The New Feminism

“You need not call me ‘mother’ unless you so choose.  We are in solidarity, in the new ‘feminism’ as you put it.”  Mirari

This is Mary talking to Mari.  This is an example of a time when Mirari comes down right on “feminism.”  Yes, Mirari is a new manifesto, though it is not a strident manifesto.  Mirari is imbued with the love of the divine, but throughout the book we discover that more and more women in the spirit of Mary herself will take a more leading role.

This does not have to be a threatening idea.  Many men welcome a larger role for women, for I think these men who welcome such a role for women know how much both genders are needed for our world.  All men have had mothers, and most loved their mothers deeply as the first bond in this world.  Remembering that bond, and what it gave to them, can help men realize that there is no reason to be threatened by women’s emergence in the new world.

Let us bond men and women in a lasting, mutual relationship that will solve, oh, so many problems.  The nurturance for which women are well-known will give our world a humanizing quality as women come into their own. 

We need each other.

That is the message that I most take away from reading Mirari.

The New Beginning

The new beginning you are called to now is a new beginning that, like all others that you have offered or attempted, will take place in relationship.  The difference is that this new beginning will take place in holy rather than special relationship.  (A Course of Love, T3:15.9)

We have arrived at a good place now.  We are beginning anew, as we have in the past, but with a difference.  Our new beginning will no longer be housed in special relationships that only promised us the good but did not deliver consistently.  Our new beginning, this time, will come in the warmth of holy relationships.  We have found the elixir, and we will not turn back from its bounty now.

How do we know that we are surrounded by holy relationships?  We are not out for #1 anymore, at least not exclusively.  We love others as we love ourselves, for giving and receiving love is one.  We know that when we reach out, our reach will be met by reciprocation, for holiness invites holiness.  If our reach finds an individual who is as yet only capable of special relationship, we will not be inclined in that direction, because we will know better.  Our reach goes out to holiness, and holiness is returned to us.  There is no better way to live life.

What about rejection?   I have known rejection in my life, but only in relationship that was “special,” in that my ego was attempting to establish a basis for continuing contact that was not the best for either of us.  Of course, I did not know this at the time, and the episode was very painful, frustrating, and humiliating.

Now I know better.  Holy relationship does not hurt.  Its joy is reciprocated, for we know intuitively what relationship to pursue, and which to turn aside.  Our guidance does what it is intended to do:  It guides.  And in the guidance comes a new life of happiness and smooth sailing as well.  We walk a pathway that has no stones that invite tripping ourselves up.  We walk a smooth pathway.

Just as when we pursued special relationships, our new beginnings now are embedded in our relationships.  But what a difference the holy makes!  It is simply all the difference in the world.  We blossom under the tutelage of holy relationships.  And there is never any temptation to return to the special relationship that got away.  This is the advantage in turning to prayer for prompting as to what to do.  Prayer does direct relationships for the good of all involved.

Holiness in relationships allows new beginnings with a flair that we have heretofore not enjoyed.  Our happiness has wings. 

And we know that what God has ordained in relationship, holy relationship, will come to pass.

Prayer – Love – Miracles

“Prayer is the medium of miracles.  It is a means of communication of the created with the Creator.  Through prayer love is received, and through miracles love is expressed.”  (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-1.I.11)

We need prayer more than God needs it from us, though He is said to be lonely when the minds He created do not commune with Him.  Since God is within (All is within), then we are communing with our innermost depths when we pray.  We will not be disappointed.  If we turn to God whenever we feel tangled up or mixed up, we will find solace for our aching souls.

We get this solace because we are feeling love from God, and love is the great resolver of everything that has gone wrong or might go wrong.  This is not a trite expression of faith; it is the way that life is set up.  We may be blessed without communing with God, for He loves us still, but we will not feel so blessed as we will with complete and utter surrender to His way and will.

We ask Jesus what miracles we are to perform, once we have received this all-encompassing love from God Himself.  We don’t just think up good deeds for others, and then seek to do those good deeds.  Even the most altruistic impulse of ours could easily be the wrong thing to do, if we haven’t received guidance about that action.  Ask Jesus, or the Holy Spirit, what we are to do about any impulses for altruistic action that we have.  Is doing something a right thing?  Or would it be better to wait on His guidance?  We will get our answers when we stop long enough to surrender to a Higher Will, and to do the bidding that we receive.  We will not have to wait long; the Holy Spirit can speak to us, and will, when we ask from a tranquil and easy heart.

Why is it this way?  We do not know enough to make decisions on our own.  When we attempt to do so, we are attempting to develop our own judgments about a given issue or person.  And our judgment will be wrong, for we don’t see the whole picture—past, present, and future.  But there is One—the Holy Spirit—Who does see that whole picture.  His judgments are always true.  And He speaks from that loving judgment to all of us who ask for guidance.  We are set on our way through this meandering world by starting the day right by asking.  Always asking.  And we continue to ask as the day unfolds.  This way what we do and say, and even what we think, are miracles of expediency in our journey through life.  We walk surely, for we have a sure Guide.

Whispers from Jesus & Mary

“You can feel Us [Jesus and Mary], you can experience Our sensitive presence in your lives if you wish.  It only requires making enough silence outside and inside to hear and to feel the whisper of Our voice.”  Choose Only Love bk.3, 9:I

So here we have it.  We have divine help available to us.  We just have to get quiet inside and outside.  This quotation from Mary indicates that we can hear their “whispers” to us if we cultivate silence.  The roar of outside noise will stifle our listening, will stifle us.  This we don’t want.

Why ask questions of Jesus and Mary rather than the Holy Spirit or the Christ-Self?  They have known humanity, and their sentiments toward us are very sincere, coming from that knowing.  The Holy Spirit and the Christ-Self are emblematic of God Himself, and listening to guidance from God can never lead us wrong—if we are sure that what we are “hearing” is indeed God.  But it is sometimes reassuring to hear from someone who has been there before us—hence Jesus and Mary.

We need guidance, and there is no end to where it can come from in the cosmos.  We are not left bereft.  We have help.

Knowing this help is available can make all the difference in how we approach a day.

Teach Only Love

“Ultimately, it is not so much about going anywhere, as much as it is about abiding within, realizing that this world is unreal, this world is harmless.  And in any situation, it is you with all power under Heaven and Earth to teach only love.”  (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Chapter 17, Page 215)

The Way of Mastery is echoing A Course in Miracles when Jesus here says to “teach only love.”  That IS what we are about, and until we accept this mission, we will fret and stew and live a life that is below what we could aspire to.

How do we teach only love?  This quotation also has this answer:  We go within.  God is within, and He will teach us what we need to do to live good lives, lives suffused with His blessings, lives that do Him justice.  Going within offers us a nurturance that our relationships cannot offer, at least not all the time and in all ways. 

We have depended on our relationships, especially our special relationships, to take care of us emotionally.  The only way that succeeds all the time is to turn to our Maker, Who supports us with an everlasting support.  When we turn within, we sense love, and when we sense love from God, we are in a position to offer that love to others.  It is necessary first to receive from God, and then to offer, to give.

This is the way that we teach only love. 

God has much to teach us.  Commune with our depths today, and see what today’s message from Him might turn out to be.

Feed No More the Wild Dog

“And so, the hand that feeds the wild dog must do so no more.  Feed the meek.”  Mirari

In Mirari, the “wild dog” is characterized as male more often than not.  But also in Mirari, we know that some women can be wild dogs as well.  The “wild dog” metaphor is an apt description of the subconscious hostility that has engulfed our world.

Here we see that we are to feed the “meek.”  I think this is a harkening back to the New Testament, and Jesus’ words about the meek inheriting the world.  “Meek” never meant “weak,” though in our language we often equate the two.  “Meek” is more akin to “gentle,” and it is a characteristic of those who are shorn of anger and hostility. 

A Course in Miracles indicates that anger is never justified, though it is the expression of anger that we really have to watch.  The meek do not express anger, even if they feel it.  Nowhere is it said in Jesus’ channeled writings that we will get to a place where anger is non-existent.  But we will learn, and then discover, how to transmute our anger into socially acceptable ways.

The “wild dog” metaphor is very arresting.  Our unconscious hostility has taken us to the brink of annihilation.  We need to realize this, and, as Mirari counsels, feed no more the wild dog in us.

Holding Our Breath

Holding on to what you think will meet your needs is like holding your breath.  Your breath cannot long be held.  It is only through the inhaling and exhaling, the give and take of breathing that you live.  Each time you are tempted to think that your needs can only be met in special ways by special relationships, remember this example of holding your breath.  Think in such a way no longer than you can comfortably hold your breath.  Release your breath and release this fear and move from special to holy relationship.  (A Course of Love, T1:9.17)

We have been trying to hold our breath for eons, hoping against hope that what one special relationship did not give us ultimately can be met by yet another.  Our special relationships all fail us eventually.  Love turns to hate, and we know not what we did wrong.  Always we blame the other person for not living up to the unwritten agreement to be there for us anytime, anywhere.  We feel betrayed.

This is a script that has been played out in our various dramas for far too long.  The only true assurance that we can have from another comes when we have let our special relationship to that person blossom into a holy relationship.  Now we know in our bones that this person will never let us down, that love will stay love and not fall into alienation and even hate.  We are holding our breath no longer.  We know that the safety that we long to have in a human being can be counted upon.  We are safe, finally, and we know it to be true.

This is what happens in long-term marriages that stay fresh.  We discover how to mesh our needs and wants with those of another whom we love unconditionally, come what may.  We know that if our marriage should end, the love will not; the love is eternal now, and we have this assurance as we live out our time on earth.  This world can touch this blessing not.  We are living our dream of eternal love, and it is our brother or sister, our partner in life, who makes the living out of our lives truly meaningful.  He or she is our way back to God, a holy relationship that promises all things, and keep those promises.  Our forgiveness even becomes meaningless, for we recognize that there is nothing we need forgive.  The significant other is significant only in that we live in close proximity; we don’t look to the other for outrageous answers.  We live and let live, in the holiness which God intends for us.

All of us have seen this love, but perhaps fleetingly.  We want it for ourselves.  And we can have it when we give up thinking that specialness is our due.  Holiness is our due.  And with our inheritance as favored children of God, all of us are favored in a holiness that does not play favorites.

Blessing in Uncomfortable Situations

“Eventually, the soul that is truly committed to awakening does not flee uncomfortable situations until it believes it has fully extracted all the wisdom that it can. . .In short, when there is just a quiet sense of peace, and you can look upon the players in the experiences you have had with perfect equanimity and see them as perfectly innocent, and you detect that there is nothing in the body that is not at peace—the heart is not racing, the shoulders are not tight—you truly understand that you are not in fear, then it is time to move on.”  (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Chapter 17, Page 213)

If we are in an uncomfortable situation, this passage says that we ought to just stay there—not try to distract ourselves, not try to flee or to escape—for this uncomfortable situation has something to teach us.  Of course, there are exceptions to this rule, if the uncomfortable situation is truly dangerous, we ought to remove ourselves from it.

But if the uncomfortable situation is not dangerous, but merely uncomfortable, we ought to ask “Why?”  Why do we feel uncomfortable, perhaps anxious, perhaps fearful?  Be very honest with ourselves about this.

If we can extract the kernel of truth in what is transpiring before us, we will have made great strides toward awakening.  And awakening is where we all want to head.  Reread the last part of the quotation, and see when we have indeed extracted all the good from the uncomfortable situation that we can.  We are no longer blaming anyone, but seeing innocence in their words or actions.  They too are doing the best that they can.

When we have let the fear of the uncomfortable situation go, then we have done all we can to make another giant step toward awakening.  Our heart is not racing, our shoulders are not tight.  And we are at peace.

This is evidence that one more difficult spot in our subconscious has been healed.

Prayer

“Prayer is the medium of miracles.  It is a means of communication of the created with the Creator.  Through prayer love is received, and through miracles love is expressed.”  (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-1.I.11)

We need prayer more than God needs it from us, though He is said to be lonely when the minds He created do not commune with Him.  Since God is within (All is within), then we are communing with our innermost depths when we pray.  We will not be disappointed.  If we turn to God whenever we feel tangled up or mixed up, we will find solace for our aching souls.

We get this solace because we are feeling love from God, and love is the great resolver of everything that has gone wrong or might go wrong.  This is not a trite expression of faith; it is the way that life is set up.  We may be blessed without communing with God, for He loves us still, but we will not feel so blessed as we will with complete and utter surrender to His way and will.

We ask Jesus what miracles we are to perform, once we have received this all-encompassing love from God Himself.  We don’t just think up good deeds for others, and then seek to do those good deeds.  Even the most altruistic impulse of ours could easily be the wrong thing to do, if we haven’t received guidance about that action.  Ask Jesus, or the Holy Spirit, what we are to do about any impulses for altruistic action that we have.  Is doing something a right thing?  Or would it be better to wait on His guidance?  We will get our answers when we stop long enough to surrender to a Higher Will, and to do the bidding that we receive.  We will not have to wait long; the Holy Spirit can speak to us, and will, when we ask from a tranquil and easy heart.

Why is it this way?  We do not know enough to make decisions on our own.  When we attempt to do so, we are attempting to develop our own judgments about a given issue or person.  And our judgment will be wrong, for we don’t see the whole picture—past, present, and future.  But there is One—the Holy Spirit—Who does see that whole picture.  His judgments are always true.  And He speaks from that loving judgment to all of us who ask for guidance.  We are set on our way through this meandering world by starting the day right by asking.  Always asking.  And we continue to ask as the day unfolds.  This way what we do and say, and even what we think, are miracles of expediency in our journey through life.  We walk surely, for we have a sure Guide.

Are We Really “Christ”?

“You are Christ.  Your life in physical human reality is the same one I traveled, although I was first conscious of my unity with God.  Does that matter?”  Choose Only Love bk.3, 8:III

We will at first resist this assertion by Jesus.  We will want to leave the “Christ” concept to him alone.  But in recent channeled writings, the term “Christ” is a plural word that includes all of us who have followed in the way back to God.  .When we are conscious of our unity with God, we have done all that we need to do to appropriate the word “Christ” to ourselves.  We don’t even have to have yet Awakened.

Jesus makes it easy for us.  He says here that he was first conscious of his unity with God, but “Does that matter?”  I think the flow of the sentences in this passage means, “Does it matter that Jesus was first in experiencing the fact of being Christ?”   Elsewhere Jesus asserts that we will do what he has done, though that does not include a crucifixion.  Jesus has paved the way for us.  He was the initial pioneer.  Now we need simply to follow in his footsteps, and our lives will smooth out, and we will eagerly embrace the concept that we too can say we are “Christ.”

Journey No Longer

How much time will be saved by an end to empty seeking?  You have already arrived and need no time to journey any longer.  How much time will be saved by an end to the maintenance required by special relationships?  When all relationships are holy, you have no need to maintain specialness.  (A Course of Love, T1:8.7)

Most of us have been seekers for a long time, maybe a long, long time.  Maybe all our lives, more or less.

This search can end now, when we are on the cusp of developing our special relationships into holy ones.  We won’t have to work so hard to maintain our holy relationships.  Our loved ones will just know that they are loved unconditionally.  And, especially, what we have been seeking in special relationships will fall away.

Our seeking has worn us out.  We went from our early religious training, probably to unbelief, and then returned to the fold of spirituality.  But still we sought for yet another piece of information that would be the end that would make us happy.  But nothing can make us happy, can create happiness for us, except ourselves.  We won’t find it in a book.

I sought happiness in special relationships as well as in books.  So my seeking in relationships and books was twofold, as is true for most of us.  It is very reassuring that we have done enough now.  We know enough.  A Course of Love has finished it off for us.  It is simply up to our Christ-Self, from deep within our being, to teach us more.

So now we are hearing that there needs to be an end to seeking.  Jesus, in channeling A Course of Love, declares its information to be an end point.  We have arrived!  He even says that we are The Accomplished.  While we have trouble believing that, we know that we have a peace inside that has eluded us up to this point.  This peace will elude us no more.  We will linger in contentment, sure that we are in the right place, and, now, in the right time.

Our holy relationships will save us; that is why we need seek no more.  Relationship was primary in A Course in Miracles also.  Our relationship to our brother (and sister) would take us home.  Now Jesus is emphasizing this truth yet again in ACOL.  If we love others enough, we will have won the prize, the Holy Grail, of salvation. 

And we will know not only peace, but happiness, as well.

Miracles

“There is no order of difficulty in miracles.  One is not ‘harder’ or ‘bigger’ than another.  They are all the same.  All expressions of love are maximal.”  (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-1.I.1)

The first sentence in this quotation is of paramount importance to understanding A Course in Miracles.  Jesus, the one who channeled ACIM, knows that there is no order of difficulty in miracles.  We don’t, for we think that we can point to many things in our world that would be hard to change.  We need to open our minds ever so slightly, and consider that we are wrong.  Miracles light our way, will light our way.  As an expression of love, miracles transform us and our world.

What does it mean to be an “expression of love”?  Jesus expresses his love for all of us by checking on the miracle-readiness of all of our brothers, and sending those of us whom he selects to effect the miracles that he and he alone points out.  We do not select certain circumstances to effect miracles.  We don’t effect miracles at all, in fact, for miracles are of God and the Holy Spirit, and, on a more practical level, of Jesus.

Jesus is in charge of the Sonship.  And, as such, he dictates to us what our part in salvation really is.  We don’t have to guess about these matters.  When we open our minds to possibilities, the way to effect salvation—through miracles—will develop as well.  We need fear nothing.  We can’t but be in the right place at the right time.

So let us think a bit on miracles, and the miraculous nature of a deed that is done without range of difficulty.  Can we open our minds to this possibility?  Wouldn’t it be a wondrous truth—IF there were no range of difficulty in miracles.

Let us take Jesus at his word.  Ask him today if you are ready to effect any miracles, under his guidance, for your brother.  He will answer, for he holds our hand as we walk along the pathway toward home.

Love Will Offer Fulfillment

“This is why once I said:

“If you do not bring forth what is within you, what is within you will destroy you.  If you bring forth what is within you, what is within you will save you.

‘If you do not bring forth what is within you—and what is within you is Love, is Christ—you will feel burdened and unfulfilled.  Usually, most human beings go through their entire life with a sense of unfulfillment, lamenting what the world has done to them, lamenting the decisions and choices they have made in the past.  They become burdened by what is on the outside, along with what is in the past.  An eventually the body dies, the Spirit withers on the vine.”  (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Chapter 17, Page 212)

This is Jesus speaking in Jayem, who channels live. Jesus is quoting the Gospel of Thomas.

I think we don’t really understand how love, and only love, can cure all our problems. As our attitudes change, we walk a green earth. When we meditate, often love comes to the forefront; we make alpha waves, and we sense love more than most times.

If we are feeling unfulfilled, I know of no better way to experience the love that we want and need than to find a quiet corner and become “perfectly calm and quiet” (as A Course in Miracles encourages us to do).

Without a good dose of love–given and received–our lives play out with unfulfilled longings and grieving about lost love. We may not always get love from the one person we want it from the most. But the world is filled with people who can supply this essential need. And the feeling of love is essential to our well-being.

Even pets, companion animals, can supply the need to a degree–and often a great degree.

When we find a quiet corner, something that elicits calm and quiet in ourselves, we will sense God. And when we sense God, we will know that there is a Force Who loves us. He first loved us, and the experience of being loved then allows us to give love. He had to first love us, or we would have no basis for experiencing the giving of love. And the giving often prompts others to give back, though we don’t want to make this a quid pro quo.

Banish the sense of unfulfillment today by opening to the true and real experience of nothing more important to our lives than simple love.

Future Waiting to Be Birthed

“You ask of meaning, but this is not about meaning in the way you look at it.  You seek a description of a new way, a new time, as if it is a future that is already written.  It is a future waiting to be birthed.”  Mirari

Here Mary is speaking, internally, to Mari Perron.  Mari has asked about the meaning of what is transpiring, but Mary lets her know that the future is yet to be written—and it is to be written by us.  In Mirari, we learn that women are meant to take more of a leadership role.  Women have often taken a back seat to men, but this is not the wave of the future. 

Much that A Course of Love said about “being,” the way of Mary, is coming into play here.  Our men have often championed “doing,” and indeed Jesus himself did also.  But our new way in our newly created world will be a way of relationships in that world, and for this change, being is simply more appropriate.

We also heard a great deal in  A Course of Love about a new world, just waiting to be created by us.  We are coming into this new world now, though the birth pangs are severe, and we are experiencing much turmoil as we live through these times.

But there is hope in what Mary says in Mirari.  It is darkest before the dawn, and just on the other side of turmoil is peace.

Let us do what we can to hasten that peace.

IDLE THOUGHTS

Published in Miracles magazine (Jon Mundy, publisher).

by Celia Hales

There is no more self-contradictory concept than that of “idle thoughts.”  What gives rise to the perception of a whole world can hardly be called idle.  (ACIM, W-16.2:1-2)

You are much too tolerant of mind wandering, thus tacitly condoning your mind’s miscreations.  (ACIM, T-2.IX.5:6)

You who have so filled your mind with senseless wanderings and thoughts that think of nothing that is real, rejoice that there is a way to end this chaos.  (ACOL, C:5.2)

It is a decision to choose to discipline the mind in each moment, to teach only Love, to hold only loving thoughts, and to recognize that there is no such thing as an idle thought, since each thought or perception held in the mind immediately generates your experience.  (WOM, Lesson 20, Page 239)

            When we let our “monkey mind” (as they say) rule us, we are lost indeed.  We recognize that what we focus upon tends to materialize.  And when we lapse into idle thoughts, Jesus is telling us that we are veering off track in a major way.

            I often say Jesus’ words almost as a mantra when my busy mind won’t slow down, “You are much too tolerant of mind wandering.”  I say this when I am trying to go to sleep, and just can’t quite drift off.  But the actual damage begins during daylight hours, when we focus on things that are substandard and not worthy of us.  These substandard things come to pass because even social scientists know that a self-fulfilling prophecy is at work here.

            We might best remedy this situation by a deliberate attempt to bring mindfulness into our daily round.  In my estimation, mindfulness means deliberate action, not necessarily slow, but definitely not rushed.  I find mindfulness most often in the kitchen.  (We all have our favorite places, and cooking is a hobby of mine.)  Actually, mindfulness is necessary in every situation.  It is easier than meditation, for in mindfulness we can give our minds something to hold on to, the actions that we are undertaking.  Meditation, at least traditionally, is particularly hard to practice if we are frenetic Westerners.

            But meditation has its place, and stilling the mind, letting the heart speak, is healing.  We certainly aren’t letting idle thoughts rule us when we are meditating. 

            Listen to Jesus’ words, said in all of his best-known channeled works.

            Let him speak to us, and our mind will slow down enough so that we listen with our heart.  Idle thoughts will diminish, peace will reign.

Joy Calls

The universe exists in reciprocal relationship or holy relationship, rather than special relationship.  This is the nature of existence, as unity is the nature of existence and cannot be changed and has not changed, although you believe it not.  It is a joyful relationship, as the nature of relationship is joy.  Once you have given up your belief in separation this will be known to you.  (A Course of Love, C:29.17)

Once we give up our belief that we could actually separate from God, and have done so, much good will result.  We will know that holy relationship is the nature of the universe(s), and we will realize that holy relationship does not take anything away from our nearest and dearest.  Holy relationship will expand our love to meet the whole world.  We will not know the separatism that has characterized our various special relationships, relationships that have often ended badly.

My friend Carol knew what it is like to suffer special relationship, and “suffer” is the salient word here.  As mentioned, she once fell very hard into a love that was strong on ego, though she did not realize it at the time.  If the special love had ever been transformed into holy, then her sense of desolation at the end of the “relationship” would have saved her from needless regret. 

There was something eminently good about the love that Carol felt.  It was not a love that would be easily surpassed.  That was the clue that something else was going on here.  She was being led, ever so gently and before A Course in Miracles was published, to give up her interest in being special (and having someone else be special as well).  In retrospect, holiness is the transforming key to relationship that goes sour.  And there doesn’t have to be any continuing contact with the other at all to effect a holy relationship.  Relationship that is holy is thus seen to be mystical.

We are meant to enjoy joyousness is our relationships.  Special love invites the highs and lows of drama, and egoic drama at that.  A holy relationship is one that has been dedicated to the Almighty, a Source beyond just our little personality.  And this dedication to Something bigger than ourselves is what makes all the difference.

When we feel united with all other people, our brothers and sisters, we know a peace that is not of this world.  We are meant to live in unity, and of course, we can see that seeing one small part as more special that another would make this joyous unity impossible. Ask to see with a greater vision today.  Ask to comprehend as never before what a special love transformed into a holy one can really mean.  There is no comparison, but until each of us has seen the difference for ourselves, we will remain skeptical that we aren’t losing something in the transformation.

Nothing Real Can Be Threatened. Nothing Unreal Exists

“This course can therefore be summed up very simply in this way:

     Nothing real can be threatened.

     Nothing unreal exists.

Herein lies the peace of God.”  (A Course in Miracles, T-in.2)

What is real?  Do we have any idea?  What is unreal?  Do we know that either?

At the start of A Course in Miracles, we know neither, for we cannot tell the real from the unreal.  And a firm definition would not be helpful in the beginning.  It is enough to know, right now, that we want the real and we do not want the unreal.  Glimpses of which is which will emerge as we read the Text, and, especially, as we do the Workbook lessons.

We can say a few things at the outset, though.  The real is what is of God, and we know immediately that the intangibles of love, harmony, peace, joy, are real.  These cannot be threatened by anything other than an insane mind, and the insane mind can really do nothing, ultimately.  The insane mind is run by the ego, which is a part of ourselves that we have made in an attempt to be separate from God.  An attempt that could never succeed, but which we have thought could succeed.  Yet the ego is the first concept that we can understand is unreal, and therefore does not really exist.

A Course in Miracles is written on several levels, none of which conflict with each other.  On the ideal level, we know that what the above quotation tells us is true.  On the more practical level (which most of ACIM embodies), we are not so sure.

We would invite into our lives today all that is real, eliminating, with the Holy Spirit as our Guide, those aspects of our made-up world that are unreal.  We want the peace of God, and we cannot have inner peace when we are anguishing over the ego’s machinations.  So let us think today of what we know will bring us peace, and let us concentrate only on that, for that only is real and therefore cannot be threatened.

Prayer

“True prayer consists of living in the truth.  Every time you connect with the truth of who you are, you are praying, for prayer is love, and love is union.”  Choose Only Love bk.3, 8:III

Here we see, from Jesus, several words that actually mean the same.  These words are prayer, truth, love, and union.  And when we are engaged in any of these ultimate values, we are being who we are.

No longer do we have to feel guilty that we don’t pray enough.  When we seek to tell the truth just always, not only when it is convenient to ourselves, we (Jesus says) are praying.  And then we are living in love, and we are living in love with All that exists.  That All includes Jesus, of course, and it also includes our Creator.  When we sense love from Him, we are set for a good day.

Union is where we are all headed, though this does not necessarily mean an absorption into the Deity.  We are One, and this is the real meaning of union.  We have relationship with diverse entities, but together we are united in God.

When we live in love, truth, union, we are praying.  And our prayer life will then transform everything else.

Traveling the Path of the Living Christ

“I traveled the path of the living Christ because that is what I am.  It is exactly the same path you travel.  Yours may not include portentous miracles.  You may not be famous.  You may not transform water into wine for humanity to begin to see a power not of this world.  You may not heal the sick, externally speaking.  None of that matters.  None of that is essential.”  Choose Only Love bk.3, 8:III

I think Jesus is here giving us a context for believing that we can one day be equals of him.  Of course, those of us of faith don’t usually think in these terms.  Yet Jesus says things like this repeatedly in various received (channeled) works from the recent past.  We don’t have to perform the miracles that he did, though elsewhere he says that we will actually do more than he—certainly a startling assertion.

Jesus wants companions, not subservient individuals who idolize him.  He can be an ideal for us, of course, but that is not the same thing as idolatry.  He has pointed out the way, 2000 years ago, and he continues to be available to us in a mystical fashion that our finite minds and hearts cannot fathom.  Many of us believe that he indeed did channel A Course in Miracles, A Course of Love, and The Way of Mastery.  Now in Choose Only Love there are numerous portions coming from him as well.

Jesus doesn’t want us to assert things that we don’t quite believe.  Even if we doubt the practice of channeling or receiving from a discarnate being, we still can read the words and be inspired.  Much of what we read has a basis in traditional Christianity.  This provides continuity from Jesus that is tremendously reassuring.

Ask today how we might emulate Jesus.  Ask what our contribution might best be.  Set up a dialogue in a journal, with questions and answers, and see if there doesn’t seem to be a way out there for all of us to experience directly.  Ask to know what our mission is.

We will not be disappointed in what we “hear.”

Hope for Transformation in This Decade

“We are close now, close to a time in which a new choice can make true living available here and now.  This is the decade in which transformation proceeds, and the time in which the mother’s heart enters to show the way to care of the living, and the end of what does not need to be.  This is time of Mirari:  The Way of the Marys.”  Mirari

The “mother’s heart” is Mary herself, but she extends this to all mothers everywhere.  “The Way of the Marys” is the way of women everywhere.  And this decade Marys will be coming into their own.

One cannot adopt the name Mary without being overcome with love for all beings, all creations of God, all people everywhere.  But when we do adopt this name for our own, we are proceeding into a transformation that will affect all life.

The patriarchal society will be influenced more and more by women, and if women choose love, that change will be a good thing.  Women have historically cared for the living, especially their own children.  But now the female aspect of God is moving to a new level of Being, and the female in our societies will be asked to take a more leading role.

If women succeed, we will have greater harmony throughout the world.  Women have historically been close to intuition, and intuition is of the heart.  It is the way that we hear from God—all of us, men and women.

THIS decade is when all this New will be born, for Mirari was received just in the last few years.  We are fortunate indeed to live in a time of hope, when so much around us seems to be crumbling. 

The old is making way for the New, first announced in A Course of Love.

Discovering Love

“This is a course in miracles.  It is a required course.  Only the time you take it is voluntary.  Free will does not mean that you can establish the curriculum.  It means only that you can elect what you want to take at a given time.  The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught.  It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence, which is your natural inheritance.  The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite.”  (A Course in Miracles, T-in.1)

The emphasis here is on “miracles.”  And the fact that what we are taking in A Course in Miracles is a required course.  Is it required for everyone in the world, eventually?  That is an open question, for Jesus does not take a stand on reincarnation.  And Jesus has also said that there are other teachers in this world, teachers other than him.  But we have chosen that he be our teacher, because his words come to us in a manner that we can recognize and love.

We are trying to dislodge the ego; that is “removing the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence.”  We give up struggle in this task.  Jesus and the Holy Spirit will show us the way effortlessly, step by step.  If we take one situation today and choose once again that we respond in a wholehearted manner, bereft of ego, we will have done well.  Just for today, seek to choose by altruistic means, not egoic.  And your time will be well spent.

Love actually has no opposite of fear, for fear is nothing—a manifestation of illusion, of dreams.  We live in dreams until we choose once again.  Sooner rather than later the Holy Spirit will replace our fearful dreams with happy dreams.  And then the way is smoothed to lead us, ultimately, to Awakening.  If the way seems long, we are encouraged not to fret, that the end is certain.  We have chosen God’s way, and the Holy Spirit is a guide Who cannot fail.  Revelation may occasionally reveal the end to us, but to get there the means are needed, and the means are being revealed in this course.

God would not withhold the rest, when what we ask—Awakening—is His Will for us.  In the meantime, we need just to be patient.  The way is being shown.  Let no fearful thought of the ego hinder your way.

Release at Last

While one special relationship continues, all special relationships continue because they are given validity.  The holy relationship of unity depends on the release of the beliefs that foster special relationships.  (A Course of Love, C:25.11)

We don’t need special relationships, “special” in the sense that they are egoic and different from all other relationships out there in the world. 

Of course, we don’t believe this.  We think that there is nothing wrong with seeing our significant others, our family and friends, as “special.”  But what are we really saying here?  We are setting them apart as being more “worthy” of our love than other people.  Is this not judgment?  And haven’t we been warned not to judge?  Judging keeps us from Christ-consciousness.  Moreover, judging makes us unhappy, for when we point a finger at another, three fingers are pointed back at us.  We damn ourselves when we judge another.

I was once rather judgmental, and I projected these ideas onto Jesus, seeing him as a figure of judgment.  Indeed, traditional Christian theology invites this interpretation.  When I visited the Baptistry in Florence, Italy, where a large mosaic of Jesus looms far ahead on the high ceiling, I saw judgment in Jesus’ eyes.  Or thought I did.  After years of studying A Course in Miracles, though, my judgments had softened, and when I looked overhead on another visit, I saw a blank slate in Jesus’ eyes, ready and willing for me to write my projection there.

There was no judgment in the second visit.  And so there was no “specialness,” even in regarding Jesus.  And this was a giant leap forward.

We are seeking to be united with all of our brothers and sisters on our earth.  We want unity with them, and we can’t have that if we divide others up into separate little parcels.  We can’t fully appreciate all others if we are judging them as less worthy of our love than our nearest and dearest.

Of course, our nearest and dearest have taught us how to love.  And now we extend (not project) this love on everyone.

We don’t make distinctions between worthiness and lack of worthiness.  We know that all are equal in the sight of God, and that all ought to be equal in our sight as well.  Our beloveds will not lose anything.  We will be so love-conscious that they will see a new persona in us.  They will know a love from us that has been heretofore veiled.

Specialness is a limited love.  Holy love knows no limitedness, knows only inclusion.

Unveiling the Inner Self

“The Self That God created needs nothing.  It is forever complete, safe, loved and loving.  It seeks to share rather than to get; to extend rather than project.  It has no needs and wants to join with others out of their mutual awareness of abundance.”  (Preface, A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., “What It Says,” 7^th paragraph)

The Self is the inner essence, the part of our Being that recognizes oneness with God.  It is the Christ Who is within.  We do not have to feel that to think like this is arrogance; instead, it is supreme good sense.  The Self is “complete, safe, loved and loving.”  What more could we want?

We need to realize that sharing and extending are functions of the Son of God, our real Self.  The little self who is dominated by the ego is really nothing, a travesty of reality.  We ought to avoid “getting” and “projecting.”  And when we share and extend, by definition we are deemphasizing the ego in our experience.  The ego gives only to get; it seeks to aggrandize self at the expense, sometimes, of others.  Even when we seek to aggrandize ourselves with no expense to others, we are still thinking amiss.  And it is this wrongful thinking that is nailing us to our little crosses.

We do have abundance.  Abundance is our inheritance.  And as soon as we have taken steps to avoid egotistical leanings, just choosing to stop such thinking in its tracks, we will be taking the first step toward unveiling the inner Self.  When we have taken this first step, God moves to supply the rest forthwith.  He only waits on our invitation, and that invitation can come as soon as we recognize what we really need is Him.

Join in Love

“Beloved friends, peace be unto you always, and always I am with you.  I come to you not alone, but with many who have delighted in creating a resonance with me, and I with them, for no other reason than that power expands exponentially when  minds join in love from a foundation of wholeness and not neediness.”  (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Chapter 13, Page 168)

Jesus comes to us in The Way of Mastery by way of Jayem, who channeled “live,” and these three books of The Way of Mastery are the result.  Often in these books, Jesus stresses that he comes with others who join forces to help us all.  He calls his particular group, a very large group, simply “the lineage.”   Their work has been going on for a long, long time; their work is what led up to Jesus’ life 2000 years ago.

When we join with others, our power too is expanded, as Jesus says, “exponentially,” when we are joined in love.  We don’t join with others strictly out of our need, for we will soon come to know that we are whole beings residing in God.  We don’t have to look to others out of this neediness.  We join others because we come to love them.

Right after this passage, Jesus asserts that he and Mary, who are bonded together, do not join because they “need” each other.  He and Mary are joined in love and the result of a common purpose—to save us.  And we might also realize that there are many of us on earth who share that common purpose—though being finite and in physical bodies, we don’t know all that will be known in the cosmic realm.

Join with others of like mind (and heart—as A Course of Love says), if there is love as the overarching feeling.  When we let love lead the way, our ratio of mistakes to truth changes drastically.  We let go of many of our old ways, and walk into a new world being created even as we speak.

True Communication

Note: With this post, I am returning to a consideration of Choose Only Love, Bk. 3. On future days, I will consider passages from all received writings covered in this blog, weaving them into synthesis.

“True communication occurs from heart to heart, from self to self.  Only in the truth can there be true communication.”  Choose Only Love bk.3, 7:III

We all want intimacy in our lives, and I think this quotation from Choose Only Love implies how we might have it: heart to heart brings “true communication” and the truth brings “true communication.” To allow the truth of our heart to prevail, though, we must not be afraid of showing our true self. And often we hesitate to do this, because we think if people knew the real person who we are, they might not accept us.

This fear that we might not be accepted for who we are comes from what A Course in Miracles calls a “shabby self-perception.” A Course of Love highlights the importance of letting the heart inform the mind, and when we follow this advice, we are leading with the innocence that is within. When we speak the truth, we will reassure ourselves also that we are innocent.

We are not “bad,” though all of us have done bad things. A moment spent in reflection will assure us that God still loves us, and we are entirely acceptable in His sight. Let’s give our friends and family the same leeway, believing that we are entirely acceptable in their sight as well.

With this done, true communication is assured. And with it, intimacy.

Heart of Our Humanity

The heart of your humanity is your greatest asset, not your downfall. Mirari

We grew up hearing about our sinful flesh, how it betrays us and keeps us from accepting God and doing His will.  But the “heart” of our humanity is an asset in this world.  When we listen to our heart, which is the same as listening to intuition, we seldom make mistakes about what we are “hearing.”   And our heart is part of our humanity, part of our form, our flesh.

Of, we can let our own desires overrule what we are hearing from our depths.  But we can’t fool ourselves for long, and that is the blessing.  We know when we are off course, and then if we acknowledge the mistake we are making, and trust ourselves to forgive ourselves for the lapse, we are well on the way back to God’s bosom.

Know that living in this world with our form is an asset, but only when we listen to the heart of our humanity.  This turn of phrase, “heart of your humanity,” is new in received writings.  We can emphasize “heart” or “humanity,” but I think the best way to read the phrase is to give equal weight to both words.

Remember that what we see as basic to our humanity is actually the great asset which Mary is pointing out.  We don’t need to downgrade our humanity, our physical forms.  They will be transformed in the New, and we will live with Spirit fully present as well.

I think one reason that Jesus and Mary have channeled these new writings of A Course of Love and Mirari is that too many of us just wanted to get this earthly life over with after we had read and assimilated A Course in Miracles.  Jesus’ downplaying of the physical in ACIM was counterproductive, and I think he came to realize that.  Who would want to save the world if we all want to just leave it?

Jesus and Mary need us here.  We have work to do.  Let’s let the “heart of humanity” inform our choices of what to do and what to say.

Live the Life that You Love

What you love enough to give your life to, is what will give life.  Mirari

Our life is what we make it.  How often we have heard those words!  And when we choose out of love what our daily activities will be, we choose aright.  Then we truly have a life that is worth living.

What we have settled upon as our purpose, choosing out of love, will manifest the life that we most want and the life that we most need.  Matters like this ought not to be chosen in a hurried manner.

Others’ choices are not for us.  What we devote our time to should be our decision, and only our decision.

When we live like this, we come to know what “life” is all about.  Life in this sense is the enlivenment of the daily round, the aliveness with which we live. 

Choose carefully, in prayer, and life will bless us abundantly.

Gentle Mary

The words of the feminine are literally heard in a different way. Mirari

I think the reason that the words of the feminine are heard differently is because we remember our mothers, the first evidence of love we ever encountered.  A mother nurtures in a soft way, a way that invites reciprocation.  There is a special mother-child bond that is unlike anything else we will encounter in our lifetimes.

If this bond is not well-formed or is broken, we have scars.  This is how important maternal love really is.

Women speak differently from men, regardless of how hard a man might try to be nurturing.

This is the advantage that women have in this new era.  Women’s voices are ready to be heard now.  Mirari tells us this.  We are ready to BE more often than DO, for the way of Mary is to “be.”  May we ask in the privacy of our thoughts what this means for our world, and respond as we come to understand.

A Natural Way

You may even begin to envision the feminine as the acceptance of all that is natural, and a rejection of all that is unnatural. It is very akin to “accept the new, deny the old,” but the tone of it is different . . . literally.  Mirari

Mari Perron’s experience is that it is Mary of Nazareth who is speaking to her in Mirari.  Mary’s emphasis on the feminine is easily explained, because she is coming from being a woman.  The word about “natural” suggests to me that the female is more likely to be close to nature in her assessments.  After all, it is she who births the next generation.  And that is about as close to nature as one can get.

The tone of the feminine IS different—warmer, more all-embracing, sometimes more loving even.  Our small bit of testosterone is not enough to provoke aggression, at least not usually.

Turning to the feminine in experiencing God is a radical idea.  But we all know intuitively that He/She is both genders.   Our patriarchal society has limited our viewpoint.

Ask what the feminine in God can lead us to discover.  After all, ask to see God’s loving, present in our world in a new way.

Coming of the New

You are ripe now, and the world is ripe for the coming of The New and its abundance.  Mirari

We are looking at new days.  The conflicts that we see in our world are the final throes of conflict, and our way will smooth in due course.  We have sustained discord as long as we can; we need something better now.

Our “New” is the herald of a new world and a new age.  We will be creating a new world, a world that listens to God.  Oh, we may not call Him “God,” but our emotions will ease and we will recognize a Force for good that has been silenced by our own rebellion against that good.  A Course of Love announced this new age, and now Mirari—received by the same writer—is carrying forth the same message.  Let us be glad that there we are getting a heralding of better times ahead.

What does it mean to be “ripe”?  We are ripe for change, and change for the better.  We are ready for it.  Our trials have let us know that we can’t go on the way we have been going for untold ages.  When enough of us have experienced Awakening—that enlightenment for which we all long—the tipping point will have been reached.

And that time fast approaches.

Devotion

Let us look at the real act that makes manifest: devotion. Heart and soul working together to fulfill destiny. “Knowing” where you are meant to be and what you are meant to be doing. Mirari.

Not all of us are ready for such certainty as Mary expresses in this quotation.  We may not yet understand where we are meant to be or what we are meant to be doing—much less “know” it with any certainty.

But Mary does not leave us hanging.  She tells us the secret to “knowing”—and it is devotion.  Listening to our heart and soul.  Listening to God in the silence that speaks to us.  We are never left bereft.  God beckons, “Come to Me,” and then He opens the floodgates of love that transform us.

We all have a destiny to fulfill.  Or we may have several different purposes over our lifetimes.  Purpose is everything.

Ask for our destiny today.  God does not keep secrets from us.  We will know all we need to know when His time to reveal arrives.  And for this time to be now, we only need devotion—and to ask Him for a knowing.

Tenderness

Do not seek for stoppage or for a lessening of the flow that is life, no matter how tender it causes you to become. Exalt your tenderness. Do not let tenderness stop you from the way opening before you now. Let it take the lead. – Mirari.

When we feel especially tender, we are open to new ways of being.  We feel deeply, and we discover much from that deeper feeling being experienced.  The time of tenderness, as explained in A Course of Love, is a time of reflection, a time when tears flow easily and freely.  We come to know ourselves in a new way.

Here, Mirari tells us to let tenderness take the lead.  We are softened in tenderness, and our reactions to others and to the world around us will seem especially keen.  Our strident ways will be eliminated, and we will walk into the sunlight as the meek who are to inherit the world.

Living Extraordinary Lives

This is to be a quiet movement at the borderline. A movement that gently normalizes the extraordinary as ordinary, as natural, and as a return of the feminine.  Mirari

Mary here seems to say that we can live extraordinary lives as naturally as the sun rises every day.  A Course of Love says something very similar about “extraordinary” lives, that when ordinary people are seen to be living in an extraordinary way that others will be encouraged to do likewise.

Mary goes farther, though, to say that extraordinary can become the norm.  We are allowing the feminine to rise in importance in our world, and it is the mother/wife/sister/daughter in cooperation with men, too, who will accomplish much in this new world.  It is natural to women to be nurturing, and now we can see that women are going to nourish things that have been out of reach before.

Ask what we—both women and men—can say and do today that will make a lasting difference in our world.  We need meaningful change, reconciliation with our brothers and sisters, loving attitudes to inform all our ways.

Be among the pioneers.  There is room for all.

Wonder

“Here, in our time of bringing the miracle to mystery, we come as the feminine, bearing the way of Mirari—the way of wonder.”  Mirari

“Mirari” means “wonder,” and in this newly received book from Mary of Nazareth, Mari Perron talk intimately with her and shares Mary’s revelations.  We are entering a time when the feminine face of God will be more evident.  His two faces, the masculine and the feminine, will join together to assist us in creating a new world.

We often want to explain away every miracle.  This is just not possible, and it is to our benefit that it is not.  Wonder is a legitimate way to interact with the world.  Keeping the mystery alive is good for the soul.

When we are skeptics, we don’t see miracles.  They are just not there for us.  But when we open the mind and heart, our understanding deepens, and we don’t cast aspersions on what we are viewing that we don’t understand.

Let us open our mind and heart today to let God speak to us in mystery.  Let Him have His way with us.  Even seek to let Mary talk to us.

Healing

“Grieve your dark days only to awaken from them with greater depths of compassion, with greater awareness of love’s many expressions, and let them rise from you, and with you, into time free of the concreteness of the past.”  Mirari

We all need to let the past go as we walk through life’s onward passages.  But all too often we don’t do this; we cling to what has been the past, often clinging even to what pained us the most.

Yet when we walk farther along, living in love, we find that we can relinquish the past.  Our love has healed us.  And we are happy.

Let the past go.  We will hold in our subconscious the teachings of the past that have healed.  But let the healing of the present proceed unencumbered by our past pain.

TO MANIFEST LIKE UNTO THE STRENGTH OF GENTLE MARY

 An Appreciation of Mirari: The Way of the Marys

Mirari, Received by Mari Perron

Review by Celia Hales

Previously published in Miracles magazine (Jon Mundy, publisher).

            In Mirari, Mary of Nazareth, Mother of Jesus, returns to one of God’s faithful to herald the feminine face of God.  Mari Perron announces in a dialogue with Mary a new beginning in which newly empowered feminine voices join with enlightened masculine voices to transform what we experience as “life.”  This new life is brought about solely by the power of love in the hand of the one who rocks the cradle. 

            For too long women have been seen as victims in a world dominated by men.  This is due to change, as the meek inherit the earth.  Women are naturally seen more easily as the “meek,” for their role in the background and also their genes have given them a gentleness that men have not often manifested in their own makeup.  So women now step forward to take their part in the world as the second coming of Christ is heralded.  Jesus in A Course of Love first announced the comprehensive change; he said that the “way of Mary” was gradually coming into focus. He contrasted his own contribution, one of doing, saying that there would be a period of overlap now, but eventually all will walk the way of Mary.

            In my understanding of Mirari (a word that means “wonder”), now women everywhere are the “Marys” of which Mary of Nazareth speaks.  We must assume a leadership role in which we do not feed egos, for egos are the province of a time fading away, a time of unconsciousness.  And egos have brought us to the desperate straits in which we find ourselves.  Mary talks of male egos as “wild dogs,” but also says that there are plenty of female “wild dogs” as well.  Mary would have us turn aside from feeding all egos, and presents this as the only way that we can hope to occupy a new world, to bring in the New (the “New” first heralded by Jesus in ACOL).  She says that those individuals still possessing of ego need “training,” but that there are not enough trainers, will never be enough trainers.  So we who are women, in assuming a new role, must cease feeding egos.  We nurture others through what love has taught us because we are ideally suited for this new female face of God.  We have known, of course, that the Divine is both male and female, for divinity is composed of both genders.  But we have not lived that truth, and we are on the cusp of a new age in which this truth will be lived.

            Mari Perron’s faith in God and her trust in both Jesus and Mary shine through everything she has taken down, typing on her computer.  The words are absolutely beautiful, flowing and endearing.  Often Mirari takes the form of a dialogue between Mary and Mari, a dialogue in which Mari unveils her insecurities with an honesty that is disarming and moving.  She usually writes in solitude as the dawn is breaking, the sun seen through a window in her cabin, a cabin located out back of her home.  The dawn becomes a motif throughout the book.  It is a fitting metaphor for the dawn of new beginnings.

            If read narrowly, Mirari would be perceived as a new feminist manifesto, but Mirari is saved from this secular fate by its divine truth that love will inform every new direction taken. We are to unite the masculine and the feminine in a union that will transform our world, a union in which women will be more evident than previously in all the years of our Earth.  Women in this new feminism are seen as necessary catalysts for the transformation that must occur if we are to save our world.

Living Christ

“When you pray to God, you are praying to that part of yourself that is divine, that which we call the living Christ who lives in you.”  Choose Only Love bk.3, 11:II

We are not just praying to our little personality when we pray.  We have a larger Self who is merged with God, and this larger Self is a part, but only a part, of the Christ.  Christ is a plural term, not meant in this era for only Jesus.  We partake of divinity, too.

Know that turning inward is not praying to an external God, for God is not external to ourselves.  We are a part of Him, always and forever, even when we are living with the ego in a “fallen” state.  We gain insights by turning inward to the God Who dwells deep inside.  We know better how to live.

Ask today how to proceed in life.  Let our intuition be our Guide, for God is speaking in the silence to us through our intuition.

One with God

“Meditate with serene joy on the fact that you are one with God:  that you are that of God which extended in form to be able to know yourself.  You are God in God, literally.”  Choose Only Love bk.3, 11:II

Life is formed from the inside out, with God directing every move whenever we will let Him.  We get nudges just all the time, and it is only when we resist that our life falls on rocks.  God is living through us, though we are endowed with a mind that is finite, and so we can only intuit Him in His fullness.

This must be the only way that God could enjoy His reality, His existence in untold universes and beyond form as well.  We have been told in numerous spiritual works that God is at play in the universe, that He is experiencing bliss as He looks upon us—and even when we fall short.  When we fall short, God knows that it is a temporary failing, because He knows what the end result will be—union with Him, bliss for all creations, us among them.

Say a prayer of thankfulness today for the Intelligence that created this way of experiencing His totality.

Love & Miracles

“Since that part of God that dwells in you is as powerful as God Himself in its totality, then certainly you can do miracles by invoking the divine aspect of yourself or getting events to be harmoniously oriented in love.”  Choose Only Love bk.3, 11:II

What does this mean? It does not mean that we are as powerful as God. The divine aspect of us “in its totality” is what we are talking about. And with this divine aspect we can work miracles that are prompted. We don’t work miracles that we think are well-advised, for this is the one way to get ourselves and others into trouble. We wait for guidance, and then, almost without knowing, we are in a miracle-minded state. From there it is easy to bring about the miracles that we are asked to perform.

If our lives are flowing in the harmony of love, we are right where we ought to be. We are living joyously. We are in tune with the Infinite, God Himself. If we are depressed in spirit, our good deeds will be tainted, for we will bring our suffering into them. If we want to live well, doing good for others while we ourselves are listening to guidance, we need to remain centered in wellness. This is not so hard to do when we are living with the thought of love in our mind and heart.

Love will transform us so that miracles will light not only our path, but those in our circle of family, friends, acquaintances–and even the larger world.

Lift our eyes to the heavens. We will be lifted up at the same time.

God’s Help

“When you ask God to help you with this or that, you are consciously joining the part of you that is divine.”  Choose Only Love bk.3, 11:II

I ask God for help just a lot. And this quotation says that I am joining with Him, with His divinity that is deep within me.

Most of us don’t recognize that we are joining with a part of our Self when we join with God. But He is not separate from us. He is everywhere, and He is within all of us. We are One with Him and all others, all that has been created. The universes are One.

It is OK to beseech Heaven with requests for help. We have finite minds and hearts that are only now just coming into loving in a big way. We don’t know it all. God will gift us with intuitive thoughts from the silence in which He dwells. And He will warm our hearts while informing our minds. We will be much better off.

Don’t feel that we have to go it alone. The God Who dwells within us knows all, sees all, and can let us know the right way to proceed. His love for us does all this for us.

God’s Plan

“You have not entered the physical plane after My incarnation by chance.  It is part of God’s plan.”  Choose Only Love bk.3, 8:III

There are no accidents in life, no chance meetings, no happening that “just” happened to come about.  We are living at the right time for us, the time following Jesus’ incarnation. We are living a plan, a plan that we intuited from God, and then set up as our contract for our life.  We put bad things in our contracts as a way of growing, a growing to perfection.

We know from A Course in Miracles that it is not necessary to learn through pain.  Jesus said in ACIM that learning through rewards is more lasting.  Unfortunately, many of us are just learning this, discovering this.  And so we are caught in bad things happening to good people.

We can change on a dime.  We can soften the hard parts of our contract with life.  When we turn to God in our daily lives, He comforts and soothes us.  Always with us, living through us, He would not have us turn the pain in our contracts into suffering.

Make a decision today to live above the fray.  If we lighten up about life, life lightens up for us as well.  We are caught in a drama, in a series of dramas, but we don’t have to buy into the chaos.

Know that every prayer to God is heard. 

And with this knowledge, the fray will recede in our minds and hearts, hopefully never to return. We just must remember to do our part, a part we discover when we ask for guidance on a frequent basis.

Holy Spirit

“[T]he Spirit of God that lives in you, which is what Holy Spirit means, likewise encompasses the love beyond attributes that God is.”   Choose Only Love bk.4, 1:III

We haven’t had a good handle on Who the Holy Spirit really is, and today we discover–the Spirit of God. Though part of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit is nothing really separate, even as the Son (and Daughter) are not actually separate from God–for God lives in all, the All, everything.

The Way of Mastery refers to “a” holy spirit that overshadowed Jesus in his time on earth. Yes, a holy spirit really did overshadow him. And that Spirit was the Spirit of truth (though we can see that truth in reality is really Love).

We have moved into the time of Christ now, the time in which all of us following God’s pathway do indeed embody Christ. Christ is not limited to one entity, Jesus. Jesus welcomes us all into his mantle.

Ask that our truth today be informed by the love that truth really contains. We need each other, and we need each other in love.

We Live in God

“God is a marriage of love because everything, male and female as you consider it, resides in God, as well as in all true creation.”  COL bk.4, 1:IV

We are composed of love—through and through.  We are living, many of us, in madness still, because the ego has not yet died in us.  When the ego does die, we will know what it is to live in God.  We will be part of “all true creation.”

What we have made of ourselves in this world is not “true creation,” for our mistakes have made us labor under extreme conditions of depravity.  Never God’s intention, He “let go” when we rebelled (A Course of Love concept).  What else could He do?  We as parents even do this with our rebellious teenagers.  Neither we, in God’s sight, nor teens, are yet mature—or we wouldn’t make such havoc for ourselves.

Let the love that we are embrace us and give us new life.  In this time of spring in the northern hemisphere, we can be at home in our world when we recognize that all of life can be our springtime—a time of new growth, new growth into greater immersion in God.

A Startling Assertion

“Those who join this angelic manifestation are those whom the Creator has called from eternity to join the new consciousness of the Second Coming of Christ, the new prophets of the end times.

“Nothing happens by chance.  God does nothing in vain.  You who receive these words are literally part of the one hundred and forty-four thousand announced.  Your new garments shine radiant in the whiteness of Mary’s virgin purity.”  Choose Only Love bk.4, 2:I

“You who receive these words” are those who are reading Choose Only Love (available on Amazon). This assertion is startling. We read of 144,000 called individuals in the New Testament. Can we really be seeing those of this calling in our world today?

This is not something to boost the ego. The ego will have fallen away from this 144,000. To whom much has been given, much will be expected. We need to ask what our task in the great unfolding drama really is.

We need to ask what God would have us do.

An End to Struggle

Note: The following is an excerpt from Chapter 10 of the blog author’s new book, Being Who You Are. The chapter title is “Elevated Self of Form.” For information about ordering, click on the home icon.

There is a way to stop struggling, and it is an easy way. We have gotten used to struggling because we have had a personal self that has been dictated to by a false self, a self that listened to the dictates of the ego. The ego was, therefore, a false self that sought to elevate each of us above all of our brothers and sisters. Inside, we knew that this was a false view, and so we endured highs and lows. With every dramatic high, we were pitched down again to a low, for in some way we knew that comparisons were detrimental, toxic, to ourselves. Our dramas seemed to know no end. And, oh, how we suffered.

Our drama can come to an end now, as we truly realize, often for the first time, that we are actually all equal in spirit. The new Self of elevated form will be a Christ-conscious being who recognizes this new equality. We will take from spirit the best that we can, from the larger Self who is One with God, and then we will offer the best of ourselves to our brothers and sisters, our equals in the eyes of God. Only in time are we unequal in understanding. And time does not really exist, because it is an illusion. In eternity, we do catch a glimpse of the fact of equality. In this glimpse is contained all that we need to shift into a higher consciousness.

We give up the anxieties into which our ego had plunged us. We were fearful of being “found out” as imperfect. Now we eliminate judgments of ourselves and other people, for in equality there is no point at all in judgment. When we have given up the fear and the judgment, we have done all the preparing we can personally do. God will move quickly when He sees we are ready, for it is in the celestial realm that the decision is made to alter our mind and heart to Christ-consciousness. God Himself makes this choice of when to lift us up to become Christ-conscious beings.

A Course of Love says at one point that our scientists would be able to track this alteration in brain chemistry if they knew what to look for. (D:Day6.21) This is a startling assertion. There is a physical change coming about as we adopt the physical Self of form as our being on Earth. This is where we are heading. The benefits will be grand indeed. Our prayers will bring that time, for each of us, closer. Our prayers will teach us how to have a healthy mind, a healthy mind informed by our heart. The heart and its feelings will plot our future course. It will be a better course than our mind ever could dream up.

Peace

“You cannot stop being who you are, although you can live in a way contrary to it in your mind and heart.  Thus you cannot ever lose your holiness, because your Source goes wherever you go.  You cannot lose your peace of mind because God goes with you wherever you go.”  Choose Only Love bk.3, 8:III

We have peace of mind, because God grants it to us—but we may be oblivious to that peace.  We need to follow our guidance to let peace blossom in us.  If we forge ahead when our guidance is to wait, then we need to revisit intuition.

Being Unique

“There are things you can do that I can never do, nor Mary.  Those are what make you unique. . . .”  Choose Only Love bk.3, 8:III

We all still strive for a particular place in God’s world.  Here we are seeing from Jesus that we have a contribution to make—one that only we ourselves can make.  Being unique does not have to be striven for by the ego; being unique can be an affirmation of our worth, our egoless worth.

Try to find out today what your contribution, as a unique child of God, is or has been—plus what it will be in the future.  To access intuition about this important factor in our lives, we need to get quiet.  We need to relax totally, take worries and fretting off our minds, and ask our heart to inform us of our way.  When we get a thought in this relaxed state, we need to follow it.  We may have the idea to read something, or we may have an idea of a prayer we need to pray.  Nothing genuine in this practice will harm anyone, including ourselves.

Everyone is different, and our guidance will come to us individually in different ways at different times.  Invite the insertion of the divine in our lives.

God will not tarry, for we have given our permission to Him to enlighten us with His insight about us.

Love

“Bringing human nature to its fullness in love is what has been the purpose of Our incarnation, just like yours.  There are no differences between you and Us.”  Choose Only Love bk.3, 8:III

Jesus is here speaking of himself and Mary.  If we know that we have one purpose in this world, and that purpose is to live in the fullness of love, then life becomes very easy.  We do things that promote love, and we avoid things that do not.  How hard can this be?

One purpose means that life becomes simple.  Oh, how our insane ego has made life in this world so complicated!

But we are through with this madness—and through with it now!  Affirm to God that we will walk His way, and His way only.

And then life will become completely bearable, and easy and simple in the extreme.

Jesus’ Humanity

“I loved My humanity and I still love it.  The human nature that the Father gave Me is eternal.  I am fully man and fully God, always—likewise with Mary, Heavenly Mother of all men and women of all times.”  Choose Only Love bk.3, 8:III

Jesus is giving us a reason not to turn against our humanity—because he hasn’t.  He is saying that he is fully human and fully divine, just as traditional Christianity says.

Is it too much to realize that we too have a divine nature, a human nature as well as a divine one?  Jesus has told us elsewhere that there is nothing he has that is unwelcome for us.  We are equals (though he has walked farther ahead than have we).  We are of the same nature.

Likewise, Jesus here brings in Mary, who is his soulmate.  We will find as we read further in Choose Only Love that God too has a feminine nature.  God is revealed as a God of both the masculine and the feminine.  His nurturing manner is an aspect of the feminine, often more so than in the masculine.

So our human natures will be eternal also.  Definitely we don’t want to denigrate the human by wishing for an otherworldly nature to the exclusion of the human. 

Our divinity will inform our humanness.  And then we will be fully whole.

Our Humanity Is Good

“To despise your humanity is an act of cruelty—so far from love that you could not believe such nonsense.  Not a fiber in your body is not holy; no aspect of your personality is not holy; nothing in you is imperfect.”  Choose Only Love bk.3, 8:III

Certainly when we first read this quotation, our mind takes exception from what is said.  Who, on first reading, could agree, “nothing in you is imperfect”?  But Jesus is talking about our REAL Self, the Self with a capital “S.”  This Self reaches down into our personalities and purifies; our mind and heart, similarly, use our bodies in good ways when we recognize that the body too is holy.

If we reject our humanity, we are rejecting something that was created for our good.  Our human nature partakes of our spiritual essence; they are part and parcel of the same.  The new revelations assert that we don’t have sinful natures in the flesh, in our humanity.  The most that we have done is to make mistakes, and mistakes can and will be corrected, when we see the light. 

It is true that traditional Christianity often made us feel very guilty about our sinful flesh.  But we are seeing a new way of looking at humanity now.  We are seeing, in new revelations (A Course in Miracles, A Course of Love, The Way of Mastery, Choose Only Love, Mirari, etc.) that our very flesh is, as we have learned, made in the image of God.  There is nothing there that we need to denigrate.

We don’t denigrate our humanity unless we have bought into negative ideas.  Actually we do not believe that we are lowly and unworthy of God’s attention.  Only when we stoop down in the dust and find ourselves depressed about our very being do we decide that we have not a worthy bone in our body.

Listen to these wise words from Jesus.  And embrace our humanity, a humanity that can and will glorify God for His part in forming our natures.

We are worthy; that is not delusion.  It is the sanest good sense.