Question: I know the Course says the script is already written. Does that mean that all my thoughts are scripted as well? Like when I choose forgiveness as opposed to listening to my ego, is that something that is outside of my control as well? If I got distracted again and I get angry, and I forgive and release it, was that going to happen anyway?
David Hoffmeister: Very good question. “The script is written.” (W-158.4.) The key word in that statement is the last word, written, which is past tense. The script is past. What happened in time is over. It is like watching Gone with the Wind. It is not an interactive thing. You can tell Rhett not to say that line, but it keeps playing. It is in the script.
The Course is leading you to what Jesus calls a purified form (T-5.V.7.) or a purified version of the past, which is the forgiven world. This is the same as letting go of all the meaning that the ego has written upon the world. The Holy Spirit will bless it. He says, “…think of yourself as completely at peace with everyone and everything, safe in a world that protects you and loves you, and that you love in return.”( W-68.6) This is a whole different way of looking at the world.
You start to get into difficulty when you try to analyze “the script is written.” That can be a real mind bender. Think of it this way: time is simultaneous; it is not linear. The problem comes if you see your life as a linear story. If you saw the movie The Secret you might wonder “Can I rewrite the script? Can I manifest?” The clarity comes when seeing that you have to forgive the past. You have to let it go. What that means is that you have to realize that time is simultaneous when you forgive.
Time is not like a string of spaghetti, like a time line with past, present, future. What happens if you turn the spaghetti on its side and look right down the edge of it? What does it turn into? A point, a point instead of a line! Time is simultaneous.
When you get back to Heaven, it’s not like you sit around in a little group in a 12-step program and tell your war stories. “Oh, remember those lifetimes…” You don’t have war stories in abstract love. It is just Divine love, everything is love. The ladder is going to disappear. But you do have to follow the ideas of the Course. You have to allow yourself to keep opening and following those symbols that Jesus teaches you. They will jump off the page. After reading it for 10 years you look at a sentence and it goes “Wham!” and leaps off the page because your mind is ready for that experience at that moment………..
David Hoffmeister is a pioneer in the practical application of A Course in Miracles. A quarter of a century ago, David found the Course and immediately immersed in studying the book nearly every waking hour of his life for two years. In the early days, he was guided by Spirit to go to the movies to let up troubling thoughts and emotions into awareness and, through prayer, to release them to Spirit.
David was later guided to develop the Five Levels of Mind and the Instrument for Peace, two profound tools for tracing a present upset back to a belief in mind so that a conscious decision can be made to let it go.
