“Everyone has a special part to play in the Atonement, but the message given to each one is always the same; God’s Son is guiltless. Each one teaches the message differently, and learns it differently. Yet until he teaches it and learns it, he will suffer the pain of dim awareness that his true function remains unfulfilled in him.” (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-14.V.2)
There is a course for every teacher of God; this quotation says this, using different words. All of us are separated as student and teacher only in time, and time does not really exist. God’s Son is guiltless; it is only in time that we have made mistakes that need rectifying. Each of us comes to believe this truth differently, for each of us is unique in our particular thought patterns and our experiences of this world (and other worlds, we might assume).
Our function is to teach and learn the truth that we are guiltless in eternity. This is not our only function, but our various functions, as mentioned in A Course in Miracles, are One in intent. These functions vary from salvation to forgiveness to happiness. All converge. So the different words only seem to mean different things. They don’t really.
We want to avoid pain, and so we want to avoid the pain of knowing that our function is unfulfilled until we have seen that we are truly guiltless. But do we really believe this truth? Perhaps not, perhaps it will take more study. But begin to open the mind to the possibility that we, as Sons of God, are guiltless. This will be enough for now.
Being Who You Are: Pondering A Course of Love is written by the author of this blog, Celia Hales, and is available on Amazon.
Andrew B
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wow!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 31, 2021.
I can’t thank Celia enough for writing such a wonderful book. It totally introduced me to “A Course in Love”, after I have been a ” A Course in Miracles” student for 15 years. It is just so lovely, gentle and life affirming. I loved it!
Margaret Deeb – Note: This is Mari Perron, who received A Course of Love. Margaret Deeb is her legal, married name, and the way in which she has her account on Amazon.
Celia Hales has the wonderful combination of a confident voice and a gentle manner. I am happy to be able to complement her ponderings on being you are through the experience of A Course of Love. I am in complete agreement that being who we truly are is the promise of this work. Hales begins and ends with sharing herself, which fits totally with that premise. Chapter 1 starts with a favorite passage of mine. It is imbued with a depth of feeling that invites the reader to be embraced by love. Celia describes it as emblematic of the warm, heartfelt tone throughout. She speaks of friendship as getting to know the essence of a person. Hales assures new and expectant readers that ceasing to let our minds rule our hearts and realizing that love is our nature, will guide us to the new and unprecedented experience of the elevated self of form. Celia Hales concludes by speaking of how people like genuineness and that this is what being who you are actually accomplishes. That was my favorite part. Being genuine. Who doesn’t want to be that? She also said, “We become inspired.” Being genuine and inspired, wholehearted and intuitive, can lead to the sense, she says, that “we are free.” These are words that I delight in as the “receiver” of A Course of Love. Those considering reading A Course of Love may find this a pleasing invitation, and those who have already read ACOL may enjoy the ten themes she draws upon, as well as her frequent reflections on A Course in Miracles.
Celia Hales’ book is packed with wisdom and made sense not only to my mind, but especially spoke to my heart. The contemplations are uplifting to the spirit, and I appreciate what she said about dropping the false self, the ego, and coming to the place of the heart – our TRUE selves that are naturally free and happy. The joining of heart and mind – whole heartedness – that brings us the freedom to live in peace and joy, as we were intended to. I also found her discussion helpful of living in the present moment and the letting go of fear and judgement. Her book is beautifully written and makes me look forward to reading “A Course of Love.”
The title of this book goes right to the heart of it: being who you are—who you REALLY are. The author is thoroughly grounded in A Course in Miracles, since 1981. A Course of Love, coming from the same Source, expands upon the earlier Course, and she deftly integrates the two. A key understanding is that we cannot think our way to Heaven, we only experience that awareness by being who we (really) are. And when we are being who we are, we naturally know how to act.
“Give your imagination to the reality of the universe. Let it extend to the mystery. In silence and stillness, feel the beat of our wings, the wind of our angelic spirit.” Choose Only Love bk.3, 11:I
Here the angels and Jesus are asking us to feel reverence and a soaring spirit about all that we have been given. When we let our spirits soar, we are in gratitude for the blessings of our lives, for our universe, for our Maker Himself. And gratefulness is its own reward.
We can discover much from following our imagination. Be reassured that we have the power of God at our backs. The mystery of the universe is with us.
Note: I am thinking of preparing a prayer book, organized by topic. Would you have any interest in a little prayer book that you could hold in your hand and make notations, or read on your tablet or phone and highlight? I would offer the book at a low price, no more than $3.99 for the print, anticipated 150 pages; and 99 cents for the e-book. If you would have any interest in such a book, please reply in a comment to this blog. I will not post your comments. And you are not obligated in any way. Thank you very much. Love, Celia
“The truth about the life you are living is being revealed. Your life makes perfect sense. It lived to emerge from the dream of forgetfulness, to wake up, to walk toward the crucifixion of everything that is not true in you, to die to illusion, to resurrect the truth of eternal life, to share your resurrection with others, and finally ascend to the Father in glorious body and soul. When you are resurrected, you live as God created you to be. That is the will of the Father.” Choose Only Love bk.3, 10:V
THIS is the pathway! We have each walked to a different level, over time, but this explanation makes perfect sense in our quotation for today. The first step has been taken by all of us, or we would not be spiritual seekers. But there the steps change. Many have not awakened yet, but there are things we can do. Primarily, we can seek to eliminate fear and judgment from our lives. This is our part. When we have been able to stop our tendency toward being frightened by life, and we have stopped making negative evaluations of each other (including negative evaluations of ourselves, for we are hardest on ourselves), then we can wait expectantly for God to act to lift us up to Christ-consciousness.
We will eventually all meet in the resurrection. Until then, we might ask that our way back to God be smoothed. Often we are partially awake, and so further steps can be contemplated. Take this quotation as a summary of that which will happen for all of us, in time and in eternity. Be assured that our way is sound, and our mind and heart will prepare us to meet God.
“When you have learned how to decide with God, all decisions become as easy and as right as breathing. There is no effort, and you will be led as gently as if you were being carried down a quiet path in summer.” (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-14.IV.6)
When we “decide with God,” we are no longer rebelling against him. Our adolescent rebellion is over, and it simply means that we must remove the scraps of fear from our minds as we find our way back to Him.
Fear is a big problem for us, and we cannot imagine a “quiet path in summer” when we are overwrought with the ravages of fear.
Simply choose again. We can do that, you know. Anytime our days start in error, we can choose to begin the day over. It is better, of course, to start the day right, because to do so saves time, and time is wearing on us. The world is very weary now, caught in its madness with illusions of fear. This lamentable state of affairs we have made for our world, and yet we don’t know how to get out of it.
The Holy Spirit does know how to lead us safely away from the fears, suffering, and pain that we have made. Ask Him today for His guidance in finding that quiet path in summer. We will not be disappointed with His Answer.
Would it not be wonderful to feel that our decisions are easily made? Such is the way when our days develop flow from calling on the Holy Spirit for every detail. Jesus does say that it is not wise to become preoccupied with every detail of our lives, that the right mind slant developed in the morning will see us through the day. But we can turn to the Holy Spirit without tangling ourselves up with our decisions about what to do. We can listen and learn, as the Holy Spirit whispers in our ears with inner words and intuitions.
There is no better way to live. Turn the nighttime sleeping over to Him, and see if tomorrow doesn’t bring a hint of a quiet path in summer.
“Your attempt at individuation and extension, an attempt consistent with the nature of your being, failed only because you experienced separation rather than differentiation, and fear rather than love.” (A Course of Love, D:Day40.6)
What, eons ago, were we trying to do when we enter physical matter on earth? We were not at risk of avoiding God, as long as we didn’t think that we needed separation from Him. We needed only to be differentiations—individuations—of God, experiencing physical form in this new environment, new for souls such as we.
But we did think that we need to experience what life was like to be separate from God. This is why this experiment, at first, failed. To live without God, without communing with God, we needed to construct a separate existence ruled by a separate thought: the ego. And so we dropped into pain and suffering, for nothing that deems itself apart from God can survive well in such a harsh climate as we have found ourselves.
We fell into fear rather than love, and that has made all the difference. We didn’t known what we were getting into. Long have we rued that day, though we didn’t know what we were rejecting. Our attempt at individuation thus became known as the “fall of man,” and we have since struggled mightily to find our way back to our Maker.
It is important to note that extension into physical form was not the problem; it was only how we lived it that was (and is) the problem. Now we need to recognize that Awakening to reality is what we need. We have taught ourselves not to commune with God, and this is a most unnatural way to live. In our finite minds, we can’t know what best to do next. Only supernatural help will guide us rightly. And this supernatural help is right within us, in the Christ mind that dwells within.
Let’s make the right choice today, and seek the guidance that only communing with our depths can bring about.
“Beloveds of Heaven, each day we approach more closely the time of full awareness of your resurrection. A time without equal. A time of joy and peace. A time when the miracle of God’s creation comes to fruition in your individual consciousness.” Choose Only Love bk.3, 10:IV
Choose Only Love is quite an optimistic series of books, to be seven in all, with now five published. This optimism shines brightly in today’s quotation.
It is an internal change that we are reaching. Not all will experience the joy and peace that is promised, but all who want to do so will actually sense it more and more as time goes by. The implication is that the time of Christ is now. A resurrection for us all. We have not previously had a comprehensive resurrection, though many have longed for it and others have announced it prematurely.
Sebastian, who is bringing us Choose Only Love, sees into the spirit world. We cannot understand this, but all who know him, know that his witness is genuine.
We can ask to see in the spirit world as well. If we turn ourselves in re-surrender over to God, we will know more. And particularly, we will know of the truth of this series of books.
“My son, your brother, spoke to you of an in-between time, of the twin circles of one way passing and a new way coming into being.” Mirari
Here Mary is speaking of A Course of Love, received by Mari several years ago. That book indicated that we are passing from a time of “doing” to a time of “being,” that there is a time for both, but that we are seeing a transitional time now. Jesus’ way was seen as “doing,” and Mary’s way is seen as “being.” Soon all of us will see the advantage of “being” as a way of life.
This does not mean that we will not continue to achieve in this life. But it does mean that our emphasis will be different. God doesn’t ask extravagant and busy doings of us; He celebrates our being with Him and with others in Love, Love that He champions.
“The end of illusion is very near when the mind reaches this following point. When any mind looks out upon its creations that it has attempted to make of itself and finds all of it lacking—that something is missing—and when that mind simply decides to withdraw the value it has placed on the world, and rests into the simple desire to be with God, then Heaven is but a step away. And that final step is taken by your Creator for you.” (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Chapter 19, Page 233)
When we are unfulfilled in this world, then we can know that something more is needed. Oh, of course, we have flights of fancy that everything is alright. But when we know in our heart of hearts that something is missing, we need to re-surrender to God’s direction. He sets us straight, and this ultimately becomes Awakening. After Awakening, nothing but shines and shines constantly. Our down times don’t seem as down, our happy times seem happier. If something seems lacking, what we really need to do is turn to a Higher Power. The old advice is the best.
“This is an insane world, and do not underestimate the extent of its insanity. There is no area of your perception that it has not touched, and your dream is sacred to you. That is why God placed the Holy Spirit in you, where you placed the dream.” (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-14.I.2)
When we decided to separate from God, at that point He created the Holy Spirit as a way to cleanse our perception so that we might find out way back to Himself. In time this happened a long, long time ago; in reality it never happened at all.
So we are living in insanity. We were never meant not to communicate with our Creator, Who created us as companionship with Him. So many of us live at least part of our lives, and sometimes our whole lives, as atheists or agnostics, trying, oh so hard to be independent and self-sufficient. We were never meant to struggle in this madness. And a little willingness to listen to the Holy Spirit will silence our doubts and set us on the road back to God.
Our perception is flawed; indeed, perception is even an insane concept. Perception, if cleansed, can take us back to knowledge, which God knows. God does not know perception, but His Bridge, the Holy Spirit, mediates between perception and knowledge. By cleansing perception, we can learn enough to reach almost to knowledge—but only with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Let us reach today for that cleansed perception, so that all will be right in our little world.
We think a lot of our illusion, our dream, which is the way that we see this world. There is no world! This said by Jesus, in the Workbook of A Course in Miracles. But do we believe that projection makes perception, that we are projecting an illusion, and seeing what would make life make sense to us in our madness?
No one is free of conflict in such a scenario. We made the ego as a part of our belief about ourselves, made in insanity. And now we don’t know how to deal with this erroneous perception. We need to hand over our egos to Jesus himself, who has promised to hold them for us, so that we need not be concerned with them. Take him at his word. We don’t know how Jesus can be with anybody who calls to him, anytime at all, but let us decide that maybe he indeed knows what he is talking about. Be with the sanity in your mind today, brought there by the Holy Spirit.
“When the mind is surrendered, you could say that body walks as an empty shell and is merely waiting to be informed by the Love of God. When the Love of God does not inform you or ask you to move and take action, then simply rest and do nothing.” (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Chapter 19, Page 232)
A totally surrendered Self waits to hear the impression from God as to its next step. This is the ideal state of being. Not many of us reach it all the time, but when we do, we can recognize that this is the best way to live. We move like the wind, not sure of where we will alight next. We listen to how to place our step. We don’t make decisions in a vacuum, without input from the Almighty. And this Almighty, God Himself, moves us by the means of Love in our depths.
“Divine mind is the source of all true thought. Likewise, there is only one heart, the heart of God, which we have called the Sacred Heart. It is there that you feel all that is love. Remember that egoic thoughts are not true thoughts, but pseudo-thoughts.” Choose Only Love bk.3, 10:I
If we are having trouble letting go of the ego, we might remember what Jesus says in this quotation. Egoic thoughts are false, pseudo-thoughts. In other words, we are not really thinking when we let the ego rule how we make decisions.
Most of us want to live in reality. If we learn that we have been living a lie, we will recognize a mistake and wish to correct it. Jesus’ definition of the ego is not Freud’s. Jesus believes that the ego was never our friend, but a false formulation of “reality,” a false way of thinking that has hurt us.
We can recognize that when we think egotistically, we have highs and lows that never pan out to a constant state of contentment. When we give up the ego, life smooths out, and we enjoy happiness. Who among us would not want to experience happiness in our days?
If we are reluctant to just drop the ego, we might experiment with choosing not to do anything egotistical for a time. If we see that we feel better overall, there will never be a problem with motivation again.
Pray for God’s help in this. He knows that we have made ourselves insane with choosing to follow an ego that has derailed us. There is a better way.
“Uncertainty will not now come to teach you lessons you have already learned but will only visit you as an echo from the past. It is a habit, a pattern of the old thought system. All you must do is not listen to it. Its voice will not be gentle or full of love. Its voice will hold the unmistakable edge of fear.” (A Course of Love, T3:10.11)
When we refuse to surrender to divine love, we are racked with uncertainty about life and everything in it. We are like wind socks, buffeted about by the breeze, a gentle breeze that we mistake for the direst emergency. This uncertainty will fall away when we know enough to surrender to God. What uncertainty still plagues will only be a “echo” (T3:10.11) from the fear-ridden state of illusory separation. This echo will be fearful, and this fear is the way that we will recognize that it is a lamentable part of our past. It cannot do anything to us now except to make us uneasy. But it can and will do that, until we give up separation and its concomitant independence as a bad idea.
Don’t listen to uncertainty about anything in our lives. Let guidance from within give us the certainty about what to say and do and even think. The heart’s advice will stand us in good stead now. Listen to that which calls to us. Listen to our heart.
“Sit quietly and look upon the world you see, and tell yourself: ‘The real world is not like this. It has no buildings and there are no streets where people walk alone and separate. There are no stores where people buy an endless list of things they do not need. It is not lit with artificial light, and night comes not upon it. There is no day that brightens and grows dim. There is no loss. Nothing is there but shines, and shines forever.” (A Course in Miracles, T-13.VII.1)
A particularly picturesque scene might come to mind when reading this description. We can imagine that the Vision that is of God doesn’t include the mundane details of a city street. When we are joined with others in a loving sense, we aren’t aware of places in our world where we might walk in separate bodies, alone and lonely. When we love, really love with the Vision of God, we are never alone and lonely.
Jesus takes a negative view of our materialism, and this attitude comes out more precisely in this quotation than in any other place in A Course in Miracles. He talks about buying an “endless list of things” that we do not need. Why do we buy things we don’t need? Basically, we are trying to find in material things the solace that we haven’t found in spirituality. And we haven’t found solace in spirituality because we haven’t sought deeply enough within ourselves, where God is.
The fact of no darkness in the real world may seem to be that Jesus is talking about the Other Side, and it is surely unclear if this is indeed what he means. But later on, in ACIM, he discusses the “real world,” and he indicates that we will inhabit this real world fleetingly before God Himself will reach down and lift us up into Awakening.
So I think that Jesus is engaging in metaphor here of the real world that is full of intangibles that don’t impinge on materialism at all. We want peace, joy, harmony, rest—all things that we can have and that we will have when we have walked the pathway that Jesus is pointing out. These intangibles are the way that we get around the need, the incessant need, to find solace in physical objects.
The intangibles will never disappoint, and they are here for the asking.
“And all of these, those who would admit to fear, and those who would not, would still believe that love exists despite fear’s claim upon it, and think that they are lucky to have found a love to shield them for a little while from all the other things they fear. And yet the greatest fear of all is that of loss of love. You who have given everything to be alone and separate fear most of all that which you have given everything to attain. For what is loss of love but confirmation of your separate state? What is loss of love but being left alone?” (A Course of Love, C:14.21)
We thought that we wanted to be separate from God; this is part of the theology of traditional Christianity as well as A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love. Separation would be that we would be independent, on our own, isolated. Yet in the illusory actuality (for we could never actually separate from God, being part of Him) we have been the most afraid of being alone. Try as hard as we can, we still cling, desperately, to the special love relationships that would save us from ourselves—or so we think. So the living out of isolation has actually been the source of our greatest fears.
We fear being alone more than anything because somewhere in our deluded minds is the certainty that we are living amiss, and that a furious God will take revenge on us for denying Him. This is as true for atheists as anyone else, for each of us of whatever persuasion has a religion in which we put our faith. If this religion is ego-tainted, we will fear all the more, and what religion in our world is not ego-tainted? It is only in giving up our false idols of isolation and separation that we come even close to finding our way safely through this world.
We find our way safely in this world by acknowledging what our heart tells us. And this heart does not require “proof” of God’s existence. It is rightly said that there are no atheists in foxholes (a somewhat outdated reference recalling the first world war). When we get scared about our predicament, we do turn to what we hope will save us. And A Course of Love proclaims that this is the saving grace for what we understand to be our heart. It alone does not seek to have divine proof; it simply knows that we are not alone in all the universe. We are not isolated and independent; we are meant to share our living with others. And A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love call these relationships, the “holy” relationships. Most all of us have experienced loss of love in some form, with somebody. Somebody let us down, we cry. We think that if only this special someone had loved us for ourselves alone, we would be saved. This makes of love a mockery. And it places in our midst a scavenger that would devoir true love. We do not have to pin our hopes on one someone (or several someones) who can save us. We need only rest in the knowledge—and it is knowledge—that we are never meant to be alone, that divine love is there to protect and keep us safe. And once we give up the attributes of specialness, our relationships one to another will indeed be holy. We have to give up specialness in relationships, we are told. But the relationships will not be snatched from us, to leave us cowering in the dust. The special relationships turned holy will be a foretaste of Heaven, right here on earth.
by Celia Hales. Published in Miracles magazine (Jon Mundy, publisher)
The great secret of your human existence, indeed, the great secret of the many journeys you have taken is that they have existed nowhere save within the movie screen of your own mind. (WOM, “The Way of Knowing,” Lesson 25)
An external world is but a projection that cannot take you away from the internal world where you exist in wholeness. . .imagine the life that you experience now taking place much like that you would see projected on a movie screen. (ACOL, C:18.8)
Projection makes perception. (ACIM, T-21.I.1:1)
What we imagine, comes to be. We wrote the script, and then we forgot, in order to make the illusion real. The analogy of a movie screen on which we view our lives, as if from a distance, sitting in seats facing the screen, is very apt. If only we didn’t forget what we are doing to ourselves! If only we stopped long enough to change the picture show to something better.
That “something better” is the experience of love in all our dealings. Then we move away from illusion into the real world. We are still not perfect, though, in this world, and so Jesus stands at the conclusion of our lives and corrects what we have not been able to correct. He saves us from ourselves, having himself reached perfection. We need a little help; he walked the whole carpet before us and can offer that help.
Ask for help today, because to settle for second best, an illusion that is ego-oriented, is to ask for pain and suffering. Yet it is not God who visits pain and suffering upon ourselves. It is we ourselves, in a desperate effort to get it right, finally. We have decided that we can only learn through pain and suffering, though this is far from true. The world is projected from within in a mass hallucination of all sentient beings that disintegrates only when we have asked God to experience the Love that is He. His Love cocoons us, takes us to safety, and ensures that our lives will play out well and good. Our projections then see reality where before we saw only illusion. Our movie is now the real thing.
“As you look upon yourself and judge what you do honestly, you may be tempted to wonder how you can be guiltless. Yet consider this: You are not guiltless in time, but in eternity. You have ‘sinned’ in the past, but there is no past. Always has no direction.” (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-13.I.3)
This is Jesus’s explanation of how everything happening is outside time, is always in the “now.” In time, we see sequences of things going on, past to present to future. But everything is actually simultaneous, for time is part of the illusion in which we find ourselves.
We have “sinned,” which is put in quotation marks, because a tenet of A Course in Miracles is actually that there is no sin, that we have simply made mistakes, correctable mistakes. The idea of sin is represented as having an attracting quality, something irresistible that we want to keep repeating. Mistakes don’t feel the same to us; we want to make amends, to correct what we have done wrong, to seek forgiveness if necessary.
Time proceeds from past to present to future, but when we concentrate on the moment we are in right now, we are truly living. And this “now” moment is often seen as a precursor to Awakening. When we learn to live more and more of our moments without reference to time, we are coming closer to the ideal to which Jesus is leading us: Awakening.
We have done things wrong in the past; we have made mistakes. And we will want to seek forgiveness, from ourselves as well as others, for those mistakes. We do not have to beg forgiveness of God, according to A Course in Miracles, for God has never condemned us; He has simply seen us as his innocent children. But the primary thrust of ACIM is the matter of forgiveness, and we would do well to consider the primacy of forgiveness early on in our journey without distance.
Make amends. Seek to right wrongs. And then know that the forgiveness that you seek for yourself, you must also offer to others. This is the way of A Course in Miracles. This is our way home. We must learn to see the innocence of our brothers as they confront us. Everyone is truly doing the best that he can, given his degree of understanding. And we are all mad in this world to one extent or another. We should not, therefore, underestimate the extent of our brother’s insanity.
“Surrender means to settle into the position of the servant, the conduit through which the Mind of God, the Love of God, can be expressed. The mind that exists in perfect surrender sees absolutely no purpose to any moment of experience save this. The mind in perfect surrender looks out upon a world that has been healed from its own misperception that the world has had power over it.” (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Chapter 19, Page 231)
I can see a problem in the expression of this quotation. Our surrender is couched in such terms that say we need to be a “servant.” Now, in our culture, the role of servant is seen to be a discriminatory position, and we probably have bought into this interpretation. The word servant has not always been seen in such a way. And when we are servants to God, in surrender, we are in no way subordinate. He lifts us up to be co-creators with him.
But first we have to surrender to His way of doing things. This is not optional. We are God’s creations, and he planned it this way. But it is out of love that He so acts. His universes could not survive if we didn’t finally go His way. We would destroy ourselves in the universes, much as we have come close to destruction of our world.
Our world, in truth, has no power over us. Of course, we don’t believe this, because in our daily experience, many things seem to impede upon us. But we are spiritual beings having a human experience. And our spiritual being has never been harmed by anything that happens in our world. And because we live in illusion, nothing has, in actuality, happened to our human selves either.
We are alright in this world. And when we bow the knee to God, we see what blessings He is ready to bestow upon us. When we are servants to God, in surrender, we are, in actuality, exalted.
“Now, as we reverse this set of circumstances, and replace the world of fear with a world of love, there can be no more weighing of love against fear. God did not create fear and will not be judged by it. All judgment is the cause of fear and this effort to weigh love’s strength against fear’s veracity. While you chose to believe and live in a world the nature of which was fear, you could not know God. You could not know God because you judged God from within the nature of fear, believing it to be your natural state.” (A Course of Love, T4:3.7)
We thought that it was protective to have fear in our arsenal of defenses. But did it ever work very well? We got anxious often, but did this really protect us?
We don’t need fear’s protection. We don’t need protection at all. We have no need for defense against anything. We will be warned when we need to do anything to “protect” ourselves because we are in danger of some kind. God does not leave us defenseless; He is our defense, if we ever need to have a defense in this world at all, and that is debatable.
Defenses do what they would protect against.
We thought that fear was a natural reaction, not realizing that it was, instead, evidence of living insanity. We need to replace this world of fear we have made into a world of love, and only then can we relax in the grace that God gives us. We need to make a definite decision to give up judgment, and this much we can do. We can determine that we will not judge ourselves, others, or God, and we can stand by this as a promise. The world will never again look as dismal. We will have found means to emerge from a world of insanity. We will walk into the light.
“Here is the message that all humanity has been waiting for from time immemorial. Souls will understand. Hearts will rest in peace. Memories will begin to remember the love of loves, and in that memory find the clear path to lead them, singing, back to the house of the Father. Angels will join them from every corner of the world, and will also join you who are part of this work of love.” Choose Only Love bk.3, 10:IV
Just as every person is Christ, sharing in Jesus’ divinity, so is every work of love a part of the message that humanity has been waiting to hear. Choose Only Love is an important new revelation, but as good as it is, it does not stand alone. Whenever any of us seek to further the Kingdom of God, we are following in Jesus’ footsteps, and our work is similarly blessed.
The most significant aspect is that our work, the work of all of us, be centered always and forever, in love. We can’t fool ourselves about this. If we are embroiled in the ego, our listeners will know and be turned off. If, instead, we react from an open heart, we will be moving in love, and the response we get to what we try to do will be enhanced.
Ask for guidance in the work of love. And let us all join together to usher in a new Kingdom, a Kingdom in this world that will be now in a newly created world.
“Surrendering to love is what will finally make you able to free your mind, your heart, your memory, and your will from all restrictions.” Choose Only Love bk.3, 10:IV
We need to have–and keep–a clear mind, heart, memory, will. Just this morning I was praying for my hangups just to recede and ultimately to disappear. And then I turn to my document from Choose Only Love, and immediately my eyes light on this quoted passage. It seems, in its own way, a miracle.
The Answer is even in this quotation. The Answer, as it so often is, is just surrendering to love. Yet we often tie ourselves in knots, trying a little bit of everything else. When we seek God’s kingdom, the entrance is gained by love. Nothing else. No other way.
I sometimes think that we hear this imperative to love in so many spiritual teachings that we are a little numb about it. Just how do we “surrender to love”? What is the way?
It is possible that the way is paved by simple trust in God. We must trust that God has our best interests at heart. If we don’t believe this, we will be too frightened to surrender to Him. Many of us have subconscious fears about the validity of God’s love for us. We think His will for us, and our will for ourselves, are at odds. The wills are the same, but if we are to adopt God’s choices for our lives, we will see blessings that our own personal wills can never attain.
Ask, just ask, how to surrender to Him. Surrender will come when we get very quiet. When we give up trying to navigate a difficult world all by ourselves.
“This is the way the great ‘they’ of the physical world would have it be. They live by removing themselves. They desire for all to be so removed from the divine that they are comfortable with their own removal. They preach the removal. We will preach the invasion, the seed of new life, what can be neither run from nor removed.” Mirari
I think it would be fair to say, along with Mari (who received Mirari), that Mary of Nazareth has a problem with our world. She sees that we are on the wrong path, and she is eager and desirous to alter our direction by enlisting those people who are more gentle into her cause.
Surely we count ourselves among Mary’s faithful. To follow her lead, we cannot remove ourselves from this world, nor would we want to. We can offer new life to a dying world, if we will only step out on what we know. We know a truth that is not of this world. And it behooves us who follow both Jesus and Mary to do our best to lead in the direction of a new world.
We cannot, any of us, do this alone. We need each other—men and women of faith—to step out on that faith and enact what we know to enact. When we commune with our God, He will give us our marching orders. He will guide and direct our steps along a pathway that—it is not too much to say—will save our world.
Elsewhere we learn that we are in the end times. Of course, every generation since Jesus’ time has said the same thing. And so I wonder if Mary has it right this time. But I think one thing is certain: We must act “as if” we are in the end times. And that means we need to keep ourselves, and to enlist others, into a return to the way of our God.
And this way is, and always has been, the way of Love.
Even the most loving parent, like unto your most loving image of God, having brought a child into a fearful world, became subject to the tests of time. Thus did the world become a world of effort with all things in it and beyond it, including God, weighed and balanced against the idea of fear.” (A Course of Love, T4:3.6)
We were raised in a dysfunctional environment—all of us, regardless of how loving our parents tried to be toward us. They too partook of fear, and thus we were nurtured in fear. The world became a place in which we sought the approval of our parents, and this approval became something to earn, something about which we must exert effort.
Our relationships continued from this first one, of parents to children (us). We sought to grow through achievement, our own efforts, and the world became a fairly grim place indeed. We projected this fear upon our image of the God within, though we didn’t know that He was within. Most of us saw God as an external Creator, someone, something like Santa Claus, who knew everything that we thought and did, and weighed it in the balance to decide if we were good little boys and girls. This is indeed a fearful way to view God, and we imagine that this might indeed hurt Him (if the Creator were to have an ego such as we have, which He doesn’t).
So we grew up, supported by our fearful ideas of this world. Only religious convictions can actually save us from the dilemma in which we find ourselves. And these do not necessarily have to be of a traditional sense. God is God of the secular as well. And He will provide. We need only ask, though we are apt to forget the asking part when we are fearful.
“How you wake is the sign of how you have used sleep. To whom did you give it? Under which teacher did you place it? Whenever you wake dispiritedly, it was not given to the Holy Spirit. Only when you awaken joyously have you utilized sleep according to His purpose. You can indeed be ‘drugged’ by sleep, if you have misused it on behalf of sickness.” (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-8.IX.4)
We need, as this quotation says, to give our sleep over unreservedly to the Holy Spirit. Considering this dictate, and considering what little willingness we really do have to have when we follow this guidance, is a good way to fall into a relaxed frame of mind—the very best way in which to fall asleep soundly and with peace.
Not all of us are morning people, and some will continue to wake up, sensing that they have almost been “drugged.” But this is not the way that Jesus would point out to us. He would have us wake up in good spirits, ready to meet the day and its experiences with ease. Let us try to think along these lines tonight, as we prepare for sleep.
What might we have to do to prepare for such a sleep, a sleep given over to our Guide, the Holy Spirit? Quiet time spent reading and reflecting is good; it will orient us away from fear, as Jesus tells us elsewhere in A Course in Miracles. He would have us lull our minds into peace that speaks to our heart. The heart does not need the “proof” that the mind does, and so our doubts are quietened.
What do you do in the morning if you awaken “drugged”? Basically, we try again the next night, because the sense of overwhelming sleepiness is a sign that we are undernourished by the Holy Spirit. He will set us aright. We need no other Guide.
Note: Jayem, who channeled The Way of Mastery live, is offering an online course, an immersion, in the Lord’s Prayer, focusing on the Aramaic, the language of Jesus. Please consider. Here is the link:
“That illusion by the way, is not the physical body, nor is it the physical dimension, since in reality, the physical dimension does not exist. What exists is thought, streaming forth from mind, creating, or outpicturing, that which has been held within the mind.” (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Chapter 19, Page 230)
Here, in a capsule version, is the metaphysics of our reality. We are living “thought,” and what we are experiencing is the “outpicturing” of God speaking to us in our mind and heart.
For those of us who have longed to know ultimate reality, this is a welcome explanation. It says that the universe is actually thought. With this in mind, we can realize that the energy of the cosmos is actually God’s thought. And we know that we are a part of Him, and so our reality is thought as well.
Think on these things. It makes our metaphysics so much clearer, even though our finite minds can’t comprehend how thought can be solidified.
But it can. And when we know that thought is the genesis, we can know that the silence in which God speaks to us is very real.*
“Only your heart can lead you to the forgiveness that must overcome judgment. A forgiven world is a world whose foundation has changed from fear to love. Only from this world can your special function be fulfilled and bring the light to those who still live in darkness.” (A Course of Love, C:16.8)
It is a good question to wonder how we can change from love to fear in our thinking. And the answer is one word: forgiveness. Forgiveness will overcome judgment, and above all we need to overcome judgment of ourselves and our brothers and sisters
We don’t really have anything to forgive, for we are looking out on a world of illusions. Nothing has actually happened at all. We are living a stage play that has no repercussions on our inner essence. Only those things that come from love are real, for God is Love, and His reality is the only true reality.
In the ethos of A Course of Love, we let our hearts find the forgiveness that our minds might deny. Spend a while today in your heart, and see if it doesn’t make a difference in how the day is viewed. We will, if we let our hearts make the decision, find forgiveness of ourselves and others, and thus look out on a forgiven world.
There is no better way to live. Just recognize, when someone attacks you, that they are being insane, that their reaction is pure insanity. And one would not blame a certifiably insane person for the strange reactions that that person exhibits. We would know that the person is not fully responsible for words and deeds, and we would forgive easily. Our brother or sister who is certifiably sane is due the same response. In the opinion of both A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love, the attacking brother or sister is not actually sane at all, but mad in a mad world. And so forgiveness becomes easier for us.
“Therefore, the extension of the good, the holy, and the beautiful needs to become your sole purpose—as it has become ours. For only when the mind is used for this purpose alone can there be the perfect remembrance of the Kingdom.” (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Chapter 19, Page 229)
Yes, these are beautiful words from Jesus. He did not remind us to “love,” for when we intend to express the good, the holy, and the beautiful, there is no way to do so unless we are loving as well.
We are meant to “remember,” because we are revisiting the past (A Course in Miracles tells us), and in that revisiting we shape that past into something more in tune with God. When we remember, we have remembrance of the Kingdom of God. And this remembrance can only bring us peace, joy, and security in a life well-lived.
It helps to have our purpose spelled out so clearly. Choose Only Love uses the same terms to indicate our purpose, and so there is evidence that Jesus is remembering what he has told us–and remembering exactly.
The good, the beautiful, the holy. A high expectation for us, but eminently doable when we stay close to God.
“To fulfill the Will of God perfectly is the only joy and peace that can be fully known, because it is the only function that can be fully experienced.” (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-8.III.2)
This statement is the statement of a man of God. Jesus gets his joy from fulfilling what he understands to be God’s will. And he asks nothing less but that we do the same.
It is not hard, this following of God. The guidance comes through precisely all the time. The only question is whether or not we will turn into that guidance. The best way to live is to tune in. Then our days and nights develop a substantial flow, one event into the next, with ease and grace. We fret less; we worry not at all.
These are our best days, the days that we follow guidance and in so doing develop a flow. Ask that today be such a day for you. If you are intent on following what you perceive to be the will of God, you will not be disappointed in the extraordinary day that will be afforded you.
Jesus is on the verge of introducing us in A Course in Miracles to the Holy Spirit. Up to now, he has focused on asking us to imagine what he, Jesus, might say to us, and then following his guidance unfailingly. He will not leave us now, though, if we are willing to keep doubts at bay, and consider that he is serious when he says that he will come to us in response to “one unequivocal call.” He also says that we can imagine that we hold hands with him, and he says that this will be “no idle fantasy.”
But now Jesus is introducing us to the Holy Spirit, an introduction that may be unnecessary to some of us. The Holy Spirit is, in A Course in Miracles, our Guide to right action. He is also called the Universal Inspiration, and references to Him in ACIM are always capitalized.
We need to have good days, like pearls on a string, blessed days. And here we have the key: follow guidance. We will not be led astray.
“The mind was not created for the speculative exercise of thinking. It was created to receive divine thought.” Choose Only Love bk.3, 10:III
Divine thought is our wisdom, our “inner wisdom,” received from God. When we are lost in speculation, we are likely to be processing thought in an analytical way; this won’t do at all. When we lighten up and let God speak to us, then we are onto something grand. His words solve problems at the moment of their arrival. His words give us comfort and peace. Our wisdom, which is divine thought, is giving us a better life.
A very important quotation, for it says that we have not been thinking well. When we open to divine thought, our heart joins the mind for true thought. We are much better off. And we know it immediately.
When we are caught up in our thinking, our speculative thinking, we are often in conflict. We are lost in our thinking. We need to clear our minds and let God speak to us.
Then the Divinity Who is ours takes over. And, once again, all is well.
“The end is always a thought away. Liberation—a simple choice. The way is easy and without effort. It rests in the power to decide.” (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Chapter 18, Page 228)
The “end” is Awakening, enlightenment, Christ-consciousness, transformation. Many long for this, but most don’t know that our power of decision rests in the God within. And if God is within, if we are a part of Him, then our power to decide is not simply a matter of just letting our God decide the timing.
We remove the blocks of fear and judgment, and then we make a simple decision that we long to experience the best of God today. THIS is the “power to decide.” Of course, this sounds difficult to our unknowing ears. But here Jesus says that the way is easy and without effort. When we rest on God’s bosom, things are easy and without effort.
The only problem is that we try to do it all with our finite self. And this won’t work at all.
Surrender to the God within. With this choice, we ready ourselves to a greater transformation than we can ever imagine.
“Think you not that reason opposes love, for love gives reason its foundation. The foundation of your insane world is fear. The foundation of Heaven, your true home, is love. The same world based upon these different foundations could not help but look quite different.” (A Course of Love, C:14.9)
We don’t have to have blind faith in the precepts of A Course of Love. We are told, “love gives reason its foundation.” (C:14.9) We are further told that the foundation of our insane world is fear. And the foundation of Heaven, our true home, is love. It is strongly implied that the way that we look at our world determines whether it is hell or Heaven. The way that we look. That is perception, and we know from A Course in Miracles that projection makes perception. What we feel inwardly will determine what we see in the outer world. And if we are feeling fear, we will see an insane world that is violent and destructive. If we are feeling love, we will see Heaven.
Is this too simplistic? Is this even true? Can the same images that flow before our eyes seem fearful or loving, based on what we are projecting? Yes. For the fearful mind sees more reason to fear, and the loving mind sees only that in its sight are lamentable things, but no cause for fear. The loving mind does not reject the outer world of insanity as not there; it sees that it is there, but it is only illusion, the illusion of insanity. And so it gives that outer, violent and destructive, world no credence.
“The same world based upon these different foundations could not help but look quite different.” (C:14.9) Yes! This is the secret for staying in this world, but seeing it differently. This is the secret of having peace in the midst of chaos. Choose fear or love, and all the world will change according to the emotion that is chosen.
“When you are anxious, realize that anxiety comes from the capriciousness of the ego, and know this need not be. You can be as vigilant against the ego’s dictates as for them.” (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-4.IV.4)
Anxiety dogs our steps, for anxiety is the most prevalent form of fear. We have an ego that is out of control, has always been out of control. And so we can easily recognize capriciousness when confronted with anxiety, for there seems to be no rhyme or reason to it. We do, surely, attach reasons to our anxiety, but this is grasping at straws. Twisting in the wind. We know, deep inside, that something that is in us, but not real—the ego—is calling the shots. And we would not have it so.
We can be vigilant against letting anxiety turn our days into a living hell. It doesn’t take much vigilance, really. If we never let the anxiety escalate, if we go within at the first signs of agitation. Turn to the inner Self Who knows best how to turn aside the calling of the ego. Don’t wait, hoping the uneasy feeling will subside. Go within directly, immediately. And watch the see if you don’t sense help from a Higher Power as you go within.
Being able to give up anxiety is powerful motivation. Who can be at the best when confronted with the verge of panic? Nobody. Ever. And so we seek, once again, to turn aside from the ego. We don’t actively “resist” the ego, for to do is to make resistance real, and the act of turning away too strident. The ego becomes strong in strife, and strife is what we have when we seek to force a solution by shouting “no” at our anxiety, “no” at the ego.
Just turn aside, gently. Meditate. Pray. Write in a journal. The way will open to a smooth pathway once again.
If agitation doesn’t go away, then perhaps it has something to say to us. The ego will try to speak to us, but what it says is only confused thinking, best left alone. Don’t try to make sense out of its ranting. You can’t do it. It is impossible.
Be gentle with yourself when in the throes of an egoic attack. This too shall pass. And so it shall.
“Remember that all are channels. Everyone channels what they want or what they ‘must’ because of the divine plan for each soul—a plan created as a perfect expression of a pact of love between Father and child, between Creator and created.” Choose Only Love bk.3, 10:II
When we listen to our Inner Wisdom, which many call the Holy Spirit and that A Course of Love calls the Christ-Self, we are reaching toward a Self who partakes of God. Thus we become channels for what we wish to say. We are receiving from a Power higher than ourselves–when we tune in well.
Our personal, or “little” self can only know real truth when we seek knowledge beyond what this world can give us.
When we pray, we know that we receive guidance.
It is no different when we seek to share what God is putting into our hearts. Of course, we may get it wrong, because we are finite beings. All we can do is try to be a clear mirror for what God would say to us, and what we would seek to share.
In everyday life we are channels as well. When we sense that we are saying something that is beyond our puny little thoughts, we are channeling.
And all of us have had that experience, not once, but often.
“Do you recognize that you have already been every where and every when in the illusion of separation? Would you be willing, right now, in the quiet privacy of your own heart and mind, to use the power of awareness given unto you to decide to be Love?” (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Chapter 18, Page 227)
I don’t know if Jesus is using hyperbole when he says “every where” and “every when.” Certainly there are places that our friends and family have been in thought and feeling that we have not. Just knowing that our small circle has had experiences that we have not would lead to the conclusion that Jesus is exaggerating.
Of course, it is quite possible that Jesus is invoking the truth that all of us are One, and all of that One have experienced everything. In this scenario, we are in no way separate from any of our brothers and sisters, all children of God who actually are part of each other.
But one thing is certain: We have tried every avenue that we know to experience separation. And maybe “knowing” each avenue is what Jesus means.
It is time to stop the nonsense of thinking that we can survive separate from God. He is in us, through and through, and He would commune with us often, indeed constantly. His Force of Love is the best thing we have going for us. He created us to need Love, to need His presence, for He is the All, and our part of that All is living through us constantly, forever.
It is time to go Home. It is time to drop confusion, turn from our hates and fears, and offer Love to ourselves, others, and God Himself.
There is no better way. This is what we need. This is what, in our heart of hearts, we want.
“But there, in love outside of time, did time and eternity first meld into a potential for the evolution of humanity and the elevation of the self of form.” Mirari
Here Mary is talking of the incarnation of the Christ as Jesus, her son. The incarnation was planned in a realm far outside of the time and space in which the Earth is caught. The Way of Mastery indicates that the planning originally began eons before the actual fact of the coming of Jesus 2,000 years ago.
Jesus masterminded a giant leap for humankind, an evolutionary leap that we are only just now, 2,000 years later, coming to actualize. A Course of Love talks a great deal of the “elevated Self of form,” and this is the “body” we will occupy when we have awakened. This Awakening is heralded also in A Course in Miracles and Choose Only Love. It will be a comprehensive change, an alteration in the way we live life. And our lives will be so much improved. We can all hope that the actual fact of the elevated Self of form will come quickly.
A Course in Miracles says that the separation took millions of years to come about, and it may take that long, or longer, for all to make the decision to return to God. The pathway is long. But we don’t have to become demoralized by ACIM’s assertion. Tiny steps make a difference, for us and for the world.
Let’s get quiet, heal the subconscious one bit at a time—as The Way of Mastery recommends. This book, which many believe was also from Jesus, asks that we take a look at each subconscious fear, to release it. And this is a worthy endeavor, leading to Awakening.
Mary’s words are comforting, believing as many do that they are genuinely from her. Her love for Jesus surpasses our own, for she is on a par with him, and his love is beyond measure.
See what quiet moments can do for us today. See if we can make progress on our evolutionary journey.
“The desire to protect is a desire that arises from distrust and is based totally on fear. If there were no fear, what would there be to protect? Thus, all of your love—the love that you imagine you keep within yourself, and the love that you imagine you receive and give—is tainted by your fear and cannot be real love. It is because you remember love as that which kept you safe, that which kept you happy, that which bound all those you love to you, that you attempt to use love here. This is a real memory of creation that you have distorted.” (A Course of Love, C:9.3)
We are not able to use love to protect us, although we often try. The desire to protect ourselves is a fear-based motivation, one that can’t be what it tries to do, keep us safe. We are already safe; we don’t need anything extra to make ourselves so.
We have, Jesus says, a memory of love from eons ago (as the world judges time). Love at the beginning, before the illusory separation, kept us happy and kept together all whom we loved. Somehow, dimly, we remember this true event, and we want some of that same feeling now. We try to find it in fear that comes from distrust. If we didn’t think we were in danger, why would we think at all about being “protected”? We would know that there is nothing that we need protection from, and we would be at peace. So this desire is wholly fear-based. We do love a disservice when we attempt to “use” it at all. Love cannot be used, just as we would be wise not to use each other for our own ends. We are safe, we have always been safe, and sooner or later we will all realize our safety is a God-given gift.
When love is tainted by fear, it is not real love. Unfortunately, most of our love in this world is tainted by fear, and thus we need another way to view love. We need to realize that it is part of the long-ago memory of Oneness with God. Only our attempt to separate from God, with the concomitant rise of the ego, has kept us from real love. Let us decide today that we will be done with all of this foolishness. Ask to experience real love, remove our mind from attempts to use this love to protect the physical body, and see if a better day doesn’t dawn.
“Your worth is not established by teaching or learning. Your worth is established by God. As long as you dispute this everything you do will be fearful, particularly any situation that lends itself to the belief in superiority and inferiority. Teachers must be patient and repeat their lessons until they are learned. I am willing to do this, because I have no right to set your learning limits for you. Again,–nothing you do or think or wish or make is necessary to establish your worth. This point is not debatable except in delusions. Your ego is never at stake because God did not create it. Your spirit is never at stake because He did. Any confusion on this point is delusional, and no form of devotion is possible as long as this delusion lasts.” (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-4.I.7)
An important quotation, because so many of us struggle with confusion over self-esteem. As the ego manages self-esteem, we will never measure up. As our spirit measures self-esteem, we cannot help but measure up.
And this quotation tells us why: Our worth is established by God. We don’t have to “do” in order to merit His approval. He has made us perfect, and only the extent to which we have varied from this epitome, in our dream, is what needs remedying. We are worthy, still perfect in our essence. And this, in itself, must lead to a very serene sense of self-actualization in our depths.
We constantly compare ourselves to each other. This is wrong. All talents will one day be shared equally, and, in the meantime, when someone else has what we lack, we too have something that he/she lacks. All of this comparison leads to either a sense of superiority or inferiority. And to demoralization. There seems no way out.
But there is a way out. Simply repeat to yourself, “My worth is established by God.” If this affirmation doesn’t work for you, then commune with our Maker to ask what and how you might believe what Jesus has said is true.
We need to get over the delusion that we have to merit approval from God. We will stay confused as long as we think that egoic ideas are separating us from our Creator. It is true that, in the illusion, the dream, we are separate from God—but in reality, we have never left.
“Your feelings in truth come from love, your response to them is what is guided by fear. Even feelings of destruction and violence come from love. You are not bad, and you have no feelings that can be labeled so. Yet you are misguided concerning what your feelings mean and how they would bring love to you and you to love.” (A Course of Love, C:5.11)
Jesus forms a startling assertion about love and fear, one that we wouldn’t expect. He says that all of our feelings come from love, in essence because we are not “bad” (C:5.11). A Course in Miracles says that we have the “innocence of God” (T-III.17:2), and so Jesus is here asserting to the same thought. How our feelings of destruction and violence can come from love may remain nebulous to us, but Jesus believes that we have just misunderstood ourselves. We have been misguided about how to bring love to ourselves. So we have made wrong choices in our love, choices that gave us destruction and violence.
Do we not often noticed that nobody who is embroiled in violence and destruction thinks that he/she is at fault about anything that is bad? History is replete with wars that were fought in the name of God, believing that one is doing God’s will in the antagonism. This is one way of looking at love gone astray. This is one way to realize that fear has done nothing, that it is only our misperceptions about love and how it ought to be expressed that have done us in.
Our feelings are not bad, Jesus says. We only need to channel those feelings in the right direction, seeing love where it really is, avoiding feelings of destruction and violence, pain and suffering. Then we will find love’s fruits to be our chosen just desserts. We will have taken another step on love’s pathway. Another step toward Awakening/Christ-consciousness.
“Remember also that what is not love is nothing; therefore any feeling that is not love does not come from your true heart, just as any thought of fear does not come from your true mind.” Choose Only Love bk.3, 10:I
When we are living in a true mind and a true heart, we will adopt love in all our dealings–not only with our brothers and sisters but with ourselves. We will treat ourselves gently; we will turn aside from fear by knowing that we too are made of God’s Love. Love is the way in which He created us. Love is the way to walk in this world.
Being true to our nature is amazingly important. And here we discover that being true is being in love. With our brothers and sisters, with ourselves.
Love will descend upon us when we ask in all sincerity of thought and feeling, of mind and heart. When we ask God for His blessing, we are asking in His will, and He moves quickly to comfort us.
If disturbed in any way, go to God. If mixed up, tangled up, go to God. His healing power will set our psyche aright again. He may use other people in this endeavor, but the real healing comes from Him. Let Love do its work, and we will be blessed beyond description.
“Remember, then, that each loving thought restores you to your rightful place. Every fearful thought merely delays the moment of your release and the restoration of your perfect peace. Remember that only Love can heal. No technique has ever brought healing, though it can provide a temporary field in which the mind can choose to love. Remember how perfectly simple it is. It is not possible for you to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.” (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Chapter 18, Page 226)
We cannot be in the wrong place at the wrong time because God is here with us. His mercy keeps us safe, regardless of outer circumstances. His Love makes the difference in our experience.
When we deliberately start an argument, it is usually because we are in a low mood. We have temporarily lost sight of our goal–which is to be One with God at all times. When we realize what might be coming between God and us, we are back in alignment with Him. That alignment is always a choice for love, or His Love (spelled with a capital letter).
Know that we need only practice His Love consistently to have a marvelous life. Even if the world is in terrible turmoil, and even if we are experiencing that turmoil, we can walk a better path if we can stand firm that God is not betraying us. We humans make many mistakes, but God always stands ready to help in any emergency.
Re-surrender today, if life seems terrible. Re-surrender today, if we can’t see a way out. God needs only our cooperation to turn disaster into a reason to practice His way.
“Making the heart of Mother love, that natural duad to the Father love that has reigned, brings the rising of the feminine and the balancing, at long last, of the masculine.” Mirari
We are in a balancing act as we head into future decades. We are attempting to balance masculine and feminine into a new paradigm.
It is true that Mirari is a feminine manifesto, but with a difference. The overall emphasis is on love between the genders, and within the genders. And it is this emphasis on Love from God that allows us to realize that we are not in competition with each other, men and women. In the future, according to Mary, we will cooperate much more, for it is also true that women have not had an equal role in our world.
Now we know differently. But it would be a misreading of Mirari if women attempted to lord it over men. That simply is not what Mary is saying.
We don’t need polarization. We need each other. And when we really listen to Mary, this is what we will take away from her marvelous manifesto.
“There are no idle thoughts. All thinking produces form at some level.” (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-2.VI.9)
There is a very serious warning in the quotation for this evening. Our minds do wander, and when the mind wanders it produces what we erroneously think are “idle” thoughts. This is not so, as Jesus says to us here.
We cannot understand what he is saying, but we can get an intimation by thinking of our nighttime dreams. Form seems very real in nighttime dreams, but when we awaken in the morning, the dreams frequently vanish from our minds, and we accord those dreams no reality at all. The form is real, though, and perhaps this type of form is what Jesus is seeing.
Jesus has told us that we live in a dream, even in waking reality. We are living illusions. And we think that we live in a solid world, a world of form. We touch, we knock on hard surfaces, and we get resistance. But our bodies are just as much an illusion as the table that we rap upon.
Perhaps form in our idle thoughts is like unto this. Such secular writers as Jane Roberts, in the books channeled by an entity named “Seth,” have said the same. Our thoughts blossom out in all directions, according to Seth. And form is not far behind, though we cannot see that happen.
So doesn’t it behoove us to rid ourselves of what we have been calling “idle” thoughts? Wouldn’t it be better to think along better lines? Wouldn’t it be better to fill our minds with thoughts that we imagine are like unto those that we imagine God “thinks”? Certainly the encouragement that we give fantasies can be seen as a false way to spend our time. Fantasies are not true, but we indulge in them. We even fall into fantasy when we are contemplating or meditating. Our minds stay so busy.
Rein in your thoughts today. Don’t let them get ahead of yourself. The best thing that we can do is to think as God would think. Ask Him what He thinks, and see if your imagination doesn’t give you an Answer.
[A]ll that you are in your humanity will be reunited seamlessly with the eternal reality of your holiness. Your mind has already healed. Already your heart has been restored to Heaven. Today, on this day of Divine grace, your memory enters the Father’s house.” Choose Only Love bk.3, 9:II
In truth, we are all living in the Now, for time is an illusion that cannot circumvent eternity. This “present moment” thinking is reflected in the quotation for today. Past and future do not exist in the timeless Now. And this is why we can read in Choose Only Love that all of us have healed memories–today.
We learned from The Way of Mastery (also called The Christ-Mind Trilogy) that our subconscious mind must be healed to awake in Christ. As ideas from the subconscious flood our mind, and our heart responds, we are healed when we accept what is transpiring. We don’t have to “do” anything, but simply “be” in the eternity of Love that God bestows on us. This is what I think Choose Only Love is saying about our memories in the passage. As our memories are healed, we walk in the light of God’s great Love. We know, in a way that we did not know before, what we need to do for salvation. And Awakening is but a moment away.
Allow our healed minds to be informed by our hearts today. When memories are healed, we will walk forward with happiness every day. Our lackluster lives will take on new responsibilities that were hidden to us when we had “good” and “bad” days, never knowing what was wrong or how to fix it.
Let the light of Divinity shine on us today. Let us live with gratitude for all that the miracle of healed memories have given us.
“The Christ in you is wholly human and wholly divine. . . .It is this joining of the human and divine that ushers in love’s presence, as all that caused you fear and pain falls away and you recognize again what love is.” (A Course of Love, C:5.1)
We are indeed blessed now! When we recognize the Christ in us, we are recognizing a joining the human and the divine. And in this joining, we are told, love reigns, “joining. . .ushers in love’s presence.” (C:5.1) All that has caused fear and pain drops away, and we finally recognize what love really is. This is the celebration, when we recognize the Self within, the Self no longer a captive of the ego.
The Christ in us is wholly human and wholly divine, not omniscient, of course, because of our humanness. We are ready to experience true reality in the fullness of the Christ-consciousness (Awakening) that now engulfs us. We may as yet have captured only glimpses of this Christ-consciousness. But the purpose of A Course of Love is to lead us to understandings that will cause the impediments in our psyche to drop away. Jesus wants us to reach Christ-consciousness. A consolidation of awakened individuals is the best hope that we have for a world in disarray, lost in pain and suffering, lost in conflict of one brother and sister against another. But God, we might add, is the omniscient Presence that makes the decision of when we are ready. Thus, there is an indecisive quality about Christ-consciousness and its coming that we can’t predict. Only the omniscient God of us all knows when any one of us is truly ready.
There are things that we can do. Things we must do. We must give up judgments, one of the other. We must give up fear (a biggie). We must give up attack and planning that is not the direct result of guidance. A Course of Love highlights the giving up of judgment and fear; A Course in Miracles highlights the giving up of attack, judgment, and unguided planning. These directives are meant to remove impediments to the coming of Christ-consciousness, and we can all recognize how difficult these directives will be if we don’t have divine help.
We do have divine help. We need only ask. The part of ourselves, the inner part, that is God, will respond. Angels will also come to our aid, for we are not all alone in the universe. Those of us who are in close contact with the Other Side will also come to recognize other entities that move to help us, though Jesus does not point this truth out, in so many words. Jesus has said that he is always with us, always guiding us by the hand. He is our rock, our salvation to a higher world in this world. We do not have to die to enjoy the benefits of a higher presence directing our efforts.
“Now, only now, is your memory restored; the memory becomes clearer and clearer of the first love that God is. Before this moment, your newly healed memory was adjusting to healing. Now is when it gets up and begins to walk, that is, begins to remember fully.
“Today, here and now, is when spiritual amnesia is left behind.” Choose Only Love bk.3, 9:II
We are “remembering.” We are walking a carpet that when we finish the walk, will be rolled up behind us (from A Course in Miracles). In this sense, everything has already happened, and we are reliving it. This can be a hard concept to wrap our minds around, but our hearts will understand and be blessed.
The separation from God is over–for all of us. It is just that not all of us have come to realize this, and so we live out lives that are less than they could be. Our “spiritual amnesia” is in full force, at least for those who cannot accept what Jesus is telling us now. Our spiritual amnesia keeps us in the dark from the power of God’s all-loving Force.
God is the Prime Mover, the “first love,” as this quotation makes clear. We have been coming to know, over time, and now we are ready for full acceptance of the Love that God holds out to us. Our memories will be healed the instant we accept this truth.
Our memories will be healed the instant that we ask, in full understanding of what we are requesting.
“Suffering need not be. The suffering with which you may yet be identified need not be. It is only by choice that suffering is held in the mind. And it is only by choice that it can be healed and released.” (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Chapter 18, Page 225)
Releasing on our sense of suffering takes embracing and then letting it go. Releasing, as described in this passage, is the heart and soul of the Sedona Method, an inspired method given by Lester Levinson, and having us ask ourselves about all my manner of things, “Could I let this go? Would I? When?”
In The Way of Mastery, our quotation for today, Jesus is telling us that our suffering is all so unnecessary. We get ourselves in quandaries by exacerbating the pain in our lives, increasing the pain so that it becomes suffering. Often the suffering is purely mental, though the pain may be physical.
Jesus is here to heal us of our emotional suffering.
If suffering finds a place in our heart, let’s ask Jesus to heal us today. When we choose to let it go, we will be free.
Perfect love is the Atonement.” (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-2.VI.7)
Perfect love is the “undoing” of what has been an albatross around our necks for eons. We are moving toward Awakening, and as we take steps there, and we will fear less as we love more. This is the best way, the only way to welcome God into our lives. We must ask for help if we find our propensity to love, weak. And if we find ourselves in fearful states of mind all too often. These two characteristics—fearful, anxious feelings and a lack of love while experiencing those feelings—are easily overcome when we go to God. If tangled up or mixed up, go to God. He will take you into His arms and comfort and heal you.
Can we get perfect love by willing it? No. That is why this favorite quotation is so puzzling for so many of us. We want perfect love, because we so dislike the fearful feelings that we experience. This desire is the practical motivation. But perfect love is held out to us by God Himself, and we are led to that eventuality when we open ourselves to Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Jesus was the essence of the Atonement, his gift to us.
The Atonement as gifted us by Jesus, as seen by A Course in Miracles, is not a sacrificial gift. Jesus would have us see the wholly benign lesson of the crucifixion, and then look beyond that to the resurrection. The resurrection is seen as the promise of eternal life to all of us. And whether or not we can accept that the resurrection really happened, Jesus still welcomes us. He does not need intellectual assent. He only needs the heartfelt response, the response from our inner being where we do not need intellectual proof.
Ask God today to allow the experience of perfect love to come to you. It will come first in fleeting glimpses, but then, as time passes and we remain true to God, the times of perfect love extend. We know perfect love, and the fears and anxieties of daily life drop from our experience.
“All fear ends when proof of your existence is established. All fear is based on your inability to recognize love and thus who you are and who God is. How could you not have been fearful with doubt as powerful as this? How can you not rejoice when doubt is gone and love fills all the space that doubt once occupied?” (A Course of Love, C:4.5)
We have often doubted God, and not just in our youth, when many of us became agnostics and atheists because the chronology of Genesis did not jibe with evolution. We have doubted that there could be a Higher Power Who could hear our prayers. We wanted to be intellectually honest, but we didn’t listen to our hearts. Our hearts knew all along that we weren’t alone in a fearsome universe.
A Course of Love questions, “How could you not have been fearful with doubt as powerful as this?” (C:4.5). This lack of love that we felt when we were being intellectually “honest” is a reason to feel fear. What better reason could there be?
Now that most of believe in the Other Side, that channeling is possible and also probable, we are in a different place. Our doubts have subsided, but we still are living the remnants of too much fear. Fear has become a habit for us. And this has to change if we are to live full lives in a new world that we are seeking to create.
When we put away our doubt, we will make substantial progress. Just give the heart a chance to speak to you. You will not be disappointed. This may be the first indication that the Christ-Self is coming into its own, in us, in all of us.
“My field is your field. This is what I am helping you to see. We are together now to save this world so that Heaven on Earth can come to be.” Mirari
What a challenge this appears to be! But A Course in Miracles says that there is no challenge to the advanced teacher of God. When all of us have walked far enough on the road back to our healed minds and hearts, at home in God, we choose for all humankind whenever we make a choice. We do not choose by ourselves, but we take a cue from our guidance–and this comes directly from God, by way of the Holy Spirit or the Christ-Self.
When we together conspire to save the world, it will be saved. When our gathering of forces becomes a tipping point, then we will find ourselves in a new world, far removed from the conflict-ridden place we now occupy.
This word from Mary of Nazareth is encouraging and resourceful. We know what we are about. We may not have always known it, but now we have no excuse.
We take our place in this great mandate, inspired by our Deity. We move when our Deity says. We don’t attempt to make decisions from the personal self. Only the blessing of Deity can help us now.
