God’s Presence Enfolds Us

“In your relationship to God, who is your being, you can know relation¬ship to everything, because in this one relationship, you are in relationship with all. Thus you need not become a world traveler, a joiner, an activist. You simply must become aware of all that you are.” (ACOL, D:Day35.1)

This “knowing” is an intuitive knowing, not an actual one, for we are not omniscient, as the Godhead is. We are in relationship to the All when we are in relationship to God, though, and an intuitive/mystical comprehension makes all the difference in the world. If we realize ourselves, we can realize God. We won’t need “proof” of His existence; we will simply know that He does exist. His Presence will enfold us; His Love will give us the grace to proceed with confidence in our world. Nothing and nobody need deter us; we are assured of success when we depend on His grace.

We are not prevented from being world travelers, joiners, and activists. We may want to do all or none of these. In changing/creating a new world, we may indeed need to become just those things. But it is not mandatory to change ourselves in order to get to know God. He is living through us, closer to us than our breath, for we are a part of Him. His way will become ours, when we are ready to give over self-will.

The theme song of the last part of A Course of Love is to become who we really are, being who we really are. Change is gradual. But we don’t have to twist ourselves all out of shape to be who we are; just relax in God’s Arms, and all is well.

Dear God,

I ask for Your Presence to overshadow me, now and every day. Your Presence wraps me in a cocoon of love, and this love tells me, intuitively, what to say and do. It is the most important part of my relationship to You—being cocooned in Your love. This state of mind and heart allows me to do many things that would otherwise be impossible for me.

Thank You for taking such good care of me throughout my life. I haven’t always realized just how much care You have given me. I hope that I do realize it now.

Amen.

Salvation Is Simply Your Return to Your Self

“It is in this perfect sense of the perfect sanity of truth that salvation lies. Salvation is simply your return to your Self.” (ACOL, C:31.32)

We have been long away from our Self, for the Self is the Christ within, and we have allowed a foreign element to rule our minds—the ego. When we heal the separation from God, we have “merged” our non-egoic mind (and heart) with the Christ Self, and so, once again, we are truly One with God. When we spell out what is happening, or has happened, it sounds complicated, but that is not actually true. We are in our element when we merge with the Self, the Christ Self, and we are ready for the ultimate in salvation, the Awakening or Christ-consciousness.

We will know when we are drawing nigh to enlightenment. We will catch mystical glimpses in our daily lives that will enthrall us. Jesus in A Course of Love says that all of us have these glimpses. The problem in our early lives may have been that we didn’t recognize what was happening. Even if we were diligent in the practice of our religion. Now with the new revelations of A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love, we have treatises that speak to our mind, our intellect, and our heart, the center of our being, and these two works will go a long way toward giving us the sustenance that we need for our souls.

So: “Salvation is simply your return to your Self.” How true! And how far away from that simplicity we have gone. Our egoic minds were quite caught in a complicated lack of true reality. Let us put all that nonsense behind us now. Let us listen to the inner Self as It speaks to us, and may we listen very, very carefully. We will be helped along by our glimpses of Awakening, but that is not the whole of it. The Self requires attention, a mindful listening that will require the best of what we have. Our intellect now has something on which to chew. Helen herself said something like this when she was scribing A Course in Miracles.

We don’t have to walk far to find our Self. With every bit of knowledge that Jesus is imparting, we are coming closer. And the way is neither far nor long. Nor is it a struggle. Struggle can accompany us on our journey without distance, but the main struggle is the recognized need to give up the ego. And once this is accomplished, there is nothing that need deter us.

Dear Father/Mother,

I would welcome salvation today as a reemergence of my Self as the controller of my life and times. I would know that the egoic basis of my life has passed away, and that all is now calm and easy. I would revel in glimpses of Awakening, and I would long for ever more frequent and intense glimpses. I pray for all of this today.

Be with me as I study and as I learn. I learn from the outer world, nature, now more than learned sources. This is fully in line with what A Course of Love says. How can I give over my mind to just what another has said? I can move closer to You only by opening up my personal mind and heart to the realities of life as lived on this earth. And as I learn from nature, I also learn from other people. Learning in the traditional sense is passing away, and in its place comes something that speaks to my soul.

Thank You.

Amen.

Learn What Our Heart Would Have Us Learn

“All this forgiveness can do for you. Forgiveness of the original error—the choice to believe that you are separate despite the fact that this is not so and cannot ever be. What loving creator would create a universe in which such a thing could be? A thing alone would be a thing created without love, for love creates like itself and is forever one with everything that has been created. This simple realization will start you on the path to learning what your heart would have you learn.” (C:6.6)

We already know that we need to forgive ourselves and our brothers and sisters, and even God Himself. But now we hear that we have to forgive the original error of supposed “separation,” that we once thought that we could ever be separate from one another and from God Himself. Love creates like itself, and love is forever one. This is enough for us to listen to today. This is enough for many days.

Our heart wants us to learn many things, but love is the principal thing that the heart would have us learn. And forgiveness of our misconceptions is a long way on the road to love.

Why would we ever want to be separate? We would just want to experience this, to see what it would be like to try to make a universe separate from our Creator. Just to do it. And God Himself joins in this endeavor, for we are part of God, and to do so without His cooperation would have been impossible.

We need today to put such foolishness aside forever. We don’t really want to retain a philosophy of living that is contrary to what is sane and rational, and being “separate” is not sane and rational. Why would we choose such agony for ourselves, for agony it is. The choice to be alone in all the universe is not a choice that can make any sense.

Our special relationships have taught us that we don’t really want to be alone. But they have their drama, the highs and lows of acceptance and rejection, and we don’t want that either. We must transform these inferior loves into holy relationships of joining one to the other in forgiveness and genuine love, not to get something, but to give. And in the giving we receive as well.

We do get tired of hearing that we have to forgive. But this is the basis of A Course in Miracles, and, as such, the starting point for A Course of Love. Let us proceed on this pathway a little longer, and then we will ultimately realize that we don’t have anything to forgive at all. It has all been an illusion, a dream, and we are willing to give it up in exchange for true reality—a dream no longer.

The Question of Atonement

“The point of the story [crucifixion and resurrection], however, was not one of sacrifice but one of gift giving. The greatest gift of all was given, the gift of redemption. The gift of redemption was the gift of an end to pain and suffering and a beginning of resurrection and new life. It was a gift meant to empty the world of the ego-self and to allow the personal self to live on as the one true self, the one true son of God. (Treatises of A Course of Love: Treatise on the Personal Self, 5.7)”

Affirmation: “I would focus on Jesus’s gift today.”

Reflections:

1 – Resurrection

We often misunderstand the benign lesson of the Atonement, Jesus’s death on the cross, followed by his resurrection. Nowhere in either A Course in Miracles nor A Course of Love is the resurrection doubted as an historical event. But there are various ways of interpreting, including the possibility that Jesus occupied his ethereal body when he was seen after the resurrection.

2 – The Cross

Jesus said in A Course in Miracles that we miss the point when we look to the cross, that he was showing that love is present when he did not defend himself, but said nothing. He says, also in ACIM, that we are to look to the resurrection for our understanding of the Atonement.

3 – Sacrifice

Certainly sacrifice was embedded into the Jewish world. Sacrifices of animals were routinely required at the temple. And so when Jesus came as the Son of God and made the supreme sacrifice, we saw a punishing God who could only be appeased by the death of his only Son. Traditional religious services today stress this idea. But is there another way to interpret what happened?

4 – Circumstances of Jesus’s Day

Jesus says that there is, for he does not see his Father as punishing in any way. He sees God as wholly benign and loving. The choice to go to the cross is Jesus’s own, in my opinion, born of the circumstances of his day. That it may have been divinely ordained, though, I do not doubt. And the fact that for generations there has been a story in the sacrificial lamb means that Jesus read us well. He knew what we thought that we needed to be reconciled to God.

5 – “I Was Not Punished because You Were Bad”

Now he is giving us a new story, a new Atonement story. We are not to see God as punishing him in any way. “I was not punished because you were bad,” Jesus says in the opening pages of the Text of A Course in Miracles. And so we don’t have to feel guilty, and guilt is what has made us mad.

6 – A New Life

So let us see another way of viewing the Atonement. It was the lesson that we are reconciled to God through the example that Jesus gave of not resisting evil. He rose to a new life, as can we all.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Thank You for what I read years ago about Jesus’s observation, in all likelihood, of the sacrifices of his day in the temple. All of this shaped his mission. But God did not require his death, of this I am sure. It was a plan that worked, though. And I thank You for that.

Help me to look beyond the crucifixion to the resurrection, and may my intellectual doubts not becloud the issue. May I contemplate the likelihood that it is Jesus’s ethereal body that was seen after his resurrection.

Amen.

Starve the Ego-Mind Out of Existence

“What is food for the ego-mind is fear and the removal of these final fears will quite literally starve the ego-mind out of existence. (Treatises of A Course of Love: Treatise on the Nature of Unity and Its Recognition, 9.15)”

Affirmation: “I would remove fear from my mind today.”

Reflections:

1 – Identical Questions

How do we rid ourselves of fear? How do we put the ego-mind out of existence? These two questions are actually identical, for with the one comes the other.

2 – Quiet Inner State

I have found that a quiet inner state steals the thunder from fear. I get fearful, angry, and anxious, only when I am stressed. And when this overwrought state is removed by contemplation, quietness, and sometimes meditation, then I see that the conflict-ridden ego just drops away.

3 – Timeout

But when I am overwrought, God cannot get through to me immediately, when I ask for His presence. My ego-mind has risen, and I must turn aside from this ego-mind if I am to have peace. Mostly I need to stop and take a timeout. While this is not always possible, it is possible to turn inwardly, through affirmations, to still the mind. Stilling the mind reduces the anger and the desire for attack, and soon all is well.

4 – Marianne Williamson

We tend to want to keep an aroused state going. We run on adrenaline. And this is not way to run a life. Marianne Williamson says that we are addicted to adrenaline. And she is right. We think that we would lose our edge in this sometimes competitive world if we became too laid back. But a Type B personality would do just that–take it easy and stop the frantic chase after success. For what is success anyway but a question of the ego?

5 – Keep a List

We need to starve the ego out of existence. And to do so we need to keep lists of things to do when we are fearful. Turning to our personal list will calm the mind. Sometimes we need to write out this list, for when we are too overwrought to think clearly. Other times we don’t have to resort to paper and pencil, but will call to mind what we need when we need it. And all will be well.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would be calm and peaceful today, easy to live with, easy to live with for others as well as myself. I would thereby quite literally starve the ego-mind out of existence. I would feel fear no more, and it is fear that feeds the ego. I would cease any and all competition, choosing cooperation as the better means to get things done. And my goals should be met just as well from cooperation as from competition–in fact, the meeting of goals from cooperation with others actualy works far better.

Help me to have a good day. Help my brothers and sisters to have a good day. We need You, and when Your are present, so that we sense You, then the day smooths out and all is well. Thank You.

Amen

A Separated Self Is an Illusion

“You can be faithful to but one thought system.  One is the thought system of the separated self and is based on separation.  The other is the thought system of creation and is based on union.  Your faith in what you have made has been shaken now, and you realize you would like to place your faith elsewhere.  (A Course of Love, 11.6)”

Affirmation:  “I choose union today, with God and my brothers and sisters.”

Reflections:

1 – Separation

We have long believed that we are somehow separated from God because we fell from grace and were expelled from Paradise due to our missteps.  Perhaps we need to take another look at these concepts.

2 – Did We Separate from God?

What if we only thought that we had been rejected by God?  What if we have never really separated from Him at all?  These are the thoughts of A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love.  Our belief in separation is based on the illusion in which we live.  It would be impossible to actually separate from God, but we can imagine that we have done so, and thereby experience what it might be like to be “other than” God.  By such thinking, we recognize, eventually, that we are lost in dreams and that we want to return home.  And home is heaven.  We find ourselves welcomed home as the Prodigal Son was welcomed back by his earthly father.

3 – Union

What does “union” mean in this context?  Union is the consciousness of All That Is, the choice to join with God in knowingness and love, and with our brothers and sisters in knowingness and love.  We are One, and in union we come to see how this can be.  There is no separation among those who love each other.  We will all meet again those in our lives whom we have loved, either on this earth or in the world beyond (from the Manual of A Course in Miracles).

4 – We Have Not Separated

Let us put our fatih in a different place today.  Let us reaffirm that we have not actually left God at all, that this choice would be an impossibility.  But that we think that we have left is very possible, and it goes a long way toward explaining our fears and apprehensions.  We think that He is angry with us for “rejecting” Him, and we cringe in tribulation.  All of this is illusory.

5 – A Better Day

May the faith that we reach today, the turning aside from the separated state and the choice for union, give us a better day–and may this better day be the harbinger of many good days ahead.  Would not Jesus choose this for us?  Yet we ourselves make the choice, and if it is in line with what Jesus would see as best, we are poised for a new tomorrow.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would choose today to place my complete faith in You.  You know my needs, and You care for me.  You will guide me to make the right decisions, in the things that I must do to be safe and loved by those about whom I care so much.  Your way is best.  Your way is actually the only sane response.  May my day go well in Your light.

I would join in union with all today, and with All, meaning You.  May any obsessions about my continued safety drop away before Your grace.

I know that to separate from You would be impossible.  But all of my brothers and sisters do not have this knowledge.  May I reach today those whom You would have me reach with this blessed news of Your constant presence in our lives.

May the day go well.  If I am true to You all the day long, paying attention to the promptings, then this day will be good indeed.  Thank You.

Amen.