The Other Voice: A Companion to the Text of the Course Chapters 1-15

comprehend.

PROLOGUE: THE NATURE OF THE OTHER VOICE

It is essential, even critical, in our quest for the peace of God that we come to an accurate understanding of what the Course is actually saying about thought itself. Very early in the Workbook lessons, the Course begins to develop its theme that the thoughts of consciousness, the thoughts of which we are aware, are NOT our real thoughts, and furthermore, do not resemble our real thoughts in any way.

In Lesson #4, entitled These thoughts do not mean anything ... (1), the Course tells us, while we are selecting the subjects for the day's lesson, not to be afraid to use good thoughts as well as bad. For None of them represents your real thoughts, which are being covered up by them. The 'good' ones are but shadows of what lies beyond ... The 'bad' ones are blocks to sight ... You do not want either. This is a major exercise . . . (2) It is important that we hear that last sentence: THIS IS A MAJOR EXERCISE.

In other lessons, the same important idea is repeated. Lesson #10 makes it clear that all the thoughts of which we are aware, or of which we become aware, are not our real thoughts. (3) Lesson #45 is even more specific as it informs us that there is no connection between our real thoughts and the thoughts we think we think (or the thoughts of which we are aware). It also is firm about stating that what we think are our real thoughts do not resemble our real thoughts in any respect. (4) Lesson #15 refers to the thoughts we think we think, which are not thoughts, but which are simply images, and as such are actually nothing at all, since they are nothing but images that we have made. (5) This theme is mentioned a number of other times, all with the same intent, which is to help us realize that the thoughts of which we are aware, the thoughts of consciousness, are NOT our real thoughts. Furthermore, it is important that we remember that being aware of this fact is a MAJOR exercise within the teaching plan of the Course.

As it becomes clear that the thoughts of consciousness are not our real thoughts, it behooves us to explore what the Course says about consciousness itself. Although the Course mentions the word but a few times, it does tell us that Consciousness, the level of perception, was the first split introduced into the mind after the separation, making the mind a perceiver, rather than a creator. Consciousness is correctly identified as the domain of the ego. (6) As we probe this passage, we hear it telling us that consciousness, or the thoughts we think we think, or the thoughts of which we are aware, is actually the domain of the ego. Therefore, as long as we function at the level of conscious thoughts, we are constrained to the level of the ego. Yet every Course student learns early on that going beyond the ego is one of the primary goals of the curriculum of the Course. This can perhaps seem to imply that we should function, here in this world, without conscious awareness, or without thinking. This would seem a great challenge, indeed.

Elsewhere in the Course, we find another important passage. In this world the only remaining freedom is the freedom of choice, always between two choices or two voices. Consciousness is the receptive mechanism, receiving messages from above or below, from the Holy Spirit or the ego. Consciousness . . . cannot transcend the perceptual realm. At its highest it becomes aware of the real world, and can be trained to do so increasingly. (7)

There is one other quote from the Course which needs to be mentioned. In Lesson #131, as it describes for us how to reach the truth, we find these words, ... and we will ask to see the rising of the real world to replace the foolish images that we hold dear, with true ideas arising in place of thoughts that have no meaning, no effect, and neither source nor substance in the truth. (8) So subtle, so brief in its passing, but here is the Course stating that our thoughts (the ones we wish to let go in favor of truth) have no meaning, and NO EFFECT . . . This seems to state that our thoughts (the thoughts of consciousness), in having no effect, have no creative power at all. If this be true, and we want to change our lives or our world by changing our thoughts, we must realize that the level of conscious thought is not only NOT the level at which changes can be made, but that conscious thoughts actually have no power to change anything.

Based upon my own understanding of the message of the Course, and upon the Jeshua materials I have received, I now propose to explain how all of this makes sense, and how it fits into a unified whole which is fully compatible with the teachings of the Course. What follows has had a major impact on my own life. It has also led me to a better understanding of The Other Voice, which is the title I was given for this book. I offer it here in the hope that it may bless the reader's life as it has blessed my own.

The Course speaks often of our invulnerability, and how it is that nothing can happen to us by chance or accident. (9) This must even apply to the making of this world of illusion. It is important that we be able to embrace the fact that the production of this world was undertaken from within a state of full awareness, and that everything that seems to happen here is by careful design. No mistakes have been made, and no blunders have caused us to seem to be trapped here in space and time. Granted, it SEEMS otherwise. But that, too, must be part of the design. If it were not so, we would not be invulnerable, and the Course would be in error.

Thus it is that we desired to make a world which would have the APPEARANCE of accomplishing the impossibility of separation, all the while being fully aware that it was not possible to actually do so.

This demanded a scheme whereby we could design this world of separation, somehow forget that we had done so, and then look upon that same design and believe it to be reality. We must realize that this required creative genius at its best. And we have done a masterful job of making just such a world.

The manner in which we did this is essentially the same as the way we create our own sickness, and which the Course describes very well in the second through the fourth paragraphs of Lesson #136. This world was not an accident. It is a carefully laid plan of self-deception, whose purpose is to hide reality. We made it up, then devised a clever plan for forgetting that we had done so, and then proceeded to look upon that plan and seem to experience it as being real. The means by which we were able to do this is most clever indeed.

We first imagined that it was possible to actually BE what we cannot be, which is separate from God, and from Life Itself. In the next instant, in order for that imagined notion to survive, it was necessary for us to seem to split our mind. This simply means that there had to be a part of the mind that was not aware of the carefully laid plan of separation, while another part was fully aware of that same plan and its guaranteed outcome, which had to be the eventual return of the mind to wholeness, or the end of the dream of separation, if you will. (This is a required Course. [10])

In order to do this, we devised projection and perception. We made up a screen onto which we could project whatever we wanted to seem to experience in this world of illusion. We then projected the chosen images onto that screen, and in an instant split our awareness so that part of our awareness could focus on the screen and pretend that the images were of reality, without remembering where the images came from in the first place. This was done by the selfsame mind that was now looking upon what it had projected.

We could not actually BE separate, but we could manage to look upon the set of projected images and pretend that they represented something real. However, the images are not real, and can never be so. Thus it is that, in reality, this world never happened.

The exciting and possibly alarming insights are the ones that follow. We must ask the nature of the screen onto which mind projected its dream of illusion, and the nature of the images which it chose to project there. And this is the answer. THE SCREEN WHICH MIND CREATED AND ONTO WHICH IT CHOSE TO PROJECT ITS ILLUSIONS IS CONSCIOUSNESS ITSELF. AND THE IMAGES WHICH IT PROJECTED ARE NONE OTHER THAN THE THOUGHTS WHICH DWELL IN THAT CONSCIOUSNESS. That is why the Course accurately states that consciousness is the RECEPTIVE mechanism. (7) For it is simply the screen onto which mind projects that which it would perceive. That is why consciousness was the first split introduced into the mind after the separation was imagined, making the mind a perceiver, rather than a creator. (6) And that is why our thoughts here are nothing but images we have made. (5) And that is also why the Course tells us that perception involves an exchange, or translation, which knowledge does not need. (11) The exchange, or translation, is the process whereby an image is projected, the process is instantly forgotten, and the selfsame mind then views what it projected the moment before. And, finally, that is why the thoughts of which we are aware, the thoughts of consciousness, are not our real thoughts, and truly have nothing to do with the real thoughts (4), which do and must reflect the creative power of mind itself.

After we arrive at a point where we are able to open to the truth of the preceding paragraphs, we have arrived at the realization that the thoughts of which we are aware are not our real thoughts. We also realize that ALL of those thoughts must lie within the domain of the ego, and that to dwell upon those thoughts in our search for truth is to try to discover truth while looking through the mask which was designed to hide that same truth. We then realize that there must be a way to move beyond that mask, wherein we shall discover truth and the peace of God.

The way in which we shall move beyond the thought system of the ego, beyond the trappings of conscious thought, is to revisit an above-mentioned passage from the Course, the one which tells us that the ONLY freedom we have here is the freedom of choice, and that that choice is ONLY to which voice we shall choose to listen. (7) We then need to ask how it is that we do, or can, choose between the two voices. For it is only by listening to the Other Voice that we can discover the truth and peace of God.

We are told that the ego and the Holy Spirit suffer from a complete failure of communication (12). The reason for this is that the two operate within completely different thought systems, one whose fundamental premise is the possibility and existence of separation, and the other whose fundamental premise is that separation cannot, and never did, exist at all. If we harbor even an inkling that God is in any way separate from us, we are choosing the thought system of the ego, and we cannot truly hear the Voice of the Holy Spirit. As a simple example of this, if we would pray to God, and ask God to grant us the requests we make of Him, we are making the subtle assumption that God is SEPARATE from us. We are assuming that God's Will might be DIFFERENT from our own, making it necessary for us to somehow influence God so that He will hear and answer us. Thus, we are speaking with the voice of the ego, and the Holy Spirit cannot answer. For It cannot bridge the complete communication gap which exists between Its own thought system and the imagined thought system of the ego.

We also remember that the realm of conscious thought is the domain of the ego. (6) If we insist upon dwelling in that domain and trying to figure out the message of the Holy Spirit, we are doomed to failure. For all of our figuring out, all of our analyzing, all of our hours of debating and discussing are, by definition, constrained to the realm of the ego. And it must be in an arena where these processes cease that we can at last hear the Other Voice, which is really the Voice of the Holy Spirit, the Voice of God.

Thus we come abreast of a most important question. How is it that we can truly listen, and therefore truly hear, the Other Voice? How can we, while we yet dwell in this world of space and time, hear the Voice of God? The answer is to be found in the Course itself, and in one of its most beautiful and moving paragraphs:

Simply do this: Be still, and lay aside all thoughts of what you are and what God is; all concepts you have learned about the world; all images you hold about yourself. Empty your mind of everything it thinks is either true or false, or good or bad, of every thought it judges worthy, and all the ideas of which it is ashamed. Hold onto nothing. Do not bring with you one thought the past has taught, nor one belief you ever learned from anything. Forget this world, forget this course, and come with wholly empty hands unto your God. (13)

It is clear from this passage that the Course is advising us to let go of all our conscious thoughts, concepts, and judgments. For to do this is to divest ourselves of the ego and its thought system. And it is in doing just that, that we are able to truly listen.

The fact remains, however, that for most of us, so long steeped in the belief that our consciousness is a vital and integral part of what we are, taking this step can seem frightening indeed. That is because letting go of consciousness is the same as letting go of the ego. And we have designed this world so that it SEEMS as if the ego is what we are. Thus letting go of the ego SEEMS tantamount to choosing to die, a step which most of us do approach with fear. For we cherish being alive, and do not desire to cease to exist, above all by our own choice.

Listening to the Other Voice, however, is far from frightening. It is the most rewarding, the most meaningful, and the most beautiful experience we can afford ourselves here in this world. It is also the only way to understand and experience the peace of God.

When we make the choice to listen, we do it by allowing our minds to become still. In this place of silence, in the absence of our conscious thoughts, the ego is no longer present, and there is an immediate sense of increased peace. What then begins to appear is an awareness, a presence, which defies definition. But arising out of this awareness, we discover what might be called a knowing, or a certainty. It is this knowing that blesses us with an awareness of what to do, where to go, and what to say, as we live our lives here in this world. The awareness that arises from out of our silence can and does translate into our knowing how to live our lives here, even though this world of space and time is but a world of illusion. But this same awareness can and does cause us to see the world differently from the way we had seen it before.

What this literally means is that it is possible to live life here in this world, to be able to function within the realm of perception, and yet to see the world through the eyes of the Holy Spirit, rather than through the eyes of the ego. That is why the Course has stated that consciousness, although it cannot transcend the realm of perception, can become aware of the real world, and can be trained to do so increasingly. (7) This state is called true perception, and can only be reached by listening to the Other Voice.

If our only choice here is to which voice we shall listen, and we desire to hear the Voice of the Holy Spirit, we seem to come upon a significant dilemma. If the way to hear the Other Voice is by quieting our conscious minds, by ceasing to think these unreal thoughts, then what role does A Course in Miracles play? What role does this book play? Do not the books, the tapes, the lectures, the study groups, all demand that we read, study, and discuss in order to learn this Course? And is not all of that confined to the domain of the ego, as the Course tells us? Is it not contradictory for Jeshua to have given us the Course in the first place? In short, is there a place for the study of this material? And how does such study relate to being able to hear the Other Voice?

Insofar as consciousness CAN be trained to see the real world, there must exist avenues whereby that training can be accomplished. All of those avenues relate to our willingness to open our conscious awareness to the truth. This is the same as willingly opening our minds to a different way of looking at the world. Unless we are willing to entertain a different vision of life as we know it, AND A DIFFERENT VISION OF WHAT WE OURSELVES ARE, we cannot escape the thought system of the ego, and we cannot discover the peace of God.

First, there must exist within us the awareness of the truth of God. We could not separate ourselves from that truth, even though we might vainly imagine that it be possible. When we open to new ideas, such as we meet when we read the Course or books like this one, we experience a quiet resonance within which affirms the presence of truth. Every one of the old (ego) thoughts which we desire to preserve can only serve as a block to this process. But as we truly open, WITH A WILLING ANTICIPATION OF A NEW WAY OF SEEING, ideas such as we meet in the Course and this book will, because of the feeling they generate within us, tell us that we are approaching the center of truth. Then when we enter the silence and return, the awareness we bring back will be magnified by the presence of those ideas we had encountered and had chosen to admit into our consciousness.

Secondly, we are not bodies. Rather we are mind exercising its creative power. It is mind which projects onto the screen of consciousness that which it would perceive. And since this is a required Course, part of the design MUST BE the eventual projection onto consciousness of the truth. Therefore, part of the original design of this world included the planned introduction into consciousness, over the span of time, of the awareness of the truth. Jesus established the Atonement by being the first person to bring into human consciousness a life which was fully in tune with the truth of God. And he asked those who had ears to hear to listen. The Course, and for those who choose to believe so, Journey Beyond Words and this book, are some of the many other vehicles through which mind introduces the truth into consciousness, all for the purpose of bringing mind back to its original state of wholeness.

As we read, as we listen, as we study A Course in Miracles, or Journey Beyond Words, or this book, or any of the many other sources available, we are choosing to make fertile the ground upon which the Other Voice will plant the seeds of truth. Therefore, such endeavors are appropriate indeed for those whose guidance is to follow that path. However, it is most important that we not lose sight of the fact that we shall not understand the truth of God, nor experience His peace, until we choose to quiet our minds and listen to the message of the Other Voice.

We hear that Voice by entering the silence, by choosing to listen with openness of heart, with the anticipation of remembering, and with a willingness to accept a new vision of who and what we are. And out of the silence shall come the pathway to the peace of God, which truly does pass all understanding.

But the other [voice] was given you by God, Who only asks that you listen to it.

A Course in Miracles

INTRODUCTION

Greetings. I am Jeshua.

I have come to discuss with you,

A Course in Miracles.

But more importantly, I have come

That you might become free

In the knowledge of what you are.

I am Jeshua. Though names as such do not matter.

But indeed, I am Jeshua.

I am the one you call Jesus.

But, hear me well. I am you.

I am each one of you.

Which means, I am your brother.

I am, like you, the Son of God.

And nothing more.

I will speak with you of many things.

I will speak of things which are real.

And I will speak of many things,

Including this world of space and time,

Which, indeed, are not real.

And of those things which are not real,

They are but the blocks you have created

To keep you from knowing

The reality of what you are.

This whole world you see is not real.

Many times you have listened to words

Which speak of this life, of your body, of this world,

As being illusion.

That is exactly so in this sense–

An illusion is something which you perceive,

And therefore which your mind thinks is real,

While in reality, you are but exercising

The creative power given you by God

In order to seem to see

That which is not there at all.

It is because you harbor within your being

The creative power of the universe

That you are able to see, to perceive, your world

Exactly as you desire it to be.

And because it is perception,

What seems to be reality

Can change in the twinkling of an eye.

That which is real, that which is of God,

Does not change.

It is not subject to your perception and your beliefs.

It is not subject to your space and your time.

For it is far beyond any, and all, of those.

I speak to you as your brother. For that is what I am.

In reality, in essence, I am no different from you in any way.

I am the Son of God, just as you are the Son of God,

Just as every friend, and every enemy, that you perceive

Is likewise the Son of God.

I come to you as a brother,

In your sense of time perhaps older,

And definitely wiser.

And I come to you from the vantage point

Of being free of the illusion that is this world.

Those who are free of the illusion of this world

Can seem, to you, to do miracles.

But what you experience, rather than miracles,

Is the contrast between what it is like to be free of the illusion,

And on the other hand, to still be bound by the belief

That in some measure, the world is real.

It is appropriate for you to respect me.

'Tis appropriate for you to look up to me.

Indeed, I come in order that you might do that.

When I walked this earth,

I told your brothers, and therefore you as well,

That there is nothing that you see me do

Which you cannot do also.

In truth, you have within you,

As I have within me,

The power to do works so much greater

Than what you have seen,

That you could not comprehend

If I tried to tell you.

Important is this. Hear me well.

THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE,

IN REALITY, IN ESSENCE,

BETWEEN YOU AND ME.

I am absolutely free, as are you.

I have the ability to do what your world calls miracles.

And that same ability is possessed by you,

Although blocked by your fear.

I have no talent that does not lie within you,

Albeit perhaps hidden at this time.

I am free of space and time.

I am free to go and to come anywhere I choose,

Within any aspect of space, and any aspect of time.

And indeed, so are you,

Even though that ability lies hidden

Beneath the mask of your fear.

Do not be frightened by these statements I have made.

Rather, think of life, if you wish, as a great learning, a school.

Think of me as a much older brother

Who has advanced through the entire curriculum,

And who has a full mastery of all the material

That you, too, shall be learning.

And the fact that you are at a seemingly

Less advanced level of learning

Means nothing more than that.

It does not make you good, or bad.

It does not make you less.

It does not make me better.

For we are, indeed, the same.

It merely means that you are where you are.

Nothing more.

There is that about you, and about me,

Which makes us the Son of God.

And that, truly, can not change. We are free.

And that freedom includes our ability

To imagine, to perceive, whatever we choose.

This entire world is an example of just that.

But none of us, not you, nor me,

Can change that which is real,

That which was created, and given us, by God.

There are many things which shall become clear

As we move through this Text, and these pages.

Among them are the things which are not real,

And which, because they are not real,

Do not exist.

Among those things are sin and guilt.

For there is no cause for sin.

And without sin, there is no cause for guilt.

They are of the imagination.

Nothing more.

Another thing which does not exist is your body.

By that I simply mean this–

Your body is not what you are. That is all.

You are Spirit. You are free.

You are created by God.

And nothing can change that.

Your imaginings that you are a body,

Or that you are, in time, confined within a body

Which shall somehow age and decay and die–

Those imaginings, as real as they may seem,

Do not, in any sense, change what you are.

And thus it is that the body is not real.

'Tis a suit you have donned.

'Tis a plaything you have chosen.

Its purpose is for learning, for experience.

And its ultimate goal is to be set aside without a second thought

When the learning is done.

For it is not you,

And has no effect on the reality of what you are.

My resurrection was the expression, in this world,

Of that truth.

What I AM, as the Son of God, was not affected

By nails, by a cross, or by death.

And likewise, what you are, as the Son of God,

Is not affected by the illusion of your body,

And whatever it may be that seems to happen to it,

Including its death.

So the truth is that this world is not real.

That does not mean that this world

Should be disdained, or scorned.

You will come to realize that this world is, in its reality,

A creation of the Son of God.

It is but an expression of His creative power.

All of you who walk here, in your Oneness,

Have created this world.

And as such, it is, and must be, beautiful.

For indeed, you, in your reality, are beautiful.

It is your perception of this world

That has seemed to turn your life upside down.

And what we shall help you to change is just that–

Your perception of this world.

We will speak of perception, and of true perception.

It shall be your true perception,

Which is as close as you can come on this earth

To the experience of God,

Which shall change entirely

Your experience of this world.

You shall learn to rejoice in your freedom,

Which allows you to experience this world

For as long as you like,

And when you are done,

To let it go in that selfsame freedom,

And to move on.

For as the Son of God, what is given you to experience

Is the infinity of creation itself.

I come not to bring you fear,

But to bring you peace.

I come not asking that you give up something

Which is cherished, which you value.

I come merely to show you a better way.

I do not come asking you to struggle.

I do not come asking you to fight within yourself.

For the true expression of your freedom

Follows without effort.

I come merely to show you what you are.

And as you come to realize, as you experience,

Beyond your thoughts, beyond your fears,

What you truly are,

Then that which you value now

Shall simply pass away,

To be replaced by something richer and fuller,

And more beautiful than you can imagine.

For when you trade one toy, if you will, for another

Which is far more beautiful, far more delightful,

Than the old one,

It does not represent a loss at all,

Merely a transition.

And so I have come with the greatest of love,

To assist you, and to guide you,

Toward that transition which you can make

From one world to another.

What you shall move FROM

Is your current perception of this world,

Which may include the belief that your body is real,

That it can do things over which you have no control;

Which may include the belief

That such things as sin and guilt and illness

And misery and death actually exist.

What you shall move TO

Is the true perception of this same world,

In which you realize that you are, in fact,

Like me, the Son of God,

In which you realize that you are absolutely free,

And that nothing in your life can happen to you

Without that it be your choice.

I come to guide you to that awareness.

And as you reach that awareness,

As you move beyond the beliefs

Which bind you to this world,

It shall not be a loss at all.

It shall be a growth unto a new freedom

In which you seem to lift your wings

And rise above all that was,

To a new life, and to a joy

Which you had not previously imagined.

I come as your friend.

I come to tell you that you are absolutely loved.

I come to tell you that there is nothing you can do

Which can possibly change how much you are loved–

That there is nothing you can do which, in reality,

Can separate you from God,

And thus from each other.

I come to tell you that you are free.

I come to tell you that you are One with me,

One with all of your brothers.

I come to bring you peace, and joy–

For that is your right, and your