Joy that Knows No Bounds

“The joy that will come to you from the thoughts of a mind joined in union will be unparalleled in your experience here.  ‘Ah,’ you will say with a relief and joy that knows no bounds, ‘this is what it is to experience and know the truth.  This is what it is to create for this is what it is like to think as God thinks.’  Where once you recognized only illusion, and called it reality, the mind joined in union will now, more and more, recognize only truth and experience only the truly real.  (The Treatises of A Course of Love:  Treatise on the Art of Thought, 1.10)”

Affirmation:  “May I experience truth more and more.”

Reflections:

1 – Enlightenment

This passage for today indicates that our enlightenment proceeds, frequently, in an ever-increasing way.  We know moments of peace and awakening more and more as time goes by.  For some people, of course, the experience is sudden and can be disorienting.  But this passage indicates that for most of us, it is a gradual process.

2 – Don’t Be Frightened by Awakening

We do not want to be frightened by the coming of Awakening.  And that is the purpose of both A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love.  Jesus says in ACIM that we may be frightened if a light is suddenly turned on when we are asleep, but we will awaken and then realize that the light is not part of the dream.  Well, we are in a dream in waking life as well.  And we do not want to be frightened by the light of Awakening coming on in our lives.

3 – God within Us

We want to think as God thinks, and He is within us, as well as without (though really nothing is without).  We will experience His truth as time goes by, and we will be experience this truth in ever-larger spans of time.  This is the way that Awakening comes to many of us.  The coming is not upsetting.

4 – Joy in Union

We will know joy in union with ourselves, our God, and our brothers and sisters.  This joy will be something internal that nothing can dissuade.  We will occupy an elevated Self of form that is the Christ-consciousness of which we have heard so much.

5 – All Will Be Well

And our days will go well.  All will be well with us.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I ask so to live in the Now, releasing feelings of discontent continually, that Awakening is welcomed by me.  It will never come if I am afraid of it, or so I believe.  My real prayer would not be for Awakening if I were afraid of it.  Thank You for the two glimpses in my life that I have had.  Both were a long time ago, even before I found ACIM and ACOL, but they presaged what is possible.  Thank You.

Be with us today as we seek to walk the pathway together.  May I have a smooth day with my significant others.  May I have patience, which I used to think I had, but I know different now.  May patience come in ever-increasing moments.

Thank You for your comfort.  Thank You for the channeled readings that mean so much to many of us.  May today be good, and may I find the will of Yours that is mine as well.  Your will and my real will are always identical.

Amen.

The Embrace II

“The embrace can now be likened to the starting point of a shared language, a language shared by mind and heart and by all people.  It is a language of images and concepts that touch the one heart and serve the one mind.  (A Course of Love, 21.6)”

Affirmation:  “May I sense the embrace of Jesus today.”

Reflections:

1 – Beautiful Passage

The passage about the embrace of Jesus with us is in my opinion the most beautiful portion of all three volumes of A Course of Love.  We are bade to lay our head on Jesus’s shoulder, and we are comforted completely.  We know no fear in the embrace, and we are at peace and perfectly tranquil.  Jesus is not exclusive to any of us, but embraces us all.  And there is nothing untoward in this embrace.  It is a chaste embrace, something that is perhaps not entirely clear upon first reading in ACOL.

2 – Jesus, Our Companion

Jesus is not our lover, but he is our companion.  And ultimately in ACOL he will cease to be our teacher, but become our equal.  This may be a welcome change for him, so long praised by the world and so long set apart.  Here he rejoins us, and we are, like him, both human and divine.  Our elevated Self of form has reached beyond the ego in the mind to the place of the heart in our exalted body.  We trust in him, and we walk a new and infinitely better path.

3 – No Fear of Jesus

Be with me as we seek to comprehend the ramifications of the embrace of Jesus.  May we not fear him at all.  And fear has been an accompaniment of the long years of egoic rule.  We were afraid of Jesus.  And now we know that we need not to have this uncertainty about him ever again.  He is our friend extraordinaire.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I rest in the embrace of Jesus, my companion, as he is the companion of all who so choose.  May I know no fear, because Jesus is with me.  May I be comforted, as Jesus intends.  The joy of the moment may surround me with a certainty that all will be well, all manner of things will be well.

Thank You.

Amen.