays extend back into darkness and forward unto God, to shine away the past and so make room for His eternal Presence, in which everything is radiant in the light (T-18.III.8:7).

FOOTNOTES:

1. Freud actually quoted only the first two lines, pointing to the final two by an "etc."

2. Schiller's German reads: Weh denen, die dem Ewigblinden/Des Lichtes Himmelsfackel leihn!/Sie strahlt ihm nicht, sie kann nur zuenden/Und aeschert Staedt und Laender ein.

3. I cannot understand my own behavior. I fail to carry out the things I want to do, and I find myself doing the very things I hate.… Instead of doing the good things I want to do, I carry out the sinful things I do not want (Romans 7:15,19).