Friday, April 13, 2007

Lesson 104:

I seek but what belongs to me in truth...

Joy and peace… These are ultimately the grand prize, aren’t they? As we begin to be self-aware, and as we start taking stock of our motives and reasons and excuses beyond merely looking at actions and justifications, we begin to get really honest with ourselves about ourselves. We begin to see a definite pattern immersing beneath it all ~ the quest for happiness and peace of mind, n’est pas? Is there any choice we ever make, that if we’re candid with ourselves, isn’t aimed for this experience? Everything from strategic planning for the future, to escapism, to competition, acquisition, romantic love, wanting children, not wanting them, committees and clubs, even defending and attacking, aren’t what we’re looking ultimately is to experience peace and joy?
Somewhere inside ourselves, we all have a deep innate sense that we deserve to be happy; that the gifts of joy and peace are the one ‘selfishness’ allowed, yes?....Perhaps we can’t totally separated ourselves from the truth of our inheritance, no matter how huge the mass hallucination is….We still forge every choice we make within it to get us back to a state that mimics what we cannot be without; our very make-up: joy and peace. We are compelled beyond our identity to seek them... because they are the truth. It is the call of love. We just run it through our sleeping mind’s constructs of self-images, etc… Why else would we pay penitence, make deals, defend our choices, keep up with the Jones, change things, self-improve, give things up, bargain…sell our soul…? We have it wired up that these things are necessary to acquire peace and joy… We can feel there is something more than this dance, something deep within, covered over by our compulsive efforts to get them. Yet it requires tremendous willingness to be still an instant and listen for the truth… (It turns out to be the short cut)…
I remember when I first tried to wrap my mind around the idea that perhaps everyone was doing exactly what they were, the very best they could at that moment in time, given all their beliefs and fears and understanding, because all of us are just trying to secure joy and peace for ourselves. I was working with this magnificent mentor at the time, and she was offering this context in response to my ‘parental issues’. I remember the resistance I had to giving up having been wronged by them in someway. I didn’t want I liked having, well, you know, a ready bag of justifications for all mistakes I didn’t want or feel I could bear, to be accountable for…
I remember the feeling of loneliness and tremendous fear the swelled at the very thought of trading in this idea for the righteous rights to victim hood, which I held so dear. These were my armor against a careless, vicious world where the bloodsuckers were no respecters of persons… All the ‘takers’ out there were my competitors in the battle of the fittest, which I felt I had already lost (and shouldn’t have)… How could I accept defeat with out this ‘martyr identity’ to keep me safe? After all, even few predators try to penetrate the walls of the martyr. That’s sort of a rule…
Anyway, here was my realization. I started to feel/see a benefit of adjusting my thinking to accept that perhaps my parents and others, did what they did because they either thought it would make them happier (even if it wasn’t going to come till after death, and they had judgment day to face and maybe a celestial kingdom to be worthy for, so…) or they were trying to find the shortest route to restore some semblance of peace of mind in a chaotic situation. Changed everything!
It’s impossible to not feel better if you shift the premise just this much; that perhaps nothing, anyone else did, or is doing is personal. ~ They’re just trying to be happy and at peace. It’s also impossible not to see that this was the truth for all. It’s not just a good justification, but an honest evaluation of motives, convoluted though it may seem, it is the constant ‘on-beam’ to find peace and joy. One can’t help but see the subtle layers emerge; see how much interpretation, actions, judgments, fears were ultimately, a quest for happiness. Ah, how deep the rabbit-hole goes, eh? The mere acceptance of the possibility of this idea of blamelessness seems to brush off some of the layers of vigilance (often referred to as stress). And what was underneath, do you suppose? Yes, you got it ~a little peace…
We seek but what belongs to us in truth and the truth is; joy and peace are attributes of the love of God, which fathered us. The very fabric of God’s thought of his Son is woven with the total, constant joy and peace of God. This is our inheritance… It is the stuff of our creation and nothing we have made-belief of ourselves, has altered this in anyway. Of course we seek joy and peace; it is the completion of our Self: the holy unity with each other and God as One.
Of course, this is all we want. It is the experience of the love that we are in truth. Nothing else will satisfy. The Atonement answered the possibility that we could completely forget this in the maze of separate thoughts of the past by placing the Holy Spirit indelibly within our mind, as the call to remember truth. Forgiveness is the mechanism, which the Holy Spirit employs when compulsion to revisit the past upon NOW, surfaces up.
We seek but what belongs to us in truth… and, every remnant of make-believe we have covered over it is seen for the nothingness it is and is cleared off the face of Christ. What we experience, shining beneath, within, is the pure, holy alter to God and his Son, where PEACE and JOY are ours, belonging to the truth…

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