Not long after I became a student of A Course in Miracles, as I progressed through the Text and then the Workbook, a theme, amongst the many themes in the Course, kept cropping up and catching my attention. I am referring to joy. The Course clearly states that God is joy, that he created me in joy and repeatedly reminds me that His peace and joy are what He wills for us. This is expressed clearly in these passages in the Text:
If God’s will for you is complete peace and joy, unless you experience only this you must be refusing to acknowledge His will. His will does not vacillate, being changeless forever. When you are not at peace, it can only be because you do not believe you are in Him. Yet He is all in all. His peace is complete, and you must be included in it. His laws govern you because they govern everything. You cannot exempt yourself from His laws, although you can disobey them. But if you do, and only if you do, you will feel lonely and helpless, because you are denying yourself everything. [CE T-8.III.1]1
You are indeed essential to God’s plan. Without your joy His joy is incomplete. Without your smile the world cannot be saved. While you are sad the light which God Himself appointed as the means to save the world is dim and lusterless, and no one laughs because all laughter can but echo yours. [CE W-100.3]
The ego’s role in blocking joy
There is a prayer in the Text that was originally given to Bill Thetford that resonated with me and I memorised it, wanting very much to experience the joy of God. But as the years rolled on I kept coming back to the reality that I was not living a life of joy. Here is the prayer:
I have been unwilling to recognize that this quest is one of joy.
Instead of reacting with anguish at times, and a feeling of frustration and futility, I will to see myself only as I truly am.
Nothing else can matter but this.
The Kingdom is entirely filled with peace and joy, and I am an essential part of it.
Therefore, I must be unwilling to recognize what is already obvious, even in my conflicted state.
I will only for God and His Kingdom.
This is the only message that is meaningful, because it is my reality.
All else is illusion.
I will be helped as I offer help to others.
I will know myself as I recognize my only true relationship with all my brothers.
[CE T-6.VII.C.12]
When I look back, what initially attracted me to this prayer was the second line. I saw myself, reacting repeatedly with anguish and a feeling of frustration and futility to whatever life threw at me. This seemed to describe how I lived my life about 90 per cent of the time. The words of the prayer reassured me that Jesus truly understood me and understood the human condition. At the same time, he was lovingly pointing out that this is not our true nature. I am on a quest of joy, but the ego will not have it because if I live in joy it will wither and die.
Course students are very aware of how subtle the ego’s attack can be. Just when you feel that you have ‘got’ this and life is going well and you are really living a Course-based life, the ego will orchestrate an event – which could be huge like illness or a death in the family or just a few words from a loved one – that brings up old stuff and sets you back on your heels, flayed by anger and resentment and maybe an outburst that leaves you feeling you have gained nothing, which is exactly where the ego wants you: back where it thinks you belong. And it most certainly doesn’t want you joyful.
The ego is afraid of the spirit’s joy, because once you have experienced this, you will withdraw all protection from your ego and become totally without investment in fear. [CE T-4.II.20:1]
How can I be joyful?
Recently I have been ruminating on this topic, and questioning why I am not joyful and asking myself how I can be more joyful in my daily life. I lay in bed several nights ago thinking about a Circle of Atonement video I had been watching, the subject of which was the Quest for Joy. Perhaps for the first time, it truly dawned on me that the God of the Course is a God of Joy. If you have spent decades immersed in traditional Christianity as I had, it is difficult to shake off the notion of God as a stern, austere figure who watches your every move and judges everything you do and expects you to atone for your sins in misery. This God is not one I am particularly keen to engage with. This is a God who repeatedly punishes His children and gives them horrendous trials to test them. I remember my mother, who faced many difficulties ande challenges during her lifetime, often saying “There is a special place for me in Heaven”. She believed she was being tried and that her trials not only tested her strength and fortitude but somehow elevated her in God’s estimation; that it earned her a special place in Heaven. I am not criticizing her in any way, and I am so glad that her faith carried her through some horrific times; I am merely pointing out that this is what most Christians believe, that we are on this earth to be tried. And it’s not hard to see why this belief is so prevalent. After all, isn’t human life one challenge and trial after another, with brief forays into happiness or maybe just calm and peace? Didn’t God put us on this earth to face trials that strengthen us and bring us closer to Him?
Weaning myself off these beliefs has been hard and is a work in progress. I still have trouble talking to God and feel as if at best I occasionally give Him a sideways glance, sort of over my shoulder, afraid to look at Him and be judged. Growing up in the Methodist Church, hearing the Bible stories at Sunday School and also at school, I was terrified and confused about the God that demanded sacrifices, such as asking Abraham to offer his son as a sacrifice to Him; that favoured one son over another and visited tremendous evils on those who opposed the Israelites, His chosen children. I was also confused by a God Who would have His “only begotten Son” (as per Christian belief) murdered in order to grant absolution to the rest of the human race. A loving God would just not do that.
I am writing this on Good Friday, the day that is most venerated by Christians, the Crucifixion being the most significant event in the Christian calendar. The day on which Jesus was killed for me and all my fellow sinners. In the Course, Jesus completely overhauls and reframes the Crucifixion, but that is a theme for another post.
Why choose joy?
In a Text section entitled The Escape from Misery, Jesus says:
Joy is eternal. You can be sure indeed that any seeming happiness that does not last is really fear. Joy does not turn to sorrow, for the eternal cannot change. But sorrow can be turned to joy, for time gives way to the eternal. [CE T-22.III.3]
In Workbook Lesson 100, My Part is Essential to God’s Plan for Salvation, Jesus says: Today we will attempt to understand joy is our function here. If you are sad your part is unfulfilled, and all the world is thus deprived of joy along with you. God asks that you be happy, so the world can see how much He loves His Son, and wills no sorrow rise up to abate his joy; no fear beset him to disturb his peace. You are His messenger today. You bring His happiness to all you look upon; His peace to everyone who looks on you and sees His message in your happy face. [CE W-100.6]
Not only is this God a God of Joy, but He expects me as His messenger to be happy so that the world can see how much He loves us all. My function here is joy and it’s crucial I “bring His happiness to all I look upon”.
The joy we are meant to experience is described in this excerpt from the Text:
The light of joy is so strong that it radiates throughout the Sonship and returns thanks to the Father for radiating His joy upon it. Only God’s Own holy children are worthy to be channels of His beautiful joy, because only they are beautiful enough to hold it by sharing it. It is impossible for a child of God to love his neighbour except as himself. That is why the healer’s prayer is:
Let me know this brother as I know myself.
[CE T-5.I.4:2-6]
I choose the Joy of God instead of Pain
Another aspect of the joy of God, one I have absorbed more readily, is that I do not have to experience pain. I can choose the joy of God instead. I choose the joy of God instead of pain (Lesson 190) is the practice I have used most often, in relation to pain and sickness. There are only two options: If I don’t choose the joy of God, it means I have chosen pain. When my body is in pain it means I have not chosen the joy of God. On many occasions, I have been in physical discomfort or pain which I alleviated by repeating the lesson over and over. One year ago, three days before an upcoming overseas trip, I started to feel very unwell, as if I was coming down with the flu. I began to use Course practices, especially this one, over and over. I also used Course-based healing practices I was aware of and talked to the Holy Spirit about what was going on and that I knew I was not a body and therefore this illness could be removed if I did not believe in it. This was the first time since I became a Course student that I healed myself, in the sense that by the day before our departure, I felt fine. One could argue that the symptoms may have been psychosomatic (aren’t all symptoms?) and therefore they disappeared easily. But I know what I felt and the sheer sense of relief when I no longer felt unwell.
Pain in this context is not just physical, but emotional and mental pain. I am careful not to beat myself up if I feel pain and cannot get rid of it unless I take medication. Recently when I was again sick, I used the practices described above but seemingly to no avail. I continued to be very unwell. No matter how advanced we may be on our spiritual journey, we are not immune to how our bodies behave in this world, regardless that we believe the world and bodies are illusions. The Course does not advocate steering clear of any remedies other than its words and practices.
Joy in the Course
There are many references in the Course to the joy that is mine. A key Workbook lesson is Lesson 93: Light and joy and peace abide in me. The opening paragraph of this lesson states:
You think you are the home of evil, darkness, and sin. You think if anyone could see the truth about you he would be repelled, recoiling from you as if from a poisonous snake. You think if what is true about you were revealed to you, you would be struck with horror so intense that you would rush to death at your own hand, living on after seeing this being impossible. [CE W-93.1]
Isn’t this how many of us live? No matter how successful we may appear and how wide our smile, aren’t we afraid to reveal who we truly are, to others and even to ourselves? In response to these firmly entrenched beliefs we hold about our true nature, Jesus counters with:
Why would you not be overjoyed to be assured that all the evil which you think you did was never done, that all your “sins” are nothing, that you are as pure and holy as you were created, and that light and joy and peace abide in you? [CE W-93.4:1]
My Quest for Joy
I continue on my quest each day, studying the Course, being diligent in my practice and availing myself of the material on offer through A Circle of Atonement. I am on the look out for every situation in which I am guided to give miracles, that is, to bring healing and love into a situation. This could be something as simple as smiling at someone or saying “thank you”. I often forget and often fail miserably at seeing or feeling any joy. But I continue to refresh my desire and renew my conviction that God’s joy is mine. Whenever I see darkness and misery I remind myself of God’s joy that is a given.
1: All references in this article are from the Complete and Annotated Edition (CE) of A Course in Miracles
NOTE: In a previous article on this subject I provided additional references to the topic of joy in the Course. (https://rukibartholomeusz.com/a-course-in-miracles/the-quest-for-joy/ )