Saturday, May 26, 2007

Lesson 147:

My mind holds only what I think with God…

Holding this poignant truth as a core constant to background the events of our days eases the strategic mind up a bit. Wouldn’t you agree? It introduces patience with others, and ourselves, that all is somehow going as planned, on a level beyond our ability in this world to muster, but certainly within our ability to accept. N’est pas? And does it not seem less complicated, not to have to ‘be in charge’ of something completely out of the ego’s league?

We come empty handed unto truth. Sure, we brings with us the illusions that had promised us happiness, our heads full of programs to project on to a screen of nothingness to ‘materialize’ a solid world where special interest’s reign. Our body’s eyes see only those projections, and we choose amongst them which ones we like and which ones we judge unworthy and a threat. Our body’s ears hear only broken language with interpretations to numerous to be singly reliable. And we bring our brother, and all that we have made him represent for us, to make this illusion of attack and defense real enough in time to displace the relentless, perpetual guilt always nipping at our heels… Let me perceive forgiveness as it is… These gifts we bring because we believed the impossible could happen and illusion could take the place of truth.

This, whatever we have made of ourselves, whatever we believed about reality, is the best we have to offer; all this little king of this little kingdom has to give. And we give it all, bringing it before the mighty justice of truth for reinterpretation and reinstruction…

Yet, we come with empty hands because we come with the willingness to be wrong about our version of reality. Here is our reconnection with the truth about our Self. We have recognized we do not know and have become willing to be taught… and we learn a new meaning: that everyone and every situation and circumstance and event is awaiting our reception through the means, forgiveness, at our disposal. And what’s more, we are beginning to understand that forgiveness is the only mode we want because we see now that it is the only thing that keeps beat to happiness, joy and peace within this world.

Our values change naturally as a matter of course, revealing the valueless nature of anything that can’t be shared with all, always… I will not value what is valueless…

Isn’t this settling in period with the Course instruction, just such a yummy, comforting time? We have simplified intoto the critical aspect for the reversal of our thinking from fear to love, from otherness to togetherness and the inside job has become the eternal job of unity. Thank you for joining where joining is possible…

Friday, May 25, 2007

Lesson 146:

My mind holds only what I think with God…

No one can fail who seeks to reach the truth…

I loose the world from all I thought I was…

The truth is closer than any other thought we ever had. It is the only thing that is true… The truth just is. ~ All other thoughts are, by designation, already once removed from reality. So in actuality, they would, as a matter of course, be something that would need to be sought and found.

We are the milieu God entrusted be the home of truth. We are the intact holographic entirety. The belief in private minds/thoughts and personal bodies evidences a world where truth is relative to circumstance and reality is for the individual to decide upon for himself according to perceived needs and desires. Relentlessly changing, it pictures a world of tiny split off segments of linear time and proximity closeness; one person amongst the scores of persons, levying for the ‘best (or worst) position’ in life.

I loose the world from all I thought I was… pronounces that perhaps this world or situation, person or myself is not so precisely like I seem to think… perhaps I have been wrong… It says YES. I would like another way of looking at the world and myself…

The truth of what I am always speaks to me from the center of my being; the stable, still, essence of un-refuted love. I hear the voice for God by my willingness to hear only truth and value nothing else… It is love’s single choice. And simply the only one for me anymore… Peace is simply the state of being value that underlies my seeming choices in this so-called life. It’s all I really care about so I really don’t favor one trapping over another, what goes down or why~

I want only to be present~ fully in love with you, NOW! What importance do ‘the details of story and the story-telling matter to me, save it be the means by which we, by way of our unanimity; the Holy Spirit: our correction connection, on behalf of forgiveness’s purpose, join in this world to answer love’s call and expand love’s awareness in the One mind of God’s Son.

You are my holy self; your stories are my own, your heartaches and triumphs, your dashed dreams and forgotten promises… they are my joy to love today. It matters not to me the nuances, specifics, their original meaning or reason for the firm grasp they seem to have on you. I see only my Self. I receive them all equally, that I might forgive myself along with you and see the holy face of Christ we share, shining in your eyes, reflecting love’s truth within…

Truth rushes in NOW, being the moment when forgiven differences transformed to sameness, take the place of orders of reality and relative ‘truths’. We’re in this together; your healing is mine and mine, yours, for we truly are one. Our healing reflects the thoughts we think with God; loosing the world from all we thought it was, till the full return of mind; where loves awareness of the presence of truth has been completed.

We can not fail…If we want it…it is ours… Being all that is true, we never really lost it in the first place… Our values just changed and with it what seemed present in the mind. The exchange set of values: judgment and orders of reality was merely a temporary state of restlessly dreaming the unreal.

Let’s not buy into its seduction of our minds another day… The past is gone and with it all pain and suffering, scarcity and loss ~We are not alone and frightened in a big bad world of vicious characters that aim to maim and kill. We are at home in God, merely dreaming of exile, awakening gently to the tranquil, steady, reassuring, loving Voice for God bringing us back to present… Our Mind holds only what we think with God…

Thursday, May 24, 2007

Lesson 145:

My mind holds only what I think with God…

It is impossible to see two worlds…

In this world we have really but one choice~ to view the world through the warped and distorted lens of the ego which dreams itself solid every day as we awake… Here we have the same old dirge of disappointments, betrayals, and false hopes…. Beyond this world is a world I want ~We can, however, accept the correction for this distortion; a corrected prescription, if you will, and see with the vision of the Holy Spirit. One shows separate, competing elements sometimes twisted together to resemble relationships. The other shows the interconnectedness and perfectly harmonic unity of all elements unified in one purpose of love.

This foundation is so crucial to accept in order to have the necessary objectivity to allow all forgiveness lessons to be seen as what they are, so correction can take place. We personally, just won’t forgive!

Forgiveness by definition sees no differences. It can’t be personal. This is what heals. As long as there is a personal agenda, we are in the wrong mind. The right mind sees that all must gain because all is one. It doesn’t care what the circumstances look like. Unity through love is its only goal. There is no compromise possible between the impossible and the true. Here’s the thing though, we don’t, and can’t actually, have the big picture while our beliefs in time and space remain; while the unlearning of all we taught ourselves, the undoing of the thought system of misperception is being healed and corrected.

The agent for God, the Answer, the Teacher; the corrected lens ~Holy Spirit has the ‘big picture’ covered. So we can lean back and bring our petty or monstrous little problems and misperceptions to Him and He’ll mix it up in the whole batch of Atonement and take care of every single element and aspect with perfect unified precision. Just this willingness to change lenses, to be vigilant for truth to be returned to full remembrance, is all that’s required of us… not a bad gig… not bad at all…

It’s not like we’re looking for a completely unknown answer after all, is it? We’re no longer wholly insane… The realization, that in truth, our mind holds only what we think with God has found its footing and is firmly established deep with our mind now.

It has a pull like the earth’s core, drawing us ever inward when we get out too far, yes? If it feels frustrating at times and we seem to lose our way, the realization that this is just a forgiveness lesson is always close at hand… There is a deep peace that comes with allowing certainty to replace hypothetical theories about ‘how things should be’, and allow all things to be exactly as they are…

I am joined with you in our common purpose. Our faith is in the inevitable return to whole-mind. ~With deepest gratitude ~

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Lesson 144:

My mind holds only what I think with God…

There is no love but God’s…

The world I see holds nothing that I want…

I love the quiet peaceful presence of love experienced by sinking deep into the mind; that yummy awareness of being always, already in presence with God. His presence is the way I experience my Self, without which, nothing would be happening…

It seems so obvious from this premise. The mind with God premise; when the mind quiets. When the intent is only truth and experience and being merge leaving the rhetorical thinking of the strategic mind no hamster wheel for which to exercises its puny legs. It therefore passes by without even landing. It seems it ceases, but I see now, it never really happened. The strategic mind, born of the desire to believe the ego’s promise of ‘personal omnipotence’, finds no resting place in the mind whose one desire is to know it Self.

I tried for years to ‘let go’ of the thoughts I thought that were not of God. I tried to rid myself of all thoughts, so the thoughts of God could make themselves apparent to me. It was a lot of work. Sometimes I felt I was succeeding but there were always doubts.

~And then, in a blinding instant of recognition, I saw that the “I” that was doing the trying, came from place rooted in believing that the false was true. I was trying to move beyond my identification with this world of separate interests through the very means, which kept it firmly in place. Here’s the thing, the miracle was awaiting my acceptance of another way the instant I wanted it truly. When I did, I realized I (via little ‘I’) had never wholly desired the truth before.

Oh, I wanted to want it, begged and pleaded and made promises~ that kind of wanting it. But I simply never want only truth to be. Then, I did. ~Holy instant~

The miracle brought with it the realization that only the mind that thinks with God, (the Holy Spirit/right-mind), could bring the dawning of sight. That sight or vision reinterprets all I had refused to see in the world before (due to my desire to see what I believed, instead).

Healed perception, it turns out, is the eternal instant. It is the instant of recognition; NOW, “I” know nothing, yet, simultaneously, I am everything. This is the vision the Holy Spirit offers, always at the ready, when our desire returns to love.

My efforts naturally took on a different modality; irreversible. It switched from one of trying to do something, to one of noticing this habit of trying (along with all similar thinking habits of the strategic personal mind) and allowing the Holy Spirit to give meaning, instead.

A sweet aspect of becoming this sort of observer of my strategic mind came the pleasant side effect that the compulsion to ‘do as it said’ was diminished. It is, after all, only the mindless fixation of the restless soul that keeps its effectiveness in place.

Now it is simply a dream to choose to dream or not to dream. The ‘fix’ nature of this kind of dreaming can only work if the dreamer believes he is the dream. Once seen as the ‘responsible party’ for the dream, a deliberate choice must be made on the part of the thinker/dreamer. My experience tells me that all attraction to the trappings of the dream holds no value to the Self that no longer identifies itself in the dream.

The Course reminds us: “I am responsible for what l see. I choose the feelings I experience, and I decide upon the goal I would achieve. And everything that seems to happen to me I ask for, and receive as I have ask.” (T-12.II.3)

When my desire is to see only the thoughts I think with God out-pictured in the world, Love’s presence is felt undeniably. All witness to the dream before the dream of forgiveness took its place, is easily passed over because true value is experienced instead. Everyone becomes the holy messenger of: “there is no love but God’s”. It is all we are, and all we want to behold.

Here is a passage from ‘The Song of Prayer’ that feels like an appropriate note to sign off with:

“What God created one must recognize its oneness, and rejoice that what illusions seemed to separate is one forever in the Mind of God. Pray mow must be the means by which god’s Son leaves separate goals and separate interests by, and turn in holy gladness to the truth of union of his Father and himself… Lay down your dreams, you holy Son of God, and rising up as God created you, dispense with idols and remember Him. Prayer will sustain you now, and bless you as you lift your heart to Him in rising song that reaches higher and then higher still, until both high and low have disappeared. Faith in your goal will grow and hold you up as you ascent the shining stairway to the lawns of Heaven and the gate of peace. For this is prayer, and here salvation is. This is the way. It is God’s gift to you”. (SP-2-3)

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Lesson 143:

My mind holds only what I think with God…

Nothing real can be threatened; nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God…

In quiet I receive God’s Word today… I am as God created me. This is the holy word of God upon which one can always rely. It never changes and it never goes away. We can deny it all I want and pretend we’re characters in a dream of separation, scarcity and despair. But at the end of the screaming of orders and judgments and false ideas of happiness that never satisfy, still and ever-present (like the eye of the storm), resides the quite honesty that all is well; wholly undisturbed, awaiting our return to Mind.

I am Here, Now ~my being cannot be questioned, for it is only the existence of my being that can even ask the question, which refutes it immediately…

All that I give is given to myself… You are the screen on which I see myself, given me by God as brothers to reflect His love and to complete loves purpose through appreciation… I want to give you every chance to make the mistakes that are yours to make, the plans that are yours to plan, the relationships you feel you need… They are for me. Complete acceptance of everyone and everything, exactly as it is, is the only chance I have of experiencing the gift of God within each one, recognizing it as my own.

There is never a reasonable justification for arguing with what seems to be, regardless if it be my interpretation or yours. “Nothing real can be threatened; nothing unreal exists”. No errors have been left uncorrected through the Atonement… Forgiveness is the means by which to see love’s purpose shining behind the props and attachments and addictive methodology of this world, made to cover over loves awareness…

One instant of whole desire for the truth, and the memory of God floods my sight with the vision of Christ and everywhere I look, I see only this reflected, smiling back at me. This is the happy dream; where worries cease, regrets undone and forgiven, are wholly eclipsed by the fullness of NOW…

So satisfying is the present moment that no one is outside my thoughts, for our oneness supersedes any idea of special ness…

This is the gift I wish to give today: the peace of God that passeth understanding, the joy that know no limits, the holy unity of creation and Creator. … All that I give is given to myself… “The forgiven are the means of the Atonement. Being filled with spirit, they forgive in return. Those who are released must join in releasing their brothers, for this is the plan of the Atonement. Miracles are the way in which minds that serve the Holy Spirit unite with me for the salvation or release of all of God's creations… It sees no past in anyone at all. And thus it serves a wholly open mind, unclouded by old concepts, and prepared to look on only what the present holds. It cannot judge because it does not know. And recognizing this, it merely asks, "What is the meaning of what I behold?" Then is the answer given. And the door held open for the face of Christ to shine upon the one who asks, in innocence, to see beyond the veil of old ideas and ancient concepts held so long and dear against the vision of the Christ in you… Choose once again if you would take your place among the saviors of the world, or would remain in hell, and hold your brothers there… I thank You, Father, for these holy ones who are my brothers as they are Your Sons. My faith in them is Yours. I am as sure that they will come to me as You are sure of what they are, and will forever be. They will accept the gift I offer them, because You gave it me on their behalf. And as I would but do Your holy Will, so will they choose. And I give thanks for them. Salvation's song will echo through the world with every choice they make. For we are one in purpose, and the end of hell is near”. (T-1.III.3; T-31.VII.13; T-31.VIII.5; T-31.VIII.10)

Let the steady beating of the rhythm of j0y pulse the heart symphony of our lives today. Let us feel the joy of ever present stillness at the center of our being. Today, time is used for the return to timelessness~ NOW…

Gratitude and peace abound ~

Monday, May 21, 2007

Lesson 142:

My mind holds only what I think with God…

I thank my Father for His gifts to me…

Let me remember I am one with God...

The simple methodology the Course sets forth in this review is designed to allow for the free-flowing nature of our ‘real’ thoughts ~love thoughts, to main the happy exchange of itself through us.

My Mind, which is the mind that thinks with God, has one purpose in this world. I accept the Atonement. Through forgiveness of the thoughts that block loves awareness, love expands mind in holy gratitude for everyone and all situations, which now become a reflection of our unity and wholeness. What other possible response could one make of a brother, when one sees their own salvation shining in this brother’s forgiving eyes, once we cease to make of him a weapon for destruction, and find appreciation instead?

Appreciation brings with it the memory of the ancient truth, the memory of Creator and His creation as One…

Once we dedicate our willingness to (know nothing by way of the ego thought system) but allow any tiny instant be available for the Holy Spirit’s interpretation, we can readily see the inclusive nature of the world when gratitude and peace are present in awareness.

On the other hand, the slightest un-forgiveness renders one prisoner to aloneness. However, this state can now be recognized as false, and the need for correction is recognized.

At this stage of our healing, we are no longer wholly insane. When we experience of a lack of peace, it is an instant recognition that a call for love and healing is present… An overlay of ego images to distort the eternal light of Christ has been allowed into our field vision, yet the remedy is quick and painless.

We loose the mind of all it thought it was, letting those images float off like tiny bubbles till only the still peace of God rest certainly in mind. This instant, we know the wholeness of our eternal oneness with God. We are magnetized by the power of the truth beneath the surface mind which we now easily slip past to the well of joy, present and always.

The defense of getting and the perpetuation that someone must loose makes forgiveness impossible.

Unity is our Father’s gift to us, and when we remember first to rest within the mind we share with God, ours decisions and actions follow suit, for our behavior always follows the dictates of what we believe we are. The miracle corrects our unbelief in our holiness allowing for our behavior to now reflect the gifts we have received, as we answer to the ever-increasing desire to give all to all. This reflection of our natural oneness with each other rests certainly in our mind as the memory that we are one with God, where we rest forever in peace.

Here is our home now, while the business of forgiving the world we made, passes, screen by screen, to be reviewed with the Holy Spirit, reinterpreted for healing within the whole of God’s plan for salvation. Then on to the next… There’s nothing personal about it.

The personal is seen as the character worthy of a unified life within the whole… nothing is lost and everything is gained, toward the full remembrance of God and our One Self in Him.

~We set our day along the pathways of the thoughts we think with God, as we begin this day and each hour, re-member-ing as the urge for forgiveness prompts~ We can rest surely that this day is one of salvation and wholeness and peace…

Sunday, May 20, 2007

REVIEW IV: (introduction) My mind holds only what I think with God…

Lesson 141: (121: forgiveness is the key to happiness. 122: Forgiveness offers everything I want)

My mind holds only what I think with God…

This statement reflects creation; what we are and where we came from. It is the foundation by which we embark on the next wave of awakening via the ACIM lesson curriculum.

This is the ultimate truth: “My mind holds only what I think with God”. Nothing apart from God exists. So this is the vital identity, essential to accept without reservation, for even one pure instant.

Unmitigated acceptance of this fact, once accomplished, completely reinterprets all meaning we have given to the thoughts about our lives, until now. Holding this pure thought separates the false from the true, and aligns the mind in such a way that what is false can easily be seen and the remedy of forgiveness desired. A simple bringing of illusions to the light of truth.

We are the thought God thinks constantly: His Holy Son, the happiness and contentment of His creation. Here, emboldened in this thought, we see what there is to love… It is from this original and holy premise that all the lesson we now review make sense…

The irresistible sanctity and promise of their implementation in our lives cracks the code of the ego’s addictive death-thought pathways, breathing life into our habitual thinking patterns; sweeping out the cobwebs of decay, making way for the pathways of our innocence and sinlessness to flow freely. The thoughts we think with God, now become our present pathways. They are not dependent on the tiny biophysical mechanics of the ego-world design. Ours is the premise of truth which the perspective of our so-called lives can now flow along, through forgiveness channels, instead of hate… revealing truth’s pathways of our will and God’s, which is l o v e !

The healthy heart of love pumps life possibilities of what the ‘new world’ will look like to the eyes that have been given sight to see. It is all so fresh and exciting… oui?

The vision of Christ unites rather than separates; showing all things lit brilliantly with the light of the sight from this holy premise. It reflects simply, the thought system that arises from knowledge, the mind we think with God. All grievances become a call for healing, love and union. The Course states: “Forgiveness is a necessary correction for all the mistakes that we have made. To offer forgiveness is the only way for us to have it, for it reflects the law of Heaven that giving and receiving are the some. Heaven is the natural state of all the Sons of God as He created them. Such is their reality forever. It has not changed because it has been forgotten… Forgiveness is the means by which we will remember. Through forgiveness the thinking of the world is reversed. The forgiven world becomes the gate of Heaven, because by its mercy we can at last for give ourselves. Holding no one prisoner to guilt, we become free. Acknowledging Christ in all our brothers, we recognize His presence in ourselves…”

It makes such simple sense~ all the sense in the world actually, seen from this perspective: Forgiveness is the key to happiness…

Forgiveness is now the answer to every question, the questioning of every former answer we ever thought we knew. It is the means and the end. It is the very call to mind that each ‘uncomfortable situation’ must be a forgiveness lesson, brings a sense of relief at the least and an overwhelming peace of mind at best. It blesses the mind with peaceful cohesion. What more could we want? Turns out… forgiveness offers everything we want…

In the text of the review, Jesus gives our proviso: My mind holds only what I think with God”. He asks that we give but five minutes: “Five minutes with this thought will be enough to set the day along the lines which God appointed, and to place His Mind in charge of all the thoughts you will receive that day.”

So little for so much… I am humbly joined with you in our devotion to fully recognizing our whole mind ~ the mind that thinks only with God and therefore each other as one… My heart swells with the magnitude of God within our minds as one … Thank you forever and ever…