Saturday, May 5, 2007

Lesson 126:
All that I give is given to myself…
You know, the more we accept and participate with the Holy Spirit’s guidance and the Course’s theosophy and practice, the more this idea realizes itself in our lives. The old thing about what goes around come around, becomes less about the actions taken, or the things given or received, or even attitudes given and received… (although, these are critical observations and forgiveness opportunities).
What began to unravel for me, intrinsic within these forgiveness structures, and rising to the surface of my mind, as it stilled and cleared, was the witness to who I think I am and what I want to be. Every person, situation, circumstance and encounter, started to have my face on it, so to speak.
~How I saw you, I noticed unreservedly, literally reflected my state of mind… When I identified myself as: body-girl, player in the so-called world at large, I felt literally out of touch with myself. No wonder I felt powerless, and that I had to add something or hide something or get something; that something ~more and/or better-than was needed. Interspersed within this perpspective, is the whole idea that someone must lose. Duh! The loss of Self, the sacrifice of love for fear, eternity for time, oneness for specialness… And of course, every situation and person reflected this sense of ‘some one must lose for someone to gain’…
The miracle was, I began to not have to ‘do’ anything about it; fix it, get myself right… Because I was developing the habit of engaging the Holy Spirit regularly, and specifically when the way I felt wasn’t bringing me peace, I saw that I wasn’t at peace because I had misidentified myself.
One thing about this ego-body: it takes to forming and maintaining habits, yes? (Finally, there was a way to utilize these mechanics for something other than destruction, which seemed to be the twisted gear in my old plan.)
The Holy Spirit takes what I give and shows me what it’s meaning is for all ( in other words, how you are me). Through the gentle prompting of the Holy Spirit, I began to also recognize my Self-identity in God, behind the attitudes that flavored the seeming various days of my so-called life.
Christ seems to be reflected everywhere, in everyone. No one can lose ~ every ONE is… the circle of Atonement is in effect and everyone is giving and receiving as one… calling for love~ extending love ~ calling ~ extending ~loving… all under the watchful eyes of Christ in which we share our sight… God’s plan for salvation is contingent (to us) on the reconciliation of the idea we hold in our minds today: All that I give is given to myself…Through this thought reversal aspect that the Course’s curriculum brings about, and we begin to experience its effects in everything we see reflected in the world.
It comes naturally into the mind as it releases the idea of getting, allowing being and having a to occupy their rightful place in the mind…
It is a crucial step to begin understanding what a major idol, addiction and plain undercover/covert operation the ‘idea of special ness’ is. It weaves its promising threads into every possible nuance of our so-called lives, because it is the idea from which this life was made… its reversal is this thought: “All that I give is given to myself. The Help I need to learn that this is true is with me now. And I will trust in Him…”
I love you forever an ever as One ~

Friday, May 4, 2007

Lesson 125:
In quiet I receive God’s Word today…
Stillness is a directive of truth. It is really a natural state, yet not always so easy to allow, yes?
It is a present moment experience where time collapses and all definition and distinction disappear. What is left is a quiet recognition of timeless love… eternity in an instant… complete without thought of what ‘another moment’ will bring.
It is an experience of complete undefined joy. It makes no requests and can’t be planned for…
The mind stills and the ego’s directive with its big ‘to do list’ insisting urgency to mobilize the body troops and defend its perimeters sheds itself like the clothing of the time/space cosmos shrouding my Self, that it is ~
Emerging in the naked light is the truth, “I am Spirit, all in all, as God created”… This is the word of God, received in quiet…
I have been one who believed that there was something magically spiritual, woven into the practice and art of meditation. I believed if you got the formula right, something clicked and voila, enlightenment.
Needless to say, I was sorely disappointed form that point of reference; always burdened with the great ‘to do list’ of life to be lived and managed by me. Even as I got reasonably ‘good’ at quieting my mind and resting in still refrain, I felt insecure about listening for the voice for God, disadvantaged by time constraints of any given day or period of meditation allotment. I didn’t have a feeling of consistency that moved me from a state of action-less quiet into and action-required day… What did motivate the shift in states was generally some idea like “Hey girl, got things to do, places to go, people to see ~ better get moving ~ got a life to manage here…” Like what was going to happen? The world would disappear? I would? Mes oui…
At some point I realized that yes, this was some irrational (or not) belief of mine; that if I wasn’t constantly putting my signature on everything I could in this world, marking my territory, so to speak, that I would easily be forgotten, and perhaps erased…
What it took along time to allow to dawn in my mind, was the construct which strung all these irrational thoughts and important actions together… TIME AND SPACE!
From where I was looking at it, this so-called life of mine was real, even though I felt I was beginning to realize its illusory nature, I was reinforcing its reality within my mind by the hierarchy of values which I lived my life from, much of which were in constant conflict. Like for instance, this exact idea I am addressing here. I had this belief that quiet meditation was imperative to enlightenment and that it was in this state that I had a chance to hear the voice for God ~ big value~ yes? But then I couldn’t just sit there all day and night and … and wait… could I? Wait till my wiliness to hear was single? I couldn’t just sit still listening for the rest of life … could I? No! ~Where being quiet was concerned, the belief in time was always on my back.
I don’t know in a way I can put into words, but in showing up anyway, somewhere, somehow, a new perception,(the real truth of my moment) revealed itself to me… Here it is:
There is no place else I want to be. ~I want only to be in the Mind of God… There is nothing else to know but my identity in Him. There really isn’t any place to go, nothing to do or mark as my territory. Spirit is the never-ending territory of the Son of God, initialized by God.
Who cares if the world I manage looses its stature? So what if I dissolve and disappear into no-thing-ness?
The Holy Spirit delivered the goods promised by way of forgiveness… Joy began to accompany me into the day, coming out of meditation, instead of plans and schedules to keep. Somehow, knowing the peace of God, became single-minded~ its message became clear: “What time but Now can the truth be known? There is no other time… Now is the only time there is… All truth is here, now.”
What purpose now could there be except the one this moment assigns? It is in this present moment that the recognition that giving and receiving are the same, dawns. Forgiveness is revealed as the minister of sanity unto the mind… The one perspective reveals itself as the meaning of the world and every act and thought becomes one with we give to complete the circle of love-extending-love receiving / love calling-love answering.
As we sit in quiet for a very deep moment, let us allow it to be the only moment… till we feel, arising out of this quiet, the One Perspective which shows our relationship with our Father and His One Holy Son in us… We are as God created us... Listen and we will hear His Word in the memory of Him…
~All glory to God~

Thursday, May 3, 2007

Lesson 124:
Let me remember I am one with God…
Who we are, is unaffected by what we think we are and what we believe about ourselves. The world around us, however, is the direct result of these thoughts.
The the fundamental law of perception is: “We see what we believe is there, and we believe it there because we want it there”… or another way the Course puts it is… “You will rejoice at what you see because you see it to rejoice.”
God’s basic law is: Love creates itself, and nothing but itself.
The miracle is the shift in perception that allows us to see the reflection of God’s law reflected everywhere. It doesn’t change the base unreality of the world we see, because we believe in its reality. That belief in it’s reality, coupled with the fact that it is Creatively impossible for us to separate entirely from our Creator, comes the apparent mechanism of choosing. Perception rests on choosing, where the knowledge of God does not. As long as we believe we perceive, we have choice.
Ultimately we have but one choice within this life of perception. That choice is always based from what we believe we are; always aligning with the guidance from the voice that speaks to the experience of our oneness with God (Holy Spirit part of Mind) or the old familiar lonely drone of chaos; specialnes -other-ness – separate interests...
This lesson is the practice of ‘turning our mind’ to God, o n l y… Which is to say, turning to creation and to truth. The return of mind to the memory of God depends on our forgiveness of everyone and every situation, event or circumstance. What we forgive becomes a part of how we see ourselves, our united oneness with each other as well as the Oneness with our Creator.
We are free, but the recognition of our freedom comes through our willingness to allow the memory of God and our oneness in Him to return to our mind…
Let me remember I am one with God, at one with all my brothers and my Self, in everlasting holiness and peace…
We do this turning our mind to God, through accepting the Atonement for our Self; forgiving every thought and projection that came from our separation belief. We then allow a new and forgiven perception of oneness to be unveiled, and the shining face of Christ reflected in the mirror of our re-identification with Who we are, at one with God…
Forgiveness teaches us to let God’s memory return to us, and give it to the world in thankfulness… It is this systematic re- tuning and re turning that stabilizes the foundation of our faith, and amplifies our trust.
We simply suit up and show up to our function in God’s plan for salvation and thus receive as we give, our eternal happiness, returned forever to the Mind we share as One, the Mind that is ONE with God…
Let this be the day… that together we mirror and view the reflection of our everlasting holiness and peace inherent in our identity as Christ the Holy son of God, united on the oneness that is the truth…

Wednesday, May 2, 2007

Lesson 123;
I thank my Father for His gifts to me…
Please join me in prayer:
“I thank you, Father that you are in my mind always. You have called and I have answered. You heard my call for love and answered me.
Thank You for Your Holy Spirit who speaks the language of specifics, I'm so accustomed to, and answers as well for You, your will, that I see the truth behind illusions for as long as I have need to hear your call~ for as long I think I have need for forgiving dreams, and You have a function for me to fulfill within your plan for salvation.
Thank you, Father for saving me for my Self, Your holy Son, united with all my brothers and at one with You… That my forgetfulness cannot alter the Truth in any way, nor mess with Your perfect plan, already delivered and received, without the limits imposed by the belief in the time/space constructs….
Peace is forever, now… Though it seems I’ve tried, I can’t forget…
~My so-called days are but the allegory play-out of a present, state of Heaven with You, expressed as Your plan for salvation of the world~
Each day when I wake, You are my first thought… and all my thoughts are in-signature-d with Your love… Every nuance reflects Your glory. With each shift of tide; the bold and the beautiful, I see You shining in my mind reflecting the Love, so vital to the seeming situation, so as to completely overhaul of ‘life events’. This renovation makes the world, once peopled by the constructs of fear and separation, and wearing the label of ‘enemy’ or ‘special love’, reveal itself now shining in Your light, as the face of Christ… Thank you for the One perspective ‘above the battleground’ that unites in purpose~ the detached perspective as the dreamer who is at home with You, my Father, right here, right now…
The world looks lovely now… with the waves and shadings and alterations which characterize the daily atmospheric subsistence ~ Mind healing the belief in ‘ the cosmos of mistaken identity’.
Thank You, Father, that You shine on and through me all throughout the day. Every minute is the blessing of eternity I spend with You, and I give thanks that I have allowed so many of these moments, and for the honor and dignity intrinsic in the Holy Instant ~ So honest, I fact, is the holy instant, that there is nowhere else now, that I can call Home…
I thank You, Father, that you have never left my mind, although I sought to make another self, You forgot me not, and not a single beat was skipped within the ONE Heart of creation You share with me, and which I in turn, share whole-heartedly with my brothers, who are one with me…
Your love has remained constant... All the while I dreamed the dream of insanity: mad and silly…nothing changed our love.
Thank You that Your voice has remained steady as it always did, even when I refused to listen and mistook it for some kind of buzzing in my mind from which to run away… till as a matter of course, the bussing /ringing became, for me, a sort of tuning device to pass through into a meditative state in Your Big Belly of Peace…
Thank You, my Father, for your gentle waking, which alone brought the sharp, stinging poignancy born of contrast so acute it could not be missed.
The call of love itself, deep with in my soul eased and satiated, even as I hungered to find it where it could not be found, outside myself…
Thank you for your Holy Spirit ‘s revealing the fallacy delivered by the dream: The hope of happiness in place of happiness, and the dreadful disappointment of the cheap, short-lived jollies <> This contrast: the insatiable hunger dealt by the disillusionment of false happiness to the alluring presence of the longing for You, was a lingering presence within my mind…until, Your presence filled all the empty spaces of my mind and seeming world with Your light… Illuminating where the mystery shadows of my unbelief lay hidden from my Self... abundant gratitude bathes in Your acknowledgement of our Holy Relationship of the Father and His Son… ~Amen”
Thank you for joining me in a prayer of gratitude today. Let all our moments, today, be the moment when the melody that sings the Glory of God through us, soundtracks our mind and seeming daily experiences…. Eternal gratitude recycled again and again…

Tuesday, May 1, 2007

Lesson 122:

Forgiveness offers everything I want…

What is it we want? That’s the $24 dollar question driving this world of pretend meaning, yes?

Behind and within the compulsive need for ‘more’, we’ve really only wanted one thing: imperturbable joy and peace. Is this not accurate? Is it so much to ask? Is it a worthiness issue that we feel we have to settle for the trappings? Haven’t we felt we had a right to peace, a right to be happy, someplace deep inside where no one can argue the point? As we look inside with the light forgiveness brings, we find this to be so.

So, it turns out that what we have been searching for remains undisturbed where God placed it; the safest place in life, within our Mind~ the One Mind of God’s Son…

If you’ve felt you just couldn’t put your finger on precisely what it is, If you’ve been looking for a definition to really flesh out the essence we’re talking about, here we have it, in this lesson… “Peace… happiness… a quiet mind… a certainty of purpose… a sense of worth and beauty that transcends the world… care and safety… the warmth of sure protection always… a quietness that cannot be disturbed… a gentleness that never can be hurt… a deep, abiding comfort… and a rest so perfect it can never be upset”…

We have as well the mechanism for attaining it: Forgive and be forgiven… As you give you will receive… This lesson details out so beautifully, the perfect expression of the healed perspective. I love reviewing it and basking in the essence of reality it points to… “There is no plan but this for the salvation of the Son of God… Let us today rejoice that this is so, for here we have an answer, clear and plain, beyond deceit in its simplicity… the answer that will answer everything… Here is the perfect answer, given to imperfect questions, meaningless requests, halfhearted willingness to hear, and less than halfway diligence and partial trust… All the complexities the world has spun of fragile cobwebs disappear before the power and the majesty of this extremely simple statement of the truth… Forgiveness lets the veil be lifted up that hides the face of Christ from those who look with unforgiving eyes upon the world… It lets you recognize the Son of God, and clears your memory of all dead thoughts so that remembrance of your Father can arise across the threshold of your mind… Changelessly it stands before you like an open door, with warmth and welcome calling from beyond the doorway, bidding you to enter in and make yourself at home, where you belong… Forgiveness is the means by which our eyes today, look upon a happy world of safety and of peace... In quietness it rises up to greet your open eyes, and fill your heart with deep tranquility as ancient truths, forever newly born, arise in your awareness”…

Forgiveness is the key to happiness and the door is open, Now…

Today could be the day, you know, this moment, Now… We could let it happen for us…All of us …

“Sink into happiness as you begin these practice periods, for they hold out the sure rewards of questions answered and what your acceptance of the answer brings. Today it will be given you to feel the peace forgiveness offers, and the joy the lifting of the veil holds out to you”… You can feel that, yes? Isn’t that something… Can this be the day?

Just like that, within the twinkling of an eye, agree no longer with this the game of make-believe. It never delivered on its promises of happiness and safety and certainty and imperturbability and peace… See past all the pretenses of the past that form-all- ize this world of time and space and simply allow NOW to reveal a new perception: the One perspective that unites us in truth… Simply forgive and it is done… What has never happened cannot be as hard to forgive as we make it out to be. Fact!

What I realized is that what makes something ‘difficult’ to forgive, is the attachment I have had to being the author of myself. It is confusion about who I am. Which then sets up hierarchies and orders of reality with values and judgments to be assigned. It’s a big responsibility from that perspective, eh? Daunting really. Only illusion can exhaust, Spirit flows life. We are Spirit. Only spirit enlivens and inspires all life.

And as always, we but only have to look within whatever form the upset seems to take to find that belief in upset resides there… We’re the ones that decide, after all, what we believe, aren’t we? Upsets are limitations placed always within the framework of bodies and body-identified psyches. We are not a body. We are free. For We are as God created us…

I yield in gratitude to forgiveness. It has given me everything I want as, steadily as m willingness to give and receive… This is the instrument given me to do my part and experience the boundless joy of unity, with its permanent, perfect, immediate gifts from God, received by me for merely offering forgiveness and innocence to all.

The love and appreciation I feel is beyond measure and impossible to convey. I can only hope to live as the demonstration of this gratitude and bounty… It’s the simplest thing in the world, and gets easier all the time… The reward is it feels so good and we feel it immediately.

Plus, forgiveness is our path to the return of full memory who we are and Who our Father is. It is literally the lifting of the veil of body images to reveal the Christ, shining the reflection of Self.

Its sort of like when you close your eyes and imagine what indefinable beauty would look like and nothing can really come to you but light, any attempt to put a point of reference to it would seem irreverent… Then you open your eyes, and what you look upon is now defined by that light of beauty, now indelibly within your mind and vision. We are Christ… let’s forgive everything else… and see perfectly God’s plan is in effect and healing our mind as one…

Monday, April 30, 2007

Lesson 121:

Forgiveness is the key to happiness…

Oh my, is it ever… and thank God… This is salvation’s perspective laid along side our own. Here is immediate relief and release from whatever angst we seem to be infected with at any given time.

We are entering into a very active, practical segment of the workbook lessons. Here we are given very specific tools and exercises that open the way for the Holy Spirit to turn our minds around and show us a new perception of everyone and everything. We but bring our willingness… “If you are willing, you can learn today to take the key to happiness, and use it on your own behalf”…

Please join me in practicing today’s exercise:

Begin by thinking of someone you do not like, who seems to irritate you, or to cause regret in you if you should meet him; one you actively despise, or merely try to overlook. It does not matter what the form your anger takes. You probably have chosen him already. He will do…Now close your eyes and see him in your mind, and look at him a while. Try to perceive some light in him somewhere; a little gleam which you had never noticed. Try to find some little spark of brightness shining through the ugly picture that you hold of him. Look at this picture till you see a light somewhere within it, and then try to let this light extend until it covers him, and makes the picture beautiful and good… Look at this changed perception for a while, and turn your mind to one you call a friend. Try to transfer the light you learned to see around your former "enemy" to him. Perceive him now as more than friend to you, for in that light his holiness shows you your savior, saved and saving, healed and whole… Then let him offer you the light you see in him, and let your "enemy" and friend unite in blessing you with what you gave. Now are you one with them, and they with you. Now have you been forgiven by yourself.” …

~Ah, the incredible lightness of being~

This is the holy function these lessons guide us through… Forgiveness is the key to happiness, on whatever level of belief or willingness I may be given to at the time. I witness and experience its effects reflected everywhere, right here, right now.

I’ll tell you what, without the perspective the practice of forgiveness offered and the immediate relief delivered, in the instant of my willingness for it, I can’t imagine how I could have hung-in … till the long term effects began to take hold. By long term, what I mean really, is the memory of what I am, what you are and as the Son of God.

I didn’t do so well with willingness or remembering ‘there is a solution’, for a very long while. I simply didn’t trust.

The ego is the belief it is all-alone, with no one, least of all it’s self, it can trust. This was me. What made it all the more exasperating, was my judgment that I should be further along than I was; remember more, crave immediate satisfaction less…

This too, turned out to be a forgiveness lesson… We forgive what our body’s eyes see by looking past it to the Christ which joins us all as one… Our so-called feelings, the emotions of the body-ego, are included here and seen as what they are ~a call for love, which is answered immediately through the Holy Spirit, the part of our mind that knows love…

One of the big deterrents to this practice, it seems to me, is that we always want to preempt our forgiveness lessons. It seems like whenever I realized, ‘oh, this is a forgiveness lesson’, immediately my mind would make its promises to ‘never let it happen again’. Apparently, looking to, avoid the pain and fear and judgment I experienced while coming to the awareness that it was a forgiveness lesson and not reality at all.

Duh, doesn’t this mean I am worshiping at the alter of fear? ~d e n i a l~

I came to realize that ‘whatever’ the forgiveness lesson, (any angst about you or me or the world at large) simply wasn’t reality. It was but a projection of my belief in the impossible; that something other than what the love of God created could happen to me which I would then need to defend against. It took a while for me to accept that being stuck in my fear of ‘it happening again’, was a perpetuation of the belief that these so-called emotions were real, therefore negating, in my mind, the holy instant of relief engendered by forgiveness. This set up a state where I was hanging-on to the belief in authorship of myself, where perpetual evaluation and avoidance were inevitable… “The strain of constant judgment is virtually intolerable… It is curious that an ability so debilitating would be so deeply cherished. Yet if you wish to be the author of reality, you will insist on holding on to judgment. You will also regard judgment with fear, believing that it will someday be used against you. This belief can exist only to the extent that you believe in the efficacy of judgment as a weapon of defense for your own authority”. (T-3.VI.5.6)

Forgiveness is the key to the reversal of a world of fear to a world of hope to a world of peace in God; what the Course refers to as the Forgiven or ‘real’ world. This makes me think about an exquisite section in the text called The Savior from the Dark (T-25.II.1-3; , as well as the following section "Perception and choice" T-25.III.6)which are a yummy complimentary read for today…

Blessed are we, one Mind, that every one and every situation and event, witness to the reality of Christ through our forgiveness. ~Forgiving just simply feels good! ~

Here we are at the crossroad, where we can see ‘specialness’, the ego’s cheap substitute for oneness, for what it is and we are ready to take the other road. We have made the choice, already. None of us want the burden of judgment and self-righteousness, ‘right-ness as a replacement for happiness”… do we? Why delay? Today let’s forgive and rejoice and be happy!

Sunday, April 29, 2007

Lesson 120:

I rest in God.

I rest in God today, and let Him work in me and through me, while I rest in Him in quiet and in perfect certainty.

I am as God created me.

I am God’s Son. Today I lay aside all sick illusions of myself, and let my Father tell me Who I really am.

I rest in God… ahhhhhhhhhhhhh… sweet eternal rest… God’s love: the perfect identity of Self, unquestioned and unquestionable…

Rest in calm, quiet knowing... in everlasting joy which refreshes and renews in a continual temperate flow of perfect essence in the limitless the pool of vitality and inspiration, the tranquil immersion within the still waters of real meaning…the eternal respite of truth… the soothing reassurance of belonging… the life-everlasting membership within the Holy pool of Heavenly Love…

This is the holiday we take, today. We suspended ‘what seemed to matter or be important’ in our busy catch-up game of life~ and rest; simply, easily into our true rhythm, right here, right now…

Let us feel this holyday of rest in God in our every breath today, in the beating of our hearts as one… I rest in God today, and let Him work in me and through me, while I rest in Him in quiet and in perfect certainty.

It is here we will return again and again until we recognize it is our home and realize at last, it is the place we are and never left in truth…

We share this peace today, and extend its eternal quiet, forever… Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh… So restful it is to be only as God created and release the images of made-up identities, dying on the vine; to soften our eyes and look gently on the feeble, desiccated, used up, chameleon-ized self-concept with its hard work and rules of acquisition, it need for approval and status. We rest in the Self as God created and allow all concepts of the self to fade into the shadow of nothingness from which they came…

NOW, as water-brothers, we drink of the cup of truth: God’s Son is as God created~ and we are His Son…

Truth quenches, forever. This is the Word of God: ‘I am as God created me’. It regenerates and demonstrates the eternal vitality of life~ It fulfills and completes… Oh, how we thirst for it, when we remember not the truth of Who we are… We have accepted miracles in place of programming and the value is inestimable… Where the compulsive attempt to fulfilling desires left only an anorexic shell hollowed out by hunger and thirst, truth at once satisfies and sets free desires…

Our seeming needs, wants, desires were images, among the warehouse of the myriad thoughts and feelings that ebb and flow in mind, characterizing our so-called life in the world; just impressions in the mind… Not real at all…

I’ll tell you what: for this one, experiencing this unperturbed, loving, witnessing without attachment, has been a miracle I could never have comprehended: the experience of what it would be like to not crave and compulsively seek to satisfy? ~I had no prior identification to it~

The miracle showed it to the dreamer of the dream~ that is all; a crack in the armor of self-identity, for the truth to expose itself to me… I notice the waves with in my mind, but somehow the urgency to satisfy it is gone, I no longer feel I need to do anything with it… I rest in God and the world rests in me~ it is within me… I am God's Son. Today I lay aside all sick illusions of myself, and let my Father tell me Who I really am…

We are as God created us and we rest in God; in the still, quiet certainty that all is well and all is One… Thank you for joining me in this eternal holy instant where we bless the world with Who we are…