What Appears to Be the Problem?

"There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter... Intelligence is Omniscience, Omnipresence, and Omnipotence. It is the primal and eternal quality of Infinite Mind, of the triune Principle, - Life, Truth, and Love, - named God." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Page 468, lines 9-10, and Page 469, lines 8-11

"Everything you perceive as the outside world is merely your attempt to maintain your ego identification, for everyone believes that identification is salvation... The world you perceive is a world of separation... you have no control over the world you made... it is governed by the desire to be unlike God... The world you made is therefore totally chaotic, governed by arbitrary and senseless "laws," and without any meaning of any kind... Yet this world is only in the mind of its maker." -- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 12, Section III, 7:5, and 9:1-8

What appears to be the problem? How often have we heard ourselves or someone else utter these words? And they are truer than we knew! The appearance of any problem, any issue, no matter the form or the supposed severity... the appearance of literally anything 'other' cannot be real or true. And this is not just an intellectual exercise. If you are willing to really look at it and question, you will realize that not one story you've been telling yourself or anyone else is even remotely true. And not one story they've been telling you is true. It's all made up.

The typical response to this realization is classic ego-defense... how can we possibly even live, then? How can we just go on, knowing this? Well, haven't you been going on, repeating stories that aren't even true and not knowing? How can it be worse to go around knowing? This makes no sense, even to the ego. But that's about its best shot. Oy vey, what to do. Everything is fearful to the ego.

But once we calm down, we realize the freedom that comes with this knowing. We don't have to manufacture stories and pretend all the time. We can go along with other people's stories if we like, until they want to wake up... but we don't have to. And we can now be free to pay attention to what is true. What, in this moment, is true... when we're not trying so hard to identify with fiction? What do we absolutely and experientially know? Not what I say, not what ACIM says, not what the Bible says... what do we know?

This is the essence of the true spiritual path... the willingness to inquire, deeply, without a story. Be still, and know that I Am God. And when you do, you find All the Life, Truth, and Love there Is, fully present. Without a story.

You cannot find the solution to any problem within the story. There is no Life or Love 'out there.' As ACIM puts it, "The ego is certain that love is dangerous... though encouraging the search for love very actively, it makes one proviso; do not find it... Its judgement, though severely impaired, is completely consistent... Its guidance leads you to a journey which must end in perceived self-defeat. For the ego cannot love... Do you realize that the ego must set you on a journey which cannot but lead to a sense of futility and depression?" And of course, the ego disguises this search for love as problems... so it may show up as the search for money, or the search for health, or the search for a way to 'fix' a relationship, or a way to 'fix' ourselves, or a way to... fill in the blank.

So what appears to be the problem? Lack of money, lack of love, lack of understanding, lack of courage, lack of clarity? Where are you looking for the answer? There is no Life, no Love, no Truth, no Intelligence, and therefore no real problem in the material, illusory world. And there is the Truth in you that answers the appearance of every illusion. Give your time, attention, and awareness to what is True. There is One in You Who knows and IS the answer, Who IS All-in-All. There are no supposed problems that do not simply melt away like the illusions they are, as this blessed Awareness dawns.

"When you want only Love, you will see nothing else. The contradictory nature of the witnesses you perceive is merely the result of your conflicting invitations." -- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 12, Section VII, 8:1-2