Make a New Choice for Unity/Union

“Make a new choice! The choice that your heart yearns to make for you and that your mind is finding increasingly difficult to deny. When you choose unity over separation, you choose reality over illusion. You end opposition by choosing harmony. You end conflict by choosing peace.” (ACOL, 6.5)

This series of quotations emphasize that reality is union or unity. We are One. We are part of God, Who is One. Our heart knows this, and it is only our mind that has doubts. Our mind will find it increasingly difficult to deny this new reality—a reality of harmony and peace, ending opposition and conflict.

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“You are creating the state of unity as a new reality for your Self even though it is actually a return to what has always been.” (ACOL, 6.9)

We are leaving illusion behind now that we have come to unity. And we are returning to what has actually been true all along, a “return to what has always been.” We have never actually been in illusion; we just imagined ourselves to be in that state, a state that we thought was separate from God. Our desire to experience separation from the whole drove us to make the ego, which accentuated the divorce, presumed, between God and ourselves.
Now we know that we are returning to the true reality. We are returning to God, to “know the place for the first time” (T. S. Eliot).

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“When you have felt the reality of union, you have felt the place in which no want exists. You felt this through the responsiveness of the relationship that is unity.” (ACOL, Dialogues, Day 3, 3.39)

We have need for nothing when we are in the state of unity, knowingly. We don’t pretend to be able to go it alone. We don’t even try. And we want for nothing as a result. Our needs are met by the union in which we reside.

Others reach out to us, others with whom we are in relationship. This is the “responsiveness” of the relationship that is unity. Others know that we cannot provide everything that we need for ourselves. And as we reach out to others, they reciprocate. There is only unity, a Oneness that ensures that no want will long exist for anybody. We meet each other’s needs. And all is well.

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“This somewhere else we have defined as your true reality, the reality of union. Living in this reality, the reality of certainty, is the only key to abundance.” (ACOL, Dialogues, Day 3, 3.47)

In union, we are certain—no longer afraid, no longer alone and lonely, adrift with needs that seemingly have no solutions. We are abundant, for we have found the key to abundance. We live in the reality of union with our brothers and sisters, and with God, and with our Self, and we know peace for the first time. We have every need met at the point of articulating that need. Indeed, no need is not met.
What more could we ask to experience?

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“It is the world of unity, the true reality, through which your desires are responded to.” (ACOL, Dialogues, Day 3, 3.42)

Our desires are also answered (not just needs), as this quotation makes clear, when we live in the world of unity. Unity is the true reality, the place that we have been longing to find but without knowing where to look.

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“In unity, perfection is the reality. Your reality is union. Thus no striving for either unity or perfection is necessary. The ‘answer’ for those in need of challenges, is the challenge presented in the call to reside in unity and to express the divinity of their nature through sharing in union and relationship.” (ACOL, Addendum, A.25)

We are perfect in this new world. Oh, we may not recognize our perfection. We may even think it scandalous to say that we are “perfect.” If we get angry often, we can turn aside from this. If we attack often, we can turn aside from this. Jesus shows us the way to the innocence in which we were born, the same innocence that newborn babies exude.

We do not have to look for challenges beyond the simple fact of living in unity with our brothers and sisters, distinct from us and therefore possible of knowing in relationship. We have a divinity that has eluded us until now. We are meant to share, and share we will. This sharing, Jesus says, will satisfy the yearnings of our heart to have more challenges.

The ego set such challenges before us. Unfathomable challenges. But that way of life is behind us now, and we can celebrate. It is enough to know that we will stay in unity with others, that we are no longer alone in a cruel and dark world. The day will brighten as we see the truth of these statements. As we share, we are given. As we love, we see God’s mission accomplished through the tasks that we assume that are meant just for us.