Abide Where We Are—Differently

“The Way of Transformation absolutely requires that you be committed to living differently.  For is not transformation a change from the status quo?  How can you experience transformation if you do not use time to think and be differently?  Crying out to me will not do it.  Reading a thousand holy books will not do it.  One thing and one thing only will bring you into the transformation that you have sought—the willingness to abide where you are, differently.”  (“The Way of Transformation,” WOM, Chapter 13, Page 157)

We sometimes think that if everybody else would change, our problems would go away.  It takes a personal effort to change, though, a very personal effort. 

We project our experience of reality, and this projection makes for our perception.  An oft-quoted assertion from A Course of Miracles is that projection makes perception.  It may be hard to believe, but there is no “out there” that is separate and apart from us.  We are One with the whole.

Wayne Dyer used to joke that if we would round up all the people who are causing us problems, take them to him for counseling, that he would treat them, and then we would get better.   We easily recognize the joke in this, but in day-to-day life, the joke is on us.  We want everything and everybody else to change so that we will get better.

In times of difficulty, we often experience conflict in our intimate relationships.  Stress creates anger, which creates more stress.  And all we were saying is that we want to be loved—and safe, and that we are scared that we can’t make it on our own.

We need each other, but we need to function a new way in our world to take advantage, in the best way, of the cooperation that we seek from others.  We need to realize that the change must come first of all from our own essence.

When we make the determination to live differently, we will find that our experience of reality changes accordingly.  We do get help to make these changes, and the biggest source of help is our heartfelt, intimate, talks with our Maker. We do get some glimmer of solutions, then, though, as always, the solutions may take time in the working out. God gives us ideas that will help sustain, regardless of the difficulty. He may not take away the pain, but He inserts into our beleaguered minds the glimmering of solutions.