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| | An Exclusive Sounds True Interview with Gary Renard | | The most important lessons in A Course in Miracles revolve around what Gary Renard calls “quantum forgiveness.” Here,he explores the peace available through this powerful act.
July 25,2006
Sounds True: The story about your visitation by Pursah and Arten is pretty hard to believe. How do you respond when people question you about that experience?
Gary Renard: I have been really surprised the last couple of years going all over the country speaking and finding out that most people have been very supportive of my experiences. I think part of the reason for that is that,if you ask people in public opinion polls,you will find that the overwhelming majority of people,even in this very Western country,have had experiences that they would describe as mystical or spiritual—experiences that tell them that there is more than just everyday life going on here. People are ready for a lot more than what the news media and television and radio are willing to give them. People seem to be looking for experiences that are similar to their own but that they are not getting from the mainstream media. So I’ve been very pleasantly surprised.
ST: How do we know the text for A Course in Miracles is authentic?
GR: The only way that you can know that something is authentic is through your experience. And experience is very important,because experience is the only thing that will ever make us happy. Theology won’t do it. Theory won’t do it because they are just words,and like A Course in Miracles says,words are but symbols of symbols. They are twice removed from reality. So when you think about it,how is a symbol of a symbol ever going to satisfy you? How is it ever going to make you full or whole or complete? The only thing that will ever really satisfy you is not a symbol of reality but an experience of reality. In A Course in Miracles, Jesus says something very interesting. He is talking about all these difficult questions that we have that are sometimes impossible to answer. And what he says is,“There is no answer. Only in experience. Seek only this,and do not let theology delay you.” And what he is talking about is the great experience that is equal to re-experiencing the oneness with your source. You have an experience of what you really are and where you really are,which is perfect wholeness and oneness,which A Course in Miracles calls spirit. And it is the experience of that which tells you what you really are—that is the answer to all questions. In fact,it is the only legitimate answer to all questions because it blows the questions away in that experience. It’s the experience that all the great mystics of history have talked about,and that’s the experience that A Course in Miracles is directed toward.
If you look back to some of the esoteric texts that are being highlighted so much nowadays,like the Gospel of Mary and the Gospel of Thomas,you find that the original idea behind the teachings of Jesus are actually more Eastern than Western. Jesus was from the Middle East,not Mississippi. Jesus wasn’t a Christian; he was a Jewish teacher. And he certainly understood the teachings of Buddhism,and he understood the concept of undoing your ego,which is undoing the false you,and re-experiencing the real you. And that’s the same approach that Buddha used: the idea of undoing the ego. So I think that what is real spirituality,as I call it,is not the idea of improving the false you and the false world,but instead of undoing it and awakening from it. When Buddha said,“I am awake,” he meant that he had awakened from the illusion. He had awakened from the dream that we call life. And that’s the same approach that A Course in Miracles uses,which is to awaken from what is in effect a dream of time and space,which is a function of separation. And awakening to that which you really are,which is perfect oneness with God.
There is one other thing I would like to mention about that. This kind of spirituality is very much in harmony with the new physics,and the fact that everything is connected and everything is one. You will find that approach up to and including this form of advanced forgiveness in my audio CDs Secrets of the Immortal and The End of Reincarnation. That kind of forgiveness is very much in harmony with the new physics because it teaches that we are all one and not separate from each other. The old-fashioned Western kind of spirituality,the old-fashioned idea of forgiveness is more in harmony with the old physics,the Newtonian physics,so we have to make a distinction between Eastern thought,which is actually being confirmed now by the new physics and Western thought,which is actually being overthrown and is more in harmony with the old-fashioned way of thinking and the old physics. I really believe that the new spirituality that shows up in texts like A Course in Miracles will be demonstrated to be true by the new science and the new physics,and that the old ideas are going to slowly but surely fall by the wayside.
ST: The text to A Course in Miracles is accompanied by a workbook for students. Can you talk about its function?
GR: It is important to have something that teaches you mental discipline and retrains the mind to think along a certain path. That is why a classic spirituality like Buddhism retrains the mind and undoes the ego. That is also what A Course in Miracles does,the same thing. In fact,it says salvation is undoing,which means you are undoing the ego. I agree with Buddhism completely when it says that the ego cannot survive without judgment. If you really want to make great spiritual progress in one lifetime,I think it is important to have something that retrains the mind to think along right-minded ideas. As A Course in Miracles puts it,“An untrained mind can accomplish nothing.” That is a pretty provocative statement. It says that many of us accomplish less spiritually because we don’t realize how automatic our thinking is and that the ego judges and condemns automatically. When I saythe ego, I am talking about the Buddhist termego, which teaches that there is only one ego appearing as many. Another way of putting that is: There is only one of us that thinks it is here,and you’re it. It is not somebody else. And then we look out with the conscious mind and we see this separation and we see all these millions of bodies,which is what the Hindus called the world of multiplicity,and that is illusion. As I said,the new physics is starting to confirm that. Albert Einstein described a person’s experience as an optical illusion of consciousness. What we think we are seeing in experiences is actually a trick. There is a reason we see the world we do,and it fulfills a function,and once we realize what that function is,then we start to realize it is a trick that we can awaken from and escape from. Then we can actually have something better,which is a marvelous experience of being one with God and being one with our source,and to me that is what great spirituality is all about. It is about returning to your source instead of staying stuck in the cycle of birth and death. Instead of reincarnating,there is a way to escape all of that and go home,and I think that is the ultimate goal of great spiritualities like Buddhism and A Course in Miracles.
ST: And the Course talks about forgiveness as that way home?
GR: That’s right,but remember this is not your old-fashioned kind of forgiveness. This is not your parents' spirituality. The old-fashioned kind of forgiveness,as I said earlier,is based on the old physics,which makes separation real. So it supposedly forgives other people but at the same time it is saying that they are guilty,that they really did it,that they are being pardoned for sins that they’ve really committed. And all that that does is keep the thought of separation real in the unconscious mind. The new kind of forgiveness doesn’t do that. The new kind of forgiveness that is taught in A Course in Miracles says,and I quote,“Forgiveness does not pardon sins and make them real.” It says there was no sin,and in that view,all your sins are forgiven. I might add that only in that view are all your sins forgiven,because A Course in Miracles also says “As you see him,you will see yourself.” There is only one ego appearing as many,and the unconscious mind knows that. Somewhere in the unconscious mind is buried the truth. You can cover over the truth but you can never really lose it,because the mind is holographic and the truth is always there somewhere. So what are people doing if they go through life judging and condemning other people,and the unconscious mind knows that there is really only one of us here? All that they are really doing is sending a message directly into their own unconscious mind about themselves. You know,whatever you are putting out there about somebody else,whatever you are thinking about somebody else,is actually going nowhere but to you. It is going directly into your unconscious mind. Why? Because there is only one of us here.
According to A Course in Miracles, we forgive people not because they’ve really done something. We forgive them because they really haven’t done anything; we are the ones who made them up in the first place. The world that we are seeing is a projection that is coming from our own unconscious mind,and it is actually symbolic of the idea that we’ve separated our self from our course. With forgiveness,we undo that thought of separation by forgiving people because they haven’t really done anything,and in that view,forgiveness is justified. If they have really done something,then forgiveness is not justified,but if they haven’t done anything,then forgiveness is justified. The reason that we wanted them to be here and appear to be doing the things they are doing is so that they can be responsible,so that they can be the guilty party. You could eventually think of the universe of time and space as being like the ultimate scapegoat. It is something that we made up so that our own unconscious guilt we feel over separating from our source and separating from God could be seen as being outside of us instead of inside of us.
The introduction to A Course in Miracles says,“This course does not aim at teaching the meaning the love,for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim,however,at removing the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence,which is your natural inheritance.” Your natural inheritance is nothing less than the kingdom of heaven and being one with God. That is the greatest experience that you can have,and it is possible to have that experience even while you appear to be living here in this world. It is just that now you understand that you are not really in this world and you learn where you really are,which is with God. And that experience is there not through striving for it but through undoing that which has prevented you from having that experience. Removing the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence is the ego being removed,and that is the equivalent of the Buddhist undoing the ego. They really are both the same thing. And when you undo the ego,when you undo the false you,then reality is all that is left. That is in harmony with something else A Course in Miracles says in the introduction: “Nothing real can be threatened.” What that is,is spirit. But this idea of spirit,once again,is not your old-fashioned idea of spirit,which is a separation idea. This new idea of spirit would be perfect oneness. It would be whole and it would be full and it would be complete. In fact,the wordholy comes from the wordwhole, and that is why you find Jesus saying things 2000 years ago,for example,in the Gospel of Thomas when he says,I am the one who comes from what is whole. Therefore I say if one is whole, one will be filled with light. But if one is divided, one will be filled with darkness. You can’t have it both ways; you can’t be a little bit whole; you have to choose one or the other. And in order to do that,your allegiance must be to one of the two,and in the case of A Course in Miracles your allegiance is to God and so nothing real can be threatened,and that is reality. The kind of spirit which is whole and full and perfect cannot be threatened by the world in any way. It is something that can’t even be touched by this world. It is immortal. It is invulnerable. The second line of that section in the Course says,“nothing unreal exists.” And that would be anything else,including the body.
So when A Course in Miracles says “Be vigilant only for God and his kingdom,” it is talking about looking at the world and not changing what you do in the world but simply changing the way that you look at it. And through forgiveness,realizing that these people that we see out there are just split aspects of our own mind that thinks that it is separate,but that we can now allow the Holy Spirit to heal through a kind of forgiveness that rejoins with our self. You know,when Jesus went through life 2000 years ago,forgiving everybody and seeing everybody as being totally innocent,by doing that,he was looking past the body to what they really are,which is spirit,and every time he did that it was as though he was rejoining with himself and becoming whole again. In that process of becoming whole again,he was actually awakening and returning to reality. So when Buddha said,I am awake, he meant that he had awakened. And Jesus,in A Course in Miracles, is teaching the same thing; he is teaching us to awaken from what is the equivalent of a dream and return to what we really are,which is this idea of perfect oneness with God.
A very important concept in both Buddhism and the Course is the difference between cause and effect. The ego wants us to keep our attention fixed outside of us. So people,from the moment that they are born to the moment that they die,will be presented with an endless series of problems,and all these problems and distractions are a trick. They are meant to focus our attention outside of ourselves because the problem appears to be out there somewhere,even if it is very close to you; even if it is your own body,it still appears to be outside of you because you are viewing it with you body’s eyes. What you are really viewing it with is the mind,and it is a projection of the mind but it appears that you are seeing these things with the body’s eyes. Yet the body itself is just a projection of the mind. So even your own body is something that is being projected by your mind. Now the purpose of all this,as we said,is to keep ourselves distracted out there. The problem appears to be out there,which means that the solution appears to be out there,and as long as we think that,then we will totally be at effect.
Another analogy that I would like to mix with that is that when I go to the movies,which is my hobby,I go in there and I want it to be real. So I look at the movie screen and I eventually forget that it is not real,and I think that there is something happening there on the screen. I start to get into the story and I think that it is real,and I forget that that’s not really where things are taking place. Where that projection is coming from is hidden from me. And where it is coming from is a projector and the projector is hidden in the back of the theater; I’m not supposed to think about that. But if I really wanted to have a lasting impact on the screen,it wouldn’t do me any good to fool around with the screen. The most I am going to have is a very temporary impact. If I really want to change what is on the screen in a permanent way instead of a temporary way,then what I have to do is go back and find the projector,and I have to change what is in the projector. That’s what the Course does. It finds the projector,which is the mind,instead of concentrating on the effect,which is the screen that we call life. As A Course in Miracles says,this is a course in cause and not effect. It also says,seek not to change the world. It says,seek rather to change your mind about the world. When you do that,then you are going from a position of being at the effect of things to being at cause. When you do that,then you have a real chance to do some miraculous things because now you are dealing with the problem where it really is—in the mind—instead of in the projection,which is just an effect and where you can’t ever solve the problem. Now,that is very important because once you start to change what is in the mind,then the effect will just fall naturally,and that brings up a very important point in how we deal with what we see in the world. One of my teachers said something very important in The Disappearance of the Universe. She said the people of the world will never live in peace until they have inner peace. And that is because what we are seeing is actually an outer reflection of an inward condition,and if you keep trying to fix the problems of the world out there,out there on the screen,then it will never work. We’ve been trying diplomacy for thousands of years,and people still cling to the idea that they are going to fix the problem out there,either through negotiations or through diplomacy or creating a department of peace or whatever they want to do out there,and it doesn’t work. And it can’t work,because you are not dealing with the real problem. What you have to do is change the way that people look at things and change the way that people think,one at a time. When the people of the world,through forgiveness,undo their ego and find inner peace,then outer peace will naturally have to follow,because all you are seeing on the outside is a reflection of what is on the inside. If you really want to bring about world peace,then the way to do it is not through trying to fix the effects but by going back to the cause and fixing the problem where it really is—which is in the mind.
Now,because we are dealing with the problem where it really is,which is in the mind,it doesn’t mean that you change anything about what you are doing in the world unless you feel guided to do so by the Holy Spirit. And here is what I mean by that: the teachings of an advanced spiritual teaching like the Course are always applied at the level of the mind. Why? Because that is where the problem is. So if you are spending time working on the effect,well,that is kind of like moving around the furniture in a burning house. It might make the house look better temporarily,but you are not dealing with the real problem,which is in the mind. So,at the same time,if the world isn’t real,then that doesn’t mean that you should change what you are doing in it or that you have to give up anything in it. If you think that you have to give up something in the world,then that is making it just as real to your mind as if you want it. So I say to people,you know,live a normal life. Do the things that you would normally do. It is not necessarily about changing what you do. It is not about not having relationships,not having money,not having fun. I think it is just the opposite,because as this goes on and you forgive,then what is happening is the Holy Spirit is removing all this stuff that is in your unconscious mind and you are becoming less guilty feeling. If you have less guilt,you can enjoy life more,not less. It is definitely not about giving up the world; it is simply about changing the way that you look at it. Most of the time,you are going to end up doing the things you would have done anyway. It is not about giving up the romantic sunsets or your relationships; it is just about looking at them differently through forgiveness.
That is why the Course always is applied to the level of the mind and it is not about changing what you do in the world. As you go along you may feel guided by the Holy Spirit to make changes,and as you remove the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence,you’ll have inspiration more available to you. And you’ll be able to better decide what you should do through these inspired ideas that come to you from the Holy Spirit,and you’ll be able to make things work better because you’ll be thinking more clearly. All those things will happen naturally. So I caution people about thinking that all of a sudden they have to completely change their life. Really,all this is about is changing the way that you look at things,and by doing so,you have a better experience of life,and then,on top of that,as you go along you’ll find that you are awakening to what you really are. So it is really a win/win situation where you get to have a higher quality of life,and at the same time,you are also becoming enlightened in the process. So it is really a great method.
In closing,I’d like to say that it is important for us to remember that classic spirituality is not about fixing up our lives. It is about waking up from our lives—and that is not just a small distinction; it is everything. And I don’t say there is anything wrong with other approaches; all paths lead to God in the end. But I think people can save themselves a lot of time in awakening from the cycle of birth and death and ending reincarnation if they make that the goal. Ironically,when they do that,they will also have a better life in the process,because now they are dealing with something that has real power,which is being at cause,instead of something that has little power,which is dealing with the effect. And that is the approach of A Course in Miracles: dealing with the real power,which is being at cause.
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