Saturday, November 3, 2007

Lesson 308:

This instant is the only time there is…

This instant is the zero point; the holographic all-ness of all creation eternally… Yeah, what does that mean? Well, I don’t really know once I attempt to describe an experience of pure completion and wholeness, untainted by the only thing that taints; the opposite: incompletion, and parts… In other words, the world of time and space… This is why, a consistent that we are all drawn to regardless of the context it seems to come from, is the idea of the present moment. Somewhere deep inside, we know it is only in this instant that we know our Self and our relationship with our Creator and creation. That it is only now that we exist at all!

Since the experience of now, this instant, cannot be understood in conceptual terms, it is difficult to zero in on when one sees oneself as living in a world of constructs of concepts.

Yet, by the mere decision for truth and no-thing else, this instant of eternity reveals itself; time disappears, and with it all the body concepts once believed and identified with which held it up … eternal love is always, now…

This zero point is ours for the asking… We choose forgiveness and present joy is the result. Forgiveness is path of awakening to this instant, set by God through the Atonement; the call to awaken and be glad

When we no longer value the ‘past and future scale’ as a hierarchy to guide our lives, but choose the Voice for God, in this instant, we recognize that: This instant is the only time there is…

“Thanks for this instant, Father. It is now we are redeemed. This instant is the time You have appointed for Your Son’s release, and for salvation of the world in him…”

Friday, November 2, 2007

Lesson 307:

Conflicting wishes cannot be my will…

Aha… It changed my life to actually see this principle played out in the decision making of my so-called life… As with all the ways the Course serves up this message: There only two, exclusive thought systems; love and fear… And of these, only one is real and true... From each, an entire world can be seen~ and each world can only be seen when the mind chooses alignment with its thought system… Nothing else is going on. Also, the vehicle moving one from one thought system to the other is choice… all-encompassing, uncompromising choice. Something that hooked me up for a long time was that I would have moments of what I was sure at the time was total surrender into God’s Will, with all its peace and joy and certainty… And the next thing you know, I’d be back struggling to survive and feeling ashamed of doing such a lousy job of it, and making myself wrong about being here again. Then duh!, ~ I saw it. I still had private thoughts about time and space being real which I had tucked away in some secret place and wasn’t recognizing as, too, the forgiveness opportunity it is… Cuz, duh! The eternal present is the only time and place where. It is real. There is an unexplainable actuality to it; where one joins with what is… and there is no question about the truth because you’re already what you see… This recognition, in turn, made my way that much lighter…

When I feel conflicted in anyway, whether it be in thoughts and thought or thought with feelings, here’s the inquiry…

What has the state been when I have unquestionably felt the presence of God? Peaceful, to begin… then expansive, life-filled, loving, expressive, joyous… Yes. Starting with surrendering my “I know (anything)”, into the abyss of the currently unknown, only to once again recognize my Self in the already known… It usually looks (in form) like I start listening and stop directing… It feels like innocence and childlike reverence to whatever a situation is, for the holiness it must contain. This is usually accompanied with a bright, joyous, anticipation of experiencing it… This state is the state I recognize as one with my creation and God...

So any time I feel conflicted in anyway, I can’t possibly be in touch with myself in truth, let alone be guided in a way that results in this feeling of peaceful joy, right? And, after all, that kind of happiness is all I have ever wanted in the fires place. Isn’t that the feeling we’re always seeking in the end?

Thoughts leave not their source…

And only thoughts thought with God are true. And truth not only sets us free, it sets aright the goal at the onset of our seeming actions in this world of forgiving dreams… And certainty replaces conflicting wishes in our mind…

Thursday, November 1, 2007

Lesson 306:

The gift of Christ is all I seek today…

And so, our Father, we return to You, remembering we never went away; remembering Your holy gifts to us. In gratitude and thankfulness we come, with empty hands and open hearts and minds, asking but what You give. We cannot make an offering sufficient for Your Son. But in Your Love the gift of Christ is his…

In other words, without the gift of Christ… I got nothin! God’s Son can only be honored from the reality in which He is; in the truth of what He is. If I am not aligned with my source, all that I offer, all that I do, all that I seemingly experience, is false. I’m a fraud if I am operating in anyway disconnected from the inclusiveness of my relationship with Source which is, as well, my relationship with you and all things…

Here’s the thing. Of course there is no real disconnection possible in truth. So getting hooked in a loop of believing I can source myself, and need some-thing to sustain it, find happiness, etc., is but an ancient dream of nothingness. I look at this dream, from this my so-called life’s perspective and it’s like we’re a bunch of junkies with the ego-thought-system-dream as our drug of choice, as well as the dealer. Even the addictive mechanism comprised of those oh, so, familiar feelings of guilt, restlessness, escape, craving, obsession, compulsion, using and shame, are but the operating system of the separation dream.

Here’s the important thing: It’s not real!

Each of us has had those moments when we awakened for a second and felt the overwhelming love and peace within; the eternality of what we are in truth; the gift of Christ… If we have not realized fully, that I have decided with God through the Atonement, today can be that day. What we do know, is the nothing else really gives us what forgiveness and the release into peace and oneness, does…

So, let it be today we go past all fear, and be restored to love and holiness and peace, as such is the promise of our Father’s Love; His gift of Christ which we receive by our acceptance today…

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Lesson 305:

There is a peace that Christ bestows on us…

The choice for Christ’s vision and nothing else settles in my mind like the single drop of rain on a still pond. The ripples of peace spread out across my thinking, settling all conflicting ideas into a haven of unified purpose… The little fears and worries of the physical world easily slip off my mind into the still peace of eternal oneness in Christ… Here I rest…

And here, in the peace that Christ bestows, I continue to rest while I move about my so-called life, doing and relating and being… With Christ’s vision as my chosen perspective, old fears or worries dissolve into opportunities for forgiveness and the return to love’s oneness…

I walk with you, along the way that we must go in truth… The familiarity of your face, which reflects my own, shines the light of Christ, allowing us to see each encounter as the holy encounter that it is, guided by the Holy Spirit for the full return to the memory of God…

Today let us accept the gift of Christ as the truth of what we are…. And let peace envelop us, changing our perception to love’s awakening in action… Can’t you just feel the deep and imperturbable peace that this decision brings? Ah… ~ such blissful, tranquility to come from as we embark on this day with today’s lesson’s prayer:

Father, the peace of Christ is given us, because it is You Will that we be saved. Help us today but to accept Your gift, and judge it not. For it has come to us to save us form our judgment and ourselves.”

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Lesson 304:

Let not my world obscure the sight of Christ…

I love this statement: “Perception is a mirror, not a fact. What I look on is my state of mind, reflected outward.” This has totally been my experience… If I have ever wanted to change the conditions that have seemed to appear in my life, try and work as I might, nothing really shifts until I shift my mind… What I have come to at this stage of my life is that the only thing of real value to me is truth, the chance to love and share love, unimpeded by valuing the false. Whenever some ‘particular’ seems to grab my attention significantly, I recognize it for what it is; a belief that there could be a separated piece of the whole, replacing awareness of what is, with fantasies of what is not… I see it as a chance to look within, find the unhealed link to the fear/ scarcity thought system, and to bring it to the Holy Spirit within my mind for forgiveness, and to Christ, for a new/ true way to see… with innocence and wholeness and joy…

Thank you for joining. Here’s today’s prayer:

“You lead us from the darkness to the light; from sin to holiness. Let me forgive, and thus receive salvation for the world. It is Your gift, my Father, giver us to offer to Your holy Son, that we may find again the memory of You, and of Your Son as You created him…”

Monday, October 29, 2007

Lesson 303:

The holy Christ is born in me today…

Of course we talking about giving up the façade here and deciding to see as Christ; the Son which God created as Himself… whose vision replaces our faulty perception… by our decision for it…

This is to say, that while I wish to believe I am a body; identify with being a victim of circumstances, a character pawn in a heartless world, at the mercy of or on the guard for unforeseen enemies, competing for the scarce and limited resources to sustain my form until the inevitable death that will take us all, I can not see the truth about my self…

It’s like trying to look at the world through the opening in a drinking straw. Quite limiting, yes?

Imagine with me and follow my train for a second… So, you’re looking at your life and the world you live in with through this tiny opening… all your senses tell you there is so much more going on than you have access to, you begin to notice how limiting believing the straw-perception feels to your experience of your life. You begin to focus more on the information you are receiving from your intuition as to what the bigger picture must be. This feels freeing. It feels good; loving… So you increase your amount of attention given to the internal, experiencing a more natural and expansive experience of your life… You, simultaneously, are withdrawing attention from the limited little space you once believed to be the only perception… your belief in it, goes with it… the straw drops. For it was only your attention that kept it in place… Now, your eyes open wide… Light floods your sight and what you see is what you had come to believe you would… and oh, how you love what you first placed your faith in, then decided to trust; trusting inspiration toward life, verses preservations for the death script…

And JOY abounds for in trusting, you have found your Self; always, already here, waiting for your trust… shining in the brilliance of your forgiven brother’s eyes and warming your heart with her smile and filling your soul with the belonging that Christ has unified the Son of God, forever whole…

Let’s share in the prayer today’s lesson offers:

Your Son is welcome, Father. He has come to save me from the evil self I made. He is the Self That You have given me. He is but what I really am in truth. He is the Son You love above all things. He is my Self as You created me. it is not Christ that can be crucified. Safe in Your Arms let me receive Your Son…

Sunday, October 28, 2007

Lesson 302:

Where darkness was I look upon the light…

You know, as I began cleaning up the dark beliefs about myself and the world, and began to see them for what they were~ obstructions within my mind, I found that the light I sought, was already there; grand, beautiful, brilliant light, emanating from within. How is it that I thought I was looking for something to come to me from without? I can’t remember the thought process… Gratitude for the incredible lightness of being, floods my mind and heart, erasing the resistant blocks I once believed to be true (and necessary tools for survival).

Now, I see that I am life! Survival was but a concept cloaked in darkness, obscuring my vision. Yet, it was easily dispelled by the light within, once I copped to believing that my mistaken separate identity was myself and becoming wholly willing to be wrong.

In the twinkling of an eye, everything changed… I became the cliché, ‘I was blind, but now I see’…

The holy instant is like the eternal light switch… It feels to me, that one is swallowed whole by love’s full and never-ending presence, totally dispelling all that was once identified as ‘me’… one can’t ever completely be duped again, into pretending to be what one is not…

No, once we recognize we are the eternal brilliance of Creation; one with our Creator, each other and/as our Self… the journey with Christ has begun…

So, however it is that we topsy-turvy and start thinking we’re characters in the dream of persons; subject and object identification instead of the dreamer, we know… we try to squeeze the Self into separate forms… Yet, we always know on some level, now, that this smallness can’t be what the truth is… (Even if we totally dumb ourselves down… say, giving chemicals the power to control our unthinking thinking), deep down, we know we know…

And forgiveness is soon to follow…Which returns the mind back to the observation deck as dreamer of the dream, enlightening the mind once again with miracles… That’s been my experience…

The return to truth has been accomplished. And we are, step by step, forgiveness by forgiveness, miracle by miracle, re-calling our Self, one brother at a time under the lamp of the Atonement, with Christ’s vision. Thank you for joining me in the joyous journey of inclusion…

Today’s prayer:

“Father, our eyes are opening at last. Your holy world awaits us, as our sight is finally restored and we can see. We thought we suffered. But we had forgot the Son whom You created. Now we see that darkness is our own imagining, and light is there for us to look upon. Christ’s vision changes darkness into light, for fear must disappear when love has come. Let us forgive Your holy world today, that we may look upon its holiness and understand it but reflects our own…”