正见：修正之源 希望的承诺（三）要求特殊之物

开心树

摘要：这些段落明晰了，当我们向基督或者圣灵要求就特殊问题给予帮助，我们是在允许小我的诡计继续侵蚀我们和圣灵的关系。这样一来，这种行为不是答复你，而变成了问题的一部分。  翻译：皮哩哩  在奇迹课程中，我们被反复地告知：目的决定一切。我们在任何事情上应该问的唯一问题就是：“它的目的何在？”因此，当我们向基督要求特殊之时，我们要检查我们要求特殊之物的动机，尤其当它明显违背了课程所传授的信息时。当我们思考小我那企图使我们神志不清的策略时，对这个问题的答案就非常明显了。要求特殊之物，反映出我们的信念是：这个世界是真的。它加强了我们对身体而不是决策思维的关注。基督在祈祷之歌的开头就提到了这一点，弟兄手册是课程原则的扩展。内容是祈祷，或是说向圣灵寻求帮助：  祈求具体之物，就等于先看到了罪，再去宽恕它。3同样的，当你祈祷时，也应撇开自己的具体需要，将它们全交托到上主手中……祂对你也只有一个答复，就是让你忆起祂来。6你岂会为那转眼即逝的问题祈求一个微不足道的建议，并以此取代祂真正的答复。(S-1.I.4:2-3,5-6)  因此，基督希望我们在企图要求特殊之物时，能想想这样做会让我们抛弃多少上帝的爱之礼物啊。在祂关于“被遗忘的歌曲”的讨论里，基督提醒我们3与之相伴的泛音、和音及回音，都是次要的（S- 1.I. 3:3）。-那些音符本身并没有什么特别（T-21.I.7:1）。在练习手册中，我们看到了关于小我手段的更直接的归纳：它不过存心迷惑我们，让我们分不清问题的实质以及它的解决之道。害怕我们的决策思维，怕它认识到问题出在自己把小我的分裂作为它的实相，怕它选择圣灵的宽恕来修正这个错误，小我就把问题从思想投射到身体上。一旦注意力扎根于身体和身体形成的世界，它就会把全副精力都用在解决小我呈现给我们的多种问题，拿出那看似有理的解决之道。耶稣这样说：  你若不知道问题所在，就无法对症下药。2纵然问题实际上已经解决了，你的问题还在，因为你尚未认出问题已解决了。3这就是当今世界的处境。4它唯一真正的问题，就是分裂，而这问题早已解决了。5除非先认清问题所在，否则便无从认出解决方案。……世界好似呈现给你一大堆的问题，每一个都需要不同的答复。….. 其间的错综复杂，皆肇因于你拼命不想认出问题的真相，也不愿它真正解决。(W-pI.79.1; 4:2; 6:1).  这是正文反复重申的要旨，耶稣为我们展示了小我的企图：  它之所以老在无关紧要的问题上搅和，乃是希望借此避开真正的问题，将它驱逐于心灵之外。5小我爱在琐碎的事上胡忙一通的本事，目的即在于此。6终日去操心那些自己存心不让它解决的问题，是小我为防止心灵学习最爱玩的把戏。(T-4.V.6:4-6)  这些段落明晰了，当我们向基督或者圣灵要求就特殊问题给予帮助，我们是在允许小我的诡计继续侵蚀我们和圣灵的关系。这样一来，这种行为不是答复你，而变成了问题的一部分。这是1977耶稣给海伦的个人信息，每当海伦反复地要求基督在在特殊事情上给予她特殊的帮助，比如去哪个商店买衣服或者那个饥街角适合等出租车。这段时期，实际上延续了数年。这对海伦来说，帮助她感受到基督的爱，温和仁慈的态度。耶稣接受了那时的海伦，并没有强求海伦跟随她。这是体现文章意义的一个经典例子，它在早期的笔录中也出现过：  救赎的价值并不在于它所呈现的外在形式。2事实上，若运用得当，它必然会以最利于领受者的形式出现。3也就是说，奇迹为达到它的圆满效力，必定会用领受者所能了解而且不致害怕的方式表达出来。  因为海伦明显处于被恐惧操纵的状态中，而她对基督的信任十分矛盾，基督对她特殊，无关轻重的事情的回应，至少对她大有帮助，让她在一种舒适的感觉下体验到基督的帮助和爱。当然如果持续这样做，对海伦的自身成长是不利的，更不要提这会损害她和基督长兄的关系了。当海伦真正准备好了，意味着她的恐惧已经有效地减轻了，海伦就能够听到如下的开示了：  任何特殊的问题都带来大量的假设，这些假设限制了答案。一个特殊的问题实际上已经决定哪种答案是可接受的。文字的目的就是限制。通过限制，使得大量的经验领域得以被控制。但那意味着这些经验是被你控制的。(Absence from Felicity, p. 445).  换句话说，海伦对耶稣的问题是经过特殊设计的，虽然看似不经意，其实是想要“控制”耶稣，继而去控制她和耶稣的关系，这样一来，耶稣对她的爱和真实的修正对海伦的作用就相对减少了。海伦的请求，有时候甚至是要求，强化了海伦神志不清的状态，也限制了耶稣对她所提问题的帮助。耶稣的信息最终得以通传，是在那不久之后，海伦能够远离这些特殊问题，并开始接受基督对她小我的化解，和对她的修正。  Asking for Specifics  We are told repeatedly in A Course in Miracles that purpose is everything, and that the only question we should ever ask of anything is: What is it for? (e.g., T-17.VI.2:1-2). Therefore, we need to examine the purpose behind our asking for specifics, when it so clearly goes against the message of the Course. The answer to this question is obvious when we consider the ego's strategy of mindlessness.   To ask for specifics reflects the belief that the world is real, reinforced by our focusing attention on the body and not the decision-making mind. Jesus addresses this in the beginning of The Song of Prayer, the companion pamphlet that is an extension of the Course's principles. The context is prayer, or asking the Holy Spirit for help:   To ask for the specific is much the same as to look on sin and then forgive it. Also in the same way, in prayer you overlook your specific needs as you see them, and let them go into God's Hands.…What could His answer be but your remembrance of Him? Can this be traded for a bit of trifling advice about a problem of an instant's duration? (S-1.I.4:2-3,5-6)  Jesus, therefore, wants us to consider the magnitude of the gift of God's Love we have thrown away, in exchange for which we have the trifling specifics of our life of specialness. In his discussion in the text on the song of love we have forgotten, he reminds us that the notes of this song -- its specific parts (“the overtones, the harmonics, the echoes” [S- 1.I. 3:3] -- are nothing [T-21.I.7:1]). And in the workbook, we read an even more direct summary of the ego's strategy of confusing us Afraid the decision-making mind would locate the problem in itself -- having chosen the ego's separation as its reality -- and thus correct its mistake by choosing the Holy Spirit's Atonement, the ego, as we have seen, projects the problem from the mind to the body.  as to the nature of the problem and its solution. Once attention is rooted in the body and its world, it is directed toward solving the multitudinous problems the ego presents to us, as well as its holding out the carrot of meaningful solutions. Here are Jesus words:  A problem cannot be solved if you do not know what it is. Even if it is really solved already you will still have the problem, because you will not recognize that it has been solved. This is the situation of the world. The problem of separation, which is really the only problem, has already been solved. Yet the solution is not recognized because the problem is not recognized.…The world seems to present you with a vast number of problems, each requiring a different answer.…All this complexity is but a desperate attempt not to recognize the problem, and therefore not to let it be resolved (W-pI.79.1; 4:2; 6:1).  This message is reiterated in the text, where Jesus lays out for us the ego's purpose for our problems:  By becoming involved with tangential issues, it hopes to hide the real question and keep it out of mind. The ego's characteristic busyness with nonessentials is for precisely that purpose. Preoccupations with problems set up to be incapable of solution are favorite ego devices for impeding learning progress (T-4.V.6:4-6).  It is clear from these passages that when we ask Jesus or the Holy Spirit for help with specific problems, we are allowing the ego's agenda of subterfuge to contaminate our relationship with our Teachers. They thus become part of the problem instead of the answer. This was the gist of a personal message to Helen in 1977, at a time when she was repeatedly asking Jesus for very specific help for very specific problems, isuch as where to shop for clothes or what street corner to stand on to hail a cab. This period, which actually extended for several years, was very helpful to Helen in the sense that it exemplified Jesus' loving and gentle kindness in meeting her where she was, instead of demanding that she come to him. It was a wonderful example of the meaning of this passage, which also came early in the scribing:  The value of the Atonement does not lie in the manner in which it is expressed. In fact, if it is used truly, it will inevitably be expressed in whatever way is most helpful to the receiver. This means that a miracle, to attain its full efficacy, must be expressed in a language that the recipient can understand without fear (T-2.IV.5:1-3).  Since Helen was clearly in a fear-driven state, and her trust in Jesus ambivalent, to say the very least(1), it was helpful for her to experience his help and love in a form that was comfortable for her; i.e., these specific, relatively unimportant concerns. Yet to have continued this practice indefinitely would have been deleterious to her own growth, not to mention sabotaging her relationship with her beloved elder brother. And so, when she was ready -- meaning her fear had sufficiently abated -- she was able to hear the following:  Any specific question involves a large number of assumptions which inevitably limit the answer. A specific question is actually a decision about the kind of answer that is acceptable. The purpose of words is to limit, and by limiting, to make a vast area of experience more manageable. But that means manageable by you (Absence from Felicity, p. 445).  In other words, Helen's questions to Jesus were specifically designed -- albeit unconsciously -- to “manage” him; to so control the relationship that his love (“a vast area of experience”) and true correction in her mind would have relatively little effect on her. Her requests, at times even demands, reinforced her mindless state and thus limited Jesus' help to what she presented to him. His message did finally get through, for shortly thereafter Helen was able to move away from such specificity and begin to accept Jesus' true correction of undoing her ego.(2)