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.
MIRACLES EACH DAY 