Spiritual Sense

"Looking outside yourself for the Source of Love and Grace, you lose the real Presence within. That which you receive through spiritual sense comes as the Grace of God, and only this is important." -- Joel Goldsmith

"'I am as God created me.' This idea is all you need to let complete correction heal your mind, and give you perfect vision that will heal all the mistakes that any mind has made at any time or place. It is enough to heal the past and make the future free. If you remain as God created you, appearances cannot replace the Truth, health cannot turn to sickness, nor can death be a substitute for life, or fear for love. All this has not occurred, if you remain as God created you. You need no thought but just this one, to let redemption come to light the world and free it from the past. In this one thought is all the past undone; the present saved to quietly extend into a timeless future. If you are as God created you, then there has been no separation of your mind from His, no split between your mind and other minds, and only unity within your own. The healing power of this idea is limitless." -- A Course in Miracles

"Thou shalt have no other gods before Me." -- The Bible

Spiritual sense is the only sense we need. We have been badly taught to listen to the material senses, which are not instruments of detection, but of fiction. The physical, material sense always and only tells us what we want to hear. We are proving, like all delusional minds, that our illusions are true and that we are right. Even in the midst of our suffering, damn it, we are right. This is the way it is.

Spiritual sense is the only sense we really have. Joel Goldsmith was fond of saying that unless we can hear what can't be heard by the physical ears and see what can't be seen by the physical eyes, we will never know the Kingdom of God that is in the midst of us. Jeshua ben Joseph shortened that to, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear. He who has eyes to see, let him see." Short and to the point... and unintelligible to the human sense of things.

Spiritual sense is how we honor the First Commandment: Thou shalt have no other gods before Me. Material sense is the evidence of gods many, with the imaginary power to change and manipulate and control the Son of God. How could this be true or even exist at all within the Allness of God?

The First Commandment is not an ultimatum... it's a roadmap Home. As ACIM says, "I am under no laws but God's." The sights and sounds that seem to show us many powers and many laws are the evidence gathering machine of the illusory, material dream. Believe in them, and you are lost in the dream for now. Believe in even one of them, and it is as if you believed in all of them. There is no hierarchy of illusions, and you cannot be a little bit asleep. You either wander in the dream, lost and alone in spite of the illusion of many bodies... or you Awaken to Awareness of Who You Are, and in Whom You Live and Move and Have Your Being. There is nothing in between these two choices. It really is All or nothing.

As long as we prefer one illusion to the Truth, we sleep and suffer and die within the dream, over and over and over. Our spiritual sense cannot awaken unless we value it above all else. As long as one twinge of attachment and emotion holds you to the old allegiances, you sleep and suffer and die, over and over and over. There is no compromise nor meeting place between illusions and Truth. One IS. The other simply isn't, and so there is nothing to do but wander within the nonsense of the dream. Sometimes it looks like life, sometimes like death, but there is no real difference. Sometimes it looks like love, sometimes like hate, but there is no difference. What isn't true simply doesn't exist, and no new stories or attempts to reconcile the irreconcilable will every change it into Truth.

Our spiritual sense cannot be lost. But as long as we look outside ourselves for evidence with the material senses, we cannot see or hear what is Real and True. As long as we look to person, place, or thing for love, approval, validation, or survival, we are lost. The good news is that the spiritual sense of Our True Self is available to us any instant we let go of the illusions that have fascinated us for so very long. The First Commandment is couched in uncompromising tone because this act of surrender and commitment is truly our first and only need, our first and only Love, and the only sense we ever need to pay attention to.

"Hear O Israel: the Lord your God is One. And thou shalt love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your mind, and with all your soul, and with all your strength." -- The Bible