“Christ-consciousness will be temporary or sustainable depending on your ability to refrain from judgment. (The Treatises of A Course of Love: ‘A Treatise on the New,’ 7.1)”
1 – Judgment
A Course of Love echoes A Course in Miracles in this brief passage. May we pray today to refrain from judging our brothers and sisters. We cannot see the totality, and so judgment is actually impossible, except as carried out by the Holy Spirit (an ACIM tenet).
2 – Why We Can’t Judge
There is a lengthy passage in ACIM that explains for us why we cannot judge accurately. Can we know all that has happened outside of our sphere? Can we see all aspects of the past, and all aspects of the future, that will be affected by our judgment? No one would claim this prescience, and therefore nobody can judge rightly. We must leave the decisions to Someone who does know the whole situation, and in the words of A Course in Miracles, that is the Holy Spirit.
When we drop into judgment, we make ourselves miserable. ACIM says that forgiveness is our only function, and when we forgive, we do not judge.
3 – Limited Vision
Accurate judgment is impossible because we have limited vision. We must turn above to make better decisions through guidance, forgetting judgment as a bad idea. In A Course of Love, this guidance is in an inner peace; in A Course in Miracles, it is the intuitive knowledge that the Holy Spirit is guiding us.
4 – Time of Christ
“That you are living in the time of Christ does not mean that you will automatically realize Christ-consciousness, just as living in the time of the Holy Spirit did not mean that you would automatically realize the consciousness of the spirit that was your intermediary. (The Treatises of A Course of Love: A Treatise on the New, 7.2)”
5 – Patience
We may not make it. We may not reach Christ-consciousness in this lifetime. Whether or not we do, we can remain patient, doing those things that we know are in line with Jesus’s teaching, and preparing ourselves for the future, whatever it may be. I don’t think that Christ-consciousness can answer to a timetable. And if we don’t make it, we need not harshly judge ourselves. This is judgment also, and it is equally an decision best avoided.
6 – Holy Spirit
Some of us will remain dependent on the Holy Spirit, even though His time has passed in this Twenty-first Century. This is not bad. One of my friends is enlightened, and she says that she feels right about depending on the Holy Spirit for her guidance. She has read A Course in Miracles, but not A Course of Love. Whether or not her decision would change if she reads ACOL is an open question.
7 – Dependence
If we don’t realize Christ-consciousness, I think that we are dependent, still, on the Holy Spirit, for we are still living within our personal self, not the Self.
8 – Glimpses of Awakening
Remember that we may have glimpses of Awakening long before it is ever sustained. These glimpses happened to me, when I was 23 and again when I was 34 – 35. And then there was a long period of consolidation of understanding, studying A Course in Miracles intensely, and, then, ultimately, studying A Course of Love with much the same intensity. I have glimpses of Awakening now, but I do not live in that sense of invulnerability always. So I have not yet sustained Christ-consciousness. This gives me pause for thought, and leads me to ask what I might do that would bring on the sustainability.
9 – Wrong Questions?
These may be the wrong questions. I do believe in patience with God and the Holy Spirit. I do believe that the guidance we sense is true, and that when we open ourselves to that guidance, our way is smoothed by eons of time. I study the Workbook of A Course in Miracles, and I feel the glimpses more serenely. I am happy. I do what I can, but I leave the rest to God. Christ-consciousness will come in its own time, not to be hurried.
Prayer:
Dear Father/Mother,
I need to hear this lesson today. May I refrain from judgment all the days of my life, and may I start today. Earlier it has been possible for me to refrain from judgment, but when I get stressed, sometimes my good intentions are not enough. ACIM tells me that my good intentions are not enough. May I recognize these limitations of mine today, and may I act upon the choice to leave judgment aside, choosing instead the guidance that is ultimate spirituality.
Thank You for helping me in this endeavor today. Please be with me as I go through the day, reminding me of what I have chosen for today.
Thank You for this beautiful day today. May I move about in my environment, for I know that staying fluid in body as well as mind and spirit work best for me. I am happiest when I am in a fluid state, a state of flow.
Be with my brothers and sisters. If they are struggling, ease their suffering. May their emotionality and their physical suffering both abate. May they not turn pain into suffering. May the day grant a lessening of burdens, a greater joy in Your blessings, which continue regardless of what is going on in this physical plane of earth.
Amen.
MIRACLES EACH DAY 
This is a very interesting post. Excellent food for thought. Thanks so much for sharing.
God is always stressing patience, I like that you talk about a fluid state and Jesus calls himself the living water. If we think about moving in water we do not move easily in a hurried fashion, we move most efficiently when we move with the water, not against the flow and with strokes that create flow. I am going to meditate on that today when I am thinking about being patient with people and not judging. Sometimes I think all we do is make a lot of splash when we judge, but it doesn’t really change the body of water. Thanks Celia for lots to think about and pray. Lots of love L.