From Futility to Happiness: Sisyphus as Everyman

The Greek mythic figure of Sisyphus was condemned by the gods to a life of pushing a rock up a mountain, only to have it fall back down to the bottom, there to begin his labors again. His life of futility mirrors our life in the body and the hopelessness inherent in pursuing any meaning in the world. The first part of the book addresses this view as presented in A Course in Miracles, summarized in the idea that we can never be truly happy in the world because it is not our home. The second part discusses the transition from futility to happiness in the context of the Course s offering of another way of looking at our seeming fate, reflecting Camus important essay on Sisyphus, which he ended by stating, We must imagine Sisyphus happy. Through a change of mind brought about by changing our inner teacher from the ego to Jesus, our lives of futility are transformed into opportunities for unlearning the ego s thought system. A purposeless life of inherent meaninglessness thus metamorphoses into a meaningful classroom that leads us to the Heaven we never truly left. As with the other books in this series, The Practice of A Course in Miracles, From Futility to Happiness is presented as an aid in applying the Course s principles of forgiveness more meaningfully to our everyday lives, that they may become increasingly happy and less futile in our experience.