With the Holy Spirit

“Every obstacle that peace must flow across is surmounted in just the same way; the fear that raised it yields to the love beyond, and so the fear is gone.  And so it is with this.  The desire to get rid of peace and drive the Holy Spirit from you fades in the presence of the quiet recognition that you love Him.”  (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-19.IV.D.5)

The obstacles to our peace are kept in place by our cooperation.  We would remove our cooperation from the equation, and then we will know love as we have never known it before.  We will no longer want to get rid of peace; we will know that we love our Guide, the Holy Spirit, and we will open ourselves, on a continuing basis, to His guidance.

This is the obvious way that A Course in Miracles is teaching us on almost every page.  Turn to the Holy Spirit, succumb to His guidance, and be healed.

We will be living in quiet now.  We will understand that guidance comes to us in quiet moments, normally, though sometimes the situation is urgent enough that the Holy Spirit gets through to us even when we are in turmoil.

We are in turmoil only when the ego has arisen in us.  We can turn aside just as easily as we welcomed the ego.  And turn aside we must, if we are to be saved from disaster.  We would not entertain disaster in any shape at all.  

We would know God’s peace today.  Let us pray for the establishment of a good mood, an uplifted mood, and in this mood, love comes in easily.

Trust the Momentum that Seems to Be Shaping Your Life

“Above all, beloved friends, remember:  there are no mistakes!  You are free to trust the momentum that seems to be shaping your life.  For you are the one who has complied with it by inviting the Holy Spirit to take you home.  You are the one that has prayed for acceleration.  Therefore, also be the one who accepts the grace being offered unto you.”  (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery,  Chapter 21, Page 260)

It is a startling idea that there are no mistakes! Even the “tiny, mad idea” that started us on the road to separation from God was not a “mistake,” per se. God let us go when we were lost in adolescent rebellion.

And now He is welcoming us home, again at our bidding. When things seem rough, realize that this is “acceleration,” guided by the Holy Spirit.

We need to remain compliant, flexible, in the hands of the Holy Spirit. Further rebellion will be counter-productive. Drop any rebellion, and decide today to come home to God, to be home in God.

Happy Dreams that Compose Our Lives

“Happy dreams come true, not because they are dreams, but only because they are happy.  And so they must be loving.  Their message is, ‘Thy Will be done,’ and not, ‘I want it otherwise.’”  (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-18.V.4)

Happy dreams come to us from the Holy Spirit as we loose the world of the ego for something infinitely better.  As our minds began changing, we look out on a forgiven world, and in that forgiveness do we see a better world.  We project from within, and the within is not so dark as it once was, so fraught with egoic madness.

The Holy Spirit knows that we will not be happy until we listen to guidance from His Higher Power.  Until we say, “Thy Will be done.”

We do not have to imagine that our free will is being contradicted.  Actually, our free will is enhanced, for in the whole process we learn that the Holy Spirit actually speaks for us.  He chooses that which will make us the happiest, and that is always the real will that we have heretofore not known how to exert.  We have made many mistakes as we sought to create a comfortable environment for ourselves in this world.  We have not created anything that remained comfortable for very long, to our chagrin.

But all of this will change as we start following intuition that is divinely inspired.  The Holy Spirit points out the best way for us, the way that we will be happiest.  And only a very conflicted person would fail to see this after a short while.  Give guidance time to act in our lives, and we will quickly see that the divine way is what we have really wanted all along.  Every decision will be made for us; we will not have to struggle at all.  And peace and joy will become emblematic of our new lives.

Holy Instant

“The holy instant is the result of your determination to be holy.  It is the answer.  The desire and the willingness to let it come precede its coming.  You prepare your mind for it only to the extent of recognizing that you want it above all else.  It is not necessary that you do more; indeed, it is necessary that you realize that you cannot do more.  Do not attempt to give the Holy Spirit what He does not ask, or you will add the ego to Him and confuse the two.”  (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-18.IV.1)

Jesus here gives instructions for inviting a holy instant.  We don’t “prepare,” which would merely be a case of our ego trying to make us think, momentarily, that we are purer than before we started to prepare!  We just need a little willingness to experience the holy instant, a sense that we really do want this great blessing above all other blessings (at least at a given point in time).  The holy instant will come when invited in just this way.  It is a blessing that the Holy Spirit doesn’t ask us to prepare, because we surely would botch the job if we tried!  (This is what the ego is attempting to get us to do.)

We need determination only, an intense desire and will that is our part in the whole process.  And that is all.

The Holy Spirit will do the rest.

Holy Instant

“You who are now the bringer of salvation have the function of bringing light to darkness.  The darkness in you has been brought to light.  Carry it back to darkness, from the holy instant to which you brought it.  We are made whole in our desire to make whole.  Let not time worry you, for all the fear that you and your brother experience is really past.  Time has been readjusted to help us do, together, what your separate pasts would hinder.”  (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-18.III.7)

We are said to be bringers of salvation now, and we have barely begun reading the Text of A Course in Miracles.  This must give us hope; Jesus has a lot of confidence in us.

The holy instants which we have now will transform us; it is the light that has risen in us, the vision that we now know.  A holy instant is a particular moment in time, a moment in which we feel ineffable peace and pure joy, a moment for which we are encouraged not to prepare.  The holy instant is the Holy Spirit’s gift to us.  And the holy instant is a gift that we and our brother share.  In this, we become One again.  The transformation of our special relationship into a holy one has begun.

There is an interesting take on time in this quotation that bears some reflection.  Jesus can adjust time!  He says so!  We who are strict realists in regard to physical reality will find this assertion hard to accept.  The adjustment is not something that can be measured by physical machines, such as clocks.  But have we not ourselves observed many times that time sometimes seems to stand still, sometimes seems to speed ahead?  If Jesus is here talking about an actual physical occurrence, the clocks (the measuring devices) would themselves have been altered as well.  In the final analysis, we don’t know if Jesus refers to physical reality in this quotation, or to simply our perception of physical reality.  We know that our perception of the passing of time is subject to variation, and we have known this long before we started reading A Course in Miracles.

It is enough to know that time will be adjusted to allow us to experience the holy instant, which is a miracle.  Elsewhere Jesus also says that time is adjusted for us to perform miracles. 

The actual facts here are less relevant than the ethereal nature of the holy instant.  We are being taken out of ourselves to an experience of pure love, and we will return to ourselves with more of our consciousness transformed.  We are making progress.

The Comforter Speaks to Us

“I highly recommend that you establish a relationship with the Comforter as though it were a relationship with a good friend—indeed, the best of friends—until you reach a point in which virtually every decision is given to that Mind:  Well, old buddy, should I turn left or right?”  (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Chapter 21, Page 256.)

Jesus here refers to the Holy Spirit in quite familiar terms–as a “buddy.” This colloquial expression lightens our experience of the sacred, making us unafraid of a “Voice” that might speak to us.

It is unlikely that the Voice will be audible, unlikely because we might become afraid. When we look deep within, we know that we have found the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. And His words to us come back to us as our own mind speaking.

The Holy Spirit does not frighten us. If we turn aside from the good advice we “hear,” the Voice will lessen. And if we “hear” anything that would harm another, we need to turn aside, lest our own fears make for a situation that is not good.

It is our voice that speaks to us, but if we are staying close to God, we are partaking of His Spirit, and our way will smooth out, assuring us that His offer of help is a free offer. He wants us to know that He loves us, and one of the ways that He shows that is to offer guidance.

We can and will “hear” the Holy Spirit speaking when we open up our hearts to God’s Love. We are here experiencing the “happy dreams the Holy Spirit brings” (from A Course in Miracles).

The Holy Spirit Guides

“Truth has rushed to meet you since you called upon it.  If you knew Who walks beside you on the way that you have chosen, fear would be impossible.  You do not know because the journey into darkness has been long and cruel, and you have gone deep into it.  A little flicker of your eyelids, closed so long, has not yet been sufficient to give you confidence in yourself, so long despised.”  (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-18.III.3)

The “Who” is the Holy Spirit; if it had been meant to be Jesus, then in A Course in Miracles the pronoun would not have been capitalized.  And God Himself is not called upon very much at all as long as we are lost in illusion.  God is said to have turned to the Holy Spirit, God’s Voice and the Universal Inspiration, to teach us how to find our way out of darkness.

We don’t understand the Holy Spirit, but we can come to experience Him, and in the experiencing we will find all the Love that we want.  He is our Guide, our way home to God, and He gently leads us by the hand and tells us what to do to make the journey, the “journey without distance,” (said elsewhere) that we need to take.

The last sentence, with a “little flicker of. . .eyelids,” is particularly poignant.  Jesus understands that we have walked deep into insanity, and finding our way back is going to be a problem to be overcome.  He is writing A Course in Miracles to give us the means to Awaken, and the more that we study it, the more simple the whole course becomes.  (Prior to intense study, ACIM seems complicated indeed.)

We have despised ourselves.  Our primary thought has been that we are not enough—not “good” enough, not strong enough, not pure enough.  We berate ourselves that we have disappointed God.  But God sees us as His children, and He does not berate us for mistakes made in innocence.  We are innocent of anything bad; mistakes made in illusion seem to have real effects, in our all-too-tangible world, but what is done in illusion is not really done at all.  So we can rest easy.  We forgive, but forgiveness is an illusion as well, but one that does not breed other illusions.  Thus it becomes our way home.  We forgive what has never happened in reality!  How easy is that?

Draw Nigh to the Comforter

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

Seeking Wholeness    

Hungry

I find myself

for comforting

eternal words

sustaining this frail being

torn between two spheres

eager immortality

producing living words

to last beyond the grave

and worldliness accommodated

by constant cache of fiction facts

Thirsty

I am

for what would quench

and bring together both in

steady stream through daily pulsing life

Desperate

I stretch

 this empty frame

pleading for the great “I Am”

to root so resolute

transforming my attachments

and divinizing me.

---

Meditation from Celia:

Draw Nigh to the Comforter

“You will no longer resist the process of purification, by whatever means the Comforter uses for you.  It simply does not matter anymore:

“Why resist it?  All I want is God!

“If it is dissolved in the mind in a split second, and you do not even notice it—fine.  If it requires great tears and great experiences in the world—fine.  What is the difference?  They are really the same.  It is because you have relinquished—through allowing—ownership of your pathway home.  You have decided to let the Comforter take you home.” (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Chapter 21, Page 255)

The Comforter, as we know, is the Holy Spirit.  He is always present, always giving us solace in a sometimes difficult world.  His emotional support will allow us to live through difficulties unscathed, even difficulties that are suffering and pain.

We have traveled far from our Maker.  We have made drastic mistakes that have colored our minds and perhaps even our hearts.  Drastic measures are sometimes taken by our souls to turn us back toward God and our home in heaven.  Only when we recognize, however dimly, that these drastic measures, chosen by our own souls, are sometimes necessary to bring a light into our deluded minds, only then will we know that all the suffering and pain were worth it.

God only loves.  Our souls make far more of the choices for us than we can know on this earth, in this world.  And at heart we are all One. 

Thank God that He did not abandon us in misery.  The Holy Spirit, our Comforter, will always lend a listening ear and a surcease to that which troubles us, whether immediate or down the road.  God does not abandon us.

Centering

Journal writing is an invaluable tool for the centering of one’s life and work.  Once I went for 19 months with only two entries. 

It is instructive that the last entry before starting this dry period was entitled “New Centering.”  I had reached a plateau and was willing quietly to rest there for a while. 

–

Creative assessment of real desires can help bring them about. But too much introspection can become retreating, and this fuels neurosis.

–

On making good decisions: “I’m feeling reassured that I will know the right decision to make if I pay attention to my nocturnal dreams, keep a positive and happy outlook, and listen to my heart (i.e., the Holy Spirit dwelling within).  Psychic inclinations help, but I must check them out and not go overboard.”

–

When a song goes through my head, I pause to remember the lyrics.

It is a fruitful path to the Unconscious.  Like a dream, the lyrics frequently take me a step deeper in my psyche. 

Living in the Mind of Christ

“Each time you can interrupt the momentum of the mind for perceiving nothing but problems, you will begin to discover that the underground river of the Mind of Christ is yet within you still.  As you feel your successes more and more deeply, that in turn builds your desire to live in that stream.  (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Chapter 20, Page 247)

Living with the Mind of Christ is a great blessing. When we live in our personal mind, often beset by the ego, we live a demoralized life filled with problems–one following another ad infinitum.

This is no way to live. If we believed nothing else, seeing the truth of this problem-oriented life as a bad way to live would be enough to encourage us to turn to a Higher Power. Even if we are unsure about whether that Higher Power is God.

A Course in Miracles reminds us that the solution is always with the problem, no time delay, no procrastination when we are seeking to follow God’s guidance. But why, oh why, do we focus so on problems, something that only succeeds in bringing us more of them?

Live with the Christ Mind instead. Jesus’ help is only a sure call away. He comes, though we don’t understand how, and we often don’t recognize when. The Mind of Christ is a part of us, whether we call this the Holy Spirit or the Christ-Mind. There are no barriers between these terms.

The “something greater” will save us. Call on help today. Know that we are heard, and that we have a sure help on the way.

Say Good-Bye to the Ego

“All those absurd ideas that you harbored about the superiority or inferiority of beings, both physical and spiritual, was an inevitable response of the ego, that totally fearful state of consciousness.  It was unnecessary and not part of God’s dream.”  Choose Only Love bk.4, 3:II

God’s dream for us is benign. We make the drama that surrounds us, and when we have walked farther along on our pathway back to God, everything becomes calm and quiet. In A Course in Miracles, these are the “happy dreams the Holy Spirit brings.”

We are all equal children of God, though some of us, in time, are farther behind others. And some are ahead. But time does not exist; time is illusory. Thus all such comparisons pale.

The ego makes the hell that we sometimes live in, for the ego is “totally fearful,” and fear is an attribute of the hell we make for ourselves.

When we stay close to God, all of this mischief disintegrates. We have good days, like pearls on a string–all, if not perfect, at least a goodly share of perfect. Don’t be too intense about it, but be in constant touch with God. If we are too intense in our constant prayer, we will have an overload of thinking that leaves out the heart. The mind makes for stress. Let our love for God and our brothers and sisters derive from our heart, and this Love is what will make for goodness in every day we spend on earth.

To Be Free of Fear & in Perfect Peace

“You have one test, as sure as God, by which to recognize if what you learned is true.  If you are wholly free of fear of any kind, and if all those who meet or even think of you share in your perfect peace, then you can be sure that you have learned God’s lesson, and not your own.”  (A Course in Miracles FIP ed., T-14.XI.5)

This quotation comes early in the Text, and this is perhaps surprising, because it gives us a secret by which we can know if we are assimilating the message of A Course in Miracles.  We are, though, at this juncture perhaps unable to affirm that pass this test.

Are we free of fear?  Do others think of us with peace only? 

This is a hard test.  Even those who have been on the pathway to Awakening for a long time may not feel sure about their freedom from fear, or their choice to spread only peace.

How might we do these things?  How might we be free of fear and embodying peace always?

There are no easy answers.  A Course in Miracles in its entirety is seeking to bring us to this end.  But we can begin.  And we begin with study of ACIM.  We commune with God.  We listen to the Holy Spirit, Whose guidance will take us home to God surely.  We walk alongside Jesus, in imagination holding his hand.  This is the Holy Trinity, and in this we build on what we learned from the New Testament.  ACIM now seeks to take us where we are in our progress as human beings in this Twenty-First Century.  We have somewhat different needs in our salvation than people years ago had.  We have become changed people.  And we now know what the ego is, and we realize that its ways are not best for us.  If we are spiritually smart, we will reach for forgiveness of our brother as our pathway.  This is the means that A Course in Miracles is using to take us to God.  This is our salvation, our access to Awakening.

Speak to God today in your effort to move closer to Him in daily life.  Follow guidance for the best pathway in everything.

Open Every Door to the Holy Spirit

“The Holy Spirit asks of you but this; bring to Him every secret you have locked away from Him.  Open every door to Him, and bid Him enter the darkness and lighten it away.  At your request He enters gladly.”  (A Course in Miracles, T-14.VII.6)

If we have any reason to doubt that we have been baptized by the Holy Spirit, now is the time to remedy that lack.  The Holy Spirit will enter anyone who asks; this quotation makes this clear.  And ask we must.  A Course in Miracles is filled with promises to which we are entitled, but for which we must first ask.  The New Testament is similarly filled with such promises.

Once we have asked that we be filled with the Holy Spirit, we will not have long to wait.  He will make His Presence known almost immediately.  The entry does not have to be earth-shattering.  The Holy Spirit often moves in quietness, and if we wish for something more, it may or may not be forthcoming.

All of this does not matter.  The Holy Spirit can be with us now, as we read together.  As I write. Ask for His Presence.  That is all that is required.

We need to bring to the Holy Spirit all dismal secrets that we have kept locked away, usually out of shame.  He will heal all these secrets forthwith.  There is nothing too shameful to bring to Him.  There is nothing, likewise, that He won’t heal.

Light is a symbol often used in A Course in Miracles.  We need simply to walk into the light, into the sunlight (if you will), to find God’s blessing upon us.  And, in this quotation, we find that the Holy Spirit is God’s Voice, ready to reach out to us at any time that we ask.

Ask today.

The Body in This World

“Now, one of the reasons that I have had little to say through the ages, especially to those who revere the leaving of the body, is that I am Mother of the ‘body’ of Christ.  And I am deeply with you in the cause to bring ‘the body’ into the realm of the living.”  Mirari

This somewhat controversial statement by Mary of Nazareth, received by Mari, is controversial because A Course in Miracles enthusiasts, and many A Course of Love enthusiasts, do not believe in the material world.  The Workbook of ACIM says, famously, “There is no world!”  We are living in illusion as long as we are in the dream that God gave us when we separated from Him.  This too I believe.

Mary’s statement has something deeper, though.  The body certainly seems “real” to us, and it is this “real” nature of the body that may explain why Jesus worked with Mari to bring forth A Course of Love.  If read narrowly, A Course in Miracles makes our life here pretty dismal—until the Holy Spirit brings to us the “happy dreams” that he does bring.  But we may still get the impression from ACIM that life on the Other Side, as spirits, is better than life in the body.

If we all believe this, we won’t want to return to the earth in the future.  We will live out our lives, glad to be rid of this world.  But we are the hands and feet of God (and by extension, Jesus), and if we don’t save our brothers and sisters who are lost in attack and anger, who will?

Perhaps Jesus did not at first recognize in A Course in Miracles how dismal he was making this world sound.  So we have A Course of Love, and, now, Mirari, to celebrate the new world that we will be creating.  A new world in which reality blossoms.

Quiet Path in Summer

“When you have learned how to decide with God, all decisions become as easy and as right as breathing.  There is no effort, and you will be led as gently as if you were being carried down a quiet path in summer.”  (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-14.IV.6)

When we “decide with God,” we are no longer rebelling against him.  Our adolescent rebellion is over, and it simply means that we must remove the scraps of fear from our minds as we find our way back to Him. 

Fear is a big problem for us, and we cannot imagine a “quiet path in summer” when we are overwrought with the ravages of fear.

Simply choose again.  We can do that, you know.  Anytime our days start in error, we can choose to begin the day over.  It is better, of course, to start the day right, because to do so saves time, and time is wearing on us.  The world is very weary now, caught in its madness with illusions of fear.  This lamentable state of affairs we have made for our world, and yet we don’t know how to get out of it.

The Holy Spirit does know how to lead us safely away from the fears, suffering, and pain that we have made.  Ask Him today for His guidance in finding that quiet path in summer.  We will not be disappointed with His Answer.

Would it not be wonderful to feel that our decisions are easily made?  Such is the way when our days develop flow from calling on the Holy Spirit for every detail.  Jesus does say that it is not wise to become preoccupied with every detail of our lives, that the right mind slant developed in the morning will see us through the day.  But we can turn to the Holy Spirit without tangling ourselves up with our decisions about what to do.  We can listen and learn, as the Holy Spirit whispers in our ears with inner words and intuitions.

There is no better way to live.  Turn the nighttime sleeping over to Him, and see if tomorrow doesn’t bring a hint of a quiet path in summer.

Good Morning!

“How you wake is the sign of how you have used sleep.  To whom did you give it?  Under which teacher did you place it?  Whenever you wake dispiritedly, it was not given to the Holy Spirit.  Only when you awaken joyously have you utilized sleep according to His purpose.  You can indeed be ‘drugged’ by sleep, if you have misused it on behalf of sickness.”  (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-8.IX.4)

We need, as this quotation says, to give our sleep over unreservedly to the Holy Spirit.  Considering this dictate, and considering what little willingness we really do have to have when we follow this guidance, is a good way to fall into a relaxed frame of mind—the very best way in which to fall asleep soundly and with peace.

Not all of us are morning people, and some will continue to wake up, sensing that they have almost been “drugged.”  But this is not the way that Jesus would point out to us.  He would have us wake up in good spirits, ready to meet the day and its experiences with ease.  Let us try to think along these lines tonight, as we prepare for sleep.

What might we have to do to prepare for such a sleep, a sleep given over to our Guide, the Holy Spirit?  Quiet time spent reading and reflecting is good; it will orient us away from fear, as Jesus tells us elsewhere in A Course in Miracles.  He would have us lull our minds into peace that speaks to our heart.  The heart does not need the “proof” that the mind does, and so our doubts are quietened.

What do you do in the morning if you awaken “drugged”?  Basically, we try again the next night, because the sense of overwhelming sleepiness is a sign that we are undernourished by the Holy Spirit.  He will set us aright.  We need no other Guide.

Being Channels

“Remember that all are channels.  Everyone channels what they want or what they ‘must’ because of the divine plan for each soul—a plan created as a perfect expression of a pact of love between Father and child, between Creator and created.”  Choose Only Love bk.3, 10:II

When we listen to our Inner Wisdom, which many call the Holy Spirit and that A Course of Love calls the Christ-Self, we are reaching toward a Self who partakes of God. Thus we become channels for what we wish to say. We are receiving from a Power higher than ourselves–when we tune in well.

Our personal, or “little” self can only know real truth when we seek knowledge beyond what this world can give us.

When we pray, we know that we receive guidance.

It is no different when we seek to share what God is putting into our hearts. Of course, we may get it wrong, because we are finite beings. All we can do is try to be a clear mirror for what God would say to us, and what we would seek to share.

In everyday life we are channels as well. When we sense that we are saying something that is beyond our puny little thoughts, we are channeling.

And all of us have had that experience, not once, but often.

Prayer

“Prayer is the medium of miracles.  It is a means of communication of the created with the Creator.  Through prayer love is received, and through miracles love is expressed.”  (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-1.I.11)

We need prayer more than God needs it from us, though He is said to be lonely when the minds He created do not commune with Him.  Since God is within (All is within), then we are communing with our innermost depths when we pray.  We will not be disappointed.  If we turn to God whenever we feel tangled up or mixed up, we will find solace for our aching souls.

We get this solace because we are feeling love from God, and love is the great resolver of everything that has gone wrong or might go wrong.  This is not a trite expression of faith; it is the way that life is set up.  We may be blessed without communing with God, for He loves us still, but we will not feel so blessed as we will with complete and utter surrender to His way and will.

We ask Jesus what miracles we are to perform, once we have received this all-encompassing love from God Himself.  We don’t just think up good deeds for others, and then seek to do those good deeds.  Even the most altruistic impulse of ours could easily be the wrong thing to do, if we haven’t received guidance about that action.  Ask Jesus, or the Holy Spirit, what we are to do about any impulses for altruistic action that we have.  Is doing something a right thing?  Or would it be better to wait on His guidance?  We will get our answers when we stop long enough to surrender to a Higher Will, and to do the bidding that we receive.  We will not have to wait long; the Holy Spirit can speak to us, and will, when we ask from a tranquil and easy heart.

Why is it this way?  We do not know enough to make decisions on our own.  When we attempt to do so, we are attempting to develop our own judgments about a given issue or person.  And our judgment will be wrong, for we don’t see the whole picture—past, present, and future.  But there is One—the Holy Spirit—Who does see that whole picture.  His judgments are always true.  And He speaks from that loving judgment to all of us who ask for guidance.  We are set on our way through this meandering world by starting the day right by asking.  Always asking.  And we continue to ask as the day unfolds.  This way what we do and say, and even what we think, are miracles of expediency in our journey through life.  We walk surely, for we have a sure Guide.

Holy Spirit

“[T]he Spirit of God that lives in you, which is what Holy Spirit means, likewise encompasses the love beyond attributes that God is.”   Choose Only Love bk.4, 1:III

We haven’t had a good handle on Who the Holy Spirit really is, and today we discover–the Spirit of God. Though part of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit is nothing really separate, even as the Son (and Daughter) are not actually separate from God–for God lives in all, the All, everything.

The Way of Mastery refers to “a” holy spirit that overshadowed Jesus in his time on earth. Yes, a holy spirit really did overshadow him. And that Spirit was the Spirit of truth (though we can see that truth in reality is really Love).

We have moved into the time of Christ now, the time in which all of us following God’s pathway do indeed embody Christ. Christ is not limited to one entity, Jesus. Jesus welcomes us all into his mantle.

Ask that our truth today be informed by the love that truth really contains. We need each other, and we need each other in love.

God Lives through Us

“To believe in a God incapable of experiencing that which comprises the vast range of human experience is to misunderstand.”  Choose Only Love bk.3, 2:I

I want to believe that this is accurate channeling, because it supports an idea that I have long written about in this blog:  God is living through us.  If we are a part of Him, which Jesus’ channeled writings say, then it seems to me very evident that He knows.  Yes, he knows when we are going through a bad patch.  He knows when we need a helping hand.  He knows when we are getting downhearted and could use His wider view.

It is better not to misunderstand, though with our finite minds we frequently do.  A Course in Miracles has words that seem to indicate that only the Holy Spirit knows about us, because we are caught in illusion, and God does not know illusion.  But there is reality deep within us, and this reality, I believe, is “God-stuff.”  So the fact that we spin illusions does not mean that He lacks the will or the power to know what we are experiencing.  Here Choose Only Love seems to second this interpretation.  God knows, regardless of how deep into illusion we have fallen.

If we suffer, we have a helping Hand.  If we are in pain, He reaches back to us.  And His experiencing of what we are going through does lighten the burden.  I believe God also knows why these bad things happen to us.  We don’t know this; at best we have guesses only.  The mystery of suffering will remain a mystery as long as love is incomplete in us.  Love heals always, and if we love enough, A Course of Love indicates that healing is a fait accompli.

When times get rough, remember that God is experiencing right along with us.  His infinite mercy will ease the pain, give us back a good life.  We may never know why the rough patch is necessary, but A Course in Miracles says that we don’t have to learn through pain, that learning through rewards is more lasting.

Ask to learn, or to discover, the best way today.   Through rewards, not pain.

This can and will happen for all of us, when we stay attuned to our Creator.

Transformed

“Let yourself be transformed more every day by my love and you will see that your path will be as serene and harmonious as a summer breeze.”  Choose Only Love bk.2, 21:II

This is a statement attributed to Jesus, in which he affirms the life-changing result of letting ourselves be transformed by the love that he feels for us.   Not the love that we feel for him, but the love that he feels for us.  We therefore have very little to do with our transformation.  We simply have to hold ourselves ready to receive, to receive love from him.

Very little is actually asked of us in salvation/transformation.  That little is the fact of being open to the change, the transformation.  The Holy Spirit (A Course in Miracles) or the Christ-Self (A Course of Love) will effect the change, but only when we are responsive.  We must be ready, but we don’t have to ready ourselves.  A Higher Power will ready us. And we only have to be willing to receive from Jesus and his holy companions.

The outcome of our receptive spirit is a path as “serene and harmonious as a summer breeze.”  Would we not want this?  What are we waiting for?

Clear our mind, open our heart, and be prepared for a transformation.  It is just that simple, and just that profound.

Let’s decide today to allow this alteration in ourselves to come about.  It takes our decision, nothing more.  When we decide for truth, truth finds us.

And we are never the same again.

Happiness of Heaven

“Let the wisdom of Heaven be your faithful companion.”  COL bk.2, 20:III

Everyone who reads this quotation will read it differently.  I focus on the happiness of Heaven this morning.  I will use this quotation as my mantra today. 

If we don’t focus on the goodness, the joy, the peace, of Heaven, then we so easily get ourselves tangled up as we live in a tangled world.  But, as A Course in Miracles tells us, projection makes perception, and we can therefore choose what we focus upon, what we will see.   If we let Heaven speak to us, we will be blessed indeed.  It is “wisdom” that Heaven gives, and so this is no mindless faith, borne of ignorance.  We will know things in a way that we have not before.  When we choose the wisdom of Heaven as our daily companion, we won’t lapse into recriminations, ruing our lot in life.  We will be grateful for what we have, and by living in that gratitude, we open the doors to Heaven’s storehouse, and more blessings rain down upon us.

The wisdom of Heaven will stay with us, when we invite it: “faithful” companion.  May we revel in the thought that God walks with us through thick and thin, always here, always living through us.

We don’t need to fear that He will ever let us down.  If we focus on His blessings, then we are doing our part to invite more.

Let’s let the wisdom of Heaven be our faithful companion today and every day.

Spiritual Gifts of God

            The particular way that A Course in Miracles offers restitution and reunion with God is through our relationships to each other, especially through the relationships that have been special to us.  Specialness is an illusion like all the rest, and it is only as we realize that we ourselves are not special that we can come to see that even our “special” relationships are not special.

            The Holy Spirit transforms these people so special to us into something more real.  The purpose of the relationship is transformed from ego orientation to the spiritual gifts of God. We see in our brother what we want to see in ourselves; that is what we begin wanting when we perceive specialness in another.  But as the relationship proceeds (if we do not choose to break it

off), we come to see that even this interpretation is a mirage. As we see and love these people as they really are, we come to forgive them of their ego foibles, and we love almost in spite of ourselves.  That is when we begin finding our way Home.

–from Out of the Maze, an e-book by the author of this blog.

We Are Doing This unto Ourselves

            As Jesus says, unfairness and attack are one mistake (T-26.X.3:1), just two aspects intertwined at every point.  We must beware of the temptation to see ourselves unfairly treated, for the secret is this:  We are doing this unto ourselves.  Nothing happens without our permission being granted at some level of our being.  Always we are trying to effect our salvation.  We may be misguided in the choices that we make, but remember that it is our dream we are dreaming.  When we perceive ourselves to be deprived, we are the culprit.  We need only turn to the Christ within, the presence of God within, to set aright again our little world, to give up our sick little games.  Of course, just to turn to the Christ within is the first step.  We must still retrace all our steps and have the ladder toward egoism withdrawn for us, and this the Holy Spirit does well, being the function for which He was created.

            The world’s purpose is not to play sick little games of blame and victimization.  As the Holy Spirit sees the world, its only purpose is to make known to us the presence of our Guests within–the Christ and God Himself, the Son (or Daughter) and the Father (or Mother).  Playing the “blame game” will obscure their presence, and the sparkle that the world could have will grow dim and even dark.  We must not seek to add our purpose to the world, thereby confusing the issue and taking away from its singleness of purpose as viewed by our Teacher, the Holy Spirit.  Instead, let us let Son and Father be shown to us, and know that in this revealing will the purpose of the world be completely fulfilled.

            We are not “special,” different, or unique in that what we are can in any way be better (or less) than our brother.  We will all walk Home together, or none of us, and Jesus assures that all of us will find our way back to God, though the time will be far distant unless we pull together.  Because each needs his brother, the way will be shorter (the time more compacted) if we hold our brother’s hand as we walk.  If we realize this shared destiny fully, we will never wish to be considered more “special” than another.  We will be friends one to another because we have a shared purpose. (T-24.I.6:4)  We will protect one another along the way, aware that our failure is his, and just as clearly, his failure is ours. 

There is a brighter side because the victories belong to both of us as well.  There can be no solitary purpose when we are all joined as One in the eyes of God. Look closely at whatever divides one from another.  Is it not that each of us harbors a secret belief that we are more special, better than the other to whom we have been in relationship?  This is what causes broken bonds, an egotistical desire to be separate in order to preserve one’s specialness.

–from Out of the Maze, an e-book by the author of this blog.

Ask the Holy Spirit for Escape from Fear

The way we view our brother is actually the way that we view ourselves.  If we attribute dark motives to him, it is sure that we are projecting those motives from within ourselves. And mild annoyance can be just as debilitating as more aggressive forms of hostility.  We are never angry at something that is “really there”; what we see is always a projection from our own false image of self, our ego.  To believe otherwise is to construct a room without exits in this illusory and sad world of ours.

            We can see the dynamic of blame played out with our brother.  First, for whatever reason, we unconsciously feel fear; this fear floats about looking for a place to alight, and just a word, of whatever nature, from our brother is enough to create anger.  The whole encounter revolves around fear, but we will more likely correctly identify what transpires if we allow ourselves to

experience the fear as stress.  We can then more easily bring ourselves around to a better slant of mind, without torturing ourselves by looking for the source of fear.  Ease up, and ask for respite from the Holy Spirit.  It is our little mind, the ego, that has gotten us into this fix, but it is our Higher Mind that can get us out.  If we dwell a moment upon our brother’s sterling qualities, the sword of guilt above our heads will no longer descend to touch our heart.

–from Out of the Maze, an e-book by the author of this blog.

Turn to Quiet Center of Self

“Remain with me here, for here do I abide. The only difference between us is that occasionally you believe that you abide somewhere else. When you journey up those stairs, to begin to be distracted by the thoughts on the surface of your mind and by the sensory feedback of the energy field that comprises your physical creation, I remain in our shared heart, patiently waiting for your return.” (“The Way of the Heart,” WOM, Lesson 11, Page 138)

We are all One, and this includes Jesus, who many believe channeled this message through Jayem. Here Jesus refers to our “shared heart,” and the Self is indeed the One to which he refers.

We often leave this shared heart to go about our business in the world. We don’t touch base with our interior nearly enough. And touching base with our interior is the best way that we have to make wise choices in life. This is communing with the Holy Spirit (as described in A Course in Miracles) or the Christ-Self (as described in A Course of Love).

When we lose touch with what is inside of ourselves, we lose touch with that which can give us solace and peace. We are cut adrift.

Turn to the quiet center of the Self today. Don’t try to go it alone in a hostile and cruel illusion of a world.

We won’t succeed in living a good life if we seek to be independent and self-sufficient.

True wisdom is recognizing that turning to our Creator is the wisest decision we can ever make.

Just a Quiet Knowing

“Within this awareness lies the answer to every question you might choose to ask. Within this shimmering awareness is the reassurance that the end of the journey is certain. Within this shimmering awareness do you abide at one with all minds and every aspect of creation. Join with me here often, in remembrance of me. For this is the secret of communion—to relinquish the perception of the world in favor of the acknowledgment of Reality.” (“The Way of the Heart,” WOM, Lesson 11, Page 136)

The perception of the world includes much that is deplorable. We don’t have to look with fearful eyes at this perception, though. Reality, true Reality, is perfectly harmless. It is the way we perceive that shows us harmony, joy, peace, Love. It leads into knowing, or into just “knowledge,” which is an immediate understanding that is largely intuitive. We act out of knowing when we are sure of the action we are taking. No voices, no locutions, no magic. Just a quiet knowing.

We are invited to commune with Jesus so that he can show us more than we could figure out on our own. Our awareness takes a giant leap forward when we take him up on his word. His foci of consciousness is very great, so that many of us can tune in and be answered at any given time. Of course, such speculation is beyond us. How could there be numerous foci of consciousness on the part of one entity? We don’t know, but then again, we don’t have to know. We can test out our suspicions about Jesus’ availability to us, and we will not be disappointed. We will find him here for us, if we ask for his presence with an open heart.

Would it not be wonderful to have the solution to every problem, shining in the wind? Every question we seek to ask has a ready Answer in the Holy Spirit or the Christ-Self. We need simply pose a question, clear our minds, get quiet, and then wait patiently. The Answer will, when we are open, pop into our mind. There is no struggle. We are the ones who make struggle, and we are looking deep in our depths, where there is only quiet, no struggle at all.

Commune with our depths today.

We will never find a better way to live.

Still, Small Voice

“Rest with me, and acknowledge that our minds are joined. As you rest, again, you might notice that thoughts seem to arise and pass away. But do you not sense them, now as though they were coming from a place where you are not, as though you had sunk more deeply to a place of quiet beneath the surface upon which thoughts flow back and forth without ceasing?” (“The Way of the Heart,” WOM, Lesson 11, Page 135)

Being quiet, staying in our quiet corner, is a most powerful way to connect with the God within. If we let the hubbub of the world get into our mind and heart, we will find it very difficult to listen to the still, small Voice. And listening to the still, small Voice is exactly what we need to do.

What will that Voice tell us? Some of what we hear will be unique to each of us, for we are unique creations of God, with nobody else the exact duplicate of ourselves. But some of what we hear will be shareable with others, for they too will need the same message. Shareable when they are open to hear, for we do not want to force ourselves on anybody who is not ready to hear God’s message.

If we “rest” with Jesus, we will be well on our way to a new day in living. He would not have us anxious and tied in knots over anything. His Father is not reached that way. We make our own hell on earth when we let nervousness take over. So contemplate silently, or meditate. Still the mind and heart.

When the mind and heart are stilled, then flow happens. And flow is as close to following the Holy Spirit’s every nudge as we can come. We don’t get stubborn and seek to have everything “our” way. We listen to our inner guidance, and then we act. This best way to live is open to all of us, though not all of us are equally listening. For those who are, the message is clear and unmistakable.

Be still and listen for God’s prompting in our very soul.

We WILL hear, and we will not be disappointed in what we hear.

Dancing in the World of Dreams

“Whatever feelings arise, come and go. But somehow you begin to recognize that you are much larger than the things that come and go, that you are watching a dance of shadows, a dream, gently passing by, that is gone in a cosmic split second. This does not become a way in which you deny your experience. Rather, it gives you the freedom to embrace it and live it totally, with passion, with purpose, with power, and in perfect freedom—no anxiety, no pressure, just the willingness to dance in the world of dreams, while remaining awake. (“The Way of the Heart,” WOM, Lesson 10, Page 129 – 130)

Dancing in the world of dreams is what awaits us on the other side of Awakening. Our world, actually an illusion, is called a dream because it passes so easily from our consciousness. If we remain awake, we have lost nothing by its passing. All things are fleeting, and we enjoy those things while they remain with us, but we just as easily let them go, for in this world nothing is permanent. Change is the only constant.

I have long enjoyed a private attachment to the image of dancing in our reality. Dancing is such a freeing activity. We twirl and twist, feeling as though our toes lift from the ground and stay aloft. Of course, the toes do come back to earth, but we have changed in the dancing. We have touched some of the freedom that we will know in a constant Awakening.

Would we not like to have “no anxiety, no pressure. . .” in this world? Of course. That is what we have thought to be a pipe dream. But here Jesus is telling us that such a state of affairs can be a constant with us. It is awaiting us in God’s Kingdom, the land of Awakening. It is what we enjoy with a healed mind.

We have lived in insanity, madness. Now we are on the road back home to God. Many of our struggles are falling away as, now, we live the “happy dreams the Holy Spirit brings” (from A Course in Miracles). As our new reality passes by quickly, we don’t have to cling to it. We don’t deny the experience. We just embrace the rapid change that accompanies us on our journey.

This is a way to live a passionate life without the highs and lows of egoic drama. This is the type of passion that gives us joy without a down side.

This is what we all long for. Let’s commune with our God and ask Him to direct us in healing our minds. Insane no more, we will walk a green earth.

Every day.

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.

A Gentle Voice

“Peace then, be with you always. Let peace pervade your being at all times. Know that you are safe in the Love of God that arises from that great Source of mystery and would move through you with every breath you breathe and every word you speak, until you hear only that impetus of guidance that wells up from the depth of your being as a gentle voice that you trust completely. And you will know the freedom that you seek.” (“The Way of the Heart,” WOM, Lesson 5, Page 69)

We are always needing guidance, and especially when we think that we are on the right pathway. We fool ourselves, and we think that we can do it ourselves now.

This is never true. We always need the guidance of the Holy Spirit, or the Christ Self. We are never so smart that we can forge our own way through the thicket that surrounds us. For in this world, there are many temptations, many erroneous ideas that will ensnare us.

Ask today. Just ask.

And the Way will unfold for us, bounteously.

Following the Spirit

From my “ponder” series. . .

I don’t know when I encountered the baptism of the Holy Spirit. It must have been a quiet experience. I do know that when I was working as a media coordinator in the public schools in North Carolina, I went about my duties in the library with one ear tuned to what I was feeling. The Holy Spirit talked to me through my feelings. Sometimes it seemed that I was even prompting to turn left or right at a given time, not sure what I would see when I turned.

It was all a bit unnerving. My preacher had previously told me that Holy Spirit doesn’t tell you whether to turn left or right at a stop light, but my experience was different. To me, guidance spoke in particular ways in my everyday life.
Things went along well when I tuned in. The “feelings” were somewhat different from what I would term “intuition.” Intuition can be a “knowing,” and the nudges I got were not a knowing, because I didn’t understand what would transpire when I made a move in the direction prompted.

My Unconscious mind, where I think the Holy Spirit resides, must have been very close to the surface during that early period of learning how to listen. And the listening continued for long years, culminating now in a sense of knowing. I don’t get those indications of whether to turn right or left.

Is something missing, or am I just following guidance another way?

Now We Know What Love Is

No matter how deep you go into the depth of God, and no matter how deep you achieve an awareness and consciousness of union with God, what God is remains forever beyond your growing capacity to understand God. It is like an ocean of infinite depth. (“The Way of the Heart,” WOM, Lesson 5, Page 64 – 65)

We will never, if we visit a thousand worlds, know God completely. His Godhead is the All, and we can know, intuitively, only facets of His personality. He shares with us, but the sharing is not a sharing of equals. We are creations of the Creator. It is true that we are a part of Him, in that he differentiated His essence to form entities without number, an infinite number. The magnitude invites humility in us. Knowing that we are God, but we are not all that God is, can give us a realistic estimate of ourselves.

We are growing in understanding. Not so long ago, most men and women of faith believed that God stood apart from His handiwork, that we (and the earth) were His handiwork, and that the distance between ourselves and our God was so great as to be unreachable. Now we know that we can have a direct knowledge of God, and this knowledge is known to us because in the age of Christ we are not so afraid of Him. His magnitude, when we were sinners caught by the ego (read “Devil”) was beyond us. We needed a Comforter to bridge the distance, and that Comforter was the Holy Spirit. Now we know that this, a holy spirit, is a part of us, and we no longer quake in our boots at the thought of approaching His majesty as just our humble selves. We know what love is, and we sense that we are loved just as we are, mistakes and all. It is awe-inspiring. And humbling at the same time.

Let God talk to you today. He is in the silence of our meditations. He will comfort our aching minds with wisdom of our hearts.

Let the heart tell us this today.

Born of the Spirit

For as you take up your rightful place, you become a vehicle through which the voice for God will creatively touch the lives of countless persons that you may never ever meet physically.” (“The Way of the Heart,” WOM, Lesson 4, Page 55)

What an exalted notion Jesus has of us! We might cringe, thinking that we are being humble, but this is simply another evidence of our playing small. Jesus calls us to greatness, not greatest borne of the ego, but greatness borne of the spirit. We are children of God, created in His image, and when we give up our separation from God (for we have this in our power), we will grow all the way up to whatever glory we have in us.

We will attract others, whether they be many or few. Our persona will radiate a good will that is attracting. Nobody likes to interact with an ego, lest of all our brothers and sisters who are in our close circle. Egotism puts off everyone, though when we are lost in the ego, we don’t recognize how off-putting this way of being really is.

We do appreciate Jesus, and here he indicates near the passage for today that he knows this. He too appreciates us, and our best efforts, and will support us in every worthy endeavor.

Ask for Jesus’ help today. He won’t be long in coming to us, holding our hand, and walking along. Our best efforts will then be multiplied, with such a companion as he.

Quiet Answer

Note that while a request to remove anger may be granted immediately, it is more likely to be a slow process. Giving up all our angers requires a complete relinquishment of self-will (in the egoistic sense) to the better way of the Spirit within. And it requires attunement to the Divine at the moment in the heat of anger. Do not fight the sin (error)! That will only make it stronger. Instead, withdraw into one’s heart and mind and seek the solace of God’s solution to the situation that so troubles. Avoid the quick retort; know that this impulse is fueled by fear (stress) and is unworthy of a child of God. If we fall down on the pathway, know that God is ever ready to pick us up and set us aright again. Forgive self for the lapse! It does no good and much harm to chastise one’s self harshly and in the throes of guilt. Ask for divine assistance and it will be forthcoming. Above all, be grateful for the surfacing of anger. It is the only way for the boil to be lanced, the false self to be undone, and the better way available to all of us once again.

If problems assail us one by one, two by two, or more, please know that we are living in error. This is the human condition. Jesus says, though, that we will have freedom when we give over all problems to the one solution—the Holy Spirit. He will impress upon our minds the solution in a quiet answer without fanfare, a quiet answer that leaves no one the loser. Until every problem is given over in this way to a Higher Power, the essentially same “problem” will arise repeatedly in different forms. To keep a problem, moreover, is to make it great, past the hope of accomplishing a solution. God would not have this so for His children. In the Holy Spirit’s sight, though, problems are little and “. . .worth no more than just a tiny sigh before they disappear. . . .” (T-26.II.7:4)

If God’s Son in truth is innocent, then God’s justice would hold nothing against him. When we fail to offer the same justice to our brother by seeing instead that he is not due true justice, that he has done something not worthy of forgiveness, we judge against ourselves as well. Madness, as Jesus says, only seems terrible; in truth it has no power to make anything. (M-17.9:1-2) Justice would say to our brothers, “Choose again. This thing you decry is false and not reality at all.” Then our brother is granted complete justice as an innocent, though mistaken, son or daughter of God. We forgive, though we, strictly speaking, do not need to do so at all because there is nothing to forgive. Illusions need to be simply dispelled, and all will be as if they had never been.

Anger

When we recognize that our minds are one, that the mind that is in one’s brother connects to our own, it is a very short step to eliminate attack, because we recognize that the attack is upon ourselves as well. And eliminating attack will eliminate guilt, the reason that we have been driven mad and into this world of illusion.

This new way of approaching life may not come readily. We first may find our anger rising more easily from the depths because we have been sensitized to the fact that it is there. How can we eliminate it unless we are first made aware of it? As one comes closer to living in the fully spiritual life, the tiny inconveniences of living, the nagging doubts and negative thoughts, the scraps of anger, will seem more burdensome to us than before. That is why saints have historically viewed themselves as the blackest of sinners: They are more conscious of the tiniest of errors. So too will this dynamic occur as we make our way along the spiritual pathway. Do not, therefore, lament the awareness of anger within; open up to feel it and then bid it leave forever. Think you that the Holy Spirit would not grant this request, so in line with God’s will for us?

Be Gentle with the Self

Do we really choose, on some level, what we experience? The Course is uncompromising in its insistence that we do. “Suffer, and you decided sin was your goal. Be happy, and you gave the power of decision to Him [i.e., the Holy Spirit] Who must decide for God for you.” (T-21.II.3:5-6)

If this concept is helpful, it is because we see the light at the end of the tunnel. If it makes us feel guilty, we are misusing the words on behalf of the ego’s insanity. All of us are still at least partially insane, ruled by the ego. It is not practical to think, under these circumstances, that we always and consistently follow the Holy Spirit. The little self that occupies this world is still imperfect. Be gentle with that self, even as your Self would be, and perhaps say quietly (if it is helpful), “There is another way of looking at the world.” (W-pI.33.h)

When I fall from Grace into karma, I think, “I have done this thing to somebody else, sometime, somewhere.” I allow myself to feel the pain, but I try not to wallow in it. It is sometimes helpful, if the “sin” (in illusion) seems to be perpetrated by another, to remember, “you always attack yourself first,” (T-10.II.4:5) substituting the offender’s name for the “you.” Then I feel compassion for this fellow traveler, my brother sent to me by God, for we will find the way out together or not at all.

Resolving Conflict

Are we ever really in conflict? The Course would say not. The true Self is above such pettiness. When conflict rules, we have let our egoistic images of ourselves collide with simply a different egoistic image, also of ourselves.

This conflict happens all the time to those of us still on this side of the bridge, and this includes most of us—we who are still not consistently living in the “real world.” We do not, however, have to continue in conflict. We can refer all questions to our Counselor, the Holy Spirit.

I have found that the gesture of turning the conflict over to the Holy Spirit may be answered immediately, or we may be so involved with turmoil that a quieter mind, one that could hear guidance, has not yet come to us. If the latter is our situation, we need to suspend our thoughts, refusing to mull over the unresolved issue, and quiet our minds.

Whatever method one uses can be right—meditation (the Course makes use of some of this quietness, though the word “meditation” is never used in the FIP edition); prayer; or simple distraction from the conflict to thoughts of something else. One must be aware, however, that distraction can allow the conflict to light upon something else later on. Whatever method one uses, we must trust not in one’s self, but in the Holy Spirit, the Bearer of better thought, to give a way out of the impasse. One helpful thought when battling conflict is to remember that one always battles illusions, for Reality does not battle at all. This recognition may in itself may be enough to calm the heat of passion.

In my own case, I used to have a neurotic tendency to find something, anything, about which to worry. It is as if the “worry” part of me were comfortable only if I had something to fret over. So it is that the ego thrives on conflict, justifying its continuance by conflict. There is a well-worn groove that most of us reserve for worry. When all is said and done, we may find that we were simply in the grip of a bad habit. But by so retaining this bad habit, the Course would say that we make the conditions that we dread, because we choose our own reality. There is a solemn warning in realizing our power to choose our futures that should not be minimized.

Picture instead a resolution, as yet unknown, to be worked out by the Holy Spirit. Abide with this thought awhile, and see if a calmer mind will not welcome, in a moment of revelry perhaps, the answer previously sought so frantically. Once we set aside the conflict-ridden emotional state, the Holy Spirit is free to act.

STRUGGLE NOT

Note: This article was published in Miracles magazine, January – February 2019 issue (Jon Mundy, publisher).

by Celia Hales

“Out of His lack of conflict comes your peace. And from His purpose comes the means for effortless accomplishment and rest.” (A Course in Miracles, COA ed., T-VI.13:7)

“All that you retain is a belief in effort and a struggle to be good and to do good, a belief that clearly demonstrates that you have rejected who you are.” (A Course of Love, C:P.13)

When we launch into self-help mode, struggling to be better than we really are, then we are on the wrong track. Nobody, by effort, can effect great change. This is the ego’s plan, and it is a bad plan. The ego would have us fail continually, until we give up, turn against God, and decide that nothing we can ever do will make any difference anyway.

The quotation above from A Course in Miracles points out a better way. We know “effortless” accomplishment when we are depending on the Holy Spirit to rule our days. And we know the same when we follow the Christ Self, as A Course of Love would have us do in this time of Christ.

How might this effortless accomplishment come about? I think that quiet contemplation is the real way of change, effortless change. When we turn inward, we are merging with our Maker, for we are made of God-stuff. When we turn inward, calmly, we often intuit that things are not as bad as we thought when we judged ourselves as guilty. Our true innocence leads to self-acceptance, and this self-acceptance is being who we really are, something that A Course of Love champions.

Of course, we have not been perfect in our lives. We may have hurt ourselves and other people; we may have been guilty of violent acts. The Answer (which we all know) is forgiveness borne of the certainty that rescue is available. As faulty as our behavior may have been, we acted as well as we could, given our level of understanding at the time. And this is true for everyone.

Now we know better, for A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love both show us the way to a life of being who we really are, innocent children of God, no longer in a struggle to change by force of personal will. We listen to guidance, and in restful listening, let the Holy Spirit or the Christ Self take over. And thereby does change become effortless.

Turning toward Home

“Therefore, when you awaken in each of your mornings, look around. Who is that person sleeping next to you? They are your perfect companion. They are a messenger from God. For just behind your experiences, there is something deeper taking place. Because your mind is resting right next to the Mind of God, when you first say as a soul, ‘I want to awaken, I want to go home,’ the Father answered your prayer and began to send the thought through your Spirit and through your soul to your conscious mind:

“I know how to direct you home. Give up this career and start that one. Move from this location to that location.

“You began to feel all manner of impulses. You began to read different books. You began to do different things. You met someone and fell in love. All by accident? Hardly! (“The Way of the Heart,” WOM, Chapter 3, Page 31)

Our way back to God, back home, is calculated with no accidents of salvation. There are no accidents at all! This may be hard to accept, especially if we have had hard times, but the fact is that our souls have planned our contract with this world. Everything has had a reason, part of the plan, though we will never understand it all this side of the veil of death.

When we receive promptings of where to go and what to do, what to say, even what to think, we are receiving promptings of the Holy Spirit or the Christ-Self. As soon as we indicated that we were ready to turn toward home, God answered. And this Answer was beyond anything that we could imagine, in most cases, better than anything we could imagine.

If the day seems grim, just be patient. God does not intend us to suffer. The way back is clearer without pain. We learn better without pain, but through blessings.

This way is without the lamentable happenings that have given us grief. This new way will save us for a happy today and tomorrow, one that we could not imagine in our most wondrous imaginings.

Freedom

“These are the first two axioms of The Way of the Heart, to be built on, to be remembered and to be cultivated daily:
“I am created as my Father created me to be. I am free. And nothing sources my experience but me in each moment. Nothing has an effect upon me whatsoever, save that which I choose to allow to affect me.
“I need do nothing.” (“The Way of the Heart,” WOM, Chapter 2, Page 20 – 21)

We are the source of our experience, what we have chosen comes to us. But this is not the personality, something that we know all too well, for bad things do happen, and we would be considered masochistic if we ask for those. Our Christ-Self, the soul, chooses for us, and its choices are informed by a merger with the God Who lives within each of us.

The second axiom, I need to nothing, is also given in A Course in Miracles. Now this doesn’t mean that we sit back and forever relax in a passive sense or a passive attitude. This means that we don’t “achieve” enlightenment by good works. In this The Way of Mastery (the Christ-Mind Trilogy) and A Course in Miracles are in line with St. Paul of the New Testament. We don’t “achieve” enlightenment at all; it is a gift of God when our mind and heart have been cleansed of the subconscious egoic misthought that has previously held us fast. When God reaches down to us and lifts us up to Christ-consciousness, we realize that we don’t “have” to do anything. Our will is free. We stay in the driver’s seat.

Our real will is identical with the will of the Holy Spirit. We often think that, like Jonah, we are being forced to go God’s way. But this is a misconception of what is actually happening. We are joyous only when we are aligned with that which brings joy, and we will eventually learn that that which brings us joy is God’s way.

Add Joy to the Kingdom

“God is praised whenever any mind learns to be wholly helpful. This is impossible without being wholly harmless, because the two beliefs must coexist. The truly helpful are invulnerable, because they are not protecting their egos, so that nothing can hurt them. Their helpfulness is their praise of God, and He will return their praise of Him, because they are like Him and can rejoice together. God goes out to them and through them, and there is great joy throughout the Kingdom. Every mind that is changed adds to this joy with its own individual willingness to share in it.” (ACIM, COA ed., T-4.X.10:1-6)

We could well make “helpful and harmless” an affirmation, to good effect. This is the way that we want to be.
“Helpful” means that we reach out to our fellow man and woman, our brothers and sisters, with words and deeds that will offer solace. It is often solace, for this world seems cruel, and many are those who suffer in it.

“Harmless” means that we will not attack or respond in anger, regardless of the provocation. This can be a hard affirmation to live up to, but live up to it, we must. We cannot attack and expect to take our place in heaven, which on earth is known as the Awakening (enlightenment or Christ-consciousness). When we go easy, often keep a low profile, and ask if making waves is really appropriate, then we are more likely to be harmless. While we still need to be appropriately assertive, aggressiveness can get us into trouble. We do not want to be patsies for the wrong deeds of others, but we will find a lot less to complain about when our attack mode is silenced.

We want to add to the joy of the Kingdom, and we spectacularly do when we are both helpful and harmless. Anything less, and we are less than we are meant to be.

Ask the Holy Spirit how we might best fulfill these attitudes. He will have lots of ideas.

Humble Asking Always Gets an Answer

“If you ask me for guidance, you have signified your willingness to give over your own control, at least to some extent. Your frequent failure to ask at all indicates that at such times you are not willing to go even that far. Failure to ask for guidance is a sign of fear. But when you at least ask, you are acting on a cooperative thought, even though it may not lack ambivalence. You are therefore entitled to a specific answer, but unless you follow it without judging it, you will become defensive about the next steps you will take.” (ACIM, COA ed., T-4.IX.4:1-5)

Jesus is available to us for guidance. As our elder brother, his advice is sounder than our own. It would be wise to ask.
Later on in A Course in Miracles, Jesus does not so much ask us to turn to him as to turn to the Holy Spirit. He knows that we ask of the ego, or we ask of Higher Guidance—whatever we do. While we may not be aware of these mental gyrations, they are nevertheless much a part of ourselves. We don’t make decisions just in our own superficial mind. Guidance is very real, but guidance of the ego is always wrongheaded and disastrous.

We will get specific answers, and these specific answers may very well come as the next quiet thought in our minds. Practical advice is always given. The Holy Spirit can be very practical, giving advice for the most mundane matters. The only criteria is that these matters are important to us. Humble asking always gets an answer. The solution is always found with the problem, as soon as the problem is articulated, even silently.

If we think we have decided what we want to do, and then ask, we have turned the tables on the Holy Spirit. We may not like what we hear, for the initial decision has, in all likelihood, be made in conjunction with the ego. ACIM says that the ego always answers first.

We don’t have to listen to the ego. It certainly would be wise not to do so, but simply to turn the matter over to spirit. The answer comes quickly.

Move toward the Holy Spirit

“The ego cannot survive without judgment, and is laid aside accordingly. The mind then has only one direction in which it can move.” (ACIM, COA ed., T-4.IV.9:4-5)

We are often, in A Course in Miracles, encouraged to give up judgment. Giving up judgment is a prerequisite for Awakening, because we simply cannot dwell in the new world we are creating when we are judging others and ourselves.

Goodness, we even judge God! And especially Jesus, who is but our elder brother seeking to help us.

This type of nonsense must be stopped. We cannot live more appropriately until we realize that evaluating others, and thinking negatively of them (and ourselves), is folly. And we want to live appropriately. Our happiness depends on it.

The one direction that the mind can move is toward the Holy Spirit, a holy spirit that embraces us with love, and teaches us how to love. This one direction will save us. This one direction will tell us all that we need to know to live satisfactory lives in this illusory world.

Living in God’s Shadow

“The ego has built a shabby and unsheltering home for you, because it cannot build otherwise. Do not try to make this impoverished house stand. It weakness is your strength. Only God could make a home that was worthy of His creation, who have chosen to leave it empty by their own dispossession. But His home will stand forever, and is ready for you when you choose to enter. Of this you can be wholly certain. God is as incapable of creating the perishable as your ego is of making the eternal.” (ACIM, COA ed., T-4.II.21:1-7)

We made the ego, and we made this persona badly. “A shabby and unsheltering home.” Of course. What else could madness make but something that sheltered us in a fragile structure? We have been vulnerable to the insanity of the ego for eons. Isn’t it time we tried something else?

That “something else” is living in God’s shadow, letting His Holy Spirit direct our steps back to the straight pathway toward Awakening. God is ready, has been ready, for us to return home. Now, at last, it seems that we are listening to Him.

I hope He is glad, if human emotions ever touch His splendor. We have journeyed far into the night, and we are just now beginning to see the first rays of light on a new morrow. We will be Awakening soon, the light having roused us through closed eyelids. When we open our eyes to the sunlight, our new persona is assured.

And this persona is the Christ-Self.

Joy of the Spirit

“The ego is afraid of the spirit’s joy, because once you have experienced this, you will withdraw all protection from your ego and become totally without investment in fear. Your investment is great now, because fear is a witness to the separation, and your ego rejoices when you witness to it. Leave it behind. Do not listen to it and do not preserve it. Listen only to God, Who is as incapable of deception as are the Sons He created. As a teacher or therapist, release yourself and release others. Do not preset a false and unworthy picture of yourself to others, nor accept such a picture of them yourself.” (ACIM, COA ed., T-4.II.20:1-7)

We ought to think well of ourselves, not coming from the ego, but from the spirit. The ego has kept us in chains, and the flights of joy that we have known have been balanced by a fall into depression and despair. The dramatic highs and lows were very pronounced. This is the way of egotism. This is what we want to gently turn aside from now.

When we have tasted real joy of the spirit, we will know that this alone is real. This is God’s blessing upon us as we emerge from madness, the insanity of the ego. When we taste joy, we know that we are beloved. We also know that we are capable of loving not only ourselves, but also our brothers and sisters who travel this road with us.

This joy is well-grounded, not a euphoria that is unsettling and unsettled. This joy is what will accompany us on the journey home to God, the separation healed, the Awakening in sight.
We do need to think well of ourselves, for as God’s creatures we are born of the spirit. And this spirit will allow us to present a picture of ourselves to others that will do us credit. Unfortunately, we are so used to denying the ego in ourselves, that we may think that such creditable awareness of ourselves is a step backwards.

It isn’t. Let the inner spirit that is our Christ-Self emerge from the inside wrappings. Be assured that this is what God wants of us.

A good Self-image will speed us along our journey with alacrity. We will know that this is the way to live well.

Commend Our Spirit into the Hands of the Father

“Nothing can prevail against a Son of God who commends his spirit into the hands of his Father. By doing this, the mind awakens from its sleep and remembers its Creator. All sense of separation disappears and level confusion vanishes. The Son of God is part of the Holy Trinity, but the Trinity Itself is one. There is no confusion within Its levels, because they are of one Mind and one will. This single purpose creates perfect integration, and establishes the reign of the peace of God.” (ACIM, COA ed., T-3.III.9:1-6)

We need to surrender to God; this is what commending the spirit into the hands of the Father actually means. When we surrender, we are literally one step away from Awakening. We are not relying on our puny little self; we are relying on the God within Who makes all things happen.

When the mind awakens from its sleep, we have enlightenment. The way may yet be long for some of us, but for others, it is just a step away. Jesus is hoping that his channeled writings will take humankind to the next level, the level of Christ-consciousness. Eventually all will occupy this level.

The Trinity explains a great deal, and for this we are dependent on traditional Christianity. All parts of the Trinity are within each individual. To objectify God, and not know what one is doing, is a misstep—though objectification can give us something to rely upon. As long as we know what we are doing.

Turn to the Holy Spirit today, and ask to be show mysteries. God would keep no secrets from the prepared mind and heart. He wants us to know Him.

Happy Dreams the Holy Spirit Brings

“The purpose of this course is integration. You cannot use it right until you have taken it. As long as your identification either vacillates or is weak, you cannot accept the gift that belongs to you. You are still vacillating between recognizing the gift and throwing it away, or regarding yourself as too weak to accept it. You do not know its healing power.” (ACIM, COA ed., T-1.50.5:1-5)

This is likely a personal reference to Helen and Bill, co-scribes of A Course in Miracles. But we can expand it to know that Jesus is also possibly talking to us as well. Jesus wants us to integrate ACIM into our very souls, and most certainly into our lives. If we don’t accept the gift of ACIM, we will not save ourselves much time. Our way back to God could theoretically take much longer.

Read A Course in Miracles carefully, and, if led to do so, repeatedly. One can get more from each reading, because our mind has expanded to understand more. Reading ACIM will be healing, and I can vouch for that. I fell in love with the channeled writing upon first reading, and I have never in all these years since 1981, strayed too far from another reading.

We do not have to see ourselves as weak. We become strong in the Holy Spirit, the One Who will be our strength as long as needed (and this may be needed for a very long time). Even if the way back for all of us takes millions of years (even longer than the separation, as Jesus says), we can rest in the love that will be ours along the way. Try not to be discouraged by the length of time. Our happy dreams, sent to us by the Holy Spirit, will encourage us that we are making progress, and happy dreams leads easily into Awakening.

Our goal is exalted, to save the world. But not by forcing our opinions upon those who are not ready. We are meant to be examples of right living, not evangelizing those who are not ready.

Pray that we ourselves are ready. Life gets ever better when we follow the wonderful advice in A Course in Miracles.

Listen to the Whispers of God-given Desire

“As the natural state of love is returned to you, judgment falls away because vision will arise. With the onset of the vision of love, many of you will make one final judgment in which you find everything to be good and full of love. Once all has been judged with the vision of love, judgment is over naturally for it has served its purpose. This is the final judgment.” (ACOL, T4:3.8)

Jesus doesn’t say it here, but judgment is the opposite of forgiveness, and forgiveness was the hue and cry of A Course in Miracles, the forerunner of A Course of Love. When we are loving and forgiving, we are in a state in which we are surrendering and re-surrendering to God at every point of departure. Surrendering and re-surrendering works; nothing else does.

We may think that we create our own reality, and we do. But if the reality that we choose to create is out of sync with what God knows is best for us, we get tangled up. ACIM and ACOL both assert that the will of God is actually our real, true will, and nothing else will work quite so well. We can rebel (and we have), but the shortest route to enlightenment is the straight line that our innermost self points out to us. This innermost self is the Christ-Self, and this Self is always in alignment with the powers that be, the God, the All, the One of everything.

We don’t seek to use our judgment to determine what to do, for we cannot possibly know all factors, past, present, future, that would determine how our choices would turn out. We turn to guidance, and we can evaluate this in several different ways. ACIM turned to the Holy Spirit, the feeling or intuitive sense that one might do a certain thing. ACOL turns to the inner Christ-Self, still ruling by feeling or intuition, but more precisely a direct route to God, of which we no longer cringe from in terror and fear. Our way is now more direct, for we know that God means us well, that He always points out the shortest route to the Christ-consciousness that we want. Every route will eventually take anyone there, but the shortest route is certainly preferred, for this world (and we ourselves) are in such agony that speed is to be desired.

Love finds all that we approach to be good and blessed. Even what seem like bad things, for things are actually neutral. We bring our interpretation to what we experience, and that interpretation puts a positive spin on our little world when we know that we are following surrender, re-surrender, and the guidance that surrender always gives us.

The way is not hard. No pathway that God points out to us, that we find to be tantalizing us with desire, genuine desire, is hard. Of course, we have to drop the egoic desires. And at this point in A Course of Love, Jesus assures that we have, in fact, dropped the ego. This will come to mean a lot to us, as we realize that our pathway just got swifter. Re-surrendering to what seems to call to us is the best way, the preferred way. And with this re-surrender comes the certain culmination of dreams we can only guess.

Prayer

Be with me today as I re-surrender to You. I have found that this re-surrender is the only way that I can have peace. There are many unknowns in the future, unknowns that could unhinge me, unless I let You take the lead. And when I step back and let You do the guiding, I am reassured, once again, of the Love that guides my steps surely.

Thank You for this good day. May the day grow ever brighter, like my future.

Amen.

We Are Safe, and Know Ourselves to Be in the Lap of God Himself

“The Holy Spirit was called upon to return this remembrance to minds and hearts. But again let me remind you that the Holy Spirit is not other than who you are but an aspect of who you are and Who God Is. Let me remind you also that names, such as Holy Spirit, are but word symbols that represent what is. So think now of whatever stories you know of the Holy Spirit, stories that symbolize what is. In these stories, the Holy Spirit is always called upon to return the true Self to the self of illusion. A Holy Spirit is called to return to your mind and heart.” (ACOL, T3:17.6)

This quotation for today gives us a fuller understanding of the Holy Spirit than we have had previously. We may have sometimes not understood at all. But to hear that the Holy Spirit is “a” Holy Spirit is an advance in our understanding. A Holy Spirit came unto Jesus 2,000 years ago, and enthralled him. The Holy Spirit did the same for us in A Course in Miracles. As well as all the times that we were fearful of God and needed an intermediary.

Now we aren’t fearful of God anymore and can reach inward in a more direct fashion. This is why the time of the Holy Spirit has ended and we are now in the time of Christ. The Christ-Self is within, a part of God. Of course, the Holy Spirit has been within as well, but we did not always recognize this. We were still projecting the Trinity as outside ourselves.

We need the true Self now. This is the only thing that will give us peace. The Holy Spirit prepared us for our return to God and Self.

And there is little else needful now. We are safe, and know ourselves to be in the lap of God Himself.

Prayer

I seek a closer walk with You today. I am praying what has been a frequent prayer, but today I invest this prayer with even more meaning. I know that I create my own reality, and the reality that I would have is one in which You walk with me always and forever. No separation, not even an illusory separation.

Thank You for the warmth that I feel when I pray. You warm my heart. You inform my mind of things that I need to know to live well. And the two together—heart and mind—give me a present and future far beyond what I have been able to envision.

Thank You.

Amen.