Creation Story

From Ann Glover O’Dell’s Midwifing the Soul:

Habitat           

Standing there afar

my habitat held in your hand

my heart’s pure ache so palpable

the world must sense my longing

but turn from me as

from some clanging bell.

How many labyrinthine turns must I traverse?

How many sandals must I wear sole thin?

How many times pray “show the way”?

What game of hide-and-seek has been ordained

among the tall trees of my weary mind?

How many clues must I search out

to later disregard?

Am I to be not privileged to sleep

before the hearth before I die?

or sup at table?

or rock contented all way round

and there attend the fire?

to sing and laugh

and let my homing spirit feel the joy?

---

From Celia:

Creation Story

There is a myth about the creation of souls that helps me to understand why we falter and fall away from God.  This myth, first expounded by Ruth Montgomery’s Guides in the 1960s, says that in the beginning God sent out from Himself sparks of light, souls in embryo, to experience life.  Some wandered farther, away from God, and got into trouble.  Others stayed close to Him and were guided by His greater Light.

We sometimes need to learn from both good and evil, and choose the good from a sense of knowing, and in that John Milton’s great treatise Areopagetica is right.  When we choose good from experience, we truly know.  It would be wrong, though, to deliberately set out to experience evil in order to learn from it.  It is enough that we learn to avoid the choices that take us away from God. In the myth, the fear to wander from God, felt by those souls in embryo who stayed close to Him, seems to be the flip side of Love.    

There is a long tradition in Christianity that says Christ needs our hands and feet to carry out his mission in this world.  We might be lost indeed if it weren’t for the souls who cling to God and learn of Love. We do know that sometimes we learn best from others like ourselves, people with two hands and two feet, homo sapiens.

God’s Light grows dim in us when we turn a deaf ear to His pleading.  But He stands ever ready to rescue us by whatever means it takes.

Every religious tradition, in every age, says that only Love matters.  In the end, this truth is the only truth yet to discover. And it will be no secret we are healed.

God and We Together Chose Our Rebellion

“Yet your rebellion was not with God, although you came to see it as such. Your rebellion was not allowed, it was mutually chosen. (The Treatises of A Course of Love: ‘A Treatise on the New,’ 8.11)”

1 – Ruth Montgomery

This concept from A Course of Love is at least relatively new; I have not read of it before, but of course there are many New Age writings of which I am unaware. There is a hint of the idea in Ruth Montgomery’s The Search for the Truth. She, an early psychic who received information by automatic writing from “Guides,” says that we were sparks sent out from God, gradually to find our way back. And some went farther than others, and needed more time and help to return. In ACOL, Jesus is saying that our rebellion from God was chosen mutually by Him and us.

2 – God

Certainly this concept makes sense in light of the surrounding passages, most of which are presented in this blog. God is the divine spark within, and our real will is the same as His Will (an ACIM tenet). So God could set the limits on our bent to miscreate, particularly in that we cannot destroy ourselves (and this is the “why” of the limits).

3 – Edgar Cayce

Believing that our rebellion was a way to experience the all, we can see that we are, like Ruth Montgomery’s Guides say, sparks of the divine that were sent out from the Center (a paraphrase, and also a metaphor of the Guides). Some strayed farther than others, and, as Edgar Cayce said, some became entrapped in matter on this earth.

4 – Edgar Cayce, Cont.

Cayce says that these entrapped souls, the Daughters of Men, needed the Sons of Light to save them. So souls, led by Jesus, came to earth to rescue those who could not have risen above matter unless others came to their aid. In a similar fashion, Jesus says in ACIM that he stands at the end, to help us, when we have gone as far as we can toward Awakening. Then God reaches “down” and rescues us; He takes the final step (an ACIM tenet). In ACOL this beatific moment is called “Christ-consciousness.”

5 – Rebellion

“Your rebellion against the constraints of your nature in form thus became part of the pattern of creation because it was the created’s response. It was your response, and since God is both the Creator and the Created, it was God’s response as well. (The Treatises of A Course of Love: A Treatise on the New, 8.12)”

6 – Part of God

Why is this statement, this quotation, true? We are a part of God. It is that simple. So our choice was one of His as well.

7 – The Separation

This wholly benign way of viewing the separation is a blessing to us, another reason that we don’t have to feel guilty anymore. God and we chose the separation, when we were impatient to experience, when we hadn’t learned all that we need to know to live well in form. This lack of understanding produced a warp, so to speak, which we call the ego. And it was the egoic misstep that has caused all of our problems in form in this world.

8 – Elevated Self of Form

Now, seeing the elevated Self of form, will provide the new learning that we needed at the beginning of life in form. We will know how to manipulate our environment for the good only. And we will know how to live in form. No ego. No suffering. No pain.

9 – Enrichment

“What other purpose would God ever have had for wanting to express the Love that is Himself in form, if it were not for the expansion and enrichment it would add to His being? What purpose is behind your own desire to do thus? (The Treatises of A Course of Love: A Treatise on the New, 8.13)”

10 – Form

We want to experience, in form, and with limited vision, what God Himself wants to experience. We and He are in this together. All of us are attached to living in physical form in a way that perhaps angels don’t understand. We like the rough-and-tumble life on earth. We are a courageous sort, as the series of books by Pat Rodegast, scribing Emmanuel, has said. We know what it is to risk a challenge. And we ought not to denounce ourselves for the mistakes that we have made along the way. Mistakes are not over, but we will learn how to turn aside from them and walk another way, a better way.

11 – Ego

“It was only the ego that made this desire seem to be for anything other than the purpose of expansion and enrichment of your being. (The Treatises of A Course of Love: A Treatise on the New, 8.14)”

12 – Satan

Here is the ego again. Yes, the enemy. We used to call it the devil, or Satan. But we are living in new times, and our understanding has greatly increased. We don’t have to personify evil by giving it a name. There is no “sin,” only mistakes. And all will get to Heaven ultimately. We are all children of God, and He neglects nobody. We will be guided home.

13 – God

“God could not be the only being in all of creation who remains static and unchanging! How could this possibly be said of one whose name and identity is synonymous with creation? (The Treatises of A Course of Love: A Treatise on the New, 8.14)”

14 – Truth

There are parts of God that are unchanging, also according to A Course of Love. Truth remains unchanged, the whole truth. But God seems to be growing and changing with his creations, with us. We can know how much our companionship means to God when we know that we are a part of Him. As the Self, we are back in strong communication, communication that was disrupted when we were asleep, when the channels of communication were not open to God.

15 – Lonely

Let us return quickly to the fold. God needs a good day, and if all His children are not communicating with Him, we are told by Jesus that God Himself is lonely.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Help me to assimilate all of these writings about our ultimate reality into a coherent whole. There have been hints before that the separation, though illusory, has had effects that have hurt our little selves. May I leave behind that hurt today; my real Self has not been hurt at all.

May I recognize that, just as God and I chose the separation, together He and I can mend the separation so that we are One again. My real will is the same as His. May I use my real will today to accommodate to God’s Will.

Help me to turn around a difficult day into something much, much better. I need only to acknowledge that a mistake has been made, resolve to drop that behavior from my repertoire of behaviors, and all will be well again. This day can yet become a harbinger of grand and glorious moments learned under God’s Shadow.

Amen.

A New Choice that Remains Tolerant of Others

“There is room in the universe, dear brothers and sisters, for everyone’s choice. I call you to a new choice, but not intolerance of those who are not ready to make it. (The Treatises of A Course of Love: ‘A Treatise on the New,’ 6.6)”

1 – Tolerance

We are to be tolerant of our brothers and sisters who have not walked the full pathway. Not all are ready to accept the words of Jesus as scribed in A Course of Love. We are not to look down upon them. Perhaps a smile is all that they can handle. We are not called upon to be proselytizers of the way that we have found.

2 – New Choice

We are called to a “new choice,” but not intolerance of those who are not ready. This is a bit of a strong warning of the misstep that we might make. And our arrogance would be ego-inspired, taking us down rather than up. Surely we do not want to walk the path of the ego all over again. And Neale Donald Walsch in his Conversations with God series, says that evolution is not a “straight line.” So it would behoove us to walk carefully down our pathway.

3 – The Universe

The universe(s) is a very large place, metaphorically as well as actually, physically. It can accommodate the many pathways that people find in their way back to God. ACIM says that there are many courses, all with the same purpose. In ACIM and ACOL, though, we have found one united pathway that many believe came from Jesus. We should not, as ACIM notes, follow pathways that are meant for others, but to adopt that which we see as our own, our best way back to God. ACIM and ACOL work together to embody that pathway for many people.

4 – Self-Righteous?

All too often people who are trying to follow God’s way become self-righteousness, without ever meaning to so become. We think that because we are trying to do right, we are somehow better than those who are not interested in religion.

5 – Secular Humanism

God is God of the secular humanist as well as the believer. He leaves no one out, and we must not either.

6 – Reverence for God and Love

There is a reason that reverence for God is likely to bring us to an Awakening, a new choice in our lives. If we did not need reverence, with the propensity to love that it brings, we might not be drawn so precisely toward God. We crave the love that He gives. This craving is what takes us Home to Him. And so we may have a need for love that is greater than any possibility of getting love for ourselves.

7 – The “Handicapped” Child?

We may be the “handicapped” child, the one who blossoms with love because we are closer to God out of need. Others are more independent-minded, and wander farther from the Way. This is OK. All will eventually see the benefit of following truth to the Home that we have never really left, though we think that we have. Ruth Montgomery, in books written, channeled in automatic writing by “Guides,” says that in the beginning we were spun out from God to make our way through reality, experiencing, but always finding our way back to Him and to Home again. We can understand that this was God Himself who so differentiated Himself into parts for the experiencing. We are a part of God, as ACIM and ACOL make clear. Let us remember that our real finding of love is possible only when we return to the fold, to the Home that He has prepared for us. And this does not have to be after death. This Heaven on earth can be right here and now.

8 – Preparation

Let us do the little that we need to do to prepare today.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I be and remain tolerant of others and their different pathways. May I especially be tolerant when they do not subscribe to my pathway, as seen in A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love. May I be understanding even if they denounce me.

May I follow the way that is mine. This involves my holy relationships to my brothers and sisters. This does not necessarily involve tedious hours spent in contemplation. Jesus himself has said this, and may I take it to heart.

May today allow glimpses of Awakening that lead to a sustaining of this great blessing. May I remember to slow down, to be mindful, and to invite enlightenment by my demeanor and my willingness to let You lead the way. May I never think that I can control You. You make the decisions; I follow.

And well that it is so. Thank You.

Amen.

The Promise of Life Everlasting Has Been Fulfilled

“The promise of life everlasting was not an empty promise. It is a promise that has been fulfilled. (The Treatises of A Course of Love: ‘A Treatise on the New,’ 3.15)”

1 – New Testament

This promise echoes the New Testament, in that we are led to understand in some of Jesus’s words, said on earth, that life everlasting begins now. We do not have to wait for Heaven to be happy; certainly A Course in Miracles suggests this idea clearly. Eternal life is a joy waiting to be found while still on earth.

2 – Edgar Cayce

Edgar Cayce, the psychic of the last century who died in the Forties and who lived in Virginia, once did a reading that indicated, in great detail, the Last Supper. One of the sayings attributed to Jesus by Cayce was a reassuring word by Jesus to his apostles that indicated that “Heaven” would be experienced even now, in the moment, when the apostles were gathered with him in love and fellowship. If we take Cayce seriously (and many people over the years have done so), then we can believe that Jesus was encouraging that the life everlasting to begin now, and, moreover, in the happy times, it is Heaven on earth.

3 – Eternal Life

Eternal life is a given for students of both A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love. Many psychics have detailed what life after death is supposed to be like (Note: Ruth Montgomery in The World Beyond, is one such), and when we take the teaching of ACIM and ACOL to heart, we can believe that the future beyond our bodily death is very grand indeed. And so the fear of death is gone.

4 – Ruth Montgomery

Ruth Montgomery’s Guides said that death is like “walking through an open door.” Certainly, if this be true, there is nothing to fear about waking up on the Other Side-and much to look forward to. But the grand promise of today’s quotation is that Heaven doesn’t wait until we die. It is here and now for us, when we have understood and taken unto ourselves certain knowledge. And it is knowledge, not perception.

5 – Intellectual Doubts

So many of us have, at one time or another, had intellectual doubts about these promises of eternal life, life everlasting. Many of us may still entertain those doubts. It behooves us to study and to learn the better way, the “another way” of A Course in Miracles, the “another A Course in Miracles” that is A Course of Love. When we languish in indecision about these eternal question, it is like a ticking time bomb that will engulf us at the end of our lives, when we face death. We won’t know what to believe, and we will seek desperately for answers at that time.

6 – Blind Faith?

How much better to resolve these questions now—here and now! Read further until you are satisfied. Read widely. There is not dearth of material that will lead us homeward. Look beyond simply the Bible, A Course in Miracles, and A Course of Love. There is a course for every teacher of God, and if you look, very likely you will find. In ACIM and ACOL, we are given assurances that we do not have to rely on blind faith. Like Carl Jung, we don’t have to have “faith,” because we can know.

7 – A Knowing

This knowing is the blessing Jesus holds out to us today in A Course of Love, the blessing of the knowingness of life everlasting.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

What a grand promise is life everlasting! If we believe truly, we will lose all fear of death. And we know that pain does not have to lead to suffering, so the illness of life is mitigated.

May I experience the joy today that You would have me to feel. This is a glorious day; may I recognize this.

Thank you for guiding me to the readings that I needed in this lifetime. I didn’t find certain early reading evidential of eternal life, or even of life after death. I was a skeptic until graduate school. May my readers find the things that they need to find to have a firm and solid belief in matters of eternity. May they come upon the readings that they need.

Be with all of us today, as we seek to make our way through this sometimes difficult world. It is all illusion, but it seems very real to me sometimes. And hard. Let this world not seem a difficult experience today.

Amen.

You Did Not Separate from God Out of Defiance

[Y]ou believed that every step in the advancement of your separated state was a step away from God and your real Self. This belief was based in logic, but the logic of the illusion in which you believed you chose to separate from God out of defiance and a desire to be one with God no longer. This could not be further from the truth and is the cause of all your suffering, for contained within this belief was the belief that with each successful step toward independence came a corresponding step away from God. (Treatises of A Course of Love: Treatise on the Personal Self, 2.5)”

Affirmation: “I can be independent and yet one with God.”

Reflections:

1 – Fall from Grace

We for a long time have believed, almost in the marrow of our bones, that we fell from grace by willfully separating from God. And that this fall made the suffering which we have known. We have lamented this lapse of ours, this lapse in good judgment, and we have sought to return to God.

2 – More Benign Separation

But might not there be a more benign way to view the separation, seeing it as separation even as it is also seen as ultimately illusory?

3 – Ruth Montgomery

Ruth Montgomery’s Guides told her (in automatic writing) that we were sparks sent out from God to experience all that we might wish to experience, returning eventually to God as enlightened beings who had known what it was to explore. It seems likely to me that this interpretation holds something akin to what Jesus tells us in A Course of Love. Of course, he does not use the same terms, but the concept is very similar.

4 – A Choice by God

In the interpretation which Ruth gave us, we were sent out from God by Himself. He chose for us to depart from Him. We did not fall from grace. We found a way to develop independence and to gain experience of good and evil. This is part of the doctrine of the “fortunate fall.” And so not so unlike traditional theologies of Christianity.

5 – Do Not Lament the Past

Jesus is about to say that we ought not to lament what has transpired in illusion and in the past. We can move forward in the sunlight today. He will be out Guide, until the our own Christ Self steps forth. And our own transformation into Christ-consciousness happens. (Remember that Christ-consciousness is elsewhere called the Awakening–in ACIM–and enlightenment–in Eastern faiths.

6 – Do Not Lament the Separation

So do not lament the separation. But know that it can be overcome without giving up any at all of our treasured independence, as long as that independence is informed by our heart as trusted guidance. As long as the ego-mind is in the ascendancy, we will not trust guidance, and we will seek to use our own judgment to make decisions. By now we have in all likelihood recognized some of the fallacy involved in such thinking, but remnants may still remain. As long as we know that we cannot know all the facts–past, present, and future–in anything at all, we will be led gently to put our faith in a deeper truth available to us, frequently, as intuition.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would pray today, I would pray a great deal. You know that I need to do so. And the blessings that I pray for others, I find, come back to me. While this does not sound very selfless, it is Your way. You bless us in proportion to how much we ask for blessings for others. But this is personal interpretation, or personal experience, and I do not know if it is always Your way.

May I move closer to Christ-consciousness today. I am patient, in my better moments. The glimpses You have given me, the guidance that You give me moment-by-moment, is indeed a joyous happening. And I would wish for my significant others, today, the same joy which I feel. And that joy is great indeed.

Thank You for holding me tightly to Yourself.

Amen.

In Peace Create the World Anew

“Creation becomes the new frontier, the occupation of those too young to rest, too interested in living still to welcome the peace of dying.  Those who could not change the world one iota through their constant effort, in peace create the world anew.  (A Course of Love, 6.17)”

Affirmation:  “I would create the world anew in peace today.”

Reflections:

1 – Our Vocation

What a glorious vocation this passage elucidates!  We are to create the world anew, in peace but not effort.  What we will change permanently will indeed come effortlessly.  And in peace.  Our effort could not make this change, but our peace will do so–not in the future, but here, now.

2 – Edgar Cayce

I welcome the continued chance to make a difference.  I am personally not ready for death.  According to Edgar Cayce, many of us came to earth to make a difference in the lives of those who were trapped, without hope, in physicality.  We do not, with ACIM, take a stand on reincarnation, but since all time is an illusion, we do not need to feel that reincarnation is an issue.  We certainly do have this one life to live, and we can spend all of our days, in peace, with the hope and desire that others will live better lives because we have been here with them.  This indeed is our function of salvation, and we do live this function in conjunction with happiness.  God takes care of us, in unity with Him and in relationship to others.

3 – Effortless Work

When we desire peace, we sometimes think that death would be a welcome option.  But we still have effortless work to do here on this earth.  And death is nothing; it is like walking through an open door (from Ruth Montgomery’s Guides).  So do not long for death when the world turns difficult.  Put one foot in front of the other, and walk.  We will walk through the difficulty, so long as our thought and feeling processes remain good.  For this is the world that we make.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would have a good day today, an effortless day of work that will improve the world–indeed, that will create it anew.  What a glorious promise You have made to us!  It gives a motivation for living, a goal toward which we can all look–but without the ego making of anything a challenge.  Just effortless work.  Thank You!

Be with me as I seek to smooth the way for others today, and in so doing may I also smooth the way for myself.  As I treat others, I will be treated.  To give and to receive are one.  Be with  me as I seek to live this truth today.

Amen.

In This Sentence Is ACIM Explained

“Forgive the world, and you will understand that everything that God created cannot have an end, and nothing He did not create is real.  In this one sentence is our course explained.  (M-20.5)”

Affirmation:  “May I forgive the world today.”

Reflections:

1 – Forgive and Then Understand

I do not fully understand this passage for today, and I do not fully understand the link between forgiveness and understanding.  I do remember a quotation from my college days, which said “Forgive, and you will come to understand.”  And now Jesus seem to be saying the same thing.

2 – Real Creation

No end to real creation!  That means eternity, and such a blessing it is!  We have made illusions, by projecting outward from within.  And our illusions, our dream, will not stand.  It will last awhile and then disappear.  But what I have termed the “intangibles” of God are lasting–the peace, joy, harmony.

3 – The Real Is Indestructible

And surely, somewhere, on some level of creation, there is the real that is indestructible, though A Course in Miracles does not describe any of this.  Perhaps we could not understand now.  Ruth Montgomery’s Guides said that there was much on the Other Side that would be incomprehensible to our limited minds.  May our minds lose some of their limitation, and may we see glimpses of the real.

4 – Nothing Real Can Be Threatened

The fact that today’s passage is said to explain the whole of A Course in Miracles is very, very important, of course.  It is akin to the epigram with which the Text begins:

Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.  (T-in.2)

May we revisit this introduction to the Text in our quiet time today.  The words are beautiful, and the meaning incomparable.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I forgive the things in my life that seem to go wrong, and then, as Jesus says, I will come to understand.  I do pray that the real will be shown to me.  I would step away from the unreal, because the unreal is a product of the egoic mind, and I would let that ego of mine wither away.  Be with me to ensure my safety as I make the transition to the real world.  You time this; I do not.  Help me to do what You say to me to ready myself for this pivotal transition.  May Awakening come sooner rather than later.

Be with all lives that I touch today.  There is no harm intended by me, and I ask that no harm ensue.  May my conscious and unconscious minds find peace in Your mercy.  And may I also find the love that we all seek in our everyday lives.  May my appeals for help be heard by those best equipped to heal.  Thank You.

Amen

What One Gains Is Given unto All

ACIM Workbook Lesson 319 – for Tuesday, November 15. 2011

Affirmation:  “I came for the salvation of the world.”

“The ego thinks that what one gains, totality must lose.  And yet it is the Will of God I learn that what one gains is given unto all.  (WB460)”

Reflections:

1 – Jerry Jampolsky

This passage is well-examined in a book by Jerry Jampolsky, a book (Love Is Letting God of Fear) which delves deeply in the ACIM truth, “Whatever I give is given to myself.”  Jerry means, basing his discussion on A Course in Miracles, that the joy, love, peace that we give to others comes back to us as these qualities are multiplied.  It is only the material things of life that seem to diminish when given away.  And the material things are never what we want for long; we will find more and more wants that remain unsatisfied, because the material gains are frequently props for the ego.  And the ego is never satiated.

2 – Totality Does Not Lose the Things of God

Totality does not lose when we gain the things that are of God.  And we are told in this passage that it is the Will of God that what one gains is given unto all.  This is a great blessing!

3 – Why Are We Here?

What did we really come for?  The lesson for today says that it is the salvation of the world.  Edgar Cayce, an early psychic, said much the same thing.  In metaphorical language, he indicated that the Sons of God came to rescue the daughters of men on this plane of earth.  And Ruth Montgomery, also an early scribe of “Guides,” indicates that we will none of us find our way home until we have led all to home.  In ACIM, Jesus seems to indicate that we must lead our brothers and sisters home, even though it may take millions of years.  Time has been saved for us when we practice ACIM.  Each one of us save a thousand years and more (a Text tenet).

4 – Let’s Do Our Part Today

So let us do our part today.  We can, after all, only do our part one day at a time.  Let  us not backslide now.  We need to save time, as the world is worn and very weary (paraphrases from the Text).  We know that the ending is sure (an ACIM tenet), and if the way seems long, we have started on that way.  It is enough.  It will always be enough.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

The gifts from You which we receive are never for ourselves alone.  When given from us to others, these gifts but increase.  Help me to realize the truth of this glorious promise.  I know that Your gifts are often intangibles, because material things may seem to diminish if shared (something of note that may be illusion).  Even with material blessings, we are bade to understand that You can bring increase there as well.  Individuals who tithe their income, however small, quickly learn that their material blessings in this world do increase abundantly.  Thank You for the many testimonials that I have heard and read about this puzzling miracle.

May I walk a green earth today.  Your Way is always the best way, and Your way will help not only myself, but my brothers and sisters as well.  May I be generous with my time and my gifts, intangible and material.

Thank You for the gift of A Course in Miracles.  Thank You for leading me to these magnificent volumes so many years ago.  Thank You for the writings that spoke to me before ACIM was published.  May all of those individuals I encounter today find the truths that they need to live a happy life.

Amen.

End the Bitter Dream of Death

ACIM Workbook Lesson 237 – for Thursday, August 25, 2011

Affirmation:  “Now would I be as God created me.”

“I bring the world the tidings of salvation which I hear as God my Father speaks to me.  And I behold the world that Christ would have me see, aware it ends the bitter dream of death; aware it is my Father’s call to me.

“Christ is my eyes today, and He the ears that listen to the Voice for God today.  Father, I come to You through Him Who is Your Son, and my true Self as well.  Amen.  (WB411)”

Reflections:

The dream of death is indeed bitter.  I remember a short story read in my high school, in which the refrain of a man who was to be put to death was, “Cowards die many deaths.  The brave never taste of death but once.”  Before we read A Course in Miracles, we may indeed fear death.  We may not truly believe what we have been taught in church, or we may believe that hell is a real possibility that we must fear.  Have we been saved from hell?

A Course in Miracles indicates that guilt is hell (a Text tenet).  And who among us is free of guilt, unless we have awakened?  We need not fear the hell that previous generations tried to avoid going to after death.  ACIM would not have just clutter our minds with this ego-inspired dark dream.

Ruth Montgomery’s Guides (from automatic writing) say that death is like walking through an open door.  And we can avoid suffering (though not always avoid pain) by rising above the ego’s idea that we deserve what we get before death, in illness.  These dark thoughts do not need to destroy the happiness of our days.  We will be cared for by God.  We will walk salvation’s pathway into the joy that is our birthright.

Salvation can be thought of as a “game that happy children play” (a quotation from ACIM).  We do not have to take life nor ourselves so seriously.  Perhaps we make a mistake we do not lighten up in the midst of our trials.  Trials, says the Text, are a time to revisit past choices, and, this time, to choose a new and better way.  Previously we had made a faulty decision, but we do not have to make that same mistake again.  We can choose again.  Always we can choose again.  Even if a given day starts badly, we can choose to begin anew at any point.  Such is the power of the Holy Spirit to redirect our course.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Thank You for ending my fear of death.  I do not wish for death, but I am ready, so far as I know, if it comes.  I would not hurry death, for there may still be work for me to do on earth.  And happiness in that work.  Salvation, Jesus says, is play.

May I come to look upon anything that I do for my brothers and sisters as “play.”  May I lighten up, beginning today.  I do not wish to take this world too seriously.  God is above the fray, and He will lead me there, in my mind and spirit, if I listen to His Guide, the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

There Is No Death

ACIM Workbook Lesson 163 – for Sunday, June 12, 2011

Affirmation:  “There is no death.  The Son of God is free.”

“The idea of the death of God is so preposterous that even the insane have difficulty in believing it.  For it implies that God was once alive and somehow perished; killed, apparently, by those who did not want Him to survive.  Their stronger will could triumph over His, and so eternal life gave way to death.  And with the Father died the Son as well.  (WB310)”

Reflections:

“Death of God” theologians were a phenomenon, briefly, in the sixties, when A Course in Miracles was scribed.  It was considered in colleges and universities across the nations.  But it didn’t last long, and it never took hold even in congenial atmospheres.  It did not make intuitive sense.

But A Course in Miracles says that there is no death, not for God nor His children.  Death is like walking through an open door (a statement taken down by Ruth Montgomery in automatic writing from her Guides).

And we are free, if our will has not been imprisoned by failing to realize that the Will of God and our real will are actually the same.  If we are hurting, perhaps we need to realize that pain is not necessary.  We do not need to suffer for salvation.  We learn better through rewards, because these, Jesus says, are lasting.

It is sometimes difficult for those of us caught too often in the ego to believe that God’s Will and our real will are the same.  But we are trapped in illusions, the maya of this world, when we do not make an effort to understand.  And our way out of this maze will become clearer the farther along the pathway to God that we go.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would like to recognize myself as truly “free” today.  I know that this can only be when my will is not imprisoned, when I am not following the ego.  I thank you for the immediate way in which guidance is coming to me from the Holy Spirit.  I will to be a channel for Your grace.  Help me to flow through my days with You in charge.

May I revel in the thought that there is no death.  We live eternally, and while on this plane we cannot know how or what we will do in that eternity, we are assured that our future will be good.  Thank You for taking away my natural fear of death.

Amen.

Heaven = My Decision

ACIM Workbook Lesson 149 – for Sunday, May 29, 2011

Affirmation:  “My mind holds only what I think with God.”

Selected Passage:

“When I am healed I am not healed alone.
“Heaven is the decision I must make.  (WB277)’

Reflections:

ACIM makes the astonishing statement that a thousand are healed along with us.  This statement assumes the psychic, the truth that this is an open universe.  If we would not be healed for ourselves alone, perhaps out of masochism, then let us be healed for the sake of those we love, our brothers and sisters in Christ.

We must make the decision for Heaven.  Heaven is possible even in this world.  Edgar Cayce psychically tuned into the Last Supper, and he has Jesus affirming that Heaven is when we are gathered together with those we love (as Jesus was at that point).  Heaven is our birthright, our inheritance.  We do not have to wait until after death to enjoy its boons.  We can enjoy Heaven today, right now.  We need only invite quiet and calm, and turn within to God.  We need also to be “in the flow” (an idea developed by Ruth Montgomery).  This state of flow comes when we follow intuition to the degree that we can.  Sometimes our bodies rebel, and at such times we should not push (an idea developed by Shakti Gawain in Living in the Light).

Our real thoughts are those that we think with God.  They do not include the negative expressions of anger and attack.  Thinking with God is an enormously freeing concept, and it comes easily to the open mind.  Thinking with God is also the easiest way to live.  We must simply express our desire to manage this way of thinking, and it is ours.  We do not need to wait.  Indeed, in this world there is little in the intangible for which we need to wait.

Prayer:

Dear Mother/Father,

I would choose today, as every day, to be at home with You in Heaven on this earth.  You have hinted at this possibility throughout A Course in Miracles, and I would claim that promise immediately.  I do not have to wait for the Other Side, after death.

When I am feeling Your presence, surrounded by a sense of love, then all is well in this world.  That is the Heaven on earth that I would find, and I know that this is Your will for me as well.  Thank You for making it so plain to me.

Amen.

All that I Give Is Given to Myself

ACIM Workbook Lesson 143 – for Monday, May 23, 2011

Affirmation:  “My mind holds only what I think with God.”

Selected Passage:

“In quiet I receive God’s Word today.
“All that I give is given to myself.  (WB275)”

Reflections:

Jerry Jampolsky, one of the early writers/students of A Course in Miracles, wrote a classic book called Love Is Letting Go of Fear.  In this book, he stressed repeatedly the second part of the refrain in the passage above, “All that I give is given to myself.”  When this giving is an intangible, then we also see that giving multiplied over and over.  But an implicit warning here is that if we foster attack, we will see attack returned to us.  Foster love, on the other hand, and abundant love is returned.

We need to be quiet to receive these blessed words.  We need to be still in our hearts and minds.  There is no other way to receive intuition.  In this sense, we are speaking of intuition as the guidance that we receive from the Holy Spirit.  We walk as channels (a precept put forth by Shakti Gawain in Living in the Light).  Walking as a channel (or living by intuition) puts us “in the flow,” a concept described in some detail by Ruth Montgomery, an early psychic writer of the last century.  Living in the flow is actually the best way to live.  It is also the easiest.  We will find ourselves happier also, much happier.  We take the light touch in regard to our decisions, because we have given over our judgment to the Holy Spirit, Who makes no mistakes.

God’s Word can come to us through abundant ways.  We may learn His Word through intuition or an inner knowing, through conversations with family and friends, through A Course in Miracles, through other Scripture, through inspirational writing based on the great religious treatises.  All of these, and more, are available to us when we turn, in quiet to the peace of God that is within.  When we are in an emotional storm, though, these channels are frequently conflicted, and we don’t know what to say or do next.  This is an example of the ego taking over our life.  A few moments in communing with God can let the storm pass.

Prayer:

Dear Mother/Father,

May I be quiet today.  I realize that from time to time I need a day of quiet, so that I can hear Your Voice more often and with more clarity.  May my circumstances this day help to being me a day of peace.

Be with me as I seek You.  You are always there for me, and I hope today to be aware of it a good deal of the time.

Amen.

Our Rebellion from God = Mutually Chosen

“Your rebellion was not allowed, it was mutually chosen.  (The Treatises of A Course of Love:  ‘A Treatise on the New,’ 8.11)”

Affirmation:  “May I choose to heal the rebellion today.”

Reflections:

This concept from A Course of Love is at least relatively new; I have not read of it before, but of course there are many New Age writings of which I am unaware.  There is a hint of the idea in Ruth Montgomery’s The Search for the Truth.  She, an early psychic who received information by automatic writing from “Guides,” says that we were sparks sent out from God, gradually to find our way back.  And some went farther than others, and needed more time and help to return.  In ACOL, Jesus is saying that our rebellion from God was chosen mutually by Him and us.

Certainly this concept makes sense in light of the surrounding passages, most of which are presented in this blog.  God is the divine spark within, and our real will is the same as His Will (an ACIM tenet).  So God could set the limits on our bent to miscreate, particularly in that we cannot destroy ourselves (and this is the “why” of the limits).

Believing that our rebellion was a way to experience the all, we can see that we are, like Ruth Montgomery’s Guides say, sparks of the divine that were sent out from the Center (a paraphrase, and also a metaphor of the Guides).  Some strayed farther than others, and, as Edgar Cayce said, some became entrapped in matter on this earth.  Cayce says that these entrapped souls, the Daughters of Men, needed the Sons of Light to save them.  So souls, led by Jesus, came to earth to rescue those who could not have risen above matter unless others came to their aid.  In a similar fashion, Jesus says in ACIM that he stands at the end, to help us, when we have gone as far as we can toward Awakening.  Then God reaches “down” and rescues us; He takes the final step (an ACIM tenet).  In ACOL this beatific moment is called “Christ-consciousness.”

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Help me to assimilate all of these writings about our ultimate reality into a coherent whole.  There have been hints before that the separation, though illusory, has had effects that have hurt our little selves.  May I leave behind that hurt today; my real Self has not been hurt at all.

May I recognize that, just as God and I chose the separation, together He and I can mend the separation so that we are One again.  My real will is the same as His.  May I use my real will today to accommodate to God’s Will.

Amen.