Dharma – Accepting the Atonement for Yourself

          I don’t know about you, but there are too many times when I question what the heck I am supposed to be doing!  There are times when a lack of purpose and direction overwhelms me and I start feeling yucky and unworthy. The day gets dark and ugly. Sound familiar to you, also? And remember the last time you felt a real sense of purpose? And remember how good that felt?

          Well, this morning while my husband Dan and I were doing our daily readings together, I heard myself summarizing something we were contemplating by saying, “Dharma (the doing of the right thing at the right time) removes all sense of guilt.”  DUH! This was such a simple, obvious statement, yet I knew that I had hit on something unbelievably profound and far reaching. The proverbial light bulb turned on and blasted straight into my little gray cells and beyond.

          If you are a student of A Course in Miracles you already know that guilt is the boulder blocking your emotional road to happiness. Ego has us try to cope by placing blame outside ourselves onto the world at large in a major effort at deflection. That is ego’s idea of responsibility: Save yourself by hurting others. (We can go over that sorry process in detail in another blog)  And as you also probably know, the Course tells us the answer is “to accept the Atonement for yourself.” There are so many eloquent teachers and students of the Course that explain this phrase superbly, yet for me this morning “dharma removes all sense of guilt” was the stealth definition that dove right into my heart and mind.

          Wow! Just think about it – if you know you are doing exactly the right thing at the right moment you are overwhelmed with a sense of worth. You have accepted your only one true responsibility. You have aligned yourself with the Holy Spirit’s Purpose and, to quote Tony the Tiger, you feel “GREAT!”

          Dharma IS the acceptance of the Atonement for yourself -- and with this acceptance, all darkness, all uncertainty, the ache of loneliness, the pain of guilt and the need to hurt others simply dissipate like the morning mist. Each moment is filled with direction, and your only purpose and responsibility is the releasing of guilt in yourself and others. Wow! I know just what I need to do right now. The dark and ugly is gone and only sunlight and beauty fills the day.