Perhaps it is appropriate that the original unedited source text of A Course in Miracles has come to light for the general public just before Labor Day.
Reading this unedited version we see Jesus laboring lovingly, giving assurance after assurance, to release Helen Schucman's fears and resistance to the ideas he was presenting.
We also see Jesus laboring patiently, offering explanation after explanation, when Helen did not understand the hidden meanings of statements he was asking her to write down.
We see Jesus laboring painstakingly to undo Helen and Bill's habitual ways of seeing things so Helen could have more comprehensive inner hearing and Bill could more efficiently perform his function in the process of the scribing of the Course.
We further see Jesus laboring compassionately to offer counseling and personal healing messages not only to Helen and Bill, but through Helen and Bill to others in their acquaintance, so everyone could experience more life.
If you want to see a labor of love not of this world, read the original unedited source text of A Course in Miracles!
But there is no difference between the edited version of A Course in Miracles and this newly distributed and totally unedited original source text, true or false?
No more difference than you might imagine between the Foundation For A Course in Miracles in New York and Endeavor Academy in Wisconsin.
No more difference than you might see between those who live by the Holy Spirit's unedited inner voice and those who so habitually edit what is rising from inside themselves that their inner hearing is useless.
No more difference than you might suspect between those whose lives are intellectually structured and those who actually allow the Holy Spirit to "possess" them, move them all over the place, and use them outrageously for miracles.
The two versions of A Course in Miracles could not be the same course any more than a psychologist's interpretation of who you are could be the real you.
There is a world of difference between the Holy Spirit's words spoken by Jesus directly and those same words added to, deleted from, turned around, and restated according to the relative clarity or non-clarity of editors.
We know from the comments of Jesus to Helen Schucman while she was scribing the unedited original source text that Helen was afraid of many of the ideas and phrases she was hearing. We also know that despite the heroic labor of Jesus, Helen never did release all her fears and resistance.
We understand that not all editing is done because fears and resistance to publishing certain items are present in mind, but if fears and resistance are present they certainly influence inner hearing with respect to editorial decisions.
Would it be worthwhile to at least read, if not study, the original unedited source text of A Course in Miracles?
In the original unedited source text Jesus fearlessly uses concepts such as: "Miracles are a kind of exchange." "Miracles are an industrial necessity." "Miracles are cobwebs of iron." Jesus also explains the meaning of such sentences to Helen's editorial-thinking mind. But in these and many, many other instances neither the concepts nor the explanations make it into the edited version.
So the question, as always, is: what do you really, really, really want?
If you want a taste of spiritual life and a comparatively happy dream, but still accompanied by a sense of something missing because there has been no spiritual breakthrough into the altogether different state of being Jesus would have you experience, then you want to stay with the your editing.
But if you want something more, and there IS something more, you cannot experience that something more by staying solely with the edited because the total spiritual experience... out of this world joy, out of this world love, out of this world peace and certainty... is an unedited experience.
What do you really, really, really want?
Do you want to play it safe, as editors do? Or do you want to jump off the cliff and find you can fly?
Does the edited version of A Course in Miracles, made "presentable" by Helen Schucman, nurtured by Ken Wapnick, now published by Penguin Publishing, serve a good and wonderful purpose? How could it not? Haven't it's dedicated students come to experience a happy dream characterized by a marked increase of peace, joy, and love in their lives? What more could be asked?
Well, maybe you will be surprised to find out that the Holy Spirit is asking much, much more of you. From the Holy Spirit's viewpoint, a little more love, a little added joy, a little extra peace, a somewhat more happy dream in which you are still vaguely bothered by awareness of earth's gifts of pain, sickness, suffering, and death... is NOT ENOUGH.
You are being asked to expand farther, go higher, experience everlasting life not of this earth. You are being asked to rise above life on earth, so to speak.
You are being asked to expand into such a powerful nearly overwhelming love that you can hardly breathe until you get used to the experience.
You are being asked to allow the experience of such an ecstatic unearthly joy that you are borderline delirious at first.
You are being asked to dwell in an absolute certainty and eye-of-the-hurricane peace unknown to normal human beings and only slightly glimpsed by the first generation of Course in Miracles students and teachers.
You are being beckoned to go where no edited version of anything could ever take you.
So is it allegorical that the unedited original text of A Course in Miracles has come to light at this time?
How could it not be? Someone might say the Holy Spirit knows exactly what the Holy Spirit is doing.
Close your eyes and really, really become honest with yourself. Then try to tell us you are not ready for something more.
Look deeper inside than ever before. What do you really, really, really, really, really want?
Unedited light, powerful as the entire universe, is the Holy Spirit's delight for you to experience... the fruits of Jesus' labor for you.
Isn't it the unedited you really want?
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