No Longer Isolated, We Are One In Relationship

“Relationship is the invisible reality only expressed in form.” (ACOL, Dialogues, Day 14, 14.9)

We are individuals meant to be in relationship one to the other; we don’t have to imagine that the best way is to be isolated, alone, independent, doing it “our way.” We are meant to share with others this existence on earth. We were created for each other. That is why there are so many of us.

So: Relationship is the reality, expressed in form. If we didn’t have our physical bodies, our forms, we would be less inclined to imagine that we ought to remain concretely separate. Since we do have form, but we know that we are really One in unity with the All, then it is in relationship that our identity is best expressed.

This assertion, in the quotation above, is a milestone in our attempts to understand what Jesus is saying in A Course of Love. If we can understand unity (we are One) and relationship (we are nevertheless many), then we will have solved a great puzzle. And we won’t stand independent and isolated, by choice, any longer. We will know that we were created for each other.

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.

Why We Took Physical Form

“There would be no need for form if there had been no desire for expression. Life is the desire to express outwardly what exists within. What I refer to so often here as being within, as if ‘within’ is a place in which something resides, is unity and it is the place where being resides. It is the place or realm of one heart and one mind. It is the place where everything already exists fully realized. (Treatises of A Course of Love: Treatise on the Nature of Unity and Its Recognition, 3.3)”

Affirmation: “I would use my body for expression today.”

Reflections:

1 – This World

This passage for today emphasizes why we were born in this world at all–why eternal beings took physical form. It was for expression, and there ends the matter. We did have a “tiny, mad idea” that separated us from God (or so we thought, but not actually), and therein was the ego born (from A Course in Miracles). What expression did we wish if the ego had not been born? That would seem to be the Self/Christ toward which we are headed now. The Self/Christ that is not egoistic and that seeks within for all answers.

2 – One

We are One with all–one heart and one mind. We tend to forget this, even when we have walked a long way on the pathway.

3 – World Is a Projection

But we must not forget. We are One, and we are a part of God, who dwells within. We project the world from within, and we project a better world when we are dwelling in our Self/Christ.

4 – Fully Realized

What does it mean to say that within everything is “fully realized”? I think that it means that we are merely bringing forth what has always existed. A Course in Miracles indicates that we simply walk a pathway in reverse, retracing our steps. The end is certain, and that end is One with God. We do not have to suffer (though we feel pain in physical form), and we can turn inward for comfort always. Indeed, we must turn inward for comfort.

5 – Karma

The way that we express ourselves in physical form says a lot about our current state of mind and heart. If we hurt others, we ourselves will hurt. If we injure others, we ourselves will be injured. Cause and effect are real, and in that the law of karma is played out. As we give, we receive.

6 – Self Emerges

And the best gift is a full mind and heart, offered to God as our real Self/Christ within emerges.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would contemplate today why I would ever have chosen to be born in this world. It is reassuring that physical form is not to be rejected, but perhaps to be rejoiced upon. I would express myself in the way that You deem best. I would turn aside from egotistical thoughts, feelings, and actions, and instead let Your guidance run my life. You know best what I really want, for our wills are identical.

Be with me today as I walk through this world. If disappointments loom, then may I release on them immediately. There is no blessing greater than the way that You point out to me. And I thank You for this.

Amen.