David's Two Principles

David's Two Principles

By Naxin Zhu, January 18, 2012 The recent journey of David, an awakened spiritual teacher, in China, has ended. He will come back next March in response to the warm invitation of his Chinese students. For his friends in China, his face, his voice, his inner purity and love are all too impressive and unforgettable. But among all his teachings, two principles distinguish themselves in importance: no private thoughts and no people pleasing. What is the point of emphasizing these two principles among so many articles of faith in spiritual practice? And which role do they play in David's practice of A Course in Miracles? Here the author wants to share his points of view in both practice and theory.

According to A Course in Miracles, all of its teaching can be summarized with the following three sentences: Nothing real can be threatened; nothing unreal exists; herein lies the peace of God. I would like to put these sentences in the fashion of Chinese couplet. In this way the first two sentences make a perfect parallel which seems like a road, leading vertically to "The peace of God."

Nothing Unreal Exists

Forgiveness

Nothing Real Can Be Threatened

The Peace of God

Forgiveness as proposed by the Course serves as a reminder for the ego: on one hand, that reality cannot be understood and influenced by it; on the other hand, the kaleidoscopic yet deceitful world that it sees is actually a dream which does not exist at all. Realizing these two facts, the decision maker would have no choice but to set out on an irresistible journey of forgiveness, which will eventually lead to reality, where the peace of God lies. But the peace of God goes far beyond our imagination. We know that its essence is "oneness" or "non-duality," but how can we experience this oneness, and find our way back to peace in this earthly world?

Obviously, such radical yet fundamental teaching of non-duality is too abstruse, only a few people who have very high understanding can grasp the spirit of forgiveness and apply it to their mind in various levels and various ways. And Jesus the teacher knew it too well. Out of his compassion he expounded this spirit in all directions by analyzing the ego comprehensively in the textbook and further designing a detailed 365-day workbook for students. Even so, A Course in Miracles is still too complicated for ordinary readers to understand. Many of them still fail to make up their mind to follow the Course even after reading The Disappearance of the Universe, which is such a good guiding book.

Jesus certainly knows this situation. As he put it clearly in a recent channeling, what the Miracle Movement in China promotes is far more than this Course as a book, but the pursuit of the spirit of forgiveness and emancipation. And he said, the promotion of this Course would go through two phases, the first being the

period in which the four persons in the Foundation for Inner Peace spread and popularize it as it is, the second being the time for the miracle practitioners to carry the spirit of miracles into their life as living examples. David stands exactly as the pioneer for the second phase. By understanding and applying the teaching of the Course, he eventually heard the voice of Jesus. Under His guidance, David started to undo his ego more quickly and at last completely, and then share his progress and miracles with his brothers, and even expand the light of forgiveness to the masses who are not ACIM students or have never heard of the Course.

In this regard, he proposed (or to put it better, heard from Jesus) the two principles. They are very simple.

But by taking a deep look at them, you will realize that they are highly consistent with the two underpinnings of A Course in Miracles. They are simply a paraphrase of the two principles at the opening of the Course in a more specific way.

The first principle is "no private thoughts." The core of it is to experience and prove that "nothing real can be threatened" by disclosing all the thoughts that we think would do harm to our perfect Self. Do we all harbor a lot of private thoughts, personal senses of existence and ulterior secrets to safeguard our perfection? Let us see what would happen if we bring to light whatever we previously deemed as life threatening, and brush aside all the constraining thoughts that prevent us from experiencing a different life! David's definition of private thoughts even covers all our thoughts about the past and the future. For in an ultimate sense, our personal world as well as the whole earthly world, is created by our insane thought of challenging, confronting and finally replacing the real existence of God. The following passage is perhaps the most relevant elaboration on exposing the private thoughts, which is also its theoretical underpinning.

The Holy Spirit asks of you but this; bring to Him every secret you have locked away from Him. Open every door to Him, and bid Him enter the darkness and lighten it away. At your request He enters gladly. He brings the light to darkness if you make the darkness open to Him. But what you hide He cannot look upon. He sees for you, and unless you look with Him He cannot see. The vision of Christ is not for Him alone, but for Him with you. Bring, therefore, all your dark and secret thoughts to Him, and look upon them with Him. He holds the light, and you the darkness. They cannot coexist when Both of You together look on them. His judgment must prevail, and He will give it to you as you join your perception to His. (T-14) And when we expose our private thoughts bravely and come to realize how fruitlessly we have tried to maintain a sense of individual existence which is totally independent from reality by harboring such secret thoughts, the journey to the peace of God is thereupon started.

The core of David's second Principle, no people pleasing, is to reveal the fact that we always mistakenly seek solutions from others. Yet all this is to endorse a silly belief that this world is real and we can find our dependable sources of happiness in it, from other people. But the Course tells us that there are actually no "others" because the existence of the world is but an illusion, which works the same way as the illusion that created all of us. Therefore this principle is just another expression of "Nothing unreal exists," while at the same time being more understandable and practical. The following paragraphs maybe the best footnote of this.

The world we see merely reflects our own internal frame of reference—the dominant ideas, wishes and emotions in our minds. "Projection makes perception" (Text, p. 445). We look inside first, decide the kind of world we want to see and then project that world outside, making it the truth as we see it. We make it true by our interpretations of what it is we are seeing. If we are using perception to justify our own mistakes—our anger, our impulses to attack, our lack of love in whatever form it may take—we will see a world of evil, destruction, malice, envy and despair. (T-In) Seek not outside yourself. For it will fail, and you will weep each time an idol falls. Heaven cannot be found where it is not, and there can be no peace excepting there. Each idol that you worship when God calls will never answer in His place. There is no other answer you can substitute, and find the happiness His answer brings. Seek not outside yourself. For all your pain comes simply from a futile search for what you want, insisting where it must be found. What if it is not there? Do you prefer that you be right or happy? Be you glad

that you are told where happiness abides, and seek no longer elsewhere. You will fail. But it is given you to know the truth, and not to seek for it outside yourself. (T-29) So forgiveness is abstract as written in the Course, "Forgiveness, is still, and quietly does nothing. It offends no aspect of reality, nor seeks to twist it to appearances it likes. It merely looks, and waits, and judges not." It is hence turned into very instructive principles in his miracle community after David's reinterpretation: by opening their hearts and trusting each other, and by reflecting, exposing and sharing all their personal thoughts, participants will realize that the outside world is never existing, and will undo their insanity through the presence of Holy Spirit. Xiaojie has a very simple yet deep word for this: when failing to connect to the Holy Spirit, try to connect to your brothers.

During this brave and interactive process of exposing private thoughts, everyone's effort to disclose their secrets will trigger a higher degree of openness and exposure. Everyone's effort of sharing would set off a chain reaction in the whole circle. That is why we are so eager to share our private thoughts, for the result is not merely individual progress, but a collective awakening to the peace to God. And that is also why there is a lesson in the Workbook titled "When I am healed, I am not healed alone." What the harmony in the miracle community reflects is exactly this inner oneness. And the common practice of miracles speaks eloquently of the spirit of forgiveness in a concrete way. The "peace of God" is thus demonstrated in such a perfect and powerful way.

I myself have been very curious about how the miracle community initiated by David is running. The good news is that David has invited us sincerely to his community. So a future exploration of it is very probable.

And a wonderful news is that he would visit China with five advanced messengers of peace. I believe we would have a glimpse of it and benefit greatly from our communication in the several days.

Add all this up, if the two sentences the Course takes as its roots are the theorized statement of the "truth," then the two principles of David are precisely the guiding lines for practicing forgiveness and seeking peace in our daily life. From this we can understand that these two principles, like all the creeds in the Course, are all requirements on the level of mind, not that of activity, and it should be practiced within a certain circle of miracle workers. For the ego will always devise an assortment of means to separate and attack. But in the ultimate sense there is no distinction of good and bad, and everything will be forgiven. It's all a matter of time. All the methods share the common goal of undoing our inner confusions. And the goal of these two principles is no more than helping us save time in practicing the Course. If we don't understand and practice the two principles according to the intention of Jesus' Course and to the interpretation of David on forgiveness, we would find it very hard to comprehend their profound meaning, nor would we be able to make any forceful changes in our life.

(Translated by Yangqing, Xiaojie's nephew and revised by Naxin)

Â