Saturday, February 10, 2007

God goes with...

Lesson 41:

“God goes with me wherever I go…”

Indeed, God is the only real thing that does, or rather is. Everything else is the past, the vein imagining of “not–God” gently being re-upped again for review, to be forgiven with the One-mind of God. The lesson is so practical, so simple, and so available… let’s just go there now, together, with God…
“The truth is hidden deep within, under a heavy cloud of insane thoughts, dense and obscuring, yet representing all you see. Attempt to get past this dark and heavy cloud, and to go through it to the light beyond. Make no effort to think of anything. Try, instead, to get a sense of turning inward, past all the idle thoughts of the world. Try to enter very deeply into your own mind, keeping it clear of any thoughts that might divert your attention. Most of all, try to sink down and inward, away from the world and all the foolish thoughts of the world. You are trying to reach past all these things. You are trying to leave appearances and approach reality.”

This is such powerful practice offered in this lesson… I have used it so much when in need of reality…. I can’t begin to express its value for me in my life~ Turning back within the mind to the experience of the truth ~ the experience of God~ ummm, splendid!…. It is the application of which, for me, is beyond measure… and it feels sooo good… Makes one wonder how one could resist doing just this all the time…
But resist I have. And yet, or better, of course, the resistance fades and the little willingness to attempt what is suggested, grows exponentially. And out of it, a new habit was born~ that of remembering God ~replacing the habit of forgetting and denying God. Yeah!

And now, this habit has become more natural than…well, whatever was before... My experience is like what Jesus is talking about in the Manual for Teachers, when he says, ”The body’s eye’s will continue to see differences. But the mind will no longer acknowledge them…(M-8.6: 1-2) ~This is more and more the case for me… Ah, so blessed as a Son of God…

We are joined in purpose, you and I ~ together always, already … ~I am now, this instant, sinking down in the mind ~ zeroing in on the still point of light at the center of my mind~ allowing it to swallow ‘me’ ~recognizing Christ within, and all around~ the holy extension of God/love…forever changing my sight to vision. I See only the light behind the shadowy figures in an ancient dream…and you are with me. GOD GOES WITH ME WHEREVER I GO…

From here, it’s not so hard to trust… to believe that everything works together for good. We can go about our seeming day in the surety that God is with us…as us…~and goes with us wherever we go…

Friday, February 9, 2007

~blessed as a Son of God~

Lesson 40:

“I am blessed as a Son of God… “

Ummm… to feel completely satiated… I have no hunger for I am fulfilled. I have no thirst for I am quenched…my so-called life is like the glass reflection of the sun off the ocean and I am beneath the reflection within the warm embrace of wholeness…bathed in magnificent holiness, serene certainty and endless peace…forgiveness having left my mind clear and clean of seeming wants and/or needs. I have “leaned back” and He has led the way, joyously I recognize I have been here all along…

I am blessed as a Son of God… ~This thought has been in the back of my mind for…well, as long as I can remember…well actually ~forever… it didn’t necessarily take on the form of these particular words, but it has been there, nonetheless…following me around, nipping at my heels; like a little puppy, begging attention. Every time, every single time, I turned around in my mind~ there it was…”I am blessed as a Son of God…”

Yet, throughout my so-called life of Danét, I was haunted by a constant, secret companion, sort of an imaginary friend if you will, applying this nagging feeling of fraudulency to everything I did; this feeling like whatever I was doing, saying, etc. was not really true. No matter how truthful I was trying to be (and believe me, I tried to be honest~ a lot), there was always this evocative feeling ‘I was making it all up’. I could never put my finger on what this was. Try as I might, I couldn’t get to the source of it ~ it eluded me…and disturbed me… Something was sort of not ‘just right’, There was an essence that like I was never really living ‘my’ life… afraid of being found acting, pretending…while all the while, always trying to be more honest, authentic, me… Disheartening to say the least…

~A little side-note that changed my life was seeing trying from a higher view: a marvelous, life changing ah- ha actually, to realize that the very act of trying was pushing what I was ‘trying for’ away ~that the try satisfied its maker ~ the thought of TRY)

So anyway, I turn around in my mind, to this nagging, nipping ‘something’ …and, THERE I AM, right where I seemingly left myself…already, complete ~blessed as a Son of God… Duh! Nothing else was true! This life is fraudulent …designed to make a “me” as dictated by its dictator~ ego …designed to blot truth/God out. No wonder it was never a perfect fit.

I only fit perfectly as Christ, alongside and within the Sonship and the Mind of God. There never was a time this wasn’t true and nothing else but this ever was. “God is my life. I cannot be apart from Him.”

Now, only now, can I see. ~I see the Fact ~God ~everywhere in everything.

~The vast peace of finally surrendering to the only possibility that could be true~ God, the only Cause ~ created me, His Son, from the only thing He had~ Himself/God~ And I am still as God created me. This is an experience of unspeakable security. ~Nothing could go wrong.
…I am blessed as a Son of God… forgiveness has blessed me with the miracle ~ the shift in perception from differences to sameness ~the forgiven world revealed…
And my gratitude to all of you, my brothers, bathes my soul, blessing us both...joyous, happy, free…
Thank You God for creating Love as All in All, Whole, Complete, Perfect, and without an opposite~ blessed as the Son of God…

Thursday, February 8, 2007

~Holiness:the Truth of What we are~

Lesson 39:

My holiness is my salvation…

I am so delighted about this… I never could save myself.

When we think about unloving thoughts, they usually fall to the good/bad judgment criterion for our review. But, I began to see that the thoughts that haunted me most, were about wanting to do things right, not wanting to be wrong, feeling guilty about any perceived mistakes, afraid of being ‘in trouble’ or perceived as foolish, irresponsible ~insignificant or irrelevant ~ afraid of being revealed to be a fraud, not special after all…

Always, my addiction to ‘special- ness’ ruled the day. These were my unloving thoughts keeping me in hell~ from which, my holiness is my salvation…

Any thought that is not of God, is really no thought at all.

However, because of the nature of its maker, it has, potentially all the power of the universe at its disposal, to utilize or misuse according to the dictates of it maker. We choose one or the other with every choice we make, in every minute of every day according to what we think we are (special or part of the sonship/God’s Son). And, our so-called lives show us what we choice we made. Being two exclusive thought systems, there is no compromise possible between Heaven and hell. I choose for guilt/fear or I choose love ~ my holiness.

*This is such an important lesson. And so easily missed, due to the lack of point of reference the ego has to holiness. We are using holiness as a concept to teach and learn from, but holiness is not a concept, it is the Truth of What we are. *

So, having no understanding of holiness, the ego’s approximation of this idea, is the concept of “specialness”. And this, the ego knows well! In fact, the ego is the father of this unholy, unloving thought. ~Special- ness is its specialty…

Here, the idea of being ‘special’, we took the first drink of the nectar of separation… And here, we allowed our minds to be influenced by the intoxication inherent in the drink. From that point on, all our thoughts have been under the influence of this seductive drug/idea. And we have been operating from the deficit produced by the drunkenness of ‘special me”, without realizing it.

Denial is its primary feature ~making it so that we are subject being ignorant of the thorough seditiousness placed on the mind. We think we’re ‘normal’, ‘doing just fine’, oblivious to the impact this loaded idea is making on the world we see and the decisions we make.

Of course, the nature of any idea is to satisfy itself…. And ’specianess’ is no different. Specialness wants to be special; #1, the best, most important,… well, basically…god. And to hell with anything else…yes?

Guilt, the great advocate for specialness, is the prompting for the next drink… And the cycle repeats…

Until, cracked open by disillusionment, we open to the possibility of another way.

Our holiness is the other way through the Holy Spirit within the mind…joyously dawning the light of our holiness...

…Saved by the bell of holiness! ~Thank God!

Today I see the apparent attempt to duplicate god as my self, for what it was. HELL! The constant, sickening guilt was unbearable. ~The impossibility of the task was always in the periphery of my vision ~with the resulting feeling of smallness, wrongness, not-enough-ness, loneliness. ~The ever-present fear of being usurped myself ~ excruciatingly! Of course the need to medicate with more special importance…required.

If guilt is hell, what is its opposite?

I have been saved by my holiness, saved for mySelf by God. ~I am very holy. I can’t see anything else…

Through forgiveness, the miracle frees us from the guilty special nightmare, by seeing it is just a dream of separation. Then gently it wakes us to the reality of our holiness.

The miracle has awakened me to my place as the dreamer of the dream. Now, I dream only the dream of a forgiven world. Nothing else matters. Your holiness is My holiness...we are Christ and our holiness is the salvation of this seeming world…

Jesus blesses us with theses thoughts in the text:
“Behold the Son of God, and look upon his purity and be still. In quiet look upon his holiness, and offer thanks unto his Father that no guilt has ever touched him.
No illusion that you have ever held against him has touched his innocence in any way. His shining purity, wholly untouched by guilt and wholly loving, is bright within you. Let us look upon him together and love him. For in love of him is your guiltlessness. But look upon yourself, and gladness and appreciation for what you see will banish guilt forever. I thank You, Father, for the purity of Your most holy Son, whom You have created guiltless forever.
Like you, my faith and my belief are centered on what I treasure. The difference is that I love what God loves with me, and because of this I treasure you beyond the value that you set on yourself, even unto the worth that God has placed upon you. I love all that He created, and all my faith and my belief I offer unto it. My faith in you is as strong as all the love I give my Father. My trust in you is without limit, and without the fear that you will hear me not. I thank the Father for your loveliness, and for the many gifts that you will let me offer to the Kingdom in honor of its wholeness that is of God.
Praise be to you who make the Father One with His Own Son. Alone we are all lowly, but together we shine with brightness so intense that none of us alone can even think of it. Before the glorious radiance of the Kingdom guilt melts away, and transformed into kindness will never more be what it was. Every reaction you experience will be so purified that it is fitting as a hymn of praise unto your Father. See only praise of Him in what He has created, for He will never cease His praise of you. United in this praise we stand before the gates of Heaven where we will surely enter in our sinlessness. God loves you. (T-13.X.12-14)

Now this is prayer-thinking worthy of embracing, oui?

My holiness is my salvation. Your holiness blesses me as does mine, you, and together we are invincible…with the memory of God within our mind… shining forth our holiness~ we are the salvation of the world…

Wednesday, February 7, 2007

~Holiness:everything for nothing...

Lesson 38:

“There is nothing my holiness cannot do…”

Nothing. Nothing for Everything! …hmmm…. Not a bad deal… Not a bad deal, indeed, for a mind once lost in hopelessness, eh?.... Not a bad deal, at all...

My holiness answers every seeming question with the truth of what I am. THE TRUTH OF WHAT I AM is that I am forever exactly as God created me; unchangeable, eternal oneness…. This is true regardless of my awareness of it.

I can and have delayed and attempted every possible method to distract myself from my function here which is to experience my holiness through forgiving everything else I think I think and seem to experience, and allow instead, my holiness to bless and transform it all. Ah, the ego puts up a fierce battle-to the-death for allegiance to its nothingness with promises then threats when necessary. But here’s the thing, one cannot solve a situation from the level of mind that experiences the situation as reality. Oh, the wasted tenacity of this little one on futile efforts to eradicate the feelings of hopelessness, guilt, and grief ~ ‘attempts for more and/or better something’ ~through careful placement of ‘idol’ dreams, and plans~ plans for a better ‘tomorrow’, a better ME ~ You know the ones… they come with a mind - split…a mind that thinks it has actually accomplished the impossible and dethroned God. Excruciating! ~Save tenacity for vigilance against ego seduction through looking with my holiness, the Holy Spirit within Onemind…. Scary at first, due to my little-minded predictions, but oh….

To look at this seeming horror square on, has turned out to be nothing I imagined at all…as a matter of fact, ~ it turns out to be ‘nothing at all’…imagine that… That the ‘best this world had to offer’ is exactly the same as the ‘worst this world had to offer’~ it is all nothing... dressed noisy fluff~ ~~~Poof~~~ and behind all that ‘noise’, was what I was REALLY trying to avoid ~ MY HOLINESS ~ the unbearable lightness of my BEING…unbearable only to the ego reign, as the light of what I am, literally burns ego to annihilation off its defiled throne, which I willing placed on the alter of God’s Son within my mind.

This annihilation ~ this waking up from the dream of many ~ has been magnificently powerful, humbling, beautiful ~and actually quite gentle, safe and warm. Onemind /the Sonship is dominion over all things because of what we are. ...Always. Already. Everything. All power in the universe. All Glory to God. …As it turns out, there is nothing my holiness cannot do…

I keep thinking of the part in the Course called The Changeless Dwelling Place. It moves me to tears of overwhelming gratitude. I share it with you now:

“There is a place in you where this whole world has been forgotten; where no memory of sin and of illusion lingers still. There is a place in you which time has left, and echoes of eternity are heard. There is a resting place so still no sound except a hymn to Heaven rises up to gladden God the Father and the Son. Where Both abide are They remembered, Both. And where They are is Heaven and is peace.

Think not that you can change Their dwelling place. For your Identity abides in Them, and where They are, forever must you be. The changelessness of Heaven is in you, so deep within that nothing in this world but passes by, unnoticed and unseen. The still infinity of endless peace surrounds you gently in its soft embrace, so strong and quiet, tranquil in the might of its Creator, nothing can intrude upon the sacred Son of God within. (T-29.V.1)

This is my home~ my home of holiness…and there is nothing that my holiness cannot do…

Tuesday, February 6, 2007

~blessed, bless, and blessing~

Lesson 37:

“My holiness blesses the world...” My purpose in this world is to see it thru my holiness; no exclusions, no compromise…. It is entire/whole, or not at all… The world is as I am. Period.

This is the leap of faith we take that the truth is true…and nothing else is true. Only my return to True Cause in my mind can render right perception. So, since I made a world that seems to be apart from God, and my Self, it is necessary that, as I look upon it once again, with fresh eyes, recognizing not its separation, but its Oneness. I bless the world and myself along with it.

The Course tells us, “God so loved the world that he gave it to his Son.” I see now that this is not so as an affirmation that what we think is real (this illusory world of separation), is real, it is rather an affirmation of His faith in His Creation. “The creation is whole, and the mark of wholeness is holiness. Miracles are affirmations of Sonship, which is a state of completion and abundance”. (T-1.V.4.5)

To give is to receive in truth. And the only way we heal the belief in scarcity is by wholly giving all to all, the blessing of One-mind, the Sonship. The way I learn to re-cognize my holiness is by blessing the world with it. To bless is to trust. I trust the Holy Spirit, and everything I look upon whether within or seemingly without, I see as blessed, all one, and part of myself, which is part of God. Everything… nothing excluded. It’s either all my holiness, or it is nothing at all. “YES MUST MEAN ‘NOT NO”. There really is ultimately no compromise possible between everything and nothing…my holiness blesses the world…

Doing the lesson today, I notice my mind turning in the direction of its source and then smiling out on the world, feeling the perfect creation of a perfect creator…It is good… I guess this is what drew me to reflect on the early part of the text… I feel one with this. It is my curriculum. I am so blessed. Here is the part in the text that is speaking so persistently to my mind… and blessing…

“The real purpose of this world is to use it to correct your unbelief. You can never control the effects of fear yourself, because you made fear, and you believe in what you made. In attitude, then, though not in content, you resemble your Creator, Who has perfect faith in His creations He created them. Belief produces the acceptance of existence. That is why you can believe what no one else thinks is true. It is true for you because it was made by you.” All aspects of fear are untrue because they do not exist at the creative level, and therefore do not exist at all. To whatever extent you are willing to submit your beliefs to this test, to that extent are your perceptions corrected. In sorting out the false from the true, the miracle proceeds along these lines:

Perfect love casts out fear.

If fear exists,

Then there is not perfect love.

But:

Only perfect love exists.

If there is fear,

It produces a state that does not exist.

Believe this and you will be free. Only God can establish this solution, and this faith .” (T-1.VI.4-5)

I have faith that beyond my faith, including it, is this 'gift' of God's faith. So really, it is easy for me to have faith in such wholly logical truth, and that little faith has given me the world...a world blessed by my holiness. As I have submitted my beliefs to this criterion, I have seen their unreality… the false is false and only truth is real. And the true is ~ I am as God created me… I am very holy…
With gratitude I accept the reality of my holiness and happily allow holiness to do what it does ~bless the world, which blesses me. ~

Monday, February 5, 2007

~Holiness~ its everywhere~

Lesson 36:

“My holiness envelops everything I see…”

My Holiness… my wholly ness…

“The meaning of the Son of God lies solely in his relationship with his Creator. If it were elsewhere it would rest on contingency, but there nothing else. And this is wholly loving and forever... wholly Self-encompassing and Self-extending.” (T-20.VI.1)

My holiness is the background substance from which all creation (extended or projected… fancied or real) comes forth. Holiness is all there really is and nothing has happened to alter its reality in any way.

If I do not see holiness in everything I see, it is because I do not want to SEE. Period. It is because I think I prefer the images I have assigned life to, and I am afraid to look upon and beyond what I have made into the light of Christ~ When identified with my small minded self-concept, I fear this LIGHT will envelope me. And it will…and it already does. Always. Already. All my pretending won’t change that…I am Christ, God’s Son~ exactly as He created me ~created by Love extending… for love receiving…and in full appreciating Love…completed… It has already been done and nothing I can think or make or do can taint the Holy Home of God Himself.

“Love wishes to be known, completely understood and shared. It has no secrets; nothing that it would keep apart and hide. It walks in sunlight, open-eyed and calm, in smiling welcome and in sincerity so simple and so obvious it cannot be misunderstood.” (T-20.VI.2)

My relationship with my creator is both my reality in truth and my model and guide as well as the means for my relationship with my brothers, including all seeming situations, people, circumstances and events ~ even the character/model called Danét~ This Holy relationship, the One Relationship, IS, already~ It is wholly Holy, always ~Now. It is the foundation of my holiness~ extending… My holiness envelops everything I see…

My role in this so-called life is to ACCEPT THE ATONEMENT FOR MYSELF!

Mine is to notice anything that hinders its accomplishment…look at it square on with the Holy Spirit within my mind…forgive and choose again…

“The holy relationship reflects the true relationship the Son of God has with his Father in reality. The Holy Spirit rests within it in the certainty it will endure forever. Its firm foundation is eternally upheld by truth, and love shines on it with the gentle smile and tender blessing it offers to its own. Here the unholy instant is exchanged in gladness for the holy one of safe return. Here is the way to true relationships held gently open, through which you and your brother walk together, leaving the body thankfully behind and resting in the Everlasting Arms. Love's Arms are open to receive you, and give you peace forever.” (T-20.VI.10)

The light of Christ shines eternally bright within my mind~ and, I see that my holiness does indeed, envelop everything I see… every encounter is a holy encounter…and every relationship~ holy… ~Always appreciation follows…I gladly answer the debt I owe my brother through recognizing that his holiness is mine…and our One holiness envelops everything seen…

We are Christ and we are not alone~ All Glory to God ~

Sunday, February 4, 2007

...GodMind to lesson 35...

Lesson 35:

“My mind is part of God's. I am very holy…”
“…the emphasis for today is on the perceiver, rather than on what he perceives.”

Hmmm… what does this mean? If I have learned anything, it is that I’ don’t know.
I have a set of ideas from which to interpret and place meaning ~ theses are authored by my concept of my self. And isn’t that the very thing that got me into this, in the first place? I don’t know. The question just begs to be ask… Can I really understand? Isn’t my idea of myself attempting to do the understanding through my ‘self-concept’?
Still, some meaning beyond “myself’ sings its lovely melody to me in this statement “My mind is part of God's. I am very holy” …beckoning me home… I weep in joy at its completeness and tranquil bliss…thank you.

The Course tells us that the ego is incapable of understanding anything. And, that yet, this is where we turn for answers about who and what we are. I mean really… doesn’t this seem insane? It does to me…

As I was reading today’s lesson, a deep sense of peace held me in its belly, while this thought from the Course went through my mind

“ I do not know the thing I am, and therefore do not know what I am doing, where I am, or how to look upon the world or on myself.” (T-31.V.17.7)

This single thought has been the key of freedom which unlocks my ‘self-concept’s’ heavy gates of definition and limitation ~ to the possibility of an open mind~ to the possibility of unlearning what I have taught myself and allowing myself to be taught by a teacher who knows… I think I am beginning to see what He means in Chapter 28 of the text where it says:

“Remember nothing that you taught yourself, for you were badly taught. And who would keep a senseless lesson in his mind, when he can learn and can preserve a better one?” (T-28.I.7)

Everyone makes up a ‘self’, well yeah, that’s what this world is ~ the idea of ‘self’ apart from God. But that is certainly not enough, is it? One must design and manufacture a personal self, a unique self, a ‘special’ self ~ better or worse than the ‘others’. Naturally, along with it come the necessary scales of measurement and hierarchies of values with which one must prove ones worth.
I have been the “self-improvement” business all of my life(oxymoron, yes?)… find the problem, fix it, try harder, be better ~ expose another ‘flaw’; hide it or fix it or hide it till I fix it… and then help so-called others do the same…and on and on. All my efforts at becoming ‘better, stronger, faster’ always had been circular in nature. And this is as good as it gets with the self-concept~ the best the world has to offer… and thank God it is so relentlessly unsatisfying ~ so some of us get the feeling we would do anything for a better way. (Like me for one, and Helen and Bill, the scribes for the Course, and you) I love what the Course says about this in Chapter 31 in the section titled, “Self-Concept versus Self".
Happily, I am beginning to see…to see that there could only be One Cause of my Being. That cause is God. And God has not changed his mind about His Son. And I am his Son, “… complete and healed and whole, shining in the reflection of His Love. In me is His creation sanctified and guaranteed eternal life. In me is love perfected, fear impossible, and joy established without opposite. I am the holy home of God Himself. I am the Heaven where His Love resides. I am His holy Sinlessness Itself, for in my purity abides His Own.” (W-pII.14.1)

“My mind is part of God’s…I am very holy”… and Now, we trust; trust God ~ His Holy Spirit within our mind… and have faith in our brothers who are One with us and allow God’s mind expression…

I am very holy, as love, one with you and all, in all, in God, forever and ever~amen~