Expect Heaven on Earth

1 – Note on Being

“You are in relationship now only with love, and so nothing will be hard for you. Desire an old pattern to be gone and it will be gone. This little note added to the end of our mountain top time together is only here to help you realize and accept that this will be so. Do not expect difficulties and they will not arise. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Note on Being)”

2 – Ease

This is the ease with which life is lived from within Christ-consciousness. Jesus is speaking here as though everyone who has read these 40 days of meditations has reached Awakening. He did not intend, he said, for us to take repeated trips to the mountain top. He has channeled three volumes in A Course of Love with the purpose of bringing us to Christ-consciousness. And this day is the culmination.

3 – Jesus’s Purpose

What if Jesus’s purpose worked for you? Then we can only rejoice with you. What if Jesus’s purposes did not work for us—that we have not reached Christ-consciousness. Then perhaps we ought to counsel patience. I don’t think that one can put a timetable on Awakening. It is, at best, a slippery concept. And once reached, sometimes it slips away from us. And Jesus would have us sustain the elevated Self of form. So his aspirations for us are very high.

4 – Remove the Blocks

We make a decision that we want Christ-consciousness, and we seek to remove the blocks to love’s awareness, as guided by the Christ Self within. But God Himself reaches down and lifts us up, and which of us can put a timetable on God?

5 – Expectation

“Expect heaven on earth you were told. This is what it is. There will be no doubt, no indecision. Your path will be so clear to you it will be as if it is the only path in the world and you will wonder why you didn’t see it all along. Expect this. And it will be. So be it. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Note on Being)”

6 – Grace

When we follow guidance from the state of grace, then Heaven on earth is what we find. We don’t waver in our commitment. And the Christ Self doesn’t waver either.

7 – Make Real

“You will not realize that everything has changed until you ‘realize’ or ‘make real’ that change. Let this revelation come to you. All you need do is expect it to come and it will come. So be it. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Note on Being)”

8 – Awakening

So let us expect that we will reach Awakening, and sooner rather than later. Let us welcome the experience, not put limits on what we will allow.

9 – Limitations

The placing of limitations on God Himself is in all likelihood the most crucial element going on in one’s psyche if Awakening is not happening. We can turn aside from this gift. And turn aside we do when we try to dictate to God what we will accept into our lives.

10 – Being Afraid

If we are afraid of enlightenment, then this itself is a limit of great magnitude. And we don’t see what we fear, for fear is of the ego. Fearing and judging are two of the primary impediments to our readiness for Awakening. And once these two are gone forever, then Awakening will be smoothed, and sooner rather than later.

11 – Be Diligent

How might we do this? Be diligent in your thinking. Don’t entertain either the concept of fear or the concept of judgment. There is a difference in having birds fly over one’s head, and letting those same birds nest in one’s hair. And the nesting is the problem. Don’t let fear and judging nest in your hair.

12 – Sampling of Quotations from the Note on Being

Below are a group of quotations from the note on being. Read them at your leisure:

13 – Thinking

“You will no longer need to ‘think’ about who you are and what you will do, and your willingness to give up this thinking will be paramount to your realization that everything has changed or that nothing has changed. These are both possibilities, as all possibilities are yours. Which do you choose? (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Note on Being)”

14 – Worry

“This difference, if you will allow it to come, will take away all worry, all thought about how you could be better, more, greater. If you still possess some things that you would consider character flaws or faults, forget about them now. In being they will be yours or they will not. You will be happy that you have these aspects of humanness or you will not and they will be gone. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Note on Being)”

15 – Unhappiness

“Do not expect the same unhappiness with yourself however. You are fine. You are being. You are being fine. So be it. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Note on Being)”

16 – Difficulties

“When you meet what you would have before seen as difficulties, as you encounter a world where love still does not seem to reign, when you meet that which would oppose love, remember that you are now the bridge between this creative tension of opposites becoming one. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Note on Being)”

17 – Quest

“What will there be to strive for? What quest will replace this quest for being? The quest for love’s expression—the quest to see, experience, and share, as many of love’s expressions as the world needs to be returned, along with you, to its own Self. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Note on Being)”

18 – Love’s Expression

“Does this seem like a long and harrowing road? An endless quest? An endless quest for love’s expression is eternity itself. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Note on Being)”

19 – Love

“You now know how to respond to love, for you are love, being. So be it. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Note on Being)”

20 – True Nature

“You have returned to your true nature. Perhaps you will remember that within A Course of Love you were once asked to ‘Imagine the ocean or the cheetah, the sun or the moon or God Himself, attempting to learn what they are. They are the same as you. All exist within you. You are the universe itself.’ (A Course of Love: Dialogues, p. 248)”

21 – Struggles

Our struggles are over. We have returned to level ground from the mountain top after Forty Days and Nights with Jesus. We will live in love henceforth. We will simply be. For awhile, we may be conscious of trying to “become,” but this will fade as we relax into being. We are told by Jesus to expect heaven on earth.
22 – Joy

Our joy, which will be ever-increasing, is not selfish, for we take our brothers and sisters with us in unity and relationship (the hallmark words of A Course of Love). Our futures are up to us. The possibilities are all ours.

23 – Are We Ready?
Perhaps we still wonder a bit if we are truly ready, but Jesus asserts that we are. He did not intend for us to take a trek up the mountain top repeatedly, but to accept his words, and to realize that we are now ready. We will be happy and contented. We will know, unerringly, how to act naturally from our being.

24 – Errors

If we still worry about errors that are in ourselves, we will simply acknowledge that we want them gone, and they will be gone. We are as accepting of ourselves as we have been of Jesus. We approach our days with love, and this is sufficient. Our quest now is for love’s expression–nothing more. An endless quest for love’s extension is eternity itself. We know now how to respond in love, for we are love, being.
25 – Ending

Thus ends our Forty Days and Forty Nights on the mountain top with Jesus. If we are ready to accept his promise, we are ready to embrace Christ-consciousness. Perhaps it will not come al at once; perhaps we will have glimpses, perhaps for a long while yet.
26 – End Is Certain

But be reassured, just as A Course in Miracles reassures. Once begun, the end is certain. We will know God, we will know Jesus, we will know our brothers and sisters, and we will know ourselves.

Note: With these reflections this day, the Forty Days and Forty Nights in the Dialogues of A Course of Love are concluded.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Thank You for finding in Mari a person who would accept the task of channeling a new message from Jesus. May we accept, gradually, all that we can from this new message. May we be patient with ourselves if we do not immediately find the joy that Jesus promises. May we anticipate in faith that his promises are true, that we will know the joy of a new reality in this world.

Perhaps this world is not yet ready for the truths of A Course of Love. I pray that the messages held within, if true, are accepted sooner rather than later. And I do believe that these messages are true. Thank You for taking our hand and leading us to the promise of a better future.

Amen.

The Way Back from Separation from God

1 – Individuation / Differentiation

“Your attempt at individuation and extension, an attempt consistent with the nature of your being, failed only because you experienced separation rather than differentiation, and fear rather than love. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 40)”

2 – Detour into Fear

Jesus is here telling us what happened in our detour into separation, our attempt to be free of God and to make a reality that did not contain Him, that was somehow meant to be better than the reality that God created. In A Course in Miracles, we are told that we made the world, and this world, though a miscreation, was not allowed to separate us forever from God—which would have been impossible, for we are part of Him. God let us go, as a parent lets rebellious adolescents go, when it was apparent to Him that we wanted our own way. But He sets the limits on our ability to miscreate, and eventually pain becomes so intense that we realize that there must be “another way,” a better. This is exactly what Helen and Bill decided between themselves, just before Jesus started channeling A Course in Miracles through Helen, with Bill transcribing into the typewriter each day.

3 – Acceptance of Christ in Us

“With the acceptance of the Christ in you, you are returned to relationship and need no longer strive against the ‘opposing’ force of separation, for you no longer know it. The creative tension that now remains in our relationship is the tension of individuation or the individuation and the differentiation process. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 40)”

4 – Creative Tension

Jesus believes that the “creative tension” between us and him is good, that this creative tension will remain with us as we continue to walk together following the arrival in our psyches of Christ-consciousness. We remain “separate,” but not alone, in that we are differentiated, minute parts of God-stuff. We stand up to the challenge that individuation gives us, in that we seek to go forward in sharing with our brothers and sisters—in that oft-stated two-part reality of union and relationship.

5 – Extension

“[T]he nature of a being of love is to extend. The nature of a being of love is to bring form to the formless—to bring love into form. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 40)”

6 – Physical Form

This explains why physical form is not to be lamented. We are bringing into this world a creativity that has its base in our form, in that we will be the elevated Self of form. We will be “elevated,” but we will still keep our feet on the ground, even if our heads are in the clouds of Higher Reality.

7 – ACIM

A Course in Miracles, with its heavily Gnostic influence, seemed to be regretting the physical form. If we have that idea, Jesus corrects it in A Course of Love. Physical form can be glorious, as long as we exit from the ego. Physical form is simply another type of experience for God in His individuated forms.

8 – Christ-consciousness

“Recall what was said earlier: Christ-consciousness is the awareness of existence through relationship. It is not God. It is not man. It is the relationship that allows the awareness that God is everything. It has been called wisdom, Sophia, spirit. It is that without which God would not know God. It is that which differentiates All from nothing. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 40)”

9 – Definition

Here is a full definition for Christ-consciousness. It is our inheritance, what we are meant to become. And we are fully aware.

10 – Separation

“As a separate being, you have been in a relationship with fear. This relationship with fear is all that has provided the ‘I’ of the separated self. But because you exist as an extension of love, you have always held within you the Christ, who is the relationship with love. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 40)”

11 – Fear

We need to get beyond the fear, and in Christ-consciousness, indeed we do. We are an extension of love, and, as such, we live and walk in perfect security, invulnerable.

12 – What Next?

“When you turn the last page, will you cry tears of sadness that our dialogue is complete, that you will hear my voice no more. Or will you brave your own relationship with me? Will you turn to your brother and hear my voice in him? Will you be my voice as you turn to your sister? Will you carry the fullness of our relationship within you? Will you be one with me, and in being one with me never feel alone again? Will you let the emptiness of separation leave you once and for all? (A Course of Love: Dialogues, p. 247)”

13 – “I Am”

We are an extension of I Am in form. Through that extension, we become who we are to Jesus, instead of who he has been to us. There is creative tension in this relationship, and that is good. This will allow the power that is needed as we return to level ground.

14 – Fear

As separate beings, our existence was circumscribed by fear. As beings living in unity and relationship, love is our hallmark, our extension. Christ-consciousness is the awareness of existence in relationship.

15 – Self

We are one Self, love’s extension, one to another in unity and relationship. This one Self the Christ Self. We must let the emptiness of separation leave us, and we must join with Jesus in all his fullness. We must not cry tears of sadness that we are no longer on the mountain top with him. He will go with us to level ground. We carry the fullness of our relationship to him with us. And we must share this relationship with all in our world. We join together with our brothers and sisters, and Jesus is our companion. We are never alone.

16 – Love

“Will you be the relationship that returns love to all who share this world with you? (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 40)”

17 – Challenge?

This quotation is our challenge, if indeed we have a challenge. A Course in Miracles says that we have no challenges when we are advanced teachers of God, for we recognize that we choose for all humankind, sure of our choice. We have a determination now that love will be on essence; it will be what we share with all of our brothers and sisters.

18 – Linkage

We are linked to all others by our relationship with them, and we are one with them by our common grounding in God. There is no better way to see our future than to note this. We are no longer alone and lonely, on a forlorn planet. We are sharing, experiencing, together—walking into the sunset no longer alone, no longer separated in fear, but together in love.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May love be my hallmark in the new reality in which I find myself as I descend to level ground. May I recognize that, with my brothers and sisters, I am one Self. I am also one Self with God. Help me to understand this blessing, this knowledge that has never before been made so clear to me.

Help me in my daily walk on level ground. Thank you for the blessing of the Forty Days and Forty Nights. Thank You, Jesus, for your channeling to us in A Course of Love.

May this day continue well. May all of us share in the love that is our heritage. May the lessons of the 40 days and 40 nights on the mountain top be made a permanent part of our mind and spirit. May we go forward in confidence that we will walk in the way that Jesus has pointed out. May we lose our fears and be only sustained in love from this day forward.

Amen.

Who Is Jesus to You?

1 – Day 39

“My beloved,

“It is time now to come to your own discovery of who I Am to you. No one can give you this answer, not even me, because this is the nature of who we are. Individuated beings are who we are in relationship to one another. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 39)”

We are individuated, differentiated, beings in relationship to each other—and thus, in relationship to our companion, Jesus. We are differentiated from “God stuff.” And we often forget this when we fall into nefarious thinking, thinking that takes us out of line with what Jesus would think.

2 – Reactions

We need today to consider how we react to Jesus. Are we afraid of him, because we still cling to earlier notions of a judge of us? Are we dependent on him to take us from bad feelings to good? Are we loving when we think of him, seeing him as a role model?

3 – Thinking

The possibilities are endless, and Jesus invites us this day to consider what in fact we do think.

4 – Projection vs. Extension

“I’m sure you have heard of life spoken of as a projection. Because we are all one being, we must either extend or project in order to individuate and be in relationship. You are an extension of I Am into form. Through your extension, you can become who you are to me, instead of who I have been to you. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 39)”

5 – Jesus’s Thinking

We move from projection to extension when we fall in line with Jesus’s thinking. When we move closer to Awakening, to Christ-consciousness, to transformation. To become who we are to Jesus is a lofty statement of what we might reach. He sees the very best in us, nothing less. And he is here inviting us to see that very best in us as well.

6 – Revelation

“What you strive for here is revelation. For only through revelation can you know all and still hold the mystery. This revelation is not something being withheld from you. But it is a revelation that can only come to you as an individuated being in union and relationship. This is what makes it true revelation. Because true revelation is between you and me. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 39)”

7 – Beyond Miracles

Revelation is beyond miracles, because miracles are perceptual. Revelations are an instance of pure love, unspeakable love, something so beyond us that to try to explain revelation when it happens is to be at a loss for words.

8 – Jesus

Here Jesus says that revelation is between him and us. We cannot understand how this can be, but he is speaking in his God Self, his Christ Self. We have been told in A Course in Miracles that revelation proceeds from God to us, never in the reverse. And Jesus is seeing us on level ground as an individuated part of God; likewise, he sees himself in the same way.

9 – Establishing a Relationship

“Establishing this relationship with me may sound lofty and difficult, but it is simple. It is as simple as relationship is within your everyday life. You may not think that relationship within everyday life is simple, but you also know it as a constant. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 39)”

10 – We Cannot See Him

We can establish a relationship with a Jesus whom, of course, we cannot see. He says that establishing that relationship is just like relationships on earth, relationships with people whom we can see. It only takes imagination, and all of us have that faculty.

11 – Individuation

“We jointly individuate rather than separate. We can only do this in relationship. We can only have relationship as individuated beings. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 39)”

We need relationship in order to experience ourselves. We have been told that God Himself had a similar dilemma, and in the individuation, in the differentiation, that became Creation, He was able to experience Himself in us and everything else.

12 – Memory

“What memory of I Am will you carry with you now that you know that I Am is who I am and who you are? What memory has this Course and this Dialogue returned to you? What memory is without attributes because it is who I Am and not a projection? Only love. What memory is not a memory, but your identity? Only love. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 39)”

13 – Love

This is a dissertation on what love really means; it is all-encompassing, in Jesus’s opinion. When we feel love, we are not projecting an illusion; instead, we are extending into the real world.

14 – Creation

“You will realize that s we individuate we are in a constant state of creation as well as of creative tension. As we become individuated beings in union and relationship, we continuously create one another. We create from the field of the possible which must include everything. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 39)”

15 – Creators

“Do you not realize yet, that this is what we do and who we are? That we are creators? That we think, feel, know, and create. Creation is the manifestation of all we think, feel, know and come to know. Because we are constantly creating, we are constantly coming to know anew. This is eternity. . . .You are now the bridge between time and eternity. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 39)”

16 – Essence

These words identify our new essence. We are meant to be co-creators with God, and in the mountain top journey, in which we seek to reach co-creatorship, we are led by Jesus. He knows what our essence is, and he tells us such in these memorable words.

17 – Christ

“As the Christ in you ceases to be a bridge, the Christ in you is not only integrated into you but integrated into me. I could no more reach across time and space without this relationship than could you. Only with our willingness joined, are we able to negate the need for intermediaries and be in relationship. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 39)”

18 – Integration

We are seeking integration of the Self, and with this come the oft-repeated unity and relationship. We have a relationship, as an individuated being, with all others—even those who don’t recognize the change that has occurred in us. We are not looking to Jesus as an intermediary any longer; we are embodying the Christ Self, and we are reaching out to our brothers and sisters in relationship borne of the unity that we all share with God.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Help me to revel in these pronouncements of Jesus, today and always. There is such joy in contemplating the real Self, seeking as I am to become that real Self. Be with me today as I journey about my world, feet on level ground but head in the clouds—on the mountain top with Jesus. May I not let my fantasies get the best of me, but may my imagination, legitimately engaged, allow me to form a new sort of relationship with Jesus. This will be the basis for a new way of living, a way of relating to all people as I relate to Jesus.

Guide my daily walk. Be with me. Allow me to sense Your presence.

Thank You.

Amen.

The Christ in Us Is the Accomplished

1 – Day 38

“But breathe a sigh of relief, my beloved, for you do not have to learn all that the Christ in you learned. This is why we have had to enter the time of non-learning–so that you accept that you do not have to try to learn the unlearnable. This is why we have left the time of becoming behind, why you stand ready to enter the time of being in union and relationship. The Christ in you is the accomplished. The Christ in you is that which, upon this final acceptance, returns your wholeness to you. (A Course of Love: Dialogues, p. 240)”

2 – Individuation / Differentiation

“Individuation” and “differentiation” are used interchangeably in A Course of Love. We are individuated beings in relationship to each other. But God is there all the time. We are not separate beings, sent into an alien world to try to live by ourselves. We have often thought of ourselves this way, but this way is a fallacy. We are meant to establish a relationship with Jesus that is not difficult at all, but simple in the extreme. We are individuated beings that live in relationship to each other and Jesus, and in unity with God. This relationship, in truth, is just as simple as any relationship that we have ever encountered in our daily life, at any stage upon the journey.

3 – Projection / Extension

We do not project any longer; we extend. In extension, we are living in the relationship that is truly real. Our projections have been of the ego, and we would leave these behind. When we project, we project illusions, a dream world. But when we extend, we are gearing ourselves to project a real world, reality itself. This comes about only when we have assumed the mantle of Christ-consciousness, but this is what Jesus is trying to do with us in this mountain top journey. He wants us to assume Christ-consciousness; he is trying to remove the blocks to love’s awareness that we have all had when the ego was running the show. When he has succeeded in removing those blocks, then we will be natural selves, and God will lift us up to Christ-consciousness, which is another name for the Awakening.
4 – Paradox
Who is Jesus to us? Only who we are to ourselves. This is a paradox, but a true idea. We will not leave this mountain top with our illusions about ourselves still in place. We do not have to achieve sainthood or perfection to live in relationship to the All. We will find heaven when we realize that what is asked of us is not hard at all. We will find God. Previously, we have judged ourselves as not being worthy. Realize now that we have walked the whole pathway to Christ-consciousness. We are ready in one more day to return to level ground, to descend from the mountain top and to take our place among our brothers and sisters–changed but completely whole, differentiated beings who are joined in unity and relationship.
5 – Repeated Journeys?
Jesus does not intend for us to take this mountain top journey repeatedly. Realistically, many of us will—for who can attain Awakening on one trip? Some do, many do not. There is little way to judge for ourselves how far we have actually come. This is only for God to say. And the action of raising us up is His gift to us, His blessing.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,
I am ready, almost, to return to level ground. I am a different person than I was before I went to the mountain top with Jesus. May this trek be a permanent change in me. May I realize that I am justified by the faith that his words have given to me.

May Jesus be the companion that I have always longed to have. He said in A Course in Miracles that we might imagine him holding our hand as we walk along. And he said that this would be no idle fantasy. In A Course of Love he has been similarly reassuring, and he now welcomes us as equals in his love. I do not fully understand all that this promise holds out to me, but as time passes, may I come to understand ever more fully.

If the way still seems long, and if we think that we have not reached the goal of Awakening that we seek, there is only one thing left to do. Ask sincerely, and then wait in patience for You to answer. There is no other way. Studying will not achieve Awakening as a goal, for we are beyond the time of learning. Observation will show us much, but it will not show us this great blessing, Awakening. We need to lean into You, trusting that when we are our natural Self, then the blocks to love’s awareness will be gone. And then You will move swiftly to lift us up.

Thank You.

Amen.

Jesus Does Love Us

1 – Day 38

“My beloved,

“We have not spoken much recently of love, but now it is time to return to love. Do you know, can you feel as yet, how much I love you? How full of love I am for you? (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 38)”

2 – Poignant

Day 38 is extremely poignant, expressing from Jesus his manifest love for all of us. He can feel more love than we can, and so we honestly do not return in equal amount to him. We can’t. We are limited finite beings, and he is speaking to us from the Other Side.

3 – A Generous Expression

But we can be grateful for this generous expression on his part. And we can make small inroads in our reluctance to love fully, to love “full out.” We can make progress in having loving hearts. All it takes is a little gratitude for the life that we have been given, the expressions of love that we have received, and our own attempts to give up judgment, give up attack, give up fear—and walk into the sunlight with Jesus holding our hand.

4 – Extension

“Being full of love for one another is the beginning of extension, the end of withdrawal. It is the mutuality of our love that causes this fullness. Remember briefly here the feelings of withdrawal you have experienced when you believed you loved more or that you were loved less by a friend or lover. Remember briefly here the feelings of withdrawal you experienced when you felt loved for being something other than that which you are. Know, through your brief contemplation of these feelings that this is behind us now. Know that we can be known and loved equally for who we are. (A Course of Love: Dialogues, p. 234)”

5 – Reassurance

In Day Thirty Eight, Jesus returns to a reassurance of his love for us. He expresses his union with us, and he notes that we are in relationship to each other in that union. He welcomes us again into his embrace, harkening back to a beautiful passage in the first volume of the series of A Course of Love.

6 – “I Am”

In a somewhat confusing statement, he tries to explain to us, simply, that “I Am,” and “Who I Am,” are different, but that in “Who I Am,” we come to know him in unity and relationship. “Who” is an acknowledgment that we are differentiated beings, but beings who are joined in unity because they choose to be so.

7 – Powerful Expression

Day Thirty Eight is a powerful statement of Jesus’s love for us. In the fullness of his love, we will come to possess our souls.

8 – Call Me Yours
“Call me God the Father, call me God the Mother, call me Creator, or Great Spirit, Yahweh or Allah, but call me yours. For this is who I am. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 38)”

9 – All / One

This statement assures us that Jesus is part of the All, the One. He is identifying with God the Father in a way that he never has before. And we may be puzzled by his statement.

10 – Projection Makes Perception

Yet we have realized in A Course in Miracles that we projected our illusion, that projection makes perception of a world of dreams. Jesus was a part of that world also. He also projected a dream, though this is an interpretation and not something that he has shared with us. We almost have to conclude this, though, if we are to understand his affiliation with the Creator, inviting us to call him by the name of Creator.

11 – Something More?

Is there something deeper in mind here? I wonder. Did Jesus do something more, as our leader in creating the world and all that we see in it? And in creating the universe and all we see in it?

12 – Wondering

This statement is beyond what A Course of Love tells us. It is just something to keep in mind, wondering.

13 – Call Yourself Mine

“Call yourself daughter or son, sister or brother, co-creator or friend. But call yourself mine. For we belong to one another. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 38)”

14 – Co-Creators

This tells us what we are to Jesus, and one of those designation is “co-creator.” So, we too had our part in creating the illusion in which we find ourselves.

15 – Traditional Christianity

We belong to Jesus in a way that traditional Christians have often stated. While those individuals would not agree with all of the theology of A Course of Love, certainly the love, the palpable love, from Jesus to us would sound familiar.

16 – The Embrace

“This is the meaning of the embrace—the possession, the ownership of belonging—of carrying, or holding relationship and union within one’s own Self. This has been called the tension of opposites, of being one’s own Self and being one in union and relationship. These opposites, like all others, are held within the embrace of love and belonging. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 38)”

17 – A Return

In the original volume of A Course of Love, Jesus holds us in an embrace in which we are bidden to relax and be soothed. This section is one of the most beautiful of all A Course of Love. And here Jesus refers us back to its beauty.

18 – Love More Fully

We belong to each other, though in our conflicted world we don’t often recognize this. When we love more fully, we will so recognize.

19 – Better

And we will be the better for it.

20 – Being

“We are not two beings who are separate but relating in union. We are each other’s own being. We are one and we are many. We are the same and we are different. In ‘own’-ership we are full of one another’s own being. We are each other’s own. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 37)”

21 – Reassurance

These are more reassuring words in this, one of the final days on the mountain top. It is an elucidation of the theme of unity and relationship to which we return time and again.

22 – A Good Day

And, with that, we are left to end Day 37. It has indeed been a good day. Jesus has expressed his love for us in ways that will warm our hearts. And we know that he has placed a call upon us to return that love to him as fully as we possibly can.

23 – Holding Hands

We will feel led to do so, holding Jesus’s hand as we walk along. What greater help could we petition to have?

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I have not always been aware of the depth of love that Jesus feels for all people, and also for me. Previously I have sometimes seen Jesus as a judge. Help me to accept the veracity of his love for all of us today. Help me to return that love.

Thank You for Jesus’s messages to us. His messages are a great comfort. May I rest at ease in his reassurances today.

Amen.

Enjoying Union with God

1 – Day 37

“You keep striving for differentiation in a way that simply will not work—through separation! And what’s more, you keep striving for differentiation while wanting to continue a certain reliance. Your differentiation from the being of God can only come through the relationship and unity that you would deny in your quest for separation! This would be like demanding to be a body and not a mind! (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 37)”

2 – Jesus

Jesus is chiding us here. We want to remain separate from God, though we know that this separation is simply an illusion. He is our very Being, and so in reality it is impossible to separate. But we can imagine that we have, and we can imagine praying to a Being Who is external to ourselves. This is what we have done for most of our lives, and thus it is both comfortable and reassuring. It is not the truth, but it is familiar.

3 – God’s Being

Jesus would have us lean back into the truth of God’s Being, as well as into the truth of our own Being—in One with God (unity) and One with our brothers and sisters, as well as with God (relationship with differentiated beings). This is the theologically correct interpretation of what is our very Being. A new idea takes a little time to assimilate. And that is what is happening for us now; we are taking that time, and Jesus is frustrated with us. He even sounds frustrated, with his exclamation points in this quotation.

4 – Explanations

Give Jesus a break. Listen to his explanations, and try to appropriate them unto yourself. We all have a vested interest in seeing reality as it really is. And Jesus would have us see reality as a means to move toward Christ-consciousness, which is the purpose and goal of what he has been sharing with us on the mountain top. Let’s not go back down to level ground without giving what he says a try. Try to suspend judgment for ever so slightly a moment, and suspend fear, and see if listening to Jesus becomes easier. See if unity and relationship really speak to us.

5 – Help from God

“One of the reasons you have been as intent as you have been on your idea of a separate and particular God is that you want to believe that there is a compassionate being in charge of everything, looking out for you, there to help when you are in need. God is all compassionate being everywhere—not one being of compassion! In unity and relationship you realize this. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 37)”

6 – The Whole

God is the Whole. He is compassionate toward us, and we may here also realize that our brothers and sisters are compassionate toward us as well—at least some of the time. We do not have to give up solace from God when we start viewing Him differently. He still listens to our prayers, is there with us for communion. It is just that He is equally there in our brothers and sisters, though they lack the omniscience that the Being of God—everywhere, all the time—is.

7 – Compassionate Being

We do still need a compassionate Being to be there for us when we are in need. And we do not have to give up this concept. The ineffable nature of God assures that our finite minds cannot comprehend the All Who He is. We do sense a Presence with us when we pray in depth. And this Presence is God Himself, coming close. We are never alone. We can bring our conflicts and antagonisms, our neuroses and psychoses, our anger and our attack, to God and be eased in our thoughts. One thing that A Course of Love has taught us is that we understand more about God in our hearts than we can ever understand in our minds. We sense through our hearts, also. And we aren’t so intent on having a proof of God’s existence in an intellectual sense. When we see through our hearts, we truly experience God.

8 – Home

And then we have no questions. We are at home in Him.

9 – Knowing

“You can imagine what it means to ‘know’ another person, to be a tree blowing in the wind, what it would be like to know God, but you cannot know, and your separate being ‘knows’ of this impossibility. This is why this course has had, as its main objective, returning you to true knowing of yourself. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 37)”

10 – Puzzling

This is a puzzling quotation if taken at face value. But the real truth lies in the fact that the real knowing is a matter of the heart, of wholeheartedness of mind and heart combined. We don’t need proof anymore. We are content, for we sense a Being Who is not separate from ourselves. We therefore “know” God. We know Him when we are enthralled in a mystical moment, and these moments come to all of us.

11 – Separation

When we saw ourselves as separate from the Entity Who is God, we could not sense what He was really like. But when we sense, in the unity of One, the multiplicity of many in relationship, that we are there with Him in reality—then we drop our reservations and just fall into His arms. This is the real communion and the real communication that God so wants from us. Our finite minds can reach an intimation of immortality, but we can know only when we sense that we are not separated from our Source.

12 – Know Thyself

This course, A Course of Love, wants us to know ourselves. And in the knowing our ourselves, really knowing, will we also come to recognize Who God is.

13 – One

“God is one with every creation. God is all knowing. God is, in short, the collective consciousness and the collective consciousness is that which links every being with every other being in unity and relationship. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 37)”

14 – Definition

This comes close to a full definition of God. Jung had it right so many years ago, for he talked of the collective unconscious, linking that idea to the idea of God. Here, Jesus says “consciousness,” not “unconsciousness,” and this would seem to me to indicate that we do know in our available minds what he is talking about. We are joined with God in our minds; we do apprehend Him.

15 – Unity and Relationship

The oft-repeated phrase, “unity and relationship,” shows up here again. Just think of a One and a Many—and the phrase will cease to be a trite repetition that might lose all meaning.

16 – All and Differentiated

“God is all and God is differentiated. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 37)”

17 – An Explanation

This quotation exemplifies the unity Who is God (the all), and the relationship Who is God (the differentiated). Jesus also uses the term “individuated” to describe how God could fracture Himself to create different beings, to create us and all that exists.

18 – Theology

This is more theology. But it is helpful if we don’t get hung up on theology. Just accept as much as you can, understanding as much as a finite mind can.

19 – Heart

And then let your heart take over from there. Your heart will encompass the Being Who is God, even as your heart will reach out to your brothers and sisters Who also are God incarnate.

20 – Jesus

“You realize that the man, the God, the historical figure who has been called Jesus Christ was not only Jesus but Christ. Not only Christ but Jesus. Not separated but individuated. You realize that the call for the second coming of Christ has sounded and that it is a call to the difference you have always desired while not requiring you to remain separate! (A Course of Love: Dialogues, p. 230)”

21 – God

The previous day, Day Thirty Six, replaced an old idea of God with a new: a God in which we all share. Day Thirty Seven elaborates upon this conception. We have previously seen ourselves as different from each other, and different from God. But, in unity, we are all the same, the same in relationship to each other. We are differentiations of God, creators even as He is. Our previous work has often been “made,” rather than created (a tenet of A Course in Miracles), but now we would accept how to be creators of reality, not illusion.

22 – Ego

We have seen ourselves as separate beings, encased in a human body that was made (rather than created) by the ego. Now we recognize the falsity of this conception, and we move to see ourselves as one with God. We accept this reality when we move into Christ-consciousness. We then know, as opposed to perceiving.

23 – Relationship

We are told that the divineness of our being is most revealed in relationship. This is because we are one with our brothers and sisters. When we separate ourselves from them, we separate ourselves from God. He would have us all join together. We have seen glimpses of this new state, but soon this new state will become permanent within ourselves. Then we will truly live in a new reality.

24 – Being

“The ‘part’ of God you have been being is being. You have been a feeling, thinking, creating, perceiving being. The ‘part’ of God you have not been being is union. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 37)”

25 – Accomplishments

This explains what we have accomplished as separated beings in illusion. We have felt, thought, created (made), perceived—but we have not been in union with God, for we willed ourselves not to experience this truth. We thought that being separate, even in illusion (for we did not believe it an illusion), would give us more than God Himself could and did give. How foolish the thinking that we all had! We thought that we could not be free beings unless we chose differently from God in our gift of free will. We were in rebellion, much as adolescents are in rebellion from their parents. The analogy here is exact, for many of us see God as our Heavenly Parent, our Heavenly Father.

26 – God’s Will

Now we would recognize that in choosing God’s will for us, we are really choosing what would make us happiest. He chooses for us, paving the way to our heart’s desires. And we are united as One with Him, once we have experienced Christ-consciousness. This is not for everyone—yet. For there are prerequisites, and they seem hard: no judgment, and no fears. How many of us can say that we have experienced such freedom from judging and anxiety on a sustained basis?

27 – Imagination

So we can see what we are up against. Our own feeble imaginations! We need to expand what we can imagine; we need to expand our minds and hearts into a concept of freedom from judging and freedom from fear! This will pave the way for God to take the natural step: the step to unite Himself with us once again, no separation in illusion being possible again. If God can take this natural step, we will embody the elevated Self of Form. And if we can follow Jesus’s way, we will sustain this new Self in form, something that hasn’t happened yet in our world (according to Jesus in A Course of Love).

28 – Union

“But because you have so clung to separation, you have rarely, until recently, glimpsed union. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 37)”

29 – Separation

This is the missing piece, now said by Jesus. When we get over our desire to cling to
separation, we will be open to the union with God that we all actually crave.

30 – Glimpses

“Glimpses of the being you are being when you are in unity and relationship have been offered to everyone. They have been afforded by willingness. They come from observation of self and they come from observation of others. They come from what you are willing to observe. They become more than glimpses only when they become what you are willing to be. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 37)”

31 – Sustainability of Awakening

Yes, glimpses of Awakening come to all of us, sometimes sustained in a moment, and sometimes sustained for months at a time. But they go away, these glimpses, when we lapse into judging and when we lapse into anxieties. The sustainability of the awakened state is what Jesus is sharing with us now. This sustainability alone will save our world.

32 – Ask

Ask for glimpses; ask for sustainability of Awakening, Christ-consciousness. See if you are ready. And if you sense that you are not, then redouble your prayers to be made ready, for it is God Himself Who readies us for this new state of being.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I do not want separation anymore; I want union. Help me to incorporate this new reality in my understanding of the human being that I am. May I also recognize the fact that the divine is part of my nature. I have not always understood this, but I ask to understand divinity today.

Thank You for this new and exciting truths. May I understand honestly and in depth. May I recognize that Your truth is something that, with grace, I can come to understand.

May I ask You today for a better future than I have had a past. I am tired of separation, for I have long known that it is an illusion. And I would know reality; I would know You. Be with me in my prayers; indeed, direct me in my prayers. Take my lips and form the words that you would have me say.

And may I soon be home in You, home with You but still in this world. A new world, a new reality on earth.

Amen.

Create a New Reality

1 – Day 36

“Yet you created in response to reality rather than creating reality. Now you are called to create reality—a new reality. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 36)”

2 – Reacting

This quotation is not entirely clear—yet. We can recognize that we have been reacting in our past lives, reacting to events in front of us, events that make or break our day. But we are faced now in the 40 days and 40 nights on the mountain top, with a distinct break in what we are accustomed to experiencing. Jesus would like to see all of us become Christ-conscious in one trip to and on the mountain top.

3 – Christ-consciousness

Is this realistic? Probably not. Nobody knows what allows Christ-consciousness to come to each of us. The changes in us, internal and external, are massive, and the Awakenings differ in content. Many are traumatic, but some are simply quiet. And Jesus says in A Course of Love that none of us has sustained the elevated Self of form. And he wants us to do so. He almost begs us to do so. In A Course in Miracles, we are told that if we cease judging, we will awaken. In A Course of Love, we are told that if we can eliminate fear and cease judging, we will awaken. It may seem easier, on the face of it, to stop ourselves from judgment our brothers and sisters, but few of us would believe that eliminating fear and anxieties from our lives is easy to do. We are always running into something that perturbs us.

4 – Jesus’s Call

Yet Christ-consciousness is Jesus’s call to us in the Dialogues. And, with it, we effect a new reality. It behooves us to study well, to commune with God, to commune with our inner Self, and to ask ourselves what changes in our thought processes need to happen for the blessing of Awakening to occur.

5 – Everything

“When you start over, knowing that what you have been given is everything, your creatorship of your experience is a totally different exercise. You realize that your life is not you but that your life is an exercise in creatorship. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 36)”

6 – Creatorship

What a lovely thought! Our life becomes an exercise in creatorship! We are to spend an eternity giving and receiving love, extending love; and creating. What more could anyone want? We know that all of our needs have been attended to, and so we rest in the comfort of God’s arms. We are at peace. We love and we create anew. This is what is spelled out in one of the treatises, entitled simply, “Treatise on the New.” (This treatise will be discussed in this blog after the series of postings on the 40 days and 40 nights.)

7 – Self-Centeredness

We don’t get hung up any longer in our own self-centered longings. We know that we have everything, as this quotation says, and we therefore rest easy. At this particular point in time, we have all of our needs met. We may not believe this, but it is nevertheless true. We probably don’t have all our wants satisfied, and maybe that would not be a good thing for us.

8 – Rest Easy

Rest easy in the assurance that we are living the life that we are meant to live—right now, here and now.

9 – New World

“Can you not see that if you can create your experience you can create a new reality—a new world? Can you not see the difference between creating as a separate self in response to a ‘given’ set of circumstances in a ‘given’ world and creating your experience as a creator who has realized oneness and unity—who has realized a new reality? (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 36)”

10 – Lonely

We will, we hope, soon see that we are not meant to be lonely creatures, encased in separate bodies, run by an ego that is confusing our minds and making us unhappy. We are in unity one with another, in relationship one with another. We share our reality, and in the sharing, we are made happy. There is no other way for full and complete happiness.

11 – Jesus

Jesus very much wants a new world. He sees the struggles and the suffering that humankind experience now, and he would have us freed to project a better reality. Projection makes perception, as we learned from A Course in Miracles. When we have reached Christ-consciousness, we will cease to twist and turn with the fates. We will create a new reality in which our brothers and sisters are equal beneficiaries. And the sooner, the better.

12 – You

“You do not disappear or cease to be. You are not replaced by God whom you have always been one with in being. You simply accept the truth of being and the truth of being in union and relationship. Both at the same time. Both/and rather than either/or. Cause and Effect. Means and End. You accept the end of choice and the beginning of creation. (A Course of Love: Dialogues, p. 227)”

13 – Relationship with God

Day Thirty Six notes that we have always been in relationship to God, and that God Himself, as the Trinity of God, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, indicates that He can know Himself only in relationship. This “knowing in relationship” has been what we have been reaching for. We are in union one to another, and we are also in relationship one to another.

14 – Our World

Our world has come very close to destruction. Now is the time that we need a better direction. As we accept our unity and our relationship with all our brothers and sisters, with God, indeed with the Whole, we will know peace. We have been creating all along, but now we create, not in illusion, but in truth. This will make the new world a better place, and this will save us from destruction.
15 – Differentiations

We are differentiations of God; this we have always been. But until we know the power of this relationship, we will not create anything of real value. We have often seen Him as apart from us, but this has been part of the illusion which we have built for ourselves in our egoistic nature. Now we would know the truth, and this we know, as a theme of A Course of Love, only in union with our brothers and sisters, and in relationship to them and to All else. The dichotomies are over; we are joined in Christ-consciousness. This is the ultimate message of ACOL.

16 – Separation

“To be one in being with God and yet to exist outside of the powerful state of relationship and union has been a challenging choice. A god-like choice. A choice for a new kind of experience that has led to the creation of an unreal reality so populated by the god-like and the god-less, so near to replacing creation with destruction, so joyous and loving and so hate- and pain-filled, that you have been moved to a new choice. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 36)”

17 – Destruction

This is the problem hinted at above. We are close to the destruction of the human race, and Jesus would bring us back from the brink. We have existed in illusory separation from God long enough; now is the time for the return to God.

18 – Separate

We recognize that our experiment to live separately, not considering our Maker, is unnatural. We were never meant to live in an isolated fashion, and to do so for intellectual reasons has been particularly unfortunate. Our intellectual doubts about God are healed by opening our minds and hearts to a mystic reality, a mystic experience. Many are saved by experiences that they cannot explain. But then their lives take a turn for the better, and there is no looking back.

19 – Otherworldly

If you haven’t had such an otherworldly experience yet, ask, simply take the risk and ask, for such an experience. What do you have to lose?

20 – God

“God is still the creator of all, but God is also now the Creator of one, the creator of the experience of one life, or many lives, the experience and the experiencer of life. Through differentiation, God is you as you are God. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 36)”

21 – Us

This explains that we don’t need an intellectual understanding of God, for He is us. We are One with Him. There is a broader world out there, waiting to be experienced as the “real world,” not the illusion in which we have been caught for eons.

22 – Definition of God

We need to change our definition of God, and, with this, our heart knows the answer better than the mind. The heart does not ask for the same types of proof that the mind does. And the heart is a softer and gentler place to reside.

23 – Open Your Heart

Try opening your heart today to a spiritual experience. Ask for one, and then remain free and easy—fearing nothing. Life will speak back to you.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

It is a great blessing to know that Christ-consciousness is upon my brothers and sisters, and upon myself. I welcome Jesus’s message of this new time, and I wholeheartedly embrace his message that the time of Christ is upon us now.

May I understand what it means to be in union with God and with my brothers and sisters. May my relationships be only those of love in the deepest sense.

Amen.

God Is the Relationship of Everything to Everything

1 – Day 35

“You have known yourself in relationship to yourself and others, without realizing that your being is God, that others are one with you, that God is the relationship of everything to everything, or that you are the relationship of everything to God. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 35)”

2 – Wholeness

This quotation exemplifies wholeness. It takes the various parts of our experience in sensing God to a new level—that we are one with God and one with each other, for all is God. This assertion actually occurs early in our study of the Workbook of A Course in Miracles, in which the Workbook says , “God is in everything that I see.” We do not have to feel that to understand that God is everything and everywhere, even our very Selves, that we are being arrogant. We are, instead, seeing accurately for the first time. God will not take long to supply the rest to us, once we have seen this truth. We will know His peace, and we will know His peace immediately.

3 – Everything and Everywhere

What does it mean that God is everything and everywhere? It means not that God stands outside His creation, but that His creation, in a manner of speaking, is His Body. We may have learned that God stands outside His creation, that creation is His handiwork, but A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love says differently. Think a minute. Out of what would God create, if not from His very Being? He is the All, in other words. We do not speak here of a Prime Mover, who set the universe(s) on their course, and then stood back and watched what would happen. Instead, we see a loving God (first revealed to us by Jesus 2,000 years ago) who is experiencing Himself by living through us. He IS us.

4 – Illusions

It is true that we have fallen into illusions, because we thought that we wanted a different reality, a reality that would give us more than the everything that God gives. So we fell into a deep sleep (as, in the Bible, Adam did), and dreamed a dream that is not true. Yet there are means by which we can awaken. And Jesus is giving us those means very precisely in the 40 days and 40 nights on the mountain top with him. A mountain that came to us, even while we were living very firmly on level ground, in our mundane daily lives.

5 – The Mountain

“As was said before, the mountain came to you. You will thus always have the power to call upon the mountain top experience and the view of wholeness we have achieved here. You will carry it within you, and when you feel not its power, you will be able to call it forth simply by asking for it to be so. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 35)”

6 – Jesus

Jesus brought that mountain to us. Never forget that. He has prepared the means for our salvation, very clearly and very concisely. If we do not heed, it is because we are not ready. And Jesus tells us in A Course in Miracles not to “fight yourselves.” If we have resistance, we are not ready.

7 – Eager

Most of us at this juncture, though, are ready, even very, very eager. We want Christ-consciousness with a zeal that can be misplaced. We need to realize that God will act as soon as we have removed the blocks to love’s awareness, that He will act to reach down and lift us up to Awakening when we are living naturally. This “natural” living means that we have laid aside all attack, all judging, and we don’t make plans against what is to come. These are the criteria laid out in A Course in Miracles. A Course of Love, in contrast, simplifies the instruction by saying that we simply cease to fear and cease to judge. Even this may seem too much to hold in mind on a constant basis. We may recall the instructions that Jesus gave as quoted in the New Testament: love God, and love your brother. Any of these instructions entails the certainty that all of them will be fulfilled. And we will not have to wait long.

8 – Level Ground

“What we speak of when speaking of your return to level ground is returning in a calm, even, an equal manner to the most elemental and fundamental aspects of being human, while carrying within you a very elementary and fundamental idea—the idea that you are one in being and different in relationship. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 35)”

9 – Not Omniscient

This is how God and we are identical, though we know not the union that He knows, and so we are not omniscient. Like God, we are all one, and, like God, we know each other in relationship. This is why the refrain occurs in A Course of Love, “unity and relationship.” We may actually read these words so often in ACOL that we cease to sit up and take notice. We may not fully thinking of the meaning the words when we read them each time.

10 – Unity and Relationship

This refusal to consider the meaning of “unity and relationship” is a mistake. When we have understood this concept, we have come a very long way toward understanding the whole of A Course of Love. Reminding us of what it means will be beneficial to our state of mind and heart, leading us toward wholeheartedness—the primary message of the first and original book of A Course of Love.

11 – Oneness

“Unity is oneness in being. Relationship is different expressions of oneness of being. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 35)”

12 – Definitions

Here are the definitions of unity and relationship. Our brothers and sisters are these different expressions of oneness of being. God is in the oneness that we experience with all with whom we have relationships.

13 – Creation

“Creation itself, which stands apart from particulars but united with wholeness, has led to this time of opposites becoming one and wholeness becoming actual rather than probable. Wholeness is actual. All that is left to be created is awareness that this is so. (A Course of Love: Dialogues, p. 222)”

14 – Difficult to Understand

Day Thirty Five is a bit obtuse. Perhaps we have often thought this of both A Course of Love and A Course in Miracles, but did not say it. But perhaps we will appreciate more when we are frank. The problem is the complexity of ideas, and the fact that most ideas on Day Thirty Five are meant to be a union of opposites. This union of opposites is a part of the “union and relationship” that is oft counseled in A Course of Love.

15 – Relationship to All

We are told that in relationship to God, we are actually in relationship to All, as well as all in this world. And in this experience we know only love. When we return to level ground, as we are preparing to do, we will retain the mountain top experience. We will have an idea of oneness, an idea of sameness. We will also share in accomplishment and union here, and we will not so much look beyond this world to a world beyond death for our fulfillment.

16 – Creatorship

We will assume the nature of creatorship; we will re-create ourselves and a new world at the same time. Both will emanate from the unity and relationships that we have often read in A Course of Love. Previously, we “made” a reality; now we will “create” one. There is a world of difference, because now we know that we do not choose ourselves, but let God in us make the decisions. We are within the embrace of All in All. We are in a state of being more than a state of doing. Thus we embody our Christ-consciousness.

17 – Made Rather than Created

“What is not created in unity could be said to have been made rather than created. The world as you know it is what you have made. Your life as you know it is what you have made. You will only fully realize the difference between what you have made and what you can create when you have accepted your power and begin to create in unity and relationship. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 35)”

18 – “Made”

This quotation explains the same concept to which we were introduced in A Course in Miracles: that we “made” the world, that the illusions (the dream) in which we are lost is not real, but is just a mirage. And in this quotation also is the implication that once we have seen aright, we will truly create a real world. We will see with vision, as the Workbook of A Course in Miracles points out. When we have accepted unity and relationship, we will know the power that is rightfully ours, because our will will no longer be imprisoned. And we will begin creating, not making.

19 – New Heaven and New Earth

“You are called to nothing short of creating a new heaven and a new earth. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 35)”

20 – Our Father

Yes! Let’s be about our Father’s business. This new heaven and new earth is the business that God would have us attend to.

21 – This World

We are living in a very sad world. Suffering and illness are everywhere. Violence is everywhere. And thoughtful people have long asked, “How could God create such disaster?” The answer from ACIM and ACOL, of course, is that God did not create the disaster, but we ourselves “made” it. And we can unmake it by changing our minds. That is where the cause is, and the effect will change automatically.

22 – Happy World

Would you like to live in a happy world, a world without grievances and suffering and disaster? Then learn this course, and you will have done your part. There is no higher value than to be about God’s work in this world. And He asks us to change our minds first and foremost.

23 – Madness

Then and only then can we effectively counter the negative aspects of a mad world. The madness is overcome, one person by one person.

24 – Free of Choice

“While it has just been said that you will create in unity and relationship much as you ‘created’ during the separation, your creation in unity and relationship will be free of choice. Creation in unity and relationship is creation within the embrace of the All of All. How can you choose when what you create is everything? (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 35)”

25 – God

This passage troubled me a bit until I realized that God is in charge here, that it is He who makes the choices. We just follow in the flow that loving Him creates in us. We will know surely and well what to do next, when we turn inward for guidance. We don’t need to reach outward and make choices that may be ahead of what God would choose for us. He knows; we don’t, even when we have reached enlightenment. He knows all factors, past, present, and future, and we do not have the knowledge that would show us all factors. So any choices that we might make would be amiss.

26 – Wrong Choices

We do not want to make wrong choices. We want to follow effortlessly in the way that God points out. And then the choices are right ones. The ones that will create a new heaven and a new earth.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Thank you for the many ideas of this day. May we know that we have reached far enough that, with God in us, we can “create” rather than simply “make” (as our egos did previously). I do not know all that creatorship will hold out to me, but I long to know. Please help me today.

It is good to know that I will retain much of this knowledge when I have left the mountain top. Help me to remember, now and always.

May I cease my impatience to know and understand everything about You. I want to know Your mind, in a limited way to what Einstein said, that he wanted to know You, with all the rest being details. I seek Your consciousness in my own finite consciousness today. I choose not to make choices about what to do and say. I choose to let You make those choices for me. And I know that I will walk a green earth today when I have turned responsibility over to You. I don’t shirk responsibility. I still note what I have done that might be amiss, and I seek to undo those wrong thoughts, words, and deeds. But I give over to You my choices in this world. That is undoing the cause of a fallen world, returning the world to You. And with this change, the world will be changed as well, for projection makes perception. And my thoughts have made a false image in my mind, an illusory world full of ego and strife. I would be out of such nonsense today.

Amen.

Metaphysical Metaphors

1 – Day 34

“Relationship is needed to create difference. However, relationship with everything creates sameness—or the very oneness in being that we have been talking about. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 34)”

2 – God

We know that all metaphysical answers are, at best, metaphors for true reality. We cannot encompass God’s Mind to fully understand, given our very finite, limited minds. Sometimes mystic insight gives us a look at the full picture, but when this full pictures comes by way of revelation, the revelation is unspeakable; that is, we can’t convey to anybody else what we have had this profound insight about.

3 – Neale Donald Walsch

Neale Donald Walsch in his trilogy, Conversations with God, explains very clearly why God (again, metaphor) had to differentiate or individuate Himself in order to experience Himself. The quotation above hints at the reason. With relationship of one part to another, God Himself would experience only sameness. He would not be able to experience Himself at all. But when he individuated “parts” of Himself, He could enter into the experience of each part, and thereby know Himself. Those parts include all of us. Again, let me stress that surely this explanation, though also given in A Course of Love, has to be metaphor—a calling what really happened in names that we can comprehend.

4 – Wholeness

“The wholehearted desire that is upon you now is the desire to know and experience this oneness of being in relationship rather than the difference of being in relationship–the wholeness of being in relationship rather than the separation of being in relationship. (A Course of Love: Dialogues, p. 218)”

5 – Relationship and Union

We have talked frequently of being in relationship, and of this being as being one of union. The next logical step is to realize that this being makes the diversity of relationship merge into one as sameness. This is not bad. It is the beginning of real power.

6 – Specialness

We are leaving behind the striving for differences and specialness. We are reaching for the oneness that will encompass the whole world. This we will do by creating the world that we experience. This repeated theme is made more definite by the realization that to continue to seek for differences in our brothers and sisters is to see them as either more or less “special” than are we. This is the remaining vestige of the ego in us.
7 – Sameness

In sameness, we experience the power of God. Previously, we have denied this power many times. Now it is our best response to welcome it with open arms.
8 – Our World and Our Experience

“This is your world and your experience. This is your life and your experience of life. Now you must believe that you are its creator and powerful in your relationship to it. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 34)”

9 – Creators

Jesus calls us “creators” in A Course of Love, indicating that we are creating our reality. In A Course in Miracles, he said that, at best, we were “making” our reality, because that reality was illusion, all dreams. Mari Perron, the scribe for A Course of Love, has stated in a recorded question-and-answer period at a conference that she feels that the reality that we experience when we have come farther along the pathway is reality indeed. In the terms of A Course in Miracles, this would be the real world. Mari knows A Course of Love very thoroughly, just as Helen Schucman knew A Course in Miracles very thoroughly. They did not write the courses, but they understood them, even though, in Helen’s case, she could not “live” the course.

10 – Life

In the quotation above, we see that Jesus wants us to believe that we are creators of the life that we experience. Linking this quotation to the first quotation in this posting, we might see that God wants to experience Himself as a finite being that is powerful in regard to the lives that He is embodying.

11 – This World

Believing this means that we don’t cringe in terror at what we have created. We know that we can change our minds, and our worlds will change immediately. We don’t have to feel hindered in our power, as though we have to kowtow to Forces that are entirely beyond us. Those Forces, including God Himself, are within us. Right there. Right where we can experience, from within, the power to create the life that we want.

12 – Law of Attraction

This does not mean that the law of attraction is the highest law out there. The law of attraction works, but what person on the spiritual pathway would want to manifest that which would entrap him. And much of the law implies a desire to manifest physical objects, surely a perversion of the law that is egoic.

13 – Belong to God

We want to belong to God, fully and totally. We want to create a world that will give God a good day. And we can do this.

14 – Guidance

We cannot do this alone. We need guidance, and the Self inside that is God knows how best we might proceed. We don’t have to make decisions blindly. In A Course of Love, we find that our inner Christ Self is there to make the decisions. Our little minds don’t make choices anymore (from ACOL). We are free of choice, once we have made the one choice that matters—the choice to follow where our highest version of God exists and certainly lives.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I realize that sameness is not bad. In our world in recent years, we have heralded diversity, and so to talk about sameness as good is a challenge for us to understand. Help me to understand today.

We would not be special. We would not be ego-inspired. May we be one in union and relationship, as A Course of Love says repeatedly.

May this day go well. May I give my God within a good day. I think about You often. I often say to myself, “I want to give God a good day.” And while I don’t always succeed, it helps me to turn aside from any suffering that seems to afflict me. This world holds much suffering for many of our brothers and sisters, and, still, perhaps, for us, too. It does not have to be this way. We can learn without pain, and we can observe without pain. We do not have to suffer to learn how to live well. The pathway to Awakening, to Christ-consciousness, is the pathway to You—without attack, without judgment, without senseless planning against contingencies to come. May we rest in Your bosom today. All day long. And may we never forget that Your way for us is meant to be blessed.

Amen.

Divine Marriage / Divine Relationship

1 – Day 33

“A relationship is holy because it is within relationship that being is found and known and interacted with. Relationship is thus the route or access to being and being the route or access to relationship. One cannot exist without the other and thus both are one in truth. This is the divine marriage, the divine relationship of form and being. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 33)”

2 – Meaning

There are several threads of meaning in this quotation, and not all of them are apparent from the outset.

3 – Significant Others

Do you have to have a significant other to have a relationship? No, though many find significant others as their ticket home to God. The special relationship turned holy is a particular potent form of love that opens our hearts to God. But are you out in the cold if you don’t have one particular “other”?

4 – Holy Relationships with Others

Not at all. We have a relationship that is potentially holy with everyone whom we meet. They are we. We are they. We are all One. And it is in this relationship that being come alive, that our form connects with other forms and that we find our way home to God. What exactly is “being” but our real self, our Self, frequently capitalized. We have experienced the joining of form and being, and in that relationship, which is uniquely our own, we are just fine—finally.

5 – Being

Being is another word for God, when “Being” is capitalized. When “being” is lower case, then we are talking about our personal, or little self, no longer the separated self, but nevertheless the self that has not yet emerged as the elevated Self of form, in sustainability. Yet this sustainability of the elevated Self is what Jesus is leading us to.

6 – Natural Self

It cannot be said enough that sustainability of the natural Self is God’s Will for us. Perhaps we thought that this blessing was reserved for just a few, and that we could not do anything to bring Awakening or Christ-consciousness about.

7 – No Judging and No Fear

This is not true. We are told that we will awaken when we leave aside judging and leave aside our fears. Then we will awaken. This indeed sounds like a tall order, and certainly it will not come without the blessing of God Himself. When we leave off attack, we will leave behind our fears (from the Workbook of A Course in Miracles). And we can, with God’s help, leave off attack. Follow the Workbook of ACIM even as you follow A Course of Love. To my mind, the two channeled works (by Jesus) are meant to be read together. We have many helps before us. Everything becomes a miracle if our eyes are opened to miracles.

8 – A Who

“You are being a who. Your who is your individuated self. But your who is also your representation of being. The two becoming one—the individuated self becoming one in being—is the aim toward which we have journeyed together. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 33)”

9 – One with God

As we have previously discussed in this blog, we are one with God. We are an individuated part of God, so created that He might know Himself. And yet we long to return to the One, and we can do this also. We sense God’s Presence when we are attuned to him, when we are in a loving state, when we have left attack behind (and with that leaving behind, also our fears are left behind), and we leave judging behind. He is there waiting for us, eager to bestow Christ-consciousness upon us.

10 – The Unnatural

But if there is anything unnatural in us, even God Himself cannot move to bless us with Awakening. And what is Awakening? Just clear-eyed understanding. We realize, once we catch glimpses, that we have been sleepwalking, as in a dream. We realize that we have never seen so clearly before as we do now. Returning anger, attack, or planning against contingencies will drop the heavy curtain once again—and we will be right back in this world of illusion, seeing the real world no longer (from A Course in Miracles).

11 – Glimpses of Awakening

Let us lengthen these glimpses of Awakening by a wholehearted approach to living that drops anxieties and fears, and judging, from our repertoire of emotions. The glimpses will lengthen, and soon we will have days, even, of Awakening. And it is Jesus’s desire that we sustain this experience indefinitely. That too, we can suppose, is where God is in His desires for us as well.

12 – Being in Relationship

“You are being in relationship: The creator of events as well as the experiencer of events, the creator of relationship as well as the relationship itself. You either know this or you don’t. It is not about ‘believing’ that this is so, but knowing that this is so. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 33)”

13 – We Create Our Own Reality

We create our own reality. I first read this truth in the Jane Roberts’s “Seth” books, an entity whom Jane channeled in the latter part of the Twentieth Century, as far back as the sixties. In A Course in Miracles, this creation is actually called “making,” because we are making illusions, not true reality.

14 – Jesus’s Terminology

It does not matter a great deal what we call it, though we would be wise to follow Jesus’s terminology in this regard.

15 – God

God differentiates Himself so that He might experience Himself. And we are a part of God; we are one of those individuations. So we create, and we experience, reality. There is no other way of ultimate reality. This is it. Now we know.

16 – Power

“To realize that you are in relationship with everything and everyone all of the time, is to realize the full extent of your power. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 33)”

17 – Relationship

We are in relationship with all at all times. This means that we think as God does, though we are not the Whole of God. He is aware of his joining with everything, while we are not. We do not know union as God does, and that makes the difference.

18 – Infinite Experience

But we are finite beings having an infinite experience. And in that infinity, in that eternity, we will come to ourselves. We will be all that we have ever longed to be, but not what we sought when we were an ego. The ego never gave without taking away. We can give and give and give, and still there is more in the storehouse of our minds and hearts, in our wholeheartedness.

19 – Open the Door

We have far more power than we realize, and if we can open the door ever so slightly to this truth, we will be shown more. Our power gives us the means to live well, but it is power informed by God, as well as informed by the inner Christ Self Whom we all have in embryo.

20 – Don’t Cringe

Don’t cringe anymore. God would not have us to cringe in the fact of this world’s troubles. Know that when we change the inner, the outer will change automatically, because the outer is effect, not cause. When we change the inner, we change the cause, and we are going about our Father’s business when we allowing the Self to communicate to us.

21 – Mountain Top

Let that be enough for now. We are still on the mountain top. There is more to be shown.

22 – New Way of Seeing

“While these may seem like simple words, or like a theory being proposed, these words are at the heart of the new way of seeing yourself–a way of seeing that will create a new world. (A Course of Love: Dialogues, p. 215)”

23 – New Ideas

Many new ideas are broached in this chapter. We return to a statement from one of the Treatises (the second volume of A Course of Love, A Treatise on the New): All are chosen. The power of God exists in everyone because all are one with God. God is being in relationship. So are we. We seek the divine marriage, the divine relationship of form and being. This is the oft-repeated idea of the elevated Self of form.

24 – Jesus

It is at this point that Jesus says the words that are given in the above quotation.

25 – Primacy of Love

Jesus then moves to a strong statement about the primacy of love. Love, he says, is the only response. If we respond as who we truly are, we will respond with love. All relationship is with love because all relationship is with God, who is one in being with us.

26 – True Power

The chapter then moves on quickly to a consideration of true power. Being is power. Relationship is the expression of power. Jesus asserts that every single person has the power within to affect, change, or recreate the world. We have this power because we are in relationship with everyone and everything. This is oneness and unity. And love is the condition of union. Jesus concludes this chapter, “Thus when you realize your relationship to all, you are all powerful.”

27 – Dense Chapter

This is a dense chapter, which Jesus will move to explain further in the upcoming days.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I do my part to create a new world. I so long to make a contribution in this sad and lonely world that will make a difference, that will create a better place for us to live. Love will do this, as Jesus says. May we all seek to meditate on this all-important word, a word that has become the hallmark of religions throughout the ages.

Be with me today. We need a better way to live, and I believe that Jesus has for all time been trying to lead us in this direction. May his words succeed.

Amen.

The Experience of the Self Is God

1 – Day 32

“The experience of the Self is God. It is not from God It is not of God. It is God. (A Course of Love: Dialogues, p. 211)”

2 – Concepts of God

Day Thirty Two is a comprehensive discussion of what concepts of God we have held at various points in our lives, and among various thinkers. These concepts are (1) God as Supreme Being; (2) God as Creator; (3) as a part of God as Creator, the concept that God exists in all that has been created. Then we are told that a “concept” of God is not necessary. Indeed, we have been told repeatedly that concepts are not needed for ourselves, for other people, or for God. Concepts are normally misleading, and even evidence of the influence of the ego.

3 – All – Powerful

Whether God is seen as Supreme Being or as Creator, He is seen as All Powerful. But we read, in the next sentence, that to see God as All Powerful is to disenfranchise ourselves. God does not intend this. We too are part of Him. We too are powerful.

4 – Relationship

Yet there is a further thought that helps us to understand. God must be in relationship to know Himself. This is why our union in relationship has been stressed throughout A Course of Love. God is one in being, but different in relationship. This idea explains our diversity, as well as that of the natural world. God experiences Himself in diversity. His is a Being of union and relationship, just what Jesus has been calling us to emulate in our lives in ACOL. We are limited in relationship, though, and thus we have limited power. As we move toward holy relationship, though, we reach closer to the epitome that is God.

5 – Example Life

“Jesus spoke to you of his life as an example life. Jesus was called the Son of God and also God. Those who understand the meaning of any or all of the example lives that have come as revelations of who God is, understand that those lives were not separate from God. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 32)”

6 – We, Too

Is it such a foreign concept to believe that what Jesus had, we can have, too. He said this, was quoted as saying this, in the New Testament. We were told that we would even do greater things than he had. Is this just pious nonsense?

7 – Jesus

Of course, we have not raised the dead, as it is believed Jesus did. We have not resurrected from the dead, as it is believed Jesus did. But our science has done much to bring back individuals from death—the experience of the tunnel, the light, and all such manner of representation of another realm that very, very ill people who have died and been resuscitated tell us.

8 – Being God

We know that being God, recognizing that reality, is not arrogance, is not of the ego. It is the supreme good sense, though we know not exactly what is being said. We know from A Course of Love that God differentiated himself into parts, and that each of us, each aspect of reality, is one of those parts. So do we really have trouble with seeing ourselves as God? We are not, of course, all that God is. We are not the union of all things. But we are in relationship, each to the other, and to God, and in this relationship, we understand what it is to embody God. If we pay attention. It is very necessary to pay attention in our daily lives to what is going on around us, even though we are told in A Course in Miracles that this reality is actually illusion, a dream. We learn from our surroundings what it is we need to say and do that will help others. And we are here only to be truly helpful.

9 – Everyone

‘Yet to believe that God is everyone can still make you feel as if you are not God. How can this be? This can be only because in your contemplation of this idea, you lose your sense of self. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 32)”

10 – Sense of Self

Do we lose our sense of self when we imagine that we are God Himself? Yes, the separated sense of self does fall away at such times, and if we are still too much identified with the personal, or little, self, we will think that we lose identity in God.

11 – Elevated Self of Form

But the elevated Self of form, elevated Self but still in a physical body, knows better. This Self reaches outside the dot that is the body, into the greater awareness in a circle that includes the Whole. We learn what it is to discover without “learning.” We learn to experience the revelations that God is sending to us constantly.

12 – Cease Learning

And we cease, finally, learning entirely. We let acceptance of what is pave the way. Through this acceptance, we discover the reality of a world that is real, despite the tendency that we have to see illusions. Our real world consists of the intangibles of peace, hope, joy, love, harmony, and the like. This is truly experiencing the real.

13 – Son of God

“Only Jesus was known as the Son of God and as God. This is why Jesus came as your teacher and was used as the example life for this work. This is the point that this work has striven to get across. That man and God are one. Not only is man God. But God is man and woman and child. God is. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 32)”

14 – All

This quotation makes very, very clear that God is immanent in the All, as well as the individualized parts of the Whole. God is man and woman and child. You can’t get much clearer than that.

15 – A Good Day

And so it is. It behooves us to give God a good day, and by this I mean that we ought to give ourselves over to the joys that He alone can bring us. We don’t want to dip into neurosis any longer—sadness, depression, hopelessness. We are God’s children, part of Him. With such an Identity, how can we fail to actualize that which we want to be? How can we fail, period?

16 – One in Being

“Could God be one in being, but different in relationship, to each of us? Could not God’s oneness of being be the consciousness we all share? Could not God’s relationship to everything be what differentiates God from us and us from God? (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 32)”

17 – Relationship

God is in a relationship with everything. We cannot say the same about ourselves. So there is a distinction between God and us, a very important distinction in that we are not omniscient. God speaks to each of us in ways that we uniquely can comprehend. He gives us what we individually need. We do have different personalities, different abilities, different talents. And so His communion with each of us differs.

18 – Live Fully

But He is us. Never let us forget that. And as we come to understand, without the arrogance of the ego, we come to live fully as the creatures that we are meant to be. Never forget that God Himself created us out of the stuff of the universe(s), the God-stuff. And when we use our free will to make a world that is painful, filled with suffering, and disastrous to our fellow human beings, maybe we grieve even God Himself.

19 – Being and Relationship

“God is the being and the relationship. You are capable of all the power of God’s being but you are powerful only as God is powerful—in relationship. Because God is in relationship with everything. God is All Powerful. Because you are in a state of limited relationship, you have limited power. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 32)”

20 – Limited Power

We do have limited power. And that is good, considering with what we have done with the power that we do have. We have made a world that is often savage in the way that it treats people, our brothers and sisters. Many representatives of God have come to earth to try to get us to mend our ways. And finally, a perfect being in Jesus, came to appeal once again to us.

21 – Fear

We need not fear. We will be saved from ourselves. God has not created beings who would self-destruct. He set the limits on our miscreations (from A Course in Miracles). He knows what we can stand and what we can’t. And he takes us out of the world when the world has become entirely too much for us. Pain is not without limit.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

It is insightful to realize that even God has to experience Himself/Herself in relationship, in diversity. I do not fully understand, but I do not expect to understand fully. My little self is not able to comprehend. As I reach toward the Self of form, I hope that my understanding will increase.

May I come to comprehend when it means to be a part of You, myself. May I leave off any tendency toward arrogance as I comprehend this magnificent truth. May my attempts to turn to You throughout my day meet with Your approval. May those attempts succeed. May I sense Your presence as I walk through my day. And may I say and do the things that I need to say and do that will be healing to my brothers and sisters.

May I move ever close to holy relationships with all of my brothers and sisters. Help me to do this today.

Amen.

You Are Your Experience

1 – Day 31

“While you have been immersed in one level of experience you have been either knower or known. This is why experience has seemed to exist apart from you. You say, ‘I had this experience’ or ‘I had that experience,’ as if you have ‘had’ contact and interaction with circumstances or events that are separate from the self. . . .The truth that you are the experience escapes you. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 31)”

2 – Embodying Our Experiences

We are the experiences of which we are apart. We embody them, much as we think that our spirit embodies the physical form that is our body. We do not “have” experiences; we are them, because they transform us. And the extent to which the transformation comes from within is the extent to which we are aligned with inner forces, with the inner Christ Self.

3 – Transformation

We want transformation. All of us do. And we can have it when we give up fear. That is the salient factor. And to give up fear we simply must find out how we are to love each other, and also to love ourselves, and also to love God. All of this is One. Love is the Answer, as all religions have taught. But how do we come to love?

4 – Love

We remove all barriers to the experience of love. And the primary barrier is our own sense of insecurity, brought on by the egoic emphasis given fear. We surround ourselves with a hard casing that will protect. This casing is our defense. And A Course in Miracles tells us that we make what we defend against. So defense is not the answer. We need to realize that we are safe, and that we live in a safe world. Now, bad things happen all the time. But when we are at home in God, we will feel the pain, but we will not be immobilized by it.

5 – Pain

Some individuals who experience the most pain nevertheless have the greatest faith in times of turmoil. They see value in the bad experiences.

6 – No Need to Learn through Pain

ACIM says that we do not have to learn through pain. And so we don’t have to “be” experiences that are full of suffering. We can choose again, choose over. And in the better choosing, our suffering will drop away. Pain may drop away also, though if it is still with us it will miraculously become bearable.

7 – Mountain Top

“What the mountain top experience is helping you to see is that you are the experience. The mountain top experience did not happen to you or happen separately from you. It has happened and is happening within you. You are the experience and the experiencer, the knower and the known. This joining is the point of the experience and the key to experiencing wholeness. (A Course of Love: Dialogues, p. 209)”

8 – Summary

Day Thirty One functions as a summary of the thirty days that have preceded it. Jesus uses repetition deliberately and often to make his point.

9 – Joining

On Day Thirty One, we realize that “joining” has been what this trek to the mountain top, with simultaneously the experience of level ground, is to mean to us. We are One with our brothers and sisters, just as we are one within ourselves. The relationship that we share with others dovetails into union, one with another. This union is a manifestation of God. God is our point of unity, and we are all one with God. God is the essence of everything that we can see and know, and, moreover, all that we cannot see and know, but which is a part of the All.

10 – Separate from God?

Previously in our lives we knew only separation, and this includes a perceived (but inaccurate) sense that we were separate from God. Now we recognize how wrongheaded this thinking was. We were thinking only, thinking with our minds. Now our spirits have joined with our minds in wholeheartedness and with the realization that we are ready for the next step in spiritual evolution. Jesus will not disappoint us. He, as our companion, will lead us to discover what awaits in the final days of our mountain top experience.

11 – Knower and Knowee

“All experience is a product of knower and knowee. It is the One Self knowing itself as one individuated Self. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 31)”

12 – Repetition

This is a repetition of earlier statements made by Jesus. His repetition is deliberate, as he knows that repetition works. This quotation emphasizes that God individuated Himself in order to experience Himself, forming parts of the Whole as a way of experiencing. The One Self is God Himself, differentiated into the myriad parts of the universe(s).

13 – Hologram

And we are a hologram. We have the Whole deep within ourselves, for God is within. But we are the one individuated Self, for we do not yet have the union that is God. We are the relationship, but not the union In time we will also become the union. That is what the oft-repeated words in A Course of Love, “unity and relationship,” really mean.

14 – Individuated Self

“For the individuated Self to experience separately from God is to negate the purpose of the experience of the Self which is God. To negate is to deny what is. The denial of what is is the source of separation. The acceptance of what is is the source of union and the ability to experience in wholeness. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 31)”

15 – Turn Within

Do we want to experience as God does? Then we turn within, allowing the union between God and ourselves to happen. The final days of the 40 days and 40 nights emphasize how this transformation is possible. It becomes possible when we know Christ-consciousness, and not a moment beforehand—though we may catch glimpses of Awakening.

16 – What “Is”

How do we accept what “is”? We no longer wish for anything to be other than what it is. We can ask for a miracle, we can practice visualization and affirmations, we can invoke the law of attraction—but in the final analysis, this is not what we are about. All things are added to us when we seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness (from the New Testament). So we don’t waste our time trying to make our creature comforts more desirable to ourselves. They will fall in line as soon as our thinking is about God. There is no other way toward enlightenment. We accept what is. Pure and simple. We are willing to have it so, as Eastern religion encourages us. And then we have reached the pinnacle. We know, as we experience in wholeness.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Help me to know–not to perceive, but to know–what it means to be One with You. My little mind is so inadequate to comprehend such a great truth. Help me to understand today.

God is within. I have long known that. And God is within the All. God is the All-in-One. May I know what it is to experience your personal caring, in the midst of the great universe of which I, along with my brothers and sisters, are a part.

Amen.

God Separated into Parts in Order to Know Himself

1 – Day 30

“What is held in common is shared and is a characteristic representation of the whole. Just as simple fractions can be added together to achieve wholeness once a common denominator is found, your own fractiousness can yield to wholeness through the common denominator of the self. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 30)”

2 – A Common Denominator

The use of a metaphor of a common denominator is a very clever way to illustrate what we really need to note: our own fractiousness yields to wholeness, once we understand, really understand, the self. Our self yields to the Self; our personal self merges into the Wholeness that is God.

3 – The Metaphor

We don’t need to linger over this metaphor, though the metaphor is exact. It may have been a long time since we gave any thought to the common denominator in mathematics or arithmetic, probably in the elementary grades years ago—unless we majored in math in college. Yet the image will come back to us. We will know whereof Jesus speaks. And we are blessed by his comparison.

4 – Wholeness

We need the Wholeness that our common denominator of self points out to us. We need to merge into God through the elevated Self of form, the Self seen in physical surroundings and embodying the physical. This is what we know here, and we are led through A Course of Love to know that the physical is not to be denigrated. We can live Christ-conscious lives on this earth; we do not have to wait for the afterlife to know Awakening, to truly know God.

5 – Joining

“Wholeness can be achieved without joining, thus the commonly known injunction of ‘where two or more are joined together.’ If you would think of this in terms of ‘God’ or the state of ‘Wholeness’ or “Beingness’ separating into more than one in order to know Itself, you would see that knower and known are one. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 30)”

6 – Beingness

This simple phrase, “Beingness separating into more than one in order to know Itself,” is an exact characterization of what has happened in the metaphysical realm. The same image is described at some length in Neale Donald Walsch’s Conversations with God. The image explains why the Wholeness cannot know itself in wholeness. When wholeness is all that one knows, then one cannot know self. It takes the individualization or differentiation of the One into parts before any knowing can take place.

7 – Theology

It this theology disturbs you, don’t take it unto yourself. We do not have to agree on theology in order to have an experience of God. Theology may delay us. Common experience will only solidify our relationship, and it is in the union of the All with the diversity of the various relationships of Its parts that we can know ourselves. Unity and relationship are terms used throughout A Course of Love, so often that we can lose sight of the depth of their meaning, and pass right over them. Don’t pass over these words; they point to deep, deep meaning, and they point to our greatest religious experience to date.

8 – The Self

“Stated another way, the self cannot know the Self without joining with the Self. The Self must be the knower and the known, the experience and the experiencer. The quest to join with God is this quest. The quest to be the knower and the known, the experience and the experiencer. The culmination of this quest then, is joining. (A Course of Love: Dialogues, p. 208)”

9 – Wholeheartedness

“Wholeness” is a theme of A Course of Love. Repeatedly we are encouraged to combine dualities into one by the power of our desire, our wholeheartedness. Separation and union are both experienced, but it is union that wins out in the long run. We reach through relationship to others (and to ourselves) the union that is so desired. This is the way Home for us. It is the epitome of Awakening.

10 – Separate Selves

We are part of the many separate selves in our world. We combine into the one Self. This is another way of saying that we combine in God. The combining of the many into the one, the union of the many into the One, is the state of wholeness. We are joined one to another, and in this we recognize that we are one with God.

11 – Quest

We have been on a quest. We must see that the Self is both the knower and the known, the experience and experiencer. By drawing together all dualities, we make of our world one whole. We do not leave anyone out, whether or not they have ever themselves knowingly sought the quest that we are so urgently seeking. We are joining. And when we make this joining real, we will be finally whole.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I leave none of my brothers and sisters out of the personal world that I am creating. May everyone I have ever known be remembered in this new reality.

The Self that I seek to be–the elevated Self of form–is before me now. May I leave behind egoistic patterns of mind and spirit, and reach toward my brothers and sisters with wholeheartedness. May I do this today and everyday.

Amen.

A Myth of God’s Awakening

1 – Day 29

“This is where we begin to really lose sight of concepts of duality—where they cease to be real for us. Wholeness and separation, God and man, life and the individuated self, what you do and who you are, the eternal and the temporal, joy and sadness, sickness and health, all cease to have the limited power that all such concepts have formerly held. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 29)”

2 – Dualism

When we read A Course in Miracles, we quickly learn that dualism—the idea that God and man are separate—is a falsehood. We may have been taught in traditional Christianity that God is the Creator, and that this world is His handiwork. But ACIM and A Course of Love clearly reflect the belief that God is the All, that He does not stand outside of His “handiwork.” We need to be very clear that this is no way lessens God.

3 – Wholeness

When we move into wholeness, we see that opposites merge into one, and this is a further indication of the ending of duality, the end of dualism in a world view. Are you ready for such a change? Can you believe that you are really a part of God? That God is in each “part” of the universe, that all, really all, is alive—filled with the energy of creation? We know that matter is only a slowed down energy; this we learn from the newest physics. And everything is composed of energy, therefore. God is energy, though what we can state about God in the newest physics falls far short of His magnificence. The All is glorious beyond description. Pure Love.

4 – God Is Love

I used to wonder how God could be an emotion—could be Love. I don’t see Love now as purely an emotion, although when I experience love, I am frequently experiencing an emotion. God’s Love is His very Being. It is what He is about.

5 – Myth (Joseph Campbell)

There is a myth, retold by Joseph Campbell, in which, in the beginning, All that Is stirred, God stirred. And He was afraid, he felt fear, for He was all alone. But this his second thought was, “But what is there to fear? There is only me.” Then God divided Himself into two parts, making a female out of His totality of maleness and femaleness. The female tried to run away, also out of fear. But God pursued her; he became each created creature, one after the other, each time trying to unite His maleness with Her femaleness. And thus was all creation born.

6 – Fear

This is myth. But it is comforting myth. And to my mind, years ago, this idea that God in the beginning felt fear because He was all alone, went a long way toward explaining why I had fears. This primordial fear was reason enough. My own little fears and anxieties seemed to be echoes of that fear which God felt just after He stirred.

7 – Don’t Get Lost in Myth

We can’t get lost in myth. And this myth may not speak to you as it did me. A Course in Miracles says that our fear was born of a “tiny, mad idea” about which the Son of God forgot to laugh. And in the forgetting did the idea take route, and the ego arose. And we have never had a comforting moment since, ruled by the ego.

8 – Ego

But now we are coming out of the haze of egoic rule. We have left the ego behind. We are now seeking to replace that ego with the Self, the personal self elevated into form. And we are seeking to sustain this. We have a lot to be in this Being. We are ready to share with our brothers and sisters this momentous change. And in the sharing will this new reality be made real to us.

9 – Mountain Top and Level Ground

“If you can be having the experience of the mountain top and the experience of level ground simultaneously, then you can also have the experience of all other ‘opposites’ in this same, simultaneous way. If you can integrate all that opposes wholeness into one level of experience, you will be able to experience life from within the reality of wholeness rather than from within the reality of separation. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 29)”

10 – The Cloister

It has been helpful that none of us has isolated ourselves in a cloister as we sought to spend these 40 days and 40 nights with Jesus on the mountain top. We have been living our ordinary lives, but perhaps now they have stopped seeming so very ordinary. Perhaps our lives seem blessed indeed, for we are beginning to “see.” We are having real vision. And we are seeing our nefarious emotions in a different light. We are determined to see differently. We turn aside form anger, in particular, basking in the light of God’s love. His Love. And we will never be the same again.

11 – Mind and Heart Joined

“Mind and heart joined as you let go of judgment and re-learned or remembered wholehearted desire—the source of your power. Now this power is available to assist you in accomplishing the final joining, the joining that will end duality and return you to wholeness—to who you truly are—in the reality in which you truly exist. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 29)”

12 – Wholeheartedness

This quotation reminds us of the theme of the original volume of A Course of Love. In that volume, we learned that our minds and hearts needed to be merged into “wholeheartedness,” Jesus’s term for this merger. Our minds often need proof of the reality in which we find ourselves, especially when that reality shifts. Our hearts don’t need the same type of proof; the heart just knows. . .just knows. Evidence of things not seen doesn’t affect the heart in the same way that it does the mind, especially the mind that is only just now moving past an egoic stasis, an egoic orientation.

13 – God

We are now trying to merge all of our new reality into a whole. The whole that is, at base, God. Opposites merge, and we see with vision. We are no longer what we have been. We have glimpses of Awakening on an almost daily basis, especially when we are in a quiet time with God. It is when we return to the world now that the glimpses recede. It is sometimes hard to be with people. Our anger, our irritation, our dissatisfactions surface—and all is lost once again.

14 – Sustainability of Awakening

The point is for all never to be lost. To sustain into one whole those moments of Awakening, those glimpses that show us a better way to live. A glorious way to live.

15 – Judging and fear

Jesus says in the Treatise on the New that when we give up judging and give up fear, we will awaken. This is an amplification of A Course in Miracles, in which he says that if we give up judging, we will awaken. Now the time has come. We can’t stay on the fence forever. Well, we can, but it is a particularly unsatisfying way to live. When we have glimpsed what happiness is meant to be for us, we won’t be long satisfied with holding tight to ourselves our petty grievances and our petty anger and our petty judgments. Our fears will drop away when we surely protected by God.

16 – Workbook Lessons of ACIM

I have recently heard that to practice the Workbook lessons of A Course in Miracles to bring oneself into readiness for Awakening. Awakening is a decision that we must make. ACIM also points out that the choice is made by God when we are made ready: He reaches down (metaphorically) and lifts us up. And nothing is like it was before.

17 – New State of Being

“A new state of being is a new reality. It is linked with your notion of who and where you are, for who you are and where you find yourself and experience yourself, are your reality. This is why experience has needed to find a place in which it could become the common denominator between wholeness and separation. Once you experience yourself in wholeness and find yourself in union, you have made of yourself the common denominator upon which experience can find anchor in wholeness and union.

“You are thus, as always, the creator of your reality. (A Course of Love: Dialogues, p. 206)”

18 – Duality

ACOL is a very unifying series of books. In this, Day Twenty Nine, we see that we ourselves are the unifying part that gives meaning to our living, to our existence. Duality in it many guises–joy and sadness, sickness and health, being two–cease to lose their potency, as we realize that all is really one. Our sustaining of unity in the elevated Self of form will allow us to encompass the whole of our experience with equanimity.

19 – Wholeheartedness

Our mind and heart are joined in the wholehearted manner which the first volume of A Course of Love made clear. This wholehearted way is one of desire that we become all that we can be, in God’s sight. This desire then is the source of our power.

20 – End of Duality

We will combine the experiences of separation and wholeness into a single experience. This allows the end of duality in our world. We have become a new being. In the concluding statement to this chapter, there is an echo of the groundbreaking work of Jane Roberts, speaking as Seth, in the Seth books, first published a generation or more ago. We are the creators of our reality. A Course in Miracles has said the same thing. Now it is up to us to make this truth a reality to ourselves, and to make that reality a good thing.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I have long known the concept of creating my own reality. Now I begin to understand further. This basic New Age thinking can be misunderstood, and often is. I ask that I understand in the right way today.

Guide me today to have a good day. I will never have a good day without Your intervention. I wish to have a string of pearl-like days, all in which I am sustained by Your Love. This is the only way to live. The only way to be at home in this world. And I would be at home in this world. I would do Your bidding, which always and ever is my own. Your Will is my real will—that which will make me happiest. If I turn stubborn or rebellious, remind me (gently, please) that I am not having the day that I want. And guide me to start the day over. This is the way to end anger. This is the way to end attack. We need to see differently, to see a new way of viewing any negative trait of any brother or sister in our immediate world. And then we are set, the way flows easily and peacefully out in front of us, and we are on Your pathway once again. Set my footsteps on the path to Your Will for me, which is Awakening. May I be patient until I am ready, and I myself do not know when I am ready. I do know that I am not ready when I am judging and feeling fear. Jesus says this to me in his channeled writing. And I believe him. I would walk past all judgment and all anxious thoughts sooner rather than later. And then I will be at home with You. At home on this earth, in this world.

May I know wholeness in my experience today. May I come to understand fully that my wholeness will usher in a new reality. Thank You for leading me to this concept.

Amen.

Unlimited Choices of Internally Directed Experiences

1 – Day 28

“The unlimited choices of internally directed experience are what you must begin to face as we begin our descent from the mountain top. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 28)”

2 – Intuition

Certainly we can intuit that to make decisions from within is a better way than to be thrown about, willy-nilly, by every external wind that comes along. And we have often chosen previously to let those external winds tell us what to do.

3 – Previously

It started in a large way when we were growing up. We had to listen to our families, and then we wanted to listen to our peers. We let the external take precedence in making decisions, often choosing the same route that others took, even though their pathway wasn’t all that smooth (and we could see this!).

4 – Giving Up External Direction

Now we are being asked to give up externally-guided decision-making. It doesn’t mean that we will be oblivious to the needs of others, but it does mean that we will take into account their needs from a new place inside of ourselves. We will observe what needs to be done externally, looking outward, but we will make the decision of what to do by looking internally. This means that what we do will have the stamp of our own authenticity. And this is as it should be. As it should have been all along.

5 – New

“Now something new awaits you. It is a choice so different and a means so revolutionary that it will take some getting used to. This change is predicated on all the changes that have come before it, including, and most particularly, on that which was most recently spoken of, that of apprehending the new reality of wholeness. It is not wholeness that is new, but the reality of wholeness that is new. The reality of being able to experience the variability of separation from within the state of wholeness is what is new. (A Course of Love: Dialogues, p. 202)”

6 – Whole

We are now said to be “whole,” now that we have walked this far along Jesus’s way, our pathway as he has pointed out. Wholeness is not new, but we have never experienced it before, and so its reality is new, its coming into existence in a meaningful way in our lives. We will still see separation in our world, but we will also see that this separation of one from another, of ourselves from our innermost being, is an aspect of individualization, is part of a Whole that we have been oblivious to previously. We are to embody the elevated Self of form, and so our forms will be separate, but our reality will be One, because the Self is One.

7 – Getting Used To

This will take some getting used to, indeed. We won’t know what to do with ourselves as we make live in a new world, a world of wholeness with God and Everything else.

8 – Different People Now

On Day Twenty Eight of our Forty Days and Forty Nights, we begin to experience what it will be like when we have descended from the mountain top back to level ground. We will be different people, for Jesus does not wish that we make this journey to the mountain top repeatedly; we need to realize that we are ready for all that he has held out to us. (He does say elsewhere, though, that if we wish to go to the mountain top repeated times, that this too is open to us, but not what he would choose for us.)

9 – Experience of Life

On this day, Jesus recounts the experience of life as many of us have lived through it: schooling, career, marriage, and family. Others, he notes, have pursued dreams or adventures. But all of these choices have been externally directed, and he would have us move to internally directed choices that, nevertheless, in the manner of wholeness, retain the external focus as a part of the whole. He notes that in the past we may have chosen our pathway through much inner reflection, but the fact remains that the direction of the various choices was primarily external. Now we are bade to move to wholeness, both internal and external, not in separation, but in wholeness..

10 – Two Ways of Living

Jesus recounts the two primary ways that we have lived our lives. We have believed that we took what life had to give, if our focus was upon money or career. We have believed that God determined the circumstances of our lives if relationships have been our focus. We now must move beyond these two ways of thinking and living.

11 – Transformation

As we transform, new conditions will apply. We have had access to two levels of experience–the experience of wholeness and the experience of separation. Now we are seeking just an experience of being–a new state of being. This is the spacious Self that will define our future roles in our world, internally and externally, through Wholeness.

12 – Time Outside of Time

“Our ‘time’ on the mountain would be more rightly described as ‘time outside of time.’

“ ‘Time outside of time’ by itself will not cause the shift that needs to occur, however. What will create the shift is the ability to experience ‘time outside of time’ and ‘time’ simultaneously. Thus is the ‘wholeness’ of time, or eternity, experienced and made real. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 28)”

13 – Duality

We are over coming duality so that it becomes One. “Time outside of time” and “time” means the mountain top and level ground, simultaneously. We will have our head in the clouds, and our feet on the ground. We will be living in eternity, aware that there is no end to our experience, for we are eternal beings—though beings living in a physical world (and so we need our feet on the ground).

14 – Eternity

Would you not like to be aware today that we live in a time that is never-ending? That the promise of eternal life starts now—with our awareness of it? That nothing in the future will disturb our focused awareness of time that stretches forward and backward always, that always is eternity, and that we will be experiencing beings in that eternity forevermore?

15 – Two Threads

“Presently it is as if you follow two threads, the thread that has led you to the mountain and the thread of the life you have not removed yourself from. Now you must begin to weave these two threads together into the tapestry of your new life. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 28)”

16 – New Life

This is where we are thinking of being, and where we will be after the 40 days and 40 nights have concluded. We will have a new life, if we can follow Jesus’s dictates, and not be tempted to think that we must make repeated trips to the mountain top. Jesus does not intend repeated trips for us; he wants us to be ready to encompass eternity now, right now.

17 – Jesus’s Wish for Us

Not all of us, realistically, will experience Christ-consciousness at the conclusion of these 40 days and 40 nights, but such an experience of Christ-consciousness (Awakening) is what Jesus would wish for us. If we can believe him, we know enough already to make a decision of Oneness, Wholeness. We can decide, knowing that we are making a decision to leave behind judging and fear thoughts forever. Can we do this? It is God’s grace that we can, but even He must have our willingness, for He will never take free will away from us.

18 – God’s Way

So if we think that we are not ready, we won’t be. But we can know that He wills for us to choose His Way, to choose the eternity of Wholeness that He is pointing out to us, with Jesus’s help.

19 – Glimpses

The way is not long. It affords glimpses along the way, all the time. But Jesus wants us to do what nobody previously has done, to sustain this Christ-consciousness. Sustainability is what it is all about.

20 – The World

And nothing less will satisfy an eager world that knows not what it really wants.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

All of us have lived in separation for eons. Now we are bade to come to understand what living in Wholeness will hold out to us. This is a transformation that all have longed for, even when we have not know for what to ask.

I would like to walk this pathway to the top of the mountain this time only. I would like to give up judging, give up fearful thoughts, and be at home in You. I know You will make this decision for me as soon as I am ready, but the readiness is partially within my decision—not totally, for You need to give Your stamp of approval. May I do my part, knowing that Christ-consciousness is Your will for me and everyone. You want us to live naturally, and this is natural living at its most profound—a living that is here and now, but with one step into eternity. Help me to be patient as I seek to cease judging and cease thinking fearfully. My anxiety has been such a burden to me; likewise, my propensity to judge people and events. I know what it is like to give up such foolishness, for I have done so—but it didn’t last. May it last this time, this time when You reach down and lift me up. And may this prayer be for all of my brothers and sisters as well. When all of us are ready, we can take our places on the Heaven on earth that You mean this world to be.

Thank You for sending Jesus’s message to me now. I need to experience all that Wholeness would promise, and I ask for this blessing this day.

Amen.

Finding Inner Vision

1 – Day 27

“You have been asked to let go of uncertainty, not certainty. You have been assured of a certainty you never before believed you were capable of. This certainty is beginning to form within you but will not come into its fullness except through experience. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 27)”

2 – Guidance

We will reach certainty about what we say and do only when we have consistently followed guidance. This can be hard to do, especially when we are having a bad day, when we are overwrought, or when we are being stubborn. We may rebel against the intuitive nudges that come to us. And rebelling is never a good idea.

3 – Uncertainty

We need to let go of uncertainty. We need to walk surely and easily in this world. And we will when we let the Holy Spirit (as A Course in Miracles says) or the Christ Self, within (as A Course of Love says) take precedence in our lives. If we believe that the Holy Spirit is our best guidance, we have not yet moved into the time of Christ. And this is OK. Many enlightened people still depend on the Holy Spirit.

4 – Holy Spirit

There is an implication in ACOL that the world’s people will have to “grow out of” the time of the Holy Spirit. We who were born in the time of the Holy Spirit will, in the natural course, leave this world. And then all people in the Twentieth-First Century will have been born in the time of Christ. This may or may not make any difference to us, but it will make a huge difference in the way that the world works. We need to contemplate moving into the time of Christ, asking our inner guidance if we are ready for this.

5 – Certainty

To reach certainty is to be consistently following guidance. Of course, I believe that the Holy Spirit knows on any given day whether or not we will be rebellious. And He tailors His guidance appropriately. We can’t fool Him, though we can fool ourselves.

6 – External Life

“Experiencing life without the insight of spirit was to experience external life. . . .Most of you have had well-examined external lives. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 27)”

7 – Well-Examined

All of us lived for years, probably, without benefit of the Holy Spirit, or the inner spirit. We didn’t know any other way to live. But we analyzed our lives quite a bit, especially when we embarked on the spiritual pathway. That leads to the “well-examined external lives” that Jesus speaks of here.

8 – Decisions

We have previously been experiencing external life, making decisions that would fall in line with what we were experiencing externally. Now the time is ripe to look within before making decisions. The inner life prompts much better, and we start having a rich internally-focused life. The life that we live will smooth out accordingly.

9 – Coming to Know

“Coming to know if not an aspect of the mind alone. It is not an aspect of the spirit alone. Coming to know is a quality of inner-sight, of wholehearted human experience combined with spiritual experience. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 27)”

10 – Inner-Sight

We want to know, of course—all of us. And we will really know only when we have inner-sight, experiencing the world while living with the spiritual understandings that we have come to have through experience. Here Jesus is talking about combining the mind and heart to be wholehearted in experience. This was a major emphasis of the first volume of A Course of Love.

11 – Internal and External

“To be able to hold onto, apprehend, and carry with you the ability to experience both levels of experience, the internal and the external, the form and the content, the human and the divine, is to elevate the self of form, or, in other words, to be what you have always been: Whole. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 27)”

12 – Elevated Self of form

A central theme in ACOL, the elevated Self of form is what Jesus wants for all of us, the elevated Self of form sustained. Many have had glimpses of this Awakening, but Jesus says in ACOL that nobody has sustained this. And he needs sustaining. We can reach the sustenance of Christ-consciousness if we refrain from judging and if we lose all fear (from the Treatise on the New). A tall order, but easy if we have the grace from God that calls these traits forth.

13 – Judging and Fear

Certainly returning judgment and fearful thoughts will both abort the Awakening experience. How do we live without judgment and in a relaxed state that eliminates fear and anxiety?

14 – What We Do

Just being aware of the pitfalls will make a huge difference. But grace is the Answer to completely foiling these negative states of mind and heart. God’s grace in our lives. And we cannot totally control this, even though we know that His Will for us is Christ-consciousness, a sustained, elevated Self of physical form in this world. Knowing that the natural state of human beings is Awakening helps a great deal. When Christ-consciousness comes, we are not doing anything special, but are merely moving into the realm that has always been there for us.

15 – Life

“Life, your humanity, is the variability. Spirit, your oneness, is the constant. Life is oneness extended into separation and variability through experience. The elevated Self of form will be the expression of new life lived within the constant of wholeness but continuing to experience the variability of separation. This is what you practice as you gather on the mountain top while remaining on level ground. (A Course of Love: Dialogues, p. 200)”

16 – Apprehension

The apprehension of which Day Twenty Seven speak is not an apprehension of fearfulness, but a comprehension, an apprehension, of life itself. We are asked to reach for life itself in all its variability. We seek for variability through wholeness. This is actually more familiar to us now than we realize, because in studying ACOL from the mountain top, while simultaneously remaining in our daily world, we have been experiencing two levels at once. This is the basic reason why we were asked to go to the mountain top while not removing ourselves from daily life.

17 – Wholeheartedness

We experienced external life for many years in out past without the benefit of spirit. Now we are beyond such evidence of limitedness. We are experiencing life through the spirit as well as the mind. We are experiencing the wholeheartedness that is the hallmark of A Course of Love.

18 – Whole

To experience the human and the divine simultaneously is to be what we have actually always been: Whole. This is leading to the sustaining of the elevated Self of form, a basic tenet of ACOL. We are heading toward an experience of variability within wholeness rather than within separation. The biggest revelations are ahead of us.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I welcome the chance to experience both my humanity as well as my spirit. This is a new contribution of A Course of Love, and I find this concept enchanting.

May I learn in this period of 40 Days and 40 Nights all that the “mountain top” experience is meant to hold out to me. Be with me as I seek. Help me to learn through thoughts that I do not think, even as this trilogy that is A Course of Love has encouraged learning to cease, and observation and experience to continue as I walk further along my personal pathway..

Thank You for the many blessings that this day has brought to me. Help me to forgive myself for the mistakes that I have brought to this lovely day of Yours. I know that You don’t need to forgive, because You have never condemned. But I need to realize, once again, that I am very fallible, and that regardless of good intentions, I do sometimes stumble and fall—as I did earlier today. I would begin again, start the day over. And I know that Jesus would say that this is entirely possible, for he has pointed out the way for starting the day over in A Course in Miracles.

Thank You for these blessings of ACIM and ACOL. We need so much to learn what Jesus has been trying to get across to us. We need to heed his words, to walk into the sunlight with him.

Amen.

Self – Guidance

1 – Day 26

“It has been said that you are the source and the power of coming to know and making known. It naturally follows, then, that you are capable of self-guidance. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 26)”

2 – Guidance

We have not been accustomed to thinking in the manner that this quotation leads us to think. We have believed that self-guidance was certainly guidance of the ego, and we have turned to the Holy Spirit. We have not attempted to make judgments by ourselves.

3 – Jesus

Now Jesus is telling us that we can know self-guidance. I think this is because we have walked further along the pathway. Note that he is not saying that we ought to give up guidance, relying on our feeble minds. Self-guidance, as he views it, is guidance of the the Self with a capital “S,” the Christ Self. This is the new way in the time of Christ. Jesus has already told us that we are leaving the time of the Holy Spirit.

4 – Wither Comes Guidance?

We may not know where we are getting guidance, and, this, I think, is an important point. We get a nudge or an intuition, we act on it, our life goes smoothly—and we never know if the Holy Spirit is guiding us or if it is the Christ Self. If it is the Holy Spirit, the Universal Inspiration, He is still part of us—for we are part of the All, Everything, God Himself. And if the guidance is coming from the Christ Self, we have tuned into that aspect of us, that at least temporarily, is experiencing Awakening. We may not yet have sustained Awakening, but we are getting glimpses.

5 – Self

“Now let’s speak a moment of the Self as guide. This simply means that you turn to the Self as the source of coming to know of the unknown. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 26)”

6 – A Progression

This quotation simply builds on the previous one. We turn to the inner Self, the Christ Self, when we want to know what to think, or say, or do. We don’t depend on our little minds, minds that have given up the ego but are perhaps floundering, not knowing where to turn.

7 – Inward

We turn inward, we are moved from within.

8 – The Garden

“You can trust in your Self. Will you? By tending your garden you will develop this trust and prepare for your descent to level ground.

“Your self-guidance can be thought of as an internal compass. It will not necessarily know the answers as each answer is sought, but if paid attention to, it will show you the way to knowing. (A Course of Love: Dialogues, p. 196)”

9 – Holy Spirit

We have often prayed for guidance from the Holy Spirit. This was the way laid out for us in A Course in Miracles. We may not have fully understood exactly Who the Holy Spirit was, but we knew that He was our true guidance, as the Course made clear. Now we are led to understand that we can get guidance from our Self–the grander Self, not the little self of the ego. We have traveled farther along the pathway.

10 – Internal Guidance

Turn inward for this internal guidance of the Self. This Self will lead us down the mountain top to level ground.

11 – Previously

Previously, not only have we listened to the Holy Spirit, but we have sought external guidance from other teachers and books. Now we reach inward, and we find the guidance that we have sought so fervently. This Self-guidance is the way that we will come to know the one Self, the Self that we share with all the universe.

12 – Birth of Creation

“This alchemical transition, this passing of the unknown into the known, this moment when the unknown becomes the known within the Self, is the birth of creation. It is the culmination of all that has come before, the All of Everything realized in a single heartbeat, a single instant of knowing. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 26)”

13 – Dawning

This “birth of creation” is the dawning of Christ-consciousness, or Awakening, or enlightenment. And we know in an instant. Or perhaps we don’t. But the moment is there in an instant, waiting to be discovered.

14 – Unaware

I think that many of us catch glimpses of Christ-consciousness quite unawares. When we are loving, when we have dropped fear and judgment, and when we have walked the pathway as far as we have, then we are open to Christ-consciousness almost without knowing it. The requirements are to drop fear and judgment. Indeed, if we don’t drop these consistently, we cannot sustain Awakening (said elsewhere in ACOL). And nobody has yet to sustain Awakening consistently. But now is the time for us to do so. Jesus is depending on us. The world is depending on us. And it is God’s Will that we live naturally, and natural living is what Christ-consciousness is all about.

15 – Heartbeat

To realize in a single heartbeat is a powerful metaphor, for we have learned in A Course of Love that we want wholeheartedness—the union of mind and heart. To know in an instant that we are living in Christ-consciousness is a great blessing. And we can have this blessing at any moment that we are not fearful or judgmental. The heavy curtains of fear and judgment drop upon us sometimes, and then we are lost again. We have not walked with Jesus, with God, or with our better Self.

16 – One Self

“Self-guidance is the propulsion, the fuel, for the One Self to know itself. You are ready to be so known. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 26)”

17 – Jesus’s Words

Jesus says here that we are ready for Self-guidance, and this is the same as saying that we are ready to follow the inner Christ. Note that the Self is capitalized here. This is our real Being, our God within. And He will never let us down.

18 – Home

We walk home to God in listening to our inner Self.

19 – What Matters?

If you don’t recognize when guidance is coming from the Holy Spirit or from the inner Self, don’t be perturbed. Does it really matter that we know this? Do we have to know this? The Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—is One, Everything. Jesus does not discuss the Trinity as such in A Course of Love, but the evidence for the Trinity is here in everything that he says.

20 – Trinity

I think A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love build logically from the teachings of Jesus in the New Testament, and these teachings build on the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible. There is a beautiful rightness about this.

21 – Other Teachers
Note that other teachers are available for those who are not open to Jesus. But to follow as we have, Jesus is our way. Let us go with him in peace.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I come to know through listening to guidance from my Self. May I never mistake the Self for the little self that is frequently informed by the ego.

When I am overwrought, I can’t hear the voice of the Holy Spirit or of my Self. Thus it behooves me to stay close to guidance when my mind is calm and easy. I think that this is true for many people. We just can’t think in realistic ways when we are agitated. May agitation fall from us, even in the midst of it. May we know Your peace. May we handle our upsetting moments in the best way, by going to You for an Answer.

Thank You for this logical progression, in the time of Christ-consciousness. Our heretofore dependence upon the Holy Spirit is tempered by the understanding that we live in the time of Christ now.

Amen.

When Our Minds Are Still

1 – Emptiness of Mind

“Emptiness of mind will now be something that may seem to plague many of you. Where once the mind was searching, yearning, questioning, now it is likely to become still. From the stillness comes its emergence as what it is. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 25)”

2 – Seeking

This is a quotation that heralds a time of blessing. We have searched for years, always seeking. And in A Course of Love, Jesus tells us that the time of seeking is finished, over. We are OK the way that we are, because we have left behind the ego. If there are personality traits that we don’t think are good, we can turn aside from them and they will disappear. We don’t have to feel that we are unworthy. We are fine.

3 – Christ-consciousness

If our minds are still, we may wonder if we have lost something—simply because we are not seeking any longer. But this is as it should be. We have not lost anything, but we have found a very great something. We are on the verge of Christ-consciousness, the culmination of the 40 days and 40 nights with Jesus on the mountain top. We may take this journey many times with him, rereading this part of the Dialogues, but he does not intend for us to keep repeating the journey. He is trying to bring up to Christ-consciousness now. Will we assent to this? For it is God’s Will for us (and Jesus’s will a well).

4 – Meditating

If we are still, we may be meditating, almost unawares. And out of the stillness will great surprises come. We will be at home in God almost without realizing what is about. We will embody Christ-consciousness forthwith.

5 – Certainty?

What of those of us who do not have this certainty? What do we do? What do we think? What do we say?

6 – Patience

We live in patience for the mighty act of Christ-consciousness to find us. If the way seems long, the end is certain. This is a promise made to us in A Course in Miracles, when revelation would occasionally reveal the end to us, but to get there the means were needed. And these means were explained to us in ACIM. Perhaps we did not understand what replaced the ego, who we do next. And so we were stuck.

7 – Jesus

I think this dilemma is why Jesus channeled A Course of Love. So many of us keep seeking, over and over, in very many ways. But this is all so unnecessary, Jesus tells us in ACOL. Stop the seeking. Rest in my [Jesus’s] embrace.

8 – Embrace

If your mind seems empty just now, this is why. You are in Jesus’s embrace without knowing it. Now you do know. And now you can delight in what seems to be an empty mind, but which is just a still one.

9 – Perfectly Calm and Quiet

We are being perfectly calm and quiet all the time, which is what Jesus says in A Course in Miracles is the way that we will view reality when the real world comes.

10 – Thoughts

“You are not what you once were. You need not guard against an over-zealous ego-mind. Your ideas in this time may sound crazy, even to your own ears. Let them come. Your feelings may be confused in one moment, crystal clear in the next. Let them all come. Your thought will slip from the sublime to the mundane. Let them come. (A Course of Love: Dialogues, p. 194)”

Jesus tells us that at this point in our progress we may feel an emptiness of mind, that the mind may be still. This is probably a new experience for us, and we are not to resist it. This relaxed attitude is what tending the garden is all about. We ought to let our mind wander as it will, relaxed or uptight. This is a period of transition, but the stillness is the hallmark of the progress that we have made.

We are encouraged to be reflective, to sort and to cull. This metaphor continues the image of tending the garden. It is not yet time for the harvest. It is a time for gathering, a time of preparation–but not of waiting.
We are not to try to sort things out with the mind, which is far too small to understand the totality of what we are experiencing. Don’t ask, “What am I looking for?” Just relax and realize that we are tending our garden. More will come later.

11 – Stillness and Non-Resistance

“It is in the new pattern of stillness combined with non-resistance that the new will come. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 25)”

12 – Sorting and Culling

“Rather than a time of questions and answers, you might think of this time as a time of sorting and culling. Become used to letting what comes to you come to you without judgment. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 25)”

13 – Judging

Avoid judging, for in judging it is impossible to awaken. This one thing we must choose to turn aside. We must just stop our minds from judging when judging seems to be upon us. A Course in Miracles says that if we cease judging, we will awaken. Is not this what we want? Many of us do, many desperately. We need to keep the desperate thoughts away from our minds, because they will make a demanding spirit. And God does not kowtow to a demanding spirit.

14 – Personal Experience

When I was 12, I prayed desperately to “be saved.” I sneaked away to my bedroom, to the far side of the bed, sat on the floor, and read Scripture. I kept saying to God, “I want to be saved.” And nothing happened. At least nothing that I could perceive. It wasn’t until four years later, when I was 16, that the miracle happened. I sat on the floor of a very crowded room, ready to hear a minister talk about life after death. And I felt my heart strangely warmed, just as John Wesley (founder of Methodism) had felt years before. I knew that things would be different from then on. And they were.

15 – The Dynamic

I think that walking toward Christ-consciousness has the same dynamic. We seek and seek, and then we seek no more. And when the demanding spirit is quiet, God reaches down and warms our heart—opening us up to greater fellowship with Him in Christ-consciousness.

16 – Preparation

“This is a time of preparation, not a time of waiting. What you need to know now cannot be gathered except by your own hands. . . .I remind you not to attempt this as a task to which you apply the mind or the question of What am I looking for? You are looking for nothing. You are tending your garden. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 25)”

17 – Awakening

We are in preparation for a great Awakening. This is why we are caught in Jesus’s 40 days and 40 nights on the mountain top. Know that we are preparing together. Know that God’s Will is that we awaken. The world needs us. And we are preparing to be ready.

18 – Conclusion

That is really all that we need to know.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

This day seems to be a time of confusion for me. In the past, I wanted to clear away any confusion as soon as possible. Let me now be patient with the confusion, knowing that I am being prepared for better things, better ways of living.

May I tend my garden well today. Thank You, as always, for Your easy guidance.

Amen.

Our Potential

1 – Day 24

“The form you occupy contains all of your potential manifestations as the form of the caterpillar contains all of its potential manifestations. (Dialogues of a Course of Love, Day 24)”

2 – Present Moment

This quotation alludes to what is said elsewhere in this paragraph about the butterfly and the cocoon. We are all of this potential, in ourselves, in the present moment. We don’t have to wait, as does the caterpillar, to realize our potential (although the realization may take time in the working out). We can step into our potential now, no questions asked, for all time is simultaneous.

3 – No Time

“Potential” seems to exist in the future, but there is no future time, really. All is simultaneous, and so if we determine, with God, that now is our day to awaken, then it will be achieved for ourselves. Hold yourself in readiness. None know ahead of time, for sure, what the day will hold.

4 – Struggle

“To struggle against your nature is what you have spent a lifetime doing. Stop. If you allow your potential to be released, your true nature in all its wholeness will be revealed. (Dialogues of a Course of Love, Day 24)”

5 – Fear / Anxiety

We have been struggling, oh, how we have been struggling. We have been fearful, and this fear often manifested itself in anxiety. We tried to make progress spiritually, but the fault is in the “trying” when it is of ourselves alone. Ask God for help. Ask your Self for help. Ask the Other Side for help. Ask Jesus for help. There is no end to the help that will come to us when we just stop and ask.

6 – Trying

We are trying, so hard, to be whole. But we have not known how to do this, and so we have really been struggling against ourselves for our whole lives. Our nature is to be whole, and this wholeness equals union—union with our Self, union with God, union with our brothers and sisters in this world. Only in union will we know that we are already whole.

7 – Relax in God’s Arms

Give up the “trying,” just as we sought to give up the ego. Just relax in God’s Arms, and know that all is well. Once we make a personal determination for wholeness, for union, then the moment of our Awakening is all in God’s hands. We have to make this determination, but then we don’t have to do anything further—except wait, patiently if possible. We cannot be demanding; God does not respond to demands. He responds when we are ready, and that comes with a reverent and heartfelt plea for Him to come to us. And He will.

8 – The Body

“Yet the body is not left behind. The caterpillar, the cocoon, and the butterfly have always been one and remain one. Each form is but a different stage in the becoming of the spirit. (Dialogues of a Course of Love, Day 24)”

9 – Elevated Self of Form

This quotation alludes to the elevated Self of form, when we are in union with God, when we are awakened, in Christ-consciousness—but still occupying a body in this world. We will know our spirit, first (maybe) in glimpses, and then for a sustaining of the spirit in this world. We will live in wholehearted fashion, just as the original part of A Course of Love instructed us. We combine the mind and heart to be wholehearted. We leave out nothing but the ego. We just let it wither away, as if it were an appendage to ourselves no longer needed or wanted.

10 – Trigger

“When it was said that A Course of Love was a trigger, it was meant that the course is both a trigger of choice and a trigger of nature. It was meant to convey the action of a catalyst. Now it is up to you whether you allow your true nature to be revealed. (A Course of Love: Dialogues, p. 192)”

11 – Stop

We have spent a lifetime struggling against our true nature. Day Twenty Four asks us to just “stop.” This chapter says that we are the caterpillar, the cocoon, and the butterfly, and that all are part of our nature. We have the potential to turn into butterflies by the power of our will. We are bade to do just this.

12 – True Nature

Our true nature is more the aspect of the butterfly than the caterpillar or the cocoon. We are meant to awaken, and to become all that we can be.

13 – Spirit

It is the nature of spirit to become. This is why we are always stretching to our limits. Now we ought to do what we can to realize our potential, the butterfly. The Self remains all of our various facets, but the butterfly is the epitome. Our will is the greatest of all triggers to effect this transformation.

14 – Will

“You carry your potential to the place of its birth through an activated will, a will that is also carried within you. This merging of will and potential is the birth of your power and the birth of the new. (Dialogues of a Course of Love, Day 24)”

15 – Free Will

We do make a determination to let God have His way with us. This is a function of our will, something that has not been stressed heretofore in A Course of Love. Our will is free, and God will not intrude when we do not just turn over that will to Him. Our will is imprisoned, A Course in Miracles tells us, when we are caught in an egoic frame of mind. But now that we have left the ego behind, we truly know that the Will of God and our real will are identical. Just as the Holy Spirit chose for us what we really wanted, now that we are in the time of Christ, our Self will do the choosing.

16 – Choose God

We have to choose for God. We have to bend our will to truly want to relinquish everything that stands in the way of our reaching Christ-consciousness.

17 – Eastern Story

There is an old Eastern story about a teacher holding his student’s head under water, until the student struggled mightily for air. The teacher released him, and he said, “When you want enlightenment just as much as you wanted air, then it will be given you.”

18 – Christ-consciousness

Let us want Christ-consciousness (enlightenment) today with all of our will. Let us activate the will to fall in line with this, this which is God’s wish for us. He will not intrude if we are hesitant. But as we wait patiently for His timing for Awakening, we will know that all is well in our little world.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

You know that the image of the butterfly has called to me since I was 23 and on a trip to Italy. I didn’t know then all that this image could mean, but now I see more clearly. Many have used the image of the butterfly to imagine rebirth, and now You see it as Awakening.

Thank You for this chapter. I am reassured that my own nature can shine through, regardless of what might happen on any given day. May I become all that it is in my nature to become. And thank You for helping.

Be with me today. May I say the right things in this blog, today, to speak to the hearts of those who read my words. I ask that ego not intrude. I asked before writing for You to take over and write through me. I am not sure that that happened, but I hope that it did. Be with me today for a good day. And be with my brothers and sisters, those I have met and those I haven’t. May we be there for each other as we walk together toward Awakening.

Amen.

Become a Being of Love without Fear, Joy without Sorrow

1 – Day 23

“As we spoke earlier of being a channel, today we speak of being a carrier. (Dialogues of a Course of Love, Day 23)”

2 – Carrying the Truth

We are carrying the truth of what Jesus is telling us. We carry this truth as a pregnant woman carries a child. We are frequently conscious of the “child,” but there are also times when we forget that we carry a “child.” We have a life in the outside world, and Jesus would have us live in both the inner and outer worlds of our experience. We have been externally directed, but now he would has us been internally directed.

3 – Easy or Hard?

It is not easy, but also it is not hard. We will become accustomed to the two levels of being. We will know union, not separation. We will know God. And we will carry these new ideas within us, as a pregnant woman carries her child.

4 – The Three Parts of ACOL

“Forget not that who you are is what you are here to make known and that thus, you must be a being who knows love without fear, joy without sorrow, and life everlasting. You must be this. A Course of Love gave you the understanding you needed in order to realize that you are this. The treatises gave you a way to apply this understanding. This dialogue is meant to give you the means to carry what you have been given. (A Course of Love: Dialogues, p. 190)”

5 – Carrying

“Carrying” within the knowledge that we have experienced is our way Home. When we carry within what we have experienced on the mountain top, we will be ready to take our place on level ground once again, with our brothers and sisters who have not yet made the trek to the mountain top.

6 – Surrender

Jesus reminds us that surrendering within is actually surrendering to our own will. As we learned in A Course in Miracles, God’s will is actually our own. We are never coerced.

7 – Never Alone

Carrying these truths within will ready us to reach outward to this world. The new will be birthed through us. But we are never alone. We do not have to feel burdened by a responsibility to carry the good news to our brothers and sisters. Our life in the future will be a joy that is the truth of Christ-consciousness.

8 – Illusion

“The clouds of illusion, even those that have gently surrounded our time together on the mountain top must now be surrendered, much as a woman surrenders her body to the growth of a child within. (Dialogues of a Course of Love, Day 23)”

9 – This World

We need to give up our illusions in this world. We need to realize that there is a reality beyond what we have been previously experiencing. The illusory reality will give way to the real, the real world. We will not have long to wait.

10 – The Real

We surrender to the real. We don’t try to force it, though, for God does not kowtow to our demands. He is not affected by such stridency at all. He wants surrender to His Way. And we have had much practice in this. Now we must make of surrender an hourly, even minute-by-minute fact of our living.

11 – God

We surrender to God. We live well under such conditions. We know that we are blessed, and we are grateful. And in the gratitude comes even greater experiences of the real world.

12 – Our Own Will

“Surrendering to the forces that move inside of you is surrendering to your own will. . .This will is divine will, your will, Christ-consciousness. It is alive within you. All that is required is that you carry it with awareness, honor, willingness. From this will the new be birthed. (Dialogues of a Course of Love, Day 23)”

13 – God = Self

God is within the self, the Self is God. So when we surrender to our real will, we are surrendering to the God within.

14 – Insulting?

This is not hard, but it may be personally insulting, for God may send us on errands that cause us to be embarrassed in our perceptions. This shabby self-perception needs to end (from A Course in Miracles).

15 – New World

We are trying to birth a new reality, a new world. And we will do so when totally surrendered to that which is within us. We will know what to think, say, and do. We will be in conflict no longer. This will, at first, not be a constant state. We will have to get used to the new. We will know glimpses of Awakening, of Christ-consciousness, in all likelihood, before we sustain Christ-consciousness. We need to ask what in our experience needs to be eliminated before we are ready for Christ-consciousness. We need to be very careful in our thinking about this matter. Ask honestly, dialogue with the inner Self, and the Answer will come.

16 – Conflicted

We have allowed ourselves to be tied up in knots to no good purpose. Now Jesus is offering us a new way, a way of harmony and peace, a way in which we see a new reality. Let us not let him down today. Let us carry the new within us as a pregnant woman carries a child.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I come to understand all that Jesus has been saying to me. Thank You for the guidance that I am finding in what I am reading. May I not be burdened or frustrated by my progress or lack of progress. Once begun, the end of the journey is certain. May I rest easy in that knowledge.

May I be certain today that I have really let the ego go, wither away inside of me. May I think, do, or say nothing that reinforces the ego that I have left behind. This is a principal step that I need to take to be ready for You to reach down and lift me up. May I succeed today, with Your help.

May I know the joy that You hold out to me. I so want to feel this joy continually. May I not feel what I have learned, and what I have come to understand without learning, as a burden. May I know that You are always near to help me take up my responsibilities in this world.

Amen.

We Are Never Alone

1 – Day 22

“You are life, and you are also surrounded by living forces channeling to you constantly. (A Course of Love: Dialogues)”

2 – The Other Side

We are not alone, ever. Not only is God with us constantly, but we have channeled help from what many call the “Other Side.” The next time you are in need, think on this. And the day will brighten.

3 – Channels

Day Twenty Two makes clear that all of us are channels to the unknown. We choose that which we express. The channeling goes on all the time. What each person expresses is unique to that individual. Each person can bring forth only that which is expressly his or hers to bring forth.

4 – Choices

Every choice is a mean of channeling. This makes clear the closeness of our world to other worlds beyond us. We are not, however, simply intermediaries between our world and other worlds. The channeling which we express would come into being only by our own choice, our own means of expression.

5 – God

We can know God better in this unique way. We can, through channeling, through expression of the unknown as we come to see it, make known the love of God to individuals in this world. When we do this, we are making known love in its purest form.

6 – Union

“It is clear, when looked at in terms of process, that there is no intermediary function involved in channeling, but a function of union. This is the very function that you have waited to have revealed to you, the function you have known you are here to fulfill, the function of direct union with God. (Dialogues of a Course of Love, Day 22)”

7 – Innermost Being

This quotation lets us know that God channels directly to us from our innermost being, our Being. He is One with us at all times. And we can call on this inner help when outer troubles threaten to overcome us. Do so now. Let the warmth of God’s love envelope you with a softness and a gentleness that maybe you have forgotten in the harshness of this world. Know that God cares, the innermost Being of yourself. You are never, never alone.

8 – Darkest Hours

So when we are in union with God, we channel His messages just all the time. We have to listen, though, for otherwise the personal self will engulf us and let us feel that we are all alone. Don’t let this egoic self rise again. The egoic self is over. But we can seem to flounder if we don’t turn within for assistance in our darkest hours.

9 – World

And these hours will come to us, still. We may mostly know happiness, but the world is still with us, and the world is a place of meanness and hostility, if we let it be that to us. The world can also be a place of loving care, especially when we reach out for help that is needed.

10 – Turn Within and Without

So: we turn within and we turn without. We know that there is no “other” self, that all of us are joined. Sometimes the Word of God comes to us in the message of another. Sometimes in a song heard on the radio. Sometimes in a song heard in our heads. It matters not from what Source we get God; but get Him we must, if we are to be happy.

11 – Let God Reach Us

We must be channels for God to reach us.

12 – Union

“You will feel as if you will burst if you cannot share the union that you touch when you fulfill your function of direct union with God. How do you let it pass through you to the world?

13 – Live Love

“The most simple, direct, and uncomplicated answer is that of living love. The simple answer is that you must express the unknown that you have touched, experienced, sensed, or felt with such intimacy that it is known to you because the knowing becomes real in the making known. (Dialogues of a Course of Love, Day 22)”

14 – Happiness

This shows us that living love is the only way to have happiness in this world. Even when all the world seems bent against us—for that is a fallacy. The world will only seem as hostile as our own minds are seeming at the time. If we soften, the world will soften. And birds will sing again in our little world.

15 – Alexandra Stoddard

Alexandria Stoddard, the interior decorator, has a series of books that intimate how loving has been the relationship that she has shared with her husband Peter. The books are a great inspiration, for if one keeps mind and heart in the right place, the relationships with which one is blessed will also remain in the right place.

16 – God’s Presence

If we wish to be in direct union with God, we have only to invite His Presence into our minds and hearts. We will feel alienated when hurt or angry, and His Word will be impossible to hear.

17 – Attune to God

Let your minds and hearts attune now to God. Let Him speak to you in great simplicity. He is there, waiting to be asked. He will bring you home, in salvation to remain. He would have us sustain the elevated Self of form.

18 – Love

“You realize that you have known a place where nothing but love exists, where there is no suffering, no death, no pain nor sorrow, no separation or alienation. (Dialogues of a Course of Love, Day 22)”

19 – Heaven

The quotation is apt. We do realize, however dimly, that there is a Heaven where there is no suffering, no death, no pain nor sorrow, no separation or alienation. And we can indeed have this Heaven on earth. It takes attentiveness to others, the direct manifestation of love in action. And when we have been inattentive, we know it and we suffer. But we can turn things aright by just the awesome power of our minds, which is God’s Source. We need to be in union with God to have a good life, to be separated (even in illusion) from Him no longer

20 – Heaven on Earth

We can create this Heaven on earth. We can use the power of our minds, in league with God, to do so. And prayers such as these are completely within His Will, and completely within His power to create.

21 – Time

Pay attention to the following quotation: “It is time to be a channel for the awareness of union with God that exists in every living thing. (Dialogues of a Course of Love, Day 22)”

22 – Christ-consciousness

“The awareness is what we have been calling Christ-consciousness, but what you call it now matters not. All the words that have been expressed here, that say so many similar things in so many different ways, are words that are simply calling you to realization of your union with God and to the new world you can create once you accept and make real this union. (Dialogues of a Course of Love, Day 22)”

23 – New World

Would we not want to create a new world? Would we all want Christ-consciousness, Awakening, enlightenment? Yes, of course. All of us.

24 – Awareness of Union

We need to realize that we are already one with God, and we need now to be aware of this union. That is the only thing standing between us and Christ-consciousness. Awareness of union.

24 – We Try

We try so hard. And we fall on our faces. But God sees our feeble attempts and our frantic attempts as well. And He smiles at us, and says, “Take it easy. There is nothing here that I can’t handle. All is well.” And if we relax in the goodness of His love, we feel a peace that is not of this world. We know joy in the midst of pain. And our moments of pain shrink as we stand watching them.

24 – Union

Union. Awareness of union. Keep that in the forefront of your mind. And you will create a new world, despite yourself.

25 – Feeling

“Remember only the feeling that a place of union exists in which you know God, in which you know love, in which you know of joy without sorrow, and life everlasting. This is the great unknown that you can make known. (Dialogues of a Course of Love, Day 22)”

26 – Bliss

We can know such bliss when we are intimately connected to God. We don’t have to struggle anymore to “understand.” We just rest in awareness that He is present, and that He is handling everything that we don’t know how to handle.

27 – Cease Struggling

Cease struggling. Come into God’s Arms with certainty that there alone is where He would have you be.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Help me to be aware, constantly, of the impact of an unseen world on my own personal surroundings as well as this world in general. Thank You for the clear statement of this great boon. We are never alone. Forces from beyond reach out to us and comfort us.

Thank You.

May I discern wisely the channeling that comes to me. A Course of Love does not say that we have to discern spirits, but through the years I have believed that. Be with me as I assimilate the new insight of ACOL, and if I must discern spirits, please guide me rightly in this endeavor.

Amen.

Life Is a Channel

1 – Day 21

“The first transition. . .is about a letting go of any of the ideas that you may still have that an outside source exists. There is no such thing as an outside source. There are no outside sources of wisdom, guidance, or even information.

2 – There Is No World

We cannot reach outside ourselves for wisdom; we can only incorporate what resonates with the inner Self. If we try to reach outside ourselves, we are really just experiencing the larger Self, for we are all One. Jerry is a part of You; you are a part of Beverly. All is One. And All is God. So reaching outside is absolutely not possible. Why, then, do we not take the next right and realize that it is only wisdom from within, that we have assimilated unto ourselves, that will save us?

3 – Learning

We are still trying, albeit less often, to listen to the teachings of others and thus to “learn.” But Jesus has said that the time of this type of learning is over. We can still receive inspiration from others, but to take another’s word for something that you haven’t experienced is the most tremendous folly. We can be inspired by this person’s story, but it is our own experience that saves us.

4 – Don’t Always Listen

Don’t listen to any exterior words unless they form a resonating cord in your own heart. Don’t take unto yourself anything that another says that sounds foreign to you, to Your Self. For you will try to absorb amiss. It is only your own Self Who can make decisions about your future course of action. Only your Self knows what is right for you.

5 – Pattern of Learning

“This was true even within the pattern of learning you have been familiar with, for in order to learn, the source of wisdom, even though you may have seen it as existing outside of yourself, had to function as what it was—a channel through which the wisdom, guidance or information moved. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 21)”

6 – Time of Learning

This quotation says that even in the time of learning, when we listened intently to what others said to us, we still did function only to absorb that which was meaningful within our own experience. Unless we were coerced, and this rarely happened except in childhood, we were bent on adapting our way to others’ ways that seems close to what we were coming to believe. If the words made no sense to us, we dismissed them out of hand. We did not waste our time trying to absorb the message if it seemed foreign to our experience.

7 – Wisdom / Guidance / Information

We were letting wisdom, guidance, and information flow into ourselves, though we did not yet know that there was an inner Self Who sought to guide us. If we were following A Course in Miracles, we were listening solely to the Holy Spirit, or Universal Inspiration. And we were well led.

8 – Holy Spirit

But still we listened to God, for the Holy Spirit is part of the Trinity. And this similitude was not lost on us. We longed to have a Hearer in God, in the Holy Spirit, and Jesus himself had promised us that he would hold our hand as we walked along. So Christ was present, too, even before we knew that we partake of the Christ.

9 – A Channel

“You realize now that life itself is a channel and that you are constantly receiving. You still perhaps think in terms of receiving meaning that there is something given from a source beyond the self, but this is the ‘thought’ that has to change. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 21)”

10 – Nothing Outside You

There is nothing outside you (from A Course in Miracles). This is why we don’t receive anything that is outside, for there is nothing outside.

11 – Theology

This is theology, and it may be hard to accept. But lean a while into the concept, and see if it doesn’t make sense in view of the fact that we see God as One, as the Whole, as the All. We are part of that All. We are a hologram that contains the whole in each part. And each part can receive meaning from the Whole at any time.

12 – Union

“No intermediary is needed when you exist in union. It is recognized that the knowledge, wisdom, guidance, or information that is needed each moment is available within each moment and that the interaction, rather than being one of taking something from an outside source into the self where it is learned and then regurgitated or even applied, has given way to an interaction that begins within and extends outward. (A Course of Love: Dialogues, p. 186)”

13 – External Sources

Day Twenty One elaborates upon the previous day’s commentary. We are led to understand more completely that we cannot rely upon external sources for the truth. We are led to realize that we cannot even rely upon Jesus to impart the truth to us. We must reach inward, and in dialogue with the Self that is the All of us, we will come to know. This will not be an external seeking, but an internal transition to relying on the Self.

14 – Jesus

Jesus is preparing us to cease thinking of him as our teacher. He has said in these commentaries that he is our companion, but he is resigning as our teacher. We are not to look outside ourselves for the answers, but to turn inward. Ideas such as these are reiterated throughout the Forty Days and Forty Nights.

15 – Giving and Receiving

Life itself is a channel, and we are constantly both receiving and giving. There is nothing channeled to one that is not always available to all others. Teacher and learner are equal, an idea that was presented in A Course in Miracles; in ACIM, though, it was said that only time separated the teacher from the learner, because the teacher temporarily knew more, and was therefore in a position to help. In these concluding chapters to A Course of Love, we are led to realize that time no longer separates the teacher from the learner. We have walked farther along the pathway. We are assuming Christ-consciousness for ourselves.

16 – Mountain Top

“You began your mountain top experience with a companion who had offered himself as a teacher in order to bring you to the place of being willing to accept that a teacher was not needed. He joined you on the mountain top in order to prepare you for his departure, a departure from reliance upon him that would allow you to arrive at reliance upon yourself. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 21)”

17 – Bottom Line

This is the bottom line of what Jesus has been trying to tell us in the Dialogues. He is not the teacher anymore; he is an equal who seeks to be received as a companion. We don’t look to him in the same way that traditional Christianity looked to Jesus, because we have moved beyond this understanding. Jesus is still very much a part of our faith, and he is still our leader, but his responses to us are not predicated on his knowing a great deal more than we can come to know ourselves.

18 – Self

We need to rely on Self, but in that Self is the Whole. So there is no need to stop praying; we need prayer to God, even though we know that we are God, as blasphemous as that may sound on first reading. We don’t have the union with all that God has, but we do have a relationship with those outside of our bodies. Their minds are, though, joined with ours, and together we walk to home.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Thank You for reassurance that I have come farther along on the pathway, and that union with the Self that I am will answer my questions. I want to be in union with You. I do not want separation any longer. Help me to know union with You.

I do what I can. I don’t always do the right things, but I do try. All of us do try. Help my brothers and sisters to walk aright this day, and please help me. May this day go well in all particulars. Be with me as I walk through this day. Help me to make the right decisions, the ones that are in Your Will. Don’t let me go off on tangents, making decisions that aren’t appropriate to the situation. May I read Your desires accurately today, for I know that Your Will and my real will are identical.

Thank You for the spectacular promise of this day. I do not have to rely on external sources, but I only need to turn inward to You and the Self that I am.

Amen.

Beauty / Truth / Wisdom — God’s Gifts

1 – Day 20

“You have realized now your relationship with the unknown and ceased to fear it. You are, perhaps, even eager now, to move beyond the known to the unknown. . . .

“This is the first transition, the transition in which you really ‘get it’ that the unknown cannot be taught, laid out on a map, or shown to you by another. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 20)”

2 – Teaching?

We cannot teach another what is buried deep within our hearts. Only our Self can accurately guide us in this life.

3 – Mentors

Oh, we have tried other things. We have listened to mentors, we have read—in all ways we have sought to learn from the teachings of others. But in this time of Christ we need to stop reaching out to others for the riddle of our lives; we need to realize that deep within are the Answers. So we get quiet, and we listen.

4 – Meditations

Now, meditations written by others may still help. They serve to anchor us, though, still deeper within ourselves. These meditations only remind us of what we have forgotten. They do not point out the road on which we ought to travel. Or, if we try to make them point out that road, we use those meditations in the wrong way. If we follow a path that has been laid out by another, we go nowhere—for each individual has a unique path. This point is well made by Joseph Campbell and is related in a book entitled, “Companion to Joseph Campbell.” The book blends oral comments from Joseph in a seminar of some time at Esalen, with quotations from Joseph’s work. And Joseph says just this—if we follow the path that has been followed by another, we go nowhere. Joseph also says, tellingly, that if follow our bliss, doors will open that have been closed before, and doors that would be closed for anyone else. So listen to your Inner Wisdom (a phrase used by an enlightened friend of mine), dialogue with your Inner Wisdom, and you will come out all right—not alright, for ALL right.

5 – We Receive

“What has happened here is that words have been put on the feelings and remembrances that you have within your minds and hearts and have been sharing in this dialogue. The way of saying this perhaps is new, but the way of saying this is the expression of the human being receiving it. The way in which you are hearing and responding to these truths is perhaps new, but that way too is of the human being receiving it, in this case, you. (A Course of Love: Dialogues, p. 183)”

6 – Learning

We have long depended on learning, on our minds, to live as comfortably as possible in this world. Day Twenty clarifies that we cannot learn the truth that way, the unknown cannot be taught. We know intuitively, and have always known intuitively, the truth of our being, the unknowns for which we have sought externally for solutions.

7 – Transitions

The first transition ends when we realize that we are in a state of transition, the state of knowing that we cannot learn anything, that we have always held internally the truths of which we are becoming aware. The more we turn inward, the more we will know these truths. Our minds are not the way; our hearts are. Thus we are at the true end of learning.

8 – Level Ground

We are preparing here, at the halfway point of our Forty Days and Forty Nights, to return to level ground, to leave the mountain top. We will be different people when we have returned to level ground. We will know the beauty, truth, and wisdom of the one Self, the Self that we share with all our brothers and sisters.

9 – Truth

“The truth is the truth. It doesn’t change. It is the same for everyone.

“What, then, is the unknown? The reception and expression of truth.

“This is why you can ‘know’ while always coming to know. . . .The only thing there is to know is the One Self in its many expressions. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 20)”

10 – Paths

The “truth” that is same for everyone is not the same as the path that someone will take in life. We all take different paths, but if we are to stay on that pathway, we need the same truths that speak to all of our brothers and sisters. We need authoritative truth, not subjective. We need to hear from someone like Jesus—and here he is speaking to us as an equal, a companion on our trek to the mountain top with him, leading to Christ-consciousness.

11 – Surrender

Surrender is an important component of arriving at Christ-consciousness. It is not within us to know the place nor the time that God appoints. This is a paraphrase from the New Testament in regard to the coming of the Kingdom of God, Heaven on earth. And what will we have in Christ-consciousness but the Kingdom of God, Heaven on earth. Nothing. We are walking to fulfillment as a Christ Self, allowing that inner Self to blossom and become obvious to ourselves and all around us.

12 – Timing

It is not hard, but it does take surrender to God’s timing, for He makes the decision about when.

13 – Preparation

Are there things that we can do to prepare? Yes, or A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love would never have been channeled. The ultimate purpose of both is to see us awaken. Jesus says in ACIM that revelation may occasionally reveal the end to us, but to get there, the means are needed. And he continues, that the means are being carefully explained to us. That is A Course in Miracles, the means.

14 – Struggle

I think that it is likely that Jesus saw many of struggling, once we knew that the ego was a bad thing, meant to be eliminated for our lives. How do we replace it with something? And so I think that Jesus had unfinished business with us, he recognized this, and, accordingly, as the new century dawned, he channeled A Course of Love to Mari. Just as he had channeled A Course in Miracles to Helen. There are other books available, many others, believed by their scribes to be channeled by Jesus in this new age. I do not judge these books. We find truth, sometimes wherever we look. But my way to a culmination is A Course of Love, just as my way was (and is) A Course in Miracles. And, as Jesus says about ACIM, why choose some other way that has served others well when this one is intended for you (for me). Yes, we need to realize that there are many pathways to God, and there is a different course for every teacher of God (the latter a paraphrase from the Manual of ACIM).

15 – Beauty, Truth, and Wisdom

“In other words, all the truth and all the wisdom that is available but unknown to you, takes you to make it known. And if this is the only way that the beauty, truth, and wisdom of the One Self can be made known, then you are the source and the power of coming to know and making known. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 20)”

16 – Beautiful Passage

This is an especially beautiful passage (as are many passages of particular beauty in A Course of Love). We are a source of coming to know for ourselves; we do not first seek outside ourselves. We are deliberately told not to seek outside ourselves by A Course in Miracles.

17 – Seeking

But isn’t outside seeking what we have been doing so often? We don’t just look on others’ writings as meditative, inspirational reading; we seek in them the ultimate answers to the ultimate questions. And we will not find such there, for such can only be found within. We can prepare, we can learn—but now is a time of rest, a time of reflection, a time of ultimately coming to know from our inner Christ Self. We are prepared. We may (and we do) still have flaws of personality, but we are “all right.” We accept ourselves the way that we are, or we decide that we don’t like a given personality trait, and so we just quietly turn aside from it. (Note that we don’t resist, which would tie the trait to ourselves all the stronger.)

18 – Gifts

So: beauty, truth, wisdom. These are gifts of the Christ Self Who is within all. We can know these gifts today. We do not have to wait. Just ask. For what we ask is in strict accordance with the Will of God, and if we have a little faith, a tiny faith that He will answer, indeed He will answer. Just first ask, politely and with love.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

It seems to me that You are teaching me that I have always known intuitively what is just now becoming clear to me. How foolish I have been! I have put more faith in what others have told me than in what I knew internally.

I ask for Your guidance, and the will to follow that guidance, today. I will never have done all that I can do to prepare for Awakening if I refuse, out of stubbornness and recalcitrance, to follow your Way. The Way that You point out to me. Sometimes I do feel stubborn, but if I follow Your Way, as it is pointed out to me by guidance, as soon as I can relinquish resistance, all will have returned to the right track. Just follow as soon as I can. With willingness and abundant joy, for joy is the hallmark that I am in the flow of my day. My day has flow when I follow guidance, and I chafe against illusory binding when I resist Your Way. How foolish would I be today? I choose not to lead a foolish life, not to see that foolishness in my thoughts, words, and actions today. I do want flow, and the only way that I can have it is to surrender to Your guidance as I comprehend that guidance. It is not hard, when the day has started right. And if the day starts wrong, I can start again. The path is both gentle and kind. And especially loving, for it is Your Way, which is always and ever loving.

Perhaps I needed to learn from others. But now You are teaching me to rely on the inner Word that You have place in my heart. May I rest in the comfort of this concept.

Amen.

Living the Way of Mary

1 – Day 19

“Those of you who are the forerunners of the way of Mary may have felt confusion over your sense of calling. You know you are called to something, and something important, but it does not have a form within your mind and so you see not how it can become manifest in the world. In other words, you know not what to do. You perhaps see no ‘specific’ accomplishment in your future, but see instead a way of living as the ultimate accomplishment. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 19)”

2 – Way of Living

A way living is the ultimate way of Mary; it is not achieving, out in the world, as doers have done in the way of Jesus. This becomes a reflective way of life, a way of relationship, often in the family, and is sometimes understood, perhaps, by women more so than by men. This is according to the stereotype of how women have been viewed in a patriarchal society. And in the new world, men and women both will be far more likely just to live, just to live in relationship, than to try to achieve, even if that achievement is ego-less.

3 – Comforting

This way is a comforting way, this way of Mary. It is a very loving way, this way of relationship. We move in circles that are near to us; we heal each other in ways that are impossible if one is out in the world trying to make a mark, to actively change the world for the better.

4 – Change Happens from Within

A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love both emphasize that change of the world happens only when we first see an inward change. We change amiss when we attempt to overturn the old order by force of external means. We change what we perceive, and then we change what we know, and in the doing, we change quite a bit in the outside world. Even followers in Mary’s tradition will change quite a bit in the outside world, but it will be a by-product of that change that happens closer to home, closer to the heart.

5 – Contented

“Being content is being fulfilled by the way in which you express who you are—by the way you express your content—your wholeness. Those who use their gifts to create the truth they see are those who in ‘doing’ find their way to true contentment and true creation. . . .Those called to the way of Mary are called to be what they want to see reflected in the world and to the realization that this reflection is the new way of creation. In their being they become what they want to create. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 19)”

6 – Becoming

Those of the way of Mary are in the midst of “becoming” a being whom they want to create. In their Selves they embody change. If one first becomes something that is actually desired in the outside world, we truly make a change over which we have some control. We can always change our own selves. And in the changing does the world itself change as well.

7 – Being

We rest content when our very being has been transformed, and if the way of Mary is our way, then this is what we are about.

8 – Interaction

“The way of Mary is not a place or state of non-interaction however. This is not the state or place of the monks, nuns, or the contemplatives of old. It is not solitary nor isolated, nor confined to a specific community. It is a way of existence in which relationship is paramount. It is not listening to a calling to ‘do’ but a calling to ‘become.’ (A Course of Love: Dialogues, p. 180)”

9 – Relationships

Relationships do matter a great deal. And when we are following Mary’s way, we major in relationships. They are our focus, they are our reason for living. Cannot we see that women have historically played this role, even when the ego was the dominant inner force?

10 – Rest

There is rest in the way of Mary. We no longer try to change anybody or anything that is outside of us, unless that change happens naturally through our interaction with them. We aren’t trying to a role model for anyone; we are just “being.” We are not “doing” in the active way that Jesus was doing. His example life is not called for by those who follow Mary.

11 – Not “Doing”

The way of Mary is not a “doing” so much as a way of “being.” This does not mean that doing will be absent from our brothers and sisters who follow Mary’s way, but their primary mode of living will be in relationships. They will not always be as known by our world as those who are actively doing. But they will not dwell in obscurity. As we fulfill the obligations and mission for which we live in the world, we will naturally move more toward being rather than doing.

12 – All

Eventually all will follow the way of Mary. This may be hard for us to understand at this time in our history, when there is so much that we perceive as “wrong” with this world. But as we all learn to “be” rather than to try (sometimes misguidedly) to “do,” then we will see that no change is lasting that does not include an internal change. This is a largely unexpressed but implicit tenet of Jesus in both A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love.

13 – Anchors

Both Jesus and Mary are anchors in this time of transition. Both ways–doing and being–are needed as we seek to bring to our world a new, transformed world.

14 – Acclaim

“This is not to say that those called to the way of Jesus will find acclaim and those called to the way of Mary will find obscurity. Many called to the way of Mary will ‘do’ much that is greatly desired in the world but what they do will be a byproduct of their way of being rather than a means of facilitating that way of being. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 19)”

15 – In Relationship

So we live, first of all, in relationship when we are called to the way of Mary. And we may find acclaim, but it is no longer foremost to us, even when we are outside the realm of the ego. We don’t have to “do” to achieve our purpose in life; we just “are.”

16 – Way of Jesus

“Without those pursuing the way of Jesus, those pursuing the way of Mary would have a much more difficult task. There would be little space in which to anchor the new. Those following the way of Jesus create the openness of the spacious Selves who allow for the anchors of the new to be cast and thus to ride out the many storms of this time of transition. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 19)”

17 – New Age

Those of the way of Jesus have paved the way for the new age, those who will follow in the way of Mary. Someone needed to actively work in the world to bring about change—by setting an example, and, earlier, by teaching and learning. Now those goals have been achieved, and many of the way of Mary have gained much from the accomplishment. Now the time is ripe for simply “being,” no longer out in the world creating a new order.

18 – New Order

Yet the way of Jesus, the new order, needed to be achieved, to give the Marys of the world a place to rest content. Now those of the way of Mary can walk serenely in a world that did not exist a few years ago. It exists now, for a few followers of Mary—and more followers of Mary will come in the years henceforth.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I have spent most of my life “doing”–sometimes in a feverish pace. I am so relieved that Jesus does not ask me to “do” compulsively any longer. Thank You for the words that indicate that “being” in relationships is also a good thing. Help me to truly understand the way of Mary.

As I balance the way of Jesus–the doing–with the way of Mary–the being–may I have Your constant support. I cannot live well in this world without Your guidance every step of the way. Thank You.

Amen.

Following Jesus and Mary

1 – Fulfillment

“You have been preparing for this final stage of the fulfillment of the way of Jesus. You have also been preparing for the beginning of the fulfillment of the way of Mary. . . .Each way is as needed now as it was two thousand years ago. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 18)”

2 – Attention to Both Jesus and Mary

So we need to give attention to both Jesus and Mary. Mary was left out of A Course in Miracles, but she is very much in evidence in A Course of Love. She is said to have reached Christ-consciousness also, as, of course, did Jesus. We are ending the “time of Jesus” in that example lives and “doing” are not to be the way of the future. We are heading into a time to fulfilling relationships and simply “being.” But right now we are caught on the cusp of each. We are not finished with Jesus’s way, and Mary’s way is not fulfilled for many. So we learn from both at this juncture.

3 – Preparing

We have been “preparing.” While we have moved beyond learning in the old sense, the sense in which we learned with the aid (nefarious aid) of the ego, we are learning through observation of this glorious world. Even amid pain, we can see glory. And with the words of Jesus to sustain us, we can heal at least a portion of that pain.

4 – Mary’s Way

Mary is not the exalted bringer of salvation. Her way is quieter, but that does not mean that everyone who follows in her way will be obscure, unknown by the world. Those following her may achieve a great deal, but their primary consideration is for relationship and being contented in “being” rather than “doing.”

5 – Active / Receptive

“One way is active. One way is receptive. Yet the ways are not separate any more than Jesus was separate from Mary—or any mother separate from her child. The ways are rather complimentary and symbiotic. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 18)”

6 – Legitimate Ways

We see that both the ways are legitimate. Even as Mary was not separate from the child of her womb, Jesus. Jesus’s way is active, and Mary’s is receptive. In this we can see an echo of stereotypical attitudes toward men and women, and their places in this world. But we do not have to turn aside from the characterizations herein because we are liberated. We can see value in seeing the male as active, the female as receptive. Certainly we know that even in the workplace, the way of women is different from their male counterparts. There is often more cooperation and less competition when women hold the sway.

7 – Jesus’s Way

“As has been said, the time of teaching and learning is over. If the way of Jesus was a way of acceptance, teaching, learning, and leading an example life, then the remaining ways of Jesus that are still applicable and appropriate in this final period are those of acceptance and of being an example life. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 18)”

8 – Teaching and Learning

In this quotation from the Dialogues of A Course of Love, we see that Jesus is dropping out both teaching and learning in our present day. Even though we are still on the cusp of Mary, we still find reasons for acceptance and being an example life. We are not so sure that teaching and learning are our way, though some of us might still be caught up in it. Our hearers will see something different, though, in our acceptance and our example life. They will observe, rather than take unto themselves, as though external to themselves, the teaching that they hear. They will not learn in the old way. They will take unto themselves only what resonates internally, and they will turn aside from an external source of presumably higher wisdom. There is no wisdom higher than the internal.

9 – Separated State

“”Your separated state was a sickness, an unwanted state, and thus a temporary manifestation. The joining of mind and heart provided reunion of the human and divine and thus accomplished the resurrection of the eternal in form. Your virgin state, the state unaltered by the separation, has been returned. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 18)”

10 – Elevated Self of Form

This describes the elevated Self of form, no longer in separation. The quotation also harkens back to joining of mind and heart (into wholeheartedness), a tenet of the original volume of A Course of Love. We are merging the human (the little or personal self, so soon having relinquished the ego) and the divine (the inner Christ Self). We are growing closer to God, our very Being inside.

11 – Interaction / Relationship

“The new visual pattern is that of spirit resurrected in form. It is the ascension of the body, or elevation of the self of form. You are called to demonstrate this pattern. The choice is to demonstrate this pattern through interaction with the world, or through incarnation through relationship. Neither is exclusive. Both are contained within the other. (A Course of Love: Dialogues, p. 177)”

12 – Essence

This passage encapsulates the essence of Day Eighteen. Some will follow the way of Jesus through interaction (the active way) with the world, some will follow the way of Mary through relationships (the receptive way), and some will combine both ways in their time in this world. All ways are needed in this time of transition.

13 – Feelings

Feelings are now our way of coming to know. This idea has been expressed previously, but now is reiterated. We lay aside all sickness as a temporary manifestation of external searching, and we turn within to find our knowing. The way that we exemplify this knowing, though, differs–whether the way of Jesus, the way of Mary, or a symbiotic relationship of the two.

14 – The Self

This passage also encapsulates the entire Forty Days and Forty Nights quite well. We are to become the resurrected self of form, elevated to the Self that has always been innate in us. This Self has never left God, and when we welcome this Self into our little self, we will know love and peace and joy as we have not known them for many eons.

15 – Self and Relationship to Self

“Both the self and the relationship of self to all must become known in order for the paradise that has been re-found to be re-created for everyone. What else would life be for but to make the invisible paradies of love visible and livable for all? (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 18)”

16 – Read Carefully

This quotation takes some explanation, although the meaning is clear when read carefully. The self is union with God and everybody and everything else; the relationship of self to all is the second half of what we need to do. Consequently, this quotation begins as a reassertion of unity and relationship.

17 – Paradise

We want paradise here on earth. We can have it. We do have it when we experience the union of God and man internally, coupled with the relationship that we have with God and man externally. Union and relationship; unity and relationship. The terms are used over and over in A Course of Love, and so Jesus must mean something very important by them. It is hoped that we won’t become jaded in our reading of these two terms, for in their fullness of meaning they are crucial to our establishment, with God, of a Heaven on earth, of Paradise in this world.

18 – Re-create

We need to re-create, because we have been lost in the illusion of separation. We are not really separate, indeed we could not be and still live. But we were unaware of our union with God as long as the ego was in the ascendancy. Now that the ego has fallen away (or is in the process of falling away), we know God in a way that was veiled for us by our egoic notions. We wanted the material above all else, but it ever failed to satisfy for longer than a moment. We wanted love, but found ourselves unable to give—and we know now that what we give is what we receive.

19 – Virgin State

So now we seek to recreate Heaven on earth, the return to the Garden of Eden, to return to our virgin state.

20 – Blessings

Let’s not delay any longer. These great blessings can be ours today. Only believe. And if you can’t believe, it isn’t to be yet for yourself.

21 – Patience

Be patient. The way will be shown to you in the privacy of your inner Self.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I earnestly want to fulfill your plan for me: that my little self elevate into the Self that I truly am. This means that earthly being is not less than heavenly. What a joy this means that life in this world can become! Thank You.

I do not yet know whether my way is the way of Jesus, the way of Mary, or a combination of the two. Guide me in this dilemma. I will listen to Your Voice today.

Help me to get through this one day with grace. I am very much wanting to feel Your Presence. This is a great blessing to me as I live the way of Jesus, leaning toward the way of Mary. I am very much a homebody, though I have been out in the world. Guide me to no longer try to “teach,” as this is not the way that people will come to You now. Guide me to remind others of what they already know internally. Just to observe what is true, and to say it. I ask this of You today. Thank You.

Amen.

Christ-consciousness Is the Awareness that God Is Everything

1 – Creation

“Just as the creation story had to start somewhere—so you had to start somewhere. . . . Thus there must be a difference between life-consciousness and Christ-consciousness, since you have been life-conscious without being Christ-conscious. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 17)”

2 – Eternity

We have been in eternity for a very long time. There is no way to recall when we were separated from God in illusion. After this happened, we were conscious of life, but no longer of union, no longer of Christ-consciousness. And no longer did we see God as our Friend. The die was cast; we were outside of the Garden of Eden.

3 – Life-conscious

We have thus been life-conscious. Now we seek to become Christ-conscious, though this is not totally in our control. God, as Union, makes this decision. But we are part of God. God is everywhere, and everything. He is the All, the One, the union that we seek to experience now.

4 – Christ-consciousness – a Definition

“You have been told Christ-consciousness is neither God nor man but the relationship that allows the awareness that God is everything. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 17)”

5 – Who We Are

This quotation gives a definition of Christ-consciousness that will aid our discovery and recreation of Who we are. We have a relationship with God, when we have reached Christ-consciousness, that is different from the egoic state of mind. We are living in wholeheartedness, a union of mind and heart that Jesus described in A Course of Love’s original volume.

6 – God

Do we really believe that God is everything? Do we really believe this? Let us entertain the possibility that the earth, indeed the universe, is not God’s handiwork, but, so to speak, His Body. Out of what would He create, if not from Himself? Try to open your mind a little to encompass this great idea. The idea will tease you out of thought, get you out of your mind. And knowing that this Body of God is Love personified, we can rest easy. We do not have to have primordial fears.

7 – The “I Am”

“Christ is the ‘I Am’ of God, the expression of ‘I Am’ in form, the animator and the animated, the informer and the informed, the movement, being, and expression of creation. Christ is that which anointed form with the ‘I Am’ of God. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 17)”

8 – Elevated Self of Form

Here we are verging into the “elevated Self of form.” This phrase, so far as I know, is unique to A Course of Love. Only A Course of Love comes up in a Google search, and the phrase is used only in my own blog. So we see that in A Course of Love, Jesus is not negating the body, but elevating it to something better than it has ever been. We will still be physical, on this earth and in this world, but everything else will have changed in Christ-consciousness.

9 – Physical Form

To think that form, physical form, was anointed the “I Am” of God in the elevated Self of form is a gigantic statement, a truly momentous choice to make in this world.

10 – Drive

“What is the drive that kept you reading the Course, caused you to enter this dialogue, kept you examining, kept you attempting to move beyond learning to a new means of knowing? Christ-consciousness. This is why it was said in the beginning pages of the Course that the Christ in you was the learner. The Christ in you is what was created to inspire movement beyond simple awareness to knowing. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 17)”

11 – Christ

The Christ in us is apparently present in embryo form long before we are gifted with Christ-consciousness. The Self that is Christ has always been within; God has always been there. We may be aware, in an intellectual sense, that Christ is within, but this awareness will soon move to knowing, which is a much bigger concept.

12 – Knowing

Knowing is comforting. It is beyond perception, which is our normal mode of operating with the outside world. When we know something, we are certain in a way that no other kind of awareness can give us. We don’t need proof when we know. Jung was once quoted as saying that he knew that God existed: “I don’t think, I know.” Certainly he was a mystic as well as an intellectual, and his word does help us to realize that men of great intellect are not dissuaded from belief by intellectual doubts, at least not always.

13 – Study

So it has been the Christ within Who has led us to study diligently A Course of Love. We might extrapolate from that that the Christ within also led us to study diligently A Course in Miracles. We have not been walking in the dark. Christ, our real Self, has been influencing us all along. A great comfort to realize.

14 – Challenged Patterns of Learning

“There have always been individuals who challenged the predominant patterns of learning because of the strength of their connection to Christ-consciousness. While no one has more access to Christ-consciousness than another, some exhibited more willingness to let that consciousness be their guiding force—that by which their being gained movement and expression. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 17)”

15 – Inner Direction

The more inner-directed among us have allowed their inner Christ to have full influence on them. These are individuals who are not peer-pressured to the same extent as others of us. And many of us move to inner direction when we realize that inner direction is the only thing that can take us home in God.

16 – Jesus

Leaders in the spiritual realm have been pioneers in following the Christ within. And sometimes they suffered for it, Jesus of course being the most obvious example.

17 – Access

So we all have the same access, but not all listened to this access to the same extent. Not all heard what the Christ Self was trying to say.

18 – Time of Christ

“What Jesus represented or demonstrated has now been realized, which is why this is called the time of Christ. The ‘time’ of Christ, whom so many associate with Jesus Christ, represents the ‘time’ of fulfillment of the way of Jesus. What could be taught and learned has been taught and learned. Now it is time to move beyond what could be taught and learned to what can only be realized through relationship. Now is the time of the final revelation of what can be realized, or made real, through following the example life of Jesus. (A Course of Love: Dialogues)”

19 – Time of Learning

We have been in a time of learning, a time that emphasized the mind. As we move into Christ-consciousness, we are bade to come into knowing. The mind and its learning have fulfilled their time. We are now to move into the sustaining of Christ-consciousness, rather than simply the maintenance of this state intermittently.

20 – Acceptance

The way of Jesus was acceptance, and the realization of an example life. It was Christ-consciousness through teaching and learning. Now we are coming into a different form of Christ-consciousness, through relationship, which is exemplified in the life of Mary, his mother. We have “learned” all that we can; we are encouraged now to live with our feelings in relationships. We will truly “know.” And this knowing is beyond needing proof of any kind. It is the fulfillment of all that the sustaining of Christ-consciousness can offer to us.

21 – Mary

“Christ-consciousness was represented not only by Jesus, but by his mother, Mary. Mary, like Jesus, realized full Christ-consciousness and full expression of Christ-consciousness in form. Each did so in individual ways, ways that revealed the choices available to those who would follow them. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 17)”

22 – Relationship

Day Seventeen affirms that Mary also realized Christ-consciousness. But as Jesus accepted, and was an example life, Mary taught through relationship. And it is this time of relationships in which we find ourselves now. The final paragraph in this chapter begins, “Thus we enter the ending stage of what can be realized through fulfillment of the way of Jesus and the beginning of the fulfillment of the way of Mary.”

23 – Christ-consciousness in Mary

We learn that Mary also realized Christ-consciousness. We learn also that the example life of Jesus was one of “doing,” and that Mary’s life was one of “being.” The being aspects are relationship-oriented, and are not so much out in the world. Jesus needed the support of the “being” of Mary to fulfill his work. All of us need the support of both types of personalities: doing and being. There are aspects of both in each of us, but previously the “doing” has received most attention. Being is coming into its own, though, as the wave of the future.

24 – Second Coming of Christ

This generation will see the culmination of the Second Coming of Christ. Jesus never says anything about what he means by this in regard to physicality. Whether or not there will be another incarnation is left to doubt. But the understandings of this era do place it squarely in the Second Coming. And we can be grateful that this is so.

25 – Teaching and Learning

“What could be taught and learned has been taught and learned. Now it is time to move beyond what could be taught and learned to what can only be realized through relationship. Now is the time of the final revelation of what can be realized, or made real, through following the example of Jesus. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 17)”

26 – Doing and Being

We are still now following the example of Jesus: Most of us are doing, as opposed to simply being. The time will come when this will change.

27 – A Change

“Thus we enter the ending stage of what can be realized through fulfillment of the way of Jesus and the beginning of the fulfillment of the way of Mary. This ending stage of the fulfillment of the way of Jesus is the stage of interaction with the world, the time of miracles, the death of the old way and the birth of the new. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 17)”

28 – Doing

We are now in this ending stage of the time that we will be constantly doing. We do miracles (when prompted by Jesus). We work in the world. But later on our real work will be inner work, work that will find its genesis in relationships one to the other. We will then truly know what love is all about.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I am so used to learning. I have sought You in so many ways, and now I am tired of seeking. You, through Jesus, tell me that the time of learning is over, that knowing will happen now. Thank You. I realize that I have longed for this, without realizing what I longed to reach.

May I reach out to others through more loving relationships to them. This heralds the time of Mary, and,, while I do not fully comprehend what this means, I know that the living out of it will make it clearer. Jesus, please guide me in this new phase of my development as a spiritual being.

Thank You for the gifts with which I have been blessed this day. Today has been good, and I pray that tomorrow will be likewise. Thank You for the insight that You have granted me today, but may I not be tempted to think of any insight in an egoic way. I would be rid of the ego, though I also know that turning aside is best. A frontal assault on the ego would be resistance, and that would only cement it further in my mind. Be with me as I move into living in an ego-less state. Be with all of us as we do this.

Amen.

How to Re-find Paradise

1 – Day 16

“Everything that can’t be seen but is, is consciousness. Accepting everything that can’t be seen, including the unknown, is full consciousness. Acceptance is key. You can’t accept what you fear. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 16)”

2 – Acceptance

Much emphasis on acceptance in the Dialogues of A Course of Love! Jesus reiterates here how very important it is for us just to accept—not to judge, not to regret, not to even feel sorry over. Of course, A Course in Miracles emphasized forgiveness of our brother throughout. And forgiveness is still the key to undoing the ego. But in A Course of Love, it is hoped that we, the readers, will have gone beyond the ego into another realm—not yet Awakening or Christ-consciousness, but closer than ever before. And to move into this new realm, acceptance of ourselves just as we are is crucial. We may see many imperfections in our personalities, and, objectively, there may be many imperfections. How do we handle this? We just turn aside from those parts of our personalities that we don’t want to keep. Importantly, we don’t resist, for in the resistance the ego reasserts itself. Resistance to undesired personality traits is a form of defensiveness, and the ego is strong in defensiveness. Also, defenses make what they would defend against (from A Course in Miracles).

3 – Self

So we accept. Just as we are. Knowing that we are whole and good in our real Self, the inner Christ Self. Our imperfect, personal self has been made only in illusions. None of the bad things that we thought we might have done to others, or that we did to others, has actually done anything at all—in reality. Of course, in the illusion the material objects seem very hard to us, very real. And we may need to ask for forgiveness from those we might have wronged. This sets the record straight. We are undoing what made wrong in the dream, the illusion. And sometimes this endeavor moves us closer to accepting our Self just as we are. We accept the personality, and, as the personality is cleansed by turning aside from those character traits that we wish to overcome, we are healed.

4 – Consciousness

We need to move into full consciousness, and we need, as this quotation points out, to move into consciousness without fear. We will not fear when we have allowed Jesus to guide our minds. Or allowed the inner Christ Self to guide our minds (as in A Course of Love)—or the Holy Spirit (as in A Course in Miracles). How can we give up our fears? We can but try, and in the loving of ourselves and others—when the love replaces the fear—we find rest for our spirits.

5 – Sickness

“Sickness is not sickness but rejected feelings. The rejected feelings exist as separate and forgotten physical manifestations until they are willfully remembered and accepted back into the spacious Self. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 16)”

6 – Spacious Self

We want to get over any and all sickness. If we conceive of the spacious Self as a larger, more all-encompassing Self Whom we are, we can imagine enfolding that sickness into this spacious Self, and then, miraculously, we are healed of sickness. Sometimes physical symptoms do linger, but that does not have to concern us. Healing is actually of the mind, and when the mind is healed, our real Self is healed.

7 – Healing

The physical manifestations may go away. We can ask God for a healing, engage in dialogue with our inner Self, and then miraculously learn of a new medication, a new treatment, or a new way of living that will eliminate the physical manifestations of illness. Pills, medication, are a form of magic, but Jesus does not counsel giving up pills if they are keeping fear at bay. He says in ACIM that the last thing that the fear-ridden mind needs is more fear, and we may have more fear if we throw away our pills. We are living an illusion, and if we are aware that the pills are healing our symptoms, then we will find that in our dream. We create our reality. And our ideas about that reality come true. This is a stern warning as well as a truth about the nature of our illusory reality.

8 – Illness

If we dialogue with the illness, talk to it, actually, we may see that we are no longer rejecting feelings about that illness. And the illness may spontaneously disappear. Our ideas about “reality,” our dream, are stubborn, though, and nobody should doubt the reality of a healing because of the continuance of physical symptoms (from ACIM).

9 – Reintegration

“The reintegration requires, of course, a change in what you want to prove to yourself. All you may now continue to seek proof of is that your feelings, rather than your thoughts about your feelings, reflect who you are, and that by acting on them, you will act in accord with who you are and thus in accord with the universe. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 16)”
10 – Feelings

We need to get close to our feelings. We don’t need to be cerebral about it, meaning that we don’t need to bring the thoughts of our minds into the act. We need to experience feelings directly.

11 – Thinking

All of our lives we have been taught to discount feelings in favor of the so-called “rational” mind. Of course, the mind is not rational, and its judgments are always, always, faulty. The world teaches for reliance on judgment of our (ir)rational mind, but we need to recognize, as ACIM tells us, that judgment in our own minds is not possible. We cannot see past, present, and future in all its ramifications. We cannot judge aright. Not that we don’t judge aright, but that we cannot. Then we look to a Higher Power for His counsel. In ACIM, this is the Holy Spirit; in ACOL, this is the Self within, the Christ Who is the All with God.

12 – Holes

If we act on feelings, we will stop digging holes for ourselves. We will climb out of the holes that the ego dug for us. If we act on feelings, we will first experience the happy dreams the Holy Spirit sends; and then we will move ever closer to the reality that the Awakening will show us. Know, though, that we cannot merit Awakening. It is God’s gift, given us when we are ready. And being good and spiritual will not guarantee readiness. Only God knows what in us He is looking for, before we move into Christ-consciousness (Awakening).

13 – Intuition

“When you feel an ‘intuition’ you respond differently than you do to unwanted feelings that you are quick to want to ‘do something’ about. If all feelings were treated more like intuition is treated–with a ‘knowing’ that the feeling has come to tell you something that is as yet unknown to you, but nevertheless for your benefit, you would go a long way toward acceptance. (A Course of Love: Dialogues)”

14 – Spacious Self

We need to accept all feelings, even those that seem borne of fear rather than love. By so doing, we encompass all feelings with the spacious Self of Christ-consciousness, and the fear, held within the love, is dissipated.

15 – Illness
Illness is a form of rejected feelings. When sickness comes upon us, we are likely to try to reject it as an unwanted intrusion into our world. But we must hold within ourselves these feelings, knowing that illness is a form of external searching. When we accept all feelings, whether of loneliness or despair, anger or grief, we join with the spacious Self.
When we live in the present, we are accepting of all feelings by living the Christ-consciousness that we have all so desired to call our own.
16 – Paradise
Paradise is re-found when the fear that had been expelled is welcomed back by the embrace of love. No feelings are bad; all are to be accepted, and kept if we deem them good and “loved” into a better feeling if we deem them bad. The rejection of fear thoughts helped to create the hell that overcame our world. Welcoming back the fear thoughts, while encompassing them always within love thoughts, will lead us back to paradise.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I come to understand my feelings in the same way that I have, over the years, come to accept intuition as valid guidance. May I come to understand and to act on what my feelings are telling me, but only if they are loving feelings for my brothers and sisters.

May I encompass fear with love, rejecting nothing, because rejection will only act as a force field to make the fear stronger. Thank You for these thoughts by Jesus for this day.

Many people pray for Awakening, for Christ-consciousness. And I am among those people. Take from me all part of my personal, little, self which is hindering the bestowal of this great blessing. Like Michaelangelo, carve away the parts of the block of my personality that are in the way of the Self Whom you want me to display always. I know that it is only these excess blocks of marble that are keeping me from You. I would move closer to You today. Now and forever.

Amen.

Entering the Dialogue

1 – Day 15

“When you fully realize that sharing is necessary you will have entered the dialogue. When you have fully surrendered to the fact that you can’t come to know on your own you will have entered the dialogue. . . .When you fully realize that you are in-formed by everything and everyone in creation, you will have entered the dialogue. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 15)”

2 – One

We are One with everyone, but we are also individualized into separate beings, making necessary that we form relationships with others, our brothers and sisters. These relationships mean that we share with one another. And, as A Course of Love says here, we enter the dialogue with each other, the Christ within, and God Himself. There is no compromise in this. We are both the One and the many, and we both need to recognize the unity of the One, and the multiplicity of the relationships that we have with the many. There is no other way. This message of “unity and relationship” is repeated often in A Course of Love. It is the way that God Himself experiences Himself—in us, for we are God, though we lack the union that He enjoys with the All.

3 – God

How can we call ourselves God? That is Jesus’s word, not mine. He says, later on in the Dialogues, that we are God Himself—that He individuated Himself so that He could experience His divine Being. But we decided, having been individuated and at the same time given free will, that we wanted to separate from this Godhead, that we knew better. In this tiny, mad idea (from A Course in Miracles), we fell into pain and suffering, for our will was imprisoned to prevent our entire loss to God (which would have been impossible).

4 – Theology

This is theology, and theology can divide. Do not take unto yourself if you have resistance. Accept only what seems right and good to you.

5 – Christ-consciousness

“As you are more fully able to maintain Christ-consciousness you begin the movement away from being observed to being in-formed by the spirit which animates all things. You begin the movement away from observing to informing. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 15)”

6 – Observation / In – forming

Jesus had earlier told us in A Course of Love that we were moving from the time of learning into observation. Now, in this final section of the concluding book, the Dialogues, he says that we move to “informing.” The spirit is possessing us, and we are being possessed consciously. And in this possession, we are being “in – formed.” Note the dash. Form within, that’s what it means. And in this new form that is being created in us, we are moving ultimately in that new being that we will be in the new world—the elevated Self of form.

7 – Perceptions

In A Course of Love, we are not told to denounce the world, except as we previously perceived it. We are told, in both ACIM and ACOL, that our perceptions need to be cleansed, and when this happens, the world around us will change accordingly. Projection makes perception (from ACIM). We cannot unilaterally change this difficult world when we are unhealed healers; we change our minds, and in the changing, there is a mystical transformation that heals everyone. According to ACIM, it takes one Son who perfectly forgives to heal the world. And we are all that one Son/Daughter. Jesus did in fact pave the way for us by coming first. But he and God need our voice, our hands, our feet, in relationship to others, to transform the world. This hostile, difficult, suffering world. That is our function, once we have accepted forgiveness, happiness, and salvation as offered to us now.

8 – Neutrality

“In practicing observation without judgment, you learned to be neutral observers. Being neutral observers allowed cause and effect to occur naturally rather than having your judgment alter natural cause and effect. . . .

9 – Don’t Judge

We need not to judge. If we don’t judge, we will awaken (from A Course in Miracles). This is a statement that can easily be overlooked, but it is to my mind a most important statement. If we don’t judge our brother and sister, we will awaken. Don’t all of us want to awaken? This is God’s promise to us, relayed by Jesus.

10 – Observation

We do observe (without the struggle of learning) our inner and outer circumstances. And we become neutral in so doing. Neutrality, in observation, prevents judgment from occurring at all. We remain in the natural cause and effect, not disturbing the natural order by judging anything at all.

11 – Peace

Thus we are at peace. Pray to leave off judging your brother/sister, your significant relationship, and see if you don’t have peace indeed. Of course, because we are fallible, we may return to judgment, but as often as we return to it, we can ask that it be removed from us—and God will do so, for it is in His Will. Then, without judgment, we see that everything is sunshine and light, and we live as the light of the world (from the New Testament and from A Course in Miracles).

12 – Creative

“This is the new realm of power that few in physical form have practiced and that has never been practiced by many at one time. It is a major shift because it is not neutral but creative. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 15)”

13 – Co-creators

We want to be co-creators with God. We want to be creative, for this is our inheritance. We observe neutrally, but then we create. When we have made this shift in consciousness, we are not “making” any longer (from ACIM), but we are creating in this new world that we occupy. There is no greater joy than to walk into eternity in joy and inner peace, creating as we go.

14 – Eternity

If we wonder what we will do in eternity, it is this—joyously experiencing, joyously creating, effortlessly. We will not see a Heaven that is boring. Has not this been a problem for us as we heard of angels sitting on clouds and playing harps all day long? This image can easily be dispelled, when we realize that we are here on earth with a glorious new world awaiting our creation of better times, better circumstances. Would our life after death be any different? Would not a joyous creation of new lives and pleasures be an enormously freeing concept to hold?

15 – Drama

And we can hold this concept? Don’t entertain for a moment that without drama your life will be boring, now or in the future. Drama is one of the great seducers of the ego, a state of mind and heart that will totally be disowned when we enjoy the Christ-consciousness to which we are all heading.

16 – Sustaining Christ-consciousness

“Although this power cannot be misused, to have access to this power in one instance and not another as you move in and out of the state of Christ-consciousness will not serve the purpose of creation.

17 – In – forming

“What does it mean to practice informing and being informed? It means to join together with others who have the ability to maintain Christ-consciousness in your company. This creates the joining together of spacious Selves. It is joining without boundaries. You become clear pools flowing into each other. You make your spirits known. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 15)”

18 – Maintaining / Sustaining

Before Christ-consciousness (Awakening) is sustained, we have glimpses of what this great state will be like. We move in and out of it, maintaining for a while but not sustaining. This maintaining for a while is not what Jesus calls us to. He encourages us here to join with others who can help us to sustain (rather than just see glimpses) of Christ-consciousness.

19 – Jesus

Jesus needs our sustaining of Christ-consciousness for the effortless work that we will do in this world. He needs healed healers. He needs for us to awaken, sooner rather than later. To ask for Awakening is thus to ask for what is God’s best Will for us, for what is totally in line with His Will. Revelation may occasionally reveal the end to us, and these are glimpses of Awakening that I have mentioned. But to get there, the means are needed. And the means are carefully explained to us by Jesus in A Course in Miracles (supported now also by A Course of Love). (These last sentences are paraphrases from ACIM.)

20 – Fears

“Examine what you fear. Is it really the stones within your pool, or is it the challenge of moving with the current that you know will be generated by the joining of spacious Selves? . . . .

“If so, enter the dialogue with the purpose of your final preparations in mind. Bring your fears into the light of oneness and see how the light dispels the darkness. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 15)”

21 – Discard Fears

We need to discard fears. This is something that all of us would want, however ambivalent we still are about the whole concepts that Jesus discusses. Imagine light encompassing our whole Being; imagine that we are light. For that we are. We are the light of the world, and for this we have to be, first of all, simply light.

22 – Light

There is a lightness of being that arrives when you call light to yourself. We know an end to fears in such moments. Later on, if the fears return, we simply repeat calling light to ourselves. (This exercise is explained by Sanaya Roman in the book, Spiritual Growth. It is a channeled work from an entity known as Orin.)

23 – Spacious Selves

We will be our spacious Selves in the future. We will enfold darkness, thereby lighting it away. Perhaps this idea scares us, for Jesus sees into our minds, knowing what we can’t quite accept yet.

24 – Healing

But the spacious Self is fully capable of dispelling darkness through light, with no loss of power on our part. We do not suffer in this technique. We are healing ourselves and others at the same time.

25 – Neutrality / Acceptance

“This is not a time of being judged or of adopting the beliefs of others but one of finally conquering judgment with neutrality or acceptance. Allowing others to accept you as you are is a gift that releases them from judgment and any notion that may have remained within them that Christ-consciousness is a form of ‘group think.’ Never will you feel more like an individual than when you are made known through the informing of spirit! (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 15)”

26 – Individuality

If we join with others, we may wonder if we are taking on their thoughts as our own, thereby losing some of our individuality. Our individuality is very, very important to us. We got used to being individuals under the grip of the ego, and in the new world, we still will be individuals—even though we are joined as One with others.

27 – No Fear

Have no fear. We don’t lose our individuality when we share with others. When we reach out to others to heal them. When we heal ourselves by reaching out to others.

28 – Judgment

We are moving, finally, away from judgment. We are being neutral observers. And God will bless us for this advance.

29 – Dialogue

“You will be shown that you can enter the dialogue with all and still focus, or place your attention, on areas that might not interest others in the slightest. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 15)”

30 – Jerry Jampolsky

We do still have our own areas of interest. We are still individuals. Not everybody is drawn to A Course in Miracles or A Course of Love, but they can still be transformed. These two books are my way, something that I recognized (with ACIM) some 33 years ago. Many others have had the same experience of recognizing this. Jerry Jampolsky, for example, a well-known teacher of ACIM, heard the inner words, “Physician, heal thyself,” when he first picked up the manuscript of ACIM. And he has gone on to bring thousands of others to greater understanding through his work in this world.

31 – ACIM and ACOL

But not everyone who awakes has used our course of study, our curriculum. A Course in Miracles says that it is a required course. Not everybody feels the same about what this means. Does that mean that everyone must eventually study ACIM? I think not. It is required for those who are drawn to it, as we are. There are other teachers with different curricula in this world (from the Manual of ACIM).

32 – Assimilate

But our course is what we are called to assimilate. Why use what was intended for others? And we will know if A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love are our way. Ask within. You will hear the Answer.

33 – Sustenance

“While there is division remaining between the self and the spacious Self, the self and the creative force, you remain in the state of maintenance rather than sustenance of Christ-consciousness. This is an acceptable state for this time of limited practice with those with whom you are engaged in this specific mountain top dialogue. It is not an acceptable state for full-scale interaction with the world. (A Course of Love: Dialogues, p. 164)”

34 – Sharing

The chapter for Day Fifteen is lengthy and complex, bringing together in one place the disparate threads of meaning that we have earlier explored in separate chapters, and, at the same time, moving the discussion forward by a further explanation of what “entering the dialogue” really means. Basically, “entering the dialogue” is recognized as a necessary sharing of self with others. These others do not negate the fundamental nature of individuality, though, and we will remain clear about our individuality as we progress. We will also not limit our interactions to those who believe as we do, who travel to the mountain top as we do in these Forty Days and Forty Nights. We will reach out to all others in our world, and we will do so non-judgmentally.

35 – Neutrality / No Judging

We learn to be neutral in our observation of our world and the brothers and sisters in it. It is important, very important, that we not judge. We let what we observe pass through us in invisibility. We do not hold to these observations, to come back to them and to judge them. This action of observation without judgment, in invisibility, is a very creative act.

36 – Without Boundaries

We join with others in Christ consciousness, and we do so without boundaries. If we see that there are others in our company who are not ready to let go of their boundaries, that are too fearful to loose their boundaries, we accept these brothers and sisters as they are.

37 – Dialogue

There is much that is as yet unknown to us, and it is in dialogue with others that we may come to know more fully. This does not negate a personal understanding, but it does open us up to dialogue with the spacious Self, the Self we share with all others. Our own pathway may be different from that of others, and our path may not even interest others in the slightest. This is alright. We will realize our true identity as we walk alone or with others.

38 – Encompass All in the Self

But we never want to disregard the brothers and sisters who have not made the mountain top trek with us. We need to encompass all in the Self that we share with all brothers and sisters, those who believe as we do and those who do not..

39 – Debunked

“We have now debunked your myths about your true identity being an idealized form of the self. Now are you ready, through your ability to view your own self as well as that which you observe with a neutrality that embraces the unknown as well as the known, to reclaim your Self and your purpose here. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 15)”

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I know all that You hold out to me on this mountain top experience. I do not try to learn, but to know without learning. I would experience the Christ-consciousness that I long for by sharing myself with all of my brothers and sisters in love. I would sustain the elevated Self of form. All of this I cannot do of myself alone. I need Your help, and I rest in certainty that Your promise to me of these things is true.

May I share my understanding with those in my world who are ready. May I not try to share and may I not hold in judgment those of my brothers and sisters who are not ready. You will teach me the difference. Thank You for this assurance that You have given to me on this day that encompasses so much of my pathway to You in maturity and spiritual awareness.

Be with me today, as I seek to follow Your Will, which always is my true will. You know best, and I would follow consistently. Forgive my lapses, though I know that You never condemn me and thus do not need to forgive at all. Thank You for this beginning of a good day. May it end in the same, good spirit.

Amen.

We Are Wholeness / This We Accept

1 – Acceptance

“Acceptance is necessary because escape is not possible. Everything that is, is with us, which is why we are the accomplished as well as the void, the healed as well as the sick, the chaos and the peace. Thus we heal now by calling on wholeness, accepting the healed self’s ability to be chosen while not encountering resistance or any attempts at rejection of the sick or wounded self. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 14)”

2 – Spacious Self

This quotation aims at saying that the spacious Self encompasses all parts of the Self, especially including, we must learn, the parts of the self that we would like to disown. The little or personal self is fraught with error, even when we have advanced far along the pathway. We may find ourselves still getting angry, still attacking, still being defensive. If we don’t like these aspects of our personality, we don’t resist, for resistance would make the force field stronger. We simply turn aside from less-desirable personality traits, giving them no energy. This “no energy” is our way to reach toward perfection.

3 – Perfection

Remember, though, that Jesus indicates that we don’t have to be perfect to be Christ-conscious. Eventually, we will know a kind of perfection, because in the New Testament, Jesus is quoted as saying, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in Heaven is perfect.” And in A Course in Miracles, Jesus says that he stands at the end, the correct the mistakes that we ourselves cannot correct. If he stands at the end, we still have some mistakes now. But we can do our part, as well as seeing Jesus do his. We can turn aside from those traits that are negative, turning instead to the light that is within all of us.

4 – Light of the World

We are the “light of the world.” This is declared in the New Testament as well as in A Course in Miracles. Let us together bring that light to our brothers and sisters who are lost in a damaging world of illusions.

5 – Contrasts

We are the contrasts. This quotation makes this clear. We are the up and the down. Only when we accept that the “down” needs to be enfolded into the spacious Self do we find relief from our discomfort.

6 – Today

Let us do that today, now.

7 – Projection

“The spacious Self realizes that the outer world is a projection and most often a rejection rather than an extension of what is within. Thus, sickness is a rejection of feelings. All that causes fear is rejection of feelings. All that causes loneliness is rejection of feelings. All that causes violence is rejection of feelings. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 14)”

8 – Extend

We need to extend what is within. This Self of ours is within, and extension is how we create well. But just now we are still caught in illusions, and for this to be our world, we have been projecting from our minds. Our little minds, the personal self.

9 – Rejection

We have been rejecting our feelings, because we have known unhappiness. In any given day, most of us have times of feeling down. And we tend to reject the feelings rather than to experience them fully; we stuff them downward into our psyches. But we don’t find relief that way.

10 – Relief

The only way to have relief is to welcome ALL feelings—even the negative ones. Welcome them into the spacious Self (by which we mean the all-encompassing Christ Self Who is within all of us), and there, within, see these rejected feelings transformed into something much more positive. We will not be disappointed when we stop trying to overcome negative feelings by rejecting them. Just welcome. And then the low mood will pass.

11 – Others

“It is by holding all feelings of others within the spacious Self, by not forgetting that the one and the many are the same, by willfully remembering that the feelings of the many can be ‘held’ and not projected into the world as sickness, violence, and so on, that acceptance occurs. It is in accepting all feelings as the feelings of the many that the feelings of ‘others’ are accepted as one’s own and held within the spaciousness of the One Self, the whole Self. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 14)”

12 – Turn to Others

We turn to others with this quotation. We need to accept their feelings as well as our own. All others, all brothers and sisters, are part of us, part of the All, the One. So we communicate telepathically all the time, particularly, perhaps, when we are unaware of such communication. We need to accept the negative feelings of others as well as the negative feelings of ourselves. When we accept, we are much more likely to transform. We will transform, in fact. We will not add our discomfort to the discomfort of our brothers and sisters, thereby projecting violence, sickness, and the like upon the world.

13 – Feelings

We accept others’ feelings as though they were our own. We are One, remember. So in a very real sense, we don’t see any feelings that are not our own. But we can rise above dishonest, reprehensible feelings by absorbing them into our spacious Self, our inner Christ Self. And they and we will be made much the better for it.

14 – All

“What the spacious Self holds within is the relationship of all to all. Relationship is the invisible reality only expressed through form. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 14)”

15 – Form

We see others as occupying form. This is the way that we see our brothers and sisters who are in this world with us. This is relationship in our world. We need the others’ bodies to be able to communicate in this world. And communicate we must.

16 – ACIM

In A Course in Miracles, we are told that Jesus needs our voice, our hands, our feet, to spread salvation. He needs the form that we occupy, for that is how we experience this world. That is how others experience us.

17 – Relationship

Relationship is actually invisible, because our spacious Self is invisible. It is the invisible force field that surrounds our natural bodies. We think that our bodies encompass ourselves, but it is actually the reverse; we are invisible forms that occupy forms that we can see. And we become the elevated Self of form, because we live in this world. It is the way in which we will survive once we reach Christ-consciousness.

18 – Acceptance

“Your acceptance of these words is a form of acceptance of the unknown and as such a means of coming to know. These words are only one means, which is why this is called a dialogue. Realize now that this is but one voice of the many. You have entered into the dialogue with the many as well as the one. This dialogue is going on all around you. Have you been listening to but one voice? Or have you begun to hear the one voice in the many? (A Course of Love: Dialogues, p. 161)”

19 – Healing

Healing is found in the acceptance of the spacious Self–the Self that we share with all others in unity and in relationship one to another. Earlier we have been tempted many times to reject feelings, and we have thereby been led many times into sickness. Now we are called upon to accept all of our feelings. Our feelings are not unique to each of us individually, but are part of the whole which we all share. Others feel as we do. This concept in itself is comforting, because we are tempted to think that nobody else in our world has ever felt quite as we do when we are feeling down.

20 – Hold Within

We are asked to hold within our feelings in the spacious Self, the Self we share with all others. We are not as likely to feel wounded when we know that others are a part of ourselves. We will not understand all things, but we will hold within not only our spaciousness but also the invisibility of that which we do not comprehend. We do not reject these unknowns; we hold them in our spaciousness. We are accepting of the unexplainable.
Our spacious Self will be a healed Self. We reach out to others, and we accept them in this dialogue. We are not alone on the mountaintop! We accept that others are with us on the same ascension. We then sustain one voice, the many expressing the unity in relationship that we have all needed for eons.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I recognize that in my Self are the others that surround me. I am never alone. My spacious Self includes all.

May I be forgiving of all of those others. May they be healed along with me, as we realize that we are all One.

May this day go well. I am seeking sudden change, so that my withered ego doesn’t have time to adapt to change. May I see that sudden change today. May I enjoy the day, enjoy all others whom I meet. The time for change will be as right as the Answer. Help me to know this internally, in my deepest Self.

Amen.

The Journey of the Self into Form and into Separation

1 – Day 13

“Once the One Self became form and knew its Self, it knew separate thought. The separate thoughts of the one self, rather than the form of the one self, allowed for the knowing of the self that created the many selves. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 13)”

2 – One Self

The One Self was, ultimately, God. But with free will, we made separation real; we thought that we had separated from God, though in reality this would be impossible. We could lack the knowledge of His One Will, though, forgetting that we were God Himself.

3 – Detour into Fear

This detour into fear (from A Course in Miracles) is all that has happened as we have moved into the world of form, the little or personal self. The Self became differentiated into the many, so that God could experience Himself. But the experiencing was faulty, for we are meant to commune with our Creator—something we didn’t do when we thought ourselves lost in separation from Him. We though that we could make a world that we would like better, but God limited our will to miscreate, lest creation be doomed . He allowed us to go into illusion, which would hurt nothing in reality. We think that we suffer, but it is all illusion.

4 – The Godhead

The many selves came from the One Self, the Godhead. There is no Other. We have done this illusion unto ourselves. We think that we have pain and suffering, that we have made a “better” world than God could create. But we only have lived with an imprisoned will, a will that first the Holy Spirit (as in ACIM) and now the Christ Self would lead us to disavow.

5 – Self of Form

“The ‘one’ self of form is the self you were born into. The one self of form comes to know the One Self through relationship with other selves experiencing oneness through being selves of form. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 13)”

6 – Relationship

It is only through relationship that God can know Himself, that we can know ourselves, as the Self that has been individuated, i.e., made into separate “parts.” This individuation is a means that, through relationship to each other, we can know ourselves, and God can know Himself. We are God, but we are not yet in union with each other, and so we are therefore somewhat less than the Godhead. In union with others, we come into our fullness. Then and only then do we know both unity and relationship, and we are home in God.

7 – Christ-consciousness

This is Christ-consciousness, but it is not here for many of us. The timing of Awakening, according to ACIM, is when God deems us ready. And many people who seem flawed will nevertheless experience Awakening. It is not a matter of perfecting ourselves. There are mysteries here that we don’t comprehend.

8 – Jesus

Yet Jesus in A Course of Love is attempting to spell out the process of reaching Christ-consciousness to us. He is writing a metaphysical document that explains creation and our place in it. The words are sometimes dense, but when studied as one would study a textbook, absorbing every line, the prose becomes comprehensible. Unlike something I once thought, you can’t read ACOL as though you were reading a story. Perhaps this works on the first times through, but to understand in depth, study at some level is needed.

9 – Integrate Many and One

“You are thus not meant to lose the experience of the self of form but to integrate it so that you are both the many and the one. The oneness that your individual self represents in this life is the oneness of the Holy One who is both one—somewhat in the way you think of the individual self—and All. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 13)”

10 – Elevated Self of Form

This antedates the elevated Self of form. This passage leads us to that concept. We occupy form, and we are not to disavow it. But this personal self of form needs to be elevated to the Self that is the inner Christ. What will bring this about?

11 – Study / Love

Study gets us there. But love actually effects the transformation—love and a forgiving attitude (from ACIM) that is not judgmental. In A Course in Miracles, we are told that we cannot judge and hope to awake. Yet we still fall into judgment a thousand times a day—until we don’t. When we don’t, we have found Christ-consciousness.

12 – Happiness

And we are happy. Stupendously happy. And we live effortlessly. We have no fear. We have no anxieties. We will with inner peace, in loving relationship to every individual with whom we are introduced.

13 – Spacious Self

“Thus holding the loveless self within the spacious Self of love is the answer to the question of evil and the final lifting of the last veils of fear. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 13)”

14 – Imagination

There will be parts of us which are unloving. But we can imagine—and “imagine” is the important word—that we have a “spacious” self that is the real Self. This Self chooses to encompass the unloving parts of ourselves, and this creates a transformation in ourselves.

15 – Evil / Fear

This ends evil. This ends fear. We are at home in God.

16 – Enfolding

If we just enfold the unloving part of ourselves into the part that is always deep within, held in Love, the Self, we will know peace. There is actually no other way that we can know peace. For evil and fearful dreams will disturb our illusions. And, actually, we can never be happy with illusions, unless they are dreams that the Holy Spirit brings—the happy dreams that precede Awakening, to prepare us for it

17 – Happy Dreams

We do not want to get stuck in desiring the happy dreams that the Holy Spirit brings. We want the real world; we want reality. And we want to awake. This can come about when we seek Awakening earnestly, with all of our being. Yet in our striving, we must realize that our striving cannot be as the ego pushed us previously. Or the ego will reawaken and much will be lost; we will be on the treadmill again.

18 – Eastern Story

So seek enlightenment as a man whose had is held under water seeks air (an old Eastern analogy). We will have enlightenment when we devote ourselves to the loving that brings it, the loving in relationship and union with all others whom we encounter.

19 – Easy Way

The way is smooth. The way is easy. And when we look back on Christ-consciousness, we will know that we need do nothing in this world (from ACIM, but the term “Awakening” is used). We will want to do something to lead our brothers and sisters to the realization that we have had, but we will do so effortlessly. Life will become one sweet song.

20 – Suffering Self

““The same is true of all you would fear, such as the suffering self. A suffering self, held within the spacious Self exists in harmony with the spacious Self. Attempts to eject the self of suffering from the spacious Self create disharmony. It is only by this holding within that the loveless self and the suffering self are rendered ineffective. It is only in this way that you realize that all exist within. It is only in this way that you become completely fearless and totally spacious, for fear is part of the density of form, being a lack of love. (ACOL Dialogues, p. 158)”

21 – Boundary-less Self

Before we can understand Day Thirteen, we need to try to comprehend what is meant by the “spacious Self.” It is discussed herein as a “boundary-less Self,” the all-encompassing Self that we share with everyone. It is the Self of Love, and when we focus on Love, we can overcome any fearful thoughts and feelings of the small self of form.

22 – Self of Fear

Jesus says that we are not to try to eject the self of fear, but to encompass with the greater spacious Self, thus rendering it ineffective. Trying to eject the self of fear actually makes it worse in our experience of fear.

23 – Summation

Look again at the passage from A Course of Love, the Dialogues, quoted above. It actually summarizes much that is said in Day Thirteen. At the conclusion of the chapter, Jesus once again returns to the theme of unity and relationship. We have true relationship with our brothers and sisters when we recognize and incorporate the spacious Self, and then we are truly in unity with all.

24 – Union

“Once fear is gone, true relationship is not only possible but inevitable. True relationship exists naturally in the state of harmony that I the spacious Self. This is the state of union. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 13)”

24 – Not Fearful

When we are not fearful of others, our brothers and sisters, we will seek union with them. We will seek relationship with them. And this will take us home. Yes, home. We are not living as God unless we are living in union, something that we have not been doing as our separated selves. We have been in relationship, but this has been flawed, for we have been judgmental of each other. And we can never know Awakening if we are judgmental. This is a crucial point that can be easily overlooked. We cannot know Christ-consciousness, cannot come to Christ-consciousness, cannot receive the gift of Christ-consciousness, if we are judgmental.

25 – Judgment

Come to God today and ask that judgment be taken away. All of us must do this, all who have not already been freed of judgmental thoughts.

26 – Accepting

Without judgment are we accepting of all—in union with each personal self elevated to the Self, and in relationships as individuated beings.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Help me to be fearless, and to know that I can transcend the suffering self by my fearlessness. Help me not to be tempted to try to reject this suffering self. Help it simply to wither away as I come to know my real Self.

I know that my real Self is always one of Love, but I tend to forget this oft-repeated truth. Help me not to forget the Self of Love today. Thanking You in advance, I turn to You often today and every day.

Amen.

Enfolding Everyone in Our Experience of Christ-Consciousness

1 – Invisible Space

“Imagine the air around you being visible and your form an invisible space within the visible surroundings. This is the realty of Christ-consciousness. Consciousness may seem to be embodied by form but the reverse is true and has always been true. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 12)”

2 – Spacious Self

Jesus describes something called the “spacious self” on this day. He sees this self as an invisible space that encompasses our being. And we encounter others, outside our invisible space, that we can enfold. This would help explain why sometimes people seem very approachable; we have enfolded them into our invisible space.

3 – Form

We are not ultimately form—not at all. We have believed that the form of the body encompassed our minds, but this is not the way reality really is. Sure, we live in an illusion, but still the solidarity of form seems real. Yet it is a mirage. The solidarity of form is a mirage. When we embody the spacious self, we reach out to others from invisibility, enfolding them unto us. Then we really can communicate as One, as the All that God and we really are.

4 – Merging

“The merging of form with Christ-consciousness is this merging of the Self with the unconditional love of the One Self. The One Self loves Its Self. There is nothing else to love. The One Self is the All. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 12)”

5 – Elevated Self of Form

This explains the elevated Self of form, a concept defined repeatedly in A Course of Love. We seek to embody Christ-consciousness as the All Whom we are, but we do so within a visible body that is nevertheless not true reality, for true reality is formless. Yet, because we live on earth, we need a form to communicate with others; and so the form is provided.

6 – God

The elevated Self of form is knowing that we are living reality with God. We do love unconditionally when we occupy this form. And sustaining this form is what we are seeking to do. Not just to form that reality, but to sustain it into eternity.

7 – One Self

The One Self is the All, and so in loving ourselves as that One Self, we also unconditionally love everyone else as well. This is true reality, unconditional love in a Self that can be seen, viewed, by our brothers and sisters here in this world with us.

8 – Space

“Navigating this endless space as an expression of love is the simplest thing imaginable. All you must do is listen to your Self. Your Self is now a feeling, conscious space, unhindered by any obstacles of form. (ACOL Dialogues, p. 155)”

9 – Relationship

This Day Twelve we learn what being relationship is all about. Jesus calls upon us to rely on feelings within an empty form (a spacious form), because consciousness is not form. Our Self occupies emptiness in space, and by this we can easily join with others in this invisible space.

10 – Pets

This description is not totally clear in this first day of description. More days of description are to come. But this is the introduction to relationship with others, human and non-human. Jesus says that it is easy to join with non-human forms in invisible space, and when we read this, we may think of how easy it is to join with our pet companions.

11 – Unity

This space that we occupy is the space of unity, and with this assertion Jesus once again returns to his oft-repeated exhortation to join in unity and relationship in Christ-consciousness. He says that navigating this space is the simplest thing imaginable, once we follow our feelings and not our thoughts.

12 – Obstacles

“When an obstacle of form, be it human or material in nature, seems to present itself, all you must do is remind yourself that space has replaced what was once your self of form. Feel the love of the space that is you. All obstacles will vanish. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 12)”

13 – Loving Disappearance

We can make obstacles disappear, and this is not evil. It is ultimately loving. These obstacles, human or non-human, are enfolded into our spacious self, and then we can communicate as One. We reach out to the anger and the attack, the defensiveness and the rancor, and we just enfold into our spacious Self. We don’t fight; we don’t retaliate. We just reach out and enfold, in a healing gesture.

14 – Proceed in ACOL

This is part of the theology of A Course of Love, and the concept does raise a number of questions. We will know more as proceed through the coming days in our journey to the mountain top with Jesus.

15 – Space

“Not all forms will be met as obstacles. Forms are only as real as the perceiver perceives them to be. Thus your space will effortlessly join with the space that is free and open to joining. There is no boundary between space and space. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 12)”

16 – Perception

When we have a perceiver in front of us, another human being, then the form appears to be solid. When we have something that cannot perceive, the form is enfolded instantly. There is no barrier of perception.

17 – Non-Human Obstacles

“Non-human obstacles have no need of being deflected for their boundaries have not been made solid by perception. A seeming obstacle of non-human form is easily enfolded in the space of the One Self and can be moved or passed through.

“This is joining in relationship. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 12)”

18 – Love

This quotation, as an earlier one, suggest why it is so easy to love our companion pets. They are not resisting us in any way through their form. They do have perception, but it is not akin to the egoic perceptions of other people who cause us difficulties as we walk through life. The pets are open to being enfolded in our being by love.

19 – Others

Would that everyone were so constructed! And this is where we are heading on this earth Everyone will embody Christ-consciousness eventually. And we will have Heaven on earth.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I have long known that my feelings, and my following of them, are my way to salvation. Now I see that not only is salvation held out to me by feelings, but Christ-consciousness as well. Truly I am blessed, and I thank You.

Thank You for this good feeling that I have today. I get the impression that I am gradually, almost without noticing it, moving into Christ-consciousness. I have had glimpses in the distant past, and those glimpses did not last, were not sustained. I would sustain this new feeling that I have today. Help me to do so with the effortlessness that You say is due me. I can do nothing, just myself. I am totally dependent on You. You make the choice of Christ-consciousness for me, but I do pray that it be soon. Thank You.

Be with me as the mountain top experience proceeds, and I come to see more clearly. Guide my inner eyes to see more clearly. Guide my relationship to All. Thank You.

Amen.

All Is One / All Are One Self

1 – No Loss / Only Gain

“We are one self. How else could we be capable of receiving what we give? How else could our lives be capable of experiencing no loss but only gain? Why else would we have to share ourselves to know ourselves? (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 11)”

2 – Mystical

This is the truth, though it is a mystical concept and therefore difficult to understand, difficult to wrap our minds around. How can we be one self with others? How can the many be one?

3 – God-Stuff

We are all “God-stuff.” We are all differentiated from the Godhead. And the universe(s) is constantly expanding, and so there is always growth (though no real change). When we recognize that we are all one, that there is no loss but only gain, we know that what we “lose” goes to our brother or sister, who is actually one with us. So we only expand into a spacious self, as A Course of Love says. This spacious self recognizes that all are One, that we lose nothing when we spread abroad the intangibles.

4 – Sharing

When we share ourselves in conversation, we actually become more of what we truly are. We are sharing and in that process, actually gaining a sense of ourselves as One. We do not have to be extroverts to experience the release that we get through sharing. It is an experience that all can relate to and enjoy.

5 – Relationship

“To be separate in truth would be to not exist. To be the All of Everything would be to not know existence. Only what exists in relationship knows that it exists. Thus relationship is everything. Relationship is the truth. Relationship is consciousness. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 11)”

6 – God

This quotation points to a reason that God would have differentiated Himself in the beginning, and continues to do so. He cannot actually experience the Whole, if He is All that there is. It is only in relationship of the one to the other that such experience of reality is possible. Neale Donald Walsch, in the trilogy of Conversations with God, makes this identical point. But it is a theological point, and we do not want theology that we cannot accept to divide or separate us.

7 – One and the All

We are both one and the All. Unity and relationship, as A Course of Love says repeatedly. It is in reaching out to others, and in reaching down deep within, that we come to know reality. The deep within is God; the others are God as well, but as differentiated aspects of God. Parts of God that are yet part of the Whole.

8 – Hologram

It is like a hologram. Each part contains the whole. This is ultimately why everything has been given to each of us (tenet from A Course in Miracles).

9 – Christ-consciousness

“Christ-consciousness is the awareness of existence through relationship. It is not God. It is not man. It is the relationship that allows the awareness of God in everything. It has been called wisdom, Sophia, spirit. It is that without which God would not know God. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day 11)”

10 – Awakening

We want and we need Christ-consciousness, a concept that is called Awakening in A Course in Miracles. We don’t know when God will bestow this blessing on any of us, but we can be sure that He will bestow Christ-consciousness at the exact moment that we are ready. If this seems long off, we need not fret. The time will be as right as the Answer. (These are paraphrases of A Course in Miracles.)

11 – In Relationship

We are in relationship when we are enjoying Christ-consciousness. We no longer feel envious that others have what we do not; we know that we all potentially have everything. If that thing we want is not in our life now, we will know that it will be added at a future date (though maybe not in this lifetime).

12 – Sophia

“Christ-consciousness is the awareness of existence through relationship. It is not God. It is not man. It is the relationship that allows the awareness that God is everything. It has been called wisdom, Sophia, spirit. It is that without which God would not know God. It is that which differentiates all from nothing. (ACOL Dialogues, p. 154)”

13 – Separation

This one passage helps to explain why separation from God, and our return to Him, was necessary in the first place. If God is within (as well as without), then He could know Himself only in separation from the Whole. But it is in the rejoining in unity and relationship that makes Christ-consciousness what it is.

14 – Unity and Relationship

The words, “unity and relationship,” are used repeatedly in A Course of Love. They are so repeated that their meaning may be lost, unless we take care to understand fully at the outset. We are one in unity with our brothers and sisters, and we are one in relationship to them–being that two or more are held together in relationship. Thus the phrase, “unity and relationship,” is the central point without which Christ-consciousness could not function.

We are one heart, one mind, one Self–but seemingly fragmented into parts. This is an illusion, but this fragmentation is the only way that God can experience Himself. The All must separate and then see Itself in those separate, but united parts. While this may be hard for us to wrap our finite minds around, here is one of the secrets of salvation, one of the philosophical tenets around which A Course of Love is built. We know Christ-consciousness when we have rejoined our brothers and sisters in unity, but kept them close to use in our relationship to them. This knowing is a celestial event of the highest magnitude.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I offer myself in service to the All that is You. I am in relationship to that All, and I will know Christ-consciousness only as I accept this relationship. I would accept this relationship now.

Thank You for this course, this Course of Love, a sequel to A Course in Miracles. Thank You for granting me the intuitive insight that seems to say, over and over as I read, “yes, yes!” May I come to know the insights of A Course of Love intimately, ever more so over the times that I study.

May I realize that study is necessary, that you can’t just read this sequel like you read a story, something I used to think. The study is ever-reinforcing, as I realize that here is truth that I really, really want to understand. Thank You for Jesus’s dedication in channeling, once again and for us, a work of this magnitude. Thank You for supporting Mari as she scribed.

Thank You for guiding me in this shift in perception, this miracle. I would know the elevated Self of form, and I will endeavor to turn to You often today, so that I may remain close to this new reality.

Amen.

Trust in Your Feelings

1 – Trust

“You think of feelings either as that which comes to you through your five senses or as emotions, and you have not trusted in these feelings as much as you have trusted in rational thought. This lack of trust works both for you and against you now. It works for you in that you do not have to resist and reject an existing trust as you do with the thoughts of the mind you call rational. It works against you because all feelings are capable of providing what you have called intuitive knowledge or insights and your distrust of this knowledge and insight will need to be overcome. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day Ten)”

2 – Intuition

We need to rely on feelings, as this is our insight into intuition. We have previously, often, and especially before studying A Course in Miracles, believed that feelings would lie. Now that may be true, and so we test out our feelings; we fail to act on aggressive or unkind impulses, but impulses are not the same as genuine feelings as meant in this quotation. Genuine feelings don’t lie; they tell us what to say and do. They are our only Guide to what the Self is trying to say to us. (A Course in Miracles called this inner sense the Holy Spirit, or Universal Inspiration.)

3 – Thoughts

We do not have to reject feelings in the same way that we have to reject the thoughts of the mind that previously appeared to be rational. These thoughts were egoic notions that led us badly astray. And we would be rid of those lamentable thoughts now. We are through with the ego.

4 – Feelings

Listen to your feelings about what to say or do. If these feelings are genuine, they will be harmless, even better than harmless—for that will offer salvation to all around us.

5 – To “Know”

“To ‘know’ before you act is wise. But to think that doubting your feelings or seeking outside assurances of what you know will lead to either confidence or certainty is foolish. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day Ten)”

6 – Christ Self

To “know” is an inner sense that comes from following the inner Christ Self. It relies on feelings, and it is the same as intuition. The “knowing” is even more profound than run-of-the-mill feelings, though. The knowing is profound, a real insight that what you are contemplating saying or doing is right in God’s eyes.

7 – Foolish Doubts

We are told in this significant quotation that to doubt our feelings is foolish. What a revelation! We have been taught by this world to doubt our feelings always—to rely instead on the judgments of our the mind that we thought were rational. These judgments were amiss, for we cannot know the past, present, and future in all its ramifications. We cannot judge aright, and so we cease trying.

8 – Blessing

This brings a great blessing to us. We always know what to do and say when we rely on the intuition that is down deep within, the Christ Self.

9 – Christ-consciousness

“Thus I will speak to you from this point onward as the voice of Christ-consciousness, the voice of your own true consciousness, the consciousness that we truly share. I came to you in the form of the consciousness of the man I once was because you were, prior to this point, unready to give up image for presence, the individual for the universal, reliance on an outside source for reliance on yourself, Jesus for Christ-consciousness. (ACOL Dialogues, p. 148)”

10 – Time of Christ

This quotation explains that we are to rely on the inner Christ Self. The quotation does not specifically mention the Holy Spirit, but elsewhere in A Course of Love, Jesus has proclaimed that the time of the Holy Spirit has ended, and that we are now in the time of Christ. And he doesn’t mean only himself. The Christ is a shared identity, an identity which all of us have.

11 – Home

We need to cease relying just on the man Jesus. We need to depend on Christ-consciousness for our reliance upon the truth. This will take us home. This will sustain Christ-consciousness in ourselves.

12 – True Consciousness

Our true consciousness is Christ-consciousness. And it is this on which we must come to rely.

13 – Save the World

This chapter is lengthy, but the quotation above does encompass the most important point. Jesus tells us many things about power, but his most important concept is the fact that reliance upon our own Self in Christ-consciousness will help us to save the world. This is a strong assertion, but he does not mean for us to be crusaders unless our intuition guides us to our goals. He says quite a bit about following intuition, in relying on our Self rather than to turn to outside sources in trying to make decisions about our life. We must have confidence in our feelings.

14 – Jesus

So Jesus will stop speaking in these 40 days and nights as the man who lived over 2,000 years ago. He will speak as our own Self, the Christ-consciousness that we are meant to share with him and all others. Jesus stresses that these communications are dialogues, not simply the imparting of information from him to us.

15 – Elevated Self of Form

He describes what we will feel as the elevated Self of form. We will feel not much different than we do now, but more peaceful and free of the constraints of the body. Jesus compares what we will feel in this world with how we imagine our loved ones who have crossed the barrier of death. We imagine them as we knew them, but more peaceful and free of the body that they knew in this life. Jesus too notes that he wants us to feel happiness and peace, especially now in this final chapter in which he addresses us as the man Jesus, rather than the Christ-consciousness which we will share in the remainder of the 40 days and nights.

16 – Relationship with Jesus

“I ask you not to give up your relationship with me as the man Jesus, but to accept that the man Jesus was simply a representation in form, of Christ-consciousness. I do, however, ask you to give up your identification of the voice of this dialogue as that belonging to the man Jesus who lived two thousand years ago. To continue to identify this voice with that man is to be unable to recognize this voice as the voice of your own true consciousness—the voice of Christ-consciousness. Yet to realize that this is the same that animated the man Jesus two thousand years ago will aide you in realizing that this is the voice that will now animate the elevated Self of form, or in other words, you.” (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day Ten)”

17 – Consciousness

“Consciousness is about what you are aware of, not about what you think. And you are very much aware of your feelings. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day Ten)”

18 – Egoic Thoughts

We are told to doubt our thoughts, for they have previously been mostly egoic. We need to be aware of consciousness that points to intuition and comes to us as feelings to be followed. Only in genuine mental illness do we have to be very, very careful of “guidance” that would lead us astray. Dependence on inner voices in mental illness becomes a warning sign.

19 – Insanity

But most of us are quite sane, though we have previously, under the grip of the ego, been insane for eons. We lived out insanity, or madness, and now we would be through with it. A Course in Miracles repeats this truth quite a bit. We don’t want to accept it, but when we see the state of our world, it becomes something that is not so easily brushed aside.

20 – Love

“The power of love is the cause and effect that will change the world by returning you, and all your brothers and sisters, to who they are in truth. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day Ten)”

21 – A Healed World

This is the way that the world will be healed, and the answer, “love,” sounds almost trite to hear. Yet if we reflect on what love really means, we will know peace, and we will know how to heal our brothers and sisters. We need to return to who we are in truth, and that is the Christ Self within. The little self, the personal self, has always been a mirage, an illusion, a persona. And we would cease to make masks that hide us from the world.

22 – Compassion

“Blessed brother and sister, we feel the same love, the same compassion, the same tenderness for each other and the world. This is unity. This will save us. This will save the world. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day Ten)”

3 – Salvation, Forgiveness, Happiness

Here is the emphasis on saving the world, our function (though we do not lean on anybody who is not ready). Our function is salvation, forgiveness, happiness—all synonyms for what we would be and what we ever more would become fully.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Thank You that Jesus is ready to see our own Christ-consciousness, and, in effect, to speak to us as equals. I do not feel worthy, but help me to realize that these thoughts and feelings are the vestiges of the ego.

On this day, please set my feet on the right pathway, if I have in any way veered off that pathway. Help me to help my brothers and sisters in need, and may You help me as well. I need your help desperately, for my allegiance varies from day to day as I seek to eliminate my neuroses. Be with me today as I seek to live a sane Christ Self. This is really the one way to be, and I would be that way henceforth. If I doubt that this is possible, please remove all doubts from me. Help me to walk slowly and gently through this world, for it has many obstacles to my inner peace. May the inner Self encompass all my mind and feelings today, so that I fulfill Your wishes for me in this day.

I welcome Jesus, once again, into my life today. I am very grateful that he lives in service to all of my brothers and sisters, and myself. Thank You for Jesus.

Amen.

A Place of Retreat / A Place of Safety and of Rest

1 – Freedom

“Freedom from want, freedom from lack, freedom from repression, are what we will now enjoy together on our mountain top retreat. We have not removed ourselves from life in any way, and yet we have reached a place of retreat, a place of safety and of rest, a place away from ‘normal’ life and the lack of freedom you have experienced there. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day Nine)”

2 – Blessings

What a blessing this quotation promises! We have all known a lack of freedom in our everyday lives. We have so much that presses us on all sides.

3 – No Worrying

But there can be an end to such thinking. We can walk through a normal day without worrying about relationships, work, love. If we are attuned to the Christ within, we will know how to let go of those things that impinge upon us. This does not mean that we give up on relationships, work, love—but we transform these everyday issues into something meaningful to ourselves. We walk through the day with nourishment from our everyday issues, even when they are difficult. We know intuitively what to do and what to say, guidance, and this guidance makes all the difference. We no longer wander in a fog of discontent. We are happy, regardless of whatever outside of us seems to rue our day. We don’t let anything rue our day.

4 – Mountain Top

These 40 days and 40 nights with Jesus on the mountain top are magical, but in a good sense—not in the sense of irrationality. We know that we will learn much, even though we are not learning in the way that the ego learned for eons. We are learning in a new way, an effortless way—and we will be much the better for it. Life does not await our recalcitrant spirit; life awaits our running forth to meet it.

5 – Arrival

“Allow yourself, now, to experience your arrival, your return to your true home, your return to your Self. Laugh. Cry. Shout or wail. Dance and sing. Spin a new web. The web of freedom.

“In other words, express your Self” (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day Nine)”

6 – Happy

Jesus seems happy as he speaks these words to his scribe, Mari. He wants us to be happy as well. Happy and released. What joy to know that we can be free in everyday life. Our wills are no longer imprisoned, for we have let go of the ego, and in the letting go have all things been given to us. Once we learned in A Course in Miracles that our will and that of the Holy Spirit was actually identical, that He speaks for us, we were well on our way to better days. We know that if we follow our guidance, we will live better lives. He makes the decisions “for us” that we were too confused to make. And those decisions lead to inner peace. And freedom.

7 – Confidence

“You who do not feel confident in your feelings, who do not feel confident in your ability to respond, who do not as yet feel the freedom of the new, allow yourself now, to do so. Allow freedom to reign, for it is your allowance, your choice, your permission, that will make it so. The only one who can stop you now is yourself. The only permission you ever needed was your own. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day Nine)”

8 – Freedom

We only needed our own permission to be free. Of course, we had to learn to follow guidance to be free, for with imprisoned wills in the egoic mind, we led sad lives indeed.

9 – Joyful

Now all of this lamentable mess is gone for good. Why would we not be joyful? Why would we not shout and sing and dance? We might not want to do such in the company of other people, but most of us have at least some solitude from time to time. I encourage you to seek out that solitude today, and to express your joy through your body. Follow Jesus’s advice to let your inner spirit out to play. The play is the result of learning made evident in the whole Self Who we embody now. The play is the way that things ought to be on a daily basis. Effortless living. What a blessing this is!

10 – Certainty

“Certainty of mind and heart has been realized by many. The expression of that certainty in form has not. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day Nine)”

11 – Elevated Self of Form

We want to occupy the elevated Self of form, something that hasn’t yet happened on a grand scale. This elevated Self of form embodies a state known by several names—Christ-consciousness (called such in A Course of Love); Awakening (called such in A Course in Miracles); enlightenment (called such in the Eastern religions). The concept is the same, and Jesus says that he is ready for us to reach this state on a sustainable basis.

12 – Sustainability

We want to reach certainty, and we want to sustain certainty. Jesus seems to lament the fact that more of us have not sustained certainty. He seems bent on leading us to that state through his 40 days and 40 nights with us. Perhaps this is why we have come; surely it is.

13 – Ideal Self

“Let’s begin this day with a consideration of the idea that you may have an inaccurate idea of an ideal self. . . .The image of the ideal self you hold in your mind, no matter what form it takes, is still an image, and must now be done without if you are going to realize freedom. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day Nine)”

14 – Persona

We often have a persona that we display not only to others, but also to ourselves. We almost never let ourselves drop the masks that we wear. That is because we have an image of an ideal self that we think we need to accomplish. Is this idea true?

15 – Mirage

An ideal self is still a persona, is still a mirage. And we need to drop the persona if we are to allow other people to see us as we really are. Perhaps we think that we will not be accepted if we share who we really are. For some of our brothers, this might be true. We cannot allow this to stop us. If we avoid anger and attack, two things that have been recommended elsewhere by Jesus, we will be better accepted. This does not mean that we will be making a persona that is untrue. This does not mean that we will be making an “ideal” self (for we could not do this if we tried).

16 – Who We Really Are

It means that we will be true to who we really are. Who we really are. Do we even know what this means?

17 – Consider

Take a moment to consider what is being said. Just let the masks drop, the persona melt away. Just consider being the Self that you intuitively recognize from within. This is enough to ultimately get us home, home to Christ-consciousness. When God will take that step is unknown to all of us, but it is inevitable once we have started out on the pathway home. It is God’s Will for us. Of this we can be sure.

18 – False God

“To work toward, or to have as a goal, the achievement of an ideal image is to have created a false god. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day Nine)”

19 – Concept of an Ideal Self

If we are tempted to keep our concept of an ideal self alive, we will have to know that we are making a god. None of us wants that. So it behooves us to study how to avoid making a concept.

20 – Stillness

A few moments of stillness with a look within will set us on the right pathway. It takes work to make a persona—no work at all to be our real Self. Keep this in mind, and avoid struggling to have this as a persona. We want the real Self.

21 – Ego

“As with most goals of the time of learning, it was an ego-centered goal, a carrot of fulfillment the ego but dangled before you in the place it called the future. As with all messages of the ego, it but says that who you are is not good enough. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day Nine)”

22 – Wrong Way to Live

This “ideal” state is a wrong way to react. We don’t want a false god. We don’t want to live amiss, and living amiss is what we will do if we reach for what we perceive to be an ideal. In the first place, we cannot know what an “ideal” would be. We are too much influenced by the ego in such a transaction.

23 – Relinquish the Ego

Most of us who study A Course in Miracles have been well-tutored in the fact that we need to step aside from the ego. Relinquishing the ego and forgiving our brother were significant emphases of ACIM. We need now to realize that the attempt to reach the “ideal” persona will engage the ego again, something that we desperately want to avoid; the ego will never get us where we want to reach—Christ-consciousness or Awakening.

24 – Live in the Now

We also need to live in the present, and the ego would dangle an ideal state as one always placed in the future. We err when we live in the past and the future, for that is itself is an impossibility, a mirage that gets us nowhere fast. Live in the Now. We will never be that ideal self, impossible as it is, for the ego will always convince us that there is one more thing that we need to do—one more and then one more still. It was in the attempt to let us know that we are OK exactly as we are that Jesus is channeling A Course of Love. This is blasphemy to the ego, but we are rapidly leaving the ego behind—just turning away from it and all of its hollow promises.

25 – Give Up Images

“Your freedom is contingent upon your ability to give up your images, particularly the image you hold of an ideal self. It is contingent upon your ability to accept that you are your ideal self. Yes, even right now, with all your seeming imperfections. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day Nine)”

26 – Ideal Self

Yes! This quotation gives us the crux of the matter. With the ego gone, we have become that which we sought to become. And we need to rest in that realization. We ARE the ideal self that we sought to become, even though all of us recognize that we still have imperfections. Jesus’s answer to these imperfections, stated in A Course of Love, is simply to turn aside from that which one would change. If one reacts with anger all too often, simply made a decision to let the anger go. The decision will affect all future actions. Anger is used as Jesus’s example with concentrated emphasis; this is because anger had been considered off limits to those of religious persuasion by A Course in Miracles.

27 – Serve

So, if we are the ideal self that we sought to become, what more do we do? We serve others, and in the serving of others, we nourish ourselves. We love and are loved in return. We rest in God’s grace, secure in the knowledge that a Higher Power is always there to rescue us from mistakes and to set us on the high road again.

28 – The Work

“For if you believe that we are proceeding to some predetermined ideal state, we will not succeed in the work we are doing here together. If you believe this, you will not accept your Self as you are. If you do not accept your Self as you are, you will not move from image to presence. If you do not move from image to presence you will never realize your freedom. If you do not realize your freedom, you will not realize your power. (A Course of Love: Dialogues, p. 142)”

29 – Learning

This passage emphasizes the fact that we have been trying, through the past time of learning, to build an ideal self, which we believe would then express. But we want to express our Self without the goals of the forsaken ego, without trying to be other than what we really are. It is in our expression of our freedom to be as we really are that we express our Self, the elevated self of form.

30 – Express Ourselves

We are encouraged to express ourselves on this Day Nine in any way that feels appropriate–laugh, cry, shout, wail, dance, sing, and so forth. Any way is alright. All are blessings of the time of the coming Christ-consciousness. We are taught not to place any faith in our inaccurate notion of an ideal self, because this fiction was of the time of the ego, the time of learning. We are all different, and diversity in this world is a gift of God. We are meant to give up this fiction of an ideal self, or else we will not be able to express our real Self. We will not accept ourselves just as we really are, and that acceptance is what is called for.

31 – Freedom of Expression

We are not like the young child that we once were–the young child who felt free to express himself or herself in a carefree manner. Freedom of expression has become diminished in ourselves, and we must welcome it back if we are to move forward. We must debunk the fiction of an ideal self, and realize that this was only an idol, now an idol that we would leave behind. We will achieve confidence to express our real Self when we leave this false image of an ideal self behind.

32 – Alive

“You express the beauty and truth of who you are by being alive. It has only been your inability to accept this that has caused your grief and pretensions. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day Nine)”

33 – Striving

“You might ask now what is wrong with desiring to have the freedom to strive to be more and to do more. . . .You have just completed a monumental learning challenge and so your natural pattern would be to keep going now, to use the momentum of this learning success to achieve another. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day Nine)”

34 – Challenge

“This pattern will be easily replaced, however, as your acceptance of yourself as you are, the real challenge of this time, begins to grow and to build your confidence. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day Nine)”

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Help me to accept myself without the ego. Be with me as I relax into the “play” that Jesus suggests for this day. I know that only through consciousness of You will I have the presence of mind to be at ease.

Thank You for these many words of Jesus. He is my guide, and I am very grateful.

I don’t readily accept Jesus as an equal; that goes against my thinking, as I have not yet assimilated A Course of Love. Help me to see what Jesus means by this assertion that he is our companion and our equal. I know that the Christ Self is in all of us, just waiting to come out. But my moments of Awakening are inconsistent still; I have not yet sustained Awakening. Help me to know what and how to think about this issue—today. I know that You often answer prayers immediately, and I ask for such an answer now.

Amen.

Love Will Transform Normal, Ordinary, Life into Extraordinary Life

1 – Transformation

“Love will transform normal, ordinary, life into extraordinary life. Loving exactly who you are and where you are in every moment is what will cause the transformation that will end your desire to remove yourself from life. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day Eight)”

2 – Jesus

Jesus had earlier, in these 40 days and 40 nights, talked of the need that some of us feel to remove ourselves from life while we metaphorically travel to the mountain top with him. He says that such removal is absolutely unnecessary, and is actually undesired (by him) and undesirable. If we love right where we are, we will have no need to feel that we want to separate from normal, ordinary life. We will be more than satisfied in the present, with Jesus leading the way to the mountain top.

3 – Love

How do we know when we have transformed life by love? We do not really need to ask this question, for when we have actually made the transformation viable, we will be happier than we have ever been before. We will know that this was where we were heading. We will know ecstasy, at least sometimes (though prolonged ecstasy would be debilitating to our bodies).

4 – Love Deeply

How do we love that deeply? We pray to love more deeply; it is just that simple. The prayer to love more deeply is in the Will of God, and He will provide. When we are consumed by our love, we will feel a warmth and a gentle ease that will assure us of God’s Presence, here, now, right in ordinary life.

5 – Rushing About

What a blessing this is! We get in such a rush sometimes, barreling over ourselves to reach God—when He is within us, just waiting quietly for us to realize His Presence. When we rush through life, we miss so very much—and, most of all, we miss God. He can still reach us from within, but it is harder for us to feel Him.

6 – Hard?

We don’t need to make things hard for ourselves. We need only get quiet, calm down, relax, take the easy course—and life with God as a present Reality takes form. This is the Will of God, as well as His pleasure with us. This will bring us the love that we have heretofore felt only in fleeting moments that fell away all too soon.

7 – Acceptance Clarified

“But here is the point that needs clearing up. This is not about acceptance of what you do not like. Do you really think you are being called to accept ‘normal life?’ Called to accept those conditions that have made you feel unhappy? No! You are being called to an acceptance of new conditions! (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day Eight)”

8 – “Don’t Like”

We do not have to accept what we don’t like. This would be acquiescence in the face of negatives that we don’t want to accept. And we wouldn’t get the boon that we hoped to have by acceptance. We realize that we don’t like certain conditions; we just accept that we don’t like them. This “don’t like’ is in itself a form of acceptance. And it will take us farther along the pathway. Much farther than reluctant acceptance of that which we don’t like, simply because we think that this uneasy acceptance is required of us.

9 – New Conditions

The new conditions come as we ascend the mountain top with Jesus. These new conditions include a greater desire to be quiet and calm—not to make drama in our everyday lives. These new conditions are the joy of living, the day-to-day happiness, the relaxation and easy work that we do now. No work needs to be hard, when we are in the pattern of acceptance. We will enjoy what we do, however busy that might be. We are not meant to remove ourselves from life in some superficial desire to be lazy.

10 – Power

“All power to effect change comes from acceptance—not acceptance of the way things are, but acceptance of who you are in the present. Not through acceptance of the way you want to be but of the way you are now. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day Eight)”

11 – Accept Self

We need to accept ourselves, flaws and all. We have a certain perfection of being that is independent of the perfection that we are eventually called to. If we don’t like a certain trait, we just turn away from it, giving it no power because of resistance. What we resist, on the other hand, becomes stronger in the resistance.

12 – Perfect?

I believe that we are intended to become perfect in all respects, but we don’t have to be perfect to realize Awakening, or Christ-consciousness. Anger is such an example. Remember that Jesus showed anger with the activities of the moneychangers in the temple during his last week on earth. Would we believe that he didn’t have Christ-consciousness? Of course not. This is a very real example that allows us to accept ourselves as we are, even though we learned in A Course in Miracles that anger has no justification.

13 – Who We Are

We need, therefore, to accept who we are in the present. We need to cease our relentless seeking, always wanting something more by way of salvation. That something more will come to us when God is ready for us to have—and not a moment sooner. We cannot “achieve” enlightenment, or Awakening, though we can move in that direction by the early seeking that we do. At this point in A Course of Love, though, we need to do less seeking and more accepting. Jesus makes this point over and over. We can do something more, but will that really help us at this point?

14 – Intolerant of Illusions

“Remember that you have been told that your real Self will be intolerant only of illusions and that this intolerance will take the form of seeing only the truth rather than attempting to combat illusion. Thus when you see others gossiping, you are called to see only the truth of who they are—to see beyond the illusion, what would seem to be the ‘fact’ of their gossip—to the fear that feeds it, and beyond the fear to the love that will dispel it. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day Eight)”

15 – Gossip

Jesus uses gossip as an example in Day Eight. He says that we don’t like it, sometimes because we have been the brunt of gossip. We aren’t, however, to denounce the purveyor of gossip as a bad person; it is just a mistake, we feel, and then we turn aside from it without giving it power by resistance. These individuals who gossip are fearful in their lives, fearful because their ego has sway at that point. We can love in spite of the gossip, for we will nearly always find that the person who is conveying gossip about us has done something nice for us at some time. Jealousy, or a wish for the type of life that we have, is often a factor in gossip. And have not all of us been guilty of jealousy at some point, some time wanting what another has in life?

16 – Charmed Life

We particularly need to be aware that others will sometimes see us as “living a charmed life,” because our understanding has allowed our projection to make perceptions that are very good indeed. The world itself is an illusion, and our lives become better once we realize such things as this. We have had a guide in the Holy Spirit as we have created our lives, and thus we have made lives that work better than someone who has never learned these things. So live and let live, knowing that others are looking to us, also, for guidance. They, too, would like to live charmed lives.

17 – Anger

“If anger arises in you now, it does not mean that you will react in whatever way anger once called you to react and it does not mean that something is wrong with you or that you are not spiritual enough! It simply means that you are involved in a situation or relationship that has called forth that feeling. It is in the expression of that feeling that who you are is revealed, not in the feeling itself. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day Eight)”

18 – ACIM

Here we are talking of anger again; Jesus uses this example repeatedly in A Course of Love. It must be that anger is a hot spot for many of us, and perhaps Jesus knows how we have struggled with his words in A Course in Miracles. In ACIM he declares that anger and attack have no foundation in truth and are not justified. But Jesus would know that premature suppression of anger does what it would remove. We find ourselves engaging in behavior that is worse than it was before we had this instruction!

19 – Jesus’s Attitude toward Anger in ACOL

So Jesus takes, in A Course of Love, a more tolerant attitude toward anger. He does not, note, say that it is a good thing. He recommends that we be accepting of our anger as we are of everything else in our lives. We have that certain perfection even now.

20 – Don’t Suppress Anger

He would have us refuse to express anger, which we can do without suppressing it. We can refuse to express anger to our brother/sister, for how could expressing anger help him/her? He/she will feel betrayed, perhaps, for each is doing the best he/she can, given his/her understanding at the time.

21 – Acceptance

“Now, however, it is crucial that you come to acceptance of yourself–in the present, as you are–for only by doing so will you come to full acceptance of who you are and be able to allow the Self of unity to merge with the self of form, thus elevating the self of form. You will also, only in this way come to true expression of the elevated Self of Form. (A Course of Love: Dialogues, p. 136)”

22 – Accept the Present

The title for Day Eight, “Accept the Present,” is particularly apt. Virtually everything in the chapter explains this assertion in some way. We need to accept the present of being in normal life as we spend this time on the metaphorical mountain top. We do not need to separate ourselves from our brothers and sisters, for they are the only way to the love that will give us unity with them. We also do not need to separate ourselves from our normal living routines.

23 – Passivity?

We are not called, however, to accept what we do not like. We are not called to any passivity. We are called to total acceptance of our Self. Once we have accepted the Self, sometimes it will take some time for conditions to change, and sometimes conditions change immediately. This is one of our blessings. Change will not come without first having acceptance of our Self.

24 – Feelings

We should accept our own feelings. Distancing ourselves from our feelings is not only dishonest; it will prevent us from further movement forward. We are called to unity with our brothers and sisters through love. We cannot err when we follow our feelings–for these feelings have now been cleansed. If, however, we have not accepted all that Jesus holds out to us, we must be wary of feelings that take us away from the Self that we want to be, the Self of Christ-consciousness. Then and only then do we need to be wary of following our feelings. (This latter point is an interpretation, not a tenet of ACOL.)

25 – Thinking and Feeling

“Remove all thinking that says that you can err in following your feelings. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day Eight)”

26 – Harbinger

This statement is a harbinger of greater things to come in the 40 days and 40 nights. It is also a statement that intuition works best for us, even when we are tempted to ignore that intuition. We can have better lives when we follow our guidance, and that guidance frequently comes by way of feelings.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Help me to accept myself as I am, knowing that You do. I chastise myself so often, and I think so often that I am not worthy. Jesus would have me to drop these thoughts and the actions that result from them. I am not perfect, but I must accept that You accept me as I am.

If there are things about myself that need to be changed, please give me the grace to change easily. I understand that I have made real progress, and that the elevated Self of form is something that I can attain. I am apt to forget this. Help me to remember this. And thank You for the blessing of the Christ-consciousness that You hold out to me.

Thank You for this good day. May the days ahead string, like pearls on a string, into a beautiful necklace of good feelings brought about by love of others as well as a settled good love for myself. Until I can love myself, I am hindered in loving others. I have not always recognized this truth, but thank You for showing it to me now. Be with me as I walk into the evening of this good day.

Amen.

A Gentler and More Compassionate Alternative

1 – Acceptance / Lack of Acceptance

“What does the idea of only now coming to acceptance imply but that you were previously unaccepting? And what does being unaccepting imply but the very denial of yourself that you have come to see as your former state. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day Seven)”

Our former state required denial of the self, and the New Testament and Jesus’s words said the same. We were to deny ourselves, take up his cross, and follow him. Do we still need to do this?

2 – Jesus as Our Companion

Yet, we do follow Jesus, as outlined in A Course of Love. He wants to be our companion, but no longer our teacher. He wants to be an equal to us, and if we are open to our Self, we will see how this change can be effected. It is not arrogant to think that we will eventually be equal to Jesus. It is not ego speaking; in fact, the ego would rail against such an assertion as the most supreme arrogance.

3 – Unaccepting

It is not so. We have been very unaccepting of ourselves, believing that we need to be a lot better than we are before we can be accepted by God. Jesus even is quoted in the New Testament as saying, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in Heaven is perfect.” What can we make of this? Is this a misquote? No, I think not. In a way, we are perfect now, but we will go on to greater perfection without struggle and completely in line with what our inner Self counsels. If we are angry a lot, we can simply turn aside from this anger (if we so wish), and it will be gone from us. We simply have to ask that the anger be removed. The universe will do the rest.

4 – Point of Improvement

Jesus says now that we are to be accepting of ourselves, however imperfect we think that we are. If we don’t accept ourselves as we are, there is really no hope that we can get even better. The point of improvement comes at the point of acceptance. If we reject ourselves, we will not be in a position to improve; we will be too demoralized. We do not want demoralization, at any cost. This is simply not the way that God works with us. He wants happiness for us (A Course in Miracles tenet). So we take the first tentative steps toward acceptance, and, lo, we find a great gift given to us. We live more peaceably, and we love our brother more completely. We forgive. All of this acceptance of ourselves just as we are holds out to us.

5 – Time

“Another condition of the time of acceptance that will be of great service to you now is that of the different relationship that you will have with time. This is a time of convergence, intersection, and pass through of the finite and the infinite, or time and no time. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day Seven)”

6 – Adjust Time

Jesus says in A Course in Miracles that he will adjust time so that we can perform miracles. What is this to say except that time is malleable, and therefore an illusion? We are passing from time into eternity; that is essentially what is meant by “convergence, intersection, and pass through of the finite and the infinite, or time and no time.” In eternity, where all is One, we find our real Self. We do not dally in time any longer than we have to in order to live well in this life. We use practical time to make necessary plans, travel arrangements and the like, but we don’t get stuck in the past and the future. We live, as Eckhart Tolle has recommended, in the Now, the present. (Eckhart wrote The Power of Now and A New Earth, and he is an enlightened teacher, having sustained enlightenment for more than 30 years.)

7 – The Present

The new way that we view time will be of great help to us in our living. We will not forge ahead through our days, nor will we get stuck in recriminations of the past. We will live very much in the present, and this blessing will restore us to ourselves.

8 – Expansion

“A further condition of the time of acceptance is that of expansion. The singular self you once believed yourself to be was not capable of true expression and true sharing. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day Seven)”

9 – Hologram

The Self is very large, for It encompasses everything, as a hologram of the universe(s). We will find ourselves expanding into greater contributions, greater service to our brother. We will no longer dwell in littleness, in the personal self that is only a persona. We will know peace by reaching upward and outward.

10 – The Self

This expansion will take place over some days, and we are learning of it in this time of the 40 days and 40 nights. An expanded Self is a great blessing. We will no longer feel that we are inferior to anyone or anything, but this will not be the ego speaking. This will be the Self Itself speaking.

11 – Peace

And we will know peace in Its assertion.

12 – Dominoes

“It is easy to see from here how the dominoes fall and each condition of learning is replaced, always by a far gentler and more compassionate alternative. Thus there is no need for me to list every new condition here. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day Seven)”

13 – Fear

Would we not want to live more gently and more compassionately? We can do so, and the only thing that it takes is a fall away from fear, for fear is made strong when we are living in the ego. Jesus says that at this point our ego is gone, but maybe we don’t yet believe this. Do believe it now. If you have followed the volumes of A Course of Love, we are told by Jesus that we have learned everything that we need to learn, and that we are in the time beyond and pass learning. A more gentle world and a more compassionate world await us. We need only take it as a gift from God.

14 – New Conditions

The new conditions are many, and Jesus does not attempt to list them all, for that would be impossible. We live better, having better days, and we serve more, having no ego to invest in the world by reaching out to others. We no longer get our kudos by achievement; we no longer feel that we must achieve to justify our existence.

15 – Learning

Each condition of learning thus falls away as we move beyond the time of learning into observation of this world, of our projection—for projection makes perception (ACIM tenet).

16 – Certainty

“The condition of the time of acceptance that will most clearly reveal to you your status in regard to maintaining or sustaining your access to union will be that of the replacement of doubt with certainty. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day Seven)”

17 – Your Role in This World

Would you like to be certain of your role in this world? Would you like to end all doubt? You can, if you accept just where you are as perfect for the moment. This certainty in living gives great confidence. And is not confidence something that we would all long to have?

18 – Certainty

“Certainty is a condition of the present. Realize you may say you are certain of the future or the past but that you cannot make it so. Thus your ability to maintain and then sustain your access to union and thus your certainty, goes hand-in-hand with your ability to live in the present. This ability is also contingent upon your recognition of what certainty really is. (A Course of Love: Dialogues)”

19 – Christ-Consciousness

We are now supported in our progress toward Christ-consciousness. In truth, we have always been supported, but fear blocked our awareness of this support. Love will now let us see that we always have support from the divine. When we were learning, we felt that effort was required, and we did not feel support. But we are beyond this time of learning now, and the support that we have always longed for will be there for us to experience. We are now in the time of discovery, and we will learn through “thoughts that we do not think.”

20 – Time of Expansion

We are in a time of expansion, so that once the elevated Self of form has occurred, we will create a new world, a new universe. Living in this new universe will be as natural as breathing.

21 – Doubt Replaced

Our doubt will be replaced with certainty. We really have nothing to worry about, nothing at all. The union with the divine is ours to behold. Accept and be assured. And focus on living in the present at all times.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Help me to understand the certainty in which You would have me live. Help me to live in the present, knowing that if there are plans to be made, I will be told of them in the present always.

Help me to be patient this day, in this time of desire but no sustainability of Christ-consciousness. I need to wait on Your timing, and Your timing is different from my desire. Be with all of us as we seek to follow what we know to do in our lives. May our knowledge grow as study. May we not get tripped up by traditional learning, but may we learn through observation, as Jesus says. May this day go well, observing as I walk through each hour.
Thank You for Your Presence in my life, for the feeling of Your Presence.

I long for this elevated Self of form. Help me to move ever closer to this reality of Christ-consciousness. Thank you for your constant abidingness with me.

Amen.

Reverence for God

1 – True Self

“We now will discuss being the true self while becoming the true self—the time in between your awareness and access to Christ-consciousness, or unity, and your sustainability of Christ-consciousness, or unity, in form. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day Six)”

2 – Inbetween

We are in an inbetween time now. We are seeking Christ-consciousness, though “seeking” is not quite what we ought to be doing. Seeking is a harbinger of the old way of learning, and no individual can set his/her time of Awakening (Christ-consciousness). We are now the true self, but we are not all that we can become.

3 – Sustainability of Christ-consciousness

It may take some time to reach sustainability of Christ-consciousness. We do, for most of us, see glimpses, or satori, long before we sustain Christ-consciousness. The sustainability is what our elevated Self of form will achieve, but it is not achievement as we understand achievement of egoic things. It will come about through the grace of God, though we can do things that will prepare. Having thoughts that we do not think will lead the way.

4 – Help

These thoughts that we do not think are a form of thought transfer into the mind and heart. They come from either God, our subconscious, our Self, or entities on the Other Side. We are not nearly as alone as we think. There is always someone there who will help.

5 – Becoming

“As was said earlier: To realize the state of becoming is to realize that an in between exists between the time of learning and the time of being the elevated Self of form. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day Six)”

6 – Repetition

This simply reinforces what we have read previously. Jesus uses repetition to lodge thoughts in our minds.

7 – Music

“In all stages of its creation, the piece of music exists in relationship to its creator. . . .Only when it is a complete and full and true expression of the artist’s idea, however, will it and the artist be one.

“You are a work of art headed for this oneness of full and true expression. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day Six)”

8 – Example of Music

Jesus, previously, uses the composing of music as a metaphor for the transformation that we are undergoing. The music first exists as an idea in the mind of the composer, but once he/she has set the idea to musical notes, the composer and the piece of music become one through the expression of the music in being played.

9 – Oneness with God

We are like that. We are heading toward full expression of our Oneness with God, our Christ Self.

10 – Colleagues

“Thinking of our relationship as that of colleagues as well as companions, as fellow workers or work-mates with a task to accomplish, as well as conversationalists, is not an erroneous way to think of our relationship. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day Six)”
11 – Jesus

Jesus describes his relationship to us in these 40 days and 40 nights as a colleague, a companion, a fellow-work, a work-mate, and the two of us—he and us—are conversationalists engaged in a meaningful dialogue.

12 – Equals

We have long thought of Jesus as our teacher, but he relinquishes that role with us on the mountaintop which we are ascending with him. He wants us to see ourselves as equals with him, and this a very lofty thought indeed. How can we so see without arrogance. Drop egocentric thinking, and then we will not be arrogant in following Jesus’s train of thought in making us equals to him.

13 – Drop Egocentric Thinking

How do we drop egocentric thinking? It is frequently a long process, over much time, but it need not be. We can genuinely long to drop egotistical thoughts and actions from their expression, and we will find ourselves making progress every day. Occasionally there is a quick and irreversible transformation at one juncture, and this happens when we quickly and irrevocably give up our own judgment about what to say and do. As A Course in Miracles points out, usually the giving up of judgment is a fairly slow process, not because it is difficult, but because we find it personally insulting. The world has trained for reliance upon judgment to make good decisions, but Jesus goes to some lengthy in ACIM to let us see that good judgment, lacking guidance from the Holy Spirit, is simply not possible because we can’t know all of the past, present, and future decisions and happenings that will impinge on the any given decision.

14 – Acceptance

“Does this work of acceptance seem never ending? It is until it is replaced by reverence, just as learning was unending until it was replaced by acceptance. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day Six)”

15 – Reverence

When we feel reverence, we are at our best, close to God, communing with God. This welcomes the Presence of God, and when we do so, we will have days of good flow, serene and untroubled. So we do not need to “work” at acceptance for long, if we develop the right attitude toward our Maker. When we feel reverent, we are home free.

16 – Difficulty

“What you are going to realize from this time of seeming difficulty is an end to difficulty and the growth of your ability to do whatever you do peacefully and to be who you are in whatever situation you find yourself in. (A Course of Love: Dialogues, p. 128)”

17 – Time of Becoming

We are in the “time of becoming” on the metaphorical mountain top with Jesus as our companion, but not our “teacher” any longer–for the time of learning has passed, and we are in the time of discovery. We are becoming the true self of Christ-consciousness, the elevated Self of form. But there is an in between state of trying to maintain rather than the sustaining of Christ-consciousness, and we are called to this in between state right now in this 40 days and nights of preparation.

18 – Composer

Jesus makes a comparison to an artist composing a piece of music. There is a time when the music may or may not “flow” into him or her, and then eventually, there is a feeling that completion is needed. All along the way, the artist may make the decision to share his music, either early or late in the process of preparation. We are reaching out to our brothers and sisters in love, with the thought that we are heading toward a greater understanding while in the midst of daily life. These 40 days and nights are not meant to take us “out” of life; the optimal situation is to remain in our normal lives. We may think that a removal would be advantageous, but Jesus asserts not.

19 – Calm

We need a created place of calm within; that is a main reason why we are not told to try to remove ourselves from normal life. We are the created becoming the creator of our lives. The passage for today emphasizes the ease with which life will be lived when we have attained Christ-consciousness. We reach for this without strain or effort; we allow Jesus to guide us at all times in this mountain top experience.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Help me to be patient on this mountain top with Jesus. I long for peace, and I long to be who I really am without strain. I have strained so often. It is a great blessing to learn that all of that can be put behind me now.

May the remainder of this day go well. This I frequently ask of You. It is important to me to have good days, and as I go through the mountain top experience once more, I appeal to YOu to be with me. Keep my mind clear and my emotions calm. Give me right thinking and right interpretations. Help me do my part, knowing that You will do yours. May I have peace above all else, inner peace with You at the helm. Thank You.

May I create a place of calm within myself, as I leave behind the old self and reach toward Christ-consciousness and the elevated Self of form. May I be patient, knowing that this boon is my destiny. Thank You for being with me today and every day.

Amen.

Thoughts You Do Not Think

1 – Unity

“For many of you, ‘thoughts you did not think’ are among your first experiences of unity. Thus, just as when you might look up when trying to remember something, or tap a finger to your temple, there is, in a certain sense, a ‘place’ to which you turn for these experiences. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day Five)”

2 – Without Conscious Thought

We do know things often without conscious thought. Ideas come into our minds, without our volition, so obviously. Often this is an intrusive thought, and it doesn’t mean mental illness (though some intrusive thoughts do mean mental illness). The ideas, the thoughts are not consciously selected or guided. We might think of these thoughts as coming from the subconscious, but there are also other possibilities. Most of us believe in an Other Side, with entities there who communicate with us. A Course in Miracles makes this clear, saying that the Teachers of teachers give their ideas to people who would be frightened if they were to see these Teachers.

3 – Wave of the Future

This is the wave of the future. We are going to be learning through observation and through thoughts that we don’t “think.” The wave of the future looks bright, for we will have many ways to learn that are effortless and give us incredible direction in what to do and say.

4 – Access to Unity

“Access to unity will seem, at first, a quite individual accomplishment, something one may have and another may not. While this remains the case, you may desire to give others what you have and feel unable to do so. Yet, like love, unity is known through its effects. All the benefits of union can be given away to any willing to receive. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day Five)”

5 – Transformation

We can see transformation in everyone! This is a marvelous promise. We will have access to the unity of which all of us are a part, part of the One, the One God. We may feel that we cannot easily convey to others what we are experiencing. But this will be a misnomer. We really are able to communicate what others are willing to hear, but they must be willing to hear. Some are ready only for a smile, as A Course in Miracles says.

6 – Rest

“You simply want to rest and have whatever transformation is to come to you to come. If you could indeed give in to this desire fully, it would speed the transformation along quite nicely. So please, listen to your weariness and to your heart’s desire to rest. Listen to the call to peace and let yourself recline in the embrace of love, feeling the warm earth beneath you and the heat of the sun above you. (A Course of Love: Dialogues, pp. 120-121)”

7 – Unity

Unity is defined on Day Five as being fully who you are and expressing fully who you are. It is not a matter either of effort or of learning. Jesus says repeatedly that the time of learning is over. The time of learning was in trying to satisfy the ego that one had accomplished.

Unity is something quite different, as defined by Jesus in A Course of Love.

8 – Effort

Likewise, as in the passage quoted above, the time of effort is over. We are to rest and to relax as our point of access to unity becomes clear to us. Jesus notes that there are various ways that access can be experienced: via part or all of the head, the heart, the hands, or even arising from the earth and felt throughout the body. A point of access will no longer be needed once we have sustained the elevated Self of form, rather than just tried to maintain it.

9 – Being Who We Are

This summary will likely not be fully satisfying to you, because Jesus’s words are dense with meaning. Know that we are only on Day Five, and 35 more days of explanation will follow. In the meantime, rest assured that unity–being who we are and expressing fully who we are–is Jesus’s intention in the 40 days and nights on the mountain top.

10 – Ego Is Gone

“While the ego is gone, effort remains, and while it remains, you will not realize full access to what you are given. We are speaking here of letting your form serve union and union serve your form. This service is effortless for it is the way of creation. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day Five)”

11 – Effortless Accomplishment

What a glorious way to say that we don’t need to “effort” so! We have long been at the mercy of an ego which pushed us to do more and more. Those days are over, if we are willing to make them be over. If we are efforting, we are not taking full advantage of what we have been given. Our form is meant to be the elevated Self of form, and this form does not need to “effort” accomplish things. The way of creation is effortless, and we need to create as God intends.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I long to peace today, for rest in You. I have sought salvation through my learning so earnestly, and I would now rest in Your promise that the time of effort is over. I do wish to express fully who I am, being reassured that I am sanctified.

Thank You for Jesus’s reassuring words in this Day Five of the mountain top experience. He ever has looked to You for his knowledge, and may I rest in surety that what I read today is knowledge and not simply perception.

Amen.

Learning Is Not Meant to Be Effortful

1 – Thinking

“Learning was not meant to be linked with thinking. Again I’ll draw your attention to the learning of childhood. Learning begins long before the onset of the time of language that constitutes your ideas about what it means to think. (Dialogues, Day Four)”

2 – Children

This truth, that children learn before they have language, proves Jesus’s point that there is a way to learn, through observation, that is easy and requires no effort. We have long put great store by our learning abilities, that we put forth a great effort in school, and then we reap the benefits. But we make everything too hard on ourselves, way too hard. We may still sometimes choose to learn through effort, but this is not the optimal way. We learn best when we learn easily.

3 – Minds

Can we really believe that learning is meant to be linked with thinking? We give our minds way too much credit. We think that the thinking of the mind is what will get us back to Heaven, even. This is not true, actually, though learning in the old way might have been needed when we were assimilating the truths of A Course in Miracles. As we assimilate those truths, we come into a new era, an ear in which we seek to have the heart guide us, not the mind. And our learning proceeds through observation, not thinking.

4 – Language

“Even after the onset of language, children continue to learn without thinking. Does this sound odd, foreign to you? And yet this is the way learning was designed to be. Learning was given as a natural mean of access to all that was available to you, but not through effort any more than breathing was designed to be effortful. (Dialogues, Day Four)”

5 – Ego

So actually learning is not meant to be effortful. We made it that way, when we were consumed by the ego, the ego which always made things as hard as it could—thus approving its value to us. Breathing is not effortful, normally, and we are told here that learning is just as easy as breathing.

6 – Struggle

May we spend some time today deciding that what we struggle to learn is maybe best not learned.

7 – Personal Experience

I know that I worked very, very hard in college, attending a difficult school in which I ranked by ability in the middle of the class. But I wanted better than average grades, and so I sought to overachieve. College was not very much fun. My personality flattened out. I felt oppressed. And not until I had finished that dark time in my life did my personality come alive. So I know first hand that learning achieved through effort exacts a high price, a price that it would be best not to pay.

8 – Thinking as a Constraint

“Thinking, in this time beyond learning, could be rightly seen as a constraint you but try to impose on all that is natural. Your thinking, since it is a product of learning, does nothing but attempt to learn or teach. These are the natural responses of its training. Thus, a major key to your discovery of all that exists within you in the state of unity, is an end to thinking as you know it. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day Four)”

9 – An End to “Thinking”

So let us “end” thinking as we know it. Let’s let the heart rule, the heart that listens to intuition, or the deeper Christ Self. (A Course in Miracles had termed this listening through the Holy Spirit.) We are said to be in the time of Christ now, and listening to the Christ Self is a harbinger of things to come. We are no longer in the time of the Holy Spirit. We have moved beyond as we read A Course of Love.

10 – Fear / Love

“You must realize that here is where fear must be totally replaced by love. If you fear to go where the portal of access will take you, you will not go. Thus your desire needs to be greater than your fear. Love needs to reign. Love of self and love of your brothers and sisters, love of the natural world, of the world of form that is, love of the idea of the new world that can be, all of these must come together and be victors over the reign of fear. (A Course of Love: Dialogues, p. 113).

11 – New Temptations

The “new temptations” meant in this title are two: real choice and access. These are not negatives, but goals toward which we wish to go. We are leaving behind the time of learning, so that we learn through “thoughts that we do not think,” as a child does, and as early man and woman did–before language entered into our experience.

12 – Union

We must now want union in relationship to our brothers and sisters and our God more than anything else. We must find acceptance of ourselves, despite our anger or our depression, or anything else that seems to be imperfect. We are told that we do not have to be perfect, and we are reminded of the Prodigal Son, who surely did not feel perfect when he returned to his father. He only needed to accept the father’s love. That is our situation now. And unity is within ourselves; our God is within.

13 – Access

The portal of access is love and only love. Nothing else will do at all. This is the portal that here on the mountain top, we will discover with Jesus. We are only just beginning our 40 days and nights with him on the mountain top. More is to follow. But we would do well to realize that perfection is not required of us. Acceptance of love as the only way is. Fear must be left behind forever, and when we have done that, we will be Home.

14 – Jesus

“I do not have to spell out this choice for you, for you know exactly what it means. It means you will be as I am. It means you will live from love rather than from fear. It means that you will demonstrate what living from love is. It means that you will resurrect to eternal life here and now. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day Four)”

15 – Guidance from Love

It is important always to live from love and not from fear. Guidance always comes from love, and if we think we hear a guidance that is telling us to protect ourselves with a sense of fear, we are really hearing the personal self that is not yet rid of the ego. Guidance does not rule us through fear, and any message that we receive that is fear-tainted is a false message.

16 – Protection

Of course, we can take prudent measures to protect ourselves from danger. But we are normally safe in everyday life, though there are those among us who find themselves in dangerous situations, and thus would find this assertion untrue in their experience. The world we inhabit can be a dangerous place, but we make it worse by our thinking of it in such a way. We defend, making that worse by our defense. We seek to protect ourselves at all costs, and we need to ask if this is really the heart-centered Self that we are protecting, or the ego of the personal or little self. It will prove to be, more than likely, the ego of the little self. And Jesus has declared that we, at this point, are free of the ego. If we have followed A Course of Love, we will know ourselves to be free.

17 – Christ Self

If we resurrect to eternal life here and now, we are living as our Christ Self. This is what we seek to do. This is home for us. Heaven is here and now. There is no waiting.

18 – Prodigal Son

“Think a moment of the story of the prodigal son. All that the prodigal son was asked to do was to accept his own homecoming. Do you think he would have considered himself perfect as he approached his father’s presence? Surely he would not have. You are asked but to accept your own homecoming. To leave behind the time of wandering, seeking, learning. To leave behind fear for the embrace of the love and safety of your true home. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day Four)”

19 – Seeking

In A Course of Love, I believe that we are asked to leave behind the incessant seeking—the time of wandering, seeking, learning. I suspect, but this is an interpretation, that Jesus channeled A Course of Love because he saw many students and teachers of A Course in Miracles still seeking, though finished with these books. With what were we to replace the ego? I think that ACIM does not make this point as crystal clear as Jesus wished it to be. We replace the ego with the Self, and this point is made in ACIM, but it can easily be overlooked. Jesus revisits us with iterations of the answer in ACOL. We are to give up seeking, because we have at last arrived. And to say this is not arrogance, unless we truly are still tied to our egos.

20 – Homecoming

The prodigal son only had to accept his own homecoming. So it is with us. We need only to accept, as the first two days of the 40 days and 40 nights told us. If there are things about ourselves that we don’t like, things of our personality, we can ask, humbly, that these be removed, and watch them fall away. God is very powerful, and He hears our prayers, I believe. I don’t think that we are alone because we are lost in illusion. Now we are moving into the real world, the world just short of Heaven, and we have advantages from this vantage point that we lacked previously. We will see miracles wherever we look.

21 – Choice

“This choice has come before you might have expected it to. It does not come at the end but at the beginning of our time together for a reason. This is simply because this choice is the beginning. This is the choice that allows us to continue our dialogue as one. To talk heart to heart. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day Four)”

22 – Hearts

We choose to listen with our hearts, and we make a choice to stop our incessant seeking. That is the choice that Jesus refers to in this quotation. We have arrived. Let us rest easy and be glad. We do not yet know everything that we wish to know, but we can rest—knowing that what we need will be revealed to us. We need not fear any longer that we will ever be bereft.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I recognize that, like the Prodigal Son, I do not have to be perfect to be accepted by Jesus, to reach the heights that the mountain top experience is meant to bring to me. I may resist this concept, and so please guide my thoughts and feelings so that it is acceptable to me.

Thank You for this good day. I feel especially grateful for the congenial way in which people are interacting with me this day. It is not always so. We live among people who have many problems, and it is up to us to try to heal their problems by loving more strongly. We cannot heal for them, in many cases, but we can ask for miracles that will work in their lives to heal. We can be the instrument of that healing, but only when we ask guidance as to what we ought to do. Be with us as we sense Your Presence, ask for guidance, and then carry out the impulses that arise in us. Thank You for the sense of Your Presence always.

May I be united with love. May I drop fear. These are perhaps my two greatest needs, and these build on A Course in Miracles and are further explained to me now in A Course of Love. Thank You for helping me to devote my life and myself to love.

Amen.

Accept Your Anger

1 – Day Three

“Accept your anger for it is the next step in the continuum upon which we travel. When a person is dying, just as when a person is undergoing this final surrender, there are stages through which one moves. (Dialogues, Day Three)”

2 – ACIM and Anger and Attack

Jesus chose an especially volatile example of what can be accepted. In A Course in Miracles, there is a very significant passage in which anger is said to have no justification and attack no foundation in fact. This is especially crucial to our holy relationship, which is the way that A Course in Miracles is preparing us for Awakening by God. Here, in this quotation, Jesus says in A Course of Love, that anger can be accepted as part of a continuum. I suspect that Jesus knows how hard some of us have tried to eliminate anger, and our suppression of it has not worked very well.

3 – ACOL and Anger

Here, in A Course of Love, Jesus would have us just turn aside from anger, without giving it any credence, and, I would believe, especially not try to suppress it. The ego has a field day with suppression, for what is resisted only gets stronger and comes out in even worse ways (sometimes). Jesus compares our acceptance of anger, on this continuum, as akin to the stages of grieving only one’s own death. And acceptance is only one stage in that process, but a very important one. Likewise, when we accept the anger, the anger loses its force over us. It becomes meaningless, and we don’t resist any longer. It is not made stronger, as it would be made in resisting the anger actively.

4 – Money / Abundance

“There is one area that is greeted with even more anger and more resistance in regard to learning of all kinds—in other words both old learning as well as new—than love. This is the area that you call money and that I call abundance. (Dialogues, Day Three)”

5 – Jesus

Jesus moves into “abundance” or “money” from the discussion of anger. He spends a great deal of time on this day in discussing money. He knows that it is a hot point for many of us—either the love of money or the regret that we don’t have more of it. Jesus indicates that abundance is not something that is to be regretted, and here he differs from his words as quoted in the New Testament. There he tells his apostles that it is harder for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. Many there are who have taken Jesus at face value in this statement. The rich young ruler in the account turns aside sadly, for he had great riches. He is told to sell all, give to the poor, and follow Jesus. The rich young ruler can’t bring himself to do this because money is his god (an interpretation).

6 – Crisis Point

Here, in this quotation, Jesus is said to find money or abundance more of a crisis point than even the concept of love. We can all agree on love. We can’t all agree on money. It is a dividing point for many, the final straw that our dedication to salvation is actually weak.

7 – Fallacy

“This is the basic fallacy that the time of learning supported. The idea of if this, then that. The idea of abundance earned. The idea of nothing being truly free. Not you, and not your gifts. (Dialogues, Day Three)”

8 – Learning

Here Jesus is saying that the past time, the time of learning, supported the idea that everything of value—and this especially includes money—has to be earned, is not truly free. We also think, erroneously, that we have to earn our way into Heaven. This, I think, is the basic concept that Jesus is challenging. We don’t, ever, earn our way into Heaven. The bestowal of Awakening by God, or Christ-consciousness, is a free gift. We can, we are realizing, prepare ourselves for this gift in various important ways, but the final bestowal is God’s choice, His timing and His choice, always. We don’t earn our way into this most coveted of evidences of salvation.

9 – Earned?

But abundance that is truly abundance does not have to be earned in every instance. There are many instances of abundance that don’t cost anything. And the law of attraction often indicates that money itself is subject to our thinking about it, our drawing it to ourselves. Abundance is good, as long as the abundance (or the money) doesn’t become one’s god. When that happens, we have substituted an idol for the richness of Heaven.

10 – Acceptance

“Yet how can you accept yourself when you have feelings such as these? How can you accept the idea of inheritance with ideas such as these? How do you accept me when you see me as symbolizing a life of ‘godly’ poverty, and of calling my followers to abandon their worldly goods? (Dialogues, Day Three)”

11 – Bad?

This gets even closer to understanding that abundance, per se, is not necessarily bad—in fact, that abundance may be very good indeed. But we often get our priorities mixed up when it comes to money, and that is indeed what Jesus was saying in the New Testament story of the rich young ruler (an interpretation). Jesus knows that his readers will not take lightly any admonition to give up worldly goods for another world, although that, in effect, is at issue. We give up the LOVE of money, and then the abundance itself is not a bad thing. And how do we separate the love from the money itself? Ah, that is the rub, and that is why Jesus spends so much time in A Course of Love talking about abundance and money. He knows that the historical Christianity has always denigrated worldly goods as being ungodly, and that people who might otherwise have been Jesus’s followers get stuck on just this point.

12 – Misplaced Priorities
A Course of Love settles the point. Abundance, per se, is not the issue. It is the misplaced priorities, choosing the world over spiritual matters, that keeps us in real poverty of spirit.

13 – Set Your Mind at East

“Let me set your mind at ease, for you are not called to sacrifice, as you have been told time and time again. (Dialogues, Day Three)”

14 – Sacrifice?

We are not called to sacrifice anything at all in A Course of Love, any more than we are called to sacrifice in A Course in Miracles. We are given things, many things, and we are told that our happiness is God’s first priority. That’s right. But how many of us can take this good news and run with it? We get so caught up in believing that we are tainted by material goods, even though we don’t stop ourselves from having such goods. Jesus would eliminate our confusion and our conflict, telling us that we need not sacrifice for him. But we do need to understand that the things of the spirit only give us the happiness that he wishes for us. Any material object is of this world, and our joy in it will subside over time. We are also liable to get caught up in the ego when we wish for material possessions, and the ego is a bad idea from the start. We have indeed sacrificed in this world, but it has usually been for the things that the ego told us would be good for us. And that was a lie. Nothing the ego bade us get has ever turned out well. The elation that we feel always turns to tears of despair.

15 – Unity

“You have accepted now, because of whatever experiences of unity you have had, that the knowing of unity is available to you. You may not have given great consideration to the access through which that availability arose, but since for most of you it has arisen as thoughts you did not think, if you were to make an association in regards to entry, you would likely say the entry point was the mind. This is, in a sense, true, as wholeheartedness is comprised of the mind and heart joined in unity. (A Course in Love: Dialogues, p. 103)”

16 – ACOL

The passage chosen here is tangential to the argument put forth in Day Three. It does, however, say some very important things about the A Course of Love as a whole. In unity is abundance accepted, and this abundance is the very practical matter of money–having enough, feeling secure, knowing that we will be taken care of in the future.

17 – New Understanding
Jesus notes that in coming to a new understanding of abundance we will move through stages of denial, anger, bargaining, and depression. Only then we will be ready to accept abundance as our natural inheritance from God. We will be ready to discover, rather than to learn through the mind. This includes the “thoughts that we do not think,” which is the infusion of knowledge into our wholeheartedness rather than the learning through our mind that the ego so enjoyed. We have now moved beyond the ego.
18 – Common Sense
Jesus talks quite a bit about money here, and he is very, very commonsensical. He knows that may of us have issues about money (he calls it “abundance”) that might preclude our acceptance of all that he holds out to us in the new wholeheartedness that he extols. Day Three is among the most practical chapters in the entire three-volume ACOL. Surely we can follow his reasoning, and reach for the unity of all brothers and sisters without reference to relative abundance. He concludes, “The active acceptance of abundance is the way to abundance.”
19 – Natural State
“Abundance is the natural state of unity and thus your natural state, just as certainty rather than uncertainty is your natural state, just as joy rather than sorrow is your natural state. (Dialogues, Day Three)”
20 – Unnatural Lives
We see here that abundance, certainty, joy—all—are natural states of human beings. We have lived such unnatural lives so far. Let’s give up the unnatural in favor of the natural any day. Let’s drop the idea of sacrifice that is so dear to the ego’s persona. We will thrive when our hearts are right with God. He blesses us, as He does everyone, when we ask. There are many things for which we must ask, many blessings, and we hesitate to ask because we think that they are undeserving things, or even that we ourselves are undeserving.
21 – Deserving
We deserve the good things of good. Just know that those good things are mostly intangibles—joy, harmony, peace, no conflict,–and we will have to abundance that we so richly deserve. We will know the function of happiness, which is akin to forgiveness in A Course in Miracles. Our salvation is to know happiness and forgiveness as our function (from A Course in Miracles).
22 – Materiality
Materiality is part of abundance, and it is part of what money can buy. Money is not a dirty word or concept. It is only the overweening love of money that speaks to the ego and gets us into trouble.
23 – Replacement of Learning

“While you think of acceptance as just another word, another concept, another trick of the mind, you will not see it as the replacement of learning, and as such as an active state, a state in which you begin to work with what is beyond learning, a state in which you are in relationship with what is beyond learning. It is in truth a state in which you enter into an alternate reality, the reality of union—because you accepted that reality. (Dialogues, Day Three)”
24 – Union
We are asked to enter union with our fellow beings and with God. Elsewhere, many times, A Course of Love stands up for unity and relationship as twin goals for everyone. But our acceptance of that union is an acceptance that will free us to walk with Jesus on the way home. It will take us to the mountaintop, metaphorically holding his hand. We are not “learning” anymore, we are “accepting.” And we are not straining in our acceptance. We feel no strain in our daily doings. We don’t work in the same way, though work we will, and hard. We will find work to be effortless without the agony of thinking that we are learning through our backbreaking work. We do not have to struggle to learn anymore. What we need to know will be given us.
25 – Alternate Reality
This is our alternate reality—a state of union with All that is (God). And All that is includes our brothers and sisters who are walking together with us. All may not be walking to salvation, but that is partially up to us. We need to share, when sharing is OK to those involved. We do not have to proselytize, which would indeed be counterproductive if one needed only a smile (from A Course in Miracles). So we accept our reality as Sons and Daughters of God. We accept that our personal self (our persona) and our Christ Self are one, and in that understanding do we take our place in a new world.
Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I know the security that only resides in You, in the abundance that You promise to me. May I not be tempted to fret about my future needs, or even my present ones. May I do what I can, when I can, and may I rest secure in the knowledge that my real needs are always met.

Abundance is a relative term, but I do not long for the abundance of material goods so much as spiritual. Jesus promises that I can have both, and I rest in peace in that assurance.

Amen.

A Course of Love – 40 Days and 40 Nights from the Dialogues

I will publish numerous passages with reflections from what some view as a sequel to A Course in Miracles. It is a three-volume series entitled A Course of Love, channeled by Mari Perron, believed to be from Jesus. The passages chosen are from the last half of the final volume in the series, the Dialogues.

Mari Perron’s web address is as follows:
http://www.acourseoflove.com/A_Course_Of_Love_And_Grace.shtml

I will re-introduce A Course of Love by re-posting an essay that compared A Course in Miracles to A Course of Love.

A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love

by Celia Hales

Mari Perron’s A Course of Love, in three volumes (A Course of Love, the Treatises, and theDialogues, acronym ACOL), is a beautifully rendered narrative that I view as a sequel to A Course in Miracles. She heard internally, as she related to me in an interview when I met her in St. Paul, that ACOL was presented to her by Jesus as “another Course in Miracles.” She said that she had about a week before she consented to tackle such a large project, a project that eventually led her to resign from her position at the University of Minnesota in the Twin Cities to devote herself full time to the channeling. The channeling was done in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

In my reading, I find in ACOL no contradictions of any kind with ACIM. My summary evaluation is that ACOL is to the heart what ACIM is to the mind. Jesus says that he is combining mind and heart in A Course of Love to lead to a state that he terms “wholeheartedness.” There are many consoling passages, notably a beautifully rendered invitation to join Jesus in an embrace that comforts and sustains us, and that we return in a mutual embrace. He invites us to weep, yet we know that he will not leave us weeping, but instead lifted up to his view of life and love as they are meant to be lived.
There is much in ACOL about the fact that our fiction of a separated self is to be replaced by a union that can be understood only in relationship one to another. As in ACIM, this is meant to be a holy relationship, not a special one. Jesus bids us serve one another, and asserts that this describes the circular nature of the universe–to serve and to be served
Jesus is much concerned in this whole series of three volumes that we not keep seeking for our answers; we are to rest in the view that we know enough to live in love. He talks about the fact that we seem to be continually seeking, but we are weary, and he knows that we wonder when this seeking will finally end. In ACOL, all three volumes, the seeking is finally to come to an end. The two volumes that follow the first, the Treatises and the Dialogues, particularly bid us leave our intellectualism behind and to listen, wholeheartedly, to our mind and heart in conjunction with each other. In these later volumes, particularly the last, he resigns as our teacher and speaks to us as one of us.

When I first began reading the second of the three volumes, the Treatises, I became convinced that Jesus was the author; it was an intellectual decision based in part on the newness of the material and the complexity of it. In addition, the fact that there were no contradictions to ACIM played heavily in my decision. The Treatises are four in number, and they provide an intellectual framework in ways that the other two volumes do not. They are harder to understand, but the same beautiful language is there, along with the forthrightness that I have learned to associate with Jesus. In the early pages, he asks us to choose a miracle, and explains that this will help us to understand what he is saying. Later on, he asserts, in line with Eastern thought, that mindfulness will provide the complement to wholeheartedness.

As the volumes go on, there is much that is new in them–ideas that pick up where ACIM left off, with the time of the Holy Spirit, and assertions that we are now in the time of Christ-consciousness. There have always been individuals who embodied Christ-consciousness, but none (except Jesus, we might add) that have sustained it. Jesus does not make promises about a physical Second Coming, as he did not in ACIM, but he does indicate that now is the time for the sustaining of Christ-consciousness among more and more people, and he asserts that children born now will inhabit a very different world than that of their forebears.
Jesus directly states that ACIM and A Course of Love work hand-in-hand. ACIM was meant to dislodge the ego, and ACOL builds upon this success, giving us the tools with which to work. He asserts in the final volume, the Dialogues, that we are now the accomplished, and he presents a primer that is meant to be read and understood over forty days and nights. We are working in a forty-day ascension to elevate the Self of form on our earth.

So much is devoted to the false thinking that we have about continuing to seek in a never-ending pathway. When is it enough? When does the seeking end? Jesus ultimately says that we are ready now, once we have walked the whole pathway (which he outlines in the latter part of the third volume, the Dialogues), and that continual seeking is not what he means for us. We will let the rough aspects of our personalities fall away, knowing that we are beloved and that we have achieved the Christhood that he holds out to us as his promise. In what appears to be a departure from ACIM, Jesus asserts that no feelings are bad. In ACIM, he had asserted that anger was never justified. In A Course of Love he notes different aspects of personality that do not hinder us from full acceptance to Christ-consciousness. Some of these aspects are negative, but he holds out to us the view that we can have these undesirable traits, undesirable to us, fall away if we do not care for them. Otherwise, it appears that we are simply to be tolerant of aspects of ourselves that will be subject to change as we grow in Christ-consciousness. In ACIM, perfection is seen to be a prerequisite, and Jesus was said to stand at the end of time to undo those errors in us that we otherwise could not undo. The differences between these two thoughts may not be as great as we might imagine, as we remember from the New Testament that the man Jesus, the example-life of Christ-consciousness, got very angry in the last week of his life with the moneychangers in the temple.

To believe that we can retain some negative traits and yet ascend to Christ-consciousness is a remarkable statement that sounds almost too good to be true. Yet I believe that it is true, and that it is only our own ego that would assert that the new understanding is arrogance. This is the suggestion, discussed above, from A Course of Love that we do not have to be perfect to be an ascended Self of form in this world. This is reassuring in the extreme, because how many of us try and try, only to fall up short repeatedly? This is discouraging for those of us on the spiritual pathway, and Jesus’ statements deny the reality of perfection as a criterion on acceptance by him as being Christ-conscious. This statement is one of the more startling in the volumes, and perhaps one of the more controversial.

Relationships are seen in the much the same vein as in ACIM, and special relationships must change to the holy. This is itself will change everything. We will exist in union with our brothers and sisters, in relationship, and this will fuel the new Christ form that we occupy.
We live within the house of truth, according to the Treatises, though within that house of truth is a house of illusion, in which many of us still live. In a significant image, the words describe that there have been “explosions” within the house of illusion, but that it is has not fallen yet. Nevertheless, still this house of illusion is within the house of truth, and so all of us are one together. Those in the house of illusion are still, like ACIM says of us, ruled by the ego; those outside the house of illusion but inside the house of truth are now ruled by the Christ spirit, or Christ-consciousness, as the time of the Holy Spirit is drawing to a close and the time of Christ-consciousness is at hand. This latter point is an expansion from ACIM, a next step.

We are not to evangelize our brothers and sisters, though, who still live in the house of illusion. Instead, we seek just by service one to another to draw everyone to us in the house of truth. Another way of stating this same phenomenon, new to our world but explained above, is that we must individually and collectively sustain Christ-consciousness. This then is the new Self that we are to be.
The third volume, the Dialogues, seeks to lead us to a sustained place of Christ-consciousness in form, i.e., the elevated Self of form. Christ-consciousness replaces perception (as discussed in ACIM) with knowing. This elevated Self of form, to my reading, means the physical form that we occupy on earth, but it is does not mean that death will cease to be (a somewhat common misconception that sometimes is made with ACIM).

The volume concludes with an injunction to remain in the world, but to follow Jesus to the mountaintop for forty days and nights of final observation (not “learning“). The content of the chapters devoted to these forty days and nights is beautiful indeed. As mentioned, Jesus resigns as our teacher and becomes akin to an equal, but just as surely must we too resign as our own teacher (an ACIM thought as well). We learn directly from observance, from within our own selves, of the real world that only appears to be outside of ourselves (an ACIM concept also). But we cannot observe only from within ourselves; we must join in union and relationship with our brothers and sisters. To unite is to be one in being; to join in relationship is to join with our brothers and sisters as beings; both union and relationship are necessary, and this injunction for unity and relationship is repeatedly emphasized.
In observing and living these forty days and nights, we are to remain in our daily world, carrying out our normal activities. Jesus assures us that this is the best way to learn, for, after all, we are creatures of the earth as well as heaven, and we do not need to remove ourselves from our daily lives to learn his truths.
There is a very interesting insertion in the Dialogues of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Jesus is seen to be the “example life,” the one of “doing“; and Mary’s way is seen to be that of “being,” in relationship, the way of the future. There are consistencies between doing and being, though, and the two are not mutually exclusive now nor in the future.

The ultimate revelation of A Course of Love is the fact that we can indeed expect heaven on earth; this Jesus declares. He ends the final volume, the Dialogues, by saying that we will know expressions of love as our service on earth. This is very traditional thinking, but after studying all three volumes, it is a restful conclusion. We are not encouraged to spend ourselves in endless effort, as the end that we seek is peaceful and effortless. It is the way that life is meant to be, and has always been meant to be, lived.

A Course of Love, as I have reiterated, is a beautiful work of art. Though not in blank verse, as is ACIM, the language that Mari Perron channeled is stunningly beautiful. You have a magnificent opportunity in studying these volumes to learn what Jesus wants to say to us by way of sequel to ACIM.

From the Dialogues, 40 Days/Nights. Jesus: “Accept Me.”

“This has been spoken of as the second coming of Christ because my story goes unfulfilled without your fulfillment. It is only in your fulfillment of the continuing story of creation that my story reaches completion. (A Course of Love: Dialogues, p. 90)”

Affirmation: “May I know my fulfillment.”

Reflections:

1 – Continuity with the New Testament

This first day of the Forty Days and Nights on the mountaintop with Jesus in the Dialogues of A Course of Love solidifies continuity with the New Testament and Christian orthodoxy:

“Acceptance of me is acceptance of Your Self. Acceptance of me is acceptance of your inheritance. This is nothing new to those of you of the Christian faith.”

2 – Personal Interpretation

I have long viewed A Course in Miracles and A Course in Miracles as a continuation, to fulfill modern-day needs, of the Bible. Jesus has not changed a great deal in the last 2,000 years. He is steady as a rock. He is with us still. And he makes claims that no individual would make who was unsure of himself.

4 – New Testament

“The New Testament was the beginning of the new.”

We see a direct statement from Jesus here in regard to new times. The implication to me clearly is that the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible did not present, very often, a loving God. And the New Testament presented a God who was loving and forgiving, quite different from the monarch who would punish if his every rule were not kept.

5 – Why Required?

“Why should this [acceptance] be so important? Why not leave well enough alone? If acceptance of Jesus is a stumbling block for many, why should it be required?”

Jesus goes on to explain that to take college courses and get a degree have requirements. To get to the moon requires a spacecraft and spacesuit. Would we strain at the gnat? Jesus is only giving it to us straight, straighter than he did in A Course in Miracles. We must accept his authority, which is what accepting him is all about.

6 – Second Coming

“This has been spoken of as the second coming of Christ because my story goes unfulfilled without your fulfillment. It is only in your fulfillment of the continuing story of creation that my story reaches completion.”

We are making the succession from Jesus to a new day. We are It. There is not compromise herein, and only when we accept Jesus’s authority do we find the peace that he is offering us.

7 – Cease Searching

“Lay aside your want of other answers, other stories, and accept the story we share.”

Jesus is asking us to stop searching, and this injunction will become clearer when we realize that many of us who studied A Course in Miracles did not stop searching at its conclusion. We kept looking for something further, almost like an addiction to searching. Now in A Course of Love, the trilogy, Jesus says that enough is enough. We no longer have to keep searching. With the “Treatise on the New,” we recognize that we are The Accomplished. We no longer need nor should we, search.

8 – Day One

This “Day One” represents the first of 40 days and nights on a “mountain top” with Jesus as our guide. In this chapter of the Dialogues, Jesus makes a comparison of these 40 days and nights with his own 40 days and nights in the desert, prior to the beginning of his mission on earth 2,000 years ago. We are to become what he became.

9 – God

Jesus stresses that it matters not what we call “God,” because God knows who He is. But acceptance of Jesus as our guide is necessary; it explains that this is just the way it is in salvation. This tenet of A Course of Love, the Dialogues, will be difficult for some of us to accept, perhaps, but if we realize that in A Course in Miracles we have already accepted Jesus as our guide, we will be less resistant.

10 – Jesus

We are meant to become all that Jesus was. His was the example life. We do not have to go through what he experienced, because that was for him alone. But we do have to accept him as our guide. Then we will be well on our way to recognizing that indeed this is the time of the second coming of Christ. We are meant to embody that second coming as we elevate our self of form to the elevated Self.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I wholeheartedly accept Jesus as my guide. May I drop any resistance that I have ever had around this idea. May I choose the best for my future, and may I realize that Jesus is a part of my personal future.

Thank You, dear God, for leading me to love better. As I go to the mountain top with Jesus, may I know a resurrection that only You can bring to me.

May today I attract only good things. May I love with a deep love, feel gratitude for all things coming from Your hand, and be at peace in the midst of my too busy life. Today has lightened up since I awoke, and I thank You for that. I will cocoon on this winter day, ready for another busy day tomorrow. But keep me in the present moment, the Now. That is the only way to live Your way. And I thank You for this truth.

Amen.

Freedom

“Allow yourself, now, to experience your arrival, your return to your true home, your return to your Self.  Laugh.  Cry.  Shout or wail.  Dance and sing.  Spin a new web.  The web of freedom.  (A Course of Love:  Dialogues, p. 140)”

Affirmation:  “dance and sing”

Reflections:

From the Forty Days and Forty Nights in the Dialogues of ACOL is found the preceding.  It is from the day entitled simply “Freedom.”

Certainly our freedom frequently brings us happiness.  And Jesus, in A Course in Miracles, assures us that we do not have to learn through pain.  Our joy is a God-given right, and even though some times are tough during the course of a lifetime, we will have an easier pathway if we remember that we need to choose joy whenever it is at all possible.

Dear Father/Mother,

Help me to find joy today.  I know that it is out there, waiting for me, if my attitude is right.  Help my attitude to be right.

Thank You for these words of reassurance.  “Dance and sing” are positive affirmations of life.  Help me to affirm life today and everyday.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 139:

I will accept Atonement for myself.

A Note on Being

“You have returned to your true nature.  Perhaps you will remember that within A Course of Love you were once asked to ‘Imagine the ocean or the cheetah, the sun or the moon or God Himself, attempting to learn what they are.  They are the same as you.  All exist within you.  You are the universe itself.’  (A Course of Love: Dialogues, p. 248)”

Affirmation:  “I have returned to my true nature.”

Reflections:

Our struggles are over.  We have returned to level ground from the mountain top after Forty Days and Nights with Jesus.  We will live in love henceforth.  We will simply be.  For awhile, we may be conscious of trying to “become,” but this will fade as we relax into being.  We are told by Jesus to expect heaven on earth.

Our joy, which will be ever-increasing, is not selfish, for we take our brothers and sisters with us in unity and relationship (the hallmark words of A Course of Love).  Our futures are up to us.  The possibilities are all ours.

Perhaps we still wonder a bit if we are truly ready, but Jesus asserts that we are.  He did not intend for us to take a trek up the mountain top repeatedly, but to accept his words, and to realize that we are now ready.  We will be happy and contented.  We will know, unerringly, how to act naturally from our being.

If we still worry about errors that are in ourselves, we will simply acknowledge that we want them gone, and they will be gone.  We are as accepting of ourselves as we have been of Jesus.  We approach our days with love, and this is sufficient.  Our quest now is for love’s expression–nothing more.  An endless quest for love’s extension is eternity itself.  We know now how to respond in love, for we are love, being.

Thus ends our Forty Days and Forty Nights on the mountain top with Jesus.  If we are ready to accept his promise, we are ready to embrace Christ-consciousness.  Perhaps it will not come al at once; perhaps we will have glimpses, perhaps for a long while yet.

But be reassured, just as A Course in Miracles reassures.  Once begun, the end is certain.  We will know God, we will know Jesus, we will know our brothers and sisters, and we will know ourselves.

Note:  With these reflections this day, the Forty Days and Forty Nights in the A Course of Love: Dialogues are concluded.  Later on, reflections will focus on the second volume of ACOL, with the Treatise on the New.  These reflections will begin on Saturday, May 22.

In the meantime, there will be miscellaneous postings on both A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Thank You for finding in Mari a person who would accept the task of channeling a new message from Jesus.  May we accept, gradually, all that we can from this new message.  May we be patient with ourselves if we do not immediately find the joy that Jesus promises.  May we anticipate in faith that his promises are true, that we will know the joy of a new reality in this world.

Perhaps this world is not yet ready for the truths of A Course of Love.  I pray that the messages held within, if true, are accepted sooner rather than later.  And I do believe that these messages are true.  Thank You for taking our hand and leading us to the promise of a better future.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 134:

Let me perceive forgiveness as it is.

Day Forty: Who You Are to Me

“When you turn the last page, will you cry tears of sadness that our dialogue is complete, that you will hear my voice no more.  Or will you brave your own relationship with me?  Will you turn to your brother and hear my voice in him?  Will you be my voice as you turn to your sister?  Will you carry the fullness of our relationship within you?  Will you be one with me, and in being one with me never feel alone again?  Will you let the emptiness of separation leave you once and for all?  (A Course of Love: Dialogues, p. 247)”

Affirmation:  “May I brave my own relationship to Jesus, and may I know real companionship with him as well as with all my brothers and sisters.”

Reflections:

We are an extension of I Am in form.  Through that extension, we become who we are to Jesus, instead of who he has been to us.  There is creative tension in this relationship, and that is good.  This will allow the power that is needed as we return to level ground.

As separate beings, our existence was circumscribed by fear.  As beings living in unity and relationship, love is our hallmark, our extension.  Christ-consciousness is the awareness of existence in relationship.

We are one Self, love’s extension, one to another in unity and relationship.  This one Self the Christ Self.  We must let the emptiness of separation leave us, and we must join with Jesus in all his fullness.  We must not cry tears of sadness that we are no longer on the mountain top with him.  He will go with us to level ground.  We carry the fullness of our relationship to him with us.  And we must share this relationship with all in our world.  We join together with our brothers and sisters, and Jesus is our companion.  We are never alone.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May love be my hallmark in the new reality in which I find myself as I descend to level ground.  May I recognize that, with my brothers and sisters, I am one Self.  I am also one Self with God.  Help me to understand this blessing, this knowledge that has never before been made so clear to me.

Help me in my daily walk on level ground.  Thank you for the blessing of the Forty Days and Forty Nights.  Thank You, Jesus, for your channeling to us in A Course of Love.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 133:

I will not value what is valueless.

Day Thirty Nine: Who I Am to You

“But breathe a sigh of relief, my beloved, for you do not have to learn all that the Christ in you learned.  This is why we have had to enter the time of non-learning–so that you accept that you do not have to try to learn the unlearnable.  This is why we have left the time of becoming behind, why you stand ready to enter the time of being in union and relationship.  The Christ in you is the accomplished.  The Christ in you is that which, upon this final acceptance, returns your wholeness to you.  (A Course of Love:  Dialogues, p. 240)”

Affirmation:  “May I be whole today, and may this wholeness extend into the future.”

Reflections:

“Individuation” and “differentiation” are used interchangeably in A Course of Love.  We are individuated beings in relationship to each other.  But God is there all the time.  We are not separate beings, sent into an alien world to try to live by ourselves.  We have often thought of ourselves this way, but this way is a fallacy.  We are meant to establish a relationship with Jesus that is not difficult at all, but simple in the extreme.  We are individuated beings that live in relationship to each other and Jesus, and in unity with God.  This relationship, in truth, is just as simple as any relationship that we have ever encountered in our daily life, at any stage upon the journey.

We do not project any longer; we extend.  In extension, we are living in the relationship that is truly real.  Our projections have been of the ego, and we would leave these behind.

Who is Jesus to us?  Only who we are to ourselves.  This is a paradox, but a true idea.  We will not leave this mountain top with our illusions about ourselves still in place.  We do not have to achieve sainthood or perfection to live in relationship to the All.  We will find heaven when we realize that what is asked of us is not hard at all.  We will find God.  Previously, we have judged ourselves as not being worthy.  Realize now that we have walked the whole pathway to Christ-consciousness.  We are ready in one more day to return to level ground, to descend from the mountain top and to take our place among our brothers and sisters–changed but completely whole, differentiated beings who are joined in unity and relationship.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I am ready, almost, to return to level ground.  I am a different person than I was before I went to the mountain top with Jesus.  May this trek be a permanent change in me.  May I realize that I am justified by the faith that his words have given to me.

May Jesus be the companion that I have always longed to have.  He said in A Course in Miracles that we might imagine him holding our hand as we walk along.  And he said that this would be no idle fantasy.  In A Course of Love he has been similarly reassuring, and he now welcomes us as equals in his love.  I do not fully understand all that this promise holds out to me, but as time passes, may I come to understand ever more fully.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 132:

I loose the world from all I thought it was.

Day Thirty Eight: Who I Am

“Being full of love for one another is the beginning of extension, the end of withdrawal.  It is the mutuality of our love that causes this fullness.  Remember briefly here the feelings of withdrawal you have experienced when you believed you loved more or that you were loved less by a friend or lover.  Remember briefly here the feelings of withdrawal you experienced when you felt loved for being something other than that which you are.  Know, through your brief contemplation of these feelings that this is behind us now.  Know that we can be known and loved equally for who we are.  (A Course of Love:  Dialogues, p. 234)”

Affirmation:  “May I be loved for who I am in truth.”

Reflections:

In Day Thirty Eight, Jesus returns to a reassurance of his love for us.  He expresses his union with us, and he notes that we are in relationship to each other in that union.  He welcomes us again into his embrace, harkening back to a beautiful passage in the first volume of the series of A Course of Love.

In a somewhat confusing statement, he tries to explain to us, simply, that “I Am,” and “Who I Am,” are different, but that in “Who I Am,” we come to know him in unity and relationship.  “Who” is an acknowledgment that we are differentiated beings, but beings who are joined in unity because they choose to be so.

Day Thirty Eight is a powerful statement of Jesus’s love for us.  In the fullness of his love, we will come to possess our souls.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I have not always been aware of the depth of love that Jesus feels for all people, and also for me.  Previously I have sometimes seen Jesus as a judge.  Help me to accept the veracity of his love for all of us today.  Help me to return that love.

Thank You for Jesus’s messages to us.  His messages are a great comfort.  May I rest at ease in his reassurances today.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 131:

No one can fail who seeks to reach the truth.

Day Thirty Seven: A New Idea of God

“You realize that the man, the God, the historical figure who has been called Jesus Christ was not only Jesus but Christ.  Not only Christ but Jesus.  Not separated but individuated.  You realize that the call for the second coming of Christ has sounded and that it is a call to the difference you have always desired while not requiring you to remain separate!  (A Course of Love: Dialogues, p. 230)”

Affirmation:  “Lead me to understand, finally, the Second Coming of Christ.”

Reflections:

The previous day, Day Thirty Six, replaced an old idea of God with a new:  a God in which we all share.  Day Thirty Seven elaborates upon this conception.  We have previously seen ourselves as different from each other, and different from God.  But, in unity, we are all the same, the same in relationship to each other.  We are differentiations of God, creators even as He is.  Our previous work has often been “made,” rather than created (a tenet of A Course in Miracles), but now we would accept how to be creators of reality, not illusion.

We have seen ourselves as separate beings, encased in a human body that was made (rather than created) by the ego.  Now we recognize the falsity of this conception, and we move to see ourselves as one with God.  We accept this reality when we move into Christ-consciousness.  We then know, as opposed to perceiving.

We are told that the divineness of our being is most revealed in relationship.  This is because we are one with our brothers and sisters.  When we separate ourselves from them, we separate ourselves from God.  He would have us all join together.  We have seen glimpses of this new state, but soon this new state will become permanent within ourselves.  Then we will truly live in a new reality.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I do not want separation anymore; I want union.  Help me to incorporate this new reality in my understanding of the human being that I am.  May I also recognize the fact that the divine is part of my nature.  I have not always understood this, but I ask to understand divinity today.

Thank You for this new and exciting truths.  May I understand honestly and in depth.  May I recognize that Your truth is something that, with grace, I can come to understand.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 130:

It is impossible to see two worlds.

Day Thirty Six: Who You Are in Unity and Relationship

“You do not disappear or cease to be.  You are not replaced by God whom you have always been one with in being.  You simply accept the truth of being and the truth of being in union and relationship.  Both at the same time.  Both/and rather than either/or.  Cause and Effect.  Means and End.  You accept the end of choice and the beginning of creation.  (A Course of Love:  Dialogues, p. 227)”

Affirmation:  “May I live in union and relationship with God and my brothers and sisters in this world.”

Reflections:

Day Thirty Six notes that we have always been in relationship to God, and that God Himself, as the Trinity of God, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, indicates that He can know Himself only in relationship.  This “knowing in relationship” has been what we have been reaching for.  We are in union one to another, and we are also in relationship one to another.

Our world has come very close to destruction.  Now is the time that we need a better direction.  As we accept our unity and our relationship with all our brothers and sisters, with God, indeed with the Whole, we will know peace.  We have been creating all along, but now we create, not in illusion, but in truth.  This will make the new world a better place, and this will save us from destruction.

We are differentiations of God; this we have always been.  But until we know the power of this relationship, we will not create anything of real value.  We have often seen Him as apart from us, but this has been part of the illusion which we have built for ourselves in our egoistic nature.  Now we would know the truth, and this we know, as a theme of A Course of Love, only in union with our brothers and sisters, and in relationship to them and to All else.  The dichotomies are over; we are joined in Christ-consciousness.  This is the ultimate message of ACOL.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

It is a great blessing to know that Christ-consciousness is upon my brothers and sisters, and upon myself.  I welcome Jesus’s message of this new time, and I wholeheartedly embrace his message that the time of Christ is upon us now.

May I understand what it means to be in union with God and with my brothers and sisters.  May my relationships be only those of love in the deepest sense.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 129:

Beyond this world there is a world I want.

Day Thirty Five: Being a Creator in Unity and Relationship

“Creation itself, which stands apart from particulars but united with wholeness, has led to this time of opposites becoming one and wholeness becoming actual rather than probable.  Wholeness is actual.  All that is left to be created is awareness that this is so.  (A Course of Love: Dialogues, p. 222)”

Affirmation:  “May I become aware today that Wholeness is actual.”

Reflections:

Day Thirty Five is a bit obtuse.  Perhaps we have often thought this of both A Course of Love and A Course in Miracles, but did not say it.  But perhaps we will appreciate more when we are frank.  The problem is the complexity of ideas, and the fact that most ideas on Day Thirty Five are meant to be a union of opposites.  This union of opposites is a part of the “union and relationship” that is oft counseled in A Course of Love.

We are told that in relationship to God, we are actually in relationship to All, as well as all in this world.  And in this experience we know only love.  When we return to level ground, as we are preparing to do, we will retain the mountain top experience.  We will have an idea of oneness, an idea of sameness.  We will also share in accomplishment and union here, and we will not so much look beyond this world to a world beyond death for our fulfillment.

We will assume the nature of creatorship; we will re-create ourselves and a new world at the same time.  Both will emanate from the unity and relationships that we have often read in A Course of Love.  Previously, we “made” a reality; now we will “create” one.  There is a world of difference, because now we know that we do not choose ourselves, but let God in us make the decisions.  We are within the embrace of All in  All.  We are in a state of being more than a state of doing.  Thus we embody our Christ-consciousness.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Thank you for the many ideas of this day.  May we know that we have reached far enough that, with God in us, we can “create” rather than simply “make” (as our egos did previously).  I do not know all that creatorship will hold out to me, but I long to know.  Please help me today.

It is good to know that I will retain much of this knowledge when I have left the mountain top.  Help me to remember, now and always.

Amen.

ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 128:

The world I see holds nothing that I want.