Growing up, one of the most popular shows on television was Seinfeld - an irreverent comedy with superficial characters of questionable morals. I watched it every Thursday evening. As did millions of other viewers, making Seinfeld one of the most popular and influential sitcoms of all time.
Ironically, the show often dealt with the inconsequential minutiae of everyday life. In fact, it has often been dubbed "a show about nothing."
Which is what makes Seinfeld much like A Course in Miracles - its central focus on nothing.
At the core of the metaphysics of A Course in Miracles is the concept that the world is an illusion. As we read in Lesson 132, "There is no world! This is the central thought the course attempts to teach."
Much like a dream: seemingly real while we're in it, but nonetheless fictitious. It's the illusory nature of our erroneous sense of "reality" that makes it "nothing". With an homage to Shakespeare and all the Seinfeld characters, we certainly make much ado about nothing.
Yet to us, this world seems very real and incredibly substantial. Every one of us experiences suffering.
But what the course is helping us learn is that we can use our experiences of nothing, particularly our pain, to transcend the fetters of form. To become lucid dreamers on the path toward awakening.
And it starts with the understanding that all our experiences come from the mind. As Lesson 132 continues, "There is no world apart from your ideas because ideas leave not their source, and you maintain the world within your mind in thought."
From this comes the liberating realization that we are not bound by the nothingness but by our interpretation of it. When we choose against the wrong mind of the ego and for the right mind of spirit, our experience of everything instantly changes.
Unlike Seinfeld, the Course does not remain focused on nothing but leads us beyond to the everything of infinite oneness. And in that state we are filled with a glorious sense of peace.
Join me in Thursday's class where we'll explore our fixation on nothing and how we can rise above the fray, meet with joy, yada yada yada. I look forward to seeing you then.