Tempests

I wonder if I’ve sometimes created a tempest in a teapot out of boredom. If I get upset about something, then I have the upset to deal with rather than the boredom. 

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Do I seek fear to avoid boredom?

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For the anxiety-prone part of me: “Sometimes I simply have to disengage my mind from worry.  That seems the healthiest way to live, and I have not always been able to do that.”

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There is a truth about mental illness that sometimes only the mentally ill, and those who counsel troubled people, see.  At the heart of a split from “reality” may be a glimpse of true reality. And perhaps there is a partially formed mystic crying to get out. 

Who knows but that a psychotic sufferer has opted to jump ahead by one of the most wrenching means?  Who knows what contributions recovery—and their next life—will bring?

Thoughts You Do Not Think

1 – Unity

“For many of you, ‘thoughts you did not think’ are among your first experiences of unity. Thus, just as when you might look up when trying to remember something, or tap a finger to your temple, there is, in a certain sense, a ‘place’ to which you turn for these experiences. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day Five)”

2 – Without Conscious Thought

We do know things often without conscious thought. Ideas come into our minds, without our volition, so obviously. Often this is an intrusive thought, and it doesn’t mean mental illness (though some intrusive thoughts do mean mental illness). The ideas, the thoughts are not consciously selected or guided. We might think of these thoughts as coming from the subconscious, but there are also other possibilities. Most of us believe in an Other Side, with entities there who communicate with us. A Course in Miracles makes this clear, saying that the Teachers of teachers give their ideas to people who would be frightened if they were to see these Teachers.

3 – Wave of the Future

This is the wave of the future. We are going to be learning through observation and through thoughts that we don’t “think.” The wave of the future looks bright, for we will have many ways to learn that are effortless and give us incredible direction in what to do and say.

4 – Access to Unity

“Access to unity will seem, at first, a quite individual accomplishment, something one may have and another may not. While this remains the case, you may desire to give others what you have and feel unable to do so. Yet, like love, unity is known through its effects. All the benefits of union can be given away to any willing to receive. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day Five)”

5 – Transformation

We can see transformation in everyone! This is a marvelous promise. We will have access to the unity of which all of us are a part, part of the One, the One God. We may feel that we cannot easily convey to others what we are experiencing. But this will be a misnomer. We really are able to communicate what others are willing to hear, but they must be willing to hear. Some are ready only for a smile, as A Course in Miracles says.

6 – Rest

“You simply want to rest and have whatever transformation is to come to you to come. If you could indeed give in to this desire fully, it would speed the transformation along quite nicely. So please, listen to your weariness and to your heart’s desire to rest. Listen to the call to peace and let yourself recline in the embrace of love, feeling the warm earth beneath you and the heat of the sun above you. (A Course of Love: Dialogues, pp. 120-121)”

7 – Unity

Unity is defined on Day Five as being fully who you are and expressing fully who you are. It is not a matter either of effort or of learning. Jesus says repeatedly that the time of learning is over. The time of learning was in trying to satisfy the ego that one had accomplished.

Unity is something quite different, as defined by Jesus in A Course of Love.

8 – Effort

Likewise, as in the passage quoted above, the time of effort is over. We are to rest and to relax as our point of access to unity becomes clear to us. Jesus notes that there are various ways that access can be experienced: via part or all of the head, the heart, the hands, or even arising from the earth and felt throughout the body. A point of access will no longer be needed once we have sustained the elevated Self of form, rather than just tried to maintain it.

9 – Being Who We Are

This summary will likely not be fully satisfying to you, because Jesus’s words are dense with meaning. Know that we are only on Day Five, and 35 more days of explanation will follow. In the meantime, rest assured that unity–being who we are and expressing fully who we are–is Jesus’s intention in the 40 days and nights on the mountain top.

10 – Ego Is Gone

“While the ego is gone, effort remains, and while it remains, you will not realize full access to what you are given. We are speaking here of letting your form serve union and union serve your form. This service is effortless for it is the way of creation. (Dialogues of A Course of Love, Day Five)”

11 – Effortless Accomplishment

What a glorious way to say that we don’t need to “effort” so! We have long been at the mercy of an ego which pushed us to do more and more. Those days are over, if we are willing to make them be over. If we are efforting, we are not taking full advantage of what we have been given. Our form is meant to be the elevated Self of form, and this form does not need to “effort” accomplish things. The way of creation is effortless, and we need to create as God intends.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I long to peace today, for rest in You. I have sought salvation through my learning so earnestly, and I would now rest in Your promise that the time of effort is over. I do wish to express fully who I am, being reassured that I am sanctified.

Thank You for Jesus’s reassuring words in this Day Five of the mountain top experience. He ever has looked to You for his knowledge, and may I rest in surety that what I read today is knowledge and not simply perception.

Amen.