Invitation to Sit Five Minutes a Day as Christ

“The struggle to awaken is the very obstacle to its accomplishment.  That is why the five minutes as Christ was given to you as a very simple exercise.  And if, indeed, you desire Christ above all things, would you not participate in it each day?  For that which you desire and love is that which pulls your attention to it.  If you love Christ, then let Christ pull you, attract you to spending five minutes a day in the realization that you can only be what you are created to be.”  (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Chapter 20, Page 241)

The “five minutes as Christ” is explained elsewhere in The Way of Mastery as simply the choice to use one’s imagination to live as Christ, sitting quietly, for just five minutes–but five minutes every day. This is not an exercise for the ego, for we have moved beyond the ego. We are inviting our true self, the true Self, the Christ-Self, to fill our mind and heart with Jesus’ blessing.

Why would the struggle to awaken be the “very obstacle to its accomplishment”? I think it is because struggle is above all not “the way,” the Tao, to God. Sure, we will have anguish in this world, but our melding with God always happens when we quieten down and invite His peace. When we have glimpses of Awakening, satori, we can think back and realize that we were always silent on the inside.

With more silence, sitting as Christ, we leave struggle behind and invite the very process that we all want–Awakening/Christ-consciousness/enlightenment/transformation.

The Way Will Become Clear

“This is not a self-help course but just the opposite. This Course has stated time and time again that you cannot learn on your own and that resigning as your own teacher is the only way to learn a new curriculum. This Course will not call you to effort of any kind. It will not tell you to leave behind your addictions or to go on a diet or a fast. It will not even tell you to be kind. It does not tell you to be responsible and does not chide your irresponsibility. It does not claim that you were once bad but that by following these tenets you can become good. It gives no credence and no blame to any past cause for your depression, anxiety, meanness, illness or insanity. It merely calls you to sanity by calling you to let go of illusion in favor of the truth.” (ACOL, T3:4.1)

Jesus echoes Mari’s (the scribe) distaste for self-help literature. He tells us, as he did in A Course in Miracles, to resign as our teacher. Why? Because we don’t know enough to get us out of the mess we have made. And “made” is the right term—not “create”—for we are living in illusion. All of our more negative traits—depression, anxiety, meanness, illness, insanity—are evidence of the ego working within us. It is the part that tried (in vain) to separate from God, but always it was an illusory separation. We could not really separate and still live, for we are a part of God. God, we are told in ACOL, “let go,” and He and we, together, agreed to this illusory separation because we had forged ahead before we were ready to assimilate life in physical bodies.

Our physical bodies, our form, were meant to allow a new expression for the Self. Non-form, or spirit, preceded physical bodies. And these bodies required a great learning curve, a curve we were too impatient to see through to its end. So we dropped into fear as we failed to take our time. This fear, being unnatural to Being, God, could not but cause a rupture in our loving demeanor in relationship to God. And so the “detour into fear” (a quotation from A Course in Miracles) began.

If we have seen ourselves in depression, or anxiety, or meanness, how do we atone? This is not our doing. Atonement, or correction, happens of its own accord when we follow the admonition to be who we really are. Being who we really are is much heralded in A Course of Love. We won’t understand, in the beginning, what this means not how to effect it, but if we stay firm in our intention to follow Jesus’s way, to follow in his footsteps, the way will become clear. We will know that Atonement leads to true reality, and this includes harmony, peace, calm, joy.

Let our past negative traits disappear in the mists that brought them about. Don’t actively resist; just make a decision that, for example, we don’t want to be angry people anymore. And miraculously, we will find that this new decision is all that it took for anger to be gone from us.

The way is easy. The way is clear. Let us proceed.

Prayer

Help us to see a clear path ahead. I see patches of difficulty, but miraculously this sight disappears when I stay close to You. There is nothing ahead that You can’t smooth for me. And You want to do so. It is my own sense of self-sufficiency that gets me in trouble. Let me lean on You in every circumstance, and my problems will disappear as mists before the sun.

Thank You for another good day. Thank You for the clarity that You bring to my mind and heart. And remind me always to let the heart lead. My heart knows no obstacle to Your love, and my heart doesn’t ask for “proof” that You love me. My heart just accepts that Your love is genuine. And then I feel enfolded with Your grace.

Amen.