Dancing in the World of Dreams

“Whatever feelings arise, come and go. But somehow you begin to recognize that you are much larger than the things that come and go, that you are watching a dance of shadows, a dream, gently passing by, that is gone in a cosmic split second. This does not become a way in which you deny your experience. Rather, it gives you the freedom to embrace it and live it totally, with passion, with purpose, with power, and in perfect freedom—no anxiety, no pressure, just the willingness to dance in the world of dreams, while remaining awake. (“The Way of the Heart,” WOM, Lesson 10, Page 129 – 130)

Dancing in the world of dreams is what awaits us on the other side of Awakening. Our world, actually an illusion, is called a dream because it passes so easily from our consciousness. If we remain awake, we have lost nothing by its passing. All things are fleeting, and we enjoy those things while they remain with us, but we just as easily let them go, for in this world nothing is permanent. Change is the only constant.

I have long enjoyed a private attachment to the image of dancing in our reality. Dancing is such a freeing activity. We twirl and twist, feeling as though our toes lift from the ground and stay aloft. Of course, the toes do come back to earth, but we have changed in the dancing. We have touched some of the freedom that we will know in a constant Awakening.

Would we not like to have “no anxiety, no pressure. . .” in this world? Of course. That is what we have thought to be a pipe dream. But here Jesus is telling us that such a state of affairs can be a constant with us. It is awaiting us in God’s Kingdom, the land of Awakening. It is what we enjoy with a healed mind.

We have lived in insanity, madness. Now we are on the road back home to God. Many of our struggles are falling away as, now, we live the “happy dreams the Holy Spirit brings” (from A Course in Miracles). As our new reality passes by quickly, we don’t have to cling to it. We don’t deny the experience. We just embrace the rapid change that accompanies us on our journey.

This is a way to live a passionate life without the highs and lows of egoic drama. This is the type of passion that gives us joy without a down side.

This is what we all long for. Let’s commune with our God and ask Him to direct us in healing our minds. Insane no more, we will walk a green earth.

Every day.

All Lessons Are Gifts

“Acceptance of what is, is acceptance that whatever is happening in the present moment is a gift and a lesson. What comes as a lesson may not seem like a gift, but all lessons are gifts. . . .They will not be lessons that you find difficult or distressing if you accept them as lessons and realize that all lessons are gifts. (Treatises of A Course of Love: Treatise on the Personal Self, 10.6)”

Affirmation: “I would accept my lessons as gifts today.”

Reflections:

1 – Everything a Gift

When something good happens, we can readily see this as a blessing and a gift. When something bad happens, we bewail our fate, and sometimes we blame God for the unfortunate occurrence. Yet everything that happens, according to what Jesus channeled in this passage for today, is a lesson that is a gift. Even the bad things.

2 – Scary Things

Does anything ever have to be truly bad? Of course, here on this earth we interpret scary, frightening happenings as bad, and we recoil from them. We think that the world chaos is deplorable. We ask how a loving God could so create, and could so place us in this world. Yet this is not the right question. We have free will, and this free will means that sometimes bad things will happen. This includes illness, for physical bodies partake of the imperfections of our world as well. We never need to blame God for our misfortune.

3 – Dreams

Of course, when we dream the happy dreams that the Holy Spirit brings (from the Workbook of A Course in Miracles), we see far more blessings as gifts—for the happenings that occur to us are fortunate and blissful. These are easy to accept as being from God’s Hand. Are they always? Yes, for we have aligned ourselves with Him and His will (which always is our own real will as well).

4 – Struggle

Accept gifts today, accept lessons today. The lessons may entail struggle, but we will hone character by struggle. And we will grow thereby.

5 – Grow, Grow

Marianne Williamson often tells a Jewish parable about a blade of grass, always looked over by an angel who says, “Grow, grow.” We can see this parable as applicable to us. God would have us grow. And He does, I believe, send His angels to help us along the way.

6 – Prayer

So may we pray that our lessons be gentle, but may we accept them also if they are harsh. They will be less harsh when we do not have an imprisoned will (from ACIM), the type of will forged by the illusory ego. Turn to the inner Christ/Self, and see if the lessons that we all experience do not immediately seem more benign. And then we can recognize those lessons as the gifts that they are.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would grow today, even if there is struggle. I do not believe that struggle is inevitable. When we align ourselves with You in toto, we walk a smooth path. And that is what I would do today. Be with me to make it so.

I would accept all things that happen as a gift from Your hand. I do know that some things surely happen that are not optimal, that You allow but do not condone. But traditional Christianity often talks about what You “allow,” even when this allowing does not seem good. And surely You do stand aside so that our free will is not violated.

Be with me today as I seek to do Your will, which ever is my own.

Amen.