Let’s Play Today

“This is not a test and you cannot fail.  You are merely playing:  Play at observing yourself from above.  Can you look down upon yourself?  And can you skip along and get in front to see your body coming toward you?  (A Course of Love, 10.28)”

Affirmation:  “Let’s play today.”

Reflections:

1 – Skip Ahead

The deeper meaning of the passage for today is that time is an illusion (an interpretation, not stated in A Course of Love).  If we can skip ahead of ourselves, and see ourselves coming ahead, then we are in a fantasy about the future, that we are that future, and that we ourselves are coming along on the pathway just as we ought to come.

2 – A Glorious Play

What a glorious play this is!  Can we be sure that we are following along on the pathway that we ought to take?  But is there even a choice?  How much is preordained?  A Course in Miracles says (as does this passage in A Course of Love) that we are merely reliving the past, that the past is like a carpet that will roll up when the end is reached.  If so, it is obvious, at least to me, that Jesus is here playing with this idea a bit further, and encouraging us to do the same.

3 – The End Is Sure

If we can imagine that the end is sure, and that we are caught in an illusion that does not have to be  painful in the least (we choose), then perhaps today is the time to affirm this understanding in the depths of our being.

4 – In a Joyous Frame of Mind

If we skip ahead, and then look back, we are in a joyous frame of mind and spirit and heart.  May we imagine this game for ourselves today.  May we imagine that we see tomorrow and that it is better than today–even if today is pretty good already.  Is this not where Jesus is leading us in A Course of Love?  He would have us, in the third volume of the trilogy (The Dialogues of A Course of Love), join him on the mountaintop, where we will finally know Christ-consciousness in a sustained and elevated Self of form.  This is where we are headed.  Let us take care that the individual steps on our pathway are well-chosen, so that we will be ready for the mountaintop when that time comes.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Thank You for this playful exercise today.  May we imagine ourselves ahead of the time which we are in now, and enjoy the pleasures of a future time.  We will help to make those pleasures real.  Be with me today and always, present and future.

Help me to lighten the mood of those with whom I interact.  Your way is always best, and You are not the solemn God that so many of us may have thought in the past.  Help me to lighten up, even as I seek to help others to do the same.

Amen.

The Authority Problem: Who Created Us?

“You must realize it is your desire to make of yourself your own creator that has caused all your problems.  This is the authority problem.  It is pervasive in the life of your physical form and in the life of your mind.  It is only your heart that does not consider this an issue of concern.  This is another reason we appeal to the heart.  (A Course of Love, 1.11)”

Affirmation:  “Listen to my heart today.”

Reflections:

1 – Did We Make Ourselves?

We sometimes, when especially trapped by egoic thinking, believe that we made ourselves, that we are our own creator.  This is an understandable belief, because we are told in many places (especially in Jane Roberts’s Seth books) that we “create our own reality.”  We do, in all likelihood, make the world that we see.  It is a tenet of A Course in Miracles that projection makes perception.  And another tenet:  “There is no world!”

2 – We Are Never Told that We Created Ourselves

But we are not ever told that we created ourselves.  In some of our grandiosity, we may think this, and it is a major stumbling for some of us.  We think that somehow the world evolved with us ourselves somehow creating ourselves.  This could not be farther from the truth.  We may find it difficult that we could make the world of illusion, the universe of illusion, in which we live.  Traditional religion sees a guiding hand behind all of this.  But nowhere, in no religion, are we taught that we created ourselves of our own volition.  Yet we somehow believe this, sometimes.

3 – Made the World but Not Ourselves?

Do we understand this how we could make our world and not ourselves?  Of course not.  And we do not have to rely on exhortations to have “faith.”  We can simply entertain the possibility that these interpretations of illusion are accurate.  If we do accept that what we are seeing is an illusion, and a dream, then we do not have to try to make sense of everything that we see.  None of us accords much credence to the fantastical things that happen in our nighttime dreams.

4 – Are We Real?

We may even doubt, sometimes, that we are real, and instead think that we too are as illusory as the world in which we find ourselves.  But when we look out, projecting from within, we need to know that there is an invisible divinity within.  We are not in touch totally, for we are human.  But the divine is within, and we project the perceptions outwardly that we see.

5 – Our Heart Does Not Fret about These Matters

But our heart does not worry about such things.  This passage makes that clear.  And, if we disregard the body and the mind for a bit, we will see that we really don’t care to get involved in controversies that body and mind would have us seek out..  Our heart knows that love is the only true answer–that, and the forgiveness that brings us to accept our brothers and sisters, and to correct our own mistakes and thereby forgive ourselves as well.

6 – Listen to Your Heart

So let’s listen to our hearts today.  What does our heart say to do or say?  We will find ourselves easily in a forgiving spirit if we listen to our heart.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I listen with my heart today.  May I rest in the understanding that You have given me (I believe) that while the world is illusory, I am not.  There is a divinity in back of all this illusion, and though this is my interpretation, not stated precisely in either A Course in Miracles or A Course of Love, this belief is one that I find comforting and palpable.  Thank You for granting to my questioning mind this level of understanding.

But, as I told You, I will listen to my heart today.  I will leave aside metaphysical interpretations that perhaps cannot be accepted by everyone who reads this blog.  May we join together in common ground that celebrates the wonders of You and this world, however difficult, in which we find ourselves.  This world’s beauty is unmistakable, and it is this in which my heart finds resonance.

Amen.