Kenneth Wapnick - Gentle Means and Easy Tasks

8/13/2019 Kenneth Wapnick - Gentle Means and Easy Tasks

1/6

1

Volume 16 Number 2 June 2005

GENTLE MEANS AND EASY TASKS

K e n n e t h W a p n i c k , P h .D .

Introduction

In Act IV of Shakespeares Othello,Desdemona, soon to be murdered by herhusband in an unjustified fit of crazed jealousy, says:

Those that do teach young babes

Do it with gentle means and easy tasks (IV,ii).

Though the context in which Desdemonas words occur is anything but gentleOthello has just cruelly labelled her a whorethey nonetheless offer a wonderfuldescription of Jesus gentleness with us, his younger brothers and sisters. Indeed,throughoutA Course in Miracles,Jesus refers to us as children, for in our spiritualawareness we are like children, totally unaware of the illusory nature of the world

around us. Thus we need an elder brother to teach us gently, without demandingthat we perform what is beyond our capabilitiesthe gentle meansof forgiveness,and the easy tasksof its application to our special relationships. In this article welook at how Jesus is gentle and easy with us, modeling how we are to be withourselves and with each other.

A Gentle and Easy Fairy Tale

We begin by examining one of the clearest, though often misunderstood waysin which Jesus demonstrates his kind gentleness, exemplifying the principle of notfurther frightening those who are already afraid (T-2.IV.5). As he says in the text,

he must

... use the language that this [separated] mind can understand, in the condition in

which it thinks it is. ... [he] must use all learning to transfer illusions to the truth, taking all

false ideas of what you are, and leading you beyond them to the truth that isbeyond them

(T-25.I.7:4-5).

Thus Jesus brings his non-dualistic truth to the fearful and dualistic world inwhich we, his frightened younger siblings, find ourselves, addressing his messageof forgiveness to the guilt-ridden minds that still believe they are separated. By thisgentle and loving means, he leads us through the illusions to the truth.

Consider the story Jesus tells us about God and His response to the tiny,mad idea. The Course teaches that the ego speaks first and is wrong (T-5.VI.3:5;4:2), and the Holy Spirit is the answer. Therefore, Jesus answer to the ego isframed within the contours the ego has first established, with which we havealready identified. Yet does he keep these contours and shift to a kind and lovingcontent, illustrating the important teaching that the Holy Spirit does not take awayour special relationships, but transforms them by changing their purpose (e.g., T-17.IV.2:3-6).

Jesus gentle and easy fairy tale lovingly tells his younger siblings of theirFathers Love, correcting the egos harsh, cruel, and deceptive nightmare of His

wrath. The egos tale of sin, guilt, and fearwas designed to instill the fear of God inthe mind of His dreaming Son, causing him to leave his home in the split mind andmake a mindless physical world of time and space, inhabited by bodies. Thus, theSon is told that his separation was born of his wish to have a self that wasindependent of his Source. This act, labeled sinby the ego, constituted the


2/6

2

usurping of Gods role as Creator, not to mention His destruction at the hands ofHis Son. The ensuing guiltset up fearof the future, which drove the Son out of hismindliterally and figuratively. Into this mindless dream of self-hatred and terror,Jesus enters to soothe his brothers and sisters by telling them a different tale, onedesigned to comfort and bless, at the same time it gently awakens them from theegos nightmare of guilt and death. Recall this description of the Holy Spirits gentlecorrection:

How can you wake children in a more kindly way than by a gentle Voice that will not

frighten them, but will merely remind them that the night is over and the light has come? ...

You merely reassure them that they are safe now. ... The Holy Spirit never itemizes errors

because He does not frighten children, and those who lack wisdom are children. ... Children

doconfuse fantasy and reality, and they are frightened because they do not recognize the

difference. The Holy Spirit makes no distinction among dreams. He merely shines them away

(T-6.V.2:1,3; 4:1,3-5).

Therefore, using the language of children to reassure us we are safe now,Jesus gently holds us in his arms as he whispers softly that all is well: Our Father

is not angry. To the contrary, He misses us, is lonely without our presence,andweeps over our having left home (T-2.III.5:11; T-5.VII.4:5). Moreover, as proofof His Love for us, He created the Holy Spirit to come into our sleeping minds andgently awaken us from our dreams of abandonment and betrayal.

This kind story leaves us with the easy task of accepting the loving truth ofhis words by rejecting the harsh sounds of the egos tale of guilt and pain. Were wenot so gently held and lovingly comforted, the task of turning away from the egowould be well nigh impossible, and we would remain forever condemned to a life offutility, bitterly coping with the egos truths of a life born of fear, lived in fear, andending in fear. In its place, Jesus offers us a life lived under the gentle means of

forgiveness, to which we now turn. Thus he meets us where we believe we are, andwith great and loving care leads us down his easy path that takes us back to theloving Arms we never left.

Being Gentle and Easy with Ourselves

The very fact we are here in a body, identifying ourselves as students ofACourse in Miracles,tells us we are creatures of fear, for only the fearful come intothe dream that is the world:

Fear is the one emotion of the world. Its forms are manycall them what you willbut

it is one in content. ... Each ... [dream] contains the whole of fear, the opposite of love, thehell that hides the memory of God, the crucifixion of His holy Son (The Gifts of God,pp. 115-

16).

Yet, despite the fearful aspects of the road that leads out of the world, thepath of forgiveness is gentle and easy, for it asks so little of us. As Jesus says of hiscourse:

This course requires almost nothing of you. It is impossible to imagine one that asks so

little, or could offer more (T-20.VII.1:7-8).

We are not asked to change ourselves or perform herculean spiritual feats,

but merely to look at the ego without judgment:Forgiveness ... is still, and quietly does nothing. ... It merely looks, and waits, and

judges not (W-pII.1.4:1,3).

No effort is required, therefore, exceptto undo our resistance to this gentleand easy process, born of the fear of losing our special identity. It is this fear of


3/6

3

being without specialness that makes the gentleness of forgiveness become anexperience of pain and difficulty. And yet even here we are not asked to struggleagainst this fear, which is why Jesus tells us:

And if you find resistance strong and dedication weak, you are not ready. Do not fight

yourself(T-30.I.1:6-7).

Weare the ones who make this process of undoing difficult, simply by our

reactions to the ego. Recall the original problem:Into eternity, where all is one, there crept a tiny, mad idea, at which the Son of God

remembered not to laugh. In his forgetting did the thought become a serious idea, and

possible of both accomplishment and real effects (T-27.VIIL6:2-3).

The problem was not the tiny, mad idea of being separate from God, butrather choosing to listen to the ego and taking it seriously. Extrapolating to oureveryday experiences, the problems are never the formsthe externalmanifestations of guiltbut our internalreactions to these problems. In otherwords, we are not asked to deny what our eyes see, but only the egosinterpretation of what they see; choosing vision over judgment. Thus, asking Jesusto help us with our resistance means looking at it without judgment. It is not a sinto be afraidYou have not sinned, but you have been mistaken (T-19.IV-B.11:8)but judging oneself for it makes the error a sin, which we believedeserves punishment, not correction. In these contexts, remembering to laughmeans being able to forgive oneself for being afraid of the truth. Since all ourmistakes are one, by forgiving one expression we forgive them all. All mistakes areone mistake; all corrections are one Correctionregardless of their forms:

The tiny tick of time in which the first mistake was made, and all of them within that

one mistake, held also the Correction for that one, and all of them that came within the first

(T-26.V.3:5).Such understanding is wonderfully freeing, for it allows us not to be affected

by the many vicissitudes of our ever- changing world. Regardless of external eventsor the shifting moods of those around us, we can remain at peace, if we so choose.We can therefore be gentle with ourselves, for our lives become easy once we learnfrom Jesus the unity of all relationships and eventsnot in form,but in content.Hislove within our right minds remains constant, and is the foundation for our gentleresponse to all circumstances in our lives. Thus are we freed of the terrible andunending burden of trying to make the imperfect perfect, which can be likened totrying to fill a sieve with watera thankless and hopeless task if there ever were

one. We are then liberated from the egos plan to divert our attention from themindthe source of the problem and the answerso that we focus only on theexternal, along with the difficulties of life in the body. But seeing the problem onlyin the minds mistaken choice for the ego, and the solution onlyin the mindscorrected choice for the Holy Spirit, simplifies our living by unifying our classroom.Jesus invites us to share his gentleness as we look with him at the mindsdecision,forgiving our errors as we are grateful for our easy lessons.

If, however, we are not gentle and easy with ourselves, able to overlook ourexpressions of fear, how could we then be gentle and easy with others? In the end,of course, forgiveness is onewhether we forgive another or ourselves. By learning

to be gently forgiving of our own egos, the process of doing likewise for othersbecomes easy. And so we shift our attention to the outer expressions of our specialrelationship with the ego, the means this course uses to heal the mind.

The Gentle and Easy Path of Forgiving Our Special Relationships


4/6

4

If we follow Jesus previously quoted words about the Holy Spirit, we willnever itemize the errors of another, seeking to make their particular sins justifiedfodder for our egos hungry dogs of fear (T-19.IV-A.11-15). We would recognize,following from what we discussed in the previous section, that no matter howheinous the crime or egregious the sin, the fact remains that fear of love is theultimate motivator for allwrong-minded behavior. Thus we place them in one cate-gorymistakes born of fear. In this manner we allow ourselves to be taught by the

Holy Spirit, as we saw above, not to be afraid of the egos dreams. If we perceivemistakes instead of sins, there is no malice, and so there can be no fear of attackand consequently no need for defense. Since fear, therefore, is unnecessary as adefense against the truth of love, and moreover is illusory, our function could notbe simpler. After all, accepting what is true is the easiest thing in the world. It isresisting its simplicity that is difficult and enervating. And so we remember thesewords of Jesus, which echo Desdemonas quiet wisdom:

How simple is salvation! All it says is what was never true is not true now, and never

will be. ... Can this be hard to learn by anyone who wants it to be true? Only unwillingness to

learn it could make such an easy lesson difficult. ... [Salvation] teaches but the very obvious. Itmerely goes from one apparent lesson to the next, in easy steps that lead you gentlyfrom

one to another, with no strain at all (T-31.I.1:1-2,5-6; 2:3-4; italics mine).

And from the manual, the way out:

Give up what you do not want, and keep what you do. How simple is the obvious!

And how easy to do! (M-4.I.6:6-8)

Using the Jesus ofA Course in Miraclesas our model, we learn to be kind andeasy with each other, giving up the guilt we do not truly want and accepting thepeace that we do. This, however, is impossible as long as our special needsconscious or notare present to distort our perception, ultimately having us seeothers only as separate objects existing to meet our needs. Thus we see shadowsof our pasts of scarcity and deprivation, which justify our current special love andhate perceptions. Our brothers and sisters, companions on the journey, aremisperceived as potential means of satisfying our cannibalistic appetites for thepriceless pearls of innocence the ego tells us we desperately need to survive. Howthen could we remember that we journey together, or not at all (T-19.IV-D.12:8)?

Readers of my book on Helen Schucman, scribe ofA Course in Miracles, mayrecall her experience on the Atlantic City boardwalk:

Several times that summer I felt something like the subway experience of yearsbefore [an earlier experience when Helen felt an indescribable love for people on the New

York City subway]. ... It generally took place in a crowd of people, for whom I could feel a

brief but powerful affinity. One took place on a warm evening when Louis [Helens husband]

and I were walking along a crowded resort boardwalk. A sudden sense of deep emotional

closeness to everyone there swept over me, with a clear and certain recognition that we were

all making the same journey together to a common goal.

Helen later recalled the incident more specifically in a letter to WilliamThetford, her partner in the Courses scribing, written in the summer preceding theCourse coming through her:

One evening we were walking and Jonathan [Helens other name for Louis] pointed

out a brain-injured boy (about 12 or so) who was being pushed by his parents in a carriage.

There were other cripples [an Anglicism for the retarded] there, too. As we walked I suddenly

... got a sense of everyone walking happily and very much together on the same path ... well


5/6

5

all make it home eventually. Sometimes I love everybody very much (pp.115, 140).

How could we not feel love and compassion for every living thing, to citeBuddhas famous teaching, knowing we share the same disability of spiritualweakness and the need to awaken together from its separation nightmare ofsuffering and pain? How could we not love everybody very much when we realizewe are part of the same self that needs to be gathered together, as we read in this

prayer of Jesus from the late second-century Gnostic text, The odes of Solomon:And I sowed my fruits in hearts, and transformed them into myself: and they received

my blessing and lived;

And they were gathered to me and were saved; because they were to me as my own

members and I was their head.

In another Gnostic text, The Second Treatise of the Great Seth, Christiandespite its title, Jesus echoes this same thought: I came to my own and unitedthem with myself.

Jesus gathering of his own unto himself reflects the reuniting of the split-off

Sonship that had fragmented into the world of materialityjoined again as onelight, one love, one Son. While we still believe we are here in the body, this visionof oneness is expressed by our not giving power to the appearances of separationand differences, to which the body and world witness. Thus, while our eyes see aworld in which specialness reigns, our healed minds perceive only expressions oflove or calls for it. Either way, our response that is born of Jesus love for us canonly be love. And so he asks of us:

Dream softly of your sinless brother, who unites with you in holy innocence. ... Dream

of ... [his] kindnesses instead of dwelling in your dreams on his mistakes. Select his

thoughtfulness to dream about instead of counting up the hurts he gave. ... And do not brush

aside his many gifts because he is not perfect in your dreams (T-27.VII. 15:1,3-4,6).Indeed, no one is perfect here, and it would hardly be loving to insist we, or

others, be without blemish. Yet we can allow ourselves to feel the pain behindeveryones imperfections, including our own, thereby looking kindly on anothersmistakes and recognizing the fear behind the maladaptive attempts to somehowsurvive at someone elses expense themistake of the world. Behind these egothoughts, we all carry within us the memory of our perfection as Gods Son, at onewith Him and all creation. Thus the gap between this perfect memory and ourimperfect experience is the seat of all pain and sickness, as we read:

The gap islittle. Yet it holds the seeds of pestilence and every form of ill, because it is a

wish to keep apart and not to join. ... The purpose of the gap is all the cause that sickness has.

For it was made to keep you separated, in a body which you see as if it were the cause of pain

(T-28.III. 4:2-3,5-6).

No one but walks the earth without trying to cope with this deep pain, whosecause is kept concealed within the gap of separation, for all wander here uncertain,lonely, and in constant fear (T-31.VIII.7:1). Some deny this under special cloaksof happiness, peace, and love, while others project the pain outright, seeking toimpose it on another, displacing responsibility for their own suffering. Yet Jesuskindness to us, reflecting his gentle means and easy tasks,becomes our model for

responding to anothers fear, regardless of its form of expression. Havingexperienced his forgiving love, we are able to step aside from the ego and allow thegentle kindness of this love to flow easily through our minds, embracing those whomay not know it. Thus we offer the gift we have received and become one with itboth its Source and Its effects. With a joy that is not of this world, we can join with


6/6

6

Jesus in praying to our God:

In joyous welcome is my hand outstretched to every brother who would join with me

in reaching past temptation, and who looks with fixed determination toward the light that

shines beyond in perfect constancy. ... And as each one elects to join with me, the song of

thanks from earth to Heaven grows from tiny scattered threads of melody to one inclusive

chorus from a world redeemed from hell, and giving thanks to You (T-31.VIII.11:1,5).

And so our arms open in gentleness to hold those in love who still fear it, andas we comfort those who tremble, our love reminds them of the gentle means andeasy taskswith which we reached this quiet center, the garden of love that beckonsto the world that still believes it lives in a desert of death:

The desert becomes a garden, green and deep and quiet, offering rest to those who

lost their way and wander in the dust. Give them a place of refuge, prepared by love for them

where once a desert was. ... The love they brought with them will stay with them, as it will

stay with you. And under its beneficence your little garden will expand, and reach out to

everyone who thirsts for living water, but has grown too weary to go on alone. ... And you

will recognize yourself, and see your little garden gently transformed into the Kingdom ofHeaven, with all the Love of its Creator shining upon it (T-18.VIII.9:3-4,7-8; 10:4).

How joyful to give what we have received! How full our gratitude for theloving brother whose gentleness brought us this joy! How loved we are, for Lovehas never ceased to call us home! Thus we all answer the call together, for it singsin each of us as one, gently calling us to walk the easy path of forgiveness, lovinglyguided by the quiet wisdom of Love, that we be but Itself.

Documents

Kenneth Wapnick - Gentle Means and Easy Tasks