A neighbor of mine, a percussionist who spent his career working alongside the music elite, once told me a story that has never left me. He was often surrounded by artists and producers whose lives glittered with success—people who measured their worth in gold records, exotic vacations, and luxury cars. The finest automobiles were standard: Mercedes, Jaguars, Rolls-Royces, Ferraris—each one a polished emblem of status.
One day, instead of arriving in something flashy, he pulled up in his brand-new car: a Volkswagen Beetle. Small, unassuming, almost comical beside the gleaming status symbols. He expected it might be overlooked, or even dismissed.
But to his surprise, the opposite happened. The elite musicians and producers, owners of the world’s most expensive cars, rushed toward the Beetle. They laughed, circled around it, touched it, and admired it like children discovering a new toy. For a few precious moments, the Ferrari and Mercedes faded into the background. The joy was real, and it came not from status but from simplicity.
That story always makes me ask myself: Why do I need a Mercedes? What do I think it would give me that I don’t already have? Respect? Security? The admiration of strangers at a stoplight? A Course in Miracles answers with disarming clarity: “Seek not outside yourself. For it will fail, and you will weep each time an idol falls” (T-29.VII.1:1).
The Beetle was not an idol. It was simply a car. But in the eyes of those who gathered around it, it sparked something pure: the delight of innocence, the joy that comes not from cost or prestige, but from seeing with fresh eyes. The percussionist laughed as he told me how these seasoned elites marveled at his humble Beetle. For him, it became a parable about the fleeting nature of worldly idols.
A Mercedes might gleam more brightly, but it could never outshine the quiet lesson of contentment that day. ACIM reminds us: “I am as God created me” (W-94.1:1). Nothing added—no emblem on a hood, no luxury badge—can improve on that truth. The ego chases symbols to fill its sense of lack, while Spirit whispers that we are already whole.
And so, when I return to the question—Why do I need a Mercedes?—the answer is simple: I don’t. If one comes, I can enjoy it without guilt. If it doesn’t, I have lost nothing. My joy does not come from possessions but from acceptance, from remembering that peace is not bought, but remembered.
Just as in The Ultimate Rental, where we recognized that even the body itself is only a temporary lease, this story reminds us that no symbol of status—whether a house, a car, or even the body we move in—can define who we are. The Mercedes, the Beetle, and the body alike are merely vehicles. What matters is not the model we ride in, but the awareness of the Spirit that rides within.
robert@dinojamesbooks.com