Giving & Receiving as One

“Others represent the accidents waiting to happen, love that is not returned, the withholding of things you deem important.  This fear that you feel in relation to others is as true of those you hold most dear to you as it is of those you would call strangers.  It is the very independence of others that makes your own independence seem so important to you.  Dependency is not consistent with your notions of a healthy self.  What, then is the alternative?

“The alternative is believing in giving and receiving as one.”  (A Course of Love, T2:7.2 – 7.3)

We are in unity with others, but we often don’t encourage this unity because of our fear of these same others—even our most significant others.  We think that being independent of needing other people will serve us best.  We think being close with others will lead to an unhealthy dependency.  But is this in line with A Course of Love?

Absolutely not.  We give and receive in tandem when we follow the dictates of ACOL.  We know that independence is not so very healthy, that the opposite of independence is not dependency, but a heartfelt joining of ourselves to other people.  We give them our love; they return our love.  The giving up of our solitary nature is actually a most joyful undertaking—when we realize that we were never meant to be isolated and alone.  We are meant to share with others, to live in a partnership with others.  Why else would the world have so many people?

We are meant to join and to share, giving up our prideful isolation in a choice to give and receive as one with other people sharing our world.  This choice will give us joy.  Can it be so wrong to choose what will make us happy, avoiding the false independent nature that has failed us so many times?

Living in Unity

“In unity, all that you desired was participated in fully by a mind and heart combined in wholeheartedness.  You knew your Self to be the creator, and loved all that you created.  You did not desire and fear something at the same time, and your desires did not change from moment to moment.”  (A Course of Love, C:18.14)

We are now living eons past the time of “first” unity.  This first experience of unity cannot really be recaptured as a sense impression now, but it can be recaptured as we move farther along the pathway back to God.  We lived eons ago in wholeheartedness, knowing ourselves as a creator, a co-creator (if you will), of God Himself.  But because of something that couldn’t really happen, but did (the “tiny mad idea” that A Course in Miracles discusses), we fell from grace into an adolescent rebellion.  We weren’t patient enough to come into the fullness of our Being, our Self.  So we coalesced around a false persona, driven by an ego that we made ourselves, and we fell into deep despair as a result.

We can return to the unity that we have forgotten.  It takes patience and abundant willingness to capture what we have lost, but the recapture is God’s intention for us, and so he is right there helping us every step along the way.

Don’t get depressed that the way seems too long and tortuous.  It may be long, but the way is not tortuous at all.  Not with all the help that we are being given.  Our way back is assured—indeed, has always been assured, from the beginning.  God’s will only takes time in the working out, and time does not really exist, for we live in eternity.

Let Our Heart Embrace with Love

“For it is the embrace with perfect self-honesty that returns the mind to sanity.  It is the refusal to be honest that creates the conflict and tension in the mind that is called insanity.  And insanity is a state in which the mind is not at peace, and Christ cannot enter therein.”  (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Lesson 22, Page 269)

A Course in Miracles also says that we are living in madness until our minds and healed, and we walk with God.  All of us, and this is an arresting truth.

It sometimes helps in an altercation with loved ones (which happens to all of us) that we silently say, “This is insanity.”  We can’t ask our loved ones to be closer to God than we are, and ACIM also says that the one who is more sane at the moment has the imperative to cool things down (a paraphrase).

We need, as this passage says, to embrace whatever is happening.  Not to turn away from it, which makes for unnecessary conflict.  Choose Only Love also reiterates that embracing what is happening is the way we escape from what is troubling us; to try to avoid it is to invite further pain.

If Christ cannot enter us when the mind is in conflict, A Course of Love says that we ought to turn to our heart for a solution.  Yes!  This channeled work holds the key.  

Let the heart rule, for the heart will choose embracing, with love, just all the time.

Let the heart do its work, and all will be well.

Loving Freely & Without Fear

“You who do not know how to trade your separated state for that of union have still done so when you have loved freely and without fear.  In this state your memory returns to you of who you are, and you are innocent and joyous and one with love itself.  That this memory does not last, and these feelings seem unsustainable, is the result only of that which does discard and replace.  As we have said before, there are but two emotions.  One is love, the other fear.  Fear, through your own choice, replaces and discards love.  Fear is always strongest when you value something that you feel may be threatened.  Love threatens most your specialness.  Before your conscious mind has any awareness of what is happening, your memory of love, of innocence and of joy, threatens your specialness, your ego, your separated self who quickly rushes in with love’s replacement.  Nothing but fear could take the memory of love from you, or replace so quickly the glory that is your nature with the specialness that is not.”  (A Course of Love, C:14.28)

Fear is of the ego, and fear is a game changer in the hope of reaching Christ-consciousness.  We cannot, in fact, reach enlightenment when we still entertain fear.  But, the rub, how to stop the fear that so often threatens to engulf us?

Prayer is one answer, in all likelihood the best answer that we could ever devise.  And it is not our idea, but an intuition and an experience that comes from God.  Our prayers put us in alignment with something greater than we are, and this Someone has the power to right our little world immediately.  We don’t have to suffer anxiety any longer; it just dissipates when we start to pray.

Meditation is similar, of course.  We go into a zone-type of thinking that eases our minds.  We don’t actively think at all; we focus on a sacred word or our breathing.  And the miraculous effect takes over.

Talking with a treasured friend is yet another solution to fear.  Others have known the same fear that we dread, though often we think that we are all alone because they haven’t told us about their anxieties, wanting to appear strong and solid to us.  This is a fallacy, of course, which we will come to see when we converse intimately.  All short of enlightenment are victims of the fear mongrels that rob us of peace of mind.

Think a bit of the practices that have given us peace of mind in the past.  Of course, like all things, this fear, too, shall pass.  But there are a myriad of practices which can speed fear along its way, never to return in quite the same way again.

Trust that guidance will lead us out of the darkness of our anxieties and our fears.  Trust that choosing to be unity one with another will be an almost magical solution to an intractable problem.

Love Is Welcome

“You exist, quite simply, because of your relationship with love.  Love is the unity you seek.  In having chosen separation over unity, you but chose fear over love.  When you let go of fear and invite unity to return, you but send out an invitation to love and say you are welcome here.”  (A Course of Love, C:11.18)  

Being welcome is an attribute of friendship, and being “friends” with love is something that we all can do.  We need to realize that we are one (unity), and in this realization we are inclined to love more than fear.

Of course, we can’t always banish fear.  We are particularly prone to fear’s ravages early in the morning, when the whole day looms and we are apprehensive about what lies ahead.  At such times we need to make a determined effort to calm ourselves down.  Over time, we have developed some of these techniques:  writing in a journal, meditation, deep breathing, quiet conversation with your significant other (if time permits), petting a beloved animal.  All will make small increments to erode fear.  And, as time passes, fear will become more of a stranger in our lives.

We feel ourselves separate and alone when we face the day with apprehension.  We are living our comfy homes for a sometimes terrifying outside that seems to wish us no well.  These are the types of thoughts that replace love with fear.  And it need not be so.  The outside world is as much in need of our love as are our nearest and dearest.  Give a helping hand to those we meet outside our homes.  And then they will seem much less the bearers of bad tidings, or, at the last, uncertain tidings that give us cause for fear.  Love with a whole heart, knowing that we actually are safe when we set our minds to creating a beloved world.

Self Perfect in Love

“The only replacement that can occur that will accomplish what you seek is the replacement of illusion with the truth, the replacement of fear with love, the replacement of your separated self with your real Self, the Self that rests in unity.”  (A Course of Love, C:9.24)

We see that A Course of Love makes parallels of illusion and truth, fear and love, and the separated self with the real Self, saying that a replacement of illusion, fear and the separated self needs to be made—with truth, love and the real Self.  This is salvation, this is the coming to know that we will find in fullness in Christ-consciousness.  Until then, we can see only rare glimpses, some longer than others, but still temporary.

This is the only accomplishment that we seek, and on some level it has already been accomplished, for Jesus says that we are The Accomplished.  But not in any egoic sense, of course.  We have walked the whole pathway, and now we find our way back to retrace our steps.

It doesn’t have to take long in the life of any individual, though the return may take a very long time for everyone on earth.  Make no mistake:  This is what we are about, the eventual return of everyone to full sanity, which means that we are in communion with our Creator and we have walked into the real Self through Awakening.

A Return to Relationship

“In seeing the self as separate you have known fear and have been forced to reconcile fear with love.  Now, in coming back to relationship and union with me you have realized that you are not separate and now have striven against the ‘opposing’ force of separation.  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.”  (A Course of Love, D:Day40.8)

As we turn from separation, we turn from fear to love.  We may even strive actively to turn from fear to love.  We have realized that we aren’t separate (as we could never be, for we are part of God), and we have striven to get past these ideas of the ego with every force of our personality.  When we accept the Christ in us, we understand that we have returned to a relationship that has long eluded us, and now we no longer need to strive against separation.  We know intimately that we are joined with the Christ Self; we know intimately that we are “separate” no longer.

Returning Us to Our True Nature

“You may not feel that you have ever intended to live in fear.  But the displacement of the original intent was so complete that each life has begun with fear and proceeded from this beginning continually reacting fear.  While the original intent remained within you and caused you to attempt to express a Self of love despite your fear, fear has thwarted your every effort and caused the very effort that has continued the cycle of fear.  To have to try to be who you are and to express who you are is the result of the displacement of the nature of love with the nature of fear.  What we now are about is reversing this displacement and returning you to your true nature.”  (A Course of Love, T4:3.5)

We had an “original intent” eons ago, and that was to live in love—not fear.  But fear intervened, and nothing has ever been right since.  This is the crucial, central feature of our lives.  We have displaced love with fear, and then we have lived in this egoic state of fear.  There ought to be a better way.

And there is.  We can learn, and not necessarily by traditional means of study, to displace fear and the egoic self with the Self of love.  This change will make all the difference.  And A Course of Love is showing us how to effect this change.  It is true (as A Course in Miracles says also) that God makes the final decision of when we are ripe for Christ-consciousness or Awakening.  Then he metaphorically reaches down to us and lifts us up.

Yet there are things we can do to remove blocks to the awareness of love.  This in itself will ease our way, and give us a happy experience.  We need to get the idea of suspiciousness out of our minds; we need trust above all else.  And trust we can have; just a decision to have it is enough to bring it to us.  This does not mean that we will be gullible.  We have our own good sense, and this is sense of the real Self, not the ego.  When we place our faith in the inner Christ Self, we are far more likely to be right than to be wrong in our evaluations of others.  Note that this does not mean “judgment” of others, for judging keeps us from attaining enlightenment.  We need to simply rest in the assurance that if we are encouraged to avoid a particular situation (or person), we will know how and where to do so.  That is all.

Love’s Gifts

“Loss of love comes from only one source.  Call it fear or call it separation but it is still the same.  For in your separated state you ask that love make you special to someone else, and that one special to you.  You think this is what love is for, and so you make of it something it is not and only call it love.”  (A Course of Love, C:14.22)

“If you do not believe you can reverse or ‘turn back’ to the state in which you existed before the original error, then you never shall.

. . .

“This space you can turn back to holds no judgment and no fear, and so it is the repository of all that has proceeded from love.  There it keeps all love’s gifts safe for you.  Love’s gifts are gifts of creation or extension, gifts you have both given and received.  Each act of love is added to the space in the universe that is yours and has become part of the whole along with you.  All that has proceeded from fear is nothing, and has no existence apart from your own thoughts.”  (A Course of Love, C:17.12, C:17.14)

Within the separation, the illusory separation from God that hasn’t actually happened, it is impossible for us to be contented aside from special relationships.  And, of course, these do not content us long, for we ask both too much and too little of them.  Special relationships are fraught with fear.  We fear being alone again, that this special one will love less (or leave), or that we (even though together still) do not love equally.

These concepts are all meaningless to a holy relationship, which seeks never to take, but always to give—though we know that giving and receiving are one in love.  We will be contented when we give up the idea of having special relationships.  Not that these relationships will be snatched away from us—no, never—but that we will never be happy on a continual basis until we have transformed our loves into holy loves.

Fear then will slip away.  We know that if we lose one form of love, another will take its place.  While we do not try to substitute loves for one another, we do recognize that it is our internal love that is most important.  And this means that all Selves are One, all loves are One.  Fear has no basis for gaining a foothold when ideas such as this are given sway in a life.

Displacement of Love with Fear

“The displacement of the original intent, while it did not change the original cause, formed a false nature for the personal self.  This displacement of the original intent can be simply stated as the displacement of love with fear.  It is as simple as that.  Yet the way in which each of you have interpreted this displacement has come to seem quite complex.”  (A Course of Love, T4:3.4)

We think that we live complex lives, and, indeed, the ego has reveled in that thought.  But the only thing that happened, the detour into fear, was a shift from love to fear.  We may this transition as quite young children.  And we are led down a path toward living in fear that has always been hard to reverse.

Now we have a way, and it is simple in the extreme.  We simply learn to listen to what our heart is telling us.  Our heart always opts for the love that is hidden away deep within it.  Our heart always knows how to guide us.  In this time of Christ, the heart is our beacon, for the Christ-Self is within, like the heart.  Of course, we don’t mean the physical heart.  “Heart,” as used in A Course of Love, is a metaphor for the deepest feeling part of ourselves.  We feel rather than think, and in that shift, a shift in consciousness comes slower or later.

We can hope for sooner, for those of us reading these words long for Christ-consciousness (if we have not already reached this).  We long to live serene and awakened lives, sure of ourselves, sure of our brothers and sisters, and sure of God.

When we occupied physical bodies, we made a mistake, a mistake that could not happen but did.  We opted for separation from God by feeling a tiny bit of fear that grew into an almost all-encompassing fear.  This situation does not have to go on.  We can retreat from fear into our real essence of love.  At any time.  

And the transformation will be arresting.

Choice for a Physical Self

“Let’s return a moment to the choice that was made for the human experience, the choice to express whom you are in the realm of physicality.  You were not ‘better’ or more ‘right’ before this choice was made than you are now.  You made a choice consistent with the laws of creation and the steps of creation outlined above.  From this choice, many experiences ensued.  Some of these experiences were the result of fear, some the result of love.  The choice to express who you are in physical terms was not a choice made of fear but made of love.  A physical self is not inconsistent with the laws of God or of creation.  It is simply a choice.”  (A Course of Love, T3:12.8)

A Course of Love reassures us that physicality is not a second-best choice.  It is purely within the laws of God, though the way in which this choice worked out for us was flawed.  We developed the ego, and in so doing, our physicality took on a role that has hindered our full development in this world.

Now w e are faced with a new choice:  an elevated Self of form, form without the ego.  And, indeed, the latter half of A Course of Love indicates that we have given up the ego as a bad idea.  And the Self of form will know God in an intimate way that the egoic self never did, never could.

This blessing ought to give us reason to be thankful.  We are not trapped by bodies at all, though we might have once viewed our life on earth in these terms.  We can live well and happily in the flesh.

Let’s set about doing so today.

Rest

“Rest, when truly learned, is a state of being in which struggle has ceased and peace has triumphed over chaos, love has triumphed over fear.

“You may still see but two choices:  peace or struggle.  But with such an attitude, you would soon be struggling to maintain your peace.  There is another choice, and it lies within.”  (A Course of Love, T2:1.6 – 1.7)

We are at rest when we commune with our depths, which is the same as saying that we commune with our God.  He is always there, ready and eagerly waiting to help in any way that we will allow.  He doesn’t interfere if we thwart His ways by not turning to Him; He gave us free will so that we would turn to Him out of our extreme need.

Many don’t turn to God unless and until we are in dire straits.  But what a way to live!  Let intellectual doubts rest in the knowledge from the heart that there is a Supreme Power that dwells in the depths of our souls.  Within and without, He is always there—waiting for our nod in His direction.

We don’t have to choose peace over struggle in some kind of balancing act that seeks to keep the peace and resist the struggle.  We need only rest within, and all struggle ceases easily.  We have peace when we rest within.  And then God reigns.  And all is well in His world—and His world is our own.

A Course of Love: An Overview

Note: A Course of Love: An Overview is available from Amazon for $3.95 (print; ebook). It is often helpful as an introduction to A Course of Love. The following excerpt is the preface to the booklet:

PREFACE

            The year was 2004, three years after Mari Perron had published the first part of f A Course of Love (also known by its acronym, ACOL) with New World Library.  Like Mari, I was living in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota.  And, like Mari, I was a seeker.

            Some time had gone by since I had purchased and read the New World edition.  But I found myself  interested in having a conversation with Mari about A Course of Love, in part about the assertion I had read that Jesus had channeled this new work.   We met over coffee.  She was charming and articulate, but unassuming, just a “regular” person.  We were deep in conversation for over an hour.

            Mari’s daughter Mia came over to greet us.  Mari lamented that A Course of Love had not “taken off” the way that she would have liked.  Mia said something prophetic:  She said that it took a while for A Course in Miracles to take off, and that it would just take some time for A Course of Love to become known as well. 

As our conversation continued, Mari said, “I have been praying that someone would come to me to help me get the word out about A Course of Love.” 

I was stunned.  Mari thought that I was an answer to her prayer.

I thought she had the wrong person.  I was A Course in Miracles enthusiast, and I thought that she needed a younger generation to come along and help her. 

Now, twelve years later and seven years into writing a blog on both A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love, I think Mari might have been right all along.  Right about a mission for me, right about Jesus as the one who channeled to her.    

Now many others are drawn to ACOL, due largely to Glenn Hovemann’s Take Heart Publications and the new combined volume.  Yes, Jesus’s professed “continuation” of A Course in Miracles has an ever-widening and increasingly enthusiastic audience.

To my mind Jesus had “unfinished business” with us after A Course in Miracles.  A Course of Love answers many of the questions that we have had after reading A Course in Miracles.  Now Jesus not only takes us by the hand and leads us beyond the ego, but he tells us how to establish a new identity—in this body but beyond this body, the “elevated Self of form.”

We are on the threshold of a newly created world.  The Voice that Mari heard as “thoughts she did not ‘think,” (D:12.11)  now made available to us in A Course of Love, counsels us to transform ourselves and our world.

                                                            —

             This journey for me of writing this small book about A Course of Love would not have been possible without the assistance of Mari Perron, ACOL scribe, and Glenn Hovemann, ACOL publisher.  I thank Mari for her prayers and insight, and Glenn was his ever-supportive demeanor and editorial direction, as well as substantial contributions to the chapter, “Frequently Asked Questions / FAQ.”  And, finally, my heartfelt thanks to my husband Paul for everything.  He expressed his interest early in this project by telling me that he wanted to read what I was writing.  And he has.

–Celia Hales

Heart

Note: Today’s posting is an excerpt, with prompting quotation added, to my book, Being Who You Are: Pondering A Course of Love, 265 pages. The book is available on Amazon for $7.95 (print) and $5.99 (ebook). Five out of five stars for all reviews.

—

“While your mind did not accept the truth of your identity or the reality of love without fear, it existed in a reality of fear and judgment, and bound heart and body to this reality.  Your heart has now heard the appeal of this Course and worked with your mind to bring about this acceptance of the truth, a truth your heart has always known but has been unable to free you to accept without the mind’s cooperation.”  (A Course of Love, T4:7.5)

This quotation explains the concept of wholeheartedness, that we need to join mind to heart, not letting either take the ascendancy alone.  In wholeheartedness, we give up fear, not with a whimper, but with a joyful shout.  We are free at last!  Fear and judgment go together, and both are anathema to reaching Christ-consciousness.  Our heart has always known truths that our mind rejected because of our intellectualism.  Basically, we didn’t want to be superstitious.  We feared that believing in God was intellectually suspect.

Our heart doesn’t have such misgivings.  Our heart knows that there is a Something—or Someone—More.  And when we listen to our hearts, we are happier.  Would you not take happiness, any day, over intellectual skepticism that locks us in despair?

Love / Safety / Trust

“Where you learned to hate, you will learn to love.  Where you learned to fear, you will learn safety.  Where you learned to distrust, you will learn trust.  And each learning experience will be a learning experience because it will touch your heart.”  (A Course of Love, C:24.1)

We are thinking about the heart in A Course of Love.  Of course, technically we are thinking about “wholeheartedness,” which is the union of mind and heart.  But we focus on the heart because we have so long neglected that vital center of our Self.  When we were caught by the ego, we listened to what our deluded and insane mind said.  And when we sought to relinquish the ego, we were changing our minds.  But there is a step beyond that A Course of Love seeks to have us reach.  And this step is reached without words that the mind could understand, or rational understanding that is totally beyond the ego.  This is the realm of the heart, where words fail us and we are at home in God.  We “know” things without having to be told.  We “understand” things without a rational explanation.  Life just “is,” and we are finally and ultimately happy in the “isness” that will lead us to Christ-consciousness.  We don’t ask anymore because we have no need.  We know.  And this knowledge saves us.

Laws of Love

“This cooperation is natural when fear has been rejected.  You have long embraced fear and rejected love.  Now the reverse is true.  This reversal of truth has changed the nature of your universe and the laws by which it operates.  The laws of fear were laws of struggle, limits, danger, and competitiveness.  The laws of love are laws of peace, abundance, safety, and cooperation.  Your actions and the results of your actions in a universe of love will naturally be different from your actions and the results of your actions in a universe of fear.  You set the laws of the universe when you chose fear.  The laws of the universe of love are God-given.”  (A Course of Love, C:20.30 – 20.31)

We need love; it is our very nature.  We have lived for a long time in the “tiny, mad idea” (from A Course in Miracles) that gave us a universe of fear.  We were not at home there; we struggled mightily.  We listened to an egoic persona that did not mean us well, that tried to protect us by isolating us from each other in a cacophony of diverse sounds that spelled “fear” to us.  We never felt safe, because we never were safe.  Our “creations” had come back to haunt us.

But now all that can change.  Now we know better.  In a universe of love, we know peace abundance, safety, cooperation.  Our laws of struggle, limits danger, and competitiveness are not outdated.  What a joy to envision what awaits us in this new age!  We are safe because we are no longer “creating” with the ego; we are working within the laws of God, laws which complement our true reality.  We are homebound, safe in a universe where love reigns and where we have turned aside from the ego and its sad and forlorn dictates.

Miracles Become Natural

“You are a unique expression of the selfsame love that exists in all creation.  Thus your expression of love is as unique as your Self.  It is in the cooperation between unique expressions of love that creation continues and miracles become natural occurrences.”  (A Course of Love, C:20.30)

We are meant to live in a miraculous world, surrounded daily by a higher realm that meets our every need with miracles attuned to supply and demand.  We are unique individuals, each of us, but when we live in cooperation with each other, this uniqueness suggests that being different is not so much a fact as is our sameness.  We are all equally special, or, seen in the reverse, none of us are special at all.  We are simply entities of the creative endeavor of a limitless God Who knows no bounds to His loving of us, His creatures, of us, His Sons and Daughters.

We were born of His love, and when we extend the love that is at the core of our being, we soon live a life that is miraculous in the extreme.  We no longer take nature for granted.  We no longer take the dawn of a new day for granted.  We no longer take our health as a given.  We know that the love that sustains us also provides for us. 

And we know that that love comes from God Himself.

We Were Never Meant to Be Isolated and Alone

“Others represent the accidents waiting to happen, love that is not returned, the withholding of things you deem important.  This fear that you feel in relation to others is as true of those you hold most dear to you as it is of those you would call strangers.  It is the very independence of others that makes your own independence seem so important to you.  Dependency is not consistent with your notions of a healthy self.  What, then is the alternative?

“The alternative is believing in giving and receiving as one.”  (A Course of Love, T2:7.2 – 7.3)

We are in unity with others, but we often don’t encourage this unity because of our fear of these same others—even our most significant others.  We think that being independent of needing other people will serve us best.  We think being close with others will lead to an unhealthy dependency.  But is this in line with A Course of Love?

Absolutely not.  We give and receive in tandem when we follow the dictates of ACOL.  We know that independence is not so very healthy, that the opposite of independence is not dependency, but a heartfelt joining of ourselves to other people.  We give them our love; they return our love.  The giving up of our solitary nature is actually a most joyful undertaking—when we realize that we were never meant to be isolated and alone.  We are meant to share with others, to live in a partnership with others.  Why else would the world have so many people? We are meant to join and to share, giving up our prideful isolation in a choice to give and receive as one with other people sharing our world.  This choice will give us joy.  Can it be so wrong to choose what will make us happy, avoiding the false independent nature that has failed us so many times?

Recovering Ideals

“[Y]our pulse is not the pulse of your heart alone, but of you connection to time, to space, to your esteemed and symbolic places, to ideas made manifest, and to humanity’s own fall from its ideals.”  Memoria

We are living in difficult times, and we see in Memoria (a new book channeled by Mary of Nazareth, received by Mari Perron) that Mary is aware of our difficulties.  Of course.  Her appearances in the world have always championed the downtrodden and forgotten.

I want to focus on our fall from ideals.  We can recover.  Perhaps those who are denigrated the most actually mean well; it is not for us to judge the hearts of our brothers and sisters.  It is not for us to judge at all, for fear and judgment keep us from Awakening.  This from A Course of Love, an earlier work received by Mari.

If we have fallen from our ideals, then we need to recoup.  We need to make a new start.  And we can.  It simply means that we turn to God and ask for His help in perilous times. 

He knows how to right our world, and if we ask with sincerity, wanting to know what to think, say, and do, He will surely tell us.  We are on the cusp of something called The New, and in this new world order, we will surely know peace when we draw it to ourselves.

We Live in New Times Now

“The time has passed when the forces of ego attacked the truth with all their ferocity.  There is no battle to win; it has already been won.  You live in new times now, times of the fullness of being.  Even though the world continues to look quite similar to that of yesteryear, the times now have nothing to do with what was previously.”  Choose Only Love, bk.7, 5:I

This quotation from the final book in the series, Choose Only Love, received by Sebastian Blaksley, will give us hope. Certainly when we look at our conflicted world, we are likely to doubt these optimistic words. But it truly is darkest before the dawn, and we are reaching the dawn shortly. The egoic triumph for our world is no more. Many people, even if not of a religious persuasion, are becoming aware of what works and what doesn’t. And egoic extremes fail miserably.

We are in the “fullness of being.” This is Mary’s way, heralded by A Course of Love and then followed up with Mirari and Memoria–as received by God’s servant, Mari Perron. “Being” as an ideal doesn’t mean we sit back and don’t do anything to improve our world. But our being in this world is primary; we don’t seek to be do-gooders without salvation ourselves.

“There is no battle to win; it has already been won.” This, about the ego, is wonderful news in and of itself. Much of this change has come about from the advent of A Course in Miracles, received by Helen Schucman and Bill Thetford as a team, with Helen taking down notes and Bill typing them up. The book was published in 1975. Much to the good has happened since. And most of us believe that A Course in Miracles was channeled by Jesus himself.

Let’s ask sincerely if we are on the right track, those of us of religious persuasion who seek only good in the world. Let our “being” flow, with actions that emerge from our being One with God.

This is the final step. Being One with God is the ultimate. And the illusory separation from God, fraught with the ego, is healed.

Recapturing What We Lost in the Fall of Man

“In unity, all that you desired was participated in fully by a mind and heart combined in wholeheartedness.  You knew your Self to be the creator, and loved all that you created.  You did not desire and fear something at the same time, and your desires did not change from moment to moment.”  (A Course of Love, C:18.14)

We are now living eons past the time of “first” unity.  This first experience of unity cannot really be recaptured as a sense impression now, but it can be recaptured as we move farther along the pathway back to God.  We lived eons ago in wholeheartedness, knowing ourselves as a creator, a co-creator (if you will), of God Himself.  But because of something that couldn’t really happen, but did (the “tiny mad idea” that A Course in Miracles discusses), we fell from grace into an adolescent rebellion.  We weren’t patient enough to come into the fullness of our Being, our Self.  So we coalesced around a false persona, driven by an ego that we made ourselves, and we fell into deep despair as a result.

We can return to the unity that we have forgotten.  It takes patience and abundant willingness to capture what we have lost, but the recapture is God’s intention for us, and so he is right there helping us every step along the way.

Don’t get depressed that the way seems too long and tortuous.  It may be long, but the way is not tortuous at all.  Not with all the help that we are being given.  Our way back is assured—indeed, has always been assured, from the beginning.  God’s will only takes time in the working out, and time does not really exist, for we live in eternity.

Loving Freely & Without Fear

“You who do not know how to trade your separated state for that of union have still done so when you have loved freely and without fear.  In this state your memory returns to you of who you are, and you are innocent and joyous and one with love itself. . . .Nothing but fear could take the memory of love from you, or replace so quickly the glory that is your nature with the specialness that is not.”  (A Course of Love, C:14.28)

Fear is of the ego, and fear is a game changer in the hope of reaching Christ-consciousness.  We cannot, in fact, reach enlightenment when we still entertain fear.  But, the rub, how to stop the fear that so often threatens to engulf us?

Prayer is one answer, in all likelihood the best answer that we could ever devise.  And it is not our idea, but an intuition and an experience that comes from God.  Our prayers put us in alignment with something greater than we are, and this Someone has the power to right our little world immediately.  We don’t have to suffer anxiety any longer; it just dissipates when we start to pray.

Meditation is similar, of course.  We go into a zone-type of thinking that eases our minds.  We don’t actively think at all; we focus on a sacred word or our breathing.  And the miraculous effect takes over.

Talking with a treasured friend is yet another solution to fear.  Others have known the same fear that we dread, though often we think that we are all alone because they haven’t told us about their anxieties, wanting to appear strong and solid to us.  This is a fallacy, of course, which we will come to see when we converse intimately.  All short of enlightenment are victims of the fear mongrels that rob us of peace of mind.

Think a bit of the practices that have given us peace of mind in the past.  Of course, like all things, this fear, too, shall pass.  But there are a myriad of practices which can speed fear along its way, never to return in quite the same way again.

Trust that guidance will lead us out of the darkness of our anxieties and our fears.  Trust that choosing to be unity one with another will be an almost magical solution to an intractable problem.

We Exist because of Our Relationship with Love. Love Is the Unity We Seek.

“You exist, quite simply, because of your relationship with love.  Love is the unity you seek.  In having chosen separation over unity, you but chose fear over love.  When you let go of fear and invite unity to return, you but send out an invitation to love and say you are welcome here.”  (A Course of Love, C:11.18) 

Being welcome is an attribute of friendship, and being “friends” with love is something that we all can do.  We need to realize that we are one (unity), and in this realization we are inclined to love more than fear.

Of course, we can’t always banish fear.  We are particularly prone to fear’s ravages early in the morning, when the whole day looms and we are apprehensive about what lies ahead.  At such times we need to make a determined effort to calm ourselves down.  Over time, we have developed some of these techniques:  writing in a journal, meditation, deep breathing, quiet conversation with your significant other (if time permits), petting a beloved animal.  All will make small increments to erode fear.  And, as time passes, fear will become more of a stranger in our lives.

We feel ourselves separate and alone when we face the day with apprehension.  We are leaving our comfy homes for a sometimes terrifying outside that seems to wish us no well.  These are the types of thoughts that replace love with fear.  And it need not be so.  The outside world is as much in need of our love as are our nearest and dearest.  Give a helping hand to those we meet outside our homes.  And then they will seem much less the bearers of bad tidings, or, at the last, uncertain tidings that give us cause for fear.  Love with a whole heart, knowing that we actually are safe when we set our minds to creating a beloved world.

Welcoming the New / Leaving Behind the Old

“The old” is a construction.  What is constructed can be de-constructed, and it is in this time, that those perceived to be powerless will rise and begin to claim ‘unconstructed’ power, the innate power of the feminine that exist in all.”  Mirari

We are in changing times.  Of course the world has always been changing, but there seems to be speedup of change today.  The notes around A Course in Miracles indicate that Jesus has spoken of a “celestial speedup,” because our world is in dire straits and needs saving—right away.  We are right in the midst of this celestial speedup now.  Many channeled writings are coming to the forefront, even as the world descends often into chaos.  The celestial speedup will, when time is ripe, put an end to this chaos.  But the speedup needs all of us.

The power of the feminine emphasizes Mary’s way, which is the way of being.  We make changes simply by listening to our heart.  Indeed, if we don’t listen to our heart, we are likely to act unwisely.  We need discernment, as the Society of Friends (Quakers) has long counseled.

We will leave the “old” behind and head forthwith into The New, first heralded by A Course of Love.  Our New will allow a happiness that has eluded us previously.  Our New, extending to other people by our expressions of love, will transform us.

Let’s begin today.

Self United

“The only replacement that can occur that will accomplish what you seek is the replacement of illusion with the truth, the replacement of fear with love, the replacement of your separated self with your real Self, the Self that rests in unity.”  (A Course of Love, C:9.24)

We see that A Course of Love makes parallels of illusion and truth, fear and love, and the separated self with the real Self, saying that a replacement of illusion, fear and the separated self needs to be made—with truth, love and the real Self.  This is salvation, this is the coming to know that we will find in fullness in Christ-consciousness.  Until then, we can see only rare glimpses, some longer than others, but still temporary.

This is the only accomplishment that we seek, and on some level it has already been accomplished, for Jesus says that we are The Accomplished.  But not in any egoic sense, of course.  We have walked the whole pathway, and now we find our way back to retrace our steps.

It doesn’t have to take long in the life of any individual, though the return may take a very long time for everyone on earth.  Make no mistake:  This is what we are about, the eventual return of everyone to full sanity, which means that we are in communion with our Creator and we have walked into the real Self through Awakening.

United with God Once Again

“In seeing the self as separate you have known fear and have been forced to reconcile fear with love.  Now, in coming back to relationship and union with me you have realized that you are not separate and now have striven against the ‘opposing’ force of separation.  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.”  (A Course of Love, D:Day40.8)

As we turn from separation, we turn from fear to love.  We may even strive actively to turn from fear to love.  We have realized that we aren’t separate (as we could never be, for we are part of God), and we have striven to get past these ideas of the ego with every force of our personality.  When we accept the Christ in us, we understand that we have returned to a relationship that has long eluded us, and now we no longer need to strive against separation.  We know intimately that we are joined with the Christ Self; we know intimately that we are “separate” no longer.

The separation is another name for what is usually called the “fall of man,” including woman.  If we think about it, we know that we are not living in a world that has been reconciled with God.  His way works; ours does not.  When we seek to turn our minds to a confident belief in ultimates that save, we will be alright.  We won’t be alright as long as we let our egotistical leanings move into the ascendancy.  We know this. 

It is only our lack of understanding of how God works with us that has taken so much time.  He knows no time, for time is simply an illusion—one well understood by our science now.

Turn to our inner knowing.  Turn today.

It will make all the difference.  Attract the good, don’t give any credence to anything that is substandard.

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Returning Us to Our True Nature

“You may not feel that you have ever intended to live in fear.  But the displacement of the original intent was so complete that each life has begun with fear and proceeded from this beginning continually reacting fear.  While the original intent remained within you and caused you to attempt to express a Self of love despite your fear, fear has thwarted your every effort and caused the very effort that has continued the cycle of fear.  To have to try to be who you are and to express who you are is the result of the displacement of the nature of love with the nature of fear.  What we now are about is reversing this displacement and returning you to your true nature.”  (A Course of Love, T4:3.5)

We had an “original intent” eons ago, and that was to live in love—not fear.  But fear intervened, and nothing has ever been right since.  This is the crucial, central feature of our lives.  We have displaced love with fear, and then we have lived in this egoic state of fear.  There ought to be a better way.

And there is.  We can learn, and not necessarily by traditional means of study, to displace fear and the egoic self with the Self of love.  This change will make all the difference.  And A Course of Love is showing us how to effect this change.  It is true (as A Course in Miracles says also) that God makes the final decision of when we are ripe for Christ-consciousness or Awakening.  Then he metaphorically reaches down to us and lifts us up.

Yet there are things we can do to remove blocks to the awareness of love.  This in itself will ease our way, and give us a happy experience.  We need to get the idea of suspiciousness out of our minds; we need trust above all else.  And trust we can have; just a decision to have it is enough to bring it to us.  This does not mean that we will be gullible.  We have our own good sense, and this is sense of the real Self, not the ego.  When we place our faith in the inner Christ Self, we are far more likely to be right than to be wrong in our evaluations of others.  Note that this does not mean “judgment” of others, for judging keeps us from attaining enlightenment.  We need to simply rest in the assurance that if we are encouraged to avoid a particularly situation (or person), we will know how and where to do so.  That is all.

Come & Go as One Unknown by the World

“You will simply come and go as one unknown by the world, and yet one who looks to be very ordinary, one who looks to be the same as everyone else.  The difference is that though the body still seems to walk upon the Earth, you are literally embracing the Earth.  And in you, you will know that fear is gone.”  (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Chapter 20, Page 246)

This is what we have to look forward to when Awakening has come.

We can sometimes be frustrated that we have not known Awakening or Christ-consciousness except in snatches.  Those glimpses are meaningful, and they are harbingers of what will transpire—perhaps sooner than we realize.  The glimpses are nearly always a moment or more of intense peace, solid peace, complete peace, the peace that passeth understanding.  By this peace we can know that the transition in Awakening, for us, will not hold any trauma.  So we need not be afraid of it.

Jesus’s guidance to Awakening in his recent channeled works is always gentle.  We know that when we have asked to be rid of judgment and fear, we are asking in God’s will, and it is these two things—judgment and fear—that have been the snag that has kept us from Awakening until now.  A Course of Love makes this very, very clear.

What joy there will be in our hearts when we have relinquished judgment and let fear recede in the distance!

Ask for help today in bringing these impediments to a close.  Ask for Awakening to be hastened.

Self in Unity

“The only replacement that can occur that will accomplish what you seek is the replacement of illusion with the truth, the replacement of fear with love, the replacement of your separated self with your real Self, the Self that rests in unity.”  (A Course of Love, C:9.24)

We see that A Course of Love makes parallels of illusion and truth, fear and love, and the separated self with the real Self, saying that a replacement of illusion, fear and the separated self needs to be made—with truth, love and the real Self.  This is salvation, this is the coming to know that we will find in fullness in Christ-consciousness.  Until then, we can see only rare glimpses, some longer than others, but still temporary.

This is the only accomplishment that we seek, and on some level it has already been accomplished, for Jesus says that we are The Accomplished.  But not in any egoic sense, of course.  We have walked the whole pathway, and now we find our way back to retrace our steps.

It doesn’t have to take long in the life of any individual, though the return may take a very long time for everyone on earth.  Make no mistake:  This is what we are about, the eventual return of everyone to full sanity, which means that we are in communion with our Creator and we have walked into the real Self through Awakening.

Love’s Gifts

“Loss of love comes from only one source.  Call it fear or call it separation but it is still the same.  For in your separated state you ask that love make you special to someone else, and that one special to you.  You think this is what love is for, and so you make of it something it is not and only call it love.”  (A Course of Love, C:14.22)

Within the separation, the illusory separation from God that hasn’t actually happened, it is impossible for us to be contented aside from special relationships.  And, of course, these do not content us long, for we ask both too much and too little of them.  Special relationships are fraught with fear.  We fear being alone again, that this special one will love less (or leave), or that we (even though together still) do not love equally.

These concepts are all meaningless to a holy relationship, which seeks never to take, but always to give—though we know that giving and receiving are one in love.  We will be contented when we give up the idea of having special relationships.  Not that these relationships will be snatched away from us—no, never—but that we will never be happy on a continual basis until we have transformed our loves into holy loves.

Fear then will slip away.  We know that if we lose one form of love, another will take its place.  While we do not try to substitute loves for one another, we do recognize that it is our internal love that is most important.  And this means that all Selves are One, all loves are One.  Fear has no basis for gaining a foothold when ideas such as this are given sway in a life.

Mistake that Could Not Happen but Did

“The displacement of the original intent, while it did not change the original cause, formed a false nature for the personal self.  This displacement of the original intent can be simply stated as the displacement of love with fear.  It is as simple as that.  Yet the way in which each of you have interpreted this displacement has come to seem quite complex.”  (A Course of Love, T4:3.4)

We think that we live complex lives, and, indeed, the ego has reveled in that thought.  But the only thing that happened, the detour into fear, was a shift from love to fear.  We may this transition as quite young children.  And we are led down a path toward living in fear that has always been hard to reverse.

Now we have a way, and it is simple in the extreme.  We simply learn to listen to what our heart is telling us.  Our heart always opts for the love that is hidden away deep within it.  Our heart always knows how to guide us.  In this time of Christ, the heart is our beacon, for the Christ-Self is within, like the heart.  Of course, we don’t mean the physical heart.  “Heart,” as used in A Course of Love, is a metaphor for the deepest feeling part of ourselves.  We feel rather than think, and in that shift, a shift in consciousness comes slower or later.

We can hope for sooner, for those of us reading these words long for Christ-consciousness (if we have not already reached this).  We long to live serene and awakened lives, sure of ourselves, sure of our brothers and sisters, and sure of God.

When we occupied physical bodies, we made a mistake, a mistake that could not happen but did.  We opted for separation from God by feeling a tiny bit of fear that grew into an almost all-encompassing fear.  This situation does not have to go on.  We can retreat from fear into our real essence of love.  At any time.  And the transformation will be arresting.

From Ego-Self to Christ-Self

“I repeat, and will do so again and again, that the ego-self is gone from you.  Whether you fully realize this or not matters not.  This A Course of Love has accomplished.  Now the choice is before you to do one of two things. . .to proceed toward love or fear.  If you proceed with fear you will assemble a new ego-self, an ego-self that perhaps will seem superior to the old, but which will nonetheless still be an ego-self.  If you proceed with love, you will come to know your Christ-Self.”  (A Course of Love, T3:4.8)

Yes, the ego-self is gone from us.  The first book of A Course of Love accomplished this, making us The Accomplished.  It is not ego that says this.  It is the unparalleled good sense.  Jesus says it.  Can we not believe it?

If we continue to walk with fear. we are in danger, for we will be tempted to form a new ego-self.  Jesus says in fact that we will form a new ego-self, if fear intrudes on our peace.  We need to get rid of the fear, for our right minds depend on it.

On the other hand, if we proceed with love, we will come to know our Christ-Self, the inner essence that is our real Self. 

We need to make the distinction between fear and love to make the right choices upcoming.  We need to know that we are safe in this world, that nothing can harm us, that the blood that we see is merely catsup, and that illusions are not reasons to be frightened.  We need to see reality, and reality will launch us toward love.  We see reality when we trust, for, as A Course in Miracles affirms, trust is the bedrock of our new thought system, the thought system of love, of the Christ-Self.  We give up fear when we recognize how divisive a force it has been in clogging up our minds.  Our minds are precious indeed, but we have walked with a demented mind.

Now we can walk with a sane mind by listening to our heart.  Our heart is our saving grace in this new reality in which we find ourselves.  Only our heart can save us now.  Let us proceed by listening to our heart, a part of our being that needs no proof of God.  In our inner essence, we just know that we are not all alone in the universe.  That we have an indwelling spirit that means us well.  And that that indwelling spirit is God Himself.

A Greater Wisdom

“How can what continues to give in to fear know love?  All your reasons for fear-based living have been discounted one by one.  And yet you dare not try to live without it.  Why?  Because of the thoughts of the ego-mind.  The ego-mind is concerned only with its own survival but it has you convinced it is your survival that depends on it.  How can you be convinced to live as if the truth were otherwise?  For only if you begin to live as if the truth were otherwise can you see that it truly is otherwise, or based on a wisdom other than what has come before.”  (A Course of Love, T1:3.5)

We tremble in fear when we make short forays in to trying to live without fear.  Fear seems a given, something that will protect us.

We are misinformed.  Fear is not necessary for our continued survival in this sometimes harsh world.  The reason that we think that fear is needed is the lingering influence of the ego-mind, the insane part of us that continues to dwell just below the surface of our good sense.

The ego is gone from us when we have assimilated the truths of A Course of Love.  We may not realize this, we may still struggle.  But the ego only has a residue of false thinking that continues to infiltrate our moments of reflection.  We have always thought with the ego-mind, and so to hear Jesus say in ACOL that we are done with the ego is immediately enough to raise doubts in our minds.  How can we be done with the ego?  We see its influence constantly.

We need to let go.  We need to trust what Jesus is telling us.  If he says that the ego is no more for us, then let the mind rest in that knowledge—for it is knowledge, not perception.  Just rest.  And the truth of the elimination of the ego will dawn on a calmer mind in ourselves.

A greater wisdom is available to us, and we ought to take advantage of that greater wisdom forthwith.  Let the smudge of ego on our minds be lightened by our prayer consideration that perhaps the ego is just a mirage, seeming to be ahead of us on our pathway, but actually not representing anything but illusion.

Return to Relationship

“In seeing the self as separate you have known fear and have been forced to reconcile fear with love.  Now, in coming back to relationship and union with me you have realized that you are not separate and now have striven against the ‘opposing’ force of separation.  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.”  (A Course of Love, D:Day40.8)

As we turn from separation, we turn from fear to love.  We may even strive actively to turn from fear to love.  We have realized that we aren’t separate (as we could never be, for we are part of God), and we have striven to get past these ideas of the ego with every force of our personality.  When we accept the Christ in us, we understand that we have returned to a relationship that has long eluded us, and now we no longer need to strive against separation.  We know intimately that we are joined with the Christ Self; we know intimately that we are “separate” no longer.

Return to Our True Nature

“You may not feel that you have ever intended to live in fear.  But the displacement of the original intent was so complete that each life has begun with fear and proceeded from this beginning continually reacting fear.  While the original intent remained within you and caused you to attempt to express a Self of love despite your fear, fear has thwarted your every effort and caused the very effort that has continued the cycle of fear.  To have to try to be who you are and to express who you are is the result of the displacement of the nature of love with the nature of fear.  What we now are about is reversing this displacement and returning you to your true nature.”  (A Course of Love, T4:3.5)

We had an “original intent” eons ago, and that was to live in love—not fear.  But fear intervened, and nothing has ever been right since.  This is the crucial, central feature of our lives.  We have displaced love with fear, and then we have lived in this egoic state of fear.  There ought to be a better way.

And there is.  We can learn, and not necessarily by traditional means of study, to displace fear and the egoic self with the Self of love.  This change will make all the difference.  And A Course of Love is showing us how to effect this change.  It is true (as A Course in Miracles says also) that God makes the final decision of when we are ripe for Christ-consciousness or Awakening.  Then he metaphorically reaches down to us and lifts us up.

Yet there are things we can do to remove blocks to the awareness of love.  This in itself will ease our way, and give us a happy experience.  We need to get the idea of suspiciousness out of our minds; we need trust above all else.  And trust we can have; just a decision to have it is enough to bring it to us.  This does not mean that we will be gullible.  We have our own good sense, and this is sense of the real Self, not the ego.  When we place our faith in the inner Christ Self, we are far more likely to be right than to be wrong in our evaluations of others.  Note that this does not mean “judgment” of others, for judging keeps us from attaining enlightenment.  We need to simply rest in the assurance that if we are encouraged to avoid a particularly situation (or person), we will know how and where to do so.  That is all.

Oneness

“Preparation is underway for oneness of form and content.  It begins in the imaginal and extends ‘into form’ through actions such as your own, that of many others, and the alignment of time and eternity in the cosmos.”  Mirari

This quotation is letting us know that the elevation of form is underway, an elevation that will take us who are in form to the next level—a oneness that extends to form, a oneness with God in form.  This is the “elevated Self of form” that A Course of Love extols.

We progress as separated souls, now healed, much faster on the earth plane, when we are in bodies, in form.  We need to keep coming back to save everyone.  So form is not denigrated, for when we seek to be out of form—on the Other Side, or heaven—we are a little removed from bringing about the salvation of our brothers and sisters.

May we not seek to escape from the earth precipitously.  We are needed here.  And not only will everyone needing us be blessed, but we will be blessed as well.

Time, which we experience on earth, and eternity, which we experience in heaven, are merging.  A new day is upon us.

Our Internal Love Is Most Important

“Loss of love comes from only one source.  Call it fear or call it separation but it is still the same.  For in your separated state you ask that love make you special to someone else, and that one special to you.  You think this is what love is for, and so you make of it something it is not and only call it love.”  (C:14.22)

“If you do not believe you can reverse or ‘turn back’ to the state in which you existed before the original error, then you never shall.”  (A Course of Love, C:17.12)

Within the separation, the illusory separation from God that hasn’t actually happened, it is impossible for us to be contented aside from special relationships.  And, of course, these do not content us long, for we ask both too much and too little of them.  Special relationships are fraught with fear.  We fear being alone again, that this special one will love less (or leave), or that we (even though together still) do not love equally.

These concepts are all meaningless to a holy relationship, which seeks never to take, but always to give—though we know that giving and receiving are one in love.  We will be contented when we give up the idea of having special relationships.  Not that these relationships will be snatched away from us—no, never—but that we will never be happy on a continual basis until we have transformed our loves into holy loves.

Fear then will slip away.  We know that if we lose one form of love, another will take its place.  While we do not try to substitute loves for one another, we do recognize that it is our internal love that is most important.  And this means that all Selves are One, all loves are One.  Fear has no basis for gaining a foothold when ideas such as this are given sway in a life.

“Beautiful Spring which Bubbles Forth with the Purest of Waters”

“You are free to see—and please listen carefully—right where you are that the separation never occurred.  All attempts to keep it in place have been like battling for the rights of chimera to exist like insisting that the illusion of an oasis seen in a desert is truly real.  Instead of going to the location and finding out what is real and what is false, standing there bickering with your arms folded across your chest, arguing for the right to be right—while Reality slips through your fingers.  All the while, you are standing next to a beautiful spring which bubbles forth with the purest of waters.”  (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Chapter 19, Page 236)

This quotation from Jesus is so inspiring!  Everything is the Now, and so time is nonexistent, and our long wait for Christ-consciousness or Awakening can come to an end at any moment.  If we look to the beautiful springs in our midst, we will be more inclined to think and feel like God.  A Course in Miracles says that God Himself reaches down (a metaphor) and lifts us up in Awakening, that God Himself makes the decision of when this great blessing comes.  But The Way of Mastery, channeled by Jesus to Jayem, is saying to us that we have a hand in determining the time. 

We don’t have to make elaborate preparations.  The Holy Spirit, or the Christ-Mind does all that.  It would be arrogant for us to assume that our role were very large.  But we can pray for a surcease of our difficult lives.  We can pray that the time of Awakening hasten.  And we can ask that we be prepared for that eventuality—for it will come to everyone eventually.  This is the next great leap in evolution of the mind/heart, as I see it.

Ask to have fear and judgment removed from our emotions.  These are, according to A Course of Love, the stumbling blocks to Christ-consciousness.

Pray long and deeply, for asking for Awakening is in God’s will.

PRICE REDUCTION FOR BEING WHO YOU ARE, BOOK BY THIS BLOGGER

In time for Christmas, I am reducing the price of the paperback of Being Who You Are:  Pondering A Course of Love to $7.95 (the e-book is $5.99).  As you know from reading this blog, A Course of Love is considered by many to a continuation of A Course in Miracles (this is said within the Addendum of A Course of Love by the man whom many believe channeled ACOL to Mari Perron, Jesus himself).

Being Who You Are is 265 pages and highlights ten themes from ACOL.  My book has good reviews, 5 out of 5 stars for all 9 ratings and 6 reviews. 

To find the entry on Amazon, google “amazon being who you are celia hales.”  And thank you.

Love, Celia

God Let Go

“When you decided to forsake the arms of love, your Heavenly Mother had no choice but to let you go.  She did what every loving mother does in those circumstances:  made sure that you had everything you needed to be safe and sound, and that you could return without complication when you wished.”  Choose Only Love bk.4, 2:III

God is given to the feminine in this quotation, an emphasis that He is the All, though He does not have gender at all. By using the “Heavenly Mother,” this quotation lets us know that “She” let go, she did so out of love. We can and we do return to God’s way, and this can be “without complication,” which I think means that we will not be judged for our lapse.

A Course of Love makes the same statements. When we rebelled, thinking we would make a world that we liked better than staying One with God, He “let go.” (In A Course of Love, the masculine pronouns are used.) What difficulty has emerged in our lives! And now we want, like the Prodigal Son, to return–which means to heal the separation. And the separation is a separation from God.

How do we heal this division? We turn aside, ever so gently, from fear. And we stop judging, ourselves as well as others, our brothers and sisters on this journey. According to A Course of Love, these two aspects of our life–fear and judgment–are all that are keeping us from Christ-consciousness.

If we love enough, dropping the fear and judgment is easy. When enthralled by love, and Love from God, we can see this.

May our day go smoothly as we seek to love ever more deeply. May the mellow feeling of Christ-consciousness enfold us today.

Potential for Heaven on Earth

“I know of the importance of what some consider ‘small things’ to be, things about care of the body, and the feelings of those who make this sometimes-desperate journey through life.  I have known human life as both Heaven and Earth, and more specifically as the potential for Heaven on Earth, a potential now being actualized in the imaginal realm.”  Mirari

I think Mary means by the “imaginal realm,” and the actualization of a Heaven on Earth, that we are moving into a new time, the time of Christ. This is something Jesus said in A Course of Love. Of course, time varies in what it means on the Other Side. So we don’t actually know how long it will take for Heaven on Earth to come about. We are impatient souls, for we would not have come into this world unless we were impatient to progress. I have read that progress, soul progress, comes more easily in this earthly realm.

We and others are imagining a better future. And this is all to the good. As we imagine, we also live in this world with the daily habits of a body. We are very much in the concrete, or what appears to be the concrete to us. It may be illusion (and A Course in Miracles says it is), but we experience our life here as “real.” We feel pain when hurt, we cry when our emotions overcome us. So we are very absorbed by the life of the moment.

Mary has always appealed to us because of her unique understanding. As mother of Jesus, she witnessed his crucifixion, not knowing at the time that resurrection would happen in three days. She has suffered. So her loving understanding is something we all can appreciate.

Imagine today a better future. This is praying. And this prayer will reach our God.

Love and Fear

“The displacement of the original intent, while it did not change the original cause, formed a false nature for the personal self.  This displacement of the original intent can be simply stated as the displacement of love with fear.  It is as simple as that.  Yet the way in which each of you have interpreted this displacement has come to seem quite complex.”  (A Course of Love, T4:3.4)

We think that we live complex lives, and, indeed, the ego has reveled in that thought.  But the only thing that happened, the detour into fear, was a shift from love to fear.  We made this transition as quite young children.  And we are led down a path toward living in fear that has always been hard to reverse.

Now we have a way, and it is simple in the extreme.  We simply learn to listen to what our heart is telling us.  Our heart always opts for the love that is hidden away deep within it.  Our heart always knows how to guide us.  In this time of Christ, the heart is our beacon, for the Christ-Self is within, like the heart.  Of course, we don’t mean the physical heart.  “Heart,” as used in A Course of Love, is a metaphor for the deepest feeling part of ourselves.  We feel rather than think, and in that shift, a shift in consciousness comes sooner rather than later.

We can hope for sooner, for those of us reading these words long for Christ-consciousness (if we have not already reached this).  We long to live serene and awakened lives, sure of ourselves, sure of our brothers and sisters, and sure of God.

When we occupied physical bodies, we made a mistake, a mistake that could not happen but did.  We opted for separation from God by feeling a tiny bit of fear that grew into an almost all-encompassing fear.  This situation does not have to go on.  We can retreat from fear into our real essence of love.  At any time.  And the transformation will be arresting.

In the Bosom of God

“Once you accept that you are one with life, one with God, and are together a unit just like a child in the womb, you can begin to live in the reality of the bosom of God.”  Choose Only Love bk.4, 2:II

This quotation from Choose Only Love, an inspired work by Sebastian Blaksley just out, emphasizes to me the meditative nature of this work. It is coming out in multiple volumes, and is a blessing recognized by those of us who read it.

When we imagine ourselves a child in the womb, we are thinking safety, and nothing says safety more conclusively than being held close to the bosom of God. We need to practice love as well as seek safety, of course, and the best way for me to react with love in my devotionals is to feel the warmth of love in my heart–for God, for others, even for myself. This “cocooning” by God does lead us to recognize that without love, we are truly lost. He does not will it, but our personal will might take over and lead us into narrow pathways of ill choice.

I have sometimes said that we need to “milk” the love, when we feel it (especially when we feel it keenly), and then we will be more likely to turn to our heart instead of intellectualizing everything.

Our heart, as A Course of Love also said, does then inform our mind, working in conjunction with our mind–and we are led in the pathway back to God.

From Ego-Self to Christ-Self

“I repeat, and will do so again and again, that the ego-self is gone from you.  Whether you fully realize this or not matters not.  This A Course of Love has accomplished.  Now the choice is before you to do one of two things. . .to proceed toward love or fear.  If you proceed with fear you will assemble a new ego-self, an ego-self that perhaps will seem superior to the old, but which will nonetheless still be an ego-self.  If you proceed with love, you will come to know your Christ-Self.”  (A Course of Love, T3:4.8)

Yes, the ego-self is gone from us.  The first book of A Course of Love accomplished this, making us The Accomplished.  It is not ego that says this.  It is the unparalleled good sense.  Jesus says it.  Can we not believe it?

If we continue to walk with fear. we are in danger, for we will be tempted to form a new ego-self.  Jesus says in fact that we will form a new ego-self, if fear intrudes on our peace.  We need to get rid of the fear, for our right minds depend on it.

On the other hand, if we proceed with love, we will come to know our Christ-Self, the inner essence that is our real Self. 

We need to make the distinction between fear and love to make the right choices upcoming.  We need to know that we are safe in this world, that nothing can harm us, that the blood that we see is merely catsup, and that illusions are not reasons to be frightened.  We need to see reality, and reality will launch us toward love.  We see reality when we trust, for, as A Course in Miracles affirms, trust is the bedrock of our new thought system, the thought system of love, of the Christ-Self.  We give up fear when we recognize how divisive a force it has been in clogging up our minds.  Our minds are precious indeed, but we have walked with an insane  mind.

Now we can walk with a sane mind by listening to our heart.  Our heart is our saving grace in this new reality in which we find ourselves.  Only our heart can save us now.  Let us proceed by listening to our heart, a part of our being that needs no proof of God.  In our inner essence, we just know that we are not all alone in the universe.  That we have an indwelling spirit that means us well.  And that that indwelling spirit is God Himself.

The Body in This World

“Now, one of the reasons that I have had little to say through the ages, especially to those who revere the leaving of the body, is that I am Mother of the ‘body’ of Christ.  And I am deeply with you in the cause to bring ‘the body’ into the realm of the living.”  Mirari

This somewhat controversial statement by Mary of Nazareth, received by Mari, is controversial because A Course in Miracles enthusiasts, and many A Course of Love enthusiasts, do not believe in the material world.  The Workbook of ACIM says, famously, “There is no world!”  We are living in illusion as long as we are in the dream that God gave us when we separated from Him.  This too I believe.

Mary’s statement has something deeper, though.  The body certainly seems “real” to us, and it is this “real” nature of the body that may explain why Jesus worked with Mari to bring forth A Course of Love.  If read narrowly, A Course in Miracles makes our life here pretty dismal—until the Holy Spirit brings to us the “happy dreams” that he does bring.  But we may still get the impression from ACIM that life on the Other Side, as spirits, is better than life in the body.

If we all believe this, we won’t want to return to the earth in the future.  We will live out our lives, glad to be rid of this world.  But we are the hands and feet of God (and by extension, Jesus), and if we don’t save our brothers and sisters who are lost in attack and anger, who will?

Perhaps Jesus did not at first recognize in A Course in Miracles how dismal he was making this world sound.  So we have A Course of Love, and, now, Mirari, to celebrate the new world that we will be creating.  A new world in which reality blossoms.

Wisdom that Has Not Come Before

“How can what continues to give in to fear know love?  All your reasons for fear-based living have been discounted one by one.  And yet you dare not try to live without it.  Why?  Because of the thoughts of the ego-mind.  The ego-mind is concerned only with its own survival but it has you convinced it is your survival that depends on it.  How can you be convinced to live as if the truth were otherwise?  For only if you begin to live as if the truth were otherwise can you see that it truly is otherwise, or based on a wisdom other than what has come before.”  (A Course of Love, T1:3.5)

We tremble in fear when we make short forays in to trying to live without fear.  Fear seems a given, something that will protect us.

We are misinformed.  Fear is not necessary for our continued survival in this sometimes harsh world.  The reason that we think that fear is needed is the lingering influence of the ego-mind, the insane part of us that continues to dwell just below the surface of our good sense.

The ego is gone from us when we have assimilated the truths of A Course of Love.  We may not realize this, we may still struggle.  But the ego only has a residue of false thinking that continues to infiltrate our moments of reflection.  We have always thought with the ego-mind, and so to hear Jesus say in ACOL that we are done with the ego is immediately enough to raise doubts in our minds.  How can we be done with the ego?  We see its influence constantly.

We need to let go.  We need to trust what Jesus is telling us.  If he says that the ego is no more for us, then let the mind rest in that knowledge—for it is knowledge, not perception.  Just rest.  And the truth of the elimination of the ego will dawn on a calmer mind in ourselves.

A greater wisdom is available to us, and we ought to take advantage of that greater wisdom forthwith.  Let the smudge of ego on our minds be lightened by our prayer consideration that perhaps the ego is just a mirage, seeming to be ahead of us on our pathway, but actually not representing anything but illusion.

To Mother the New into Existence

“The invasion is an intrusion of The New into the old, a force meant to quicken the passing of all that lingers of death in the living.  To end living death and welcome living life.  To end division and become one with what is being birthed.  To mother The New into existence.”  Mirari

Here Mirari, Mari’s new book, takes up where A Course of Love left off.  Still talking about The New, the new world that we will all create together, this new book goes a step farther.  It counsels that we do what we can to bring love into our world, big time, for there are still too many of us who are bringing negativity into this world.

We need to be sure that we don’t encourage negativity by our own actions.  We must stop feeding egos, and here I know Mari’s new book is preaching to the choir.  All of us who have discovered A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love know of the detrimental effect of egoic and egotistical thought.

Listen to our heart.  Mirari is also a heart-centered book, in this way like A Course of Love.

Reviews/Ratings

Being Who You Are: Pondering A Course of Love is written by the author of this blog, Celia Hales, and is available on Amazon.

Andrew B

5.0 out of 5 stars

Wow!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 31, 2021.

I can’t thank Celia enough for writing such a wonderful book. It totally introduced me to “A Course in Love”, after I have been a ” A Course in Miracles” student for 15 years. It is just so lovely, gentle and life affirming. I loved it!

Margaret Deeb – Note:  This is Mari Perron, who received A Course of Love.  Margaret Deeb is her legal, married name, and the way in which she has her account on Amazon.

5.0 out of 5 stars

The warmth and experience of the author make this an intimate read

Reviewed in the United States on May 29, 2021

Celia Hales has the wonderful combination of a confident voice and a gentle manner. I am happy to be able to complement her ponderings on being you are through the experience of A Course of Love. I am in complete agreement that being who we truly are is the promise of this work. Hales begins and ends with sharing herself, which fits totally with that premise. Chapter 1 starts with a favorite passage of mine. It is imbued with a depth of feeling that invites the reader to be embraced by love. Celia describes it as emblematic of the warm, heartfelt tone throughout. She speaks of friendship as getting to know the essence of a person. Hales assures new and expectant readers that ceasing to let our minds rule our hearts and realizing that love is our nature, will guide us to the new and unprecedented experience of the elevated self of form. Celia Hales concludes by speaking of how people like genuineness and that this is what being who you are actually accomplishes. That was my favorite part. Being genuine. Who doesn’t want to be that? She also said, “We become inspired.” Being genuine and inspired, wholehearted and intuitive, can lead to the sense, she says, that “we are free.” These are words that I delight in as the “receiver” of A Course of Love. Those considering reading A Course of Love may find this a pleasing invitation, and those who have already read ACOL may enjoy the ten themes she draws upon, as well as her frequent reflections on A Course in Miracles.

Bonnie Crawford

5.0 out of 5 stars

 A Special Book that Speaks to the Heart

Reviewed in the United States on April 5, 2021

Celia Hales’ book is packed with wisdom and made sense not only to my mind, but especially spoke to my heart. The contemplations are uplifting to the spirit, and I appreciate what she said about dropping the false self, the ego, and coming to the place of the heart – our TRUE selves that are naturally free and happy. The joining of heart and mind – whole heartedness – that brings us the freedom to live in peace and joy, as we were intended to. I also found her discussion helpful of living in the present moment and the letting go of fear and judgement. Her book is beautifully written and makes me look forward to reading “A Course of Love.”

Acolover

5.0 out of 5 stars

 Perfect title

Reviewed in the United States on January 2, 2021

The title of this book goes right to the heart of it: being who you are—who you REALLY are. The author is thoroughly grounded in A Course in Miracles, since 1981. A Course of Love, coming from the same Source, expands upon the earlier Course, and she deftly integrates the two. A key understanding is that we cannot think our way to Heaven, we only experience that awareness by being who we (really) are. And when we are being who we are, we naturally know how to act.

Separation / Fear

“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.”  (A Course of Love, D:Day40.6)

What, eons ago, were we trying to do when we enter physical matter on earth?  We were not at risk of avoiding God, as long as we didn’t think that we needed separation from Him.  We needed only to be differentiations—individuations—of God, experiencing physical form in this new environment, new for souls such as we.

But we did think that we need to experience what life was like to be separate from God.  This is why this experiment, at first, failed.  To live without God, without communing with God, we needed to construct a separate existence ruled by a separate thought:  the ego.  And so we dropped into pain and suffering, for nothing that deems itself apart from God can survive well in such a harsh climate as we have found ourselves. 

We fell into fear rather than love, and that has made all the difference.  We didn’t known what we were getting into.  Long have we rued that day, though we didn’t know what we were rejecting.  Our attempt at individuation thus became known as the “fall of man,” and we have since struggled mightily to find our way back to our Maker.

It is important to note that extension into physical form was not the problem; it was only how we lived it that was (and is) the problem.  Now we need to recognize that Awakening to reality is what we need.  We have taught ourselves not to commune with God, and this is a most unnatural way to live.  In our finite minds, we can’t know what best to do next.  Only supernatural help will guide us rightly.  And this supernatural help is right within us, in the Christ mind that dwells within.

Let’s make the right choice today, and seek the guidance that only communing with our depths can bring about.