~spirithinksdanét~

~NOW is always the moment to see the face of Christ…

2008-01-27T06:31:00.000-07:00

“Above all else I want to see…”

Above all else

I want to see.

I’m not interested in seeing ahead, only in seeing who’s doing the seeing…in seeing inside my seeing… seeing and having faith simultaneously, trusting that Now is always the moment to see the face of Christ… the sacred reunion of One Son~ the Self that is my ‘true face’ reflected in what you are.

Above all else I want to see..

This is it all right…pure life ~One life ~ the one I share with God.

I’m thinking again about the section in the course, “This Need Not Be” where it says, ‘If you cannot hear the Voice for God, it is because you do not choose to listen’… If I cannot see the face of Christ it is because I do not choose to see above all else… then he says, ‘Your mind is filled with schemes to save the face of your ego, and you do not see the face of Christ. The glass in which it ego seeks to see its face is dark indeed. How can it maintain the trick of its existence except with mirrors? …But where you look to find yourself is up to you…’ …above all else I want to see~

A little bit further down in this same section, Jesus says, “You are a mirror of truth, in which God Himself shines in perfect light. To the ego’s dark glass you need but say, “I will not look there because I know these images or not true. Then let the Holy One shine on you in peace, knowing that this and only this must be. His Mind shone on you in your creation and brought your mind into being. His Mind still shines on you and must shine through you. You ego cannot prevent Him from shining on you, but it can prevent you from letting Him shine through you.”…Above all else I want to see…

As with Jesus’ appeal this same section, I ask my self to look honestly, so I can see. …Look honestly…’what have I thought that God would not have thought? What have I not thought that God would have me think?’ My thinking makes my seeing; I want only to see the Truth. “I’m willing to see what I denied…because it is the truth.”

‘Awaken and be glad’… ‘Above all else I want to see’…many countless symbols reflect for me the goal to awaken. “Vision is given freely to those who ask to see,” It seems to me that Vision creates its own morality, its own imperatives…

When we are asleep to what we are, and a veil of denial covers our sight, we can so readily give in to the constant harangue of the ego’s voice…

When I think I’m/you are really here, or that ‘this” is really happening,

I cannot know integrity and cannot be a reliable source for interpreting what I think I see because I have, as the Course says here, allowed myself to be ‘deceived by the temptations of the ego due to voluntary dis-spiriting…easily disengaged and risen above through developing the habit of engaging with God and His creations… by actively refusing to let the mind slip away’…

Above all else I want to see… this small expression of willingness is enough. It seemed it would take tremendous courage and tenacious stamina~ yet, it is simply a miracle. And one I am not in charge. I could never do it! But thank God, I don’t have to. That’s not my job. It turns out; I’m not even the one who does the looking…it is my small gift of willingness and the mighty power of God through the Holy Spirit in my mind… see, above all else I want to see~ and…

“Truth is restored to you through your desire, as it was lost to you through your desire for something else… Vision is given freely to those who ask to see.” ~Above all else I want to see…

~Just that simple and lay wait in trust…

We Are Christ and we are in this together, you and I and we are not alone~

2008-01-20T05:12:00.000-07:00

Lesson 20:

“I am determined to see…”

The lesson says, “Your decision to see is all that vision requires… What you want is yours... “So simple, yet…begging the accountability for what ~ I want the Truth and I am determined to see. Coming to experience the reversal of all the thoughts that seem to make life what it is for me~ from the way it was seemingly hard-wired in this ‘person’ called Danét~ has been so critical to my experiencing peace; reversing the upside-down idea that “something out there” is causing me to see what I think I see and realizing that “what I think is causing what I seem to see”. My choice in this world, is a film of sameness – directed by the Holy Spirit ~ or one of differences – directed by the ego. I remember when it clicked for me about the ‘real’ cause and effect relationship…I thought I thought I understood/saw… and that whole idea turned out to a defense against seeing. This awareness showed me the fallacy of my attempts to bring ‘truth to illusion’ instead of the other way around. I began to see that if I do not like how I am feeling about something that seems to be going on in my so-called life, was to see that the solution could only lie in going to the source of my unhappiness: the decision in my mind to choose the ego’s attack instead of the Holy Spirit’s forgiveness. It’s easy enough to see, ~if the screen reflects an unloving film, it can only be that I went to the wrong source and therefore, chose an unloving film. BINGO~ I choose once again…

It is my determination to see that allows me to have the alternative… The ensuing peace from turning to the Holy Spirit is what is then extended, and remains always with me, regardless of what appears to be external… I am so grateful.

I am thinking about that often referred to metaphor, but can’t be too often remembered allegory: The one about sitting in a movie theater, when the picture on the screen suddenly begins to mess up. No one in the theater would, (nor would expect the management) to rush to the screen and try to remedy the problem there. We would go instead to the usually unseen or unnoticed projection booth in the back of the theater, where the fault lies either in the movie projector or the film itself passing through the projector. Only then could the problem of the poor image on the screen be truly solved…In this analogy, the screen, represents our external lives and behavior, the projection booth represents our minds, and the projector itself represents the mind’s capacity to project (or extend) the film, which in turn represents either the thought system of the ego of the Holy Spirit, depending on our choice. …The problem never rests on the form or the behavior of what we perceive or experience (the image on the screen), bur always on the content in our minds, the thoughts with which we choose to identify (the film running through the projector).

“God has one Son, and he is the resurrection and the life. His will is done because all power is given him in Heaven and on earth... In your determination to see is vision given you…You can see them differently, and you will. What you desire you will see. Such is the real law of cause and effect as it operates in the world.

We are joined together you and I. We are the Son, experiencing ourselves as the Sonship; at home in God, dreaming of exile. So often we find ourselves with an astonishing awareness, as we are coming into a ‘determination to see’, where we want to settle with what the great poet David Whyte says in one of his profound poems about the inner journey: “at least we are all exiled together”. And sometimes we settle here for a while, afraid to really see and loose all identity with who and what we now believe we are. NOTE: This ‘we’ is me, I’m sure you see…. This feeling of recognizing exile yet feeling comforted in ‘not being alone’ is an oxymoron isn’t it. Exile is the very quintessence of aloneness, yes? This is the very fabric of the ego/man-made world… the deep, pervasive, existential background of the dream. This is it! This is the best and only comfort the ‘ego’ has to offer.

It is our ‘determination to see’ that opens us up to noticing, and then to listening~ to the background behind the background; “THE CALL TO JOY”… umm, yummy ~film at eleven…

~'The One and not alone: lesson 19

2008-01-19T04:55:00.000-07:00

Lesson 19;

"I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my thoughts…"

I am so humbled by the holographic nature of the Course, the thorough, all encompassing theoretical structure of the text ~the simplicity and uncompromising tenacity of the workbook lessons… All ~ to assist the reversal of my up-side down thinking and allow for the undoing that lets me integrate the principles of the Courses’ message through my practice of forgiveness. (And, I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my thoughts).
Over the years I have tried to be a perfect student, do the lessons perfectly, (I failed) and what it showed me was that I had an authority/authorship belief structure to forgive… I have used the Course’ metaphors and symbols (and so many others) like a drug to comfort myself~ rather than look deeply, at times.

I see now that that has been because I frightened myself off from looking~ really looking~ at the unconscious fearful beliefs which remained unquestioned and hidden (**ego deflection device~ always at the ready**).

The beauty of this system is that all these tactics turn out to be part of the gig…the experience of my ‘private thoughts ~ up for review and reversal~ all loop back around and show me the opportunity to forgive this as well… ~though the tendency to want to judge myself severely instead has certainly raised its head ~forgive, again~… Yet, the consistent experience of inner peace comes only when nothing remains assumed to be real and true. Every thought, assigned equal status brings me only peace, in looking at my thoughts and accepting that I am not alone in experiencing the effects of them; I see they’re all the same. It turns out that only exceptions bring the illusion of conflict, and it is becoming more and more obvious to me that ~Truth has no exceptions.
“The idea for today is obviously the reason why your seeing does not affect you alone.”(L19)

Here is a yummy piece David Hoffmiester shared, apropos to pass on right now…”Until the mind accepts complete forgiveness, the ego will seem to interpret the world from its personal perspective. Right-mindedness sees that nothing is personal because it sees the false as false. It sees that none of the images are true and that all value and meaning are of the Holy Spirit's Purpose. Everything
is an exercise in discernment, in experiencing only a right-minded interpretation of the world. Healing is right-mindedness and sickness is the attempt to make something personal.
The Holy Spirit uses the symbols of the world to lead to the forgiven world, and therefore none of the symbols mean anything "in and of themselves." To adore and worship a symbol is the attempt to make an idol and value something specific. Yet
specifics were made to take the place of Abstract Love, and no thing can substitute for God's Divine Love. Specialness is the attempt to separate out a person, place, thing, time, or event and hold it as more valuable than the whole. The ego therefore lifts up certain specifics as better than other specifics, thereby denying that all specifics are meaningless. This error seems to take many forms, though the forms do not matter. In right-mindedness error is impossible, for by definition error is the ego and the ego isn't real. This is the healing recognition that the Holy Spirit offers.
Make no attempt to make anything special if you want constant peace and happiness. You are the One. There is nothing outside You. Such is the Truth. Specialness seeks for scraps of value in the things of the world. Specialness seeks for special people, special techniques, special rituals, special places, and special events. Specialness emphasizes form because it knows not Love, Which is Spirit. Yet nothing specific is sacred. Who You are as Spirit is sacred, and the world was made to push the sacred out of awareness and distract the mind with meaningless specific bits of trivia and nothingness.”
~joyouslyonemind~

~Never alone~lesson 18

2008-01-18T04:01:00.000-07:00

Lesson 18:

“I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my seeing…”

I look about me, with this body’s eyes and it is impossible, anymore, for me to take for granted what I think I see.. I only see my interpretation~ my “accepted version” of what every particular thing is. I witness that everything I seem to see; every encounter with others, any exchange of any kind has been designed by this “packaged” interpretation. I see only what I expect to see. Furthermore, the body’s eyes were made to see what the blueprint of the separation…
...It turns out ~ I’m blind! Yes! But, finally, simply, gratefully, I accept that…. The thing about accepting that I'm blind is that I also accept that I require assistance to see what things are and where I am going. Turns out, too, perfectly, that right here within me, is this assistance; ‘Holy Spirit spectacles’, so to speak, designed to sharpen the mind for vision, in order to see a new world.

For so many years I relied on the analytical abilities of my mind to take what my eyes seemed to see and to seemingly assess what ‘the reality’ of the situation was. Truly, applying these very lessons from the Course in my life, regardless…. offered the miracle of sight, and the possibility that I was wrong about what I thought, saw and assessed. The script was written; all that the one mind that allowed for the ‘tiny mad idea’ to have a play, dictated every possibility and the Atonement corrected it. Every possibility played out and was answered the instant it was made. The rote interpretation was answered by the re-interpreter placed indelibly within for as long as the regurgitation of the past fancies itself within the mind of God’s Son…

From my wrong mind or ‘packaged sight, I can contribute only to the idea of problems; needing solutions…being the victim or the hero… it’s a merry-go-round I happily let go by now… Like John Lennon’s song…rather “watch the wheels go round”. The course says there is really only one problem ~ we think we are separate from God and therefore, each other…and, there is only One answer ~ we’re NOT~ “forgive and see this differently…forgive and this will disappear…”

How grateful I am to have this curriculum, these lessons, to train my mind, and therefore ours (after all I’m not alone in experience the effects of my seeing)…um yummy…

I ask myself, “How am I seeing this, through the eyes of the ego, or through Christ’s vision?” (Since it can only be one of those options). ~Best to ask my vision guide to show me what I’m seeing… saves time, gives peace…

The part in the text under the heading “The Justice of God” keeps pushing its way to the front of my mind…

“I. The Link to Truth

It cannot be that it is hard to do the task that Christ appointed you to do, since it is He Who does it. And in the doing of it will you learn the body merely seems to be the means to do it. For the Mind is His. And so it must be yours. His Holiness directs the body through the mind at one with Him. And you are manifest unto your holy brother, as he to you. Here is the meeting of the holy Christ unto Himself; nor any differences perceived to stand between the aspects of His Holiness, which meet and join and raise Him to His Father, whole and pure and worthy of His everlasting Love.

How can you manifest the Christ in you except to look on holiness and see Him there? Perception tells you are manifest in what you see. Behold the body, and you will believe that you are there. And every body that you look upon reminds you of yourself; your sinfulness, your evil and, above all, your death. And would you not despise the one who tells you this, and seek his death instead? The message and the messenger are one. And you must see your brother as yourself. Framed in his body you will see your sinfulness, wherein you stand condemned. Set in his holiness, the Christ in him proclaims Himself as you.

Perception is a choice of what you want yourself to be; the world you want to live in, and the state in which you think your mind will be content and satisfied. It chooses where you think your safety lies, at your decision. It reveals yourself to you, as you would have you be. And always is it faithful to your purpose, from which it never separates, nor gives the slightest witness unto anything the purpose in your mind upholdeth not. Perception is a part of what it is your purpose to behold, for means and end are never separate. And thus you learn what seems to have a life apart has none.

are the means for God; not separate, nor with a life apart from His. His life is manifest in you who are His Son. Each aspect of Himself is framed in holiness and perfect purity, in love celestial and so complete it wishes only that it may release all that it looks upon unto itself. Its radiance shines through each body that it looks upon, and brushes all its darkness into light merely by looking past it the light. The veil is lifted through its gentleness, and nothing hides the face of Christ from its beholders. You and your brother stand before Him now, to let Him draw aside the veil that seems to keep you separate and apart.

Since you believe that you are separate, Heaven presents itself to you as separate, too. Not that it is in truth, but that the link that has been given you to join the truth may reach to you through what you understand. Father and Son and Holy Spirit are as One, as all your brothers join as one in truth. Christ and His Father never have been separate, and Christ abides within your understanding, in the part of you that shares His Father's Will. The Holy Spirit links the other part-the tiny, mad desire to be separate, different and special-to the Christ, to make the oneness clear to what is really one. In this world this is not understood, but can be taught.

The Holy Spirit serves Christ's purpose in your mind, so that the aim of specialness can be corrected where the error lies. Because His purpose still is one with both the Father and the Son, He knows the Will of God and what you really will. But this is understood by mind perceived as one, aware that it is one, and so experienced. It is the Holy Spirit's function to teach you how this oneness is experienced, what you must do that it can be experienced, and where you should go to do it.

All this takes note of time and place as if they were discrete, for while you think that part of you is separate, the concept of a Oneness joined as One is meaningless. It is apparent that a mind so split could never be the Teacher of a Oneness which unites all things within Itself. And so What is within this mind, and does unite all things together, must be its Teacher. Yet must It use the language that this mind can understand, in the condition in which it thinks it is. And It must use all learning to transfer illusions to the truth, taking all false ideas of what you are, and leading you beyond them to the truth that beyond them. All this can very simply be reduced to this:
What is the same can not be different, and what is one can not have separate parts.” (T-25.I.1-7)

I am just sitting here weeping tears of joy… I am so moved by the beauty and profundity of Course…of this passage…this day…this moment…with you…~all gratitude and glory to God… ~amen~

~The view from within:lesson 17~

2008-01-17T04:43:00.000-07:00

Lesson 17:

“I see no neutral things…”

…because I have no neutral thoughts…

I notice a background of comfort abiding me as I am going through the lessons with ya all, this time around.
It used to be, back in the beginning, I was always feeling afraid I would forget throughout the day –that I would do too few practice periods to “get it”, that I would be unconsciously sabotaging and defeating myself. Of course, all that came to pass. …And now; well, now I notice I can’t forget, really. “I see no neutral things,” (or whatever the lesson) answers every question the day seems to ask.
That happens is the miracle; the shift in perception from thinking I have any idea about what I think I see, to realizing that, that very idea of thinking I know, is the very deflector the ego is using at the time, to avert me from using the mirror of my thoughts for my function of forgiveness. The Danét character, doesn’t know. And, alas, the One Who does know, has been invited to reinterpret my so call life, by my willing commitment to the curriculum set forth in God’s plan for salvation… (even if that little ‘I’ thinks I fail to remember something I deem important… the Holy Spirit always has my back!
It is a comfort to realize that regardless of what I might think I think… the Holy Spirit is reaching me at the perfect match possible to my available willingness for the maximum benefit at this time, without increasing fear or reproducing time. I feel cuddled in a sense of timeless safety, while I let the past be undone: I watch the past images drift by, not ever really lodging themselves anymore; while I take instruction from within. Furthermore, I am not alone and we are One…
So what, if it is, that I, Danét, see no neutral things because I have no neutral thoughts…That works for me… I merely happily watch the production from Here, Now,~ and not know ‘what’s going to happen or what it means when it does, and wait… Thanks for joining me above the battleground. It seems David Whyte, a delicious poet I love is present in my mind this morning, as well …His depiction from Tilicho Lake…

In this high place
it is as simple as this,
leave everything you know behind.

Step toward the cold surface,
say the old prayer of rough love
and open both arms.

Those who come with empty hands
will stare into the lake astonished,
there, in the cold light
reflecting pure snow,

the true shape of your own face.

~ David Whyte ~

~Lotsa thoughts about zero idle/neutral thoughts~lesson 16

2008-01-16T07:15:00.000-07:00

Lesson 16:

"I have no neutral thoughts…”

No, no, no, no, no… “I” do not. There is no private “I”, first off, like no private thoughts… God has but one Son and the thought of the possibility of the impossible {separation from Source} took the detour in to hell. The “I” referred here is the listening/applying/thinking “I”. “It” has no neutral thoughts because without joining it doesn’t exist… So, ”I” join with some fathering thought or adviser. Like it says in chapter 30 of the text, in the section called Rules for decision, “…you cannot make decisions by yourself. The only question really is with what you choose to make them. That is really all. The first rule, then, is not coercion, but a simple statement of a simple fact. You will not make decisions by yourself whatever you decide. For they are made with idols or with God. And you ask help of anti-Christ or Christ, and which you choose will join with you and tell you what to do…a fact as well. For you and your adviser must agree on what you want before it can occur. It is but this agreement that permits all things to happen.”

Now, given the primary principle the Course teaches that “ideas leave not their source”, the crucial fact; “ideas leave not their source,” which describes the reason for our (God’s One Son) being, how can we pretend that any thoughts could be without effect in the world from and for which they are intended. Recap: God extended His thought, fathering us. Without this ‘fathering’, we cannot be. He is the Source and we- the Son, are the effect and our sonship established Him as Father. With His extension of Himself creating all of what we are, along with that, came the fathership component. The Course speaks of our creations and mis-creation: of The tiny mad idea that seemed to enter the mind of the Son; fathered the entire cosmos of time and space: beginning and end/ birth and death, and all form and difference and every ‘what-if’ to ever come in time. Like it says in the beginning of the text: “The inappropriate use of extension, or projection, occurs when you believe that some emptiness or lack exists in you, and that you can fill it with your own ideas instead of truth. This process involves the following steps:

1)First, you believe that what God created can be changed by your own mind.

2)Second, you believe that what is perfect can be rendered imperfect or lacking.

3)Third, you believe that you can distort the creations of God, including yourself.

4)Fourth, you believe that you can create yourself, and that the direction of your own creation is up to you.

These related distortions represent a picture of what actually occurred in the separation, or the “detour into fear”… All fear is basically reducible to the basic misperception that you have the ability to usurp the power of God...”) So pretty much, this world is the mis-creative thought that God’s creation could ‘usurp the power of God…. Ya know, it just sounds completely ludicrous right now…. Ah, the cosmic belly-laugh…

I love this part, below, from today’s lesson…

“There is no more self-contradictory concept than that of "idle thoughts." What gives rise to the perception of a whole world can hardly be called idle. Every thought you have contributes to truth or to illusion; either it extends the truth or it multiplies illusions. You can indeed multiply nothing, but you will not extend it by doing so.”

Mind watching twenty-four seven, I mean really paying attention to my thoughts… that has been the challenge. The denial and distraction techniques so fundamentally interwoven into my (this worlds) basic make up,~ oh, their good –very good… I see so clearly now the design~ ”don’t look, keep busy, complain, blame, explain ~ compromise…”

One of the things I love most about the Course (Oh, who am I kidding? … I love every precious symbol of the Course, with all my heart and gratitude!) Anyway, something that has left me a sense of trust and security is that the Course is completely uncompromising, (as I have found that ultimately practicing the principle of Atonement is uncompromising). The Course says that compromise is the belief that salvation is impossible. Yeah, duh… that has always been the reason I sought compromise… no faith in Love, no faith in my brother or my self. In one place, the Course says that a miracle is an ‘act of faith – it is a recognition that your brother can do it – by calling to the one mind in him.’ …um, it feels good to trust…

And again, this is what makes the Course is so simple and possible, just because it makes NO compromise and all my difficulty is proportionate to my belief that compromise is possible.

“…Besides your recognizing that thoughts are never idle, salvation requires that you also recognize that every thought you have brings either peace or war, either love or fear…”

The Course says ‘you will except the course completely… or not at all’… this was been a difficult pill to swallow for me (when in my wrong mind) yet, impossible to deny. ~ Love or fear, God or nothing…What God did not create can only be in my mind that thinks it thinks apart from His. Therefore it really has no meaning. It isn’t real _ but that doesn’t mean that it has no effects ~ this entire dream is the effect: a dream ‘made’ by just such an idle (idol) thought…

Joyously, I came to realize that the reason nothing in this world holds any appeal for me is because, in itself, it is meaninglessly representing a world made by idle thought, as a prison for oneness~ and then gave the key to the gatekeeper named denial.

‘Image making is not seeing’, as the Course says~ meaningless is nothing~ but because of this, I feel impelled to write upon it what I would have it be. Yet… why not let the Holy Spirit/ the Truth be written for me. …Beneath my words is written the word of God; “I am as God created me.” Words cannot describe the Truth of what I am. Yet, joyously I see that truth through accepting the Atonement for myself. This is my only purpose, I am realizing my function of forgiveness here, which words can speak of and teach ~ I wish only to exemplify His word in me…for you and I are one… “Teach only love for that is what we are”…foreverandever....

~the light of understanding lesson 15~

2008-01-15T05:03:00.000-07:00

Lesson 15:

“My thoughts are images that I have made”…

It seemed for the longest time that this just kept turning out to be just so true on so many levels, yes? Every time I’d think I know what something is or means or that I‘ve got life all wired up right…. Then the light changes, my mood or circumstances seem to change…. and bingo~ disillusionment. It has actually been a release and frankly a relief to see that all my thoughts, beliefs, ideas about ‘life’ are just images I have made (and fickle images at that, it has turned out). It breaks ‘me’ open to the light of understanding (which turns out to be nothing I thought it was either) and so much of this apparent daily life seems surreal to me. Love is what seems to flesh out or bring life to the shadowy figures of my mind. I notice that everything about me seems not all that solid, kind of giving the feeling of “beam me up Scottie…”~ I notice the light beyond, within, and as…I am with this… and you are there with me…

“My thoughts are images that I have made”…

Yes. Tis true. Nothing is as the images would once have represented anymore. Everything I thought I thought I saw, and ‘knew’, but merely represented a level of so-called thinking, seemingly apart from God, and pictured out to give its flimsy stance some illusory validity. But I ask, “Can this be?” ~anything apart from all that is? Honestly, now… I think not. Period. Only the thoughts of God could be real. Period. The light has answered, of course, and the illusory nature of my thinking dissolved into a forgiven perspective where the lines around the images (nor really the images at all) are no longer drawn in the sand… (Sand, sands of time, eh?) The thing about choosing forgiveness which allows for vision, is that the very same identity constructs that seemed so solid before; the you, the me, the ‘individual-nesses’ of the world, seem to have been bathed (or maybe baptized is a better word) in the pure light of love, which shines truth from within and nearly dis-appears the ‘once-solid’ image/idea. This simple question, (Can this be?) asked from innocence and emptiness, has turned out to be a bridge from my past to Now, for me. And Now is the presence of God … allowing for the light of understanding. This light is simply more real than any image or thought I ever believed before. It’s irrefutable ~certain... And seeing that my thoughts are images that I have made allowed for me to look deeper, feel deeper, trust deeper… to the stillness of Love; the thoughts I think with God….the certainty that I am… ~Love and gratitude overflowing~

~ramblings triggered by lesson 14~

2008-01-14T06:22:00.000-07:00

Lesson 14

“God did not create a meaningless world…”

Duh! How could all meaning, create meaninglessness? So, what is not of God must be a dream. This little tidbit (critical though it was/is) was not easy for me to allow revealing itself to me, let alone accepting. Yet the unmistakable significance beneath all seeming reality manifest as this world of form, is that “God is” … (ah, the still peace of that simple, all powerful recognition)… yummy, yes…. And within this Is-ness that is God, is all that is, yes? And God is love, yes…. Just breath, feel it. Yep, it’s unmistakable… formless, limitless, ever-present/eternally-now… OK, so, whatever isn’t this experience~ really simply isn’t… isn’t ‘real’ but merely an image within the dream of impossibility; the dream of separation from Source. Right now it seems so apparent ~ the grand illusion~ and the all of it is what is referred to here as meaningless. Of course it’s meaningless, all meaning lies in reality. God did not create that which God is not, so the world where the experience God is not, is meaningless. God did not create it. The world I seem to see was created to divert attention from the truth of what I am as God created me…(I am God’s Son; complete and healed and whole…). God did not create Danét… so it is not real… whatever it is I think I think, or perceive in this world, all my design, all equally ‘not real’… self concept …not real…all equally meaningless. The Atonement was God’s answer to the tiny mad idea that spawned the dream of the separated and alone… placing indelibly within the Son’s mind, the Holy Spirit’s perfect re-membering of the truth and understanding of God’s plan for salvation; ‘the beckoning wake-up call of love’. I have heard the call and I have answered. And now I have but one choice within this so-called life of Danét. Which guide/voice will I listen to: Love or fear? ~it is the choice for purpose; the choice to host God or play hostage to ego dictates… for meaning or meaninglessness…

“I am responsible for what I see.

I choose the feelings I experience, and I decide

Upon the goal I would achieve.

And everything that seems to happen to me

I ask for, and receive as I have asked.”

This is my responsibility and I accept it gladly for in it I have found all freedom and the peace of God. Somewhere, fundamentally deep within, and as me, I am listening, knowing, being… always ~already~, awake…recognizing the Truth.

I love how the Course is always looping back on the main idea of cause and effect. God being cause ~ we the effect ~ that ideas never leave their source. ‘God created His Sons by extending His Thought, and retaining the extensions of his Thought in His Mind. All His thoughts are thus perfectly united within themselves and with each other.’ (T-6.II.8: 1-2) Thank you for our rejoining in the still peace of God and His holy Son. I love you forever and ever~

~From meaninglessness to miracles~thoughts with lesson 13~

2008-01-13T06:36:00.000-07:00

Lesson 13:

“A meaningless world engenders fear….” What does this mean? Okay, meaningless… Wholly @#*! The idea of meaninglessness rises to mind the question of my little existence, what value it has, hell even its validity or reality at all. Of course that’s a threat to the idea of self dreamed up separate from the truth of being where one can reside soundly in reality. Hell yeah, it’s a threat to recognize that all that gave me reason to fight and struggle, make better and win~ was meaningless. To give up every idea I ever had of what life was; every belief and value ever held. Surely I too, would be meaningless, yes?

The first time I did the lessons, I remember I thought something to the effect of “Yeah, well maybe if I had a negative spin on things like so many people do, but I don’t, thank god, I see mostly the good…” (Competition with God ~ self authorship) I look at that now and I recognized the ego ‘sidestepping denial technique’, a rose-colored glasses perspective designed to avoid even the idea of fear. The idea of total meaninglessness was horrifically terrifying to me. Yet I was completely oblivious to this. So far from any awareness I had to keep it from myself~ too small and fragile was my ‘self’ esteem, too tenuous was my significance in this world ~in my so-called life, which I couldn’t afford to relax a bit. “Had to strive… become a better person… show God I was serious, and appreciative, and a good student’. I didn’t see the set up then… the fear of meaninglessness, let alone the meaningless world, and certainly not the competition with God ~which when I did glimpse it rendered me crippled with guilt. I was a good path for me.
Turns out; none of it meant anything. But, my willingness to trust the Holy Spirit by way of this Course, my gradual willingness to be wrong; to question every thing I ever thought or believed, and my willing to be shown another way and then to practice it, regardless of my personal reactions to it… ~this has been enough…
At some point I became profoundly aware that every upset, from the slightest confusion, irritation, bored resistance, to “knowing” what I “prefer” were confusion about authorship. And, always, with my willingness to look straight on at the seeming situation, I realized no real facts comprised it… only the desperate demands of a spoiled, frightened ego-child afraid to see the truth for fear of losing the ‘seeming security’ of being right about the images and they’re seeming meaning that frailly strung them together to give the illusion of a solid world. Always, this loss of peace stemmed from the belief that I was in competition with God. My “little willingness” to be wrong…showed the instability of a foundation based in “belief” rather than truth which is always solid, immovable and unchanging ~waiting for my recognition of it ~ my Self ~ Love, as God created me. Thank God.

More and more I see evidence in the world of the only thing that could be true, I am as God Created me, and you and I are one. The Peace of God is in our very make up. Being fathered by God, how could it possibly be made of some thing else… No~only God. Only the desire to author myself and reality … to “specialize” myself, could make it seem so. It feels so good, no; right, to finally forgive this arrogant competition with God.... It’s nearly comical to look at it now … like watching little children acting like they ‘know everything’, like; “you’re not the boss of me…!”
Ummm~talk about a shift in perception ~thank you, God; “my so-called life is nothing short of a miracle the holy shift from meaningless-mindedness to miracle-mindedness. What a miracle.
The section in the workbook called “What Is a Miracle?” keeps surfacing in my mind, so apropos… Take a gander if it suits you: http://www.truthbook.com/sacredtexts/ACIM/Workbook.html#P2_13

All of life needs a source to exist and it is impossible that perfect love ~LIFE ~ could mutate into fearful, inevitable death. What a relief to see this folly, ~ Talk about peace…aahh, peace, this is my natural state. Here, I am at home. And you are there with me because there is no such animal as aloneness ~ in oneness. It’s so simply obvious … LOVE IS ALL THERE IS ~and if for a second I don’t see it, I just close my eyes and zero in on the still point of light at the center of my mind, from which I draw out the world, I feel the deep peace and abiding joy of my Self, ~and Love itself expands, beaconing me to extend… Love whispers, “draw this world” ~ and as I open my eyes, I see… Such is the yummy nature of “choosing once again. “

~aah, ~allowing the truth of lesson 12~

2008-01-12T06:03:00.000-07:00

Lesson 12:

“I am upset because I see a meaningless world”…

What keeps going through my mind is how true it is that all my upset is really due to my resistance to resting in meaninglessness, having ask the Holy Spirit for meaning; “What is this? What is it for?” and then waiting in patience, in the eternal present for meaning to be written for me…as the lesson says, “What is meaningless is neither good nor bad. Why, then, should a meaningless world upset you? If you could accept the world as meaningless and let the truth be written upon it for you, it would make you indescribably happy. But because it is meaningless, you are impelled to write upon it what you would have it be. It is this you see in it. It is this that is meaningless in truth. Beneath your words is written the Word of God.”

I notice the compulsion to assign meaning ~ The Course says the ego speaks first and loudly~ will I question what I hear? A few years ago, as I began to really be honest with myself, I came to see that I really didn’t care about anything in this ‘world’. It really didn’t matter to me how things went, or what situations seemed to be…I could wait and see…and…this is when I began to notice how vigilant the voice for the ego was in my mind; always on a mission to assign meaning ~ the lengths it would go to convince me I ‘should’ care about this, that…something, anything… It’s my life we’re talkin’ about here after all , isn’t it. Is it? I noticed that if I took orders from and acted on the compulsion, the ‘thing’ did seem real and something I did care about going a certain way. And the world felt real indeed, and eventually led to my feeling small; ‘not significant enough’ to make any impact. This in turn left me feeling exhausted… And, paradoxically, open once again, to choose again. This in turn, brought me back to a state of peace. So it turns out, the “not caring” is a very high state. One in which the burden of this world of form and consequence, is lifted. It can’t but go the way it’s meant to. The script is written…. I but choose to see with love or fear; with trust or worry; alone or as One Mind… So once I choose with the Holy Spirit within my mind, I find, I don’t really care at all about what seemingly goes on. I don’t really believe it real…all that really matters is the happy exchange of love surrounding me~ the opportunity to extend love, the call for love and hear it for what it really is…love~ It is all the same…all the same…only love matters. Love is what we are, after all… Only love… and the mechanism of forgiveness is the instrument which returns me to my right mind. So, one could say, that it turns out ‘forgiveness offers everything we want’.

So now, when I notice the compulsion to assign meaning, (one can easily tell by the loss of peace, a sort of free floating restlessness), more often than not, before I make it real, make it matter, decide what to ‘do’ about it, (or more quickly, anyway), I simply forgive what never really happened and see beyond to the call for love. Then simply ask… wait, and listen for the Truth… and ahhh…peace. I see the truth reflected all around me, springing from the well of peace deep within me. And my mind is open to a different world. And from here, I watch… I see how every one is doing their part, and gratitude abounds. Just like the lesson today says, “The truth upsets you now, but when your words have been erased, you will see His. That is the ultimate purpose of these exercises.” So there it is… Thank you my brothers who are one with me ~ ‘sailin’ peacefully on Love ~

~umm... contemplationshare~ lesson 11

2008-01-11T04:44:00.000-07:00

Lesson 11:

“My meaningless thoughts are showing me a meaningless world…”

My mind keeps referencing early sections of the Course~ the part where it (Jesus) is saying to watch your mind carefully…

“It has never really entered your mind to give up every idea you ever had that opposes knowledge. You retain thousands of little scraps of fear that prevent the Holy One from entering. Light cannot penetrate through the walls you make to block it, and it is forever unwilling to destroy what you have made. No one can see through a wall, but I can step around it. Watch your mind for the scraps of fear, or you will be unable to ask Me to do so... watch carefully and see what it is you are really asking for. Be very honest with yourself in this, for we must hide nothing from each other. If you will really try to do this, you have taken the first step toward preparing your mind for the Holy One to enter. We will prepare for this together, for once He has come, you will be ready to help Me to make other minds ready for Him. How long will you deny Him His Kingdom?

…Watch your mind for the temptations of the ego, and do not be deceived by it. It offers you nothing. When you have given up this voluntary dis-spiriting, you will see how your mind can focus and rise above fatigue and heal. Yet you are not sufficiently vigilant against the demands of the ego to disengage yourself. This need not be.

The habit of engaging with God and His creations is easily made if you actively refuse to let your mind slip away. The problem is not one of concentration; it is the belief that no one, including yourself, is worth consistent effort. Side with me consistently against this deception, and do not permit this shabby belief to pull you back. The disheartened are useless to themselves and to me, but only the ego can be disheartened…Watch your mind carefully for any beliefs that hinder its accomplishment, and step away from them. Judge how well you have done this by your own feelings, for this is the one right use of judgment. Judgment, like any other defense, can be used to attack or protect; to hurt or to heal. The ego SHOULD be brought to judgment and found wanting there. Without your own allegiance, protection and love, the ego cannot exist. Let it be judged truly and you must withdraw allegiance, protection and love from it. (T4.III-IV)

I remember the horrid self-debasement I put myself through for my lack of discipline, for my addiction to “being” the character in the script, for ‘seeing’ it theoretically and yet completely caught up in the dream… whipped by it. God, how I have wished that something ‘out there’ could shoulder the burden of my feelings of uselessness and imperfection and hopelessness…but there’s nothing out there. Having given everything all the meaning it has for me and having projected it ‘out there’ has resulted in the futile exercise of trying to rearrange the figures on the screen. And seeing that this attempt has never changed a thing, the only thing left to do has been what the Course suggests...In every situation, ask “what is this for?’…Then wait, watch and listen.

It has been these simple lessons that have placed me in this excellent seat in the audience of the show “My So Called Life’.

It’s so interesting (from where I seem to be right now) to observe my seeming world with its seeming thoughts; to notice the compulsion to make it ‘the real thing’. I watch the shifting, changing landscape and characters and opinions. What a Show! I laugh out loud… So capricious is this serious character, ‘the hero of the dream”. I feel the still, silent prayer of gratitude for having the ‘best seat in the house’ to watch this production from. ~I weep… I laugh…I forgive…

We’re in this together, you and I, and we are not alone. I am joined with you in the joyous realization of the Truth~ you and I are One~

~contemplating lesson 10...

2008-01-10T04:09:00.000-07:00

Lesson 10:

My thoughts do not mean anything…

How true this is in this world, from within this, my, thought system. ~Talk about disillusioning~ All the “all important” thinking about what to be, to do, to say, what I should have said, what ‘they’re’ thinking, what ‘they’re’ feeling, what happened, what should have happened, what’s going to happen if, if not…blah, blah, blah… All said and done, what happened to it? Where did it go? Only to be replaced by the next ‘important’ thought ~ the one similarity being that each has the purpose of defining the world for me (and often others in my mind) and of defining my self. It is merely a distraction from my real purpose ~ a delay in time, which too, means nothing.

“I do not know the thing I am, and therefore do not know what I am doing, where I am, or how to look upon the world or on myself.” (T-31.V.17.7)

…This idea will help release me from all that I now believe…

At times I have felt so defeated and stupid, and at a loss to ever “get it” The Light of recognition I experienced immediately in the Course that brought me home for an instant has been the beacon at these times. Yet the development of pervasive, persistent habit of engaging with God through choosing to listen to the Holy Spirit, watch my mind and question every value and belief, has been the mainstay. As the course says:

“To learn this course requires willingness to question every value that you hold. Not one can be kept hidden and obscure but it will jeopardize your learning. No belief is neutral. Every on has the power to dictate each decision you make. For a decision is a conclusion based on everything that that you believe.” (T-24.2: 1-5)

And my willingness has been enough (and really, all I have to offer, it turns out).

I have become willing to see ~ and allow my real thoughts, of which I can’t define, but do observe through relationships ~in peace and joy and oneness.

The need to think I think, to define, to plan, etc. has eased up. And it has become more automatic to come to life with an ‘open mind’ and empty hands.

Alas~ so much lovelier ~

(…and of course these thoughts don’t mean any thing …but, ah, I do love this feeling, sharing them with you)

You are my thought of love, forever and ever ~

~seeing /perceiving lesson 9

2008-01-09T04:40:00.000-07:00

Lesson 9:

“I see nothing as it is now…”

While considering this a.m.’s lesson, the following passages from the text spoke out to me. Sharing them now seems apropos …

“Thoughts begin in the mind of the thinker, from which the reach outward. This is as true of God’s Thinking as it is of yours. Because your mind is split, you can perceive as well as think. Yet perception cannot escape the basic laws of mind. You perceive from your mind and project you perceptions outward.” (T-6.11.9: 1-5)

“What you project or extend is real for you.”(T. 7.11.2: 4)

”…what you project of extend is up to you, but you must do one or the other, for that is the law of mind, and you must look in before you look out. As you look in, you choose the guide for seeing (ego or Holy Spirit). And then you look out and behold his witnesses. (T-12.VII.7: 1-3)

It’s so true that everything in this world reinforces itself. It does, as well, I am seeing, when the state of mind is Heaven. Part of the very foundation of the Course, referred to, as a fundamental law of the mind, is, that “ideas leave not their source.” So, the content of God’s thought is Love and we are the extension of that Love. Here, within the dream of separation, the content of the ego thought system starts with separation and can only separate; the split mind can only split. So, this dynamic is called projection when it reflects the ego, which in contrast to the dynamic belonging to spirit, which is extension. It has seemed to my split mind that it has been relatively easy to grasp this concept, theoretically. But then, as I have given myself over more and more to the miracle, and suspended ‘knowing or understanding’ what anything means, long enough for a new interpretation, I have experienced the validity of these two exclusive systems. The miracle reveals itself as a new perception in a myriad of ways. Everything I thought mattered, thought I valued, thought was significant, no longer exists. Let alone the passionate ‘right’-ness I felt about it all and felt required to have. I can hardly remember, nor relate to that reality. Only the vaguest shadow of this self-importance remains; always useful as a symbol to unite through forgiveness.

I am united with you as the Love, which created us as Love…forever, always, now…

~Lesson 8 musings~

2008-01-08T05:20:00.001-07:00

Lesson 8:

My mind is preoccupied with past thoughts...

I have noticed that thoughts happen ~ It is futile to attempt to try to control them. Through practicing the principles of the Course, and observing ‘my’ seeming thoughts, I see that the only choice is “purpose”. Either the never-ending borage of past thoughts, (or nothingness); accompanied by the background feeling of urgency, anxiety, guilt, fear, need to control, prepare, plan ~ (in other words ~ separation). Even the so- called ‘happy thoughts’ have this low under-current.

Or, I choose to allow the Holy Spirit to think for me. I am happily aware of this choice due to the obvious absence of the above listed set of feeling ‘background music’. Rather, a song of joy, certainty and trust, a sense of One tapestry…released from the burden of ‘separate’ things, situations, people, problems and solutions, of having to know, understand, solve, ‘do the right thing’. With the Holy Spirit we can’t but do the right thing~ and, trust will settle everything, now…

OnemindinChrist~

2008-01-07T06:06:00.000-07:00

Lesson 7:

I see only the past…

As sat with today’s lesson, I was flooded with awareness of miracles that have come to me throughout my years with the Holy Spirit guiding me, and ACIM being a primary tool. This is how these thoughts laid out…

I see only the past… Yes, so true, if I rely on my physical eyes to see and ‘their’ guide to interpret… what a racket that is, eh?

The concept “PAST” is a storehouse of ideas and meanings that alleviate me of any responsibility to “NOW”. (Minor detail: keep this ‘private thought’ away from awareness). This storehouse is like the ego drug dealer’s place. A place where I can always get a fix for a ‘price’ and my willingness to do this is the ‘detour into hell. From this place, meaning has no value, only the distraction from ‘NOW’. By ordering all thought, ideas and meanings into hierarchies I can deceive myself into thinking I know something about this world and that my assessment is RIGHT. (Keep secret from myself one small detail: there is no world). And each time the armor cracks and the unknown light shines through ~ blinding me in my rightness~ the seductive consoling voice of my ‘dealer’ speaks, “Quick take a fix – set it all right again…don’t wait to see what the light shows, it’s blinding you! Come back in here where it’s cool and dark and you.”

The ego made roles (roles that have seemed mean so much, at times) to contain what cannot BE contained. They are but concepts, garments made to cloak the belief in private thoughts and private minds. The responsibility I NOW accept is for the state of mind God Wills for us as the Christ: ~PEACE~.

The past is very much like a past memory marquee that repeats until we learn to transcend it. I have noticed that as my desire for joining and union has become more consistently singular, I, we, together, are released from the past and thus released from the illusory consequences, which we once believed, were true. Ultimately, at the core, everyone wants to love and be loved. When we relinquish judgment, we at last open to the experience of True Love. True Love and Freedom ~ one in the same. Freedom is the state of mind that we can only experience when the past has gone. And this happens when we give what we seem to see over to the Holy Spirit to show us what we see...Christ Vision sees all things as reflections of thought in this very moment~ Love is Now!! ~With no past judgments distracting the mind, the miracle of Love is seen ~ NOW!

~ I am joined with you in the eternal NOW, always ~

2008-01-06T06:59:00.000-07:00

LESSON 6:

“I am upset because I see something that is not there”....

With out exception, this has been the case for me. I am seeing a reflection of my mind… always. The Course says that the outside world is a reflection of an inward condition… and this has truly been my experience, the more I have given myself over to the Holy Spirit for the miracle over-haul, the more different every thing, person or situation appears to me than it did when looked as from the eyes that see a problem to fix. The miracle shows there is no problem that hasn’t already been solved and is playing out such that ‘all thing work together for good’… And since there isn’t anything out there, whatever I think I am seeing ‘out there’, I put there. It is my projection, and from my dream and the ‘out there-ness’ is my chance to see what I have denied ~what I have projected. I can see it because of the Light of Christ, within all~ joined in the One perspective (forgiveness or the Atonement principle), which we all share. The more I look at everything and everyone ‘out there’ through this One perspective, the more I realize that ‘seeing’ is only valuable once I have given all I think I see over to this idea. And that cracks open my defenses and allows the Holy Spirit within my mind to ‘show me’ what is there~and what it is for…

I am joined with you in this perspective and the ‘Happy Dream’ is on…

Always and forever~

2008-01-05T03:08:00.000-07:00

Lesson 5:

“I am never upset for the reason I think”... As I have been doing the lesson today, I keep thinking about the passage in the Course text in chapter 24 section 2:1-5, where it says:

"To learn this course requires willingness to question every value that you hold. Not one can be kept hidden and obscure but it will jeopardize your learning. No belief is neutral. For a decision is a conclusion based of everything that you believe."

It seemed like such a tall order when I first started. Yet, it turns out, that my 'little willingness" is enough. All my ideas and beliefs just keep presenting themselves via my brothers, shining before me through the light of Christ within us. And the dark spots of judgment are revealed, innocently laid before me for my forgiveness. My willingness to not have to know what anything is or what it is for, but rather to ask the Holy Spirit to interpret, then I just be still and wait, and beyond what I could ever comprehend, One purpose seems to materialize through my forgiveness of ‘my’ meaning. Ah... what peace... so purely simple...

I am joined with you in the 'one purpose, unified and sure' ~forever and ever~

ACIM lesson 4

2008-01-04T09:35:00.000-07:00

Lesson 4

”My thoughts do not mean anything”… it goes like this for me… As I am recognizing that my thoughts, thoughts of this so-called 'life of Danét' mean nothing and then, when I allow the Holy Spirit to "think for God, for me" the meaningful becomes apparent. And I begin to see Christ shining behind all thoughts reflected in this seeming life. And I notice the interwoven peace spread like a blanket beneath, and surrounding all seeming things and beings and situations and the glorious perfection that 'all things work together for good', as the course says.

The Course text begins with laying out the 50 principles of A Course In Miracles" and I’m thinking about Principle 36:

Miracles are examples of right thinking, aligning your perceptions with truth as God created it.

The course uses the word “right-mindedness” which means thinking along with the Holy Spirit rather than the ego. And the more this has become a way of life for me, the more I see the absolute simplicity of it. Although the miracle doesn’t directly express the truth of God, it is aligned with it or reflects it. And I can see it in the light within you which I recognize now, is the reason I can see at all. Nothing is without our agreement on one level or another. I see the Christ it you to feel the reality within myself. The truth of God is that we are all one. In this world, we experience the oneness by transcending all the ego barriers of separation: thoughts of anger, hurt, victimization, etc. While true perception is not the truth, it is nonetheless not in conflict with it. These reflections are the goal of the Course as well our One Self for they are the inevitable effect when we undo all the barriers to truth. What I have experienced then happens is that the thoughts I think with God being to sort of think me… umm, umm, umm… guess I’ll just sit in the stillness of this yummy space with you a while… forever now..

ACIM lesson 3

2008-01-03T09:29:00.000-07:00

LESSON 3:

I do not understand anything I

I do not understand anything I see… Sooo true. The great relief of my life was coming to the realization that I had been ‘wrong’ ~wrong about everything! My premise for reality was faulty. What a luck break, this realization/awareness. The ‘knowing’ mind is dangerous territory for me. My first responsibility in any given situation is to look squarely at what I think I think and perceive ~and then empty out, inviting the Holy Spirit within my mind to adjust my perspective. Now, I don’t of course; do that always, but more often than not any more. As a matter of fact not doing this and thinking with the compulsory strategic mind no longer feels right~ and the feeling of off-ness then becomes my reminder that I have forgotten to think, but let grandiose egoic identity thoughts have their way with my life force which is just mis-creative thought and the improper use of my natural gifts of creation. Today, I’d like to allow the Holy Spirit mind to show me my real thoughts, the ones I think with God; what they really mean , and what the rest forgiven get incorporated into a forgiven perspective… Let Love reign!!!

lesson 2

2008-01-02T09:08:00.000-07:00

LESSON 2:

“I have given everything I see… all the meaning that it has for me”…. I can only say yep, that’s true…when it comes to this world and my so-called life, concerning anything perceived, it means what I want it to. Ya know, I have spent oh, too many wasted hours looking for meaning outside myself, both in an effort to find someone/thing to blame, or tell me what to do, define my life off of, in other words: blame. And, at the end of the day, in the raw honesty of my own soul, I have been left with the workings of my own mind. It doesn’t matter where I adopted my perceptions, opinions, point of reference (all of which turned out to have a faulty premise as far as what I am in truth, incidentally), still the responsibility for all, comes back to me. When I first realized this, I was terrified. I had this deep awareness that I was using most of my life force just trying to manage the denial of this fact… Yet, facing it set me free. ““I have given everything I see… all the meaning that it has for me”…. which refers me over in my mind to that yummy quote from chapter 21 “I am responsible for what I see.. I choose the feelings I experience, and I decide upon the goal I would achieve. And everything that seems to happen to me I ask for, and receive as I have asked.” ~LOVE IT!

ACIM Workbook lesson ONE

2008-01-01T08:44:00.000-07:00

Happy, joyous New Year!

~Let’s make this year different from all the rest, by making it all the same. Through 2006, we made a decided commitment to a unified purpose, using the lessons to assimilate and gather together our undeniable common ground/zero-point: WE ARE AS GOD CREATED US… and nothing has intruded upon the holy Son of God of which we are all ONE…. In praise and gratitude I come to you this first A.M. of emblematic ally a new beginning: 2007. Thank You for being what I am that I may never fail to recognize mySelf. This immeasurable debt of gratitude I gladly spend forever paying ~by being present NOW! 2006 wrapped-up in linear time. How close have I come to dispelling the idea of linear time altogether? The Course says that where our hearts are, there are our treasures also. My heart is only known to me in the present moment where every belief and value in time is brought to the holy zero-point and questioned. For here, now, we are eternally one, and together the loneliness of separation is dispelled. The present is the greatest present….The present is before time was…. Ah, excellent section reference here… “Judgment and condemnation are behind you, and unless you bring them with you, you will see that you are free of them. Look lovingly upon the present, for it holds the only things that are forever true. All healing lies within it because its continuity is real. It extends to all aspects of the Sonship at the same time, and thus enables them to reach each other. The present is before time was, and will be when time is no more. In it are all things that are eternal, and they are one. Their continuity is timeless and their communication is unbroken, for they are not separated by the past. Only the past can separate, and it is nowhere. The present offers you your brothers in the light that would unite you with them, and free you from the past. Would you, then, hold the past against them? For if you do, you are choosing to remain in the darkness that is not there, and refusing to accept the light that is offered you. For the light of perfect vision is freely given as it is freely received, and can be accepted only without limit. In this one, still dimension of time that does not change, and where there is no sight of what you were, you look at Christ and call His witnesses to shine on you because you called them forth. And they will not deny the truth in you, because you looked for it in them and found it there. Now is the time of salvation, for now is the release from time. Reach out to all your brothers, and touch them with the touch of Christ. In timeless union with them is your continuity, unbroken because it is wholly shared. God’s guiltless Son is only light. There is no darkness in him anywhere, for he is whole…” (T-13.VI.6-8) We trust our ways to Him and say “Amen”. In peace we will continue in His way, and trust all things to Him. In confidence we wait His answers, as we ask His Will in everything we do. He loves God’s Son as we would love him. And He teaches us how to behold him through His eyes, and love him as He does. You do not walk alone. God’s angels hover near and all about. His Love surrounds you, and of this be sure; that I will never leave you comfortless…

Ahhh, wonderful Spirit/ACIM family,

I am so pleased that we will be giving ourselves over to the Holy Spirit by accepting the gift of the ACIM workbook lessons this year.

I am joined with you in this unified purpose of re-member-ing the love that we are in truth through the means of the Atonement ~forgiveness.

LESSON 1

Nothing I see in this room [on this street,
from this window, in this place] means anything

This morning I was thinking about the section in the course which talks about the time of Christ and embarking on a new year, and the thought "Make this year different, by making it all the same," just kept circling around in my mind. This e-mail is what came out of it...

“Let no despair darken the joy of Christmas, for the time of Christ is meaningless apart from joy. Let us join in celebrating peace by demanding no sacrifice of anyone, for so you offer me the love I offer you. What can be more joyous than to perceive we are deprived of nothing? Such is the message of the time of Christ, which I give you that you may give it and return it to the Father, Who gave it to me. For in the time of Christ communication is restored, and He joins us in the celebration of His Son's creation.

God offers thanks to the holy host who would receive Him, and lets Him enter and abide where He would be. And by your welcome does He welcome you into Himself, for what is contained in you who welcome Him is returned to Him. And we but celebrate His Wholeness as we welcome Him into ourselves. Those who receive the Father are one with Him, being host to Him Who created them. And by allowing Him to enter, the remembrance of the Father enters with Him, and with Him they remember the only relationship they ever had, and ever want to have.

This is the time in which a new year will soon be born from the time of Christ. I have perfect faith in you to do all that you would accomplish. Nothing will be lacking, and you will make complete and not destroy. Say, then, to your brother:

I give you to the Holy Spirit as part of myself.

I know that you will be released, unless I want to use you to imprison myself. In the name of freedom I choose your release, because I recognize that we will be released together.

So will the year begin in joy and freedom. There is much to do, and we have been long delayed. Accept the holy instant as this year is born, and take your place, so long left unfulfilled, in the Great Awakening. Make this year different by making it all the same. And let all your relationships be made holy for you. This is our will. Amen. (T-15.XI.8-10)

~ACIM lesson thoughts for one year

2008-01-01T07:30:00.000-07:00

I love A Course in Miracles... My holy-mirror friend Patricia and I always joke that our relationship with the Course is the greatest love affair of our lives; everything we ever looked for in a relationship in this so-called world. Which is true... And the best part is that it points to a very real experience beyond the Course and this world entirely, which soon becomes the Only relationship... Source and creation in perfect union.

This blog is about that relationship, my experiences and thoughts. I am using a base format of i year of ACIM workbook lessons as a springboard each day, from which Ill let inspiration take it from there...

In deepest appreciation and love~ forever and ever

2007-12-31T06:04:00.000-07:00

Lessons 361~365:

This holy instant would I give to You. Be you in charge. For I would follow You. Certain your direction gives me peace…

For years this statement has been my daily waking prayer … In actuality, this has the prayer in my mind ever since I truly accepted the miracle; since my I changed my mind from hell to Heaven, from illusory goals to truth as my only goal, from imprisoning myself as hostage to the ego to embracing my Self as host to God and accepting my function of happiness through forgiveness by making the one irreversible choice for the Atonement for my Self. This releases me from fantasies of ‘special-nesses’ of any kind. I so love what I seen now… You are my Self!!! …

It is with deepest gratitude, I reflect on this past year’s joining through ACIM lessons. I am so very blessed and as we move into the next year of time and space, I have but one New Year’s resolution:

I will to see what I denied~ because it is the truth. This is to say, I accept each person, place, thing, circumstance, and/or situation with equal value, without exception. Christ vision has now been received and opened the flood-gates of light behind and beyond which I experience as the great rays; full-love~

At last…. Our time of fantasy has come and gone~ Only God’s time, this present moment, is… The answer was gifted where it could be used. After all, God placed the answer together with the problem, so that they could not be separated by time…. Duh! How simple to see now; it is impossible that I have a problem that has not been -solved already. It has been done and Love is all that remains as viable for our forward path…

We cannot loose our way because there is no way but His, and nowhere can we go except to Him. We began this year with the happy decision to align our choices with the Holy Spirit by listening to the Voice for God~ using the daily workbook lessons… And we can rest in His certainty that this was no idle task…. You can feel it, can’t you?! We are as God created us! This one thing is sure…. Joy and gratitude are our natural state and our constant companion for direction…. We simply can’t loose what we are! ! ! ~ LOVE ! ! ! ~PURE, UNTAINTED, INNOCENT, GIVING~RECIEVING LOVE !

Happy New Year!!!

2007-12-30T06:47:00.000-07:00

Lesson 360:

Peace be to me, the holy Son of God.

Peace to my brother, who is one with me.

Let all the world be blessed with peace through us…

Of course the lessons wrap up in a state of perfect peace, because that is our true state… All is well with creation and us… always, already. We merely mistook ourselves to be the characters in a dream of separation and specialness, scarcity and loss… Yet through joining with a single-heart, in wholehearted willingness for the true~only, and giving ourselves innocently over to the curriculum of this Course, the mind has been returned, at last, to where it never really left in truth; to our natural state of perfect peace extending and blessing…

Sure, there are a good deal of forgiveness opportunities still to reveal themselves as we go about our lives, but now we see them as beacons ~lighting the way to unity with each other, and the way home…

Please join me in the exquisite prayer offered in the lesson today:

Father, it is Your peace that I would give, receiving it of You. I am Your Son, forever just as You created me, for the Great Rays remain forever still and undisturbed within me. I would reach to them in silence and in certainty for nowhere else can certainty be found. Peace be to me, and peace to all the world. In holiness were we created, and in holiness do we remain. Your Son is like to You in perfect sinlessness. And with this thought we gladly say “Amen”.

2007-12-29T07:21:00.000-07:00

Lesson 359:

God’s answer is some form of peace. All pain is healed; all misery replaced with joy. All prison doors are opened. And all sin is understood as merely a mistake.

~PEACE~ Imperturbable peace is the great gift I have been given for merely taking back what I thought about you and me and life and placing it on the alter of the mind of God’s Son, which is my mind, and allowing the Holy Spirit; which is , it turns out, my true Mind, to reinterpret and realign all for good… In other words, by being willing to see that I had been wrong about everything and selfishly releasing what was false; due to it making me unhappy, a grand shift was made in my psyche: from anxiety to Peace ~ from fear, to Love!

When we truly forgive what we thought and perceived about each other and the world, we are instantly and continually left with what is true~ the experience of serene peace, which is also letting all creation be as God created.

This delicious process of mind and feeling watching; forgiving all blocks to Loves awareness, always, and resting in the still peace that accompanies trust… This is accepting God’s answer~ God’s answer, which is always some form of peace~It is really the only way to fly, now~ Don’t you agree?

I know for me, life seems to live me, now… The present, is the present presence of God within all things… Whatever needs to happen or be accomplished somehow gets handled, for I constantly release to forgiveness and healing, any agendas of my own that surface up …

Peace is the still center of the love that I am; one with all creation…

2007-12-27T04:30:00.000-07:00

LESSON 358:

No call to God can be unheard nor left
Unanswered. And of this I can be sure;
His answer is the one I really want.

This is why we’re all here isn’t it? First in letting the imagination run wild and project a world and existence seemingly separate from our Source and all else. And Now, in glimpsing its transparent falseness, choosing to remember truth instead…

Here’s what I’ve seen; all prayers, or calls to God, are always answered instantly. Our reception isn’t nearly so clear. When our prayers are requests to a false god or idol, their manifestation follows the false laws of scarcity, specialness and loss. When our prayer is for only the truth, Heaven’s host rallies to assist us in remembering who we really are through the Holy Spirit… reminding us that we are under no laws but God’s. Forgiveness is the medium of the Holy Spirit to translate all that we thought we wanted into what we really want behind, beneath and beyond what can be experience with perception, but can be felt as love, acceptance, unity, and peace… every call is a call to God, to see the truth about ourselves

This is the truth: we are love’s radiant reality; we are as God created; His sinless Son, co-creator of all that is… Every call to any son of God is ultimately a call to remember Self through seeing Christ in our brother…

You are my sinless Self and I am joyously in your debt, welcoming the full remembrance of our eternal oneness, Now!... Thank you…

2007-12-26T06:08:00.000-07:00

LESSON 357:

Truth answers every call we make to God,
Responding first with miracles, and then
Returning unto us to be itself.

It’s wild how forgiveness, as Jesus demonstrates and devotedly instructs us throughout the Course, turns out to be the best and, surprisingly easiest, experience in the world. We merely let every thing be exactly as it is. In other words, we accept life as it is, as God created us and all that is... and simply quit making stuff up, instead… We’re finally released from the burden on trying to be ‘right’ and trying to have the answers and having to think we know... And we are released into the ‘great knowing’ which is the Word of God!

We are the way, the truth and the life. Forgiveness merely sees past self-concept identification to the truth within ~

~The Self luminous reality~…

In daily practice, it lays out like this;we begin (as if we put on a new set of eyes) to see truth’s reflection in everyone and everything, as we choose forgiveness instead of separation... In other words, we see that our brother’s interests are no different from our own… Immediately we are filled with the love which experiences our brother’s innocence and our own… Sin no longer has a home here, for we are the medium for miracles.

I love the simplicity of forgiveness’s access to truth. As the lesson says:

“Your holy Son is pointed out to me, first in my brother; then in me. Your Voice instructs me patiently to hear Your Word, and give as I receive. And as I look upon Your Son today, I hear Your Voice instructing me to find the way to You, as You appointed that the way shall be:

“Behold his sinlessness, and be you healed”.

2007-12-21T04:23:00.000-07:00

Lesson 356:

Sickness is but another name for sin. Healing is but another name for God. The miracles is thus a call t Him…

Sickness, like scarcity, loss, and well, pretty much anything else we resist in this world, have a few central themes. Our experience of them depends upon an opposite to give reality to it. They are time and outcomes bound, and require a separate identity to experience them… Yet in reality, they have but one thing in common; they are nothing…

And yet, for the purpose of Atonement, they are the means fro recognizing where the mind is falsely identified and the opportunity to solicit a miracle to replace the error called forth in mind… So, all things, being nothing in truth, can be seen as blessings in a unified purpose of forgiveness; clearing the way to recognize eternal creation behind and beyond.

When we recognize our eternality, we see what happens on the screen, yet we remember that trust will settle every situation, circumstance or relationship through the Holy Spirit for the best possible good for all. We place our faith in the unified outcome, which is as certain as God. So, miracles and healing and abundance and oneness are all mere alternate ‘labels’ for the experience of God in our lives...

It’s all Good! ~ It’s all God!

2007-12-20T06:31:00.000-07:00

Lesson 355:

There is no end to all the peace and joy, and all the miracles that I will give, when I accept God’s Word. Why not today?

Why not today, indeed?

Do I have something ‘better’ to do? In actuality this is not only the only business on the calendar of my so-called life, but all I am interested in… I have utterly defrauded all opposing thought forms as having any substance or significance what-so- ever, through the inquiry forgiveness offers… All that remains is the alive experience of ‘love-now’, which Holy Spirit within my mind held already, saving it for but my decision to place my faith in love instead of fear; the true only….

God/Self replaces the self-concept and I see the face of Christ reflected in shining stars; the light my brothers are and share with me…

~Christ-mas is the season of now; the answer always Yes! Today’s inquiry ‘why not today’~ unequivocally, YES! ~

~There is no end to all the peace and joy, and all the miracles that I will give, when I accept God’s Word: I AM AS GOD CREATED ME~ And only that is TRUE…

Please join me in remembering the beautiful prayer of truth at the beginning of this section: What Am I?

“I am God’s Son, complete and healed and whole, shining in the reflection of His Love. In me is His creation sanctified and guaranteed eternal life. in me is love perfected, fear impossible, and joy established without opposite. I am the holy home of God Himself. I am the Heaven where His Love resides. I am His holy Sinlessness Itself, for in my purity abides His Own…”

2007-12-19T04:50:00.000-07:00

Lesson 354:

We stand together, Christ and I, in peace and certainty of purpose. And in Him is His Creator, as He is in me…

Christ is what is; the true within my Self…as God created. And God has but One Son, fully whole as Christ. When I remember what I am in truth, I remember Christ. And I do this by seeing through your story and the labels that make up this world~ to the Christ within; forever shining the light of understanding and love… When the story ceases to have meaning and the single purpose of unified joy has given meaning to the present moment~ infinity… Christ, like God, is the name for what cannot be named… only experienced, as is…

Love is the experience, Creator and created… Here’s what I’ve noticed, only what can be shared allows joy to flow, uninhibited… and only the ministry of love can be shared. ~ I thank you for joining me in the one purpose we all share in Atonement…

2007-12-18T04:59:00.000-07:00

Lesson 353:

My eyes, my tongue, my hands, my feet today

Have but one purpose; to be given Christ to use to bless the world with miracles…

What a relief it is to not have to think about what to do, or where to go, what to say and to whom. All I need concern myself with is the setting of the Goal of truth and align in purpose with Christ. Once this dedication to purpose placed in faith, on the alter of my mind/heart as I wake, I can trust unequivocally, that all things will be brought in to perfect alignment for the best possible result for the good of all.

If, rather than dream up a day from the ‘great to-do-list’ of this world, I suspend that craving, just long enough to give over my life to Christ, all seeming problems are brought to the answer within; mind~ where the Holy Spirit answers them all by reinterpreting and showing the unified purpose for Atonement we all share in truth…

Setting the goal of truth; giving myself to Christ, clears my sight to see forgiveness’s blessing in all circumstances and experience love instead of fear.

A life in Christ is a wholehearted decision, which I make each day as I rise to materialize a world and brothers to join with in a shared purpose… I joyously say Yes!, to God’s plan, again and again, as long as time remains in mind… And only Christ defines my Self…

2007-12-17T07:16:00.000-07:00

Lesson 352:

Judgment and love are opposites. From one come all the sorrows of the world. But from the other comes the peace of God Himself…

All of us actually know this simple truth and know it in actuality… Every time we judge, we can feel our heart constrict, yes? And in that instant of judgment, we can not feel the love we have, nor the love we are….

Pick a judgment; any judgment. Now try to hang on to that judgment as reality and feel the love that you are, simultaneously… Can’t be done, can it? Now, feel the deepest love you can within yourself; whether you identify this with your relationship with Self, with God, your children, Jesus, or whatever… just rest there in that yummy place of peace within~ This is the present moment~ the presence of God… Now try to judge, and stay in touch with that feeling of now… Doesn’t work, does it?

Judgment is a characteristic of time; founded in fear and fleshed out in memory… We simply have to leave the present to get to it…

The Course tells us that we don’t need judgment to organize our lives and that the letting go of judgment is the obvious prerequisite for hearing the Voice for God… We need but be still and present an instant… Then love will direct our actions …

When we can let all things be exactly as they are, we easily live in the now; in the presence of love…

There is now way to get love. Love is what we are, and therefore love is the way! Simply Love Now! And the rest will fall into place for the good of all…

2007-12-16T07:14:00.000-07:00

What am I?

~I am God’s Son, complete and healed and whole, shining in the reflection of His Love. In me is His creation sanctified and guaranteed eternal life. In me is love perfected, fear impossible, and joy established without opposite. I am the holy home of God Himself. I am the Heaven where His Love resides. I am His holy sinlessness Itself, for in my purity abides His Own.~ …

This statement, from the beginning of this section, What Am I, has bee a constant mantra for me almost from the beginning of my study with the course. It has served as a key that unlocks my consciousness to truth; to intrinsic awareness of the truth of what I am…

I remember that the first time I read it, I felt I already knew it by heart and I was merely recalling and reciting. I was so humbled by the experience of Self sweeping me away from my perceived self, I just sat and wept for the longest time in total gratitude for absolute opening to the possibility of total salvation from all I had designed and imprisoned myself with….It was my first Taste of recognizing eternity in the Self…

I feel that same awesome gratitude and eternal oneness right now~

I rest serenely, in the realization of instant and total forgiveness….

Lesson 351:

My sinless brother is my guide to peace. My sinful brother is my guide to pain. And which I choose to see I will behold…

You are my self and how I see you, is what I wish to be…. That is really some kind of truth to ‘white-flag’ the ego-identity to… Spectacular!!! Once you’ve recognized it, even for one holy instant, it changes everything… mutating your very DNA… I can never really ‘cop-out’ again… on some level I always know, I am responsible for literally everything that ‘seems’ to happen in my world of perception…by my choice of what I wish to see… I have gotten awfully particular about my wish-list anymore... I have truly come to know, that in this world, it is only by my function of forgiveness that happiness is mine… making happiness the only way to see….

Any resistance to love’s presence, that seemingly ‘shows-up’ in my life, boils down to an authorship or authority issue, easily seen now as the ego’s die-hard competition with God… None of this make-believe has mattered-a-whit to the truth. Always, it has presented itself via the Holy Spirit in mind, as a chance to forgive, which is the chance for the restoration of peace, which is the reestablishment of the memory of my Self…. There’s simply no way to loose….

One thing has remains constant; how I choose to see you is what I end up experiencing as me. My perception of you ends up being my perception of myself. And oh, the joy of seeing your innocence ~ the perfect reflection of what I am…. Thank you.

2007-12-15T05:54:00.000-07:00

Lesson 350:

Miracles mirror God’s eternal Love. To offer them is to remember Him, and through His memory to save the world….

What does it mean to offer miracles? And what are the miracles we offer? Well, not religion sponsored in childhood; not walking on water or raising the dead … It turns out that miracles are merely natural acts of love seeking expression. (Which, by the way, was always, already our natural state, but for the prodigal wool of fantasized separation we pulled over our innocent eyes)

We offer miracles when we life instead of death; Love instead of fear… Miracles are sight cleansing; allowing us to see what is really there… Miracles turn the mind back to Source and we see our brothers as God sees them; loving and forgiving. So our actions reflect the oneness we share, taking direction from within~ regardless of the seeming circumstances…

Offering Miracles is the willingness to see through the constructs of water and death and walking and rising to the love within. It is being willing to see things differently; to trust that regardless of what I might think I see due to my beliefs, somewhere within/amidst the situation, is the one unyielding truth: God’s eternal Love is!

I don’t have to know how I will recognize its presence in any given situation… Love is what we are and it will recognize itself… I but need to want to offer miracle’s in place of all other responses, therefore allowing, Christ’s vision to rest upon all things, which brings to light the “I am as God created me and you are part of me” force of all creation, with in our mind.

Its funny, I started forgiving because, well, frankly, I was a pussy, couldn’t tolerate a lot of discomfort for long. When I saw a possible way out of it, I took it…. (Incidentally, up till I found the Course and therefore forgiveness; with meaning resonated to the core with, my ‘ways out’ always resulted in shame ~yuk)… Anyway, when I saw the falsehood of everything the way I had been looking at it, and experienced the relief of turning the dial to ‘miracles’; through forgiveness.

What rather rapidly began to happen, which I’m sure you can relate to, is that I just could not abide the feeling of holding grievances…. It just feels too icky…

Also, what I found out was that I didn’t have to make it (whatever they or the circumstance was) right in my mind, if I just exercised a little faith in a power greater than myself. If I could suspend my judgment ever so slightly and allow that the Holy Spirit, did know what was right for all~ And quite without reason, peace would come over me and I had a much better view of the big picture. WOW! I felt better immediately.

Not only that, it works virtually every time. I became able to let go and let God so to speak…

Needless to say, when I started this practice, I did it on shoestring faith without any idea that I was offering miracles or that it would be this simple exercise that would restore my faith in you and me and more. I never dreamed the gap I saw between us would begin to close and all the ideas of ‘specialness over oneness’ would meld into the Christ-melding-pot, as God’s eternal Love reality penetrated more and more of my mind.

I never I guessed that I would, as a result of ‘forgiving to feel better’, begin to remember God ~ nor did I foresee that that my insane busy mind would begin to still... That the memory of Him would come softly and terminally… everlastingly ~ that I would have moments of eternity where God’s Love erased all form and space and time; engulfing me (well, the experience of Son of God) in eternity, forever now….

And, that that would restructure my on-going experience with time and space and form…. That I would begin to identify more with the ‘Son of God’ indelible identity within rather than the ‘you/me’ with out…. Maybe, it’s because of the sense of reality, which too, I never dreamed would not seem solid any more as I had always believed. But rather, it has taken on the sense of being more a shadowy overlay mirroring belief…

I see my so-called life like a sort of reoccurring (or ongoing) lucid dream where I am aware, from above the battleground of the stream of events; where I can spot the false and choose the truth, instantly altering my perception and flooding me with love….

No, I wasn’t looking for that by forgiving…. But, it turns out, forgiveness, like lessons 122 and 121 say; offers everything I want and is the key to happiness.

No question, we are remembering God and the world is being saved …

2007-12-14T05:05:00.000-07:00

Lesson 349:

Today I let Christ’s vision look upon all things for me and judge them not, but give each one a miracle of love instead.

I dearly love these last lessons, because they perfectly articulate the forgiven world from which I truly desire to experience life~ now …

They are succinct, yet open expansive and completion-ideas which not only appeal to the truth in myself, but show me by my responding in love and full acceptance and application, that indeed, it is my own true Self, in the Holy Spirit, from which they come…

It is easy to ‘lean back’ and trust from this place of surrender and acceptance. For I recognize that every aspect of the Atonement is playing out perfectly as God’s plan for salvation… blessing each and every brother, relationship, situation, and circumstance with miracles.

Oh, it is so delicious to taste the glory of God’s Love through just stepping back in mind and allowing Christ’s vision to visit the miracle of love upon the seeming events of the day… How freeing it is to have no agenda of my own that I would keep when clearly miracles bless me with the agenda the Holy Spirit unfolds for me instead…

In accepting the gift of forgiveness, and offering it, I feel my eyes soften into Christ’s sight of Love before me…. Solutions and direction unfolds in the perfect grace of God. I am eternally grateful and join all my brothers today in the hallelujah chorus of gratitude and praise to God the Father and His holy Son…

2007-12-13T05:24:00.000-07:00

Lesson 348:

I have no cause for anger or for fear, for You surround me. And every need that I perceive, Your grace suffices me…

Enough~ always, just exactly enough… A wonderful awareness of my coming home to my Self, which frankly, took me by surprise, was that there is always just enough; I always just right… It takes a bit of peeking beneath the covers of false identity and blaring horn of “more, more, more” which blasts constantly from the ego perception of the world… For the longest time, I felt haunted by ‘not-enough-ness’, feeling weak and unstable; always trying to do more seemingly to get more, always barely paying the price of admission to enoughness with it, yet never being able to add anything through my efforts that would take away the hollow emptiness and fear I ran from… Nothing really sufficed… I was merely caught up in a fantasy of false identity and had forgotten it was not my Self…

Finally, none of it mattered or meant anything to me… It seemed I lost my mind…

Then the miracle came softly and rested gently on my broken sight… What I saw within and beyond the crazy efforting, was what I call the zero-point; the eye of the storm, the empty fullness of potentiality~ Thank God I came to my senses! What characterizes every person, event or circumstance, for me today, is the grace of God which always, already, suffices…

To experience this grace, one need merely be willing to surrender all perceived needs as they steadily rise to awareness through forgiveness, and our tendencies toward defense of anger and fear, and allow trust to handle every problem ~now~ The light always dawns and we see that we have everything because we are everything.

We begin to experience the truth of today’s lesson: We have no cause for anger or for fear, for God surrounds us… And every need that we perceive, God’s grace suffices…

2007-12-12T04:44:00.000-07:00

Lesson 347:

Anger must come from judgment. Judgment is the weapon I would use against myself, to keep the miracle away from me…

All judgment is self judgment. Every decision we make in our live is based on what we believe we are. Am I what I made of myself through the criteria of judgments the ego laid out? In other words, am I a body in a world of survival of the fittest...

Or, am I as God created me through extending His Love? Which would make me, basically, Love; the essence of life itself… What I decide determines what I will see. In the former, my perception comes after manifestation; leaving me at the mercy of what shows up and therefore what is available as far as resources goes, to make do the best I can to survive and hopefully, be happy…. In this scenario~ the more ‘stuff’, the better the success … Sounds pretty tenuous and insecure to me…

With the latter, identifying myself as the Son, which God created as Himself, my perception develops from within; taking form from the meaning or purpose of the situation. So what I see is part of me… and the purpose of life itself… The particulars of any circumstance or chain of events are seen as relevant only in so much as they serve the relationship to each other… Here, happiness rules, because it is not dependent on a state other than Now… Patience and certainty are present, because nothing is missing, for oneness is known.

The miracle allows us to make that shift from fantasy to reality in God; to see the false as false and only the truth as true... to experience our unity with each other as well as our oneness with Creator and creation.

This lesson is reminding us that when we experience anger of any kind, we have flip-switched to the false, attacking our true identity…And that by that decision, we are keeping the miracle at arms length… Luckily, at this stage of the game, we are generally quick to realize our error because any lack of peace is becoming increasingly intolerable. Plus, we know the restoration of peace and joy is just decision for forgiveness, away…

We judge because we’re afraid to trust. However, what we know now, is that this need not be. And we are willing to give up our defense against love and let anger dissolve into this instant where we are willing to listen… and in that stillness, we recognize the gentle Voice for God assuring us that He has judged… and that we are the Son He loves…

2007-12-11T05:30:00.000-07:00

Lesson 346:

Today the peace of God envelops me, and I forget all things except His Love…

Let’s begin with today’s prayer… It is just the sort of prayer that sets the goal of truth where it belongs… NOW:

“Father, we wake today with miracles correcting our perception of all things. And so begins the day we share with You as we will share eternity, for time has stepped aside today. We do not seek the things of time, and so we will not look upon them. What we seek today transcends all laws of time and things perceived in time. We would forget all things except Your Love. We would abide in You, and know no laws except Your law of love. And we would find the peace which You created for Your Son, forgetting all the foolish toys we made as we behold Your glory and our own.”
Ah, eternal PEACE! Couldn’t you just sit in the feeling this lesson brings, forever? Oh, yeah! ... We are.... Now is forever!

It is the nature of the peace of God to envelop all…. So, you see, even when we identify with the ‘me’ within the dream where there are subjects and objects, God’s Love extends to blanket us in peace. This is the truth in actuality, always.

Just stop in your tracks of time at any present moment, turn around on yourself, and be present~ This instant; right here, right now…. aahhh… you can’t miss it~ the peace of God has you surrounded, yes!? Real-izing this fact, is simply a decision as the dreamer for peace now, for the truth and nothing but the truth… It is always within reach. In fact, it is already present. One merely need return the mind to alignment.

Today, we decide for the truth; we accept Love as the only real experience, and the only one we want…. Here alone, can peace be known and brought forward in the dream. Who cares about the details of the dream? Never can we organize them to bring peace.

When I finally realized that ‘not-caring’ was really a very high thought; that the outcome was a sure as Love, I freed myself to be present. And in the present moment, I found my presence is what gave it life…

The funny thing about that is that without the burden of caring, I love deeply, play and laugh, interact, enjoy, get angry and forgive with ease. Because I can be with what is, instead.

Ummm… life’s yummy~ Being in Love with now! Within Now is the forgetting all things except God’s Love…

2007-12-10T05:54:00.000-07:00

Lesson 345:

I offer only miracles today, for I would have them be returned to me….

For years I took the miracle on faith, choosing out of hopelessness and into hope. And gradually, miracles have altered my whole life; my total way of thinking, therefore seeing the world… And now, miracle-mindedness has become a habit you might say. I am ever awe-struck by how the Holy Spirit uses all the ego’s little tactics, like the addictive mechanism, for exactly the opposite purpose than they were made, healing the mind to wholeness through complete surrender to what is... We, as the characters in the dream, are already networked with the mechanisms once used for defense, and find another purpose; one of unity rather than separation, peace rather than competition, sameness rather than specialness ~till this is all we want~….

I want only the healed perspective. I want only to see unity where division once seemed so real.

Because of the single goal to see the truth set forth by my accepting Atonement for myself, I accept it for you, for we are one. The methodology I have at my disposal is the Miracle~ the correction of the error of seeing any interests apart from my own. ~I want only to see the false for what it is, denying its power, and leaving only the Christ we are as one. And in this one desire rests the miracle, which is now visited upon us both in grace, and with it deep abiding peace.

How joyous is the timeless gift of unending Love we experience by merely choosing to offer only miracles today.

Even on the level of this world, just slowing down our compulsive, competitive, thought system and therefore actions, and thinking of the ‘other’ choice; miracle-mindedness ~ the possibility of looking with only loving eyes/perception) already feels better. Geez, just softening our eyes and considering it, starts warming the heart, ~yes?….

I offer you only miracles for I would have them for myself~ otherwise I am blind…. Truth be know, I have no other goal to choose any more. No-thing else satisfies or raises the slightest interest for me…

Thank you for the miracles you have given and received…. Not one has been lost on me (or anyone in truth). I might have been (and still can be) a resistive study at times, but I have found that every loving thought merely awaits reception. Period. Like the ever-favorite quote from the Course says: “LOVE WAITS ON WELCOME NOT ON TIME”.

I bless you with miracles today…

2007-12-09T05:31:00.000-07:00

Lesson 344:

Today I learn the law of love; that what I give my brother is my gift to me….

Isn’t this the constant, facing-up in life? We can’t get away from what we believe we are. We simply project it on to everyone and everything. Through devotion truth as the one and only goal, one begins the gradual dis-identification and detachment from the self-concept and its outer world of projected beliefs. We begin watching its train of events, without attachment or aversion… We recognize the false for what it is~ a transitory state of memory culmination in the Atonement.

Simultaneously, we realize the Self as the changeless, eternal witness…Miracle mindedness reinterprets the succession of circumstances through the eyes of love…

The constant fact I have seen again and again, is that Love is relentless; it will find its way to heal every relationship of any kind~ regardless of what might seeeem to be happening… With a little willingness and still patience, love always shows me that my brother is myself…

With even the slightest willingness to be shown, love sweeps in and reveals the yummy, peaceful perspective of oneness, where no one can lose. Loss is without meaning in our oneness.

Progressively, my awareness of Self has become my home… And beneath the surface of daily life, I notice I am filled with the awesome, presence of Christ light and a feeling of imperturbable joy. The surface forgiveness lessons that look like ‘you’ and ‘me’ and ‘situations of possible scarcity or difference; the antics of specialness and fear, unfold as false~ revealing them as simply beliefs being uncovered, and applied for healing oneness through forgiveness.

The groovy part is that I can no longer really be duped by the antics of the ego dream. I am the dreamer, after all… and somehow, I am always aware of this now. You know what I mean… The light of truth has been turned on, for I have answered to the call of love to complete itself… I deny the denial of truth and I can no longer deny Christ love as One Light allowing for reflection of belief to be seen.

Love is the constant awareness in Mind and makes the task of forgiveness joyous and abundantly alive. We are the Gift of Love to each other… Giving and receiving each other as one, is how we re-member our true identity in God… There is nothing I, for One, would rather be a part of… thank you for your never-ending gifts of love and forgiveness and grace…

2007-12-08T06:07:00.000-07:00

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~

2007-12-07T06:28:00.000-07:00

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.”

2007-12-06T06:11:00.000-07:00

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….

2007-12-05T05:27:00.000-07:00

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?

2007-12-04T05:08:00.000-07:00

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~

2007-12-03T06:25:00.000-07:00

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…

2007-12-02T06:05:00.000-07:00

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.”

2007-12-01T06:53:00.000-07:00

Lesson 336:

Forgiveness lets me know that minds are joined….

What a glorious gift to bring to this worn out diverse reality. Ours for the asking, forgiveness eliminates the need for perception, allowing us to see what is present now; which is the vision of Christ… It is begins with our willingness to close the seeming gap between subject and object, you and me; and to experience the ‘fact’ that minds are joined. As we become increasingly willing to dispel the belief in private thoughts and value only what can be shared, we come to find ourselves within the whole embodiment of the now. It is profoundly unique in experience of this world which exists only in the past. Yet, the brilliant eternal aliveness of the present moment extends into experience of a forgiven past.

Turns out our willingness ‘to see this differently’ is always, in all ways, enough. The Holy Spirit works within the miracle; beyond yet within the construct in which we currently believe of time; past or future. It’s like He hears our prayer for Atonement within our hearts even before we are aware we have prayed it: “let me see my brother as myself”… Oh yeah, ‘the slightest invitation’ and recognition can be called to mind through the Holy Spirit within our Mind… for it has already done.

This life is like a big déja vu, ne’st pas? That feeling of déja vu, is one of the side effects, if you will, becoming progressively more noticeable as forgiveness transforms judgment’s perception as precedence within the mind. Vision takes the place of what the eyes are seeing and serves up meaning from a unified perspective, leaving the body’s eyes to serve the Holy Spirit’s purpose rather than the ‘specifics’ which the split mind is so full of … the details look ever-so the same. Yet, the experience is present, full and unified. It is alive…

This is the blessing of vision that forgiveness gives; here I feel all of me present within all, and specifics line-up…. It is the miracle in effect, and I notice, in a way that it is clear to me, that it all has been done. Fear of future and guilt of past are vague memory elements, yet the memory of Present Love, is Now….This ‘present’ is the alive texture of my day-to-day life … Within it is room to heal the mind; allowing this ‘forgiveness-lesson-drama/re-gathering of Self, with its stresses, and romances and pleasures and pains, of ‘the character I play, seem like some kind of déja vu dream, ~impossible to take too seriously for long.

Our reality is only Spirit and Spirit’s primacy and grace shine on everything. Forgiveness lets me see that you are me, and that there is one Self, the one we share, uniting us with God.

“In quiet may forgiveness wipe away my dreams of separation and of sin. Then let me, Father, look within, and find Your promise of my sinlessness is kept; Your Word remains unchanged within my mind, Your Love is still abiding in my heart”.

2007-11-30T06:12:00.000-07:00

Lesson 335:

I choose to see my brother’s sinlessness….

As with all perception, I see only what I want to be there. This, in itself is a huge hurdle, perhaps the largest. Bottom-line, nothing exists outside my mind. I notice that as long as I endorsed (valued) a private mind, I could not wrap my mind around this idea of ‘you believe what you see, because you see what you believe’…. It was just too small to grasp, I guess…. Somehow my willingness to be wrong, allowed me to see that the same mind that seemingly chooses daily perceptions, with or without forgiveness, with or without love or attack, is the same one-mind that originated the crucial premise; the idea of separation, which instigated and maintains the entire sudo-reality of time and space, and rights and wrongs, and loneliness and bodies, fear and forgiveness, and you and me~ Gosh, if you boil it down to the zero point… all concepts, all seemingly real, all hinge on the self-concept; the idea called 'me'.

~Funny isn’t it, when ya really see that… It’s what I like to call ‘the big cosmic belly laugh’…. Cuz there is no me, or you…

There is only God and His Son; the extension of His Love. Another word for this ‘me’ I am referring to, is of specialness.

Specialness is the me that is always wanting more than everything~ it is the subject. The ‘you’ is anything or one ‘other’. It is the object for subject’s acquisition or enhancement…. That’s the dream… and none of it is real.

It was within the holy instant where ‘reality’/Love/truth, where I first experienced the clarity of oneness, which directed me toward the awareness that I am, indeed, the dreamer of the dream. Within this awareness , too, was the gift of the Atonement : that is my will, as God’s Will for me, to fulfill my function as the dreamer…

That function is to forgive and see this world differently; to see my brother’s sinlessness, to recognize my own.

I simply allow the Holy Spirit within mind to decide for God for me, and show me my forgiveness curriculum. I choose to see my brother sinless because that is the only way I feel loving toward him. And I, simply, can no longer tolerate less than loving feelings. The slightest attachment to outcome, the merest outside-Self referent, puts me on shaky ground. ~For peace is the only state where I know you or myself at all. And from peace I feel our oneness. Forgiveness is the answer: I choose to see the situation through forgiving eyes where you are sinless and so am I.

This is also the choice for freedom; returning me to Mind, because choice for forgiveness is the switch allowing me to listen to the Voice for God. This reminds me that I am the dreamer and whatever I might have originally perceived as an example of ‘sin’, I now choose to see as a chance to forgive, recognize what is my perception, is not really there. That the fear and guilt/ lack of peace is clearly in my mind….

My same Mind, which with the Holy Spirit, can now see beyond and into the heart of love we share. The choice for forgiveness; the choice to see your innocence, gives me back my dignity and changes everything.

It allows Love to rule the day, define the moments… and allow Presence to permeate everything, here and now… It is always enough….

Thank you for your holy light that shines eternal, that I may see my Self through you~ I love you~

2007-11-29T05:02:00.001-07:00

Lesson 334:

Today I claim the gifts forgiveness gives…

I love this time in the mornings where peace is so pervasive. For me, this space in the wee hours, that many years ago I designated as time I devoted exclusively to my relationship with God has transmuted many times… The changelessness of this state of peace has been invaluable to my recognizing what, indeed, peace is.

It has been a space of reverence for my alter to God; a place of prayer and contemplation, a space of honesty and transformation of the honesty concept, of attempted negotiation till surrender to truth’s obvious value became apparent… And above all it has been a place where I let truth find me and where also, there was my Self, waiting for me to notice…

It was here, first, that I began to recognize my ‘true’ identity, my identity in Christ; and therefore my inseparable relationship with you as Christ, unified in our oneness and our love…

The safety and completeness allowed for this time in the a.m. each day to expand and extend, until it became natural way of the day, as it is now.

So, I continue to rise early and rest in great peace and expectancy.

In the forgiven darkness of the awakening light, now is always; there is no time, but only our forever-ness.

Heavens dawn reveals the obvious; for-give-ness is my only function here, a natural requisite to move about the day in the dream in eternal peace. Ah, how I love the dreamer; self or brother~ it’s all Self. This delicious feeling of peace and oneness is so typical and obvious of the gifts forgiveness brings, making it so easy to behold my brother sinless in mind…

Forgiveness gives us the chance to experience a state where we feel completely unified with all that is, with no known desire but this experience.

All my efforts these recent years have been devoted to the quick restorative to this state of forgiveness. Which boosts my willingness to be vigilant to look squarely on at all that interferes with this state of unadulterated peace. I have learned to be a happy learner and happily I look honestly with the Holy Spirit at what I see and therefore what I believe, so as to forgive the false beliefs that I chose to defile the alter to my Father/ brother/Self. The simple fact that they cannot be true unfolds and allows the Holy Spirit within my mind to show me another way of looking at whatever it is. And finally, I am allowing the shadow of seeming ‘reality’ disperse into the nothingness in which it came…

Ah, the gifts forgiveness brings… this dwelling place is the only home for me now and from which I never stray too far, for I recognize the call for love.

Love’s gentle call is always within range… I hear it through your lips, see it in your eyes, and feel it in your heart ~ they are mine as well. The so-called physical trappings of the world serve only as a backdrop for the magnificent business of re-member-ing our full identity as Christ. Thank you for your gifts to me… without you I am nothing… Forever we are the effect of our Father Cause~ His Love is all that in truth, compels at all, oui?

Today’s lesson’s prayer:

”I seek but the eternal. For Your Son can be content with nothing less than this. What, then, can be his solace but what You are offering to his bewildered mind and frightened heart, to give him certainty and bring him peace? Today I would behold my brother sinless. This Your Will for me, for so will I behold my sinlessness.

2007-11-28T04:10:00.000-07:00

Lesson 333:

Forgiveness ends the dream of conflict here….

I was always one to attempt to avoid conflict. These attempts were ultimately futile. This world is conflict materialized, yes? It was designed by a cunning mad idea that postured a ‘reality’ in opposition to all that is; where Oneness is no more. In its place there reigns a hierarchy of orders and levels. Levels of ‘specialness’ and scarcity determine ones value and survival… where there are beginnings and endings. The end and the king is death; the ultimate proof of defeat.

This of course requires bodies to house this idea and to ‘give life to death’, yes? I know it sounds a bit insane when seen with any reason. But then, that’s precisely why we attempt to avoid looking at all, let alone with the Mind of reason; the Mind we share, untainted, whole, and free. ~ No more shadow boxing!

The Course tells us: “Forgiveness is the healing of the perception of separation… The Holy Spirit’s function is to take the broken picture of the Son of God and put the pieces into place again. This Holy picture, healed entirely, does He hold out to every separate piece that thinks it is a picture in itself. To each He offers His identity, which the whole picture represents… The willingness to let illusions go is all the Healer of God Son requires….”

This Mind where we are always already united as one through the Holy Spirit is always already present ~we can’t loose it. It is not in conflict and is joyously fulfilling the function of implementing the Atonement, as long as any part of the mind of God’s Son serves itself up to the remedial rumination of the time/space separation idea….

Here’s what I finally saw: the key to all resolution in this world is beyond this world… Forgiveness allows me to look square on at where I seem to experience conflict and to allow the reason that sings deep within, that permeates and resonates till I can feel the truth that is all ways calling me back to point zero. Forgiveness is sort of a mechanism to shake me just enough to see that it isn’t just that I’m choosing to see conflict, but that a thought system that see conflict where there is none could not be real. ‘Only illusions battle; and only with them selves…’ which, now I recognize as simply more of the same original mad idea that one could separate from one’s Source… That idea can’t do anything else… that’s why the dream… It’s not possible in reality, where all is one… This oneness is the healed perception of Christ vision which is ours. It is always available to me I notice, as soon as I am fully willing to hide nothing… Now, this makes for much easier viewing because you’re looking at it exactly as it is, where it is thought to be, in the reality which has been given it, and with the purpose that the mind accorded it.

Illusion is where conflict and all its bedfellows live. ~I do not ~I am above the battleground; forgiving and healing the mind that thought it was here… ~For I am as God created me, still exactly free ~to dream of conflict or not. I accept the Atonement and all my dream of conflict are transformed through forgiveness because their premise now is seen. No compromise is possible. Premise; where one appears, the other disappears. And which you share becomes the only one you have. You have the one that you accept, because it is the only on you wish to have…. Why would I defend against a shadow? Now I let it be…The false is false. Period. And only the truth is true. Period. Accepting the Atonement for yourself means not to give support to someone’s dream of sickness or death. It means that you share not his wish to separate, and let him turn illusion on himself…

The miracle is the premise metamorphosis the Atonement principle insists ... Forgiveness is it’s lamp to access the light of truth and truth shines in its wake and whatever ‘it’ was, disappears…

2007-11-27T03:24:00.000-07:00

Lesson 332:

Fear binds the world. Forgiveness sets it free….

The world, regardless of its apparent ‘life-of-its-own’, is, after all, in the mind…

I am at home in God, merely plugged into the dream-matrix of the ego world-program; ‘residual self- image, as it were. The programmer was the tiny mad idea of separation which fathered the whole gig of impossibility … It is our fear that binds us to it, and keeps the amnesia at the forefront of mind. This makes being characters in the dream seem completely viable.

As if we don’t absolutely know some place in the deep recesses of our mind that it’s all bogus; that something just isn’t right. ‘Like a splinter in the mind’, to use a Matrix term.

You know what I found? You can’t keep busy enough, steady enough or long enough to stay away from pervasive nagging feeling ~not really, can you?

Eventually, in a single present moment, where now is more relevant that the ongoing story, it catches you off guard~ it, being the possibility that the lens is distorted and a new one is required. Then, right there, waiting but the asking, is the Holy Spirit’s lens.

I am joyously unlearning what I taught myself through accepting forgiveness as my only function.

Simultaneously this allows for me to accept the Holy Spirits version of the world I see. Forgiveness taps us into inspiration and certainty; inspiration coming from the Voice for God and certainty from the Law of God... making it possible to looks out upon a forgiven world through the lens for-giving light and love…

We can, indeed, free our minds through forgiveness. As we must and certainly all will… for it is God’s Will that we are free… We know freedom is ours, as we offer freedom to all.

Truth undoes the ego’s illusions, by shining them away. Forgiveness, it turns out, really is the key to happiness. As I let all things be exactly as they are, it is forgiveness I am allowing to do its part in the awakening to the always-present truth. Like the lesson says, “Truth merely is. And by its presence is the mind recalled from fantasies, awaking to the real. Forgiveness bids this presence enter in, and take its rightful place within the mind…”

Forgiveness lights up my mind where fantasies of fear and inconsistent happiness and frustration sat just a dream ago.

Peace comes of itself within the mind that stops meddling, falsifying and story-telling of another outside my Self… Self contains all. And oh, how yummy it is~ Love, in fact.

In the belly of love, it’s easy to press the forgiveness button in the projector and allow the script to play out however it must~ and trust. After all, we are already at home in God … I don’t suppose too much time could be wasted in contemplating true forgiveness through practical application… Heaven knows we’ve got enough subject matter… Everyone, situation, belief, etc., etc., in one’s so-called life, has been spirit-picked, so to speak, for the perfect healing of each and every aspect of the mind of Son of God which dreamed itself split and separate. And forgiveness is the mechanism that erases the lines… Oneness shines the truth through the once special hate or love relationships, now transformed as holy relationships, reflecting our true identity through our relationship with God….

2007-11-26T06:36:00.000-07:00

12. What is the ego?

This is what I love: “Yet will one lily of forgiveness change the darkness into light; the altar to illusions to the shrine of Life Itself. And peace will be restored forever to the holy minds which God created as His Son, His dwelling place, His joy, His love, completely His, completely one with Him”. (W-12.5) This statement so concisely articulates a full-on description of life as I know it on the boardwalk/’the bridge to the Real world’ or ‘borderland’ (ACIM lingo). Everything every made to embellish, authenticate or rule with, which is contained by this world-life, is used; purified by forgiveness’ implementation through the Holy Spirit. This is, of course, due to the Atonement principle; the return to the unified perspective… to let love be as it is~ the one-mind that is God’s Son. Body perspective (ego) simply fades to the background and its validity is only significant to ‘present mind’ in as much as it is useful to the purpose of Atonement. Access has been made to the “you are me and I, you” program and wired into the mainframe of being.

Life in the dream seems useless without it… and continual restoratives are at the ready for the asking. What once was “you hurt me’, now only seems right as ‘I now longer will for hurt to be’. Fear tendencies of the past are right-sided up and revealed as: ‘trust~ which settles every problem, now’.

Lesson 331:

There is no conflict, for my will is Yours….

This is the world of forgiveness, where infinite patience seems feasible, as immediate peace is apparent with the decision for it. Conflict possibilities are seen as re-member-ing the split-off aspects of self, which are quietly accepted ‘as is’, instead. We let all things be exactly as they are. There is a pervasive resonation of peace and the feeling of being home; here and now.

Specifics and/or details of the world-dream/so-called life may not change at all and matter not (although they often do as is necessary for the good of all). It’s all the same. Nothing conflicts with oneness. The truth is simple and conflict is a concept easily forgiven by seeing its impossibility in oneness.

Hangin’ out in awakening is so simply yummy cuz everything is Love; easily seen for what it is, whether in its extension or request state… It’s all the same ~ and, as the cliché says: it’s all good!. Finally, continuously, that’s what it comes round to... There’s no place else to go~ nothin’ else to do~ just hang in Heaven as the dreamer; reviewing and forgiving the dream .

Today’s lesson’s prayer is like (or is) the many ‘duh!-type’ prayers I have prayed so often~ Please join me:

“How foolish, Father, to believe Your Son could cause himself to suffer! Could he make a plan for his damnation, and be left without a certain way to his release? You love me, Father. You could never leave me desolate, to die within a world of pain and cruelty. How could I think that Love has left Itself? There is no will except the Will of Love. Fear is a dream, and has no will that can conflict with Yours. Conflict is sleep, and peace awakening. Death is illusion; life, eternal truth. There is no opposition to Your Will. There is no conflict, for my will is Yours”.

2007-11-25T05:09:00.000-07:00

Lesson 330:

I will not hurt myself again today…

It’s yummy to say that in honesty, with absolute faith… Yes? This feeling of trust comes with accepting forgiveness as our only function…

Here’s what happened for me…. A recognition dawned in my mind of another possibility, another guide; s love/based guide already within my mind~ already guiding my life within the whole of life itself; fully directed in its entirety, awaiting but my acceptance, for perception to quickly follow to seemingly materialize it. It was but my wholehearted desire to see a unified perspective that flipped the lid to open in a mind that previously saw only reasons to fear or avoid fear. The joy of love is and always was; abundantly already flooding the system~ Forever extending~ that is the nature of love.

This is the miracle mind; awake and aware. The Course says to the extent to which we value guilt, proportionately we see a world where attack is justified. And for me, as long as guilt is of value to me, whatsoever, forgiveness attempts were just more of the same dignity attack. True forgiveness was impossible to even recognize, let alone allow. See, I thought forgiveness was something that ‘I’ did for someone else, or myself, or vise-versa. Funny how, now, that statement only feels riddled with inconsistencies… course, inconsistencies are indicative of the confused mind.

Forgiveness, it turns out, is the other way of viewing through the mind, simultaneously operating. Wholly visible by my choice to see. It is the total view. It is generous only in the sense that judgment is impossible here, for everything has the same value. All things are exactly as they are and there is no pull to desire something else. Perfection, rather than being the definition of ‘getting it just right’, reflects the impossibility of wrongness… And the ‘right Mind’ allows for illusions to be the nothingness that illusion must surely be, for it is aware of no threat from no-thing.

I’m remembering the section in the text called Perception and choice in chapter 25 where it talks about perception’s fundamental law: ‘You see what you believe is there, and you believe it there because you want it there! (BINGO) It also speaks to us of God’s more basic law: Love creates itself, and nothing but itself! (again, BINGO)

Everything which seems to form-ulate this reality eventually faces the blinding fear boogieman which dissolves into the boundless joy described in this section as the final message to the mind in error, “God is Love. (And therefore so am I).” The error-self cannot house or resonate with this spectacular awareness and its inevitable annihilation begins taking place….

‘The fear of God’ is referred to in the Course as the final obstacle to peace, which one must cross through. And it seems all obstacles boil down to this one~ we begin to see the absolute absurdity of fear, when we recognize that ‘Only Love Is’… ~ no matter what angle we come at it from, we all finally face, square on, that God and Self are the One Love that all creation is…

Once I allowed myself to see that all the ‘story’, my mind was always blabbering on about was nothing; just simply the ego; an illusion dueling it out with itself in an effort to substantiate its flimsy position within the framework of Reality where wholeness makes no allowances for specialness, it was much easier to feel the compassion inherent to wholeness, for wrong-minded ego specialness to want to survive as a possibility. That used to be me after all…

Somehow I let go the desire for the wrong-mind and became willing to forgive all the concepts contained within it, thereby allowing that the false is false and none of my business, which leaves the truth to resonate as the Self we are as one.

I love immersing myself in the only purpose that makes sense. The Atonement Principle: where forgiveness is my only function. Which, incidentally, just feels like love, eh? I couldn’t be happier about this job… like yesterdays lesson says; I have already chosen what God Wills and will it along with Him. My function and my happiness are one. I will only to see Christ in Mind ~where you and I are one…

2007-11-24T05:28:00.000-07:00

Lesson 329:

I have already chosen what You will…

Lately I have been having a bunch of weird, mundane type dreams; some fairly fun to watch and some which have that feeling of doing life with one foot nailed down (a feeling I am well familiar with from the past). The common factor is that none of the scenarios seem to have any particular reason, or matter much. They’re okay. They might, or might not, include someone else currently in my so-called waking experience.

I haven’t really thought much about this until this morning in the contemplative part of my meditation and lesson time. A couple of things occurred to me. First was that they were a good sampling of every-joe’s everyday life, on planet earth. The other was that I couldn’t remember the last time I had dreams such as these.

So I ask myself what it was about my every-joe so-called life that might be affecting a message to me…. Here’s what I came up with. In recent weeks, I have been deliberately trying to make something about my life different; something in form. First uncovering what my belief-system around it has been, as judgment had apparently sneaked in, which is how I got in front of the mirror, so to speak, about it. Next, I started to look for what I have felt were solutions for change. You might ask, as I did during my investigation, where I had perceived a problem, so as to need solution-izing?

The ego is a tenacious thought system; always on the alert to slip in where it can, to redirect the mind away from truth… wouldn’t you agree? Here’s the groovy part, right there, within and beyond the very avenue the ego takes, the Holy Spirit serves up ‘the other way’. Right where I wanted to take this seriously and feel ashamed or think there really could be a problem that needed solving and that I didn’t have the resources within to deal and therefore must seek outside myself, a familiar voice whispers softly, “Relax. All that I have already belongs to you. There is no outside of God’s Son. You are as God created and only the truth is true.” That when my perception flipped and I saw, again, that everything I had been attracting information wise had come easily and I felt inspired to actions I have been taking. I also saw that none of it really mattered in truth, only my peace of mind was imperative… And, that is restored instantaneously by my desire for nothing else… Ahhh….

I love forgiving my mind for its little attempt to reinvent itself~ the transition experience from futility to gratitude, peace and certainty is so delicious…

I have already chosen what You will…

So too, is today’s prayer… Let’s partake together:

“Father, I thought I wandered from Your Will, defied it, broke its laws, and interposed a second will more powerful than Yours. Yet what I am in truth is but Your Will, extended and extending. This am I, and this will never change. As You are One, so am I one with You. And this I chose in my creation, where my will became forever one with Yours. That choice was made for all eternity. It cannot change, and be in opposition to itself. Father, my will is Yours. And I am safe, untroubled and serene, in endless joy, because it is Your Will that it be so.”

2007-11-23T08:39:00.000-07:00

Lesson 328:

I choose the second place to gain the first…

Don’t you love how everything that never made sense; all the contradictory ideas and fickle beliefs that haunted you prior to finding ACIM, are now being sorted out, and only those that reflect the truth are rising evermore to the forefront of your mind? I do. At least this is what seems to be the case for me.

Once I became willing to be wrong about everything; once I just let go into the experience of complete and total surrender, every concept I ever thought I was sure about flipped on its face and took my self-concept with it. In empting out completely, I noticed an indelible fullness deep within…This has continued to fill and spread without my being into the understanding that the world I see is, absolutely, a projection of the thoughts and ideas I believe at any given moment. Which I now distinguish to be what is currently up for healing and release. I have come to see it as my current forgiveness lesson/opportunity.

As I have become increasingly willing to suspend my little and arrogant interpretation, and allowed myself to instead, see with the Holy Spirit within, a great certainty has replaced great doubt. And if you have ever suffered from perpetual self-doubt as I have, you know what Heaven this relief experience is… In other words:

I choose the second place to gain the first…

By giving up our self-concept; surrendering our bogus competition with God, we come home to the joyous experience of the Self, as God created.

See, the thing about the truth, the present, and all that is ‘real’, is that there is an aliveness about it that is indistinguishable. And once you experience it, and keep experiencing it through forgiveness, you really see how the world is but a film of yesterday’s belief-system… I, for one, am bored with the rerun…

I choose the second place to gain the first…

Please join me in the lesson’s prayer:

There is no will but Yours. And I am glad that nothing I imagine contradicts what You would have me be. It is Your Will that I be wholly safe and eternally at peace. and happily I share that Will with You, my Father, gave as part of me…

2007-11-22T07:51:00.000-07:00

Lesson 327:

I need but call and You will answer me...

Holy Thanksgiving, batman! This lesson says it all!

Is there any other thanksgiving message? ~Ultimately, it has been done.

I am as God created me; wholly creative and at one with Him, uniting me as one in Christ, with ya all. Since Creation is the unique and only formula for the Son of God, cause and effect are one in the same. It has been done and all power in Heaven and earth, circle back to this.

We have always been answered. Example number one: When we said we wanted to be ‘we’ and hide-out in separation’s guilty pleasure/pain palace, and pretend we knew Creation not, a deep sleep to dream the impossible fell over Adam(us), so the good book says… This lesson invites us into the Comprehensive awakening that Jesus refers to in chapter 2 of the text.

I need but call and You will answer me... Oh, how I know this to be so... For I called; at first in the irreverence, commonplace to this ego life, “God help me feel more comfortable~ make me a better ‘me’… Then next came the prayer of the desperate, “there has got to be another way”~ and finally, “please, God, let me have been wrong”...

Little by little; incident by incident, belief by belief~ forgiveness by forgiveness~ as I have allowed myself to hear His ever-present call to ‘awaken and be glad’, I have learned, or rather, I remember, the true call within me, which, incidentally, is also ever-present.

It is the true prayer of thanksgiving…

Resting in the stillness of gratitude, I join the chorus of the heavenly host beyond the world of time and space yet always vibrant NOW...

Thank you joining me in the ‘GREAT LEAP OF FAITH’. You have never failed me. Because of you, I know what I am…I am eternally grateful… Today’s lesson’s prayer is like a mantra prayer for our commitment to this year’s round of lessons and their practical application in our so-called lives:

“Father, I thank You that Your promises will never fail in my experience, if I but test them out. Let me attempt therefore to try them, and to judge them not. Your Word is one with You. You give the means whereby conviction comes, and surety of Your abiding Love is gained at last”.

~ Forever and always ~

2007-11-21T05:35:00.000-07:00

Lesson 326:

I am forever an Effect of God….

Once in a while, I’ll be going about my daily business, feeling love-aligned, and, what seems like all the sudden, that old shadow-identity voice will rise up from its grave (and grave it is…) and start issuing orders: “Hey”, it says, “push this girl down and smack her around a bit. There’s a belly full of blame and judgment here, and no place to put it. I need a whipping girl. Now get to it!”

As false and absurd as I recognize this ‘baby-self’ voice to be, the twisted part is that there is a compulsion to buckle to its demands, a sick sense of ‘responsibility’ (for lack of a better word) to it. It’s like, in the past, when I have been identified with the role as ‘mother’, and my kids want something from me that I see as a sacrifice, but, as a mom, I have felt compelled to ‘make the sacrifice. Know what I mean? After all, they’re ‘my’ kids, right? I owe them something; some sacrifice of me, yes?

That’s just plain twisted… yes? I don’t know what I’m getting at here, but as long as I think I fathered myself, the sacrifices to that identity are endless and relentless. I am so grateful to finally see that all my pain has been caused by this ridiculous competition with God, (my Cause and the only reason for my being, incidentally). It is such a load off….

I love the description of my true-identity as the effect of God put so beautifully lesson 156. Remember what it says?

“Truth must be true throughout, if it be true. It cannot contradict itself, nor be in parts uncertain and in others sure. You cannot walk the world apart from God, because you could not be without Him. He is what your life is. Where you are He is. There is one life. That life you share with Him. Nothing can be apart from Him and live.. Yet where He is, there must be holiness as well as life. No attribute of His remains unshared by everything that lives. What lives is holy as Himself, because what shares His life is part of Holiness, and could no more be sinful than the sun could choose to be of ice; the sea elect to be apart from water, or the grass to grow with roots suspended in the air… There is a light in you which cannot die; whose presence is so holy that the world is sanctified because of you. All things that live bring gifts to you, and offer them in gratitude and gladness at your feet. The scent of flowers is their gift to you. The waves bow down before you, and the trees extend their arms to shield you from the heat, and lay their leaves before you on the ground that you may walk in softness, while the wind sinks to a whisper round your holy head... The light in you is what the universe longs to behold. All living things are still before you, for they recognize Who walks with you. The light you carry is their own. And thus they see in you their holiness, saluting you as savior and as God. Accept their reverence, for it is due to Holiness Itself, which walks with you, transforming in Its gentle light all things unto Its likeness and Its purity… This is the way salvation works. As you step back, the light in you steps forward and encompasses the world. It heralds not the end of sin in punishment and death. In lightness and in laughter is sin gone, because its quaint absurdity is seen. It is a foolish thought, a silly dream, not frightening, ridiculous perhaps, but who would waste an instant in approach to God Himself for such a senseless whim?”

I am forever an Effect of God….An effect can only exist from the attributes of its cause. Where else would it come from? What could possibly be its reality? It cannot be spawn from some alien subsistence outside its only state of being… except maybe in wild imaginings, which aren’t real. Oh yeah, that’s what this so-called-world-life is…

The mind is creative; deriving its natural prolusion to extend from its Loving Cause… Love extends. ~We’ve all felt the truth of this, regardless of what ‘belief base’ we’re signed on to~. We want to love and be loved~ No matter how we dress it up to look like something else or even believe it is. It’s not. When it is stripped down to its naked core; every success dance, anger dance, romance dance, family dance and/or system dance, be it political, religious, sexual, intellectual or ‘spiritual’, still comes down to one thing, we want love; to give and receive~ It is the very fabric of our being and impossible to remove from our being. ~Cover up perhaps, deny, definitely, but be without~ impossible…

We are the effect of God; of Love, and nothing else will ever give us happiness…

As we train our minds to see the false as false and forgive its unreality, love’s awareness seeps into our presence of mind as the present moment; and time, itself, slips to the background as relevant. This is the point of contact that we must come back to eventually, as we learn to let the Holy Spirit lead our thinking back to right-minded thinking, which is with our Source.

The ‘self-concept’ thinks for itself. It is wrong. The miracle for me has been to remain vigilant against the wrong-minded or false thinking of the ‘self-concept’ until my relying on the Holy Spirit became a habit of engaging with God, a habit worthy of the Son-returning-home… Nothing else feels natural any more and seeing/recognizing the false for what it is; false, seems simpler. Each and every experience in this world, I see it now as a forgiveness lesson in the making. Everywhere I look, there it is. As the shadow is dispelled by the light of forgiveness, there is Love, awaiting awareness.

Turns out, love is every where and every when and every one. It is unmistakably within all. In letting go the self concept altogether, truth of our being as Christ reveals itself; reflecting in everyone and everything we seem to see, in this dream of waking up to the Son of God as is…in truth. And in realizing Christ, we recognizing we had merely been dreaming the dream of ‘something else. ~ I am forever an Effect of God…

2007-11-20T09:26:00.000-07:00

Lesson 325:

All things I think I see reflect ideas…

Boy, I can witness to the fact of this statement. Here’s what I’ve noticed; whatever way and for whatever reason, at any I am viewing the world, my-so-called life and what seems to be the lives of ‘others’, this fact: ‘All things I think I see reflect ideas’, relentlessly stares back at me. What I am seeing is what is in my mind… And how I see it, reflects what I believe to be so…

Prior to ACIM as a model, I suspected this. I observed that somehow, someway, what I thought and believed; even believed by wishing it not true, were being influenced, at the very least, by attention to them in my mind. Then I met the Course… And ah, I now had, a formula to pull this awareness forward in my mind to the point of true attention, rather than the addictive attention to form based structures, brought on by bringing my mind under the influence of the whole unconscious belief construct of the separation idea.

The precise articulation of this concept gave me a language for which I could be honest with myself. And perhaps more accurately, it gave me a whole new use for language in which to describe perception, as well as everything I seemed to perceive.

Now from this right-sided vision, I see only one thing, everything I see is only my mind; ideas I have aligned with, and only my mind that I am faced with. “I am responsible for what I see, I choose the feelings I experience, and I decide upon the goal I would achieve. And anything that seems happen to me I ask for, and receive as I have asked”. (T-21.II.2.3)

Will I choose the ideas of creation as host to God, or will I choose ideas that I have made up and be hostage to them? That is the question…

All of what is happening behind the scenes so to speak, is that I decide I want something as a possible “it” (even if ‘it’ is to scary to even consider consciously) the very decision to fear, details out the specifics in some department behind closed doors. But ‘its’ reality in my mind is in process. Like happened with the idea of separation, it’s like it went something like this; ‘what if one could separate from his source and make a world apart? … Oh, shit that’s too scary to even dream about… ~huge~ ‘what if’.

Once conceived of by the mind of the Son of God, for god’s sake, with all power of creation given him as the natural effect of God the Father, his Cause; it stands to reason that the ideas’ possibility prospectus would by drawn up. Ergo the Atonement principle…. Ideas leave not their source. This primary theme threads together the fabric of the message of the Course, and is consistently reestablished by its holographic design. ~Hum, just like us~

God’s Son is as God created: the whole extension of His Love~ Extension is Love’s only purpose. Therefore, nothing else could possibly ever happen… Love is what it is, such as are we the love that we were creeated, being one whole creation…

“God is”… says it all~ literally…

Please join me in the yummy reflection prayer to carry into the day…

“Our Father, Your ideas reflect the truth, and mine apart from Yours but make up dreams. Let me behold what only Yours reflect, for Yours and Yours alone establish truth”. ~

2007-11-19T06:49:00.000-07:00

Lesson 324:

I merely follow, for I would not lead…

One of the most compelling features of my experience with A Course in Miracles is that I have felt moved (inspired), almost like a gravitational pull toward the message’s axis. While reading, contemplating and in particular, practicing it’s principles through the lessons, I have felt certain, yet unexplainable ‘on the mark’ feeling…Some significant place e within me unlocked and opened for truth to flow through, which I wasn’t even aware was there, let alone all locked up. Yet I felt it open…

This spaciousness certainty includes feeling energies such as, imperturbability, safety, un-questionability and inevitability, which I found defined themselves from within some inner translation center I was fore-to-then unfamiliar with. Yet, this very hub was absolutely the center from which I drew the wholly comforting feeling that I was finally coming back home….

From this place within, I felt myself unexplainably humming the message of today’s lesson within my heart: “I merely follow, for I would not lead”… even if my actions rarely reflected it. Now, as a controller, this is a miracle… Oh, how I attempted to lead…

Denial is one seductive bedfellow, yes? My experience at the time was weak in articulation and limited in scope, but my desire to follow was pure. Being hardwired by the ego and identifying with ego hardware and its programs, made for some very convoluted, bumpy going, at times. Many times taking some pretty upside-down twists of irresponsibility, which resulted in excruciating shame, quilt ~ (yet, always, ultimately blessed with gorgeous forgiveness).

Still, they couldn’t totally rock me off the path that had indelibly opened within me, where God never left, but always called me back on track toward the home I never really left…

Oh, how lovely it is to be free… To finally realize and accept that God’s plan for salvation (and only His plan) not only turns out to be the only shot at freedom in this so-called life, but outlines a clear and present methodology, a single purpose, so as to not confuse.

Simplicity is now, within the present moment. Plus, we have perfect companions along the way in which we forgive and join with, in which to know ourselves and reaffirm our awareness of what we are as well as what we believe at any given moment....

And to top it off, our coach and guide is, always, right within our mind; always on task, available to awareness upon request. In the presence of NOW, the futile effort to dispute ‘what is’ disappears, for time is but an illusion to keep this argument alive…

For me, it is just such bliss to follow in the way appointed me by Love… leaving all the details as well to Him… and so much simpler, nest pas?

Along the lines of this section of the lessons, ”What is Creation”, I have been thinking about Sekou, a beautiful spoken word artist, a dear friend turned me on to, and a piece of his work is playing in the background of my mind. I am attaching the link for your enjoyment. http://www.blindfaithrecords.com/

2007-11-18T07:49:00.000-07:00

Lesson 323:

I gladly make the “sacrifice” of fear…

Presumably, every sacrifice I seemingly made, most my so-called life, was made only in an effort to sacrifice FEAR. Dude, I hate that feeling; where your heart is beating at maximum, yet pumping ice through your veins… All you want to do is RUN; quit, get away from it, do anything to stop feeling it…And oh, the tactics I was will to implore… None of them worked.

These; my favorite acronym’s for FEAR, cover it pretty well:

False Evidence Appearing Real

Frantic Effort To Avoid Reality

F@#! Everything And Run…

Turns out, each ‘sacrifice’ was actually made at the feet of Fear’s throne, in worship; sacrificing Self to fear.

Remember, every single thought or action or feeling speaks to what I believe I am. There’s no other way it could go… it is the holographic nature of wholeness. Of course, what I believe is not what I am. If belief is involved, it is at best a symbol pointing toward the truth…. At worst, well we all know, it’s a total shredding of identity with One Self, replaced with a false identity to be feared and mistrusted, split off into millions of ‘other’ selves, separate and at odds with ‘me’. Thank God, that’s false! And thank heaven that the false always is false …

Only the truth is true~ forever, always. I job is to deny the denial of truth. Which looks like the lesson says; to sacrifice all suffering, all sense of loss and sadness, all anxiety and doubt, and freely let God’s Love come streaming in to my awareness, healing all ideas of pain and allowing God’s Own eternal joy. My mission, once I choose to accept it, is to accept love’s miracles in place of fear’s depiction of the world by committing all; that is every situation, circumstance, relationship and belief, to my function of forgiveness and therefore, happiness. Here is where the ‘real’ world is revealed… I love how the Course talks about this switch over in Chapter 28 of the text. Here's some excerpts from that section:: “The miracle alone is your concern at present. Here is where we must begin. And having started, will the way be made serene and simple in the rising up to waking and the ending of the dream. When you accept a miracle, you do not add your dream of fear to one that is already being dreamed. Without support, the dream will fade away without effects. For it is your support that strengthens it”…. “Like every lesson that the Holy Spirit requests you learn, the miracle is clear. It demonstrates what He would have you learn, and shows you its effects are what you want. In His forgiving dreams are the effects of yours undone, and hated enemies perceived as friends with merciful intent. Their enmity is seen as causeless now, because they did not make it. And you can accept the role of maker of their hate, because you see that it has no effects. Now are you freed from this much of the dream; the world is neutral, and the bodies that still seem to move about as separate things need not be feared. And so they are not sick…. The miracle returns the cause of fear to you who made it. But it also shows that, having no effects, it is not cause, because the function of causation is to have effects. And where effects are gone, there is no cause. Thus is the body healed by miracles because they show the mind made sickness, and employed the body to be victim, or effect, of what it made. Yet half the lesson will not teach the whole. The miracle is useless if you learn but that the body can be healed, for this is not the lesson it was sent to teach. The lesson is the mind was sick that thought the body could be sick; projecting out its guilt caused nothing, and had no effects… This world is full of miracles. They stand in shining silence next to every dream of pain and suffering, of sin and guilt. They are the dream's alternative, the choice to be the dreamer, rather than deny the active role in making up the dream. They are the glad effects of taking back the consequence of sickness to its cause. The body is released because the mind acknowledges "this is not done to me, but I am doing this." And thus the mind is free to make another choice instead. Beginning here, salvation will proceed to change the course of every step in the descent to separation, until all the steps have been retraced, the ladder gone, and all the dreaming of the world undone”.

Doesn’t that just leave you with a yummy feeling of being on track, identifying as the dreamer instead of the dream, learning from the right-mind, and coming home… Make you want to gladly pay the debt we owe to truth,—a debt that merely is the letting go of self-deceptions and of images we worshiped falsely—truth returns… Ummm Thanks for joining me~ ~

2007-11-17T07:05:00.000-07:00

Lesson 322:

I can give up but what was never real….

The ego simply always wants more, more of what doesn’t matter. But giving something up is absolutely out of the question. If I’m ever asking myself if not wanting to ‘give up’ some ‘thing’ is within right-minded thinking, the answer is unequivocally ‘no’.

Spirit has all because spirit is all. And all the escapades of the dream are irrelevant. Period. Completely without hierarchy, value, or relevance. ~Boy, how that irks the ego. Spirit is in a state of grace forever. So, whatever fantasizes the characters of the dream seem to need to dream~ I say, have at it… it matters not.

Dreaming is forgiven by design, always culminating with the Atonement which cancels it out entirely and love continues to flow, without incident. You, like I did for years, might be thinking, “that’s all fine and dandy in theory, and quite appealing to want to believe, but when one is addicted to imprisonment by the dream; feeling hostage to its dictates, rewards and punishments, sufficient enough so as to render this tidbit of critical learning, inaccessible, what is one to do?”

In a statement ~Decide for Miracles. The answer is established as God’s plan for salvation. And we merely allow for miracle-minded perception, which only reflects our natural state of unity and love, to replace otherness… Ok, now, I know it seems that this is a subtle viewpoint, barely visible from within the belief structure of victim-hood, at the mercy of the dream, but here it is: DO NOTHING.

What is called for is constant mind-watching; not just when things get uncomfortable, but a genuine single-minded, one-purpose watching, without judgment… a sort of lucid dream state, if you will. And what is being watched for, or better yet, trained or exercised, is the ability to recognize that what is happening is dreaming…Its content is beside the point~ a dream is a dream. ~ If it seems, in any way, that one is actually in a body, in a world with other bodies, one is dreaming.

The Holy Spirit is our ticket to this kind of lucid dreaming, which allows us to recognize that one indeed is dreaming and as such, can choose a different dream instead. Remember the part in chapter 28 of the text called Reversing Cause and Effect? “Nothing at all has happened but that you have put yourself to sleep, and dreamed a dream in which you were an alien to yourself, and but a part of someone else's dream. The miracle does not awaken you, but merely shows you who the dreamer is. It teaches you there is a choice of dreams while you are still asleep, depending on the purpose of your dreaming. Do you wish for dreams of healing, or for dreams of death? A dream is like a memory in that it pictures what you wanted shown to you…. An empty storehouse, with an open door, holds all your shreds of memories and dreams. Yet if you are the dreamer, you perceive this much at least: that you have caused the dream, and can accept another dream as well. But for this change in content of the dream, it must be realized that it is you who dreamed the dreaming that you do not like. It is but an effect that have caused, and you would not be cause of this effect. In dreams of murder and attack are you the victim in a dying body slain. But in forgiving dreams is no one asked to be the victim and the sufferer. These are the happy dreams the miracle exchanges for your own. It does not ask you make another; only that you see you made the one you would exchange for this. (T-28.II.4.-5)

Everything is all we’ve got, so there’s no point in hoping or expecting something else to change, or do it for us... The Holy Spirit is indelibly the ‘real’ part of our mind~ Spirit; being what we are in truth. It is here our attention must be placed. We do not need a new script or better role, but rather vision~ seeing as the dreamer instead of as the dream. It’s so much about where attention resides. The ego fixes its attention for acquisition; towards objects and apparitions both inner and outer. It’s just what it does; what it focuses on. It might be deliberate about it at times, but mostly it’s not. Mostly, it is unaware attention. The ego relies on addictive, self-important problematic-oriented thought patterns to demand attentiveness… to create critical diversions so we won’t feel we have time to mind-watch… The course says we are much too tolerant of mind-wandering, and it also guides that, ”The question is not how you respond to the ego, but what you believe you are. Belief is an ego function, and as long as your origin is open to belief you are regarding it form an ego viewpoint… Belief that there is another way of perceiving is the loftiest idea of which ego thinking is capable…That is because it contains a hint of recognition that the ego is not the Self”…. So, quite simply, we’ve got our starting place….

Attention placed can also be withdrawn. This is how we dispel illusions. We look with the Holy Spirit at everything and see that it is false. We then withdraw attention from the false. With the Holy Spirit guiding our perception with vision, transfer of learning from situations becomes generalized and we begin to allow our attention to stabilize in Being, the space between thoughts’ object and its Being’s Source. Being becomes primary, and perception secondary. One can feel the ‘right-ness’ of attention, when Being pays attention, it feels like love… like the Self, which arranges a natural order that emerges from Being and simplifies everything to one choice. Today’s lesson reminds us that we can only give up what was never real in the first place, for who we are remains forever as God created. The sacrifice is only of illusions and when we are willing to hide nothing, but look without judgment, and through the miracle, at everything we made, it dissolves back into the nothingness from which it came... talk about perfect… ~

2007-11-16T04:00:00.000-07:00

11. What is creation?

Clearly, creation is what we are in truth... Being the all of all that is, it is what is left when the details are gone. It is the boundless love we feel beyond feeling. It is what cannot fit into this world-body-dream… And yet it house’s and sustains it abundantly… Creation is the love we can’t put our finger on, for it is our Self ~ the holographic perfection of God’s Thoughts, already complete…

Creation is that certainty we know is there, if we just stop the dance with specialness and rest in the oneness of alive possibility…

When contraction leaves, creation is…

Lesson 321:

“Father, my freedom is in You alone….

I am one who has attempted to organize my life so as to seem to feel free. ‘You’re not the boss of me’, was my silent creed behind every relationship; be it romantic, parental, professional, friends and the world at large. I would attempt to get a fix on the dynamics, boundaries and limits of a particular system, and then decide where I would keep me for myself, where I would need ‘private’ thoughts and opinions and what I would seemingly ‘go public’ with. I figured if I could get the system’s wiring down, I could maneuver according to ‘my’ dictates.

One secret never disclosed at the onset was, ‘keep a secret back door for quick escape for ‘me’ in freedom’s name sake… jokingly I’d say, “I can always hop the next boat to China…” Needless to say, one can’t ever anticipate the ingenious convoluted twists and turns of the ego. And my experience with my so-called private mind and the world-at-large resulted with the same response “run”. Oh, god how I tried. But everywhere I took myself, I found myself.

~I can't tell you how I laugh now at the absurdity of ‘private minds’… ~duh, there’s nobody ‘out there’. Turns out, one only runs from oneself. And that’s just the act of running the hamster-wheel of denial… We do it... till we don’t…

Ah, the big cosmic belly-laugh….

I know I did, till finally in a moment of grace accepted, I merely looked at what I had made, square-on…and for one instant, I became completely willing to be wrong about everything~ ever; to allow that all ‘reality’ that I had ever surmised, or thought I had experienced, including experience itself, was false….

I was a miracle…

I don’t know what makes that kind of surrender happen… I do know that giving up ‘the good fight’ is just plain easier… All you have to do is be… god knows I never really knew how to do anything else without question. Yet being, I do perfectly…

Truth came quietly to present awareness in my mind. For an instant, no time ever was and nothing ever happened at all…. Only love is real and only love creates…. This is the beginning and the end, being always in God. The presence of creation remains constantly within my mind now.

I’m not at all saying that I don’t get caught up identifying with personhood at times… However, the body-dream really can’t stand up to the powerful decision to let forgiveness take over, for long. I am acutely aware that the world I see is an ‘outward picture of an ‘inward condition’. And once I learned the quick restorative to peace that forgiveness is; whenever I feel separate in anyway, be it worry, frustration, guilt (yeah, I know, they’re all one in the same~ an attack on creation), I take the fast-track back to peace by choosing with the Holy Spirit to see it differently. The false reveals itself as clearly a figment of the imagination and what remains is only Christ.

The effort to pretend was just a call for love and you, my brother, as Christ, already answered it... Now, that’s freedom! The obvious stands naked this instant; we are one, united in our Creator. And we are free.

“Father, my freedom is in You alone….

2007-11-15T04:52:00.000-07:00

Lesson 320:

My Father gives all power unto me….

What God Wills is what is. Period. In the beginning of this section “ What is the Last Judgment”, it wraps up with this statement: ”This is God’s final Judgment: "You are still My holy Son, forever innocent, forever loving and forever loved, 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."(W-pII.10.5.). Everything else is just plain ego arrogance… all the pettiness and ‘waiting till’….

My only purpose, as is so with the entire Sonships, is to accept the atonement for myself. This is done by allowing forgiveness to transform ancient hate into present love. We accept the miracle, which does nothing but merely undo, canceling out the interference in the sending and receiving signal to the awareness love being the one reality.

My job is to simply allow the Holy Spirit to decide for God, for me. This allows for the condition of peace, which puts me in touch with the state of grace which is natural to spirit always and forever. This changes my perception from one as a separate character in the dream; powerless to its dictates, to the one as the dreamer of the dream; with all power….

This is the one perception alternative: see the ego divisive dream or see the Present, with the Holy Spirit.

I think it’s important to not dream God up within the residual construct of ‘this world’ when we practice a lesson such as today’s; “My Father gives all power to me”, and simply remember it is truth, which we now are consistently identifying with, which we are dealing with at this stage of the lessons. It is the Holy Spirit in us, speaking to the truth in us, through the lessons and our translated personhood mechanism. We listen with the mind beyond the mechanism and respond with the love forever extending itself…

There is no place for smallness now. We have been wholly invited, through our choosing the Atonement; through our holy relationship and unified purpose, to the ‘real world, beyond persons and opinions and circumstances and hierarchies. “There is no order of difficulty in miracles” is beginning to make perfect sense. We are free, NOW. And we can see everyone and circumstance as Love/a call for Love, extending. NOW.

We are Christ. the limitless Son of God, in which all willed with God, must be done.

Always we circle back to, “Do I will to be hostage to the ego or host to God” as I play at this awaking game? For it has already been done… the past is gone, its script written and played out in every possible regurgitated form. It was answered with the Atonement: “this could not be”, in the twinkling of an instant. How long will we drag out this petty competition with God game? If you’ve touched noses with ACIM, the obviousness of the ego’s script; the fraudulent victim/perp. role with its fear based defenses has dawned on some level. And if you have been practicing the lessons to this point, you’ve at least a sense of the story being decayed and boring.

The freshness of honesty with self has become imperative. The discernment that the false as false has reached the access of mind and awakening is imminent. “The truth is true. And only the truth is true…” This is the statement that resounds in the soundtrack of right-mindedness. Heaven is here, now. And you are it… Like the prayer in today’s lesson asserts: “Your Will can do all things in me, and then extend to all the world as well through me. There is no limit on Your Will. And so all power has been given to Your Son.” ~

2007-11-14T06:04:00.000-07:00

Lesson 319:

I came for the salvation of the world…

As I have, through trial and error, uncovered my belief structure, it has amazed me that we get on at all in this life. Every plan and fantasy seems to have a built in failure-to-satisfy mechanism… In other words, it’s doomed from the start. Yet, the compulsion to seek more drives the body on. Even in the so-called spiritual quest, the inevitable disappointment is finding that whatever one achieves from seeking, results in dissatisfaction and a sense of ‘not-enough-ness… But wait! The thing I discovered (due to my earnestness and willingness really) is that this seeking is the condition of the ego dream… But here’s the good new! I am not that!

I am… no matter what. Behind the body-mind, beyond the thinking mechanism; within the dream or witnessing, I simply am…I am that state of pure being. I have died at the hand of every idol I have made and worshiped. Only to find my Self… the Self of pure being… of Love indefinable… the Self as God created His Son… eternal life…

The dense fabric of the heavy dream of ‘something else’ finally required that ‘I’ lighten-up. Here’s another thing I discovered… You know how you always hear that every cloud has a silver lining? … Well, I discovered that within every false belief I held was the seed of a healed perspective…

Built into every desire for the false, is a spirit fail-safe. It is at the ready, the instant we are willing to surrender what we think we know, and be shown. The instant we wholeheartedly want the truth… this is the miracle-mindedness that allows us to be in sync with God’s plan for salvation…. We have become the ministers of God…

Then once the life as a miracle worker is set, every belief is systematically offered to the miracle for re-pair…

To accept that only truth is why I am here. By accepting only that I am as God created and nothing else could be true, I bring that condition into all my seeming encounters and each become one where I recognize my brother as myself. I am not in fact here at all. I did not ‘come’ anywhere. Yet, as long as the mind of the Sonship remains split, there is salvation to be had. My job is to not be so arrogant as to think I don’t matter and that my ‘not paying attention’ won’t be noticed…. Mind is whole. No one gets away with nothin’. And on the same note, every loving thought, the tiniest ‘let-go’~ they’re all one healing, one unified purpose, waking the mind to the reality that God has saved our Self for us, undefiled and pure.

It is the whole mind of the Son that is already restored in the Holy Spirit that ‘comes’ to save the world. The world, after all, is in my mind. Not the other way around. The humility that accompanies accepting that God’s Will is total, and the restorative of the Atonement complete, allows me the patience to seemingly do my part, to fulfill my function through forgiving all misperceptions by just noticing… that’s my part…. I simply don’t run from myself, or you, for we are one and all perception that says otherwise is just a forgiveness lesson, and part of my particular curriculum for my role in salvation.

‘I’ don’t even do the forgiving; I notice and invite the Holy Spirit to take it from there… then I reap the benefits: happiness and joy and the peace that only certainty brings…it is so worth it to let go one’s ‘littleness and accept that only God’s plan for salvation will work and only the truth is true… I like how the lesson today puts it: “when there is no arrogance the truth will come immediately, and fill up the space the ego left unoccupied by lies…it is the Will of God I learn that what one gains is given unto all….

“Father, Your Will is total. And the goal which stems from it shares its totality. What aim but the salvation of the world could You have given me? And what but this could be the Will my Self has shared with You”?
.

2007-11-13T05:43:00.000-07:00

Lesson 318:

“In me salvation’s means and end are one…

“I was created as the thing I seek. I am the goal the world is searching for. I am God’s Son, His one eternal Love. I am salvation’s means and end as well”…

It dawns eventually. Or should I say, resistance is futile… God created one Son, pure and innocent as Himself. This is the truth. As the Course says, it (the truth) resides, ‘hidden in the one place we wouldn’t look, within’… What’s the looking all about? It is the comprehensive awakening called salvation from the dream of separation in this world/life/existence; it is, as the Course puts it, the deep sleep that fell over the Son’s mind… Salvation is the gentle wakening rumbling from within and throughout the sonship (whether one is aware of it or not) which is occurring simultaneously with all time/space constructs.

Being Is. ~ There is no way to describe what the need for description has dissolved away into….

All symbols are a part of the dream. They are necessary only as long as there is existence as well as being within the mind…

Ok, so what am I getting at here? In practical application, day to day, how do I experience the reconciliation of salvation’s means and end as being within me?

I know my Self, by seeing it in you. I have found this simple law of mind consistently so again and again… As such, I do know this: There is no other way to get the results I want… which, of course is perfect happiness and peace. After all, perfect peace is the criteria by which to measure all experience within this world…

So as I experience you and whatever situation I bring to awareness, how I see you and the world are a mirror of my mind. I remember, and painfully at times, that precisely as I allot for you, your sinlessness and innocence, and forgiving any blocks to love’s awareness that arise as a lack of peace, correctly seen as ‘my’ projections, will I experience that sinlessness and innocence we inherently are...

From this state of willingness it easy to see the obvious~ that a split mind could be only mine since I, indeed, am having the experience. So, the sooner I cop to it being all me, during these forgiveness lessons, the quicker I return to peace and to my function which is happiness. This truly is the only thing worth doing!

When I experience myself attempting to split, I have found a reminder of today’s lesson to be a worthy habit of mind to develop ~ a quick restorative as the Course says.

This brings to mind another of my favorite restoratives from the Course, which is indelibly in my mind, “the letting go of judgment is the obvious prerequisite for hearing the Voice for God”…

It’s not like His Voice is really hard to hear, once you want to hear only that. There is no mistaking it. It is the absolute essence of rightness~ not right in the sense of wrong/right, but in the feeling of completeness, only-ness, right-now-ness… One can feel the power and truth of Love within the Voice for God… It is my choice to listen only to this Voice only… It in this choosing this single voice alone that I re-cognize you, and I feel it as the one Self~ the Christ we are. In this choice, I am at home. It is a state that is present in me always. It suspends time and space and all the seeming details of the dream. I think of it as the ‘practicing the holy instant’ the Course talks about… So, in me, salvation’s means and end are one ~ahhhh such gratitude I feel…

2007-11-12T06:25:00.000-07:00

Lesson 317:

I follow in the way appointed me…

Here is where certainty lies. It is the only place to find it. The way appointed me is the way of God, the way of love. It is the clear perspective of a unified purpose within a world made to epitomize conflict… In fact, it is the only certainty. “Only God’s plan for salvation will work.” (W-71).

I love the prayer that invites the Holy Spirit to lead which is given in lesson 71: “What would You have me do? Where would You have me go? What would You have me say and to whom?”… I’ve found it an excellent gateway to the perspective that allows for the appointed way to be seen…

Miracles light the way forged by Forgiveness. The Holy Spirit is the guide and map interpreter and you are my compadrés and companions. Grievances act as little cairns showing us the way when a fork has surfaced in the pathway of mind, and belief seems to block the way.

One must forgive the con-structural possibility that a dual way could exist at all, when God is perfect oneness and all is His Son… It’s like a “choose once again” trail marker… It is the conscious decision to “follow in the way appointed me” that shifts the mind to see the path at all. Free-will is ours and we are the dreamer of the dream of worlds.

The lesson says, “I have s special place to fill, a role for me alone. Salvation waits until I take this part as what I choose to do”.

In my early years with the Course, I took this as a role I played in the world. It just so happened that I had received a miracle. I ask for another way, and I was given it. I felt I had found my purpose in life~ to counsel other fellow sufferers to see that only love can heal and nothing else does…and that was good as far as that piece goes. It’s not for me to see the total picture for all~ that is the Holy Spirit’s role...

Here’s the thing, though, I actually took this so-called-inspired role as the role appointed me, a ‘special role’, helping, counseling, teaching~ it was a role characterized by it’s different from others special roles-ness… See the subtle division there? I didn’t… not for a while, anyway. I think this is a trap a lot of sincere seekers fall into. Where seeking-mind interprets miracles as finding answers in the world and then deciding it knows something it can teach to others. What I came to experience for myself (really in every area of life), as soon as I think I Know something, I close myself off from true knowing. Which, incidentally, often reveals itself in my own very words when I and they dedicated to purpose and given over to the Holy Spirit. Knowing is not of this world…

I didn’t realize the subtle, seductive twist the ego designed especially for me. And what I did experience happening I began to feel detached from myself in a very fundamental way. I was all about what I felt obliged to maintain and perpetuate ~this image/role which seemed held in such regard by those it thought it ‘helped’… And this persona seemed so respected and was seen as knowledgeable and important by myself as well as others.

What I see now is that there was a sort of splitting (separation) within my own ‘secret/personal’ self. There was a childlike self, tucked inside, humbled by and still holding the miracle in tact, waiting… Yet, also, from this little self I too felt somewhat in awe (or was it trepidation?) of this persona-self. And the split grew. I was attached to the persona. And after a while, I began to suffer from a deep sense of feeling fraudulent. Not particular to any actions or words inconsistent to the role, but a building sense of knowing it was not what I am, but rather a distraction of ‘importance’ to delay the only way appointed me…

I’m not saying there was anything but a miracle-in-action going on for me throughout this time. I just find it useful to remember the cunningness of the ego; how seductive and contrived it is ~ seducing us to look the way our weaknesses want to see… And yet, it is ultimately vicious… Well, as the Course puts it, it’s out to kill us (thank God, there is no death in Life~ whew!) What I’m recalling today is a replay of my forgiveness lesson specifics, as honestly as I can, from a mind-watching perspective (and perhaps a little hindsight).

I chose the Hell-bus out of the predicament I found myself in, incidentally. This Hell-bus, by the way, for me, turned out to be the fast-track to forgiving the personhood construct. It gave me direct access to a clear and present awareness of the single choice ~for the Atonement…

Now, here, is the true way appointed me… I chose the Atonement for myself and never again have I suffered from the same split in self that I was once so belabored by…

My path is certain, my choices~ as clear as my willingness at any given moment, and the way secure. Love is the lamppost as well as the sun. I cannot really lose my way. The Course tells us that God would not leave us comfortless… It is true. This comfort is as present as my choice to take the way appointed me, and to choose the Atonement for myself.

Under this umbrella, all things are seen from a unified perspective, all directed toward only good for all. No one ever really loses. We love or we forgive or we wait till we’re ready to love and forgive… The details that seem to flesh-out my so-called-life are seen with equal value; just as all is seen as either useful to purpose or not and therefore forgiven and then useful once again….

God’s plan for salvation replaces our nightmare of separate ‘special-nesses’ with the dream of forgiveness and oneness. His dream answered the idea the impossible: that there could be a world where one was separate from and even conceived his maker, a separate entity, apart from all the billions surrounding him, levying for control, for which one must continually maintain control over it all… or parish. (Geese, that’s sound insane when ya put it that way).

Not one seemingly individual person is left out of a unified plan. It is but by our choice that a unified purpose is seen and followed. Like lesson 236 says: “I rule my mind, which I alone must rule.” ~lessons 79and 80: “Let me recognize the problem so it can be solved and recognize the problem has been solved ~lesson 138: “Heaven is the decision I must make”. And then followed by lesson 139: “I will accept the Atonement for my self”… which brings us back to today’s lesson: I follow in the way appointed me… It is the one goal for action ~ all that has meaning in this world made to contradict itself…

Please join me in this clear and beautiful prayer from today’s lesson:

“Father, Your way is what I choose today. Where it would lead me do I choose to go; what it would have me do I choose to do. Your way is certain, and the end secure. The memory of You awaits me there. And all my sorrows end in Your embrace, which You have promised to Your Son, who thought mistakenly that he had wandered from the sure protection of Your loving Arms”…