Future Is Bright when We Dream

“My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, turn your thoughts not to ideals of social activism, to causes, or to championing any one side over another. Turn not to your thoughts but to your feelings and go where they lead. And everywhere they lead you, remember one thing only. Remember to embrace your power. The power of love is the cause and effect that will change the world by returning you, and all your brothers and sisters, to who they are in truth. This cannot be done from without but must be done from within. It is the transformation that is caused within that will affect the world without.” (ACOL, D:Day10.33)

Jesus is saying that we have to change first, before we can change/create a new world. And this is hard to hear, because it is hard (we think) to change. Actually it is the easiest thing in the world, once the fear and judgment have been taken out of it. And we are fast doing that. We are taking real and quick steps to a new Self, an elevated Self, in form, that will give us a new life entirely. The future looks bright when we let ourselves dream.

We will own our power when we have made this transformation real. Power is a term about which we may feel somewhat ambiguous, for power, of the ego, has done many bad things in this world. In interpersonal relationships, power has been used to manipulate. But power has a good side, too. And it is this good side that we will use in forming a new identity. Stay with me a bit, and imagine a power that is good and holy. Power like a Being such as God employs. Power that is a good that we can employ.

The way back is not hard, as I have said repeatedly. It may take patience, for God’s timing is not ours. And He does know best. An omniscient Being knows what we, in our limitedness, cannot see. We lose out when we don’t count God in the bargain. He is right there, inside of us, pulling for us. He means well.

Do we really believe that God means well? If we don’t, our god concept needs to be changed. And this is happening to us, almost against our will sometimes. The way back is marked by beautiful flowers on each side of the pathway, and their scent follows us the whole way.

Dear God,

Thank You for surprising me today with Your benevolence. Something that I thought You were saying “no” to has suddenly become a glorious “yes.” I concluded too soon that my request was going awry. Thank You for guiding me through the maze of refusal to a beginning that is, oh, so promising.

I love regardless. I made the decision that I would expand my love of You even in disappointment. It was a good exercise for the soul. Thank You for guiding me through it.

Amen.

Gentle Transition into Awakening

“I asked you once before to review your ideas about the afterlife, a life in which most of you believe peacefulness reigns and the spirit is free of the body. Yet if you were to think now of a person whom you know who has died, you would not be likely to think of them much differently than they were in life, even while you are able to imagine them being peaceful and free of the constraints of the body. This is as good an idea as I can give you of how to imagine the elevated Self of form, as not much different than you are now, but peaceful and free of the constraints of the body.” (ACOL, D:Day10.27)

Jesus might also add to this quotation that his description of a peace inside and a peaceful body outside is similar to how enlightenment has been described. Of course, he hopes that all of us will be enlightened when we assume the elevated Self of form; this is his purpose in taking us to the mountaintop for 40 days and 40 nights.

Sometimes enlightenment comes with a bang, but for those who are well-prepared (as we are being well-prepared), it is a gentle crossing over. Being mellow often accompanies a glimpse of enlightenment, and from this peace, we can deduce that there truly is nothing to fear in a gentle crossing over to a better state of mind and heart. Our incessant mind activity will slow down, as Eckhart Tolle has described.

Our ego gave us such a busy mind. And now Jesus says that at this point in A Course of Love, we have remaining of the ego, only “patterns” that linger, egoic patterns that linger. When we express the desire to leave these patterns behind, we are adding our resolve to that of our God, and the habit of these egoic thoughts will leave us, too. We need to be resolute, firm in our conviction that we want peace, we want happiness, and to get there, we will turn aside from fear and judgment. These two—fear and judgment—will prevent our crossing over into enlightenment or Christ-consciousness.

We just need to ask for help as we form a new identity without those old bugaboos. Help will come, and in the present, as soon as we voice the prayer. Take Jesus at his word: He will come to assist us with a “single, unequivocal call” (from A Course in Miracles). Sit with a computer, and type in your appeal to Jesus. Imagine what he might say in return.

And we just might not be far wrong.

Dear God,

Be with today as I seek to leave behind fear and judgment forever. I am mellow now, and that is a good starting point. In the silence, I can almost hear You agreeing with me. You speak in silence, but the silence can be a thundering song sometimes.

Thank You for answering my prayer. I can claim that promise of Yours because I know that Christ-consciousness is in Your will for me. And all others.

Amen.

We Are One in Being

“I am not imparting wisdom that you are unaware of but reminding you of what you have forgotten. I am not having a monologue, but we are having a dialogue in which you are a full participant. As much of what you read in these dialogues comes from your own heart and those of your brothers and sisters in Christ as it does from me. It comes, in truth, from our union, from the consciousness we share. This shared consciousness is the source of wisdom because it is shared—shared in unity and relationship.” (ACOL, D:Day10.24)

We are One in shared consciousness with Jesus and with all our brothers and sisters; we are in union in this consciousness. This is part of the theology of A Course of Love. Because we are all One in God, we share our identities. We are differentiated into the many, and therefore have relationship one to the other, but because we emerge from the One, God himself, we are in unity with the Whole. This is what Jesus uses the pivotal words, “unity and relationship,” so often in ACOL.

Jesus is also telling us that in a part of our mind that we cannot easily access, we are remembering what he is telling us. We aren’t, after all, learning or discovering new knowledge. The knowledge that we are coming to understand has always been a part of us. It was just so covered over with egoic misrepresentation that we could no longer comprehend. We need to move backward in time to a point beyond memory to get glimmerings of this knowledge. History is a retracing of our steps, as Jesus said in A Course in Miracles. We stand at the end of a long carpet that is being rolled back up.

If we realize that we are really One, a unity with All, we will realize that it is insanity to think that we are solitary, alone, friendless, and isolated. There is no reason, no reason at all, to try to lead autonomous lives. There is no reason to seek to be independent (whatever that means). We are in a world with many others for a reason. We are meant to reach out and help one another. The idea that this is not “adult” or “mature” enough for grown-up living is a lie of the ego.

So: Reach out to our brothers and sisters today. Know that in the reaching, the finding, we are led home to God again. When we help another, we are led home. When we love, especially when we love, we are led home.

The benefits of shared, joint living are enormous. How could we have not recognized it all these years?

Dear God,

Thank You for showing me that to an independent, isolated being is not the same as being mature. We don’t have to stand alone. We never had to do so. We simply misunderstood what real living in this world was all about.

Be with me today. Help me to reach out to others in my circle. Let us help one another, and in the doing of this, we will abundantly help ourselves.

Amen.

Listen to God in the Silence

“Remember that you have been told since the beginning of A Course of Love that the answers that you seek lie within, and that their source is your own true identity. You have been told since the beginning of this Course that this is the time of the second coming of Christ. What we have just discussed is what both of these statements mean. This is the culmination point of these two great objectives coming together in you and your brothers and sisters.” (ACOL, D:Day10.22)

Here we learn that the answers lie within, and within is where God is (though Jesus does not say this at this point in A Course of Love). The idea of our identity being within, and the time of Christ being now, are actually linked. We have moved beyond the need for an intermediary for God; previously, the Holy Spirit was our Link, and He was needed because we were afraid of God, afraid of direct contact with Him.

We have now learned enough to know that we have absolutely no reason to be anxious about our reaching out to God. We can believe that He talks to us in silence, soothing our ruffled feathers, easing our mind and heart. The Christ-Self, part of God Himself, is the Source for our identity, and also the Source of guidance. We are well-supported in our lives. And this is something that we have not always known.

I think of my fear—and I don’t mean “fear” in a good sense—when I was growing up. Most of us thought of God as a sort of celestial Santa Claus Who was watching our every move, ready to punish us if we faltered. How wrong we were! Our children will know better, for we will teach them the new guidance from Jesus in A Course in Miracles and ACOL (also other writings such as The Way of Mastery). Many of us carried a little of this abnormal fear into our adult years. But now we too know better. It is a much better place that we occupy now.

Jesus never says in any of his channeled writings that he will return in physical form to the earth. I suppose that that way is left open. So what he is here saying by the “second coming of Christ” is our own assumption of the Christ spirit, our new identity. Jesus holds out many such promises to us. It behooves us to listen, in the silence, to God, to see what our next steps ought to be.

Dear God,

Keep me close today. The day began easily and peacefully, and I hope that it ends that way also. You wish it for me. It is only my own failings that give me less than a good day.

May my attitude toward You be healed if there is anything amiss. Be with me as I seek to discover how to live well.

Amen.

Turn to the God Within

“When I call you to replace conviction with reliance, I call you to replace belief in an outside source with reliance upon your Self.” (ACOL, D:Day10.16)

God is within us. Our Self, a part of Him, is within as well. When we place reliance on the Self, called in A Course of Love the “Christ-Self,” we are placing reliance on God Himself.

We don’t pray to a God Who is somewhere “out there.” We pray to a God Who is deep within. And I believe that he listens. We place our reliance on the Self who is a part of God. And our reliance is well-placed indeed.

“Projection makes perception,” (from A Course in Miracles) and it is a universe that we project from within. “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin,” as the medieval quandary asked. We are in that position now as well. As we withdraw a belief in a god who is “out there,” we need to realize that we don’t lose anything. Placement is all, and His placement is within us. We are safe and sound. We have comfort. We have love. And the world we see is not his handiwork, but the very stuff of God Himself. There is no other “stuff” that it could be, for “God-stuff” is all that there is.

What does it mean to place reliance upon the Self? Well, first of all, what it is not is a sense that we have to go it alone. The world is filled with friends and potential friends, and the part we can’t see is filled with companions unseen, often angels, who comfort and sustain us. When we place reliance on the Self, we are knowing that we are “enough,” enough with all this available help. Our independence can be a barrier that is best left behind.

So: Turn to the God within in prayer today. He will sustain us. He will make all things right. He can and will heal a neurotic, a form of thinking that is a pattern from the ego. He will lead us to withdraw all support from these vestiges of an era now gone by.

Our Self, shorn of the ego, is enough. Dwell a while in the light of God’s countenance. Let Him be there for us.

Dear God,

I would join with You today in a manifesto of rational and peaceful thought. I would leave behind all neuroticism, a vestige of the ego.

Be with me to make of this a good day. It is enough. I am enough when I am with You.

Amen.

New Adventures for the Physical

Note: I have started a blog of prayers in the spirit of A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love. It is called “Prayers to the Cosmos.” Here is the link:

http://cosmologicalprayers.wordpress.com

Thank you for your views. — Celia

“Feelings come from the innate knowing of the self of form—in short, from the body. The body is the “given” form and while it was the perfect vehicle for learning in the time of learning, it is now being transformed into the perfect vehicle for the realization of the elevated Self of form. During this transformation, we work with what is as well as with the new and the forgotten.” (ACOL, D:Day10.12)

We are heading into what has only been hinted about earlier: the elevated Self of form. This does not mean that we are in a dualistic universe. This simply means that while we imagine that the self is real, we have a context in which to understand it. We can even choose to return again and again in physical form, if we like the experience of physicality. And many of us do.

What will the elevated Self of form do for us? We will have a physical embodiment for the Christ-Self who has loomed deep within us for our entire existence, going back eons. We will act in this world in a new way, for our old ways will be given up; we know better now.

We have lived for a very long time, going back in reincarnational lives, with an ego that sought to tell us how to live. We have had flights of joy, but these always descended into the blackness of despair. And this oscillations were endemic to us; we didn’t know how to be happy on a constant basis.

Now we are getting guidance that will tell us how to live better, a better life entirely. We are not doing things for egotistical reasons any longer, for we know where that leads—down into a pit of our own making. We need only to realize that service to others, our brothers and sisters, means service to the Almighty, our God Who dwells within each of us. He is showing us how to live, finally. Finally we are ready.

Dear God,

This day began brightly, even though the sky is overcast. May my attitude stay bright. May nothing come to mar the joyful experience which this day can and will bring, if You are willing. And You are willing. It is only my own inadequacies that mar a perfect day.

Be with me through thick and thin. Be with me. I can’t say this enough. I thank You for the blessings that You let fall upon my head. May they keep my Self close to You with every detail of this day.

Amen.

Confidence in Our Feelings Will Lead Us Home

“Confidence in your feelings will lead to confidence in your Self. While you think it is your access to unity that will be the more difficult to achieve and sustain, this will not be the case for most of you, for the simple reason that the certainty that comes from union will seem to come, at least initially, from a place other than the self. Because certainty seems to come from a place “other than” or beyond the self of form, you will instinctively have greater trust in it. You will believe it comes from a place “other than” or beyond the self of form because it comes in the form of certainty.” (ACOL, D:Day10.6)

We all want to have a good relationship to our feelings, and feelings are the precipitating force behind guidance. If we would act on what we feel, we would get along a lot better. Of course, this does not mean acting on hostile and aggressive feelings, for these are of a lower nature than what we are trying to achieve. Our dependence on our feelings to lead us through a good day will give us the certainty that we have lacked heretofore. We must not make ourselves wrong in our feelings. We must not chastise ourselves if we feel that we are not living up to some supposed “ideal.” This ideal is a false idol, as I have discussed in this blog before. Our feelings will not lead us wrong, if we keep our eyes on the prize of God, our Self, and our friend, Jesus.

We are used to looking outside ourselves for certainty. When we read something or feel something that seems a bit beyond what we can tell ourselves, we think, “Ah, that is right; that has the ring of truth.” But we need to learn to depend on our Self, the Christ-Self from within. This Self has learned much in our time with A Course of Love, and the principal thing that it has learned is reliance upon an Authority that is deep within, God Himself. This Authority will never, never, let us down. If we pray enough, we will know this. And all of our nebulous plans to achieve more, or to do more, or to be more, will be lost as dross that has no meaning.

We are alright just as we are. Our imperfections will be cleansed by Jesus himself, for he says that he will take care of any imperfections that we have been unable to rid ourselves of. As our subconscious mind comes to the surface to be cleansed, we are, at last, freed. The way back is assured. Life is good.

Dear God,

Be with me today as I seek to find the blueprint for my life ahead. I ask often; help me to listen well.

Thank You for being with me always and forever. The way back to You is assured. May I remain confident of this.

Amen.

Depend upon God — Not upon Our Fragile Self

“See you now why the certainty of union must be combined with the confidence of the self of form? Certainty is knowing that this power exists. Confidence is the expression of your reliance upon it. To rely on your own power is to rely on the connection that exists between the self of form and the Self of union and to, through this reliance, tie the two together so that there is no seam, no boundary, no remaining separation.” (ACOL, D:Day10.2)

We are heading into a new time for us, a time in which the higher self is merged with our physical self, what is here called the self of form. The higher self is here called the Self of union, and in this joining with are merged with the Universe, with God Himself, with the All, the One. Can we understand what this means? Do we want it?

Even in our limited state here on earth, in this world, we know that we want to have the power to be who we really are. And without an ego, we may be at loose ends for a while. This, as Jesus said earlier, is not a state to be prolonged, for if we don’t form a new identity, we will likely form a new ego, and the lamentable process would start all over again. This we don’t want. This we just can’t allow.

How do we form a new identity? We don’t depend upon our fragile selves alone. We know that we are hindered by finiteness, but God is not, and we are a part of God—with Him being deep within us. Turn to God, therefore, and ask that this new identity of Self be established, and established firmly, for of such will come a newly created world. This newly created world we will establish, the next step in our evolution to the elevated Self of form. We will be One with God, and we will know it—for the first time. We will be at home in all the universe.

A new identity is what Jesus is planning for us now. The final pages of A Course of Love tell us exactly how this new identity is to develop. We are merging our form with our unseen Self, and in this change will come all things good.

Dear God,

Help me to form this new identity that I need so desperately. Help me know how to keep the ego in remission, for many exist who have formed a new ego on the ashes of the old. I would not do this. I would stay close to You always, my Protector and Defender.

Thank You for abiding with me through the night. Thank You for traveling with me through this day. And may I never forget You. Please, You, don’t forget me.

Amen.

Draw Light to Ourselves

“This pattern will be easily replaced, however, as your acceptance of yourself as you are, the real challenge of this time, begins to grow and to build your confidence. Unity and your access to unity will be your certainty. Trust in your own abilities—the abilities of the self of form joined with the Self of union—will be your confidence. Only these combined abilities will release your power.” (ACOL, D:Day9.33)

When we are unified as an individual, really unified, we are joined with a higher self who has been unknown to us until now. In A Course of Love, this higher self is called the Christ-Self, when this Self is perceived as within us, and it is called the Self of union, when this Self is perceived as somewhat beyond us, but still joined. The joy that can be our when in unity is something that most of us have known in fleeting moments—until now.

Now we can call our higher self to us whenever we would like, and be reassured that we are getting guidance that is true and good. One way to do this, as outlined by Sanaya Roman, is by using the imagination to call light to ourselves. This imaginative action will often reap amazing benefits the first time it is tried, and sooner or later it is always successful. Sanaya, speaking for Oren, says that light is conscious, and that this consciousness can and will help us. These terms are not, however, used as such in A Course of Love, but we might benefit from opening our minds and hearts to the guidance of others as well as to the guidance of Jesus. He won’t mind.

Calling light to ourselves can be enormously empowering. We want to join with our higher Self, the Christ-Self and the Self of union (called by Jesus in ACOL), and if we can imagine that calling light to ourselves works wonders, then indeed wonders often ensue. Be gentle with ourselves as we play with light. Adopt an attitude of trusting awareness, awareness that light is of God, that we cannot engineer it of ourselves, and it is both playful and energizing. A few moments spent in the sunlight of early morning will be enough to convince us of this. We will feel better immediately.

We want our power to be released. These techniques will work, when they are worked. Adopt an open mind and heart, and see if our experiences of being a unified entity don’t increase exponentially.

Dear God,

Thank You for the sunlight that I enjoyed this morning on my sun/screen porch. I was immediately bathed by Your warmth and my mood became ever more joyous. Light is one of Your gifts, and it behooves me to thank You for the experience of enjoying its beneficial characteristics.

Be with me today, to life my mood when it should ever drop. Be with me to give me Your power, so that I might do the things in life that You would ask of me.

Amen.

Beauty Is Truth, Truth Beauty

“Nothing, not even the ego, has been able to keep you from expressing the beauty and truth of who you are. You came into the world of form incapable of not expressing the beauty and truth of who you are. That you are is an expression of beauty and truth. You express the beauty and truth of who you are by being alive. It has only been your inability to accept this that has caused your grief and pretensions. In a certain sense, your ability to express the beauty and truth of who you are has been taught out of you by learning practices that sought for sameness, and saw not your differences as the gifts they are.” (ACOL, D:Day9.27)

John Keats, a Nineteenth Century poet, expressed an idea that Jesus is here expressing also. Keats said, in the well-known “Ode on a Grecian Urn”: “‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty,’—that is all/Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”

Not many people could explicate that poem as beautifully as Jesus has in this quotation for today. We are often obvious of the beauty that surrounds us, but even our desire for physical beauty is a reflection of our God-given love of beauty. And here Jesus says that being who we are is an expression of both beauty and truth. And being who we are is the theme with which A Course of Love ends, the take-away for all of us.

Jesus also expresses a desire that we recognize the diversity that we all have. We often thought, previously, that we had to be “alike” or the “same” to fit in. Our society is just coming to the realization that differences are to be celebrated, and we find in that celebration a champion no less than Jesus.

Many literary critics have sought to understand what John Keats was trying to say, but very few of them would ever recognize that “being who we are” is likely the best interpretation that could be made. Beauty and truth enfold us, and we don’t have to be egocentric to recognize value in this; indeed, if we are egocentric, we will miss the point. Being who we are is to celebrate our diversity, our differences, but know that there is a divine nature undergirding all of us. We have many gifts from God, and we abide with them when we are aware that they exist. We don’t take credit for our diversity; we celebrate it, and we celebrate most of all the myriad ways that our truth and beauty can be expressed.

Dear God,

Thank You for giving to me an understanding of what beauty and truth really mean, here, in Jesus’s words. Our attempts to be beautiful physically can even be seen as a reflection of divine longings. Let me live with Your words and Jesus’s interpretation today. May I see the beauty and truth of the words themselves.

Thank You for another beautiful day in our beautiful world. Help me to look at the positive, even as the news may bring reasons to shake my head at the difficulty of this world. Be with me, point out the positive, and give me Your blessings today, as always.

Amen.

Accepted in the Eyes of God

“You are the “same” or “as” accomplished as every enlightened one who has ever existed. Without realizing this, however, your unique expression of your accomplishment will not be realized.

“Your freedom is contingent upon your ability to give up your images, particularly the image you hold of an ideal self. It is contingent upon your ability to accept that you are your ideal self. Yes, even right now, with all your seeming imperfections.” (ACOL, D:Day9.23 – Day9.24)

What does “ideal” mean, but to be accepted in the eyes of God? He has never rejected us; he always heals us. And with this healing comes a happiness that can’t be rejected by us. We think that we have to do things to be accepted in our own eyes, but we have very flawed vision, even as God is calling us the “accomplished.” We are accomplished, but not in a sense that appeals to a withered ego; we are accomplished in that we have always been innocent, even in our wrongdoing, wrongdoing that was simply composed of mistakes. Correctable mistakes, and if not correctable, at least forgivable by us. God does not forgive, for He has never condemned (A Course in Miracles). We hold ourselves very guilty in our own sight; that is all, and that is the mistake.

We need to stop trying to be something “ideal,” for this is a false idol. And false idols have long been understood to be wrong thinking in the extreme. We do have imperfections, of course, but we are still justified in God’s sight. And that is ALL that counts.

If we want to be free, we need to accept these tenets of A Course of Love. We need to know that we just accept ourselves as we are, knowing that any imperfections will be worked out without our struggle. We don’t have to struggle to be good; we simply abide in God’s presence, and He takes care of the rest. If we could believe that we are already our ideal self, we would make much progress. Otherwise, we are too hindered to accept God’s offer of Christ-consciousness.

Listen today to intuitions of what might really be true: that we are OK as we are. This is a great blessing, and one that will follow us through the day. It will give us a happy day, and our happiness is a great desire of God Himself.

Prayer

Dear God,

Thank You for being with me and sending Jesus to comfort me as well. He comes with a single unequivocal call, and it is this promise that I have claimed. I accept that I am alright as I am, even though I see presumed imperfections, imperfections that don’t harm me in Your sight.

Be with me today as I seek to make my way through a sometimes troubled world.

Amen.

Dialogue in the Silence with God

“The idea of your “potential” was a useful learning tool and one that served the purposes of the Holy Spirit as well as those of the ego. The idea of your “potential” and your ability to be “more” than what your limited view of yourself would have you be, was a necessary tool to call you to the learning that would return you to your true identity. But the time for such tools is over.” (ACOL, D:Day9.16)

I think the problem with continuing to think about our “potential” is that it calls us to think of an “ideal” persona, something that is a false idol. Why can’t we get it through our heads that we are alright just as we are? Why do we think that we have to improve, and improve constantly?

Of course, we want to be better people; that is what is going on here. But if we think that God will love us more when we improve, we think wrongly. God loves us deeply, far more deeply than we love ourselves. That is the bottom line. We can ask to be better people, but we don’t do ourselves any favors when we contort ourselves. We will improve in our personality traits as time goes by, and we stay on our pathway to salvation. But this change is a gift of God; nothing that we can do personally will alter our primary makeup at all. This is hard for us to believe, of course, for the ego has had us on a treadmill of constant “improvement.” The fact that it was a dead end to improvement has seemingly escaped us.

Ask for the improvement that we think we need. God will answer, and answer quickly. Just dialogue with Him, listening in His silence for what you think an all-knowing, loving Father would say.

We might not be far off base.

Dear God,

I think wrongly when I obsess over wanting healthy thinking processes. These will come by letting go, letting go to You. Telling myself that does seem to help a little. I am ready for my own little self-improvement campaigns to end.

Be with me on this beautiful, warm day. I wish for my quiet day to end with a healthy frame of mind. My heart will tell my mind how to accomplish this. I trust You to guide.

Amen.

May God Enfold Us in His Arms

“As was said earlier, all of your images are false images. Isn’t it possible that none are more false than this image of an ideal self? Not having false idols is an ancient commandment. An ideal image is an idol. It is symbolic rather than real. It has form only within your mind and has no substance. To work toward, or to have as a goal, the achievement of an ideal image is to have created a false god.” (ACOL, D:Day9.11)

We still think that we are not good enough. Even as we sit in meditation, attuned to God, we think that only if we could be better somehow, maybe we would feel justified in His sight.

Give up these useless ideas! Jesus is telling us that we are trying to be something that we are not, and this something that we are not is an “ideal” self, a false idol. God accepts us just as we are. Cannot we do the same? Is that so very hard?

It actually may seem very hard, but it is not. We have an embedded idea of what persona we want to present to the world, and this persona is often our ideal self. Sometimes, of course, we just want people to accept us exactly as we are, and this desire is fuel for the best solution: Be who we are. Even if there are things about us, characteristics, that we think are undesirable, they do not change us in God’s sight. He knows the real Self, deep within us, who has longed to come out for a very, very long time.

Spend some time just concentrating on accepting ourselves, just as we are. When we accept ourselves, it won’t be so hard to realize that others can and will do the same. That God does the same. That Jesus does the same. Our mistakes can be rectified, and can thereby be overlooked. If restitution is important, we will know that—though we can get ourselves very tangled up when we are in a judgmental frame of mind. Drop all judgments, and come with wholly empty hands to God our Father (from A Course in Miracles). He will show us how to accept ourselves just as we are.

Engage in a dialogue with God today, on paper or in our mind/heart. The way back is not hard. I keep saying that in this blog. But it is true. We just need to drop all pretense of what we think we “ought” to be, and just allow God to enfold us in His Arms. He will make right all that seems wrong. He will meet us at the gate of our home.

Dear God,

Be with me today, as I seek to know that what I am is really alright in Your sight.

Thank You for the answer to this heartfelt prayer.

Amen.

A Day of Celebration

“Allow yourself, now, to experience your arrival, your return to your true home, your return to your Self. Laugh. Cry. Shout or wail. Dance and sing. Spin a new web. The web of freedom.

“In other words, express your Self!” (ACOL, D:Day9.2 – Day9.3)

Readers of A Course of Love, repeat readers especially, will certainly remember this passage. We are coming to praise our God, and our Self (too), for the many blessings that rain down upon us.

For so long we had not found what nourished us. But in A Course of Love, the course that emphasizes the heart, we are nourished repeatedly by its beautiful prose, its poetic prose. As we read, we move through a time of tenderness in which our emotions are kept ever close to the surface. This time of tenderness can actually seem emotionally painful to us, especially if we don’t have enough support in our journey. We discover in ACOL that we are not meant to go it alone, but to join with others of like-minded persuasion. And, in the end, we travel to a mystical mountaintop for 40 days and 40 nights of retreat, a retreat that is nevertheless in the heart of our lives.

We have sought and sought. Some of us felt at an impasse after years of reading A Course in Miracles. Our egos gone, or fading out, but what was to replace the ego? That question was not apparently answered in enough depth for Jesus to be satisfied; he returned 30 years later with A Course of Love. After ACIM had dislodged the ego, ACOL shows us how to establish a new identity. This new identity is the Christ-Self, a Self who has always dwelt within as a part of God. But we were too busy and preoccupied to commune with our depths. We still somehow believed that there was always something more to seek. And so our journey continued, with us never quite satisfied.

Jesus tells us in no uncertain terms that now we have found, and that we need seek no longer (even though seeking has become a habit hard to break). The prose of A Course of Love draws us in. We are mesmerized by its beauty of language. And the content, though dense in places, is repetitious enough to emphasize the main points over and over until they are a part of us.

Now: Let us rejoice! This is a day of celebration. We have not made an egoic choice, for the ego is gone from us. We are not experiencing the highs and lows of egoic drama. We are calm, but, oh, so happy. So joyous! We owe a lot to Jesus, the one who holds our hand anytime we ask. And he is pleased in our joy.

Dear God,

Thank You for the gift of A Course of Love. The words draw me in, sooth me, as I reread. With every pass through the book, I gain more insight. This is the joy of continuing dialogue with Jesus, a dialogue that extends to all of our brothers and sisters.

Be with me on this day of rejoicing. I may not shout, but others may. And in our joy, we all join as one.

Amen.

Be with Our Feelings Today

“Realize how freeing it will be to not go through the gyrations of attempting to figure out “how to” reach acceptance of what you do not like! How freeing it will be to realize you have no need to do this! How freeing it will be to accept all of your feelings and not to puzzle over which are true and which are false! To realize that you no longer have false feelings. That your feelings are not misleading you but supporting you! That they are but calling you to expression of your true Self! To true representation of who you are—who you are now!

“Remove all thinking that says that you can err in following your feel¬ings. This is the thinking of the old thought system, not the new.” (ACOL, D:Day8.28 – 8.29)

If we can believe what is being said here, surely it must mean that our feelings have been purified now that we are nearing the end of A Course of Love. Otherwise, these words would make no sense, as many vile and hostile actions have come to the world from people who were following their feelings. So we must use some discernment in considering these words. We must be sure that we are living in love, not anger, joy, not rancor.

We can accept our feelings as true and good when we have walked a while on the pathway back to God. And this is where Jesus finds us in this quotation for today. When we are being who we truly are, now, we are being someone who does not knowingly harm another, and we are being someone who seeks to redress a wrong, once it is perceived. This is very different from the person we were before we accepted the teaching of A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love. We are simply at a different place now.

Be with our feelings today. Be with who we truly are, accepting ourselves, but also accepting change when it comes. Our intuition, our guidance, will save us now.

Listen.

Dear God,

Be with me today as I seek to live a happy life, a life that You choose for me. Help me to turn aside from meaningless wrangles, from those things which disturb my peace to no good purpose. May everyone I encounter today be peaceful, and if someone is not peaceful, may I lend my peace to that someone.

Thank You for our dialogue this morning. I wrote for a while, and then I imagined, in the silence, what You might say to me. And peace descended. Help me to remember this easy solution to all difficulty.

Amen.

We Are Alright Just as We Are

“Non-acceptance in any form is separating.

“The very idea of potential, you may recall, is a product of the ego thought system that would keep your true Self hidden. You are used to hiding the self of the past about whom you are not well pleased, and you are used to hiding the self of potential, the future self you think you can only dream of being. The ego-self was the self you felt safe presenting to the world, the self you believed the world would find acceptable. If you are still presenting this self, you are still in a state of non-acceptance and whatever peace you are feeling will not last. Whatever access to unity you have experienced will not last because you will not be choosing the time of acceptance.” (ACOL, D:Day8.25 – Day8.26)

Here we see, once again, how devastating the ego was to our peace of mind. When we identified with the ego, we didn’t like the persona that we had; it might even said that we hated ourselves and that persona, because we could never think that we were “good” enough. We looked to a future time, our persona of potential, a potential self whom we would become and like better. But this would be an ideal self, and that is an idol.

We need to just accept who we are, though always asking (and receiving) forgiveness for our many mistakes. Our true Self absolves us of blame, and so there can be no guilt that would keep us in hell. We need to be who we really are, just be ourselves. We are good enough. Not perfect. But OK. And we will improve, over time, when we align ourselves, evermore, with our Creator. He is deep within us, as He is in all creation. He lives through us. We are not separate and apart, in a supplicating fashion with Him. We are bringing out the best that we have within us when we bring out the Christ-Self. This Christ-Self will heal all wombs, easy all troubles, get us back on the right track.

We are innocent, as anything bad that we did was done in illusion, egoic illusion. And now we know better. If we slip and fall, God will lift us up.

That is what He always does.

Prayer

Dear God,

Please take away all vestiges in me of a desire to be other than who I am. Please take away any desire to more “perfect” in Your sight. You don’t require perfection now, because Jesus stands at the end of the pathway to correct all errors that we could not correct. Our subconscious minds will gradually be brought to the surface of the mind, and, with our heart leading the way, we will be healed.

Thank You for the insights that seemed especially providential in the last couple of days. May I be with my significant other and my friends, a comfort to them as You are a comfort to me.

Amen.

Real Scoop on Anger

“If anger arises in you now, it does not mean that you will react in what¬ever way anger once called you to react and it does not mean that something is wrong with you or that you are not spiritual enough! It simply means that you are involved in a situation or relationship that has called forth that feeling. It is in the expression of that feeling that who you are is revealed, not in the feeling itself. The feeling is provided by the body, a helpmate now in your service as a route to true expression.” (ACOL, D:Day8.22)

Jesus here says that it is our expression of the feeling of anger that might be a problem, far more than the feeling of anger itself. He has told us, though, in A Course in Miracles that there is no justification for anger. There is no justification for anger because when our brothers and sisters, and ourselves, react to the feeling of anger we are acting in insanity. We are not seeing the innocence in children of God, and we might also conclude that we are blaming the person who felt anger.

Let us look to the expression of anger or rage as the real problem here. There is no reason that we need to react poorly, for our brothers and sisters are doing the best that they can at any given time, given their state of understanding. No one does what he/she thinks has no justification. But we are still very prone to attack back, when we are attacked. The fact that all of this is happening in illusion is often lost on us.

If we just say to ourselves, in the midst of poor behavior, this is just insanity, madness, then we will have a more efficacious basis on which to forgive. And it is just insanity or madness when a brother or sister screams at us in rage. There is no other way to describe what is happening.

So: Jesus says that it is not our feeling of anger toward a brother or sister that is the real error; it is how we might choose to express that feeling. If we choose to attack, we have made false assumptions, and we will be hurt in return.

Prayer

Dear God,

When I have walked the whole pathway, I know that my responses will be of love, even when faced with an angry brother or sister. I can choose the same reaction now, while on the pathway. Give me the fortitude to turn from attack, even verbal, and to choose the least escalating response.

Be with me throughout the day. I have the best day when I sense Your presence in my life. I am adrift when I am so overwrought that You seem far away.

Amen.

Being Who We Are in Mellowness & Gentleness

“We have talked little of feelings here, and there has been a reason for this discussion coming so late in our time together. To accept the feelings of the self of illusion would have been to accept the feelings generated by the fear of the ego thought system or the bitterness of your heart. It would have been to accept the feelings of a personal self who had not yet unlearned the lessons of the past or taken these steps toward elevation. Now, however, it is crucial that you come to acceptance of yourself—in the present, as you are—for only by doing so will you come to full acceptance of who you are and be able to allow the Self of unity to merge with the self of form, thus elevating the self of form. You will also, only in this way, come to true expression of the elevated Self of form. Access and expression are both conditions of the present.” (ACOL, D:Day8.17)

We are accepting the feelings of the Self of union, the Self who has merged with the Christ-Self deep within us. We are not accepting the feelings of an egoic self any longer. When we accept the feelings of the newly emerged Self, we are mellow and forgiving. We are at peace, and who among us would not want peace at all times?

How do we invite mellowness and peace? This is an important question to come to terms with, for in it is our pathway home made clear to us. Our insights will grow ever greater as we walk the mellow pathway of gentleness. By forgiving those who do not seem forgivable, we are given the blessing of a full peace.

What is more, we are given the blessing of glimpses of Christ-consciousness, the state of mind and heart that will soon be our permanent state. We will sustain Christ-consciousness when we have truly realized that we forgive, first, for ourselves, to ease the pain and torment of a tortured mind and heart. Our brothers and sisters are, many of them, living in insanity, and thus nothing that they do means anything. We can sometimes feel pity for them, but we do best when we feel compassion instead. This compassion will ease the way toward a full-hearted forgiveness of the illusion that we actually reside in.

Be gentle with ourselves today. Know that to dwell on problems is not the way. Ask for a solution at the point of need, and then rest easy—for the solution will come, and at just the right time, an immediate time.

Be good to our neighbors, our brothers and sisters. We will have less to forgive when we embrace all of them with compassion born of a serene and full heart.

Prayer

Dear God,

Thank You for the insight that I had recently, just yesterday, that I once made my own problems with a passion that I have given up now. I would not obsess about any seeming difficulty. There is too much to be happy about, too much to rue a good day.

If I am certain that You will always provide a solution when there is a problem, I will walk a green earth again. And I am certain. Thank You.

Amen.

Tolerance = Gift for Friendship

“This acceptance is the only thing that will truly prevent judgment, for it does not require you to be your brother’s keeper but only your own. It requires you to know yourself without judging yourself.

“Will knowing your dislikes cause you to be intolerant? This is an important question. You have been intolerant of yourself and it was easy to extend this intolerance to others. Once acceptance of the Self begins to be practiced, you will realize that the self of intolerance was the self of fear. Acceptance of yourself, in love, leads to acceptance of others. Knowing this aspect of how you feel, what we are here calling your dislikes, is but a first step in this beginning stage of acceptance and only of importance because of your intolerance of your own feelings.” (ACOL, D:Day8.11 – Day8.12)

We have often been intolerant of ourselves, and this, as Jesus says, led to intolerance of others. We didn’t like the self that we were. We wanted to be somebody different. And in this refusal to accept ourselves, we made all of our trouble.

Of course, it is easy to realize that we didn’t like the egoic self, didn’t want that to be who we were. And we weren’t that at all! It was a mistake, pure and simple. Now we can accept the inner Christ-Self, coming out now, to be who we really are. This Self is easy to accept.

When we are tolerant of our very self, we will be tolerant of others. And this will give us a gift for friendship that we have lacked before. I have a friend whom I recognized as having a gift for friendship, and I told her so. One day she was in a particularly judgmental mood, not liking an interaction with somebody else, and she told me that she had least tried to be tolerant of others. At that moment, she thought that she was falling down on tolerance. Here we see a link with our quotation for today. If we accept others, foibles and all, we will have tolerance for them. And we will have a gift for friendship.

If we are to be together for an eternity, we need to treat each other well. We need to be good to each other. This attitude is especially important for interacting with our significant others, but it holds for all of our brothers and sisters. Acceptance of them doesn’t mean condoning poor behavior. But we don’t have to judge that poor behavior. We can know that others act as best they can, given their degree of understanding. And we can help, but only when they reach out to us. Then we can share what we think, always in an expression of love—not for the bad deed, but for the Son or Daughter of God Who is within all of our brothers and sisters.

Be good today to those we love. In the love, their understanding will seem to magically increase.

Dear God,

Thank You for, once again, starting my day off right. I do receive guidance as to what to do and say to make of this a good day. I thank You immensely for this ever-present guidance. May my sensitivity to intuition only increase.

Be with me to assist me to accept others with a full heart today. I need to develop more tolerance, and with more tolerance will come an ever-expanding circle of friendship. Thank You.

Amen.

Come before God with No Mask

“Now you may have been thinking—again, at least subconsciously—that your “real” Self has no feelings of dislike, and in this confusion have been “trying” and even “struggling” to accept what you do not like in order to be more true to an ideal self. Yet this ideal self is not the self you are right now. You cannot accept only an ideal self. This is nonsense. Can you not see this?” (ACOL, D:Day8.7)

When Jesus says that we cannot accept only an “ideal” self, one that we aren’t right now, he is telling us that we cannot accept a persona. And a persona has been what we are used to, what we have been presenting to the world throughout our whole lives. And it was always wrong. First, we formed our false persona by accenting to what our growing ego told us. And we suffered, for we had highs and lows, every high followed by a low of the same intensity. Our egos were always being undone, for they were not the real Self, the Christ-Self, who wanted to come out and live a little. Our false personas thus did us a great disservice, giving us a false face to present to the world, and dragging us down at the same time. We were never given anything of ours to hold for all eternity. Our joys, our flights of happiness, always had a down side. They did not present the real Self.

When Jesus tells us to accept ourselves as we really are, to be who we are really, he is saying to come before our God with no mask. He means the same for our presentation to our brothers and sisters. We don’t try to be something that we think is somehow “better.” We just go with the flow of our lives, and, without the ego (now), we offer a true likeness of ourselves to others. “Be who we really are” means just that.

If we persist in trying to be something that we aren’t, some “ideal” that we aren’t, we will be lost to our real being. We need to realize that what we are is “good enough,” that we don’t make ourselves over to have a holy instant. These changes used to be the doing of the Holy Spirit; now Jesus says that it is just the Self, a part of God, who directs us and directs our changes over time.

What a great blessing it is to realize that we don’t have to make ourselves over into something that we aren’t. Change, prompted by the real Self, will direct our transformation to something better than a superficial “ideal.” Our transformation will allow the true Self to shine forth.

Prayer

Dear God,

It is only an old pattern that would have me try to be something that I am not. Help me to be accepting of the self who is changing, under the guidance of my real Self, to something worthy of You. Help me to give up false notions of what is a good and presentable image. Let me become what You would have me become—nothing more and nothing different.

Thank You for granting me new life today. I am stepping out from under a cloud when I allow my true Self to show. Help that true Self to be worthy of You.

Amen.

Miracle of Ordinary Life Transformed into Extraordinary Life

“If you can’t remove yourself from life, what choice have you but to join with it? Love it. Love yourself. Love yourself enough to accept yourself. Love will transform normal, ordinary, life into extraordinary life. Loving exactly who you are and where you are in every moment is what will cause the transformation that will end your desire to remove yourself from life. All those frustrations you currently feel have a purpose: To move you through them and beyond them—to acceptance.” (ACOL, D:Day8.2)

What a glorious promise—that ordinary life will be transformed into extraordinary life! Previously Jesus has said that the lives that we ordinary people live will attract others to what we have found, ordinary people living extraordinary lives.

And again Jesus asks us to accept, with our mind and heart, of course. The way I like to say this is to say, “Be willing to have it so.” If we are willing to have it so, we cease fighting with life. We don’t overlook things that we want to change, but we do abide in the present if things remain pretty much the same. We don’t get in a royal funk because life is not handing us the goodies on a silver platter.

We abide where we are, with the full understanding that we currently have. We realize that we have the tools for a better life; we don’t have to keep struggling. The way back to God is easy in the extreme. It is ourselves and our lamented egoic consciousness that has made the easiest thing in the world, the hardest.

Let’s live our extraordinary lives today. This doesn’t mean that we do anything particular that is different, but we do, do “it” with a different attitude. And this attitude is acceptance, being willing to have it so. When we are no longer fighting life, we find that we are handed a new life on a silver platter.

Prayer

Dear God,

Thank You for making clear what You are asking of me. Thank You for giving me the equanimity to live peacefully with what presents itself in front of me. This grace comes easily when I pray. And I do pray now—for Your peace, Your guidance, Your good will toward me. I realize that I don’t have to prepare myself to pray to You, just as I don’t have to prepare to have a holy instant. And all instants have the potential to be holy, when I am in right relationship to You. That right relationship is the grace to accept myself just as I am, just as You accept me.

Thank You for helping me to accept the present just as it is.

Amen.

Live in the Present

“The condition of the time of acceptance that will most clearly reveal to you your status in regard to maintaining or sustaining your access to union will be that of the replacement of doubt with certainty. Certainty is a condi¬tion of the present. Realize you may say you are certain of the future or the past but that you cannot make it so. Thus your ability to maintain and then sustain your access to union and thus your certainty, goes hand-in-hand with your ability to live in the present. This ability is also contingent upon your recognition of what certainty really is.” (ACOL, D:Day7.20)

Jesus is here right in line with many others who have said that to live in the present is the very best way imaginable. We often can’t make it, though, having minds that flit about, obsessing over the past with things that can’t be changed, and worrying about an unknown future that isn’t here yet.

How much trouble we make for ourselves by living this way! If we focus with intensity on the present, we bring our best resources to that present. And then the past will fade away, and we will also be in a much better position to face the future with any and all problems that it may contain. When we bring our best to the present, we are focused. This makes for good decision-making, and also for less likelihood that the things we worry about for the future will actually come true.

We have it in us to focus on the present. Let’s give it a go. Better things come to an undivided mind, a full heart. Listen to our intuition today, as we live in the present. If we find our thoughts straying to past or future, don’t judge ourselves, but just gently bring those thoughts back to the present.

And ask for an intuitive thought that will make the day go smoothly. Today and every day, more and more intuitive thoughts, so that intuition becomes the way that we welcome the new day.

Prayer

Dear God,

I am going to make a concerted effort to live in the present today. And today is the first time of the rest of my life. So I hope to make my new direction, a habit. Be with me to guide my thoughts to a higher level. Be with me always, even when I am thinking of other, often secular, things.

Thank You for guiding me when I didn’t know that I was being guided. Lead me to the certainty that only union with You and all of my brothers and sisters can give. Lead me to union with the Christ-Self, the ego gone forever.

Amen.

Welcome Something Better Now

“Obviously your relationship or access to union is of supreme importance, since all else will come of this. However, this is not an “if this, then that” situation even if it may seem so. Is the process of breathing an “if this, then that” situation, just because breathing sustains life? Your access to union sustains real life, the life of the Self, and will come to sustain the elevated Self of form in a way as natural to you as breathing.” (ACOL, D:D7.14)

Life ahead of us is going to get very good. We won’t have to struggle, we won’t have to miss the mark so much with our decisions. We will live naturally, as effortlessly as breathing, when we don’t think about it. The way to this way of living is not hard, because it is the easiest thing that we have ever done. It is possibly the only thing that we have ever done—to assent to union with God, our Higher Power, the One who lives in us and through us on a daily basis. Would we not give Him a good day every day?

We are going to have real life for the first time in eons, for the ego took us sideways to a harsh and artificial life that ruined our days more often than not. Real Life will have us thinking with a very positive slant. Though some difficult things may still happen, they won’t touch us the way they used to. The difficult things will hold a gift for us that is meant for our well being. And nothing will seem harsh or demanding in these gifts. The gifts will sustain us in a meaningful existence for the first time ever.

Choose union today. Choose to give our Maker His due. God is waiting. Our brothers and sisters are waiting as well. Remove the blocks to love’s awareness, remove all the attack, the anger, the harsh words, the resentments. All of these negative aspects of our mind can be safely left behind, for we are living with grace. God’s grace. And our days will follow one another with a smoothness that has heretofore eluded us entirely.

Give the gift of this day over to God. He knows how to live it. Ask for His advice, take the guidance that comes through intuition, and then be prepared, just now, to welcome the something better that we have always longed to have.

Prayer

Dear God,

I thank You for the better attitude I had a couple of nights ago, when I awoke from a bad dream. I knew then that the anxiety that arose was false thinking, and I knew also that it would leave me if I just settled down. Thank You for the will I found to do just that. And last night there was no bad dream to mar a wonderful sleep.

Be with me as I seek to follow Your advice today. Your advice will keep bad dreams away in the daytime and the nighttime. Thank You for leading me so faithfully, always.

Amen.

Ease of Living that Holy Grace Inspires

“There are many lesser conditions that are nonetheless extremely trans¬formative, such as the replacement of special relationship with the devotion of holy relationship that we have already spoken of. Another replacement is that of control with grace. This occurs as you give up the control you have but thought you exerted over your life and its circumstances, and live in a state of grace, meeting grace with grace by accepting what is given for your regeneration.” (ACOL, D:Day7.12)

Jesus is speaking here of the transformations that will occur as we move ever closer to an elevated Self of form, a form that is embodied by the inner Christ-Self, who is now running things. Our transformation will ultimately mean Christ-consciousness, sustained. No more trying to be in control of what happens in our lives, but simply being in a flow that Jesus here calls grace. Our relationships will be holy, in that we recognize that the specialness we saw in them was of the ego, and we would have this egoic emphasis no longer. Our lives will take on new meaning, as we live in grace and amid holiness with everyone surrounding us. Does this not sound very much akin to what has often been called heaven on earth?

If heaven on earth seems far from us, there are things that we can do to bring it closer. We can live with an equanimity that refuses to respond to attack with attack. Our angers can lessen, as we recognize that there is no reason to give in to anger and its attendant emotional charges that so debilitate us. The way back to God is not hard when we realize that we actually have never left His side. He is within us, living life through us. Would we not want to give God Himself a good day? Would we not want to give God Himself the means to live a good and fruitful life through us?

Grace is a very positive virtue. So is holy love. In this quotation for today, Jesus links the two, giving all of us something to think about that will be transformative in and of itself. Our mind and heart will fall in line with the ease of living that holy grace inspires. We do not need to struggle so. We do not need to fall into depressed moods, ruing our days. That way of living never gave us peace—never. Now we are encouraged to live a better way, putting into practice what we know to be true. We are asked to live in utmost commitment to the way of life and love that Jesus is here outlining.

If we put a new way of living and loving into practice, nothing will ever be the same. We will never be the same.

Prayer

Dear God,

Thank You for easing any and all burdens by suggesting a way of life that is grace-filled and love-filled. I know that I will not always be superbly happy, but I also know that that is my aim. And the goal becomes closer as I live close to You. Your business with me transforms me and my day. Your love for me is palpable. Sensing Your love is a blessing that grant happiness in and of itself.

Be with me for the remainder of this glorious day. Be with me, to comfort, to give me solace, to lift my spirits very high, into Your arms. Knowing that You are constantly living through me is a very great bit of information that in and of itself takes me home to You.

Amen.

Cool, Calm, and Collected

“Love replaces fear and is life-generating rather than life-degenerating. Your bodies will thus regenerate rather than degenerate. Love is, of course, not a condition, as it is not an attribute, but the effect of living from love rather than from fear will have a major transformative effect on form in this time of acceptance. Regeneration is a condition of the time of acceptance.” (ACOL, D:Day7.6)

There is a great hope for improved bodies in this quotation for today. And who would not want that? While bodies may be illusion, they certainly appear very real to us. And a regeneration, based on living from love, thus becomes a very great promise.

When we live from fear, we are stressed and anxious, and medical personnel do know that stress and anxiety exacerbate virtually any illness. And these two bad emotions can, of course, cause illness. I have read that up to 70 percent of visits to doctors are psychosomatic, which is another way of saying that our emotions are engaged.

To live from love has tremendous advantages. We calm down, because we are living close to a Higher Power, and this shifting of our burdens is a real advantage in difficult times. And who among us does not have difficult times, even after we have given up the ego, and are attempting to establish a new identity, which A Course of Love bids us to do.

The two emotions, love and fear, have diametrically opposed results. When love embraces us, we are mellow and peaceful, inviting glimpses of Awakening, even inviting Awakening to come and stay with us forever. This last result is what Jesus hopes for from our reading of ACOL. He is very eager to see us cool, calm, and collected—and to that end, he takes up to a metaphorical mountaintop for 40 days and 40 nights. When we listen, really listen, to his words, we are relieved of the responsibility of keeping everything in order ourselves—a task we could never do very well, but which the ego tried to do incessantly.

Leave such foolishness behind. Ask for the simple pleasure of living from love, and see if our bodies, our illusory bodies, don’t fall in line with our new pleasing emotion of love.

Dear God,

I ask for a new body, though I know that it is illusory. In this world it seems to have real effects, and it is these that I would ask to see regenerated. This is Jesus’s promise—when we live from love. This is my hope today.

Show me how to live from love in each and every moment. The advantages are many, and I AM asking in your will. So I claim this promise of Jesus, to give me a regenerated form, and I thank You for bringing about abundant health.

Amen.

Finally We Are Happy

“Denial of yourself was the precondition that set the stage for the time of learning. The time of learning would not have been needed had you not denied your Self. When you saw yourself as separate and alone, you could not help but suffer fear, loneliness, and all the ills that came from the base emotion of fear. Fear is degenerating. Nothing about fear is life giving. You thus were given life only to have it become degenerated by fear.” (ACOL, D:Day7.2)

Eons ago we thought that we separated from God, because we wanted to see if what we would make would be something that we liked better than what God had created. What a miserable thought! And we have suffered, in illusion, from this pain-filled choice ever since.

Now we can turn things around. When we choose to reunite with God, we choose the best route possible for ourselves. We are glad again, for every day that we experience. Finally we are happy.

The way back is not hard, for in truth the separation has not really happened. It could not, for we are part of God, and we can thus never leave Him. Anything that is illusion is easily left behind, when we make a new choice. Make that new choice now. Be through with illusion.

In the meantime, since we thought we separated from God, we have filled our mind with much garbage. And it is this subconscious, and sometimes conscious, garbage that must now be eradicated. Slowly, but inevitably, the negative thoughts rise to the surface when bidden to come. Literally everything in our world is designed to take us back home to God. And so the true answer is coming. But it can seem to take a long time without cooperation. Cooperate today. Let the negativity rise to the surface, pray for its release, and know a new day.

Prayer

Dear God,

I would be rid of suffering and pain from my own negativity today, for all the future. Thank You for guiding me back home. Thank You for being You. Full of love, caring, peace. A wondrous Sight to behold.

Be with me as the suffering and pain subside. There is no reason to let minor problems escalate. Help me to get and keep a good attitude today. Attitude is everything.

Amen.

Invite Reverence & Closeness with God

“Does this work of acceptance seem never ending? It is until it is replaced by reverence, just as learning was unending until it was replaced by accep¬tance. The conditions, however, of this time of acceptance are not the conditions of the time of learning, and so you will soon see that the diffi-culty of the time of learning truly is behind you.” (ACOL, D:Day6.32)

Acceptance means an acquiescence, or, as a Buddhist master said, “Be willing to have it so.” But there is a paradox here: Acceptance, and being willing to have it so, are not passive states. Instead, in the scenario that A Course of Love is presenting to us, we will be very busy about our Father’s business in changing and/or creating a new world. This new world is the culminating thought of ACOL, what we will spend our time changing/creating once Christ-consciousness has been sustained in us. First we have glimpses of Awakening, then we maintain that state over time, but after that we truly do move into the sustenance of enlightenment. And, with that, nothing is ever the same again.

Communing with our Maker gives us, often, the sense of reverence to which Jesus refers. It is a harmonious state, a mellow state, a few moments of true relaxation that invite our desire to have these states of being be permanent in us. Reverence and awe are due to God, but awe, especially, is due nobody but God. Reverence, on the other hand, can be a feeling that engulfs us when we are feeling especially loving and especially loved. Reverence is close to holiness, and who among us would not want to experience the truth that we are indeed, right now, beings who are holy? Time has no meaning in eternity, and we are, as Jesus has affirmed often in ACOL, the “accomplished.” We ought to think about that assertion when we have an especially difficult day.

We are leaving learning behind, in that we need to accept that our seeking should be at an end. We have indeed found, now, and referring to the learned wisdom of the past, to authorities of the past, will not do it for us. We are in a new time, a new day. Our source of wisdom now is from within, the authority of the Christ-Self whom we are now just coming to know. Our union with the Self who embodies everyone will allow thoughts from beyond ourselves to take up residence within us. And often, this guidance will seem so apropo that we won’t realize that we are drawing on union to find our answers.

Invite reverence today. Allow it to become our naturally manifesting state of mind and heart. Reverence is healing, and in its wake we will come to know much that has been veiled from us.

Prayer

Dear God,

I want to live differently now than I have lived in the past. I want to be at your beck and call, irregardless of what my little self would plan for the day. Take me at my word, and give me my marching orders. Then the way will be clear for me to wrap myself in a cocoon of Your love. What more could I ask?
Thank You for this beautiful world. May those living on it become harmonized with the call for Love that is sent out from the heavens.

Amen.

Friends with Jesus

“Thinking of our relationship as that of colleagues as well as companions, as fellow workers or work-mates with a task to accomplish, as well as conversationalists, is not an erroneous way to think of our relationship. We are both friends and co-workers. Colleagues as well as companions.

“Our dialogue is not without purpose. You know this or you would not be here. You know this or you would not feel the devotion to me and to what we do here that you do.” (ACOL, D:Day6.25 – 6.26)

Here we see a very personal and warm tone set in A Course of Love. The relationship in this quotation for today is the one between Jesus and ourselves. He wants us to enter into camaraderie with him.

We need to think long and hard about this request. For anyone who has an aversion to traditional Christianity, the language may be off-putting. For anyone who grew up accepting the idea of a personal savior in Jesus, the language may be very familiar and comforting.

In this quotation, he doesn’t use the term “savior”; he sees himself and us as equals. We are partners in an enterprise—salvation—that is no better way to spend a life. The goal is a better life for all, a true healing of all that has seemingly hurt us, and a promise of an attitude toward a Higher Power—God—that will bring us great solace.

Jesus has promised to be available to all who make a “single, unequivocal call” (from A Course in Miracles). His status as a spirit means that he is outside time and space, and his focus of consciousness can, apparently, be anywhere at any time. Of course, none of us can understand how this is possible. There is much in the cosmos that we don’t comprehend, though. If we can just open the door a little, give Jesus a chance to show us miracles, I think we will come around to his way of thinking.

There is so much awaiting us when we let our heart guide. The mind might want to know the “how” of Jesus’s companionship with any and all of us. But the heart sees a deeper knowledge, and it is this deeper knowledge that will invite our cooperation in a scheme to save humankind. The world is very weary now, old and tired (from ACIM), and we have tried many things to save it, only to fall on our faces in defeat. Something is different now, different in this time of Christ. If we will open the door ever so slightly, lift our sights to the heavens, and listen to what our heart says about the sight before us, we will all be better off.

In this time of Christ, the world will become, eventually, a better place than it was previously. The real change comes from many of us gathering together under the guidance of what our heart tells us. Jesus has chosen this time to give us channeled writings because, I think, the time is right. This in itself ought to give all of us hope.

And this is just the beginning.

Prayer

Dear God,

May I have a good attitude today. There is so much good ahead, though the way for this world may turn difficult before the light dawns. Let me hold out hope for the light.

Guide me each day. Keep my mind and heart keen to follow You. We are all in this together, and we all are needed.

Amen.

Let Us Rejoice and Be Glad in This Day

“You cannot find a place outside of yourself that will allow for the elevation of which we speak. There are no hallowed halls of learning that will accomplish this. There is no mountain top in any location on Earth that can accomplish this. It is only the relationship we are developing in this elevated place within that will bring to your full realiza¬tion and manifestation without the accomplishment that already exists.” (ACOL, D:Day6.19)

In the quotation for today, we see Jesus giving an explanation of what we are doing in the 40 Days and 40 Nights on a “mountain top” with him. We are seeking an elevation that will propel the inner Self into the spotlight of our world; we are seeking an elevation of the “little” or personal self that will embrace the Christ-Self who has always lived within us. This Christ-Self, part of God, will become what Jesus calls the “elevated Self of form.” This Christ-Self will embody Christ-consciousness (also called Awakening or enlightenment).

Because there is no time, actually, this change has already been accomplished in eternity. As we heard in A Course in Miracles, we discover that we are walking a pathway back to a point that we have passed before. As ACIM says, the pathway will one day roll up, like a carpet, and our journey will be complete. Until that happens, though, there is much to do. We are, as we learned in traditional Christianity, the hands and feet of Jesus. Our mission is bringing our brothers and sisters to salvation, but this, we learn, is not to be effected by proselytizing, but by example. We live in the light of Love that embraces us. This manner of living elicits interest from others, who wonder what we have that they don’t. Then and then only are we freed to share what we have discovered. What we have discovered, as the quotation for today says, is a change within, a change that effects change without, in our personality and, ultimately, in our world. Unless there is first change within, to try to engineer lasting change through social action is impossible. If we don’t have true reality, we labor in vain to improve the lives of others. This too is part of traditional Christianity.

There is much in A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love that is new. It takes an open mind and heart to process all that a channeling Jesus is trying to get across. But he does not frequently reject the tenets of the faith that St. Paul first carried widely through the world. We just have to enlarge our minds to encompass the something more that is being offered, by Jesus, for our era.

We live our days in the time of Christ, Jesus has said in ACOL. Let us rejoice and be glad.

Dear God,

As I wander through this world, I ask that I stay on the straight and narrow, Your way, Jesus’s way. If I don’t embody a real truth, it is in vain that I would seek to bring others to their truth. Keep me listening to You, for I well know that You come only in silence. And when I am silent, I can “hear” more keenly what I imagine You are saying to me. And You speak through the imagination.

May this day, the first day of the rest of my life, be lived in harmony with You, in harmony with all brothers and sisters whom I encounter. May this bright and sunny day be a harbinger of bright and sunny days to come.

Amen.

Love Is on the Horizon

“You are not separate now from who you will be when you reach comple¬tion! You are in and within the relationship of creation in which created and creator become one.” (ACOL, D:Day6.12)

So often we focus on what is amiss in our lives. And the focus itself makes us feel worse and limits our experience of the Christ in us. We are already possessed of the inner Christ-Self, and it is this Self who reaches deep within to God, for this Self is a part of Him. And it is this Christ-Self who gives us glimpses of Awakening, glimpses that feed our soul and let us know what is on the horizon, in just a little bit—sustainability of these thoughts and feelings, a sustenance of Christ-consciousness.

When we focus on what is amiss, we limit ourselves. Not only do we feel demoralized, but we limit the process by which we prepare for enlightenment. We actually need only remove the blocks to Love’s awareness, as Jesus has emphasized many times in A Course of Love, and in removing the blocks, we uncover what we are really seeking. What we are really seeking is an ongoing experience of Love, and by feeding our loving thoughts, and turning aside from what has been amiss, we enjoy the rich moments that Love can bring to us. We experience Love, and in this experience we have the grandest experience known to humankind. Jesus tells us in The Way of Mastery that he loves for he has discovered that it is the only thing WORTH doing. It is the same for us. Loving is the only thing that is worth doing.

We will know that Love is everything when we eschew thoughts of attack and being attacked. If we recognize that this type of behavior is just pure insanity, we will not be tempted to fail to forgive when confronted with someone who is simply in a bad mood, a mood that will be temporary, easily over, and soon forgotten—when we forgive. The attack that so accompanies the ego (and truly is its most significant characteristic) can be forgotten and forgiven when we realize that this is simply a passing manifestation of madness. And all of us—all of us who have not reached Christ-consciousness—are mad to a degree.

How do we remove the blocks to love’s awareness without obsessing about what is amiss? Well, we can’t entirely. But we need to look at the second part of that directive, “love’s awareness,” not overlooking that if we have to have obsessions, Love is what we ought to be concerned about. The awareness of love will take us far, farther and faster than we might have hoped.

We are no longer totally mad. We, all of us reading these words, have had glimpses of God’s bounty for us. And those glimpses will elongate and eventually become permanent fixtures for us. When we have understood that Love is only thing worth doing, the only thing worth having. Our solitary time spent with God and our inner Christ-Self will show us this.

Spend time alone today with God. Let Him speak to our very real needs.

Dear God,

Thank You for leading me to understand that focusing on what is amiss, to the exclusion of what is right (Love), will get me nowhere fast. May I focus on Your Love today. May I realize that removing blocks to love does not have to become an obsession with blocks. It can become a true understanding of what Love is all about.

Be with me to refocus my thoughts on the positive. Be with me as I seek Your counsel always.

Thank You.

Amen.

Relaxation Takes Us Home

“We now will discuss being the true Self while becoming the true Self—the time in between your awareness of and access to Christ-consciousness, or unity, and your sustainability of Christ-consciousness, or unity, in form. As was said earlier: To realize the state of becoming is to realize that an in-between exists between the time of learning and the time of being the elevated Self of form. This is what our time on this holy mountain is largely comprised of. We are in an in-between state of time. We stand at the inter¬section point of the finite and the infinite in order to complete the creative act of becoming.” (ACOL, D:Day6.1)

Becoming is a state of being best felt by pure relaxation, a genuine and pure mellowness that totally encompasses our mind and heart. Jesus counsels in The Way of Mastery that we relax when seeking Christ-consciousness. If we are overwrought, there is no way that the subconscious can join us in seeking a higher way of living. Our overwrought state limits us, because stress makes the subconscious unavailable to us. When we ease into a peaceful state, we are cooperating with He Who lives within, at the deepest point of existence. We are cooperating with God.

The last section of the Dialogues of A Course of Love would have us go through a process of “becoming” that will culminate with our assumption of enlightenment or Christ-consciousness. Will we all make it? No, but many will. Not making it can be a source of great frustration, and this is the last thing that we need. If we don’t “make” it in this reading of ACOL, there is a good reason, though that reason is probably hidden from us. There comes a time when we simply have to accept God’s pivotal place in decision-making; He will lift us up when we are ready, and we are not in a good position always to evaluate our state of being.

The idea of God “lifting us up” to Christ-consciousness is metaphor. Actually the subconscious mind has been cleansed completely not only of the ego, but also of egoic patterns of thought that have clung to us. When this happens, then Awakening is assured. We will reach home; it is only a pattern of time. Accept the glimpses that come to all of us, pray for more (for this is in line with the true will of God), and wait in patience for all that we want to be bestowed on us. Love with an ever-increasing fervent intention, for Love is the opposite of fear, and fear and judgments are the impediments to our getting what we want.

Dear God,

Thank You for the relaxed manner of living that encompasses me today. May I not fall into a lassitude that would be no credit to either You or I. May this calm center follow me about the day. May I experience a glimpse of Awakening this day. One day, I know, it will extend into something sustainable.

Thank You for guiding my thoughts and feelings to an ever-increasing peace on a daily basis.

Amen.

True Love Knows No Bounds

“You are in continual relationship with the air you breathe and in continual relation¬ship with unity. It is a constant exchange. When you are fully aware of this is when full access is attained. So we will continue our work now in releasing you from those things that would still block your full awareness.” (ACOL, D:Day5.26)

Our awareness of our true Self is the focus of Jesus’s words now. He says here, in this quotation for today, that we are in continual relationship with unity, and this unity would be a union with our true Self, a Self who is ultimately merged with God Himself. Maybe we don’t understand this yet, but Jesus does. Do we trust him to tell it like it is?

We will know more than glimpses of unity when we have sustained Christ-consciousness. Removing the blocks to this accomplishment (though not an accomplishment in egoic terms) is what we are about now.

How do we come to love more? And more deeply? We need to realize that our attack and anger, our fear and judgment, mar the picture. We need to discover that love is an all-encompassing attitude of mind and heart, one that takes u to be a better place than we have known heretofore. Love is not JUST an emotion; it is the very stuff of Life, the stuff of God. This Love is actually an energy, though we do not often recognize it as such. Opening the mind and heart to this reality will actually energize us to the fact of all-encompassing Love.

Be gentle with ourselves if we don’t fully comprehend Love’s benefits now. We don’t love because it is a good thing to do, of course. That is using the mind alone. When our heart gets involved, we love because there is nothing else worth doing, nothing else that we would choose to do. But we are drawn by this Love, not with our mind but with our heart. The pull of Love is overwhelming, and when we have loosened our hold on the things of this world, we will open to Love and let it bring us good tidings of great joy, joy that has previously been unfelt in our experience.

Dear God,

I loose the things of this world from their hold on me—and I do it today. I would sense the Love from You that is all-abiding. The grandeur that You have given my Self, my soul. This doesn’t bring up egoic longings, for all of us on the pathway of A Course of Love have reached beyond this now. I ask today to be overwhelmed by Your Presence and Your gift of Love.

Thank You.

Amen.

Flow through Our Days

“Imagine this now, not as a needle but as the wisdom you seek. Imagine this wisdom not as being stopped by the layers of thinking and feeling that we used the onion to illustrate, but as a point of entry and pass-through. What comes of unity enters you and passes through you to the world. This is the relationship you have with unity while in form—a rela¬tionship of intersection and pass-through.

“No longer will what enters you get stopped by layers of defenses. No longer will it meet the road-block of your thinking, your effort, your attempts to figure out how to do it and what it all means. There is no cause for such effort. Effort is only a layer of defense, a stop gap between what you would receive and what you would give in which the ego once made its bid to claim ownership. Effort, as translated by the ego, was about turning everything that was given into what “you” could only work hard to attain, and thereby claim as your individual accomplishment. Obviously, union is not about this.” (ACOL, D:Day5.21 – Day5.22)

What a grand thing it would be for all of us to flow through our days, taking our cue from our relationship to union and getting things accomplished without the efforting that the ego demanded of us! Most of us have worked way too hard at sometimes the wrong things for far too long. Now we have another chance. We can intuit our next steps, go within for an internal compass, and then see the results of our new effortless “labor” spring forth before our eyes. Doesn’t this sound like a superlative way to function in the new world that we will be creating?

When we have been putting forth gigantic efforts toward accomplishment, did we stop to see if the ladder were leaning against the wrong wall? Many of us achieved many of our purposes, but at what a cost!

Now Jesus would teach us how to work, and it will not even feel like work at all. Our play will merge into work, and our effortless striving will bring about new and glorious goals that have never previously been within our reach. It isn’t our achievement, then; it belongs to the union that we are forming with our Maker. The credit belongs to God.

Will we be unhappy that “we” didn’t achieve something “on our own”? No, because such thinking will quickly be laid aside. We will flow into greater and greater achievements in this world, with the primary goal being as a bringer of salvation. Does this mean that we will always be pious? Not in the least, because God doesn’t want the trappings of innocence. He gives us the real thing: innocence borne of a sinlessness that will ensure that we don’t feel downhearted at missing the mark any longer. We will know, from the inside out, that our God is directing our path. It will be a good path, better than ever before, because we will be willing with Him.

Dear God,

As I go through my day, I ask for Your help in having it go well. Let me do something good with my days. Let me follow Your direction to better goals than I have ever known before.

To flow through all days from now on seems almost too good to be true. But not actually, for Your way points out the most important methods for achieving Your ends. May my play today mean more to me than any strenuous work ever did.

Amen.

New, Effortless Living

“Remember that you are tired of learning. You are tired here, after your climb. You simply want to rest and have whatever transformation is to come to you to come. If you could indeed give in to this desire fully, it would speed the transformation along quite nicely. So please, listen to your weariness and to your heart’s desire to rest. Listen to the call to peace and let yourself recline in the embrace of love, feeling the warm earth beneath you and the heat of the sun above you. Let languor enfold you and apply no effort to what you read here. Just accept what is given. All that is being given is the helpful hints you have desired from an older brother who has experienced what you, as yet, have not.” (ACOL, D:Day5.20)

Most of us are very tired from our exertions. I look back to how hard I worked in college, and while it brought me things of this world, I certainly could have lived with a lot less stress and fatigue. I had a fatigue then that long hours of sleep didn’t touch.

So often many of us talk about the rat race of everyday employment, 40 hours a week and more. We have obligations, we know, of family, a mortgage, food to eat, etc., but isn’t there some way, we ask, that we could live that would fulfill us more? So we dream of shirking it all away, and, then, we wonder, what we do have left?

There is a better way. There is an effortless way to receive from union with God the given nature of a good life. How, we ask? After all, most of us have been on the spiritual pathway for a very long time, and yet we sometimes wonder if it is all worth it.

Don’t let meaningless thoughts like this preoccupy us! There is a way that we can have our ideal life, and right here in a heaven on earth. As we listen to guidance from our interior, we get sensations of pathways to take. If we test out these inklings, we learn that they have validity. Then our daily employment, or our college, doesn’t seem so laborious. We have found a new way to live.

Daily prayer, built on trust in a Higher Power, will offer us the union with God that has eluded us. And when we are certain that we have that union, we will walk an easy path. Transformation does await us. We don’t have to wait a day longer. Rest in God’s arms, and know His beneficent good will.

Dear God,

Rest suits me now. Jesus tells me that struggle can be over, that struggle is an instance of the patterns of the ego that still enwrap me. I would be free of their tendrils today. I would come home to You. Accept me with Your grace. You are all that I need.

May this day go well, as I embark on the rest of my life. This is, after all, the first day of the rest of my life. May I savor its blessings.

Amen.

Union with God

“Union is being fully who you are and expressing fully who you are. This is the miracle, the goal, the accomplish¬ment that is achieved through the reign of love, the maintenance and finally the sustainability of union.” (ACOL, D:Day5.17)

We have heard that love is the answer for so long and in so many ways on the spiritual path that we may be numb to it. This is unfortunate, for love truly is the answer. If we love enough, we can live the life of unity that Jesus espouses in A Course of Love. If we love enough, we don’t have to worry so much about being “perfect” (whatever that means). Love invites the mellowness that in turn invites a glimpse of Christ-consciousness, the state of mind and heart that is the state of union with God.

Who would not want a miracle today? And miracles will rain down upon us when we get right with God. When we wish to live in union with Him, we are asking in His will. And it will be done to us. It is just that easy.

When we are in a good mood, the mellowness envelops us. We see more, for we see in unity—even if only for a few moments.

Let us ask today that those moments be elongated into an experience of union that will take us beyond ourselves—to God Himself.

Dear God,

I have just felt an intuition of union with You, and with it came a lessening of fear. May this lessening expand to fill all my waking hours.

Be with me today as I seek to elongate union.

Thank You.

Amen.

An Entry Point for What Is Beyond This World

“This focal point must be of your own choosing. Your point of access may be your head, or a place just above or to the right or left of your head. It may be your heart, or some mid-point just beyond the body. It may, for some, feel like a connection that arises from the earth and as if it is just below the form of the physical body. Some could feel it in their hands and others as if it comes directly from their mouths as speech is enabled that bypasses the realm of thought completely. Do not fight any of these feelings or others that I have not named. Just consider them givens and choose what feels most natural to you as a focal point for your focus on access.” (ACOL, D:Day5.5)

We are trying to get access to our intuition, and from that, going on to access to Christ-consciousness. All of us, if we stop to think about it, know that we have a point near our bodies that seems to be a focus for some knowledge reaching us from beyond our bodies. Many of us will say, “Ah, yes!” to Jesus’s comments in this section of A Course of Love. We had always known this; now we have verification. We may have thought our thinking was a bit “off” in this regard, but here we learn that what we are sensing is something very natural to us. Our focal points have always been active, and now we learn just how active.

Jesus always focuses on what is “natural” to us. He does not try to present us with something that is so far afield that we can’t give credence to it; the natural enfolds us, and it is through the natural that we will come to recognize that Christ-consciousness is not a distant mirage to which we cannot aspire.

Be cognizant today of the point of focus by which we come to know what is just beyond our conscious knowledge. We are discovering planes beyond our own. We are discovering how to sense that what Jesus has been telling us is true.

Dear God,

My point of focus is just beyond my left ear. I have been aware of this since I was 22, but never did I think that it was something truly significant until I read Jesus’s words in A Course of Love. I really thought it was just one of my “notions.” And I didn’t pay much attention.

I will pay more attention now.

Amen.

We Are More Ready for Enlightenment than We Realize

“We are here for the final stage of your becoming, not because you have reached some ideal of enlightenment or what you might think of as perfection. If this were asked of you, how many of you would have felt free to join me? Yet in your acceptance is your perfection realized without judgment. In your becoming is your enlightenment realized without judgment. These things become not achievements, but the acknowledgments of the accomplishment that has always existed within you and all of your brothers and sisters.” (ACOL, D:Day4.57)

Maybe we are really further along than we think. Maybe, if we remain humble, shorn of the ego, we will actually realize that we are accomplished in the sense that Jesus means. Maybe enlightenment is only a hair’s breath away. I would like to think that this is what today’s quotation is saying to all of us. Jesus so much wants us to reach Christ-consciousness, and he wouldn’t try so hard if we couldn’t do some things to effect change in ourselves.

We know that we have to remove the blocks to the awareness of love, but what does that really mean? How can we practically change so that we are aware of love at all times? Actually it may be a matter of our bottom-line motivation, and motivation for change through forgiveness of ourselves and others was a large part of what A Course in Miracles tried to bring about. Now Jesus has gone a step farther in A Course of Love. We know more now, we are establishing a new Self, a Christ-Self, a new identity that in no way accepts the old lies of the false self, the ego. We made that one out of our fears and judgments. Now we are bidden to leave our fears and judgments behind and walk into the sunlight, holding the imaged hand of Jesus fast and tight. This flight of imagination bears much fruit. He can be anywhere, with anyone, at any time. This is what his spirit is all about. And for those of us brought up in traditional Christianity, taking Jesus as our personal friend and savior is nothing new.

We are more ready than we realize. Allow happiness to engulf us today. Allow a positive attitude about salvation to tell us what steps to take. Be in reverence toward God, for the final decision of whether or not to bestow Christ-consciousness is God’s own. This is what Jesus has told us in ACIM and ACOL, and this is what we will find to be true.

Invite a glimpse of enlightenment today that will extend in time as long as our mellowness does. And soon the glimpses will merge into maintenance, and then, ultimately, sustainability. Our reading of ACOL promises us nothing less.

Dear God,

I have known real happiness in Your shadow today. I hope for the same tomorrow. Nothing less than this is what I request of you. Be with me as I reach out to others, and they to me. Be with me as I hold the hand of Jesus and get prompts of what to say.

Thank You.

Amen.

Let Today Glide Gently over Us

“I have not so directly linked fear and the time of learning before, but now you need to see their connection, for if you do not, you will not realize that fear is all that needs to be left behind. You will still think you have more to learn because you are angry, depressed, in a state of denial contrary to the denial asked of you, or because you still feel like bargaining with God. These things are only reactions to faulty perceptions, only the steps toward acceptance until they are accepted.” (ACOL, D:Day4.52)

We get ourselves into such a mess when we fight God. Jesus asks us to be accepting of what life brings to us, not to accept what we don’t like, but to accept the new conditions that our learning has brought to us. But now he tells us that learning in the old sense is to be no more. What are we to make of this?

Learning in the old sense is turning to wisdom of the past, wisdom intended for a time other than our own. Here we are in the time of Christ, and our intuition is to guide us. If we don’t let intuition guide, we will be lost indeed, for the old answers don’t help much anymore. All of us know this.

We need to turn from fear, and the best way to do so is by fervent prayer. Truly we don’t have anything to fear, but we would be hard-pressed to prove this to ourselves or to others. The way back to God is gentle, the discoveries that we make through intuition are peaceful, and as soon as we realize that we are alright just as we are, the sooner we will make our way all the way back to God. We simply no longer have to twist ourselves out of shape to meet some imagined ideal that is actually an idol. If we have a guilty conscience, then face that fact before God, and then be done with it. Guilt is actually insanity, as A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love make plain. When we turn from guilt, we will find ourselves turning from fear, for the two are linked in our mind.

So: Let today glide gently over us. Let the circumstances of this day leave us feeling that we are really OK, just as we are. The misdeeds that we still do can be rectified as soon as we recognize that need. We don’t have to sacrifice before God; He loves us just as we are.

The ways of salvation are harmonious and tranquil. Moving into Christ-consciousness is easy. Just know that the rightness of this change will be at a time and place that are perfect for us. So be calm, trusting in God to take care of us in every situation, even those that we prompt in error.

Dear God,

The way back to You is gentle in the extreme. Don’t let me make it harder than it is, for it is truly not hard at all. Be with me. Help me to sense Your Presence.

I long for Your enfolding arms to comfort me today. Solace and comfort. Thank You, in advance, for answering my prayer.

Amen.

Prayer Invites Fearlessness

“If you do not truly and wholeheartedly desire this choice, if you do not truly and wholeheartedly meet the condition of being fearless, you will know this, and you will pass through the time of coming to accep¬tance again and again until you are ready. You cannot fail but can only delay. For some the time of delay has passed. For those who linger in the time of acceptance, there is reason for this as well.” (ACOL, D:Day4.49)

How many of us can really say that we are fearless all the time, as Jesus says we need to be for this time of acceptance of anything and everything to lead to Christ-consciousness? So you see, this new state of being to which Jesus is leading us ever so gently is not a state of mind and heart to which all can ascribe. Many of us delay. In the light of day, when we are feeling well and at peace, we can say that we are fearless. But when we wake up in the middle of the night, nameless fears still descend upon us, and we know that we are not ready. We have not met the condition of fearlessness.

We need not be deterred, though. We can and must reach Christ-consciousness, this new state of being, sometime and someplace. Many of us ARE ready now, and for these fortunate few, the Forty Days and Forty Nights are a wonderful training ground. Any of us read and reread these few pages. We will discover more with each reading. We will come closer to accepting fearlessness as the way we truly want to be. And so it will come to pass.

We cannot fail, ultimately. Jesus has promised this much to us. And when we linger just this side of ultimate salvation, we can do much to help others in the same predicament. If we are to understand problems, sometimes we must pass through those same problems ourselves. If we are to help, we must have been there.

Prayer helps. I think the more often we reach fearlessness, the more likely our time at the threshold will be soon. And prayer, especially in the middle of the night, when fears assail us, is very effective. It is easy to drift off to sleep when we are praying to our Maker. It is easy to drift off to sleep, once again in a fearless state of being. And soon this fearless condition will wash over the whole of our lives, and we will have met Jesus’s condition—of fearlessness—for Christ-consciousness.

Dear God,

I am at a fortunate position right now. I do not feel afraid of anyone or anything. I am at peace, calm in the midst of a quiet day. Be with me, like this, from now on. Let no fears assail me. Let me walk in the shadow of Your peace.

Amen.

Our Pathway Is Gentle

“Are you here to fast and pray only to have to return when you have once again become a glutton of want, when you once again feel the lack that you would pray for? Surely this you can do, for I deny no one the journey to the mountain top, not once or many times. But this is not what I call you to.” (ACOL, D:Day4.43)

Jesus expresses an ideal in these Forty Days and Forty Nights, an ideal that we would finish the span of 40, and then be justified, in that we would have walked salvation long walkway and completely reached Christ-consciousness, there to remain eternally. It doesn’t usually happen that we fulfill the ideal, though, and many sincere students of A Course of Love have been quite downhearted that they seem to have dropped below the ideal that Jesus has set for us.

We need not feel downhearted. The time when we will Awaken has already been set by God; He makes the ultimate decision, and though we may remove barriers and obstacles, we can’t always fulfill a strict timetable. We can get very frustrated in the attempt, though, and it is this that I would like to consider today. Are we failing when we don’t sustain Christ-consciousness after fulfilling the Forty Days and Forty Nights? Is there anything more that we might have done?

Actually only our internal guidance can answer this question, for the answer is different for each of us. We do all have glimpses of this ethereal state of Christ-consciousness, though, glimpses when we are especially mellow and serene. This in itself is a great blessing. We discover thereby that we are not going to be hurled into reality, as A Course in Miracles reassures us. We are not going to have a mortal fear come upon us; our pathway is gentle. We CAN invite glimpses by getting quiet and easy. We CAN invite glimpses by forgiving as each and every difficult moment passes from us. So there is much that we can do, and mush that still awaits many of us.

Be confident that God’s timing is accurate, for it surely is. If we don’t succeed today, there is always tomorrow. Our diligent pursuit of God’s way for us will ensure that Christ-consciousness will come right on time. We need not fret if that time is not today. But do get quiet in our devotional moments today, and invite a glimpse of Awakening. It WILL come. Be reassured.

Dear God,

I am quiet and easy now, and I sense Your Presence. Thank You for drawing nigh unto me. Thank You for being here with me and making Your Presence known.

Remove errors from me. And give me patience to await Your perfect timing always. Always Your perfect timing.

Amen.

Invite Fervent Love

“You must realize that here is where fear must be totally replaced by love. If you fear to go where the portal of access will take you, you will not go. Thus your desire needs to be greater than your fear. Love needs to reign. Love of self and love of your brothers and sisters, love of the natural world, of the world of form that is, love of the idea of the new world that can be, all of these must come together and be victors over the reign of fear.” (ACOL, D:Day4.38)

God would not have chosen Love as the overwhelmingly best feeling in all universes if He hadn’t known that in no other way would His creation work. We are drawn by Love, drawn from the deepest depths of the ego and the most violently bad deeds we have ever done. Love speaks to us as nothing else can. Regardless of what we have embodied in the past, all of us have felt the mesmerizing effect of a genuine, overshadowing Love. It is this emotion that we need to woo now. It is this emotion that will save us from ourselves.

So sit or lie still for a while, and invite Love to come into our heart. The heart will reach out to the mind. And soon this powerful emotion of Love will transform even the worst day into something grand. We can discover how to love, even when we have been resistant all our lives. When we consider the alternatives, we know that Love with a capital “L” is all that we have really longed to have. And it is this Love that will take us home.

Dear God,

Enfold me in Your arms now, and forever. So melt my heart that I want nothing but the Love that You pour out upon me. May this fervent prayer reach Your heart today, and from heart to heart, I will know the depth of Love that You offer.

Amen.

We Are Trying to Reach God

“There is a similar type of focus that will serve you now. It is not a tool, as is meditation, for you are no longer in need of tools. But you have taken yourself away from the ordinary world. You are on top of the mountain. What is this all about? Why have we gathered together here? It is said that during my forty days and forty nights I meditated or prayed. It is said that I fasted. You have been told that you are here to fast from want. You know that you are here to experience both the old temptations and the new. You realize that this is the purpose of our time together here even though you have not put this purpose into words and put these words into your mind. What is the focus of which I speak, the focus that is not meditation, the focus that is not a tool? This is a focus on access itself.” (ACOL, D:Day4.34)

The access that Jesus speaks of in the quotation for today is the access to unity, something which has been stressed over and over by him. This unity is two-fold, of mind and heart, and of the inner Christ-Self with the Self of union. We are, at base, trying to reach God. We are trying to have a direct relationship with God, one no longer mediated by the Holy Spirit.

If we are not fearful of God, this access to direct relationship with God is the most natural in the world. It is the only natural thing in the world. We have twisted ourselves in such knots because of our long interaction with our egoic notions of what the real world is actually like. And we have been wrong. The real world, true reality, is a benign concept that leaves no room for fear, no room for pain and suffering. We will ourselves to a better life with God’s blessing. It doesn’t mean that we will never again be anxious, or that we will never again feel pain of any kind. We are not perfect here, and these things do occur. But they do occur less often. Our dreams of this world become happy dreams, something that A Course in Miracles counseled repeatedly. Our dreams become something that we want, not something that we fear to experience. Our dreams settle down into a realization that God and His glory are what we are really after when we pray.

God is very easy to reach, because He approaches us in silence. When we reach out with a full heart, we touch His garment, much as the sick woman touched the hem of Jesus’s robe years ago, and he felt his energy go out to her. Now we can have this reassurance on a daily basis, many times a day. We can and will know that God’s energy is all about us, sustaining us. We are well-supported.

Dear God,

I would be happy today, blessed in Your sight. You have long blessed me, and for this I am grateful. I ask only for Your indulgence with me a little longer. Don’t let my doubts hinder my development as a multidimensional person. Don’t let my doubts hold me back.

The way home is clear. Jesus has pointed it out. I need only walk with steady pace and head held high, looking up to the heavens. And with this attitude, I know that I am safe.

Amen.

Leave Thinking Behind

“Thinking in this time beyond learning, could be rightly seen as a constraint you but try to impose on all that is natural. Your thinking, since it is a product of learning, does nothing but attempt to learn or teach. These are the natural responses of its training. Thus, a major key to your discovery of all that exists within you in the state of unity, is an end to thinking as you know it.” (ACOL, D:Day4.30)

When we think about our breathing, it becomes labored and unnatural. Jesus is saying the same about our thinking, which might be understood best as obsessional thinking. When thoughts just come and go, we are alright. But when we cling to a thought, it is as though we are placing our hands over our eyes to block our vision. When an athlete thinks of how to throw the basketball, he falters; likewise, when a pianist begins to think about the notes as she places her hands on the keyboard, she too falters.

This is exactly what obsessional thinking does for us. Jesus is trying to take us into a new world by asking us to drop thinking as we have known it. In Christ-consciousness, Awakening, the thought processes slow way down. We read about this in the writings of Eckhart Tolle. And this is where Jesus is leading us. We need fear nothing; he knows what he is doing.

In the state of unity, we are in another way of living entirely. We have entered Christ-consciousness. Jesus seems to be saying here that in slowing our thinking, and then ultimately stopping most of it—just cessation—we will be doing something to remove the blocks to Awakening.

The way to do this is to go with the flow as we go about our days. Just let events unfold as they will; don’t try to stop anything and analyze it. Analysis is often of the ego, and of egoic patterns, and we are leaving those patterns, as we left the ego, behind. Don’t dam up our thoughts and then obsess about them. We will become unhappy, for this is an unnatural way to live. And it is the natural with which we are most concerned.

Ask to leave, first, obsessional thinking behind. Then ask to leave all thinking as we have known it, behind. This prayer may be answered right away, or there may be a delay. But a positive answer is ultimately assured, because we are asking in God’s Will for us.

Dear God,

Today I would drop all obsessional thinking. I would just say “stop” when the record starts turning around and around again. And I would prepare the way to stop thinking as I have known it entirely. I don’t fully understand. But I don’t have fully to understand, because You do. And You will right my world when You have my cooperation.

Thank You for guiding me so precisely. Help me to be sure that I am hearing correctly at all times.

Amen.

Answer Lies in Unity with God

“This feeling of being misled is another cause of your anger—one of the primary causes, in truth. Not only has all that you have learned led to an inaccurate world-view in the here and now, but to an inaccurate world-view of the past, of the hereafter, of me, and of God. Not only has your mind been misled, but your heart and soul as well.

“What could bring solace to an anger so profound? How can you be certain you are not being misled once again?

“The answer to both come in the stated purpose of A Course of Love: Establishing your identity. You needed to first know yourself as a being existing in union before you could know anything else with the certainty you seek, for union is the treasure that has been locked away from you.” (ACOL, D:Day4.21 – Day4.23)

Jesus essentially says that we are angry because we are beginning to realize that the religion that we believed has not been explained accurately. Jesus does often fall back on the Bible to explain the theology that he expounds upon. But the theology that says that the world, the physical universe, is the handiwork of God, and that God Himself stands outside His creation, is, in the words of A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love, inaccurate. God is immanent in His whole creation, in the theology of ACIM and ACOL. The union that Jesus speaks of at the conclusion of this quotation is a union with God Himself, basically.

The union is a union of heart and mind that expands to cover union with the inner Christ and the larger Self Who still “lives” in the larger cosmos. Jesus explains this hard-to-explain concept by likening our bodies to a dot on a large white surface. The dot reaches out to the whole, though we are often unaware that that is what we are doing in our mystical moments. The whole is the greater Self Whom we share with the All, God Himself, and all of our brothers and sisters. The image is captivating.

But what about our anger at not knowing about this unobstructed universe? What about our anger at what has seemingly been done to us when we have been in pain and suffering? We need patience, patience to know that these questions of ultimate concern will never have satisfying answers in our world. I do believe that we will know somewhat more after death, on the Other Side. But even this is not for sure. There are psychic writings that indicate that we don’t know all that much more after death in regard to ultimate reality. In mysticism here on earth, we can discover much.

Take a moment today to invite the mystical. See what prompts we get. We may be led to a treatise we read long ago. And we may find much comfort in it. There is no end to the ways that God can reach us. And we now have a direct relationship with Jesus to guide us.

Let that be enough.

Dear God,

I thank You for the mystical moments of yesterday that have led into a good morning today. Mysticism is my way, as I realized in college, standing at a bus stop, looking up at the starry sky. May I not forget that moment of genuine insight. And thank You for the glimpses into the Ultimate.

Be with me today as I seek to get through another creditably. Be with me as I seek You. You have never failed me, even when I have doubted You. And now I thank You that the doubts have fallen away. You are here. You are with me. Thank You.

Amen.

Change from Within—from God Within

“Let me assure you of what you already know, that everything about my life was purposeful. That challenge was meant then, and continues to mean now, a call to a new choice. It asks that you challenge your world-view in a most thorough manner.

“The problem with this throughout the centuries has been a tendency to challenge one world-view only to replace it with another of no greater truth or value. My challenge has been reacted to as a challenge to be external¬ized, a call to create a new system. But nowhere in my example life is such a system found despite all attempts to make it so.” (ACOL, D:Day4.17 – Day4.18)

There is no “system” in Jesus’s words and actions, because meaningful change comes from within. That doesn’t mean that we don’t call on other people, but ultimately it is up to us to change from the inside out. This type of advice helps in all kinds of problems.

Our world-view has been based in the ego, and now we have learned that egoic thought is just insanity, madness, a way of thinking that is confused and confuses us. At this point in A Course of Love, all we have left of the ego are egoic patterns, but these can be very powerful shapers of our destiny. We need, slowly but surely, to drop the egoic patterns—the tendency to consider something that is egotistical, to depend on ourselves alone, and then to try to go it alone. We need other people for solace and companionship. Our new world-view does not exclude relationships.

We are making new choices all the time. Now we are asked to make new choices in line with this course. And we can. Listen to the heart. What is it saying to us? How might we live better if we stayed in a mind and heart united to a higher purpose?

The way back to God is not long and hard. He will answer us, when we ask. The problem is that we think we know all the answers. There is a stubbornness that develops in people who are on the spiritual pathway. But humility would check our forward march. We don’t know everything; in fact, we know very little. In the face of the cosmos, we need to look up and seek direction. Then the change from within will be well-sourced.

Dear God,

Help me to have a good day. May all of my choices be sourced in You. May I lead no one astray. May You inform all my decisions.

The way back is not hard, but it is impossible if I think that I have all the answers. You do have the answers, and You will share then with me when I ask. I ask now. I ask every day.

Amen.

God’s World Is Better than We Think

“The ability to learn is given to all in like measure. The conformity of learning, however, is the product of an externalized system. That you all attempt to learn the same things, and in coming to identify the world in the same way—the way that has been taught—think that you have succeeded in learning, is the cause of the insanity of the world and of your anger with the way things “are” within the world. This is an anger that stems from lack of choice. When you are “taught” the “way things are,” where is the room for choice? Where is the room for discovery? And to find out that you were “taught” incorrectly! Why should you not be angry?

“You are here now not to relearn or be taught what life is all about, not to relearn or be taught the “way things are” but to discover what life is all about and to discover the way to remake things as they are.” (ACOL, D:Day4.9 – Day4.10)

Projection makes perception, as A Course in Miracles is famous for telling us. Now A Course of Love lets us know that what WE discover about the world is best. Does this not seem to say that we are creating the world that we view?

We didn’t use creativity when we listened to learned authorities about what was going on in the world. We swallowed whole what we were taught. Jesus is saying now that we were taught incorrectly, and that this source of error is part of our problem with anger. Why would we not be angry when we discover that we have been taught incorrectly?

What is the source of right teaching? It comes from within us. We are now living the inner Christ-Self, the Christ-Self Who will lead us to discover all things rightly. This new method of living will soothe and caress us with its caring, for never does this inner Self chafe us with perceived wrong thinking. This new method of living will take us home to Heaven, a Heaven on earth that we have waited long to find. To “discover what life is all about and to discover the way to remake things as they are” is a great promise, the promise that lies ahead of us now. Let us not slacken in our zeal to discover the way things really are. Let us listen to Jesus’s words and be reassured.

Dear God,

I am reassured this morning that all will be well in my world. There may be some hard times ahead for all of us, but we don’t have to let pain turn into suffering. We can leave out the emotional component of suffering, for the emotional is what undercuts us the most.

Thank You for encouraging me to discover on my own. This process of discovery is surely never-ending, and its never-ending status is what is so encouraging. I will never get to the end of my creativity in discovering the universe in which I want to live, and my own knowledge of that universe will create what it is that I will be seeing.

Amen.

What if We Disagree with Jesus?

“The arguments we will be having will be meant to show you this: That on one side are the temptations of the human experience, which is just another way of saying all that you have learned; on the other side will be the truth, the new temptations that will incite you to leave behind the temptations of the human experience.” (ACOL, D:Day4.2)

Jesus knows that at this point we are not ready to accept his words at face value, and that is why he is saying that we will have “arguments.” We will disagree with his words as we read, for we will still retain in our minds the learning that we have acquired. Much of this learning has been wrong, but we won’t be ready to accept this assessment yet. As we proceed, the “new temptations” that Jesus mentions are not bad things, but good temptations.

We have been human, having human experiences, for such a long time. And we have had feet of clay, which have made us make many mistakes. Now we have a sure guide in A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love. We can drop away our old ideas that have not given us the happiness that God desires for us. We will walk into the light when we keep an open mind to what Jesus is telling us now.

Jesus seems to say that disagreeing with him is not bad. We might be tempted to feel guilty for our difference of opinion, and especially for “arguing” with him in our minds. None of this matters. We will revise our thinking, but this pathway through relinquishing old ideas is necessary. And it is obvious that we would not relinquish the thinking of a lifetime without some resistance. Just don’t let that resistance overtake our good judgment now. We will see that the way that Jesus is having us think now is superior to anything that we have previously known. And arguing with Jesus in our mind is not to be lamented. It is honest. And it will lead to acute understanding of the new way.

Dear God,

I have often been guilty of arguing with Jesus as I read the New Testament. Now he absolves me of guilt at those times, and also as I read A Course of Love. He seems to say that he knows how I feel, that I can’t agree with everything that he says on first reading. And he doesn’t mind my objections to his thought. He knows that I have taken a meandering pathway to salvation.

Be with me as I seek to understand the next sections of ACOL. I know that I will come around to Jesus’s thinking, and sooner rather than later. I appreciate that You appreciate my mind, even when it has been misguided. You have given power to my mind, and with that I can drop objections, and listen to Jesus with a new mind and heart.

Amen.

New Life Flows from Acceptance

“Active acceptance is what allows the great transformation from life as you have known it, to death of that old life, to rebirth of new life. By clinging to some of the old, you prevent its death and you prevent the rebirth of the new. You prevent the very life-giving resurrection you await. You prevent the elevation of the self of form.

“This does not have to be. You have wanted something to do to change your circumstances in this earthly reality. This is what you have to do. This is the action required. The active acceptance of abundance is the way to abundance. Active acceptance is a way of being in relationship with all that flows from unity. This you cannot learn but you can practice. Thus your practice begins.” (ACOL, D:Day3.60 – Day3.61)

Today Jesus moves beyond the example of acceptance that he has been discussing, the actual value of money to our lives on earth. Now he moves acceptance into the larger realm of all that we encounter, but he explains elsewhere that he is not asking us to “accept” conditions that we don’t like. He is open and willing for us to change those conditions to something that we can be more comfortable with. But first we just accept, just accept. How can something that sounds so simple be so difficult to put into practice?

Acceptance of what we encounter does not have to be difficult. We actually make it difficult by our resistance. In resistance, we are making the force field stronger. Defenses make what they would defend against, as A Course in Miracles tells us. So we are bidden to drop our resistance, drop our defenses, and just live in flow with what happens in our lives. This flow will lead to something better when we have made a simple decision to live in God’s universe as His children. We don’t fight God any longer. We know where our home really is, and this home is all that we actively seek We then find out that this home is here with us on earth, a heaven on earth. But first our attitudes have to change.

Attitudinal change is what acceptance is all about. We stop fighting what seems inevitable, even when we don’t want it, and then the miracle happens. What we have prayed to see changed, actually does change. We are living a new life in Christ. And this new life includes an elevated Self of form living in Christ-consciousness—when we are completely ready. God Himself reaches down and lifts us up, knowing that the new abilities and talents that will be ours in this new state of being are safe with us now. These new abilities and talents would not have been safe with an egoic consciousness, and so they have not been available to us. But now they are. And it is a blessed life indeed that we live.

If Christ-consciousness seems far off, know that we are not privy to the decision of timing. We don’t really know how close we are coming. But we wait in anticipation for what will transpire, certain that God’s timing is always perfect. And indeed it is.

Dear God,

Abundance is a mighty blessing for me today. I thank You for the indications that You give me that I am on the right pathway. I realize that I can still make mistakes, even gigantic ones, but my heart is with You, and You will correct any and all mistakes that would seek to entrap me.

Thank You for Jesus’s guidance. Sometimes he seems very near to me, to be guiding my typing. I hope that this is a true assessment. I would not want to be mistaken about something like that.

Amen.

Nitty – Gritty of Money

“And yet you continue to think that if you had money or abundance, you would accept and receive it, express it and share it.

“This if is all that stands between you and abundance.

“You do not believe this, however, and the functions of denial, anger, bargaining, and depression are to lead you to this belief and, finally, to this acceptance. Acceptance first that you do not believe. And then accep¬tance itself.” (ACOL, D:Day3.54 – Day 3.56)

This quotation requires careful reading and rereading, and then the conundrum of abundance will become clear. Jesus is very aware that the discrepancy among people in regard to wealth is a problem for many. He does not countenance any attempt to have us believe he is championing poverty as a better spiritual state than wealth. He is making us see, in this part of A Course of Love, that having money is not a bad thing. The overwhelming love of that money may lead us wrong, of course, but the fact of having our monetary needs made without our having to worry is not lamented. All of us want to live securely. And we can.

We accept the existence or non-existence of financial solvency in our lives, and then we move through a process with God of denial, anger, bargaining, and depression. Finally we reach acceptance of our state of financial well-being or lack thereof, and then the miracle happens. We are open to receive now. We are no longer fighting God. We trust Him to supply, and, lo, He does. He has wanted our trust all along. He has wanted us to realize that He can and will meet our needs. The storehouse is opened, and we are invited to take what we need. Not always what we want, but what we need.

Acceptance of these words means a great deal to a resolving the problem in the first place. God is Lord of life as well as money, and His care for us is not at issue. Accept that we don’t fully understand, don’t fully believe, but then fall on His mercy. He will not fail us.

Dear God,

When monetary supply is low, we tend to doubt that You care about us when it comes to paying our bills. Maybe, we say, this is not a spiritual concern. Or maybe You just don’t care regardless.

How wrong we are! If something concerns us, then it concerns You, for You want us happy and satisfied. I thank You for Your bountiful gifts to me today. May I trust that Your supply is never ending, that when I have a need, when I have a problem, the solution is always right there with it.

And I thank You that this is so.

Amen.

The Many Faces of Abundance

“Just as you were told you cannot “think” great ideas into being, or great talent into fruition, just as you were told, in other words, that the “givens” are not to be dealt with by the conscious, or “thinking” mind, so too is it with abundance. Abundance can only be accepted and received, just as great ideas and great talent can only be accepted and received.” (ACOL, D:Day3.53)

We are being told that all of our imaging, our visualizations, and our invoking of the law of attraction just may not bring abundance to us. Abundance can only be “accepted and received,” a gift of God. When we struggle, we are expressing our doubt that abundance can be ours. When we struggle, we are fighting against God.

What if we think that are accepting, ready to receive, and still we can’t meet the mortgage? Maybe there is something more going on. Maybe we are being asked to trust that God’s security will never be withdrawn from us. Security is not met by money in the bank, however much we may think so. We could never have enough to feel secure, if we are placing our faith in the monetary. Money won’t save us, however much we might think that that is all that we need. Materialism is still not the way of God.

Trusting in the beneficence of God, regardless of what transpires, is our route to abundance. Just trusting. Knowing that the rent will get paid. Knowing that the ideas that will save our future earnings will come to us. Only if we trust.

God does not countenance those of us who are too frail to put our safety needs in His hands. He wants us whether we are rich or poor, and there is some evidence from the New Testament that a lot of riches actually will, if loved enough, keep us from Heaven. We need only look to the rich young ruler to understand that the love of money gets us into a lot of trouble.

Put our faith in the gifts of God to save us from ourselves. We may have many lessons to learn in this lifetime, and a period of austerity may be just what we need. Not what we want, but what we need. And abundance is not only money. Abundance is the blessings of talents from God that are finally put to use. Abundance is the assurance that we will never lack for our needs to be satisfied.

If we doubt this, we doubt God’s provision. And His provision is always enough.

Dear God,

If we think that we lack for abundance, we are mistaken. Abundance takes many forms, and forms that we don’t sometimes recognize. Be with me today as I seek to thank You for the various forms of abundance that You have rained down upon my head. Help me to be grateful for Your many blessings. I indeed do have all that I need, for You have promised this. In any problem, the solution is always with the problem. May my imagined and real problems find their solution in You today.

Amen.