The Guilty Identity

"Temptation has one lesson it would teach, in all its forms, wherever it occurs.  It would persuade the holy Son of God he is a body, born in what must die, unable to escape its frailty, and bound by what it orders him to feel."-- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 31, Section VIII, 1:1-2

Do you regularly find things about yourself or your surroundings that are lacking, or should be different?  Are you ashamed of things you have done or even are doing?  Are you judgmental of what others are doing, mentally shaming them?  All of these mental attitudes and actions are part and parcel of the guilty identity we learn as part of a separate self, living in a separate body in this world.  Do you know anyone who is free of this?

Even very happy people react and become apologetic if someone else is upset.  This is the conditioned guilty response.  "I am so sorry," we say, as if we could do something about it.  Or as if we should. 

A Course in Miracles helps us understand that guilt is how a sense of body awareness and a separate self is maintained.  Without the judgment and guilt, there is only the unified Mind, where all things exist in the Light of Awareness and Love, pure transparencies for God.  Without judgment and guilt, there is an Awareness of Oneness, which is All Good and only Good.  Perfect Oneness is our natural state, which is always and only God, reflecting and radiating the Light of Goodness and Love.

It's interesting, don't you think, that a small upset or affront to our egoic identity can send us into a seeming tail spin, can make us so agitated and fearful that it seems as if a huge thing has really occurred.  When in such a state, it's impossible to conceive of a unified Mind that radiates peace and joy.  And yet we are always and only reacting to our own judgments and guilty verdicts, the story of a separate body-self and the fearful 'others'.  And even in the midst of this story of separation and loss, all we have to do is forgive our judgments and let them go.  Right where all seems hopeless or angry or sad or lost or any other version of guilt, there is pure joy and perfect love.  Right where the problem seems to be, there is only Love, which is the only Law of God.  

"There are no laws but God's... there is no loss under the laws of God.  Payment is neither given nor received.  Exchange cannot be made; there are no substitutes; and nothing is replaced by something else.  God's laws forever give and never take." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 76, 9:1, 3-6

The story of the crucifixion and resurrection of God's Son is the story of everyone's life.  The guilty identity that we have carefully protected for so long is not real.  It can only seem fearful and shameful and wrong when we hang on to our 'laws' of judgment and refuse to forgive. A Course in Miracles gives us many ways to approach forgiveness, and all of them involve letting go of human laws of judgment and thus realizing what has always been true. The guilty identify was all made up, and has never been at all.  This realization is the resurrection of the Son of God.

"Learn then the happy habit of response to all temptation to perceive yourself as weak and miserable with these words:  I am as God created me.  His Son can suffer nothing.  And I am His Son.  You are as God created you, and so is every living thing you look upon, regardless of the images you see.  What you behold as sickness and as pain, as weakness and as suffering and loss is but temptation to perceive yourself defenseless and in hell.  Yield not to this, and you will see all pain, in every form, wherever it occurs, but disappear as mists before the sun."-- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 31, VIII, 5:1-4, and 6:1-3

The Thing That I Seek

First, I want to send everyone infinite love and blessings for the New Year.  This is Who We Are!  May all Being remember this!

"I am the goal the world is searching for." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 318

"I am that I am." -- The Bible

"I am That." -- Nisargadatta Maharaj

Reading the above quotations, the natural response of the conditioned self is, "No, I'm not."  Or if you are a bit more open to the possibility, it may lead naturally into self-inquiry... "Who am I?" Or maybe even "What am I?" Am I what I seem to be, or am I beyond the seeming?  Am I what is experiencing the seeming, or what is noticing the seeming?  And if there is both, then are there two of me?  What is the truth of all of this???

For those of us that have been reading and studying and even teaching A Course in Miracles for a while, it is apparent that every sentence and even every word is pointing to this Truth.  "My mind is part of God's, and I am very holy."  I am.  I already am.  So who or what is it that is constantly trying to fix up an unholy, flawed self?  And who or what is that flawed self?  Who, what, and why?

This morning I turned in the Workbook to Lesson 47: "God is the strength in which I trusts." To the split mind, this is a dualistic statement of God and me, self and other.  But it is actually referring to God as our True Self.  

To trust in a false sense of self is to suffer, and to live in the constant fear that is the world we see every day.  But when we remember our shared God Self there is only Love, Goodness, Infinite Strength and Power and Security and Joy.  And there is no limit to the miracles that are revealed when this is truly known.  "I am the goal the world is searching for."  Try contemplating this statement between now and the new year.  Try remembering Who You Really Are throughout the new year, and always. 

"Let go all the trivial things that churn and bubble on the surface of your mind, and reach down and below them to the Kingdom of Heaven.  There is a place in you where there is perfect peace.  There is a place in you where nothing is impossible.  There is a place in you where the strength of God abides." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 47:7:3-6

The Truth About You

"The Truth about You is so lofty that nothing unworthy of God is worthy of you.  Choose then what you want in these terms, and accept nothing that you would not offer to God as wholly fitting for Him/Her.  You do not want anything else." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 9, Section VII, p.8:4-6 

Well, it has been exactly six months since my last blog... that is the longest I have gone without posting since this blog began over 7 years ago.  And yes, since time is illusion, I know that the Voice speaks to all of us daily, with or without symbols like this blog.  However, we all seem to have a story of being less than good, other than God.  Thank Goodness for the Truth about you (and me), which is beyond measure, beyond all judgement.  The story of 'me' fears this Infinite Glory, because it fears everything.  It judges and measures and compares because, "The ego cannot survive without judgement, and is laid aside accordingly." (ACIM; Ch.4, II, 10:3).  To help understand this, remember that the ego is story.  And what is a story without protagonists and antagonists, after all?

In this world of stories, a dream world of continual judgment and conflict, how can we know the Truth?  A Course in Miracles puts it so very simply:  "How can God's Son awaken from the dream? It is a dream of judgement.  So must he judge not, and He will awaken." (ACIM; Ch.29, IX, 2:3-5)

I urge you to try releasing all judgement in every situation, in all circumstances.  Since God is All, and we live and move and have our Being in and as that All, then there can be nothing but God, nothing but Good.  So the only thing we are ever letting go of, or releasing (another word for forgiveness), is a false sense of things, a story that is the projection of a sleeping mind.  What remains, and is ever-present behind every projection, is the Truth.  The Truth of a villain or a hero or a rock or a tree is the same, because there is only the One Self, only God.  It is always the Truth About You.

"You are surrounded only by Him.  What limits can there be on You Whom He encompasses?" -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 18, Section VI, p.10:6-7

Please join us for ACIM Teleclass to study A Course in Miracles, every Sunday evening at 7:30 pm CT. 

It Really Is That Simple

"The Law of Existence is Perfection.  Not moving toward or away from anything, not trying to add anything, but every whit Whole.  Everything else is perception, point of view, and is not the Wholeness and Perfection of Being.  Every point of view is the out-picturing of a belief in non-perfection.  If beliefs didn't get uncomfortable, I'd have no reason to give them up." -- Betty Albee

"Altars are beliefs, but God and His creations are beyond belief because they are, beyond question." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 6, Section V:C, 7:2

When I was first introduced to Betty Albee's statement a couple of years ago (that every perception is the projection of a belief in non-perfection) I glossed over it. It didn't resonate, and seemed too abstract for me at the time.  But I have come to realize it is a simple statement of Truth that I didn't want to hear.  As the Course reminds me: "You have made many ideas that you have placed between yourself and your Creator, and these beliefs are the world as you perceive it." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 11, Section VII, 4:4

The Laws of God. the Laws of Truth, are Perfection, Wholeness, Abundance, Innocence, Peace, Joy, Love and All ideas of Goodness and Perfection without an opposite and without limits or possibility of change.  These Laws are not imposed from without, but are actually our very Being.  We can put I Am in front of any one of them and be telling the Truth.  And the Course reminds us that these Laws of Oneness are the only Reality there is: "I am under no laws but God's.  I am constantly tempted to make up other laws and give them power over me.  I suffer only because of my belief in them.  They have no real effect on me at all.  I am perfectly free of the effects of all laws save God's.  And His are the Laws of Freedom." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 88

Now if your eyes haven't glazed over and you are actually contemplating the Truth presented here, you are beginning to feel the joy that only a glimpse of true Freedom can bring. I am perfectly free of the effects of ALL the beliefs and concepts, the rules and limitations... they are all made up!  In other words, "Concepts are learned.  They are not natural." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 31, Section V, 7:1-2 

So we find that we are only under the influence of our own belief in imperfection, which is the same as saying we believe God has been rendered imperfect, separated from creation, and our point of view (our perception) reflects this illusion.  It's crazy, but it's these false perceptions that make up the world as we know it. "Illusions are but beliefs in what is not there." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 16, Section III, 4:9

Please don't take my word for it.  There are so many teachers of non-duality that are more eloquent in explaining all this.  What you need is proof.  And the proof is in the pudding, as the saying goes.  If you start with "God IS" and "God is ALL"(ALL must include all) and work from there, you will always find that imperfection and all the world of projection is an impossibility. "How simple is salvation!  All it says is what was never true is not true now, and never will be.  The impossible has not occurred, and can have no effects.  And that is all." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 31, Section I, 1:1-4

There is only One Self.  God IS, and we are the Light of God... that's our Reality.  Miracles light the mind that begins to forgive and release all human concepts and beliefs and points of view. "You are a miracle, capable of creating in the likeness of your Creator.  Everything else is your own nightmare, and does not exist.  Only the creations of Light are real." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 1, Section I, 24:2-4 

Salvation really is that simple. 

"Let us be still an instant, and forget all things we ever learned, all thoughts we had, and every preconception that we hold of what things mean and what their purpose is.  Let us remember not our own ideas of what the world is for.  We do not know.  Let every image be loosened from our minds and swept away." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 31, Section I, 12:1-4

The Key to Happiness

“You made this up.  It is a picture of what you think you are; of how you see yourself… Have you not wondered what the world is really like; how it would look through happy eyes?  The world you see is but a judgment on yourself.  It is not there at all.” – A Course in Miracles; Chapter 20, Section III, 4:3-4, 5:1-3

A friend recently asked me about the practice of forgiveness as the Course teaches it.  It’s not really forgiveness as the world thinks about it, because it’s not about anything ‘out there’ at all.  It’s a mental process, because everything I experience is in my mind, and then projected outward.  And while our minds appear to sleep, there is a great need for reminders that the nightmares we project have no real effects.  “What God has created follows His Laws, and His alone.  Nor is it possible for those who follow them to suffer the results of any other source.” (ACIM 20, IV, 3:6-7)  This means our insane projections, though scary, can have no real effects.  Of course, as long as we’re asleep, we’re stuck in a nightmare thinking it’s really happening.  So forgiveness is the way out of the dream.

Forgiveness as the Course teaches it makes use of the Holy Instant, the “little breath of eternity that runs through time like golden Light that is all the same; nothing before it, nothing afterwards.”  The reality of God and the Holy Spirit (which is our reality) is always, now, and forever.  “The past takes nothing from it, and the future will add no more.  Here then, is everything.  This gift returns the laws of God to your remembrance.” 

Because our reality in God is already perfect, whole, and complete, there really is only one purpose to everything… to awaken from the dream we made up.  So the Course reminds us repeatedly that forgiveness is our only function.  Don’t bother judging the seeming situation, since trying to judge a dream is insane… it’s all made up.  Practice forgiveness, and wake up to Perfection.  Practice forgiveness, and be Happy.

“God’s Will for me is perfect happiness.” --  A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 101

Here is an example of how the function of forgiveness unfolds in the mind.  Use your own words, and be specific and thorough with each individual person, situation, or feeling you are examining.  Once you experience the deep peace this process brings, don't try and fill the clean and open space with concepts and stories again.  Remember that it’s the false concepts and beliefs in your mind that project as the world you think you see.  So step back and let Truth arise and lead the way.  Ask the Holy Spirit whenever you need to make a decision.  BE peace.

This feeling (fear, anger, hurt, pride, jealousy, frustration, pain, hopelessness or whatever the unsettling emotion may be) that I feel toward and about you and this situation seems to be about:

(Take time to be honest about this, in detail)
 

I see that every aspect of this is a projection of my belief that I am separate from God and everyone and everything, which means I think I’m separate from this situation and from the All, the Everything that is God, which includes all Goodness and Love and Perfection and Completeness.  Because I think I’m separate, I’m projecting false images of conflict and pain and lack instead of radiating the Wholeness and Peace that I am.  I’m projecting false images of lack and limitation instead of radiating the perfect Love and Completeness that I am.
 

I see that it’s impossible to be separate from the Love of God, which is Everything and All.   I have never been separate and my fear is all made up and projected as false images.  Everyone and everything that seems to be involved is also eternally One with the Love of God, and so everyone and everything that seems to be in conflict is actually all Good and only Good, Perfect, Innocent and Complete.
 

And so I forgive myself and everyone and everything for what never even happened!  I let it go, and overlook all the seeming ‘evidence’ of lack and pain and suffering.  I look instead to the Holy Spirit, and I give all these images to the Holy Spirit to be dissolved in my perception throughout imaginary space and time.
 

I know that as I release these images to the Holy Spirit, they are completely undone throughout the dream (past, present, and future… which are all made up, too)... the false concepts and images dissolve in the Light like the dreams they are, and now I know none of it ever happened in reality.  All that remains is the Holy Instant of Light and Love.  There is only God, only innocence and peace, only the clean and open space of Spirit… the Light, Perfection, Peace, Love, and Joy that is our eternal Home. 
 

By being honest about our thoughts and feelings in this way, and giving them to the Holy Spirit, we let Truth correct all such errors in our minds (which is where it all appears to be happening!).  We can then step back and let our Wholeness (holiness) lead the way, and the symbols and projections in the dream we call life begin to reflect this Wholeness.  Innocence and Peace, Joy and Happiness… these are the Reality behind everything.  And forgiveness is the way to remember the Reality behind it all. 
 

“Forgiveness is the key to happiness.”  A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 121
 

Please join us for ACIM Teleclasses every Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. central time.

As Common as Grass

"Therefore the Master says... I let go of all desire for the common good, and the good becomes common as grass." -- Tao te Ching, p. 57; Stephen Mitchell Translation

"Miracles are natural.  When they do not occur, something has gone wrong." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 1, Section I, 6:1-2

What seems to come naturally in our lives is evidently not really natural.  For example, babies aren't born with the ability to sing an Aria, or a pop song.  But singing feels natural to me.  If I inquire honestly though, it took a lot of practicing as a child and then as an adult to get to the point where it feels so automatic.  Reading the above quotations has me thinking about just what is natural, what is common and ordinary?  If Goodness and Miracles are actually what is common and natural, then we have done a bang-up job of obscuring the Truth with a lot of the un-natural and un-common.

A Course in Miracles explains that defenses are the costliest of habits.  They obscure the ever-present Goodness and perfection of our true Self.  And what are defenses?  They are thoughts, perceptions, habits, projections... all to distract the awareness and attention from the perfection of Self.  All with the common attribute of dividing and dissecting the awareness into multitudes of judgements about what is good, what is bad, what is me, what is them, what is here, what is there... and on and on and on.  It's the original and ultimate defamation of character. 

But what remains when these defenses are forgiven and released is the natural perfection of our Christ Self.  The miracle is natural because the Christ is our reality.  The miracle reveals what has always been effortlessly true, and so is the most natural thing in the world.  All that is required of us is the willingness to let our judgements go, to forgive our false witness to the Son of God.  We can twist ourselves into un-natural and un-worthy caricatures, but we can never make them true.  Who we are remains holy... wholly innocent and free, eternally One in the Mind of God.

"All your difficulties stem from the fact that you do not recognize yourself, your brother, or God." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 3, Section III, 2:1

Truth

"Truth is a savior and can only will for happiness and peace for everyone.  It gives its strength to everyone who asks, in limitless supply.  It sees that lack in anyone would be a lack in all.  And so it gives its light that all may see and benefit as one." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 92, 5:3-6

"And you shall know the Truth, and the Truth will set you free." -- The Bible; John 8:32

What is Truth?  John Keats waxed poetic on this subject while pondering things that come and go... his "Ode on a Grecian Urn" faces his own mortality in the frozen images on an ancient vessel, and in his poetic way he discovered that the ideas and images embedded in the ancient urn are exactly like the images in any given life, the faces and bodies and scenery and relationships.  What is true about any of them?  Keats put it this way, as if the urn itself were speaking: "Beauty is truth, truth beauty... that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."  Keats was spiraling upward in his quest for Truth.  He saw that is exists not in the physical, but in the silent spiritual.  He saw that Beauty and Truth are synonyms for the One, and are not dependent on the physical or the form of things that come and go, but that everything reflects Beauty and Truth when it is truly seen, beyond form.

Jesus said we can and will know the Truth.  He said it is our very freedom.  The Bible, A Course in Miracles, Buddhism, Vedanta... they all use the word Truth as a synonym for enlightenment and our Real Being.  Some use the word God, others Self or Atman, but the meaning is One.

A Course in Miracles puts it very bluntly: "The Truth is true, and nothing else is true."  In this world where all truth seems relative, such a statement can seem as cryptic as a zen koan.  But let's look at mathematics.  No matter how you turn it, 2+2 will always and forever equal 4.  It is an unchanging truth, a mathematical principle.  In the same way, the Truth of Being underlies everything that seems to appear and seems to disappear.  It is the unconditioned awareness of Self, an all-inclusive awareness that is always here, always available, and is the very ground of Being.  It is the Source and the Substance of all that is.

So why bother even talking about such things?  We know 2+2 equals 4, but we don't think about it when we're picking out 4 apples or oranges at the store.  Talking about Truth is just philosophy, impractical and not grounded in 'real' life. 

Well, our daily life isn't always as benign as picking out a few apples.  Its very impermanence drives us inward, seeking to understand and to know, and this is a gift.  All struggles and challenges are really our best friends, because they move us beyond the complacency of everyday comforts to the inner awareness that is the Truth of Being.  This awakening to Self, to the Oneness of God, is our only purpose for being here.  This is the Truth that sets us free.

"Salvation is the recognition that the Truth is true, and nothing else is true.  Truth cannot have an opposite.  As God created you, you remain unchangeable, with transitory states by definition false.  And that includes all shifts in feeling, alterations in conditions of the body and the mind; in all awareness and in all response.  This is the all-inclusiveness which sets the Truth apart from seeming falsehood." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 152

Altered States

"The opportunity of spiritual awakening, enlightenment and Self-realization is that what we call the mind is stilled.  Since we are no longer misidentified with thought as our true identity, then thought [ego] can no longer use us.  The ego [thought] and its push and pull strategies are finished.  Instead, the altered state of consciousness that appears to be ego dissolves, to reveal the pure Awareness that really IS.  The mind then becomes the willing servant of Truth; the Heart of unconditional Love and perfect Peace and Joy." -- Katie Davis

When I read the above quote, it struck me first because she equates thought with ego, which is also what A Course in Miracles teaches.  I also loved it because the term 'altered states' has been so extensively used to describe mystical, spiritual experiences.  But how can you alter what is real and eternal?  The altered states must actually be those that seem to alter Reality, that seem to be separate from the One, that seem to produce thoughts and feelings and experiences that are other than Good, other than God.  Of course!  And the only thing that can think it is separate from Allness is a thought.  The egoic notion of self is simply a thought, an identification with thought and its images (projections) as self.

As a child of the 60's and long-time spiritual dilettante, I was a major worshiper of altered states... of spiritual experiences and the Truth I thought they pointed to.  What a shock to realize I was really worshiping images, like any other image, no more 'spiritual' than any other projection.  I was seeking a concept of awakening, a thought, always another and higher thought.  The seeking of altered states of consciousness is itself the egoic notion of something 'other' or 'better' or 'higher'.  When right here, silently Present and Aware, our Self IS unaltered, infinite Perfection.

It takes a lot of letting go to begin to realize that a projector simply projects images, and that those images are all the same.  The projector and the images are neutral... they're nothing substantial at all.   All images and the thoughts they reflect have one thing in common... they're not really here.  Once we put the projector and its images away, there's nothing here but pure Awareness, the Truth of Being.  And this Perfect Awareness then becomes the Source of any images reflected while we remain as seemingly separate entities.  Because the Source is True, the images reflected become closer and closer to Reality. 

So like children coming in from a day of make-believe, let's lay aside the thinking mind, letting go of all compulsion to seek altered states of consciousness.  Instead, let's simply come in, always inward, and sit in silent contentment with the Love and Perfection that is our true Self.  This inner vigil, this resting in our God-Self... this is the only natural state there is.

"All this can very simply be reduced to this: "What is the same can not be different [can not be altered!], and what is One can not have separate parts." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 25, Section I, 7:6-7

The Awareness of Being One

"All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation." -- Mary Baker Eddy

"Heaven is not a place nor a condition.  It is merely an awareness of perfect Oneness, and the knowledge that there is nothing else; nothing outside this Oneness, and nothing else within." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 18, Section VI, 1:5-6

I love the way Life continually presents us with opportunities to see Truth everywhere.  Truth being, of course, simply another name for Oneness.  Discovering that Good is the Reality of this Oneness, no matter how it appears, is so flipping exciting I have a hard time writing about it coherently.  After all, we've all heard this a million times:  "It's all good," we say hopefully... all the while noticing how not good it appears to be.  

The above quote from ACIM helps... there is nothing outside Oneness, and nothing else within.  How could there be?  So with only the One, there is only, well... the One!  All Good, only Good... in Principle and in manifestation.

The thing is, this all sounds good, but I see riots in Egypt and people going hungry and pets being mistreated, etc., etc., etc.  I see my bills mounting and donations falling short.  I see people judging one another and arguing over things that don't matter.  So how does Oneness even matter, in Principle or in manifestation? 

Again, A Course in Miracles helps to discern the false from the True: "Perception is a mirror, not a fact.  And what I look on is my state of mind reflected outward." (ACIM Workbook 304, 1:3-4)  Obviously, when the mind is unaware of Oneness, it projects duality in person, place, and thing.  The awareness of Oneness is the Principle that reflects the wholeness and perfection that is Reality.  The awareness of Oneness reflects the All-Good in all ways.

I have experienced, and continue to experience, many miracles of healed perception.  Always what occurs is that I have, at least momentarily, accepted the One Mind as All.  This is the healing... and the healed mind reflects wholeness, abundance, and endless Good in all possible forms.  As I mature spiritually, it becomes more and more comforting to rest in the awareness of Being One, which is the miracle for everyone and everything, in every situation.  There is nothing else.  The seemingly hidden Presence of Good awaits only our recognition.

"In all thy ways acknowledge Him [Biblical speak for the One] and He shall direct thy paths." -- Proverbs 3:6

Meaning and Emptiness

Good Sunday morning to you... or whenever you happen to be reading this post.  I know those of you who subscribe via e-mail often receive it the next day.  The good news is that it's all good.  Which brings us to the topic that inspired this post... meaning and emptiness. 

A Course in Miracles tells us that there is nothing the world fears more than meaninglessness.  We fear emptiness so much that we make up stories and meanings to fill every perceived space.  The first few lessons in the ACIM Workbook begin to help us understand how this compulsion works.  "Nothing I see or think means anything.  I've given it all the meaning it has." But first, let's look at the supposed emptiness we fear.

In eastern spiritual traditions, from Buddhism to Taoism to Sufism and Hinduism, emptiness is equated with divinity.  In Hawaiian ho'oponono, zero is equated with the divine.  From a scientific standpoint, when I was in high school they taught that outer space was a vacuum, and that a vacuum tube was one where every bit of air was sucked out of it... so that of course meant that outer space was a void, with nothing alive in it.  Ha!  Now we know that there is a Field, often called Einstein's Field, of scalar energy that is the real content of every bit of space and everything else.  The thing is, scalar energy can't be measured because it doesn't do anything.  It's also called still point or standing wave energy.  It is the apparent source of everything, the Field out of which all that is arises, but it's a... well, it's a zero. 

You can also understand scalar energy from the concept of phase cancellation, an acoustical principle which simply says that two sound waves that are polar opposites cancel each other out when played simultaneously... in other words, both sounds are playing, but nothing is heard.  They are reportedly using this principle to address noise pollution in the Japanese subway system.  Scalar energy then is a more all-embracing understanding of this principle.  Everything in the supposedly 'material' world is energy, or appears to be... and so every energy has a frequency and can be measured.  And every measurable frequency has a polar opposite frequency.  When these two opposites are brought together, the result is zero, stillpoint, or what they call a standing wave.  My understanding of what is really happening is that when opposites are brought together, Reality is briefly glimpsed... the Reality of Spirit behind everything that seems to exist.

Why do we so fear the Truth that everything is really Spirit... not just spiritual, but literally Spirit?  Because we think that makes the material world we continually project meaningless, or evil, or wrong?  It doesn't... it just means we're making believe.  Or is it because, like little children, we don't want our playtime interrupted?  I've learned to notice carefully the perceptual temper tantrums I seem to experience.  They clue me in on what aspect of my own dream I'm using to hide from Reality.

A Course in Miracles tells it like it is:  "It is difficult for the untrained mind to believe that what it seems to picture is not there.  This idea can be quite disturbing and may meet with active resistance in any number of forms.  Yet that does not preclude applying it.  No more than that is required for these or any other exercises.  Each small step will clear a little of the darkness away, and understanding will finally come to lighten every corner of the mind that has been cleared of the debris that darkens it." (ACIM Workbook Lesson 9, 2:1-5)  The debris is always and only our own stories, beliefs, and meanings.  There is nothing else 'darkening' our minds.

One of my grandsons, Tripp Michael, is now three years old.  It's nearly impossible to keep his room clean, because as soon as you put all his leggos, cars and trucks away, he compulsively empties them all out onto the floor again.  He wants them where he can see them, play with them or not, and manipulate them as he sees fit.  More likely than not, he simply ignores them then... but he wants them when he wants them.  I love this, because it's such a mirror for what I do, what we all do mentally, and why true forgiveness is so challenging for us. 

We empty our minds temporarily when we meditate, but we really are just compartmentalizing, like stuffing those leggos in a corner until we want them.  We may go through the motions of giving our perceptions to Holy Spirit to be corrected, but we really just hope for spiritual brownie points as we cling to our ideas about what seems to be going on.  We really are like small children with our own perceptions.  We cling to them as if they were who we are.   They are not.

I began this post by pointing out that it's all good.  I should clarify.  I use goodness not in the sense of a judgment, good or not good.  Good is a synonym for God.  It's all God.  It's all Spirit.  There is nothing else.  The world as we imagine it is actually nothing at all.  And this is what we fear most.

But fear not, for I bring you Good News, tidings of Great Joy (also a synonym for God).  Your imagined sins and your imagined brownie points are all forgiven you (they never happened)... and behind every perception, every meaning, every belief lies the immeasurable Reality, the all-embracing Love that lives us, forever.  Our Reality is safe in this supposed emptiness.  So don't try to fill the emptiness with new or different stories, or seek for meaning in them.  Rest in the Silent Expansiveness of your True Self.  And then let Self lead your life, and give a new meaning to all that seemed to be.

I'm closing this post with a quote from the biblical book of Revelation... not only because it is an often misunderstood quote, but because ACIM defines revelation as the actual experience of God, which is beyond words or meaning.  And so it is.

"And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying; neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.  And He that sat upon the throne said, "Behold, I make all things new." And He said unto me, "Write, for these words are true and faithful." -- The Bible; Revelation 21:4-5

Nothing But My Thoughts

"Father, Your Son is perfect.  When I think that I am hurt in any way, it is because I have forgotten Who I Am, and that I am as You created me.  Your Thoughts can only bring me happiness.  If ever I am sad or hurt or ill, I have forgotten what You think, and put my little meaningless ideas in place of where Your Thoughts belong, and where they are.  I can be hurt by nothing but my thoughts.  The Thoughts I think with You can only bless.  The Thoughts I think with You alone are true." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook Lesson 281

It's all literally made up... nothing but thought-stuff... there is nothing I'm interacting with but my own thoughts.  There's no one to fight with, no one to blame, no one to look up to or to save me.  There's no one who knows more or less, or who has more or less than I do.  Reality is here, now, whole, and complete.  And it's always loving. 

This reminds me of an old Outer Limits episode, where this woman wakes up to her normal world with its normal shapes and forms, with one big exception... there's nobody there but her!  So she spends the entire time freaking out and panicking and trying to find the 'others' that must be 'out there' too.  This is particularly funny when you think about how our egos are always trying to get others to think and be like we want them to.  And they are!  They are! 

Does this mean that we are alone in all the universe?  Does this mean that I am just this isolated ego, imagining and dreaming over and over and over?  No... we live and move and have our being in God, in the One, in the Infinite and All-Good.  It's the dream of isolation and separation that is false, that is a projected misconception in a million different forms. 

In the dream of separation from each other and God, there is nothing real.  But there is Reality... and the one measure of the Real is that it is eternal, unchanging, infinite, boundless, all-embracing Love.  There is no place or time or living thing that is separate, wrong, flawed, lacking, or in need of change or adjustment.  What appears to be so is the false projected as if it were true.

There is only one lie:  that we are separate from the All.  And this is simply an error about who and where we are, a misconception.  And conceptions can be changed, to align more nearly to what is true.  Nothing but my misconceptions, my thoughts, can hurt me.  Nothing but my thoughts of separation and autonomy could project this illusion of a world that God did not create. 

The Thoughts of God remain in the Mind of God.  This is where we are, and where we will always be... One God, One World, One Beloved Self, perfect and holy and forever.

Blessing or Curse?

"The mind can think it sleeps, but that is all.  It cannot change what is its waking state.  It cannot make a body, nor abide within a body.  What is alien to the mind does not exist, because it has no source.  For mind creates all things that are, and cannot give them attributes it lacks, nor change its own eternal, mindful state.  It cannot make the physical.  What seems to die is but the sign of mind asleep." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 167, 6:1-7

I've been reflecting on what I seem to be seeing and hearing from people around me... stories of struggle with what is really happening or what is really true, with spiritual paths, with physical symptoms, with sticky relationship problems.  I know that all of it is my perception, and that nothing is as it appears.  And so I forgive and release these projections to Holy Spirit (which is another name for my True Self), ask for healed perception, and accept the healing of Atonement.  And as I do, I'm led to reflect on the blessing (or curse?) of this.  To the world around me, including clients, family and most friends, this non-dual view of the world would seem a curse... because I am no longer apparently in alignment with any popular thought-system in the world, including much of religious thought.  They might ask how I could possibly see such an (apparently) aberrant world-view as anything but a curse.

Upon reflection, I find it extraordinary that the Truth is aberrant to people.  We would rather see a world of opposites, with mysterious bad things happening without a source.  We would rather believe that bad stuff really does happen, and then try to forgive it even while we think it's real.  Do we think God creates bad things and punishes us?  Or do we think we somehow usurped the power of God and created it ourselves?!  Do we think all this crap is really happening?  And if it is really happening, what allegiance do we owe to a divine Parent who would treat us this way, or even allow it to exist as creator of all?  If it were an earthly parent, we would report them for child abuse.  But friends, God is the All-Good.  God is the Source of All, and All is Love and Light and Truth.  Where would the darkness or the mistakes come from?  What would be their source? 

"There are not different kinds of life, for life is like the Truth.  It does not have degrees.  It is the one condition in which all that God created share.  Like all His Thoughts, it has no opposite.  There is no death because what God created shares His life.  There is no death because an opposite to God does not exist.  There is no death because the Father and the Son are one." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 167, 1:1-7

There is no opposite to God... there cannot be God and anything.  Why would we not find this Truth comforting?  Why do we prefer a dream of opposition to God, of illusory suffering and death, of struggle and lack and limitation?  In India they call this compulsive dream 'samsara', which roughly translates to the wheel of suffering.  The wheel turns, the characters and situations seem to change, but the stories are all the same.  And every awakened soul who has walked this dream has come to tell us that it's our dream, and it's up to us to snap out of it.  With such good news, wouldn't we rather be happy than right?

A Course in Miracles offers simple yet elegant tools to awaken from the dream.  But we have to be willing to shed our fixation with the world as real.  It is not.  Often I awaken from my night time dreams to hear the Voice reassuring me that these dreams are just like my daytime dreams, and all of them are easily released and transformed.  This has been my experience.  There is no order of difficulty in miracles because only God is real, and nothing else is at all.  There is no hierarchy of illusions, and there are no steps to take to awaken.  Mind is asleep and believing its own dreams or it is awake in God.  And only one of these seeming choices really exists at all. 

While we dream, forgiveness and Atonement allow our dreaming perceptions to be healed and released, day by day.  More and more we walk through our life as one awakening from a deep sleep, where the dreams make no sense at all.  There is no real curse to be found, anywhere.  There is only our true Self in God, and endless blessing. 

"Let us today be children of the Truth, and not deny our holy heritage.  Our life is not as we imagine it." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 167, 10:1-2

God's Will

First I want to let my readers know that I have a CD for sale, with proceeds going to The Claire Foundation Animal Sanctuary.  All the hymns on it are Acappella, and recorded live at St. Vincent's-in-the-Vineyard.  You can hear cuts from it on my YouTube channel.  Thanks for supporting the animals!  And FYI, you can download individual mp3s for only $1.99 each.

Now for the quote that inspired today's blog:
"God's Will is One, not many.  It has no opposition, for there is none beside it." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 19, IV, 3:5-6

It's hard to find a phrase that instills such varied reactions as 'God's Will.'  For many of us, it conjures pious, judgmental comments made after natural disasters or sudden deaths.  For almost everyone it raises a sense of unease and fear... because hey, who the heck knows what God's Will for us is?  It could be bad, it could be something punitive so we can 'learn our lessons.'  Isn't that how most human parents operate?  Don't we unconsciously model our ideas of God after our human notions of authority?

So this quote can be hard to take in.  We may hear it, but gloss over it.  God's Will is ONE, not many.  IT HAS NO OPPOSITION, because there isn't anything else.  Only God.  We live and move and have our being IN THIS ONENESS.  So logically there isn't my will and then God's Will imposed on me from without.  There is only God, only God's Will, appearing AS me, and AS you.  That we have convinced ourselves and each other that we are separate bodies and lives is irrelevant, because it's not true. 

This reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from the movie "The Matrix."  A little psychic boy is bending spoons with his mind, and offers Keanu Reeves' character the chance to try it.  He isn't having much luck, and the little boy simply says, "Don't try and bend the spoon.  Know that there is no spoon."  And then of course, the spoon bends.

Joel Goldsmith told a similar story.  He was traveling and arrived at his destination only to hear that his luggage had been lost.  He spent the next couple of days practicing scientific prayer, knowing that what belonged to him could never be lost, etc.  But his luggage did not show up.  Finally in meditation the answer came to him... there was no lost luggage!  There are no opposites or oppositions in all God's Kingdom, there is only God!  Of course, his luggage then 'showed up' unexpectedly.

Jesus taught us this Truth when he said, "Seek ye first the Kingdom (the Oneness of God) and all else will be added unto you."  We just have it upside down and backwards, thinking that cause and effect lie within the world, in our actions and reactions, or even in our thoughts.  If there is no Will but God's, it also holds that there are no real Thoughts but God's.  Everything else is the dreaming of the mind that imagines itself to be separate.  And no matter what we imagine in our dreaming, we remain safe in God, eternally.

There is great peace in this awareness.  "Peace has replaced the strange idea that you are torn by conflicting goals.  As an expression of the Will of God, you have no goal but His." (ACIM; Workbook 74, 1:5-6)  We don't have to struggle humanly to figure it all out.  God's Will is always Love, Goodness, Happiness, Peace, Abundance, Joy, and endless Life.  And as we trust God with each holy instant of our lives, we are led by Grace. 

"He leadeth me in paths of righteousness, for His Name's sake." -- Psalm 23

"Today I will recognize that all this has not occurred.  I am safe because there is no will but God's." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 87, 3:5-6

See and Be Radiant

"Then you shall see and be radiant; your heart shall thrill and rejoice, because the abundance of the sea shall be brought to you, and the wealth of the nations shall come to you." -- The Bible; Isaiah 60:5

"Miracles are seen in Light.  It is important to remember that miracles and vision necessarily go together.  The miracle is always here.  Its presence is not caused by your vision; its absence is not the result of your failure to see.  It is only your awareness of miracles that is affected.  You will see them in the Light; you will not see them in the dark." -- A Course in Miracles; WB 91:1:1, 4-7

I had a really bad dream the other night.  It was so real, and so scary, and I felt so awful when I woke up.  I was so discouraged that I could hardly drag myself out of bed.  When I took a few moments to go within and examine my feelings, I realized that my emotional reaction was based on old (unsubstantiated) judgements that it was wrong to have such bad dreams... that I caused them somehow by not being spiritual enough, by not keeping my mind and heart stayed on God enough.  In other words, if I was good enough, my dreams would be good.  Isn't that the basis of all 'positive' thinking, too?  And of all the endless attempts to manipulate the dream, to make it better, to 'attract' something we think we want?  This all takes place in the dream.  It's all made up!

I finally noticed that I was making the dream something.  I was giving it a reality and meaning in my mind.  And it wasn't even really there!  All of that reaction and emotional turmoil over fiction!  Just like the first time I saw ET with my children, years ago when they were still little.  My daughter Joan and I couldn't stop crying after it was over... the pain of that image of being separated from what we love was overwhelming.  But it wasn't even really happening!  All of that suffering over fiction!

There's a pattern here that you may recognize.  We dream our dreams, both at night and in our daytime projections... and then we judge and categorize and attribute qualities to this nothingness.  We may be temporarily pleased or we may temporarily suffer, but either way we live as if these dreams are life.  And they are actually not... they are nothing, zero, like the dreams we have at night.  And we dream endlessly... because we cannot see the Truth, and the miracles that symbolize the Truth in the dream, without Light.  We are dreaming in the darkness of conditioned mind, the imagined mind of the mortal self who thinks it is weak and vulnerable and transient.  And all the while, in the darkness of conditioned, reactive mind, we suffer over fiction! 

God, our True Self, is All-in-All, and All Good, All Power, All Love, All Life.  No bad dream has ever changed the Reality of this Truth.  The miracle, the vision of Truth reflected in the dream, awaits our Light.  It is the Light of our own Awareness we bring... the forgiveness of the dream (it's a fiction!) and the acceptance that we are the Light of God here in the dream.  As we shine our awareness on the world, awake and aware of what is true, the miracle of the happy dream, which reflects the Goodness and Love of God, is revealed.  Then we really shall see and be radiant! 

"What you think you are is a belief to be undone.  What you really are must be revealed." -- A Course in Miracles; WB 91:6:7-8

Changing Thoughts

"Think of this awhile: The world you see does nothing.  It has no effects at all.  It merely represents your thoughts.  And it will change entirely as you elect to change your mind, and choose the joy of God as what you really want." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook Lesson 190, 6:1-4

One of my teachers once said, "Thought is always moving."  We have the illusion of sameness from one day to the next, but there is no such thing as a day when our thoughts are identical.  They are always moving, like a kaleidoscope.  And this analogy is especially apt, since the restless, changing, often nonsensical pattern of our thoughts projects the world we think we see.  Things pop up and come and go, in seemingly random patterns.  But make no mistake: It is our own projection, the mirror of our own thoughts and nothing else.

So the hard truth that none of us really want to see is that we are never at the mercy of a changing world.  We live in our own projections, reacting to our own judgments and stories.  The world we think we see is made of images reflecting our own changing thoughts.

"It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain.  Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way.  There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression.  No one but yourself affects you.  There is nothing in the world that has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail.  But it is you who have the power to dominate all things you see by merely recognizing What You Are.  And as you perceive the harmlessness in them, they will accept your holy Will as theirs.  And what was seen as fearful now becomes a source of innocence and holiness." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook Lesson 190, 5:1-8

How do we recognize Who and What we are?  By letting go of the insistence that we know who we are.  We think we know where we were born, who our parents were, and where we were educated.  We think we know what we like and what we don't like.  And we think these judgments and the thoughts associated with them mean something.  We think these things point to who we are.  In reality, they point to the kaleidoscope of action and reaction of thought that passes for life, and that projects the world as we have known it. 

If we are still just a moment... if we're willing to not know for just an instant... if we're willing to allow that who and what we are must be natural, must be effortlessly already here, that it doesn't need to be judged or explained or defined or maintained... in the stillness of an instant, the Truth dawns.  The changing thoughts that project the world are stilled, and in the unconditioned awareness of the holy instant, we recognize our true Self.  This Self has never been lost, has always been.  Our constantly changing thoughts and projections have simply obscured our awareness for a time. 

"Be glad today how very easily is hell undone.  You who perceive yourself as weak and frail, with futile hopes and devastated dreams, born but to die, to weep and suffer pain, hear this: All power is given unto you in earth and Heaven.  There is nothing that you cannot do.  You play the game of death, of being helpless, pitifully tied to dissolution in a world which shows no mercy to you.  Yet when you accord it mercy, will its mercy shine on you.  Then let the Son of God awaken from his sleep, and opening his holy eyes, return again to bless the world he made.  In error it began, but it will end in the reflection of his holiness." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook Lesson 191, 7:1 & 9:1-4

The Two Selves

In working with clients and with prayer requests (and with my own life) I have observed a persistent phenomenon that I will call the two selves.  This seems to be the delusion that all who walk the earth share.  We believe (and have a lot of sensory evidence to validate this belief) that we are human, weak, lacking, and subject to suffering.  At the same time, we believe we have infinite potential, that we are created in the image of the Divine.  So we all have a kind of split personality... there's the imaginary historical self that thinks we're a product of heredity and hierarchy and environment, that sees flaws in ourselves and every other living thing, that judges, criticizes, and condemns.  And there's the quiet true Self that loves and blesses, that takes joy in life, that gives of itself naturally and freely, that knows wholeness and freedom and love are all words for the same thing.

If you were suffering from multiple personalities, a good therapist would find a way to help you become unified again... because a house divided against itself cannot stand.  So spiritually, our task in healing and awakening is always a return to unified consciousness, to Oneness.  This is enlightenment... the realization that we are not two selves. 

To say we're created in the image of God is to perpetuate this split.  To say that we're a shadow, an image, a mere potential, is to put our becoming into the future, into perpetual process.  And where's the peace in that?  Where is the being?  If we are endlessly processing and becoming, we must still be incomplete, lacking in some way, still subject to suffering and failure.  This is the set-up we're born into.  It's a lose/lose proposition, and always has been.

There is good news.  We are not created in the image of a god... a mere shadowy image of some nebulous force that all are subject to.  We are living and moving and having our being in God, reflecting God, and nothing else.  Not a nebulous force that bosses us around, but the very Ground of our Being, and Source and Substance of Self.  There isn't anything but God. 

And what is God, my skeptical readers will ask?  GOD IS AN IDEA we share about the Source of all that is.  We can have false thoughts about this Source, but Source ItSelf can't be false.  We can have incorrect understanding of multiplication.  We might think that we can multiply ten thousand times a zero and still have ten thousand.  But the principle, the idea of multiplying anything with zero remains the same... it's always zero, no matter how you try to make it something else.  And anything multiplied by one always remains the same, remains itself.  Ideas are principles, and they are unchanging and true.  Thoughts are stories about ideas, they involve judgment, and can often be false, or at least only relative (two-sided, not unified).

Webster defines idea as "a transcendent entity that is a real pattern, of which existing things are imperfect representations."  Thought is defined as "the action or process of thinking, or something that is thought."  So we can say, as did Mary Baker Eddy, that GOD IS PRINCIPLE... the Idea that is the Ground of All Being, in Truth and in Love.  A Course in Miracles tells us that "God is Idea" and "Ideas leave not their Source." When we allow this transcendent Idea to take root, we realize that we cannot and have never left our Source.  We remain rooted and grounded in God.  And then our thoughts, our judgments and stories about the world begin to reflect the Truth of Being, rather than the weak and imperfect (and insubstantial!) image of self our stories have perpetuated up until now.   

We are not two selves.  This is the root of all our struggles.  No matter how we attempt to prove that our weak and human image of self is real, it's still multiplying by zero.  So take some time listen to the Real, the True, the God-Self that we all share.  It is very quiet, because It doesn't need to defend ItSelf, being wholly true and forever our Reality.  Thank God!

Real Freedom

"Think of the freedom in the recognition that you are not bound by all the strange and twisted laws you have set up to save you.  There are no laws except the laws of God.  This needs repeating, over and over, until you realize it applies to everything.  There is no loss under the laws of God.  Payment is neither given nor received.  Exchange cannot be made; there are no substitutes; and nothing is replaced by something else.  God's laws forever give and never take.  Hear Him Who tells you this, and realize how foolish are the 'laws' you thought upheld the world you thought you saw." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook Lesson 76, 3:1, 6:1-2, 9:3-6, 10:1

How did your day begin today?  Is your mind clear and clean of all thoughts of what has been or what will be?  Is your mind free?  The realization that none of our man made laws or rules has any real effect or hold on us is the beginning of real freedom.

Jesus walked the earth with this liberated awareness.  He didn't always wash his hands before he ate.  He healed on the Sabbath, to the horror of the other rabbis.  He hung out with people who were social and political outcasts.  He precipitated food and coin and wine out of thin air when needed, seemingly from out of nowhere.  He didn't work for a living, and told his disciples that to follow him meant "the son of man has nowhere to lay his head."  He didn't need to own anything, because he knew that the Allness of God is omnipresent.  He knew that God's laws forever give, and never take.  He knew that in the awareness of Allness, whatever is needed is already present.

Questions arise for us:  "How can I be expected to live like this?  I have to be practical, don't I?  It's not freedom to live in fear of what tomorrow will bring, is it?"  The Voice of Christ speaks quietly but firmly in answer to our fears: "Peace, be still.  Beloved, I am with you always, and all that I have is thine.  Not some, but ALL that I have, infinitely and forever, unchanging and always."

Each of us must face these conditioned fears of lack and loss in our own lives, in our individual circumstances.  Some might look bigger or scarier than others... some might seem inconsequential in the scheme of things.  But don't be fooled.  There is no hierarchy of illusions, and there are no projected beliefs that are more or less important than any others, or any more or less true or real.  They are all made up, learned, conditioned... all mental constructs without any substance.  We may live and move in the world as if they were true, but when we remember God and our true life in God, we remember the infinite freedom in which we live and move and have our being.  We are always safe, always fulfilled, and always home.  Where else would we be, since God is All? 

Every day my prayer is to return to the Truth of Being... that there is only God, and God is All and only Good. That God is Love, and only Love.  My prayer is for a deeper awareness of what the omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence of Spirit IS... and for a deeper knowing of the nothingness of all our projected fears and lacks and limitations that make up the so-called laws of the projected world... an illusory world of thought-forms, dreams and imagination without substance.  In Reality there is nothing but God, and we live and move and have our Being in God's Oneness.  What does that make us?

"Here is the perfect statement of my freedom.  I am under no laws but God's.  I am constantly tempted to make up other laws and give them power over me.  I suffer only because of my belief in them.  They have no real effect on me at all.  I am perfectly free of the effects of all laws save God's.  And His are the laws of Love and Freedom." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook Lesson 88, 3:2-8

See No Evil

"See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil." -- 17th Century Japanese Proverb

Sometimes the oddest things inspire me.  This proverb, which comes from a carving above the door of the Tosho-gu Shrine in Nikko, Japan, has been a part of our culture as long as I can remember.  It's one of those things that everybody says, but nobody actually does.  There was a hilarious movie (See No Evil, Hear No Evil with Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder) that played on that very thing.  Part of their promo line was, "The blind guy couldn't see it.  The deaf guy couldn't hear it."  Obviously when you're blind, you have no choice but to see no evil... or anything else.

But of course this proverb refers to a deeper meaning, one that is embedded in collective consciousness, even though we choose to ignore it.  There is no real evil.  There is only an upside-down projection, and our reaction to those projections (after all, the word 'evil' is the word 'live' spelled backwards!).  Action (projection) and reaction to our own projections maintains the momentum, and is the karmic wheel of suffering referred to in eastern philosophy.  

Another way to put it is in terms of quantum physics.  There is nothing there until we look at it.  It is only energy, waves of energy, until we look and project that something is there.  This is called the complementary principle, and says that it is the observer that creates the appearance (particles) upon observation (projection).  Until then, everything remains pure potential, pure unconditioned energy.

Jeshua ben Joseph, whose birth we're celebrating at this time of year, said it this way: "Resist not evil." (Matthew 5:39)  And later in the Bible we're told to "Overcome evil with Good." (Romans 12:21) You could paraphrase this to say, you can't fight evil by seeing it (that is what gives it the illusion of reality!)... but you can dissolve the reality of illusion by knowing this Truth and seeing only the Good, which is another name for God. 

I found this passage in the writings of Mary Baker Eddy: "We must learn that evil is the awful deception and unreality of existence.  Good is not helpless; nor are the so-called laws of matter primary, and the law of Spirit Secondary.  There is but One primal cause [GOD, Who is All-Good].  Therefore there can be no effect from any other cause, and there can be no reality in aught which does not proceed from this great and only Cause.  The spiritual Reality is the scientific fact in all things." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 207, Lines 9, 20, and 27

The scientific fact in all things is Spiritual Reality.  Quantum physics couches it in different terms, but says the same thing.  It really is the scientific reality... and spiritual wisdom has been telling us this in all cultures and all languages for all of recorded history.  This everyday proverb is a good example. 

But how?  How do we do this?  Well, how do you see anything differently?  You can change your mind about a person, so that one who was previously someone you liked or even loved, you now find offensive, or vice versa.  What changed?  Your mind.  Who changed it?  You did.  You can change your mind about most anything, and do on a daily basis.  The problem is not the ability to change how we see things.  It's what we're basing those choices on.

We are constantly looking 'out there' for reasons and validity, not remembering that it's our projection in the first place... we're reacting to our own mental constructs, not reality.  These 'false gods' give us the illusion of not being responsible... but at what price?  If we base our changing mind on trying to manipulate or change something 'out there', we're basing our choices on phantoms, on illusions, the false gods and idols of the world we've projected  by our split mind.  However, if we first understand the Truth of Being, that we live and move and have our being in the Allness and Oneness of God, of All-Good, then that's all we can project and see.  We begin to take responsibility for sight, and understand the Biblical injunction to "Choose this day whom you shall serve."

A Course in Miracles happily reminds us, "The images you make cannot prevail against what God Himself would have you be.  Be never fearful of temptation [evil] then, but see it as it is; another chance to choose again." (ACIM Chapter 31, Section VIII, 4:1-2)  And again, "You are as God created you, and so is every living thing you look upon, regardless of the images you see." (ACIM Chapter 31, Section VIII, 6:1)  We have a choice about what we project and therefore see in this world... but no choice in Reality.  Our Reality is safe in God.  To see no evil in this world is the result of remembering that Truth. 

"Nothing inharmonious can enter being, for Life IS God." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 228, Line 5

"Learn then, the happy habit of response to all temptation to perceive yourself as weak and miserable with these words:  I am as God created me.  His Son can suffer nothing.  And I am His Son." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 31, Section VIII, 5:1-4

All We Could Ever Want

"No call to God can be unheard nor left unanswered.  And of this I can be sure; His answer is the one I really want." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook Lesson 358

There are calls and answers bombarding us every day.  At work, at home, at church, and even on the internet we are called on to help, to assist, to serve.  At home, at work, at church, and through our internet connections, we also call on others to help, to assist, and to serve.  But calling out to God is not like this.  We think God should respond like a 'good' human.  And we humanly act like we expect God to help, to assist, or to serve us in our need as we see it. 

How could this be possible?  Our God-Self knows that the projections we see are phantoms... they are all made up.  Our real need is to awaken from the grip of our own delusions.  Jesus knew this, and in his compassion told us quite plainly that "God is no respecter of persons, for he makes His sun to shine on the evil and the good."  In other words, the sun shines... that's what it does, without judgment as to who or what it shines on and through.  The sun gives life by being what it is.  God IS... Being IS... Awareness IS... that's what it IS and what it does, without judgment or interference.  God IS life and love and goodness itself, and by Being in God, we too have all life and love and goodness.  It's only the cloud projections of our own thought-forms, our own stories, which hide this from our awareness. 

What then, does our quote mean when it reassures us that "No call to God can be unheard or unanswered?"  To really understand this, to really glimpse it, is freedom.

In many, many posts here on this blog we've repeated the Truth that sets us free... we are created in the image of God... perfect, whole, and completely spiritual, as God is Spirit.  The Truth that answers us when we call can only answer spiritually and always and only reminds us of the Truth... that we are perfect, whole, and holy... perfect reflections of the Love of God.  That any imagined need is met in this knowing.  That imagined needs arise out of forgetting Who We Are.  The Grace and Love of God, our true Source and Ground of Being, is truly our sufficiency in all things.

Which brings us to the second part of the above quote... that "of this I can be sure; His answer is the one I really want."  We can always be sure that the remembrance of the Truth of Being, of our eternal perfection and goodness and love, is all we ever really wanted, and all we could ever want.  

"God hides nothing from His Son, even though His Son would hide himself.  You will never lose your way, for God leads you.  When you wander, you but undertake a journey that is not real." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 11, Section III, 5:1, 3-4    

One Forever

"The separation [from God] is merely a faulty formulation of reality, with no effect at all. This is the miracle of creation; that it is One forever. Every miracle you offer to the Son of God is but the true perception of one aspect of the whole. Though every aspect is the whole, you cannot know this until you see that every aspect is the same, perceived in the same light and therefore One." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 13, Section VIII, 3:5 & 5:1-3

"Man is tributary to God, Spirit, and to nothing else. God's Being is infinity, freedom, harmony, and boundless bliss." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 481, Lines 2-4

The thought that anything unlike God, unlike Good, unlike Love, is simply an aberrant formulation of reality... this seems unlikely, an unrealistic and idealistic philosophy at best. Our practical, worldly selves base our judgements on experience and the views of other wiser people and their experience. We base our judgements on numbers, too... we love statistics as 'evidence.' What we don't take into account is that numbers are neutral... they are simply another mental construct to attempt to quantify reality. And they are only 'evidence' for what we already believe to be true. This is why statistics are used to justify both sides of pretty much every issue at one time or another. What we fail to realize is that Reality, what is True, cannot be quantified. What is One cannot be divided, cannot be compared, cannot be opposed. It is One forever.

We think that we experience what is already manifest. So we're always trying to judge and quantify the manifest world. But A Course in Miracles reminds us, "What I experience I will make manifest." The world that appears to be outside is simply the reflection of our own consciousness, our own inner experience. It is the fragmented perception of the Son of God, where what is One appears to be many... where what is forever whole and harmonious and loving appears to be divided and at war with itself.

Our Reality is One forever. We are collectively One Self, and reflect One Being which we call God. We are emanations, reflections of all that is Good. We can have no qualities but those of our Source. And so we come to question the 'rational' self, with its hidden agendas and skewed perceptions... and all it takes is a truly questioning mind to begin to glimpse Reality. Self-inquiry is the key to moving beyond the false perceptions of the human mind. Self-inquiry makes it possible for us to forgive, to really let our false perceptions go, and welcome the miracle of true perception in every circumstance, with every person.

Our Reality is One forever. But we can't know that until we see that every single aspect, every single person, every single situation as the same. The miracle of forgiveness returns our healed perception to this sameness... the awareness that God is All-Inclusive, and Everywhere. There is nothing else.

"You cannot enter into real relationships with any of God's Sons unless you love them all and equally. Love is not special. You can only love as God loves." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 13, Section X, 11:1-2 & 4