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.

Join in Love

“Beloved friends, peace be unto you always, and always I am with you.  I come to you not alone, but with many who have delighted in creating a resonance with me, and I with them, for no other reason than that power expands exponentially when  minds join in love from a foundation of wholeness and not neediness.”  (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Chapter 13, Page 168)

Jesus comes to us in The Way of Mastery by way of Jayem, who channeled “live,” and these three books of The Way of Mastery are the result.  Often in these books, Jesus stresses that he comes with others who join forces to help us all.  He calls his particular group, a very large group, simply “the lineage.”   Their work has been going on for a long, long time; their work is what led up to Jesus’ life 2000 years ago.

When we join with others, our power too is expanded, as Jesus says, “exponentially,” when we are joined in love.  We don’t join with others strictly out of our need, for we will soon come to know that we are whole beings residing in God.  We don’t have to look to others out of this neediness.  We join others because we come to love them.

Right after this passage, Jesus asserts that he and Mary, who are bonded together, do not join because they “need” each other.  He and Mary are joined in love and the result of a common purpose—to save us.  And we might also realize that there are many of us on earth who share that common purpose—though being finite and in physical bodies, we don’t know all that will be known in the cosmic realm.

Join with others of like mind (and heart—as A Course of Love says), if there is love as the overarching feeling.  When we let love lead the way, our ratio of mistakes to truth changes drastically.  We let go of many of our old ways, and walk into a new world being created even as we speak.

Live the Life that You Love

What you love enough to give your life to, is what will give life.  Mirari

Our life is what we make it.  How often we have heard those words!  And when we choose out of love what our daily activities will be, we choose aright.  Then we truly have a life that is worth living.

What we have settled upon as our purpose, choosing out of love, will manifest the life that we most want and the life that we most need.  Matters like this ought not to be chosen in a hurried manner.

Others’ choices are not for us.  What we devote our time to should be our decision, and only our decision.

When we live like this, we come to know what “life” is all about.  Life in this sense is the enlivenment of the daily round, the aliveness with which we live. 

Choose carefully, in prayer, and life will bless us abundantly.

Gentle Mary

The words of the feminine are literally heard in a different way. Mirari

I think the reason that the words of the feminine are heard differently is because we remember our mothers, the first evidence of love we ever encountered.  A mother nurtures in a soft way, a way that invites reciprocation.  There is a special mother-child bond that is unlike anything else we will encounter in our lifetimes.

If this bond is not well-formed or is broken, we have scars.  This is how important maternal love really is.

Women speak differently from men, regardless of how hard a man might try to be nurturing.

This is the advantage that women have in this new era.  Women’s voices are ready to be heard now.  Mirari tells us this.  We are ready to BE more often than DO, for the way of Mary is to “be.”  May we ask in the privacy of our thoughts what this means for our world, and respond as we come to understand.

Love & Miracles

“Since that part of God that dwells in you is as powerful as God Himself in its totality, then certainly you can do miracles by invoking the divine aspect of yourself or getting events to be harmoniously oriented in love.”  Choose Only Love bk.3, 11:II

What does this mean? It does not mean that we are as powerful as God. The divine aspect of us “in its totality” is what we are talking about. And with this divine aspect we can work miracles that are prompted. We don’t work miracles that we think are well-advised, for this is the one way to get ourselves and others into trouble. We wait for guidance, and then, almost without knowing, we are in a miracle-minded state. From there it is easy to bring about the miracles that we are asked to perform.

If our lives are flowing in the harmony of love, we are right where we ought to be. We are living joyously. We are in tune with the Infinite, God Himself. If we are depressed in spirit, our good deeds will be tainted, for we will bring our suffering into them. If we want to live well, doing good for others while we ourselves are listening to guidance, we need to remain centered in wellness. This is not so hard to do when we are living with the thought of love in our mind and heart.

Love will transform us so that miracles will light not only our path, but those in our circle of family, friends, acquaintances–and even the larger world.

Lift our eyes to the heavens. We will be lifted up at the same time.

Holy Spirit

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

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

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

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

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

We Live in God

“God is a marriage of love because everything, male and female as you consider it, resides in God, as well as in all true creation.”  COL bk.4, 1:IV

We are composed of love—through and through.  We are living, many of us, in madness still, because the ego has not yet died in us.  When the ego does die, we will know what it is to live in God.  We will be part of “all true creation.”

What we have made of ourselves in this world is not “true creation,” for our mistakes have made us labor under extreme conditions of depravity.  Never God’s intention, He “let go” when we rebelled (A Course of Love concept).  What else could He do?  We as parents even do this with our rebellious teenagers.  Neither we, in God’s sight, nor teens, are yet mature—or we wouldn’t make such havoc for ourselves.

Let the love that we are embrace us and give us new life.  In this time of spring in the northern hemisphere, we can be at home in our world when we recognize that all of life can be our springtime—a time of new growth, new growth into greater immersion in God.

Love

“Bringing human nature to its fullness in love is what has been the purpose of Our incarnation, just like yours.  There are no differences between you and Us.”  Choose Only Love bk.3, 8:III

Jesus is here speaking of himself and Mary.  If we know that we have one purpose in this world, and that purpose is to live in the fullness of love, then life becomes very easy.  We do things that promote love, and we avoid things that do not.  How hard can this be?

One purpose means that life becomes simple.  Oh, how our insane ego has made life in this world so complicated!

But we are through with this madness—and through with it now!  Affirm to God that we will walk His way, and His way only.

And then life will become completely bearable, and easy and simple in the extreme.

Living in Love

“[L]iving with fear was the reality of the contraction in which you lived.  Now we begin to live consciously without fear, joyfully recognizing that we are the resurrection and will live in love.”  Choose Only Love bk.3, 2:III

I know that this assertion is true; I know from long life experience.  I used to live with the anxiety of a stressful job, and now that I am no longer in the work force, I am amazingly calm, sometimes sleepy in the mornings, something I resist.

I can make accommodations so that I am more alert, living in Love and not fear.  I have read that it takes more patience to live calmly than to live in agitation.  We have been used to dramas, dramas that kept us uptight.  Now all of us can adjust to a better way, if we have a mind to.  We can adjust to peace without highs and lows that are emblematic of an egoic existence.

Here Jesus says that we are the “resurrection.”  He is seeing us in a new era, the new time of Christ, the second coming of Christ.  Elsewhere Choose Only Love asserts that we are living in the end times.  This does not mean the annihilation of the earth, but it does mean the annihilation of the difficult ways of the ego.

Accept calm when it comes.  Accept calm in this new era.  And be grateful for it. 

Our lives will smooth out, and we will know a better way of walking through the new world that we will be creating.

Love

“My beloveds, I cannot fail to mention that you must take charge of everything that you experience in yourself that is not love.”  Choose Only Love bk.3, 2:III

We have something to do.  This word from Jesus tells us just what it is.  If something we recognize is not love, love-oriented, then take charge of it, and banish it from our lives. 

There are many emotions that are love, emotions of positivity.  Harmony, peace, tranquility, being soothed, being cocooned—all of these are of love.  But there are also emotions that are not of love.  Anger, attack, jealousy, violence—all of these are not of love. 

If we recognize that we are harboring one of these negatives, we must do something about it.  We must not depend on anyone else to banish these emotions from our self.  WE must do it.

The good news is that when we enlarge the love in our lives, the negative emotions of hate fall away of their own accord.  We don’t have to seek to discredit them or to remove them.  Love embraces all and transmutes the negativity, leaving the positive emotion of love as an all-embracing blessing.

Ask for help from God to shift into love-oriented living today.  God is Love, and He will understand our own failings in this regard.  He will fill us with His Love, and then all will be well.

True Peace

“Realize that I am love.  Remembering this is enough to bring true peace to your heart and mind.”  Choose Only Love bk.3, 2:I

This is a message from Jesus.  I think this assertion will work for us when we do follow him as our leader.  Following Jesus as our leader and savior is the message of traditional Christianity as well as the recently channeled works which many believe are from Jesus, including this one—Choose Only Love—and A Course in Miracles, A Course of Love, and The Way of Mastery.

We need someone who has walked the whole pathway back to God as our guide.  When we trust that one, we know that we can have the peace that we feel when we think of him.  He paved the way.  Now he is inviting us to join him as an equal, not subordinate to him in any way.  He got there first, but he wants nothing more than for us to share the love that that journey showed to him.  And he takes us by the hand as we walk along.

If we trust Jesus as our leader and guide, oftentimes our savior, we will—he says—experience true peace.  And who among us does not want that?  Let go of doubts that Jesus is actually speaking to us in this quotation and open the mind and heart to the belief that he is.

When we feel true peace in this belief, we will know all we need to know.  We will walk a smooth road back to God, with Jesus’ hand clasped in ours.

We Are Christ!

“You are consciousness.  You are awareness.  You are that which witnesses, that which pays homage to the one thing that God has created:  Christ, which means the anointed.”  (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Chapter 17, Page 201)

We are the awareness that is Christ. Of course, if we shouted this too loudly when we are caught in the ego, we would have a “high” that would quickly turn on us and lead us into despair. But now that we are relinquishing the ego, we can shout from the rooftops (metaphorically) that we ARE the Christ. In the new era of Christ, we understand that the “Christ” is a plural concept, not limited to Jesus. He paved the way, and still does. But he welcomes us into his inner sanctuary with God.

How do we actually come to realize that we are morphing into something new and better? We go within, in peace and tranquility. God Himself will welcome us. We can believe that He knows how important it is to us to relinquish an egotistical stance toward life and living. When we welcome others with the same manner in which we seek to welcome ourselves into God’s embrace, we will realize that we are all in this together.

We seek to rest in God’s embrace, and in His embrace we feel no fear. We see that we are equal to all others in the eyes of God, and so judgment has no place. And it is these two impediments–fear and judgment–according to A Course of Love, that keep us from manifesting Christ, that keep us from love in all its fullness–Love as God loves.

Know that we are loved, and because God first loved us, we can give and receive love now. We can be cocooned in that love of God.

He is reaching upward from our depths to love us with an abiding love. Do we feel it yet?

Divine Play

“Peace, then, be unto you, beloved and holy friends.  ‘Friends’ because you are a part of me, and I a part of you—particles of light dancing in the wave of the one God, the one Mind, the one Truth, the real world.  The joke has been on us!  And we played it upon ourselves well.  Now, the time of rejoicing is at hand, as we arise in our individuation, recognizing our oneness—to dance the dance of creation ceaselessly, extending only the good, the holy, and the beautiful.”  (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Chapter 16, Page 200)

What is the “joke”? That we thought we separated from God, formed an ego that led us astray, and now we recognize the folly of our ways and are rapidly, all of us, returning to God. Now we know that Love answers all needs. And when we leave behind judgment and fear (as A Course of Love advises), we are making real progress to a better life ahead. The law of attraction kicks in magnificently to allow us to realize that God is in our corner, has always been in our corner. He was just waiting patiently for us to find that out.

Now we know. We are not meant to be isolated and alone; we need each other, and we need God, the Force of the Universe Who realizes that Love is the only way that reality would work. He knew this from the beginning, when He first awoke and realized, “There is only I. Why be afraid? But I feel lonely. I will create my “children,” and then I will companion with them.”

We don’t really know how God thought, but what I just said is an ancient story retold by Joseph Campbell. And to our finite minds, it makes sense–though we are molding God in our own image, and that may not be good.

Let ideas of God play in our minds. This is companionship, we can feel, for Him–and it is companionship for us. Our “play” has a larger scope, and in Awakening we will come to see more and to know more.

Let God’s Love enfold us today. Even He could wish for nothing greater for us.

Delight in Living

“Your journey is not alone.  Even now, you are perfectly awake.  For only one who is awake could dare to create the great cleverness and creativity, through which you are a spark of God become increasingly aware of your Self:  God diving into God; God discovering God!  What a delightful, delightful play!”  (“The Way of Transformation,” WOM, Chapter 16, Page 198 – 199)

This quotation leads us to a celebration! A celebration of life itself. Jesus, here channeled by Jayem, is getting us to see that the “way we are,” here now, right now, is OK. If there are things that we want changed, we ask for help from our God, and He obliges us. But, if we can believe this quotation, He is far more pleased with ourselves than we often are. And what a pity! That we don’t recognize our own grandness.

We can’t see it, but we are at play in a great drama in the universe. Yes, there is still plenty of suffering, but we will find our way out of that when we focus on the right things–the love, the harmony, the peace that we all want immeasurably. Even the people we see who seem to be “bad” want only love, in their deepest heart. Unconscious people just don’t recognize how a change of focus could bring all this to them. They need our prayers, not our condemnation.

In our creativity, we will join forces with God to create a better world. We may differ on how this is done, but our aim is the same.

And an underlying truth is that we CAN see delight in this “play.” Not in a selfish way, an uncaring way, but in a way that shows God’s truth in everything we say and do.

God’s Love

“Here, there is great richness not found in any other dimension, the richness of the dramas of separation, of seeking—seeking, seeking, seeking. . . .

“The very energy of seeking is the egoic energy.  For only the ego can seek.  Pure Spirit can only extend.  And there is a huge difference!”  (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Chapter 16, Page 197)

We have been seeking for long eons. But there is an end to seeking, and A Course of Love, which followed The Way of Mastery, calls for an end to seeking also. ACOL says that that end has come.

How do we make the shift into something better? Something that truly satisfies?

We develop patience, patience with ourselves. Our extension (“Pure Spirit can only extend”) is the extension of love, Love, God’s Love. And only when we rest in the certainty of knowledge can we feel secure, willing to give up seeking for something elusive that we might have missed.

In patience we possess our souls. We have heard that, but have we believed it? It is true, completely true.

Let us ask for the patience to accept what we already know, that Love, God’s Love, when sensed, is the Answer we have been seeking.

He will do all the rest.

Live with Full Hearts

“As that first thought of separation is dreamt. . .You could say a drop of milk . . .  seems to separate and take on its own energy.  And that we have called fear. . .the experience of contraction . . . .”  (“The Way of Transformation,” WOM, Chapter 16, Page 192)

Fear is only a dream. Only. The image here is of a glass of milk being poured, and a drop of milk splashes upward, and that splash of milk seems to be separate and different from the rest, and in the separation, fear is born.

It doesn’t have to be this way. We can stay merged with the whole glass of milk. Our dream of fear can be left entirely in our past, a journey we took that would lead us to recognize how imperative it is to live fear’s opposite, love. How do we do this?

The most important consideration is how we spend our time. If we commune with our Maker often and well, we will feel His love surrounding and supporting us. This is prayer. This is real prayer.

We can leave the contraction of fear by being expansive in our relationship to our brothers and sisters. And loving them. Love cancels out many wrongs, and the most noticeable wrong that it cancels is the experience of fear. When our hearts are full, we have no room for fear.

And fear leaves us entirely.

Spirit

“Rather, it was more like a mathematical concept.  It was the idea of space, in which extension could occur.  There were not yet planets and suns.  There was not yet a single atom or molecule of matter.  There was pure thought, pure Love, pure being, beginning to entertain, and I emphasize that word for a certain reason, the idea of pure space, pure extension—unlimited, unbounded, forever.  There was pure Spirit.  That is what you are, now and forever.  Spirit does not change.”  (“The Way of Transformation,” WOM, Chapter 16, Page 189)

Spirit is an energy that pervades the whole. In the beginning (if we can say that), there was nothing but Spirit. Then God moved, and His energy–or Thought–slowed down a bit, and lo and behold, matter came into being. Matter has been most of what we have known. And unfortunately, in our separation from God–something that we, in error, imagined we wanted–we developed a false self, an ego, that felt all alone and lonely without our Creator, God Himself.

Now things are changing for us. We know that egotism is not the way of the Christ-Mind. And we are tired and burned out from the suffering that our ego has laid upon us. We now have a new choice before us–choosing God, again, this time to stay with Him. Our ego diminishes into nothingness, and we have true joy in our newfound communion with our Creator.

We are pure Spirit, and despite our foray into egotism, our essence has not changed.

Now we choose again, this time in Love. And Love, with a capital “L,” is God Himself.

Our Essence

“You are God Itself.  Now, that is the first time that we have been quite so bold.  It is the first time that we have described you as that which is God.  This can only mean that what you are in your essence, in your essential being, is God Himself.”  (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Chapter 16, Page 188)

What this quotation is saying is that the All, everything, is composed of “God-stuff.”  There is no energy that exists except the essence of God, and He created children from that Essence that are differentiated out of His very being.  We are those children.

There are differences, of course, starting with the fact that we are finite and lack full knowledge.  We could not live if we knew it all, because our mind would act like a computer drive that has had too much data stored in it (an analogy from A Course of Love).  We have also “fallen,” in that we made an ego that has separated us from God—or so we thought.  We could not actually separate from Him, for we are part of Him, part of His essence.

When we return to God, to know it, we will be in a position to partake more of His very essence.  Our benefits will be great, for love and loving will be the way we live.  Love is God, as we know.  But God is not an emotion, and so by this statement we mean something grander than the emotion of love.  We draw sustenance from Love (something that remains a mystery), for when we forgive completely, we know that we are safe in His arms (we know this from A Course in Miracles, which stresses forgiveness as our great need).

And when we have walked the whole way back to God, we will then know that there is really nothing to forgive.  The dream is over, the reality is in full sway now.

Love is the way we walk in peace.

Living in Love

“Beloved friends, the world that you look upon is not real! . . . But it is a creation that can be impregnated with the perfect Love of God.”  (“The Way of Transformation,” WOM, Chapter 15, Page 182)

When we are living in love, we are living in reality.  Then the creation that is the world is “impregnated” with the “perfect Love of God.”

We see with real vision when we live in love.  Our physical eyes see with a nonphysical expression.  When this first occurs, we see little edges of light around the same familiar objects in our everyday world.  This is one of the signs that real vision is coming upon us.

Real vision is not seen with the physical eyes.  It is something else entirely.  We see with Love that is imbued with the harmonies of love, peace, tolerance, kindness.

This physical world will one day disintegrate.  It is only slowed down energy of the cosmos. 

But the real vision that we have when we are living in Love will be eternal.

Take a moment today to ask for real vision and to see the real world.

Live in Love

“[I]t is essential that you remember that the fundamental thing is not to accumulate information or particular worldly knowledge.  The essential thing is to live in love, to know you are loved.”  Choose Only Love bk.3, 7:II

First things first—and love is always and forever the answer.  Our knowledge/information is something in which we take pride.  But our love is the only thing that matters.  When our lifetime is nearing a close, we will know this.  Nobody wishes that they had spent more time at the office when that person is on a deathbed.

We who study Jesus’ channeled writings may be studying them for the wrong reasons.  Perhaps this is implied in what Jesus is saying here.  It is interesting to understand ultimate reality, but it is not essential.  And anybody who gives up grievances and resentments can live in love.  The knowledge that Jesus imparts in his books give us grounding in love, it is true.  But we are born with an innate ability to love.  It is our birthright.

Turn to our significant others today in love.  Express love.  Feel love.  Live love.  There is no other way to live successfully.  Living in love is the true measure of success.

Jesus: “This Work Is a Love Letter”

“The secret of this world lies not in what can be learned, but that love, and only love, is what it evokes.

“This work is a love letter.”  Choose Only Love bk.3, 7:I

When we project love from within, then we see love without.  Our projections create our perceptions.  While we think negatively, this world does not seem to evoke love.  But Jesus, who channeled these words, sees with the eyes of love, and thus he sees in the world something infinitely better than we could ever imagine.

His words to us, this “work,” is thus a love letter to us.  How grand!  This message can and will evoke love in our heart, as surely as Jesus’ heart is filled with love.

May we lay aside all resentments, antagonisms, grievances today—right now.  These feelings are not worthy of God.  Ask Him to fill our mind and heart only with what is worthy of Him.

And what is worthy of Him is always and only seeking to live love.