Humanity & Divinity Will Now Embrace

“Your humanity will be completely absorbed in that which is beyond all human thought, while remaining what it is.  Humanity and divinity will now embrace, establishing a new bond of love linking the Supreme Source with the nature of the human.  And with that we will become increasingly aware of a union that is above all union, and includes them all.

“Beloved mirror of wisdom!  What a joy it is to be able to sing with you a new song every morning, every sunset, and every night.”  Choose Only Love bk. 6, 1:II

Book 6 of Choose Only Love is taking us beyond simply Awakening.  Our humanity and our divinity, as we read in this quotation, will now embrace.  We are evolving further, with God’s help.  We are becoming the Self Who touches God.

We will naturally move to praise when we experience this new beginning.  Our little mind cannot comprehend all the glories that God will bestow on us.  We are speechless as a result.

God’s wisdom will become a part of what we experience.  We will know more about Divinity than we have ever known before.  Indeed, it is not overstating to know that He will be sharing His Godhead with us.

There is a reason that we were born in the physical on earth.  Each of us has a different mission, though there will be similarities.  Ask today to know what we are individually called to do.  Ask today to know what we are individually called to think.  God’s infusion into our mind and heart will be complete.

God’s Help

“When you ask God to help you with this or that, you are consciously joining the part of you that is divine.”  Choose Only Love bk.3, 11:II

I ask God for help just a lot. And this quotation says that I am joining with Him, with His divinity that is deep within me.

Most of us don’t recognize that we are joining with a part of our Self when we join with God. But He is not separate from us. He is everywhere, and He is within all of us. We are One with Him and all others, all that has been created. The universes are One.

It is OK to beseech Heaven with requests for help. We have finite minds and hearts that are only now just coming into loving in a big way. We don’t know it all. God will gift us with intuitive thoughts from the silence in which He dwells. And He will warm our hearts while informing our minds. We will be much better off.

Don’t feel that we have to go it alone. The God Who dwells within us knows all, sees all, and can let us know the right way to proceed. His love for us does all this for us.

Jesus’ Humanity

“I loved My humanity and I still love it.  The human nature that the Father gave Me is eternal.  I am fully man and fully God, always—likewise with Mary, Heavenly Mother of all men and women of all times.”  Choose Only Love bk.3, 8:III

Jesus is giving us a reason not to turn against our humanity—because he hasn’t.  He is saying that he is fully human and fully divine, just as traditional Christianity says.

Is it too much to realize that we too have a divine nature, a human nature as well as a divine one?  Jesus has told us elsewhere that there is nothing he has that is unwelcome for us.  We are equals (though he has walked farther ahead than have we).  We are of the same nature.

Likewise, Jesus here brings in Mary, who is his soulmate.  We will find as we read further in Choose Only Love that God too has a feminine nature.  God is revealed as a God of both the masculine and the feminine.  His nurturing manner is an aspect of the feminine, often more so than in the masculine.

So our human natures will be eternal also.  Definitely we don’t want to denigrate the human by wishing for an otherworldly nature to the exclusion of the human. 

Our divinity will inform our humanness.  And then we will be fully whole.

In Peace with the Divine

“Imagine then, being able to experience whatever arises without losing the sense of spaciousness, innocence and ease that you now experience in fleeting moments. For instance, know you the experience when things are going well, you are singing a happy tune, and life seems to be moving ahead? Imagine that same quality of trust, faith, and certainty of purpose, even when the buildings are crumbling around you and the bank account has gone dry. Imagine being able to look at those events with the same sense of innocence and wonder with which you would look into the eyes of your beloved.” (“The Way of the Heart,” WOM, Chapter 2, Page 17)

Surely this time of no time, when we are just flowing along, has been glimpsed by all of us in moments of enlightenment. The problem is that these moments, for most of us, do not last. Yet they promise a future that will be unlike the past, they promise one long stretch of time spent awakened. The glimpses that we have all seen just prepare us for a taste of the time divine.

We need to empty ourselves of our preoccupations to invite a glimpse of something better. This creates the spaciousness that Jesus refers to; this creates the joy and the happy tune that we would sing always. When we open ourselves, in emptiness, we are inviting the Holy Spirit or the Christ-Mind, to fill us up to overflowing.

We will have our wish, sooner or later. When we meet the conditions set by God, He will act. He will reach down (metaphorically) for us, raising us up to a high level that we have not been able to appreciate earlier. We didn’t think we deserved this high level. But as beloved children of God, this is our birthright. This is what has been waiting for us since the “separation” took hold, the illusory separation in which all of us have found a home.

Look for our real home today. Invite Jesus to bend low to us, and lift us up. God will do the rest.

We have nothing to fear.

Union of Human & Divine = New State of Being

“The temporary experience has been elongated because of the appeal of the physical experience. What this Treatise is saying to you is that if the physical experience appeals to you, and if you create the union of the human and the divine as a new state of being, this choice will be eternally yours. It will be a choice of your creation, a creation devoid of fear. It will be a new choice.” (ACOL, T4:4.18)

Here, in A Course of Love, Jesus says a very startling thing: that we might choose to live in physical form forever, that we might occupy physical bodies forever. But he doesn’t mean immortality of any given physical form or body, and so it is certain that he is talking about reincarnation.

Previously, in A Course in Miracles, Jesus counseled those of us who might discuss ACIM with others, not to take a stand on reincarnation, unless we were with like-minded people. It would only be a distraction, and the ego was enough to handle. But in both A Course of Love and The Way of Mastery, Jesus does not seem to have such scruples. He implies quite strongly that we live different lives. And, we might imagine, many of us will have much to do over the millions of years that it will take for all of us to heal the illusory separation from God. (The “millions of years” are from ACIM.)

So we have work to do, and if Jesus’s elevated Self of form can be a new creation, we can feel better about our place on earth, our place to do this work.

Of course, we are surrounded by entities—including angels—who help us. We are never alone in the tasks set before us. And we are directly told not to attempt to recruit others to our way of thinking—unless and until they ask and are willing to see what we have seen. We are promised that we will be ordinary people living extraordinary lives, and that this very phenomenon will draw others to us. We will not be suffering, as many did in the past. We can put suffering behind us, and in this we will be well-supported.

The revelation in this passage is particularly important. Its promise is arresting to us. Can we really be happy encased in physicality for eons in the present and future? Jesus’s assertion seems to make it so; we will be happy.

Edgar Cayce, a psychic from the last century, said that many of us are “Sons of God” who came to earth to save the “daughters of men.” Of course, this is sexist language, but Edgar belonged to a different time and place. We say today that “Sons and Daughters” of God seek to release the “sons and daughters of men and women.” And we can be tantalized by Edgar’s assertion.

Salvation is the greatest gift that we can make of our lives. Many people are hurting; perhaps we ourselves are still hurting. Let God answer our needs; let Him do the healing. And then may the Christ-Self direct our many busy doings in the course of a day.

The way is clear. And the work becomes something that more closely resembles play. Salvation, as Jesus outlines it in ACOL, is effortless as well as limitless. Ask for help to our part to play this day. And be reassured that the Answer will come sooner rather than later.

Prayer

Give me the stamina today to walk an easeful pathway back to You, always back to You. I know that salvation is meant to be easy, that seriousness is of the ego—the ego that I have turned from. Help me to do the part that you would point out to me, today.

May this day develop into a peaceful one. May my walk through this day be all that You would wish it to be.

Amen.

Choose Peace to Have a Divine Experience

“This is temptation. The temptation of the human experience. This is what you continue to choose over the Peace of God. This is not a right or wrong choice but it is a choice. It is your free will to continue to make this choice.

“You used your free will to choose the human experience. Now are you willing to use it to choose the Peace of God instead? Can you wholeheartedly choose peace? Can you choose peace long enough to become accustomed to joy without sorrow? If you cannot, you will continue to create hell as well as heaven and will continue the separation between the divine and the human. Is heaven worth enough to you to give up hell?” (ACOL, 10.4 – 10.5)

When we want to cling to the highs and lows of the human experience, we choose what can never bring us satisfaction. But this is not a “right or wrong” choice; it is simply a choice. And the rightness or wrongness of our decision is not at stake. We do have free will.

We can choose hell for ourselves. While this is never God’s choice for us, He knows that we have made a veritable hell in this beautiful world. And if we don’t alter our decisions, the hell we have experienced on earth in the past will continue right into the future. Would we really choose this because we don’t want to heal the separation from God?

If we experiment a little, we will see that the Peace of God is infinitely preferable to the highs and lows of dramatic thoughts and actions in this world. Choose this day to BE perfectly calm and quiet, to turn over the hassles of the day to the One Who knows how to untangle our affairs. And at the end of the day, look back and meditate a bit on what has transpired. We won’t have let a perfectly calm and quiet day, but, if we gave it some thought and some prayer, we will have let a more peaceful life than is our custom. And are we happier? Do we feel more at ease with our Maker? Do we see the benefit in choosing heaven, in choosing the peak experiences that can be ours, purely without the drama of an egoic high?

Today is a good day to experiment. See if you want a “Zen” day. This is an Eastern concept, but Eastern concepts have made their way into the mainstream of our culture. A Zen-like day is one that is lived lightly, with egoic seriousness gone from our activities. Living a Zen day will mean that we do choose to be perfectly calm and quiet more often than not. And Zen will encourage us to turn to God when things threaten to become rancorous once again.

Create a good day by turning to God first in the morning. Ask Him to guide our steps. He always answers, and the Answer we receive today, being in His Will, will prepare us for the unfolding of a better present and future.

Prayer

I would be Zen today, perfectly calm and quiet, resting in Your peace and Your love. Nothing avails so much as Your love, and if I am careful to extend the love that You have given to me, I will be extending the best that I have in me to my brothers and sisters on earth. I would extend love today. I ask that You give me the forbearance to stifle anger and attack, and give outwardly only love.

The peace that I feel when I am in league with You is greater than any rancor that might mark my day. Being One with You is a great blessing. Knowing that I am One with You is a great blessing.

May my words reach people’s hearts today.

Amen.

Union of the Human & the Divine

“My resurrection brought about the Word made flesh in each of you. You who have come after me are not as I was but as I Am. Does this not make sense, even in your human terms of evolution? You are the resurrected and the life.

“How does this relate to your thinking? You have been reborn as god-man, as God and man united. The resurrection is the cause and effect of the union of the human and divine. This is accomplished. This is in effect the way in which the man Jesus became the Christ. This is in effect the way.” (ACOL, T1:8.5 – 8.6)

Jesus says some startling things in this passage. If we allow our ego to rise again, we will be in for a fall, for Jesus says things that the ego would really like to latch upon. Don’t let it! This offering from Jesus is for the time after the resurrection, a resurrection that we now all share with him. The “god-man” of which is said later on to be the “elevated Self of form,” but at this point “god-man” may be easier to understand, though not easier to comprehend. We are both human and divine, as was Jesus. And when we have received full salvation, we will know what this means. But we can try to comprehend now: The Self is the part of us who is God, dwelling deep within. And we have previously been oblivious to this Self, preferring instead to dwell with a little, personal self, a self with a little “s.” Now we can raise our sights quite a bit, and know that God, as the Divine, has now taken hold of our personality and is raising it up to new heights, heights to which the ego could not climb.

Our god-man aspects, the union of the human and the divine, call for great acceptance of all of us. If we think that we still have faults, we can, in a manner of speaking, wish those faults away, and they will be gone. Jesus actually makes this promise in A Course of Love, though he uses different words, and what I have said is an interpretation. If we think that we attack too readily, we can just ask that this aspect of who we are might drop away—and it will. The solution, as A Course in Miracles says, is always with the problem. And, as A Course of Love says, we have no needs, for needs are resolved immediately. This cleansing of the personality is what the union of the human and the divine, with a Self released to outer play, can do for us. We have nothing to fear, no reason to judge. We are alright just as we are. God loves us just as we are, warts and all.

We ought to make determinations to clean up our act, and the Self will do this consistently, when we get still and simply ask. This is God enjoying His godliness, and being glad that his creations (us) have finally realized how to live a good life, an abundant life.

Our resurrected life can begin today. Jesus has said that he has nothing that we cannot have, that we are, in effect, all in this together.

Let’s ask today to live as who we are, just as ourselves. But realize that change for the better is always possible, once we have accepted ourselves first. We will never get anywhere good by lamenting what we are, the personalities that we have. We may have made many mistakes, but these are all correctable, and soon. We can live above the fray, in a quiet and calm way that gives us the best of heaven on earth.

Prayer

Jesus promises many exciting changes for us in the passage for today. And I need to be certain that I realize that You are behind his words, that You won’t fail to give me guidance to keep the ego at bay. These promises are real, and I accept them at face value. I wish for acceptance of myself, for changes that needs to be made in myself, and for the will to live peaceably even as change occurs.

Be with me today and always. Thank You for the promises that Jesus has made to all of us in A Course of Love.

Amen.

Inner Christ Is Wholly Human & Wholly Divine

“The Christ in you is wholly human and wholly divine. As the wholly divine, nothing is unknown. As the wholly human, everything has been forgotten. Thus we begin to relearn the known as the One who already possesses all. 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. It is this joining of the human and divine that is your purpose here, the only purpose worthy of your thought.” (ACOL, C:5.1)

Our Self, the inner Christ, is both human and divine—just as was said about Jesus’s life on earth. We are inhabiting a body that is very much at risk for danger in a violent world, and we may still be inhabiting a body whose mind is eclipsed by egoic consciousness. If so, we are still suffering in this world of humanness. But things happen in stages, and perhaps we are not yet ready to let go of all things egoic. The Self, the inner Christ, the divine in us, would very much like to see us change our minds, to move beyond the ego into a consciousness that has been transformed. Again, all in stages. We may request an acceleration, but we are not in total charge; God has quite a bit of say in the matter. And we are a part of God.

When we join human to divine, we are giving up our emphasis on the ego, and with that, our pain (which still may be with us) will cease to be suffering. It just is. And we will rise above. Our purpose here is to join human with divine, and, ultimately (as described in A Course of Love, to inhabit the elevated Self of form. We will certainly be happier when this transformation has happened.

We have tried a multitude of ways to make the world satisfy us. And the world has always defeated us, brought us down, for we have not been consistently happy. And happiness is our function, according to A Course in Miracles—along with salvation and forgiveness as equated functions.

Make a decision today that we will seek Love as we understand God to be. This represents a joining of the human with the divine, for we are still on earth, still very much a part of this world. But seeking Love is a purpose, out of many that we might choose, that really gives us fulfillment. The only purpose that gives us fulfillment.

Try today to walk a little closer to God. We will sense His Presence, and the day will certainly go better.

Pray from Fear into Inner Peace

“To pray out of fear is not to pray at all, because such prayer chooses not the union that is the prerequisite.  To pray out of fear is to ask from an unreal state of lack for what is seen as missing or desired.  In contrast, true prayer, formed in union, is a means of creating, recollecting, or recalling a divine memory and transforming that divine memory into a present moment experience.  (Treatises of A Course of Love:  Treatise on the Art of Thought, 6.6)”

Affirmation:  “I will choose to avoid fearful prayers.”

Reflections:

1 – Fearful Turmoil

When we are in fearful turmoil, our emotions are so engaged that it is hard to sense God’s presence.  We are not in union with God, because we cannot feel His presence.  This is the so-called foxhole prayer, i.e., “There are no atheists in foxholes” (a reminder of World War I).  We need in some way to alleviate the fear, and I have found that prayer, in fact, does alleviate fear.  I can pray myself to sleep when I am anxious.  Is there a problem with my experience vs. the words of Jesus in this passage?

2 – Personal Experience

I think not, because I am calmed by the prayer, a calming that precedes receiving an answer (an answer that is sometimes just blissful sleep).  I do not go to sleep fearful, and I do not remain fearful as I pray.  The fear just drops away, and I pray from a relaxed state of mind and heart.

3 – Divine Memory

The latter half of this passage is difficult to understand.  What exactly is a “divine memory”?  I think that Jesus is calling on our Self/Christ at this point.  When we experience the Self/Christ, we are healed from a divine perspective, for the Self/Christ is our part of the God within (an interpretation, not stated precisely in A Course of Love).

4 – When to Pray

We need to begin praying when we are afraid or fearful, but–and this is the important point–we will not remain afraid or fearful.  We will, in nearly all cases, immediately begin calming down, for we will be recalled to trust in God.  We need never cease to pray because we think that we are too overwrought.  God will create the holy instant that will bring us peace.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Thank You for guiding me to know that praying to You in the middle of the night, when I can’t sleep, is a very practical way to induce a return to sleep.  I think that You welcome this communion, for our private times together heal and calm me.  Thank You for letting me adopt practical use of prayer for a very human need of sleep.

Thank You for leading me to realize that the best prayer is not one of fear.  The prayer may begin with anxieties, but the prayer will take me out of the anxieties into peace.  Thank You for this blessing.

If I can reach divine healing today, it will be because You have led me every step of the way.  Fort this leading, I am very grateful.

Amen.

The Mystery of the Human and the Divine

“When you fully realize that the only way to know the Self is through relationship, your concerns about concentration on the self will end.  Life is not a matter of self versus other.  Life is a matter of relationship.  Life is not a matter of human versus divine, but a matter of relationship between the human and the divine.  (A Course of Love, 27.7)”

Affirmation:  “Life is solely a matter of relationship.”

Reflections:

1 – From ACIM

In A Course in Miracles, the emphasis with relationship was upon our brother.  We were led to understand that in our relationship to our brother was our way home.  We did not need long periods of contemplation, because we learned to love our brother.

2 – From ACOL

In A Course of Love,  we are led to see an internal relationship, unique to ourselves, in the relationship of the human and the divine.  We are led to realize that the Self has come of age now, and that the personal self is declining in importance to ourselves.  This Self is the inner Christ.  This is the way in which we are like Jesus.  And this is, according to ACOL, our way home.

3 – Human and Divine

The relationships between the human and divine is often, perhaps, a mystery to us.  It will remain a mystery until we have accomplished Christ-consciousness through God’s action toward us.  He makes the decision regarding the time.  This is a point that I have made repeatedly in this blog, and it is a tenet of both ACIM and ACOL.  He makes the decision of when to reach down (a metaphor) and raise us up.  In a sense, Christ-consciousness is our own resurrection.

4 – Elevated Self of Form

May we mold the human and the divine into the elevated Self of form.  And, if we have not yet started toward this, let us start today.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would unravel a bit today the mystery of the human and the divine.  I would reach glimpses today of Christ-consciousness by relaxing into Your will and asking for a miracle.  May the peace that You give encompass me and thus make this miracle possible.

Be with all of us today, all of my brothers and sisters.  May I fulfill for others the needs that are mine to fulfill.  May I look to You to fulfill what I cannot fulfill.  Needs are always answered, of that I am sure.  And I thank You for fulfilling needs.

Amen.

How the Body Is Used

“The body could not help but be thus, as it was made with dual purposes in mind.  It was made to make real and then glorify a separated self, and it was made to punish that separated self for the separation.  Its creator had in mind what is reflected in the body:  self-aggrandizement and self-effacement, pleasure and pain, violence and gentleness.  (A Course of Love, 9.7)”

Affirmation:  “May I unite today, rather than live in dualism.”

Reflections:

1 – A Dualistic Manifestation

We know such variations in our everyday mood when we are tied to the body too closely.  We do know pleasure, and we can know gentleness–but not all the time, for the body is a dualistic manifestation.  We are often led astray by our desire for the things of the body, the pleasures of this world.  But these pleasures turn to ashes and dust in our hands when we have avoided the joys and attributes of God.  He gives us joy, harmony, peace, tolerance, kindness, gentleness, and the like.  Only when we place these intangibles above any material things do we find the peace of God that “passeth understanding” (from the Bible).

2 – Why So Dense?

Why do we so often seek to attract the things of this world, when we ultimately find that these things do not satisfy for long?  Why are we so dense?

3 – Ecstasy of the Spirit

It is because we have known such poverty of spirit that we do not know the ineffable heights to which the ecstasy of the spirit can lead.  We have bowed down to idols, with the ego’s firm approval.  We have had this part of ourselves, our ego, tell us what to do and when to do it.  And, when we learn that we can attract better things for ourselves, the first thing that we think about is the material.

4 – Material Needs

Be sure that God wants to meet our material needs as well.  He knows that we have physical bodies that desire warmth and comfort, but He would comfort our hearts as well.  And the only way that He can do this for us is to bind our will to His.  To turn to our egoic will is to deny the joys of God.  And to turn to the material to satisfy us is to turn to something insubstantial and non-lasting.  Everything in this world will one day turn to dust.

5 – Christ/Self’s Action

Be careful of what you set your heart upon, for you will surely have it.  This is quotation the source of which I have long forgotten.  But it speaks to me today.  We need God and He knows it.  He would come from our depths to speak to us today, through the Christ/Self that knows both human and divine.  The Christ/Self mitigates the dual nature of spiritual/physical, and turns all to productivity.  May we have the happiness that we all seek, and may we get very clear about what will bring us that happiness.  It is not solely the material, or even primarily the material.  It is the intangible from God..

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would pray that I know the dualistic nature of the body no longer, that I experience the Christ/Self within that unites physical and divine.  This is a tall order, for I have traveled far into oblivion.  But I would reverse that direction today, to know You as my Creator and Sustainer.

Be with me as I seek to live a calm and tranquil life, but one with happiness and joy.  You know that I need aliveness and vitality, and the union of physical/divine in the Christ/Self can bring all these blessings to me.  Thank You.

Amen.

Wholly Human / Wholly Divine

“The Christ in you is wholly human and wholly divine.  As the wholly divine, nothing is unknown.  As the wholly human, everything has been forgotten.  Thus we begin to relearn the known as the One who already possesses all.  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.  It is this joining of the human and divine that is your purpose here, the only purpose worthy of your thought.  (A Course of Love, 5.1)”

Affirmation:  “Let’s join the human and the divine.”

Reflections:

1 – Christ Is Within

This passage is packed with meaning.  We are the Christ within, but we often do not recognize this, and we do not act on it.  Elsewhere this Christ within is called simply the “Self,” and perhaps this latter term is more acceptable to us.  Later on, in the remaining volumes of A Course of Love, we will hear a great deal of the sustainability of the “elevated Self of form.”  This is where we are headed, a Self that is physically present in this work, in a recognizable physical form–our body.

2 – What We Can Do

In joining the human and the divine, we have made of ourselves what we can do in this world.  It is not unlike what Jesus is credited with doing, and we ought not to feel that we are taking from him when we assert this truth.  Jesus has indicated that there is nothing that he has that cannot also be ours.  We are meant to be equals with Jesus, when we touch the divine within us, within what is actually physical form.

3 – Jesus

Of course, we don’t live in a ethereal body, as I believe that Jesus did in his appearances after the crucifixion (a personal belief, not a tenet of either A Course in Miracles or A Course of Love).  We live in a very physical body, and this body is holy (an ACIM tenet).  We do not have to apologize for being physical, in physical form.  This choice is all part of God’s plan for us.  And His plan was mutually chosen by us and Him, and so we do not have to feel guilty that we fell from grace.  We are as God created us (an ACIM tenet).  The separation has happened only in illusion.

4 – What God Wills

When we join the human and the divine, we will know the love that God wills for us in this world.  We will not put heavy expectations on others to fulfill our longings for love, especially romantic.  We will not make an idol of our beloved.  We will know that only God’s love is that which we actually seek.  And God will be there for us.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I ask that You help me to recognize that the human and the divine are One within me, and that I exemplify this union in my relationships to others.  Be with us today as we travel throughout this world.  Help us to exhibit the love that You would have us to show.

Amen.