Jesus’ Questions

“What do I need to let go of?  How deep can my self-honesty go?

“How wide can my compassion for life spread?

“What actions am I actually taking in this world?

“What am I defending?  What am I afraid of?

“Am I willing to become so powerful a conduit for Christ that I take on responsibility for the atonement and tell Jeshua to move aside?”  (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Lesson 22, Page 268)

Jesus shows a sense of humor when he channels, live, in The Way of Mastery.  Jesus’ sense of humor here is representative of occasions in the rest of the book.  Here, of course, Jesus is using his other name, the name he is said to have used 2,000 years ago, Jeshua.  He does need our hands and feet to save the world, but certainly he won’t be stepping aside.  And neither could we succeed in his work in the world if he did.

The questions are quite helpful to self-reflection.  Take them one at a time, and see what they show about us.  They will take us toward giant leaps in our progress toward Awakening.  I see that Jesus mentions compassion, which always comes before love when we are walking the pathway back to God.

When we let go of the things that we know are holding us back, there is no limit to how much we can help Jesus.

How We Look upon Our Brother is How We Look upon Ourselves

“To look upon the fear of God does need some preparation.  Only the sane can look on stark insanity and raving madness with pity and compassion, but not with fear.  For only if they share in it does it seem fearful, and you do share in it until you look upon your brother with perfect faith and love and tenderness.”  (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-19.IV.D.11)

Here we are encouraged to look upon our brother with forgiveness wrought of faith, love, tenderness.  He deserves no less, and neither do we, for how we look upon our brother is how we look upon ourselves.  There is no difference.

We see God as we see ourselves, and we are lost in insanity, and therefore we fear God, for somehow we think that He too is lost in insanity.  It is not true.  But we have to recognize that we need to be sane to see God clearly.  And we are heading in that direction, toward sanity.

We have long been insane, lost in madness.  It does not have to be so, it does not have to remain so.  We can step away from madness just as much as have wallowed in it for eons.  Now is our time.  Now is the time to turn away from insanity.  Then we will finally see God clearly as the God of Love that He truly is.

When we look on our brother with compassion, we also look upon ourselves with compassion.  Nothing else is right for either of us.  But as long as we are lost in egoic fear, the way will seem long and, indeed, impossible.

It is not impossible.  Just let a little love into our lives, and we quickly see that this other way, the better way, is what we have been looking for all of our lives.

Seek the love tomorrow, the compassion, the sanity.

We will be richly rewarded.

Drowned in Perpetual Ecstasy

“Sweet son!  Sweet daughter!  If you were aware of the ocean of love that gushes uncontrollably from my core and flows towards you, you would be drowned in perpetual ecstasy and you could not stay alive in the body.”  COL bk.2, 16:I

This statement is attributed to Mary, from Choose Only Love.  The statement exudes with love, overflowing love from a full heart. 

We can ask to accept such love in our depths, and this will make all the difference.  We need simply to open to the experience, to dwell on the positive, to drop our worries and concerns and realize that there are other entities who look out for us and bless us.

Mary’s statement is heartwarming in the extreme.  It is a way home to God.  Knowing that the mother of Jesus, chosen by God for that experience, wishes us well, is a great blessing.

Open our mind and heart a bit, and realize that this may just be the truth, to hear from Mary in the dailiness of our lives.

Compassion

“Compassion is what will make you able to integrate your human nature with God.”  COL bk.2, 15:III

I have never read this statement anywhere else in recent channeled writings—that compassion will integrate us with God.  But I can believe it, for compassion is an explication of love.  It gives us something to cling to when times are tough.  It gives us the right attitude toward our brothers and sisters in this world.

I think compassion is particularly potent when we have anger.  The way to transmute anger is to realize compassion toward the one who seems to be giving us grief.  Thich Nhat Hanh says a great deal about this in his classic book entitled, simply, Anger.  If we realize that the one who attacked us is suffering as we are, our anger at the attack will dissolve, and in its place will be compassion, which is healing.

But Choose Only Love takes this concept farther along.  We actually “integrate” our human nature with God when we exhibit compassion.  And who among us does not want this?  We want to be One with God, as He intended. 

It is not hard to give compassion the highest place in our mind and heart.  All of us deserve compassion when we slip up and hurt another person in our circle.  We deserve to give compassion to ourselves, which will lead us to forgive ourselves.  And then we turn this compassion outward, to the one who has hurt us, and then forgiveness heals.

Meditate a bit on compassion today.  I think we will find gems there, gems that will enhance our living.

Delights of Love

“The delights of love are tenderness, purity, affability, sincerity, integrity, nobility, and compassion.  Gather them all.   Hold them always in your hands, and walk the path of life, carrying the bouquet of flowers that God himself has given you. . . .”  COL bk.2, 15:II

A couple of these adjectives to describe love are new to channeled writing, namely, affability and nobility.  Let’s see what might be meant by these two new words.

Affability is an open attitude with a relaxed manner.  When we exhibit affability, we are warm to our brothers and sisters in this world.  We don’t take offense.  We accept.  We are easy to get along with.  We don’t stress and strain.  We live and let live.

Nobility is perhaps best understood as an attribute of our being when we have moved into Christ-consciousness.  It is not an egoic attribute, therefore, though we may have previously thought that we were better than others, and this is a form of believing in nobility.  Nobility in Christ-consciousness is different; there is no hint of egotism.  We carry ourselves well in this world, knowing that we are Sons and Daughters of God.

We are warned in A Course of Love not to form images of ourselves.  And so there is implied here a warning not to “attempt” to develop qualities of mind and heart just because they are good qualities.  An image is an idol.  This attempt smacks of egoism.

There is a way that we can incorporate these characteristics without forming images.  In the right way, we don’t “try” so hard to be something that we are not, or something that we have not yet become.  We let personality change evolve.  We are patient.

Today let us contemplate these virtues of personality, keeping in mind that we don’t want to give the ego another carrot stick to aid its continued development. 

Let us instead ask in prayerful consideration how we might incorporate all that is good into our very Self.  We will then hold God’s bouquet.

Forgiveness from the Compassion of Our Heart

“Forgiveness, which replaces judgment, must come from your heart. To forgive based on the logic of your mind rather than the compassion of your heart is to only give thought to forgiveness. This many of you will give, even to deciding to forgive despite your better judgment. See you not how little sense this makes, how insincere this even sounds?” (ACOL, C:17.16)

We are told in A Course of Love that to reach Christ-consciousness, we must give up fear and judgment, for these are incompatible with God. This quotation for today tells us how to give up judgment. Replace judgment with forgiveness! And be sure to forgive from the heart, or the heart is a place that doesn’t have to have “good” reasons to forgive. The heart knows that love is the only answer. Our mind, especially when still influenced by the ego, will try to incorporate judgment into forgiveness. It is this last attempt at incorporation of judgment into forgiveness that decides to “forgive despite your better judgment.” And it is clear that Jesus takes a dim view of such mental shenanigans.

We do want to make sense; we do want to be sincere. And the mixing of judgment and forgiveness is an ego’s dream, unlikely to achieve the desired result. Turn to our heart when we are confronted by analysis of the mind that thinks in such a convoluted way. Our heart will not lie to us. Our heart will show us the way home.

And forgiveness is the antidote to judgment. They are polar opposites, as we can tell by simply defining the two. All of us want Christ-consciousness, or enlightenment or Awakening, and we want it sooner rather than later. Our glimpses of Christ-consciousness (which usually come first) will show us what attitude of thought is necessary to maintain, and ultimately, sustain this new state. Our glimpses let us know that a mellow spirit, a thankful heart, and a receptive spirit all invite a glimpse.

Let us invite glimpses of Christ-consciousness today. And if any judgment seeks to intervene between us and our greatest desire, let us banish that judgment forthwith—with forgiveness.

We Have a Loving and Compassionate God

“Remember, the heart must abide in the reality where you think you are. Only through your mind’s acceptance of your new reality has the heart been freed to exist in the new reality that is the state of unity and relationship.” (ACOL, Treatise on the New, 4.16)

Jesus stresses “unity and relationship” repeatedly in A Course of Love, so much so that we are apt to forget what he is really saying. We are One with All, but we are differentiated into parts, and these parts have relationship with each other. This includes everything, living and dead, but Jesus usually refers just to living things when he talks.

Our mind has been tutored by the heart, and therein a change has taken place. No longer egoic, the mind now joins with the trusting and loving heart to form what Jesus calls “wholeheartedness.” Our mind has thus accepted a new reality, and this new reality we all know in the fullness of unity and relationship.

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“As your natural state returns to you through a heart and mind joined in unity, your body too will exist or abide within this natural state. It cannot help to, as it, just like your heart, exists in the state or reality in which you think you are. The only thing that has created an unreal reality for your heart and body has been the inability of the mind to join the truth with your conscious awareness.”

Our bodies are form, but they too join with us in unity and relationship. We heretofore lived in illusion, and there is some question about whether the physical is still illusion once we have reached Christ-consciousness, are seeing with new eyes, and living with unity and relationship. Certainly we have the reality of harmony, joy, peace, certainty, in a way that has been denied us previously. And these intangible blessings are not illusion.

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“Your heart knows the reality of this truth, knows that this new reality is real and different from the reality of old. Ideally, mind and heart in union together accept this new reality and, with this acceptance, the heart is freed to dwell in the house of the Lord, the new world, the Kingdom that has already been prepared and so needs no preparation.” (ACOL, Dialogues, 1.6)

We are encouraged, once we have reached this new level of salvation, to accept our new reality. The heart, in particular, we see, is dwelling in the house of the Lord, of the House of Truth. And we are living in the new Kingdom of God. We don’t have to prepare to live in this kingdom, for it is our inheritance, saved for us for the days beyond which we will walk without the ego’s dragging us backward.

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“Like all that was taught within this Course, this is a matter of all or nothing. You cannot accept part of one reality and part of another. You cannot accept, for instance, the compassionate and loving benevolence of the universe, of God, of the All of All, and still accept the reality of lack. You cannot accept that in the reality of unity all things come to you without effort or striving except money.” (ACOL, Dialogues, Day 3, 3.59)

Jesus talks about money in A Course of Love; he gets very practical. We can even, in the new reality, have financial means without effort or striving. If this seems to be “pie in the sky” thinking, reflect upon who it is who is saying this. And most of us trust Jesus to know what he is talking about.

We do not have to accept lack. The Kingdom of God, the House of Truth, is compassionate and loving. It bodes no ill for us. And in this new day, we find new ways to improve our financial situation, new ways that don’t include a struggle. Be alert to intuitive glimpses of what to do, where to be, and what to say. These will lead you to financial independence and a new day in money, so that lack is no more. We have learned all that we need to learn from lack. The universe is prompting us now to rest in its beneficence.