3 Angels
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Students of A Course in Miracles are always sitting in coffee shops wondering why they are not totally enlightened even though they have studied the Course for many years. To be sure, such thoughts are not necessarily in their surface awareness. But in their subconscious mind, which everyone knows because there are no private thoughts, they whisper to themselves something like, "I know there's more. I know there's an experience I'm not experiencing. Why can't I have the experience I really, really, really crave deep inside?"
Of course many of these very students are living relatively satisfying lives because A Course in Miracles has taught them to be comparatively open to miracles and to generally wish themselves a happier dream, a wish which of course comes true. But underneath the surface of the happy dream, they know there is more. They may or may not admit it to themselves, but underneath the surface they crave a much, much, much larger and more glorious experience, what they might even refer to as a "higher" state of being.
When such a longing for more is brewing inside, a question begins to arise, usually subconsciously but rising nonetheless: "Has A Course in Miracles failed me? Or am I somehow not grasping what the Course would have me see clearly?"
Maybe the old story about the 3 angels who visited the Miracles Cafe would help clear such a question.
Once upon a time there were 3 little angels who seemed to have become human beings but wanted to become angels again. So they said to themselves, "We're going to become angels!" Then they proceeded to do nothing and they became angels, true or false?
If your inner hearing is well enough developed that you can hear without ego insertions, you immediately heard inside just now: "true." Not only is there nothing that can be done to make oneself an angel, but trying to do something is the very definition of continued humanness.
A Course in Miracles reminds us that if we are to reach our ultimate goal and experience what we really, really, really, really want there must be an undoing. Beginning students in typical human fashion interpret this to mean that past thinking habits must be undone but present doing doesn't necessarily have to be undone. Along the way there are some lucky students who see a light flash on, so to speak, and say to themselves, "Oh, I get it! All doing must be undone! If I'm going to make it all the way, I really need do nothing! I do not experience my enlightenment by doing!"
This ultimate truth can be seen more easily if you substitute the word "forming" for the word "doing." If someone said to you, "I want to experience the absolute freedom of unbound, limitless, formless reality," your inner voice would have you answering, "Good for you! Quit forming!"
The original former, the ego, doesn't mind reformers (as long as form still exists) but cringes at the idea of something deformed. Therefore it becomes culturally and psychologically comfortable to think of A Course in Miracles as reforming, but not deforming. Very few would laugh at a joke like: "Did you hear about the full endeavor Course students? They were totally deformed!"
Anyway in the story, once these 3 little angels decided to be deformed by A Course in Miracles they went immediately to the local franchised but uncertified Miracles Cafe, which seemed to be a vegetarian snack shop serving freshly brewed organic coffee, but which also doubled as one of the secret meeting places of the clandestine religious movement called "The Deformation."
Of course The Deformation never wanted to be a religious movement. It just inherited such a title because nobody else was willing to deform. If someone would have asked these dear brothers, "Are you all about breaking away from the pope?" they would have answered, "Who is the pope but me? No, there never was any breaking away." If someone would have asked them, "Do you favor individuals studying the unedited version as opposed to being forced to study an editor's version?" they would have answered, "It's not about studying. It's not about words. It's about the void between the words."
Nobody could ever pin down the brothers of The Deformation.
Anyway, the 3 little angels wanted deformation so once they were seated at a table in the Miracles Cafe they asked the waiter, "What are you waiting for?" and the waiter answered, "For you." This answer made the angels very happy because it put the responsibility for the release of pain, sickness, and death squarely on their shoulders. They saw that all suffering would disappear when they themselves became deformed.
So they asked happily, "How do we become deformed?"
The waiter answered, "If I was you, which I am, I would be at peace and be happy. I am taking care of everything for you. That's what us waiters are for."
"But wouldn't you have us study A Course in Miracles?" asked the angels.
"I might have you read A Course in Miracles, but not study it," replied the waiter. "Studying engages your mind, which is the opposite of deformation."
"You mean while we are reading A Course in Miracles our mind can be doing nothing?"
"Just about," said the waiter, laughing. "It only takes a little willingness, not a heroic mental engagement. It's unbelievably simple."
The angels breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed in their chairs, having no desire to ever say another word.
At this point something very strange happened. No sooner had the angels relaxed than... poof!... as if by magic they found that they themselves were waiters lovingly standing by tables.
The story doesn't end at this point but it ends soon enough once you become a waiter, true or false?
Maybe your first response to this story is something like, "That's all well and good, but who sets up these franchised but uncertified Miracles Cafes?"
Good question. We'll wait and see. But if the Holy Spirit said to you, "We are going to use you to set up a Miracles Cafe," then you wouldn't really be the doer, would you?
Maybe we will never see Miracles Cafes set up in cities around the world where "students" of A Course in Miracles can sit around and read the Course together and feel total, whole, and complete, like nothing could ever be missing, while they experience out-of-this-world light in one glorious all-encompassing never-ending Holy Instant. But one thing for sure, when you are sitting quietly in a coffee shop (or quietly anywhere) if you listen deeper inside you can hear the Holy Spirit lovingly and laughingly whispering words like:
Do you wish to be a doer or a waiter?"
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MIRACLES HEALING CENTER