Listen to Your Heart

“Your link between the realm of unity and the realm of physicality is your heart. Your heart tells you of the already accomplished and bids you to express it with your physicality, thus uniting the two realms through expression. (Treatises of A Course of Love: Treatise on the Nature of Unity and Its Recognition, 3.2)”

Affirmation: “I would listen to my heart today.”

Reflections:

1 – Best Way to Live

A Course of Love, the trilogy, throughout emphasizes the heart, though we do know that wholeheartedness–the linkage of mind and heart–is the best way to live (as stated therein). Now we know that we will be one when we listen to the heart and respond in our physical bodies to what we view as the best way to live. This is through letting the Self/Christ shine forth.

2 – Already Accomplished

We are expressing ourselves when we recognize that we are already accomplished, that we have already done all that we need to do. On the surface, this does not seem possible, but perhaps we do not yet fully understand what Jesus means. We have sought and sought, always seeking and often not finding. And there comes a time when seeking must end, for our own peace of mind. That time is now. Not that we don’t still need our meditative, reflective times–because we do. But we know that we have accomplished for Jesus hoped for us when we have let the Self/Christ shine through. And then in our physicality we express ourselves. And we hope that that expression is right and good.

3 – ACIM vs. ACOL

We don’t have to downplay the physical, and this is perhaps a single major difference between A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love. Perhaps Jesus channeled again, in part, to make this point clear to us. We are not inferior because we like the physical expression of our bodies. We live in a higher realm, but here the physical is very real to us (though an illusion, or maya). We do not have to denigrate ourselves for liking what we can accomplish physically–in sports, in love, in simply walking around this beautiful world. God can take the physical and make of it something very grand indeed.

4 – Listen to the Heart

Let us listen to our heart. It will not lead us astray, although the one proviso might be that we are so overwrought as not to read the heart’s message correctly. Then we need to calm down, go within, and ask until the answer is clear. Sometimes our mind interferes with the message of the heart, because the mind is agitated and perhaps the ego has not fully withered away. But the heart speaks wisely and for all good.

5 – Wise to Listen

And we are wise to listen to it.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Thank You for the many blessings that I derive from reading ACIM and ACOL. Thank You that my many questions often find answers in their pages. May I rest in the certainty that living in this world in physical form is right and good for me. I do not have to scourge the body to find solace for my soul.

May my brothers and sisters listen to their heart, even as I try to listen to mine. If their hearts say something different than my own, may I know that this too is right and good, and while we may not always agree, we are One in You.

Be with me throughout the day and night. May the ego be silent indeed today and tonight.

Amen.

Dedicate Your Thought to Union

“Dedicate your thought to union.  When senseless thoughts fill your mind, when resentments arise, when worry comes, repeat the thought that comes to open your heart and clear your mind:  ‘I dedicate all thought to union.’  (A Course of Love, 5.20)”

Affirmation:  “I dedicate all thought to union.”

Reflections:

1 – One

We are all One.  Everything is One.  For God is one, and the All is He.

2 – Differences

We think of union, most of all, in regard to other people with whom we are particularly close.  But we don’t often realize that the union that we seek is also aware of differences.  And we blame others, for they are different from ourselves.

3 – The All

Jesus would not have us think this way.  We are in relationship one to another, but this relationship is a relationship of “sameness.”  We would do well to consider how alike we are to other people–indeed, how alike we are to all in God’s creation.  We made this world, but it often reflects a heaven on earth when union with the All has been accomplished in us.

4 – Unity and Relationship

Let us ask today for the union that we all need, whether or not we are aware of it.  This union (in relationship) is a keynote of A Course of Love.  When we have mastered this concept, we will not need to learn much more.

5 – Rise Above Difficulties

If we dedicate our thought to a desire to understand union, we will rise above.  We will know joy.  And God Himself will be glad that His children are once again communicating with Him.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would indeed dedicate my thought to union today.  I would see my brother and me as One, along with You and everyone else.  Help me to hold this one thought foremost in my mind, and I will be well on the road to a good day.

In union, we are One.  With You, we are the All.  And we are in union with everyone and everything, and we are also in relationship to other people and things, celebrating our differences, but still in union.  While these concepts may seem difficult at first, I know that they are simple but profound ideas.  Help me to teach them well.

Thank You.

Amen.