The Illusion of Differences

"This world seems to hold out many purposes, each different and with different values.  Yet they are all the same.  Again there is no order; only a seeming hierarchy of values." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 20, Section VIII, 8:8-10
 
I have had several conversations with friends in the past week about wanting something different in their lives.  Of course, this is a familiar feeling and story for all of us.  Something is perceived as wrong or lacking or uncomfortable or simply unsatisfying, and so we think that something different is the answer.  Not this, but that.  Not here, but there.  Not now, but someday.  Not that person, but this person, or no person.  Something different, which will hopefully be something better.

The illusion of differences is the ego's maintenance plan.  This body is different from that body, that car is different from this car, that job is definitely different than this job!  And on and on and on and on...  there's no end to the ego's litany of needed improvements (translation: differences).

A Course in Miracles gives us many simple and direct ways of seeing through this chaos.  One of my favorites is: "Make this year different  by making it all the same." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 15, Section XI, 10:11

And how can we make it all the same, when the very nature of our lives seems to be the constant focus on shifting challenges and victories,  failures and successes, pleasures and pains?  I had a glimpse of this yesterday while filling the water tank for the horses.  I only had a few minutes between coaching calls, and went out to make sure the water tank was full.  It was a summer mid-afternoon, with rain clouds in the distance, but no air stirring.  My focus on the details and differences dropped, and there was crystalline, All-Inclusive Awareness.  Silent but Alive.  Still but including all movement.  Awareness ItSelf.   Then the water tank began overflowing and my awareness contracted to take care of business.  This is the way of it as we practice letting go of differences.  I can focus on the water tank, knowing that The Self that I Am is the Reality of even this seeming.  I have only to drop the contracted focus, and my True Self that is Everything, and knows ItSelf as the All where all differences fall away.  No matter, just pure Awareness, pure Spirit, pure Mind that includes All.

To the Unified Mind, there are no differences!  Perception is a contracted point of view, happening IN you, not TO you.  YOU ARE THE SEER AND THE SEEN.  There are no differences.  And forgiveness, the dropping of the addictive need to project differences, is our unified purpose.  A Unified Mind with Unified Purpose returns us to the Awareness of Perfect Oneness (Heaven!) that is Our Reality.
  
"I will forgive, and this will disappear."  A Course in Miracles; Workbook 193, 13:3