I see ‘loosely’ two camps of Coursers. The Saint Thomas followers, Gary’s camp, that criticize the religions they come from. I can see why this happens given the history of religions to bash eternal truths so literally in form. Gary has every right to criticize Christianity because it so clearly twisted Christ’s understanding and words to serve the ego’s truths. Gary as Thomas was Christ’s scribe! This must be insanely frustrating to see Christ’s message twisted. So many people I know fall into this camp. The camp of people who strongly dislike religion because of how obviously religion has failed to uphold it’s spiritual truths.
There is another camp of people and I like to think of them as Saint Stephen’s camp. These people don’t hate their religion of origin they simply understand the spiritual truths of their religion because they were probably nondualists in thinking before finding the Course and the Course was the final piece of the puzzle. I call them Saint Stephen’s camp because Stephen was the first martyr of Christianity and his speech to the Sanhedrin (the Jewish religious authorities of his time), derived it’s eloquence from his ability to see non-dualistically the truths within the prophetic stories of old and to argue for Jesus as the Messiah Judaism predicted would appear. I fall into Saint Stephen’s camp though I am a devotee of Gary and his teachers of course. The people who were able to see the deeper meaning behind what their religion of origin taught. I’m eternally grateful the Course can highlight Spiritual truths within it so clearly and distill them. It takes some fine combing through the world’s religions to find these truths sometimes especially when the “speakers” of these religions don’t fully understand the spiritual truths the religion holds.
On that note I was recently listening to a rerun episode(1) on Miracle Voices with Bob Rosenthal (the former executive director of the Center for Inner Peace) may his soul rest in peace. He was saying that he didn’t think religions highlighted relationships as the way to reach heaven. They expect their followers to do good deeds but it’s more of an individual journey. I thought, well my religion sure does! Now I can’t speak for Jews or Hindus or Buddhists but I bet you anything all religions do speak to how important relationships are, but humanity is hard wired for the ego, and our representations of these truths have fallen short.
So I wanted to revisit two ahadith that I love because they feed me in my day and they are in alignment with the course. They center relationships as the cornerstone of faith, the way the course so elegantly does. Yes the Course does it more clearly directly and better. Yes the Course is also clearly consistent in language in a way no other ‘sacred text’ can come close. I’m a courser after all! But Islam does speak to the importance of relationships. The concept of Al Sirat Al Mustaqeem, the hair blade knife’s edge bridge, is just that. That bridge is there on the day of judgment because the final reckoning isn’t with God at all, it’s literally with every relationship we have ever had in our life! So yes, Islam speaks about the importance of relationships to get into Heaven and illustrates it with haunting imagery to boot. I’ll quote these two ahadith now here:
Religion/faith is in how you treat (relate) to others (الدين المعاملة)
Can I not share with you who the fires of Hell are forbidden to Touch? Fire will not touch every personable (approachable), gentle, flexible and easy going person.
ألا أخبركم بمن يحرم على النار، أو بمن تحرم عليه النار؟، تحرم على كل قريب هين لين سهل[1].
Similar to another Course quote that is seared into my head because it tells us what we should measure our progress genuinely against. I have it in other blog posts because it does keep me up at night. Obviously I haven’t cleared fear from my unconscious and yes religions like Islam do also use language that can strike fear in one’s heart (yay unconscious guilt). Basically our job as Coursers is to work with that energy and forgive// release it to the Holy Spirit and ask his help. This quote says we need to clear fear of any kind, that’s a tall order. It can’t be done without help from high above our current station. Here is the ACIM quote again:
You have one test, as sure as God, by which to recognize if what you learned is true.²If you are wholly free of fear of any kind, and if all those who meet or even think of you share in your perfect peace, then you can be sure that you have learned God’s lesson, and not your own.³Unless all this is true, there are dark lessons in your mind that hurt and hinder you, and everyone around you.⁴ The absence of perfect peace means but one thing: You think you do not will for God’s Son what his Father wills for him.⁵ Every dark lesson teaches this, in one form or another.⁶ And each bright lesson with which the Holy Spirit will replace the dark ones you do not accept, teaches you that you will with the Father and His Son. (ACIM, T-14.XI.5:1-6)