How Should the Teacher of God Spend His Day?

“Broadly speaking, then, it can be said that it is well to start the day right. It is always possible to begin again, should the day begin with error. Yet there are obvious advantages in terms of saving time. (M-16.2)”

1 – The Secret, by Rhonda Byrne

This passage from A Course in Miracles is echoed in the popular book The Secret, by Rhonda Byrne. There is detailed the fact that stumbling when getting out of bed often starts a chain reaction, because we rue the beginning of the day, our thoughts turn negative, and then a little bit of everything seems to go wrong.

2 – We Create Our Own Reality

The Secret affirms that we create our own reality, we draw to us that which happens to us. And the work includes many examples of how better things, particularly material things, can come to us when we image those better things in our minds, affirming that our minds are very powerful.

3 – Positive Thinking

I recommend positive thinking on getting out of bed in the morning. I believe that the intangibles are more to be desired than the ego-oriented material aspects of our world. I also believe that we will never remain satisfied, regardless of how many material things we acquire, if we don’t have a handle on these intangibles of peace, joy, contentment, harmony, and the like. In my spiritual orientation, these intangibles are the blessings of God. And we can create these in our reality as well. These spiritual aspects are emphasized in two later books by Rhonda, entitled The Power and The Magic. In these two books, she focuses on the importance of gratitude and the importance of love in creating our reality.

4 – If the Day Begins Badly. . .

If the day begins badly, if we stump our toe, for example, we need a quick restorative. And this can come through The Secret’s emphasis on gratitude in daily life, which certainly is a spiritual concept.

5 – Gratitude

Gratitude expressed throughout a day is a day well spent.

6 – No Planning Necessary

The lesson for today from the Workbook of A Course in Miracles goes on to affirm that we do not need to plan our day. This is something that I especially need to hear, maker of “to do” lists that I am. It is true that we need a plan, but that plan is best, according to ACIM, the plan of the Holy Spirit, who will prompt us at various junctures about what to do next. This idea of guidance is not well-recognized in our world, and that is such a pity. Anyone who has met the Holy Spirit knows that He will guide us to the degree that we are open to His guidance. He will develop a flow to our day, and the day will indeed be marvelous, even if bad things happen. We will be largely impervious to those bad things, seeing them but not being intimately damaged by what we view.

7 – Offer Solace

We do need to offer solace to our brothers and sisters on this earth, though, especially if they are creating a reality that is detrimental to their well-being.

8 – Blaming the Victim

I do have a cautionary note. We all too often, in New Age circles, think that the individual who is suffering has somehow brought this suffering on themselves. But I believe that it is the Self that makes these decisions, not the personal self. And so the “little I” is innocent of the bad that seems to follow us into this world. The Self that is within, the Christ within, selects happenings that are intended to broaden our perspective. We sometimes suffer for a larger purpose. But it doesn’t have to be this way, and as soon as we ask for surcease, we are released from the pain. The physical and emotional pain may not subside immediately, of course, but the way has been paved. And the Self always has our best interests at heart. We can ask, as Jesus in the Text of ACIM recommends, that we learn through rewards, a more lasting learning experience than anything that pain can bring us.

9 – You Do Not Have to Learn through Pain

“You do not have to learn through pain,” we learn in ACIM. What a blessing this assertion really is. And all we have to do to merit this end is to step forward and claim it.

Affirmation: “I am going to do what I can to have a good day today.”

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May this day go well. I am starting over, because already there has been some stress in my day, self-generated. I know that getting a slower start in the morning is good. And I know that when I get that slower start, the rest of the day falls in place.

May I have Your guidance to create my reality. I know that Your blessings are intangibles, though You know that we need the material also. I especially pray for peace in this sometimes difficult world. May my brothers and sisters, as well as myself, live in harmony with each other.

Amen.

How to Avoid Temptation

“The avoidance of magic is the avoidance of temptation.  For all temptation is nothing more than the attempt to substitute another will for God’s  (M-16.9)”

Affirmation:  “avoid temptation”

Reflections:

1 – How to Avoid Temptation?

How might one avoid temptation?  There will be temptations along the pathway that we walk, and there is no getting around this.  We are not perfect, even, perhaps, when we have awakened.  (A Course in Miracles is not definitive about this, but A Course of Love
indicates that we will still not be perfect.)  The best way to avoid temptation, or, more precisely, not to accept the tempting thing that is offered, is to ask for help at the “point of contact.”  When we are tempted, we are seeking something of the ego, the part of ourselves that thinks that it has separated from God.  We think that another will (our imperfect will) will get us something that we want, something more than the everything that we are promised.  (Yes, we are promised “everything” in ACIM.)  Jesus says that it is as though we would say that we want this one (little) thing, and it will be as everything to us.  But this one little thing would not satisfy for long, and in so doing we are making a pact with our ego–and the ego always fails us.

2 – ACIM‘s Definition of “Magic”

What does “magic” mean in this context?  It is akin to mental illness, the “magical thinking” that secular psychology describes so precisely.  We are thinking things that are not true, and never can we make the true out of the false.  The false will remain false, and it will take us down with it.  We do not want this.

3 – Following the Will of God

If we have love for God (and all of us do, or we would not have read this far), then we will want to follow the Will that grants us everything that we really want.  We really want the intangibles, the promises that God gives; but we also want the material, and we should not think, wrongly, that God Himself cares little for the material.  Jesus recalls to our minds the lilies of the field, and their beauty, and the lilies do not toil.  Yet they cannot compare even to Solomon’s glory.

4 – May We Avoid Temptation

May we not fall prey to temptation today.  May we know that the idea that there is something out there that is better than what God would give is an anomaly.  We will always get the best when we attract it through our gratitude and love for God and our brothers/sisters.  And we must always love ourselves as well, even when we have disappointed ourselves.  We cannot measure up, ever, because we are trying to be perfect, and that is essentially a disheartening message.  The Bible does quote Jesus as saying that we should be perfect, even as the Father in Heaven is perfect.  But I think that there are mysteries here that we cannot understand until we have walked the whole pathway back to God.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would stop, consider, and not go forward when I sense that I am trying to somehow get around Your will for me.  Please help me in this endeavor, today.  I would not seek to walk a different pathway, an egoic pathway that will take me far from You.  You want Awakening for me; I know that this is Your will.  But I need help.  And You are there for me.  This I know.

May I say the right things to reach my brothers and sisters, especially those in my immediate circle and those who read this blog.  I would help and not hinder in any way.  

Be with me through this glorious day, this harbinger of better days ahead.

Amen