11/13 1 CORINTHIANS EXPLORING EXPERIENCE AND BECOMING AN EMTPY SHELL

11/13/11      1 CORINTHIANS

EXPLORING EXPERIENCE AND BECOMING AN EMTPY SHELL

Thank you for staying with this one. It is a difficult lesson, but as we discovered today it is not all work and not all dark.

We’ve been diving into some ideas that go much deeper than the old “creating your own reality” game and “The Secret.”

In 1 Corinthians we are challenged to know that whatever it is we are experiencing, we have created, and we need to have the experience to move through it.

Simply put you have to feel your feelings to let them go. 

Unless I take responsibility for my thoughts and actions, I will never be able to have them corrected. I will continue to be victim to my own thoughts.

Instead of taking that in a negative way, let us realize that all our experiences are meant to wake us up.

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Even psychologists will tell us of the toxicity of stuffing feelings. When feelings are denied or “unfinished” they just don’t disappear. They still have life and will be churning around within us until we bring them to the surface to be experienced and let go of. Meanwhile, as they remain denied and hidden, they can produce all kinds of other nasty symptoms such as depression, anxiety, acid reflux, sleep disturbances, just to name a few.

Many of us have a backlog of what I call “unfinished feelings” from our early years. These must be felt/experienced to be released. This is part of becoming an empty shell.

We also don’t want to create any more stuff either, so we allow ourselves to become aware whenever we are angry, fearful, etc. To recognize, accept, take ownership of those feelings and to let them go.

As I mentioned before this does not have to be dramatic, sometimes just recognizing a feeling, owning it, and deciding it are useless to us, is enough to let ti go. (Please, note this is not the same as denial. Denial is our unwillingness to look at the feeling at all.)

Mt 16 (5-12) 7-9 “Let your fear and doubt come into your mind that you may see it. But in faith, let it go. In this way, you choose where you will put your faith.”

Deep within us are some feelings of which we are not even aware. Becoming an empty shell means allowing even those hidden things to come to the surface to be healed and released.

The model of Jesus provides a beautiful example of this:

Mk. 1 (v 43 – 45)1Not yet knowing where he was being led, the man of Jesus harbored some fear deep within his mind. 2During this time, he kept this fear hidden from himself. 3And so the Spirit led him down a useful and helpful path, that one day he may find the strength to face and lay down his fear.

Here are a few more quotes from NTI:

Romans 1 (v 18 – 32)1Within you, there is a wish. 2This wish is not within anyone else, although you would rather see it there. 3This wish is hidden deep within your mind, hidden by layers of smoke. 4Before we go together to look at this wish, there is something I want you to know. 5The wish is only a thought. 6It is nothing else at all. 7It can best be described as a curiosity that you wanted to explore. 8It is really nothing...nothing at all. 9I am very grateful that you have expressed your freedom and explored your wish. 10Now the curiosity can be let go. 11I am your guide as I show you what you have learned in a daydream within the mind. 12Join with Me in peace and detachment as we giggle at your thought in gratitude that it could be thought and let go.

2 Thessalonians 2 (v 1 – 4)1Look now, deep within your mind and heart. 2We are looking for a false god that you have erected before your truth. 3This is a false image made of yourself through your own judgment that you could be that which is other than That Which you Are. 4We must raise this false being up from its hiding place, because it is from within hiding that it rules. 5Brought into the light of day, it cannot rule longer, because its falseness must be revealed.

Whenever we have a thought of fear, anger, guilt or any other form of negativity we begin to realize all these thoughts arise from our sense of separateness (which by its nature generates fear and guilt). In the work of becoming an empty shell, we are allowing Spirit to lead us to the root that it may be finally dug up and we are released from all illusion.

Mt 12 (v 43 - 45)1The thoughts you think are your evil doing, and so you may choose to let go of them. 2Let me tell you that it may not be that easy. 3For the belief that spawns the thoughts is like a deep root within you, and where you cut off its leaves, more will rise up to take their place. 4Be prepared to let go of many leaves, but know they will come back until the day you have rid yourself of their root. (v 46 - 50)1The belief in separateness and differences is the root you must let go. 2For if there is more than one Will, the truth is not true and death is all there is. 3Is this the final resting place of your faith? 4Or are you willing to put your faith in Life and Love and One?

REMEMBER THIS: Whenever we have an error in thinking such as getting caught up in any sort of illusion--fear, guilt, shame, anger--that the Holy Spirit immediately creates a correction. If we are awake and aware we can always choose the correction over the illusion. 

Darkness is simply the absence of light. It is nothing. Since light is everywhere and everything, darkness is an illusion. If I look deeply enough into the darkness, I will find Light. Looking deeply not only reveals what we need to let go of, but the deepest truth is also there: YOU ARE THE LIGHT, ALWAYS!

2 Peter 2 (v 4 – 10)1The Light within your Heart is your truth. 2This is the star that is you. 3This is the seed that is at the root of all that you are. 4It is true that there also seems to be something else within you...something that does not seem to be light, but dark...something that feels like judgment and guilt. 5It is okay to let yourself be aware of this darkness. 6It is okay to stand within it for a moment and feel it. 7But then remember that I have taught you that the judgment comes only from you. 8Decide in that moment to choose to see your Self truly. 9Then reach within your mind, and turn on the Light.

Rev. 2 (v 12, 13)1I want to look deep within you with you at the beliefs that you fear most. 2They are the ones you hide by denying them, but you deny them because you think they are true. 3If you knew they were false, you would let them go. 4I want to look at them with you so you may lean on My strength and see that they are false. 5You may feel your fear and let it go with a giggle, because the light of your own Heart shines brighter than darkness caused by confusion. 6When darkness is looked at beside the Light, it is the darkness that must fade away.

We know that we are One and everything flows from that One.

Becoming and Empty Shell with our Experiences and Feelings Pt.3

 Part 3

All of our experiences/feelings of negativity come from our sense of separateness which also gives rise to guilt and fear, and whether we are conscious of it or not  these feelings interfere with our relationship with God.

Our job in emptying ourselves, dying to our little self, or as Jesus put it, “Unless the grain of wheat fall to the ground and die unto itself, it shall not live.”---is to continually to look deeply and honestly within ourselves and with the help of the Spirit to root out all that seems to keep us separate.

NTI Mt. 12(v 43 - 45) “1The thoughts you think are your evil doing, and so you may choose to let go of them. 2Let me tell you that it may not be that easy. 3For the belief that spawns the thoughts is like a deep root within you, and where you cut off its leaves, more will rise up to take their place. 4Be prepared to let go of many leaves, but know they will come back until the day you have rid yourself of their root. (v 46 - 50)1The belief in separateness and differences is the root you must let go. 2For if there is more than one Will, the truth is not true and death is all there is. 3Is this the final resting place of your faith? 4Or are you willing to put your faith in Life and Love and One? 5If you will put your faith in Me, I will lead you to the end of your root. 6There, shall you find the truth, and your truth will be you.”

The ego can get in the way of our house cleaning using the tools of denial and projection. When we are experiencing anger, for instance, the directive in Corinthians is asking us to acknowledge the feeling as being our own, feeling it/experiencing it and letting it go (move upwards see 1 Cor. Chap 7)

Again, this does not need to be big or dramatic.

Even though we might be working at rooting out some deep seated feelings of guilt, fear, and shame let us also be aware that we also have within us a core of peace, love, and joy, the Truth of Spirit. Let us also remember that no matter what we have experienced in life, no matter how bad or horrible we felt about ourselves, that this core of Truth has always been stronger than the sense of separateness.

In other words where we have known it or not, we have always known the truth we have always been in touch with it, we have always acknowledged it.

SOME QUOTES FROM THE COURSE(from the Course in Miracles Society Original  Edition)

“Yet what is it except a game you play in which identity can be denied? You are as God created you. All else but this one thing is folly to believe. In this one thought is everything set free. In this one truth are all illusions gone. In this one fact is sinlessness proclaimed to be forever part of everything, the central core of its existence, and its guarantee of immortality.” Lesson #191

“You whose minds are darkened by doubt and guilt, remember this: God gave the Holy Spirit to you and gave Him the mission to remove all doubt and every trace of guilt that His dear Son has laid upon himself. It is impossible that this mission fail. Nothing can prevent what God would have accomplished from accomplishment. Whatever your reactions to the Holy Spirit’s Voice may be, whatever voice you choose to listen to, whatever strange thoughts may occur to you, God’s will is done. You will find the peace in which He has established you, because He does not change His Mind. He is invariable as the peace in which you dwell and of which the Holy Spirit reminds you.” Perception of Knowledge: Guarantee of Heaven 

“Never approach the holy instant after you have tried to remove all fear and hatred from your mind. That is its function. Never attempt to overlook your guilt before you ask the Holy Spirit’s help. That is His function. Your part is only to offer Him a little willingness to let Him remove all fear and hatred and to be forgiven. On your little faith, joined with His understanding, He will build your part in the Atonement and make sure that you fulfill it easily. And with Him you will build a ladder planted in the solid rock of faith and rising even to Heaven. Nor will you use it to ascend to Heaven alone.”  Dream and Reality: The Happy Dream

Becoming and Empty Shell with our Experiences and Feelings Pt.2

It is my impression, and I state this emphatically, this is my interpretation: Many of the experiences referred to in 2 Timothy are what I like to call “unfinished feelings” they are feelings we have never dealt with, feelings we have stuffed because they were too scary or powerful to look at.

Now even those involved with psychological health will tell us of the toxicity of unfinished feelings. They can produce all sorts of problems including depression, and physical illness.

Again, simply on a psychological plain, there will be many times when bringing those deeply suppressed feelings to awareness will allow us to feel them and quickly let them go. The process begins by acknowledging our anger, fear, or hurt. We might cry, hold ourselves tightly, physically shake, yell, or scream to be able to feel the feelings and let them go.

This is what often times happens in therapy, a 5th Step (for 12 steppers), the sacrament of confession (now called the Rite of Reconciliation), or in the presence of another loving human being. The event does not have to be dramatic, loud, or complicated.

There are times when simply bringing a feeling to consciousness, acknowledging it, and owning it can be enough to produce the energy of letting it go.

When we become more clear and aware, feelings and experiences can become much less “sticky.” For instance, if I were to bring to consciousness a childhood memory of deep hurt, it might be necessary for me to cry, rage, have someone else understand and empathize with me in order for me to experience it and let it go. (As a child, obviously, I experienced the hurt, but I never “finished” the experience. I never worked through it enough to release it, let it go and heal). 

If I am aware of experiencing hurt today, I can first acknowledge the feeling, be aware that as real as it feels it is still a false perception (no one can do anything or take anything away from me; I am not being attacked, etc.). Then with the Holy Spirit release it upward. It’s done. It is only when I give the experience the “meaning of reality” that I have to deeply feel the feeling.

Along with all that it is important to know that the Presence of Spirit is here with us, walking us through the whole process. 

Acts 11(19-30) “The authority of the Holy Spirit is a great joy that fills your heart and leads you to do “the work of the Lord.” The work of the Lord is the work of the Holy Spirit, which means it does not come from you or any illusory authority. It comes directly from the authority of Spirit, and it is known in you by its joy and its authority. The Holy Spirit is within you because you have accepted it there. It is waiting in peace for the time in which you will invite it to come forth and be authority through you. It is an authority you will follow and you will be, that you may lead by its Word and be within your awareness.”

Please remember, not only are we not alone in this process of emptying and healing, but the Spirit is working with us. What is called for here as well as many other places on the path is our willingness: our willingness to feel; our willingness to experience; our willingness to let go, to move through; and most of all, our willingness to know who we truly are. 

Walking through the experiences we desired to have allows us to let go of the attachment to the feelings in and around that experience. Once the attachment is gone, the feeling is either meaningless or irrelevant. 

We are not alone; we are always in the presence of Truth. There is nothing to be afraid of because there is nothing to fear.

The end point of all our experiences is to lead us back to the realization of who we are, One with God.

Some experiences will remind us of who we are not, others will reinforce the Truth.

1Tim 4(1-5) “To love thy Self is to love all things and all circumstances, because you know all things and all circumstances come into being through God, which is all that is. Be grateful for the process that is God. In this way, you come to know within awareness that which is God, and you come to accept and love thy Self.”

Remember that all circumstances come to you for your awakening, because you are the creative process that is God and awakening is the purpose you have chosen. Look at your circumstances and remember your purpose, while remembering who you are. Place your faith with your motive as you look. In this way, you will be grateful for all things and all circumstances, because you see them in the light of purpose. In this way, you shall always rejoice, because you know there is no cause that can lead you away from rejoicing. (v 9, 10) This is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: All things work together for God, and the purpose of God is to Know thy Self

I would also encourage you to read Luke 12. It gives a wonderful overview of much of this process.

Becoming and Empty Shell with our Experiences and Feelings Pt.1

                       Becoming and Empty Shell with our Experiences and Feelings
                       Pt.1


Whenever we encounter resistance and confusion it is usually a sign that we are bumping up against an important lesson. There is no right or wrong here, just the awareness that fear can take many forms, resistance and confusion being among them.


Mk 9 (2-13) “Peace is a gift from our Lord,” Jesus explained. Fear is our resistance to this gift. Both acceptance and resistance are in your mind now, so you experience both peace and fear. But know this won’t continue forever, for only peace is forever. Fear must pass away. Continue the work the Father has given you. When fear seems to come upon you, fall to your knees and join in counsel with the Voice for our Lord. Give Him your fears and your willingness to continue in service of our Lord. Your fear will fade away. Then rise and continue your work. In this way, you find yourself on the path of healing with a mighty companion by your side.”


Bear with me, as I am walking through this myself. This is truly a case of teaching what I want to learn; I simply want to be open to what the Holy Spirit has to teach me.


Let us keep our focus on what it is we are after, the healing of the One Mind and with it Peace, Joy, Oneness with God. (I was going to say the experience of Peace, Joy, and Oneness, but when we truly embrace who we are we do not experience these qualities, we are these qualities.) 


1 Cor 12(21-26) 2-6 "For everything works for the healing of one mind. There is no error, and there is no mistake. There isn’t one single flaw. There is only a mind listening to itself and recognizing which self is true. It is an awakening, a growing recognition, and it is perfect in every way."




I believe we all entered this study with a knowing that we live with a sense of separateness with God and one another, and that we deeply desire to heal that sense of separateness. So let us also focus on our intention, and know the Spirit is holding our hand and walking us home.
(Mt. 13(33)”it is through your choice, but not through your effort, that the kingdom of Heaven is given, for the kingdom of Heaven must be a gift given by the Father to you.”
Acts 10(9-23)14-18 “He will reach out to you through His Holy Spirit, which is His appointed Messenger sent to you within your dreams. This Messenger, knowing who you think you are, will meet you there in your dreams and talk to you as if you are the one you think you are. But this one comes to you for only one purpose and with only one goal. His purpose is to awaken you by leading you from where you think you are to the remembrance of what you must be. This is a holy purpose, and He comes to you in gratitude, grateful to meet you in your dreams and grateful to bring you Home.”


Let us start with the beginning (which I do not claim to fully understand). “A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, the One Son of God had a tiny mad idea.”
That idea can be expressed in many ways: “I wonder what would be like to experience separateness?” or “I wonder what it would be like to experience what cannot be?” or “I wonder what it would be like to experience everything different from what it is?”


Now as the story goes, we became so captured  by our question that we immediately began to think of it as real. Because we thought that this “creation of separateness” was real, we began to experience guilt and fear. We then began to “think” that the guilt and fear were real and began to create a huge stage to play out that “reality.” (Have you ever witnessed a movie scene where a child is reading a book and all of a sudden they get sucked into it and become part of the story?)


Here we are today knowing that, “there is something wrong with this picture.” We begin to be aware of the desire of our heart, as mentioned above---Peace, Joy, Oneness with God.
We live with the faith that this yearning will be fulfilled. We also grow in awareness that this desire of our heart--peace, joy, oneness, has never gone away. The Truth has never not existed. We have just forgotten or have been lost in the dream of separateness.


Here we are today, knowing that all the stuff we have learned earlier about separateness, unworthiness, guilt, etc. has all been untrue and needs to be let go of, but that does not happen just by “wishing” it were so.


There is work to be done. The Course refers to the work as unlearning.
NTI refers to the work as becoming an empty shell.
We have been fairly clear about emptying the shell so far, but I think we got a little tangled in the working through experience part of things.


Let’s explore this one, remember resistance and confusion are usually the face of fear, and what we are working on doing (not alone, but with the Holy Spirit) is releasing all that is getting in the way of our knowing and embracing Truth.


We asked to experience separateness, we wanted to be able to explore what that would be like. There are infinite ways we can experience separateness, and they might all appear very different (incidents of anger, fear, depression, sickness, death, hurt, war, outrage, scarcity)*, but if we observe them closely and honestly they will all say the same thing: “you are separate."


*be aware of the cleverness of the mind in creating these experiences of separateness. The mind creates all sorts of props or stage setting to enhance the experience or make it seem “more real.” We can easily become lost in the props or the stage settings and lose touch with the experience we wished to have.


It seems obvious to me that any experience of separateness will interfere with my experience of Truth (peace, joy, oneness). I am being asked to let go of these distracting experiences as I become more of an empty shell, BUT the experiences of separateness that I wished for don’t go away simply because I want them to. I created these experiences to experience them, and therefore that is what needs to happen. I need to experience them.
Now--I do NOT need to experience them as the truth.
As I become more clear my experience might simply be a reflection of my awareness of a negative or separate thought and with the power of the Spirit within me, I might simply decide I do not wish to hold onto or enhance it any and allow it to pass “upward.” 

Sunday 10/30/11

Sunday morning we continued our exploration of 1 Corinthians and its major theme, “Becoming an Empty Shell.”
Simply put, becoming an empty shell means letting go of all that you think you are so that you can know and embrace who you truly are.
Ram Dass put it beautifully when he explained, “The moment we are born everyone starts telling us who we are. The problem is none of them know who they are!"

So we have taken in all these messages from parents, teachers, ministers, even our peers. From all this mis-information, we have formed an identity of who we think we are.

Now, unless you were raised and taught by a wonderful bunch of enlightened beings, you probably never got the message that “You are the Beloved Son of God; there is only One Son and you are It. Nothing ever happened, nor can ever happen that could separate you from God’s unconditional love. You are not your body, your emotions or your mind. You are so much more than all that. There is not truth to nay of the blame, shame, guilt, unworthiness, or anything else you learned. If you learned anything that is not love, then it is not true because all is love.” (Those are simply words. In truth you don’t really know all that is listed above, you are It.)

As ACIM points out, we are not learning something new, we are unlearning all that is not true.

From Chapter 6(p.293) (12-20) An empty shell has let go of everything that seemed to be, but wasn’t. An empty shell has let go of false desires, untrue beliefs, concepts in support of the world and fear. All that an empty shell holds onto is the casing, which will hold onto Me within the world.

As we become aware of thoughts that do not bring peace and therefore are not true, we begin to release them and let them go. We do not deny them, fear them, or run away from them. We accept responsibility for them, but instead of trying to correct them ourselves, we release them upward to the Spirit so that they may be healed and transformed. See p. 294 (1-7) 10-11

Just in case you get stuck on this empty shell image, NTI goes not explain that the empty shell does not really exist either. It is simply a metaphor to help us with the process of letting go.

The piece we focused in on Sunday was what NTI calls “points of experience.” As suggested above we did not simply inherit false ideas about ourselves, we also had experiences of unworthiness, fear, anger, not-enoughness, and other kinds of negative things.
Now, we are asked in faith and trust to become aware of those experiences and even thought they seem to be painful, to feel them so that they might be released.

We are reminded to know that only the experience of love is real, and to go even deeper than that, to know that YOU ARE LOVE.

Suggested reading: Chapter 7 again and Chapter 8 bring any questions. We love questions.
For those of you who would like to dig deeper into the work of releasing experiences, you might want to check out 2 Timothy.

Remember who you are!

Peace,