Everyone, Everywhere, and Always

"The reflections you accept into the mirror of your mind in time but bring eternity nearer or farther. You will turn from time to holiness, as surely as the reflection of holiness calls everyone to lay all guilt aside.  Reflect the peace of Heaven here, and bring this world to Heaven.  For the reflection of Truth draws everyone to Truth, and as they enter into it they leave all reflections behind." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 14, Section X, 1:2-7

"I will forgive, and this will disappear." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 193, 13:3

I woke up this morning from a nightmare.  It was a convoluted dream, complete with an evil nemesis who took away everything I loved.  Interestingly, such dreams don't make me afraid anymore.  I just wake up from them feeling muddy and tired... but unafraid.  I know that this is a very good sign.  It means that all the remaining hidden beliefs and obstacles to Love's Presence are finally coming to the surface to be forgiven and released.  As the Course reminds us, "I will forgive, and this will disappear."  Not because forgiveness is magic, but because as soon as we let go of the judgment (which is all the reality or meaning that it has), there is nothing there.  It's all made up, just like my convoluted dream.

"Perception is a mirror, not a fact." -- A Course in Miracles;

Everything I see and experience in the life called Mary is in my mind, and nowhere else.  No matter how much I project it 'out there' it remains in my mind, since ideas can't leave their source.  True forgiveness is the process of recognizing that all of these thoughts and experiences are images I have made, and so I can let them go.  The Reality of our shared experience is beyond these perceptual images we call our lives.  Our Reality is One, unified, safe, and sure.

"In Heaven reality is shared and not reflected." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 14, Section X, 2:1

I love that I can awaken from every dream of hatred or dissatisfaction or pain or even pleasure (all based on projected judgments of self or others... no difference), and find myself instantly in Joy, unconditioned and free.  I love that my judgments are nothing.  I love that salvation is always present, in every Holy Instant of Now.

"A dream of judgement came into the mind that God created perfect as Himself.  And in that dream was Heaven changed to hell, and God made enemy unto His Son.  How can God's Son awaken from the dream?  It is a dream of judgement.  So must he judge not, and he will waken.  For the dream will seem to last while he is part of it." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 29, Section IX, 2:1-6

The nightmare seemed to last while I was part of it.  But as I became aware that I was dreaming, I was able to stop judging the figures in the dream, and so it disappeared.  Then I was able to let go of analysis or judgment of self, and remembered: "I will forgive, and this will disappear."  This clearing process is our only function in the world.  "Reflect the Peace of Heaven here, and bring this world to Heaven." My vocation is to forgive and release all perception (the good included).  What remains is a clear Reflection of Truth.  What remains when all is forgiven is the Luminous Mind of God and the Reflection of Heaven, which is everyone, everywhere, and always.

The Light of Strength

"The light of strength is constant, sure as love, forever glad to give itself away, because it cannot give but to itself.  No one can ask in vain to share its sight, and none who enters its abode can leave without a miracle before his eyes, and strength and light abiding in his heart." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook Lesson 92, 8:1-2

Constant, sure, abiding... these are the shining attributes of the ever-present, unchanging Christ Self that is our Reality.  Vacillating, uncertain, always in flux... these are the attributes of the conditioned self, the egoic self-concept.  Sometimes in the midst of the egoic delusion, the only way to give ourselves over to the Holy Spirit and return to sanity is to gently remind ourselves that what is true doesn't shift and change, and so this (whatever version of egoic stuff is arising) must not be true.  It's like Ramana Maharshi asking, "Who am I?", and going through the process of elimination... "Not this, not this..."  All of 'this' that the mind can conceive is simply concept, not reality.  When the mind is wiped clean of all its concepts, what remains is the effortless light and strength of Mind Awake, which is pure Love.

Forgiveness is the process of washing the mind of concepts.  As we give over every thought, emotion, judgment, and experience to the Holy Spirit for healing, the mind becomes quiet.  In the Introduction to the Course, we are told that, "The Course does not aim at teaching the meaning of Love, for that is beyond what can be taught.  It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of Love's Presence, which is your natural inheritance." (ACIM; Introduction, 1:6-7)  Every single apparent block to awareness is a mental construct, a concept held as true in the sleeping mind.  "Salvation can be seen as nothing more than the escape from concepts." (ACIM; Chapter 31, V, 14:3)

As we forgive all concepts of a world and of a self, the mind becomes still, radiating only the light of strength and that is the ever-present reality of our true Self. 

"The power of decision is our own.  And we accept of Him that which we are, and humbly recognize the Son of God.  To recognize God's Son implies as well that all self-concepts have been laid aside, and recognized as false.  Their arrogance has been perceived.  And in humility the radiance of God's Son, his gentleness, his perfect sinlessness, his Father's Love, his right to Heaven and release from hell, are joyously accepted as our own." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook Lesson 152, 10:1-5

Fireflies

First, an apology to all who have tried to purchase the CD or individual mp3s and discovered the links don't work!  Thank you for letting me know... it will be corrected by tomorrow evening at the latest... and now the lyrics that inspired today's blog:

I'd like to make myself believe that planet earth turns slowly.
It's hard to say I'd rather stay awake when I'm asleep.
'Cause everything is never as it seems.
-- from the song, "Fireflies" by Owl City

I give piano lessons to my 10 year old grandson, Drew.  And because he loves the above song "Fireflies," I created a chord chart for him and taught him about chords and inversions this afternoon.  He was really excited to be applying what he's learning to songs he knows.  And quite frankly, the song is really catchy and clever... and at times profound.  I love it.

It reminds me of the metaphysics of "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" and its "Life is but a dream" message.  We would all like to make ourselves believe that we are safe on a slowly turning planet, and that we are awake... but as the song says, it's hard to keep convincing ourselves of that when we so obviously live in a world of dreams where nothing is what is seems.  A Course in Miracles puts it this way: "Our life is not as we imagine it."

As I write this, fireflies are winking on and off under my 150 year old oak and hickory trees.  Fireflies are dreamlike creatures any way you look at them, floating high up in the branches or down in the moist grass, like fairies or tiny angels.  They remind me that we dream beautiful dreams together, too.  And that the more beautiful, the more loving, the more innocent our dreams, the closer our minds come to remembering Who We Really Are.  "You are surrounded only by Him [God].  What limits can there be on You whom He encompasses?" -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 18, VI, 10:6-7

It's up to us, always up to us to return our dreaming minds to God, where we have always been in Truth.  And as we do we know that "These unsubstantial images will go, and leave your mind unclouded and serene." (ACIM; WB 186, 10:1)  Each moment we're focusing our perception either on the good and the perfect that reflects the Truth of God, or on the lies of the false separate self which always claims lack and limitation.  And each brother and sister, whether animal, vegetable, or mineral, gives us an opportunity to remember.  And to forgive our willingness to succumb again and again to the seduction of the flawed, the limited, the suffering... the dream of pain and death.

The song "Fireflies" reminds us that beauty reflects the real, but is not the real... nothing in the world of dreams can do more than reflect the mind that's dreaming.  And do we really want to awaken?   

"You would not believe your eyes if ten million fireflies lit up the world as I fell asleep."
-- from the song "Fireflies" by Owl City

Never Alone

"This world is but the dream that you can be alone, and think without affecting those apart from you.  To be alone must mean you are apart.  It is like the house set upon straw.  It seems to be quite solid and substantial in itself.  Yet its stability cannot be judged apart from its foundation.  If it rests on straw, there is no need to bar the door and lock the windows and make fast the bolts.  The wind will topple it, and rain will come and carry it into oblivion.  What can be safe that rests upon a shadow?" -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 28, Section VII, 5:2-3, 7-11, 6:3

It's interesting that the above passage from A Course in Miracles points to the concept of aloneness as a house built on straw.  The idea of being alone is the belief that all things are separate, because we imagine ourselves to be separate from our Source.  This tiny false idea is the basis of a whole world of prodigal sons, trying to make their way home to what they never left.

On the other hand, ACIM reminds us that a solid foundation is based on our relationship with every living thing, for as we acknowledge the innocence and perfection of our brothers and sisters, we remember our own.  "Your home is built upon your brother's health, upon his happiness, his sinlessness, and everything his Father promised him.  The winds will blow upon it and the rain will beat against it, but with no effect.  The world will wash away, and yet this house will stand forever, for its strength lies not within itself alone.  It is an ark of safety, resting on God's promise that His Son is safe forever in Himself."  Not alone. 

We can no more be separate from the rest of life than we could ever be separated from our Source, from God.  We are literally reflections of the Light shining in God's Mind, and have no being or will or qualities apart from God.  We are God in expression, innocent and free as God created us... all of us together.  This Principle of Oneness is the Ground of Being... our Home built upon the unshakable foundation of Truth.  For we are One with God and with each other.  And we are never alone.

"There is no time, no place, no state where God is absent.  There is nothing to be feared.  There is no way in which a gap could be conceived of in the Wholeness that is His.  God asks for nothing, and His Son, like Him, need ask for nothing.  For there is no lack in him." -- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 29, Section I, 1:1-3, and Chapter 28, Section VII, 1:1-2

Changing Thoughts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Other Road

I love when a quote works in awareness, like a zen koan. This quote from Krishnamurti has that effect: "You can't ever see what to do, you can see only what not to do. The total negation of that road is the new beginning, the Other Road. This Other Road is not on the map, nor can it ever be put on any map. Every map is a map of the wrong road, the old road."

A Course in Miracles puts it this way: "Nothing the world believes is true. It is a place whose purpose is to be a home where those who claim they do not know themselves can come to question what it is they are." (WB 139, 7:1-2)

The mind boggles at this. This world is a negation, like darkness, nothing in itself. Seeing the absolute absurdity of this is the beginning of awareness. Our human minds that imagine themselves separate from other minds collectively spin this web of negation... imagining ourselves to need this, to seek that, to achieve it, acquire it, or make it. The very act of seeking, achieving, or acquiring means we're following the map of the world, whether we think it's spirituality we're acquiring or whether we think it's material achievement. There is absolutely no difference. If we think we have a map, a structure, a path to follow that will save us or make us better, then we're simply spinning a different version of the same negation.

The trackless desert is an archetypal image in all wisdom traditions. The willingness to release all our seeking and all our maps and head into what seems like an endless desert with no distinguishing features and no way to tell where you are... this seems the height of folly. Yet this is the image that describes what is really going on. All of our signs and directions and efforting are simply mirages... an avoidance of Reality. We have to be willing to walk the desert of our own making, to become aware of the negation that is our human experience, so that we can finally see that a negation is just that.... nothing at all. And we don't need plans or maps or defenses to be what we effortlessly are, or to see what has always been true. We don't need to be told who we are. We just need to see, to really see what is not true. When the negation is brought to awareness, the unchanging Reality is effortlessly seen and experienced.

Who we are, collectively, is seamless Wholeness. As ACIM reminds us, "Wholeness has no form because it is unlimited." (T. 30; III, 3:2) We are a collective emanation from the Mind of God, of Pure Spirit: "God has not many Sons, but only One. Who can have more, and who be given less?" (T. 29; VIII, 9:1-2) Maps, directions, goals, religions, everything the world advocates, all of it, are attempts to negate that wholeness, to say that something more than everything is needed or wanted. We really are wandering in the desert with manna all around us. We really are like ostriches with our heads in the sand.

We have a way to wake up in the midst of this. We take the pathless path, the journey with no destination, no map. A Course in Miracles explains that forgiveness (the releasing of all our judgments, the maps that make up the world) is the process of asking for the miracle of healed perception. Who are we asking? Our very God-Self. What are we asking for? The awareness of the nothingness that our judgments have seemed to hold in place. We are giving ourselves permission to see the negation, and to remember our Self. And the miracle of healed perception is that we then walk within this dream with new awareness of Wholeness, each time we choose to forgive and remember. This is the Other Road.

Just Like Him

"Whenever you question your value, say: God HimSelf is incomplete without me." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 9, Section VII, 8:1-2

When we meet someone's children, it's very common for us to comment on how much like the parents the children are. "Oh, he's just like his father," we like to say. We find no cause for surprise in this... it's expected. And yet we base our religions on how unlike God we are... we're expected to focus on the litany of our shortcomings and sins, and to accept that we'll always fall short of the glory of God. We're expected to bow and recite and genuflect to this parent that we are nothing like... it's like being the ultimate foster child with a very stern, dysfunctional parent. It makes no sense at all.

The Reality of God isn't father or mother... God is Infinite Mind, Infinite Awareness, the Ocean of Consciousness in which we live and move and have our being. We speak of God as He only because we don't have a gender neutral pronoun in our language. I often use Self, because it describes most accurately our very Real relationship with this Infinite Awareness that we are. All our self-created individual identities veil this relationship, but do not and cannot sever it.

Our individuality was never meant to be separate... simply a current in the larger Awareness of Self, like a current in the ocean. The current is still ocean, and is completely dependent on the ocean to be at all. The current has all the qualities of ocean. Through the act of clinging to separate identities as autonomous and finite, we seem to lose our memory of the infinite nature of Self. But thank God our memory remains, unnoticed, like something so familiar and obvious that we no longer pay attention to it. And when our attention returns, when we forgive and release our stories of a separate self even temporarily, in that sacred stillness we discover our very own Self... closer than breathing, nearer than hands or feet.

So the gist of all this is that we can have no real qualities or attributes that we don't share with God. We share the Wholeness, the Wisdom, the Peace, the Joy, the all-encompassing Love. God is All-Inclusive. And we (every living thing) are currents in the Mind of God, reflections of the Infinite nature of our True Self. We are chips off the proverbial block, the spitting image of our Source. We are just like Him.

"No attribute of His remains unshared by everything that lives." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook Lesson 156, 3:2

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

Too Sleepy to Remember

"But I say unto you, that ye resist not evil." -- The Bible; Matthew 5:39

"Defenses are the costliest of all the prices which the ego would exact. You behold the Son of God as a victim to attack by fantasies, by dreams, and by illusions he has made; yet helpless in their presence, needful of defense by still more fantasies, and dreams by which illusions of his safety comfort him." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 153, 4:1 & 5

"Defenselessness is strength. It testifies to recognition of the Christ in you. Choice is always made between Christ's strength and your own weakness, seen apart from Him. Defenselessness can never be attacked, because it recognizes strength so great that attack is folly, or a silly game a tired child might play, when he becomes too sleepy to remember what he wants." A Course in Miracles; Workbook 153, 6:1-4

We've all been too sleepy to remember. It happened to me this morning... a bright, slumberous tropical morning with exotic bird calls and blowing palm branches. I awoke feeling oddly disoriented, looking for something familiar. That's what our illusory separated selves do... they identify with particular things or people, and then feel lost beyond the familiar props. That's because they don't really exist... like a stage persona, without the other characters and props, the illusion of it all vanishes. Where am I? Who am I?

But this morning I am willing to be still... and as I quietly listen, I remember: "I am the holy Son of God HimSelf." (ACIM; Workbook 191) My whole being melts and dissolves and relaxes into this Truth. As ACIM goes on to remind us, "In that thought is everything you look on wholly changed. 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."

I love this passage. It reminds me that regardless of how it all began, or how many times I forget or seem to fall asleep, God is inevitable. God doesn't sleep. Who We Are is a given. Our Oneness with All Holiness and Goodness is simply All that IS. My imagined self may sometimes seem too sleepy to remember, but my true Self is Mind Awake... eternally safe, eternally whole, eternally One. As ACIM puts it: "Wholeness has no form, because it is unlimited."

Our human way is to struggle with everything. We struggle to relax enough to go to sleep at night, then we struggle again to wake up just enough to remember our own fictions, and then we struggle to resist whatever appears to be in consciousness that we think we don't want. What we have chosen to forget is that every act of struggle and resistance and defense is the glue that holds the stage persona together. The illusion requires a story, and all stories have resistance and struggle involved. All stories involve some sort of attack and defense, even if it's only worrying about our food and how it will or won't protect our imaginary bodies.

We sleep and dream that we live a life apart from God. Thank God it has never been true, and nothing we ever dream will change the Truth of Being. Becoming quiet and defenseless returns us to our right mind and the remembrance of all that is True. Our right mind is always One with God, and never sleeps. We can turn from illusions to Truth at any moment. We are never really too sleepy to remember.

"Awake thou that sleepest, and Christ shall give thee Light." -- The Bible; Ephesians 5:14

Bring It to Truth

"Salvation is no compromise of any kind. To compromise is to accept but part of what you want; to take a little and give up the rest. Salvation gives up nothing. It is complete for everyone. Let the idea of compromise but enter, and the awareness of salvation's purpose is lost because it is not recognized. Compromise is the belief that true salvation is impossible. It would maintain you can attack a little, love a little, and know the difference. Does this make sense? This course is easy just because it makes no compromise. Yet it seems difficult to those who still believe that compromise is possible." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 23, Section III, 3:1-7,9, 4:1-2

I often have what I call morning dreams. I've found that one way to 'hear' the Voice of the Holy Spirit, my High Self, is when I'm led to fall back asleep after my morning reading and prayer time. When this happens, there is often a very symbolic dream, with the Voice speaking clearly and stating the issue.

So there are two lessons confronting me this morning... and I see them mirrored everywhere. One is becoming single-minded. This is what ACIM calls right-minded, or miracle-minded. No compromise. It shows up in daily life as focus, as not getting lost in the myriad of details and tasks that each day seems to bring, but maintaining focus and attention on what is truly important to me. This is simply another story line in the dream... but the reason this one matters is that by maintaining discipline and focus, by becoming single-minded, I am remembering that I am cause and not effect. So what I do is actually not important... but it is very vital that I remember that I am the dreamer, and not just another aspect of the dream. When what I say I want and what I find myself thinking about and doing are different things, I am being dishonest with myself and also playing the victim within the dream. "I am not the victim of the world I see." (ACIM; Workbook Lesson 31)

The second lesson is about not trying to remember the truth. When I try to remember truth, gather glimpses of truth, read bits of truth to try and inspire myself, and try and bring these glimpses to bear in my dream, I am kidding myself. This is what ACIM calls trying to bring truth to our illusions. This is the pseudo-spirituality of the world, and it simply maintains the status quo of the dream. What must happen daily, hourly, holy instant to holy instant, is to bring our illusions to Truth. This is done through our function of forgiveness... bring it to Truth, and we always remain at peace, knowing that nothing but God ever happened. Bring bits of so-called truth to our dream, and we are always striving, always seeking for knowledge, always trying to figure it out. The ego's dictum is 'seek but do not find.' ACIM clearly tells us that "Truth will correct all errors in my mind." Truth already IS true... we don't have to remember it to make it so. We don't have to do anything but willingly bring our illusory dream world back into its source, our own mind... and there ask the Holy Spirit, our High Self, to correct it. We can't ask that they be fixed 'out there.' There is nothing out there. It's all projection, the hall of mirrors that pretends to be life. It's all in our own mind. "Truth will correct all errors in my mind." (ACIM; Workbook Lesson 107)

So whatever it is that seems to happen... bring it to Truth. Ask that your perception be healed, that Truth correct your perception. Then rest in God. Whatever seems to trouble you... bring it Truth. Ask that your perception be healed, that Truth correct your mental distortions. Then rest in God. "The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the Everlasting Arms." (The Bible; Deuteronomy 33:27) "For in Him we live and move and have our Being." (The Bible; Acts 17:28)

We are immortal Spirit, created in the image and likeness of God. Like the sunlight emanates from the sun, we shine; we radiate from the Mind of God. And all the dreams in the dream we call life have never changed us, have never done anything at all. Dreams are still dreams, and have no real effects. Forgiveness reveals this, each time we bring our illusions to Truth.

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

The Only Content

"There are no powers of evil external to yourself. Discords have no external existence. Resolve them within your own consciousness." -- Joel Goldsmith

"Perception can make whatever picture the mind desires to see. Remember this. In this lies either Heaven or hell, as you elect." -- A Course in Miracles; Manual for Teachers 19, 5:2-4

"The kingdom of God is within you." -- The Bible; Luke 17:21

Such responsibility. To know that we're not victims of circumstances or people. To realize that we're the dreamer of our own dream. To really know that our reality has always remained untouched and perfect and pure, within our very own consciousness. The form doesn't matter... the content is always God. Remembering this is our responsibility... and when we do remember we're dreaming, there is such freedom! As Joel Goldsmith put it, "There is an insight in man that visions through all appearances."

We decide every moment of every day where our holy attention lies... where we think we are in consciousness. This affects nothing in reality, but affects everything in the dream. We are only the decider within the dream. Safe in God, all is changeless and free and eternal. So the only real choice, ever, is to remember or not. When we know we're safe in God, when we remember who we are as emanations of God, then the dream will reflect that. And that's all that really matters. That's our only purpose here.

We may be artists or teachers or factory workers... but our purpose is united and one. We're all here to reflect Heaven on earth, to remember who we are, as One in God. Whatever we do, wherever we go, we can make remembering who we really are in God our motive. Then everything is translated in the dream into a holy journey with a holy purpose. The form doesn't matter. God is the only content.

"I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in Heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in Heaven." -- The Bible; Matthew 16:19

Life Eternal

"Do not perceive anything God did not create or you are denying Him. If you would remember eternity, you must look only on the eternal. If you allow yourself to become preoccupied with the temporal, you are living in time. As always, your choice is determined by what you value. Time and eternity cannot both be real, because they contradict each other. If you will accept only what is timeless as real, you will begin to understand eternity and make it yours." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 10, Section V, 13:1 & 14:5-9

"This is a spiritual universe, an eternal universe which God made and which He found Good. The discords, the inharmonies, and the injustices are not in the world; they are in our misperception of the world, in what we think we are seeing and hearing with our human senses. One of the deepest truths of the Bible is that to know God aright is life eternal." -- Joel Goldsmith

I love how our minds just shut down when we think about the word eternity. Maybe when we're star gazing at night we have glimpses, but it's too overwhelming... in no time at all we find our mind has popped on to other things, like what we're having for dinner, or who we need to call, or what he or she did or said.

Our preoccupation with the temporal, the changing, the unreal is pretty much deliberate. We obsess about the trivial and unreal because the vastness of the Truth scares us. Our own eternal reality, the limitless reality that we reflect and are, scares us. It scares us because we know we can't have it both ways. In order to even begin to perceive a reflection of limitless God as flawed and limited and small, we have to close our eyes to Reality and fall asleep and dream. We know we're making an illusory choice, over and over, but we can't seem to help ourselves. We're addicted to this dream, to our imagined limits and pain... it's like an addiction to a bad relationship... we know it's not what we're pretending it is, that it's not really love, but we can't seem to help ourselves. As a matter of fact, the relationships in the dream we call life simply reflect this relationship of denial we have with Reality.

There is no easy answer on how to start valuing the Real again; it's simple (only two choices!), but definitely not easy, since we are addicted to fantasy and illusion. We want what we want, not what is. So the first step in returning to sanity is to begin to want only the Truth in every situation, not what we want to be the truth. Valuing the Truth above all human desire and beyond imagined emotional investment is how we come to know God aright.

The long and the short of it is that we can't know Life Eternal while obsessing about the details of this temporal life. That's why Jesus told us very succinctly to 'take no thought' for the things of the world. He told us instead to 'seek first the Kingdom.' Everything that is Real exists in eternity, and has no limits and no end. By remembering our Eternal Self in God, we begin to reflect only the eternal here in the dream, 'on earth as it is in Heaven.'

So how do we see only what God created, see only what is true and real? We empty ourselves of the trivial and and the unreal. We empty our hands and hearts of the false loves we have cherished. We come with open minds and hearts to God, and ask for the miracle of healed perception, that we might see the world as God sees. This is the only miracle there is. And this is Life Eternal.

"Take no thought for your life, saying, what we shall eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? But seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you." -- The Bible; Matthew 6:31 & 33

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

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

The Human Concept

"I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook Lesson 201

"I warn students against falling into the error of anti-Christ. The consciousness of corporeality, and whatever is connected therewith, must be outgrown. Corporeal falsities include all obstacles to health, holiness, and heaven. Man's individual life is infinitely above a bodily form of existence, and the human concept antagonizes the Divine." Miscellaneous Writings by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 309, Lines 18-24

The alleged human self is really just a concept, a projection and amalgam of belief. We have always been living and moving and having our Being in God, Who is Spirit and Life... which means that we are pure Spirit, too... and as Jeshua ben Joseph said, "Before Abraham was, I AM." He wasn't talking about a body.

Christ is the word for Emmanuel, God with us. Each of us is the baby Christ, unknown to the seemingly physical self encasing it. The belief that we are physical, that there is physical cause and effect and that we are subject to it, is the anti-Christ. We can't know Who we are as long as we insist on embracing the human concept. The baby Christ cannot mature and be fully re-membered while we embrace and defend our physicalness. As Mrs. Eddy said, the human concept antagonizes the Divine.

In my own life, I would describe this as spiritual warfare. Mrs. Eddy spoke a lot about this in her own life. Saint Paul spoke of spiritual warfare in high places, and that is exactly what this is... and the high place is our very consciousness. What and Who are we conscious of Being? Physical or Spiritual? Many separate ones, or the One? This cannot be a passive knowing, but must be consciously embraced. Passivity leads to the seeming reality of the physical, again and again. The physical illusion is what we have chosen up until now, and the momentum is with the familiar and the collectively agreed reality of the physical. The conscious Awareness of Truth is the only antidote for our habitually chosen illusions.

The human concept is not true. True humanity, the Christ, the Holy One of God, eternally exists in the Mind of God, and only here, only now. We reflect only what is true of God, our true Self, always. There is nothing else.

"Remember always that you cannot be anywhere except in the Mind of God." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 9, Section VIII, 5:3

Divine Ideas

"Let then, your dedication be to the eternal, and learn how not to interfere with it and make it slave to time. For what you think you do to the eternal you to you. Whom God created as His Son is slave to nothing, being lord of all, along with his Creator. You can enslave a body, but an idea is free, incapable of being kept in prison or limited in any way except by the mind that thought it. For it remains joined to its source, which is its jailer or its liberator, according to which it chooses as its purpose for itself." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 19, Section I, 16:1-5

"God is the Creator of man, and the Divine Principle of man remaining perfect, the Divine Idea or reflection, man, remains perfect. Man is the expression of God's Being." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 470, Lines 21-24

"God is Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in Truth." -- The Bible; John 4:24

We live in the Garden of Eden, the Mind of God... the garden of Divine Ideas. But we dream we live in a desert, where ideas and their unfoldment are scarce and have to be purchased through toil and suffering. Divine Ideas are Omnipresent, as God is Omnipresent... and we, as perfect reflections in the Mind of God, share in this infinite nature. Each Divine Idea is also Omnipotent, with full power and fulfillment within itself. Like the seeds we plant in our dream of a life, the reality of Divine Ideas have within themselves complete fulfillment and unfoldment, each seed-idea expanding and unfolding according to its idea-nature. Each is complete, as each holographic aspect of the One Divine Mind is complete and whole in reflection. We are each Divine Ideas, completely whole and free. We are completely One with God and with each other, each unique reflections of our One Self.

The challenge to our false sense of self, our supposed human nature, is to not interfere... our task is to simply let each Divine Idea be itself, to sprout and unfold according to its unique reflection of God. The temptation is to weave stories and illusory meanings around Divine Ideas, superimposing false images and limited, untrue ideas. This is like dumping caustic chemicals on the sprouting seeds in our garden. We have to let the seeds unfold according to their Divine Design.

As radiant emanations of the One Mind that is God, we are pure Idea, pure Spirit. When we attempt to super-impose human concepts and images onto our seed-selves, there are always seemingly unwelcome and unexpected consequences reflected within the dream "on earth as it is in Heaven." Our job is to not interfere with what is One with God, and forever perfect as God. When we see ourselves as less than this, we are only seeing the super-imposed false images and untrue ideas we insist on seeing. Like a double-exposed negative of a 35 mm photograph, these false images have no truth and no substance... they are simply blurred images of what we think we are, and what we fear we must always be. Imagining ourselves to be separate from God and from each other, our images remain blurred and fearful.

As A Course in Miracles reminds us, "an idea is free, incapable of being kept in prison or limited in any way except by the mind that thought it." Who is the Mind that is the Source of All, as Divine Ideas, Divine Reflections? And can the Mind of the Infinite be limited or distorted by illusory finite ideas and images? Ideas leave not their source. We are Divine Ideas emanating from the Infinite and Eternal Mind of God... we have never left this Mind, and we have never been apart from it. We are the Divine Ideas that populate the untouched and unchanged, eternal Garden of Eden.

"God and the real man are inseparable as Divine Principle and idea. God is the Principle of man, and man is the idea of God." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 476, Lines 4-5, & 9-11

One Self

"The eye by which I see God is the same as the eye by which God sees me. My eye and God's eye are one and the same... one in seeing, one in knowing, and one in loving." -- Meister Eckhart

"I am one Self, united with my Creator, at one with every aspect of creation, and limitless in power and in peace." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 95, 11:2

How do you see yourself? Take a moment and make a list of the attributes that pop into your mind. How do you see your family? How do you see your neighbors, and your friends? How do you see your 'enemies', those pesky people who look at the world so differently than you do? How do you see your pets? How do you see the wounded and the afflicted? How do you see the evil and the power-hungry? Take the time to do some very honest soul-searching here. How do you see us all? For "God has not many Sons, but only One. Who can have more, and who be given less?" (ACIM; Chapter 29, Section VIII, 9:1-2)

This is worth your time and diligence. Expose the habitual projections, the hidden arrogance and specialness, the separating and segmenting that our judgments attempt day after day. Write it all down. Look at it in the light. Then remember that, "The Holy Spirit is not delayed by your mistakes. He can be held back only by your unwillingness to let them go. Let all these errors go by recognizing them for what they are. They are attempts to keep you unaware you are one Self, united with your Creator, at one with every aspect of creation, and limitless in power and in peace. This is the Truth, and nothing else is true." (ACIM; Workbook 95, 8:1-2, 10:1-3)

The remembering of Self as one has holographic effects in the dream. Every image in the dream is just that... an image held in mind and thought. When you waken from a dream, it vanishes. When you remain in a dream, but are Awake in the dream, the dream reflects your Awakened Awareness. This is omni-directional, since past and future are simply illusory extensions of present consciousness in the dream.

How do you see yourself now? Look at your written descriptions of how you see self and the world. ALL of it is how you see your self now. But as you begin to "Feel this one Self in you, and let It shine away all your illusions and your doubts," you begin to see your self as "complete and healed and whole, with power to lift the veil of darkness from the world, and let the light in you come through to teach the world the Truth about your Self." (ACIM; Workbook 95, 13:3, 12:3)

"You are one Self, and it is given you to feel this Self within you, and to cast all illusions out of the one Mind that is this Self, the holy Truth in you. Do not forget today. We need your help; your little part in bringing happiness to all the world." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 95, 14:1-2

True Freedom

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

Did you you ever think about the meaning of freedom in the world we know? It's always freedom from... from some person, place, or condition. It is predicated on the absence of the offending limitation. But as long as you have to avoid some aspect of life in order to be free, you are not really free! You are always moving away from the offending person, place, or condition. Keeping your distance from what seems to limit you becomes the goal. How is that freedom?

Jeshua ben Joseph told us that only Truth offers real freedom. True freedom, as described in Scripture and by many Awakened Beings, is not an avoidance mechanism. True freedom is all-encompassing, and is experienced even in the presence of our most limiting experiences when the Truth of Being One with God is accepted and known. True freedom is this Awareness of Oneness that includes all there is, the Allness and Goodness of God.

What limits to freedom exist in perfect Oneness? What limits to freedom can be imagined in the Allness of God? Jeshua ben Joseph also said, "Be ye therefore perfect, as your Father in Heaven is perfect." And A Course in Miracles says, "I am as God created me." We are, now and always, the perfect, radiant extensions of a Perfect Being... holy sons of a wholly loving God. What appears to limit and imprison, to withhold and to suffer, are mental misperceptions of the Truth of our Spiritual Reality, the nightmares of the imagined separated self.

We can never be separate or cut off from what has no beginning and no end. We can never be less than free in what has no boundaries. As my friend David Patton once reminded me, when I was being particularly judgemental: "The Goddess has no edges." There is nothing excluded, nothing lost, nothing limited, nothing imprisoned or held back in the infinite Love of our Father/Mother God/Goddess.

True Freedom is not freedom from anything at all. True Freedom is the all-encompassing Reality of God. True freedom is the Truth that, when consciously known, is freedom indeed. The Grace of God, our True Self, without price and without end.

"The Will of God is One, and All there Is. This is your heritage." -- A Course in Miracles; Manual for Teachers, 20, 6:9-10

Need and Obligation

"Even after all this time, the sun never says to the earth, "You owe me." Look what happens with a love like that. It lights up the whole sky." -- from The Gift by Hafiz of Shiraz

"God is but Love, and therefore so am I." -- A Course in Miracles

I've been thinking a lot about the appearance of needs and obligations in my own life and in the lives of my clients. What needs or obligations does Love know? What needs or obligations does the sun have, as it shines on everyone and everything? As Jeshua ben Joseph said, God makes His sun shine on the evil and the good alike. God, Divine Love, is no respecter of persons or of anything else. Omnipresent, unconditional, omnipotent, unopposed Love. What is all-encompassing can have no opposite and can know no limits.

Our human identities, our fictional selves, do almost everything out of need and obligation. Whether the imagined needs are bodily, emotional, financial, or even spiritual, they are the antithesis of Love and therefore are not real. Where can needs even occur in the Allness of Divine Love? What could be missing that is needed? What could be too much, or too little? How could one sunbeam be obliged to another? Each has its trajectory, all within the radiance that is shed by the sun. How could one reflection of God, of Divine Love, be obligated to another? When every reflection reflects in unique fashion only the Allness of God, Good, Divine Love... what could be missing? What could be needed? What conditions could ever limit the Allness of Love?

Intimidated by the Allness of Being, of having everything, literally... we manufacture limits and make stipulations. I remember years ago, reading in the I-Ching, "The crossing of the great water is made simple without stipulations." It was like a light bulb went off. Ah... everything is simple without stipulation. It's the stipulated needs and requirements, the obligatory limits we set on everyone and everything in our lives, that make it all so difficult. In other words, it's our fictional stories about what's happening, or what did happen, or what should happen, or what will happen. The variations are endless. And the good news is that none of it is true, none of it is needed, no obligations are real! We are as eternally free as we are whole and complete. "Beloved, I am with you always, and ALL that I have is yours."

Needs and obligations are habitual postures, the nightmares we frighten ourselves with, to stay true to the stories we have been taught. As A Course in Miracles puts it, we have been poorly taught. Time to look again, and to tell the truth. Think of all the things and conditions that you thought you needed. When you got them, did it fill the imagined void? Perhaps temporarily you fooled yourself, believing the lie. But eventually, every idol falls. The void is not there. Only God is revealed when idols fall and illusions fall away. Only the Real and Eternal remains.

So when you find yourself caught in the need to be right, the need to fulfill a commitment or other obligation, the need to be good, the need to be bad, the need to be liked, the need to be independent, the need to be loved, the need to find a mate, the need to feel special and appreciated, the need to prove something, the need to have a purpose, the need to feel needed and important... the list goes on and on. Stop for a moment. Who says you need these things? Is it true? Can it be true that you who are a Divine reflection of Love ItSelf could need anything at all or be obliged to be other than God created you just to fill these imagined needs?

There is no peace in needs and obligations. They are smokescreens, designed solely to keep the egoic search going and going and going. Never will we find what we seek through this culture of sacrifice and guilt that shows itself most plainly in needs and obligations. For the Divine Love that lives us needs nothing but to shine, to BE reflected through each of our lives. Shining naturally and effortlessly like the sun, this is the one need that is always met, our only true need, and the only one that is eternally free of obligation.

"God is everywhere, and nothing apart from Him is present or has power." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 473, Lines 8-10

Reflections of Love

"To infinite, ever-present Love, all is Love, and there is no error, no sin, sickness, nor death." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 567, Line 8

"I am as God created me." -- A Course in Miracles

What does it mean to see myself, and every living thing, as God created us? What does it mean to BE a reflection of Divine Love? How can I even begin to see all the separate parts of my world as one reflection of Love... endlessly varied, but forever One?

I have been working with a client on framing. No, not picture framing... conceptual framing. Current cognitive science has shown that all the laws and rules and supposed powers that we think run our lives are actually conceptual frames. There is even a type of therapy that deals with cognitive reframing, called Relational Frame Therapy (RFT). The gist of it is that all human behavior is governed by the networks of relationships, relational frames, which are conceptually created and known. As A Course in Miracles puts it, "I have given this all the meaning it has for me."

Because the number of possible relationships in the world are infinite, so are the possible relational frames. Some of the ones that have been 'named' by psychologists are: Frames of Coordination (such as 'same as,' 'similar to' or 'like'); Temporal or Causal Frames (such as 'before and after,' 'if/then,' 'cause of,' 'parent of,' etc.); Comparative and Evaluative Frames (a whole family of relations such as 'better than,' 'bigger than,' 'faster than,' etc.); Deictic Frames (frames of perspective, like 'you/me' and 'here/there'); and Spatial Frames ('near/far' or 'high/low,' etc.). What all these frames have in common is that: a/ they are learned relationships, and can be applied at your whim to anything at all; and b/ they are all exclusive frames, i.e., they all depend on relations between supposedly separate people, places, things, even ideas.

So it's all made up, and it's based on mentally separating and comparing. Isn't it fun that so much of science is mirroring the Truth? And why should we be surprised? As Mary Baker Eddy points out again and again, the Allness of Divine Love is the only Reality. What else could be reflected here or anywhere? It's like any reflection within the dream we call the world. It can be refracted and distorted in perception only, but the Source is not changed. The Source remains untouched by the perceptual distortions of the mirrors, or the lenses we are looking through. So no matter what we think we are seeing, it is pure and eternal Love.

Frames are like the lenses we put on to view and create the world according to our separated selves... they are the laws of the world as we think we know it, ways of looking at and framing so-called reality. All made up. A Course in Miracles tells us that there are no real laws in the world... all the so-called rules and laws and powers that make up the world are simply frames that distort and refract our experience of Love, but don't actually do anything at all. We are under no laws but God's. And God is Love.

What does it mean to BE a reflection of Love? To see only Love, everywhere, always? It means we allow our world to be reframed, inclusively. No exceptions and no exclusions. Infinitely varied reflections of One Love. Everywhere. Always.

"What is all-encompassing can have no opposite." -- A Course in Miracles; Introduction, 1:8

"Relationships in this world are the result of how the world is seen." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 19, IV, i, 12:1