Christ-Consciousness

“As I awaited my death, I was given the gift of knowing what would come to be through my resurrection.  This I tried to pass on in the simplest of terms.  I tried to make it known that while I would die and resurrect into a new form, you would also, that this new form would exist within you, that you would become the Body of Christ and giving and receiving would be complete.  (Treatises of A Course of Love:  Treatise on the Art of Thought, 9.9)”

Affirmation:  “I would resurrect in a new form, the elevated Self of form.”

Reflections:

1 – A Glorious Promise

In this passage, Jesus is saying to us that nothing that he experienced is closed to us.  We do not have to die in a crucifixion, but his resurrection is our own as well.  We too will resurrect, and sooner rather than later.  The time is upon us now.  What a glorious promise this is!

2 – Perfection?

We do not have to perfect ourselves for this blessing to befall us.  Jesus, according to A Course in Miracles, will correct all mistakes that we cannot correct.  And, in A Course of Love, he tells us that if we decide that we don’t want anger anymore, it will just fall from us.  We will make the changes in our personality that we want to make.  And nowhere does he say in ACOL that we have to be perfect to “merit” Christ-consciousness.  Even the Dalai Lama admits to getting angry sometimes.

3 – Body of Christ

What does it mean to become the Body of Christ?  I think that this characterization means that we are to be one with Christ, including but not limited to the man Jesus.  Giving and receiving will be one.  As we give to others, we receive.  And when we give the gift of love, we are giving of our fullness.

4 – Eckhart Tolle

Eckhart Tolle notes that his correspondence is replete with accounts of the coming of Awakening to people in many parts of the world.  He sees himself as at an epicenter, in that he has described his Awakening in several books, and people naturally write to him when they experience something similar.  The time seems ripe now for more and more of us to experience Awakening.  This is not only in line with what Eckhart says, but also indicated by Jesus in A Course of Love.  ACIM dislodged the ego, but we need to replace it with something, and that something is the Self/Christ.  The ego-oriented personal self is dying away in many, many of us.  But we need to do our part to eliminate egoic and egotistical thinking from disturbing our minds and hearts.  We need to realize that all of us are equal in the eyes of God, and this is not a new concept.  But, perhaps, it is a concept that only now we are fully ready to accept.

5 – Small Strides Daily

So let us become the Body of Christ, making small strides each day.  When glimpses of Awakening come to us, let us retain the feeling and prolong the experience.  Eventually the glimpses will smooth into a continuity that will assure us that we are well on the way to an ultimate transition to Christ-consciousness.  Some of us see this suddenly, but most are giving a gradual learning process (from the Manual of ACIM).

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would walk slowly, as You lead, to a greater future than I have yet known.  May I live the kind of life that You wish for me.  May I love and serve You.  May I find joy in the companionship of my brothers and sisters.  And may I know salvation in its fullness.

Thank You for the steps toward Awakening that Jesus has outlined in ACIM and ACOL.  I may not be ready, but You have given me glimpses, and for this I thank You.  May I do nothing to dishonor You.  May my days be well-filled, doing the deeds that You would have me do.  May I make the choices that You would recommend.  And may I share what You teach me as best I can.

Thank You for showing me Yourself by means of the felt sense of Your presence that comes over me.  I would walk in Your way, living by Your rules, and I would have no anxiety for the morrow.

Amen.

Time of Miracles Is Here

“While I [Jesus] succeeded in revealing a God of love, this revelation has not been reconciled with your experience here.  This is what we will seek to do by putting an end to fear and ushering in, with this ending, the beginning of a time of miracles.  (The Treatises of A Course of Love:  Treatise on the Art of Thought, 4.27)”

Affirmation:  “I will consider anew today that God is a God of love.”  

Reflections:

1 – God of Love

There is a great promise in this passage for today.  Jesus refers back to his time on earth and notes that he did succeed in revealing God as a God of love.  But humankind, from our limited perspective, did not take the lesson unto themselves.  We continued to fear God, and by that I do not mean a respect that is healthy and good.  We feared God in that we were afraid of His wrath, afraid that we would be punished for our wrongdoing.  Of course, with cause and effect a law of the universe, sometimes what we do brings dire consequences.  But God is not doing this unto us.  We are doing this unto ourselves.  And there are tangible ways that we can bring good things to ourselves, and certainly there is no reason–ever–to blame God for our misfortunes.

2 – Attract the Good

These tangible ways of bringing good to ourselves include positive outlooks.  We are never guaranteed to be forever without pain, but our own attitudes can do much to attract the good to ourselves.  Our experiences in this world can and will improve when we get our minds, hearts, and spirits right.  We will know the good again when we attract the good.

3 – Glorious Promise

The promise that is so pronounced in this passage occurs at the end, when Jesus promises that when we succeed in seeing God as a God of love and not of fear, we will receive miracles, “ushering in. . .the beginning of the time of miracles.”  What a glorious promise indeed this is!

4 – Attitude toward God

This passage indicates that only one change is needed, a change in our attitude toward God:  the acceptance of Him as a God of love.  And then with the ending of fear we are led into a much better world of miracles.  And miracles are always good.  We will see miracles, I think, where we have not recognized them previously.  And there is an indication that the number and magnitude of miracles will increase.

5 – Don’t Blame God

Can we see God as a God solely of love?  Can we sincerely stop blaming God, sincerely and intellectually knowing that He is not the cause of anything going wrong in our world?  We do not need to accept such a view of God on blind faith.  There is much in A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love that explains this view of how to see God as loving.  And what a glorious promise we receive–that we are ready for miracles when we can see God as loving.  Can we make this transformation in our thinking now?

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I thank You for this promise of a time of miracles.  We all need this so much, we in our little self-centered worlds, still often encased in our ego.  

May we cease all this nonsense forthwith.  I pray to do my part rightly to ease the coming of better times.  May we know that we can attract a better world when our attitudes are right.  And our attitudes need to be attune with Yours in order to ask rightly for what we need and what we want.  I do not ask material goods, though You know that I have these needs also.  I ask more for the love, joy, peace, harmony that You will gladly bestow to all of Your children, regardless of their financial circumstances.

Be me with today.  I thank You for the gentleness of Your presence, the peace of Your Being.  May today end on a positive note, clearing the way for another positive day tomorrow.

Amen.

My Saviors = God’s Sons/Daughters

ACIM Workbook Lesson  266 – for Friday, September 23, 2011

Affirmation:  “My holy Self abides in you, God’s Son.”

“Father, You gave me all Your Sons, to be my saviors and my counselors in sight; the bearers of Your holy Voice to me.  In them are You reflected, and in them does Christ look back upon me from my Self.  Let not Your Son forget Your holy Name.  Let not Your Son forget his holy Source.  Let not Your Son forget his name is Yours.

“How many saviors God has given us!  How can we lose the way to Him, when He has filled the world with those who point to Him, and given us the sight to look on them?  (WB428)”

Reflections:

1 – Our Brothers and Sisters Are Our Saviors

My interpretation of the passage, including the prayer, is that our brothers and sisters are the saviors that Jesus means.  What a glorious promise this is!  We are certainly not in solitude in our world, and the real Self of the others is our lives mean only good for us.  Of course, we do not always recognize their well-meaning attitudes toward us; all too often, we are privy to the attack and anger that peoples a world run by egos.

2 – Egos are Illusory

But we must realize that egos are illusory, a part of our belief about ourselves.  In actuality, all of us do the best that we can at any given time (an interpretation, not stated in ACIM).  Even though we perceive ourselves as kind, we still feel guilty, because we know that we have made mistakes, and usually we have not forgiven ourselves for those mistakes.  We live, therefore, in a hell of our own making.  I have mentioned before in this blog the important statement from ACIM that God does not forgive, because He has never condemned.  But we have condemned ourselves, and the egos of our brothers and sisters have likewise, upon occasion, condemned us.

3 – Finding Our Way Out of the Mire

How do we find our way out of this mire?  We take this passage at its word.  We are surrounded by our saviors, and our saviors are even those who have sometimes (as we perceived it) “done us wrong.”  We are in this together.  We go home together, even though this return, the end of separation, may take millions of years.  The process is set in place, and let us be grateful to Jesus that this is so.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would look to my brothers and sisters today as my saviors.  We are certainly not meant to find our way through this world alone.  We can pray, commune, with You, but sometimes we are so distracted that we cannot concentrate well.  Then we are led to turn to the others in our lives who are there for us.  May I do so today.

I would find joy in the promise that I will be there for my brothers and sisters, even though it might take millions of years for the illusory separation to be healed.  May all of us on salvation’s course save time today, so that the millions of years are shrunken.

Amen.