Be Still / Experience All that Is Holy

“Can you let the worries of today leave your mind?  Can you let the disappointments of yesterday go and be no more?  Can you let the planning for the future cease?  Can you be still and know your Self?

“This is perhaps disappointing to you, but it is all that is required.  If you could truly succeed at doing this for one instant, you would experience all that is holy and be forever one.  (A Course of Love, 26.16 – 26.17)”

Affirmation  “May I listen to inspired words and be reassured.”

Reflections:

1 – Christ-Consciousness

This passage, which repeats what was begun yesterday, reinforces all that is required of us.  It makes clear that keeping worry from the mind, not dwelling on the past or planning for the future, will lead us to Christ-consciousness.  We would do this for only one instant, and we would experience “all that is holy and be forever one.”  This is a definition of Christ-consciousness, the blessing toward which we are moving.

2 – A Simple Answer

Is the simplicity of the answer a disappointment to us?  We sometimes like to work too hard, thinking that hard work will get us what nothing else can.  But the heart does not work the way the mind does.  The heart simply knows, and with this knowledge comes the willingness to let go and let God.

3 – Relax

We need to relax in the blessing of God’s presence.  We need to realize that hard work doesn’t really get us what we want.  Christ-consciousness is a gift of God, and a change of what we think about is all that we really need.  We need to live in the Now, as Eckhart Tolle has told us.  Eckhart is an enlightened teacher who is identified with no one faith in our world.  But his books, The Power of Now and A New Earth, have identified the fact that he is indeed enlightened.  His way, though, was not the way of A Course in Miracles, and A Course of Love had not yet been channeled.

4 – Enlightenment

Enlightenment is real is our world.  We do not want to claim this blessing if we risk making assertions that prove not to be true.  So we go slowly.  What we experience may be only a glimpse, and may not be sustained.  But Jesus would have us to sustain the elevated Self of form, something that he says has never been done in our world.  (It is unclear if he includes himself in this statement.)

5 – Rest in God’s Love

We need to drop the worries of the present, close off the past and the future, and rest in God’s love.  Then we will be positioned to accept God’s blessing of Christ-consciousness when he deigns to offer it.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I spend the remainder of the day in contemplating what You would have me experience as I, like all of us, move closer to enlightenment.  May I be still, as Jesus asks, and experience the Self who I am.  May this contemplation give me peace of mind and heart.  Help me to make of the remainder of this day a particular day of meditation.

I need to drop worry, cease senseless planning, and think no more of disappointments that might once have unnerved me.  Your way for me has been best, when I have been faithful enough to follow.  May I be faithful enough today, and may this today extend into the future with ease.  You would not have me struggle in this world.  I can experience effortless ease when my faith in You is sufficient.

Thank You for the reassuring words of Jesus.  May his mission be fulfilled with all the help that he asks of us.  And may never a bit of egotism intrude that would ruin it all.

Amen.

Unburdened

“Now [i.e., after laying judgment now] can the teacher of God rise up unburdened, and walk lightly on.  Yet it is not only this that is his benefit.  His sense of care is gone, for he has none.  He has given it away, along with judgment.  He gave himself to Him Whose judgment he has chosen now to trust, instead of his own.  (M-10.5)”

Affirmation:  “I would walk lightly on.”

Reflections:

1 – No Judging

This passage is an amplification of yesterday’s passage.  With judgment relinquished, we are in a much better position to live the full life that we all desire.  We are not hemmed in by circumstances (an “imprisoned will,” as ACIM says), but are, at last, perfectly free and unencumbered.

2 – No Strain

This does not mean that we leave our responsibilities to our loved ones unmet.  But now there is no strain in helping others.  We love them, and, when needed and if asked, we help.  We do not withdraw, under any circumstances, just unto ourselves.  To do so would invite disaster.  The Text indicates that withdrawal is always best avoided.  We belong in this world, and part of this world includes our brothers and sisters.  We seek their good as well as our own.  And if they show any readiness to accept salvation, we reach out to them.  But we do not press ourselves upon them.  Some are not ready, and to thrust salvation on an unwilling brother or sister is to fail to appreciate and to respect their boundaries.

3 – Unburdened

What a joy it is to rise up “unburdened, and walk lightly on.”  We do not have cares, in the sense that we have previously had cares.  We know that the guidance of the Holy Spirit (or Christ-consciousness, if we have walked farther along the pathway) is sure.  We need only ask, be flexible in our response, and then say or do the thing that comes to us.

4 – Walk Well through the Day

Nor do we have to get compulsive about this.  Jesus says elsewhere in the Manual that to try to ask at every juncture is impractical, and that it is with the practical that this Course is most concerned.  If we set our wills toward the Holy Spirit upon awakening, ask His advice at pivotal junctures through the day, and forget not to thank Him at the conclusion of the day, our confidence will be well-placed (ACIM tenets).

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would walk well through this day.  I would be more flexible than I was yesterday.  I find it is so easy to get something in mind, and to rush full steam ahead.  But that is not the way to follow guidance.  Be with me as I seek to follow my Guide, the Holy Spirit.

Relieve me of anxiety in this day.  If this type of pain intrudes, may I know that it is all illusion, and may I ask You for an emotional healing.  Be with all of us as we seek to live healthy, vigorous lives.

Thank You.

Amen.

Do Not Isolate Yourself

“Salvation is a collaborative venture.  It cannot be undertaken successfully by those who disengage themselves from the Sonship, because they are disengaging themselves from me.  (T69)”

Affirmation:  “Salvation is collaborative”

Reflections:

1 – Don’t Isolate Yourself

We are not meant to isolate ourselves in this world–even to study the Course.  We are meant to stay in the world ,and to minister to our brothers and sisters.  Our brothers and sisters are the Sonship.  (Note:  Scribed in the sixties, A Course in Miracles uses the same masculine terminology that the Bible does, but in the sixties, the masculine gender was recognized by everyone as including both genders, male and female.)

2 – Let Jesus In

Jesus, in this passage, indicates how important it is that he be a part of our lives.  This is his wish, but it is not mandatory.  Indeed, Helen and Bill were reluctant, when introducing the Course, to tell their listeners that their considered opinion was that the speaker was Jesus.  They knew how foreign this would sound to some hearers of the new message.

3 – Jesus as Elder Brother

Jesus can do more for us if we consider him a friend, an elder brother.  He speaks at one point of how we can imagine him holding our hand as we walk along, and he indicates that this will be no “idle fantasy.”  We cannot understand how this is possible, but we can take him at his word and see if it does not appear that he is with everyone who gives an insistent call.  He will come at the first “unequivocal” call (from the Text).

4 – The Consequences of Withdrawal

When we withdraw for too long, we also withdraw from Jesus.  And we cannot do that, because he and the Holy Spirit are our guides to better living.  He is the elder brother who catches us when we fall, and the Holy Spirit is the inner guide that leads us every step of the way–guidance.

5 – Salvation for Ourselves AND Others

Surely we do not want to disengage from Jesus.  So this passage has a warning for those of us who would seek our own salvation and not frequently enough think of the Sonship.  The two go hand-in-hand.

Prayer:

Dear Father,

When I am tempted to withdraw, help to remember my contribution to my brothers and sisters.  They need me, as I need them.  Salvation lies in our relationship.

May I learn from the Course with careful study, and then may I take that learning into the world.  This is the solution that will work for the world and for me.

Amen.

Avoid Condemnation

ACIM Workbook Lesson 218 – for Saturday, August 6, 2011

Affirmation:  “I am not a body.  I am free.  For I am still as God created me.”

“Only my condemnation injures me.  (WB396)”

Reflections:

This passage expresses a severe warning.  “Condemnation” is attack, and we are told in A Course in Miracles that attack is never warranted.  Why not?  It is inherently unfair, for we are creatures of the God who is only loving.  We are innocent (a concept that we may have a hard time wrapping our minds around).  If innocence seems not a self-image to which we can subscribe, then let us dwell on the fact that we live in a world of illusion, where bad things only seem to happen.  Of course, we experience these bad things as reality, and this experiencing can bring us much pain and suffering.  But the Higher Self has not been affected.  And if we commune with God, He will help us to rise above anything that this world can throw at us.

Our condemnation of these “bad things,” though, would be what would injure us.  We must be accepting, first of all, and then try to improve on what we have experienced.  This is an oft-repeated refrain in self-help literature, first espoused by Dale Carnegie (How to Stop Worrying and Start Living).

May we leave condemnation aside today, once and for all.  It can only exacerbate the conflict within us.  It is, at its base, a blaming of God for what has happened.  And God is not to blame.  His love outshines any negativity that we have invited into our lives.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Forgive me, and help me to forgive myself, for condemning the wrongs that I see in this world.  Sometimes the wrongs may be valid, but my condemnation of them is still unwise–even if I am right in seeing where there is injustice.  I realize, actually, that You do not forgive for You have never condemned.  May I turn to You for my Model of non-condemnation.

May this day be good.  May I respond with tolerance to the wrongs that I perceive, being aware that it is my ego that is seeing these wrongs.  Love would not even perceive a wrong, but would note the insanity, and therefore see the innocence in these thoughts and actions that so disturb me.  May today’s lesson be something that I take to heart.  Help me.  I surely need You now.

Amen.