A Clean Slate

"Every loveless thought must be undone" (T-5.VI.9:2).

Mark 2:21   ‘No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on to an old garment; if he does, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and leaves a bigger hole. 22 No one puts new wine into old wineskins; if he does, the wine will burst the skins, and then wine and skins are both lost. New wine goes into fresh skins.’ (Revised English Bible)

A Course in Miracles insists that every last ego thought must be erased in order for the Truth of our Identity to fully dawn upon us. When Jesus lived in the flesh, his teaching about old garments and old wineskins was saying much the same thing. You can't take a new thought and patch it into your old thought system. Like the unshrunk cloth patch, trying to graft a fresh thought into your old thought system will just tear a hole in that thought system and leave you with nothing usable. Same with the wine; "wine (new thought) and skins (old thought system) are both lost."

When I first began reading the Course, I tried to take parts of it and fit them into my then-current thought system, a Christian evangelical thought system based on a view of the Bible as inerrant. The result was that the Course's thoughts tore holes in that old thought system. But at the same time, I could not really grasp hold of the Course. I could not really "get" it. It wasn't until I was willing to let go of the old and embrace the new that the Course started to become clear to me. The Course says this in another even more emphatic way:

"This course will be believed entirely or not at all. For it is wholly true or wholly false, and cannot be but partially believed. " (T-22.II.7:4-5).

As we read the Course, then, let us release our old thoughts. As Jesus admonishes us,

"Simply do this: Be still, and lay aside all thoughts of what you are and what God is; all concepts you have learned about the world; all images you hold about yourself. Empty your mind of everything it thinks is either true or false, or good or bad, of every thought it judges worthy, and all the ideas of which it is ashamed. Hold onto nothing. Do not bring with you one thought the past has taught, nor one belief you ever learned before from anything. Forget this world, forget this course, and come with wholly empty hands unto your God" (W-pI.189.7:1-5).

Let us strive to be "fresh skins," with minds that are flexible, stretchable, and ready to grow. If we come with nothing, we will find everything.