An Inside Job

"You command the situation if you understand that mortal existence is a state of self-deception and not the Truth of Being." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p.403, lines 14-16

"The Science of Being unveils the errors of sense, and spiritual perception, aided by Science, reaches Truth. Then error disappears." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 406, lines 11-13

"I will forgive, and this will disappear." -- A Course in Miracles, Workbook 193, 13:3

One of my readers asked me to use this forum as a reminder... I host a weekly ACIM conference call every Saturday morning at 9 a.m. central time. All are welcome. The call-in number is 605-475-4333, and the access Code is 101546. We would love to have you join us.

We are always talking about our delusion of mistaken identity, in one way or another. And we use whatever is up in our lives to Awaken and Remember. We are learning to listen and follow the Voice for God in us, and to notice with increasing awareness our judgments and projections. These usually consist of some version of health and money and sex or relationships in general... anything to prove that the body and the material laws around us are true. We would rather be right about that than happy in forgiveness of our mistakes. Go figure...

This Re-membering of the Son of God, the restoration of our collective Self, is not intellectual, it's experiential. But the ego will still make that something to do or be differently, when it's really a case of mistaken identity. Who are you, really? Either you are the Son of God or you are the little version with all the trials, tribulations, and limitations thereof. Can't have it both ways.

The illusory stuff about relationships and money and body image and self-love... we all know these smokescreens very well, and it's all made up. ACIM says that trying to make more money to be secure, or to eat a certain way to be healthy, or striving to adorn a fictional self to attract other fictional selves with bodies.. all of this is the height of insanity. Even when we succeed, we simply prolong our suffering, because as long as we think who we are and our life and love is dependent on anything so illusory, we are in deep trouble. Bodies change, they come and they go... money comes and goes... personalities come and go... they are only thought forms. Who cares? No, I mean that literally... who are you being when you care? The Son of God, or some fictional and very limited version of yourself? And why would you do that to yourself? Smokescreen, that's why.

As long as our attentions are hooked 'out there' (and our own bodies are 'out there' too) we keep projecting it all and don't end the illusion of a separate existence. As long as there is some hope of fixing the dream, we stay on the wheel of suffering that in Sanskrit is called Samsara. There is no such thing as a 'better' dream. Let me repeat that. There is no such thing as a dream that is better or more real than any other dream. Some are scary, some pass for beautiful or loving. There is absolutely no difference. There are no REAL differences... how could there be in Oneness?

So this is the ultimate pass we come to... what we see as our greatest successes and our pride and joys are really our greatest failures... and what we see as our greatest failures and liabilities are actually our greatest successes. ANYTHING that brings us closer to the dissolving of the separation is our best friend. And what keeps us attached and striving is truly what binds us to hell.

So whether it's money, love, sex. or real estate... whether it's your body or someone else's or both... they are all judgments that are really statements about who and what you believe yourself to be. And thank Goodness, you are not who you think you are. Thank goodness none of us are! :-)) There are no material solutions that will ever be real, or help us to remember Who We Are. There is nothing outside of you... nothing, literally. It's an inside job.

"Seek not outside yourself. For it will fail, and you will weep each time an idol falls... Seek not outside yourself. For all your pain comes from a futile search for what you want, insisting where it must be found. What if it is not there? Do you prefer that you be right or happy? Be glad that you are told where happiness abides, and seek no longer elsewhere. You will fail. But it is given you to know the Truth, and not to seek for it outside yourself." -- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 29, Section VII, 1:1, and 1:6-12