Saturday, December 8, 2007

Lesson 343:

I am mot asked to make a sacrifice to find the mercy and the peace of God….

The mercy and the peace of God are already within. They are within the essence of Grace from which we, as Spirit, choose to form experiences, ultimately labeling them this or that… Without judgment, what we experience as grace is but our identity as the Son of God…

What comes to my mind in practicing today’s lesson is that empty space within experiences which we then give meaning; that field of possibility which unites them all as one. And without which, no experience is possible…

We, God’s Son are love’s life breath…We are, God’s complete God. We have our being in creation extending and graciously completing itself. Ultimately, there can be no question as to creations nature; it is. And creates as it is....

All our fantasies of the world real-ize the imagined life of a guilty Son, separated from Origin but fathered by belief in self-source; alone and antithesis to truth. All power of creation has never left us. It’s just that in the dream of separation, our desire for the false to reign constructs limits as a necessary component to disguise the Son of God from himself…

The Course says that the lessons to be learned are only two, each having its outcome in a different world, and each following indubitably from its source.

1. God’s Son is guilty. Bingo! This world of scarcity, struggle and sacrifice and happiness, the never-ending carrot dangles by its rules, value judgments and orders of reality. Here every seeming reprieve from struggle is paid for at the price of freedom….Where everything is temporary and ends in death and one must stay on guard using worry and guilt. … I know, yeah, yeah, yeah, we’ve heard it all before~ the constant dirge of death that soundtracks this world.

And why am I going on about the world of guilt’s reign? We all know it all too well; we have learned it at the expense of remembering we are everything, so the ego identity holds it very dear. But, we are not that.

Ah, but the other lesson, says the Course is really a remembering of all that we denied.

2. It is a denial of the denial of truth. And its message is based in truth: God’s Son is guiltless. The outcome starts with joy and unity since it is the natural ’being’ given freedom to extend…

I love what it says in the last chapter of the text…“There is no living thing that does not share the universal Will that it be whole, and that you do not leave its call unheard. Without your answer is it left to die, as it is saved from death when you have heard its calling as the ancient call to life, and understood that it is but your own. The Christ in you remembers God with all the certainty with which He knows His Love. But only if His Son is innocent can He be Love. For God were fear indeed if he whom He created innocent could be a slave to guilt. God’s perfect Son remembers his creation. But in guilt he has forgotten what he really is.” (T-31.I.9)
Love’s never-ending presence sponsors all relationships, circumstance and situation: all ways, always, for the good of all ~This is what we learn to trust through practicing forgiveness… No sacrifice is possible in truth and the mercy and the peace of God are inherent in what we are. This learning experience of the guiltlessness of God's Son is not only inevitable, but welcome… We but choose the Atonement; giving and receiving mutually, salvation and ‘gift of everything’…

Please join me for a moment right now, and let your mind slip back into the empty space just behind, before and beyond the words you’re reading and feel the alive nothingness that forms the hub we experience as ‘I am’… Now slip into the gap between and ‘I’ and ‘am’… Feel that instant of perfect rest: the mercy and the peace of God…

~we say ‘God is’ and we cease to speak~

Friday, December 7, 2007

Lesson 342:

I let forgiveness rest upon all things, for thus forgiveness will be given me….

This is a guarantee…. It isn’t crucial that we understand everything about forgiveness, just that we practice it… Keeping in mind that it is the ‘ego that analyzes; where the Holy Spirit accepts’ puts us in right-minded alignment for forgiveness. The crucial piece is that we practice our willingness to have our perception changed … We are ‘doing it right’, if we leaning in the direction of being willing to see the situation or person or belief or circumstance differently. And this is enough to engage the Atonement principle, and release the mind to healing... The Holy Spirit handles the details…

This transformation procedure actually takes place within a dimension of reality where the needs for conflict and forgiveness aren’t viable. The change of heart, inherent in deciding we want forgiveness’s blessing on a situation or relationship, is the softening or opening that invites the Holy Spirit to visit the light of truth upon it.

Before we realize it, our guts have started shape-shifting and our smudged vision of the other/circumstance, clears and love’s clarity shows us another way of addressing the situation, entirely.

In fact, often we don’t even recognize that it is the healed and forgiven issue, sponsoring our involvement in a given miracle.

FORGIVENESS MUST REST UPON ALL THINGS… that is the promise of the Atonement…. In reality, it has all already been accomplished… Yet, for the mind that still believes in the reality of the dream of separation, forgiveness is simply the means by which the Atonement is accomplished in the time/space mind dynamic… So that’s all handled through God’s plan for salvation…

We just need remember that all things are for-giving to all as one…

And doesn’t it just feel better to give up the burden of having to be right, or of having to know? Whew!

Please join me in today’s perfect, yummy prayer:

“I thank You, Father, for Your plan to save me from the hell I made. It is not real. And You have given me the means to prove its unreality to me. The key is in my hand, and I have reached the door beyond which lies the end of dreams. I stand before the gate of Heaven, wondering if I should enter in and be at home. Let me not wait again today. Let me forgive all things, and let creation be as You would have it be and as it is. Let me remember that I am Your Son, and opening the door at last, forget illusions in the blazing light of truth, as memory of You returns to me.”

Thursday, December 6, 2007

13. What is a miracle?

When it becomes apparent that a miracle is necessary in a given situation … When all ego antics to maintain control have finally failed, it is not the agony of defeat that I reference in my experience bank, but rather, the relief of letting go of the heavy burden of self deception, and leaving me at last in the present, in peace…

For me, when it finally became clear that I did not know… When I finally threw my hands in the air; in the great universal signal for defeat, I was totally open to receive the miracle that would at last breathe life back into my tired and worn-out sense of identity, with the truth instead …

In other words, one must virtually die to the world we made, if but for an instance, to receive the vision of Christ which allows us to see the inner oneness we all share. Persons are revealed as long-lost brothers and competition dissolves in the recognition of a unified purpose. By checking nothing at the door, and giving over my entire idea of ‘problems’ to the miracle allowed me a new perspective entirely. I came to realize that a miracle was not some kind of ‘outside- help-from- above’ but simply the righting of perception. The miracle works within the seeming problem or situation illuminating another way of looking at it that eliminates all fault; wipes tears away and replaces defensiveness with gratitude. What’s more, is that the core on which this healed perspective all takes place, is already in place, right there waiting for the mind that is ready for the miracle. It is merely invisible or inaccessible when the desire for the problem is taking precedence.

Only dream figures move and seem to change. It is within this dynamic that the miracle is needed. …

The ever-familiar film-clip of the tiny mad idea, known as life, supported by belief in, and fears of, death…has been answered… The Atonement principle rights the divisional perspective to see/experience beyond, where all remains as one, always, already…

Reality is Changeless.

Lesson 341:

I can attack but my own sinlessness,

And it is only that which keeps me safe…

I accept Atonement for myself and defer to God’s identity for me, in place of the one I made… both for myself and for you…

To attack is to accept temporary insanity in any given situation… And it always, with out fail, only hurts my state of peace; my sense of certainty, safety and awareness of love…

I am as God created me. And sin is obliterated in this acknowledgement. We use the term sinlessness only because we are speaking to a mind dulled by belief in personhood and sin and punishment and death… But it is really no-thing…

Sinlessness is not even an appropriate technology for the changeless reality in which we rest in God; where there is only God the father and his innocent Son, completing creation in perfect oneness…

Today’s prayer:

Father, Your Son is holy. I am he on whom You smile in love and tenderness so dear and deep and still the universe smiles back on You, and shares Your Holiness. How pure, how safe, how holy, then, are we, abiding in Your Smile, with all Your Love bestowed upon us, living one with You, in brotherhood and Fatherhood complete; in sinlessness so perfect that the Lord of Sinlessness conceives us as His Son, a universe of Thought completing Him.

I joyously join with everyone to right every circumstance and situation within belief through the miracle of our changeless, sinless reality as love….

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Lesson 340:

I can be free of suffering today….

There is a flow, like water; to this section of lessons… It is the steady, gentle awareness of our choice to no longer serve guilt but to allow for all the defenses and make-believe that held its value in place, to be dispersed into the tranquil rousing that forgiveness brings. What is apparent now, here, as we gaze with Christ’s vision is all the beauty which was always present, but which our faith in guilt concealed. It is here, we have the chance of recognizing the Son of God; to look and see the face of Christ.

The freedom from suffering is the change of mind from dreams of guilt to happy dreams. This is the choice takes the place of the formerly worshiped ‘idol’ of guilt and its dwindling reign in mind. ‘Choose once again’, the Course tells us again and again… This lesson says we can, today, choose forever to let go of suffering and allow the flow of love forgiveness brings…freely…

We decide one simple thing; we do not want whatever we believe an idol gives. For thus the Son of God declares that he is free of idols. And thus he is free…

I am, indeed, free of suffering today; for I am as God created me. This choice exposes the madness of following guilt’s chosen path as a way of life…. Appearances can but deceive the mind that wants to be deceived. There is no meeting place for the peace of God and guilt. Forgiveness allows for the dance of suffering to be seen for what it is: guilt is the one and only cause of pain, no matter what it seems to look like. And the peace forgiveness brings makes it so we are no longer enticed by guilt’s pretentious, hopeless allure.

We choose freedom from, or instead of suffering and through this choice we see what was previously invisible (due to our desire not to see, per guilt’s wishes). The idea of salvation is viable at last. This one choice is the decision to expose the false; not so much running from the make believe toys in the idol dream, but rather deciding against their reality, which was only kept alive by deception. It is the decision to let the truth be true. I love the what the Course says in the section in the text called Beyond All Idols where it states:

“Salvation is a paradox indeed! What could it be except a happy dream? It asks you but that you forgive all things that no one ever did; to overlook what is not there, and not to look upon the unreal as reality. You are but asked to let your will be done, and seed no longer for the things you do not want. And you are asked to let yourself be free of all the dreams of what you never were and seek no more to substitute the strength of idle whishes for the Will of God… No more than this is asked… salvation asks for nothing in reality. And even in illusions it but asks forgiveness be the substitute for fear Such is the only rule for happy dreams”…

To “let all things be exactly as they are” is another way of stating the running theme of these later lessons in the Course… as a matter of fact, that is what the Course says… “No rules are idly set, and no demands are made of anyone or anything to twist and fit into the dream of fear. Instead, there is a wish to understand all things created as the really are. And it is recognized that all things must be first forgiven, and then understood…. The real world is the state of mind in which the only purpose of the world is seen to be forgiveness.”…

The peace of God flows naturally as we let go all attachment to guilt… Can’t you just feel it? Right Now!

~We can be free of suffering today~

Ah, God’s plan for salvation rocks! There’s simply nowhere to turn that doesn’t lead back to the yummy presence of God’s Love; always, already forever present… now that’s a groovy present, eh?

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Lesson 339:

I will receive whatever I request…

Here, I sit, with today’s lesson working its magic in my mind… I am feeling full and light… And part of what keeps coming to my mind is chapter 30 in the text. Section entitled; Rules for Decision. OMG, I cannot describe what a precious source of perfect, specific as well as general, this guide has been for me… It is so completely contrary to the very make-up of the ego-self, to be clear on any thing. The entire ego thought system, after all, was made for precisely the opposite. So, in other words, asking the self of this so-called life what it wants and what will make it happy is futile. And really nothing… what a waste of perfectly good life force, eh? Oh, sure the ego is a great ‘used-vehicle’ type salesperson; shape-shifting when necessary to play the role of motivational speaker and counselor… and maker–of-promises.

However, there is no unity in division, no clarity in confusion. Going to the source of unhappiness for the umpteenth time for ‘a new plan’ for happiness, is the very definition of insanity, yes? … Doing the same thing over and over; expecting different results…sound familiar?

The Course bypasses engagement in this common, redundant thinking, and it delivers it message directly to the part of the mind which is ready to receive. Even when we feel we don’t understand, what I have seen is that it delivers and waits till my forgiveness opens that part of my mind where the wisdom of its message patiently waits for my wholehearted welcome…. So many times, haven’t you, as I have, experienced that ‘ah ha!’; so that’s what the Course meant about that’ kind of moment? It speaks directly to right-mind…

Now, referring specifically to the Rules for Decision section, for many years I fell under the category, it addresses:”…if you find resistance strong and dedication weak, you are not ready”. I hated for this to be true about me, and often I lied to myself that I was ready, but results always revealed the discrepancy… You can’t hide from what you have given value to… it shows up in your life, regardless, because thoughts create things…

However, in moments of non-resistance I found that I could certainly follow the very next instruction”… and I was able let it go how it went; the outcome as well, often, as the process…. “A little willingness”… It goes along ways… In fact, it is always just enough…

And here’s the thing, in spite of myself, or was it in-spired of my-Self, truth has become my single goal; regardless of what things look like externally, somehow that zero-point of love is always present at the center of my mind. In revisiting the process laid out in Rules for Decision, as I have, oh so many times, I am profoundly moved by the miracle; I found that somewhere along the line, the kind of deep abiding peace and joy, I glimpse in this practice, I was now coming to recognize as my natural state… I had been willing and ready and able to remember and apply its principles as part a natural part of my life of forgiveness, and just allow, not needing to understand or figure out….

I invite you all to join in the yummy treat of reviewing this section, Rules for Decision along with today’s lesson. The goal, after all, belongs at the beginning… So, if we want to set the day right~ aligned in truth~ that is, for the best possible application of today’s lesson: ‘I will receive whatever I request’ , why not take advantage of the specificity of this exercise? The directions, after all are for the un-perfect mind that will inevitably attempt them (as is the entire Course, thank you, Jesus)… Today I join with you in accepting Atonement through the means appointed us… I offer all my love and faith~

Monday, December 3, 2007

Lesson 338:

I am affected only by my thoughts….

I could say that this single idea: ‘I am affected only by my thoughts’, made more impact on the irreversible direction of my life than any other. I recall it as having been the first ‘pure’ ring-true-bell for me… And let me tell you, when you get this; I mean, really get this, it changes everything! Doesn’t it.

When I truly realized that I was responsible, entirely, for everything that was going on in my life, regardless of what it seemed externals might be, l was elated and terrified all at once. There was no longer, really, anywhere to run… And for that matter, there was nowhere to turn…~ nowhere, that is, but inward…

~Inward, I have to chuckle, the very place I had been trying to get away from all my life. I had run form looking within using every trick; including running compulsively in all the traditional, addictive ways were all to familiar, way as well as some I thought original to me.(Ah, the ego and its ingenuity~ passé!) One of my favorite methods was to remake or improve myself. You know, make it better, stronger, faster, get out in front, in head of the crowd… None of it worked. In fact it was the very futility of my ingenuity that lead me to its disillusionment… and into my Self within…

All my efforts to escape finally all lead back to me… And well, the most surprising thing happened.. Where I had been so sure there was only darkness within; what I called “the loneliness of nothingness”, I found only light: the incredible lightness of being”… It was a miracle.

The miracle was just waiting for me to get over my little fearful ‘rightness’, and allow its work to be done. Its message was clear: “I am as God created me~ nothing real can be threatened, nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God, and I am affected only by my thoughts”…This, turned out to be the peace of Mind I previously sought in escape and projection…

It is the Mind I share with God, the ‘real’ Mind, where illusions have no reign. I can pretend all I want and play a role in the dream about affects of thoughts apart from love, but I am in truth, always, the dreamer of the dream. I can even scare the wits out of myself, worry, regret, feel guilty, get angry, attack, feel remorseful, hurt and terrified to make a move, but this is all illusion….

I know, for beneath and beyond the dream, I am aware of my Self; deep within the everythingness and nothingness from which it came and it disperses; I recognize the light of creation in which I am wholly complete~ extending...choosing my thoughts in the light of awareness…

Love is all there is in truth. And only the thoughts that come from love bring happiness at all. They are the only one’s I want…keeping this in mind makes it’s relatively easy to not take the dream too seriously, as gradually, lucidity within the dream, becomes accessible.

I am affected only by my thoughts. I am deeply affected by my thought of you, my brothers... what happens to you happens to me. You are my thought of love transformed from my thought of fear. Thank you for your light, that I might see my thoughts reflected there. Through it, Mind returns to wholeness. I love you forever and ever as one…

Sunday, December 2, 2007

Lesson 337:

My sinlessness protects me from all harm…

Let me see here, sinlessness is the state of the center where the Self resides. The dark concept of harm cannot coexist with invulnerability; which is the natural state of the Son of God….

Once we be come willing to hide nothing, to harbor no thoughts that we would keep private, the belief in harm or vulnerability crumbles in the light of impartiality.

Harm is a concept only valid within the separation-illusion. Without belief in structures and concepts, harm could not exist. The ego’s entire kingdom is pieced together and propped up with the belief structures of scarcity, specialness, attack and harm, producing the illusion of danger and death and attackers and victims, winners and losers …. It’s all smoke and mirrors, easily dispelled when the choice to ‘forgive and see this differently’ takes precedence in value… Then what we see is our unity and oneness, even simultaneously as the bodies eyes see what they are made to see, within we recognize our brother as our Self…

In choosing Atonement for myself, I began to trust without reservation or forgive my reservation as soon a I noticed a sense of loosing connection with my center of peace … I became willing to forget fairness and justice concepts and allow the mystery within and beyond to visit truth’s impartial ‘fairness’ that unites… The letting go of needing to know, to understand and allow, has resulted in an experience of tolerance I never imagined. It’s really a feeling of accepting unconditionally that all things work together for good for all.

Nothing in this world can be done to fix anything dawns easily, although not always recognized or welcome in the beginning, when we accept Atonement and the single goal of truth. This choice seems to hold the energy of inevitability; a sense that what unfolds next has already been tested and true, so to speak…

The Holy Spirit is engaged and brings to life the ongoing gentle waking to the truth where no concepts reside at all. So, what I’m trying to get at here is although details in the dream seem effected, and choices seem to be made, another experience that is ongoing, beyond what seems apparent~ the bigger picture or rest of the story, so to speak.

There is an instant recognition, always; but due to valuing the belief in the reality of sin and you and me, etc., there is no conceptualization for pure life within the structure of the dream, so it seemingly takes time. Yet, the Holy Spirit is the great interpreter and once chosen, has given another way of seeing.

An experience that brings peace and safety and certainty comes quietly but for the single desire for it. I know... In this state of deep awareness within Mind, actions in this world blend with God’s plan for salvation and its accomplishment.

Then this experience of safety and certainty is paid forward, and trusting is easier, which handles rising fears and boosts faith… I see your sinlessness, I see mine.

Like the lesson says: “What must I do to know all this is mine? I must accept Atonement for myself, and nothing more. God has already done all things that need be done. And I must learn I need do nothing of myself, for I need but accept my Self.”