Saturday, July 7, 2007

Lesson 189:

I feel the Love of God within me now…

This is not a conceptualization exercise. Can we even begin to articulate in mind the magnitude of this statement? No, I think not. We are left impotent before it… But surrender ourselves to its meaning, and we are enveloped in a reality so grand and magnificent that we imbue ourselves as it holiness itself…

This is the experience we have been searching for, which we experience only as we let go the search; and everything else as well. It is Here, Now, the Love of God, which is our Self…

We simply do this:

Be still, and lay aside all thoughts of what we are and what God is; all concepts we have learned about the world; all images we hold about ourselves… and empty our mind of everything it thinks is either true or false, or good or bad, of every thought it judges worth, and all the ideas of which it is ashamed. Holding onto nothing, we do not bring with us one thought the past has taught, nor one belief we ever learned from anything. No; we forget this world, forget the course, and come with wholly empty hands unto our God…

You know, I have visited this workbook lesson many times. And it is the tendency of this one; I call Danét, to make things harder than they really are; try so hard as to loose the experience altogether, so caught up in my selfish identity of ‘trying-really-hard’. It was only when my ’trying’ exhausted and choked me, that I came to realize what this lesson is pointing to: I can not do what only God can do for me. Now amount of me-ness can replace or fulfill what is my Self beyond.

By mere exasperation from my effort-ing (resisting), I surrendered absolutely. And instantly my defeated ness was swallowed up by a certainty of being, a Love so complete, as within it I would know my Self…

Here’s what I learned. We cannot bring truth to illusion, no matter how sincere our desires. The mere choosing of this option is the choice to have illusion reign… A thought cannot exceed its foundation. But make the choice for only truth; meaning to die to all seeming existence as we have experienced it up this instant, empty of agenda or concept, and BINGO~ truth, the Love of God Shining in us Now, ~finds us…

Free of thinking, and feeling into this prayer, please join me…

Father, we do not know the way to You. But we have called, and You have answered us. We will not interfere. Salvation’s ways are not our own, for they belong to You. And it is unto You we look for them. Our hands are open to receive Your gifts. We have no thoughts we think apart from You, and cherish no beliefs of what we are or Who created us. Yours is the way that we would find and follow. And we ask but that Your Will, which is our own as well, be done in us and in the world, that it become a part of Heaven now. Amen.

Friday, July 6, 2007

Lesson 188:

The peace of God is shining in me now…

I thought today, I’d invite us to join together in the practice suggested by the lesson. The peace of God is that still point of light within our mind from which the entirety of the so-called world we seem to see, unfolds. This is what I often refer to as the zero-point, the light of all possibility, awaiting designation… It is the place where the peace of God is shining, now. It is critical to our purpose here to return home to this place and to become indelibly intimate with our Self here…now…

At this stage of the lessons we are no longer busting through the heavy defense structure of the ego so much as accepting it as merely what it is, a set of false ideas about who we are, design to deny the truth. We are now in the process of looking honestly upon the truth within, which cannot be seen using the old beliefs and technologies of the ego belief structure. We have let ourselves take a good look at the thinking we had about ourselves and the world and found it not only wanting, but counter-productive in every way to any real and lasting happiness. We have at least considered the possibility that we have been wrong as our own teachers of the meaning of life, and sought the teacher for the Voice for God. We have surrendered enough to feel better about the direction of our lives…

I have found often, that it is this stage of our commitment to ’give one year’ to the doing and practicing the lessons, that we, feeling so much better, get lax in our participation; think we have come further than we actually have, letting a sort of ‘comfort-fog’ begin to slip into mind. We begin to pay more attention to what is going on ‘out-there’ (as if there is out-there) and, not feeling as passionate toward the discoveries of the inner-Self offered with each daily lesson.

This portion of the inward journey, which the lessons lead us on, truly leads past all the deceiving thoughts that were so difficult to face in the beginning of the journey, and into a direct experience with the truth.

This is death to the ego, which will employ all manner of seduction to lure us away. E.g. “okay, now don’t worry, I’ve got this spiritual gig down, now… I can take it from here”. The ego is a master mimic. But we can no longer be completely duped. We are no longer completely insane…

Today, I encourage us to be vigilant in our practicing, please join me in this exercise from the lesson today:

Let us, now, as the lesson directs, sit quietly, with eyes closed. The light within is sufficient. Look only at and with this light within... it is all there is ~see…It alone has power to give the gift of sight… Excluding the outer world, we let our thoughts fly to the peace within…~They know the way. Our honest thoughts, we think with God, untainted by the dream of worldly things outside our Self, become the holy messengers of God Himself… We practice coming nearer to the light in us today. We take our wandering thoughts and gently bring them back to where that fall in line with all the thoughts we share with God. We let the light within our minds direct all thoughts that strayed back home. Now, we call them back; and wash them clean of strange desires disordered wishes. We restore them the holiness if their inheritance…We lay our saving blessing, as we say:

The peace of God is shining in me now.

Let all things shine upon me in that peace,

And let me bless them with the light in me.

Thursday, July 5, 2007

Lesson 187:

I bless the world because I bless myself…

We bless as is our true nature. Blessing is an extension of creation which happens naturally when we resist not what we think we see or feel or experience. When we say we bless, we are accepting we have received the simple fact that we are as God created us, into our mind and therefore have blessing to extend. Blessing is another way of saying, “all of love is mine in union with One Source, which purifies whatever else mind might think it sees or feels or has, with the peace that passeth understanding, but belongs to all as one, nonetheless…”

As we look closely at our daily lives, we see that how we are experiencing ourselves at any given moment is what we’re ‘blessing’ the circumstances around us with... If I see myself as limited and scarce and being generous in my thoughts to others as some sort of sacrifice to me, I come across as stingy and bitchy, because I have temporarily forgotten who I am and have taken myself to be ‘less’, requiring ‘more’ to feel I can give… We’ve all had this experience. If I notice however, that I don’t like the way I feel, so therefore must have decided wrongly about myself and the situation, and choose to forgive my misperception and allow the Holy Spirit within my mind to show me another way of perceiving; hell turns to Heaven… Persons and the situation suddenly are seen as bearing a gift for all. Haven’t we all had those miracle moments where we changed the way we were looking at a situation or person, from a negative perspective to one of commonality, and seen the whole situation shift around us? Yes.

When I turn my mind to the remembrance of truth; assigning it as my one goal, I bless my self. And the entirety of my involvement with the world becomes one blessed by the desire to unite with the truth in everyone and everything; for-giving the false in accordance.

We revisit in coupling some of the fundamental themes this Course rests corner-stoned upon. “Ideas leave not their source” and “to give and to receive are one”. We give to realize we have. I love the clarity of these paragraphs from today’s lesson:

“Ideas must first belong to you, before you give them. If you are to save the world, you first accept salvation for yourself. But you will not believe that this is done until you see the miracles it brings to everyone you look upon. Herein is the idea of giving clarified and given meaning. Now you can perceive that by your giving is you store increased…

Protect all things you value by the act of giving them away, and you are sure that you will never lose them. What you thought you did not have is thereby proven yours. Ye t value not its form. For this will change and grow unrecognizable in time, however much you try to keep it safe. No form endures. It is the thought behind the form of things that lives unchangeable.

Illusion recognized must disappear. Accept not suffering, and you remove the thought of suffering. Your blessing lies on everyone who suffers, when you choose to see all suffering as what it is. The thought of sacrifice gives rise to all the forms that suffering appears to take. And sacrifice is an idea so mad that sanity dismisses it at once.

Never believe that you can sacrifice. There is no place for sacrifice in what has any value. If the thought occurs, its very presence proves that error has arisen and correction must be made. Your blessing will correct it. Given first to you, it now is yours to give as well. No form of sacrifice and suffering can long endure before the face of one who has forgiven and has blessed himself… “

Let us not be afraid to look within at the truth of who we are, first, today, and stay with that inward vision till it fills the entire embodiment of our being, blessing us and giving us eyes to see and desire to bless each and every encounter as the holy encounter that it is…

Wednesday, July 4, 2007

Lesson 186:

Salvation of the world depends on me…

You’d think that after a few years of vigilant mind-watching; recognizing the flimsy whim the various attitudes and identities of the person dependent on the world is, one would walk away from so insecure an identity, especially if systematically directed to and graced with the experience of Self beyond. A Self that without which this personhood identity could not even appear to be… Yet we persist. We make up that we are trapped in the world’s ideas of past and future and others and the self. How arrogant are we? To experience the very reason for our being and still want to claim our story about what reality is in place of Creation. One has to laugh at our willingness to be seduced, yes? And at the elaborate lengths we go to distract ourselves for the truth we really know is true…We buy ourselves off with “trying” to be better, trying to awaken to the truth, while employing the very concepts (past/future, time/space) that keep us from it, as a methodology for arriving at it.

The world does not exist without the Self. Period. Can one honestly say whether the world stands the same when in deep sleep, as we seem to perceive it in our so-called waking hours?

In my own experience, I notice the Self first (without any definition) as I come into consciousness after deep sleep. And, patiently, paying close attention, I notice I begin to materialize in mind, the person, then bed and room and world…

The ego counts on our succumbing to the mind-numbing of thinking we know what is happening; of taking for granted the reality of world of form. With this in place, we are only merely half-present to attend to choice.

We absolutely must question every assumption and belief we have ever had. And here’s the thing, we need only to notice where we start to numb-out in assumption and give it over to the Holy Spirit. This is the simple process of forgiveness… the release from the imprisonment our plan to prove the false it true has brought to us. By this, we accept the plan we did not make instead…

There is no way to over evaluate each of our part in God’s plan for salvation. The mind that thinks this world, must in every aspect, accept the truth in place of false appearances.

We are not without some experience of the real and of an awareness of it, at this point. To accept the atonement for ourselves is to listen with increased faith and vigilance to only that Voice which brings with it the feeling of peace and surety and joy, that when tuned to, is the instantaneous certainty that all is well, and that wellness as beyond the all that appears to be…

By accepting the truth that salvation of the world depends on us, we realize our Self through applying our forgiveness to each and every brother and situation or circumstance. They each ask only for the response of Love, which we can only offer truly to all, equally, through the Holy Spirit we all share. In this:

Salvation of the world depends on me…

Tuesday, July 3, 2007

Lesson 185:

I want the peace of God…

In actuality, every decision we make within this so-called life, conscious or not, we run past the evaluation practice given in today’s lesson. Today, we deliberately align our will with God’s. We want the peace of God. Period. Today’s lesson invites us to place ourselves uncompromisingly on purpose; to see where we have been out of integrity with what we believe we want, and face what we have been willing to accept instead. How long have we said we want the peace of God, yet chosen guilt and worry, ‘special’ love/hate relationships, trinkets and toys, reputation or escape? The lesson is clear;

Today devote your practice periods to careful searching of your mind, to find the dreams you cherish still. What do you ask for in your heart? Forget the words you use in making your requests. Consider but what you believe will comfort you, and bring you happiness. But be you not dismayed by lingering illusions, f or their form is not what matters now. Let not some dreams be more acceptable, reserving shame and secrecy for others. They are one. And being one, one question should be asked of all of them, “Is this what I would have, in place of Heaven and the peace of God”?

The exercise practiced today really pulls your covers, doesn’t it? It asks we quit deceiving ourselves that we have chosen the peace of God, when clearly we prefer denial of His Peace Now, to our preference for ~ well, mostly being right… Yes? (At least that’s what it got down to for me.) When taken seriously, making this uncompromising choice changed everything for me. As a matter of fact, the me of my life no longer really makes the choices, they are made by the Holy Spirit in my mind, which we all share, for the healing of the entire sonship, into recognition of the peace of God, within... Like the lesson says:

No one can lose and everyone must gain whenever any gift of God has been requested and received by anyone. God gives but to unite. To take away is meaningless to Him. And when it is as meaningless to you, you can be sure you share on Will with Him, and He with you. and you will also know you share on Will with whose intent is yours..

When we can finally accept that we were wrong about what this life is; when we want only to know the truth, when we want only the peace of God, we have it. For it is already given. Every choice for forgiveness releases the bonds we place on ourselves which was the denial feeling His presence. The peace of God is the state that allows us to be in this world but not of it, as the saying goes…

This is the choice we make. Always. No compromise is possible… we always choose between Heaven or the hell we made, between our weakness and the Strength of God ~between belief in fear/death or Love: Life- eternal…

Monday, July 2, 2007

Lesson 184:

The Name of God is my inheritance…

I remember when, a few years ago (time-label), I realized in actuality and experience what this lesson is pointing to. I had been meditating and was experiencing the oneness-formlessness; temporarily unfamiliar with the world of form. For some reason, the body’s eyes began to look about its me and seeing not so much its symbols/forms (complete with labels), but the space around them. I was experiencing the space as the immutable being-ness, which, without labeling the various waves, distinctive names, would already be only one. I remember realizing that we live by the labels we assign to things or accept as reality. And each label father’s an entire world of meaning, linking various labels with each other, disguising their absolute nothingness. In and of themselves they are but symbols, that once brought up for questioning and review, dissolve into meaningless dribble. No wonder, half the time the conversations around me were sounding like, “blah, blah, blah”. No one was saying anything, just reciting the dribble the symbols and belief in their reality dictates…

While all the while, truth rest beyond, as I was experiencing myself in that moment of awareness…

This is why it is so vital that we question every value and belief we ever held or think we know, bringing them before review with the Holy Spirit, who will show us its proper use in this world according to God’s plan for it… Each of these lessons we give ourselves to and practice as earnestly as we can, allowing even our earnestness up for review and re-mind-full-ness, brings us a step closer…

Anything that doesn’t fully resonate as our Self same Oneness in God, isn’t real and was designed for the purpose of separating us from our remembrance of Him and truth of what we are.

Each moment we spend within this experience of eternal beyond-ness, allows for a type of reformatting of the world we seem to live in, vibrating up the Identity which all things share, the acknowledgement of what is true, within the stagnant dummies of the world of form, while shining essence evermore brightly, and truth’s reflection, everywhere in everything...

Please join me in this prayer as we ask for full acceptance, together, today:

“Father, our Name is Yours. In It we are united with all living things, and You Who are their one Creator. What we made and call by many different names is but a shadow we have tried to cast across Your Own reality. And we are glad and thankful we were wrong. All our mistakes we give to You, that we may be absolved from all effects our errors seemed to have. And we accept the truth You give, in place of every one of them. Your Name is our salvation and escape from what we made. Your Name unites us in the oneness which is our inheritance and peace. Amen.”

Sunday, July 1, 2007

Lesson 183:

I call upon God’s Name and on my own…

So here it is; the way to escape to reality:

“Repeat the Name of God, and call upon your Self, Whose Name is His. Repeat His Name, and all the tiny, nameless things on earth slip into right perspective. Those who call upon the Name of God can not mistake the nameless for the Name, nor sin for grace, nor bodies for the holy Son of God. And should you join a brother as you sit with him in silence, and repeat God’s Name along with him within your quiet mind, you have established there an altar which reaches to God Himself and to His Son.

Practice but this today; repeat God’s Name slowly again and still again. Become oblivious to every name but His. Hear nothing else. Let all your thoughts become anchored on this. No other word we use except at the beginning, when we say today’s idea but once. And then God’s Name becomes our only thought, our only word, the only thing that occupies our minds, the only wish we have, the only sound with any meaning, and the only Name of everything that we desire to see; of everything that we would call our own.”

We do only this one thing today; we offer our lesson practice and let time slip away as it is engulfed in the timeless essence of the eternal…One name, one thought, one meaning one life; the one we share as one.

It seems too simple a thing to simply redirect the wandering mind back to God’s Name and let its meaning light what we see and feel and experience. And it is simple. In fact it is the most natural condition available to us in this world, because it rests in the beyond, the being-ness, is-ness, am-ness. Experience is proportionate to our earnest willingness.

I have been graced with the experience of the world dissolving into God, and myself with it. In fact, it might be the only ‘real’ experience I have had. Within it I am…

I find myself thinking about the book Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein as I’m coming out of meditation this morning. It was the first “fiction” book I read that I felt contributed to my experience of life since I began my so-called spiritual path. And actually, this marked a complete change of mind about the purpose of so-called fiction, for me. Anyway, why I think it came to mind, was that the mantra I took from it was: Thou Art God… All that is, is God… I was moved by the absoluteness of this statement; not taking it to mean that one was Creator, but of the One, and inseparable from, Creator, and that until we recognize the One-Creator-ness in everyone and even the minutest thing (like a table), we are unaware of the true reality in which we live.

I notice the light of God’s name is the light in the mind-projector of this so-called life, when tuned in; one can’t miss its incredible beauty. It’s impossible. It is our eyes! And too, when we are tuned to God’s Name, the possibility of separateness diminishes in favor of the obvious inheritance given all in virtue of His Name. We are the One…

We call upon God’s Name and on our own…