Saturday, February 24, 2007

~The new matrix of mind ~ trust. ..

Lesson 55:

"I am determined to see things differently… What I see is a form of vengeance… I can escape from this world by giving up attack thoughts… I do not perceive my own best interests… I do not know what anything is for”…
I invite, as a basic methodology now, the opportunity to let fear thoughts show up however they do; be it in the form of planning, perceived ‘needs’, worry, pain, etc…All attack thoughts ~ all a form of vengeance ~bring ‘em on ! All of them, I invite to arise for review and forgiveness…
See, I am finally learning that I don’t really know what that means or how the miracle happens and how suddenly ‘poof’ my perception is completely changed ~ an ancient way of seeing dissolves into a new light.
The matrix of my mind has become trust. And from this place I can truly let go of knowing, of doing, of interfering… And what I notice is that somehow everything gets handled ~ it’s like I am more an aspect of the perfect plan, along with everyone by which everything does work together for good and miracles happen. FORGIVENESS WORKS! ~ e v e r y ~s I n g l e ~ t I m e . . .
I’m remembering from lesson 135, where it says:
“What could you not accept, if you but knew that everything that happens, all events, past, present and to come, are gently planned by One Whose only purpose is your good?” ~BINGO~
I have accepted this and now, I cannot see any other possibility… thank God!
All Glory to God, Whose perfect peace, and purity are what we are ~ And merely by the refusal to accept any thing else, I feel its fulfillment… and T R U S T…
And trust answers every thing NOW … I see and feel it within ~ for I am not in this world. The world is within me, and all around…~YUMMY LOVE replaces vengeance and my own best interests are yours as well. There is no I in know. Knowledge is and I am part of God… God is…

Friday, February 23, 2007

I am alone in nothing. Everything I think or say or do teaches all the universe.

Lesson54:

“I have no neutral thoughts. I see no neutral things. I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my seeing. I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my thoughts. I am determined to see…”

I am alone in nothing. Everything I think or say or do teaches all the universe.

Only one question: “Do I want to know my Father’s Will for me?”

Life is thought. And from thinking comes vision ~or image making… ultimately there is One Mind ~ the one I share with God… ~Yet, the metaphor of a ‘split mind, housing two exclusive thought systems, was crucial for me in awakening to myself as the dreamer of the dream… and to then see the ‘unreality of the dream and ‘wake-up to the ‘reality’ of always… already… God…

Within this metaphor of illusory world, it always boils down to the Love or fear polars; that there are two kinds of thinking: forgiveness and separation.
So, in the training of my mind to think only with God, a stepping-stone is for me to ask myself, “Am I thinking with God through the Holy Spirit within my mind or am I thinking through the ego belief within my mind? All personhood thoughts such as judgments are merely the ordering of thought into hierarchies which include seemingly minor preferences such as all body concerns (self and others), relationships types and the myriad of ‘choice’ smorgasbords, fall into the separation category.
Everything must have a source. And it is the source or cause that fathers the characteristics of the thought then extended.
God as Source is eternal, formless, one-ness, changeless, free…

Separation as Source, whose core structure is separating out ‘special-nesses’ from other ‘special-nesses’, with individual names and meanings, naturally therefore, gives birth to forms and fragments and differences and meanings…And incidentally, does so exponentially, since to split or separate by definition, ‘must come apart’.

But, now, consider this~ since the seeming separation fathered by that ‘tiny mad idea’ never really occurred in truth ~can this really be called thinking? Isn’t it really just fantasy about nothing ~ or not really thinking at all?

So if Life is thought, doesn’t it follow that if I’m looking at differences, I am choosing death rather than life? ~Stands to reason why no lasting happiness could ever be found in “being a ‘special person’ in a ‘special relationship’, being part of a special group, in a special place, having a ‘special experience’… never totally satisfying…so ~ try again… [always looking for love in all the wrong places… “Seek but never find”~ it’s the ego’s game…]
I am determined to see…
I keep thinking about the section in the Course called “That Dynamics of the Ego”:
Let today be one of Clarity, sharing in looking upon a forgiven world because we chose once again and let our thoughts be of One Mind…

Thursday, February 22, 2007

Godthought premise~ like magic-eye imagery

Lesson 53:

My thoughts are images that I have made... Whatever I see reflects my thoughts. It is my thoughts that tell me where I am and what I am. …This, experience of where and who/what I am the bottom-line for me; the real deal, the premise of purpose…
Who and what do I believe I am? What do I want to be real for me? What do I value? ~ Do I consult the truth or the lie for my identity? ~This is no small premise ~ but the one I operate from none the less… (whether I want to realize to or not!) I do! And this determines everything I see….
Choose carefully, Danét, consult a guide deep within, till the experience of peace and the truth of God’s Son hears One Voice… now choose and trust …
The premise chosen, out-pictures peace or conflict, Love or specialness, brother or enemy, sameness or differences…redundant nothing ness or bright, brilliant “God” in everything I see …
It is this looking within and allowing God to reveal Life to me through giving up the desire for any thing else that gives everything meaning for me.
Every moment of every day, this is the question up for review... Will I cover over this present moment of LIFE with the past/future thoughts and beliefs of the world, or surrender to the Life that I am in Truth.
*God did not create a meaningless world. Let me remember the power of my decision, and recognize where I really abide…. just maybe, I’m not seeing right, eh?
So what is my guide for seeing? From where do I determine what I see?

This world is like one of those ‘magic-eye’ pictures. I could look at a whole gallery of this genre and see many pictures. And think “that’s it ~I saw those pictures… But say a inner gallery guide comes up to me and tells me to “look deeper… past the image I think I see…in fact, forget the image I thought I saw entirely, and look deeper… and look deeper not by focusing or concentrating harder on the one I first automatically seemed to see, but actually relax my focus, and, while still staying present with the image, …let the picture itself, reveal itself to me~ through my releasing the barrier [of preconceived idea judgment] to seeing it as it really is…

I am filled with such gratitude and joy… I see that the belief in illusions was the error that that has already been corrected by the Holy Spirit, and the Mind that thinks with God, has no opposite. This is the gift of the Atonement… and accepting the Atonement for myself, accepting this correction, is for me, really the only decision to make...the only decision worthy of the Son of God. It is indeed a decision for the acceptance of what is REALLY true, to ‘deny the denial of TRUTH. What could be more worthy of my devotion and full attention?
So first off, choose my thinking to think with God…because without fail, my thinking will characterize the world for me. I’m no longer interested in going-with –the –flow of the world’s thoughts ~mine is to observe their nothingness from that still point of Quiet Light that lights up my beliefs and unbelief and swallows the darkness in the Light of forgiveness. And then to look more deeply upon a world of seeming illusions, look deeper still within my mind, until, through forgiveness’s healing light, the REAL WORLD reveals itself to me… this is an experience of unspeakable JOY and eternal gratitude for Who and What I am ~ for You, my brothers, Who are one with me in praising the glory of God! …Forever and ever… amen

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Holiness: seeing as it is now...

Lesson 52:

I am upset because I see what is not there. I see only the past. My mind is preoccupied with past thoughts. I see nothing as it is now. My thoughts do not mean anything….

So here’s how it’s kind of come to lay out for me… When I see through these body’s eyes, simulating an imagined or hypothetical past, how can I see anything as it is now? ~ I can’t! ~ Yet this is what the body’s eyes were made for… to give the impression that I can indeed, see something that is not there… something to replace God. Their purpose then is to refocus the instant replay of a hypothetical past (tiny mad idea] so it appears that it is real … now. It is a deflection device for the avoidance of presence- the present. So, looking with the body’s eyes is, by its very nature, a preoccupation with hypotheticals. The past is at best, gone. Yet consistently, it appears as a collection of hypothetical ideas, which were conjured up by an insane mind, a mind that mistakes itself for the belief in subject/object differences. What if, in fact, there is no past. What if, everything about this so-called life;-past, present and future is just hypothetical fantasy?
Turns out that what passes for seeing in the world is really ‘preoccupation with the fantasy of separation [hypothetical hype] and not really anything at all …So I am really preoccupied with nothing.
O.k. now, when it feels like I am upset by what I seem to see, it is only that I am upset by NOT SEEING AT ALL! ~I have lost touch with Who and What I am … which IS reality, and makes reality what it is. I am really the thought of God extending creation… and my upset (call for love) is telling me I believe I am in darkness… I need but switch on the light of forgiveness to see this differently… In fact ~to see at all! Forgiveness lights NOW and the shadows of imagined enemies fade into present PEACE.

A yummy ‘forgiveness script’ that feels apropos to share here comes to us from Gary Renard’s book “The Disappearance of the Universe” ~it goes like this:

“You’re not really there.
If I think you are guilty or the cause of the problem, and if I made you up, then the imagined guilt and fear must be in me.
Since the separation from god never occurred, I forgive ‘both’ of us for what we haven’t really done.
Now there is only innocence, and I join with the Holy Spirit in peace.”

Let today be a day of Presence…forgiving all hypotheticals, to be replaced by Truth… I am joined with you at the ‘lawns of Heaven’ where ‘nothing can intrude upon the pure mind of the Holy Son of God’…

“Let us be glad we can walk the world, and find so many chances to perceive another situation where God’s gift can once be recognized as ours! And thus will all the vestiges of hell, the secret sins and hidden hates be gone. And all the loveliness which they concealed appear like lawns of Heaven to our sight, to lift us high above the thorny roads we traveled on before the Christ appeared.” (T-31.VIII.9)

We walk together, you and I… We are Christ… and we are the One…

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

~review 1 with love~

Review I~ Lesson 51:

I love the review sections of the workbook ~
The first few years of working with the Course and lessons found taking the review time as an experience of my feeling that if I didn’t get it perfectly the first time around, I was given another chance at integrating the ideas and allowing the miracle perception shift that always results. (As if there is anything but more chances, till all is returned inevitably to Love)Then, inexorably I noticed, there was another purpose as well (less indicative of ‘my’ private thoughts) ~a purpose of purpose. I began to see the cohesiveness of the Course’s thought system~ in practice~ systematic practical reversal~ each idea looping back on the whole …
Not just in theory, in the experience of my life. This awareness deepens as I do and as my willingness allows. It’s so inspiring how utterly thorough the deconstruction of a seeming “REALITY” is systematically approached, exposed and dismantled from a seemingly alien, yet indubitably compelling perspective. I began to feel (and I still do, I notice) that I couldn’t wait for the next one…You know like when you’re taking a class that’s just really interesting, helpful and exciting… or when you just fell in love… how you just can’t wait to experience the next thing and you don’t want the one you’re experiencing to ever end?!!! That’s sorta what developed for me.
I felt that, as excruciating as it was to look at how my petty, loser attempt at making a ‘great me’ was a complete failure, somehow ~ this was turning out to be a ‘good’ thing… go figure…
Also, meanwhile, I could never really shake this feeling that I had something ‘really important’ to get back to when I was out and about doing my so-called life. Even when I was completely ‘whacked’ (and lord knows there’s been a lot of that) ~ I was haunted by the feeling that there was something I knew –something I needed to get back to that would take me out the seeming nightmarish ‘reality’ I'd trapped myself in; to frightened to believe any thing (least of all myself) was worth the devotion beckoning my attention… So, I offered the best I could at the time, every time… IT HAS BEEN ENOUGH.
Turns out, the curriculum of A Course in Miracles was designed for minds just like mine. Matter of fact, that is why it was designed… And the more involvement I have with it; the ‘d e e p e r the rabbit-hole goes’… into the silence from which I came.
Inevitably it dawns… that It really is an inside job; the mistaken thought of take-over, the cover-up, the imagined world, the necessity of ‘belief’ … Also though ~Heaven~ not effected by this dream at all ~ that too is from within and it is nothing like any thing I could have ever imagined. It is the total surrender of ‘thinking we know’ to ‘not knowing’, in order ‘to know’, which is just the natural course of undoing/remembering; of seeing, of thinking, of creating…
Seeming meaning ~no meaning ~ meaning, etc. … and round and round it goes…
I naturally began viewing the dream of “my” so-called life, not as a player (or even the hero) anymore, but as the dreamer of the dream where ‘making’ can seem to replace creating and concoct the impossible, that in a thought system of smoke and mirrors, can actually appear real… Yet, that is what appearance is for, yes? Here’s the merry-go-round:
Nothing I see means anything, since, after all, I see NOTHING, and nothing has no meaning. So apparently I felt l needed to give meaning to my so-called life and I have given what I see all the meaning it has for me. I have judged everything I look upon, and it is this and only this I see. Therefore, I do not understand anything I see. What I see is the projection of my own errors of thought. So of course, I do not understand what I see because it’s not understandable. Who can trust thoughts like that ~shifting and changing with the tides of emotions and personal identification? Thank God ~these thoughts do not mean anything. Given that as a character in the dream, my awareness is only of the dream, itself, the thoughts of which I am aware do not mean anything because I am trying to think without God. What I call "my" thoughts are not my real thoughts. And, thank God, my real thoughts are the thoughts I think with God. And they are still in my mind, creating without interruption through my connection with my Creator~
It’s just that when I am identified with the script/dream, I am not aware of them because I have made my thoughts to take their place …
So my apparent feelings are not the truth either because they are fathered by the thoughts I made to replace creation.
It’s quite spectacular to see this all dispassionately and chuckle in amusement ~being detached from its seeming ‘reality’ …
For instance; all seeming upsets~ really aren’t…since I am never upset for the reason I think because I am constantly trying to justify my thoughts. Don’t you hate that! ~ Constantly trying to make the untrue true… impossible task, yet built within the system of the mad idea of separation~
We make all things our enemies, so that anger is justified and attacks are warranted and we find ‘we hurt the ones we “love” and we always attack ourselves in the end’. Funny how lines like this, stick with you and make millions in songs and Hallmark cards…
There is another way of Looking at the world… THIS IS THAT OTHER WAY… at least for one writing this right now… and through the experience rendered from willingness to choose to be shown ‘that other way’… From there the Holy Spirit can guide through the careful study of the Course’ theology, psychology, methodology and the consistent practice of the practical exercises to be implemented for the forgiving all of it…and … wa la… ONE VISION!
The vision of Christ sees us through the ‘journey without distance to the place we never left’, gathering (re-member-ing) mighty companions along the way. All meaning is given us by the One Who Knows ~turns out we are the One… thank you for hangin’ out with me on this seeming journey.
Love and gratitude overflowing ~

Monday, February 19, 2007

I AM SUSTAINED BY THE LOVE OF GOD…God is my life…I live and move in Him…

Lesson 50:

“I am sustained by the Love of God…”

I AM…and as I have approached the Holy Altar of the Son of God place within by God~ this is it~ “GOD IS…I am the Holy Son of God Himself…I am as He created me~ Love which created me is what I am… and I am sustained by the Love of God…
Re-cognition dawns as realization … This is the way it is. And all my efforts are directed toward this real-ization… The place is set in heaven… The time is now… All my unworthiness, worry and regret dissolve into the sustenance which is my life…
I love this affirmative mantra from chapter 18 of the text that has been so useful to me through bouts of unworthiness:
“ I who am host to God am worthy of Him.
He Who established His dwelling place in me created it as He would have it be.
It is not needful that I make it ready for Him, but only that I do not interfere with His plan to restore to me my own awareness of my readiness, which is eternal.
I need add nothing to His plan.
But to receive it, I must be willing not to substitute my own in place of it.”
And that is all. Add more, and you will merely take away the little that is asked. Remember you made guilt, and that your plan for the escape from guilt has been to bring Atonement to it, and make salvation fearful. And it is only fear that you will add, if you prepare yourself for love. The preparation for the holy instant belongs to Him Who gives it. Release yourself to Him Whose function is release. Do not assume His function for Him. Give Him but what He asks, that you may learn how little is your part, and how great is His.” (T-18.IV.5-6)

I am sustained by the Love of God…
This was the Hope that I experienced when was initiated by and through A Course in Miracles, all those many years ago.
It was a idea so pervasive, so compelling, so truly real ~it was worth the risk to attempt to believe it above all else, and perhaps even at the risk of losing all control of my so-called life as I had it wired up for myself at the time (some sacrifice, eh? ~like I had things running so well).
Ah, well… it was a worthy investment of faith… And this faith became experience…And faith in this Experience…
And with this faith and the increasing awareness of this experience of simple fact of real-ization; God’s Love being my sustenance was sustaining my life and was obviously becoming ‘more real, more substantial~ than all the seeming forms and situations; people, places and the like, that I thought I was experiencing… I developed trust…deep, rich, abiding trust…I trust…
It is my trust in this one idea and its increasing efficacy, which inspires me to trust this entire undoing forgiveness brings. I trust the experience of unending love and joy and peace that now backgrounds my life. This sustenance of God’s Love is the soundtrack behind, beyond, within and through, what I call life…now…always…forever. Its perfect orchestration, does indeed, as the lesson says, ”transports into a state of mind that nothing can threaten, nothing can disturb, and where noting can intrude upon the eternal calm of the Son of God”…
Otherwise, why would I do it? Why would I question every belief I ever held ~every value set~ asking that it meet the “test of perfect peace” and be released? Why surrender ‘my’ judgments, my rights to be RIGHT and/or wronged, and give myself over to the Holy Spirit? Why would my commitment ~for every breathing moment~ be devoted to “accepting the Atonement for myself”?
…BECAUSE IT WORKS! ~
I AM SUSTAINED BY THE LOVE OF GOD…God is my life…I live and move in Him… This gorgeous lesson is singing to me and beckoning to join the chorus of today’s lesson, so, here goes…
”He is my Source of life, the life within, the air I breathe, the food by which I am sustained, the water which renews and cleanses me, He is my home, where I live and move; the Spirit Which directs my actions, offers me Its Thoughts, and guarantees my safety from all pain. He covers me with kindness and with care, and holds in love the Son He shines upon, who also shines on him. How still is he who knows the truth…” (W-L.222)
We walk gently on together sustained by the love of God~ Thank you!

Sunday, February 18, 2007

God's Voice speaks to me all through the day….

Lesson 49:

God's Voice speaks to me all through the day….

It’s critical to listen only that which isn’t the form in which it seems to take. The form is the illusion and it can’t tell me anything, being causeless and all. I spent many a long year, in time (although no time in eternity) in the futile effort of trying to figure out what is the voice for God and what isn’t …~Then ‘miraculously’ it seemed revealed to me that if I didn’t know for sure ~ I was not really hearing at all. It is the same old process of image making. It reflects my belief about whom and what I am and then making up a god to join me there and be the boss of things (according to my private dictates). Somehow (miracle no doubt) I began to recognize the compelling pull to listen deeper…to listen within my being, as my being… beyond the ‘seeming answer to a seeming question’ (even if it was “what is the meaning of my life”) and deeper still. Deeper than the compulsion to attempt to bring ‘truth to illusion’ …And incidentally, ah ha dawned and I finally knew what ‘bringing truth to illusion’ meant! It’s hard to know you’re doin’ it when you’re doin’ it; trapped in the hard sell of ‘the wish to make real’… Yet, by simply allowing myself to sink deeper into the stillness, I found I was resting already in the quiet beneath where truth waits, untouched…

So, if I go to God with a ready-made question ~it is always because I already have a ready-made answer (albeit usually secret from myself), I am seeking ‘my answer’ to my question…and really I have forgotten what to ask…and only the return to sanity will tell me… so the question is, “Do I really want to hear God’s voice…Do I want to know my Father’s Will for me?”

Funny how we make god up in our image and likeness~ our voice to dictate to us ‘our solution ~ our guidance’ for our so-called life…missing entirely the fact that this so-called life is not us and we are not here!

Awareness reveals... This tiny tic of time I refer to as so-called life, is a projection of ‘guilt believed’ and so unbearable that a ‘something’ ‘outside’ and ‘other than’, had to be made up to have somewhere to displace it… Once projected out, the mind that dreamed it, lies down within the dream ~attempting to sleep it off, so to speak, and wake up feeling, hopefully, ‘better’… therefore, leaving all contact with being the dreamer of the dream ~ and this ‘so-called’ life is just a grand illusion…

Like that song by Styx, “Welcome to the grand illusion. Come on in and see what’s happening. Pay the Price. Get your tickets for the show… “. Ah, how sweetly one can merely watch the show with the eyes of forgiveness…till what was seen as the ‘grand illusion’ is transformed into the Grandeur of God… One can only see from the seat assigned by God, from our real home where God speaks to us all through the day.

This is the experience of NOW: unending present peace ~ the presence of God ~ where stillness and quiet are the language of the day and calm extends…forever, now. It speaks the experience of certainty already completed ~ of love all encompassing… all else “need not be”…

I can’t leave this mind ~ it is not of my making (imagine as I have tried to pretend a scenario “apart”) ~ This quiet haven will not go away ~every time I turn around, so to speak, there it is ~ “The Kingdom of God is with in me ~ the Kingdom of God IS me”… and God speaks to me always, now…

If I wake up and ‘greet the day in front of me’ this is an expression of separation ~ the day is within me ~ I picture it out through the lens I choose to see with.

So, operating from the “to do” list, shows me I chose a guide in form rather than content.

Trust in purpose, expresses the day through content. If I’m operating from the content of a mind at home in God, I can trust that all thing work together for good… and content fleshes out a world unified and sure…where purpose overrides specifics. Who cares how it goes? The peace of God is my one goal ~ the meaning ~ the means~ and the end…and it is only this voice I choose to hear…

So we sink back into the stillness…further and further until no thoughts of this world accompany us. If thought of form seems to be the voice we hear, so to speak, we sink further… just further still is the deafening quiet from which the mighty chorus of the host of Heaven sings the voice for God and this is where I am …and we are here eternally, NOW ~uninterrupted by the temptation to make a world apart …
Indeed, God's Voice speaks to me all through the day…