Above the Battleground
by Alan Cohen, Hawaii
Many among us feel disturbed by the conflicts and injustices we observe in the world. Because we value harmony and kindness, when we see people hurting each other for no good reason, we feel angry, frustrated, or depressed about our inability to stop the insanity.
A Course in Miracles offers a poignant section called “Above the Battleground” that gives us keys to escape the angst that daunting newscasts confer. It suggests that, as spiritual beings, we have the capacity to rise to a higher state of mind than the one that sucks us into a negative vortex. We can free ourselves from war by giving our attention instead to well-being. The Course tells us, “Peace is impossible to those who look upon war.”
I would like to take an even yet more personal and even radical approach to freeing ourselves from the battles the news glorifies. It is the conflict within us that we need to heal, even more than the conflicts we see around us. The world is a mirror of our mind. Wars seemingly outside of us reflect the war inside of us. Before we can heal global conflict, we must heal inner conflict.
I heard a spiritual practitioner tell about a woman I’ll call Bette, who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Her doctor told her that the cancer was so large that he didn’t know how to deal with it. Bette became quite depressed, fearing for her life. Around that time, she attended a family gathering. Not wanting to spoil the festive atmosphere with her dispiriting news, she decided to do her best to put on a happy face and act normally.
But Bette wasn’t able to fool her young niece Amy. The girl told her, “Aunt Bette, you look sad. What’s the matter?” Realizing she would have to be honest, Bette tried to answer Amy’s question in a way the child could understand. “There is something very dark and evil growing inside me.”
Amy squinted her forehead, confused. “Oh, Aunt Bette, there is nothing dark and evil growing inside you. You are perfect!”
Something about the way Amy spoke jarred her aunt. The child’s innocent vision of Bette’s higher, truer self-penetrated the dense fog of fear and confusion that had surrounded the woman. She glimpsed a vision of her wholeness and her loveableness that far transcended the diagnosis she had been given. Bette recaptured her original innocence, and felt relieved.
When she next went to see her doctor, he was stunned. “I can’t explain this, Bette, but your cancer has entirely disappeared.”
Such a vision of ochur inherent wholeness can give us the leverage to rise above our personal hardships and those of the world. I once asked Louise Hay what she writes in books when she autographs them. “Love heals,” she answered very simply.
When we get upset about the news, we add to the pain that makes the world seem so dark. When we do whatever can, each in our own, way, to remain at peace, we become part of the solution, not the problem. It takes great commitment and integrity to claim well-being when others are going crazy, or, as Rudyard Kipling put it, “to keep your head when all about your are losing theirs. . .” But that is what we came to the world for at this time—to be a light to dispel the darkness in which so much of the world is immersed.
If you are reading this newsletter, you have at least some sense—or maybe a lot—that you have a purpose that transcends the purposes that the world has issued for you. Now would be the perfect time to step into that purpose and be, as both Jesus and A Course in Miracles designate us, the light of the world. Only then do we have the power to make the world a better place to live in, by making our mind a better place to live in.
Alan Cohen is the author of many popular books, including the new best-seller Miracles Actually. Join Alan for his life-changing Holistic Life Coach Training, beginning September 1. For information on this program, Alan’s books, A Course in Miracles retreats, weekly online Miracle Room, webinars, YouTube channel, free daily inspirational quotes, and other offerings, visit www.alancohen.com.
