Note

I am taking a break because my hard disk failed on my computer. Most everything is backed up. Celia

MOVIE SCREEN

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.

Live in the Now

“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. 

We Are Exalted

“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.

World of Love

“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.

The Work of Love

“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.

Surrender to Love

“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.

When we give up, the light dawns.

The Seed of New Life

“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.

Effortful Living Transformed

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. 

Good Morning!

“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.

Thought

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:

https://wayofmastery.com/the-aramaic-jesus/aramaic-lord-s-prayer-an-immersion

—

“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.*

Forgive the World

“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.

The Good, the Holy, the Beautiful

“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.

Fully Experiencing the Will of 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.

Divine Thought

“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.

“Easy and without Effort”

“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.

Choose Love in Our World

“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.

This Too Shall Pass

“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.

Being Channels

“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.

To Decide that Love Is All We Want

“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.

Evolution of Humanity

“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.

Real Love

“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.

Our Worth Is Established by God

“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.

Feelings Come from Love

“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.

Love Comes from Our True Heart

“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.

Only Love Heals

“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.

A Balancing Act between Male & Female

“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

“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.

Our Memory Enters the Father’s House

[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.

Joining Jesus in Christhood

“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.

Healed Memories

“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

“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

“Know first that this is fear.

Fear arises from lack of love.

The only remedy for lack of love is perfect love.

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.

Love Replaces Doubt

“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.

Together Now to Save This World

“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.

And we will not be left without a Guide.

The Embrace

“To know who you are and not to express who you are with your full power is the result of fear.  To know the safety and love of the embrace is to know no cause for fear, and thus to come into your true power.  True power is the power of miracles.”  (A Course of Love, C:20.28)

Seeing that we don’t express who we really are out of fear, let us contemplate what we might do to turn this situation around. 

Jesus includes in A Course of Love a sensitively-written passage in which he takes us into his arms and embraces us.  The passage exudes warmth, peace, and safety.  Here is the most cogent part:

“This is a call to move now into my embrace and let yourself be comforted.  Let the tears fall and the weight of your shoulders rest upon mine.  Let me cradle your head against my breast as I stroke your hair and assure you that it will be all right.  Realize that this is the whole world, the universe, the all of all in whose embrace you literally exist.  Feel the gentleness and the love.  Drink in the safety and the rest.  Close your eyes and begin to see with an imagination that is beyond thought and words.”  (C:20.2)

This reassuring passage is emblematic of the tone of all A Course of Love, for ACOL looks to the heart, first of all, to entice us to give up the false values of the ego, the false identity to which we have clung for so long.

In letting this memorable passage fill our minds, we are led beyond the bounds of the fear-ridden ego.  We will know that we want something different from what we have had all of our lives.  We know that the enticement that Jesus represents is the true value of love, the way that we will come home to ourselves.

When we come home to ourselves, we will be fully powerful for the first time, and who among us does not want a right sort of power?  The egoic power that we have known previously has given us flights of joy, but evermore it has dashed our feet on stones, and prompted tears of grievous regret.  We can be finished with these tantalizing fits.  We can stop sensing electric joy that dissolves into abject misery.  Jesus is showing us the way out when he encourages us to be who we truly are.

When we don’t fear anything, in the embrace, we are primed to come into our real power.  We are primed to be who we really are, in love with the whole world.  And for this miracle, we need give up nothing!  Nothing at all, for what the ego has given us has truly been nothing.  The ego gives but to take away.  And, even the giving is time-bound to be of short duration.  The “gifts” of the ego don’t satisfy very long at all.  Then we are off to a new goal.  And, ultimately, what we have accumulated becomes ash and dust at our feet.  No joy in the “everything” at all, for the everything is not enough.  “Is this all there is?” becomes a legitimate question for the vast majority of us.  And that is because we are looking for love in all the wrong places.

The best place to look for love is within the miracle.  Both A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love say a great deal about the power of miracles.  We aren’t to decide personally what miracles ought to be done, because we would be misguided if that were our attitude.  Jesus makes clear that he decides when and if a miracle is timely, because he is in charge of the Atonement.  But when we ask for something, such as love and the centrality of love in our life, we can be sure that Jesus is right there with us, cheering us along.  We can’t know how the miracle will happen, only that it will.  We are asking in God’s will for the relinquishment of fear and the shift to love in all our dealings.  Prayers such as these do not go unattended.

The power of miracles is said in A Course of Love to be the true power.  Would any of us want any other power?  We need and want to be reverent in our asking, supportive of whatever guidance we get.  We don’t need to launch into pipe dreams that become meaningless.  With the attraction of true power in our minds and hearts, we will know Love sooner rather than later.  And the fear that has hampered all our doings for many years will gradually fall away.

Guidance

“Only your mind can produce fear.  It does so whenever it is conflicted in what it wants, producing inevitable strain because wanting and doing are discordant.  This can be corrected only by accepting a unified goal.”  (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-2.VI.6)

We know that we experience fear, but we may not have blamed our own conflicted minds.  We may have tried to sense that something outside of ourselves is causing our anguish.

It is not so.  The conflict is all internal.  We want to do something, but we think that we ought to do something else.  This produces the strain.  It can often be a counterpoint to following guidance.  We often want to do things that are not in our best interests, and guidance will show us something different when confronted by such a confused state of mind.  We listen to our “ought’s,” if we are smart, and in the ought’s we learn what guidance is really saying.  At this point in reading A Course in Miracles, we can assume that Jesus’s wishes and our guidance are identical.

How can he know so much?  We cannot answer this question.  But he does not lead us astray in ACIM.  He knows fully what we are about in this world.  His entity is far above our limited, finite minds.

We need a unified goal, and this we get when we realize that God’s will and our own, real, will, are actually identical.  Later on, when we are considering the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we will learn that He chooses for us.  We don’t know rightly what to say or to do, but He does.  And when we get into the flow of following Him, we experience a flow to our days that assures us that all is well.  With this flow, we learn anew that Jesus, as well as the Holy Spirit, both know what is best for us.  Our lives go better when we are in the flow of following such guidance. 

We can do no better.  When we follow guidance consistently, our experience will prove to us that doing so is expedient.  At first we may balk, but we come to know that a unified goal, seen in flow, is what changes what we want and what we ought to do into the same.

Brought to Us by the Holy Spirit

“Never judge what you see, what you feel, or the thought that arises.  There are many dimensions of creation, many forms of life, and many ways in which experience is created.  Do not judge what you see, what you think, or what you feel.  But hold it as an object that has been brought to you by the Holy Spirit who is asking you, as Christ, to bring the healing of blessing to it.”  (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Chapter 18, Page 224)

Embrace Past Difficulties with Love

“Beloved friends, looking backwards into time, into your seemingly personal experience can seem horrifying.  Yet I say unto you, the sense of horror that many of you feel is not linked to the memories themselves.  It is only linked to what you have decided to believe about the memory, and nothing else.”  (“The Way of Transformation,” WOM, Chapter 18, Page 222)

We are frightened not by our past, but by our interpretation of the past. It is all thought of the mind, and our feelings come into play from our thoughts.

We can scare ourselves by revisiting the past at any time. But why would we do that? Why not let dead dogs lie? Contrary to much popular psychology, reliving the past doesn’t clear our minds so that we are happier; reliving the past only embroils us in turmoil, making the problems and difficulties of the past seem real in the present.

There is a better way. Transmute the difficulties of the past by embracing the negativity with a big bear hug. Keep our arms wide open, but don’t use the mind like a laser that would focus on those difficulties. If we focus, we make those difficulties “real” again, though we know that we are only living a dream. If we focus, we magnify the difficulties.

Be gentle with ourselves. Just embrace, forgive, let love do its powerful work of eliminating the sting of bad times of the past.

The past is over, and reliving it does not ensure that difficulties, even the same difficulties, will not arise again. But we will be better able to handle the problem now when we have loved away the past trauma.

Let God Have His Way with Us

“Creation waits upon your welcome by merely holding the thought within your mind, ‘All right, it’s all arising within me anyway.  I’ve tried in a million ways to avoid it and get away from it, and yet it seems to follow me wherever I go.    (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Chapter 18, Page 221)

“Creation” is another word for God. He creates, and we appreciate His creation. We must always recognize that we did not create ourselves, something we are apt to forget when we are being particularly egotistical.

God has been called the “hound” of Heaven. He patiently pursues us through millennia, but He does not force His hand upon us. He waits patiently, for He knows that we will eventually realize, as Bill and Helen of A Course in Miracles did, that there is “another way.” And we might add, a “better way.”

We need to welcome divinity into our lives. Of course, here I am speaking to the choir, in that all of you who view my blog are already open to the spiritual life.

Know that we can do much in the world by simply “being,” letting God have His way with us.

Ask! The Only Thing to Do if Uncertain

“Before you choose to do anything, ask me if your choice is in accord with mine.  If you are sure that it I, there will be no fear.”  (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-2.VI.4)

Of course!  Here Jesus is speaking before he has introduced us sufficiently to the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives.  He wants us to imagine asking him if any given action is in accord with wishes that he would have.  Is the action loving?  Is it kind?  Is it free of attack?  Questions such as these will put us on the right track.

By what right does Jesus ask us to consider his wishes in regard to any action we take?  He is in charge of the Sonship, and he is attuned to the miracle-mindedness and the revelation-readiness of all of us.  He is our leader, our teacher, our guide.  And so it is not foreign to consider his wishes when we want to make good decisions.

What a lovely way to rid ourselves of fear!  We need only be sure that our choices are in accord with what Jesus would want.  Can we be assured of ridding ourselves of fear if we do this?  Jesus says so, and his word is enough for me, for I believe that he did indeed channel A Course in Miracles.  And I do believe that he is in charge of the Sonship.  So my course is clear:  I will ask, internally, what I think Jesus would do, and I will take this guidance as my own.

Many people in traditional Christian faith have recommended that individuals ask, “What would Jesus do?,” when confronted with any dilemma.  The words of A Course in Miracles here suggest something very similar.  It is words like this that puts ACIM in direct lineage from the Bible.

Never fear that Jesus will give us something more to worry about, if we get the indication that what we are about to do is out of line with what Jesus would wish.   He is a gentle teacher, and he always means us well.  He will not to anything to raise our anxiety level, and therefore our fear (and our worry). 

So ask when confronted with dilemmas.  Imagine what Jesus would say.  And we will be well-guided.  Depend on it.

Quiet Soul

“Quiet your soul now and close your eyes.  Leave everything aside.  Open your heart and in the serenity of the self.  Receive the grace of being aware of the Christ that you are and have always been.”  Choose Only Love bk.3, 9:II

When we sense that we are Christ—we ourselves as well as Jesus—we don’t have any worries.  We know that the power that was in him is in us as well.

And we know that God would have us happy in His world, despite appearances of difficulties worldwide.

These difficulties are a harbinger of a turning from the past to something better, amazingly better.  We are living in perilous times, but we don’t have to obsess about this. 

We can still live peacefully, with a quiet soul.

Transformation

There are many lesser conditions that are nonetheless extremely transformative, such as the replacement of special relationship with the devotion of holy relationship that we have already spoken of.  (A Course of Love, D:Day7.12)

Here we see that the turning over of special relationships to oblivion does, in fact, constitute a tremendous transformation when the replacement is made by a holy relationship.  We feel contented and safe, something that special relationships could never give us.  We know, in our bones, that this one—this holy relationship—will continue eternally, if not in physical form then in ethereal.  Even if the relationship should end, we would know that it wasn’t a real ending.  In A Course in Miracles, Jesus says that all who meet will meet again.  And we can understand that this is on the Other Side, or, if we believe in reincarnation, then in another life.  This can give us some of that content that we long to have, for we long for permanence in a changing world.  Eternity gives us that permanence.

If we long to be content in this world, what are our options?  We must indeed turn over everything that has disturbed ongoing content.  And special relationships are at the top of the list.  We know this intuitively, though we may still think, with our superficial mind, that specialness gives us something that we want.

It doesn’t.  Specialness only disturbs our peace.  And it is peace that augurs content.

Be glad to transform all relationships to holiness.  We will never regret this action of the will.  When it is done, completed and finished, we will know that we belong to everybody, and that this connection takes nothing from the significant others with whom we share this lifetime.

Miracles Offer Peaceful Love to Us

“Peace is an attribute in you.  You cannot find it outside.  Illness is some form of external searching.  Health is inner peace.  It enables you to remain unshaken by lack of love from without and capable, through your acceptance of miracles, of correcting the conditions proceeding from lack of love in others.”  (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-2.I.5)

We have peace internally, but it is layered over with turmoil, anxieties, and guilty feelings, and thus we cannot access the feeling of peace on a constant basis.  But we have to look within, or we are constantly swayed by the vicissitudes of what we see, what we project onto, a suffering world.  We project turmoil when we are not looking deeply enough within, deep where the peace really is.

When we have raised our vibration sufficiently to find that peace that is within, we will cease searching outside ourselves for solace.  And with this external searching ended, so will the experience of illness fall away.  When we are at peace in our minds and hearts, experiencing inner peace, we will be healthy children of God.

Does it really matter if others don’t love us as we think they ought?  If we have a strong enough sense of God’s peace within, we will not be shaken by the lack of love without.  And we will encounter a lack of love without, for the world does not treat kindly those who are externally seeking for love from it.  This world is not set up to give you peace; only our turning inward can do that for us.  And turning inward does, in fact, create a wellspring of health and well-being that will indeed be a miracle.  A miracle of healing.  Our conflict will be at an end.  We will be home in God.  And what more could we wish for this day, as the evening draws to a close?

We need a remedy from God when we perceive a lack of love in others, love that we think we need, because otherwise we are all alone and lonely beings in a world of chaos.  We must recognize that we cannot depend on the outside world to “be there” for us always.  More often than not, the outside world will not be there for us.  Of course, projection makes perception, and so as we walk farther along the pathway to salvation and Awakening, we will project bad things less often.  Seeing God’s peace, inwardly, is our way to salvation and Awakening.  And then whatever vestiges of unkindness we continue to project will lose their efficacy.  We will indeed live in a new and different dimension, and, miraculously, our sisters and brothers in this world will begin to treat us better.

Seeking Wakefulness

“It is not stamina but wakefulness I call you to.  Think no more of depletion.  This is the old way.”  Mirari

This part of Mirari is building on Mary’s image of “wild dogs,” male and also female, who are threatening to take over the world. We can all recognize much hostility and anger in our world. Things seem to be culminating in a difficult way, a scary way. But the darkest part of the night is right before the dawn–an old concept but, I think, relevant here.

Good people, people of the faith, are realizing that we are at a turning point. An evolutionary leap is ahead in which more and more people are experiencing Awakening. This means a major change in the way we view the world and the way we view ourselves.

We need only to ask for the blessing of Awakening to begin to receive inklings of what is ahead, glimpses of the Divine that are called satori in Eastern religions. If we cling to our faith, these glimpses will elongate, and the day will arrive when we know more of God than at any previous time in our lives.

This is the “wakefulness” that Mary is asking us to embrace. This is the wakefulness that we all, sometimes desperately, need today.

Day of Promise

“Today, here and now, wherever you are, from wherever you came, by whatever you call yourself in human reality, your long awaited day has arrived.  Today the grace of Christification has arrived.  This same infused grace was given to Me and to My divine Son Jesus.  Infused grace has arrived.  This gift of Heaven is given to everyone who reaches this point.  Today it comes to you.  Accept it.  Save it in the silence of your heart.  From that silence, let grace act in her way, in you and through you.”  Choose Only Love bk.3, 9:II

We live in the Now, and so “today” is any Now that we have.  Mary is speaking assertively today, because I think she senses that many of us never let ourselves think we are ready, that we are good enough for Christ-consciousness.  But it isn’t a matter of “goodness,” per se.  It blossoms in us when, paradoxically, we give up the reins of our life and let God have His way with us.  We may not even call Him God, but when we slow down, quieten down, and be at peace, a satori will visit.

A satori is a glimpse of the Divine.  And all of us can expect, can have, this today.  If we believe we can.  That too is a salient point.  Believing in the goodness of the universe does mean that we don’t fret, fume, worry, be anxious.  We are safe, despite the crises that have enveloped us from time to time.  We emerge stronger, sure of the growth that has happened in the crises.

Be very sure today that what Mary is saying is not an idle promise.  Today we can experience God as a Christ-conscious being.  God will decide if we are ready for this to be permanent.

Love’s Transforming Purpose

“When you decide to fully accept the one purpose given to you, in reality, there will be nothing that will block your way.  Every step you take will, literally, take you through obstacles that dissolve as you approach them.”  (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Chapter 18, Page 219)

The one purpose is to walk more closely with our God, to transform into loving individuals who forgive when hurt. God does not even require that all of us hold to the same belief about Him. He is God of the secular as well as the devout. But we can all recognize that our world has gone very awry. Most of us know that a general consensus to care more about each other, to love, would make a great difference, a transformative difference. We know this because our need for love is great, and we often seek for that love with our nearest and dearest.

Transformation, Awakening, Christ-consciousness–these, all meaning the same, are the next evolutionary leap for humankind.

Pray that the day may come soon when we all recognize that there is a better way.

Practice the Presence of God

“A sense of separation from God is the only lack you really need correct.  This sense of separation would never have arisen if you had not distorted your perception of truth, and had thus perceived yourself as lack.  The idea of order of needs arose because, having made this fundamental error, you had already fragmented yourself into levels with different needs.  As you integrate you become one, and your needs become one accordingly.  Unified needs lead to unified action, because this produces a lack of conflict.”  (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-1.VI.2)

Which of us would not want a lack of conflict?  We can realize, as the Workbook says, “There is another way of looking at this.”  There is also a way of thinking of God that will immediately quell conflict.  If we place our minds on the concept of God, Himself, we will know inner peace.  This is not the only way, of course, but this thought process is the most direct.  We quiet the ego by thinking of God, and in the quietude we live above conflict.  We will overlook the conflict.

We are very conflicted beings, very moody and very antagonistic, initially, to listening to what will give us peace.  After all, we have invested a lot in the ego, and the ego says that it will protect us.  This is not true, of course, because the ego and egotistical thought processes only lead to more conflict and turmoil—exactly what we need to move from.  We are not moving away from conflict now, because we all too often think that we are really living when the drama is high.  This is the insidious thing.

We need to practice the Presence of God in our daily lives, from moment to moment (when we remember).  This Presence does not have to be a constant thing for us, and indeed, it cannot be, for our minds are made of short-term attention spans.  Yet, the more we can welcome God’s Presence in our lives, the better our lives will become.

We are living on different levels, fragmented parts of ourselves that know no better.  We do not have to have multiple personalities to recognize that we partake of this phenomenon; this fragmentation is rampant in our culture, for we have forgotten God as our unifying Force.  He will solve the problems that we think we have; He will show us how to rise above the chaos of the world. 

Love’s Embrace

Now you must forget the idea of needing to maintain specialness.  A key aid in helping you to put this temptation behind you is the idea of the holy relationship in which all exist in unity and within the protection of love’s embrace.  (A Course of Love, T3:16.15)

Let us realize that being special, even to ourselves, never gave us anything that we wanted.  A few others may have found us special also, but most everyone else resented the competitiveness that thought that we were superior to them.  This competitiveness has to go.  We are reassured on a daily basis when we cooperate with others, when we recognize that others, and we, are on the same wavelength, that we are equal in the sight of God as His children.

I used to be quite competitive.  I remember telling a friend at work, after lunch one day that we had enjoyed together, what my goals were in work.  They were ambitious.  She responded, “Don’t get too far ahead of us,” meaning the others in the reference unit.

She was right, because she sensed that my ambition would be a divisive factor in our close-knit working group.  And I never did fit in well with that particular group.  I had to go on to another before I found acceptance and peace in my working environment.  And get more steeped in A Course in Miracles.

When we recognize that all of us are held in an embrace of love and unity, as One, we are recognizing what is true.  And this truth will save us.  Our relationships, holy now, will give us solace and keep us safe.  Competitive no longer, we join in a camaraderie borne of cooperation.  We are finally living right, and our comrades in work (and elsewhere) recognize this change in us.  We are one of them, in every sense of the word.  When we acknowledge equality, we are accepted and even loved.

This does not take away from the fact that we may have experienced Christ-consciousness, and not all others in our circle will have done so.  This only means that we have walked a little farther along, not that we are better than another.  It is necessary that we share what we have discovered as soon as our brothers and sisters express interest in knowing what makes us different.  Holy relationship invites sharing.  And we feel better for easing another’s way, even ever so slightly.

Wholly Lovable & Wholly Loving

“You are the work of God, and His work is wholly lovable and wholly loving.  This is how a man must think of himself in his heart, because this is what he is.”  (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-1.III.2)

We often don’t think well of ourselves.  As we get into the Course, and realize how restricted our real lives have been by the ego, we realize that we want something more.  But we don’t love the person that we are; in fact, we often come close to hatred of self, and with that can go hatred of our brothers and of God, even.

What do we do instead?  We must see that God sees a being in us, a creature in us, that we cannot see.  What he sees is wholly lovable, for this true Self never departed from Him in separation and developed traits that seem, even to us, to be undesirable.  This real Self is perfect in and of itself as a Child of God.  We are bade, in this quotation, to think of ourselves as God does, as “wholly lovable and wholly loving. How might we surround our being with love?  We systematically remove from our awareness any vestiges of ego, as soon as these vestiges present themselves to our awareness.  We don’t delay in thinking that we are lovable and loving, even with the ego still risen in our minds, but we know that we are living a dream that has become a nightmare—and we want out.  When we let the ego wither away, we sense that we are right in our hearts, right with God.  And our inner denunciations of self drop away.  We know that even if we cannot see our goodness, God can and God does.  And we believe Jesus’s words in the Course, saying that we are lovable and loving.

We have to trust, and that may not come easily.  We have spent our lifetimes up to now in being skeptical of the world and the individuals we have met in it.  Oh, of course, we have loved sometimes—but even that love has often turned to hatred.  And so we have fallen out of even our own favor, and we imagine that we have fallen out of God’s favor as well.  We have not fallen out of God’s favor, for He sees us as we really are—His perfect Son. 

Now Jesus wants us to see into our hearts, where we do not need the type of proof that our minds demand.  Our heart, if we listen to it, will tell us that Love is our very being, for we are One with God.  And it is this unity that is the basis for our whole new experience of this world.  God is with us; Jesus is with us; the Holy Spirit is with us.