Live in Joyous Quiet & Calm

“This is why you do not have to “wait” to hear your calling even though some of you may feel as if you are in a time of waiting for you hear no such call. The call is to be who you are and this is happening at lightning speed, a speed that cannot be measured because of its simultaneous nature. As was said within A Course of Love, time is but a measurement of the “time” it takes for learning to occur. As this notion of time dissolves, the state of miracle-readiness becomes your natural state.” (ACOL, T2:4.18)

This passage makes clear that the primary calling is always and alone to be ourselves. To “be who you are,” which is to be ourselves. Later on Jesus does detail several specific types of callings which may come to us along the way, while we are perfecting just being who we are. But he puts our minds to rest (as he often does) here by letting us know what is most important: just to be who we are. This does take some learning, because we have been living a persona of egoic origins for eons, and we are unused to just accepting the Self. We may not, even yet, now what this Self really is, though it is just the union of mind and heart to form wholeheartedness—a frequent request made in A Course of Love.

We aren’t comfortable with a Self who is Christ, who is a part of God, for we have run from God for a long time. Even at our best, we had previously believed the ego and fallen in line with those things that gave us pride. We patted ourselves on the back when we accomplished some new goal, thinking that our striving (actually a struggle) had been all to the good. But now we are learning that the best things in life are easy, that they are adopted unto ourselves by the simplest of learning activities. We can truly relax in this new world we will be creating. We can truly be who we are without thinking that there is always and only something more we must do to be justified.

We may recall that miracle-readiness was another term for the art of thought, a new way of thinking without struggle because it is miracle-based, and is itself a miracle. This miracle-readiness comes about through a way of life that is a prayer, a prayerful attitude that inculcates all that we are and all that we are about. Jesus is very keen to want us to adopt this new state of being, and perhaps this is because the new state of being is who we really are. We can be who we are when we have allowed miracles to embrace us throughout the day. We can be who we are when we are in the receptive state of prayerful reflection. When we are Zen-like, living in a joyous quiet and calm. Being who we are is not hard; it is the persona that has asked impossible things of us, an egoic persona that asks us to struggle to effect change in our world. When we leave the ego behind, we are not faced with impossible learning tasks, impossibility being a depressing state of mind, the most depressing in the world (according to A Course in Miracles).

Let us allow naturalness to enfold us. Relax in the arms of God, and His emissary on earth, the Christ-Self. We can and do have much to effect in creating a new world, but these lessons will be joyous, and the work will be what comes naturally to us. We have always been trying to be something that we are not, and therein has lain the strain. Naturalness has no strain.

Prayer

I want to live the natural way, the way that my soul is designed to live. And this is to welcome miracles from You, miracles that will allow me to live naturally, as who I really am, just being myself. I want to live in this world in an accepting way, given up any tendency to complain against fate. Fate does not determine my future; my alignment with the Christ-Self does.

Be with me today as I seek to walk in Your pathway. Living naturally takes no effort, and it is this I would remember today.

Amen.

Considering Miracles and Time

“The recognition that you are already accomplished is a condition of your recognition of the state of unity. It is a recognition that you exist in unity outside of the pattern of time. Miracles create an out-of-pattern time interval. Thus living in a state of miracle-readiness is the creation of a new reality outside of the pattern of ordinary time. (Treatises of A Course of Love: Treatise on the Nature of Unity and Its Recognition, 6.9)”

Affirmation: “I will live in miracle-readiness today.”

Reflections:

1 – Miracle-Readiness

What does it mean to live in “miracle-readiness”? First, it assumes that we believe that miracles are not only possible, but likely, and likely to happen to us. This sometimes takes a giant leap of faith, though neither A Course in Miracles nor A Course of Love say very much about faith being required. When even once, one has experienced a miracle and recognized and remembered it, then the way is smoothed for more to follow. We don’t need to ask for a miracle that we wouldn’t recognize at high noon. But we do need to ask for miracles that we would recognize.

2 – Outside of Time

We are outside of time when we are in miracle-readiness. In A Course in Miracles, Jesus indicates that he will adjust time so that we can work miracles that he himself has chosen. So this is an example of A Course of Love following A Course in Miracles, with the same explanation–just in different words.

3 – Misguided Miracles

Why can we not choose our own miracles to perform? Consciously selected miracles are apt to be misguided (from ACIM). We do not know enough to know when to do any specific miracle. We would try to judge, and we are trying to leave judgment behind completely, because we don’t see the whole picture. In ACIM, we leave judgment to the Holy Spirit. In ACOL, we leave judgment aside, because we are following guidance from the Christ Spirit within. In ACIM, we are in the time of the Holy Spirit. In ACOL, we are in the time of Christ.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Thank You for guiding me to consider miracles today. You want me to see them as natural and inevitable, once I am following Your way. I know that miracles are outside time, but I do not always recognize the miracles that I do encounter. Often I overlook what You have given to me. May this pattern of events change for the better. I would recognize miracles given to me, and I would perform miracles that guidance show me to perform.

I do not want to doubt the validity of miracle-readiness. I do not want the ego to get involved, for this would mean great calamity. I thank You that You indicate in inspired writing that I can indeed perform miracles, under guidance that is devoid of ego.

I ask for Your help today to move beyond conventional wisdom to a knowledge of higher realms that includes a knowledge of my place in Your scheme of things, Your place in miracles.

Amen

Our Natural State Is Miracle-Readiness

“As was said within A Course of Love, time is but a measurement of the ‘time’ it takes for learning to occur. As this notion of time dissolves, the state of miracle-readiness becomes your natural state. (Treatises of A Course of Love: Treatise on the Nature of Unity and Its Recognition, 4.18)”

Affirmation: “I ask for miracle-readiness today.”

Reflections:

1 – What We Are Headed

Would it not be wonderful to know that we are living in miracle-readiness all the time? That this is our natural state of being? Well, this is where we are headed now in A Course of Love. We do not choose the miracles we will perform, though. Jesus directs us, because consciously selected miracles are apt to be misguided (from A Course in Miracles). We can rest, knowing that one who has transcended all barriers is right beside us, guiding us. We do not try to understand how this can be so. We just try a bit to follow, and then the results of the following are evidential to us. We will know who leads us.

2 – Jesus

The Christ Self will ultimately lead us to miracles. Jesus does not want to make all decisions for us, a statement that he imparted to the scribe Mari sometime after A Course of Love was channeled. Later on, in the Dialogues, Jesus resigns as our teacher, and becomes simply our companion. And so there will be shifts in what we perceive as this change is happening.

3 – Natural

“Natural” is a good word. What is natural to us is our birthright. And listening from within will give us the guidance that we need, when we are in a calm and tranquil, contemplative, state of mind. The guidance may and often does turn us aside from the pathway that we were barging ahead upon. We need to be able, as I have said before, of “turning on a dime.” And remember that harm will never come if we have heard correctly.

4 – “Shabby Self-Perception”

We may sometimes be embarrassed by what we are called to do. But Jesus in A Course in Miracles says that this perception is coming from a shabby self-perception. There is no reason to be embarrassed. We are following the pathway that will lead us Home, and sooner rather than later.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I think, when I read what Jesus is saying in the passage for today, that I am not worthy of such exalted characterizations. I realize that I do not have to be worthy, because this sort of thinking is just of the ego. But I think that I do need to be ready for Jesus’s encouragement to take hold. I need to know that miracle-readiness is not something for me to effect, but something that happens to me from a Higher Power from within–You.

I would stand in miracle-readiness as much as I can, but I ask You to understand if I fall down. I will always only fall down if I decide, ever, to depend on myself. My Christ Self is united with You, and I am asked to listen to this Self which I seem not to know well enough. But You will help. You will guide. As You have always. I have just been too obtuse to recognize.

Be with me today as I seek to unite my own will with Yours. Always I have only wanted what You want for me, but I have not always known this. Now I intellectually know this, and I ask You to lead me to emotionally know this as well. Be with my brothers and sisters, and guide our steps in this sometimes difficult world.

Thank You.

Amen

Tiny, Mad Idea Undone

“[W]ith my resurrection, which was accomplished for all, the meaning of life, the reality of life, changed, though you have known this not.  The great experiment in separation ended with the resurrection, though you have known this not.  For the resurrection and life are now one and the same.  (Treatises of A Course of Love:  Treatise on the Art of Thought,

Affirmation:  “I would choose life today.”

Reflections:

1 – Resurrection Ended Separation

Jesus has repeatedly referred to our imagined separation from God as illusory, that we cannot really separate from God at all, for we are part of Him–He is within us.  In A Course in Miracles, he refers to the separation as a “tiny, mad idea” about which the Son of God “failed to laugh,” and thus effects were born.  He continues to say in ACIM that we would laugh at such a foolish idea if it had not gained credence to us (a paraphrase from ACIM).   Now Jesus says that his resurrection ended the separation, once and for all.  We just have not known this.

2 – Christ Self

Now we do know it, as seen in this passage.  But exactly what does this mean?  It means that we too can join in the resurrection, that we too are eligible to assume our place as a Christ spirit.  This is the Self/Christ within about which so much has been said in this blog.

3 – A Resurrected Life

Our lives are now resurrected lives:  “For the resurrection and life are now one and the same.”  What will it mean to live a resurrected life?

4 – Miracle Readiness

We will be in miracle-readiness all the time.  We will recognize miracles when they occur, something that we have previously not usually recognized.  We will be at one with our brothers and sisters, who, like us, are resurrected with Jesus.  We are all life, and all life, animate and inanimate, is God.  No longer do we see God as outside His creation, observing His handiwork in the earth.  All of everything is an individuation (or a differentiation) of God.  We are not outside Him in any sense whatsoever.

5 – Theology

This is part of the theology of A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love, though the words that I have used are not part of either trilogy.  Do not let theology delay you.  Jesus says in ACIM that a universal theology is impossible, but a universal experience is not only possible, but necessary.

6 – A Universal Experience

We would ask for that universal experience on an ongoing basis.  And we are now ready to live the resurrected life, as Jesus did.  He has prepared the way for us.  And as individual parts of God, yet part of the whole, we are ready to thank Him for the length of the pathway that we have already walked.  It is because we have walked far that we are now receiving these blessings of knowledge (not perception).

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would let the illusory separation end for me today.  I would join, as Jesus bids, in his resurrection.  Help me to give up the folly of the “tiny, mad idea” and walk into the sunlight today.

I would experience salvation fully.  Help me to say and do the things that You want of me, and may my cooperation and my faith in You sustain me.  I would not fight You ever again.

Amen.