Lesson 91:

Miracles are seen in light…
The body’s eyes do not perceive the light…
But I am not a body. What am I?

This is the real question, is it not? This idea is the one that begins the undoing; the dismantling of the ‘solid-not-so-solid’ structure of the so-called self ~the self-concept. It is the sense of this idea behind the forms of our so-called lives that forces our recognition of our dissatisfaction with ‘the way things are’… The feeling that this is not quite ‘it’… that we are play acting on some level…the vague feeling that there is something ‘more real’ just behind the curtain.
This lesson is the perfect opportunity to look behind the curtain, using faith in the light we sense, even if very subtly, and sink into that light, which is of course, right there waiting only for our attention to be seen, being there already, always… This is a time for faith: faith beyond the body. After all, faith always goes to what we want, and we instruct our minds accordingly. What is it we want? We want to know the truth of what we are. We want the light for which to see miracles by which we experience all strength, all power, all grandeur, limitlessness, and certainty, ~the light of ‘reality’. Miracles bring in the light of experience that allows us to see, because we want to see the truth…
The exercises today gently take us to this experience of seeing…
Miracles are seen in light… the body’s eyes do not perceive the light… But I am not a body… What am I? … I am not weak, but strong… I am not helpless, but all powerful… I am not limited, but unlimited… I am not doubtful, but certain… I am not an illusion, but a reality… I cannot see in darkness, but in light…
I am not a body at all… I am the light in which I see miracles … I am the awareness of the idea of the body concept, now expanding beyond the concept of ‘body’ all together… sinking, and expanding beyond and released to the light: all images merely float by released to the light, feelings float by released to the light, thoughts float by released to the light which is effortlessly aware of all of them; and effortlessly dissolve into the light…These are not what I am for I am aware of them, I am beyond… I am the light…and the light disperses all into love’s ever-present essence: strength, power, limitless certainty ~the grandeur of reality~ always present, always alive…
Miracles are seen in light and allow that one recognize oneSelf...It is the light in us that is already always awake. Always- fully- present. It is, in this instant, right now, effortlessly noticing everything that seemingly arises, that dispels seeming darkness into the light in which we see ~our vast infinite awareness, the deep recognition of what is… always, already, aware, awake…
We place our faith where it is worthy of the Son of God, today, and feel His Strength and walk in certainty…
Yes, we join in this holy purpose, unified and sure… We do not walk alone for He walks beside us as the light within, which lights our way and by which all miracles are seen…
Miracles are seen in light… The Course tells us that the task of the miracle worker is to deny the denial of truth. Since miracles are merely the translation of denial into truth, it is our willingness to put our faith in that seeming unknown that keeps bringing us back to this Course, these lessons, each other… that unknown is the light…. The goal is to accept the atonement for ourselves. The methodology for this is the miracle; the light that burns away the darkness~ the dense obscure tremor of the denial of light. Forgiveness is the means at our disposal, NOW, to release the past denial of truth to be replaced by the present experience of the presence of Light Itself~ and all strength and power and certainly are ours for the asking… What am I? I am the light in which all miracles are seen. Offering miracles has now become the modus operandi… and miracles abound…

Lesson 90:

Let me recognize the problem so it can be solved… Let me recognize my problems have been solved….

The only problem is a grievance cherished above the light. We can’t really hold a grievance since all grievances were one grievance and were handled in the instant of Atonement and placed in the time-space belief, as miracles; which alter the temporal order and see all as one… How can someone have something you feel they are withholding from you, when you are one with them very literally, and they, in brother form, have come as the messengers of the miracle principles to shine the light on those illusions/idols you still value above truth?… Can there really be any honest response to these brothers, save it be gratitude? NO! I think not…
The ego’s is a desolate belief and baron belief system, once one has accepted the Atonement…One has to really fertilize and nurture grievances to get them to stay alive: remind yourself constantly, attach every seeming loss of peace to their fault, tell the story over and over, perfecting it along the way, (embellishment is your right~ it’s your grievance, after all) constantly covering over the light behind, which you know is seeping through the cracks, with new justifications…(gawd, its exhausting)…
All to satisfy the goal: to keep a little space between the miracle ask for when you answered the call, and the time in which it is received … till you’ve invested so much seeming life force in the grievance, that you can’t possible give it up… too much is at stake… Not to mention the whole ‘being right’ thing… After all, isn’t this the purpose of our so-called lives?…
Being right really translates to: “I’m more special than you are…so, na na na na”… Pretty cheap, eh? This is the best the ego has to offer… and believe you, me, it only gets mean from here. ~On some level, I’m sure you can agree with me that it’s really rather laughable, it has to crack you up; the ego’s antics for control… to maintain its righteous little throne…whew…
Once the forgiveness template is engaged, the Holy Spirit is running the show… and time, whose purpose was to forget ourselves, becomes the means by which the forgetting of illusions and their seeming meaning and remembering Christ begins. The course is inevitable…
We can’t buckle to the temptation to see ourselves as ‘wrongly’ treated. That is an just an old thinking pathway in the brain of the neutral body, which has been recovered from the once separation device to the now communication device… Let’s not forget that the brain is not mind, it is rather an idea within the mind, neutral really, (contrary to whatever the ego has evidenced up) and, it is in the service of Christ… How could it be that there is a problem now, when the past is gone (that is the definition of p a s t …) and all seeming problems with it, having been answered with the ONE unequivocal ANSWER: “WE ARE CHRIST; The Son Whom God Created Holy as Himself… This is reality and nothing ‘unreal’ can threaten it. Nothing unreal exists at all. The one question was answered within the truth of Who We Are, and while time still seems to exist within our minds, let us allow its corrective use to guide our steps.
Isn't it time we get really honest with ourselves… Isn’t the path of peace really easier? Isn’t the war against ourselves really over? Doesn’t the view look better from above the battleground through the eyes of Christ? Wouldn’t we rather love… and see how forgiveness offers everything we want ~which is the restoration of love and all the meaning we are as Christ? Yes!, can be the only answer now, just as it was when the Atonement principle was enacted; before we seemingly made the choice to sleep and dream a lonely dream of ruler over hell…
Lets cop to having made the wrong choice, and finally let it be dissolved into the dark past from which it came and could never, possibly effect the heartbeat of God and His love for His Creation…. Let’s wake to the gentle voice for God today and deceive ourselves no longer…
Here, is where we are, at home in God… right here, right now, in total joy and peace…
~And on and on love expands as miracles replace all grievances, waking us from the obstacles to full awareness of Who We Are ~LOVE… I meet my debt to you gladly today, with gratitude bursting from my heart to yours ~

Lesson 89:

I am entitled to miracles… Let miracles replace all grievances…

I am thinking about this idea of miracles and how right up front in the Course we get a thorough description of what miracles are. We are not looking for the experience of ‘revelation’ here~ we are looking to undo misperceptions… waking from the dream of otherness…
The idea that something other than what is, could be, was the first misperception… The sense that something could be lacking was the first grievance… The law of creation has continued along its natural lines, only channeled by misdirection, within the sleeping mind. The first idol was the self-concept, which was made ‘special’ by the use of the concept of time and space, separating itself out from the rest in some distinguishable way (body) and therefore had to squeeze all creation’s expression through limited channels of selves. Creation does not change because we harbor a favor for limit. We get what we ask for… So we placed the mind under the disposal of limitation, (perhaps to feel we can ‘control’ how thing work out), we get a sense of specialness from this ‘new god’/self’ that the old one wasn’t offering… don’t we? We get to be the boss of or own self and our own world… so there… The obvious next step is “ok, what will make ‘me’ happy”, right? Something is drastically off if I get to be god and I’m not happy, eh? It’s lonely at the top? It’s just plain lonely… to be ‘special’ (also known as the ‘detour into hell”…)…
Here’s where miracles come in. the first recognition of the presence of the miracle is the idea “maybe I am wrong ~ maybe there is another way ~ maybe I’m off the mark’…
We are so lucky… we have A Course in Miracles… so really; we don’t have to figure anything out any more. We can be exactly were we find ourselves at any given moment in time (for as long as time is a construct within our minds), and when I say find ourselves, I mean: the glitch in the program of the ego mind that seems to be going along its merry way, and we say, “Stop! Wait just a blinkin’ minute here, this doesn’t feel so good. I don’t want it! This is the moment of willingness to be shown another way. This engages the miracle template:
“To change your mind means to place it at the disposal of Authority”.
And for those of us who answered to call to return via A Course in Miracles, need only show up and wake up. Of course, how this looks can get really convoluted at times, I’m sure I’m not the only one that systematically attempted to reformat the Course to my comfort level ~ [it’s the nature of the beast, ego.]
The groovy part is that it is just this type of interference on ‘my’ part that the forgiveness principle/practice dispels.
And the Miracles… they are already there, waiting replacement of any of ‘my’ thinking, as ready as I am willing to be corrected.
It a simple program really: 1) we are just undoing. We don’t and can’t perform miracle on our own, we can only recognize our need for them ~ by our lack of peace. 2) Jesus is directing IT ALL, since He is the symbol of the Atonement principle~ so it isn’t on our shoulders to get the miracle or give it. The Holy Spirit orchestrates that, through Jesus’ direction, so we can’t mess it up… when we’re not ready to join… it waits…till we are. The atonement with all its messengers, won’t quit on us… even if we seem to quit, for a second, on ourselves… what never happened cannot be real and realty will not rest until it is restored to its own completeness.
3) Plus, ‘we’ don’t ‘do’ the miracles, they are done through us by our willingness to change our mind about… well, everything, I guess, it turns out, in the end…
So, our focus must be about ‘miracles’. We are entitled to them because of who we are in truth and this very same truth, systematically replaces grievances with miracles by way of forgiveness. And none of this is under our split mind control, seeing as by splitting the mind in itself is a loss of power and confusion about power and control and who’s in charge. ~ It is enough to say, “we’re not”...
If we can accept this simple possibility, we can begin the dismantling of the “AUTHORITY ISSUE”; the confusion of authorship, which was the template for the ‘detour into hell’… Now that’s a good deal…
And, we’ve got the course, and we’re suiting up and showing up, and waking up, and miracles abound… And we even notice…
One has to admit, things, over all, are looking up… and PEACE is being restored…
“This is a course in mind training. All learning involves attention and study at some level. Some of the later parts of the course rest too heavily on these earlier sections not to require their careful study. You will also need them for preparation. Without this, you may become much too fearful of what is to come to make constructive use of it. However, as you study these earlier sections, you will begin to see some of the implications that will be amplified later on… A solid foundation is necessary because of the confusion between fear and awe to which I have already referred, and which is often made. (T-1.VII.4-5)
It’s so good to revisit and review these initial sections of the Course ~ elementary, my dear Watson, so to speak…

I expect only miracles today… thank you, thank you….

Lesson 87~Mindlight~

Lesson 87:

I will there be light… There is no will but God’s…

Simply, this is all… This is the premise I accepted and therefore allowed my mind to open to accepting the Atonement for myself… Just this; no will but God’s willing light… Ahhh… Honestly, is there any thing to do but simply lean back and rest in peace and surety?
Trust would settle every seeming problem now… Shadows of ancient ego thinking seem to cress before my perception, but they are merely shadows dissipated by the light. I need but look again.
And I look not with the body’s eyes, they cannot see. They were made not to see, and can only carry out the instructions of the maker, since ideas leave not their source.
I look from a Source deeper still, and deep in the stillness through the vision born of the idea it is God’s Will I see. And what I see but represents His Will, which left not its Source, and is but the very Light itself, quiet calm of the light of Christ…
I look serenely upon all misperceptions without fear, and with total faith in everyone and situation. It’s not that I align my will with God’s, I real-ize there is no other will ~ only God’s…By allowing for this, by simply no interfering, the Holy Spirit transforms my sight, revealing each seeming shadow form in its corrected form ~where only the love that was called upon remains to rest within the holy mind of the Son of God.
This is my will ~ the one I share with God. Choosing to look once again, from the place where one purpose, unified and sure, has been set ~ the Holy Spirit is within my mind and this is my part in God’s plan for salvation. Transforming all calls for love before my sight is the Holy Spirit’s… It’s none of my concern how or when this will happen. I am concerned only with trust… Trust does settle every concern, NOW…. Time is at the disposal of the miracle. It is enough on that I simply notice, by the way I feel, when a lack of peace has entered, and recognize it as the forgiveness signpost that it is… “There is no will but God's… This is part of God's Will for me, however I may see it… In the light this will look different… Let me perceive this in accordance with the Will of God…”
I simply ask the question: “What is this for ~ what is the meaning of what I perceive?” ~And the light has come to look upon it gently with the Holy Spirit… I want only to know my Father’s Will for me… I want to remember it is my will as His… it is, truly the only will I have… the only will I want…There is no will but God's…
A prayer from one of the later lessons in the workbook is playing in the background of my mind… here’s what it says:
“Father, I will but to remember You… What can I seek for, Father, but Your Love? Perhaps I think I seek for something else; a something I have called by many names. Yet is Your Love the only thing I seek, or ever sought. For there is nothing else that I could ever really want to find. Let me remember You. What else could I desire but the truth about myself?” (W-L. 231)
It is the light of this truth we will to recognize, that we share today, and always… for it is our Father’s Will…
Light shall guide today. Follow it where it leads, and look only on what it shows. This day, experience the peace of true perception...

Lesson 86~ mindmeld~

Lesson 86:

Only God's plan for salvation will work… Holding grievances is an attack on God's plan for salvation...

I’m thinking about the early years of my involvement with my mind via the Course. About the concept of sin, when I read about it and noticed it was consistently being discussed, I had this deflect-type belief that went something like, “I don’t believe in sin. I’m over that. ~ That belief is my parent’s and theirs and the fundamentalist, fearful types, the ones that are ‘not there yet’; the unsophisticated thinkers, the ignorant people’s. I rejected that naive belief long ago.” (ha ha ~cosmic belly-laugh) I subscribed to the ‘boomeritis’ ideology, where the rule is: everything is subjective; the truth is no ultimate truth, but relative to the perceiver’s view, a conglomerate of “don’t step on anybody’s ‘belief shoes’.” So thinking I was ‘over that already’, kept me from seeing how thoroughly entrenched in and subject to the belief in sin I really was.
Meanwhile, I was punishing myself left and right for all slip-ups to my plan for salvation based on my interpretation and my requirements for gaining forgiveness and the kingdom of Heaven. Now, you might be thinking, “Danét, didn’t you read the book?” Yes. But like it says, words are just symbols of symbols, twice removed from reality. This leaves plenty of room for a sharp mind like Danét’s to interpret and design with…
ONLY THE TRUTH IS TRUE!
Being open to the explanation of the ‘belief in sin’ as the Course lays it out, I see now, is critical to the surrender of it and the understanding of the 'one mistake' Sin versus Error offers a succinct layout of this fundamental belief in chapter 19 of the text:(T-19.II.1-7)
The backwards approach just doesn't work... But, here’s the eternally generous thing ~the rest of the story, as we say, because I sincerely, truly, deeply, wanted the truth, and I was aware I didn’t have a firm grasp on it, I just kept turning to the only source where I felt it could be found and I just had to trust it would be revealed.
I couldn't help myself... See, reading the course was one of the first ‘out of body’ experiences for me. I felt myself being lifted up and blending with an idea base far greater than myself, it was an experience of complete release ~ if just for an instant. I realize now, that that was my first realization of ‘true joining’. It talks about this experience in context of the holy instant in chapter 18 of the text, where it says: “Everyone has experienced what he would call a sense of being transported beyond himself. This feeling of liberation far exceeds the dream of freedom sometimes hoped for in special relationships. It is a sense of actual escape from limitations”. I remember even reading that and spinning it into some ultimate airy-fairy experience done to the worthy… once again deflecting from the holy experience of losing myself within the holy joining with love, happening right here, right now.
Still, I was aware that nothing in this world could give me the feeling of freedom and experience of selflessness I was experiencing within my mind when joining with the ideas presented in the Course. Of course I couldn’t have articulated any of that at the time, but it is unmistakable to me now. Within this one mind-meld are all mind-melds contained, mind does not go out and join, but rather it is “a joining of yourself and something else in which your mind enlarges to encompass it. It becomes part of you, as you unite with it. And both become whole, as neither is perceived as separate… merely by a quiet melting in…”
This is my experience of life now, of all that is… a quiet melting in of the idea of God and His Idea of Creation, His Idea of His Son… This is God’s plan for salvation… it is an experience of perfect safety and peace… an awareness that nothing need be done…
This experience of freedom makes it easy to handle/forgive any compulsion to have a grievance while still in the compulsory stage, so as to not disturb the serenity of loves awareness… and in that recognition, peace is instantly restored…
~Thank you for your willing mind-meld, within this holy instant~ the love that you are showers me with your presence and the love of God… we are the One and we represent our Fathers idea… All gratitude and glory to God~ ~amen

Lesson 85~ mindmeld~

Lesson 85:

“My grievances hide the light of the world in me… My salvation comes from me”…
All grievances, no matter what form they seem to take all boil down to the same thing. Judgment: judging my brother and judging myself, which is the same thing, which is really the setting of judgment on the Son of God… ‘Judgment it a decision, made again and again, against creation and its Creator. It is a decision to perceive the universe, as I would have created it... it is a decision that truth can lie and must be lies’. Forgiveness is the recognition of my judgments, that what appears to be ‘outside’ myself, I see by way of direction from my mind. Then I can see that I projected, whatever, onto peoples and situations. I did this because of the intolerability of the guilt they represent within my own mind. And when I say this, I mean that this ‘inside-job’, is due to believing the first misperception: separation; the possibility that something could happen apart from what God Wills.
Forgiveness is the returning to the mind, every sentinel of darkness my private mind sent out, to rid itself of the intolerable feeling of guilt, which is the obvious result of believing this first lie. It was the first grievance and attack upon the Son of God. The private-mind with private thoughts are necessary for there to be ‘others’ I can displace the resulting heritage of this one mis-thought left uncorrected. This is the self-concept / other-concept I mistook for life for so very long. So many labels and attitude did I judge as unacceptable in the so-called life of Danét… It’s incredible to round them up and bring them home at last and see the nothingness they are without the task I assigned for them carry out for me.
The Holy Spirit has been so very gentle with me.
I first began to get an inkling that what was in front of my face; persons and ‘their’ issues might also be my issues, doing therapy with clients. I saw that much of what came into the office, (well actually, everything), I could find a way to relate to and want healed. It was a long time before I realized that I was not responsible for how healing took place or what result would determine ‘success’ for both of us. And it really wasn’t until I began to suspect that ‘both’ wasn’t the truth, and I wasn’t god, that I began to really give the sessions over to the Holy Spirit.
This became sort of a shrine of consecration to my faith in healing through the Holy Spirit within the one mind of the Son of God.
It came to my realization in even slower measure, but I saw that my life was the session. And still I didn’t take full ownership.
I had this technique I used to deceive myself that I was taking responsibility, by seeing the connection, then projecting it on to a label and yet not bringing it all the way back to “only my mind projected”. Take the construct alcoholism for example (my judgment: unacceptable). What I did was relate to a concept and go about dis- identifying with it by way of ‘getting over it’, which was really just displacing responsibility onto a label and therefore keep it outside myself, which crystallized its reality and my judgment. While deceived that this technique of healing through separation, was working, I could work really hard on myself, try really hard, be really sincere, even deceive myself that it was gone, while the power of its reality built its fortress within the secret compartment in my mind labeled: “DO NOT EVER OPEN”.
Of course this oblivion cannot be long maintained, when the mind has glimpsed the light… The inevitability that nothing else satisfies breaks down all defenses and resistance… And, I found, nothing I’d made of my mind remained sacred; no “secret compartment’ could be valued and kept closed. Finally, I wanted only to see the truth. I didn’t care what lies and labels I had to go through and forgive in order to get there… Of course, they’re all the same, but because I separated then off by assigning my judgment: accept or project, each must be opened, placed on the alter and transformed to the awareness of oneness, which forgiveness brings.
This is, for me, how the seeing of real world, the ‘other way’, has taken shape… The ‘other way’ reveals itself in the awareness that I did not create myself. What I imagined to be Danét and my so-called life could not be real. Total responsibility for every itsy-bitsy projection, must be brought to the Holy Spirit’s judgment, where it is revealed as nothing in the light of forgiveness and only the love exchanged, remains. This is what the Course refers to as the last judgment; looking with the Holy Spirit upon everything we’ve made, seeing the false as false and as the call for love that forgiveness shows us they are, and seeing that only love is real, changeless and eternal and cannot be altered by fantasy in any way.
So every situation, every encounter, is a relationship designed to heal the mind to this return. For each of us the curriculum and process is perfect and have maximal effectiveness for our return to sanity given our current state of readiness. And, on this note, I have learned this; the only thing I could do to assist in expediting my readiness was and is to give ALL over to the Holy Spirit through my willingness to ‘not know’ and trust… This is my little part… This is my salvation… And it is just enough! Thanks for the mind-meld…

Lesson 84~musings

Lesson 84:
Love created me like itself… Love holds no grievances... The logic with which the Course speaks, is, for me, astonishingly irrefutable, and superbly engaging… while at the same time maintains a simplicity and innocence so as to speak to the very basis of our nature… which is simple ~ LOVE ~ simply, love… God being love created by extending all that was, which of course was only love. This extension; fathered by love, could only be love ~ The Son of God, which is you and I, therefore could only be love… Now that’s easy enough to follow, eh? So it stands to reason, that the only thing that could be happening is what its source is. So in ‘reality’, the only thing ‘really going on’ is love… anything else couldn’t be, in fact the concept ‘else’ couldn’t be at all, seeing how love is all inclusive, right? Duh! How simple is that? …
It seems impossible to miss the simple, obviously indisputable, fact. ~GOD/LOVE! ~ Isn’t this, in fact, the only FACT, in truth?

~Dis ‘fact’ be da stuff of ‘me’… This Fact is the only ingredient in the Holy Son of God, love created me like itself. I am as God created me ~ love… and love holds no grievances. How could it? In truth it doesn’t have the factual make up for it. So grievance is illusion. It is an attack on myself for which the punishment is time. Eternity is now, along with all peace, recognition and joy… Do I really want to trade that in for another day or year or lifetime where the reward is the cheap thrill of being ‘right’? ~the temporary winning of battles fought, always losing the war to the illusive enemy, (which is, by the way, is me, yet I remain oblivious to the source of this enemy to be conquered) ~ always playing life out on the battleground stage?… All I get in this scenario is the illusion that “I” get to be right and you wrong… Seems like a total shit trade off, once you look at it doesn't it from above the battleground... once forgiveness has given you a place 'above the battleground'... Yet, it's really no deal at all~ It's just nothing...
Love, which is what I am, holds no grievances, so all that is just a waste of time, in time…
By retuning my mind to love, the Holy Spirit within my mind reminds me of love’s melody; the memory of which has come to me through forgiving all seeming grievances and seeing they were all just zombies of attack on myself to keep my mind too occupied with the interference to realize the most obvious fact in each scenario ~the ever-present soundtrack of Love, being ~love~ LOVE: present and accounted for… .

It’s silly really, when viewed from the seat of forgiveness, located above the battleground; the bad soap opera I was addicted to watching and emoting over~ the delay in time ~ the ‘chance to be right’~ the desperate dance of death… ~it just circles back ’round to the ‘big cosmic belly laugh’; the ‘last chuckle’ before God takes the final step Himself… Love created all there is… I am the love that God extended ~This is the truth that set me free~ my only truth ~and it is happening NOW ~ I want only to complete this with you by accepting the Atonement for myself as my only goal... Let not grievances obscure the destiny of love's completing itself through our forgiveness today ... We are the One and we are love...