Jefferson Revisited I

You would maintain, and think it true, that you do not believe these senseless laws, nor act upon them. And when you look at what they say, they cannot be believed. Brother, you do believe them. For how else could you perceive the form they take, with content such as this? Can any form of this be tenable? Yet you believe them for the form they take, and do not recognize the content. It never changes. Can you paint rosy lips upon a skeleton, dress it in loveliness, pet it and pamper it, and make it live? And can you be content with an illusion that you are living? (ACIM:T-23.II.18)

I've written elsewhere about the function of cognitive dissonance in the Course, focusing on the notion that the whole Course process is about making us aware of all that doesn't work in the ego's world, and gradually to wear off our rationalizations and justifications of it. It is through that process that we remove the blocks to love's presence, as the introduction to the Course declares to be its goal. This is the specific process of the Course, but it behooves us to understand that this is the process of how Jesus or the Holy Spirit teaches us, regardless if we're a Course student or not. In that sense the Course merely serves as an acceleration of the process, and that is why the only real claim for the benefit of the Course which Jesus ever makes is that it will speed us along faster, but otherwise it claims no specialness, being only one of thousands of paths. Since the underlying psychological process regardless of whether we undertake it consciously with the Course or not, is always the same, and is inevitable, it pays to look closer. The ego system is always a lie, never mind how hard we try to justify it. Only truth is true, and everything else is a lie. The disparity creeps in whenever our justifications wear out, and the truth peeks its ugly head through the thin veils of the ego's obfuscations.

Presently I'm reading Annette Gordon-Reed's book The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family, and it is bringing all these things to life for me. I guess I am fascinated by Jefferson, and in particulare by his profound intuition that about Jesus that is evident in his work that is now known as The Jefferson Bible. At some level it could be no mere coincidence that his first name was Thomas. And then there is his life... besides the schoolbook stuff, and the obvious historical importance, so much has come out in recent years, a hundred and fifty years after the fact, that has shifted the whole perception, that it pays to look beneath the public drama and into the heart of  what went on. The present book is a bit bulky, and not a casual read. It seems repetitive at times, which clearly has annoyed some reviewers, but I don't think it is bothersome, to me it is as if we're with the author, reading over her shoulder, trying to decipher from the fog of history what she is trying to ascertain about the nature of the relationship between Jefferson and Sally Hemings. She repeatedly has to polish her glasses, and resort the papers, and check her own feelings to see if she is still on the right track. My gut sense is she is. Her most "controversial" tenet which this book develops is that there was a basis of genuine affection, and emotional bond in this relationship, a notion which not everyone finds acceptable. In the process of her discovery about this we travel with Jefferson to Paris, where he begins to fully develop his notions of the rights of man, etc., in the run-up to the French Revolution, all of which is materially important for his later work in America. But there he is, publicly speaking out against slavery, and privately having two undeclared people in his entourage, Sally and her brother James, who are free under French law, and slaves under Virginia law, and he'd rather not have anybody find out. Evidently there was a negotiation in the formative period of his relationship with Sally, in which the notion of her freedom under French law enters the consideration, before she decides to return to the States with him on his apparent promise of the manumission of her children by him.

We all know these situations in our lives where the appearances do not line up with the facts, and we tend to ignore these things, but eventually those kinds of disparities may force a shift. A book like this is a powerful reminder of how this life learning process works, and how we inflict suffering upon ourselves by resisting where the process is taking us. For Jefferson the process ended up being a slow movement towards the manumission of his former slaves, some only posthumously through his will, but the seeds of it were evident when he lived in Paris, and there was total cognitive dissonance between what he was trying to maintain in his Virginia (slave-owner, among other things) persona, his public life in Paris, and his private life at home, with a chef who was a black slave from Virginia, and his younger sister who became his mistress. What seems so helpful to me about this type of a process is the realization that this is universal. The ego system never works, or in the words of the Course, it may be foolproof, but it is not God-proof, as the following passage says, speaking about the need for us to transcend the ego's judgments, and appeal our case, whatever it may be, to the " Higher Court," of the Holy Spirit:

You need not fear the Higher Court will condemn you. It will merely dismiss the case against you. There can be no case against a child of God, and every witness to guilt in God's creations is bearing false witness to God Himself. Appeal everything you believe gladly to God's Own Higher Court, because it speaks for Him and therefore speaks truly. It will dismiss the case against you, however carefully you have built it up. The case may be fool-proof, but it is not God-proof. The Holy Spirit will not hear it, because He can only witness truly. His verdict will always be "thine is the Kingdom," because He was given to you to remind you of what you are. (ACIM:T-5.VI.10)

In short since freedom is our natural condition, we ultimately cannot fail but relearn it, though it may take us a long time to experientially disprove the opposite to freedom, releasing the shackles of the ego system. But that it will happen in the end is certain, because it is part of truth, however long it takes us to get there. The painful parts are trying to hang on to our justifications for what we know not to be the truth, just like Thomas Jefferson in his writings on the State of Virginia publicly reaffirmed the seeming justifications for racial discrimination and slavery, while his private life was inexorably moving in a different direction. These are the scenes which Shakespeare modeled in the phrase " Me thinks the lady doth protest too much." In such cases our heart already knows a truth that seems inconvenient, but our mind is still attempting to hold on to what it thinks it knows from the past, and so the rationalizations and protests express not the truth, but our fervent resistance to it, by which we only prolong our own suffering. And often times it can be helpful to watch this process in another, and through empathy that can in turn allow us to recognize similar processes in our own lives, and perhaps help us to choose " another way"  a bit sooner, and lessen our discomfort along the way.  The process invariably entails that the fissures of inner contradiction in any arrangements our ego makes start to show up and become more undeniable and uncomfortable, until the gap of cognitive dissonance forces us into a change process. Those are the times when life itself erupts through the cracks of our seemingly comfortable living arrangements.

The path the Course teaches in effect is to learn to see those discrepancies better and better, by stopping our rationalizations and justifications, and asking the help of Jesus or the Holy Spirit to look at them without judgment, but just noticing: "Oh well, my ego's still alive and well." It is by stopping to take these things overly seriously, that we gradually let the air out of the ego's defenses, until we can blatantly see that it is nothing, and then we know it is no sacrifice to give up nothing. Hence Jesus says also in the Course that he asks for teachers (of the valuelessness of the ego-system), not martyrs, as in the following passage:

    As you read the teachings of the Apostles, remember that I told them myself that there was much they would understand later, because they were not wholly ready to follow me at the time. I do not want you to allow any fear to enter into the thought system toward which I am guiding you. I do not call for martyrs but for teachers. No one is punished for sins, and the Sons of God are not sinners. Any concept of punishment involves the projection of blame, and reinforces the idea that blame is justified. The result is a lesson in blame, for all behavior teaches the beliefs that motivate it. The crucifixion was the result of clearly opposed thought systems; the perfect symbol of the "conflict" between the ego and the Son of God. This conflict seems just as real now, and its lessons must be learned now as well as then. (ACIM:T-6.I.16)

That we will find truth is inevitable, as the Course repeatedly reassures us, because simply put truth is true, and everything else is a lie, so the rest is only a matter of time. It is our choice how long we want to suffer still. The reason the cracks will always be there, is because the split mind is not capable of anything else, by reason of the very nature of what it is. Therein exactly lies the root of fool proof, not God proof, and so there is always hope, because part of our mind of necessity has an allegiance to truth, and that is what the Course calls the right mind, where we do hear the Voice for God, or the Holy Spirit, who is calling us to leave the insane asylum behind, and seek and find our way Home.