Love Holds No Grievances

Jane Rogers

Before you read any further please pause and cast your mind back over the last few hours or days. How many times have you complained about someone or something, either out loud or in your head? Search your mind and count up all your most recent grievances.

Did you do it? Honestly?? If you are normal you probably counted up an awful lot of grievances. The mind of a normal human being is constantly processing a stream of complaints such as: 'My partner is a lying cheating bastard' 'That driver is a complete idiot' 'My daughter is an ungrateful little madam' 'That shop assistant was so unhelpful'. If the normal mind cannot find a person to complain about it will find some situation about which to be annoyed or upset, for example 'The rain is really getting me down' 'This city is filthy, look at all that litter' 'The economy is in an awful mess' 'I like sunshine but this is much too hot for me'.

When you see what we all do all of the time written down like this, perhaps you think it sounds pretty ridiculous? Yet you probably recognise yourself and probably virtually all your friends and relatives in these monologues. The key point here is not that you or your friends are particularly miserable complaining types, but that holding endless grievances about other people and the world around us is what our ego-selves do best. Our egos really love to have a good moan about someone else's behaviour. The instant reward we gain from this is a sense of righteousness or victim-hood. 'I would never be so stupid, wicked or mean as to do what he/she has just done' 'I am such a good person, I don't deserve to suffer like this. Life is so unfair'. This is our habitual mindset.

Now you may be thinking that you are on your spiritual path. You are no longer one of the masses. You have been on a spiritual workshop or retreat and you have seen the light. You have had amazing spiritual experiences, you meditate regularly or you regularly read spiritual books. You already know that 'love holds no grievances' and that blaming others for all our unhappiness is not a spiritual thing to do. Great! But have you noticed that when you come home from a retreat or when you finish reading an enlightening book, those negative thoughts just pop back into your mind.

You still find yourself gossiping negatively about an absent friend. You still can't help yourself getting irritated on your way to work, at work and on your way home from work. You still shout at your partner or your children on a pretty regular basis. If you haven't noticed this you are either already enlightened or pretty unmindful!

A Course in Miracles has a very simple answer to all your grievances. Basically it just says to you 'Change your mind'. Many of the lessons in A Course ask you to observe and then release all the grievances that arise over and over again in your mind. There is nothing esoteric or complex about this spiritual training. It is incredibly straightforward. For example, suppose you wake up one morning, draw back the curtains and see that it is pouring with rain. Your instant reaction is to think to yourself 'Oh no not another really wet and dark day, it's so depressing. All A Course asks you to do at this point is to pause and ask yourself 'Do I really want to be miserable or am I willing to change my mind?' Am I willing to let the Holy Spirit guide me with a loving un-judgemental thought such as ' God's will for me is perfect happiness'

Easy, isn't it? Well no, actually it's not easy at all. Simple, yes, easy, no. Why is it so difficult for us to remember to keep putting into practice these simple Course in Miracles principles? Because we have spent a lifetime, possibly many lifetimes, developing the incredibly strong and deeply engrained habit of blaming other people and the world around us for all our unhappiness. We have been trapped in a nightmare without having a clue that it is actually all a dream of our own making. Even when you begin to wake up and become more of a conscious dreamer you may still ask, ‘Now that I can see that it is really my perception of the world rather than the world per se that makes me so unhappy why do I still find it so hard to give up all my grievances? One reason is that you do not really want to take full responsibility for the world you see. Thinking that other people are dangerous rapists or murderers or war-mongers may be very scary but it is far more frightening initially to accept that rape, murder and war are all part of your dream and that you are therefore entirely responsible for them. A Course in Miracles knows that changing your mind will scare you witless at some point, but it simply asks you to surrender all your fears to Christ or God and to keep asking the Holy Spirit to guide your mind home.

Why is changing our mind so central to salvation? Because, if the world is not of our making how can we ever change it for the better? On the other hand if we are totally responsible for the world we see, however ghastly and terrifying it seems to be, there is hope that we can change it. This is the message of salvation that A Course in Miracles presents to us. By diligently changing our own minds over and over again we can save ourselves and the whole world. The other incredibly good piece of news is that we do not have to understand or implement this plan for salvation all in one go. A very tiny willingness to begin to change our minds is all that A Course asks of us, at least whilst we are still beginner students.

So next time you hear that voice in your head starting to complain about your partner, your work or a pain in your big toe, pause, smile lovingly to yourself and simply repeat an alternative thought from A Course in Miracles such as ‘I could see peace instead of this’ or ‘Love holds no grievances’. Doing this will not transform your life instantly. A Course in Miracles training needs your long term commitment and disciplined hard work, it is certainly not some new age magic book. But the more you commit to changing your mind on a daily basis the more you will find that love, light and joy will begin to shine away all your grievances. As Jason Chan might say, ‘Trust me on this one’