Our Journey

“If you were to continue your reading, you would find many examples of the very odd, disturbing, and inexplicable signs that reveal The New.  Why?  Because each must discover for themselves, take the journey into the realm beyond what has been known, encountering the unknown in intimacy.”  Mirari

The tone of these words, believed to be from Mary of Nazareth, are comforting and enticing. Who does not want to take a journey into something better, which The New promises?

We also want intimacy with our God, our brothers and sisters, our own soul. Intimacy invites God’s Love, and we are comforted in intimacy as in little else.

We have to take our journey alone, though we do have lots of helpers, seen and unseen. Each of us, at base, is alone with our God. This does not have to be disturbing, because God’s support is always and forever present–even when we are in a dark night of the soul and don’t feel anything from Him.

Ask to take the right steps on our journey, the guided steps. When we walk a straight pathway back to God, we make a decision to follow His guidance.

And then our journey takes us Home quickly, to a Heaven on earth indeed.

Potential for Heaven on Earth

“I know of the importance of what some consider ‘small things’ to be, things about care of the body, and the feelings of those who make this sometimes-desperate journey through life.  I have known human life as both Heaven and Earth, and more specifically as the potential for Heaven on Earth, a potential now being actualized in the imaginal realm.”  Mirari

I think Mary means by the “imaginal realm,” and the actualization of a Heaven on Earth, that we are moving into a new time, the time of Christ. This is something Jesus said in A Course of Love. Of course, time varies in what it means on the Other Side. So we don’t actually know how long it will take for Heaven on Earth to come about. We are impatient souls, for we would not have come into this world unless we were impatient to progress. I have read that progress, soul progress, comes more easily in this earthly realm.

We and others are imagining a better future. And this is all to the good. As we imagine, we also live in this world with the daily habits of a body. We are very much in the concrete, or what appears to be the concrete to us. It may be illusion (and A Course in Miracles says it is), but we experience our life here as “real.” We feel pain when hurt, we cry when our emotions overcome us. So we are very absorbed by the life of the moment.

Mary has always appealed to us because of her unique understanding. As mother of Jesus, she witnessed his crucifixion, not knowing at the time that resurrection would happen in three days. She has suffered. So her loving understanding is something we all can appreciate.

Imagine today a better future. This is praying. And this prayer will reach our God.

The Body in This World

“Now, one of the reasons that I have had little to say through the ages, especially to those who revere the leaving of the body, is that I am Mother of the ‘body’ of Christ.  And I am deeply with you in the cause to bring ‘the body’ into the realm of the living.”  Mirari

This somewhat controversial statement by Mary of Nazareth, received by Mari, is controversial because A Course in Miracles enthusiasts, and many A Course of Love enthusiasts, do not believe in the material world.  The Workbook of ACIM says, famously, “There is no world!”  We are living in illusion as long as we are in the dream that God gave us when we separated from Him.  This too I believe.

Mary’s statement has something deeper, though.  The body certainly seems “real” to us, and it is this “real” nature of the body that may explain why Jesus worked with Mari to bring forth A Course of Love.  If read narrowly, A Course in Miracles makes our life here pretty dismal—until the Holy Spirit brings to us the “happy dreams” that he does bring.  But we may still get the impression from ACIM that life on the Other Side, as spirits, is better than life in the body.

If we all believe this, we won’t want to return to the earth in the future.  We will live out our lives, glad to be rid of this world.  But we are the hands and feet of God (and by extension, Jesus), and if we don’t save our brothers and sisters who are lost in attack and anger, who will?

Perhaps Jesus did not at first recognize in A Course in Miracles how dismal he was making this world sound.  So we have A Course of Love, and, now, Mirari, to celebrate the new world that we will be creating.  A new world in which reality blossoms.

“Being” or “Doing” – Wisely

This is not to say that those called to the way of Jesus will find acclaim and those called to the way of Mary will find obscurity. Many called to the way of Mary will ‘do’ much that is greatly desired in the world but what they do will be a byproduct of their way of being rather than a means of facilitating that way of being. Many of the way of Mary will find acclaim, yet neither acclaim nor obscurity will matter to those following these ways. Being true to the self and the calling of the One Self is all that matters. Eventually all will follow the way of Mary and such ideas as acclaim and obscurity will be no more. But at this time of transition, both ways are needed to demonstrate the means of coming to know, which are what all true expression is about. (ACOL, D:Day19.11)

We know that desiring acclaim is often an egoic notion, not based in any real need, not something to really desire. Acclaim may be a byproduct of doing one’s best in the world, building on what we know to make changes to create a new world. But just to realize that we want acclaim—with nothing to support it—is to wish falsely.

If we choose to focus on being, we are following Mary’s way, and we might think that acclaim will pass us by. Not necessarily so, says this quotation. We may be recognized by others, but here is the salient point: It really won’t matter to us one way or the other, for when we have moved into Mary’s way, we have moved beyond the egoic. We will be thankful that our work is getting out in the world, but it will be a byproduct of the process in which we live, the process of accomplishing only for the sake of the work itself. The process is important, not always the end product.

If we are spending our lives accomplishing things, we are immersed in the moment of that accomplishment, for the end result will come only infrequently, and we won’t rest on our laurels. We will immerse ourselves in the day-to-day work, slowly adding to our stores, slowing making progress. We won’t live for the peak moments only; we will live for the daily “grind,” something that won’t feel like a grind at all.

Be in this present moment, accomplishing work, but not focusing on the peak experience of having accomplished. Live the work, being all the while. Our doing, as a byproduct of being, will then come into focus with a success unimagined.

Love

The way of Mary is not a place or state of non-interaction however. This is not the state or place of the monks, nuns, or the contemplatives of old. It is not solitary nor isolated, nor confined to a specific community. It is a way of existence in which relationship is paramount. It is not listening to a calling to “do” but a calling to “become.” (ACOL, D:Day19.9)

All of us will eventually move into a calling to “become.” Mary’s way. But we are not there yet. In all likelihood there will be a period of merger for both doing and being, with doing predominant in many people for a while. The more that we can accept our ultimate best choice, though, the more we will realize that “becoming” prepares us best for the future. A future in a new world that we are creating every day.

The way of Mary does not mean isolation as it did for many of the contemplatives of old. We reach out into the community, showering love wherever we go, and we thrive in this new way of being. We are not withdrawn unto ourselves at all; we take our meditative moments, and then we shower them on our friends and family, our significant others. We have learned, discovered, in meditation, what works.

We have discovered how to love.