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~

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….

LESSON 316:

All gifts I give my brothers are my own…

You know how sometimes it seems like you finally handled some burdensome circumstance of your life; have offered forgiveness to a particular brother or a particular situation, or perception even~ just to feel blindsided when seemingly the same problem, at least something almost like it, happens all over again? Back in the day, I took this quite personally. I told myself things like, “Something’s deficient in my spiritual program, I’m not doing it right”, etc., etc… This used to really frustrate me! That was until I realized and accepted the reason for it. And just why the similar ‘problematic’ concept serves itself up all over again…

Not only did I not want the problem; including the lack of peace that always characterized the conflicting state called “problem", which in itself offers a direct view into what I believe I am, and where I’m operating from at the time of my judgment… but, and importantly, because I can’t identify with my Self in this state.

It is not who I am in truth and the very act of ‘taking issue’ means I have forgotten and need reminding. There’s no other way home. And we do this until all spit thoughts are forgiven and all is seen with love…This is the condition of the Atonement. My responsibility is 100% accountability, at all times, to choose it for myself.

When I deny the actuality of the state I’m experiencing; when I think there’s a problem, and actually think there is an issue “out there” to resolve, it is simply a tap on the shoulder or slap in the face (whatever’s needed, eh?), which says, “Wake up! You’re dreaming and believe the dream is dreaming you”.

“Accept the dream He gave instead of yours. It is not difficult to change a dream when once the dreamer has been recognized”. (T-27.14.1-2) Always, what I’m dealing with boils down to the authority problem. It’s an authorship issue. ‘Taking issue’ is a symptom of the one problem: I think I am separate from God, (and all else): the same authority problem which fathered and characterizes the not-real world. So this is actually a gift to have show up so can look it square in the eyes and see its folly.

The seemingly, ‘previously forgiven issue’, apparently shows back up so I can see that I had my interpretation on what forgiveness was before. I know this because I had an idea of a result from my being forgiving, that would be give me the state of peace not available during ‘the problem’. ‘I’ don’t get to decide… and… There is no future peace! Peace is right here, right now! It is the natural state of my being.

Only from allowing myself to be present with it NOW, can I then let that state, where the Holy Spirit’s voice can be heard, to direct me as to the gifts I give, etc.

How convoluted is the ego’s idea of gift giving, yes? it’s always giving to get~ even if it’s to get spiritual enlightenment, yeah?

All gifts I give my brothers are my own… Due to the holographic nature of the universe, this is going be the case whether I choose littleness; to be hostage to the ego (disguised as ‘The Boss’), or host to God and accept my magnitude. From magnitude I can afford to look at the contradictions in my thought system and not take them personally, as with the littleness character; they’re just beliefs to be forgiven… they are impossible incompatibilities in the flow of peace~ blocks to Loves awareness~ not the truth. “I” don’t know what a gift is, what it’s for or when, how or to whom to give it~ not left to my own devices, that is.

This whole universe of separate special-nesses was the best ego/I could come up with. Here, every gift comes at the price of peace. So, for me, a good guide is to enter the day with the miracle worker’s prayer on my mind-lips:

“I am here only to be truly helpful. I am here to represent Him Who sent me. I do not have to worry about what to say of what to do, because He Who sent will direct me. I am content to be wherever He whishes, knowing He goes there with me. I will be healed as I let Him teach me to heal.” (T-2.18)

Now, whatever seems to show up~ peace is merely as close as my willingness. So too, is the reminder from the Holy Spirit to “Choose once again if you would take your place among the saviors of the world, or would remain in hell, and hold your brothers there.”… For He has come, and He is asking… (T-VIII.5-6).

Let’s join in the prayer for today’s lesson in communion with all our brothers through the Holy Spirit and God the Father as one:

“Father, I would accept Your gifts today. I do not recognize them. Yet I trust that You Who gave them will provide the means by which I can behold them, see their worth, and cherish only them as what I want”. Thanks for the gift of joining in a unified purpose…

Lesson 314:

I seek a future different from the past…

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

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

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

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

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

Lesson 292:

A happy outcome to all things is sure…

This is another way of saying the Atonement. God created us in perfect joy. Here’s my experience and awareness…

All of us know what its like to feel really happy; that kind of joy that fosters oneness. The kind of happiness that makes you feel like you’re going to burst from the seams with such appreciation and bliss, that you just can’t keep it to yourself… you must share it… you, your joy and whomever you share with, just deserve it. And the funny part is, that if a so-called current loved one isn’t available at that moment to share with, we give up all selectivity, and gab whoever, and maybe everyone to share with, and share and share and share…. Don’t we…

This is the very nature of creation. God in the Joy of His Love, extended Himself forth, and bingo~ His Son, us, created just like Him…

Sure, we’ve made-up and played-out some twisted, upside-down scenarios in our dreams… like this dream of separation, scarcity and fear, i.e. the world. And sure, we placed, as it is our nature, our faith in what we made… because, we are like our Father in attitude~ due to what we are in truth. And God has perfect faith in all His creations.

So, in answer to the dream of separation, scarcity and fear, God instilled the Atonement principle, which is the remembrance of our full abundance, within the mind of the Son, (Holy Spirit) forever prompting us, through the way we feel, to gently awaken us, to the truth…

This ‘splinter-in-the-mind’, as the Matrix calls it, that something is not right, that we feel, all the time, in the background of everything in our lives… We feel it haunting us… well, really unless we are feeling that joyous happiness we just referred to, actually.

We pray for miracles (in whatever way we might pray, often disguised even to ourselves) to rid us of that frightening off-ness we experience… and we receive them in a new perception, seeing something we never notice before in a situation that weaves meaning to it or a characteristic in the ‘other guy’ that brings familiarity and therefore compassion…

And the miracles collapse time, giving us a sense that time itself isn’t quite what we once thought…Each miracle makes us feel connected to everyone involved and the sense that we just might be wrong about how we are viewing the world; that we might have more ‘in-common’ that un-common.

Then we notice that our entire perception is doing an about-face; the things we used to care about, have lost there meaning and what matters is the joy of loving ones brother as Oneself…

As we finally accept the Atonement for ourselves, we begin experiencing the ‘happy outcome to all things’ as a sort of pre-empting of the opportunity to forgive. And the ‘real’ and happy purpose of the world, to use it to correct our unbelief, finally has come to be our way of life… We are letting love tell us what to do, where to go, the words to use, people to see, and circumstances; forgiving and joining… Yes! A happy out come to all things is sure! It certainly is…

Remember this guide from the beginning of the text:

“All aspects of fear are untrue because they do not exist at the creative level, and therefore do not exist at all. To whatever extent you are willing to submit your beliefs to this test, to that extent are your perceptions corrected. In sorting out the false from the true, the miracle proceeds along these lines:

Perfect love casts out fear.
If fear exists,
Then there is not perfect love.

But:

Only perfect love exists.
If there is fear,
It produces a state that does not exist.

Believe this and you will be free. Only God can establish this solution, and this faith is His gift.” (T-1.VI.5)

8. What is the real world?

This section of takes the hand of those whom are ready, and gently steps beyond the world of hell, once so familiar and unquestioned and accepted as real, shedding it like lovers clothes, allowing trust to answer every question and eyes of forgiveness to rest upon all things…

This is a glorious time in the curriculum, for we are more identified with the truth, more comfortable with the happy dream as home than the antiquated script of fear, the competition for control, and death. Joyously I invite you into my every thought… The fantasy of private minds and special relationships have been replace by the compellingly appealing beauty of the face of Christ, our oneness, and the mighty chorus of love’s gratitude…

Each of the lessons in this section gives a touchstone in which to rest in the real world without resistance, re-membering our home in Heaven, Now…

Lesson 291:

This is a day of stillness and of peace…

This is the zero point ~ the touchstone. The place we begin and end our day. If we don’t start here, what can we expect? The goal belongs at the outset… We dump all thoughts that try to tell us what the day is about into the Holy Spirit’s hands and rest in stillness and peace… We need do nothing; we have released our agendas because trust is now our guide… Inspiration moves us to action, yet we remain still and peaceful within the center of our being... And what we do today we do joyously from this place of inner knowing that whatever it is, it is for the good of all…

Let’s launch this day, by joining in the lesson’s prayer:

“This day my mind is quiet, to receive the Thoughts You offer me. And I accept what comes from You, instead of from myself. I do not know the way to You. But You are wholly certain. Father, guide Your Son along the quiet path that leads to You. Let my forgiveness be complete, and let the memory of You return to me.”

Lesson 290:

My present happiness is all I see…

This is what I notice; there is no place but here. There’s no such thing as better or worse, I am no longer interested in ‘improving’ the dream. All those old stand-by’s validate time for changing are now seen as silly delay tactics employed by a false identity to hang on as long as it could. The thing is, that that identity was false. It never actually had a place in the mind of God’s Son, save it be dreaming… I have lost interest in figuring anything out. I don’t care about the story and only stories feel something which seems different than love; happiness peace and oneness…

I have seen that there is no way to do it right … or wrong… there’s no place and nothing to get… The Atonement answered the idea of separation completely! Simply by accepting the Atonement for myself, the goal is changed. I am interested only in God’s Will, which is my will, for perfect happiness for all, and what I see is how the Holy Spirit orchestrates every minute detail for ever one to complete in our awareness the accomplishment of the universal experience of happy truth…

When the seeking was done, and my happiness was felt exclusively within; the joy present was the presence of Self, everywhere and in everyone…

The past and future have no home here. In my here/now, only the present lives and gives life; in other words, Love’s presence and my awareness and identification with it. I have no interest in what yesterday means and when I notice a conversation going in that direction, the obvious red-flag question arises: for what possible reason would we reference past, whatever’s? To substantiate now? The past is gone and what it seemingly contains that we would apparently discuss, are the dynamics of a time/space continuum which has no basis in reality… The present is complete, Now, stands on its own. The present is where forgiveness sees past the current dream-character identification into the ever-present eyes of love; giving and receiving as one… And it is always, already, a state of happy enough-ness…

My present happiness is all I see because any variation on that, is merely an opportunity to fulfill my function of forgiveness, which instantly puts me in touch with my function of perfect happiness present now…

I accept the Atonement as my only function here and everything is enough. The certainty of the peace of God yield no need… I can no longer see any ‘needs improvement’ signs.

Lesson 284:

I can elect to change all thoughts that hurt…

This is the great gift of accepting the miracle, yes? Once we see through the disguises of the ego’s emergency death threats and realize that the thing all hurt, grief and pain have in common, is that they are false ideas about an anticipated situation we fear~ which also is false, we begin to instantly see the next step… We can elect to change a thought that hurts to one of forgiveness… Understanding that the Holy Spirit has got it wired for the return to love brings immediate peace…

I’ll tell you what, capitalizing on this gift (changing my mind ~ being willing to see things differently ~ reaching for the thought that feels better or even offers some relief ) has been, truly, a life-saver for me. And I mean that in every sense. I saw pretty quickly that the ‘mind-changing skill was worthy of practicing, honing and mastering…

So many bennies have come as a result. For instance, taking responsibility of changing my thought so I wouldn’t be in pain gave me a sense of accountability and integrity and lessened the desire to blame some one or situation for my circumstances…

And, the more I did it, the more I wanted that experience of feeling in my integrity and 100% responsible. I saw that forgiveness was the obvious avenue for the quickest investment in my happiness. This made me all the more willing to look more deeply into my core belief structure which brought these things about, serving them up as opportunities for happiness-by-way-of-forgiveness lesson accountability… which made me see that the script is written and the problem has been answered by the Atonement. And my changing my thoughts from fear to ones that allow love to express itself, which joins me with everyone and every thing… this is my part… So I can easily have faith in my brothers and that they are doing their part perfectly as well…

I am so very grateful to that I elect to change all thoughts that are not the truth of what I am and you are… and let the Holy Spirit handle the detail…

Father, what You have given cannot hurt, so grief and pain must be impossible. Let me not fail to trust in You today, accepting but the joyous as Your gifts; accepting but the joyous as the truth.

Lesson 278:

If I am bound, my Father is not free…

We are of course referring here to the perceived imprisonment of the mind through the belief in illusions... We identify with what we believe in. And if we believe that we are people in bodies, living in time and space, we cannot know our Self as God created us. And we certainly cannot know the magnitude we share with God. What we end up doing with our relationship with God, is we attempt to squeeze God into ‘small-mind’, assigning Him attributes we identify with, and some we don’t, then fearing what we don’t know and ultimately binding the mind from its natural state of creation. It is our free will to believe what we choose. But belief is not truth… belief is about where we place the focus of our attention…

Fidelity to premise is the law of mind. And if our premise is one of separation and limitation, we use fear to manage the relationship we have made with the God we have made up… Within the premise of separation, our options are limited to… well ‘specialness’ ~and separations sentinels; subject or object special relationships, special-love, special-hate… Exclusion plays a staring role, for without it specialness looses all meaning… Fear reigns… for the ‘other’ is the threat…

The premise of truth where love reigns, on the other hand, is all about inclusion. Each has looked within and seen no lack and therefore extends creative thought to join in holy gratitude for the glorious eternal relationship extended in creation of the Son by and with the Father…

Where, as the lesson says, truth is free…

Let’s just fine-tune the dial on our attention to the premise of truth, as we offer this prayer:

“Father, I ask for nothing but the truth. I have had many foolish thoughts about myself and my creation, and have brought a dream of fear into my mind. Today, I would not dream. I choose the way to You instead of madness and instead of fear. For truth is safe, and only love is sure…”

Lesson 266:

My holy self abides in you, God’s Son…

“Father, You gave me all Your Sons, to be my saviors and my counselors in sight; the bearers of Your holy Voice to me. In them are You reflected, and in them does Christ look back upon me from my Self. Let not Your Son forget Your holy Name. Let not Your Son forget his holy Source. Let not Your Son forget his Name is Yours.”

Once the decision for the Atonement is made, healing can’t help but be seen… For everywhere in everyone we see but our Self, shining in the light of Christ love. As our forgiveness becomes the only thing we have to do, the reason for why we are always at the right place at the right time becomes obvious. And we recognize it for what it is and not the seeming circumstances it is wrapped in. Temptation to see what is not there through projection looses its appeal, as the feeling of wholeness and everlasting purpose replace it.

I am interested in you, holy Son of God. For in my relationship with you is the only way I can re-member my Self. Each day I look forward to meeting my Self in the myriad of holy encounters laid out for my arrival home… We are united in the holy Love of God and there is no where and nothing else. How joyous to see and value only this… thank you…

Lesson 255:

This day I choose to spend in perfect peace…

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

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

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

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

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

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

It is by my decision~

This day I choose to spend in perfect peace…

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

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

Lesson 226:

My home awaits me. I will hasten there…

Forgiveness merely allows us to open our eyes to the Self before us, instead of the contracted images of decayed beliefs and nauseating regurgitation of the ancient blinders to the truth. The truth shines so brightly that when we first glimpse it, it seems too bright to even open our eyes to. We don’t, at first, see that it is the light that was beyond, before, within, all along… the light that made seeing possible at all. But gradually, as we feel its warm inviting presence through forgiveness, we feel more and more compelled to open our eyes. Yes? And what we see of course, is the Self we were looking for in all our illusion, right there in our brother-beyond-the-judgment; Christ, in other words…

Whenever we so choose, we can depart this world in favor of the forgiven or ‘real’ world, by merely changing our mind about its purpose. Joy in creation is the eternal purpose we share as One. We don’t need to look for this or wonder how this is. We simply let the false go and truth is revealed already…. Heaven is with in us now, and it is our Home, right Here, right Now… relax the try, soften the eyes… and bingo… there, present/presence~ all along…

Lesson 220:

I am not a body. I am free.

For I am still as God created me…

There is no peace except the peace of God.

I am not a body. I am free.

For I am still as God created me…

The Course tells us in Chapter 17 of the text, that God established His relationship with us to make us happy, and that nothing we do that does not share His purpose can be real. Also, that the purpose God ascribed to anything is its only function. And furthermore, that because of His reason for creating His relationship with us, the function of relationship (that means all relationship of any kind), became forever “to make happy”. And nothing else... To fulfill this function we must relate to our creations as God does to his. And nothing God created is apart from happiness, and nothing God created but would extend happiness as its Creator did. So, whatever does not fulfill this function cannot be real. Accepting the Atonement for ourselves is the same as saying we accept the only the truth is true. And nothing else is true…

Now since in this illusive world, we can’t actually create, we are only true to our relationship when we are ‘making happy”. Forgiveness is the constant restorative always at the ready for the return to peace and joy, if we are but willing to see things differently; give up our ‘specialnes’ in favor of the ‘peace of God’. That’s all. This can be done by seeing all relationship through the eyes of peace, by seeing with the Holy Spirit part of our minds. We then merely soften our eyes at seeming differences and let vision show us what peace would have us see instead.

We merely allow the Holy Spirit to transform our ‘special relationships’ into ‘holy ones’ with everyone and everything. We simply turning our faithlessness in favor of perfect peace, when we choose the peace of God be seen in our relationships… Then we place our faith in our brother, that he will do his part perfectly.

Faith arises from the Holy Spirit’s perception, and is the sign we share it with Him. Faith is the gift we offer God’s Son, through Him. And as such, it is wholly acceptable to both Father and Son, in reality; and therefore, it is immediately offered wholly to our Self… This is the Holy Relationship, which the peace of God makes possible…

Choosing the peace of God, is offering a clean slate to the Holy Spirit to write upon it what God would have us learn. And because of our relationship with Him, which was created to ‘make happy’, it stands to reason, that happiness only, could be God’s Will for us. Yes?!

So, we can lean back in the peace of God and let the Holy Spirit place meaning and correction and joy on all we thought we knew… paving our way to walk together on the path to re-member-ing Heaven and the peace of God…

Lesson 211:

I am not a body. I am free.

For I am still as God created me…

I am the holy Son of God Himself.

I am not a body. I am free.

For I am still as God created me…

Within us is God’s glory, for we were created by it, with it, and as it. We are the product of the glory of God. We are the hallelujah chorus of creations song.

Today we sit in silence and true humility (for we are as God created and nothing else.) and allow our true identity to come forth.

You know, when we enter into the silence with intent for only truth; as with this lesson, and we allow ourselves to feel the truth, sloughing off any other thoughts that might attempt to enter, we can literally feel the reformatting that has taken place as we move back into this world of form and function. Yes?

These are such important lessons we’re doing in our curriculum right now. For we are no longer of the world, but residing in it, and no longer comfortable identifying ourselves wholly with its dictates. This series of lessons beef up our resonance with our Source within, giving us ample opportunity to experience the background music:

I am not a body. I am free.

For I am still as God created me…

as the reality it is; the reality of what we are in truth. This of course, amplifies our focus of healed perspective as we seemingly move about in the so-called world at large. Increasing gratitude for, each and every person and experience result becomes the neighborhood in which we live.

Within the shadowy figures of the belief we once held that we’ve peopled our world with, we are beginning to recognize our brother and the Christ light emanating from him. He is the holy Son of God Himself. And he is the reflection of our very self… Our relationships with them are now taking on a similar feel to the one we hold with God the Father and we feel comforted and sure of our path. Faithfulness in our brothers, our Self and our holy function is now seen as the only reasonable choice and happiness the only reasonable feeling. Thank you.

Lesson 207:

I am not a body. I am free.

For I am still as God created me…

I bless the world because I bless myself…

I am not a body. I am free.

For I am still as God created me…

Joy is my natural state. Forgiveness allows for me to let go all resistance to experiencing the fullness of this joy that I am. In other words, to release the blocks to love’s awareness, accepted within the mind with acceptance of a belief in identity not my own.

Now, this is what I have come to see: the more I forgive the false by merely recognizing that if it doesn’t feel good, it isn’t true and simply giving the situation over to the Holy Spirit for correction, letting go all expectation of what that correction might look like, leaning back, and letting the Holy Spirit show me; the more I trust that what is, right here, right now, could be the only perfect way things could go for the good of all. And the simplicity of letting joy rip is at ready access as the experience of my Self. So this becomes the way I bless myself and therefore the world.

This is the blessing methodology of the miracle. I bring the darkness I have been hiding in, from and believing in, to the Holy Spirit’s light. How do I know what to bring and when? Any time I feel any kind of alteration the pure, full-on flow of joy, it is right there: forgiveness lesson opportunity.

Always, this results in feelings of camaraderie with all involved and a warm glow of peace… at the least. So who wouldn’t do it, if they knew how much more of what they really want, comes through forgiveness rather than competition? Who wouldn’t take the deal, if they knew? My blessing is to bless everyone I encounter with my Self as the presence of this choice, and unite with the Self in them, blessing me again in return. Joy is always the natural result…

Thank you, my brothers who are one with me.

We are not a body. We are free.

For we are still as God created that we be…

Joyous, happy and free…

Lesson 188:

The peace of God is shining in me now…

I thought today, I’d invite us to join together in the practice suggested by the lesson. The peace of God is that still point of light within our mind from which the entirety of the so-called world we seem to see, unfolds. This is what I often refer to as the zero-point, the light of all possibility, awaiting designation… It is the place where the peace of God is shining, now. It is critical to our purpose here to return home to this place and to become indelibly intimate with our Self here…now…

At this stage of the lessons we are no longer busting through the heavy defense structure of the ego so much as accepting it as merely what it is, a set of false ideas about who we are, design to deny the truth. We are now in the process of looking honestly upon the truth within, which cannot be seen using the old beliefs and technologies of the ego belief structure. We have let ourselves take a good look at the thinking we had about ourselves and the world and found it not only wanting, but counter-productive in every way to any real and lasting happiness. We have at least considered the possibility that we have been wrong as our own teachers of the meaning of life, and sought the teacher for the Voice for God. We have surrendered enough to feel better about the direction of our lives…

I have found often, that it is this stage of our commitment to ’give one year’ to the doing and practicing the lessons, that we, feeling so much better, get lax in our participation; think we have come further than we actually have, letting a sort of ‘comfort-fog’ begin to slip into mind. We begin to pay more attention to what is going on ‘out-there’ (as if there is out-there) and, not feeling as passionate toward the discoveries of the inner-Self offered with each daily lesson.

This portion of the inward journey, which the lessons lead us on, truly leads past all the deceiving thoughts that were so difficult to face in the beginning of the journey, and into a direct experience with the truth.

This is death to the ego, which will employ all manner of seduction to lure us away. E.g. “okay, now don’t worry, I’ve got this spiritual gig down, now… I can take it from here”. The ego is a master mimic. But we can no longer be completely duped. We are no longer completely insane…

Today, I encourage us to be vigilant in our practicing, please join me in this exercise from the lesson today:

Let us, now, as the lesson directs, sit quietly, with eyes closed. The light within is sufficient. Look only at and with this light within... it is all there is ~see…It alone has power to give the gift of sight… Excluding the outer world, we let our thoughts fly to the peace within…~They know the way. Our honest thoughts, we think with God, untainted by the dream of worldly things outside our Self, become the holy messengers of God Himself… We practice coming nearer to the light in us today. We take our wandering thoughts and gently bring them back to where that fall in line with all the thoughts we share with God. We let the light within our minds direct all thoughts that strayed back home. Now, we call them back; and wash them clean of strange desires disordered wishes. We restore them the holiness if their inheritance…We lay our saving blessing, as we say:

The peace of God is shining in me now.

Let all things shine upon me in that peace,

And let me bless them with the light in me.

Lesson 175:

God is but Love, and therefore so am I…

This is the still point of creation by which we come to our lives today. By beginning on purpose from this premise, we have the chance to remember that we are love, and that it is from love that we draw our purpose. The recognition of love as our crucial premise is the miracle we receive which we then can extend into every situation and to everyone we encounter today.

I give the miracles I have received…

This is accomplished through forgiveness. We bring all that tampers with our peace of mind; all judgments of our brothers, all preferences, likes and dislikes back to the still point and offer them to the Holy Spirit for correction and renewed life. Forgiveness offers us fresh eyes to see our brothers as our Self; to correct our misperception and renew our faith that we are all in this together, united in purpose. This purpose has been set from beyond and available to us through our desire to do His Will. God’s Will for us is perfect happiness.

God is but Love, and therefore so am I…

When we align ourselves with the love in which we have our being, we can easily see the dark waves of fear’s thought system, drift across the mirrored surface of our still minds and attempting play-out in our lives.

We simply choose once again, allowing the Holy Spirit within our mind to remind us who walks with us on the way that we must go. When we ask, “who walks with me?” the answer is always the same. Love answers softly from our own voice in Him… “God walks with me in perfect holiness… for,

I am at home. Fear is the stranger here”…

And we are returned to the still point with which we light the world. We light the world with our holiness. This is our purpose, our union and our happiness…

God is but Love, and therefore so am I…

REVIEW IV: (introduction) My mind holds only what I think with God…

Lesson 141: (121: forgiveness is the key to happiness. 122: Forgiveness offers everything I want)

My mind holds only what I think with God…

This statement reflects creation; what we are and where we came from. It is the foundation by which we embark on the next wave of awakening via the ACIM lesson curriculum.

This is the ultimate truth: “My mind holds only what I think with God”. Nothing apart from God exists. So this is the vital identity, essential to accept without reservation, for even one pure instant.

Unmitigated acceptance of this fact, once accomplished, completely reinterprets all meaning we have given to the thoughts about our lives, until now. Holding this pure thought separates the false from the true, and aligns the mind in such a way that what is false can easily be seen and the remedy of forgiveness desired. A simple bringing of illusions to the light of truth.

We are the thought God thinks constantly: His Holy Son, the happiness and contentment of His creation. Here, emboldened in this thought, we see what there is to love… It is from this original and holy premise that all the lesson we now review make sense…

The irresistible sanctity and promise of their implementation in our lives cracks the code of the ego’s addictive death-thought pathways, breathing life into our habitual thinking patterns; sweeping out the cobwebs of decay, making way for the pathways of our innocence and sinlessness to flow freely. The thoughts we think with God, now become our present pathways. They are not dependent on the tiny biophysical mechanics of the ego-world design. Ours is the premise of truth which the perspective of our so-called lives can now flow along, through forgiveness channels, instead of hate… revealing truth’s pathways of our will and God’s, which is l o v e !

The healthy heart of love pumps life possibilities of what the ‘new world’ will look like to the eyes that have been given sight to see. It is all so fresh and exciting… oui?

The vision of Christ unites rather than separates; showing all things lit brilliantly with the light of the sight from this holy premise. It reflects simply, the thought system that arises from knowledge, the mind we think with God. All grievances become a call for healing, love and union. The Course states: “Forgiveness is a necessary correction for all the mistakes that we have made. To offer forgiveness is the only way for us to have it, for it reflects the law of Heaven that giving and receiving are the some. Heaven is the natural state of all the Sons of God as He created them. Such is their reality forever. It has not changed because it has been forgotten… Forgiveness is the means by which we will remember. Through forgiveness the thinking of the world is reversed. The forgiven world becomes the gate of Heaven, because by its mercy we can at last for give ourselves. Holding no one prisoner to guilt, we become free. Acknowledging Christ in all our brothers, we recognize His presence in ourselves…”

It makes such simple sense~ all the sense in the world actually, seen from this perspective: Forgiveness is the key to happiness…

Forgiveness is now the answer to every question, the questioning of every former answer we ever thought we knew. It is the means and the end. It is the very call to mind that each ‘uncomfortable situation’ must be a forgiveness lesson, brings a sense of relief at the least and an overwhelming peace of mind at best. It blesses the mind with peaceful cohesion. What more could we want? Turns out… forgiveness offers everything we want…

In the text of the review, Jesus gives our proviso: “My mind holds only what I think with God”. He asks that we give but five minutes: “Five minutes with this thought will be enough to set the day along the lines which God appointed, and to place His Mind in charge of all the thoughts you will receive that day.”

So little for so much… I am humbly joined with you in our devotion to fully recognizing our whole mind ~ the mind that thinks only with God and therefore each other as one… My heart swells with the magnitude of God within our minds as one … Thank you forever and ever…

Lesson 136:

Sickness is a defense against the truth…

What if we really let the truth of this statement sink beneath our concept so what sickness is~… past the body, and the body-mind, to the receptor-sites of truth, itself… To the truth of who are we, always, now… complete and healed and whole…

A major theme throughout the Course is that sickness is of the mind. It has one cause and one cause only: the belief that separation from Our Cause (God) could, and did occur.

The Course presents us with a thorough thought-reversal program to replace the golden idol (the body), with all its matter-dictates, which we have enslaved ourselves to, up until now.

The neutrality of the body, seen with no attributes of its own, becomes a communication device for the joining through the Holy Spirit’s voice with in the mind that knows no separation is possible. The Holy Spirit reestablishes Presence of Mind. And mind cannot be split off into separate, private entities, nestled in the comfortable, grey-matter mattress called a brain, to serve the dictates of its tyrannical host, the body.

Now, let me say at this point, that when the miracle came and the Course literally showed up on my doorstep, I was a mass of body thoughts~ The End~.

I could not have even imagined I could conceptualize residing elsewhere… all my plans and actions were run through the matrix of the body, and that is what my world was peopled with ~bodies competing against bodies for happiness.

But alas, I felt the call for God, beckoning “~another way of looking at the world and at myself”~ and, ding-dong, the Course was gifted me…Thank-you God.

At any rate, the Course unravels the composition of the separate-body-mind which was designed to serve this body-separation belief construct so as to show us consistently that whatever we have ‘given-life’ to within this dream of separation, can through the Miracle, be given a new purpose [and indeed, already has been, by God, through the Holy Spirit].

This is the Atonement: Truth answers the upside-down idea of cause and effect which characterizes the spawn fathered by separation. It is constructed to address every belief equally~ disillusionment dissolves in the light…

Due to the inane (yet seemingly concrete) nature of the time-space cosmos in which the dream played out, coupled with our addiction to compulsively replaying the dirge, the Holy Spirit comes to us as a gentle waking that occurs as we no longer see ourselves as, or in a body, but a beyond.

The methodology the miracle employs for this awareness is forgiveness. Forgiveness and healing are one in the same.

We look honestly upon what we have made and what we have assigned the ‘others-in-bodies’ be and do, with truth behind our eyes, and the faint awareness of its impossibility is present. The sense of ‘nothing having been done to us in truth’, subtlety finds residence within our mind, resulting in a feeling of unreality, which questions the validity of all the messages the body‘s sentinels of darkness, disguised as friends, delivered previously. Now we are no longer wholly insane…

Here are a few key elements to ego’s game that seem noteworthy. The trap of the body-reality, in whatever way it shows up, which is constantly; sickness, pleasure, pain, sex, diet, exercise, functionality aspects, are all one thing and one thing only~ a defense against the truth.

That is the trap that must be sprung. The ego’s trap employs all the mechanics of addiction, to snare us. These include; mindlessness by way of distraction through busyness, planning, pleasure seeking and avoiding pain. These are temptation constructs designed for the mind that chooses deception, complete with; euphoric-recall, compulsion, and obsession, high’s/lows, withdrawal, looping back and round and round we go…

How ‘bout we seek no longer the gift of pain, valuing the body in place of truth has wrought? Let the truth within us give us the voice that asks: “Do I want to continue to defend myself against the truth? “Do I desire a world I rule instead of one that rules me? Do I desire a world where I am powerful instead of helpless? Do I desire a world in which I have no enemies and cannot sin? Do I want to see what I denied because it is the truth?

When the answer is unequivocally, “I want the truth instead of this, the body ceases to be relevant and only its usefulness to our unified purpose remains….

Lesson 124:
Let me remember I am one with God…
Who we are, is unaffected by what we think we are and what we believe about ourselves. The world around us, however, is the direct result of these thoughts.
The the fundamental law of perception is: “We see what we believe is there, and we believe it there because we want it there”… or another way the Course puts it is… “You will rejoice at what you see because you see it to rejoice.”
God’s basic law is: Love creates itself, and nothing but itself.
The miracle is the shift in perception that allows us to see the reflection of God’s law reflected everywhere. It doesn’t change the base unreality of the world we see, because we believe in its reality. That belief in it’s reality, coupled with the fact that it is Creatively impossible for us to separate entirely from our Creator, comes the apparent mechanism of choosing. Perception rests on choosing, where the knowledge of God does not. As long as we believe we perceive, we have choice.
Ultimately we have but one choice within this life of perception. That choice is always based from what we believe we are; always aligning with the guidance from the voice that speaks to the experience of our oneness with God (Holy Spirit part of Mind) or the old familiar lonely drone of chaos; specialnes -other-ness – separate interests...
This lesson is the practice of ‘turning our mind’ to God, o n l y… Which is to say, turning to creation and to truth. The return of mind to the memory of God depends on our forgiveness of everyone and every situation, event or circumstance. What we forgive becomes a part of how we see ourselves, our united oneness with each other as well as the Oneness with our Creator.
We are free, but the recognition of our freedom comes through our willingness to allow the memory of God and our oneness in Him to return to our mind…
Let me remember I am one with God, at one with all my brothers and my Self, in everlasting holiness and peace…
We do this turning our mind to God, through accepting the Atonement for our Self; forgiving every thought and projection that came from our separation belief. We then allow a new and forgiven perception of oneness to be unveiled, and the shining face of Christ reflected in the mirror of our re-identification with Who we are, at one with God…
Forgiveness teaches us to let God’s memory return to us, and give it to the world in thankfulness… It is this systematic re- tuning and re turning that stabilizes the foundation of our faith, and amplifies our trust.
We simply suit up and show up to our function in God’s plan for salvation and thus receive as we give, our eternal happiness, returned forever to the Mind we share as One, the Mind that is ONE with God…
Let this be the day… that together we mirror and view the reflection of our everlasting holiness and peace inherent in our identity as Christ the Holy son of God, united on the oneness that is the truth…