This year, save the world by going ... within
The ultimate way to taking personal responsibility
When I first moved to South Carolina in 2003 – just about 20 years ago – I was very homesick for my hometown of Atlanta. I swore that my time in this state would be short and I would soon be back in the big city. My favorite song to sing was Bad Company's "Oh, Atlanta:"
Whoa Atlanta, hear me callin'
I'm comin' back to you one fine day
No need to worry, there ain't no hurry 'cause I'm
On my way back to Georgia, On my way back to Georgia
I spent a lot of time driving the roads of Atlanta in my mind. I knew that I would be back there sometime soon, so I wanted to remember all the little shortcuts and ways of getting around that only someone who had lived there nearly all their lives would know. I didn't want to forget anything about the place I longed to go back to.
My homesickness for Atlanta is just one example of how, when faced with making fairly big changes in our lives, we tend to pine for our old ways of being, believing, acting or existing. Yet, here we are on the day when most of us have a list of resolutions we've made for this new year. We look forward to this day as a clean slate, a tableau rasa on which we can reinvent ourselves and how we live our lives.
Most of us are resolving to do things that affect the world outside of ourselves – exercise more and lose a few pounds so we appear better looking out in the world, find ways to make, or save, more money so we're richer in worldly things, give up bad habits such as smoking or eating junk food, or vowing to spend more time with those we love. There's absolutely nothing wrong with any of those resolutions, but often, our goals to improve the things outside of ourselves fall quickly by the wayside.
Why? Because we're homesick for the old ways of being. When I was a Weight Watcher leader a decade or so ago, we would be slammed with new members in January. Our weekly meetings would be filled to overflowing. By mid-February or March? Only a few diehards remained.
It's the same way at the gym, or on any other new plan we have for our lives. Only 46% of people are able to keep their new year's commitments after 6 months. The majority of us find that the pull of our old way of living is too strong, and sooner, rather than later, we find ourselves melting into the recliner with a chip bag in one hand and the TV remote in the other.
New Year, new “inner” me
This year, I have decided to try a different approach to the new year, and I invite you to consider joining me on this journey. If you don't want to, that's fine – you can use me as a guinea pig to see if this works for me before you try it. This year, I am choosing to focus on the world within first. Whatever happens out here, I will use as a call to go inward – to seek to abide first in God's realm of love, joy, peace and innocence, and then, and only then, will I seek to react to what's happening in the outside world.
I expect to fail often, mainly because the call of the old way of living is so strong. I know, though, that one month in the gym will not give me the physique that six months or even a year in the gym will provide. One week not eating potato chips or sugar will not transform the cells within my body the way six months or a year of fasting from such foods will do. But, oh, how I love my couch instead of the gym and BBQ chips and Reese cups more than broccoli and alternatively sweetened treats.
The call of our old way of living is strong for one main reason: because that is where the ego lives. The ego has exactly zero interest in us getting thinner, richer, or healthier, and it definitely has less than zero interest in seeing us grow spiritually. Going inside and resolving to stay there means death to the ego, so it must pull out all the stops to keep us in this old ego world. And if you make a resolution to go within, you can expect the world around you to become pure chaos.
I've seen it already in myself in the form of stress, burnout, and questioning every single choice I've ever made in my life. My ego has been on a tear, convincing me to torture myself with doubts, fears, and confusion. These are its main tools to keep us wedded to its old ways of being, doing, thinking, and seeing. That inner world though, is where clarity, peace, joy, and Love reside all the time.
There is no confusion, there is no fear, no doubt, no second-guessing yourself. Here, you just know, because you have welcomed the Holy to be your one and only guide.
"And by your welcome does The Holy welcome you into Itself," A Course in Miracles tells us in Chapter 15, "for what is contained in you who welcome Her is returned to Him. And we but celebrate God's Wholeness as we welcome the Holy into ourselves."
By choosing to welcome The Holy this year, I am making a decision to go deeper within the world that I can change – my inner world. Here I can clean out the garbage that my ego has convinced me to collect. The garbage of judgment. The garbage of grievance. The garbage of fear. The garbage of doubt. The garbage of caring what the world thinks about me. The garbage of anything that makes me believe that anyone is better than me, or worse than me. In short, I'm tossing out anything inside of myself that makes me believe that anyone is separate from me.
The choice is clear
A Course reminds us in Chapter 11 that we have a clear choice to make in our lifetime: "Would you be hostage to the ego or host to God?" When you resolve to become the host to God, you achieve real freedom, because you welcome Reality with a capital R. In God's realm, there is no separation – no hierarchy – no one better or worse than we are. No one to pity, no one to hate, no one to disregard. Instead, as today's lesson says, we "Make this year different by making it all the same."
This is a call to stop living in our old world of judgments, grievances, comparison, and competition. As Course teacher Sean Reagan puts it, our task here is not to seek for "oneness," because this ego world will always pull us toward separation. To heal the separation that we feel in this world then, turns on us making it different by making it all the same. We do that by inviting the Holy Spirit to change our vision of this world so all we see is sameness and equality, instead of seeing, as he says, "the ego's emphasis on difference and inequality."
The ego protests this, of course. It tells us that if we see everyone the same, then injustice and inequality will rule in this world. I have news for you – justice and inequality will always rule the ego's world. That's its fuel, and by looking out onto the world and judging others as either good or recalcitrant just makes it run hotter.
This is the miracle that going within offers to us. It withdraws the fuel of separation from the ego's world, because we are no longer playing its game. By making it all the same, we deny its power of grievance, anger, hatred, and fear from even entering our world.
If those things are not within our inner world, then we are no longer able to project them into the world out here. The ego no longer gets its fuel from us. If enough of us do this for an extended period of time, guess what happens – the ego dissolves, both within us, and in the world around us.
Of course, you may be thinking I'm just committing to spiritual bypass in this moment, abdicating my responsibility to end the suffering of the world. It's just the opposite, though. I am taking the only path that will ultimately end suffering everywhere.
You don't have to believe me, but if you're willing, I invite you to give it a try this year. After all, we've tried all of the other outward strategies to end suffering. We've thrown prayer at it. We've thrown money at it. Governments make policies designed to alleviate suffering – and often only exacerbate it. We've voted for those who promised to end it. We've marched in the street demanding an end to suffering. Yet, here we are, still surrounded by so much suffering.
What do you have to lose?
Here's my question to you on the start of this new year: What do you have to lose this year by dedicating yourself to going within and making this year different by making it all the same?
When you make this commitment, to dwell in the Real world within more and more this year, we change the world around us because all minds are joined. As we commit to change the foundation of our inner world from fear to Love, everyone around us is affected in some way, whether they know it or not.
As author and teacher Marianne Williamson writes: "Every thought I think, every word I say, every action I take has an effect on the universe. Other people feel what I'm thinking, whether they're conscious of this or not. Surrendering my life to God is the ultimate taking of personal responsibility, as God is not outside but within us. In surrendering my life to God, I pray that His love moves into me and through me, as a light unto the world." (Emphasis mine.)
If it's true that every thought, word, or deed affects the universe in some way, then this means that if enough of us change how we think, speak, and act so that it reflects unity over separation, how could it NOT change the world? We've tried everything else, so I invite you to try this way in the new year.
For some, going within may feel like an abandonment of your ambitions out here in the world. We all want to make our mark on this world in some way. The ego tells us it's through some form of worldly success.
This year, though, it is my ultimate ambition to listen more deeply to the Universe – to surrender myself to it in every moment, and get back to it as quickly as possible when I begin to long for my old ways of thinking, speaking, and being. I'm not, however, doing it with some goal in mind that I will be more spiritual or even a better human. My ambition is simply to surrender to every present moment I am in and, as Williamson says, "pray that God's love moves into me and through me, as a light unto the world."
Ok, but how?
There are certainly many ways you can make this resolution in this new year. There are a lot of spiritual practices and tools out there to choose from. A Course in Miracles has 365 daily lessons in its workbook that help you change the lenses you use to see the world by gently guiding you to abandon your egoic way of seeing and being and become willing to see through the eyes of Christ.
There are many forms of meditation, from silent listening, to chanting, sound healing, walking, or contemplative prayer practices. You can use affirmations, prayers, or inspirational quotes from a wide range of teachers to help draw yourself into your inner world.
What we need most of all is what Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hahn called a "bell of mindfulness," something that would remind us to return to the present moment where our inner life can be seen and lived into so we can be that light of Love in the world. That's what the lessons from A Course seek to do, giving you slogans to use during the day when you get lost in the ego's world. Being able to say things such as, "I can choose peace rather than this," or "I am not a victim of the world I see," can free us from being hostage to the ego and remind us that we are always host to God.
In the new year, it is also my ambition that Jubilee! Circle, the spiritual community I lead in Columbia, SC, will become your training ground, offering you more opportunities to explore the practices that can help you transform that inner world, so you become the transformation that the world needs. This is not spiritual woo-woo or bypass, this is a daily, often moment-to-moment practice that requires dedication and determination to see the world differently – to make it all the same, whether we are perceiving someone we love, or someone our ego tells us we should hate.
No more pining for Atlanta …
Since coming to South Carolina nearly 20 years ago, I find now that I no longer pine for Atlanta. I've gone back to visit many times, and whatever it was I missed about the city is no longer there. I can't get around anymore, because all the landmarks have changed. I have forgotten every shortcut I once knew by heart. The traffic is a million times worse and I don't really have a community to go back to there. You couldn't pay me to go back to Atlanta right now.
This is what spiritual practice is like. When we embark upon the journey inward, we'll still be visiting that outside world, but eventually, it will not enchant us anymore. In this moment, I love Columbia and have no plans to leave. This is the state I wish to achieve in my inner world beginning this year. I want to love being in my inner world so much that I never again think about living in the ego's world. Just like Atlanta, it's there, and I may have to visit on occasion, but I will always be happy to go home.
Like those Wise Men who traveled to see Jesus after his birth, we can't go back home the way we came. There's an egoic Herod ready to greet us on that old road. Instead, we all must go home by another way. The path home leads through our inner world, not the one out here. The old world will tempt us back to it, but for me in this new year, a new road is open, and I will go home by another way, by journeying through the inner world of love, joy, and peace that will also utterly transform and end the suffering of the world outside of me.
I will take Williamson's prayer as my guide:
Dear God, today may I be a conduit for Your love. May Your peace, through me, bring peace to all the world. May Your Light so enter my heart that the world itself is blessed. Amen.
I invite you to join me on this ambitious journey in this new year, "So will the year begin in joy and freedom."
YOUR TURN: What are your resolutions for 2023? Will you resolve to live first in the realm of the Holy so you can step into your function as the Light of the World?
Let’s talk in the comments.
Want to learn more about A Course in Miracles?
Jubilee! Circle hosts an informal discussion group about A Course in Miracles every Tuesday night at 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time. If you’re in the Columbia, SC area, you can join us in-person at 6729 Two Notch Road, Ste. 70 in Columbia. If you’re anywhere else in the world, join us by Zoom using the link below. Whether you’re new to ACIM, or have been studying it for years, this is a low-pressure, friendly environment to learn more and grow together! Join us:
Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86088245457?pwd=bWd6QzhscGlUYnFnYUU1dy9uTUVMZz09
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About the Motley Mystic:
The Motley Mystic is an online community for people who have realized that the truth speaks with many voices. There is no one religion, philosophy, institution or dogma that captures the whole Truth and nothing but the Truth. No one needs to swear allegiance to one line of thought or belief to discern Truth, because Love is the only thing that’s real. That’s what we explore at the Motley Mystic - all the tools and strategies we need to remove our barriers to Love and live fully as our true, Divine Self.
Candace Chellew is the founder of Motley Mystic as well as Jubilee! Circle, an interfaith spiritual community in Columbia, S.C. She is also the author of Bulletproof Faith: A Spiritual Survival Guide for Gay and Lesbian Christians published in 2008 by Jossey-Bass and the founder and senior editor emeritus of Whosoever: An Online Magazine for LGBTQ People of Faith. She is also a musician and avid animal lover.
I will remind myself to go within... thank you.