Role models of SQ

SQ21: The Twenty-one Skills Of Spiritual Intelligence is a guide to your own hero’s journey. As role models we can look to the noblest human beings we an think of, people like Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Socrates, and Mother Teresa. What sets them apart is more that intellectual smarts (IQ) or great interpersonal skills (EQ). It is their spiritual intelligence (SQ).

John Mackey, Forward, SQ21, p.vii

Don McClean sang in his classic song, American Pie, that the three people he admired most are the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

In Paul Simon’s great song, You Can Call Me Al, he sings “Who will be my role model when my role models are gone?”

Having been raised as a Catholic, I was encourage to read about the lives of the saints and to celebrate their feast days when a mass was dedicated to them in their honor.

Who is the most spiritually intelligent person you know? Do you aspire to emulate their SQ? How do you do this?

The Interior Spiritual Life

Most people have heard of IQ, the intelligence quotient. Some people have heard of EQ , emotional intelligence, and fewer people have heard of SQ, spiritual intelligence. What is spiritual intelligence? Spiritual intelligence is the awareness and relationship that a person has with their Transcendent Source which provides them with wisdom, courage, temperance, justice, and peace.

The Transcendence Source is the non dual Oneness from which we were separated when we were incarnated into a physical body and to which we will return when the physical body dies.

Hopefully, over the course of a lifetime a person’s interior spiritual life grows and deepens and the person’s potential flowering is actualized.

People increasingly in our contemporary times, when polled, say they are not religious, but consider themselves spiritual. If you ask them what they mean by this, they start by saying that they don’t go to church and aren’t a member of any religion but they believe in “God or something bigger than myself.”

Almost everyone has some sort of interior spiritual life whether they are consciously aware of it or not. All human beings reflect on the three main existential questions: why was I born, what is the purpose of my life, what happens when I die? The answers to these questions are the foundational building blocks of the interior spiritual life.

If you are interested in learning more about what comprises an interior spiritual life and how to intentionally further develop it, subscribe to Nurturing One’s Interior Spiritual Life, to obtain some ideas about how to understand it, and expand it.

The four Hindu life stages: Where are you?

From Spiritual Seniors on 09/07/25

The Four Ashramas: Life in Stages

In classical Hindu thought, life is a journey divided into four ashramas, or stages. The first is brahmacharya, the period of the student, when the young learn discipline, faith, and knowledge. The second is grihastha, the householder, devoted to marriage, family, work, and social responsibility. The third, vanaprastha, arrives when one has fulfilled those duties and begins to step back from worldly obligations. The fourth, sannyasa, is the life of renunciation, when a person seeks union with the eternal.

What distinguishes vanaprastha is its transitional nature. The forest dweller is not yet a renunciate. They may still live with their family, continue to advise children, and still play a role in society. But the center of gravity shifts. The inward call of wisdom balances the outward call of responsibility. A person is no longer defined by striving, but by seeking. No longer measured by conquest, but by clarity.

I am a Psychiatric Social Worker and have been practicing for 56 years and continue to practice individual, couple, and family therapy in my private office three days per week at age 79. 

The major life transitions of the second half of adulthood are the empty nest and retirement. Many of my client seeking help with depression, anxiety and somatic preoccupation are not managing these life transitions well. They are confused, lost, see no path forward and our culture and its institutions don't help them much.

The Hindu teaching of the life stages is a very helpful map that provides some guidance to what eldering might look like and the developmental challenges that people face as they grow older. Schacter-Shalomi and Miller call this process "Age-ing to Sage-ing" in their book by the same title. Becoming a sage is not just growing older but growing up which means actualizing one's potential.

One of the purposes of this blog, Nurturing One's Interior Spiritual Life, is to facilitate the development of a map for growing up. Further articles on this topic of ageing to sageing will be forthcoming.

What will make me happy?

So first we have to understand what I mean by “life.”

It must not be simply growing old, it must be growing up. And these are two different things. Growing old, any animal is capable of. Growing up is the prerogative of human beings.

Only a few claim the right.

Growing up means moving every moment deeper into the principle of life; it means going farther away from death—not toward death. The deeper you go into life, the more you understand the immortality within you. You are going away from death; a moment comes when you can see that death is nothing but changing clothes, or changing houses, changing forms—nothing dies, nothing can die. Death is the greatest illusion there is.

Osho. Maturity: The Responsibility of Being Oneself (Osho Insights for a New Way of Living) . St. Martin's Press. Kindle Edition.

Growing old and growing up are two different things. The choice is ours. Many people are in denial and unconscious of the fact that they have a choice. Socrates taught that an unexamined life is not worth living. If most people are asked, "What makes you tick?" they become uncomfortable as if they have been put on the spot.

If you ask people what they want out of life, they will say something like “to be happy.” The bigger question is what will make you happy and most people look to external things. But true happiness is peace of mind and that comes from within. Peace comes from cultivating the virtues of wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice in their lives.

People come to a point in their lives gradually or suddenly when they realize that what they have been taught by society is illusional and that there has to be a better way to live their lives.

This is what is called “the dawning” when it dawns on us that external things will never make us truly happy. What gives a person peace of mind is the cultivation of a virtuous way of being in the world. This way of virtue provides satisfaction, fulfillment, and peace.

The Stoics teach that the four cardinal virtues are wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice. What are these four qualities? How can they be cultivated and practiced? Subscribe to this blog and study with us as we consider these questions in future articles.

In the center of the hurricane there is no judgment

 The map is not the territory. The symbol is not the reality.

We all misperceive what is in front of our eyes, ears, smell, touch, because we perceive through our filter and lens of experience which skews our perceptions in expected and prejudiced directions. We perceive through the lens of what psychologists have called the "self fulfilling prophecy".

Is the glass half full or half empty? Is that event a blessing or a curse, a good thing or a bad thing? History usually gets written by the victors, the oppressors, the more dominant people in the relationship.

So the wise person is not judgmental because (s)he knows that judgement is flawed, imprecise, skewing interpretation and meaning in an prejudicial direction. The wise person knows that only God, Spirit, Mother Nature, Tao can take the ever flowing, changing, oneness of life into account.

Many religions teach that the world of the ego is an illusion. We are watching shadows flicker on the wall of Plato's cave, The meaning we make of our existence very much depends on our perspective, on our limited experience. Recognizing our ignorance we are moved to humility and we become nonjudgmental. We yearn to move from this ego world, what Christians call the world behind the "veil of tears" to the non dualistic Oneness of God which is our Transcendent Source.

As Jesus said, "Judge not so that you will not be judged." Matthew 7:1

Mindfulness meditation is a very significant spiritual practice wherein we just witness all the tricks and antics of what the Buddhists call the "monkey mind" and attempt to clear our cluttered mind and enter into the center of the hurricane.

Grief and gratitude at the end of life.

As we near the end of our lives the question that can be addressed is “did we do our best with what we knew with the resources available to us given the circumstances?’ 

If the answer is “yes” then we can die in peace. If the answer is “no” then we can make sense of our mistakes and attempt to articulate what we have learned from them.

The activities, relationships, and functions on the ego plain are impermanent and wind up being ephemeral when it comes to Truth at the cosmic level of consciousness. The Tao works its way as things go along both good and bad, healthy and sick, rich and poorer til death do we part from this vale of tears. 

The predominant emotions at older age are grief and gratitude and in embracing both we experience peace.

Ignorance or innocence? Becoming One with All

For growing up, just watch a tree. As the tree grows up its roots are growing down, deeper. There is a balance—the higher the tree goes the deeper the roots will go. You cannot have a tree one hundred and fifty feet high with small roots; they could not support such a huge tree. Maturity means the same as innocence, only with one difference: it is innocence reclaimed, it is innocence recaptured.

In life, growing up means growing deep within yourself—that’s where your roots are.

To me, the first principle of life is meditation. Everything else comes second. And childhood is the best time. As you grow older it means you are coming closer to death, and it becomes more and more difficult to go into meditation.

Meditation means going into your immortality, going into your eternity, going into your godliness. And the child is the most qualified person because he is still unburdened by knowledge, unburdened by religion, unburdened by education, unburdened by all kinds of rubbish. He is innocent.

But unfortunately his innocence is condemned as ignorance. Ignorance and innocence have a similarity, but they are not the same. Ignorance is also a state of not knowing, just as innocence is—but there is a great difference too, which has been overlooked by the whole of humanity up to now. Innocence is not knowledgeable, but it is not desirous of being knowledgeable either. It is utterly content, fulfilled.

A small child has no ambitions, he has no desires. He is so absorbed in the moment—a bird on the wing catches his eye so totally; a butterfly, its beautiful colors, and he is enchanted; the rainbow in the sky … and he cannot conceive that there can be anything more significant, richer than this rainbow. And the night full of stars, stars beyond stars …

Innocence is rich, it is full, it is pure. Ignorance is poor, it is a beggar—it wants this, it wants that, it wants to be knowledgeable, it wants to be respectable, it wants to be wealthy, it wants to be powerful. Ignorance moves on the path of desire. Innocence is a state of desirelessness. But because both are without knowledge, we have remained confused about their natures. We have taken it for granted that they are the same.

Osho. Maturity: The Responsibility of Being Oneself (Osho Insights for a New Way of Living) . St. Martin's Press. Kindle Edition.

Osho makes the distinction between ignorance and innocence. Osho says that ignorance is not knowing but wanting to acquire knowledge. Ignorance is grasping, seeking, wanting to acquire the external. Innocence is being content with what is within and resting in wonderment, peace, curiosity, and awe.

Osho says that “Maturity means the same as innocence, only with one difference: it is innocence reclaimed, it is innocence recaptured.”

We recapture our innocence when we turn within, shed the ego world, and commune with the non dual Oneness which is our Transcendent Source from which we have separated ourselves with our birth into this worldly existence. This communing with the non dual Oneness requires a surrender of one’s will to the will of the Tao, their Higher Power however we understand It. The return to the non dual Oneness from which we have come requires a letting go of all the things we have become attached to and allowing All to be All.

Saging in our contemporary society

As an alternative to inevitable senescence, this book proposes a new model of late-life development called sage-ing, a process that enables older people to become spiritually radiant, physically vital, and socially responsible “elders of the tribe.”

Schachter-Shalomi, Zalman; Miller, Ronald S.. From Age-ing to Sage-ing: A Revolutionary Approach to Growing Older (p. 19). Grand Central Publishing. Kindle Edition. 

What is this role of sage-ing that Schacter-Shalomi and Miller are proposing? What does the role of a sage look like? It is the flowering of what the Stoic philosophers call a life of virtue. 

In Stoic philosophy the four cardinal virtues are: wisdom, self regulation, courage, and justice. If a person has spent their life cultivating these virtues what does this blossoming look like? How is it to be recognized, acknowledged, and benefit the society of which such a person is a part?

Some thoughtful people say that wise elders are needed more than ever in this period of rapid social and technological change when the moral compasses of past decades and centuries no longer seem to provide guidance for our social functioning and development.

Where to do you seek wisdom and to what extent have you obtained it?

Psychospiritual model of development that culminates in old age.

As the baby boomers approach their elder years—indeed, as all older adults make the transition into what sociologists call the third age—they need a psychospiritual model of development that enables them to complete their life journey, harvest the wisdom of their years, and transmit a legacy to future generations. Without envisioning old age as the culminating stage of spiritual development, we short-circuit this process and put brakes on the evolutionary imperative for growth that can be unleashed by our increased longevity.

Schachter-Shalomi, Zalman; Miller, Ronald S.. From Age-ing to Sage-ing: A Revolutionary Approach to Growing Older (pp. 18-19). Grand Central Publishing. Kindle Edition. 

In our contemporary society increasing numbers of people say they are “spiritual” but not “religious”. What do they mean? Is there a psychospiritual model of development that describes old age as the culminating stage of spiritual development? If so, what is the model? If not, do we need to create one? What would be some of the components and factors that comprise such a model?

Does mortality awareness bring peace or terror?

I realized that I was sloughing off an old phase of life that I had outgrown. At the same time, to my great surprise and wonderment, I was being initiated as an elder, a sage who offers his experience, balanced judgment, and wisdom for the welfare of society. As I followed the intuitive promptings that came from within, I instinctively began harvesting my life, a process that involves bringing one’s earthly journey to a successful completion, enjoying the contributions one has made, and passing on a legacy to the future. To initiate the process, I asked myself, “If I had to die now, what would I most regret not having done? What remains incomplete in my life?”

Schachter-Shalomi, Zalman; Miller, Ronald S.. From Age-ing to Sage-ing: A Revolutionary Approach to Growing Older (pp. 15-16). Grand Central Publishing. Kindle Edition. 

What is involved in the initiation into the role of the wise elder? Often it is a crisis or a turning point in one’s adult life when one becomes acutely aware of one’s mortality and one’s coming death. We might call this mortality awareness. 

Mortality awareness can come at many points in a person’s life cycle but doesn’t stay long. However, in the later stage of life mortality awareness comes and stays and is always sitting on one’s shoulder whispering in one’s ear, “Remember you will die soon. Make every day count in a meaningful way.”

Mortality awareness has come to stay and colors one’s daily consciousness in two ways. First, by recognizing, acknowledging, and expressing appreciation for the things that have happened in one’s life that are blessings. Two, what are the things left to do to complete one’s life, to wrap things up so one can die peacefully?

People around the wise elder perceive that the person is no longer driven, competitive, possessive, anxious, and stressed,  but rather open, accepting, and peaceful. The person gives off a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment that they have come to a point where they feel that they have lived a life that they were meant to live and things are coming out alright in the end.

The wise elder communicates to others whom they meet, “Peace be with you” and a feeling of peace is experienced in this blessing from the wise elder to the other.

The wise elder is perfecting their inner world.

However, we find little emphasis on the inner, contemplative approach to aging in which we transcend doing in favor of being, learning to plumb our psyche for the spiritual gems of wisdom that come from mining our depths. In other words, aging people need to cultivate the inwardness from which wisdom grows, but our culture celebrates staying in the saddle and being productive in later life without a corresponding emphasis on being contemplative.

Schachter-Shalomi, Zalman; Miller, Ronald S.. From Age-ing to Sage-ing: A Revolutionary Approach to Growing Older . Balance. Kindle Edition. 

The wise elder turns from focusing on the outer world to the inner world. The wise elder is not as concerned with promoting health in the body as it ages although those concerns are important, but rather looks inward to spiritual consciousness. The focus is no longer on doing but on being.

The wise elder is interested in maximizing their own potential and that of others and expanding the consciousness of all sentient beings. The goal is to create a world where everybody loves everybody all the time, what some people call heaven.

So the wise elder is centered, has their shit together, and has a well integrated personality. This is achieved by cultivating and enhancing the four cardinal stoic virtues of wisdom, self regulation, courage, and justice. The wise elder has achieved so much happiness, peace, satisfaction, and fulfillment in their life that it simply spills over onto everything that comes into their path.

Where are the wise elders who can help us ameliorate our self destructive tendencies?"

 

They harvest their life experiences, pass on their wisdom to younger people, and safeguard the health of our ailing planet. Out of their late-life explorations in consciousness, elders bestow upon the world the life-giving wisdom it desperately needs and crown their lives with respect and honor.

Schachter-Shalomi, Zalman; Miller, Ronald S.. From Age-ing to Sage-ing: A Revolutionary Approach to Growing Older (p. 10). Grand Central Publishing. Kindle Edition. 

The wise elder reaps the fruit of their lived experience. They reflect on the story of their life and cull it for nuggets of wisdom. These nuggets they want to pass on to others they are leaving behind in subsequent generations when they die.

Sometimes a life review at a very superficial level is described in an obituary. In past decades epitaphs on a gravestone were popular, summing up the essence of a person’s life in a few words.

In a death-avoiding society young people don’t want to consider the parting words of wisdom from the people who have lived and will die before them. It is assumed or feared that the elder will have nothing relevant, significant, and worthwhile in such technologically fast changing times to impart.

The wisdom of the elder comes not from technological knowledge and competence but from values. How can the technological marvels of contemporary times be beneficially utilized? Are the applications of modern knowledge and technology good or bad, beneficial or harmful, to be embraced or avoided?

While knowledge and information is expanding at an ever accelerating rate, and the application of this knowledge and information is applied in ever new and innovative ways, spiritual intelligence and consciousness seems to lag behind putting powerful tools in the hands of adult children who are not growing up fast enough to use the knowledge and technology wisely. This deficit in spiritual intelligence leaves homo sapiens in the position of creating the circumstances for their extinction from nuclear winter, climate warming, economic meltdown, genocide, etc.

As one dispairs at the state of the world in contemporary times, one might plaintively cry “Where are the wise elders who can help us ameliorate our self destructive tendencies?"

The function of the wise elder in society.

In Stoic philosophy the wise elder is called a "sage." The sage lives a life of virtue based on the four stoic cardinal virtues: wisdom, self discipline, courage,, and justice. The sage has practiced these virtues and aspires to develop them to perfection. The life of a sage becomes vibrant and resonant with those who come into contact with it. Wisdom rubs off. Do you know anyone like this who you feel better about yourself when you are simply around them?

With the development of the four cardinal virtues the wise elder embodies resilience, integrity, and holiness. As such the wise elder is reliable, dependable, and a beacon of guidance for decision making and action. 

The wise elder’s wisdom is not based solely on intellectual knowledge or technological skill but on values; what matters in how knowledge and technology is utilized. The wise elder provides a moral compass that comes from a lifetime of experience and reflection and increase in consciousness at a personal and a social level. The wise elder knows what to do based on a deep understanding of right and wrong given the circumstances and factors that challenge decision making. The wise elder is a light house for the ships at sea who are trying to find their way and avoid collision with the hidden obstacles and barriers that exist beneath the surface.

The wise elder has expanded their consciousness and is aware of the interdependent web of existence of which human beings are a part. The wise elder is not only aware of the interdependent web but affirms and promotes it and utilizes this awareness in their interactions with others.

The function of the wise elder in society is to facilitate the enhancement of the level of consciousness of human beings. A wise elder asks themselves what would Love have me do, and then acts accordingly.

Rejuvenating the role of the wise elder.

…, we presented the model of the sage or “elder of the tribe” who benefits from extended longevity by developing extended consciousness. Elders practice contemplative disciplines from our spiritual traditions and come to terms with their mortality.

Schachter-Shalomi, Zalman; Miller, Ronald S.. From Age-ing to Sage-ing: A Revolutionary Approach to Growing Older (p. 10). Grand Central Publishing. Kindle Edition. 

This is the first of several articles on the role of the wise elder in our contemporary society. In some cultures, the wise elder is called a “sage.” This role has passed out of recognition and acknowledgment although it still exists buried underneath the materialism and youth idolization of our contemporary culture.

Some wise people think that it is time for this role to be rejuvenated, nurtured, and made more visible. Ken Wilber has taught the difference between growing old and growing up. All things animate and inanimate grow old but not all things grow up in the sense that they actualize their full potential.

If we all are to actualize our innate potential what would this flowering look like? What would it look like in your life? What do we still have left to do to die with peace and satisfaction of a completed life? Wise elders not only know how to do this, but they set an example for others. The wisdom rubs off.

In silence we can remember our Transcendent Source

Some people might read this book and say, “Oh yeah? Well what about starving children in Africa? Are they poor because their consciousness is unaligned with love?” I’d like to take this opportunity to respond to that. Starving children in Africa are not poor because their consciousness is misaligned with love; they’re poor because ours is.The Law Of Divine Compensation by Marianne Williamson, p.xiv

The alignment of consciousness with Love is not only an individual phenomenon; it is social, communal, nondualistic. No person is an island; homo sapiens is a social animal. In spite of our illusional, egotistic idea that we are individuals, we are radically dependent on others constantly for our existence. We are drops of the ocean and think we have a separate existence but we are nothing without the ocean from which we have become separated.

When we become aware of social injustice, poverty, what we consider evil in the world something has gone wrong. The system is out of whack, off kilter, needs an adjustment. We need to recognize, acknowledge, appreciate, and care for the Transcendent Source from which our separate ego selves have emanated. 

We can take a few minutes of silence today and remember that which sustains our consciousness which is a part of the All and do what we can to help our brothers and sisters around the planet..

Love the Internal Teacher

God has introduced into our minds an Internal Teacher, authorized to help us cross the bridge from fear to love when we find it difficult to do so by ourselves. The Internal Teacher is allied by different names, from the Comforter, to Jesus, to the Holy Spirit. Whatever name we use, it cannot be called on in vain. The Law Of Divine Compensation by Marianne Williamson, p.xiii

In Twelve Step groups the Internal Teacher is called “Higher Power” and in secular, humanist groups the “muse”.

I sometimes talk with my clients about their head and their heart. Sometimes there is a struggle because our head is full of “shoulds”, “ought too”, and “musts” and yet our heart is just not in it. When our heart is not into something usually we experience anxiety and may get the thought that we are on the wrong track. We say to ourselves, “There must be a better way!” It’s at these times we can call on the Holy Spirit for guidance, to give us a hint, to help us choose a more loving path to get on. We can always ask ourselves “What would Love have me do?”

Wisdom in difficult political times.

One of the consistent themes in psychotherapy is the development of agency in place of victimhood.

One of the stoic virtues is wisdom which comes from knowing what we can change and control and what we can't. This comes from Epictetus originally, who taught this virtue to Marcus Aurelius and in modern times has been captured in the Serenity Prayer.

Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle: Some things are within our control, and some things are not. It is only after you have faced up to this fundamental rule and learned to distinguish between what you can and can’t control that inner tranquility and outer effectiveness become possible.

Epictetus; Lebell, Sharon. The Art of Living: Epictetus's Timeless Wisdom on Virtue, Happiness, and Tranquility for a Fulfilling and Ethical Life (p. 3). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition. 

Probably one of the most important virtues of a psychotherapist is wisdom. Hopefully, we share our wisdom with our clients. 

There are  plenty of things we can be done to change the current state of affairs, the most important of which is to offer constructive beliefs that influence voting behavior and consumer choices. Do you believe in the inherent worth and dignity of every person or that some people are better and more worthy than others? Do you believe in equity, justice, and compassion or a society of increased inequality and retribution?

Simple choices really if they are framed right giving people the opportunity to make good decisions. Perhaps the more relevant frame of reference in answering the question "What is to be done in these difficult times?"  is spiritual not political. If we try to answer the question from the same perspective that gave rise to the question we often arrive at the wrong answer.

Truth is life giving

Part of the idea of evolution is that an organism should actualize its potential or it will mutate into something different. People who don't adapt to reality will die because their beliefs and actions don't sustain life. One of the definitions of truth is that which sustains life in its optimal blossoming.

The idea of reincarnation is that  if an individual soul doesn't actualize its full potential in one's lifetime, they will have to come back and try again.

So many people don't optimize their potential in their lifetime and it is a loss for them and humanity.

Many of the social policies created and implemented are not life-giving for all people and so they must be changed or life on the planet suffers for all living things.

Clinging to dysfunctional thought systems runs deep because people cling to their egos thinking their navel is the center of the universe and they would rather die than change their mind. Clinging to dysfunctional thought systems people do not actualize their potential. Some people, like followers of Diogenes, seek for the truth and in their search they change the world.

Public service is a spiritual path if people want to see it and pursue it as such. It is as much a spiritual journal as it is a secular vocation. Some people get this, but I suspect most of the population has not attained this level of awareness yet, but someday they will. The question is not whether they attain this level of awareness but when and how. It may take many lifetimes.

One of the definitions of God that I like is "the good, the true, and the beautiful."

Secular Americans more politically engaged than evangelicals

 

For more click here 

The dawning and the search

This is a course in miracles. It is a required course. Only the time you take it is voluntary. Free will does not mean that you can establish the curriculum. It means only that you can elect what you want to take at a given time.

Schucman, Dr. Helen. A Course in Miracles (p. 90). Foundation for Inner Peace. Kindle Edition. 

There are many resources to nurture one’s interior spiritual life. A Course in Miracles is one of them. Having been born, life is a required course and we can learn from it or not. Socrates said that an unexamined life is not worth living. How many people do you know that live examined lives? 

Some people learn from their experience some of the time, and some people do not learn from their experience some of the time, but when people become highly stressed and have hit bottom they sometimes start to search for a better way to live their lives and they begin a search. When a person wonders if there is a better way, it is called “the dawning.” It dawns on them that there might be a better way to live. This dawning then leads to the second phase which is called “the search”. 

In Unitarian Universalism one of the seven principles is the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. Once one decides to embark on the search for truth and meaning and live an examined life, the interior spiritual life begins in an intentional and significant way. Welcome, along on our journey on Nurturing One’s Interior Spiritual Life. What has brought you here?

The witness and Love

THE MAIN PRINCIPLE of A Course in Miracles, and key to the peace of God, is this: “Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists.” Love is the all-encompassing reality of God and thus can have no opposite. The absence of love, which is fear, is mere illusion. Love is the only eternal truth, while fear is a hallucination of the mortal mind.

Williamson, Marianne. The Law of Divine Compensation: On Work, Money, and Miracles (The Marianne Williamson Series) (p. xi). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition. 

A Course In Miracles is based on a non dual philosophy. “God” is the All. God is the ocean. Everything else are droplets. Human beings and the phenomena we call “life” are merely projections we humans have made up and are temporary illusions which come and go like the shadows in Plato’s cave.

The separation which begins for each of us at birth fills us with fear of punishment for separating ourselves from our home. We, whether we are aware of it or not, are always yearning to get back home where there is peace and happiness. 

The lessons of life occur to help us to remember from whence we have separated ourselves as separate selves and to which we are destined to return. What is required for the return is the giving up of the separate self we have created and struggle to maintain. This separate self is named the “ego”. 

As real as the ego seems to us, it is only a temporary illusion with which we play as we attempt to learn our lessons and remember, deep down, what we are made of.

What am I without my ego? No body. No feelings. No thoughts. No personality. No social status. No possessions. The “witness” is the part of ourselves that can watch our body change, our thoughts change, our feelings arise and subside, our earthly circumstances come and go and change in what seems like willy nilly ways. We can make all the money in the world and accumulate the most precious possessions and when we die we can’t take any of it with us. So what is this witness that can watch all these changes in our experience of our ego? What do you call this part of consciousness?

According to A Course In Miracles once we give up all the illusions of our ego and ego itself what is left is only Love which has no opposite.

As the Buddhist monk said to the hot dog vendor, "Make me one with everything."