What is it you really, really, really, really want?
Of course you cannot imagine what you really want because your imagination faculty is an ego-device made to reduce heavenly experience to earthly forms.
What you really want is far beyond what can be imagined, a constant experience living in the radiant glory of heaven. The desire for earthly forms reduces life down to inconstancy and the fear of loss. There is nothing of earth that you really want.
But the Holy Spirit addresses us in our present condition and uses our ego-devised faculties to lift our sights higher, true or false? The Holy Spirit uses our imagination to inspire us to greater spiritual opening and a more fuller spiritual life, true or false?
So it's not surprising that once upon a time the Holy Spirit enticed those who lived in the Dark Ages (after the decline and fall of the Roman Empire) with an image of a miracle to hope for, a goal beyond goals to strive for, a heavenly treasure worthy of a lifetime quest ... a Holy Grail.
The deteriorating Roman Empire was not so very different from America today. Whereas the Roman Empire was a slave state relying on physically conquered men and women imported from other lands, America is a slave state relying on psychologically conquered tax payers. The worship of government and the reliance on slave labor is the same.
Romans didn't have Hollywood or value-destroying TV to speed up the moral decay of society, but their rulers looked away while orgies of ego-vested interest and individual irresponsibility turned their society into a cesspool.
As Romans lost their moral foundation and came to substitute reliance on government programs for following the guidance of the individual human spirit, they lost their will to fight, became appeasers to the wishes and demands of others, and stood by watching as if helpless while Roman society was eaten away bite by bite.
In America these days societal parasites and heavy-taxing slave masters love to call themselves "liberals" and "progressives," as if it is liberal to tax people so heavily and in so many ways that it is almost impossible to make ends meet (never mind get ahead), as if it is progressive to commit highway robbery against those who do manage to raise their standard of living. The names can change but the disease that destroys societies is always the same. Astute historical works, starting with The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon, have for years been warning of the dark ages which lie ahead.
Great societies always self-destruct, but the Holy Spirit sees to it that out of the ashes there always arises a Phoenix. Out of the rubble of a decadent society there always arises a spiritually tuned-in and wondrous people who set a new example for a new world.
So why wouldn't the Holy Spirit seek to reestablish in America and elsewhere in the world today a sense of honorable and heroic individual achievement by holding before us once again the promise of a Holy Grail? And why wouldn't the Holy Spirit give the philosophers among us a Holy Grail preparation device?
Jesus would say the Holy Grail is what you really, really, really, really want ... the constant experience of heaven even while on earth, the state of being known to some as "total spiritual enlightenment."
The achievement of such a state is easy. "Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me." (Matthew 19:21)
In other words, let your cup be empty so your cup may become overflowing.
All across the land in charismatic Christian churches individuals are raising their hands to heaven, saying "Here I am waiting," and allowing unbelievable explosions into light. Their joy is becoming overwhelming and a tidal wave of love radiates from their being, causing literal miracles in their wake wherever they go. By virtue of their love and joy and inner peace, these are the unheralded leaders of society, the ones who build and hold together the new while the old is in shambles.
But what about the more philosophically inclined who feel they deserve to be among society's new leaders but who look at charismatic Christian churches and wince because they think they perceive intellectual laziness and flinch because they have never totally surrendered and allowed their spirit to take over their body's movements?
Jesus smiles and holds out his hand to these beloved philosophers who eventually will make use of a deeper understanding for holy purposes, and offers them a perfect preparation device: A Course in Miracles.
The deeper understanding given in His Course is a clearer, more perfect restatement of the teaching brought to what is now Southern France by Mary Magdalene, perpetuated by the Cathar civilization in the same region until the Roman church slaughtered every last man, woman and child, and later rediscovered by the Knights Templar who were also destroyed by the Roman church. It is the deeper teaching which Jesus held back from disciples who were not yet ready: "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now." (John 16:12)
His Course is not the Holy Grail. Jesus himself says, "This course is a beginning not an end.... No more specific lessons are assigned for there is no more need of them.... Now I place you in His hands, to be His faithful followers.... Nor will He give you pleasures that will pass away, for He gives only the eternal and the good." (Epilogue of Workbook)
Whereas charismatic Christians open to the experience of divine glory even without a philosophical understanding of what is really going on, and quite often benefit from not personally needing such a foundation, the Course does give a philosophical understanding which can be used to satisfy intellectuals. Jesus laughs good-naturedly about the fact that if a society is to be built or rebuilt the intellectuals must be satisfied.
Just as societies have been brought to their knees by intellectuals theorizing with no foundation in reality, with no guidance from their inner spiritual being (witness the dreary deadly malaise of socialism everywhere), so the society which will be newly built in the future will be nurtured by intellectuals fully understanding the importance of always tuning-in to their spirit and honoring their spirit.
So Jesus causing his Course to be written in the form of three books which appeal to intellectuals serves purposes we may not have seen at first glance, wouldn't you say?
Advanced teachers of the Course always say something like: "Forget the world you live in and go Home! As you open to light your whole world opens to light."
But for those who haven't yet felt their deepest desire for what they really, really, really, really want there might for a little while longer be guidance to work actively in society on behalf of freedom. These dear ones might still to some degree relish the search for the Holy Grail seemingly outside themselves. To all active searchers as well as to those who have glimpsed the Grail and no longer feel the need to search Jesus speaks the same words (from the Epilogue):
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