Awakening

“You may wonder how you can be at peace when, while you are in time, there is so much that must be done before the way to peace is open.  Perhaps this seems impossible to you.  But ask yourself if it is possible that God would have a plan for your salvation that does not work. Once you accept His plan as the one function that you would fulfill, there will be nothing else the Holy Spirit will not arrange for you without your effort.”  (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-20.IV.8)

“. . .[W]ithout your effort”:  What a happy thought!  The Holy Spirit will take us by the hand and lead us home, however meandering our pathway may seem to be as we strive to reach Heaven on earth.  Evolution is not a straight line, and our passage through this world to the Awakening will not always be smooth either.  We will have glimpses of Awakening that do not last (most of us, that is).  We will have to realize, over and over, that the Holy Spirit’s guidance is what we want, and then we will have recommit to following Him in every instance of daily life.  Even those who have Awakened do not consistently follow guidance.  Even the most advanced teachers.

To assure our continuance in the Kingdom, though, we need to follow guidance consistently.  Otherwise, we are once again making the decisions, and we make decisions so erratically that no smooth passage through this world, emerging into Heaven, is possible.

God’s plan for our salvation does work.  And it is that we take our brother’s hand and, with him, form a holy relationship that saves time as we seek to reach salvation.  We forgive him totally, never to renege on the forgiveness that we offer him.  And we also forgive ourselves in this process.

The bumps and jolts on the pathway are inevitable, at least for most of us.  There is occasionally an understanding that reaches perfection in a moment, knowing that the Holy Spirit’s way involved the complete relinquishment of our own judgment.  But this is comparatively rare, for we have been trained by the world to rely on our own judgment.  We have been trained that we grow up honing our judgment, to stand independently on our two feet.  This is an erroneous way to live; it will not get us what we want.  The world trains in exact opposition to the Holy Spirit, for the Holy Spirit says to relinquish judgment as the necessary accompaniment to salvation.

We often feel demoralized when the way to Awakening seems so elusive.  But God’s way, outlined in A Course in Miracles and encapsulated in this brief meditation, does work.  It works every time.  And we only have to work it to see that it works.  There is no reason to fret that the way seems long; it will open out as we train our minds to think of the Holy Spirit and His way as we walk through this world.  The best is before us.  Let us traverse the impediments as surely and as sanely as we can.  And then the madness that we have embodied will fall away.

The Ego’s Madness in Our World

“Seek not to make the Son of God adjust to his insanity.  There is a stranger in him, who wandered carelessly into the home of truth and who will wander off. . . .Ask not this transient stranger, ‘What am I?”  He is the only thing in all the universe that does not know.”  (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-20.III.7)

We are all insane to one extent or another, if we have not yet awakened, that is.  And most of us have not yet awakened.  This quotation gives a particularly poignant description of the “stranger” who has wandered in and occupied the place of our Self.  This stranger does not know who he is, and this stranger is our egoic self.  So we do not know who we are, even though asking “What am I?” has become the preoccupation of most of us.  We are bade not to ask of this stranger what we are, for the egoic self does not know.  The egoic self puts faith in things of this world, seeking always more, more, and more.  This is the way of the ego’s version of truth, for “more” is insatiable for this egoic self.

We need to set our sights higher, to the Guide we have been given.  The Holy Spirit will answer our query about what we are, and He will answer us immediately.  We are the innocent Son of God, occupying a self who has lost his way a little while, wandered into madness, and will eventually wander out, never to return.  This self will be transformed into the Self that is God’s Son.  And then the pain that we have known in the self that we have occupied so long will be no more.  We will know ourselves to be an innocent risen Self, at home at last in God’s world.

If we doubt this, we need only take a look at what the egoic self has made of this world.  Do we really think that this sad and dreary world is of God’s creation?  If we look in all honesty, we would have to say that either we are insane or God is.  Is it not more likely that we ourselves are insane, making a world that knows not of God, and knocks us about in hostile and profane ways?  

The way home to God may seem long, but once begun the end is certain.  And we will find our way home, never fear.  We walk an easy way when we turn to go back to God.  Our times smooth out, and we know joy again, for the dreams that we dream become happy, because these dreams are given by the Holy Spirit.

Our minds are no longer fully asleep, and we are not longer fully mad.  We will know joy again.  And in this assurance will we know peace, even in this world.

Awake!

From Ann Glover O’Dell’s Midwifing the Soul:

Awake! and keep awake!

While eyelids close

to give the body rest

touch not the lashes

of the Spirit’s ever watchful orbs.

Exercise the practice

of the cloistered one

who regularly rising

through the patterned hours

commits attention to that which

beckons him beyond

the chronos of the calendar

to events foretold

in sand grit

sharp as any irritant

to mollusk or to man.

Read instructions writ small

around the edges of the mind

before the sea salt blurs the words

and the search begins again

for clues and crumbs.

Hoist lightning-quick antennae

to catch the faintest quiver

to transmit to relay stations

information for the soul.

Kairos commands:

Keep awake!

Silence

“All of this must be ego function because, in reality, you are as you are created to be.  And wherever you are in any given moment, enlightenment is but a decision away.  That decision entails but one thing:  to release the insane valuation that you have placed upon everything and everyone, most especially yourself.  That decision rests on the willingness to take God at God’s word.  That decision rests on your willingness to cultivate silence.”  (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Lesson 22, Page 262)

Here we are given a hint about how to “hurry” enlightenment or Awakening:  silence.  We can realistically understand that when the world is too much with us, too much noise, we are not letting God in.  He can’t speak to us in His silence when there is a barrage of other voices demanding our attention.  

We need to take time out to just “be” with Him in silence.  He will speak to us in this silence.

And then He will give more pointers to let us know how to proceed.  When we listen to Him, we will move more quickly to transformation, because His gift of Christ-consciousness is in His will.

Transformation

“This transformation from a state of fear to Love, or from ignorance (the ignoring of truth) to enlightenment (the embracing and acknowledging of truth) occurs for each mind within the dream in a very specific way.  That is, it must occur according to what is required to release the patterns that have settled into that particular mind.  In a general way, those patterns are the same for everyone.  But in their expression, they take on a perfect uniqueness.”  (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Lesson 22, Page 262)

We must be prepared for transformation through a cleansing of our innermost thoughts. Practically, this means that the subconscious mind gradually opens to those attitudes that need to be changed so that we are truly walking God’s way. Transformation, when following the guidance given in Jesus’ channeled works, is gentle and usually gradual.

We first get glimpses, called a satori in Eastern religion. And then these moment of extreme peace lengthen so that hours may pass in true peace. But there is a particular moment, which we will remember, when transformation comes upon us to stay. If we walk in Love rather than fear, this new state remains with us.

And life is never the same again.

Come & Go as One Unknown by the World

“You will simply come and go as one unknown by the world, and yet one who looks to be very ordinary, one who looks to be the same as everyone else.  The difference is that though the body still seems to walk upon the Earth, you are literally embracing the Earth.  And in you, you will know that fear is gone.”  (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Chapter 20, Page 246)

This is what we have to look forward to when Awakening has come.

We can sometimes be frustrated that we have not known Awakening or Christ-consciousness except in snatches.  Those glimpses are meaningful, and they are harbingers of what will transpire—perhaps sooner than we realize.  The glimpses are nearly always a moment or more of intense peace, solid peace, complete peace, the peace that passeth understanding.  By this peace we can know that the transition in Awakening, for us, will not hold any trauma.  So we need not be afraid of it.

Jesus’s guidance to Awakening in his recent channeled works is always gentle.  We know that when we have asked to be rid of judgment and fear, we are asking in God’s will, and it is these two things—judgment and fear—that have been the snag that has kept us from Awakening until now.  A Course of Love makes this very, very clear.

What joy there will be in our hearts when we have relinquished judgment and let fear recede in the distance!

Ask for help today in bringing these impediments to a close.  Ask for Awakening to be hastened.

No Idle Thoughts

“This is why the very pathway of awakening, regardless of the form it takes, is always a retraining of the mind.  It is a decision to choose to discipline the mind in each moment, to teach only Love, to hold only loving thoughts, and to recognize that there is no such thing as an idle thought, since each thought or perception held in the mind immediately generates your experience.  That experience is like a pebble dropped into a pond that send a reverberation, a vibration, throughout the field of your being.”  (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Chapter 20, Page 239)

A Course in Miracles also tells us that there are no idle thoughts.  We often think that if we don’t say anything bad, we are home free.  But thoughts have repercussions, and if our thoughts are “bad,” we need to ask for help to right them.

We can’t just will love, but when we get quiet and go within, we will find God’s Love, and He prompts us to love those surrounding us.  He teaches us how to love, but we have to become still from time to time, in contemplation and prayer, for his guidance to “take.”

Every thought counts.  But this is not counsel to fear our thoughts.  It is counsel to let God’s Love overwhelm us in our daily round.  When we open our heart to Him, He teaches us what we can learn no other way.

We discover how to live, and that living is done in overwhelming love for ourselves, our fellow human beings, and our God.

Return to Our True Nature

“You may not feel that you have ever intended to live in fear.  But the displacement of the original intent was so complete that each life has begun with fear and proceeded from this beginning continually reacting fear.  While the original intent remained within you and caused you to attempt to express a Self of love despite your fear, fear has thwarted your every effort and caused the very effort that has continued the cycle of fear.  To have to try to be who you are and to express who you are is the result of the displacement of the nature of love with the nature of fear.  What we now are about is reversing this displacement and returning you to your true nature.”  (A Course of Love, T4:3.5)

We had an “original intent” eons ago, and that was to live in love—not fear.  But fear intervened, and nothing has ever been right since.  This is the crucial, central feature of our lives.  We have displaced love with fear, and then we have lived in this egoic state of fear.  There ought to be a better way.

And there is.  We can learn, and not necessarily by traditional means of study, to displace fear and the egoic self with the Self of love.  This change will make all the difference.  And A Course of Love is showing us how to effect this change.  It is true (as A Course in Miracles says also) that God makes the final decision of when we are ripe for Christ-consciousness or Awakening.  Then he metaphorically reaches down to us and lifts us up.

Yet there are things we can do to remove blocks to the awareness of love.  This in itself will ease our way, and give us a happy experience.  We need to get the idea of suspiciousness out of our minds; we need trust above all else.  And trust we can have; just a decision to have it is enough to bring it to us.  This does not mean that we will be gullible.  We have our own good sense, and this is sense of the real Self, not the ego.  When we place our faith in the inner Christ Self, we are far more likely to be right than to be wrong in our evaluations of others.  Note that this does not mean “judgment” of others, for judging keeps us from attaining enlightenment.  We need to simply rest in the assurance that if we are encouraged to avoid a particularly situation (or person), we will know how and where to do so.  That is all.

“The Everything of Everything”

“I am that within which everything exists and is.  Inside me is mind and thought, which I created.  In me is your heart with its thoughts, because they come from me.  The body itself exists within me, since nothing is outside of me.  I am the everything of everything.  I am Christ consciousness.”  Choose Only Love bk.3, 11:II

Our Christ consciousness is the embodiment of our part of God, our divinity.  And we are emblematic of the whole, a hologram who can touch God because every little bit contains that whole.

Do we understand this?  No.  But we can intuit an understanding.  God doesn’t keep secrets from us.  Our finite minds, even our hearts, are just too finite to comprehend the great mysteries of the cosmos.

When we delve deeply within, in soul-gratifying prayer, our minds and hearts are opened to the joys of our living in the universe.  We don’t know it all, but we do have enough power of understanding to know that we are not alone, that God shares His creative spirit with us.

“Easy and without Effort”

“The end is always a thought away.  Liberation—a simple choice.  The way is easy and without effort.  It rests in the power to decide.”  (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Chapter 18, Page 228)

The “end” is Awakening, enlightenment, Christ-consciousness, transformation. Many long for this, but most don’t know that our power of decision rests in the God within. And if God is within, if we are a part of Him, then our power to decide is not simply a matter of just letting our God decide the timing.

We remove the blocks of fear and judgment, and then we make a simple decision that we long to experience the best of God today. THIS is the “power to decide.” Of course, this sounds difficult to our unknowing ears. But here Jesus says that the way is easy and without effort. When we rest on God’s bosom, things are easy and without effort.

The only problem is that we try to do it all with our finite self. And this won’t work at all.

Surrender to the God within. With this choice, we ready ourselves to a greater transformation than we can ever imagine.

Joining Jesus in Christhood

“The Christ in you is wholly human and wholly divine. . . .It is this joining of the human and divine that ushers in love’s presence, as all that caused you fear and pain falls away and you recognize again what love is.”  (A Course of Love, C:5.1)

We are indeed blessed now!  When we recognize the Christ in us, we are recognizing a joining the human and the divine.  And in this joining, we are told, love reigns, “joining. . .ushers in love’s presence.”  (C:5.1) All that has caused fear and pain drops away, and we finally recognize what love really is.  This is the celebration, when we recognize the Self within, the Self no longer a captive of the ego. 

The Christ in us is wholly human and wholly divine, not omniscient, of course, because of our humanness.  We are ready to experience true reality in the fullness of the Christ-consciousness (Awakening) that now engulfs us.  We may as yet have captured only glimpses of this Christ-consciousness.  But the purpose of A Course of Love is to lead us to understandings that will cause the impediments in our psyche to drop away.  Jesus wants us to reach Christ-consciousness.  A consolidation of awakened individuals is the best hope that we have for a world in disarray, lost in pain and suffering, lost in conflict of one brother and sister against another.  But God, we might add, is the omniscient Presence that makes the decision of when we are ready.  Thus, there is an indecisive quality about Christ-consciousness and its coming that we can’t predict.  Only the omniscient God of us all knows when any one of us is truly ready.

There are things that we can do.  Things we must do.  We must give up judgments, one of the other.  We must give up fear (a biggie).  We must give up attack and planning that is not the direct result of guidance.  A Course of Love highlights the giving up of judgment and fear; A Course in Miracles highlights the giving up of attack, judgment, and unguided planning. These directives are meant to remove impediments to the coming of Christ-consciousness, and we can all recognize how difficult these directives will be if we don’t have divine help.

We do have divine help.  We need only ask.  The part of ourselves, the inner part, that is God, will respond.  Angels will also come to our aid, for we are not all alone in the universe.    Those of us who are in close contact with the Other Side will also come to recognize other entities that move to help us, though Jesus does not point this truth out, in so many words.  Jesus has said that he is always with us, always guiding us by the hand.  He is our rock, our salvation to a higher world in this world.  We do not have to die to enjoy the benefits of a higher presence directing our efforts.

Seeking Wakefulness

“It is not stamina but wakefulness I call you to.  Think no more of depletion.  This is the old way.”  Mirari

This part of Mirari is building on Mary’s image of “wild dogs,” male and also female, who are threatening to take over the world. We can all recognize much hostility and anger in our world. Things seem to be culminating in a difficult way, a scary way. But the darkest part of the night is right before the dawn–an old concept but, I think, relevant here.

Good people, people of the faith, are realizing that we are at a turning point. An evolutionary leap is ahead in which more and more people are experiencing Awakening. This means a major change in the way we view the world and the way we view ourselves.

We need only to ask for the blessing of Awakening to begin to receive inklings of what is ahead, glimpses of the Divine that are called satori in Eastern religions. If we cling to our faith, these glimpses will elongate, and the day will arrive when we know more of God than at any previous time in our lives.

This is the “wakefulness” that Mary is asking us to embrace. This is the wakefulness that we all, sometimes desperately, need today.

Day of Promise

“Today, here and now, wherever you are, from wherever you came, by whatever you call yourself in human reality, your long awaited day has arrived.  Today the grace of Christification has arrived.  This same infused grace was given to Me and to My divine Son Jesus.  Infused grace has arrived.  This gift of Heaven is given to everyone who reaches this point.  Today it comes to you.  Accept it.  Save it in the silence of your heart.  From that silence, let grace act in her way, in you and through you.”  Choose Only Love bk.3, 9:II

We live in the Now, and so “today” is any Now that we have.  Mary is speaking assertively today, because I think she senses that many of us never let ourselves think we are ready, that we are good enough for Christ-consciousness.  But it isn’t a matter of “goodness,” per se.  It blossoms in us when, paradoxically, we give up the reins of our life and let God have His way with us.  We may not even call Him God, but when we slow down, quieten down, and be at peace, a satori will visit.

A satori is a glimpse of the Divine.  And all of us can expect, can have, this today.  If we believe we can.  That too is a salient point.  Believing in the goodness of the universe does mean that we don’t fret, fume, worry, be anxious.  We are safe, despite the crises that have enveloped us from time to time.  We emerge stronger, sure of the growth that has happened in the crises.

Be very sure today that what Mary is saying is not an idle promise.  Today we can experience God as a Christ-conscious being.  God will decide if we are ready for this to be permanent.

Love

“The consciousness of Christ is your true consciousness.  It is a consciousness of pure love.”  Choose Only Love bk.3, 9:II

“Pure love.”  If we might only realize what this means!  We have so misused the word “love” in our world that we often don’t take seriously the arresting spiritual meaning of this word.  When we have walked far along toward God, and had satori (fleeting glimpses of the Divine), these will eventually lengthen into Awakening, and it is the Awakening of the consciousness of Christ—a Christ Whom we all share.  Because Christ is now a plural concept, we can acknowledge that what Jesus had 2,000 years ago is available to us all.  It does not come to us all, but our own preparations can speed the time when we will all know Christ-consciousness.  And Christ-consciousness is the next leap in evolution.

Focus on love today.  Know that when things go awry, and we want to get back on track, the surest way to do this is to quieten down and go within.  The Answer to our dilemmas will be there.  And with a clear mind and a loving heart, we can walk a green earth again.

If on the verge of hot feelings with another, just pause; don’t say anything.  Know that the loving response is the only true response that protects the other and ourselves.  We don’t have to be “right” all the time; we can let God lead our friends and family in the best way that only He knows.  We can choose happiness, as A Course in Miracles says (“Would you rather be right or happy?”), and with this choice comes the return of love.

Spend some time today contemplating what love means to us. 

There is no better way to spend time.

Quicken & Hasten Enlightenment

“Now, for all of you that would like to quicken and hasten that process, the answer is very simple.  Spend more time becoming self-observant, less time being concerned with what is going on in the world, and no time blaming the world for your state of being—not parents, not society, not God, but owning.”  (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Chapter 17, Page 211)

There are aspects listed in this quotation to hasten enlightenment:  self-observation, but not blaming others for one’s plight; and a less preoccupied stance toward the outer world. 

We look inward, and where we look carefully, we frequently find.  Elsewhere in other channeled writings (particularly A Course of Love), we discover that our inward look is not to become overly pronounced for too long; there comes a time that this preoccupation with self is hindering rather than helpful. 

Most importantly we realize that we are in the center of what happens to us.  We don’t blame others when things go wrong. 

And we don’t turn outward for a solution to our difficulties.  Finding Answers means turning to God Who is within.  If we need to get help, we do—but only after He has so prompted us.

We depend on God.  And this dependence takes us to the next level—of Christ-consciousness.  We stay close to Him in our mind and heart, and life smooths out, for we suddenly “know” how to handle our difficulties.  Solutions appear to come all unsought, but they come from the silence that we dwell in when we reach downward and inward to God.

Ultimate Questions

“The longing to awaken has come.  From this moment, though you do not understand it, you begin to attract, slowly at first, perhaps stumbling a bit now and then, exactly those situations that will keep prodding you to look deeper.  A meditation teacher comes.  A prayer group comes that you feel called to join.  You begin the process of your study.

“And a new question is emerging.  No longer is the question, ‘How can I survive?  How can I make money?  How can I do all these things?’  A new question emerges in your mind, ‘Who am I?’  There may be many forms to it, but question remains one:

“Who am I?  What am I?  From where have I come?  What is Life?  God?  What is God?  How can there be anything at all?”  (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Chapter 17, Page 209)

We are not in this alone, left by our own devices in a strange world.  We have help from other realms.  That is how the meditation teacher comes, the prayer group enters our lives, our study begins.

If we doubt that there is help out there, perhaps we need to look back over our lives and remember at crucial points when we were saved from ourselves.  Those points are in all of our lives.  There is something more going on here.  We have God’s intervention when we need it the most, even in the midst of the dark night of the soul.  We are saved from feeling alone and lonely, though He may shut us up to Himself alone, for a time.

This quotation asks, “How can there be anything at all?”  A pertinent question to which there is no Answer meaningful to us—except our experience of God.  We can intuit Answers to the larger questions of life as we get deeper in our quest.  Answers come, sometimes when we lest expect them.  The fact that they come just at our point of need will give us comfort and get us to realize that Help is on the way.  We open a book at just the right passage, we hear a bystander’s remark, our significant other looks at us with understanding and love—and we know that these are not coincidences.

We are, all of us, awakening, often in tiny increments, but nevertheless, experiencing change for the better.  Be grateful that the steps are tiny, for if they were gigantic, we would be blinded by the light.

Awakening can be and often is, gentle.  Ask for this blessing today.

Awakening

“Until you decide to change the momentum of the ripples you are creating in the depth of the mind, you cannot begin to ascend from the third dimension.  The desire to do so is always within you.  That is, it may be dormant, but the desire to know God must necessarily be within each soul, since God is your reality.

“You have fallen asleep, and at some point, there comes the urge to awaken.  When it comes, it is unmistakable.  The fireworks may not occur, but a shift happens within your being and you know that you can never return to the way it was.  You can never again pretend that life is only what you see through the senses.”  (“The Way of Transformation,” WOM, Chapter 17, Page 208 – 209)

This quotation is speaking of our Awakening to a new reality–enlightenment, Christ-consciousness. Our Awakening may not be dramatic; Jesus here mentions the lack of “fireworks.” But we will know the change. It is very important that we “milk” this change while it is fresh in our experience. We want to build on the newness of it and in no way, shape, or form revert to the reality that we previously knew. This experience is too important to let it slip away.

We are experiencing other worlds when we Awaken. A sixth sense is born; we do not any longer experience only through our five senses. A psychic gift has been given us. Don’t forget to say “thanks”!

Our Walk through This World

“Here is also where your ‘struggle’ begins—your struggle to create yourself in the world.  Your struggle begins to find yourself.  For the majority of you, this process whereby attention is shifted from a different state of consciousness into the physical dimension, this flash, this quantum leap, this shifting of attention was so dramatic and required such a shock that you began to forget your connection to Spirit.  You began to forget your realization that you are soul, pure consciousness.  You began to lose awareness of your freedom.  You could call it becoming unconscious, or falling asleep.”  (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Chapter 17, Page 204)

All of us forgot the spiritual world when we were born and had lived a few years. There are reports that young children still remember. But we don’t, and we need to regain our connection to the spirit as time passes. We do struggle, for we have often been badly taught. Life does not have to be a struggle, but most of the time it starts out that way, and it may so continue for many years.

When we reconnect ever so slightly, our asleep nature begins to wake up. And what a difference this makes in our lives! We realize that we are more than just finite children of God; we are heirs to His Kingdom!

Most of us come to this understanding after a spiritual experience, often one we can place by date and time. And reading helps. When we seek, we do find. And you would not be reading this blog if you had not been a seeker, and may still be a seeker.

There can be dramatic improvements in our lives as we go along. We can see the end of most struggles, maybe all struggles. Awakening can be a gentle process, and, oh, the difference it makes!

Ask God Why Christ-consciousness Delays

“Beloved friends, The Way of Transformation does, indeed, require your commitment.  Where you feel that your commitment has wavered, simply choose anew.  And the end of the journey must be perfectly certain.”  (“The Way of Transformation,” WOM, Chapter 15, Page 180)

It is impossible to go through life without getting demoralized, at least part of the time—and this is especially true on this path to Christ-consciousness (Way of Transformation).  We are apt to get impatient when we try, and try, and try some more, and God doesn’t see it our way.  Because he has to make the decision of when we are ready.

What do we do?  We take a step back and decide that He knows more than we do.  Then we develop some patience with his timing.

The transformation may come suddenly.  I know a man who recently experienced this Awakening in the midst of “venting” his frustration to his wife.  He was very surprised to sense that transformation had indeed occurred—but it was unmistakable.  And in the next second, he knew that this was not a glimpse, that it would last.

What was going on here?  God was telling him that the suppression of his anger, for many years, was not truthful.  He had been actually keeping himself from experiencing Christ-consciousness by trying to be something he wasn’t.

He had thought that fear was the problem.  But the actual moment of Awakening taught him otherwise.

Ask to have blocks like the one of this man removed for us.  God knows what is keeping us with feet of clay.  Ask to be elevated from the Earth today.  Ask what is the impediment. 

He will respond.

Awakening Is Simple, without Effort

“The Way of Transformation is simple, for the way of efforting one’s way into the Kingdom cannot flow from the guidance of the Holy Spirit.”  (“The Way of Transformation,” WOM, Chapter 14, Page 169)

We move into transformation when our heart is full, when Love overflows our being.  We don’t get God’s attention by imploring relentlessly and often.  He knows when we want to think that we are ready for Awakening.  He doesn’t always agree.

So we must be patient, know that by our effort we can do only so much.  A Course of Love counsels the removal of fear and judgment from our thoughts and feelings.  When we do this, we are removing the blocks to the awareness of love.  And that is what we need to do.

The only thing we need to do.  Awakening may come suddenly, when we least expect it.  I know someone who had suppressed anger for years, and then when he blurted out his discontent, he knew immediately that grace had descended upon him, and he felt intuitively that this Awakening would last.

God knew all along that he was cloaking his anger, and this very cloaking was standing in the way of genuine loving.  And God certainly wants us genuine.

Know that efforting will stand in the way.  Be ourselves, warts and all.  Then God can act in us to remove the impediments that have kept us from Awakening.  And we will find that removing fear and judgment, in genuineness, takes no effort at all.

Transformation

“The only transformation you can experience in space and time is the reaching down from the depth of the ocean into one tiny, temporary wave and readjusting the little foam drops on the tip of the wave you call the body-mind of the self, so that it begins to be a transparent conduit for an awareness of the ocean itself.  That is the game of awakening.  It is actually the most delightful use of time you will ever find.”  (“The Way of Transformation,” WOM, Chapter 13, Page 166 – 167)

Don’t we want to have delight in our lives?  Well, when we are out of sorts, then we need to adjust that tiny, temporary wave from the ocean that is our body-mind.  This personal self is temporarily inaccessible to a greater understanding.  But we can’t readjust on our own; we need help, and we can have it from God Himself.  Ask for help in removing discontent, moving us to delight.  There is no better use of time.

We are—all of us—engaged in Awakening, whether we are seeing glimpses or are sustaining it.  We can hope that our glimpses will elongate, and elongate they will when our attitude is right.  Ask to have a readjustment whenever we lapse into negativism.  Ask to see things properly again.

Yes, we want delight in living.  And we can have it!  This is the great promise of Awakening.

Jesus and Mary

“Today the face which was first shown in the feminine figure of Mary and the masculine figure of Jesus of Nazareth is now shown to the world in you.”  Choose Only Love bk.3, 4:I

Here Jesus is saying that we are Christ.   While we may not have reached Christ-consciousness, our Self, deep within, is a Christ-Self just waiting to come out.  Be patient, because the great blessing Christ-consciousness may take some time.  It can’t be rushed.

When we remove barriers to love, principally fear and judgment, we are doing what we can to hurry Christ-consciousness.  And our role models are Jesus and Mary.  These role models were important long before Jesus’ channeled works arrived on the scene.  Now we are seeing these role models as ourselves.  If we can believe our holiness (as the Workbook of A Course in Miracles says), then we are making substantial progress toward our goal of being Christed.

Awakening comes to many in our world, especially now.  For reasons we do not understand, it is easier to reach Christ-consciousness today than it used to be.  Most people had to move into holiness after death, but now, right here in our bodies on earth, many will move into this step.

Pray for this blessing, a decision made by God Himself, today.  He wants it for us, and He will bestow Christ-consciousness as soon as He sees that only good will result.

Christ

“Beloved, accept now that you are Christ.  Begin to walk on Earth as gods, loving everything, always in love.”  Choose Only Love bk.2, 21:II

When we walk the world loving everything, always in love, then indeed we are Christ.  And there is something further: “Begin to walk on Earth as gods.”

This is heady stuff.  But we will be misinterpreting if we let these words be an appeal to our ego.  These words are not meant in such a fashion.  Our little personalities often misconstrue. 

When we are living in love, everything looks different—and this includes us.  We truly are being a Christ when we walk in love upon the face of this earth.

To do so will make such a difference.  We won’t be so much changed as just living more fully.  Our minds will have slowed down, and cleared, and we will be happier.  Yet Christ-consciousness is not so much a matter of a changed mind as it is of a changed outlook, though Jesus says elsewhere (in The Way of Mastery) that if our scientists knew what to look for in the brain, they would have found it.

Do we have to have walked the whole pathway back to God in order to be considered a Christ?  No, because being a Christ is our inheritance, what we are meant to step into.  We don’t have to be perfect in order to reach this place.  It is our joint certainty that all is well.  It is our renewed hope for a better life.

And the only way that we can have a better life is to turn ever more completely to expressions of love in everyday life.

Being

“To be the being that experiences and to bring that experience to consciousness without the slightest fear of anything that we may feel or think, is what will allow us to go wherever we go and do whatever we do without fear.”  COL bk.2, 19:II

These words constitute a practical way to live without fear.  We know that we cannot live in fear and experience Christ-consciousness, and we all need to move to this greater experience of Love—something that beckons to us constantly.  To “be” the being that we are, experiencing in depth, and not suppressing this experience—yes, this is what we must do.  Not suppressing our experiences will therefore bring our experiences to full consciousness.  We don’t need to live an unconscious life, something that leads us to hurt others without really meaning to do so.

The lack of fear, a turn to love instead, will build upon itself.  I know that feeling love, and Love (God), mitigates against a negative attitude.  Low moods simply dissipate when we express love to our nearest and dearest.  A settled good will toward all of humanity then comes about, for we have discovered how to turn to that which matters.

Focus on “being” today instead of constantly riding the treadmill of “doing.”  Being is the way of the future, the way of great relationships with others.  Our doing has all too often had an egoic tilt.

Become aware of our living today.  Awareness—a determination to feel what we feel and think what we think—will keep our feelings and thoughts from going underground.  We will live a fully conscious life, and this will enliven us and give us a better future to look forward to.

Loving Consciousness

“Can you begin to realize that it is entirely possible to walk in this world without the slightest hint of fear?  This is possible—and necessary.  This can be achieved today, when you sincerely acknowledge that everything you feel in your heart and everything you think in your mind can and should be embraced by your loving consciousness.”  COL bk.2, 19:II

What a promise this is!  No hint of fear can be achieved today!  If we could only believe this strongly enough, I believe it would come to pass.

Again, love is the Answer.  Our heart and mind must be overshadowed by a loving consciousness.  And then we will see the evidence of what we read in today’s quotation.  We embrace all in our heart and mind, leaving nothing out.  But we don’t dwell on the past or the future, because we know that living in the present is the route to happiness.  And happiness we can have when we live in love and banish fear.

This quotation also tells us that to walk in this world without the slightest hint of fear is “necessary.”   We know that we cannot entertain Christ-consciousness as long as fear has a hold on us.  Fear and Christ-consciousness cancel each other out. 

Focus on the love that we already think about and feel.  And then ask to have this love enlarged so that it covers our whole vision.   Ask for the warmth of God to enfold us.  This is a palpable experience, possible for all (though experienced, perhaps, in different ways for different people).  If we trust enough, trust God enough, then we will know that we are safe in a sometime difficult world.  We will thank God for the gift of life itself, and our desires for more, more, more will fall away.

The only “more” we will want will be love.

Awakening

“At first you wake up slowly.  Then you begin to walk-awake and you meet those who have awakened, and finally are ready to receive with serenity and peace those who are waking up.”  COL bk.2, 18:II

This is the pathway to Awakening, spelled out for us in Choose Only Love.  We do wake up slowly at least most of the time, when we have been reading channeled works from Jesus.  With him, the pathway is smooth.  With his guidance, the way is sure.

We do meet those who have awakened, though they may be reticent about telling us that they have awakened.  Genuinely awakened people do not brag; the ego is gone from them.

And then, ultimately, we help others who are awakening.  We are led to them.  We react with serenity and peace, sure of what to say and what to do, knowing that we have help from the celestial realm.

Awakening is the same as Christ-consciousness, the same as enlightenment.  Eastern religions have long known about this, but the West is just learning.  And from the best teacher, Jesus himself.

Let us listen and be assured that all will be well when we walk this gentle pathway.

Jesus: “Certainly Everything Will Be Fine”

“Certainly everything will be fine.  Do not doubt this.  God and you, your being and my love, are always the universal winners, not in the sense of triumph of the egoic thought system, but in truth.”  COL bk.2, 17:II

We do need this reassurance now!  It is attributed to Jesus, in the new series of books, Choose Only Love, and the words were channeled within just a year or two ago.  We need to hear, “everything will be fine.”  And we are not to doubt!

We are not talking about an egoic victory, but something much, much grander—the peace that the end of separation from God actually gives.  We are heading into Awakening, Christ-consciousness, enlightenment—all of us.  And when we have traversed the barriers of fear and judgment, we will have that which we desire, a peace that passeth understanding virtually all the time.

For reasons that we don’t understand, it is easier to reach Christ-consciousness now.  We have grown through our travails, and now we are ready.  Devote time to contemplation and meditation, prayer, and simply loving our brothers and sisters.  We will find our walk in life will go much easier when we have done these simple things.

We need to cooperate with God as He seeks to bring us home to Him.  He would have us turn from the insanity that is egotism.  When we do this, we will have that which we most long to have, and for many of us it is peace and joy.

May the peace and joy of God’s blessings reach us, wherever we are, today.

Accept the Essence of Love in Our Lives

“Now that you are ready to walk the Earth as gods, in union with the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Sacred Heart of Jesus, go through the world carrying love.”  COL bk.2, 15:III

What can this ever mean, to “walk the Earth as gods”?  This statement from Choose Only Love is a new way of phrasing how we will walk in this new era, the time of Christ.  I think the reference to our being “gods” has nothing whatsoever to do with egoic notions, that being a “god” happens when we have walked the pathway back to our Maker, God Himself, and we are living as Christ-conscious beings.

Other words in this quotation are unusual:  the “Immaculate Heart of Mary” and the “Sacred Heart of Jesus.”  We have to realize that the scribe is a very faithful Roman Catholic, devout in his practice, and he reveres Mary and Jesus.  Sebastian seeks to inject a sense of holiness in all that he writes, and here we see this sense of holiness magnified.

The essential point of this quotation is the oft-repeated injunction to love.  I fear that many of us don’t get the full meaning of love because we have heard this injunction so often.  If it were a new and strange word, never before tried, we might accept more readily, acknowledging our lack of understanding previously.  (This is an idea from other channeled writing.)  But we can’t change the word to something novel.  We just must humbly realize that we have not comprehended the essence of love in our lives heretofore.  It is incumbent upon us now to change that, to accept the essence of love as the most vital factor in our lives.

Seek a reverent attitude in devotionals today.  The holiness of Sebastian’s writing joins with the union that we will know with Jesus and Mary, for we will then, one day, all be joined with the omnipresent Christ soul.  Christ is a plural word in the new era, and it always includes the potential in us to be Christ-conscious, Awakened people.

Fill Our Heart with Love

“The screams of the world, those echoes of the past that you still hear, are telling you in thousands of different ways:  Brother, do not deny me love.”  Choose Only Love:  Let Yourself Be Loved (COL bk.2, 14:II)

We do hear screams in the world right now, echoes of a past that was filled with anguish.  Perhaps we know that today is filled with anguish also. 

But there is an Answer, and it is the age-old response to worry and fretting—just fill our heart with love, and spread that love out on the world that we see.

If we love enough, there will be absolutely no space for fear and judgment.  According to A Course of Love, fear and judgment are the two impediments to Christ-consciousness.

We need to move into the next dimension of Christ-consciousness.  This will happen when we are so filled with love that anxieties have taken a back seat.

Yes, as hackneyed as it sounds, Love really IS the overwhelming Answer.  The screams of the world recede into nothingness when we are able to sense God’s Love for us.

He is ready and willing.  Are we?

Commit to Awakening

“The Way of Transformation is much simpler than you think.  But again, it rests on your decision to use time to be wholly committed to awakening from the narrow constraints you have placed upon your vast field of consciousness.  For no other reason than that it might be rather entertaining to allow this tiny little ray to continue in space and time for a while, while being aware of the totality of your Self and actually operating from that totality.”  (“The Way of Transformation,” WOM, Chapter 13, Page 160)

This quotation suggests that we have something to do with the timing of our Awakening.  God makes the decision, as A Course in Miracles tells us.  But we must remove the blocks to the awareness of love, the blocks of fear and judgment, as A Course of Love tells us.  This quotation, from The Way of Mastery, seems to say that if we let our consciousness expand, removing the constraints we have placed on it, we will make progress toward Awakening.  We might stay on this earth, in space and time, but we would draw on the larger Self who is beyond our little persona/personality.  This larger Self is merged not only with God, but with other people, too.  Our brothers and sisters are in this with us.

These thoughts demand some concentration.  If we can walk peacefully to a transformation, an Awakening or Christ-consciousness or enlightenment, we will be walking toward the goal of The Way of Mastery.  This is the next step in our evolution.  We need to take this next step.

Our world needs a comprehensive reawakening.  Let us focus on staying calm (no fears) and giving everyone some slack (being non-judgmental).  If we can do that much, we will have made progress that we may not even comprehend until the moment that we sense God’s presence in lifting us up into Awakening.

We Need Each Other

“The buildings, the automobiles you drive, the dollars in the bank—none of that is real.  These are merely symbols of the quality of experience you have chosen to call to yourself, as a temporary learning experience.

“Beloved friends, use time well.  Ask yourself:

“Am I fully committed to transforming my awareness from one who has been sleeping, and perceiving myself as limited to the space-and-time dimension, or am I committed to truly hearing my brother’s call to take up my cross and follow him?”  (“The Way of Transformation,” WOM, Chapter 13, Page 158)

The dollars in the bank, even when diminishing, are a temporary learning experience.  We want to cry out that it is all so unfair, that we didn’t call this to ourselves.  Yet we are caught in it.  And we have to make the best of a bad hand dealt to us.

In this ordeal, let us turn to our brother—whom we can imagine as Jesus or we can imagine as the one standing next to us in the flesh.  We need each other now more than we did last week.  And this will grow, perhaps, over time.  We need to awaken, even in the midst of our ordeal.  We have been asleep.  Now is the time to welcome the end of fear and judgment, and the beginning of wisdom, the glimmerings of Awakening.

We can turn this ordeal into a mixed blessing.  We can see our way home to God in and through it.

Expressing Mastery

“Expressing mastery is the effect of The Way of Transformation in this world, in this time, in this little tiny moment.  Rest assured, to the degree that you turn your attention to expressing mastery, to the degree that you use time wisely to be the embodied Christ, when the body drops away and it veils from you no longer the magnificence of the Light you are, the light will not be blinding to you.  You will not contract in fear.  You will merely let this world go gently and as easily as a child has put away a toy that has been outgrown, because its usefulness is complete.” (“The Way of the Heart,” WOM, Lesson 12, Page 145)

The way to Awakening, as developed in Jesus’ recent channeled works, is gentle in the extreme.  Previously, many individuals who awakened without this guidance were hurled into reality unawares.  A great shock.  But A Course in Miracles, A Course of Love, and The Way of Mastery (the last also known as the Christ Mind Trilogy) have prepared us well to make a gentle transition into enlightenment.

Moreover, we know what is happening to us.  In previous years, the people who were hurled into reality frequently then went on an anguished search to try to find out what had happened to them.  There was evidence in the Eastern religions, Buddhism and Hinduism (among others), but very little could be found in Christian writing.  Sufism, the mystical arm of Islam, also knew some understanding.  But Christianity was nearly left out, and even today, there is very little that is discussed in mainstream Christian teaching.

If we want Awakening, Christ-consciousness, enlightenment, we need to erase the barriers of fear and judgment.  Our awareness of what love means needs to be strong in our heart.

Our light needs to shine in this world.  Ask to be shown the way today.

Depth of a Perfect Silence

“I share with you the depth of a perfect silence. I share with you wisdom supreme. I abide as you are: the thought of Love in form. To be in form does not mean to be a body. It means only that the Christ Mind, which is the reality of Love’s existence, truly abides within each of us equally. If this were not so, you could not recognize me. When you read a word, or a sentence, or a paragraph that resonates within you as being the truth, you could not know it was so, if that Truth did not already live within you as the reality of your very existence.” (“The Way of the Heart,” WOM, Lesson 11, Page 135)

We are not actually learning anything new: We are “remembering.” This is a tenet of The Way of Mastery, that we don’t actually learn new things, that we are recalling to mind what was learned a very long time ago, and then forgotten, much to our detriment.

Our Truth is written on our heart. Not our mind. When we say this, everyone knows what we mean. The “heart” has a very definite point of understanding in our psyche. When we soften to listen to our heart, we want a smooth pathway back to our God. Our feet don’t stumble on stones, we don’t trip and fall. We just walk smoothly along a flower-strewn pathway. And we discover much on this peaceful and often slow journey.

We get impatient to get on with it. We want Awakening, and we want it now.

But this is not God’s way. He acts only when certain that WE are ready for the great responsibility of Christ-consciousness. Sitting as Christ for five minutes a day can speed the process, but still God probably acts in a much more measured pace than we would like. The slowness prompts patience, something sorely lacking in many of us.

Jesus, our leader, is offering us the chance to commune with our God in silence. In silence is how God speaks to us. Understanding Him is a “feeling” issue, and feelings belong to the heart. That is why turning to our heart for decisions is so important. Our ratio of mistakes to good decisions becomes much improved toward good decisions.

When in doubt, just ask for the loving response to be writ upon our heart. This way we won’t go astray as we walk back to God, letting Love heal the separation.

End of Our Journey Is Certain

“But I can promise you, if you will take up such a path—simply, joyfully, gently, patiently—the end of your journey is certain. If you choose a path filled with magic and many complex strategies, the end is not so certain. The way is easy and without effort:

“I am already that which I seek.

“I need only allow it to guide me.

“While this body lasts, I will allow it to be a communication device that extends the treasure of perfect Love, perfect safety, and perfect peace to all who enter my house.

“And your house is your field of energy, the expanse of your presence.” (“The Way of the Heart,” WOM, Lesson 10, Page 131)

Jesus is here warning against those who would seek to “teach” enlightenment through magical means. His way is simple; in fact, it is here already. We are just too blind to see.

We have only imagined that we walked away from, separated, from God. Actually separation from God is impossible, for He dwells within, with us being a part of Him. But we can imagine ourselves anyplace that we want; this is free will in action. Imagining that we no longer know God has occupied us for eons.

Has being without God been good for us? Has this imagination borne good fruit?

Of course not. Walking away from Him Who is our Center could only bring pain, pain that often turned into an illusory suffering. We think that we could exercise our free will only by refusing to be a part of God any longer. We don’t know what we have effected, for the very words are meaningless. We have retreated into madness.
Now we need a cleansed and healed mind. Let Jesus guide the way to our healing. Having taken the pathway himself, he is in the best position to help, especially when we can’t help ourselves at all. If we could heal the separation without aid, we would have done so long ago.

Extend Love to our house, our field of energy, and watch the mind emerge from darkness into light, into happiness.

Love Has Worked Its Magic

“Here, beloved friends, is the way to the Truth that sets you free. You must absolutely become wholly committed to being awake for no other reason than that you have realized you have no other choice. You have already made them all and they have only led to pain.” (“The Way of the Heart,” WOM, Lesson 10, Page 128)

We know that we have had pain in our lives; nobody has escaped it. It is particularly our choices that have led to pain that gives us the most cause for regret. We think, “If only I had not done that, then things would have been different!” We think if we had done something else, our pain would never have arisen.

But pain is a part of the human condition. Until there comes a time that we surrender, totally, to God, and in that surrender choose Love with all its ramifications. When we choose Love, we have made the only legitimate choice open to us. And this one choice is all that is required to heal our minds all the way to their depths. Over time, in the awakening process, the bad reactions that need healing come to the surface, and we surrender them, forgiving ourselves and others, including God, who come to mind. In this process, we are open to true Love.

And then the great Awakening comes, in God’s timing, not ours. But our Self, being a part of God, has had something to do with that timing. If we carry out the exercises that Jesus gives us in The Way of Mastery, we will speed along our healing. Then we become enlightened, Christ-conscious, individuals.

Is there much change? Not to others. We appear as we always have, and indeed, with no ego to protect, we may appear even more “ordinary.” Our humility masks what a great transformation we have undergone.

Our pain is gone. Oh, there may be a few physical twinges, but the emotional pain (which has been the most damaging to us) has been healed. Our minds are right with God. We know it, if nobody else does, for there comes a particular moment in time that we realize that all has changed.

Love has worked its magic. We are home in God.

Teach ONLY Love

“The wisest of students are those that hear the word and put it into practice, diligently, for themselves—not for their mother, not for their father, not for their spouse, not for their brother, not for their sister, not for the sake of the planet, not for the sake of the universe, not for the sake of the new dawn that is coming, not for the sake of anything but themselves. For their Self is what God created. And that Self calls out to you to honor it, by separating your Self from the illusions that you have allowed to make a home in your mind, and becoming wholly committed to teaching only Love.

“There is no other way. Yes, you can learn to sit in meditation and allow the mind and body to float free, to relax. Yes, you can learn rituals that help to focus your attention so that you remember what you are committed to, and the distractions of the world do not seem to quite catch you or hook you as much. There are many strategies that you can enjoy and experience. But in the end, it is only this: a quiet choice within that no one recognizes, that no one sees, that no one hears.” (“The Way of the Heart,” WOM, Lesson 10, Page 127)

Yes, living and teaching Love is the only way to awaken.

It is a simple choice. Jesus makes plain here that methods of stilling the mind in silence may help, time spent in meditation may help, but the real elixir is to just to love. Turn to the ones in our circle and love them. Then embrace the world as a whole, even those outside our circle.

The practice of loving will transform us, will grant us awakening. There is no other sure way.

We make this choice for ourselves, and perhaps saying this makes our choice sound selfish. But there is a more altruistic reason. We can control only ourselves, and even this we do imperfectly. We aren’t supposed to attempt to control those in our circle, and especially not our nearest and dearest, our significant others, including spouse, children, parents. They will resist our control, and for good reason. We simply have to let everyone walk their own path.

Our quiet choice of awakening has to embody the whole Self, and that Self includes God Himself. Our Self, a part of God, is the decision-maker. Elsewhere it is said that God makes the decision of when we are to experience Awakening, but we hold some of those cards ourselves. We walk along the pathway, in surrender to Him, and then, lo and behold, we have the great blessing descend upon us—first in snatches, and then continually.

We might seem to change to nobody else, but inwardly there will be a certainty that we have experienced something that we have wanted very much. We will still seem like ordinary people, social security numbers and street addresses and ID cards, but inwardly we will be very different indeed.

Bid that difference come to us today. But wait on God’s timing, in patience.

To Be In the World but Not of It

“In just this way, unenlightenment can be put away as though it were a toy that you have outgrown—by merely looking at all of the effects of unenlightenment , and then asking the question, ‘Is this what I wish to have continue as my experience? Or am I willing to put the doll on the windowsill, and pick up a book instead?’ A book that speaks of Life, a book that is filled with wisdom, a book that teaches you how to step lightly in the world, to be in the world but not of it.” (“The Way of the Heart,” WOM, Lesson 10, Page 125)

Jesus speaks in The Way of Mastery as though enlightenment were a decision of ours. But when we realize that we have God in our depths, that all, everywhere, is “God-stuff,” then the assertion makes more sense.

We cannot just “decide” for enlightenment, though. We need to heal the depths of our unconscious by forgiving each part of our psyche that has judged another. Forgive and be healed. It is just that simple.

Jesus was the only major religious figure to stress forgiveness. He knows something that can make quite a difference in our lives.

Let him speak to us today.

Is There Something We Can Do to Hurry Enlightenment?

“If your answer is, ‘No, I hear talk about enlightenment and I get little glimpses, but I don’t really know what it is because I’m not feeling it completely in my lived experience,’ right away you will know that there must be something that you have valued other than enlightenment that you are insisting remains in place in your consciousness. What is it? Search it out, find it and decide whether you still want it.” (“The Way of the Heart,” WOM, Lesson 9, Page 110)

Here we are getting guidance that there is something more that we can do to hurry enlightenment. We probably got the impression from A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love that we had to remove the blocks of fear and judgment, or nothing would happen—and we wondered how in the world we could actually do this.

Do we value something in our world that is different from enlightenment or Christ-consciousness or Awakening (all of which mean the same thing)? This quotation from The Way of Mastery seems to say that we must get our values in place before God can act to lift us up. Elsewhere WOM says that the subconscious mind must be cleansed, that all parts of it which limit God must be brought to the surface for understanding and then dismissal.

WOM is very direct in what it says. And when Jayem was channeling, live, in a kind of trance in which he did not know what was coming through, it is hoped that he was being surrounded by Jesus himself.

This passage gives hope. Let’s ask today what, if anything, in our lives seems more important than our ultimate salvation, the ultimate healing of our relationship to God. Let’s then ask that our confused values be healed.

Then and only then will we be in league with the quotation for today. Our way may just open so that God knows that it is safe to act with us to bring us into enlightenment. After all, we know from ACIM, ACOL, and WOM that it is God in our inner depths Who makes the decision of when we are ready for enlightenment.

Christ-consciousness

“Christ consciousness cannot be said to truly exist—for you—until you create it within yourself.” (“The Way of the Heart,” WOM, Lesson 9, Page 110)

We do create Christ-consciousness within ourselves, for this is where God is. And He makes the decision of when our subconscious mind and heart have been cleansed sufficiently for this blessing to descend upon us. We do remove the blocks of fear and judgment, ourselves; this comes from A Course of Love.

Can we hurry the process along? Yes, we can. When we turn to God more and more in our everyday life, we are hurrying the process along. When we meditate, we open a channel for His grace to pour into us.

But we already know these things. It is up to us to cultivate the mind slant that will invite Christ-consciousness to descend. Then, in a very important sense, it is out of our hands. If the way seems long, we must know that this idea might be wrong. There is much we simply do not know. But one thing we do know is that in this time of Christ, it is easier to reach Christ-consciousness.

We reach it from living in our everyday world, but with our heart in the clouds.

Jesus: “I Come because I Love You”

“I come because I love you. I come because I am your friend. . . .I come to abide with you to bridge the gap that seems to yet separate you from me.” (“The Way of the Heart,” WOM, Lesson 9, Page 106)

Jesus is here affirming that he comes to us because of love in his heart for us. It is akin to the reassurance, given in A Course in Miracles, that he will come to us upon hearing a “single, unequivocal call.”

Jesus does not want too much dependence in our relationship to him, though. He wants us to access our power, which is given us by God, Who dwells deep within. When our strength is diminished, he will comfort and console. But always he seeks to strengthen us by his presence, not to make us think that we are weak.

There seems to be a gap between Jesus and ourselves because he seems to have gone so far ahead of us. But he says elsewhere that there is nothing that he has that we cannot attain, and even go further. Yet, still, while we are in this world, he is our “big brother,” always there to cheer us on, to lead us gently and with compassion.

In A Course of Love, Jesus ceases to be our teacher, and becomes just the companion that we have long wished to have. He is our partner in this enterprise of Awakening and moving into Christ-consciousness. This is the next step for us, and his careful channeling in several works has paved the way for us to have this next step in our evolution.

We are heading back to God, Whom we actually never left.

Eat Only Good Fruit to Heal the Separation from God

“No one ever told you, and your Creator never insisted, that you eat of the tree of good and evil. For all good fruit has been given you freely. And you are always free to choose which fruit you will eat thereof.” (“The Way of the Heart,” WOM, Lesson 8, Page 103)

Here The Way of Mastery, which many believe was channeled by Jesus, he says that Genesis in the Bible got it wrong. We didn’t have to eat “apples” of the tree of good and evil; that was a misunderstanding. In terms of the recently channeled works, we see that separation from God was never foreordained; we could have done it differently. But now we are to eat only good fruit, which means that we are to heal the separation, something that the Holy Spirit or the Christ-Self prepares us for.

How do we heal the (illusory) separation? We go within and commune with our God Who lives in our depths. We have never been externalized, something that we have long misunderstood. We remove the blocks to the awareness of love, as another channeled work, The Course of Love, says. These blocks are fear and judgment, something that is within our power, with help, to turn aside from.

Let’s turn aside from fear and judgment today. Of course, this is easier said than done, and it is impossible unless we turn to our depths. We simply turn, with our awareness, inward, over and over, asking and receiving help.

Eventually we heal the subconscious depths. As each negativity is brought to the surface, we heal because we have the knowledge of what is holding us back. We walk into the sunlight with God, Jesus holding our hand.

There is no better way to live. When the time is right, God Himself will reach down and us up into enlightenment, Awakening, Christ-consciousness—all words for the same ineffable transformation.

In the meantime, we will catch glimpses of Awakening, and these will happen when we are in a particularly receptive frame of mind/heart. Then the glimpses will elongate, and God Himself will act to take us unto His heart with transformation.

Healed in Mind, Body, Spirit

Healing requires the willingness to feel desire, to see it as good and to see it as holy. (“The Way of the Heart,” WOM, Chapter 4, Page 46)

We are in charge. We can listen to guidance, and thereby give up at least some of the control. But we remain in the driver’s seat. What we say goes, for we are creating our reality.

Of course, it is best if we open to guidance, the Holy Spirit, the Christ Self, the Higher Self, God. We simply are not aware enough, in our finite minds, of all that we need to do to create the best reality. We are limited that way.

We know too much to let the ego rule, and that is why we no longer seek guidance of this false persona. True, we can lapse into egoic thinking, and thereby lose our way, but do we really want to risk this? I think not. We want to be healed in mind, body, spirit. And our desire to be healed fuels the changes that we need to make in order to be healed.

Healing is, ultimately, Awakening, enlightenment, Christ-consciousness. Before we reach that milestone, we will see glimpses of what that mellow, heartwarming state of being really is. We will be led, ever so gently. It isn’t as though we will be hurled into reality, and this is something that A Course in Miracles makes plain. Our pathway will be gentle, though of course, because we are fallible, there will be some bumps along the way. Nobody, well, almost nobody, escapes the ego in one fait accompli. Escaping the ego is a gradual process.

Ask for healing today. Know that when we ask, the healing is already on the way. God has just been waiting for this opening.

Divinely Selfish (and What It Means)

“If you ever want to come home, you are going to have to become very, very divinely selfish. You are going to have to become so selfish that you will not tolerate judgment in yourself—of anyone or anything. Because you will begin to recognize that every such act catapults you to the other side of the universe from where you want to be.” (“The Way of the Heart,” WOM, Chapter 3, Page 33)

When we are “divinely” selfish, we know that all of us are in this together. We don’t give ourselves less attention than we shower on another. We know that it is in our best interests to give up judgment—for the sake of ourselves. Because we are all One, giving up judgment becomes in the best interests of everybody else as well.

Jesus shocks us with the word “selfish.” But when we know that all of us are of the same nature, the Oneness draws us to a new understanding, an understanding that all that is right for us is also right for other people, indeed for the whole world.

Judgment prevents enlightenment, Christ-consciousness or Awakening, from happening to us. The Way of Mastery was designed to catapult us into enlightenment. Jesus actually holds out hope that all the world can join us in this ineffable state. He has never before attempted to bring all of us to this state, en mass.

Be divinely selfish. Know that what works for one, works for all. And what is loving to one, is loving for all.

Let Love guide our way.

Our Experiences Are Stepping Stones Home

“The very thought that you would claim as your own from which you have created the world of your own personal experience is also literally the result of your prayer to awaken. And the Father is creating—assisting you to create—just those experiences as stepping stones that carry you from where you are to where God is.” (“The Way of the Heart,” WOM, Chapter 3, Page 31)

Yes, stepping stones show us the way. The way to where God is. And these stepping stones are smooth and stable so that we don’t dash a foot against a stone, causing a tumble.

When we create our personal experience, that personal experience shows us the way to awaken. Our prayer to know what to do is all that it takes. God does the rest. That is an unequal contribution, and perhaps we think that somehow, in some way, we need to do more.

This is a false thought. We need, as A Course in Miracles says, only a “little willingness.” God does the rest, ALL the rest. Our unequal contributions from the Holy Spirit, and from ourselves, have nonetheless accomplished what seemed impossible.

We are home, in God’s arms, at last.

Healing from Within

“You are literally creating everything you choose and nothing is forced upon you.

“Now we are going to take that thought just a little deeper for a moment. It literally means that if you have decided you want to awaken, you have already called to yourself every experience that can truly best serve your awakening. The friends, family and people you have relationships with are those who likewise can best gain from the experiences elicited through relationship with you. It means that right here and right now you are already demonstrating the power that you are seeking—the power to truly choose to awaken, and to command the whole of creation to serve you in that awakening.” (“The Way of the Heart,” WOM, Chapter 3, Page 30.)

We seem to have something to do with our Awakening. This is a step beyond what we were told in A Course in Miracles, when we were told the fact that God makes the decision, and we must simply wait. We were told, of course, that we can remove the blocks to the awareness of love, and this will make a huge difference.

The Way of Mastery stresses that each subconscious thought and feeling must be brought to the surface of the mind to be healed. We can aid in this process, and thus have a more direct influence upon when the Awakening for each of us occurs.

We are surrounded with everything that will prompt our Awakening. We have always been.

We are particularly surrounded by relationships that are mutually helpful. And we have always been.

The Way of Mastery is designed to lead us to Awakening. That is its stated purpose. We can contrast this to A Course in Miracles, which was designed to dislodge the ego; and A Course of Love, which was designed to establish a new identity. But all three recently channeled works do work together, for their message is the same—heal the illusory separation from God, and rejoin His fold.

Christ-consciousness Realized

“All that I will be sharing with you, not just in this lesson, but in this course, has as its final goal your complete Christed consciousness and the fulfillment of what your own soul desires.” (“The Way of the Heart,” WOM, Chapter 3, Page 27)

The purpose of the Way of Mastery (Christ Mind Trilogy)! Jesus is doing what he can to lead us to Awakening, and in the Way of Mastery he articulates this more clearly than in either A Course in Miracles or A Course of Love. His purposes there were slightly different: In ACIM, to dislodge the ego; in ACOL, to establish a new identity.

But in The Way of Mastery, he goes right to the heart of our trouble: the need to awaken, to move toward Christ-consciousness or enlightenment. He cannot awaken us directly, but he can direct our minds and hearts to remove the barriers to enlightenment that have prevented this blessing from descending upon us. God takes this action, as ACIM said. And we ourselves can do much to cooperate with Jesus in removing the barriers that we have placed in the way.

This is the fulfillment of what our soul has longed to have. The fulfillment that will turn meekness into a treasured way of being for all souls. This is a not a cast-down meekness, but a gentleness of spirit that will make all things, all things, right. It will be a meekness such as the man Jesus embodied when he was on earth.
This gentleness of spirit will give us the joy that we crave, the joy in Awakening that we have known is out there, waiting for us.

First Step in Awakening

“The first step in awakening is to allow into the mind this axiom of truth:
“Nothing that you experience is caused by anything outside of you. You experience only the effects of your own choice.” (“The Way of the Heart,” WOM, Chapter 1, Page 5)

We are in the driver’s seat, in that our projection is out-pictured as perception. This is all that we see in forming our world, reaching from deep within, often seeing what we want to see. Of course, this wanting is not on the level of the personality, but the soul, the inner Christ-Mind, Who is a learning being for a long time as this Self seeks to know God.

Much of the entire Way of Mastery is geared to one mission: to awaken as many people as possible, as soon as possible. So it makes sense that Jesus would explain what he is about right at the beginning of the first book, “The Way of the Heart.” If we follow Jesus’s instructions throughout The Way of Mastery (i.e., the Christ Mind Trilogy), we will be led to unwrap our subconscious mind, bring it up to the surface, and heal. This is what we are about. And everyone is blessed with a different subconscious, and so the way back to God differs for each of us.

Our own choice can be a choice for God in all things. This will immediately bless us with a harmony in our dealings with others that we have never known before. This harmony will be experienced in our minds and hearts as peace, the peace that passeth understanding.

Choose wisely. We must. We must try to get our world back on track.

Awake Beings in the Image of God

“Consciousness was the first split that you introduced into yourself. You became a perceiver rather than a creator in the true sense. Consciousness is correctly identified as the domain of the ego. Jung was right indeed in insisting that the ego is not the self, and that the self should be regarded as an achievement. He did not recognize (a term we now understand) that the achievement was God’s. In a sense, the ego was a self-made attempt to perceive yourself as you wished, rather than as you are. This is an example of the created/Creator confusion we spoke of before. You can only know yourself as you are, because that is all you can be sure of. Everything else is open to question.” (ACIM, COA ed., T-3.VI.4:1-9)

When we made the ego, we also made an authority problem, confusing created with Creator, trying to make of ourselves someone who was different from what God wanted. We thought we had succeeded, and we did, in a way, for eons. But as time has passed, and we have suffered greatly at our own hands, we have come to know that chasing illusions is a false pathway. Bottom line, we can never actually be anyone other than who God created. We have to walk that solid line back to Him. We know better now, know that what we have made is decayed and ill-advised. Suffering, our lot in life when we are consumed by the ego, is not worth the price that we pay. Who really wants suffering, even at the cost of rebellion from our Creator?

The only way that we can thrive is to remain the created that we are, Sons and Daughters of the Divine, a blessing to all whom we love. We can know this accurate picture of ourselves only when we do love, for love is the great eye-opener. We drop the insane idea that we cannot will for ourselves what God wills, ridiculously sure that we must want something else. In actuality, in true reality, our will and God’s will are identical, for He lives through us. And He is not insane.

Let God’s direction infuse our life with real purpose. Loose the ego from clutched hands. We can never know peace until we understand that we are the created, that we did not create ourselves. We did, it is true, “make” ourselves over in an image that is not sustainable. But that is all. And when we let the ego go, we will realize that now we know in a way that previously was closed to us. We know who we were intended to be, Christ-conscious, awake beings in the image of God.

Awakened Living

“Discovering your own relationship with me is discovering the Christ in you. When you have discovered your own relationship with me is when you have discovered that you are who I Am because you realize—or make real—your oneness with Christ. When you have discovered your own relationship with me is when an intermediary is no longer needed—because you have realized and made real your oneness with Christ.” (ACOL, D:Day39.10)

This is a mystical relationship we enjoy with Jesus, one that we can make real in our lives and can take literally. He has promised us in A Course in Miracles to come to us at the point of a “single, unequivocal call.” While we don’t understand how this is possible, we can step out in faith and believe that something is happening when our heart is warmed by a presence that seems not of this world. It may be Jesus.

We are giving up the Holy Spirit as intermediary, because we are moving into our Christ-Self, where no intermediary is needed (or even wanted). When we live in Christ-consciousness (enlightenment, Awakening), we will know the truth of what Jesus is telling us. We will know that God is here for us, always present, always living through us to provide a rich and full life, and what more could we ask for?

Be alert for the signs of increasing evidence that God is looking out for us. Of course, He has always been doing this, but it meant naught to us when we were unaware.

We are no longer unaware. And the awareness of love that we enjoy now could not have happened without our attention to our relationship to God.

This closer walk with God is what Jesus has been leading us toward. And our gratitude for the blessings in our lives that Jesus has helped to bring about will make all the difference.

Dear God,

Thank You for always being here with me. I very much appreciate it. I know that gratitude makes a difference in our universe, and gratitude is what I feel in my heart today.

Help me to actualize my wishes, the good ones only. Help me to thank Jesus properly for leading the way.

Amen.

Crown Us with Enlightenment

“If you do not realize that you have learned all that you need to learn, you will retain the consciousness of the separated self rather than sustaining Christ-consciousness.” (ACOL, D:2.8)

Jesus gives us a warning in the quotation for today. If we still think that we need to seek, continually looking for “something” in ever-widening circles, we won’t realize that we have actually found. Found Christ-consciousness. It is the separated self, even when it has gotten beyond the ego, that does us in. It is the separated self who knows not what it does.

So know that we have found, in these final pages of A Course of Love. We don’t need to keep turning to wisdom outside ourselves. We turn inward, a point that this blog made yesterday. We turn to the Christ-Self for the guidance that we have previously sought in books. The learned wisdom of the past.

How does this work? The Way of Mastery indicates that we need to unveil all damaged parts of the subconscious mind, bring these parts up for perusal, and then in the process of bringing these hidden parts to the light of day, we are healed. Everyone’s subconscious is different, and so it means that learned wisdom of others won’t do it for us. We need our own wisdom, the wisdom of the Self, a Self that I believe comes from the Unconscious, a deeper part than just the subconscious. The Unconscious is God Himself, and our Self is the part of Him who we can come to know. It is not hard to do, but very natural.

We need to spend time in solitude, contemplating and musing over our lives. This will invite the subconscious to the surface, and, after this, it is an easy step to Christ-consciousness, a step that Jesus says in channeled writings to be a step taken by God Himself. All three channeled writings that I am consulting—A Course in Miracles, A Course of Love, and The Way of Mastery—all say the same thing: It is God Who makes this decision about our readiness for enlightenment, Christ-consciousness, Awakening.

We can ask for a speedup, and this is in God’s will. An acceleration. And if we are diligent to follow the promptings from deep within, we will have that acceleration. But we must give up fear and judgment, planning and attack. We have to go through a purification process, though we have truly always been innocent of wrongdoing. We didn’t think we were innocent, though, and so guilty feelings need to surface from within. Then this guilt can be healed, and with the healing of guilt comes the great blessing of Christ-consciousness.

Be ready today to accept all glimpses of Christ-consciousness that come in calm and peace. Asking for ultimate salvation is definitely in God’s will, and He will act to crown us with enlightenment at the earliest indication that we are indeed ready.

Prayer

Thank You for the calm that overtakes me today. I would extend this glimpse of enlightenment into something more sustainable. I know that I ask in Your will. Help me to eliminate judgment and fear from my emotions and my acts. Help me to be grateful, to You, for the many blessings that are mine.

And may I never entertain thoughts that are egoic. I would be finished with egoism in all its forms. It never brought me anything good, and I would seek only the good today.

Amen.