Love’s Gifts

“Loss of love comes from only one source.  Call it fear or call it separation but it is still the same.  For in your separated state you ask that love make you special to someone else, and that one special to you.  You think this is what love is for, and so you make of it something it is not and only call it love.”  (A Course of Love, C:14.22)

Within the separation, the illusory separation from God that hasn’t actually happened, it is impossible for us to be contented aside from special relationships.  And, of course, these do not content us long, for we ask both too much and too little of them.  Special relationships are fraught with fear.  We fear being alone again, that this special one will love less (or leave), or that we (even though together still) do not love equally.

These concepts are all meaningless to a holy relationship, which seeks never to take, but always to give—though we know that giving and receiving are one in love.  We will be contented when we give up the idea of having special relationships.  Not that these relationships will be snatched away from us—no, never—but that we will never be happy on a continual basis until we have transformed our loves into holy loves.

Fear then will slip away.  We know that if we lose one form of love, another will take its place.  While we do not try to substitute loves for one another, we do recognize that it is our internal love that is most important.  And this means that all Selves are One, all loves are One.  Fear has no basis for gaining a foothold when ideas such as this are given sway in a life.

Loving from the Heart

“If you love some more than others, or if you love certain aspects of creation in a different way than you love others, then you do not understand what love is.”  Choose Only Love bk.4, 4:I

What does Choose Only Love mean by this statement about love? How can we wrap our minds and hearts around this idealistic statement?

Like A Course in Miracles, Choose Only Love can be read on different levels. When we seek love in the interpretation of CHOL, we are seeking the love of God, Who loves all equally for we are all treasured children in His eyes. The closer we come to loving the way that God loves, the more “on the beam” we are.

This statement about love does not mean that we don’t choose different expressions of love with different people in our world. We do. This statement about love is not about those different expressions. It is about the heart, our heart as well as the heart of all others. In the heart, we can love equally, and when we do we are touching God’s hemline.

Mistake that Could Not Happen but Did

“The displacement of the original intent, while it did not change the original cause, formed a false nature for the personal self.  This displacement of the original intent can be simply stated as the displacement of love with fear.  It is as simple as that.  Yet the way in which each of you have interpreted this displacement has come to seem quite complex.”  (A Course of Love, T4:3.4)

We think that we live complex lives, and, indeed, the ego has reveled in that thought.  But the only thing that happened, the detour into fear, was a shift from love to fear.  We may this transition as quite young children.  And we are led down a path toward living in fear that has always been hard to reverse.

Now we have a way, and it is simple in the extreme.  We simply learn to listen to what our heart is telling us.  Our heart always opts for the love that is hidden away deep within it.  Our heart always knows how to guide us.  In this time of Christ, the heart is our beacon, for the Christ-Self is within, like the heart.  Of course, we don’t mean the physical heart.  “Heart,” as used in A Course of Love, is a metaphor for the deepest feeling part of ourselves.  We feel rather than think, and in that shift, a shift in consciousness comes slower or later.

We can hope for sooner, for those of us reading these words long for Christ-consciousness (if we have not already reached this).  We long to live serene and awakened lives, sure of ourselves, sure of our brothers and sisters, and sure of God.

When we occupied physical bodies, we made a mistake, a mistake that could not happen but did.  We opted for separation from God by feeling a tiny bit of fear that grew into an almost all-encompassing fear.  This situation does not have to go on.  We can retreat from fear into our real essence of love.  At any time.  And the transformation will be arresting.

To Attack Anything in Creation Is Never Necessary. It Never Was.

“As you begin to allow the memory of this truth to dawn, answer this question:  Do you despise or attack any brother or sister who accompanies you for a short time on the journey you make towards your heart?

“To attack anything in creation is never necessary.  It never was.”  Choose Only Love bk.4, 3:II

We have feet of clay, being human, and to say that we need hold anyone at all in creation in a less than loving light is not beneficial to our growth as spiritual beings returning to God. We need instead to practice the love that has been preached by every spiritual tradition in existence.

If we are thinking negatively about anyone at all (and all of us has someone in that category), then we need to ask God for help in cleansing our minds. Our hearts already know that truth of what love can do, but our minds are still at least partially deluded. Even awakened people are not perfect in this change to a wholly loving perspective.

Bless us today as we open our hearts to all in creation, barring none. And especially open our hearts to You, dear God, the hope of our life.

A Greater Wisdom

“How can what continues to give in to fear know love?  All your reasons for fear-based living have been discounted one by one.  And yet you dare not try to live without it.  Why?  Because of the thoughts of the ego-mind.  The ego-mind is concerned only with its own survival but it has you convinced it is your survival that depends on it.  How can you be convinced to live as if the truth were otherwise?  For only if you begin to live as if the truth were otherwise can you see that it truly is otherwise, or based on a wisdom other than what has come before.”  (A Course of Love, T1:3.5)

We tremble in fear when we make short forays in to trying to live without fear.  Fear seems a given, something that will protect us.

We are misinformed.  Fear is not necessary for our continued survival in this sometimes harsh world.  The reason that we think that fear is needed is the lingering influence of the ego-mind, the insane part of us that continues to dwell just below the surface of our good sense.

The ego is gone from us when we have assimilated the truths of A Course of Love.  We may not realize this, we may still struggle.  But the ego only has a residue of false thinking that continues to infiltrate our moments of reflection.  We have always thought with the ego-mind, and so to hear Jesus say in ACOL that we are done with the ego is immediately enough to raise doubts in our minds.  How can we be done with the ego?  We see its influence constantly.

We need to let go.  We need to trust what Jesus is telling us.  If he says that the ego is no more for us, then let the mind rest in that knowledge—for it is knowledge, not perception.  Just rest.  And the truth of the elimination of the ego will dawn on a calmer mind in ourselves.

A greater wisdom is available to us, and we ought to take advantage of that greater wisdom forthwith.  Let the smudge of ego on our minds be lightened by our prayer consideration that perhaps the ego is just a mirage, seeming to be ahead of us on our pathway, but actually not representing anything but illusion.

No Idle Thoughts

“This is why the very pathway of awakening, regardless of the form it takes, is always a retraining of the mind.  It is a decision to choose to discipline the mind in each moment, to teach only Love, to hold only loving thoughts, and to recognize that there is no such thing as an idle thought, since each thought or perception held in the mind immediately generates your experience.  That experience is like a pebble dropped into a pond that send a reverberation, a vibration, throughout the field of your being.”  (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Chapter 20, Page 239)

A Course in Miracles also tells us that there are no idle thoughts.  We often think that if we don’t say anything bad, we are home free.  But thoughts have repercussions, and if our thoughts are “bad,” we need to ask for help to right them.

We can’t just will love, but when we get quiet and go within, we will find God’s Love, and He prompts us to love those surrounding us.  He teaches us how to love, but we have to become still from time to time, in contemplation and prayer, for his guidance to “take.”

Every thought counts.  But this is not counsel to fear our thoughts.  It is counsel to let God’s Love overwhelm us in our daily round.  When we open our heart to Him, He teaches us what we can learn no other way.

We discover how to live, and that living is done in overwhelming love for ourselves, our fellow human beings, and our God.

Return to Relationship

“In seeing the self as separate you have known fear and have been forced to reconcile fear with love.  Now, in coming back to relationship and union with me you have realized that you are not separate and now have striven against the ‘opposing’ force of separation.  With the acceptance of the Christ in you, you are returned to relationship and need no longer strive against the ‘opposing’ force of separation, for you no longer know it.”  (A Course of Love, D:Day40.8)

As we turn from separation, we turn from fear to love.  We may even strive actively to turn from fear to love.  We have realized that we aren’t separate (as we could never be, for we are part of God), and we have striven to get past these ideas of the ego with every force of our personality.  When we accept the Christ in us, we understand that we have returned to a relationship that has long eluded us, and now we no longer need to strive against separation.  We know intimately that we are joined with the Christ Self; we know intimately that we are “separate” no longer.

Join with Love in Stillness

“Simply join with love in stillness and wait for the revelation of God’s plan.  Because God is infinite and inexhaustible, revelation of Her can happen in every moment and forever. ”  Choose Only Love bk.4, 3:I

When we don’t know what to do next, there is a solution, but it does take patience, and many of us have patience in short supply.

We need simply to rest in stillness, awaiting God’s response. God is here called the feminine, because God is without gender, and Choose Only Love is emphasizing the helpful aspects of the feminine gender.

God will respond to us when we are in a quandary. He doesn’t mean to keep secrets from us. He means us well. And will respond, always and forever.

Revelation can come to anyone at any time, but getting quiet within seems to be a prerequisite most of the time. If trying to come to a decision, we are not alone; we have Help.

Let God speak to us in our quandaries.

Love & the Call for Love

“The only judgment involved is the Holy Spirit’s one division into two categories; one of love, and the other the call for love.  You cannot safely make this division, for you are much too confused either to recognize love, or to believe that everything else is nothing but a call for love.”  (T-14.X.7)

This quotation states a fundamental truth of the teachings of A Course in Miracles:  that everything is either love, or a call for love.  This is how we are to view the words and actions of our brother as well, our significant other(s) who is walking this world with us.  He is either expressing his love for us, or he is calling for us to overlook his attack and to know that that attack is a call for love from us.  These are the only two choices.

We cannot make this division ourselves, not at this juncture.  Appeal to the Holy Spirit when confronted with attack; know that this need not be.  He will make the judgment that one’s brother is only calling for love.  We will be too overwrought to make that distinction.  But the One Who can will speak to us and calm us.  Then we will be in the best position to run to our brother’s side with the love that he needs so desperately.

Don’t run to your brother’s side if he is not yet receptive.  There will come a time when he will be receptive.  And, if you are listening to the Holy Spirit, you will know when that time is.  This is the time to act.  Not a moment later.  But be sure that you are discerning correctly.  Be sure that your own overwrought emotions have righted themselves.  Be sure that the Holy Spirit is saying, “Act NOW!”

Our Internal Love Is Most Important

“Loss of love comes from only one source.  Call it fear or call it separation but it is still the same.  For in your separated state you ask that love make you special to someone else, and that one special to you.  You think this is what love is for, and so you make of it something it is not and only call it love.”  (C:14.22)

“If you do not believe you can reverse or ‘turn back’ to the state in which you existed before the original error, then you never shall.”  (A Course of Love, C:17.12)

Within the separation, the illusory separation from God that hasn’t actually happened, it is impossible for us to be contented aside from special relationships.  And, of course, these do not content us long, for we ask both too much and too little of them.  Special relationships are fraught with fear.  We fear being alone again, that this special one will love less (or leave), or that we (even though together still) do not love equally.

These concepts are all meaningless to a holy relationship, which seeks never to take, but always to give—though we know that giving and receiving are one in love.  We will be contented when we give up the idea of having special relationships.  Not that these relationships will be snatched away from us—no, never—but that we will never be happy on a continual basis until we have transformed our loves into holy loves.

Fear then will slip away.  We know that if we lose one form of love, another will take its place.  While we do not try to substitute loves for one another, we do recognize that it is our internal love that is most important.  And this means that all Selves are One, all loves are One.  Fear has no basis for gaining a foothold when ideas such as this are given sway in a life.

Love and Fear

“The displacement of the original intent, while it did not change the original cause, formed a false nature for the personal self.  This displacement of the original intent can be simply stated as the displacement of love with fear.  It is as simple as that.  Yet the way in which each of you have interpreted this displacement has come to seem quite complex.”  (A Course of Love, T4:3.4)

We think that we live complex lives, and, indeed, the ego has reveled in that thought.  But the only thing that happened, the detour into fear, was a shift from love to fear.  We made this transition as quite young children.  And we are led down a path toward living in fear that has always been hard to reverse.

Now we have a way, and it is simple in the extreme.  We simply learn to listen to what our heart is telling us.  Our heart always opts for the love that is hidden away deep within it.  Our heart always knows how to guide us.  In this time of Christ, the heart is our beacon, for the Christ-Self is within, like the heart.  Of course, we don’t mean the physical heart.  “Heart,” as used in A Course of Love, is a metaphor for the deepest feeling part of ourselves.  We feel rather than think, and in that shift, a shift in consciousness comes sooner rather than later.

We can hope for sooner, for those of us reading these words long for Christ-consciousness (if we have not already reached this).  We long to live serene and awakened lives, sure of ourselves, sure of our brothers and sisters, and sure of God.

When we occupied physical bodies, we made a mistake, a mistake that could not happen but did.  We opted for separation from God by feeling a tiny bit of fear that grew into an almost all-encompassing fear.  This situation does not have to go on.  We can retreat from fear into our real essence of love.  At any time.  And the transformation will be arresting.

In the Bosom of God

“Once you accept that you are one with life, one with God, and are together a unit just like a child in the womb, you can begin to live in the reality of the bosom of God.”  Choose Only Love bk.4, 2:II

This quotation from Choose Only Love, an inspired work by Sebastian Blaksley just out, emphasizes to me the meditative nature of this work. It is coming out in multiple volumes, and is a blessing recognized by those of us who read it.

When we imagine ourselves a child in the womb, we are thinking safety, and nothing says safety more conclusively than being held close to the bosom of God. We need to practice love as well as seek safety, of course, and the best way for me to react with love in my devotionals is to feel the warmth of love in my heart–for God, for others, even for myself. This “cocooning” by God does lead us to recognize that without love, we are truly lost. He does not will it, but our personal will might take over and lead us into narrow pathways of ill choice.

I have sometimes said that we need to “milk” the love, when we feel it (especially when we feel it keenly), and then we will be more likely to turn to our heart instead of intellectualizing everything.

Our heart, as A Course of Love also said, does then inform our mind, working in conjunction with our mind–and we are led in the pathway back to God.

Journey into Light

“The journey that we undertake together is the exchange of dark for light, of ignorance for understanding.  Nothing you understand is fearful.  It is only in darkness and in ignorance that you perceive the frightening, and shrink away from it to further darkness.  And yet it is only the hidden that can terrify, not for what it is, but for its hiddenness.”  (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-14.VI.1)

We need to walk into the sunshine, the light, with Jesus, holding his hand through everything that we encounter in life.  If we do this, we will not fear any longer.  Who could fear when he/she imagines that Jesus is holding one’s hand, and Jesus himself has said that this will be no “idle fantasy.”  So we need to keep a calm and peaceful mind to transverse this world well.  And if the imagination will help, so be it.

We are frightened when we walk in the dark, and it is only because it is dark that we are frightened.  A Course in Miracles has come as one way into the light, so that frightened children, such as we are, do not become vicious because we are afraid.  Decide, choose, today to leave fear behind.  When feeling anxiety, go within and offer a prayer that all might be well, that we walk in light and we hold Jesus’s hand.  The effect will be stunning and immediate.

We are in ignorance until we come to knowledge.  And the means to Awakening are being explained to us in A Course in Miracles.  This Awakening is another state of being, a new way of living that is overwhelmingly freeing.  We have been living in a perceptual nightmare, ruled by the ego, and we are tired of such living.  Let us allow God’s Voice, the Holy Spirit, to lead us out of this lamentable perception, the one that always ends in despair.  Let the Holy Spirit guide us to knowledge, and with knowledge comes a closer walk with God Himself, for we are no longer covering our eyes.  We will have true vision, which is not the same that the physical eyes see.  It is a vision that is possible because we no longer judge.  

Judging is one of the primary ways that we are denied Awakening now, not because the Holy Spirit is punitive, but because we literally cannot see rightly until we give up judgment.  We also must give up attack, and making plans against contingencies to come.  These three—attack, judging, making plans not endorsed by the Holy Spirit—if given up, will smooth the pathway to Awakening in a time frame so rapid that we cannot conceive of that tempo now.

From Ego-Self to Christ-Self

“I repeat, and will do so again and again, that the ego-self is gone from you.  Whether you fully realize this or not matters not.  This A Course of Love has accomplished.  Now the choice is before you to do one of two things. . .to proceed toward love or fear.  If you proceed with fear you will assemble a new ego-self, an ego-self that perhaps will seem superior to the old, but which will nonetheless still be an ego-self.  If you proceed with love, you will come to know your Christ-Self.”  (A Course of Love, T3:4.8)

Yes, the ego-self is gone from us.  The first book of A Course of Love accomplished this, making us The Accomplished.  It is not ego that says this.  It is the unparalleled good sense.  Jesus says it.  Can we not believe it?

If we continue to walk with fear. we are in danger, for we will be tempted to form a new ego-self.  Jesus says in fact that we will form a new ego-self, if fear intrudes on our peace.  We need to get rid of the fear, for our right minds depend on it.

On the other hand, if we proceed with love, we will come to know our Christ-Self, the inner essence that is our real Self. 

We need to make the distinction between fear and love to make the right choices upcoming.  We need to know that we are safe in this world, that nothing can harm us, that the blood that we see is merely catsup, and that illusions are not reasons to be frightened.  We need to see reality, and reality will launch us toward love.  We see reality when we trust, for, as A Course in Miracles affirms, trust is the bedrock of our new thought system, the thought system of love, of the Christ-Self.  We give up fear when we recognize how divisive a force it has been in clogging up our minds.  Our minds are precious indeed, but we have walked with an insane  mind.

Now we can walk with a sane mind by listening to our heart.  Our heart is our saving grace in this new reality in which we find ourselves.  Only our heart can save us now.  Let us proceed by listening to our heart, a part of our being that needs no proof of God.  In our inner essence, we just know that we are not all alone in the universe.  That we have an indwelling spirit that means us well.  And that that indwelling spirit is God Himself.

Love

“The rebellion against love is what gave rise to fear.”  Choose Only Love bk.3, 11:II

We know that this quotation is true. Even today, when we start to feel fear, we can recognize that we are not feeling love–at least not enough love.

So the solution to us of an end to fear is to rev up our love–love for God, love for our brothers and sisters, even love for ourselves. Of course, the quotation harks back to a time before time, when we separated from God because we thought we could make a world we would like better than what He provided. And such a mess we got into.

The way back is to become overwhelmed with love. When we sense even the slightest bit of love, we can “milk” it for more. When we milk the tiny bit of love for all it is worth, we discover what God can do. He meets us more than halfway. He restores our soul to a calm place, a place where there is not fear and we sense only love.

Ask for such a blessing today.

To Mother the New into Existence

“The invasion is an intrusion of The New into the old, a force meant to quicken the passing of all that lingers of death in the living.  To end living death and welcome living life.  To end division and become one with what is being birthed.  To mother The New into existence.”  Mirari

Here Mirari, Mari’s new book, takes up where A Course of Love left off.  Still talking about The New, the new world that we will all create together, this new book goes a step farther.  It counsels that we do what we can to bring love into our world, big time, for there are still too many of us who are bringing negativity into this world.

We need to be sure that we don’t encourage negativity by our own actions.  We must stop feeding egos, and here I know Mari’s new book is preaching to the choir.  All of us who have discovered A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love know of the detrimental effect of egoic and egotistical thought.

Listen to our heart.  Mirari is also a heart-centered book, in this way like A Course of Love.

Love Moves Us

“When the mind is surrendered, you could say that body walks as an empty shell and is merely waiting to be informed by the Love of God.  When the Love of God does not inform you or ask you to move and take action, then simply rest and do nothing.”  (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Chapter 19, Page 232)

A totally surrendered Self waits to hear the impression from God as to its next step. This is the ideal state of being. Not many of us reach it all the time, but when we do, we can recognize that this is the best way to live. We move like the wind, not sure of where we will alight next. We listen to how to place our step. We don’t make decisions in a vacuum, without input from the Almighty. And this Almighty, God Himself, moves us by the means of Love in our depths.

Listen to Our Heart

“Uncertainty will not now come to teach you lessons you have already learned but will only visit you as an echo from the past.  It is a habit, a pattern of the old thought system.  All you must do is not listen to it.  Its voice will not be gentle or full of love.  Its voice will hold the unmistakable edge of fear.”  (A Course of Love, T3:10.11)

When we refuse to surrender to divine love, we are racked with uncertainty about life and everything in it.  We are like wind socks, buffeted about by the breeze, a gentle breeze that we mistake for the direst emergency.  This uncertainty will fall away when we know enough to surrender to God.  What uncertainty still plagues will only be a “echo” (T3:10.11) from the fear-ridden state of illusory separation.  This echo will be fearful, and this fear is the way that we will recognize that it is a lamentable part of our past.  It cannot do anything to us now except to make us uneasy.  But it can and will do that, until we give up separation and its concomitant independence as a bad idea.

Don’t listen to uncertainty about anything in our lives.  Let guidance from within give us the certainty about what to say and do and even think.  The heart’s advice will stand us in good stead now.  Listen to that which calls to us.  Listen to our heart.

Real World

“Sit quietly and look upon the world you see, and tell yourself: ‘The real world is not like this.  It has no buildings and there are no streets where people walk alone and separate.  There are no stores where people buy an endless list of things they do not need.  It is not lit with artificial light, and night comes not upon it.  There is no day that brightens and grows dim.  There is no loss.  Nothing is there but shines, and shines forever.”  (A Course in Miracles, T-13.VII.1)

A particularly picturesque scene might come to mind when reading this description.  We can imagine that the Vision that is of God doesn’t include the mundane details of a city street.  When we are joined with others in a loving sense, we aren’t aware of places in our world where we might walk in separate bodies, alone and lonely.  When we love, really love with the Vision of God, we are never alone and lonely. 

Jesus takes a negative view of our materialism, and this attitude comes out more precisely in this quotation than in any other place in A Course in Miracles.  He talks about buying an “endless list of things” that we do not need.  Why do we buy things we don’t need?  Basically, we are trying to find in material things the solace that we haven’t found in spirituality.  And we haven’t found solace in spirituality because we haven’t sought deeply enough within ourselves, where God is.

The fact of no darkness in the real world may seem to be that Jesus is talking about the Other Side, and it is surely unclear if this is indeed what he means.  But later on, in ACIM, he discusses the “real world,” and he indicates that we will inhabit this real world fleetingly before God Himself will reach down and lift us up into Awakening. 

So I think that Jesus is engaging in metaphor here of the real world that is full of intangibles that don’t impinge on materialism at all.  We want peace, joy, harmony, rest—all things that we can have and that we will have when we have walked the pathway that Jesus is pointing out.  These intangibles are the way that we get around the need, the incessant need, to find solace in physical objects.

The intangibles will never disappoint, and they are here for the asking.

Loss of Love the Greatest Fear

“And all of these, those who would admit to fear, and those who would not, would still believe that love exists despite fear’s claim upon it, and think that they are lucky to have found a love to shield them for a little while from all the other things they fear.  And yet the greatest fear of all is that of loss of love.  You who have given everything to be alone and separate fear most of all that which you have given everything to attain.  For what is loss of love but confirmation of your separate state?  What is loss of love but being left alone?”  (A Course of Love, C:14.21)

We thought that we wanted to be separate from God; this is part of the theology of traditional Christianity as well as A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love.  Separation would be that we would be independent, on our own, isolated.  Yet in the illusory actuality (for we could never actually separate from God, being part of Him) we have been the most afraid of being alone.  Try as hard as we can, we still cling, desperately, to the special love relationships that would save us from ourselves—or so we think.  So the living out of isolation has actually been the source of our greatest fears.

We fear being alone more than anything because somewhere in our deluded minds is the certainty that we are living amiss, and that a furious God will take revenge on us for denying Him.  This is as true for atheists as anyone else, for each of us of whatever persuasion has a religion in which we put our faith.  If this religion is ego-tainted, we will fear all the more, and what religion in our world is not ego-tainted?  It is only in giving up our false idols of isolation and separation that we come even close to finding our way safely through this world.

We find our way safely in this world by acknowledging what our heart tells us.  And this heart does not require “proof” of God’s existence.  It is rightly said that there are no atheists in foxholes (a somewhat outdated reference recalling the first world war).  When we get scared about our predicament, we do turn to what we hope will save us.  And A Course of Love proclaims that this is the saving grace for what we understand to be our heart.  It alone does not seek to have divine proof; it simply knows that we are not alone in all the universe.  We are not isolated and independent; we are meant to share our living with others.  And A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love call these relationships, the “holy” relationships. Most all of us have experienced loss of love in some form, with somebody.  Somebody let us down, we cry.  We think that if only this special someone had loved us for ourselves alone, we would be saved.  This makes of love a mockery.  And it places in our midst a scavenger that would devoir true love.  We do not have to pin our hopes on one someone (or several someones) who can save us.  We need only rest in the knowledge—and it is knowledge—that we are never meant to be alone, that divine love is there to protect and keep us safe.  And once we give up the attributes of specialness, our relationships one to another will indeed be holy.  We have to give up specialness in relationships, we are told.  But the relationships will not be snatched from us, to leave us cowering in the dust.  The special relationships turned holy will be a foretaste of Heaven, right here on earth.

World of Love

“Now, as we reverse this set of circumstances, and replace the world of fear with a world of love, there can be no more weighing of love against fear.  God did not create fear and will not be judged by it.  All judgment is the cause of fear and this effort to weigh love’s strength against fear’s veracity.  While you chose to believe and live in a world the nature of which was fear, you could not know God.  You could not know God because you judged God from within the nature of fear, believing it to be your natural state.”  (A Course of Love, T4:3.7)

We thought that it was protective to have fear in our arsenal of defenses.  But did it ever work very well?  We got anxious often, but did this really protect us?

We don’t need fear’s protection.  We don’t need protection at all.  We have no need for defense against anything.  We will be warned when we need to do anything to “protect” ourselves because we are in danger of some kind.  God does not leave us defenseless; He is our defense, if we ever need to have a defense in this world at all, and that is debatable. 

Defenses do what they would protect against. 

We thought that fear was a natural reaction, not realizing that it was, instead, evidence of living insanity.  We need to replace this world of fear we have made into a world of love, and only then can we relax in the grace that God gives us.  We need to make a definite decision to give up judgment, and this much we can do.  We can determine that we will not judge ourselves, others, or God, and we can stand by this as a promise.  The world will never again look as dismal.  We will have found means to emerge from a world of insanity.  We will walk into the light.

The Work of Love

“Here is the message that all humanity has been waiting for from time immemorial.  Souls will understand.  Hearts will rest in peace.  Memories will begin to remember the love of loves, and in that memory find the clear path to lead them, singing, back to the house of the Father.  Angels will join them from every corner of the world, and will also join you who are part of this work of love.”  Choose Only Love bk.3, 10:IV

Just as every person is Christ, sharing in Jesus’ divinity, so is every work of love a part of the message that humanity has been waiting to hear. Choose Only Love is an important new revelation, but as good as it is, it does not stand alone. Whenever any of us seek to further the Kingdom of God, we are following in Jesus’ footsteps, and our work is similarly blessed.

The most significant aspect is that our work, the work of all of us, be centered always and forever, in love. We can’t fool ourselves about this. If we are embroiled in the ego, our listeners will know and be turned off. If, instead, we react from an open heart, we will be moving in love, and the response we get to what we try to do will be enhanced.

Ask for guidance in the work of love. And let us all join together to usher in a new Kingdom, a Kingdom in this world that will be now in a newly created world.

Surrender to Love

“Surrendering to love is what will finally make you able to free your mind, your heart, your memory, and your will from all restrictions.”  Choose Only Love bk.3, 10:IV

We need to have–and keep–a clear mind, heart, memory, will. Just this morning I was praying for my hangups just to recede and ultimately to disappear. And then I turn to my document from Choose Only Love, and immediately my eyes light on this quoted passage. It seems, in its own way, a miracle.

The Answer is even in this quotation. The Answer, as it so often is, is just surrendering to love. Yet we often tie ourselves in knots, trying a little bit of everything else. When we seek God’s kingdom, the entrance is gained by love. Nothing else. No other way.

I sometimes think that we hear this imperative to love in so many spiritual teachings that we are a little numb about it. Just how do we “surrender to love”? What is the way?

It is possible that the way is paved by simple trust in God. We must trust that God has our best interests at heart. If we don’t believe this, we will be too frightened to surrender to Him. Many of us have subconscious fears about the validity of God’s love for us. We think His will for us, and our will for ourselves, are at odds. The wills are the same, but if we are to adopt God’s choices for our lives, we will see blessings that our own personal wills can never attain.

Ask, just ask, how to surrender to Him. Surrender will come when we get very quiet. When we give up trying to navigate a difficult world all by ourselves.

When we give up, the light dawns.

The Seed of New Life

“This is the way the great ‘they’ of the physical world would have it be.  They live by removing themselves.  They desire for all to be so removed from the divine that they are comfortable with their own removal.  They preach the removal.  We will preach the invasion, the seed of new life, what can be neither run from nor removed.”  Mirari

I think it would be fair to say, along with Mari (who received Mirari), that Mary of Nazareth has a problem with our world.  She sees that we are on the wrong path, and she is eager and desirous to alter our direction by enlisting those people who are more gentle into her cause.

Surely we count ourselves among Mary’s faithful.  To follow her lead, we cannot remove ourselves from this world, nor would we want to.  We can offer new life to a dying world, if we will only step out on what we know.  We know a truth that is not of this world.  And it behooves us who follow both Jesus and Mary to do our best to lead in the direction of a new world.

We cannot, any of us, do this alone.  We need each other—men and women of faith—to step out on that faith and enact what we know to enact.  When we commune with our God, He will give us our marching orders.  He will guide and direct our steps along a pathway that—it is not too much to say—will save our world.

Elsewhere we learn that we are in the end times.  Of course, every generation since Jesus’ time has said the same thing.  And so I wonder if Mary has it right this time.  But I think one thing is certain:  We must act “as if” we are in the end times.  And that means we need to keep ourselves, and to enlist others, into a return to the way of our God. 

And this way is, and always has been, the way of Love.

Choose Love in Our World

“Think you not that reason opposes love, for love gives reason its foundation.  The foundation of your insane world is fear.  The foundation of Heaven, your true home, is love.  The same world based upon these different foundations could not help but look quite different.”  (A Course of Love, C:14.9)

We don’t have to have blind faith in the precepts of A Course of Love.  We are told, “love gives reason its foundation.” (C:14.9) We are further told that the foundation of our insane world is fear.  And the foundation of Heaven, our true home, is love.  It is strongly implied that the way that we look at our world determines whether it is hell or Heaven.  The way that we look.  That is perception, and we know from A Course in Miracles that projection makes perception.  What we feel inwardly will determine what we see in the outer world.  And if we are feeling fear, we will see an insane world that is violent and destructive.  If we are feeling love, we will see Heaven.

Is this too simplistic?  Is this even true?  Can the same images that flow before our eyes seem fearful or loving, based on what we are projecting?  Yes.  For the fearful mind sees more reason to fear, and the loving mind sees only that in its sight are lamentable things, but no cause for fear.  The loving mind does not reject the outer world of insanity as not there; it sees that it is there, but it is only illusion, the illusion of insanity.  And so it gives that outer, violent and destructive, world no credence.

“The same world based upon these different foundations could not help but look quite different.”  (C:14.9)  Yes!  This is the secret for staying in this world, but seeing it differently.  This is the secret of having peace in the midst of chaos.  Choose fear or love, and all the world will change according to the emotion that is chosen.

To Decide that Love Is All We Want

“Do you recognize that you have already been every where and every when in the illusion of separation?  Would you be willing, right now, in the quiet privacy of your own heart and mind, to use the power of awareness given unto you to decide to be Love?”  (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Chapter 18, Page 227)

I don’t know if Jesus is using hyperbole when he says “every where” and “every when.” Certainly there are places that our friends and family have been in thought and feeling that we have not. Just knowing that our small circle has had experiences that we have not would lead to the conclusion that Jesus is exaggerating.

Of course, it is quite possible that Jesus is invoking the truth that all of us are One, and all of that One have experienced everything. In this scenario, we are in no way separate from any of our brothers and sisters, all children of God who actually are part of each other.

But one thing is certain: We have tried every avenue that we know to experience separation. And maybe “knowing” each avenue is what Jesus means.

It is time to stop the nonsense of thinking that we can survive separate from God. He is in us, through and through, and He would commune with us often, indeed constantly. His Force of Love is the best thing we have going for us. He created us to need Love, to need His presence, for He is the All, and our part of that All is living through us constantly, forever.

It is time to go Home. It is time to drop confusion, turn from our hates and fears, and offer Love to ourselves, others, and God Himself.

There is no better way. This is what we need. This is what, in our heart of hearts, we want.

Real Love

“The desire to protect is a desire that arises from distrust and is based totally on fear.  If there were no fear, what would there be to protect?  Thus, all of your love—the love that you imagine you keep within yourself, and the love that you imagine you receive and give—is tainted by your fear and cannot be real love.  It is because you remember love as that which kept you safe, that which kept you happy, that which bound all those you love to you, that you attempt to use love here.  This is a real memory of creation that you have distorted.”  (A Course of Love, C:9.3)

We are not able to use love to protect us, although we often try.  The desire to protect ourselves is a fear-based motivation, one that can’t be what it tries to do, keep us safe.  We are already safe; we don’t need anything extra to make ourselves so.

We have, Jesus says, a memory of love from eons ago (as the world judges time).  Love at the beginning, before the illusory separation, kept us happy and kept together all whom we loved.  Somehow, dimly, we remember this true event, and we want some of that same feeling now.  We try to find it in fear that comes from distrust.  If we didn’t think we were in danger, why would we think at all about being “protected”?  We would know that there is nothing that we need protection from, and we would be at peace.  So this desire is wholly fear-based.  We do love a disservice when we attempt to “use” it at all.  Love cannot be used, just as we would be wise not to use each other for our own ends.  We are safe, we have always been safe, and sooner or later we will all realize our safety is a God-given gift.

When love is tainted by fear, it is not real love.  Unfortunately, most of our love in this world is tainted by fear, and thus we need another way to view love.  We need to realize that it is part of the long-ago memory of Oneness with God.  Only our attempt to separate from God, with the concomitant rise of the ego, has kept us from real love.  Let us decide today that we will be done with all of this foolishness.  Ask to experience real love, remove our mind from attempts to use this love to protect the physical body, and see if a better day doesn’t dawn.

Feelings Come from Love

“Your feelings in truth come from love, your response to them is what is guided by fear.  Even feelings of destruction and violence come from love.  You are not bad, and you have no feelings that can be labeled so.  Yet you are misguided concerning what your feelings mean and how they would bring love to you and you to love.”  (A Course of Love, C:5.11)

Jesus forms a startling assertion about love and fear, one that we wouldn’t expect.  He says that all of our feelings come from love, in essence because we are not “bad” (C:5.11).  A Course in Miracles says that we have the “innocence of God” (T-III.17:2), and so Jesus is here asserting to the same thought.  How our feelings of destruction and violence can come from love may remain nebulous to us, but Jesus believes that we have just misunderstood ourselves.  We have been misguided about how to bring love to ourselves.  So we have made wrong choices in our love, choices that gave us destruction and violence.

Do we not often noticed that nobody who is embroiled in violence and destruction thinks that he/she is at fault about anything that is bad?  History is replete with wars that were fought in the name of God, believing that one is doing God’s will in the antagonism.  This is one way of looking at love gone astray.  This is one way to realize that fear has done nothing, that it is only our misperceptions about love and how it ought to be expressed that have done us in.

Our feelings are not bad, Jesus says.  We only need to channel those feelings in the right direction, seeing love where it really is, avoiding feelings of destruction and violence, pain and suffering.  Then we will find love’s fruits to be our chosen just desserts.  We will have taken another step on love’s pathway.  Another step toward Awakening/Christ-consciousness.

Only Love Heals

“Remember, then, that each loving thought restores you to your rightful place. Every fearful thought merely delays the moment of your release and the restoration of your perfect peace.  Remember that only Love can heal.  No technique has ever brought healing, though it can provide a temporary field in which the mind can choose to love.  Remember how perfectly simple it is.  It is not possible for you to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”  (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Chapter 18, Page 226)

We cannot be in the wrong place at the wrong time because God is here with us. His mercy keeps us safe, regardless of outer circumstances. His Love makes the difference in our experience.

When we deliberately start an argument, it is usually because we are in a low mood. We have temporarily lost sight of our goal–which is to be One with God at all times. When we realize what might be coming between God and us, we are back in alignment with Him. That alignment is always a choice for love, or His Love (spelled with a capital letter).

Know that we need only practice His Love consistently to have a marvelous life. Even if the world is in terrible turmoil, and even if we are experiencing that turmoil, we can walk a better path if we can stand firm that God is not betraying us. We humans make many mistakes, but God always stands ready to help in any emergency.

Re-surrender today, if life seems terrible. Re-surrender today, if we can’t see a way out. God needs only our cooperation to turn disaster into a reason to practice His way.

Perfect Love

“Know first that this is fear.

Fear arises from lack of love.

The only remedy for lack of love is perfect love.

Perfect love is the Atonement.”  (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-2.VI.7)

Perfect love is the “undoing” of what has been an albatross around our necks for eons.  We are moving toward Awakening, and as we take steps there, and we will fear less as we love more.  This is the best way, the only way to welcome God into our lives.  We must ask for help if we find our propensity to love, weak.  And if we find ourselves in fearful states of mind all too often.  These two characteristics—fearful, anxious feelings and a lack of love while experiencing those feelings—are easily overcome when we go to God.  If tangled up or mixed up, go to God.  He will take you into His arms and comfort and heal you.

Can we get perfect love by willing it?  No.  That is why this favorite quotation is so puzzling for so many of us.  We want perfect love, because we so dislike the fearful feelings that we experience.  This desire is the practical motivation.  But perfect love is held out to us by God Himself, and we are led to that eventuality when we open ourselves to Jesus and the Holy Spirit.  Jesus was the essence of the Atonement, his gift to us. 

The Atonement as gifted us by Jesus, as seen by A Course in Miracles, is not a sacrificial gift. Jesus would have us see the wholly benign lesson of the crucifixion, and then look beyond that to the resurrection.  The resurrection is seen as the promise of eternal life to all of us.  And whether or not we can accept that the resurrection really happened, Jesus still welcomes us.  He does not need intellectual assent.  He only needs the heartfelt response, the response from our inner being where we do not need intellectual proof.

Ask God today to allow the experience of perfect love to come to you.  It will come first in fleeting glimpses, but then, as time passes and we remain true to God, the times of perfect love extend.  We know perfect love, and the fears and anxieties of daily life drop from our experience.

Love Replaces Doubt

“All fear ends when proof of your existence is established.  All fear is based on your inability to recognize love and thus who you are and who God is.  How could you not have been fearful with doubt as powerful as this?  How can you not rejoice when doubt is gone and love fills all the space that doubt once occupied?”  (A Course of Love, C:4.5)

We have often doubted God, and not just in our youth, when many of us became agnostics and atheists because the chronology of Genesis did not jibe with evolution.  We have doubted that there could be a Higher Power Who could hear our prayers.  We wanted to be intellectually honest, but we didn’t listen to our hearts.  Our hearts knew all along that we weren’t alone in a fearsome universe.

A Course of Love questions, “How could you not have been fearful with doubt as powerful as this?”  (C:4.5).  This lack of love that we felt when we were being intellectually “honest” is a reason to feel fear.  What better reason could there be?

Now that most of believe in the Other Side, that channeling is possible and also probable, we are in a different place.  Our doubts have subsided, but we still are living the remnants of too much fear.  Fear has become a habit for us.  And this has to change if we are to live full lives in a new world that we are seeking to create.

When we put away our doubt, we will make substantial progress.  Just give the heart a chance to speak to you.  You will not be disappointed.  This may be the first indication that the Christ-Self is coming into its own, in us, in all of us.

Embrace Past Difficulties with Love

“Beloved friends, looking backwards into time, into your seemingly personal experience can seem horrifying.  Yet I say unto you, the sense of horror that many of you feel is not linked to the memories themselves.  It is only linked to what you have decided to believe about the memory, and nothing else.”  (“The Way of Transformation,” WOM, Chapter 18, Page 222)

We are frightened not by our past, but by our interpretation of the past. It is all thought of the mind, and our feelings come into play from our thoughts.

We can scare ourselves by revisiting the past at any time. But why would we do that? Why not let dead dogs lie? Contrary to much popular psychology, reliving the past doesn’t clear our minds so that we are happier; reliving the past only embroils us in turmoil, making the problems and difficulties of the past seem real in the present.

There is a better way. Transmute the difficulties of the past by embracing the negativity with a big bear hug. Keep our arms wide open, but don’t use the mind like a laser that would focus on those difficulties. If we focus, we make those difficulties “real” again, though we know that we are only living a dream. If we focus, we magnify the difficulties.

Be gentle with ourselves. Just embrace, forgive, let love do its powerful work of eliminating the sting of bad times of the past.

The past is over, and reliving it does not ensure that difficulties, even the same difficulties, will not arise again. But we will be better able to handle the problem now when we have loved away the past trauma.

Love’s Transforming Purpose

“When you decide to fully accept the one purpose given to you, in reality, there will be nothing that will block your way.  Every step you take will, literally, take you through obstacles that dissolve as you approach them.”  (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Chapter 18, Page 219)

The one purpose is to walk more closely with our God, to transform into loving individuals who forgive when hurt. God does not even require that all of us hold to the same belief about Him. He is God of the secular as well as the devout. But we can all recognize that our world has gone very awry. Most of us know that a general consensus to care more about each other, to love, would make a great difference, a transformative difference. We know this because our need for love is great, and we often seek for that love with our nearest and dearest.

Transformation, Awakening, Christ-consciousness–these, all meaning the same, are the next evolutionary leap for humankind.

Pray that the day may come soon when we all recognize that there is a better way.

Love’s Embrace

Now you must forget the idea of needing to maintain specialness.  A key aid in helping you to put this temptation behind you is the idea of the holy relationship in which all exist in unity and within the protection of love’s embrace.  (A Course of Love, T3:16.15)

Let us realize that being special, even to ourselves, never gave us anything that we wanted.  A few others may have found us special also, but most everyone else resented the competitiveness that thought that we were superior to them.  This competitiveness has to go.  We are reassured on a daily basis when we cooperate with others, when we recognize that others, and we, are on the same wavelength, that we are equal in the sight of God as His children.

I used to be quite competitive.  I remember telling a friend at work, after lunch one day that we had enjoyed together, what my goals were in work.  They were ambitious.  She responded, “Don’t get too far ahead of us,” meaning the others in the reference unit.

She was right, because she sensed that my ambition would be a divisive factor in our close-knit working group.  And I never did fit in well with that particular group.  I had to go on to another before I found acceptance and peace in my working environment.  And get more steeped in A Course in Miracles.

When we recognize that all of us are held in an embrace of love and unity, as One, we are recognizing what is true.  And this truth will save us.  Our relationships, holy now, will give us solace and keep us safe.  Competitive no longer, we join in a camaraderie borne of cooperation.  We are finally living right, and our comrades in work (and elsewhere) recognize this change in us.  We are one of them, in every sense of the word.  When we acknowledge equality, we are accepted and even loved.

This does not take away from the fact that we may have experienced Christ-consciousness, and not all others in our circle will have done so.  This only means that we have walked a little farther along, not that we are better than another.  It is necessary that we share what we have discovered as soon as our brothers and sisters express interest in knowing what makes us different.  Holy relationship invites sharing.  And we feel better for easing another’s way, even ever so slightly.

Wholly Lovable & Wholly Loving

“You are the work of God, and His work is wholly lovable and wholly loving.  This is how a man must think of himself in his heart, because this is what he is.”  (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-1.III.2)

We often don’t think well of ourselves.  As we get into the Course, and realize how restricted our real lives have been by the ego, we realize that we want something more.  But we don’t love the person that we are; in fact, we often come close to hatred of self, and with that can go hatred of our brothers and of God, even.

What do we do instead?  We must see that God sees a being in us, a creature in us, that we cannot see.  What he sees is wholly lovable, for this true Self never departed from Him in separation and developed traits that seem, even to us, to be undesirable.  This real Self is perfect in and of itself as a Child of God.  We are bade, in this quotation, to think of ourselves as God does, as “wholly lovable and wholly loving. How might we surround our being with love?  We systematically remove from our awareness any vestiges of ego, as soon as these vestiges present themselves to our awareness.  We don’t delay in thinking that we are lovable and loving, even with the ego still risen in our minds, but we know that we are living a dream that has become a nightmare—and we want out.  When we let the ego wither away, we sense that we are right in our hearts, right with God.  And our inner denunciations of self drop away.  We know that even if we cannot see our goodness, God can and God does.  And we believe Jesus’s words in the Course, saying that we are lovable and loving.

We have to trust, and that may not come easily.  We have spent our lifetimes up to now in being skeptical of the world and the individuals we have met in it.  Oh, of course, we have loved sometimes—but even that love has often turned to hatred.  And so we have fallen out of even our own favor, and we imagine that we have fallen out of God’s favor as well.  We have not fallen out of God’s favor, for He sees us as we really are—His perfect Son. 

Now Jesus wants us to see into our hearts, where we do not need the type of proof that our minds demand.  Our heart, if we listen to it, will tell us that Love is our very being, for we are One with God.  And it is this unity that is the basis for our whole new experience of this world.  God is with us; Jesus is with us; the Holy Spirit is with us. 

Love of God

“Each time you think a loving thought, you have literally blessed all infinite realms of creation.  Each time you have become unwittingly identified with a fearful thought, you have separated yourself from the perfect Love of God, and you have denied yourself your function.”  (“The Way of Transformation,” WOM, Chapter 18, Page 218)

There is a bigger reason to avoid anxiety as much as possible.  Fear separates us from God.  We are often failing to trust Him, and this is why we have the fear in the first place.

God will take care of us.  But we won’t recognize His blessing at all if we doubt that He will care for us, regardless of what is happening in our world, in our lives.  We are living in a protected environment as long as our thoughts and our heart are with Him.  If we hesitate, negating God’s good action toward us is easy to do.  Then the secular law of attraction moves into manifestation, and we suffer in needlessly bad ways.

If we keep our eyes on God, we will experience His Love.  If we are having trouble sensing His Love, what we must do is to get quiet, be still, settle down, and stop so much frantic “doing.”  Just focus on “being,” which is what He wants most of the time, anyway.  In the quietness we will touch our souls.

And it is our souls that remain in the bosom of God.

Love & Life

“I and my Father are one.  Only Love is real, and Love, alone, heals. . . .

“Herein lies your purpose.  Herein lies your function, and herein—and only here—is Life.”  (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Chapter 18, Page 217)

Being in love, in love with this world, our friends and family, our God, is the only way that works.  We really don’t have to run around “doing” frantically.  If in a measured pace, what we seek is not there, then it was not meant to be there.  Take time today, time just to “be.”

This is, according to A Course of Love, Mary of Nazareth’s way.  And, also according to A Course of Love, the way that more and more of us will adopt as we move ahead in time.  We think that we have to merit salvation.  It is not so.  God loves us and will guide us to right living if we will let Him.

Be very quiet today and listen to the Love of the Father.  We will in this way only have abundant Life.

Holiness

The holy relationship has been accomplished by the joining of the mind and heart in unity.  The holy relationship is with the Self, the Self that abides in unity with all within the house of truth.  This relationship makes the Self one with all and so brings the holiness of the Self to all.  (A Course of Love, T3:15.10)

The first and most important relationship is with the Self–the inner Christ Self–and God Himself (called the Self in Its largest dimensions).  When this relationship is formed anew and aright, it changes everything.  Our heart and mind are melded into one, and this one is the same One with Whom we are merged in the Godhead Himself/Herself.  With this joining of heart and mind, we are primed to have all good things to come to us.  We are, at last, on the right track, “separate” from God no longer, even in illusion.  And we are not in illusion any longer, but the supreme reality, true reality, a reality that does not fade with each passing day.

When mind and heart are joined, I feel a warmth that is not of this world.  I once was accosted at night by a stranger who did not mean me well.  Just before he touched me, I felt a Warmth that gave me a tremendous sense of safety and God-given care.  And this sense carried me through the experience without any trauma.  I ran and I screamed, and he fled.  My voice and God’s grace had saved me.  In that moment, with the warm feeling, I was in unity of mind and heart with that warmth, though this was years before A Course of Love was channeled.  I only knew that God had been very, very close to me in that moment.

How do we invite the melding of heart and mind?  We get quiet, we invite warmth, we invite God.  If we open ourselves to God’s grace, He will descend upon us, prompting us to join mind and heart into a Unity that will solve all problems, release all neuroses, give us a new lease on life.

Be quiet today, just for a moment.  A moment is all that it takes to allow God to speak to us in the Unity in which He abides.

Love

“The consciousness of Christ is your true consciousness.  It is a consciousness of pure love.”  Choose Only Love bk.3, 9:II

“Pure love.”  If we might only realize what this means!  We have so misused the word “love” in our world that we often don’t take seriously the arresting spiritual meaning of this word.  When we have walked far along toward God, and had satori (fleeting glimpses of the Divine), these will eventually lengthen into Awakening, and it is the Awakening of the consciousness of Christ—a Christ Whom we all share.  Because Christ is now a plural concept, we can acknowledge that what Jesus had 2,000 years ago is available to us all.  It does not come to us all, but our own preparations can speed the time when we will all know Christ-consciousness.  And Christ-consciousness is the next leap in evolution.

Focus on love today.  Know that when things go awry, and we want to get back on track, the surest way to do this is to quieten down and go within.  The Answer to our dilemmas will be there.  And with a clear mind and a loving heart, we can walk a green earth again.

If on the verge of hot feelings with another, just pause; don’t say anything.  Know that the loving response is the only true response that protects the other and ourselves.  We don’t have to be “right” all the time; we can let God lead our friends and family in the best way that only He knows.  We can choose happiness, as A Course in Miracles says (“Would you rather be right or happy?”), and with this choice comes the return of love.

Spend some time today contemplating what love means to us. 

There is no better way to spend time.

The New Beginning

The new beginning you are called to now is a new beginning that, like all others that you have offered or attempted, will take place in relationship.  The difference is that this new beginning will take place in holy rather than special relationship.  (A Course of Love, T3:15.9)

We have arrived at a good place now.  We are beginning anew, as we have in the past, but with a difference.  Our new beginning will no longer be housed in special relationships that only promised us the good but did not deliver consistently.  Our new beginning, this time, will come in the warmth of holy relationships.  We have found the elixir, and we will not turn back from its bounty now.

How do we know that we are surrounded by holy relationships?  We are not out for #1 anymore, at least not exclusively.  We love others as we love ourselves, for giving and receiving love is one.  We know that when we reach out, our reach will be met by reciprocation, for holiness invites holiness.  If our reach finds an individual who is as yet only capable of special relationship, we will not be inclined in that direction, because we will know better.  Our reach goes out to holiness, and holiness is returned to us.  There is no better way to live life.

What about rejection?   I have known rejection in my life, but only in relationship that was “special,” in that my ego was attempting to establish a basis for continuing contact that was not the best for either of us.  Of course, I did not know this at the time, and the episode was very painful, frustrating, and humiliating.

Now I know better.  Holy relationship does not hurt.  Its joy is reciprocated, for we know intuitively what relationship to pursue, and which to turn aside.  Our guidance does what it is intended to do:  It guides.  And in the guidance comes a new life of happiness and smooth sailing as well.  We walk a pathway that has no stones that invite tripping ourselves up.  We walk a smooth pathway.

Just as when we pursued special relationships, our new beginnings now are embedded in our relationships.  But what a difference the holy makes!  It is simply all the difference in the world.  We blossom under the tutelage of holy relationships.  And there is never any temptation to return to the special relationship that got away.  This is the advantage in turning to prayer for prompting as to what to do.  Prayer does direct relationships for the good of all involved.

Holiness in relationships allows new beginnings with a flair that we have heretofore not enjoyed.  Our happiness has wings. 

And we know that what God has ordained in relationship, holy relationship, will come to pass.

Prayer – Love – Miracles

“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.

Teach Only Love

“Ultimately, it is not so much about going anywhere, as much as it is about abiding within, realizing that this world is unreal, this world is harmless.  And in any situation, it is you with all power under Heaven and Earth to teach only love.”  (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Chapter 17, Page 215)

The Way of Mastery is echoing A Course in Miracles when Jesus here says to “teach only love.”  That IS what we are about, and until we accept this mission, we will fret and stew and live a life that is below what we could aspire to.

How do we teach only love?  This quotation also has this answer:  We go within.  God is within, and He will teach us what we need to do to live good lives, lives suffused with His blessings, lives that do Him justice.  Going within offers us a nurturance that our relationships cannot offer, at least not all the time and in all ways. 

We have depended on our relationships, especially our special relationships, to take care of us emotionally.  The only way that succeeds all the time is to turn to our Maker, Who supports us with an everlasting support.  When we turn within, we sense love, and when we sense love from God, we are in a position to offer that love to others.  It is necessary first to receive from God, and then to offer, to give.

This is the way that we teach only love. 

God has much to teach us.  Commune with our depths today, and see what today’s message from Him might turn out to be.

Holding Our Breath

Holding on to what you think will meet your needs is like holding your breath.  Your breath cannot long be held.  It is only through the inhaling and exhaling, the give and take of breathing that you live.  Each time you are tempted to think that your needs can only be met in special ways by special relationships, remember this example of holding your breath.  Think in such a way no longer than you can comfortably hold your breath.  Release your breath and release this fear and move from special to holy relationship.  (A Course of Love, T1:9.17)

We have been trying to hold our breath for eons, hoping against hope that what one special relationship did not give us ultimately can be met by yet another.  Our special relationships all fail us eventually.  Love turns to hate, and we know not what we did wrong.  Always we blame the other person for not living up to the unwritten agreement to be there for us anytime, anywhere.  We feel betrayed.

This is a script that has been played out in our various dramas for far too long.  The only true assurance that we can have from another comes when we have let our special relationship to that person blossom into a holy relationship.  Now we know in our bones that this person will never let us down, that love will stay love and not fall into alienation and even hate.  We are holding our breath no longer.  We know that the safety that we long to have in a human being can be counted upon.  We are safe, finally, and we know it to be true.

This is what happens in long-term marriages that stay fresh.  We discover how to mesh our needs and wants with those of another whom we love unconditionally, come what may.  We know that if our marriage should end, the love will not; the love is eternal now, and we have this assurance as we live out our time on earth.  This world can touch this blessing not.  We are living our dream of eternal love, and it is our brother or sister, our partner in life, who makes the living out of our lives truly meaningful.  He or she is our way back to God, a holy relationship that promises all things, and keep those promises.  Our forgiveness even becomes meaningless, for we recognize that there is nothing we need forgive.  The significant other is significant only in that we live in close proximity; we don’t look to the other for outrageous answers.  We live and let live, in the holiness which God intends for us.

All of us have seen this love, but perhaps fleetingly.  We want it for ourselves.  And we can have it when we give up thinking that specialness is our due.  Holiness is our due.  And with our inheritance as favored children of God, all of us are favored in a holiness that does not play favorites.

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.

Love Will Offer Fulfillment

“This is why once I said:

“If you do not bring forth what is within you, what is within you will destroy you.  If you bring forth what is within you, what is within you will save you.

‘If you do not bring forth what is within you—and what is within you is Love, is Christ—you will feel burdened and unfulfilled.  Usually, most human beings go through their entire life with a sense of unfulfillment, lamenting what the world has done to them, lamenting the decisions and choices they have made in the past.  They become burdened by what is on the outside, along with what is in the past.  An eventually the body dies, the Spirit withers on the vine.”  (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Chapter 17, Page 212)

This is Jesus speaking in Jayem, who channels live. Jesus is quoting the Gospel of Thomas.

I think we don’t really understand how love, and only love, can cure all our problems. As our attitudes change, we walk a green earth. When we meditate, often love comes to the forefront; we make alpha waves, and we sense love more than most times.

If we are feeling unfulfilled, I know of no better way to experience the love that we want and need than to find a quiet corner and become “perfectly calm and quiet” (as A Course in Miracles encourages us to do).

Without a good dose of love–given and received–our lives play out with unfulfilled longings and grieving about lost love. We may not always get love from the one person we want it from the most. But the world is filled with people who can supply this essential need. And the feeling of love is essential to our well-being.

Even pets, companion animals, can supply the need to a degree–and often a great degree.

When we find a quiet corner, something that elicits calm and quiet in ourselves, we will sense God. And when we sense God, we will know that there is a Force Who loves us. He first loved us, and the experience of being loved then allows us to give love. He had to first love us, or we would have no basis for experiencing the giving of love. And the giving often prompts others to give back, though we don’t want to make this a quid pro quo.

Banish the sense of unfulfillment today by opening to the true and real experience of nothing more important to our lives than simple love.

IDLE THOUGHTS

Published in Miracles magazine (Jon Mundy, publisher).

by Celia Hales

There is no more self-contradictory concept than that of “idle thoughts.”  What gives rise to the perception of a whole world can hardly be called idle.  (ACIM, W-16.2:1-2)

You are much too tolerant of mind wandering, thus tacitly condoning your mind’s miscreations.  (ACIM, T-2.IX.5:6)

You who have so filled your mind with senseless wanderings and thoughts that think of nothing that is real, rejoice that there is a way to end this chaos.  (ACOL, C:5.2)

It is a decision to choose to discipline the mind in each moment, to teach only Love, to hold only loving thoughts, and to recognize that there is no such thing as an idle thought, since each thought or perception held in the mind immediately generates your experience.  (WOM, Lesson 20, Page 239)

            When we let our “monkey mind” (as they say) rule us, we are lost indeed.  We recognize that what we focus upon tends to materialize.  And when we lapse into idle thoughts, Jesus is telling us that we are veering off track in a major way.

            I often say Jesus’ words almost as a mantra when my busy mind won’t slow down, “You are much too tolerant of mind wandering.”  I say this when I am trying to go to sleep, and just can’t quite drift off.  But the actual damage begins during daylight hours, when we focus on things that are substandard and not worthy of us.  These substandard things come to pass because even social scientists know that a self-fulfilling prophecy is at work here.

            We might best remedy this situation by a deliberate attempt to bring mindfulness into our daily round.  In my estimation, mindfulness means deliberate action, not necessarily slow, but definitely not rushed.  I find mindfulness most often in the kitchen.  (We all have our favorite places, and cooking is a hobby of mine.)  Actually, mindfulness is necessary in every situation.  It is easier than meditation, for in mindfulness we can give our minds something to hold on to, the actions that we are undertaking.  Meditation, at least traditionally, is particularly hard to practice if we are frenetic Westerners.

            But meditation has its place, and stilling the mind, letting the heart speak, is healing.  We certainly aren’t letting idle thoughts rule us when we are meditating. 

            Listen to Jesus’ words, said in all of his best-known channeled works.

            Let him speak to us, and our mind will slow down enough so that we listen with our heart.  Idle thoughts will diminish, peace will reign.

Joy Calls

The universe exists in reciprocal relationship or holy relationship, rather than special relationship.  This is the nature of existence, as unity is the nature of existence and cannot be changed and has not changed, although you believe it not.  It is a joyful relationship, as the nature of relationship is joy.  Once you have given up your belief in separation this will be known to you.  (A Course of Love, C:29.17)

Once we give up our belief that we could actually separate from God, and have done so, much good will result.  We will know that holy relationship is the nature of the universe(s), and we will realize that holy relationship does not take anything away from our nearest and dearest.  Holy relationship will expand our love to meet the whole world.  We will not know the separatism that has characterized our various special relationships, relationships that have often ended badly.

My friend Carol knew what it is like to suffer special relationship, and “suffer” is the salient word here.  As mentioned, she once fell very hard into a love that was strong on ego, though she did not realize it at the time.  If the special love had ever been transformed into holy, then her sense of desolation at the end of the “relationship” would have saved her from needless regret. 

There was something eminently good about the love that Carol felt.  It was not a love that would be easily surpassed.  That was the clue that something else was going on here.  She was being led, ever so gently and before A Course in Miracles was published, to give up her interest in being special (and having someone else be special as well).  In retrospect, holiness is the transforming key to relationship that goes sour.  And there doesn’t have to be any continuing contact with the other at all to effect a holy relationship.  Relationship that is holy is thus seen to be mystical.

We are meant to enjoy joyousness is our relationships.  Special love invites the highs and lows of drama, and egoic drama at that.  A holy relationship is one that has been dedicated to the Almighty, a Source beyond just our little personality.  And this dedication to Something bigger than ourselves is what makes all the difference.

When we feel united with all other people, our brothers and sisters, we know a peace that is not of this world.  We are meant to live in unity, and of course, we can see that seeing one small part as more special that another would make this joyous unity impossible. Ask to see with a greater vision today.  Ask to comprehend as never before what a special love transformed into a holy one can really mean.  There is no comparison, but until each of us has seen the difference for ourselves, we will remain skeptical that we aren’t losing something in the transformation.

Prayer

“True prayer consists of living in the truth.  Every time you connect with the truth of who you are, you are praying, for prayer is love, and love is union.”  Choose Only Love bk.3, 8:III

Here we see, from Jesus, several words that actually mean the same.  These words are prayer, truth, love, and union.  And when we are engaged in any of these ultimate values, we are being who we are.

No longer do we have to feel guilty that we don’t pray enough.  When we seek to tell the truth just always, not only when it is convenient to ourselves, we (Jesus says) are praying.  And then we are living in love, and we are living in love with All that exists.  That All includes Jesus, of course, and it also includes our Creator.  When we sense love from Him, we are set for a good day.

Union is where we are all headed, though this does not necessarily mean an absorption into the Deity.  We are One, and this is the real meaning of union.  We have relationship with diverse entities, but together we are united in God.

When we live in love, truth, union, we are praying.  And our prayer life will then transform everything else.

Hope for Transformation in This Decade

“We are close now, close to a time in which a new choice can make true living available here and now.  This is the decade in which transformation proceeds, and the time in which the mother’s heart enters to show the way to care of the living, and the end of what does not need to be.  This is time of Mirari:  The Way of the Marys.”  Mirari

The “mother’s heart” is Mary herself, but she extends this to all mothers everywhere.  “The Way of the Marys” is the way of women everywhere.  And this decade Marys will be coming into their own.

One cannot adopt the name Mary without being overcome with love for all beings, all creations of God, all people everywhere.  But when we do adopt this name for our own, we are proceeding into a transformation that will affect all life.

The patriarchal society will be influenced more and more by women, and if women choose love, that change will be a good thing.  Women have historically cared for the living, especially their own children.  But now the female aspect of God is moving to a new level of Being, and the female in our societies will be asked to take a more leading role.

If women succeed, we will have greater harmony throughout the world.  Women have historically been close to intuition, and intuition is of the heart.  It is the way that we hear from God—all of us, men and women.

THIS decade is when all this New will be born, for Mirari was received just in the last few years.  We are fortunate indeed to live in a time of hope, when so much around us seems to be crumbling. 

The old is making way for the New, first announced in A Course of Love.

Discovering Love

“This is a course in miracles.  It is a required course.  Only the time you take it is voluntary.  Free will does not mean that you can establish the curriculum.  It means only that you can elect what you want to take at a given time.  The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught.  It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence, which is your natural inheritance.  The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite.”  (A Course in Miracles, T-in.1)

The emphasis here is on “miracles.”  And the fact that what we are taking in A Course in Miracles is a required course.  Is it required for everyone in the world, eventually?  That is an open question, for Jesus does not take a stand on reincarnation.  And Jesus has also said that there are other teachers in this world, teachers other than him.  But we have chosen that he be our teacher, because his words come to us in a manner that we can recognize and love.

We are trying to dislodge the ego; that is “removing the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence.”  We give up struggle in this task.  Jesus and the Holy Spirit will show us the way effortlessly, step by step.  If we take one situation today and choose once again that we respond in a wholehearted manner, bereft of ego, we will have done well.  Just for today, seek to choose by altruistic means, not egoic.  And your time will be well spent.

Love actually has no opposite of fear, for fear is nothing—a manifestation of illusion, of dreams.  We live in dreams until we choose once again.  Sooner rather than later the Holy Spirit will replace our fearful dreams with happy dreams.  And then the way is smoothed to lead us, ultimately, to Awakening.  If the way seems long, we are encouraged not to fret, that the end is certain.  We have chosen God’s way, and the Holy Spirit is a guide Who cannot fail.  Revelation may occasionally reveal the end to us, but to get there the means are needed, and the means are being revealed in this course.

God would not withhold the rest, when what we ask—Awakening—is His Will for us.  In the meantime, we need just to be patient.  The way is being shown.  Let no fearful thought of the ego hinder your way.