Begin Again

"Routines as such are dangerous, because they easily becom gods in their own right, threatening the very goals for which they were set up.  Broadly speaking it can be said that it is well to start the day right [i.e., giving the day to God].  But it is ALWAYS possible to begin again, should the day begin with error." [emphasis mine] -- A Course in Miracles; Manual for Teachers 16, 2:5-7

We're pretty hard on ourselves.  We set unrealistic expectations for our bodies and our minds, all of which are based on goals and actions out there, with the world as we imagine it.  The problem is, they're unrealistic because they're not true, not because we didn't do it right.  Even the goals and actions we seem to acheive or approve of will disappoint sooner or later, because they're based on the false gods referenced in the above quote... earthly rituals to the gods of diet, relationships, pleasure, or finance.  But we can begin again.  Any instant. 

One way we remain in bondage to egoic pursuit is the lie that it's not possible to begin again, so we might as well make the best of what we've got.  We'd better make this body work well, because we won't get another one.  We'd better subsume ourselves to this dysfunctional relationship or we'll be alone.  We'd better be frugal and only spend on necessities for ourselves, because the economy shows no mercy.  It's every man (or woman) for themselves.

How might this perspective soften and change if we felt innocent?  If we knew that every holy instant we are born anew?  If we really stopped for an instant... really allowed the Real to shine from everyone and everything?  If we stopped writing the script of unrealistic and false expectations?  All we're giving up is the illusion of protecting illusions about ourselves and the world we think we see.

I've come to realize that the only task I have before me every day, no matter what it looks like, is to let go of everything I think I know, to let the Real shine through every appearance.  In the words of Mary Baker Eddy: "... depart from the material sense, into the spiritual sense of Being."  A Course in Miracles calls this process 'forgiveness', the shedding of the false self.  What does that mean?  It means letting go of the evidence of the thinking mind, the evidence of the physical senses, and being fully present and aware NOW.  In the midst of that awareness is our true knowing, our Spiritual Self.  Everything that seems to be happening out there is actually a play of consciousness within the One Mind, the Self, the Allness of what we sometimes call God.  Fully present awareness, without condition, is key.

So we begin again, every holy instant, by forgiving, by releasing, by letting go of every routine and conditioned response, every bit of sensory data.  What remains is pure Awareness, and the Grace of our true Self. 

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

Self to Self

Wow, it's been nearly a month since I posted last.  I have had many inspired thoughts, but no inspiration to write about it.  This morning I read a great quote from Margaret Laird that expresses this perfectly: "There was a time I believed that I read or listened to others to find out what others thought.  Now I know I read and listen to another's speaking to discover what I am [the I AM] thinking.  We cannot expect to find Truth outside of our own awareness."  This past month, I spent a lot of time looking inward, listening to the Voice of I Am, and inquiring deeper into the appearance of things.  It's been fruitful, though challenging.

The challenge is the deeper recognition that duality in all its forms is only appearance, and that appearance is always and only my own conceptualization of what appears.  Mary Baker Eddy said, "Can you see an enemy, except you first formulate this enemy and then look upon the object of your own conception?"  Without those concepts, duality (subject and object consciousness) dissolves or resolves (words are inadequate here) into Truth, which is experienced as Oneness, a unity, a whole, with no opposites or contraries or negations. 

This going deeper involves seeing that everything we perceive in the phenomenal world is a duality:  I perceive goodness, but it is my concept of goodness, which is based on the opposite of what I perceive as badness.  I perceive supply, or income, but it is my concept of income, based on the opposite of what I conceive as lack or poverty.  I perceive kindness, but it is my concept of kindness, based on what I conceive of as unkind or hateful or spiteful.  I'm really just wandering around in a world of concepts, rather than experiencing Goodness, Supply, or Kindness (Love), which are a unity without opposite because they are All-Inclusive.  We can't conceive of Oneness.  But we can become Aware of It, since It is the Truth of everyone and everything. 

A Course in Miracles puts it this way: "When you decide upon the form of what you want, you lose the understanding of its purpose.  Wholeness has no form because it is unlimited."  In duality thinking (which is all thinking), what we lose is the Awareness of Wholeness.  And as we gradually glimpse the deeper meaning of the oft-misunderstood Biblical statement: "Take no thought," we become explorers of this dawning Awareness, which includes everything but is not defined by any of it.  It heals and blesses, but not for any reason we could give conceptually.  It simply IS the Reality of All.

How do you write about this?  How do you speak of It?  Which is why I haven't been inspired to write much over the past month.  And then I read Margaret Laird this morning, as she explained that the only reason anyone writes is to know their own mind.  So I'm writing this morning, to clarify for myself this deepening Awareness of Self.

To paraphrase Margaret Laird again, the individual living Self-consciously as Mind (Unconditioned Awareness, Oneness... concepts fail here) evolves an apparent ego-image never afraid for itself, never taking thought for itself as 'I', as well as a physical body that is self-restoring as long as it is apparently needed.  The ego-image which evolves from this Awareness (that the only 'I' is the Mind of Unconditioned Awareness, our very Self) never reacts to concepts and situations, but always acts with intelligence.  It has no power to save itself, fix itself up, or transcend itself.  The Mind (the Unconditioned Awareness of 'I' that is Self) is its existence and its power for constant newness and freshness.  In this Light everything takes on the loveliness of perfection, beyond all concepts.

Of course, all of this exercise in giving voice to the unspeakable is just a smokescreen... the inclusive Reality is that only the 'I' is writing and reading this, and only the 'I' knows its Self.  There's only One.

"The world can teach no images of you unless you want to learn them.  There will come a time when images have all gone by... It is to this unsealed and open mind that Truth returns, unhindered and unbound.  Where concepts of the self have been laid by is Truth revealed exactly as it is." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 31, Section V, 17:1-4

Decisions, Decisions

In this so-called life, decisions make up every minute of every day.  Even my youngest grandson is choosing his state of mind minute by minute, second by second.  I can see the impulses arise and cross his little three-month-old face like clouds.  I can see the second he decides to smile instead of cry.  I can see him struggle to give voice (and I mean voice) to his discomfort.  Little Kai Joseph is just like us... choosing to react to external forms, or to interact with the Love that is in him and all around him, always.

We're not talking about will-power here.  That's the mistaken belief that we can exert control over our bodies and other forms in the external world.  As Mary Baker Eddy put it, "Will power is a product of belief... and is not a faculty of Soul.  Hence it cannot govern man aright."  And A Course in Miracles says it very simply: "There is no Will but God's."

So what are all the decisions we make every day?  We have to first remember that all decisions are of the mind, and have nothing to do with form.  My grandson's decisions may reflect in his face, but it's all in his mind.  Similarly, our minute-by-minute decisions are mental processes.  The illusion of a world arises from these mental projections.  "Perception is a mirror, not a fact.  And what I look on is my state of mind, reflected outward." (A Course in Miracles; Workbook 304, 1:3-4)

Decisions, decisions... how can we make decisions, then, if we're not in our right mind... if we think we've made a will other than God's?  Again, A Course in Miracles gives us a way out: "Let us today be truly humble, and accept what we have made as what it is.  The power of decision is our own.  Decide but to accept your rightful place as co-creator of the universe, and all you think you made will disappear.  What rises to awareness then will be all that there ever was, eternally as it is now.  And it will take the place of self-deceptions made but to usurp the altar to the Father and the Son." (A Course in Miracles; Workbook 152, 8:1-5)

Decisions are continuous, and we are always looking at only two choices, two mental states.  Our True Self, the Son of God Who is Peace and Love and Life and Reality... or an illusion of a separate self, which projects as fear and lack and limitation and death.  We know which we're choosing by our state of mind. 

"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.  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 191, 9:1-2 & 10:1-2

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!

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

Repeat the Sounding Joy!

"Metaphysics is above physics, and matter does not enter into metaphysical premises or conclusions.  The categories of metaphysics rest on one basis, the Divine Mind.  Metaphysics resolves things into thoughts, and exchanges the objects of sense for the ideas of Soul." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 269, Lines 11-15

"There is one thought in particular that should be remembered throughout the day.  It is a thought of pure joy; a thought of peace, a thought of limitless release, limitless because all things are freed within it." -- A Course in Miracles; Manual for Teachers 16.6:1-2

Joy to the World!  It's the time of year that we hear that phrase (and the word joy) a lot.  To most people, though, it seems like just a word.  Ask yourself, what is joy?  Don't most of us think about personal gratification, about getting something we want?  We think of enjoyment, good consumers that we are.  But joy is a metaphysical reality, and has nothing to do with physical enjoyment or gratification.  Joy is pure BEING... or to quote Paramahansa Yogananda, "God is ever-new Joy."  So Joy is an attribute of God, and of our Being as we reflect our Source.

I lost a beloved canine companion this week... Claire, my soul-friend for nearly 15 years (http://www.clairefoundation.ws/).  As her transition drew near, the cats and other dogs would check on her frequently, and lay quietly nearby.  I noticed that the sadness I felt at seeming to lose her was transformed shortly before she passed.  The very air felt lighter and freer.  The Divine Idea that Claire IS had expanded and was free... and I could FEEL the joy she felt, that she feels.  The Christmas Carol sings: "While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains repeat the sounding joy, repeat the sounding joy, repeat, repeat the sounding joy!"  That's what it felt like... that all of creation was a little lighter, a little brighter, through her passing.  The joy of remembering Who We Are... and the Christ is born again.

Thank God for all of creation, to remind us... the rocks and hills and plains, the animals, and each other... repeat the sounding Joy! 

"God's Will for you is perfect happiness, because there is no sin, and suffering is causeless.  Joy is just, and pain is but the sign you have misunderstood yourself." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 101, 6:1-2

Inclusive Vision

"There is no place for hell within a world whose loveliness can yet be so intense and so inclusive it is but a step from there to Heaven. To your tired eyes I bring a vision of a different world, so new and clean and fresh you will forget the pain and sorrow that you saw before." -- A Course in Miracles; T31, VIII. 8:3-4

"Truth is not fragmentary, disconnected, unsystematic, but concentrated and immovably fixed in Principle. The best spiritual type of Christly method for uplifting human thought and imparting divine Truth, is stationary power, stillness, and strength; and when this spiritual ideal is made our own, it becomes the model for human action." -- Retrospection and Introspection by Mary Baker Eddy; p.93, lines 11-16

I love that the words 'intense' and 'inclusive' are used in the same sentence, in the above quote from ACIM. It is no easy task to return our minds to inclusive thinking. It requires focus and willing discipline... the willingness to surrender our fragmented , selfish ideas to the inclusive vision of our High Self, the Holy Spirit. It requires the focus to notice when we're not doing that. It requires the willingness to Awaken.

All of this is done in consciousness. Notice Mary Baker Eddy points out that lifting our thought in this way is done through stillness and strength, through stationary power. It's never about the outer, which is only the image-making projection of what lies in consciousness. What appears without is projected, and therefore illusory. As Mrs Eddy says in her scientific statement of being: "There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all." (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; p. 468, lines 9-10)

I was reminded of this in a very dear way by a friend. I was in the process of sending out a letter about some business matter. My friend commented that by sending out the letter in this way, I am in effect acknowledging that I see it happening to me, taking place 'out there,' and that I somehow need something else to happen 'out there.' She suggested that I write a letter in consciousness, thanking the recipients for having already met the requirements... in effect, forgiving their debts... and for the opportunities and income that have resulted for so many. All of this taking place in consciousness. Not out there. The letter will never be sent. Its purpose is not to get anything to happen 'out there.' There is no 'out there!' The purpose of the letter is to return my mind to Wholeness, to the realization, in stillness and stationary strength, that it is all taking place in consciousness, where every imagined problem, separation, or need is seen to be nothing. Whose consciousness? My dream is occurring here in my mind... and in the stillness I remember that there is only One Mind. I can release and forgive my aberrant dreams, the scattered dreams that see separate, fragmented selves.... and I can again welcome the inclusive, expansive vision of my High Self, the Holy Spirit. This all-inclusive vision is the Holy Spirit's gift to us when we are willing to once again be still.

Inclusive Vision is not about manipulating or trying to change the dream. It's about returning our mind and heart to what is true. There is only One, only God, only GOOD. Inclusive Vision returns us to the Wholeness of our right Mind. It is the Grace of God made manifest, on earth as it is in the Heaven of Oneness.

"In returning and rest you shall be saved. In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength." -- The Bible; Isaiah 30:15

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

Personal Investment

"No one with a personal investment is a reliable witness, for truth to him has become what he wants it to be." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 12, Section I, 5:2

"One thought, completely unified, will serve to unify all thought. This is the same as saying one correction will suffice for all correction, or that to forgive one brother wholly is enough to bring salvation to all minds." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook Lesson 108, 5:1-2

I've been an impatient person much of my life, with a personal investment in hurrying conversations along. On top of that, I like to be right. So I've learned that I'm not a reliable witness to anything at all. Trusting my personal self to judge a person or a situation is totally ridiculous. Thank God there is One in me who has no personal investment. There is One Self in us all that will judge truly and inclusively, with love and forgiveness of every error, if we only release our personal investment and ask. That is how salvation works. That is how our thought becomes impersonal and unified.

The impersonal, inclusive, all-encompassing perspective of Our True Self doesn't require us to become zombies or robots. We still have an apparent life-stream, an apparent persona, who will continue to make apparent mistakes. But since none of this is ever true, nor has ever been true, forgiveness becomes the way we walk in the world. Forgiveness becomes what everything is for. This makes our personal experiences a heck of a lot more enjoyable, and releases us from the narcissistic tendencies that plague us all... to tell our own stories our way, to judge others as the enemy, to always be right, to be on top, to be seen by others the way we want to be seen... the list of narcissistic tendencies is quite long. Ask any mental health professional. What most of us don't realize is that all of us have a personal investment in how we see things. And so all of us are caught in a narcissistic dream. We see ourselves as separate from others and from God. We are lost in dreaming.

Forgiveness is all about realizing that our perceptions are simply false. Period. And as we ask the Holy Spirit, the Voice of Our True Self within each of our minds, to help us awaken by releasing our personal investments, we find a new world rising before us. In this world there are no separate interests. There are no competitions. There is only Love, and sometimes a cry for Love. And nothing else.

"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

"Let us learn of the real and eternal, and prepare for the reign of Spirit, the Kingdom of Heaven; the reign and rule of universal harmony, which cannot be lost nor remain forever unseen." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 208, Line 19

Happy Easter!

"I am your resurrection and your life. Believe in resurrection because it has been accomplished, and it has been accomplished in you. This is as true NOW as it will ever be, for the resurrection is the Will of God, which knows no time and no exceptions. You have nailed yourself to a cross, and placed a crown of thorns on your own head. Yet you cannot crucify God's Son, for the Will of God cannot die. The dream of crucifixion still lies heavy on your eyes, but what you see in dreams is not reality. You will awaken to your own call, for the Call to awake is within you." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 11, Section VI, 4:1 & 6-7, 8:1-2 & 4, 9:1

"The Christ is not subject to material conditions... and is able, through Truth, Life, and Love, to triumph over sin, sickness, death, and the grave." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 49, Line 21-25

Happy Easter to all! I've missed writing this blog... it's been a very busy few weeks, but I did manage to write one blog while on the road, and I'm now home again after my travels, and have even resumed the conference calls every Saturday morning at 9 a.m. central time. If you are interested in joining us, we just completed Chapter 11 of the text of A Course in Miracles, and will be on Chapter 12 next week. The call-in number is 605-475-4333... and the access code is 101546#.

It's Easter morning. The grass is vibrant after all the rain, and my pansies are waving their happy faces gratefully at the sun. It feels like a rebirth and renewal, reflected in my dream. ACIM tells us that God's Will for us is perfect happiness... and as we awaken to Reality, everything in the dream reflects this. Even my 90-year-old mother with dementia reflects this joy, within the apparent limitations of her own dream. Our seemingly personal dreams are reflections of our own consciousness, but dreams of suffering are transformed when we awaken and realize the resurrection is within our very own mind. Forgiveness of all our limited and false perceptions, letting them go, allows us to remember this Truth. In a forgiven world, a clean and open mind reveals the miracle, the happy dream, for each and every person, place, thing, and experience.

Dreams within dreams is the life we seem to see around us, always dreams of lack, limitation, suffering and death. This is not the Truth! Life shines all around us, in our holy minds. Love radiates from deep within, shedding Its blessings on the world. Truth illumines our minds and our paths within the dream. And Spiritual Substance in all Its Abundance is the Source of All Being, and reflects in our dream as an infinity of blessings and supply. We are so blessed, if we would only awaken. We dream of crucifixion, but in Truth we are the Resurrection and the Life.

"Sin, sickness, disease, and death are comprised in human material belief, and belong not to the Divine Mind. They are without a real origin or existence." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 286, Line 31

"The whole power of God is in every part of Him, and nothing contradictory to His Will is either great or small. What does not exist has no size and no measure. To God all things are possible." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 11, Section VI, 10:6-8

Loving the Real

"Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God." -- A Course in Miracles; Introduction, 2:2-4

"Spirit is the real and eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 486:12-13

"The things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal." -- The Bible; II Corinthians 4:18

Loving the Real is a full time job. It isn't for the faint of heart, or for those who love their stories about reality more than the Truth about Reality. It's the practice of questioning, inquiring, looking deeper to find what's true. It's a continual exercise in overlooking the apparent, in seeing what can't be seen.

Our stories have it all set up as paradox and struggle. There is always an opposing force, always something 'other' that creates this apparent tension... and that very dynamic is what reveals the falsity. There is no tension, no struggle in Oneness. In the Allness of God, everything exists in harmony and order, abundantly expressing the Goodness and Light and Love that are the Truth of Being. Our stories about suffering and lack are revealed as fiction the moment we're willing to really question them... and behind every seeming story lies the Reality of God, which is eternally Loving and at Peace.

A Course in Miracles reminds us that "the opposite of Love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite." (ACIM; Intro, 1:8) And Mary Baker Eddy pointed out that "Spirit, God, is infinite, all. Spirit can have no opposite." (S&H; 278:10-11) In the Allness of God, there isn't anything other than God. In the Allness of God, there isn't another power. There isn't anything opposing eternal Love and Goodness. The opposites we have been so carefully taught don't really exist except as mental constructs, and false ones at that. They are the gods of the material world, as fictional as Zeus or Bacchus. "All idols are false ideas." (ACIM; 30, IV, 1:8)

Material thinking, the belief that life and intelligence lies in matter, is at the heart of the false idols that populate our dream world. The belief that pleasure and pain are caused by the material, the serial adventures of a personal body and its cohorts, is pure fiction. But as long as we are immersed in the material dream it will seem to be real to us. In other words, we are loving the false, and invested in its continuing as long as we can... we don't want the dream to end, regardless of its origins. Loving the false, we dissociate from the real.

Loving the Real is a return sanity. We can remember Who We Are. We can spiritualize our thinking, forgive our errors and the errors that appear to be around us, and choose once again to Love the Real. Ironically, it's the only real choice there is. Everything else is samsara, the endless wheel of delusion and human suffering.

Loving the Real returns us to the Awareness of Love, the Awareness of the Allness of God, the Awareness of Infinite Good. It is the fulfillment of the Lord's Prayer: "On earth, as it is in Heaven."

"As we approach Spirit and Truth, we lose the consciousness of matter." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; 278:15-16

"You are surrounded only by Him. What limits can there be on you whom He encompasses?" -- A Course in Miracles; 18, IV, 10:6-7

Need/Obligate

"There is no miracle you cannot give, for all are given you. Receive them now by opening the storehouse of your mind where they are laid, and giving them away. Christ's Vision is a miracle. Christ's Vision is the miracle in which all miracles are born." -- A Course in Miracles; Lesson 159, 2:4-5, 3:1, & 4:1

"The substitution of the spiritual for the material definition elucidates the meaning." -- Mary Baker Eddy

I love the lessons our dreams provide us, always dreams of forgiveness. Forgiving the material, apparent meanings we have superimposed on Reality... and remembering once again the Allness of God and our eternal Oneness with all Good.

In the above quotes from A Course in Miracles, it's easy to see ourselves doling out physical or fiscal miracles in the world... in the self-aggrandizement of our egos, we co-opt the meaning of miracles to suit our belief in the material. So it's really, really important to remember that only the spiritual meaning of the word miracle applies, ever. Notice the above quote talks about opening the storehouse of our mind. A miracle is always and forever healed perception, and always involves a shift from the separated, material illusion to seeing through the eyes of pure Spirit, our Oneness with God, which ACIM calls the Atonement, Christ's Vision.

Our egoic, separated, illusory self sees every act of giving as an act somehow for itself. This is why Jesus urged us not to let our right hand know what our left hand is doing. We haven't really done anything by giving a material thing or substance, or even by giving bodily acts of service. There's certainly nothing wrong with them... but there is also nothing right about them. This belief in martyrdom and self-sacrifice is all an egoic tool, part of the story in the endless, serial dream of separate bodies and their nonsensical heroic journeys.

Over and over I have seen, in my own dream and the dreams around me, this co-opting of the idea of love by the ego. It's really just the "I'll scratch your back and you scratch mine" mentality, thinly disguised with platitudes and pseudo-spirituality. Real Love IS. It needs nothing, and yet gives everything by simply BEING. It doesn't give out of need, or out of pity. It doesn't give out of a feeling of guilt. It doesn't give in the usual sense at all... It simply IS, and so it radiates and overflows with Abundance of Being. This Abundance of Being is what reflects in the dream as needs being met. It is not need/obligate. It needs no recognition and no return on investment.

I know what it's like to be lost in a dream of lack and loss. I know what it's like to feel like there is absolutely nowhere to turn. And I also know what it's like to awaken from that dream... and I know what it's like to feel so very much gratitude for that very dream, and the Awakening it facilitated.

Yesterday in church, the benediction was unusual, but so appropriate: "May you know hunger and thirst and lack, so that you may know the Abundance of God." A blessing paraphrased straight from the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus didn't say "Blessed are the manifesters," or "Blessed are those who demonstrate abundance in the world." He said, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled." As Mary Baker Eddy pointed out, it's always and only the spiritual meaning that is true. The spiritual meaning of the experience of lack is the blessing of our true hunger and thirst for Awakening, without a story. It's not physical, and it's certainly not fiscal. And it's only when we give up the outer search for fulfillment of any kind (with all its rationales) that the true meaning of giving and receiving becomes apparent, within Self, with absolute freedom... and need/obligate becomes an archaic relic from a bygone era.

"Christ's Vision is the bridge between the worlds. And in Its power can you safely trust to carry you from this world into one made holy by forgiveness. Things which seem quite solid here are merely shadows there; transparent, faintly seen, at times forgot, and never able to obscure the Light that shines beyond them. Holiness has been restored to Vision, and the blind can see. This is the Holy Spirit's single gift; the treasure house to which you can appeal with perfect certainty for all the things that can contribute to your happiness." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook Lesson 159, 5:1-4, & 6:1

Multiplying Nothing

"There is no more self-contradictory concept than that of "idle thoughts." What gives rise to the perception of a whole world can hardly be called idle. Every thought you have contributes to Truth or illusion; either it extends the Truth or it multiplies illusions. You can indeed multiply nothing, but you will not extend it by doing so." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook Lesson 16, 2:1-4

"Light is a symbol of Mind, of Life, Truth, and Love, and not a vitalizing property of matter." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 510, Lines 27-28

The above quotes are so mind-boggling. Today is my 58th birthday... talk about multiplying nothing! We multiply years and seasons, and call it age and wisdom. But we're really only weaving stories around an illusion of self. All Life is eternal, and knows no age or limitation. All Wisdom is an eternal aspect of Mind, without beginning or end. And this Mind is the Source and Substance of our mind. Of course, we can only know this when we're in our right mind So let's shed Light on this, shall we? Since Light is also an eternal, unchanging aspect of Mind, and has nothing to do with the physical.

A Course in Miracles speaks of this as two ways of thinking. Only one is actually happening, so this is tricky. How do you talk about illusory experiences without making them real? "Thoughts can represent the lower or bodily level of experience, or the higher or spiritual level of experience. One makes the physical, and the other creates the spiritual." (ACIM; Chapter 1, Section I, 12:2-3) Notice that the illusory, lower-level thoughts are made... while the real, spiritual thoughts are created.

We can make up stories, and we all enjoy doing this. But nothing has really happened. We didn't really create anything. It seems there is no harm done unless we start confusing what we've made with what is Real. But there are no idle thoughts. When we make up stories or believe other people's stories, we're lost in the dream, lost in what ACIM calls wrong-mindedness. Right-mindedness doesn't involve making up more stories. It involves allowing what IS to extend through us. What is True is already effortlessly present. What IS radiates and extends naturally and effortlessly, when we forgive and release our wrong-minded stories. This is the experience of the miracle, the shift from false perception to Awareness of the True and Real, even in the midst of the dream we call life.

It takes great courage to want to wake up from our stories. There is absolutely no support for this within the dream we call life, since everyone has a vested interest in the stories they're living. And there is absolutely no support for it within our own story, since our own ego has a vested interest in the survival of its stories. But through Grace, the Truth is true and nothing else is true. Through Grace, stories come and go. Through Grace, we can make lots of stories, but not one of them is created, and so they are not true, and so they will not last. Even if we resist this Awakening as hard as we can, we inevitably come face to face with the Truth of Who We Are. Nothing else even exists. Sooner or later everyone wakes up.

So there are no idle thoughts. We can hasten our own Awakening (as ACIM dryly puts it, since you believe in time, why waste it?) by remembering this, and forgiving and releasing our thoughts and stories of a material world and separate bodies. This allows the True thoughts that continually extend, radiating from the Mind of God, to shine in and through us. And even though that seems like a really hard thing, the really good news is that we can multiply nothing... zero to the zero power... and we can keep doing this over and over, and be fascinated by the results. But nothing has ever happened... and we remain safe in the Mind of God, where we have always been. Thank God.

"The Thought God holds of you is like a star, unchangeable in an eternal sky." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 30, Section III, 8:4

Beyond Belief

"Spirit is all-knowing; this precludes the need of believing. Mere belief is blindness without Principle." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 487, Lines 15 & 22

"It is, then, only your wish to change reality that is fearful, because by your wish you think you have accomplished what you wish. When you maintain that there must be an order of difficulty in miracles, all you mean is that there are some things you would withhold from Truth. You believe Truth cannot deal with them only because you would keep them from Truth." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 17, Section I, 2:1 & 3:1-2

The seeming power of belief is a highly extolled and hotly debated issue in the world. The definition of belief is "assent to the truth of something offered for acceptance." This implies that we can believe anything is true or false, based on the evidence. Our criminal justice system is a good example of that. True or false? Right or wrong? This way or that way? Is he telling the truth or is he lying? The answer is what we believe. And we believe we can believe wrongly.

Remember in the last blog we talked about Principle, the unchanging, unmovable Truth that is the Source of everything. The realization that this is beyond belief is our first glimmer of awakening. That there is Being, utterly natural and unchanging, complete in all aspects, whole and perfect and infinite... and that this Being is Source and Substance of all that IS... and that this Truth is the Principle that shines through all true spirituality... this is beyond belief. It can't be believed. But it can be known. It can be experienced directly, as we let go of all relative beliefs and stories. This is what A Course in Miracles calls the act of forgiveness, our only truly active function in this world of many-storied dreams.

The process is usually gradual. There are exceptions of course, like Byron Katie's experience of seemingly instantaneous shedding of all stories and beliefs, leaving her as innocent as a newborn baby. She had to acquire the ability to live in the stories again, but this time without believing them. She now knows from direct experience that Who We Are is beyond belief.

For the rest of us, the shedding of stories and belief systems and identities, which are all fictional, is a gradual process. We learn to live in the stories of our lives, even in the belief systems and identities, without mistaking them for Who We Are. We learn to forgive and release every single aspect (whether it seems good or bad) to the Holy Spirit, the eternal and Awakened Voice within each of us, to be used within the dream of Awakening for all. And every single story, every belief, every identity will then have served its only true purpose. For this is a dream of Awakening to Self. And that is most definitely beyond belief.

"You cannot be faithful to two masters who ask conflicting things of you. What you use in fantasy you deny to Truth. Yet what you give to Truth to use for you is safe from fantasy." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 17, Section I, 2:4-5

The Power of Truth

"The power of Truth, of divine Spirit, must break the dream of the material senses." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; page 412, Lines 16-18

"Truth will correct all errors in my mind, and I will rest in Him Who is my Self." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook Lesson 107, 9:5

In yesterday's blog we explored the tool of inquiry, and how it cuts through illusion to reveal Truth. And this is an important tool as we move through life, because it's so easy to get caught up in our own stories. But Truth, the unchanging Reality, is not dependent on our inquiry or on human belief or on anything at all. It is unmoving Principle, and is the Ground of All Being, our True Self. It is not the product of anything, but rather is the Source of All. Truth is the infinite, radiant Being of the Allness of God.

What this means is that when Truth becomes our focus, it automatically clears away the mists of illusion. When A Course in Miracles says that Truth will correct all errors, it speaks literally, not poetically. It's not speaking about the specific, relative truths that we bandy about in the dream we call life. It's speaking of Principle ItSelf. And Principle is abstract, inclusive, and unchanging. In other words, it includes everyone and everything, and has limitless self-organizing power. Truth radiates, Truth IS. And we are all a part of that IS. So as soon as we give our attention, our consciousness back to PRINCIPLE, back to SOURCE, we are filled with awareness of TRUTH as the only force and power in that IS.

Our human, dreaming minds want to know specifics. What does a life of truth look like? What are we wearing? What will we eat? How will we amuse ourselves? Will it be fun? Will it hurt? Will I be alone? Such is the realm of the relative that occupies our time and attention. We don't have to give up our human occupations... we simply have to want to know the inclusive Truth more than anything else. We have to be committed, married to Truth. More than any form, more than any identity, more than any longing to have... Truth becomes the beacon that shines through it all, that leads us ultimately out of the many-storied dream of a separate self.

Once the light of Truth shines again through our sleeping minds, there is no more hiding in delusional stories of egoic dreams. The Power of Truth shines away every shadow and every sense of lack and every imagined loss, revealing One Eternal Self, forever Whole, Holy and Beloved in the Allness of God. We still walk in the dream, and we still dream.... but the dream is daily returned to Source, and the Power of Truth transforms every dream of separation into a dream of union and awakening. Such is the transformative Power of Truth.

"When Truth has come it does not stay a while, to disappear or change to something else. It does not shift and alter in its form, nor come and go and go and come again. It stays exactly as it always was, to be depended on in every need, and trusted with a perfect trust in all the seeming difficulties and the doubts that the appearances the world presents engender. They will merely blow away, when Truth corrects the errors in your mind." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook Lesson 107, 4:1-4

"Truth spares all that is true. The unreal vanishes, while all that is Real is eternal." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 474, Lines 24 & 28

Mistaken Identity

"The whole separation fallacy lies in the belief that the ego has the power to do anything. The ego is fearful to you because you believe this. Yet the truth is very simple: All power is of God. What is not of Him has no power to do anything." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 11, Section V, 3:3-7

"Understanding is the line of demarcation between the real and the unreal. This understanding is not intellectual, is not the result of scholarly attainments; it is the Reality of all things, brought to Light. God's ideas reflect the immortal, unerring, and infinite. The mortal, erring, and finite are human beliefs. Therefore matter, not being the reflection of Spirit, has no real entity. Understanding is a quality of God." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; Pages 505-506, Lines 21, 26-30, & 3-5

On one of the many e-mail lists I subscribe to, I encountered this thought: that all seeming tests in the external world are actually simply mistaken identity, or self-doubt. This simple statement condenses the essence of all our struggles and ills in the world... we are not who we think we are. How delusional we are... and how mistaken to entertain the imaginary fears of a delusional thought system. As A Course in Miracles puts it, "When we look at the ego, we are not considering dynamics but delusions. You can surely regard a delusional system without fear, for it cannot have any effects if its source is not real." (ACIM; Chapter 11, Section V, 4:1-2)

Self-doubt is a big part of this delusional thought system. We are never sure of ourselves, because the sane part of our true Mind knows we are not a separate, ego self. The attempt to split our Self into self and other is the source of the entire delusional world. "The ego's goal is quite explicitly ego autonomy. Its purpose is to be separate, sufficient unto itself, and independent of any power except its own." (ACIM; Chapter 11, Section V, 4:4-5) And because there really isn't any power apart from God, this is a very doubt inducing predicament, no matter how delusional the mind, no matter how enamoured of illusory power and ego-control one becomes. It's an endless bad dream, with many detours and false perceptions that we choose over and over again. Such is the world of individual false identities.

So how do we Awaken from the dream of a false and separate self? How do we remember Who We Are? ACIM says that the way to undo the illusion of a separate ego is merely to recognize that it is not natural. "Yours is the independence of creation, not of autonomy. Your whole creative function lies in your complete dependence on God, Whose function He shares with you. By His willingness to share it, He became as dependent on you as you are on Him. Do not ascribe the ego's arrogance to Him Who wills not to be independent of you. He has included you in His Autonomy. Can you believe that autonomy is meaningful apart from Him? The belief in ego autonomy is costing you the knowledge of your dependence on God, in which your freedom lies. The ego sees all dependency as threatening, and has twisted even your longing for God into a means of establishing itself. But do not be deceived by its interpretation of your conflict." (ACIM; Chapter 11, Section V, 6:1-9)

Mistaken identity and self-doubt. The dynamic duo that produces a dream-world of seeming suffering and separation. You can easily see then that all of this stems from mentally dissociating from Self, from not loving Self. Whatever seems to separate us from God is always and only this dissociation, which masquerades as fear in one form or another. "Whatever seems to separate you from God is only fear, regardless of the form it takes and quite apart from how the ego wants you to experience it." As we admit to ourselves how alien and unnatural this state of consciousness is, we discover that "if you overlook love you are overlooking your Self, and you fear Reality because you have denied your Self." The suffering, the struggles, the pain... all the delusion of false identity and self-doubt.

The good news is that there is no power in Reality to do any of this. It's all a story, all made up... who you think you are is just a constellation of concepts and judgements held loosely together by the desire to experience the story. It's a bad dream, and has no real power to change anything Real. "If the ego's goal of autonomy could be accomplished, God's purpose could be defeated, and this is impossible. Only God's purpose can be accomplished, and it is accomplished already." It IS. We Are as God created us, forever One, Whole and United in purpose and in peace. No dream of mistaken identity can change what Is.

"You will awaken to your own call, for the Call to Awaken is within you. The whole power of God is in every part of Him, and nothing contradictory to His Will is either great or small. What does not exist has no size and no measure." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 11, Section VI, 9:1 & 10:6-7

He Must Increase, But I Must Decrease

"He must increase, but I must decrease." -- The Bible; John 3:30

I love this quote from John the Baptist. It expresses so eloquently what Mary Baker Eddy calls the 'unselfing' that we all must go through to remember Who We Are. The little self must be seen-through, must be exposed as a fiction, to allow the Christ to be revealed in us. Our allegiance to the little self must decrease, so that our awareness of the Christ, our Oneness with God, may increase.

A Course in Miracles puts it this way: "Perception is a function of the body, and therefore represents a limit on awareness. Perception sees through the body's eyes and hears through the body's ears. It appears to be largely self-motivated and independent, yet actually responds only to the intentions of the mind. The opposite of seeing through the body's eyes is the vision of Christ, which reflects strength rather than weakness, unity rather than separation, and love rather than fear. The opposite of hearing through the body's ears is communication through the Voice for God, the Holy Spirit, which abides in each of us."

Jeshua ben Joseph also put it this way: "No man putteth new wine into old bottles, else the new wine doth burst the bottles and the wine is spilled; but new wine must be put into new bottles." He also said, "No man can serve two masters." This dissolving of old allegiances and identities is often experienced as painful when we are trying to pour the new wine of spiritual awareness into old ways of being, trying to remember our true Self while still clinging to the separated self and its pleasures and pains.

The letting go of old identities, both our own and our perceptions of others, is what A Course in Miracles calls forgiveness. It is the complete relinquishment of the need to judge. Judgement always involves illusions, the projections of the seemingly separated mind... because "whatever is True is eternal, and cannot change or be changed... because it is already perfect."

When we are willing to decrease our allegiance to limited, human things, the great paradox is that we gain everything as our awareness of the Christ increases. The remembrance of Who We Are in God is the door to the limitless Joy and Abundance and Peace that is our Eternal Reality.

"Behold, I make all things new." The Bible; Revelation 21:5

Building a Bridge

"Recognition is the power, and every state that you have ever recognized you have embodied. That which you are recognizing as true of yourself today is that which you are experiencing." -- Neville Goddard

"To your most holy Self all praise is due for what you are, and for what He is Who created you as you are. Sooner or later must everyone bridge the gap he imagines exists between his selves. Each one builds this bridge, which carries him across the gap as soon as he is willing to expend some little effort on behalf of bridging it. His little efforts are powerfully supplemented by the strength of Heaven, and by the united will of all who make Heaven what it is, being joined within it. And so the one who would cross over is literally transported there. Your bridge is builded, stronger than you think, and your foot is planted firmly on it. Have no fear that the attraction of those who stand on the other side and wait for you will not draw you safely across. For you will come where you would be, and where your Self awaits you." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 16, Section III, 8:1-5, 9:1-3

Building a bridge between the self I imagine myself to be and the true Self that I really am... recognizing that I am imagining that I embody the state of who I think I am... this is huge. In new thought circles, people often speak of the power of imagination... but what we are really talking about is the imagined self, the imagined gap, the imagined state of being separate from our God-Self. And this is the dead end that all of us must sooner or later turn back from. Sooner or later we all must see that we are looking at our own consciousness, always and only our own imagined self projected outward.

The bridge we are building is really the willingness to see that we made it all up. We have never been separate from God, our True Self, nor could we ever do anything to separate ourselves. It's all made up.

So in this virtual world of virtual experiences, we make decisions over and over that are based on outer experiences and aimed at outer results. We keep trying to change, pandering to the reflection in the mirror, which has no life of its own. It's just a projected reflection. Like hamsters on wheels we spin and spin, choosing this way of spinning now and then we try that way of spinning, always trying to develop a better way to spin. But sooner or later we grow weary of spinning, and want to see what would happen if we just stopped. Who or what would we be without the spinning that our imaginary world seems to require?

Building this bridge between our imagined, separate self and our True Self requires, as ACIM reminds us, some effort. This is simply because we made it all up and maintained the illusion through enormous expenditures of time and attention... and it's going to take some refocusing of our holy mind and attention to build our virtual bridge home. And returning our whole heart and mind to God is the way the bridge is built.

"Having no other gods, turning to no other but the One Perfect Mind... man is the likeness of God, pure and eternal, having that Mind which was also in Christ." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 467, Lines 13-16

Love Created Me Like ItSelf

"Love created me like ItSelf." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook Lesson 67

"Love, the divine Principle, is the Father and Mother of the universe, including man." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 256, Lines 7-8

"Love is incapable of asking for anything." -- A Course in Miracles; Preface xi

A dear friend and client of mine has been wrestling with love, wanting love, fearing love... all as if it is something outside, something to be acquired. I know this story very well, as I suspect we all do. And I have suffered, as we all have, when I look at love as commodity... something to be given, or something to be acquired. Thank God we are so very wrong. Thank God we have only to give our vision a moment to clear, and Love simply IS.

Love has nothing to do with our human notions of the word. Love is the unmoving, unchanging, and infallible Principle in which we live and move and have our very Being. It is the Ground of Being, and cannot be lost or lacking in any way. It is omnipresent and omni-everything! God IS Love.

We are emanations of that Love, created in Love's image and likeness. We don't have any qualities distinct from Love. Like a snowflake, we can be viewed individually, with unique patterns and individual gifts that reflect the Love we are... but like the snowflake, we are still snow, still Love ItSelf.

I love the thought that Love is incapable of asking for anything. How could it ask when it already Is? Ha! A little clarification... when Jeshua ben Joseph told us to ask, he was urging us to self-inquire, to question the world around us, to go deeper and find what is Real and True behind the illusion that we call the world. He was always speaking about inquiring in consciousness... never about asking for things in the outer, which is the projection we are dreaming.

So in this holiday season of thanksgiving, love, peace, and goodwill, it is our joy to BE... we are the love we have been seeking. After all, Love created me like ItSelf.

"There is no love but God's." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook Lesson 127