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…

~Never alone~lesson 18

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~

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

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~

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~

~aah, ~allowing the truth of lesson 12~

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 ~

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 275:

God’s healing Voice protects all things today…

Ultimately, I have no concerns… The Voice for God speaks to me, as with my brothers, all the time. Beneath the dynamic surface skin of time and space and persons and events, the calm assurance of perfection speaks to me; directing my thoughts, guiding my actions, healing my misperceived waves of unbelief, imbuing all seeming situations with the love of my being… the unifying Self which each brother and circumstance mirrors back to me.

Turns out it is easier to hear than I ever dreamed when I started this so-called journey of awakening… for it is the one constant… The Voice for God, quietly, powerfully, calling me to return home… And the feeling is nothing short of peaceful; a calm assurance that perfection is… and nothing can impede upon what God created.

I am as God created me… This statement, in short, represents the Word of God and the Atonement guaranteed that we would all remember fully~ the truth. So what is there to worry about? We can’t do it wrong… The Holy Spirit will correct all errors within our mind; reinterpret any misperceived situation and offer forgiveness’s picture of oneness instead…

My one job, so to speak, is to choose but God’s healing Voice instead of pain; be host to God rather than hostage to the ego… What do I have to loose? Nothing (literally). The ego voice (fingernails on chalkboard) really never had my best interests in mind… No, it had it own survival at stake, made real for me by my belief in it. My mistake was believing this to be myself… I was merely wrong~ about everything… What I found, was that in the surrender of thinking I know, the Voice for God obvious. It was clear and certain and constant… I can’t imagine how I ever missed it…

We can afford to give up control and lean back and let the Voice for God lead the way. Let today be a day where we look for the ways that God’s healing Voice protects all things with certainty and love in all our perceptions and encounters…

Lesson 270:

I will not use the body’s eyes today…

Today we practice ‘seeing with’ instead of ‘looking at’. We make no assumptions of reality, about what the body’s eyes report. Instead we place their images upon the touchstone of forgiveness and wait in quiet expectancy for Christ’s vision to reveal their meaning and usefulness for good, for all… And, of course, in the instant we no longer assume we know, a new perception; one which fills the heart with unity and joy, and reveals the reason for our being at this perfect place at this perfect time…

We have an ease about us, which is spontaneously inviting to all around us… Facts the body’s eyes report cannot answer why this is so. But the Christ in each and every one of us is merely allowed to see itself in the shinning brilliance of the Son of God…

What we are aware of is a deep abiding peace…

Sure, on the screen is written the script and the forgiven script; with all the characters and dramas required for the completion of the Atonement in even the minutest particle and wave of the dream we call our life on earth… But we are not the drama dream, but its dreamer. We are the Christ; the pure Son which God created like Himself.

It is easy to live relatively detached from the drama itself when our focus is only on its forgiveness…

So, there is no reason for apprehension… Lets just dive in… forgive what the body’s eyes report and splash and play in the joy and peace and bliss of seeing through the eyes of Christ…

Lesson 268:

Let all things be exactly as they are…

In other words; I no longer desire to separate; split off and imprison specs of nothingness in imaginary label boundary prison walls, secure them with concrete belief marshals, and then and run as fast as I can. Did it for lifetimes… take my word… futile…

I am done with the childish game of bunkers hill; of all our defining and labeling subjects and objects, people and situations, and then living in response to what the labels mean, rather than living authentically. When I say living authentically, I cannot mean anything of this world, although it includes it all. True Authenticity belong to the Creator and remains as it is, and it is only from this which I receive my being. So when I say living authentically, I am only saying it as another way of saying l let all things be exactly as they are; which is to say, taking meaning only in what really is, from the experience of love itself, in each now.

‘Let all things be exactly as they are’, loops us back ‘round, all over again, to the first couple lessons we started with; ‘Nothing is see…means anything’... ‘I have given everything I see… all the meaning it has for me…’ yet from a more complete place. For we are no longer wholly insane and we are open to Christ vision within our mind to give us sight to see and experience…

We are naked creation; undefined and indefinable, and yet impossible to miss experiencing. When I give my self over completely to let all things be exactly as they are, and drop the cloak of self identity, the beauty of now is too grand, too gorgeous, too ‘incredibly, the lightness of being’, I can only sit here~ dispersed into all that is: exactly as it is… obvious and one… God is…

And that is all…

Lesson 257:

Let me remember what my purpose is…

In order to remember something, we must have knowledge of it that has merely been displaced, yet belongs to us none the same. All that we are, and all that God is, is available only in the now.

The Course tells us that memory is a skill developed when Learning began and although we overused it for purposes of recalling the past, in other words, recalling nothing, memory can be use in service of Spirit to recall now… Purpose can only be now, and when we choose to forgive the past, we call the present (His Presence) to mind. My only purpose is to call to present mind, God’s Will for perfect happiness for me… which can only be for all…

The Holy Spirit within our mind sees but one purpose for this world we appear to be in. And that is the attainment of the real world through forgiveness; where all is included in joy, and exclusion has lost its meaning. Through forgiveness we see the face of Christ in our brothers instead of our projections of fear and mistaken identity. The face of Christ is looked upon before the Father is remembered…

To say, “let me remember” is to take a leap of faith that we do indeed know and our effort to remember is a show of appreciation into this place of faith. It is our way of keeping in mind His Mind and placing our attention and consideration in the faith that we are as God created and that we have the power to implement the skill of memory for a single purpose to re-member Love…

Through forgiving all other possibilities that favor parts or past or any differences whatsoever, and culminating all in one glorious tapestry of creation, expressed, we recall our Self to Mind…

Father, forgiveness is Your chosen means for our salvation. Let us not forget today that we can have no will but Yours. And thus our purpose must be Yours as well, if we would reach the peace You will for us.

Lesson 254:

Let every voice but God’s be still in me…

“Father, today I would but hear Your Voice. In deepest silence I would come to you, to hear Your Voice and receive Your Word. I have no prayer but this: I come to You to ask You for the truth. And truth is but Your Will, which I would share with You today.”

I just love that prayer… It’s like my theme mantra…

This is it! This is the only thing I want; the only thing that matters: the truth, unrestricted. The truth is the only thing of interest to me anymore. I’ve been around the block, only to return to but one real place of peace and joy ~The state of total empty willingness (which turns out to be a fullness of wholeness that is joy and peace; the One, the Only) …

Now, from this vantage point, I simply do not care about appearance’s particulars, my interest is only on the love that flows, unimpeded throughout…nothing else can hold my attention… Sure, at times it distracts me for a moment, but it can’t hold my attention for long. I am always aware that ‘it’ is not my Self, but merely an out-picturing of a belief I had kept secret from my awareness until now, which I am currently prepared to offer to forgiveness’s gentle light. In other words, a call from truth for truth… the seat of my being…

The feeling of being truth is the only home found within this world of appearances and beliefs. And it is arrived at when we discontinue placing our attention on the false. And as it gently slips from our mind, only the Voice for God can be heard. And find that we already rest where we never left, as One truth; from which all fantasy; time and space. and subject and object, is but a speck that comes and goes, but by our will.…

Today we would but share only God’s Will, which is our own. Could we remain this one day in the zero-point of creation along with God and heed not to the specks that float by? We will be directed very specifically, per our part in God’s plan for salvation, as will each and every brother. So, why not, what’s to be concerned with? Ah, the peace…

Let every voice but God’s be still in me…

Lesson 228:

God has condemned me not. No more do I.

Thank Heavens!, the condemnation game is finally over, yes? Talk about a circular waste of energy. You can’t get anywhere with condemnation as a motivator. The basis of existence is freedom, the true nature of our being, as is perfection and wholeness. Where’s the room for condemnation here? Therefore, what but illusion can condemn and be condemned? It is merely a case of mistaken identity, taken seriously in a tiny tick of time, when the Son of God remembered not to laugh.… The natural self will reject the idea and in this world, that looks like a feeling of defensiveness. Now, looped into this falsehood/personhood, we have used this faulty tool as a means of correcting a problem in our person, which isn’t real and therefore doesn’t need fixing. Correction must take place by bring problem and solution together. In this world there is but one problem: we think we are separate from our Source. And but one solution: realize that we are not. So anything that feels at all like it needs correction (including improvement) in anyway is merely an opportunity to ‘forgive and see it differently’.

We forgive. That is all. And actually, we make the decision to forgive and the Holy Spirit which is within our mind, whether we are currently in awareness of it or not, takes care of the work of forgiveness, giving it back to us as healed perception. What once we saw as noteworthy and in need of guilt as the punishment for our crime of not- enough-ness, we now see merely as a one more re-ally-zing of that which we thought we separated off from our Self. Forgiveness is the correction of the mis-identity; fathered in the silly belief that what is One could have separate parts, each sponsoring itself. Now, we see the false as false; insubstantial and irrelevant to our being, which is beyond. We experience the results of our decision for forgiveness within this world of perception, as a sort of bridge illusion (bridge-across-forever); or vision-spectacles, if you will, ~the healed perspective ~miracle mindedness… The ‘other’ has become our ‘brother’, one in purpose.

Still the Source, the still Source, resides within~ beyond… The power of the correction comes from our One Self; which has never been here at all, but has remained as God created and is like unto Himself…

Lesson 208:

I am not a body. I am free.

For I am still as God created me…

The peace of God is shinning in me now.

I am not a body. I am free.

For I am still as God created me…

As the lesson suggests, it is in our willingness to just simply be still; free of agendas and expectations, freeing our minds from all the busy thoughts of past and future and things and plans, releasing everything we think we know, quieting, calming, till we are in one single moment; that still point of light in the center of our being. Here we find the peace of God, shinning in us now. And let us just sit with that stillness, letting all physical sensations dissolve into the calm. And all that seemed to be around us settles in to the great ocean of peace we are now part of.

I am not a body. I am free.

For I am still as God created me…

Can’t you feel the truth of this statement, from this calm resting place? Here we are at home, in the center of all our creations and miscreations. With our attention fully centered on the light of peace within, we see with the Holy Spirit’s perspective, what the path before us is…

Let us use this practice today, to again remind us to still our minds and listen and wait for full expansion of peace and joy and trust, before make decisions or plans, allowing the Holy Spirit within our minds to take the lead…

The peace of God is shinning in us now and we shine that peace on all the world as is its natural extension…

Review VI:

I am not a body. I am free.

For I am still as God created me…

Lesson 201:

I trust my brothers who are one with me…

The idea: ‘No matter where I go, there I am’, unfolds a much more intimate experience, the closer we get to truth. The further we go through the maze of false ideas, discarded for their lack of meaning, the more we begin to appreciate the little quirks of others seemingly around us. They too, begin to be seen with that pleasant oneness feeling you have at times with yourself and those you know you love. Like when you realize that you unconsciously hum when you’re happily going about your daily work without resistance. Or, the way your child always tilts his head a certain way, when he want to be taken seriously or when your husband gets excited over a show he’s seen a hundred times, just as if it were the first and he doesn’t want to miss anything… We allow love to flow unimpeded through our relationship with these quirks, because we deem them trustworthy of our faith…

We aren’t seeing the form at these times, but rather, have let all judgment be replaced by acceptance and love… What we begin to notice, is that all the judgments we held so dear, as some kind of protective device, are no longer of value to us. Seeing another as ‘a bitch; out to make my life miserable and screw me over”, is an idea so ridiculous to the mind given over to the Holy Spirit, that one can only double over in laughter at its absurdity. We are learning to recognize instead, that these kind of thoughts, and all the milder ones like it, are merely nothing. They are part of the false thought system to be brought to light and forgiven…

Anything that can change is false. Therefore, the body idea we came into this gig with, is part of that. We are beyond. We are One. And oneness cannot be divided. We were; before birth and death and ancestry dreams flooded the mind of God’s Son. We are one with our Creator. We are free. And we are still as God created us.

The reason these words are so appealing to the mind, is simply because they point to the truth. And we are not without some memory of it now.

We can’t dispute the beyond, in favor of the specks of dusts we see before us as reality. We are the life within…

So when we look at, think of, interact with anyone, it is this same life within; the One Life we share, that we are interacting with. As we begin to accept this unequivocally, it is easy to trust our brother, who is one with us. If we want to, we will. The question always comes down this: What do I want: what do I value and how much do I value it?

I like this beautiful reminder from chapter 13 of the text:

Behold the Son of God, and look upon his purity and be still… in quiet look upon his holiness, and offer thanks unto his Father that no quilt has ever touched him…

I like to use this ditty when I am tempted to judge, or already have, but know that I must restore us both to sanity within my mind instantly, to maintain the peace that is mine.

I trust my brother, who is one with me…

I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me…

Lesson 181:

I trust my brothers, who are one with me….

I was just reading what came up for me when I did this lesson last year. I could easily flash on the so-called experiences of that story of past. And you know, it was surrounded in the light of forgiveness. What I recall, is the way I changed my focus and the transformation of my brothers and myself into sinless beings, all doing our part. That’s a yummy miracle. The thing is, most of what I look on today shines in that same light of forgiveness and sinless freedom. So much of what I call my life has taken this lamp from which I see. But there are moments. There are those moments when the temptation to feel unjustly treated, or to see another or myself as ‘wrong’ in some silly way, catches me off guard.

I am filled with only gratitude for the practice, lessons such as these provide; always returning, re-tuning me, re-minding me to instantly re-member to shift focus back to sinlessness. I look around me and I see only the reason why my seeing your innocence is all I want... You are my Self. I cannot see anything about myself beyond my assessment of you. Has anything but the letting go of judgment ever satisfied? No. And truly, could any of the trumped up charges and defenses the ego satisfies itself with even remotely come close to the feeling of peace and timeless surety replaces it. Forgiveness offers everything I want.

Today, I want only to trust you, my brother, who are one with me…

I pledge my full devotion to experiencing only our sinlessness. Let ours be one will, to experience only the innocence inherent to God’s Son, in everyone and everything. We are Christ after all. We are as God created us. And we are free.

Lesson 135:

If I defend myself I am attacked…

This lesson brings home to us where we must operate from if we are identified with being a body, in a world of bodies, surviving and trying to be happy here... It brings to mind the subversive, undermining quality inherent in self-initiated plans, which, pretty much are a requirement for survival, if one believes this world real…

You know, I didn’t even hear the part in the lesson about ‘self-initiated plans and that planning was a defense against the truth and trusting the Holy Spirit, the first couple of times I did the lessons. I was way too caught-up in what it was saying about the body identification, since I was aware that body identification was where I was doing business from in my so-called life at the time. The simple logic is clear: if I am, or feel I need to defend myself, whether it is my body or my position or even opinion, I must be identifying myself as weak and in need of protection. I must feel fairly insecure within my ’self’ if I’m always in constant defense… The next natural connection is how this applied to relationships. The body’s entire defense system; smarts, status, looks, etc. are for the purpose of having relationships one can feel one control-by-self-design, and to keep its parameters protected.

Needless to say, at some point, I came to realize that ‘i’ (self-concept-self) was only having imaginary relationships with imaginary figures and an imaginary ‘self’. Unsatisfying.

So much of what passes for ‘connection’ conversation; even entire ‘special relationships’ in this world is based in this defense posture. We pose as confident figures to be reckoned with, while secretly we feel vulnerable and weak and vigilant to maintain seeming control. We impose our ‘self-importance’ onto all situations and conversations, seeing only the dynamics that will support or threaten, all in defense keeping hidden the dark, secret self, beneath. We are all the ‘hero’ of the dream we dream… The miracle brings to mind another way of perceiving everything. While seemingly still constructed as before, yet unified purpose, it offers a single meaning. One which forgives by recognizing the false for what it is. We see that the truth of who we are reflected upon the dream instead…

Back to this thing about self-imitated plans… Here’s how it went for me. I really could not help but notice that my best laid plans never really worked out the way I hoped…It seems one can’t really control all the aspects and possibilities that could figure in to the outcome…

I was one who felt safe in structure; give me the rules, how to get the job done and what results I could expect, if I agreed that it would further perpetuate my self-concept, I could deal, work hard, succeed… I ask only that the structure need deliver on its promises, what I decided it promised… No need to trust ~ I had a contract, if only in my mind… What happened for me was that, when faced with the futility of gaining security, certainty and happiness through this structure-system was a complete bust, I saw it for what it was instead, merely a dream about a world of which I was but a part. I dropped my defenses, with white flag in hand, I ask for the other way…

Through the miracle, I began to experience myself as the dreamer of this dream. I also began to see that all its scenes and scenarios were written in the past; couched in precepts that simply weren’t relevant to the present experience of love that forgiveness offered me. Part of the undoing of my thought system included looking at how making plans (that’s any desired outcome in mind) immediately put me under the guidance of the voice for which the plan was made. And I would be swept-up in the future-izing momentum of my plan. That rendered me temporarily unavailable to hear the Voice for God within my mind…

Here’s the twisted part. It seemed I’d be beholden to play it (self-initiated plan) out till my plans failed. Or (gratefully), until I would come to some out of time instant of awareness that I was the dreamer of the dream and I could dream the dream of trust in God’s plan, instead.

As my experience with allowing the Holy Spirit to guide increased, and forgiveness began to reflect a different world, I began to experience trust. I didn’t know that I had never felt trust before. As a matter of fact I would have argued a case for it… but everything in illusion is conditional and limited.

It was not until I began to experience the peace of God that comes to the mind when it is truly still an instant, that the awareness of trust began to give meaning to my life and my function here.

OF COURSE, it’s all being handled for the best possible good, for each seeming individual, at the stage of belief in the time-space cosmos, they have placed themselves, at any given moment or circumstance!

Only Mind vast enough to see the entire picture, every fine nuance, the past, future and the wholeness beyond the fragments, uniting them in One Moment, NOW… which is the return to eternity… Could be in charge, Yes!? Dud, that’s not me.

Somewhere in my mind I had taken on the mantra “Everything goes my way”, and now I was beginning to see why… What it meant wasn’t what I originally had it wired-up as, part of ‘creating my own reality’ doctrine, which is forgiven as one recognizes First Cause: Creation is of God and that which is not of Him exists not at all.

The ‘my’ of my mantra was no longer speaking for the self of concepts, but was revealing itself as the Self~ the true identity in God. … When the temptation to defend arises, it is now seen as a forgiveness lesson, easily learned, for the yummy award of certainty that accompanies trust in God’s plan for salvation…

From today’s lesson:”... And in the light and joy of simple trust, you will but wonder why you ever thought that you must be defended from release…If I defend myself I am attacked. But in defenselessness I will be strong, and I will learn what my defenses hide… Nothing but that. We present our self to our Creator as we really are”.

Thank you for joining me in this memory of defenselessness and trust… everything does go our way, for ours is the way God appointed it to be…

Lesson 107:

Truth will correct all errors in my mind…

And I will rest in Him Who is my Self…

This is the practice that allows one the faith that “trust will settle every problem now”. Developing the habit of engaging with God by way of inviting the Holy Spirit within mind, Who is my true Self, has been a gift of inestimable value in my life. It has transformed every situation of seeming difference to one of sameness; every seemingly insurmountable problem into a pile of dust, lifeless and silly and hardly worth giving my attention to, let alone my time or effort…
Now that is a miracle…It is certainly a miracle to see the futility and agony of solving problems, of trying to be fair, of trying to ‘take care of myself’, simply be lifted from my mind and replace with peace and surety and trust. The perfect unity of God Son is revealed instead. The burden of having to know has been replaced by the comfort that the Holy Spirit does know, and has only God’s plan and the specific needs of each seemingly individual person, circumstance, belief, and encounter already in place for the perfect accomplishment of awaking the Sonship, together as One, from illusions to truth.
Judgments of better-than and less-than and all forms of competition blend together in the quiet acceptance that each and every being is doing their part perfectly. It is really none of my business what their part is. As a matter of fact, one comes to realize that only a mind taking directions from the ego, could even have thoughts such as those of parts, which is merely a slip into allowing the temptation to revisit the old habit of separation upon my mind. Once seen for what it is, simply error, the next step is easily taken. One simply invites in the mechanism for correction; the Holy Spirit who employs the truth to correct the error, along with all error in mind… “Truth will correct all errors in my mind… And I will rest in Him Who is my Self…”
This brings with it of a state of such love for the apparent brother who has witnessed to my mistaken thought, that it might now be healed. Where once there might have been a ‘battle of the fittest’, we rest in the quiet certainty that all things work together for good. Full appreciation and the desire to extend this abundance to all, now becomes the Love-current flow of life…
How joyous are we who trust the truth to correct all errors in our mind. Our faith in the Atonement ~God’s plan: in our brothers, in the Holy Spirit, as the reflection of our one Self stabilizes us in generosity and patience. Since we know we don’t have the ‘big picture’, the natural tendency to relax and allow the mind to open, due to a lack of defensiveness, there is no need to judge what anything is or what it is for. Our eyes look with gentleness upon our holy brothers, on this holy ground, where truth has entered to correct all error in our mind.
Rest in calm certainty knowing that the precision of perfect love is routing out all calls for love yet unanswered, to be completed through our One Self, united in purpose, complete and healed and whole… Nothing can disturb the Mind that has been given to truth.
I am so filled with gratitude and joy ~ I have received and it is my glorious mission to share all that I recognize as ours that I may maintain my awareness of it… you are my mighty, holy companions, all in all and hand in hand we come before the gates of Heaven in this one declaration of trust we make together today: “Truth will correct all errors in my mind, and I will rest in Him Who is my Self”…. All Glory to God and His one Son in Truth!!

Seeing with holiness~ lesson 58

Lesson 58:

“My holiness envelops everything I see… blesses the world… There is nothing that holiness cannot do … holiness is salvation … blessed as the Son of God…”

What I am seeing is always what I’m looking with…

Some where along the way, I really began to realize that every where I looked, everything I saw; every tiny little thing that seemed to go on in my so-called life, was coming from me… even if I was reporting the situation as totally blind-siding me, -catching me completely off guard-, as I learned to be honest … I saw I put it there…

This kind of honesty is not for the faint-hearted, by the way. It requires “abundant willingness”, and one has to look dead-on, square-in-the-eye, then pick up and fondle some pretty ugly forms, beliefs, identities, ways of being, in order to see that they are all the same; merely a shadow of guilt.

~A shadow of guilt~ yes, ~yet, so unacceptable that projecting it as far away as possible and forgetting where it came from was apparently, the only viable solution at the time…

The return to honestly, through a just a little willingness to “have been wrong about-everything” feels good~ as excruciating as it is ~ it is good in a very ‘real’ sort of way; ~a way that says, “perhaps there is another way , after all…”

And, then it begins~… the obvious, bearable things first come to the surface…then with consistent willingness with deeper honestly raising and fondling of all the used, abused ideas; the demons once valued in fear such that one felt compelled not only to run from, but if necessary, bury alive rather than own, are raised up… [Incidentally ~dissolving at the very uncovering of then ~ {big, f@#!ing demons, eh?}]

Yet with this willingness, one begins to notice the inevitable awakening of the internal light. Right along side these fears and judgments, a light so unmistakable and compelling that one begins to feel its eternal presence had been present, all along. With also an awareness so profound that the very light illuminating all is but holiness itself, the holiness that is one’s Self…

The thing is, that for me, the recognition of my holiness, began to come through, when I first in placed some faith in the idea of the Holy Spirit… [Since I knew I had no faith in myself, at the time and could not be trusted]

The next step naturally followed… Through trusting that the Holy Spirit was with me and within me, gradually I began to recognize that ‘this was my holiness’ that the Course was talking about! It was like, duh, how could anything be separated out from anything?… So I came to see I was, by trusting the Holy Spirit within my mind, therefore, trusting my holiness, and truly valuing honesty… This leans into increased willingness, and trusting deeper, then into abundant willingness and a knowing that it is only my holiness I can trust and it NEVER fails me… There is nothing my holiness cannot do…

…Another world has developed before my very eyes… From my holiness does the perception of the real world come. My holiness blesses the world…

Having forgiven, guilt is replaced with faith. Faithlessness is healed along with guilt, being saved for me by holiness itself… In accepting my holiness, fear is replaced by love. The peace of God, my one goal, has become my constant companion… Certainty now sits where wishful thinking used to reside…There is no other way for me… how could it be any other way… I have seen/experienced the truth ~it is I~ and I am not afraid…I am blessed as a Son of God…Along with all my brothers, who are one with me… You are the light of Christ that makes it possible for me to see… I am eternally grateful!

~The new matrix of mind ~ trust. ..

Lesson 55:

"I am determined to see things differently… What I see is a form of vengeance… I can escape from this world by giving up attack thoughts… I do not perceive my own best interests… I do not know what anything is for”…
I invite, as a basic methodology now, the opportunity to let fear thoughts show up however they do; be it in the form of planning, perceived ‘needs’, worry, pain, etc…All attack thoughts ~ all a form of vengeance ~bring ‘em on ! All of them, I invite to arise for review and forgiveness…
See, I am finally learning that I don’t really know what that means or how the miracle happens and how suddenly ‘poof’ my perception is completely changed ~ an ancient way of seeing dissolves into a new light.
The matrix of my mind has become trust. And from this place I can truly let go of knowing, of doing, of interfering… And what I notice is that somehow everything gets handled ~ it’s like I am more an aspect of the perfect plan, along with everyone by which everything does work together for good and miracles happen. FORGIVENESS WORKS! ~ e v e r y ~s I n g l e ~ t I m e . . .
I’m remembering from lesson 135, where it says:
“What could you not accept, if you but knew that everything that happens, all events, past, present and to come, are gently planned by One Whose only purpose is your good?” ~BINGO~
I have accepted this and now, I cannot see any other possibility… thank God!
All Glory to God, Whose perfect peace, and purity are what we are ~ And merely by the refusal to accept any thing else, I feel its fulfillment… and T R U S T…
And trust answers every thing NOW … I see and feel it within ~ for I am not in this world. The world is within me, and all around…~YUMMY LOVE replaces vengeance and my own best interests are yours as well. There is no I in know. Knowledge is and I am part of God… God is…

Ahhhhhhhhh, lean back~ God is the strength in which we trust~

Lesson 47:

“God is the strength in which I trust…”

I used to really pride myself on my strength… my ability to handle any situation… pull myself up and press on… put my shoulder to the wheel… Not always mind you, of course not. But I’m smart and I know how to work hard…

Then the ‘grand- disillusionment’ of my life, of all my best efforts, hit me square in the face with unbearable inadequacy, impotency ~ the empty loneliness of nothingness which was all that I had made of myself. I could not trust myself. ~ Not at all. And I had no strength from which to draw. … Here’s how it went down…

As I sank within my mind, actually to escape my life~ its self ~(I knew ~no external escape was possible for me. I had tried the entire spectrum form best ness to worst ness and failed. What I found was the horror of this blackness, this loneliness of nothingness, this terrifying erase-ment of ‘me’. The fear seemed to be within and without, breathing heavily on me… But even beneath that, even more encompassing, was the ugly meanness of “guilt" ~so powerful was this force ~it seemed to rule the world and certainly it ruled me! From where did it come? I somehow knew it had been there in my mind from the beginning of time~ How could I not have been aware of it? How have I survived it? Only questions, no answers...

And then, and yet, as I kept sinking down; sinking further to escape this seemingly unbearable experience, the sinking itself seemed to be transport me or transcending perhaps… It seemed to dissolve me to a place of never-ending peace~ where ‘I’ was not there… a peace so deep and so complete that I could not remember any thing I thought or was before, nor did it occur to me, to… Only all of everything ~one~.

For me, it was surely my trusting in my own strength that brought me to my knees, so to speak~ and this surrender allowed me to look upon the horrors of my mind, so long denied. It brought me to a place of honesty which prior to, I had no idea of the l level of with I speak right now… I thought I knew a few things, about spirituality, about God~ thought I knew about love, trust and the like…but, from where I was placing my trust, ~I did not!~

I did not know what was valuable and what as not, although I thought I did. I used my seeming understanding and limited experiences in this realm to actually give value in my mind to the totally meaningless by feeling I could control it, myself, and desired outcomes because it didn’t matter. What I had done was take the few glimpses of these 'spiritual understandings' and listen to the interpretations, the ego’s angle on the whole thing (my so-called life) ~the seemingly compelling voice of my ego... slippery, seductive, sneakily I added my ego to the mix... Which seeing as these are two exclusively and opposite thought systems, well there ya go~ hell…

~ I had to reject one in favor of the other…Significantly, I did. (Once belief has been given to a thought system, it becomes reality. That is its purpose. And one cannot see from within the thought system... Correction can only be made at the level where the error occurred ~ the mind.)

~Choose once again... And again ~ I did…~

~The miracle of forgiveness happens to the mind that asks… I notice.

…God is the strength in which I trust… and there was never a time when any thing else has given me any strength, nor anything else I could trust.

…But oh, from here, NOW…I trust ~I trust the glorious experience of a forgiven Self, a forgiven world ~where every single thing is constructed according to God's plan for Atonement…

Today, I trust you, my brothers who are one with me… the strength of God is truly behind every seeming event and circumstance and it is easy for me to see now that ‘everyone’ is doing their part perfectly…

So simply…God is the strength in which I trust~ and rest assured ~resting in the timelessness of the eternal now ~regardless of what may seem to come on the screen today, we can rest assured, and trust. It is God’s strength holding us in its arms… Ahhhhhhhhh, lean back… can’t you feel it…PEACE~~REST WITH ME HERE TODAY in this exquisitely peaceful resting place where you and I are one and we are as God created us...

Overflowing gratitude and love…