How This Day Might I Extend the Good, the Holy, the Beautiful?

“A creator, abiding in enlightenment, knows that all events are neutral, so neutral that they have no effect, except for those who choose to be caught up in illusions. The creator, awakened, merely creates out of devotion to the mystery of That which has created him or her. The mind of an enlightened creator does not arise in the morning and say, ‘How can I survive yet another day in this world?’ In the morning, when an enlightened creator arises, the question is:

“How this day might I extend the treasure of the good, the holy, and beautiful?

“How can I, right where I am, experience these treasures even within the space and volume of this body?

“How can I look lovingly upon what my physical eyes show me, so that I discern or extract the good, the holy, and the beautiful, and therefore, give them to myself?” (“The Way of the Heart,” WOM, Lesson 10, Page 126)

A hallmark of The Way of Mastery is the phrase, “the good, the holy, and the beautiful.” These are indeed beautiful words, something we would all wish to emulate.

Often, though, we may wake up on a given day in a funk, deploring our lives, thinking of our crises for the day, fearful of what that day will bring. We know that this is no way to live, but we do it anyway. We really don’t know how to avoid thinking such negativity. Is there a way out?

There is. It is the oft-spoken maxim in Eastern circles, “Be willing to have it so.” This is what Jesus calls in WOM “allowance.”

“Acceptance” is a close synonym. If we don’t resist negativity, it loses its punching power. What we resist grows stronger; the force field increases. But when we surrender to God in allowing whatever might transpire, to transpire, we are paradoxically freed.

Of course, we don’t lie down in the dust and accept the bad as the “way things are.” We accept only while in the flow that God gives us. And the “flow” keeps us safe. It is another way of stating “mindfulness.”

Focus on the good, the holy, and the beautiful. Seek to expand those things, and all will be well with our day. Even if the days has things that go awry, we will know that we are in the flow with God.

And that makes all the difference.

Subconscious Cleansed from the Bottom Up

. . .[Y]our life is no longer your own to dictate and control. But that rather, you have given it over the Source of your own beingness, to that depth of wisdom in the depth of the ocean that knows best how to bring about what is required to push up the dross from within your consciousness, so that you can release it.” (“The Way of the Heart,” WOM, Lesson 5, Page 62)

We are becoming enlightened by a process by which the subconscious is cleansed from the bottom up. We don’t try to dictate how this will come about. Our part is simply to allow it to happen by not focusing on the wishes of the dying ego. Allowance is the way that Jeshua (Jesus) moved Jayem to enlightenment, as described in The Jeshua Letters. His own conscious willingness to let go in surrender was all that was needed, for his own subconscious had been largely cleansed by the time that Jesus approached him, perhaps through the Eastern wisdom that he had read voraciously for years.

Likewise, allowance is our way, too. If we try to remain in the driver’s seat, we will miss the point as well as miss enlightenment, Awakening, Christ-consciousness.

God must be allowed to have His way with us, and in this ultimate surrender, He blesses us with the knowledge of His love and His guidance. Our pathway will be as clear as our next step, for we see the pathway only step by step. But we have said “yes” to the whole route, and in so doing, we have fallen into Jesus’ arms. His embrace, as described in A Course of Love, heals. And it is this embrace that contains the whole universe(s).

Be Willing to Have It So

“This cannot be done through learning, for as you have been told, learning was the means of the separated self’s return to unity. These lessons have been given. They can be reviewed and reviewed again. They can be used as continuing lessons until you feel that learning is fully accomplished. They can serve as reminders as you continue to become the Self you have learned that you are. But further learning is not what will complete the transfor¬mation of the personal self to the elevated Self. Learning will not sustain Christ-consciousness.

“So what is it that we will now do? If I do not teach, and you do not learn, what is our continuing means for completing this transformation? As you have been shown, this will not occur by means of preparation but by means of acceptance. This will not occur by means of trying but by means of surrender.” (ACOL, D:1.17 – 1.18)

Acceptance is another way of saying “allowance,” which is the term used in The Way of Mastery. Both acceptance and allowance are another way of saying, “Be willing to have it so.” This is a very great revelation, a revelation to all that has gone unknown and unused until now. Joseph Campbell once quoted a Buddhist master as saying that his secret was to “be willing to have it so.”

Does this mean that we stand passive? Not at all. We simply accept the next right thing that our Self unveils as our direction, what we are to create next in our experience.

It has heretofore been a mystery, a sort of paradox, about how we could create our own reality—if we were to follow God’s will for us, and His will has been set forth as the only way that works. But God is within us, and the Self is a part of Him, and when we listen to that Self, we are following the highest and best that we know to create. So the seeming paradox is not really a paradox at all, but the way that we are to proceed in our lives as people who have found the right path to follow.

We don’t learn anymore from external authorities; we turn inward, and there we dialogue with Whom we will, and, of course, most importantly, we follow the promptings of the Self formed out of grace. This is our Christhood, the ultimate that we have sought to find. And when we listen to the promptings of that Self, we will lead magical lives, lives filled with grace and adventure. We will not have magical thinking, though, as A Course in Miracles points out. This use of the term “magical” implies something that is of our former insanity, our madness, when we are living the egoic self that was born out of separation from God—a separation that was purely illusory, but in which we believed faithfully. My use of the term “magical lives” is meant to connote a freedom, and a willingness to be “like the wind” (from The Way of Mastery). We know not wither we will go, and others cannot always understand us, because we are living by different lights than the world respects. We travel by our own lights, and this makes all the difference.

So we march to the beat of a different drummer. We let Love, or God, or Self, lead the way. We follow nudges to turn right or left without fail (at least most of the time, for we are still fallible creations). We are at home in God in this new way of living, and unfailingly, our part in creating a new world will be revealed as we take each step forward.

Prayer

Guide me to listen to my Self today. Let me be through with the madness of the ego, once and for all. Help me not to be too direct, if this disturbs my brothers and sisters. But never let me fail to speak well for You. I would create my own reality by following the prompting of my Self, a part of You. I pray that I will not ever be misled in this new adventure.

Thank You for a good day. As I write this, the sun is shining, the day is balmy, even though it is wintertime. Thank You for the climate in which I currently dwell. Thank You for the varying seasons of the year. Thank You for this beautiful earth that we all occupy.

Be with me throughout the day. Help me to be grateful for those things that I have heretofore taken for granted. I would take nothing for granted today.

Amen.