Three Paths Through Life
In general, there are three main paths through life, or let’s call them ‘worldviews’.
The first is to see the world and our body’s as evil – focusing on the darkness. This we could equate to a traditionally religious or conservative worldview, which looks down on pleasure of any type as well as money. This is the ascetic worldview, and one can be very harsh with themselves in fighting temptation. But the temptation remains there regardless, as so the man is locked into a battle with himself, whether or not he consciously acknowledges this.
The second is the opposite path of hedonism and pleasure, focusing on the light, and seeing the world as a carnival of happiness and enjoyment, and the body as the ultimate source of pleasure. This view is also limited…since in or over time the body will fail us, and the world becomes more dark than light. In reality the body is a neutral instrument capable of either pain or pleasure.
The third main worldview is a middle path of moderation, as practiced by some elements of the ancient Greeks. In this worldview we see the body and the world as neither good nor evil, which locks us into the first two worldviews, but as something neutral, temporary, and as an instrument for living in the world. Not focusing on the pain or the pleasure of the body unleashes the mind to move beyond it and direct it toward the goal that we assign to it.
“Where concepts of the self have been laid by is much truth revealed exactly as it is. When every concept has been raised to doubt and question, and been recognized as made on no assumptions that would stand the light, then is the truth left free to enter its sanctuary, clean and free of guilt. There is no statement that the world is more afraid to hear than this: ‘I do not know the thing I am, and therefore do not know what I am doing, where I am, or how to look upon the world or on myself’. Yet in this learning is salvation born. And What you are will tell you of Itself.”
© A Course in Miracles (T-31, V.17:4-9). The main concepts of this page were taken from © ‘Journey through the Workbook of A Course in Miracles’ Volume Five page 46-47 by Ken Wapnick.
