Resting in the Serenity of Wholehearted Love

“I thank you for your strong desire to be saviors of the world and to end her suffering. I thank you for your compassion and for your desire to be of service to the world. But I call to you from peace and ask for you to remain in peace with me and let not the suffering of the world call you from it. When these things of the world threaten to call you from your peace, you must remind yourself that it is only from within the Peace of God that your wholeheartedness and our unity is accomplished.” (ACOL, T3:20.14)

This quotation summarizes much that I have been alluding to in recent posts. This is the drift of this part of A Course of Love. We must stay in the serenity of wholehearted love. If we don’t, we risk falling into the blaming of God for things that go wrong, and this is wrongheaded thinking. Our unity as One—all of us—in relationship one to the other, explains the new world, the new true reality. We are meant to live in union with our Christ-Self, and in union with our brothers and sisters. We must share in order to receive, and giving and receiving in this unity is the same. We have differences, but underlying our diversity, our incredible diversity, is a sameness that we all embody as children of God. And it is in this unity that we find our heaven on earth.

The world is incredibly diverse, and so God must love diversity. We are told in both A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love that we are creators, that we made the world that we see. This is a tremendous leap for us to consider. Certainly with our limited minds now, we know that we didn’t do anything like this. But the God within did, and we are a part of Him. He dwells within, and in this merging of the human and the divine, much more is seen to be possible than previously. Largely our reluctance to adopt our gifts has been because we projected God outside ourselves, a God in some heaven far away from earth. We know now that this just isn’t true. God lives through us; he is living life through us. His way thus becomes an unseparated union with human beings who all have a spark of the divine within.

Don’t focus on suffering to make it more than what it is. Be careful not to lapse into self-pity, if the suffering is our own. Be careful to let pain just be pain. In this world we are not without limitations, and pain may be our limitation. See what it has to say to us.

Prayer

It is revealing to me to realize how much needed sleep can work to relieve pain. When I relax, emotional turmoil just ceases to exist, and often emotional turmoil is the most debilitating aspect of pain and suffering. Sleep knits up care, as Shakespeare said so eloquently. I thank You for the nap today that gave me the peace of mind and heart that I needed and wanted. There are no needs, for need is answered at the point of its inception. Thank You for this truth from A Course of Love.

Be with me to develop my mind and heart in preparation for a good day. Thank You for the little things that give me solace, the solace of exercise, tasty food, soul-healing sleep. I seek not to escape from life, but to use the simple elements of a good life to give me the peace that You always wish me to have.

Thank You for the good things of today and yesterday. I ask for those good things to continue tomorrow also.

Amen.

Much More Lighthearted and Carefree Frame of Mind

“There is no longer any time to waste on such illusions. The thought system of the truth sees no value in suffering and so sees it not in truth. The thought system of the truth is a thought system that is not split by varying goals and desires. It is a thought system of unity. It is a thought system of one thought, one goal. That goal is the original thought that began the expe¬rience in physical form, the thought of expressing the Self in observable form.” (ACOL, T3:19.9)

By not “seeing” suffering, we are entering into a new era. It doesn’t mean that it isn’t there, in illusion, but we are bent on seeing reality, the real world. And as we progress, we will see far less suffering, and far more need just to express love, to extend love to our brothers and sisters.

We, somewhere early on, decided that we wanted physical form. It became a new choice, a choice in line with God’s Kingdom, and it did not have to involve a presumed separation from Him. In our case on earth, our new choice did become a detour into fear, and the ego, and then fear of God, for we were seeing him in the image of our fearful selves. Now we come home to the Christ-Self deep within, a Self not of insanity, but of truth. A Self Who knows no madness. And a Self Who is part of the God within.

We have been expressing the self in physical form, but we have not been expressing our real Self. This real Self has only recently been known by us as we catch glimpses of Christ-consciousness. When we drop the seriousness that is of the ego, and therefore fearful, we will be in a much more lighthearted and carefree frame of mind. This gentle way will lead to expressing the Self is better ways than was previously possible for us when we were expressing a fearful personal self who knew not of the Christ-Self.

Ask the Christ-Self to come out to play today. Ask the Christ-Self to embody you, telling your personal self, as presented to others, what to do and say, and even what to think.

The Christ-Self will not delude. Our way will be both brighter and happier. Our way will be what God, in His creative wisdom, first intended for us.

Prayer

Too much seriousness of mind is a form of madness, the egoic madness that I once knew. That is over for me, I hope. I pray that I will not form a new ego, lost in insanity and lost to You.

Help me to enjoy a gentle approach of life and living. Help me to let go of any seriousness of mind that is not warranted by the circumstances. Let me be lighthearted as I walk through this day. Help me to know that You are looking out for me, and that this assurance will give me peace of mind rather than a seriousness of purpose. Seriousness of purpose can undermine the purpose. I would approach my life with the realization that You are always in me, living Your life through me.

Amen.

Interactions with Others Can Be of Ease & Certainty

“Certainty and ease as surely go together. There are no more decisions for you to make. There is only a call for a dedicated and devoted will, a will dedicated to the present moment, to those who are sent to you and to how you are guided to respond to them. One will be a teacher, another a student. The difference will be clear if you listen with your heart.” (ACOL, C:28.13)

A reassuring passage, this quotation for today tells it like it is—if we are strong enough to comprehend and to put into practice. If we can be at ease when we are certain about things, we will go a long way toward home today. Ease and effortless living are prized in A Course of Love; we don’t have to struggle. In fact, we are forbade struggle as a very bad idea, something that the ego got us caught up in so that we would take the credit when we succeeded after much struggle.

May we get past all of this disaster today. Let us live in the present moment, sure of the present, more sure than we have ever been of anything before. We will encounter others, some of whom will be teachers for us, some of whom will be students for us. If we are fortunate, we will fall in line with the difference.

We are to observe in the outside world, and later on we see that this observation enlarges into being “in-formed” by the larger world. When we observe and when we are informed, we will take life as it comes. We won’t be confused by the fact that some know more than we do, some know less. This is only relevant while we are in time, and time is an illusion in our world. Beyond the veils of death, time is no more. And the same for space.

If we listen with our heart, in ease and certainly, we will know which individuals we encounter are meant to be our teachers, and which we are meant to teach. Listening with our heart, as always, is extolled in ACOL.

Live today in ease and, with it, certainty of a present that will give us all that we truly need. There are actually no needs, for needs are met at the point of recognition. And when this happens, we know that needs are no more.

Dear Father/Mother,

We so easily misunderstand each other. We so easily overstep our bounds and do that which does not help another. But with You guiding us, these mistakes will vanish into nothingness. As they came from nothingness, the mistakes of the ego.

Help us to reach out to others only to the extent that they are ready to receive. We need to pull back if our gestures are not helpful to them. May we have enough sense to understand the difference.

Amen.