Saturday, September 15, 2007

Lesson 259:

Let me remember that there is no sin.

Ya know, that little skill; remembering that there is no sin, not in me, not in you, and not anywhere at any time…(not in reality) has done worlds of good for me in assisting me with the follow-through of my decision to ‘let all things be exactly as they are’. It reminds me that nothing is as it appears because appearance itself was designed to distract the mind from the true and fixate it on the false through the mechanism of belief.

Here’s what I’ve come to see. Sin is insanity. If my experience of a situation is subjective in anyway, sin has got its hook in it. If it can be judged and a hierarchy of values set, my mind is fixed in the realm of falsehood and the Holy Spirit is already at the ready with that moments forgiveness opportunity ~ the gift within the wrapping the, so to speak~ the present-love within…

Also, I find my mind is returned to awareness of the Self that I remain, though my mind gave way to temptation to take appearance seriously for an instant. Furthermore, by delving deeper into present awareness, I see that I was still aware during the ripple of so-called sin across the mind of consciousness, and I have remained unaffected, for I am still as God created me…

God is… And when insanity has been put aside, the goal of God too has gone… For God is and His Son is one with Him…

Father, I would not be insane today. I would not be afraid of love, nor seek for refuge in its opposite. For love can have no opposite. You are the Source of everything there is. And everything that is remains with You, and You with it.

Friday, September 14, 2007

Lesson 258:

Let me remember that my goal is God…

Ah, to remember to remember… that’s the ticket, is it not?

It is significantly about training our minds to, as the lesson says; “overlook all little senseless aims, and to remember that our goal is God”.

At this stage of the curriculum, we don’t have the luxury of hiding out in unawareness. We are no longer wholly insane. And we are not confused about our ultimate goal being God.

Sure, we can still be derailed and get caught-up in some whirlwind of emotion and crisis the ego spins to reel us in, keep us hooked; slaving craving desires or guilting about some the apparent past.

But we have touched ‘reality’ deep down; sat in the quiet still peace of the eternal Now and felt the echoing satisfaction of ‘being enough’… the Self; one and all, and enough… We are aware, always, in the background or our mind (albeit often the deep recesses) that we are the dreamer of the dream and not a character that is being dreamed up by the dream itself. We are aware of our 100% responsibility for sight and choosing the vision of the Holy Spirit within our mind rather than giving way to the temptation to hook into the images on the screen of familiarity and crisis which the ego perpetuates…

And if you’ll notice, every time, without fail, that we forgive an unreal thought/belief, with the willingness to look past it toward truth, a calm and peaceful sense of ‘already whole-ness’ visits itself upon us and we breath a little deeper and more honestly… In other words, we feel into our Identity in God… Nothing is important but the truth.

“Our goal is but to follow in the way that leads to You. We have no goal but this. What could we want but to remember You? What could we seek but our Identity?”

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Lesson 257:

Let me remember what my purpose is…

In order to remember something, we must have knowledge of it that has merely been displaced, yet belongs to us none the same. All that we are, and all that God is, is available only in the now.

The Course tells us that memory is a skill developed when Learning began and although we overused it for purposes of recalling the past, in other words, recalling nothing, memory can be use in service of Spirit to recall now… Purpose can only be now, and when we choose to forgive the past, we call the present (His Presence) to mind. My only purpose is to call to present mind, God’s Will for perfect happiness for me… which can only be for all…

The Holy Spirit within our mind sees but one purpose for this world we appear to be in. And that is the attainment of the real world through forgiveness; where all is included in joy, and exclusion has lost its meaning. Through forgiveness we see the face of Christ in our brothers instead of our projections of fear and mistaken identity. The face of Christ is looked upon before the Father is remembered…

To say, “let me remember” is to take a leap of faith that we do indeed know and our effort to remember is a show of appreciation into this place of faith. It is our way of keeping in mind His Mind and placing our attention and consideration in the faith that we are as God created and that we have the power to implement the skill of memory for a single purpose to re-member Love…

Through forgiving all other possibilities that favor parts or past or any differences whatsoever, and culminating all in one glorious tapestry of creation, expressed, we recall our Self to Mind…

Father, forgiveness is Your chosen means for our salvation. Let us not forget today that we can have no will but Yours. And thus our purpose must be Yours as well, if we would reach the peace You will for us.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Lesson 256:

God is only goal I have today…

The first thing that went through my mind when I read that today was, “You got anything better to do?” I don’t…. God is what is left when I quit trying… That’s what forgiveness is; surrendering my little idea into the mighty idea that sponsored idea itself, God~ God’s thought extend as His Son… It takes abundant willingness to have this, and only this as the one goal: but then, what else we going to do at this stage of the game? Nothing else has satisfied, brought peace, of fostered happiness; this we know by now… So we round the doggies and forgive…

“God is our goal; forgiveness is the means by which our minds return to Him at last.”

Try a little experiment in willingness. Set a timer for 5 minutes. Set the goal: God is only goal I have today… And watch your mind. Is it a still and quiet surface and at perfect rest? Does joy penetrate your bosom? Do superfluous thoughts barge in and try to make a splash; demand your attention, screaming their importance? Notice their incongruous content, always grounded in the past, pulling it into the attention of Now, which is God-time… chuckle, and remind yourself the simple fact that the past is gone… and forgive. Merely let that thought slip back into the nothingness from which it came and feel the peace beneath it… Breath into the still center between the thoughts where the goal is still set… and feel God… Five minutes… then ten… an hour… a day… five minutes at a time… one lifetime given to God-time, Now… Heaven…

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Lesson 255:

This day I choose to spend in perfect peace…

The choice for perfect peace is the choice for perfect happiness. The Course tells us that choice for happiness is the choice to desire constancy by giving up inconsistency. It says that if our state of happiness is inconsistent in our experience, it is because we have not truly asked for happiness. Choosing peace means we keep no conflict for ourselves, believing that defense and/or self protection is necessary.

But rather that we judge not what surfaces up on the still water of mind given over to Spirit, having faith that forgiveness and purification are in process. Happiness; peace and joy are our indicator states that we have held nothing back. The course also tells us that it is not required that we have no thoughts that are not pure, only that we have none that we would keep….

So, today, we choose to spend in perfect peace and by making no decisions by ourselves, meaning we invite the Holy Spirit to decide for God for us, with each thing that arises, and a day of perfect peace is guaranteed. Sounds ridiculously simple doesn’t it? (Complexity is of the ego ~ not God)

We must desire God’s Will for happiness for us ~well because it is His Will, without which we would not have even come into being. This means we include all and exclude none within our love, whether we realize it by its form or not… Just because our imagination got stuck in the repetitive broken record of mis-identification, doesn’t mean we’re stuck… We are one wholehearted choice from perfect peace… but we must choose it wholeheartedly… Choose once again…

I have been truly blessed to realize a consistent state of peace and joy through constant communion with Spirit… And what I see around me is that within every situation, relationship, or even minor encounter resides the call of peace, for peace.

My view is as the witness, the dreamer of the dream, which is a state where peace the continuous state of mind, demonstrates that a constant choice for peace is possible,

It is by my decision~

This day I choose to spend in perfect peace…

When we are willing, through grace, to surrender every moment to the guidance of Spirit, we are relieved of making decisions by our little selves; relieved from all worry about past and future, relieved of all guilt and the necessity to arrange for our well being, in the knowledge that our well being is taken care of, now. And that now is the only time.
The practice of the choice for peace and only for peace brings with it a state of joy as natural as to us as breathing… For it is our true identity as God’ Son in constant communion with the Father:

“And so, my Father, would I pass this day with You. Your Son has not forgotten You. The peace You gave him still is in his mind, and it is there I choose to spend today.”

Monday, September 10, 2007

Lesson 254:

Let every voice but God’s be still in me…

“Father, today I would but hear Your Voice. In deepest silence I would come to you, to hear Your Voice and receive Your Word. I have no prayer but this: I come to You to ask You for the truth. And truth is but Your Will, which I would share with You today.”

I just love that prayer… It’s like my theme mantra…

This is it! This is the only thing I want; the only thing that matters: the truth, unrestricted. The truth is the only thing of interest to me anymore. I’ve been around the block, only to return to but one real place of peace and joy ~The state of total empty willingness (which turns out to be a fullness of wholeness that is joy and peace; the One, the Only) …

Now, from this vantage point, I simply do not care about appearance’s particulars, my interest is only on the love that flows, unimpeded throughout…nothing else can hold my attention… Sure, at times it distracts me for a moment, but it can’t hold my attention for long. I am always aware that ‘it’ is not my Self, but merely an out-picturing of a belief I had kept secret from my awareness until now, which I am currently prepared to offer to forgiveness’s gentle light. In other words, a call from truth for truth… the seat of my being…

The feeling of being truth is the only home found within this world of appearances and beliefs. And it is arrived at when we discontinue placing our attention on the false. And as it gently slips from our mind, only the Voice for God can be heard. And find that we already rest where we never left, as One truth; from which all fantasy; time and space. and subject and object, is but a speck that comes and goes, but by our will.…

Today we would but share only God’s Will, which is our own. Could we remain this one day in the zero-point of creation along with God and heed not to the specks that float by? We will be directed very specifically, per our part in God’s plan for salvation, as will each and every brother. So, why not, what’s to be concerned with? Ah, the peace…

Let every voice but God’s be still in me…

Sunday, September 9, 2007

Lesson 253:

My Self is ruler of the universe…

We often talk about this topic in the Course. There is no possibility that any thing could happen in my universe, save it by way of my Self. Regardless of how I focus my attention; outward~ so as to see a small and frightened me in a big bad world, or inward~ so as to see from the Self the vast and glorious light of creation within and beyond the world of form. This, incidentally, allows for me to focus my attention to accept that thought littleness, as just one of many belief options within the illusion within the vast array of belief options which are not my Self, but dreamed up by me, instead…. Which I can do with what I please…

You know, when I came to this lesson the first time around, as with other similar statements in throughout the Course, I felt almost embarrassed. I definitely felt it was an idea arrogant to my place of reverence to a power-greater-than-myself, which I felt beholden to for my success in forgiving myself and awakening unto Him.

It was a difficult lesson for me and one I felt dishonest, due to my perceived unworthiness, to do. However, being the ‘good-student’, I did my best… What I received at that time was a strong, warm feeling message, that I would understand in time, but that from the point of reference I then held, I was too identified with littleness to see the big picture, let alone see that my Self ruled over it. So I accepted that I didn’t know; after all, up to this point in my so-called life, I had been wrong about everything else, why not this… I felt an inner instruction to read and reread, giving my understanding over to the Holy Spirit, the section in Chapter 15 called Littleness versus Magnitude; which I did every day for 30 days. I began to get a sense of that the ‘me’ point of reference I had been holding, and taken for granted as true, was mere wrong. And furthermore, that it was arrogant and a blatant rejection of accepting the atonement for myself. In other words, it was merely a delay tactic.

I gave myself over to the miracle, accepting the Holy Spirit was within my mind and therefore at least part of myself, which freed me to allow for correction of my small and limited perspective. And I began to feel the expanse… Every shadow/belief was filter up and seen as nothing but perspective and I became able to let them go to the idea of nothingness. My willingness to surrender my private mind as it revealed itself became the obvious next step instead of the hidden terror it had been undercover… And now; now all that was different is seen with the eyes of sameness… truly… it’s a miracle… NOW has (as it always was in truth) become my only point of reference, my only perspective…

Through my willingness to be wrong about everything, the my has given way to the Self, which has shown me Heaven on earth; Christ in all my brothers and a world of Creation where Love gives unto itself, receives and expands and expresses the Self in everyone, everything, every situation and circumstance…

My Self is ruler of the universe…