"It is not difficult to understand the reasons why you do not ask the Holy Spirit to solve all problems for you. He has not greater difficulty in resolving some than others. Every problem is the same to Him, because each one is solved in just the same respect and through the same approach. The aspects that need solving do not change, whatever form the problem seems to take. A problem can appear in many forms, and will do so while the problem lasts. It serves no purpose to attempt to solve it in a special form. It will recur and then recur again and yet again, until it has been answered for all time and will not rise again in any form. And only then are you released from it." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 26, Section II, 1:1-8
Everywhere I look there appear to be problems. Problems facing our world, our nation, our families, our own lives and bodies. Problems that appear to be different from one another, and that appear to have unique solutions. Problems that grip the attention and leave no room for doubt in the reality of the perception. There appear to be specific needs, specific lacks, specific things that don't work as they should. And we argue with each others' assessments of what isn't working and what needs to be done. Each thinks that someone else has to lose so that their perspective can be the true one. It is this that is the antithesis of Truth. And only Truth is the universal solution to every perception that is less than Whole, less than Holy.
"The Holy Spirit offers you release from every problem that you think you have. They are the same to Him because each one, regardless of the form it seems to take, is a demand that someone suffer loss and make a sacrifice that you might gain. And when the situation is worked out so that no one loses is the problem gone, because is was an error in perception that now has been corrected." (ACIM; Chapter 26, Section II, 2:1-3)
There are no special forms, just as there are no special cases or special relationships. There is only One. And this One is Whole, Holy, Complete. This One cannot lack or try and take something from one to give another. Oneness has no divisions and no direction. Oneness is All... Everywhere, Always, Forever. This One Thought is as close to Truth as our divided language can come. And so it is all that is needed. It is the Holy Spirit's answer to every so-called problem.
"You have no problems, though you think you have. And yet you could not think so if you saw them vanish one by one, without regard to size, complexity, or place or time, or any attribute which you perceive that makes each one seem different from the rest. Think not the limits you impose on what you see can limit God in any way." (ACIM; Chapter 26, Section II, 3:3-5)
And so it becomes obvious why we don't ask the Holy Spirit to solve ALL problems. "Every problem is an error." (ACIM; 26, II, 4:2) They are false perceptions, mere interpretations or points of view. They are a fragmented and faulty picture. But there are some false perceptions we choose to keep. They are the 'limits' that we set to define reality. They are all made up, but we lull ourselves into the group mind of the status quo, of the family or tribe with which we've identified. This could be a family of origin, a political party, or a religion. There are no real differences. It's all made up. Given to the Holy Spirit, our minds are made Whole and Holy again, and all differences disappear. There is only One. WE ARE ONE.
"Think then how great your own release will be when you are willing to receive correction for all your problems. You will not keep one, for pain in any form you will not want. And you will see each little hurt resolved before the Holy Spirit's gentle sight. For all of them are little in His sight, and worth no more than just a tiny sigh before they disappear, to be forever undone and unremembered. What seemed once to be a special problem, a mistake without a remedy, or an affliction without a cure, has been transformed into a universal blessing. And in its place the Love of God can be remembered, and will shine away all memory of sacrifice and loss. For it is not your Father's Will that you should offer or receive less than He gave, when He created you in Perfect Love." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 26, Section II, 7:1-7 & 8:6
Showing posts with label Problems. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Problems. Show all posts
Friday, August 24, 2012
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
The Webs We Weave
"Truth is by nature self-evident. As soon as you remove the cobwebs of ignorance that surround it, it shines clear." -- Mahatma Gandhi
"If the mind, which is the instrument of projection and is the basis of all activity, subsides, then the perception of the world as an objective reality ceases. On scrutiny as to what remains after eliminating all thoughts, it will be found that there is no such thing as mind or physical world apart from thought. Just as the spider draws out the thread of the cobweb from within itself and withdraws it again into itself, in the same way the mind projects the world out of itself and absorbs it back into itself." -- Ramana Maharshi
There are a lot of beautiful spiders around right now. They are spinning huge, elaborate webs everywhere, in the woods and by the barn, anywhere they can connect the dots. I love watching them, especially early in the morning with dew or frost on them, when they sparkle like something precious and brilliant. Ironic that they are really for the capturing of prey and the feeding of a predator... a symbol of our human belief that someone or something must lose in order for another to gain. As A Course in Miracles reminds us, "There is but one mistake; the whole idea that loss is possible, and could result in gain for anyone."
That two wise and brilliant spiritual minds used webs to illustrate the human mind, and that I just happened to read both quotes on the same day is such a delicious synchronicity. The image of our human projection being like a spider spinning its web and then withdrawing it back into itself is a perfect illustration of what happens when we fall asleep at night. Where are all the images, people, sounds, etc.? They cease to exist when the mind is at rest. This is the experience and testimony of wise women and men throughout the ages. But it frightens us when we awaken without thought or identity. We fear losing... whether it's our name, our ideas about life, or our sanity, the loss of human memory is a big cultural demon. The dread word Alzheimer's is everywhere. What would Carl Jung have to say about that?
Some blessed souls, like Byron Katie, Gangaji, Eckhert Tolle and a host of others, have awakened without identity and without fear. Though they sometimes take on new identities in order to serve, they remain awake to Self. The key to seems to be the absence of fear.
My mother has dementia... she remembers very little, and what remains is like an old recording worn thin. The characteristic of her disease is constant fear. That is the real disease... a fear so great that there is complete withdrawal from self-awareness, and therefore from the possibility of awakening. The only gift I have to give her is my silent and continual awareness that every imagined fear and loss that she is running from has been forgiven and released, gradually withdrawing into the belly of the spider of fear in her gut, a web of her own creation. I see her innocence. I see beyond the web.
What webs of fear are you weaving in your life? Where do you fear lack and loss? Where are you hiding from Love and its Light? What good news that the webs we weave are simply our own cobwebs, and can be withdrawn and released at any time! The Truth remains self-evident without the cobwebs. Love remains, unchanging and sure, the only justice God knows.
"The miracle of justice can correct all errors." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 26, Section II, 4:1
"If the mind, which is the instrument of projection and is the basis of all activity, subsides, then the perception of the world as an objective reality ceases. On scrutiny as to what remains after eliminating all thoughts, it will be found that there is no such thing as mind or physical world apart from thought. Just as the spider draws out the thread of the cobweb from within itself and withdraws it again into itself, in the same way the mind projects the world out of itself and absorbs it back into itself." -- Ramana Maharshi
There are a lot of beautiful spiders around right now. They are spinning huge, elaborate webs everywhere, in the woods and by the barn, anywhere they can connect the dots. I love watching them, especially early in the morning with dew or frost on them, when they sparkle like something precious and brilliant. Ironic that they are really for the capturing of prey and the feeding of a predator... a symbol of our human belief that someone or something must lose in order for another to gain. As A Course in Miracles reminds us, "There is but one mistake; the whole idea that loss is possible, and could result in gain for anyone."
That two wise and brilliant spiritual minds used webs to illustrate the human mind, and that I just happened to read both quotes on the same day is such a delicious synchronicity. The image of our human projection being like a spider spinning its web and then withdrawing it back into itself is a perfect illustration of what happens when we fall asleep at night. Where are all the images, people, sounds, etc.? They cease to exist when the mind is at rest. This is the experience and testimony of wise women and men throughout the ages. But it frightens us when we awaken without thought or identity. We fear losing... whether it's our name, our ideas about life, or our sanity, the loss of human memory is a big cultural demon. The dread word Alzheimer's is everywhere. What would Carl Jung have to say about that?
Some blessed souls, like Byron Katie, Gangaji, Eckhert Tolle and a host of others, have awakened without identity and without fear. Though they sometimes take on new identities in order to serve, they remain awake to Self. The key to seems to be the absence of fear.
My mother has dementia... she remembers very little, and what remains is like an old recording worn thin. The characteristic of her disease is constant fear. That is the real disease... a fear so great that there is complete withdrawal from self-awareness, and therefore from the possibility of awakening. The only gift I have to give her is my silent and continual awareness that every imagined fear and loss that she is running from has been forgiven and released, gradually withdrawing into the belly of the spider of fear in her gut, a web of her own creation. I see her innocence. I see beyond the web.
What webs of fear are you weaving in your life? Where do you fear lack and loss? Where are you hiding from Love and its Light? What good news that the webs we weave are simply our own cobwebs, and can be withdrawn and released at any time! The Truth remains self-evident without the cobwebs. Love remains, unchanging and sure, the only justice God knows.
"The miracle of justice can correct all errors." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 26, Section II, 4:1
Friday, July 17, 2009
Breaking the Shell
"If you want the kernel you must break the shell." -- Meister Eckhardt
We don't much like to talk about what's uncomfortable in our lives. Or if we do like to complain about it, it's to project it outward and blame it on others. It usually never occurs to us that these uncomfortable places are the shells that hide the Truth in us. And we certainly don't want to admit that these shells are our own creations, or that our greatest fear is the loss of them.
Sometimes we call these shells identities. Sometimes we call them stories. Sometimes we call them viewpoints, or perspectives. Usually we call it all ego. But we never, ever take full responsibility for it. We'll grasp for other opinions and viewpoints, look for other ways to talk about it and escape our discomfort... but we don't really want to break the shells. We don't really want to change. We don't really want to know the Truth.
Accepting our own attachment to the shell we call self is one of the final steps in Awakening. To really see the depth of our own compulsion to identify with a fiction and cling to it... this is the cracking of the shell. Often a dark night of the soul can follow this, which is simply a last-ditch effort to remain identified with what isn't real, to continue to pretend to be finite and lacking, or lost and misunderstood. It's all made up. There is no self that has ever been separate or lost. There is no sinner, no victim. Ever. And the ocean of infinite Awareness that is revealed as the shell breaks open is the Allness of God, Truth ItSelf. What is revealed is our very own Self... eternal, perfect, and forever free.
So if you find yourself telling the same stories with different trappings, engaging the same types of people with different names or faces, having the same experiences with different surroundings, it's simply because it's your fiction, your creation... it's the projection and reflection of your ego identity, your shell. Who you think you are is reflected in your projected experiences. This may be experienced as good, or it may be painful. There isn't any difference. Because if you think you are anything less than One with God, if you are identifying yourself as needing to be or become anything other than Self, then you are simply fantasizing and building a harder shell and defending against the Truth of Being. And that is always, and will always be, uncomfortable.
So the uncomfortable places, the things and people we avoid, the fears of loss or lack or abandonment we run from, the changes we refuse to make, the relationships we cling to, the truth we avoid telling... these are our own ego-tools for self-enhancement, the illusory substance of our fictional shell-selves. They are the defenses we use to keep spinning, spinning, spinning in the shell without becoming aware of it. Because once we become aware of the depth of our own self-deception, the imaginary shell simply vanishes.
"The choice you fear to lose you never had." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 27, Section III, 7:4
We don't much like to talk about what's uncomfortable in our lives. Or if we do like to complain about it, it's to project it outward and blame it on others. It usually never occurs to us that these uncomfortable places are the shells that hide the Truth in us. And we certainly don't want to admit that these shells are our own creations, or that our greatest fear is the loss of them.
Sometimes we call these shells identities. Sometimes we call them stories. Sometimes we call them viewpoints, or perspectives. Usually we call it all ego. But we never, ever take full responsibility for it. We'll grasp for other opinions and viewpoints, look for other ways to talk about it and escape our discomfort... but we don't really want to break the shells. We don't really want to change. We don't really want to know the Truth.
Accepting our own attachment to the shell we call self is one of the final steps in Awakening. To really see the depth of our own compulsion to identify with a fiction and cling to it... this is the cracking of the shell. Often a dark night of the soul can follow this, which is simply a last-ditch effort to remain identified with what isn't real, to continue to pretend to be finite and lacking, or lost and misunderstood. It's all made up. There is no self that has ever been separate or lost. There is no sinner, no victim. Ever. And the ocean of infinite Awareness that is revealed as the shell breaks open is the Allness of God, Truth ItSelf. What is revealed is our very own Self... eternal, perfect, and forever free.
So if you find yourself telling the same stories with different trappings, engaging the same types of people with different names or faces, having the same experiences with different surroundings, it's simply because it's your fiction, your creation... it's the projection and reflection of your ego identity, your shell. Who you think you are is reflected in your projected experiences. This may be experienced as good, or it may be painful. There isn't any difference. Because if you think you are anything less than One with God, if you are identifying yourself as needing to be or become anything other than Self, then you are simply fantasizing and building a harder shell and defending against the Truth of Being. And that is always, and will always be, uncomfortable.
So the uncomfortable places, the things and people we avoid, the fears of loss or lack or abandonment we run from, the changes we refuse to make, the relationships we cling to, the truth we avoid telling... these are our own ego-tools for self-enhancement, the illusory substance of our fictional shell-selves. They are the defenses we use to keep spinning, spinning, spinning in the shell without becoming aware of it. Because once we become aware of the depth of our own self-deception, the imaginary shell simply vanishes.
"The choice you fear to lose you never had." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 27, Section III, 7:4
Thursday, January 1, 2009
A Year Without Blame
"Only the ego blames at all. Self-blame is therefore ego identification, and as much an ego-defense as blaming others. You cannot enter God's presence if you attack His Son." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 11, Section IV, 5:4-6
"Art Thou not from everlasting, O Lord my God, mine Holy One? Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity." -- The Bible; Habakkuk 1:12-13
Happy New Year to everyone! I love the way I'm seemingly led to a topic. Today is New Year's Day, and I'm at peace with the world. There's no one I seem to be struggling with or blaming at the moment. And yet this topic chose me. Thank goodness the Holy Spirit knows better than I do what's needed.
The fact that only the ego blames at all is important. I woke up yesterday morning after a fearful dream, in which I felt personally responsible for the evils happening to others in my night-time dream. This type of self-blame is the source of all guilt and all projection of guilt and blame in the dream we call the world. And while it remains unconscious, we just keep projecting and experiencing the dream of it, night and day. It's the product of a deluded mind that imagines it's separate from God and thinks it's creating stuff in opposition to the Goodness of God. Rationally we can agree that if God is All, then what else exactly could we be creating that is other than All? Rationally we can agree with this.
Yet our eyes keep beholding iniquity. Habakkuk tells us that God is "of purer eyes than to behold evil," and that God doesn't even see iniquity. So what are we seeing? If God doesn't see it, it can't exist. GOD IS ALL. That means ALL. When ACIM tells us we can't enter God's presence if we attack His Son, that means we can't experience our Oneness with God and each other if we attack ourselves. The buck starts and stops with self-condemnation. Because all seemingly external blame and attack comes from projected self-guilt and self-blame. Because deep-down, in the part of us that remembers Who We Are, we know that God is All, and that we are One with All. We know we can't have a power that opposes or rebels against what is Whole-ly Self. And so we feel guilty for wanting to be separate and autonomous, and project it all as a huge holographic dream universe of imagined opposing forces, and attempt to lose ourselves in a haze of dreaming and forgetting. All because we fear our own imaginary and illusory rebellion against the inclusiveness of Self.
So here we are on the first day of the imaginary year of 2009. Years are, of course, a human construct. We have tried our darnedest to segment the eternal into a progression of years, and to label and judge them all. The good news is that as we give this holy instant and every holy instant to God, our perception (projection) is released and healed. The miracle of sight is returned. For a holy instant, there is no blame, no judgement, no problem at all in the endless Oneness that We Are. This is the Peace of God. And this is the hope of 2009 and every other year... that we remember we are One, and that we don't need to look so hard for solutions to the problems that seem to appear, that are actually our projections. It's the observation (projection) of iniquity that keeps it in our dream experience. Kind of like it's people going to movies that keeps the industry going. We're the producer and director and viewing audience of this film. To behold the world without iniquity... to see self and each other, including Israelis and Palestinians, as innocent and as my Self, is to behold a year without blame and without blemish. This is my prayer for us all.
"All power is of God. What is not of Him has no power to do anything." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 11, Section V, 3:6-7
"Art Thou not from everlasting, O Lord my God, mine Holy One? Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity." -- The Bible; Habakkuk 1:12-13
Happy New Year to everyone! I love the way I'm seemingly led to a topic. Today is New Year's Day, and I'm at peace with the world. There's no one I seem to be struggling with or blaming at the moment. And yet this topic chose me. Thank goodness the Holy Spirit knows better than I do what's needed.
The fact that only the ego blames at all is important. I woke up yesterday morning after a fearful dream, in which I felt personally responsible for the evils happening to others in my night-time dream. This type of self-blame is the source of all guilt and all projection of guilt and blame in the dream we call the world. And while it remains unconscious, we just keep projecting and experiencing the dream of it, night and day. It's the product of a deluded mind that imagines it's separate from God and thinks it's creating stuff in opposition to the Goodness of God. Rationally we can agree that if God is All, then what else exactly could we be creating that is other than All? Rationally we can agree with this.
Yet our eyes keep beholding iniquity. Habakkuk tells us that God is "of purer eyes than to behold evil," and that God doesn't even see iniquity. So what are we seeing? If God doesn't see it, it can't exist. GOD IS ALL. That means ALL. When ACIM tells us we can't enter God's presence if we attack His Son, that means we can't experience our Oneness with God and each other if we attack ourselves. The buck starts and stops with self-condemnation. Because all seemingly external blame and attack comes from projected self-guilt and self-blame. Because deep-down, in the part of us that remembers Who We Are, we know that God is All, and that we are One with All. We know we can't have a power that opposes or rebels against what is Whole-ly Self. And so we feel guilty for wanting to be separate and autonomous, and project it all as a huge holographic dream universe of imagined opposing forces, and attempt to lose ourselves in a haze of dreaming and forgetting. All because we fear our own imaginary and illusory rebellion against the inclusiveness of Self.
So here we are on the first day of the imaginary year of 2009. Years are, of course, a human construct. We have tried our darnedest to segment the eternal into a progression of years, and to label and judge them all. The good news is that as we give this holy instant and every holy instant to God, our perception (projection) is released and healed. The miracle of sight is returned. For a holy instant, there is no blame, no judgement, no problem at all in the endless Oneness that We Are. This is the Peace of God. And this is the hope of 2009 and every other year... that we remember we are One, and that we don't need to look so hard for solutions to the problems that seem to appear, that are actually our projections. It's the observation (projection) of iniquity that keeps it in our dream experience. Kind of like it's people going to movies that keeps the industry going. We're the producer and director and viewing audience of this film. To behold the world without iniquity... to see self and each other, including Israelis and Palestinians, as innocent and as my Self, is to behold a year without blame and without blemish. This is my prayer for us all.
"All power is of God. What is not of Him has no power to do anything." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 11, Section V, 3:6-7
Thursday, December 11, 2008
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
"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
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Allness, Oneness, Nothingness
"There is no fear in perfect Love because It knows no sin, and It must look on others as on ItSelf. Here there is only holiness and joining without limit. For what is Heaven but union, direct and perfect, and without the veil of fear upon it? Here we are One, looking with perfect gentleness upon each other and on ourselves. Here all thoughts of any separation between us become impossible." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 20, Section III, 10:2-5, 11:3
"We love Him, because He first loved us." -- The Bible; 1 John 4:19
I had a reader e-mail with some great questions. How, the reader wanted to know, do we know what is real and what is not? How do we know that God is? All of us have asked these questions... and if we are honest, we continue to ask them in times of challenge and personal anguish. Even Mother Theresa had her dark nights of the soul.
So let's look at three questions that lead us to the Truth:
1. What is God? Every scripture and every spiritual teacher throughout time agrees on one very important description of God... Allness. What does this mean to me? If God is All in All to me and in my life, then everything I do and everything I say and everything I think about is God... there can be no escaping this Allness or being separate from it, no going unconscious, no fear of what it All means. "And thou shalt love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your mind and with all your soul and with all your strength." All. This means that when times are apparently challenging, the Allness of God includes the opposite. Allness includes all Divine Ideas and their expressions... all ideas in harmony with every other idea. There is no competition in Allness. My judgements about what appears are made up, illusory stories about appearances. But every idea that appears in the Mind of God is self-complete, is ALL. As I rest in this, I do whatever needs to be done in any given situation in harmony with All, as a transparency for this Divine harmony, without resistance or judgment.
2. What does it mean that I am One with God, the image and likeness of God? What does this tell me about my spiritual nature and the Truth of my Being? What does it tell me about the situation in which I find myself now? Oneness with God means that there is no attribute of God that I do not share, and share equally. "Beloved, All that I have is thine." Oneness with God means that there is nothing in me that is not perfect and good and in Divine harmony with everything else, which is also my Self. Oneness with God means eternal love and companionship and sufficiency and ever-new joy. Oneness with God means that I can only ever find my Self in God, and that there can be no other situation. Only the Allness and Oneness of Self, of God, of the One.
3. What is my actual relationship with and to God? What does it mean? What is this Oneness we share with God, and how does it help in this situation? How does this relationship bring healing even when faced with seemingly insurmountable circumstances? If you stop and think about it, how can the Allness and Oneness that I am in God be anything other than self-complete and harmonious? Nothingness is the word that spiritual teachers and scriptures have used to describe all situations that seem to be problematic, insufficient, lacking, or full of fear and loss. How can that which is forever One and Whole be anything other than in Divine Order and Self-Loving? Nothingness is the only word to describe the nightmare stories we believe about ourselves and the world. Just as the stories about who I thought I was as a teenager had no real effect on Who I Am (as a matter of fact, I can now look at them and laugh, knowing it was all made up and ridiculous), in the same way, all stories of fear and loss and lack and limitation (whether of the body or finances or relationships or personal identity in any form) are all make believe, hurtful images that we have made. And that is all they ever are, images with no real substance. Nothing at all.
There is one other thing to remember... we reflect the Allness of God, and our Oneness with God assures that we Love and express that Love as God does. Everything else is the Nothingness of the dream. As A Course in Miracles reminds us, only that Love is real.
"The meaning of the Son of God lies solely in his relationship with his Creator." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 20, Section VI, 1:1
"We love Him, because He first loved us." -- The Bible; 1 John 4:19
I had a reader e-mail with some great questions. How, the reader wanted to know, do we know what is real and what is not? How do we know that God is? All of us have asked these questions... and if we are honest, we continue to ask them in times of challenge and personal anguish. Even Mother Theresa had her dark nights of the soul.
So let's look at three questions that lead us to the Truth:
1. What is God? Every scripture and every spiritual teacher throughout time agrees on one very important description of God... Allness. What does this mean to me? If God is All in All to me and in my life, then everything I do and everything I say and everything I think about is God... there can be no escaping this Allness or being separate from it, no going unconscious, no fear of what it All means. "And thou shalt love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your mind and with all your soul and with all your strength." All. This means that when times are apparently challenging, the Allness of God includes the opposite. Allness includes all Divine Ideas and their expressions... all ideas in harmony with every other idea. There is no competition in Allness. My judgements about what appears are made up, illusory stories about appearances. But every idea that appears in the Mind of God is self-complete, is ALL. As I rest in this, I do whatever needs to be done in any given situation in harmony with All, as a transparency for this Divine harmony, without resistance or judgment.
2. What does it mean that I am One with God, the image and likeness of God? What does this tell me about my spiritual nature and the Truth of my Being? What does it tell me about the situation in which I find myself now? Oneness with God means that there is no attribute of God that I do not share, and share equally. "Beloved, All that I have is thine." Oneness with God means that there is nothing in me that is not perfect and good and in Divine harmony with everything else, which is also my Self. Oneness with God means eternal love and companionship and sufficiency and ever-new joy. Oneness with God means that I can only ever find my Self in God, and that there can be no other situation. Only the Allness and Oneness of Self, of God, of the One.
3. What is my actual relationship with and to God? What does it mean? What is this Oneness we share with God, and how does it help in this situation? How does this relationship bring healing even when faced with seemingly insurmountable circumstances? If you stop and think about it, how can the Allness and Oneness that I am in God be anything other than self-complete and harmonious? Nothingness is the word that spiritual teachers and scriptures have used to describe all situations that seem to be problematic, insufficient, lacking, or full of fear and loss. How can that which is forever One and Whole be anything other than in Divine Order and Self-Loving? Nothingness is the only word to describe the nightmare stories we believe about ourselves and the world. Just as the stories about who I thought I was as a teenager had no real effect on Who I Am (as a matter of fact, I can now look at them and laugh, knowing it was all made up and ridiculous), in the same way, all stories of fear and loss and lack and limitation (whether of the body or finances or relationships or personal identity in any form) are all make believe, hurtful images that we have made. And that is all they ever are, images with no real substance. Nothing at all.
There is one other thing to remember... we reflect the Allness of God, and our Oneness with God assures that we Love and express that Love as God does. Everything else is the Nothingness of the dream. As A Course in Miracles reminds us, only that Love is real.
"The meaning of the Son of God lies solely in his relationship with his Creator." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 20, Section VI, 1:1
Monday, October 13, 2008
Temptation
"All temptation is nothing more than the attempt to substitute another will for God's. When all such magic is recognized as merely nothing, the teacher of God has reached the most advanced state." -- A Course in Miracles; Manual for Teachers 16:9:2&5
"The temptation is to demonstrate an effect, to demonstrate bread, to perform a miracle in the outer world, to centre the thought and attention on the people and things of this world, that is, on the outer need. If I try to perform a miracle, if I try to make a demonstration, I am setting up an 'I' apart from God, a self-hood apart from God. God does not need me to demonstrate anything. God is forever maintaining its own." -- from Consciousness Unfolding, by Joel Goldsmith
In the very first chapter of A Course in Miracles there are these words of wisdom: "Consciously selected miracles can be misguided." Jesus put it this way: "Take no thought for what you will say, or what you will do, or what you will wear... but seek first the Kingdom and all else will be added." The Kingdom is what Jesus called Heaven, the consciousness of our perfect Oneness with God.
We may think we will always fall short of this at-one-ment. We may feel that we have to struggle to align our thoughts, to read and think the 'right' way. We insist on doing it, on trying to take control and credit for what we do. Just another spiritual ego trip: "The human mind set up the prodigal, who went out into the world. He was not satisfied to live on the inheritance of his father, but wanted to go out and make his way in the world. And you know where he ended up." (from Consciousness Unfolding by Joel Goldsmith)
As St. Paul said in his letter to the Philippians: "For I have learned, in whatever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound; everywhere and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." (The Bible; Philippians 4:11-13) The process of living in this world of polarities is that we eventually experience every combination of illusory experiences, in one form or another. These polarities have nothing to do with our reality; experienced with a material consciousness of either/or, they are the ultimate distraction and sidetrack. We lose our way when we try to experience only one side of things... these are the misguided efforts of consciously selected miracles.
The temptation to try to manipulate and control life and other people according to our spiritual agendas can be very subtle. There is only one way to calm these stormy waters... Peace, Be Still. Mary Baker Eddy puts it this way: "Mind [God] demonstrates omnipresence and omnipotence, but Mind revolves on a spiritual axis, and its power is displayed and its presence felt in eternal stillness and immovable Love... stationary power, stillness, and strength..." (Retrospection and Introspection; Page 88, Lines 28-1; Page 93, Lines 14-15)
"Stationary power, stillness, and strength..." This says it all. The temptation is always to be doing rather than Being. All power and harmony lies in the stillness at the heart of Being. In this stillness, we Remember Who We Are and radiate purely the Love of God.
"To say, "Of myself I can do nothing" is to gain all Power. And yet it is but a seeming paradox. As God created you, you have all Power. The image you made of yourself has none. The Holy Spirit knows the Truth about you. The image you made does not." -- A Course in Miracles; Manual for Teachers, 29:4:2-7
"The temptation is to demonstrate an effect, to demonstrate bread, to perform a miracle in the outer world, to centre the thought and attention on the people and things of this world, that is, on the outer need. If I try to perform a miracle, if I try to make a demonstration, I am setting up an 'I' apart from God, a self-hood apart from God. God does not need me to demonstrate anything. God is forever maintaining its own." -- from Consciousness Unfolding, by Joel Goldsmith
In the very first chapter of A Course in Miracles there are these words of wisdom: "Consciously selected miracles can be misguided." Jesus put it this way: "Take no thought for what you will say, or what you will do, or what you will wear... but seek first the Kingdom and all else will be added." The Kingdom is what Jesus called Heaven, the consciousness of our perfect Oneness with God.
We may think we will always fall short of this at-one-ment. We may feel that we have to struggle to align our thoughts, to read and think the 'right' way. We insist on doing it, on trying to take control and credit for what we do. Just another spiritual ego trip: "The human mind set up the prodigal, who went out into the world. He was not satisfied to live on the inheritance of his father, but wanted to go out and make his way in the world. And you know where he ended up." (from Consciousness Unfolding by Joel Goldsmith)
As St. Paul said in his letter to the Philippians: "For I have learned, in whatever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound; everywhere and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." (The Bible; Philippians 4:11-13) The process of living in this world of polarities is that we eventually experience every combination of illusory experiences, in one form or another. These polarities have nothing to do with our reality; experienced with a material consciousness of either/or, they are the ultimate distraction and sidetrack. We lose our way when we try to experience only one side of things... these are the misguided efforts of consciously selected miracles.
The temptation to try to manipulate and control life and other people according to our spiritual agendas can be very subtle. There is only one way to calm these stormy waters... Peace, Be Still. Mary Baker Eddy puts it this way: "Mind [God] demonstrates omnipresence and omnipotence, but Mind revolves on a spiritual axis, and its power is displayed and its presence felt in eternal stillness and immovable Love... stationary power, stillness, and strength..." (Retrospection and Introspection; Page 88, Lines 28-1; Page 93, Lines 14-15)
"Stationary power, stillness, and strength..." This says it all. The temptation is always to be doing rather than Being. All power and harmony lies in the stillness at the heart of Being. In this stillness, we Remember Who We Are and radiate purely the Love of God.
"To say, "Of myself I can do nothing" is to gain all Power. And yet it is but a seeming paradox. As God created you, you have all Power. The image you made of yourself has none. The Holy Spirit knows the Truth about you. The image you made does not." -- A Course in Miracles; Manual for Teachers, 29:4:2-7
Saturday, October 4, 2008
The End of Denial
"By knowing the unreality of disease, sin, and death, you demonstrate the Allness of God... utter reliance upon the One God, to Whom belong all things." --Unity of Good by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 9, Line 28, & Page 10, Lines 9-10
Have you noticed that we all have a tendency to interpret our spirituality personally and selfishly? When confronted with unpleasantness, like starving children or human trafficking or animal abuse, or even the reality of where the meat we insist on eating is coming from and how barbarically the animals are treated, the tendency is to fall back on, "It's not real anyway." And then we do whatever we want and pretend it's not there. This is not the proper use of denial. This is the co opting of denial by the little, imaginary self, that wants its own comfort and survival and pleasure above all else.
Not one thing in this world is true, and that is certain. And yet, whatever we encounter in our own consciousness is true for us, and therefore must be forgiven, not avoided by sticking our heads in the sand. And as we forgive, I guarantee the Holy Spirit will urge us to action within the dream to reinforce that there is nothing to fear, nothing to avoid. The thing about the courage to walk our talk is that we are saying 'no' to what is not real, saying no to the fear and appearance of suffering encountered in consciousness. Everything is met in consciousness. There is nothing else.
The actions we take in the world are symbols in the dream, symbols of where we are in consciousness. I notice that Jeshua ben Joseph did not continue to sit on the mountain top or in the desert, but was actively led to the poorest, neediest, most despised people and places. He looked it all in the face and knew it was not of God, and therefore not real... and yet he walked and talked and healed and comforted while knowing the Truth. "Jesus taught us to walk over, not into or with, the currents of matter, or mortal mind." (Unity of Good by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 11, Lines 3-4)
So when we turn away from suffering by saying it's not real, we're really just acknowledging that to us, it seems scary and real and we don't want to go there. "Whatever you accept into your mind has reality for you. It is your acceptance of it that makes it real to you." (A Course in Miracles; Chapter 5, Section V, 4:1-2) The trick is, as Tolkien said, to "...take care of the evil in the fields that we know..."; we do what we can, moving over the illusion, untouched by it, while silently knowing the Truth in consciousness, the Allness of God and the Nothingness of suffering and death.
The end of denial comes as we realize there is nothing to deny. We don't need to pretend as we go through life... we simply meet whatever we meet in consciousness, knowing the Allness of God and our Oneness with Her... and we willingly meet any and all challenges in consciousness as the nothingness they are. World problems or family problems, the healing is the same. Fear not... there's nothing and no one but God. We learn to play our part with the assurance that it's our own True Self we are always meeting.
"Relationships in this world are the result of how the world is seen." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 19, Section IV, i, 12:1
"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
Have you noticed that we all have a tendency to interpret our spirituality personally and selfishly? When confronted with unpleasantness, like starving children or human trafficking or animal abuse, or even the reality of where the meat we insist on eating is coming from and how barbarically the animals are treated, the tendency is to fall back on, "It's not real anyway." And then we do whatever we want and pretend it's not there. This is not the proper use of denial. This is the co opting of denial by the little, imaginary self, that wants its own comfort and survival and pleasure above all else.
Not one thing in this world is true, and that is certain. And yet, whatever we encounter in our own consciousness is true for us, and therefore must be forgiven, not avoided by sticking our heads in the sand. And as we forgive, I guarantee the Holy Spirit will urge us to action within the dream to reinforce that there is nothing to fear, nothing to avoid. The thing about the courage to walk our talk is that we are saying 'no' to what is not real, saying no to the fear and appearance of suffering encountered in consciousness. Everything is met in consciousness. There is nothing else.
The actions we take in the world are symbols in the dream, symbols of where we are in consciousness. I notice that Jeshua ben Joseph did not continue to sit on the mountain top or in the desert, but was actively led to the poorest, neediest, most despised people and places. He looked it all in the face and knew it was not of God, and therefore not real... and yet he walked and talked and healed and comforted while knowing the Truth. "Jesus taught us to walk over, not into or with, the currents of matter, or mortal mind." (Unity of Good by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 11, Lines 3-4)
So when we turn away from suffering by saying it's not real, we're really just acknowledging that to us, it seems scary and real and we don't want to go there. "Whatever you accept into your mind has reality for you. It is your acceptance of it that makes it real to you." (A Course in Miracles; Chapter 5, Section V, 4:1-2) The trick is, as Tolkien said, to "...take care of the evil in the fields that we know..."; we do what we can, moving over the illusion, untouched by it, while silently knowing the Truth in consciousness, the Allness of God and the Nothingness of suffering and death.
The end of denial comes as we realize there is nothing to deny. We don't need to pretend as we go through life... we simply meet whatever we meet in consciousness, knowing the Allness of God and our Oneness with Her... and we willingly meet any and all challenges in consciousness as the nothingness they are. World problems or family problems, the healing is the same. Fear not... there's nothing and no one but God. We learn to play our part with the assurance that it's our own True Self we are always meeting.
"Relationships in this world are the result of how the world is seen." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 19, Section IV, i, 12:1
"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
Friday, October 3, 2008
Forever One
"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 T.13.VIII.5:1-3
Our everyday experience of the world is one of multiplicity. Multiple bodies, multiple personalities, multiple gifts, multiple problems. We're fascinated by this. We love to collect new experiences, new stories, new people to tell stories about, new sensations, new ideas... as ACIM puts it, we want more and still more, and it doesn't even matter more of what. We are addicted to stimulus and response.
The mistake we so often make in our spiritual journey is to try to make sense of this dream that continues to morph, as all dreams do. It will always divide and sub-divide, like the cells that seem to make up the creatures and people in the dream. It's what dreams do. We will never find the Truth in the dream. Like Mary looking for Jesus in the tomb, we look for salvation in the dream, over and over. It is not there. It will never be found in what comes and goes, what is essentially unreal. How could the eternal and unchanging be found in what is constantly morphing?
A Course in Miracles tells us that the healing of this dream lies in release from a belief in the past. "All healing is release from the past. That is why the Holy Spirit is the only Healer. He teaches that the past does not exist." It's hard to collect stories when there is no past to tell a story about. As we gently forgive and release all our complicated notions about what has been or what must be, about what did or did not happen, we settle into the radiant Truth of Being. None of it ever happened... none of it ever existed.
We always have been and always will be One, whole and complete, in the Mind of God. Every complicated scenario that confronts us in the dream that calls itself life is simply another opportunity to offer the miracle of forgiveness, and what is True and forever One is revealed in the midst of it all.
"They are all the same; all beautiful and equal in their holiness. There is one miracle, as there is One Reality." -- A Course in Miracles T.13.VIII.6:1,3
Our everyday experience of the world is one of multiplicity. Multiple bodies, multiple personalities, multiple gifts, multiple problems. We're fascinated by this. We love to collect new experiences, new stories, new people to tell stories about, new sensations, new ideas... as ACIM puts it, we want more and still more, and it doesn't even matter more of what. We are addicted to stimulus and response.
The mistake we so often make in our spiritual journey is to try to make sense of this dream that continues to morph, as all dreams do. It will always divide and sub-divide, like the cells that seem to make up the creatures and people in the dream. It's what dreams do. We will never find the Truth in the dream. Like Mary looking for Jesus in the tomb, we look for salvation in the dream, over and over. It is not there. It will never be found in what comes and goes, what is essentially unreal. How could the eternal and unchanging be found in what is constantly morphing?
A Course in Miracles tells us that the healing of this dream lies in release from a belief in the past. "All healing is release from the past. That is why the Holy Spirit is the only Healer. He teaches that the past does not exist." It's hard to collect stories when there is no past to tell a story about. As we gently forgive and release all our complicated notions about what has been or what must be, about what did or did not happen, we settle into the radiant Truth of Being. None of it ever happened... none of it ever existed.
We always have been and always will be One, whole and complete, in the Mind of God. Every complicated scenario that confronts us in the dream that calls itself life is simply another opportunity to offer the miracle of forgiveness, and what is True and forever One is revealed in the midst of it all.
"They are all the same; all beautiful and equal in their holiness. There is one miracle, as there is One Reality." -- A Course in Miracles T.13.VIII.6:1,3
Friday, July 25, 2008
The Substance of All That Is
"Let all things be exactly as they are. Only reality is free of pain. Only reality is free of loss. Only reality is wholly safe." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook Lesson 268, 2:2-4
"Be alert to catch this next point, because it is the secret of healing work, although of course it is not really a secret. We have said that God is the substance of all form, that God is the reality of all that is. Are we then to understand God as the substance of the body, trees, flowers, sun, moon, stars, and all that we cognize with the material senses? No; this is a spiritual universe. It is true that God is the substance of all that is; but remember, when I see you or your body or a tree or a flower, I am not seeing God's creation. I am not seeing the spiritual reality, the spiritual universe. I am seeing only a finite material concept of it. This concept is referred to as the Adam-dream, the illusion which Jesus referred to when he said, "My kingdom is not of this world." (The Bible; John 18:36) This does not mean there are two universes, the real and the unreal. It means that the only universe there is, is the spiritual universe... but what I am seeing is only my concept of it. Therefore its unreality lies in my misperception, in my false concept of it." -- God, the Substance of All Form by Joel Goldsmith; Pages 53-54
"God being Spirit, His language and meaning are wholly spiritual." -- Miscellany by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 238, Lines 9-12
In dealing with an apparent problem this morning, I realized that all apparent problems are simply mistaken identity. I dream a dream, conceive of a separate self that can be limited and suffer in ways that don't even exist in the Reality of Spirit. In Reality, there is only Oneness, Omnipresence, and endless Love that shines forever. Mrs. Eddy said, "You can never demonstrate spirituality until you declare yourself to be immortal and understand that you are so." (Miscellany; Page 242, Lines 3-5) There IS nothing but the Allness of God! A Course in Miracles reminds us that "He Who is changeless shares His attributes with His creation. All the images His Son appears to make have no effect." (Workbook 186, 9:3-4)
I sometimes dream at night, but when I wake up in the morning I don't usually try to fall back asleep to change or improve on the dream, or even to continue it. It feels good to shake the cobwebs from my mind, and become aware of the birds, the smell of fresh-mown grass, and the beauty of my summer flowers. All this takes place in my waking from the fog of sleeping dreams to the apparent reality of the five sensory world. What we haven't fully accepted is that we are simply dreaming a different type of dream... a dream of concepts and projections, that keeps us trapped in our ideas and beliefs, our self-limiting labels and imaginary relationships within the waking dream. The mind weaves a story of separation and meaning in this illusion, and has a sick investment in not wanting to awaken. The mind knows it is not even necessary. "The father of illusions is the belief that they have a purpose; that they serve a need or gratify a want. Perceived as purposeless, they are no longer seen." (ACIM; Manual for Teachers 14, 1:6-7)
We don't have to drop our concepts and stories. We just have to admit to ourselves that they are nonsense, not one any truer or more noble than any other one. As we see that everything, including our self-concepts, are fiction, we have no need for them anymore. We can continue in the dream, "in the world but not of it," as Jesus said. "The concept of the self has always been the great preoccupation of the world. Salvation can be seen as nothing more than the escape from concepts." (ACIM; Chapter 31, Section V, 14:1,3) Or, as the Indian sage Ramana Maharshi taught, ask, "Who am I?"
Please always remember that we've done nothing wrong... we simply suffer the torment of the imaginary separate self when we believe our own stories and get lost in the sensory dream. We long for Home... the state of Awakened Awareness that Jesus called the Kingdom of Heaven: "Heaven is not a place nor a condition. It is merely an Awareness of Perfect Oneness, and the knowledge [not the concept, but the experience of aware knowing!] that there is nothing else; nothing outside this Oneness, and nothing else within." (ACIM; Chapter 18, Section VI, 1:5-6) Since God, Spirit, is One and All-in-All, this knowing of Self as One is the only Spiritual Reality there is.
So whenever problems appear to arise in my waking dream, I remember that God is Spirit, and is the Substance of All that Is. That means the only thing I need to do is forgive my false concepts, beliefs, and perceptions and not take them so seriously... and to remember that whenever I'm willing to inquire, the Truth of Being is Self-evident. And what more could there be to know than the Substance of All that IS?
"All your difficulties stem from the fact that you do not recognize your Self." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 3, Section III, 2:1
"Be alert to catch this next point, because it is the secret of healing work, although of course it is not really a secret. We have said that God is the substance of all form, that God is the reality of all that is. Are we then to understand God as the substance of the body, trees, flowers, sun, moon, stars, and all that we cognize with the material senses? No; this is a spiritual universe. It is true that God is the substance of all that is; but remember, when I see you or your body or a tree or a flower, I am not seeing God's creation. I am not seeing the spiritual reality, the spiritual universe. I am seeing only a finite material concept of it. This concept is referred to as the Adam-dream, the illusion which Jesus referred to when he said, "My kingdom is not of this world." (The Bible; John 18:36) This does not mean there are two universes, the real and the unreal. It means that the only universe there is, is the spiritual universe... but what I am seeing is only my concept of it. Therefore its unreality lies in my misperception, in my false concept of it." -- God, the Substance of All Form by Joel Goldsmith; Pages 53-54
"God being Spirit, His language and meaning are wholly spiritual." -- Miscellany by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 238, Lines 9-12
In dealing with an apparent problem this morning, I realized that all apparent problems are simply mistaken identity. I dream a dream, conceive of a separate self that can be limited and suffer in ways that don't even exist in the Reality of Spirit. In Reality, there is only Oneness, Omnipresence, and endless Love that shines forever. Mrs. Eddy said, "You can never demonstrate spirituality until you declare yourself to be immortal and understand that you are so." (Miscellany; Page 242, Lines 3-5) There IS nothing but the Allness of God! A Course in Miracles reminds us that "He Who is changeless shares His attributes with His creation. All the images His Son appears to make have no effect." (Workbook 186, 9:3-4)
I sometimes dream at night, but when I wake up in the morning I don't usually try to fall back asleep to change or improve on the dream, or even to continue it. It feels good to shake the cobwebs from my mind, and become aware of the birds, the smell of fresh-mown grass, and the beauty of my summer flowers. All this takes place in my waking from the fog of sleeping dreams to the apparent reality of the five sensory world. What we haven't fully accepted is that we are simply dreaming a different type of dream... a dream of concepts and projections, that keeps us trapped in our ideas and beliefs, our self-limiting labels and imaginary relationships within the waking dream. The mind weaves a story of separation and meaning in this illusion, and has a sick investment in not wanting to awaken. The mind knows it is not even necessary. "The father of illusions is the belief that they have a purpose; that they serve a need or gratify a want. Perceived as purposeless, they are no longer seen." (ACIM; Manual for Teachers 14, 1:6-7)
We don't have to drop our concepts and stories. We just have to admit to ourselves that they are nonsense, not one any truer or more noble than any other one. As we see that everything, including our self-concepts, are fiction, we have no need for them anymore. We can continue in the dream, "in the world but not of it," as Jesus said. "The concept of the self has always been the great preoccupation of the world. Salvation can be seen as nothing more than the escape from concepts." (ACIM; Chapter 31, Section V, 14:1,3) Or, as the Indian sage Ramana Maharshi taught, ask, "Who am I?"
Please always remember that we've done nothing wrong... we simply suffer the torment of the imaginary separate self when we believe our own stories and get lost in the sensory dream. We long for Home... the state of Awakened Awareness that Jesus called the Kingdom of Heaven: "Heaven is not a place nor a condition. It is merely an Awareness of Perfect Oneness, and the knowledge [not the concept, but the experience of aware knowing!] that there is nothing else; nothing outside this Oneness, and nothing else within." (ACIM; Chapter 18, Section VI, 1:5-6) Since God, Spirit, is One and All-in-All, this knowing of Self as One is the only Spiritual Reality there is.
So whenever problems appear to arise in my waking dream, I remember that God is Spirit, and is the Substance of All that Is. That means the only thing I need to do is forgive my false concepts, beliefs, and perceptions and not take them so seriously... and to remember that whenever I'm willing to inquire, the Truth of Being is Self-evident. And what more could there be to know than the Substance of All that IS?
"All your difficulties stem from the fact that you do not recognize your Self." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 3, Section III, 2:1
Saturday, June 7, 2008
The Happy Learner
"The Holy Spirit needs a happy learner, in whom His mission can be happily accomplished. You who are steadfastly devoted to misery must first recognize that you are miserable and not happy. The Holy Spirit cannot teach without this contrast, for you believe that misery is happiness. This has so confused you that you have undertaken to learn to do what you can never do, believing that unless you learn it you will not be happy. You do not realize that the foundation on which this most peculiar learning goal depends means absolutely nothing. Yet it may still make sense to you. Have faith in nothing and you will find the 'treasure' that you seek. Yet you will add another burden to your already burdened mind. You will believe that nothing is of value, and will value it. A little piece of glass, a speck of dust, a body or a war are one to you. For if you value one thing made of nothing, you have believed that nothing can be precious, and that you can learn how to make the untrue true." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 14, Section II, 1:1-11
"It is helpful to keep in mind that if you are serious about learning this course, you must realize that the creation of God is One. Therefore, any thoughts that separate you from anyone else constitute a consciously chosen attempt to deny your Identity. If you think your happiness or pain come from outside, you are denying the principle of the Atonement, which means you do not want to remember it. This is not a sin, but a correctable mistake once you know you have made it. Therefore, you need to become increasingly vigilant for when your special thoughts and actions attack the Oneness of God's Son. The idea is not that you feel guilty over your specialness, but that you become aware of it. Jesus' purpose is to help us do just that, for it is in looking at the ego that we learn to accept the Atonement for ourselves, remembering the glorious thought that throughout the ego's insanity we have remained as God created us." -- Kenneth Wapnick
I laugh really hard when I read the above quote from Ken Wapnick. It is so completely true... and is a great example of how there is always One Who Knows, the Awakened Self, regardless of what the ego says and does. The reason I find it so incredibly funny is that Ken Wapnick has been the object of a whole bunch of lawsuits for being an ACIM Nazi, and for invalid copyright of what many people feel should be public domain, like The Bible. He and Judith Skutch lied under oath and said that Jesus was not the author of ACIM in order to get the copyright, since only literary works by living entities can be copyrighted. Of course, who am I to say what I would do in his shoes? I know Mary Baker Eddy endured lawsuits, too, with people accusing her of plagiarizing, among other things. It's not easy to live in this world yet not be of it.
The point is that the happy learner is one who doesn't take any of it personally. The happy learner accepts that it is all nothing. As ACIM puts it, "A little piece of glass, a speck of dust, a body or a war are one to you. For if you value one thing made of nothing, you have believed that nothing can be precious, and that you can learn how to make the untrue true." It's not personal, and it's not true. Whether we're fighting for or defending a book or a way of life or the desire to be right, we are mistakenly valuing nothing. End of story.
What happens when we value something outside of ourselves? What happens when we would rather be right than happy? What happens when something shiny in the dream catches our eye, and we value it and long for it? What happens when we lose ourselves in our not-so-hidden agendas? Over and over we immerse ourselves in the story of the dream, coming up for air only when our suffering gets too intense. Only when we can't stand it anymore do we think that there might be another way.
The happy learner doesn't have to wait until the lawsuits are flying. The happy learner isn't dependent on the who, what, where, or why of it all. The happy learner is willing to let the Holy Spirit lead the way, and to value only what is Always and Everywhere, for everyone. The happy learner has given up the need to indulge personal comfort and desire... and most of all, the happy learner has given up the compulsive need to be smug and comfortable and right.
"Seek not outside yourself. For all your pain comes simply from the futile search for what you want, insisting where it must be found. What if it is not there? Would you rather be right, or happy? Be you glad that you are told where happiness abides, and seek no longer elsewhere. You will fail. But it is given you to know the Truth, and not to seek for it outside yourself." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 29, Section VII, 1:6-12
"It is helpful to keep in mind that if you are serious about learning this course, you must realize that the creation of God is One. Therefore, any thoughts that separate you from anyone else constitute a consciously chosen attempt to deny your Identity. If you think your happiness or pain come from outside, you are denying the principle of the Atonement, which means you do not want to remember it. This is not a sin, but a correctable mistake once you know you have made it. Therefore, you need to become increasingly vigilant for when your special thoughts and actions attack the Oneness of God's Son. The idea is not that you feel guilty over your specialness, but that you become aware of it. Jesus' purpose is to help us do just that, for it is in looking at the ego that we learn to accept the Atonement for ourselves, remembering the glorious thought that throughout the ego's insanity we have remained as God created us." -- Kenneth Wapnick
I laugh really hard when I read the above quote from Ken Wapnick. It is so completely true... and is a great example of how there is always One Who Knows, the Awakened Self, regardless of what the ego says and does. The reason I find it so incredibly funny is that Ken Wapnick has been the object of a whole bunch of lawsuits for being an ACIM Nazi, and for invalid copyright of what many people feel should be public domain, like The Bible. He and Judith Skutch lied under oath and said that Jesus was not the author of ACIM in order to get the copyright, since only literary works by living entities can be copyrighted. Of course, who am I to say what I would do in his shoes? I know Mary Baker Eddy endured lawsuits, too, with people accusing her of plagiarizing, among other things. It's not easy to live in this world yet not be of it.
The point is that the happy learner is one who doesn't take any of it personally. The happy learner accepts that it is all nothing. As ACIM puts it, "A little piece of glass, a speck of dust, a body or a war are one to you. For if you value one thing made of nothing, you have believed that nothing can be precious, and that you can learn how to make the untrue true." It's not personal, and it's not true. Whether we're fighting for or defending a book or a way of life or the desire to be right, we are mistakenly valuing nothing. End of story.
What happens when we value something outside of ourselves? What happens when we would rather be right than happy? What happens when something shiny in the dream catches our eye, and we value it and long for it? What happens when we lose ourselves in our not-so-hidden agendas? Over and over we immerse ourselves in the story of the dream, coming up for air only when our suffering gets too intense. Only when we can't stand it anymore do we think that there might be another way.
The happy learner doesn't have to wait until the lawsuits are flying. The happy learner isn't dependent on the who, what, where, or why of it all. The happy learner is willing to let the Holy Spirit lead the way, and to value only what is Always and Everywhere, for everyone. The happy learner has given up the need to indulge personal comfort and desire... and most of all, the happy learner has given up the compulsive need to be smug and comfortable and right.
"Seek not outside yourself. For all your pain comes simply from the futile search for what you want, insisting where it must be found. What if it is not there? Would you rather be right, or happy? Be you glad that you are told where happiness abides, and seek no longer elsewhere. You will fail. But it is given you to know the Truth, and not to seek for it outside yourself." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 29, Section VII, 1:6-12
Friday, June 6, 2008
Sweet Adversity
"Thou art right, immortal Shakespeare, great poet of humanity: "Sweet are the uses of adversity; which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head." Trials teach mortals not to lean on a material staff, a broken reed, which pierces the heart. We do not half remember this in the sunshine of joy and prosperity. Sorrow is salutary. Through great tribulation we enter the kingdom. Trials are proof of God's care. Spiritual development germinates not from seed sown in the soil of material hopes, but when these decay, Love propagates anew the higher joys of Spirit, which have no taint of earth. Each successive stage of experience unfolds new views of Divine Goodness and Love." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 66, Lines 1-16
"We must understand that God is Infinite in Its Individuality. Because that is true, you can say, 'I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me,' or 'I and my Father are One'... anything that will give you this sense of 'I' in the midst of you, and that will, at the same time, subordinate human selfhood, not glorify or gratify it." -- Joel Goldsmith
Because words are symbols of symbols, and have no objective reality, they are tricky. Writing about what is Eternal and Unchanging with symbols that shift and change according to who's writing and who's reading means that only a few will ever see and hear the inner meaning. Mary Baker Eddy knew that. Joel Goldsmith knew that. And this means that our egos will always hear what they want to hear in any given passage, given half a chance. This is why Joel said to seek the state of mind that dwells in the awareness of God within, yet that does not gratify or glorify the human sense of selfhood. And why Mary Baker Eddy wrote that adversity is sweet... it does not gratify the human sense, nor does it glorify it. It humbles our human selves at every turn, burning away false desires and illusions of every description, leaving only what is Real and Eternal and True.
Both Joel Goldsmith and Mary Baker Eddy eschewed organization. Yes, they both left behind active organizations, but both took whatever steps they could to limit them. Why? Not because organizations are good or bad... they are neither. They do, however, take on a life of their own; once that happens, all the energy of any entity will go into the preservation of self, not the knowing of Self.
We can use this wisdom in our own lives. We can welcome whatever asks us to step out of our human sense of self, to move beyond the perceived limitations of our personal self. We can welcome the challenges and problems as sweet adversity, with the jewel of Self-Realization as the only purpose for all of it. And we can practice self-awareness, noticing when defensiveness and defendedness signal the posturing of the illusory personal.
In the human story, we are always looking for answers to problems. From an Awakened perspective, there are no problems. God is All. So every imagined problem is our best friend, our ticket to see what lies behind the illusion. What fun! As A Course in Miracles puts it, "Your life is not as you imagine it." The very problems and challenges we avoid and run from are simply veils that hide the face of The Beloved... they are to be welcomed and known fully as Goodness ItSelf. There is not one problem or situation, no matter how seemingly painful, that will not simply melt to reveal the Truth when you no longer judge and resist. Forgiveness gives us the Peace of Mind to be able to rest in and welcome whatever is in our face, today and every day.
Sweet are the uses of adversity, indeed. Don't be fooled by old judgements about problematic situations... they are the ego vying for attention and reality that it can never have in Reality. When we argue for our limitations and problems, insisting on fighting them and thus pretending they are real, we are simply arguing for the illusory self. This is what Mary Baker Eddy calls 'evil,' missing the mark. Our problems are no problem at all. For behind the veil of every encounter there is revealed the Omnipresent, Omnipotent, Omniscient Presence of God... All Good, Always Available, and Always Our True Self.
"Evil is a negation, because it is the absence of Truth. It is nothing, because it is the absence of something. It is unreal, because it presupposes the absence of God, the Omnipotent and Omnipresent. Every mortal must learn that there is neither power nor reality in evil. Evil is self-assertive. It says, "I am a real entity, over-mastering good." This falsehood should strip evil of all pretensions. The only power of evil is to destroy itself. It can never destroy one iota of Good." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 186, Lines 11-20
"We must understand that God is Infinite in Its Individuality. Because that is true, you can say, 'I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me,' or 'I and my Father are One'... anything that will give you this sense of 'I' in the midst of you, and that will, at the same time, subordinate human selfhood, not glorify or gratify it." -- Joel Goldsmith
Because words are symbols of symbols, and have no objective reality, they are tricky. Writing about what is Eternal and Unchanging with symbols that shift and change according to who's writing and who's reading means that only a few will ever see and hear the inner meaning. Mary Baker Eddy knew that. Joel Goldsmith knew that. And this means that our egos will always hear what they want to hear in any given passage, given half a chance. This is why Joel said to seek the state of mind that dwells in the awareness of God within, yet that does not gratify or glorify the human sense of selfhood. And why Mary Baker Eddy wrote that adversity is sweet... it does not gratify the human sense, nor does it glorify it. It humbles our human selves at every turn, burning away false desires and illusions of every description, leaving only what is Real and Eternal and True.
Both Joel Goldsmith and Mary Baker Eddy eschewed organization. Yes, they both left behind active organizations, but both took whatever steps they could to limit them. Why? Not because organizations are good or bad... they are neither. They do, however, take on a life of their own; once that happens, all the energy of any entity will go into the preservation of self, not the knowing of Self.
We can use this wisdom in our own lives. We can welcome whatever asks us to step out of our human sense of self, to move beyond the perceived limitations of our personal self. We can welcome the challenges and problems as sweet adversity, with the jewel of Self-Realization as the only purpose for all of it. And we can practice self-awareness, noticing when defensiveness and defendedness signal the posturing of the illusory personal.
In the human story, we are always looking for answers to problems. From an Awakened perspective, there are no problems. God is All. So every imagined problem is our best friend, our ticket to see what lies behind the illusion. What fun! As A Course in Miracles puts it, "Your life is not as you imagine it." The very problems and challenges we avoid and run from are simply veils that hide the face of The Beloved... they are to be welcomed and known fully as Goodness ItSelf. There is not one problem or situation, no matter how seemingly painful, that will not simply melt to reveal the Truth when you no longer judge and resist. Forgiveness gives us the Peace of Mind to be able to rest in and welcome whatever is in our face, today and every day.
Sweet are the uses of adversity, indeed. Don't be fooled by old judgements about problematic situations... they are the ego vying for attention and reality that it can never have in Reality. When we argue for our limitations and problems, insisting on fighting them and thus pretending they are real, we are simply arguing for the illusory self. This is what Mary Baker Eddy calls 'evil,' missing the mark. Our problems are no problem at all. For behind the veil of every encounter there is revealed the Omnipresent, Omnipotent, Omniscient Presence of God... All Good, Always Available, and Always Our True Self.
"Evil is a negation, because it is the absence of Truth. It is nothing, because it is the absence of something. It is unreal, because it presupposes the absence of God, the Omnipotent and Omnipresent. Every mortal must learn that there is neither power nor reality in evil. Evil is self-assertive. It says, "I am a real entity, over-mastering good." This falsehood should strip evil of all pretensions. The only power of evil is to destroy itself. It can never destroy one iota of Good." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 186, Lines 11-20
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