Remembering God by Forgetting?

Forget all save God…and remember.  True remembrance of God signifies that nothing else is in our awareness.  

“I therefore reveal unto thee sacred and resplendent tokens from the planes of glory, to attract thee into the court of holiness and nearness and beauty, and draw thee to a station wherein thou shalt see nothing in creation save the Face of thy Beloved One, the Honored, and behold all created things only as in the day wherein none hath a mention.” (Baha’u’llah, The Seven Valleys, p. 2)

A Course in Miracles is a mind-training that works by sorting out all elements of perception that are out of accord with the perception of the Kingdom. The document’s author claims to be Jesus’ resurrected mind speaking from beyond this world (the Christ Consciousness). Whether this is accepted or not, it is my experience that the mind-training of A Course in Miracles works.

A Course in Miracles is comprised of a Text outlining the theory behind its practice, a Workbook of 365 Lessons (one for each day), and a Teacher’s Manual. Its basic premise is that through active forgiveness or the acceptance of Atonement, the illusion of separation from God is translated into the realization of oneness with Him.

In the mind which thinks itself separate from God (virtually all human minds), a conceptual construction of “reality” based on the minds’ frozen perceptions has been formed. Upon this concept is built the entirety of what we Baha’i’s call “the Old World Order”. This is why a deconstruction of the blocks to the truth, or a mind-training, is necessary in order to perceive, and thus to bring about, the “New World Order”. Forgetting all save God or purification can be thought of this way: a freeing from the “veils of idle fancies and vain imaginings”.

“Know thou that the Kingdom is the real world, and this nether place is only its shadow stretching out. A shadow hath no life of its own; its existence is only a fantasy, and nothing more; it is but images reflected in water, and seeming as pictures to the eye.” (Abdu’l-Baha, Selections from the Writings of Abdu’l-Baha, p. 177)

Who is casting that shadow over the world? Let’s look at some facts. If the reality of man is thought, not body, and spirit the the lamp from which the rays of the mind extend (Abdul’-Baha’, Baha’i World Faith p. 317), then it must be that Mind is singular. To explain this idea of Singular Mind: examine for a moment, how there is nothing in your awareness now or that you can bring to your awareness that is outside of your mind. Can you see how all your ideas, opinions, emotions, physicality, occupations, time references, perceptions and relationships as the stuff of your mind are part of you? In this sense, nothing is outside of you. You are literally the Light of the World. This is the essence of singular reality: you are responsible for your mind in its entirety. The extension of your light affects all of creation; when you change your mind, the world changes also. This is how you bring the light of the Kingdom to the earth (or to material existence). The hindrances to the full radiance of your light extension are simply this: the obscuring dust of acquired illusions.

This begins to get at why your mind needs training. The mind has trained itself through the teaching of the world, to orient to a false reality and screen out the real world (i.e. the Kingdom). The training aims at undoing the blocks to the awareness of light, love, joy and the peace of God -the Kingdom.

“O Son of Light! Forget all save Me and commune with My spirit. This is the essence of My command, therefore turn unto it.” (Baha’u’llah, Hidden Words, 16 from the Arabic)

“And when thou hast attained this highest station and come to this mightiest plane, then shalt thou gaze on the Beloved, and forget all else.” (Baha’u’llahl, Seven Valleys, p. 38)

The idea of forgetting is the common thread in these two passages. To forget something presumes that one is holding something in mind that can be released. Clearly, there is an experience being alluded to here of forgetting all as both a prerequisite and an outcome of communion with and seeing God. Notice how the first idea is a command, which implies immediacy, but the second idea is associated with a future reference. Bringing the past, present and future into accord is simply the experience of now. Ultimately, the experience of now…now…now is actually the absence of time. Experiencing only now brings you into the flow of eternity.

Elsewhere in Baha’u’llah’s, The Seven Valleys, we are told that we can traverse these differing planes in a single breath! The ideas referenced in the two quotes above seem different only in this: One is now, one is later. But look at this: God, being eternal, is not limited by time, which is a construction of the mind. In the non-limited planes of Unity, there is timelessness and oneness. Therefore, you can only experience oneness with God now.

Can illusion free itself from its blindness? This is the function of the Holy Spirit. What then is your part? Forgiveness of the past…forgetting, in order to remember God.

“The Holy Spirit is a lesson in remembering. We said before that He teaches remembering and forgetting, but the forgetting aspect is only to make the remembering consistent. You forget in order to remember better.” (A Course in Miracles, Urtext VII, p. 107)

The obscuring dust of all acquired learning- all memories, ideas about everything and everyone -may seem impossible to eradicate. But it must be possible, if the Command has been issued that we do it.

This is why a training or unlearning is required. The mind must be trained to a continual release of its tendency to retain its memory associations. As outlined in A Course in Miracles, forgiveness is the means for remembering your True Identity as created by God. You are the Light of the world. Through your love, and specifically, your forgiveness extended to your brother, this Light is brought from Heaven to earth and the Kingdom established. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say that the Light will be revealed and the Kingdom remembered.

“…the kingdom is inside you, and it is outside you. If you know yourselves, then you will be known; and you will know that you are the sons of the living Father.” (The Gospel of Thomas)

Check out A Course in Miracles. You might just find yourself forgetting everything else and remembering God, the Eternal Beloved.

Note: The ideas expressed herein are based solely upon the author’s experiences and are not intended to represent any official Baha’i viewpoint.

~ by Varis on February 14, 2010.