Saturday, November 10, 2007

Lesson 315:

All gifts my brothers give belong to me…

I remember back in the day, when I was totally identified with the “me” character where myself and all the others were separate things; subject and objects… Yet, today, I see only my Self…That’s exciting! That’s present! That is the gift forgiveness brings! When we accept the Atonement for ourselves, and forgiveness becomes our chosen dream, all gifts, as all brothers, reveal themselves as another holographic reflection of the face of Christ…

Anyway, back then, I had a pretty standard response to others gifts~ and it wasn’t just gratitude. In fact that was miniscule to all that was going on below the surface. I felt jealous; envious, yes~ but deeper than that even, I felt somehow ashamed when I recognized a gift in someone and felt it was deficient in me. I couldn’t just appreciate them and admire or champion them (like I outwardly and behaviorally appeared to ~ faking the ‘appropriate’ response; wishing it were all I felt)… No, deep inside, in the secret chamber of my little-self, I felt exposed, alone, alien, small and desperate… ~I had more character to build, skills to achieve, ‘others’ to impress with ‘something’ great… And on and on it went. Lord, what a ridiculous, lonely, exhausting and imprisoned world that was~ only the truly ‘mad’ would choose it. …duh…

When, for and instant, I became completely willing to be wrong about everything, including ‘reality’ as I knew it; about you, me, subjects and objects~ somehow, I made a true decision.

I say true because, in this deliberate choice to be wrong, I was transported beyond my ‘self’ and body/emotion world indelibly reversing my perception from subject/object based to Oneness based. It seemed as if some external skin slipped away from me.

In this moment, for an instant, I did not see my interests as apart from someone else’s… I somehow knew it was all one mind returning ~ all spirit.

Now, I am constantly noticing how everyone just wants to experience themselves as the love that they are; the love we share as one~ I see that we all want to give their gifts, as fast, and often as we can; a smile, a kind word, a skill, a listening ear…

This beautiful symphony of love actually is easily noticed, once the unified perspective has been accepted. It’s a choice. I would see based on what I identify with… Will I be hostage to the ego or host to God? Am I as God created? Yes. And only this… And as such; perfect love. I forgive all other interpretations and see differently. Simple as that.

Minds are joined, each gift is everyone’s. How joyous is the awareness that all is one.

The Atonement answered the subject/object split the instant it was conceived: “God is total, and the separation could not be. Therefore, it never really occurred and this tiny mad idea we call a world is the dream. We, the one Son of God, are the dreamer and we are in the grand awakening; we are answering to the call to awaken and be glad in a myriad of ways touching each other with our gifts; every where, every time, every space~ till the wake-up is complete.

Thank you my brothers for your gifts to every one of us, I feel your extending love and reception of love ~for it is my own. I receive your blessing by blessing everyone and every situation with forgiveness and gratitude… forever and ever~now.

Friday, November 9, 2007

Lesson 314:

I seek a future different from the past

Ya know; nothing is so irritating to me that the unconsciously triggered, yet additively engaged, regurgitated replay of past… Of course I don’t agree with any of what the past attempts to teach and/or reinforce. The past is gone. Past always represents a desire of my mind to shirk responsibility and be not the cause of all I see projected here. It is an attempt to be separate from some ‘other’. It results from accepting guilt as real and desperately attempting to regain my innocence by shifting the blame… of course this never works, it never really has… and it is an impossible and futile endeavor for me, now ~ because, I know~ and I know I know the truth. Plus too, there’s the evermore compelling pull of my attention to go inward, into full presence with the now. And the awesome presence of love and peace present here… well, that’s what I’m interested in base my future on…

I love what the Course says in the section called “The Dreamer of the Dream”: You are the dreamer of the world of dreams. No other cause it has, nor ever will. Nothing more fearful than an idle dream has terrified God’s Son, and made him think that he has lost his innocence, denied his Father, and made war upon himself… Accept the dream He gave instead of yours. It is not difficult to change a dream when once the dreamer has been recognized. Rest in the Holy Spirit, and allow His gentle dreams… peaceful now, for these are happy dreams. (T-27.VII.13-16)

What I love is that the decision for truth set unreservedly in my mind, whispers continually about ‘the other way~ the new perception’, and it is really simple as “being still an instant” for the experience of the holy instant to return to mind and this present moment be all there is; where you are my brother, pure and holy as myself and forever the perfect, innocent Son of God… Ah, how I love this feeling of perfect innocence and abundant willingness. From here I trust the miracle to continue to deliver my future as ‘this holy moment, now”! It’s truly an exciting proposition, yes.

Ah, yes, trust does handle every problem, now… My only decision is the one for Atonement for myself. And the way I do this is to allow the truth to be true and see you as myself. The script has been written. And the answer is as certain and as close as this moment… closer really… it has been done and the return to love for the entire Sonship, inevitable … I seek a future different from the past…

Joyously, I simply review what has already gone by and make no attempt to change, manipulate to preference, any of the seeming events of the script playing out. It is futile to attempt to change the characters on the screen… I simply change my mind about it all. And a new perception is given me… Wholehearted gratitude ~

Thursday, November 8, 2007

Lesson 313:

“Now let a new perception come to me”.

Here’s what I notice… It takes but one wholehearted decision for truth to be but the truth got me and for loves presence to take the lead, for everything to change. The decision for truth is made, and the goal is then set to re-open my eyes to a forgiven world. Where even just a minute previously I mistakenly thought my identity was tied up with irritation or fear, just the mere surrender to the possibility, that my interpretation of current events is wrong ~ because I am not at peace~ makes way to receive the miracle… It’s as if, like they say, a veil is lifted and I see the innocence I was looking for all along, simply by unreservedly offering it to that moment’s guests and allowing sinlessness to be reflected back.

So simple it is, really… "Love will come wherever it is asked"… No more significant statement could I make about my learning. I ask that love be present and I recognize it is, always, already, waiting but my decision to only be but what I am and to see that you are but what you are; sinless and wholly innocent of the lies duality portrays that ebb and flow across the dreaming mind; their unreality exposed and passed over for the truth…

Love waits on welcome… It doesn’t come to us, it is us… Forgiveness shows us the only path in this world, in truth; choose once again and awaken; already at home in the arms of love.

This one decision to let truth be itself and love to enter the mind/heart that a minute ago had refusal on its lips, warms and relents to peace’s gentle touch. This is the holy relationship with the ‘real’ world, which forgiveness offers me … identifying with the Christ and recognizing its already present gift within, out-pictured upon the world. The simple lesson which forgiveness brings and the Course restates again and again is: I see my own innocence by seeing the world's innocence… I find my forgiveness through forgiving others… I recognize my own innocence by seeing yours.

Ideas are shared. By allowing the Christ identity in you, I recognize it in myself, already present, now. This is the holy wake-up call, and we have answered… Love forever and ever~


Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Lesson 312:

I see all things as I would have them be…

This lesson just loops us back around again one of the first ideas presented in the lessons…“I have given everything I see… all the meaning that it has for me.

As we take another peak this initiation lesson, we can easily notice how differently we feel about our responsibility for sight. Having come this far in the curriculum, we have much gratitude for shift in sight… We are no longer wholly insane and the sense of progress along the way that we must go is palpable… We recognize that what we choose to see with: the Holy Spirit or the ego thought systems; love or fear, is what we end up looking at… And, it makes all the difference.

We recognize also, the readiness of forgiveness to change our mind in any instant in which we seem to have lost our peace. We are aware, too, that we are not alone, and the decision I make for myself, I make for all my brothers as well. Thoughts reveal their source through perception and how perception works never changes: ‘You see what you believe is there, and you believe it there because you want it there. Perception has no other law than this.’

So, too, I am powerfully aware that what I choose for you, I choose equally for myself: and everywhere I look, I see a world where love is expressing itself in every act. Often, it is revealing a barrier to love’s presence which now, is seen as a necessary forgiveness lesson, served up for release…

Love, it’s everywhere, in the light that gives life to all seeming form… It can easily be seen in the twinkling of each brother’s eye… that twinkle then gives way to innocence and joy, laughter, yes? I have no purpose for today except to look upon a liberated world, set free from all the judgments I have made. Father, this is Your Will for me today, and therefore it must be my goal as well.

Today, we will be host to God and not hostage to the ego… Our will aligned with His, that we be but the Son He created as Himself…

“This is God’s Final Judgment: “You are still My holy Son, forever innocent, forever loving and forever love, as limitless as your Creator, and completely changeless and forever pure. Therefore awaken and return to Me. I am Your Father and you are My Son”.

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

10. What is the Last Judgment?

This section of lessons really drives home the core principle A Course in Miracles strives to teach…. Only the truth is true… and what is false is nothing… We have come far on the path the Course lessons guide us down, this year dedicated to the truth. It is the acceptance of the Atonement for ourselves, the choice for Christ’s vision as our own and taking up our ministry as miracle worker’s that brings us to this crucial point. In other words, as the section states; it is Christ’s Second Coming. “Christ’s Second Coming gives the Son of God this Gift: to hear the Voice for God proclaim that what is false is false, and what is true has never changed. And this the judgment is in which perception ends. At first you see a world that has accepted this as true, projected form a now corrected min. and with this holy sight, perception gives a silent blessing and then disappears, its goal accomplished and its mission done…Accept this holy truth: God’s judgment is the gift of the Correction He bestowed on all your errors, freeing you from them, and all effects they ever seemed to have. To fear God’s saving grace is but to fear complete release from suffering, return to peace, security and happiness, and union with your own identity…”

Humph… sounds familiar… Still, the choice to let truth alone be true, and forgive all perception’s barriers to its awareness, is ours; the one we made together when we embarked on this so-called journey to re-member… It is ours for the unequivocal saying yes to God’s judgment in place or our own…. And this we do today ~YES!

Lesson 311:

“I judge all things as I would have them be.”

This, of course, is the premise by which I choose what world I would see. And choosing with the Holy Spirit allows me to be joyously present and in full communication with my brothers regardless of the seeming ‘physical proximity’. Anything that resembles ‘specialness’; any degree of separation in any way is merely my competition with God complex, from which I am recovering… That is, un-covering my true identity in truth… Every choice I make is a decision about what want to be true. And since only the truth is true, I choose therefore, the Holy Spirit’s judgment of what I will see. Forgiveness is my function. And the Holy Spirit’s vision reveals to me the choice I make.

“Father, we wait with open mind today, to hear Your Judgment of the Son You love. We do not know him, and we cannot judge. And so we let Your Love decide what he whom You created as Your Son must be...”

Monday, November 5, 2007

Lesson 310:

In fearlessness and love I spend today…

“This day, our Father, would we spend with You, as You have chosen all our days should be. And what we will experience is not of time at all. The joy that comes to us is not of days or hours, for it comes from Heaven to Your Son. This day will be Your sweet reminder to remember You, Your gracious calling to Your holy Son, the sign Your grace has come to us, and that it is Your Will we be set free today.”

Thank you for joining with me in this day of freedom… it is by our choice to let Christ’s vision reveal our life to us that today; we can rest in the true essence of our relationship with our Source. This is the second coming and we fearlessly accept Christ as our Self, transforming our so-called world within our mind to the zero-point: LOVE… It is the eternal now; where deep within we feel the expansive wholeness we share with Him…. We always had it and today we are merely attuning through His grace and ours to the love we cannot be without, but can experience in fullness by our single desire for it. And we are no longer afraid, for there is nothing that isn’t resolved by this choice to feel with God, and let His plan for salvation rip. Is anything that wouldn’t cease to bother us if fearlessness and love were at the heart of everything? Is there a chance we wouldn’t feel present with what matters most? I think not… We trust the Holy Spirit to show us what to do with time… and we lean back in peace…

We see that there is nothing we need do, but see that everything is for- giving for all… I join you now in the Heavenly chorus singing thankfulness and joy …


Sunday, November 4, 2007

Lesson 309:

I will not fear to look within today…

Getting past the boogie-man, that’s the thing, isn’t it. As we go within and face the darkness we always believed was there~ the loneliness of nothingness… Oh my gosh, I spent a lot of years here; afraid to enter the darkness fully… But when I had no where else to go; when I had basically backed myself into the dark corner of self; having sealed off every other avenue as an option, I entered the abyss of the unknown… mumbling the prayer of desperation and initiation, “There has got to be another way…”

Just like the lesson says, it was my innocence instead of guilt which I found. The relief was so powerfully poignant, that I feel literally lifted up and lightened up. Some kind of light of love seemed to virtually blast all that I identified with up to that instant.

“I’m sorry” was the secret creed I had always had tucked behind everything I did and coloring all my interactions. It was what I would call my defining personal lie… my guilty little secret identity; ‘I’m sorry I’m not enough, better, stronger, faster…worthy’…~This was the horror I believe would destroy me?... sounds more like a scared little girl, to me. And it was. Oh, I was trying… but I knew… it was inevitable… I didn’t deserve…

Well, it was inevitable alright, as it is with each of us. There come a time when each of says, with complete surrender, ‘there has got to be another way’; and listens to the call to go within… It is Love’s call… to Love, and it is the Love within which is our true Self, that answers. (Though we are generally unaware, on love’s level, at the time.)

What ‘they’ say about our beliefs and ‘reality’ being an illusion, turns out to be true. It is the FEAR boogieman which the ego placed as the gate keeper that keeps us from venturing into the path of truth within… Frantic Effort to Avoid Reality…~good acronym for fear, yes? It’s an emotion, it can’t stop a thing. And what’s more, withdraw belief in it and it crumbles cuz it’s only propped alive by the seer’s belief. What I’ve come it see is that all the beliefs I had about myself and the world were but the veil this boogieman held up to distract me from my return to truth…

As I have forged ahead with the Holy Spirit’s guiding voice and my trusty forgiveness flashlight, whatever horror I believed was there, once looked at straight on, has always dissolved behind the lamp of love’s innocence…

Turns out, KNOW THYSELF…in other words, look within, is the only game in town! And the prize? The incredible lightness of being ~Heaven; here and now…