Soul Seed

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

How can the seed deep buried

in soul soil

come to be

experienced by him

whose personhood

the husk through which the proof displays?

Must plowmen come

to gash encrusted earth

and dislodge rocks?

Must fertilizer be applied

to supplement the meager means

within the seed to germinate?

Must cultivators come

to loosen ground

to stimulate a movement toward fruition?

Must harvesters come

to gouge the ground

and finding ripened tuber

pull it out?

Is flooding

as in rice production

needed

to swell the secret source?

If we knew how

to help someone

discover

selfhood’s glory

what joyful task we’d undertake.

As it is

we risk ourselves

in prayer.

“Soul, You Have Arrived”

“Soul, you have arrived.  Before time began, I conceived you in my heart to be the beauty of my being.  Before the wind could blow–since movement of matter had not yet been created–you were in my divine mind as a perpetual lover.  My joy was to wait for this time, a time like no other, to come, a time when the light of glory would begin to shine as never before, through you, my soul in love, my divine child.”  Choose Only Love, Book 7, Prelude.  “A message from the Voice of Christ through a choir of Angels, in the presence of Archangel Raphael and Archangel Gabriel.”

This is not specifically said to be from Jesus, but perhaps from the Spirit of Christ, whom we all share.  It is a glorious praising of God for where we have arrived today in this world.

We are in Book 7 of Choose Only Love, the book that is the culmination of all that has gone before.  We can take unto ourselves whatever seems right about this message.  If we think that we are still ego-driven, then we will postpone this message for a future time.  If the ego has indeed been banished, we will rejoice that our future will be unlike anything that has gone before.

Rest a while in these words, for they are an affirmation of just how far we have traveled along the road back to God.  The praise that this passage reveals is shared by the cosmos.  We ought also to share that praise.

Surrendering to God

“That requires, then, learning how to use consciousness differently.  But it is all predicated on a return to peace.  That is why, above all things, your responsibility is to enter into surrender—to let the tiny mad idea of a separate self be dissolved entirely from the mind, so that there is only the Mind of Christ.”  (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Chapter 19, Page 234)

Today’s quotation speaks to me, particularly today. I have just been realizing how important re-surrenders are to our spiritual life. When we don’t re-surrender, we often don’t feel totally justified with God. He–as well as our soul, our Self–can see so much farther than can we, in this world, with our personal, little self. When we just give up trying to control things, we live so much better. Control is the wrong attitude. We do make preparations, but control goes too far.

The Mind of Christ is something we all share. This Mind is our very Self, the overarching soul with which we bond with everyone and everything. Surely, when we know our soul is One with the All, God Himself, we can trust that He has our best interests at heart.

Re-surrender today. Re-surrender every day. Re-surrender every time we feel obstinate about anything. There is, in this, the better way.

Devotion

Let us look at the real act that makes manifest: devotion. Heart and soul working together to fulfill destiny. “Knowing” where you are meant to be and what you are meant to be doing. Mirari.

Not all of us are ready for such certainty as Mary expresses in this quotation.  We may not yet understand where we are meant to be or what we are meant to be doing—much less “know” it with any certainty.

But Mary does not leave us hanging.  She tells us the secret to “knowing”—and it is devotion.  Listening to our heart and soul.  Listening to God in the silence that speaks to us.  We are never left bereft.  God beckons, “Come to Me,” and then He opens the floodgates of love that transform us.

We all have a destiny to fulfill.  Or we may have several different purposes over our lifetimes.  Purpose is everything.

Ask for our destiny today.  God does not keep secrets from us.  We will know all we need to know when His time to reveal arrives.  And for this time to be now, we only need devotion—and to ask Him for a knowing.

Prayer

“We come to invite you to live in prayer.  Prayer, as has been said, is the life of the soul.”  Choose Only Love bk.3, 8:I

When we feel reverent and at peace, our prayers seem to have wings.  But sometimes we think they don’t reach the ceiling.  What is going on here?

We have to realize that what we feel at any given time is not always evidence of reality. 

When we turn to God often, sensing that He is here for us, then our prayerful life will mean that we live better.  This is when we are in touch with our very soul.  This is when we live in Love.

We don’t always “feel” it, even though we are making an effort to live in prayer, making an effort to live in Love.  This is the time for faith, for our mind and heart to work together, knowing that God is real and that He is always near.  Found deep within us, and also outside, God is the energy of consciousness, emanating through and through the cosmos.

When we want to feel Him more than intellectually, we can turn to our heart.  The merger of mind and heart influences us to know that God is always near, ready and willing to help us whenever we call on Him.

Peace in Our Soul

“[S]tay for a few moments in the silence of your heart as you experience the peace of your soul as you hear these words:  You are safe and sound.”  Choose Only Love bk.3, 2:III

We all need to be sure that we are “safe and sound.”  Jesus knows us at least as well as we know ourselves, and many believe that much in Choose Only Love is channeled from him.

Jesus appeals to our heart, letting us know that when we turn there, we experience peace in our very soul.  Most of us fret too much when faced with the difficulties of our world and of our daily lives.  We need to turn somewhere, and this passage suggests that our soul needs us to turn to our heart.  This is a primary emphasis in A Course of Love as well.  We have lived in our deluded minds too long, entertaining an ego that did not mean us well.  But many of us are leaving madness behind as we choose to relinquish the ego at every point that it seeks to ensnare us.  And ALL of its points seek to ensnare us.

Link our soul to our heart today.  Our feelings will indicate to us when we have succeeded in this exercise.

God speaks in silence, and He often speaks to our heart because it is not caught up in remaining patterns of the ego.  See what our heart is trying to say to us today.  See what we need to discover.

Lovingly Accept

“Fear does not accomplish anything.  It never made a dent in your soul.   Thus when you eliminate the fear of your experience, and lovingly accept all that you are now and always—then you return to experiencing the purity of your virginal heart.”  COL bk.2, 19:II

Our “virginal” heart is one that lives in love, the way it was before we thought we separated from God, the “fall of man.”  Yes, our love is the panacea for all that ails us.  Knowing that we are loved by our Creator will go a long way toward accepting whatever our lot in life is.

Fear is a non-entity, in reality.  It does nothing except in our illusory experience.  As this quotation says, “It never made a dent in your soul.”  If we can just eliminate our “love” for fear, we will be well on our way to a satisfying existence.

Acceptance is writ large in the channeled writings we are receiving now.  We are also to “allow” what happens, without taking it to heart unless it is good.  Allowance sets us right with God.  We assent to the myriad of details that make up our life.  We say “yes” to life.  We change only those things that speak to us for change.  God would have us live a peaceful time in this world.  If we rail against what is happening in our life, we only cement it in place.  Just gently turn aside from what hurts. 

We want purity.  And we can have it, however undeserving our ego has made us feel.  Now we are walking ever closer to Christ-consciousness, where the ego falls away.

Let us be grateful to a good God Who saves us from ourselves, for we are the engineers of all that hurts.

Our Soul Knows

“Grace does not descend until your Father knows that you are willing to prepare a place to receive it.  This is why, in the process of healing and awakening, it is not necessary to seek for Love.  It is only necessary to prepare the place, the soil, by choosing to discover the obstacles to Love—which all come down to fear—and to be willing to loosen that root, that it might be removed from the garden of your consciousness.  (“The Way of the Heart,” WOM, Lesson 12, Page 142 – 143)

Today’s quotation builds on the preceding quotations for the day.  The metaphor of a garden continues.  We prepare the soil by removing the weeds of fear.  Our garden is our consciousness.  The soil is our mind, reaching down into the unconscious for healing.

Our soul knows what to do.  If we make ourselves available, the elixir of peace will solve everything.  Leave time for calm moments in the course of a day.  If we rush about with way too many things to do, how can we also be engaged in healing our minds?  A busy mind does not heal well.

Love is what we know when fear has been removed.  Love is our birthright.  The moments in which we feel love for others and for ourselves are healing to us.  Love envelops us when the thorn of fear is loosened from the garden that is our consciousness. 

Feeling Love with our heart means that we have found God.  And He will then move to transform us by enlightenment.

Let God Act in Gentleness in Our Very Souls

I and I alone am the source of what I experience and perceive. I am not a victim of the world I see. Everything I experience, I have called to myself, plain and simple—no excuses, no ifs, ands, or buts. That is the way it is.” (“The Way of the Heart,” WOM, Lesson 5, Page 64)

We are one with Jesus, as we are one with all other beings in our world. We are responsible for this “pebble” (Jesus’ word) called “earth.” There is one Self only, and this Self is a manifestation of God, insane though we have been in manifesting Him. He is not insane, and so we could not fully experience God in our illusory separation from Him. But we have never been victims. We did just what we wanted. We thought it smart to develop a worldview that left God out, and in the doing of it, we suffered mightily. Our suffering was chosen by our souls to lead us back to knowledge that what we were about would never work.

God was not punitive. He just had to have universes that were based in Love in order to keep that Creation from self-destructing. We didn’t know this, for our finite minds could not contain the ramifications of this in our delusions. We projected the ego as the Devil, and we imagined a cosmic war going on. This has never been, but we didn’t have, in separation, a certain way of knowing the truth.

Now we do. We live in the time of Christ, and certain things that have been hidden until are now, now are out in the open. Our way back is seen as the smooth path that it is. We need fret, worry, suffer, be in pain, no more. Our Self, seen as individuated entities apart from each other, will gradually return to the fold, knowing that suffering is unnecessary. We will let God have His way with us, learning through rewards, a way that is vastly superior to pain.

Jesus says in A Course in Miracles that it is not necessary to learn through pain. Believe him, and watch the agonies of this world recede.

Let God act in gentleness in our very souls, and our way will be smoothed for all time.

Experience the Soul

“I speak from experience that separation is an illusion. When death occurs in your plane, in that very moment you still have the power to choose to recognize that something has changed, and to shift your attention to a different faculty that the body could never possibly contain. One in which you perceive and hear and communicate with that spark of divine light—the soul—that seems to have given up the idea of trying to keep a physical form animated. This is imperative. In fact, it is the very first step of The Way of the Heart.” (“The Way of the Heart,” WOM, Chapter 1, Page 4)

We here get a glimpse of what it is like to die. The body is given up, and our souls emerge in full light of day. The soul, “spark of divine light,” will emerge at death if it has not already. I believe that the soul, in The Way of Mastery (The Christ Mind Trilogy), is part of the all-embracing Self, and the same as our personal self, here, called the Christ-Mind, in of A Course of Love. Jesus uses different words over the years, but his meanings remain stable.

We are not actually separate from God (and never have been). He emerges from deep within all individuations of Himself, what we and our brothers and sisters really are. My comprehension is that this differentiation of “God-stuff” was necessary that God might experience. He differentiated His Self into parts, and we are part of those parts, His creation. Totality, or the All, is not experiential. “All” and “nothing” often, ultimately, are experienced in much the same way. But there is an “All,” and we are participating, as an individuated entity, in that All, Who is God. He lives through us. And our soul, when freed from the depths of our entity, knows this.

We shift energy when we die. That is all that happens. We can experience the soul here on earth, too.

And it is that which we would do today.

Soothe Our Souls

“Patterns are both learned systems and systems of design. The pattern of learning was a pattern of divine design, created in unity and cooperation to enable the return to unity. This pattern has achieved its desired end and so is no longer needed nor appropriate. While it was once a pattern whose design was perfect for the desired end, continuation of this pattern will but interfere with your full acceptance of who you are in truth.” (ACOL, D:2.4)

Perhaps the idea that we are properly finished with learning is a concept hard to grasp. But I think Jesus has in mind our constant and continual seeking, something that really needs to have an end point, and that end point is now. We have, many of us, spent years on the spiritual path, sampling from a smorgasbord of theories, sacred scripture, channeled writing, and inspirational writing. When we found good concepts in one, we were intent on moving on to the next, something next that might be even better. And we did learn much. But we are in a habit now that needs to be broken. With A Course of Love, Jesus gives us enough for us to end our seeking. He gives us the truth of life on earth, and he gives us the truth of the ultimate salvation that awaits us, Awakening or Christ-consciousness. To continue to seek, thinking that we have not yet found, is a misrepresentation of the truth.

We listened to learned authority, but now is the time to turn inward, to the Christ-Self, the part of God Who dwells in every living thing. Learned authorities will not do it for us any longer, and we do realize this, for the longer we sought, we more we realized that everybody was saying the same thing in slightly different words. Now we need to rely on our own authority, our God-given nature of Self that has just been released in many of us. This Self gives us the guidance that previously an intermediary, the Holy Spirit, did. The time of the Holy Spirit, Jesus says, has ended, and we are now in the time of Christ. This change in terminology is because we are no longer fearful of God in the way that we were for eons; we don’t need an intermediary to soothe our souls because we are afraid that Divinity would damn us.

We know better now. A holy spirit does indeed dwell in each of us, and this somewhat mystical concept has not been abolished. But we need to look to our own indwelling guidance rather than to believe that something external to us is speaking to us. The Holy Spirit was not external to us, but many of us believed that He, as well as God Himself, existed externally. Jesus has corrected this misconception in both A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love, as well as other channeled works such as The Way of Mastery.

So: Decide that the time to seek from anything external, especially including external authority, is over. Commune with one’s inner depths, and solace will surround us. We will know that Jesus’s way works. We will know that God takes care of us from the inside out. God is living through us. And we are all One with Him.

Prayer

Thank you for the guidance that comes to me when I write in my journal. And I write often. Thank You for letting me know that this is one good way for us to commune. I would commune with You often and well.

Thank You for another good day. I sometimes obsess about wanting good days, as though You didn’t also want good days for me. Help me to give YOU a good day, for You live through me, and this is a revelation that speaks to my soul.

Amen.

Find Rest for Our Weary Souls

“What a big job you have assigned yourself! It is no small wonder that you live in fear when so much is dependent upon you. And no wonder that when you find a respite, a place of rest and beauty and of love, you want to claim it for your own lest it get away!” (ACOL, C:14.19)

We have been through a lot in the eons since the ego came into being. We are weary, so very weary. Not all the time, but enough time that we long for rest from our labors.

We can have this rest. This rest is what Jesus is leading us to. He knows that there are things still to be done, many things, but he also knows, and assures us, that these things will be done in an easy and effortless way. We will be guided all the way. And we will know such joy and peace that we will know, finally, that we have “arrived.”

We have been fearful because we imagined that handling our lives was our own chore. If this were true, we would have a big responsibility indeed. But handling our own lives is not the task before us, and in truth it has never been the task at all. Our ego didn’t know any better, and the ego had us working long and hard to succeed in a difficult world. The ego even had us trying long and hard to succeed in spiritual matters, in bringing the world’s people around to our way of thinking.

The need was never there. We will largely, now, exhibit traits that embrace others, and we will draw those others to us by our example. We will not seek to proselytize; that is not our purpose. Others will see us as ordinary people living ordinary lives, and in the observation will want to know what is different about us.

Then we are freed to tell these others who have inquired. We don’t have to do anything other than who we really are to bring on this dynamic. And we will rest in the knowledge that this is the easiest “work” that we have ever done.

Our rest will give us peaceful days. We will walk easily ahead as we create a new world not based on effort.

We Are All Part of the One Son/Daughter

1 – Christ

“The term mind is used to represent the activating agent of spirit, supplying its creative energy. . . .Spirit is the Thought of God which He created like Himself. The unified spirit is God’s one Son, or Christ. (C79)

2 – Term “Soul”

Jesus does not use the term “soul” very often at all in A Course in Miracles; he does use “spirit,” and this term refers to the animating Self, of which all of us are One. We all are Christ in our highest Self, but this takes some understanding, for we do not all manifest Christ in our daily lives. We often make grievous mistakes, and this propensity to take the wrong step does land us into trouble, even when help in the form of the Holy Spirit is so near to us. We cannot know our highest Self until we have walked far enough on the pathway home that we know that we HAVE a higher Self. We don’t know that in the beginning, and we lose the way—though help will rescue us.

3 – Spirit

“Spirit is the part that is still in contact with God through the Holy Spirit, Who abides in this part but sees the other part as well. . . .The other part of the mind is entirely illusory and makes only illusions. (C79)

4 – Baptism of the Holy Spirit

Spirit is our focus when we have received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, a blessing that comes to all who ask. The illusory part of the mind is the persona that we have made with the help of the ego, the egoic mind. And this persona never wishes its maker well. We see that the ego is constantly being undone; this is necessary, by God, to ensure that our deviation from the pathway is not so severe that we can’t find our way back. So with the ego constantly being undercut, what do we have left but to choose another way, and for us the other way is A Course in Miracles.

5 – Ego

If the ego is making only illusions, we are going to be lost in illusion, and nothing that is made in that state of mind means anything. We walk a way that will not work, however long and hard we try to make it work. We are like prisoners who become accustomed to their chains (Jesus uses this metaphor in A Course in Miracles), and when the light is finally seen and we are freed, we don’t know what to make of freedom in the beginning. We are dazed by the light. But help is always near, and we will soon find that our new way is much preferred to our old.

6 – Right-Mindedness

“Right-mindedness listens to the Holy Spirit, forgives the world, and through Christ’s vision sees the real world in its place. . . .Wrong-mindedness listens to the ego and makes illusions; perceiving sin and justifying anger, and seeing guilt, disease and death as real. (C79)”

7 – Contrast

Right-mindedness and wrong-mindedness are opposites, and only the former will get us where we want to go. Only the former is blessed by God. And only the former will ease our way in this troubled and difficult world.

8 – Wrong-Mindedness

Wrong-mindedness is the state of mind in which mistakes predominate, mistakes predominating because of the ascendancy of the ego. We don’t really want to adopt a persona that is unworthy of ourselves, but we do it, even when we have invited the Holy Spirit to guide us. We fall down, we make mistakes, we don’t see our way clear to walk the charmed pathway.

9 – Light

These mistakes can all be undone by welcoming in Light. This Light is the Light of Christ, and Jesus is the spokesperson. Jesus will set us aright, if we follow A Course in Miracles with an open mind. He speaks the truth, and we are well-advised to follow carefully what he says. The beauty of the language, the depth of the thinking, the clarity of what is said—all work together to give authenticity to A Course in Miracles as a legitimate, channeled work of Jesus. Who else could say such things? Who else speaks with such authority?

10 – Worlds

“Both this world and the real world are illusions because right-mindedness merely overlooks, or forgives, what never happened. Therefore it is not the One-mindedness of the Christ Mind, Whose Will is one with God’s. (C79)”

11 – One-Mindedness

We want to head toward this One-mindedness, and that, I believe, is what happens to us when we have awakened. Then our will is truly one with God’s, and our walk is completely unencumbered.

12 – One Will

The One-mindedness is when we recognize that God’s Will and ours is the same, and, most importantly, when we acknowledge God’s Will and consistently choose His Way, as shown us by the Holy Spirit.

13 – Consciousness

“Consciousness has levels and awareness can shift quite dramatically, but it cannot transcend the perceptual realm. At its highest it becomes aware of the real world, and can be trained to do increasingly. Yet the very fact that it has levels and can be trained demonstrates that it cannot reach knowledge. (C80)”

14 – Theory

These are the theoretical underpinnings of the Course. This passage indicates that achieving the real world, a world of love devoid of the ego, is a gradual process. Moreover, perception can be cleansed, and we seek to train our minds to increase our perception in order to get us out of the ego-oriented world that we see. But knowledge is of God, in revelation, and this cannot be taught. It is a gift of God, when we have removed the barriers to the presence of knowledge.

15 – Consciousness

Our consciousness is important to us, and we have learned falsely, through psychology, that a strong ego is necessary to live in this world. We do not need ego in the sense that the Course refers to the “ego.” But this word is slippery, and it is does not mean the same to all people, even psychologists. In the Course, the word “ego” is a false perception of ourselves, a false image that leads us into pain and suffering. It is not a thing that we would want, and we are bade to leave it behind.

16 – Ego Being Undone

In this world, the ego is constantly being undone. We are pricked at the point of our greatest pride, an egoistic trait. We are constantly brought low when the ego has been in ascendancy. This is no accident. It is the way of salvation for us, according to the Course.

17 – Real World

We may not realize it, but the real world is what we want while on this earth. The real world will sparkle with joy, and our eyes will light up at the thought of another day. Let us not be discouraged if we don’t achieve this boon on a constant basis. Elsewhere Jesus says that here we will not be without limitations, but that our task is to escape from them. This we will do increasingly as we study the Course and make its tenets our own.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I be increasingly conscious of the real world of joy and love. I realize that this is still a perception, and so it is not the knowledge that only You can give. I hope to walk further along the pathway, so that I am ready for the knowledge that only You can impart.

Thank you for being there for me. As I pray so often, help me to follow in Your way and by Your guidance.

Amen.