Vigilance

"Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." -- The Bible; Matthew 6:33

"When the illusion of sickness or sin tempts you, cling steadfastly to God and His idea. Allow nothing but His likeness to abide in your thought." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 495, Lines 14-16

"The question is: are we willing to put in the hours of devotion; are we willing to make the effort required to train ourselves to be conscious of the Presence of God, instead of seeking some form in which God is to appear? There is the whole secret. It is up to us." -- Joel Goldsmith

"Belief does not require vigilance unless it is conflicted. If it is, there are conflicting components within it that have led to a state of war, and vigilance has therefore become essential. Vigilance has no place in Peace. It is necessary against beliefs that are not true, and would never have been called upon by the Holy Spirit if you had not believed the untrue. When you believe something, you have made it true for you. When you believe what God does not know, your thought seems to contradict His, and this makes it appear as if you are attacking Him. While you believe two totally contradictory thought systems share truth, your need for vigilance is apparent." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 7, Section VI, 7:3-8, 8:11

It has taken a lot of seeming time and apparent attention, i.e. a lot of vigilance, to experience the lie of the world as fragmented and lacking and suffering. It takes a lot of vigilance to keep up the illusion of this fictional world that is the opposite of God, the antithesis of Good. What is this supposed power made of, if not God? And when we drop our guard for even a moment, where is it? Isn't it funny how moments of Peace and Reality sneak up on us in spite of ourselves? They are the ground of our True Being all along, always the Truth. What comes and goes and comes to pass is the fiction, the sleight of hand. Let it go.

To be vigilant only for God requires an act of will at first, simply because we have worked so long and hard to NOT be aware of the Truth. As the old Rodgers and Hammerstein song goes, we have been 'carefully taught' to believe and value the cultural fictions of the world. So even though resting in God and our Awareness of the Kingdom of Self is the most natural, effortless thing in the world, the closest we come to Reality while in the world... still, in order to reverse ourselves within the dream it requires not only willingness, but vigilance and commitment.

So what do we really want? As Joel Goldsmith's quote asks, what are we devoted to? Whatever gets the lion's share of our time and attention is where we believe the power is... these are the idols that populate our personal pantheon of false gods. Idols are illusions that we are devoted to. Devotion is time and attention. So what do we really want? And are we willing to reverse ourselves?

No one else can make this decision for us. We may be long-time veterans of spiritual paths and still be primarily devoted to physical forms and results. We may be very intellectually aware of the 'truth', and yet we use it only to re-enforce our human identities, to make ourselves more comfortable. It's not that this is bad or wrong. It's that, except for short term illusions, it's not possible. The nature of illusions are that they are unstable and temporary.

The reason Jesus and Joel and Mrs. Eddy all tell us to 'seek first the Kingdom,' to have no other gods or devotions, is of the utmost practicality. By giving our mind and heart only to God and the Divine Ideas that continually radiate through us as His children, we reflect only the Good and Eternal even in this world of illusion. Only God is Real, only Divine Love is the currency of Life and so it is the currency of our True Devotion. This devotion and commitment means that we have no other gods, no other needs but to know God, and thus our True Self, aright. And the Good that is then reflected in our life and world is the icing on the cake... the added things spoken of in Scripture. But the shadow or reflection can never be mistaken for Reality.

"Be vigilant only for God and His Kingdom." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 6, Section V, C