1 – Individuation / Differentiation
“Your attempt at individuation and extension, an attempt consistent with the nature of your being, failed only because you experienced separation rather than differentiation, and fear rather than love. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 40)”
2 – Detour into Fear
Jesus is here telling us what happened in our detour into separation, our attempt to be free of God and to make a reality that did not contain Him, that was somehow meant to be better than the reality that God created. In A Course in Miracles, we are told that we made the world, and this world, though a miscreation, was not allowed to separate us forever from God—which would have been impossible, for we are part of Him. God let us go, as a parent lets rebellious adolescents go, when it was apparent to Him that we wanted our own way. But He sets the limits on our ability to miscreate, and eventually pain becomes so intense that we realize that there must be “another way,” a better. This is exactly what Helen and Bill decided between themselves, just before Jesus started channeling A Course in Miracles through Helen, with Bill transcribing into the typewriter each day.
3 – Acceptance of Christ in Us
“With the acceptance of the Christ in you, you are returned to relationship and need no longer strive against the ‘opposing’ force of separation, for you no longer know it. The creative tension that now remains in our relationship is the tension of individuation or the individuation and the differentiation process. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 40)”
4 – Creative Tension
Jesus believes that the “creative tension” between us and him is good, that this creative tension will remain with us as we continue to walk together following the arrival in our psyches of Christ-consciousness. We remain “separate,” but not alone, in that we are differentiated, minute parts of God-stuff. We stand up to the challenge that individuation gives us, in that we seek to go forward in sharing with our brothers and sisters—in that oft-stated two-part reality of union and relationship.
5 – Extension
“[T]he nature of a being of love is to extend. The nature of a being of love is to bring form to the formless—to bring love into form. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 40)”
6 – Physical Form
This explains why physical form is not to be lamented. We are bringing into this world a creativity that has its base in our form, in that we will be the elevated Self of form. We will be “elevated,” but we will still keep our feet on the ground, even if our heads are in the clouds of Higher Reality.
7 – ACIM
A Course in Miracles, with its heavily Gnostic influence, seemed to be regretting the physical form. If we have that idea, Jesus corrects it in A Course of Love. Physical form can be glorious, as long as we exit from the ego. Physical form is simply another type of experience for God in His individuated forms.
8 – Christ-consciousness
“Recall what was said earlier: Christ-consciousness is the awareness of existence through relationship. It is not God. It is not man. It is the relationship that allows the awareness that God is everything. It has been called wisdom, Sophia, spirit. It is that without which God would not know God. It is that which differentiates All from nothing. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 40)”
9 – Definition
Here is a full definition for Christ-consciousness. It is our inheritance, what we are meant to become. And we are fully aware.
10 – Separation
“As a separate being, you have been in a relationship with fear. This relationship with fear is all that has provided the ‘I’ of the separated self. But because you exist as an extension of love, you have always held within you the Christ, who is the relationship with love. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 40)”
11 – Fear
We need to get beyond the fear, and in Christ-consciousness, indeed we do. We are an extension of love, and, as such, we live and walk in perfect security, invulnerable.
12 – What Next?
“When you turn the last page, will you cry tears of sadness that our dialogue is complete, that you will hear my voice no more. Or will you brave your own relationship with me? Will you turn to your brother and hear my voice in him? Will you be my voice as you turn to your sister? Will you carry the fullness of our relationship within you? Will you be one with me, and in being one with me never feel alone again? Will you let the emptiness of separation leave you once and for all? (A Course of Love: Dialogues, p. 247)”
13 – “I Am”
We are an extension of I Am in form. Through that extension, we become who we are to Jesus, instead of who he has been to us. There is creative tension in this relationship, and that is good. This will allow the power that is needed as we return to level ground.
14 – Fear
As separate beings, our existence was circumscribed by fear. As beings living in unity and relationship, love is our hallmark, our extension. Christ-consciousness is the awareness of existence in relationship.
15 – Self
We are one Self, love’s extension, one to another in unity and relationship. This one Self the Christ Self. We must let the emptiness of separation leave us, and we must join with Jesus in all his fullness. We must not cry tears of sadness that we are no longer on the mountain top with him. He will go with us to level ground. We carry the fullness of our relationship to him with us. And we must share this relationship with all in our world. We join together with our brothers and sisters, and Jesus is our companion. We are never alone.
16 – Love
“Will you be the relationship that returns love to all who share this world with you? (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 40)”
17 – Challenge?
This quotation is our challenge, if indeed we have a challenge. A Course in Miracles says that we have no challenges when we are advanced teachers of God, for we recognize that we choose for all humankind, sure of our choice. We have a determination now that love will be on essence; it will be what we share with all of our brothers and sisters.
18 – Linkage
We are linked to all others by our relationship with them, and we are one with them by our common grounding in God. There is no better way to see our future than to note this. We are no longer alone and lonely, on a forlorn planet. We are sharing, experiencing, together—walking into the sunset no longer alone, no longer separated in fear, but together in love.
Prayer:
Dear Father/Mother,
May love be my hallmark in the new reality in which I find myself as I descend to level ground. May I recognize that, with my brothers and sisters, I am one Self. I am also one Self with God. Help me to understand this blessing, this knowledge that has never before been made so clear to me.
Help me in my daily walk on level ground. Thank you for the blessing of the Forty Days and Forty Nights. Thank You, Jesus, for your channeling to us in A Course of Love.
May this day continue well. May all of us share in the love that is our heritage. May the lessons of the 40 days and 40 nights on the mountain top be made a permanent part of our mind and spirit. May we go forward in confidence that we will walk in the way that Jesus has pointed out. May we lose our fears and be only sustained in love from this day forward.
Amen.
MIRACLES EACH DAY 