PREFACE
This is the first installment of the first draft of The Story of the Child (working title). It is my attempt to explain how the Child of our Parents, Father Mind-Logic and Mother Love-Freedom, given the gift of Life in Eternity and Reality, given a central role in Creation, lost Consciousness and wound up here in our temporal world of bodies and matter, mortality and unreality. If you're from the Judeo-Christian tradition it's a rewrite of the Garden of Eden. If you're from the Graeco-Roman or Eastern traditions, or from any other philosophy or religion, or if you're just wondering why we put up with suffering and death, this is my answer. It's one individual's reasoning for who we are, why we are here, and what we can do to part with appearances, deceptions and distractions, awaken, and resume our job in Creation.
It's based on Jesus' teaching in A Course in Miracles, a radical departure from biblical Christianity, but it goes beyond the scope of the Course. Its main source is the Memory we all share of the Child's Story and the intuition given to us to access it. Its main source, in other words, is no external "redeemer" but my own mind. In the end it's based on nothing more than what passes for logic and reason in my corrupted, irrational, human mind.
The first draft will be a tough read. Here are some definitions and guides to style and formatting that might make it easier:
* Initial caps refer to the part of the Child's story that occurred within Mind before he lost Consciousness. The same terms lower case belong to the story after he lost Consciousness and split off into multiple identities in our dream world of bodies and matter. I.e. initial caps belong to Consciousness-Reality, lower case to unconsciousness-unreality.
* The "Child" is us in our Conscious state when our Parents (Mind-Love, commonly referred to as "God" in monotheistic religions) gave birth to us in Eternity and Reality (commonly referred to as "heaven"). He was one Child. He was gender neutral for purposes of this telling; "he" is arbitrary and could just as easily be "she." Nevertheless the distinction between masculinity and femininity plays a key role in explaining his origin and central role in the Process and Structure of Creation.
* The "Child" is also us in our unconscious state, dreaming that we are split off into separated bodies. His identity comes from A Course in Miracles and my intuition, not from Carl Jung or any other source. The Course refers to the "Father" and his "Son" and "Sonship." The "Child" and his "Parents" are my invention.
* My book will have a bibliography and it will be sourced. It will be fleshed out with quotes from other sources. This first draft is just me winging it without notes or sources, an exercise in getting it right that will, from time to time, get it wrong. I hope, then, to fix any flaws in my reasoning, wrap it up, and seek publication.
Thank you for your patience! I hope this helps.
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INTRODUCTION: BEGINNING THE STORY OF MIND
There’s been all this talk through the ages about “God” and “spirit” when all we’re talking about is the most obvious thing in all Creation: Mind. It’s what we think with, so how could it be any closer or more familiar to us? And yet busy philosophers and theologists go fussing about searching for exotic terms and concepts to define the thing they’re searching with. We have our minds and we know what they do because they’re doing it all the time: they think. They come up with thoughts. And they string thoughts together in sequences that are supposed to be reasoning, but since we struggle to think with split minds in this existence we call “life” it’s either rationalizing instead or weak reasoning. Or just enough thought to spoon food into our mouths.
In the “beginning” there was no “beginning.” Time hangs around us like a dense fog because where our unconscious minds deposited us is in a dream where it’s never Now. If it were Now we would be awake. As simple as that. But merrily we go along in our ignorance believing whatever our bodies’ senses and our environment turn up even when our own investigations tell us the opposite. In the “beginning” there was just a wondering What might be fun to try? As if all this bother with Creation and Meaning, Mind and Being, were a parlor game gathering dust in the cupboard. Let’s try this game called “Mind.” And so Mind came into existence and, right away, there’s a problem. The directions say if Mind isn’t played just so the players might lose the whole game and flip into its opposite: mindlessness.
What’s that? Well, since we’re only equipped to play “Mind” we’ll never know. How can you figure out the opposite of what you’re using to figure out with? How can you fix a problem with an Atlas rocket with plumbing tools? We just have to leave the question unanswered. All we have to know is that Mind doesn’t occupy all the space there is that’s implied by the Question. Mind’s reasoning can figure that much out. We just have to remember that Mind’s existence isn’t a given because its opposite is waiting out there to kick in and we can’t be sure what will throw the switch.
Once Mind-Consciousness came into Being it advanced beyond its function of Self-awareness, from observation into its function of Thinking, into the production of Thoughts guided by its power and ability to Think Logically, i.e. to Reason, in service to its cause, Being. Thus began the extension and expansion of Mind’s Self-Knowledge / Self-Being, through the process of Thinking-Reasoning and its product, an interconnectedness of Thoughts.
Affirmation of Self-Worth was built into the Logic of Being, the essence of Character. Its expansion was therefore Self-motivated and not driven by the possibility of no-being or any other influence outside of itself. Its power was entirely Self-contained. It was not a “self-interest” engaged in the pursuit of self-preservation aware that it existed in an environment of competing self-interests.
Its Being was, nevertheless, only one logical answer to the Question and so, Self-affirmation was, in fact, a requisite for survival. It was required to sustain the cause of Being even if Mind that was purely Self-motivated could not be aware of it. The Logic of Mind requires that its state of Being be earned, that the stance of Being be independently supported by reasoned validation of, and commitment to, Being’s Worth. Creation and the Child’s part in it – our part in it once we regain Consciousness – became an essential means, an instrument, for Mind-Being’s Self-affirmation: Worth freely chosen, validated by the free spirit of Love from the Child that lies beyond our Parents' control.
As for the Child's Mind -- our Mind -- it figures out what’s needed to keep it in existence and then it devotes all its powers and resources to accomplish it. However uninspiring this may seem the Child's Mind -- our Being, our Self -- has to account for itself. It must establish its reason for being, its justification, its Worth, in all its choices, as though it did exist in an environment of competing self-interests, because that is, in effect, what its state of opposites is. It is the price we pay for having Free Will and a blessing too, for in so doing we contribute to the affirmation of our Parents' Worth. Unlike our Parents, we're aware that mindlessness is waiting in the wings, the void or whatever we want to call it, so there’s no excuse for lounging about on the promenade deck. There’s work to do and we’re part of it.
From the birth of the Child on, we have a Purpose: doing our part to affirm the Worth of Mind. Doing our part to Be.