"Death is a thought that takes on many forms, often unrecognized. It may appear as sadness, fear, anxiety or doubt; as anger, faithlessness, and lack of trust; concern for bodies, envy, and all forms in which the wish to be as you are not may come to tempt you. All such thoughts are but reflections of the worshipping of death as savior and as giver of release." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 163, 1:1-3
When I read this passage before my morning meditation it was like a cartoon light bulb lit up over my head! When Jesus said the last thing we'll overcome is death, he wasn't talking about bodies! He was talking about the wish to be something else... the desire for change. How often have we heard that change is the only constant? How often have we thought, "I just need a change." Maybe it's a change of mates, a change of jobs, a change of scenery. Maybe it's a diet or exercise plan, yoga, meditation, or a commitment to read the Course every day. "But wait!" I can hear you all saying... "those are all good things! It's good to focus on health, on awakening, on self-improvement!" But the one thing all of these good intentions have in common is the wish to be as you are not.
Think carefully about this... the only reason to improve something is if it is somehow lacking. It is this that is impossible. God created only God, everywhere and always. There can be no other substance or existence. What would it be made of? Where would it be? And the continual search for improvement is the same as saying, "I am not" instead of "I Am."
While we dream of a world that seems imperfect and in constant flux, we have great need of forgiving the desire to be as we are not. As we let go of wanting things to be different, as we let go of wanting ourselves or them or it to change, we discover the unchanging I Am as the very Ground of Being. When Buddha said that desire is the source of all suffering, he was pointing out that it is the desire or wish for change that spins the wheel of samsara, the dream of life as change and suffering and death. Awakening from the dream is simply recovering our Awareness of Self, of I Am without a fluctuating object.
Ironically, there can never be a change in Reality. As Jesus pointed out, "Before Abraham was, I Am." Before and after are dream-concepts, meaningless to the radiating Bliss that I Am. What we call the Christ, the birth of the Awareness of Changeless Oneness we celebrate as Christmas, is "the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow." We are perfect ideas, extensions in pure Spirit, forever in the Mind of God. Emmanuel, God with Us, is the Great I Am.
"God Wills you learn what always has been true: that He created you as part of Him, and this must still be true because ideas leave not their Source. Such is Creation's Law; that each idea the mind conceives but adds to its abundance, never takes away." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 26, Section VII, 13:2-3
Showing posts with label Abundance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Abundance. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Monday, April 22, 2013
Sharing and Ownership
"There are no strange images in the Mind of God, and what is not in His Mind cannot be in yours, because you are of One Mind, and that Mind belongs to Him. It is yours because it belongs to Him, for to Him ownership is sharing. And if it is so for Him, it is so for you." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 10, Section IV, 6:2-4
It's always amazing to me that after all these years, I still find sections of the Course that blow me away, as if I've never read them before. And this in spite of the heavy underlining and highlighting that shows I did indeed read it and find it important. But how could I miss the import of the statement, "It is yours because it belongs to Him, for to him ownership is sharing." There's no putting a spin on this statement. And then this morning I read in Workbook Lesson 106, "Thus does salvation start and thus it ends: when everything is yours, and everything is given away, it will remain with you forever." It doesn't say some things are given away... it states everything. And promises that because we give it away, we have it forever.
This is obviously not the way the world seems to work, and it certainly is not the way we have been taught to understand giving and receiving. It's radical and blunt... whatever we have must belong to all, because to God ownership is sharing, and so it must be for us. The Course tells us over and over in so many ways that to have, we have to give. Not giving to get, but giving because it's Who We Are... the outpouring of unconditioned and unconditional Love that simply extends for eternity.
I've always had the tendency to be idealistic and non-materialistic, as a child of the 60's and a life-long lover of the Spiritual. I remember as a youth being inspired by the book, Stranger in a Strange Land, with its message of Love without limits and sharing without boundaries. But all of my ideas and concepts through the years still centered on the notion of me in a body, and other people in the form of their bodies, attempting to share and love in a world of limitation and competition. It never works. These are the strange images the opening quotation refers to... images of discrete forms that seem to divide and limit the Oneness of Spirit. But no such strange images exist in the Real World.
The Course reminds us that we are not bodies... we are pure Spirit, the image and reflection of God: "I am as God created me." (ACIM Workbook Lesson 110) and "Spirit am I, a holy Son of God; free of all limits, safe and healed and whole; free to forgive, and free to save the world." (ACIM Workbook Lesson 97, 7:2) The dream world of strange images seems to come and go, seems to enjoy or seems to suffer. But consider all your night dreaming over the years. You have had dreams of every description, and have lived and died many times and in many ways. You have defied the seeming laws of the world, and failed and triumphed again and again. And yet, what real effects have any of those dreams had? Not one dream was ever cause of anything, and none of the seeming effects survived your waking. No dream analysis has ever done anything except give us a new story to tell. Our 'past lives' in dreams have absolutely no effect.. they are just dreams.
The really good news is that our supposed waking life is another layer of dreaming. "Hear the one answer of the Holy Spirit to all the questions the ego raises: You are a child of God, a priceless part of His Kingdom, which He created as part of Him. Nothing else exists and only this is Real. You have chosen a sleep in which you have had bad dreams, but the sleep is not real and God calls you to awake. There will be nothing left of your dream when you hear Him, because you will awaken. Your dreams contain many of the ego's symbols, and they have confused you. Yet that was only because you were asleep and did not know. When you wake you will see the Truth around you and in you, and you will no longer believe in dreams because they will have no reality for you." (ACIM Chapter 6, Section IV, 6:1-7)
Our Reality is the unified Oneness of Spirit, the unconditioned Awareness of One Self, One Mind, One Life and Love. Competition and ownership cease to have meaning in Oneness, for who would have more than another? Who in Oneness could possibly know anything other than perfect sharing with All? And what could be lacking in All? Our dreaming mind has imagined a self that is split into infinite pieces, projecting infinite dreams of competition, striving, ownership, and struggle... always in the vain attempt to reclaim for the split self the sense of wholeness and completion that seems to be lost in separation. The joke is that we never lost the Wholeness and Perfection we seek. And we regain our memory of our True Self by giving... as we give, as we share, as we no longer seek to divide and keep divided bits of life to ourselves through ownership, we re-discover the infinite Being that we are.
"God gave you all there is. And to be sure you could not lose it, did He also give the same to every living thing as well. And thus is every living thing a part of you, as of HimSelf." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 29, Section VIII, 9:7-9
It's always amazing to me that after all these years, I still find sections of the Course that blow me away, as if I've never read them before. And this in spite of the heavy underlining and highlighting that shows I did indeed read it and find it important. But how could I miss the import of the statement, "It is yours because it belongs to Him, for to him ownership is sharing." There's no putting a spin on this statement. And then this morning I read in Workbook Lesson 106, "Thus does salvation start and thus it ends: when everything is yours, and everything is given away, it will remain with you forever." It doesn't say some things are given away... it states everything. And promises that because we give it away, we have it forever.
This is obviously not the way the world seems to work, and it certainly is not the way we have been taught to understand giving and receiving. It's radical and blunt... whatever we have must belong to all, because to God ownership is sharing, and so it must be for us. The Course tells us over and over in so many ways that to have, we have to give. Not giving to get, but giving because it's Who We Are... the outpouring of unconditioned and unconditional Love that simply extends for eternity.
I've always had the tendency to be idealistic and non-materialistic, as a child of the 60's and a life-long lover of the Spiritual. I remember as a youth being inspired by the book, Stranger in a Strange Land, with its message of Love without limits and sharing without boundaries. But all of my ideas and concepts through the years still centered on the notion of me in a body, and other people in the form of their bodies, attempting to share and love in a world of limitation and competition. It never works. These are the strange images the opening quotation refers to... images of discrete forms that seem to divide and limit the Oneness of Spirit. But no such strange images exist in the Real World.
The Course reminds us that we are not bodies... we are pure Spirit, the image and reflection of God: "I am as God created me." (ACIM Workbook Lesson 110) and "Spirit am I, a holy Son of God; free of all limits, safe and healed and whole; free to forgive, and free to save the world." (ACIM Workbook Lesson 97, 7:2) The dream world of strange images seems to come and go, seems to enjoy or seems to suffer. But consider all your night dreaming over the years. You have had dreams of every description, and have lived and died many times and in many ways. You have defied the seeming laws of the world, and failed and triumphed again and again. And yet, what real effects have any of those dreams had? Not one dream was ever cause of anything, and none of the seeming effects survived your waking. No dream analysis has ever done anything except give us a new story to tell. Our 'past lives' in dreams have absolutely no effect.. they are just dreams.
The really good news is that our supposed waking life is another layer of dreaming. "Hear the one answer of the Holy Spirit to all the questions the ego raises: You are a child of God, a priceless part of His Kingdom, which He created as part of Him. Nothing else exists and only this is Real. You have chosen a sleep in which you have had bad dreams, but the sleep is not real and God calls you to awake. There will be nothing left of your dream when you hear Him, because you will awaken. Your dreams contain many of the ego's symbols, and they have confused you. Yet that was only because you were asleep and did not know. When you wake you will see the Truth around you and in you, and you will no longer believe in dreams because they will have no reality for you." (ACIM Chapter 6, Section IV, 6:1-7)
Our Reality is the unified Oneness of Spirit, the unconditioned Awareness of One Self, One Mind, One Life and Love. Competition and ownership cease to have meaning in Oneness, for who would have more than another? Who in Oneness could possibly know anything other than perfect sharing with All? And what could be lacking in All? Our dreaming mind has imagined a self that is split into infinite pieces, projecting infinite dreams of competition, striving, ownership, and struggle... always in the vain attempt to reclaim for the split self the sense of wholeness and completion that seems to be lost in separation. The joke is that we never lost the Wholeness and Perfection we seek. And we regain our memory of our True Self by giving... as we give, as we share, as we no longer seek to divide and keep divided bits of life to ourselves through ownership, we re-discover the infinite Being that we are.
"God gave you all there is. And to be sure you could not lose it, did He also give the same to every living thing as well. And thus is every living thing a part of you, as of HimSelf." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 29, Section VIII, 9:7-9
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Give All to All
"Only those who have a real and lasting sense of Abundance can be truly charitable. This is obvious when you consider what is involved. To the ego, to give anything implies that you will have to do without it. When you associate giving with sacrifice, you give only because you believe that you are somehow getting something better, and can therefore do without the thing you give." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 4, Section II, 6:1-4
Whoa... this is really true, isn't it? I pay my cable bill because I think I'm getting something for it. I buy feed for the horses and dogs and cats because I think I'm getting a sense of satisfaction taking care of all these animals. I give to my children because I think it gives me a sense of satisfaction and connection.
Now the Course is not telling us to stop paying our bills or giving to our children. But it is pointing out the way the egoic mind works. Our conditioned self only gives to get. Because getting is what the ego does to maintain the illusion of separate self, and to make sure guilt stays repressed and hidden.
"The ego never gives out of abundance, because it was made as a substitute for it. That is why the concept of 'getting' arose in the ego's thought system. Appetites are 'getting' mechanisms, representing the ego's need to confirm itself. This is as true of body appetites as it is of the so-called 'higher ego needs'." -- ACIM; Chapter 4, II, 7:3-6
What is giving out of Abundance, then? Abundance is an attribute of God, and therefore of our true nature since we exist as extensions of the Mind of God. God has given us EVERYTHING, because God IS EVERYTHING... literally. There is no other. All means all. So what exists that could be lost, or needed? Giving out of Abundance is just being natural. The Course gives the first teaching of the Holy Spirit as "To have, give all to all." We know that we have because we have it to give. :-))
How do we make such a shift in perception? How do we change our minds to such an extent? Our self-concept, our egoic notion of a self, says we are limited, with limited resources, and only those that are careful with their resources have enough in this world. In other words, our egoic notion of self-esteem is tied up with what we think we have acquired by what the Course calls the 'getting' mechanism. "Self-esteem in ego terms means nothing more than that the ego has deluded itself into accepting its reality, and is therefore temporarily less predatory." (ACIM; II, 4, 6:8) So we think we have by getting, and temporarily think we are safe, as long as we don't have to give. Ha!
True Abundance is the Awareness of God. The overflowing of Being that is our True Self, living and moving and having being in God. By learning to listen only to the Voice for God, the Holy Spirit... by learning to walk in the Awareness of God's ever-Presence... we come to realize we are the Abundance of Spirit. Giving is the only natural extension of this realization, because all giving is mental, and of the mind. We are pure Spirit, reflecting the Mind of God.
"To have, give all to all." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 6, Section V: A
Whoa... this is really true, isn't it? I pay my cable bill because I think I'm getting something for it. I buy feed for the horses and dogs and cats because I think I'm getting a sense of satisfaction taking care of all these animals. I give to my children because I think it gives me a sense of satisfaction and connection.
Now the Course is not telling us to stop paying our bills or giving to our children. But it is pointing out the way the egoic mind works. Our conditioned self only gives to get. Because getting is what the ego does to maintain the illusion of separate self, and to make sure guilt stays repressed and hidden.
"The ego never gives out of abundance, because it was made as a substitute for it. That is why the concept of 'getting' arose in the ego's thought system. Appetites are 'getting' mechanisms, representing the ego's need to confirm itself. This is as true of body appetites as it is of the so-called 'higher ego needs'." -- ACIM; Chapter 4, II, 7:3-6
What is giving out of Abundance, then? Abundance is an attribute of God, and therefore of our true nature since we exist as extensions of the Mind of God. God has given us EVERYTHING, because God IS EVERYTHING... literally. There is no other. All means all. So what exists that could be lost, or needed? Giving out of Abundance is just being natural. The Course gives the first teaching of the Holy Spirit as "To have, give all to all." We know that we have because we have it to give. :-))
How do we make such a shift in perception? How do we change our minds to such an extent? Our self-concept, our egoic notion of a self, says we are limited, with limited resources, and only those that are careful with their resources have enough in this world. In other words, our egoic notion of self-esteem is tied up with what we think we have acquired by what the Course calls the 'getting' mechanism. "Self-esteem in ego terms means nothing more than that the ego has deluded itself into accepting its reality, and is therefore temporarily less predatory." (ACIM; II, 4, 6:8) So we think we have by getting, and temporarily think we are safe, as long as we don't have to give. Ha!
True Abundance is the Awareness of God. The overflowing of Being that is our True Self, living and moving and having being in God. By learning to listen only to the Voice for God, the Holy Spirit... by learning to walk in the Awareness of God's ever-Presence... we come to realize we are the Abundance of Spirit. Giving is the only natural extension of this realization, because all giving is mental, and of the mind. We are pure Spirit, reflecting the Mind of God.
"To have, give all to all." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 6, Section V: A
Monday, February 25, 2013
Poverty
"Projection occurs when you believe that some emptiness or lack exists in you, and that you can fill it with your own ideas instead of Truth... you believe that what is perfect can be rendered imperfect or lacking." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 2, Section I, 1:7, 10
Poverty is defined as the state or condition of having little or no money, goods, or means of support. It implies scantiness and insufficiency in worldly terms. And there has long been a notion that taking a vow of poverty in the world helps one more easily attain heavenly riches or enlightenment, oneness with God. Since it doesn't seem to work (religious orders are not known for their enlightened teachers or members), we might do well to question the whole premise, don't you think?
As the above quote from A Course in Miracles reminds us, the appearance of lack in all its disguises is the projection of a belief about ourselves... that we are apart from God, our True Self, and all of creation, and that we have and do lack wholeness because of it. We deeply cling to the belief that we can and do regularly make wrong choices and screw things up. And so this is projected over and over in the world as apparent poverty of mind, body, and spirit... in ourselves, and in the world around us. There simply isn't any difference. There's only one Son of God dreaming of separation and lack and crucifixion over and over and over again, in millions of seemingly different forms and personas.
There is One Mind, One Self, and so the way we see ourselves is how we out-picture the apparent world. And how we see the world and those who populate our phenomenal world is clearly a mirror of the beliefs we hold dear. Since those beliefs are untruths, it's a hell of a mirror.
"Salvation is for the mind, and it is attained through peace. This is the only thing that can be saved and the only way to save it. Never lose sight of this, and never allow yourself to believe, even for an instant, that there is another answer. For you will surely place yourself among the poor, who do not understand that they dwell in abundance and that salvation is come. To identify with the ego is to attack yourself and make yourself poor. That is why everyone who identifies with the ego feels deprived. He does not realize that he makes this world, for there is no world outside of him." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 12, Section III, 5:1-2, 4-5, 6:1, 7
The Truth is we are One with everything we think we lack. And what could be missing from Oneness, which is Whole and Complete in every way?
"Perfect security and complete fulfillment are my inheritance." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook Lesson 56; 1:5
Poverty is defined as the state or condition of having little or no money, goods, or means of support. It implies scantiness and insufficiency in worldly terms. And there has long been a notion that taking a vow of poverty in the world helps one more easily attain heavenly riches or enlightenment, oneness with God. Since it doesn't seem to work (religious orders are not known for their enlightened teachers or members), we might do well to question the whole premise, don't you think?
As the above quote from A Course in Miracles reminds us, the appearance of lack in all its disguises is the projection of a belief about ourselves... that we are apart from God, our True Self, and all of creation, and that we have and do lack wholeness because of it. We deeply cling to the belief that we can and do regularly make wrong choices and screw things up. And so this is projected over and over in the world as apparent poverty of mind, body, and spirit... in ourselves, and in the world around us. There simply isn't any difference. There's only one Son of God dreaming of separation and lack and crucifixion over and over and over again, in millions of seemingly different forms and personas.
There is One Mind, One Self, and so the way we see ourselves is how we out-picture the apparent world. And how we see the world and those who populate our phenomenal world is clearly a mirror of the beliefs we hold dear. Since those beliefs are untruths, it's a hell of a mirror.
"Salvation is for the mind, and it is attained through peace. This is the only thing that can be saved and the only way to save it. Never lose sight of this, and never allow yourself to believe, even for an instant, that there is another answer. For you will surely place yourself among the poor, who do not understand that they dwell in abundance and that salvation is come. To identify with the ego is to attack yourself and make yourself poor. That is why everyone who identifies with the ego feels deprived. He does not realize that he makes this world, for there is no world outside of him." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 12, Section III, 5:1-2, 4-5, 6:1, 7
The Truth is we are One with everything we think we lack. And what could be missing from Oneness, which is Whole and Complete in every way?
"Perfect security and complete fulfillment are my inheritance." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook Lesson 56; 1:5
Saturday, January 1, 2011
A Real Commitment
For those of you who really want to remember Self, the Christ... for those of you who really want to be a blessing and a healing presence... I urge you to make a very simple but real commitment this year. A Course in Miracles is a tool that can help keep you sane, and can return you to sanity when you forget. But like any tool, you have to pick it up and actually use it for it to be useful.
"The purpose of the workbook is to train your mind in a systematic way to a different perception of everyone and everything in the world." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook Intro
"The workbook is divided into two main sections, the first dealing with the undoing of the way you see now, and the second with the acquisition of true perception." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook Intro
Simple, logical... in order to put clean sheets on the bed, I first have to take off the dirty sheets. I have to clear my mind first, before I can reveal the True Thoughts that are always available. ACIM calls this process forgiveness, and in the early lessons of the Workbook it prepares us for what true forgiveness is. It leads us always to begin taking 100% responsibility for our thoughts and perceptions and the meanings we ascribe to them. It also leads us to remembering that we made all of it up (thank God!). And so, we make the only change that leads to real change... we change our minds about Who We Are and Who our brothers are.
This year, I urge you to make a real commitment to doing the lessons in the Workbook and actually applying them to everyone and everything. Why put off what will bring you real and lasting joy and peace? And if you need support in this, you can always contact me.
Sending all of you so much love, joy, peace, and abundance... Happy New Year!
Mary Alberici
"The purpose of the workbook is to train your mind in a systematic way to a different perception of everyone and everything in the world." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook Intro
"The workbook is divided into two main sections, the first dealing with the undoing of the way you see now, and the second with the acquisition of true perception." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook Intro
Simple, logical... in order to put clean sheets on the bed, I first have to take off the dirty sheets. I have to clear my mind first, before I can reveal the True Thoughts that are always available. ACIM calls this process forgiveness, and in the early lessons of the Workbook it prepares us for what true forgiveness is. It leads us always to begin taking 100% responsibility for our thoughts and perceptions and the meanings we ascribe to them. It also leads us to remembering that we made all of it up (thank God!). And so, we make the only change that leads to real change... we change our minds about Who We Are and Who our brothers are.
This year, I urge you to make a real commitment to doing the lessons in the Workbook and actually applying them to everyone and everything. Why put off what will bring you real and lasting joy and peace? And if you need support in this, you can always contact me.
Sending all of you so much love, joy, peace, and abundance... Happy New Year!
Mary Alberici
Monday, August 30, 2010
God's Will
First I want to let my readers know that I have a CD for sale, with proceeds going to The Claire Foundation Animal Sanctuary. All the hymns on it are Acappella, and recorded live at St. Vincent's-in-the-Vineyard. You can hear cuts from it on my YouTube channel. Thanks for supporting the animals! And FYI, you can download individual mp3s for only $1.99 each.
Now for the quote that inspired today's blog:
"God's Will is One, not many. It has no opposition, for there is none beside it." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 19, IV, 3:5-6
It's hard to find a phrase that instills such varied reactions as 'God's Will.' For many of us, it conjures pious, judgmental comments made after natural disasters or sudden deaths. For almost everyone it raises a sense of unease and fear... because hey, who the heck knows what God's Will for us is? It could be bad, it could be something punitive so we can 'learn our lessons.' Isn't that how most human parents operate? Don't we unconsciously model our ideas of God after our human notions of authority?
So this quote can be hard to take in. We may hear it, but gloss over it. God's Will is ONE, not many. IT HAS NO OPPOSITION, because there isn't anything else. Only God. We live and move and have our being IN THIS ONENESS. So logically there isn't my will and then God's Will imposed on me from without. There is only God, only God's Will, appearing AS me, and AS you. That we have convinced ourselves and each other that we are separate bodies and lives is irrelevant, because it's not true.
This reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from the movie "The Matrix." A little psychic boy is bending spoons with his mind, and offers Keanu Reeves' character the chance to try it. He isn't having much luck, and the little boy simply says, "Don't try and bend the spoon. Know that there is no spoon." And then of course, the spoon bends.
Joel Goldsmith told a similar story. He was traveling and arrived at his destination only to hear that his luggage had been lost. He spent the next couple of days practicing scientific prayer, knowing that what belonged to him could never be lost, etc. But his luggage did not show up. Finally in meditation the answer came to him... there was no lost luggage! There are no opposites or oppositions in all God's Kingdom, there is only God! Of course, his luggage then 'showed up' unexpectedly.
Jesus taught us this Truth when he said, "Seek ye first the Kingdom (the Oneness of God) and all else will be added unto you." We just have it upside down and backwards, thinking that cause and effect lie within the world, in our actions and reactions, or even in our thoughts. If there is no Will but God's, it also holds that there are no real Thoughts but God's. Everything else is the dreaming of the mind that imagines itself to be separate. And no matter what we imagine in our dreaming, we remain safe in God, eternally.
There is great peace in this awareness. "Peace has replaced the strange idea that you are torn by conflicting goals. As an expression of the Will of God, you have no goal but His." (ACIM; Workbook 74, 1:5-6) We don't have to struggle humanly to figure it all out. God's Will is always Love, Goodness, Happiness, Peace, Abundance, Joy, and endless Life. And as we trust God with each holy instant of our lives, we are led by Grace.
"He leadeth me in paths of righteousness, for His Name's sake." -- Psalm 23
"Today I will recognize that all this has not occurred. I am safe because there is no will but God's." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 87, 3:5-6
Now for the quote that inspired today's blog:
"God's Will is One, not many. It has no opposition, for there is none beside it." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 19, IV, 3:5-6
It's hard to find a phrase that instills such varied reactions as 'God's Will.' For many of us, it conjures pious, judgmental comments made after natural disasters or sudden deaths. For almost everyone it raises a sense of unease and fear... because hey, who the heck knows what God's Will for us is? It could be bad, it could be something punitive so we can 'learn our lessons.' Isn't that how most human parents operate? Don't we unconsciously model our ideas of God after our human notions of authority?
So this quote can be hard to take in. We may hear it, but gloss over it. God's Will is ONE, not many. IT HAS NO OPPOSITION, because there isn't anything else. Only God. We live and move and have our being IN THIS ONENESS. So logically there isn't my will and then God's Will imposed on me from without. There is only God, only God's Will, appearing AS me, and AS you. That we have convinced ourselves and each other that we are separate bodies and lives is irrelevant, because it's not true.
This reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from the movie "The Matrix." A little psychic boy is bending spoons with his mind, and offers Keanu Reeves' character the chance to try it. He isn't having much luck, and the little boy simply says, "Don't try and bend the spoon. Know that there is no spoon." And then of course, the spoon bends.
Joel Goldsmith told a similar story. He was traveling and arrived at his destination only to hear that his luggage had been lost. He spent the next couple of days practicing scientific prayer, knowing that what belonged to him could never be lost, etc. But his luggage did not show up. Finally in meditation the answer came to him... there was no lost luggage! There are no opposites or oppositions in all God's Kingdom, there is only God! Of course, his luggage then 'showed up' unexpectedly.
Jesus taught us this Truth when he said, "Seek ye first the Kingdom (the Oneness of God) and all else will be added unto you." We just have it upside down and backwards, thinking that cause and effect lie within the world, in our actions and reactions, or even in our thoughts. If there is no Will but God's, it also holds that there are no real Thoughts but God's. Everything else is the dreaming of the mind that imagines itself to be separate. And no matter what we imagine in our dreaming, we remain safe in God, eternally.
There is great peace in this awareness. "Peace has replaced the strange idea that you are torn by conflicting goals. As an expression of the Will of God, you have no goal but His." (ACIM; Workbook 74, 1:5-6) We don't have to struggle humanly to figure it all out. God's Will is always Love, Goodness, Happiness, Peace, Abundance, Joy, and endless Life. And as we trust God with each holy instant of our lives, we are led by Grace.
"He leadeth me in paths of righteousness, for His Name's sake." -- Psalm 23
"Today I will recognize that all this has not occurred. I am safe because there is no will but God's." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 87, 3:5-6
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Eyes and Ears
"Having eyes, see you not? And having ears, hear you not? And do you not remember? When I broke the five loaves among the five thousand... ?" -- The Bible; Mark 8:18-19
During last night's ACIM teleclass, the subject of sense perceptions came up, along with Jesus' words about having eyes to see and ears to hear. It's very clear to all of us that what we sense with the five senses, especially what we see and hear, is very real to us. It seems very clear that the sensed object or situation exists first, and we sense it as an effect of the sense/cause. But wait a minute... that means that we are an effect of something 'outside' or 'other'. How can this be? We are reflections of God, living and moving and having our being In and Through this reflection. A reflection can only reflect the qualities and image of its Cause. So what and where are the objects of our human senses? What causes them? What can exist outside the Cause of God?
Jesus performed many miracles that seemed to contradict what people's physical eyes and ears were telling them. Even the disciples were hard pressed to explain this except in terms of the supernatural. Jesus told them again and again, in parable and more directly, that our true eyes and ears are wholly spiritual, not physical... and that we can see only the reflection of God's Kingdom, the Truth of Being. In Truth, there is only wholeness, abundance, harmony, and peace. Jesus saw only the Kingdom everywhere, only the Truth of God reflecting as man. And so there was a whole person where there had appeared to be a broken one. And so there was bread for five thousand where only five loaves appeared to be.
This is a hard lesson for those of us who are heavily invested in the physical, in the sense world. We have depended on our physical eyes and ears for so long, it's hard to trust what seems invisible. It's hard to fathom that what we think we see might not really be there... that what we thought we heard was not there at all. We know Jesus' words are true... but we mistakenly think he was talking about spiritual vision and hearing in addition to our physical eyes and ears. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The things we see and hear with our physical senses are false perceptions; they witness to our imagined separation from God and each other, in effect telling us what we want to hear, to maintain the illusion of an autonomous existence. This is not idle speculation; this is demonstrable Truth. Jesus walked us through the ways to demonstrate this, and reminded us that the eyes and ears we really have are the Vision and Voice of God.
"Perception's fundamental law: You see what you believe is there, and you believe it there because you want it there. Perception has no other law than this." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 25, III, 1:3-4
During last night's ACIM teleclass, the subject of sense perceptions came up, along with Jesus' words about having eyes to see and ears to hear. It's very clear to all of us that what we sense with the five senses, especially what we see and hear, is very real to us. It seems very clear that the sensed object or situation exists first, and we sense it as an effect of the sense/cause. But wait a minute... that means that we are an effect of something 'outside' or 'other'. How can this be? We are reflections of God, living and moving and having our being In and Through this reflection. A reflection can only reflect the qualities and image of its Cause. So what and where are the objects of our human senses? What causes them? What can exist outside the Cause of God?
Jesus performed many miracles that seemed to contradict what people's physical eyes and ears were telling them. Even the disciples were hard pressed to explain this except in terms of the supernatural. Jesus told them again and again, in parable and more directly, that our true eyes and ears are wholly spiritual, not physical... and that we can see only the reflection of God's Kingdom, the Truth of Being. In Truth, there is only wholeness, abundance, harmony, and peace. Jesus saw only the Kingdom everywhere, only the Truth of God reflecting as man. And so there was a whole person where there had appeared to be a broken one. And so there was bread for five thousand where only five loaves appeared to be.
This is a hard lesson for those of us who are heavily invested in the physical, in the sense world. We have depended on our physical eyes and ears for so long, it's hard to trust what seems invisible. It's hard to fathom that what we think we see might not really be there... that what we thought we heard was not there at all. We know Jesus' words are true... but we mistakenly think he was talking about spiritual vision and hearing in addition to our physical eyes and ears. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The things we see and hear with our physical senses are false perceptions; they witness to our imagined separation from God and each other, in effect telling us what we want to hear, to maintain the illusion of an autonomous existence. This is not idle speculation; this is demonstrable Truth. Jesus walked us through the ways to demonstrate this, and reminded us that the eyes and ears we really have are the Vision and Voice of God.
"Perception's fundamental law: You see what you believe is there, and you believe it there because you want it there. Perception has no other law than this." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 25, III, 1:3-4
Saturday, August 7, 2010
See and Be Radiant
"Then you shall see and be radiant; your heart shall thrill and rejoice, because the abundance of the sea shall be brought to you, and the wealth of the nations shall come to you." -- The Bible; Isaiah 60:5
"Miracles are seen in Light. It is important to remember that miracles and vision necessarily go together. The miracle is always here. Its presence is not caused by your vision; its absence is not the result of your failure to see. It is only your awareness of miracles that is affected. You will see them in the Light; you will not see them in the dark." -- A Course in Miracles; WB 91:1:1, 4-7
I had a really bad dream the other night. It was so real, and so scary, and I felt so awful when I woke up. I was so discouraged that I could hardly drag myself out of bed. When I took a few moments to go within and examine my feelings, I realized that my emotional reaction was based on old (unsubstantiated) judgements that it was wrong to have such bad dreams... that I caused them somehow by not being spiritual enough, by not keeping my mind and heart stayed on God enough. In other words, if I was good enough, my dreams would be good. Isn't that the basis of all 'positive' thinking, too? And of all the endless attempts to manipulate the dream, to make it better, to 'attract' something we think we want? This all takes place in the dream. It's all made up!
I finally noticed that I was making the dream something. I was giving it a reality and meaning in my mind. And it wasn't even really there! All of that reaction and emotional turmoil over fiction! Just like the first time I saw ET with my children, years ago when they were still little. My daughter Joan and I couldn't stop crying after it was over... the pain of that image of being separated from what we love was overwhelming. But it wasn't even really happening! All of that suffering over fiction!
There's a pattern here that you may recognize. We dream our dreams, both at night and in our daytime projections... and then we judge and categorize and attribute qualities to this nothingness. We may be temporarily pleased or we may temporarily suffer, but either way we live as if these dreams are life. And they are actually not... they are nothing, zero, like the dreams we have at night. And we dream endlessly... because we cannot see the Truth, and the miracles that symbolize the Truth in the dream, without Light. We are dreaming in the darkness of conditioned mind, the imagined mind of the mortal self who thinks it is weak and vulnerable and transient. And all the while, in the darkness of conditioned, reactive mind, we suffer over fiction!
God, our True Self, is All-in-All, and All Good, All Power, All Love, All Life. No bad dream has ever changed the Reality of this Truth. The miracle, the vision of Truth reflected in the dream, awaits our Light. It is the Light of our own Awareness we bring... the forgiveness of the dream (it's a fiction!) and the acceptance that we are the Light of God here in the dream. As we shine our awareness on the world, awake and aware of what is true, the miracle of the happy dream, which reflects the Goodness and Love of God, is revealed. Then we really shall see and be radiant!
"What you think you are is a belief to be undone. What you really are must be revealed." -- A Course in Miracles; WB 91:6:7-8
"Miracles are seen in Light. It is important to remember that miracles and vision necessarily go together. The miracle is always here. Its presence is not caused by your vision; its absence is not the result of your failure to see. It is only your awareness of miracles that is affected. You will see them in the Light; you will not see them in the dark." -- A Course in Miracles; WB 91:1:1, 4-7
I had a really bad dream the other night. It was so real, and so scary, and I felt so awful when I woke up. I was so discouraged that I could hardly drag myself out of bed. When I took a few moments to go within and examine my feelings, I realized that my emotional reaction was based on old (unsubstantiated) judgements that it was wrong to have such bad dreams... that I caused them somehow by not being spiritual enough, by not keeping my mind and heart stayed on God enough. In other words, if I was good enough, my dreams would be good. Isn't that the basis of all 'positive' thinking, too? And of all the endless attempts to manipulate the dream, to make it better, to 'attract' something we think we want? This all takes place in the dream. It's all made up!
I finally noticed that I was making the dream something. I was giving it a reality and meaning in my mind. And it wasn't even really there! All of that reaction and emotional turmoil over fiction! Just like the first time I saw ET with my children, years ago when they were still little. My daughter Joan and I couldn't stop crying after it was over... the pain of that image of being separated from what we love was overwhelming. But it wasn't even really happening! All of that suffering over fiction!
There's a pattern here that you may recognize. We dream our dreams, both at night and in our daytime projections... and then we judge and categorize and attribute qualities to this nothingness. We may be temporarily pleased or we may temporarily suffer, but either way we live as if these dreams are life. And they are actually not... they are nothing, zero, like the dreams we have at night. And we dream endlessly... because we cannot see the Truth, and the miracles that symbolize the Truth in the dream, without Light. We are dreaming in the darkness of conditioned mind, the imagined mind of the mortal self who thinks it is weak and vulnerable and transient. And all the while, in the darkness of conditioned, reactive mind, we suffer over fiction!
God, our True Self, is All-in-All, and All Good, All Power, All Love, All Life. No bad dream has ever changed the Reality of this Truth. The miracle, the vision of Truth reflected in the dream, awaits our Light. It is the Light of our own Awareness we bring... the forgiveness of the dream (it's a fiction!) and the acceptance that we are the Light of God here in the dream. As we shine our awareness on the world, awake and aware of what is true, the miracle of the happy dream, which reflects the Goodness and Love of God, is revealed. Then we really shall see and be radiant!
"What you think you are is a belief to be undone. What you really are must be revealed." -- A Course in Miracles; WB 91:6:7-8
Saturday, January 30, 2010
The Willingness to Give
"To have all, give all, to all." -- A Course in Miracles
"Supply is infinite, but there must be receptivity. We can have all the supply we will give. But that is where the barrier is... we must have the willingness to give. That is where the lack and limitation is." -- Joel Goldsmith
The issue of supply, of income, is a very popular topic for all of us, and for the media. There seems to be a lack of supply for a lot of us at any given moment. So the question that arises is this: how can there be a lack of anything in what is infinite and ever-present and ONE? This apparent conflict is the age-old struggle of the illusory separate self to maintain its apparent existence through fear and self-created lack. This illusion can be illustrated by the following story:
A little boy was given a package of cookies to take to school and share with his classmates. But the little boy, fearing there wouldn't be enough for him, chose to hide them in his desk and have a few each day for himself. Was there a lack of cookies in that classroom? No, but it appeared that only one child had cookies. The reality was, they were given to him to SHARE... and if he opened his desk and shared them, all the children would have cookies. And where would more cookies come from? From the same place... because the little boy's parents loved giving, too. And many of the other children would then ask their parents for cookies or treats to share, too. Sharing is fun, and much more natural than hoarding.
So when the little boy was afraid, he hoarded. When he trusted in the love that gave him those cookies to share, he shared and experienced an abundance of cookies and other treats. And so it is with us.
Does this seem too simplistic? It's simple alright, but not easy to be willing to pour yourself out to all of life. Our egos resist, insisting that we can't, or we won't have enough. We're not talking just about money, or about anything specific. We're talking about the unwillingness to give that is the nature of the egoic, illusory self that hoards and takes in the name of I, me, mine. Our true Self gives without condition, pours out of the infinity of Being. "We must begin to pour, to start the outflow. The damming up of supply results from our failure to pour in some manner." -- Joel Goldsmith
So what is it that we are unwilling to unconditionally give? Our time? Our love? Our presence? Our attention? Our honesty? Our devotion? Our commitment? Our money? Our unwavering support? Our talents and abilities? Our acceptance and approval? Our forgiveness? Our companionship? Our diligence? A non-judgmental listening ear? If we are lacking in any of these, it is certain that it is our own unwillingness to give that is appearing as the illusion of lack. All of these are IN us... we ARE the infinity of God pouring forth in the world. We can only appear to lack what we are unwilling to give.
"The subject of supply plays a major role in our lives. Until we begin to live as if we are One with God, as if all the Father has is ours, and act that out by sharing our resources, sharing forgiveness, cooperation, understanding, patience, whatever it is... until we are willing to give in this way, spiritual consciousness has not yet touched us." -- Joel Goldsmith
"Supply is infinite, but there must be receptivity. We can have all the supply we will give. But that is where the barrier is... we must have the willingness to give. That is where the lack and limitation is." -- Joel Goldsmith
The issue of supply, of income, is a very popular topic for all of us, and for the media. There seems to be a lack of supply for a lot of us at any given moment. So the question that arises is this: how can there be a lack of anything in what is infinite and ever-present and ONE? This apparent conflict is the age-old struggle of the illusory separate self to maintain its apparent existence through fear and self-created lack. This illusion can be illustrated by the following story:
A little boy was given a package of cookies to take to school and share with his classmates. But the little boy, fearing there wouldn't be enough for him, chose to hide them in his desk and have a few each day for himself. Was there a lack of cookies in that classroom? No, but it appeared that only one child had cookies. The reality was, they were given to him to SHARE... and if he opened his desk and shared them, all the children would have cookies. And where would more cookies come from? From the same place... because the little boy's parents loved giving, too. And many of the other children would then ask their parents for cookies or treats to share, too. Sharing is fun, and much more natural than hoarding.
So when the little boy was afraid, he hoarded. When he trusted in the love that gave him those cookies to share, he shared and experienced an abundance of cookies and other treats. And so it is with us.
Does this seem too simplistic? It's simple alright, but not easy to be willing to pour yourself out to all of life. Our egos resist, insisting that we can't, or we won't have enough. We're not talking just about money, or about anything specific. We're talking about the unwillingness to give that is the nature of the egoic, illusory self that hoards and takes in the name of I, me, mine. Our true Self gives without condition, pours out of the infinity of Being. "We must begin to pour, to start the outflow. The damming up of supply results from our failure to pour in some manner." -- Joel Goldsmith
So what is it that we are unwilling to unconditionally give? Our time? Our love? Our presence? Our attention? Our honesty? Our devotion? Our commitment? Our money? Our unwavering support? Our talents and abilities? Our acceptance and approval? Our forgiveness? Our companionship? Our diligence? A non-judgmental listening ear? If we are lacking in any of these, it is certain that it is our own unwillingness to give that is appearing as the illusion of lack. All of these are IN us... we ARE the infinity of God pouring forth in the world. We can only appear to lack what we are unwilling to give.
"The subject of supply plays a major role in our lives. Until we begin to live as if we are One with God, as if all the Father has is ours, and act that out by sharing our resources, sharing forgiveness, cooperation, understanding, patience, whatever it is... until we are willing to give in this way, spiritual consciousness has not yet touched us." -- Joel Goldsmith
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Happy Easter!
"I am your resurrection and your life. Believe in resurrection because it has been accomplished, and it has been accomplished in you. This is as true NOW as it will ever be, for the resurrection is the Will of God, which knows no time and no exceptions. You have nailed yourself to a cross, and placed a crown of thorns on your own head. Yet you cannot crucify God's Son, for the Will of God cannot die. The dream of crucifixion still lies heavy on your eyes, but what you see in dreams is not reality. You will awaken to your own call, for the Call to awake is within you." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 11, Section VI, 4:1 & 6-7, 8:1-2 & 4, 9:1
"The Christ is not subject to material conditions... and is able, through Truth, Life, and Love, to triumph over sin, sickness, death, and the grave." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 49, Line 21-25
Happy Easter to all! I've missed writing this blog... it's been a very busy few weeks, but I did manage to write one blog while on the road, and I'm now home again after my travels, and have even resumed the conference calls every Saturday morning at 9 a.m. central time. If you are interested in joining us, we just completed Chapter 11 of the text of A Course in Miracles, and will be on Chapter 12 next week. The call-in number is 605-475-4333... and the access code is 101546#.
It's Easter morning. The grass is vibrant after all the rain, and my pansies are waving their happy faces gratefully at the sun. It feels like a rebirth and renewal, reflected in my dream. ACIM tells us that God's Will for us is perfect happiness... and as we awaken to Reality, everything in the dream reflects this. Even my 90-year-old mother with dementia reflects this joy, within the apparent limitations of her own dream. Our seemingly personal dreams are reflections of our own consciousness, but dreams of suffering are transformed when we awaken and realize the resurrection is within our very own mind. Forgiveness of all our limited and false perceptions, letting them go, allows us to remember this Truth. In a forgiven world, a clean and open mind reveals the miracle, the happy dream, for each and every person, place, thing, and experience.
Dreams within dreams is the life we seem to see around us, always dreams of lack, limitation, suffering and death. This is not the Truth! Life shines all around us, in our holy minds. Love radiates from deep within, shedding Its blessings on the world. Truth illumines our minds and our paths within the dream. And Spiritual Substance in all Its Abundance is the Source of All Being, and reflects in our dream as an infinity of blessings and supply. We are so blessed, if we would only awaken. We dream of crucifixion, but in Truth we are the Resurrection and the Life.
"Sin, sickness, disease, and death are comprised in human material belief, and belong not to the Divine Mind. They are without a real origin or existence." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 286, Line 31
"The whole power of God is in every part of Him, and nothing contradictory to His Will is either great or small. What does not exist has no size and no measure. To God all things are possible." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 11, Section VI, 10:6-8
"The Christ is not subject to material conditions... and is able, through Truth, Life, and Love, to triumph over sin, sickness, death, and the grave." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 49, Line 21-25
Happy Easter to all! I've missed writing this blog... it's been a very busy few weeks, but I did manage to write one blog while on the road, and I'm now home again after my travels, and have even resumed the conference calls every Saturday morning at 9 a.m. central time. If you are interested in joining us, we just completed Chapter 11 of the text of A Course in Miracles, and will be on Chapter 12 next week. The call-in number is 605-475-4333... and the access code is 101546#.
It's Easter morning. The grass is vibrant after all the rain, and my pansies are waving their happy faces gratefully at the sun. It feels like a rebirth and renewal, reflected in my dream. ACIM tells us that God's Will for us is perfect happiness... and as we awaken to Reality, everything in the dream reflects this. Even my 90-year-old mother with dementia reflects this joy, within the apparent limitations of her own dream. Our seemingly personal dreams are reflections of our own consciousness, but dreams of suffering are transformed when we awaken and realize the resurrection is within our very own mind. Forgiveness of all our limited and false perceptions, letting them go, allows us to remember this Truth. In a forgiven world, a clean and open mind reveals the miracle, the happy dream, for each and every person, place, thing, and experience.
Dreams within dreams is the life we seem to see around us, always dreams of lack, limitation, suffering and death. This is not the Truth! Life shines all around us, in our holy minds. Love radiates from deep within, shedding Its blessings on the world. Truth illumines our minds and our paths within the dream. And Spiritual Substance in all Its Abundance is the Source of All Being, and reflects in our dream as an infinity of blessings and supply. We are so blessed, if we would only awaken. We dream of crucifixion, but in Truth we are the Resurrection and the Life.
"Sin, sickness, disease, and death are comprised in human material belief, and belong not to the Divine Mind. They are without a real origin or existence." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 286, Line 31
"The whole power of God is in every part of Him, and nothing contradictory to His Will is either great or small. What does not exist has no size and no measure. To God all things are possible." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 11, Section VI, 10:6-8
Monday, January 19, 2009
Need/Obligate
"There is no miracle you cannot give, for all are given you. Receive them now by opening the storehouse of your mind where they are laid, and giving them away. Christ's Vision is a miracle. Christ's Vision is the miracle in which all miracles are born." -- A Course in Miracles; Lesson 159, 2:4-5, 3:1, & 4:1
"The substitution of the spiritual for the material definition elucidates the meaning." -- Mary Baker Eddy
I love the lessons our dreams provide us, always dreams of forgiveness. Forgiving the material, apparent meanings we have superimposed on Reality... and remembering once again the Allness of God and our eternal Oneness with all Good.
In the above quotes from A Course in Miracles, it's easy to see ourselves doling out physical or fiscal miracles in the world... in the self-aggrandizement of our egos, we co-opt the meaning of miracles to suit our belief in the material. So it's really, really important to remember that only the spiritual meaning of the word miracle applies, ever. Notice the above quote talks about opening the storehouse of our mind. A miracle is always and forever healed perception, and always involves a shift from the separated, material illusion to seeing through the eyes of pure Spirit, our Oneness with God, which ACIM calls the Atonement, Christ's Vision.
Our egoic, separated, illusory self sees every act of giving as an act somehow for itself. This is why Jesus urged us not to let our right hand know what our left hand is doing. We haven't really done anything by giving a material thing or substance, or even by giving bodily acts of service. There's certainly nothing wrong with them... but there is also nothing right about them. This belief in martyrdom and self-sacrifice is all an egoic tool, part of the story in the endless, serial dream of separate bodies and their nonsensical heroic journeys.
Over and over I have seen, in my own dream and the dreams around me, this co-opting of the idea of love by the ego. It's really just the "I'll scratch your back and you scratch mine" mentality, thinly disguised with platitudes and pseudo-spirituality. Real Love IS. It needs nothing, and yet gives everything by simply BEING. It doesn't give out of need, or out of pity. It doesn't give out of a feeling of guilt. It doesn't give in the usual sense at all... It simply IS, and so it radiates and overflows with Abundance of Being. This Abundance of Being is what reflects in the dream as needs being met. It is not need/obligate. It needs no recognition and no return on investment.
I know what it's like to be lost in a dream of lack and loss. I know what it's like to feel like there is absolutely nowhere to turn. And I also know what it's like to awaken from that dream... and I know what it's like to feel so very much gratitude for that very dream, and the Awakening it facilitated.
Yesterday in church, the benediction was unusual, but so appropriate: "May you know hunger and thirst and lack, so that you may know the Abundance of God." A blessing paraphrased straight from the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus didn't say "Blessed are the manifesters," or "Blessed are those who demonstrate abundance in the world." He said, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled." As Mary Baker Eddy pointed out, it's always and only the spiritual meaning that is true. The spiritual meaning of the experience of lack is the blessing of our true hunger and thirst for Awakening, without a story. It's not physical, and it's certainly not fiscal. And it's only when we give up the outer search for fulfillment of any kind (with all its rationales) that the true meaning of giving and receiving becomes apparent, within Self, with absolute freedom... and need/obligate becomes an archaic relic from a bygone era.
"Christ's Vision is the bridge between the worlds. And in Its power can you safely trust to carry you from this world into one made holy by forgiveness. Things which seem quite solid here are merely shadows there; transparent, faintly seen, at times forgot, and never able to obscure the Light that shines beyond them. Holiness has been restored to Vision, and the blind can see. This is the Holy Spirit's single gift; the treasure house to which you can appeal with perfect certainty for all the things that can contribute to your happiness." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook Lesson 159, 5:1-4, & 6:1
"The substitution of the spiritual for the material definition elucidates the meaning." -- Mary Baker Eddy
I love the lessons our dreams provide us, always dreams of forgiveness. Forgiving the material, apparent meanings we have superimposed on Reality... and remembering once again the Allness of God and our eternal Oneness with all Good.
In the above quotes from A Course in Miracles, it's easy to see ourselves doling out physical or fiscal miracles in the world... in the self-aggrandizement of our egos, we co-opt the meaning of miracles to suit our belief in the material. So it's really, really important to remember that only the spiritual meaning of the word miracle applies, ever. Notice the above quote talks about opening the storehouse of our mind. A miracle is always and forever healed perception, and always involves a shift from the separated, material illusion to seeing through the eyes of pure Spirit, our Oneness with God, which ACIM calls the Atonement, Christ's Vision.
Our egoic, separated, illusory self sees every act of giving as an act somehow for itself. This is why Jesus urged us not to let our right hand know what our left hand is doing. We haven't really done anything by giving a material thing or substance, or even by giving bodily acts of service. There's certainly nothing wrong with them... but there is also nothing right about them. This belief in martyrdom and self-sacrifice is all an egoic tool, part of the story in the endless, serial dream of separate bodies and their nonsensical heroic journeys.
Over and over I have seen, in my own dream and the dreams around me, this co-opting of the idea of love by the ego. It's really just the "I'll scratch your back and you scratch mine" mentality, thinly disguised with platitudes and pseudo-spirituality. Real Love IS. It needs nothing, and yet gives everything by simply BEING. It doesn't give out of need, or out of pity. It doesn't give out of a feeling of guilt. It doesn't give in the usual sense at all... It simply IS, and so it radiates and overflows with Abundance of Being. This Abundance of Being is what reflects in the dream as needs being met. It is not need/obligate. It needs no recognition and no return on investment.
I know what it's like to be lost in a dream of lack and loss. I know what it's like to feel like there is absolutely nowhere to turn. And I also know what it's like to awaken from that dream... and I know what it's like to feel so very much gratitude for that very dream, and the Awakening it facilitated.
Yesterday in church, the benediction was unusual, but so appropriate: "May you know hunger and thirst and lack, so that you may know the Abundance of God." A blessing paraphrased straight from the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus didn't say "Blessed are the manifesters," or "Blessed are those who demonstrate abundance in the world." He said, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled." As Mary Baker Eddy pointed out, it's always and only the spiritual meaning that is true. The spiritual meaning of the experience of lack is the blessing of our true hunger and thirst for Awakening, without a story. It's not physical, and it's certainly not fiscal. And it's only when we give up the outer search for fulfillment of any kind (with all its rationales) that the true meaning of giving and receiving becomes apparent, within Self, with absolute freedom... and need/obligate becomes an archaic relic from a bygone era.
"Christ's Vision is the bridge between the worlds. And in Its power can you safely trust to carry you from this world into one made holy by forgiveness. Things which seem quite solid here are merely shadows there; transparent, faintly seen, at times forgot, and never able to obscure the Light that shines beyond them. Holiness has been restored to Vision, and the blind can see. This is the Holy Spirit's single gift; the treasure house to which you can appeal with perfect certainty for all the things that can contribute to your happiness." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook Lesson 159, 5:1-4, & 6:1
Friday, November 21, 2008
He Must Increase, But I Must Decrease
"He must increase, but I must decrease." -- The Bible; John 3:30
I love this quote from John the Baptist. It expresses so eloquently what Mary Baker Eddy calls the 'unselfing' that we all must go through to remember Who We Are. The little self must be seen-through, must be exposed as a fiction, to allow the Christ to be revealed in us. Our allegiance to the little self must decrease, so that our awareness of the Christ, our Oneness with God, may increase.
A Course in Miracles puts it this way: "Perception is a function of the body, and therefore represents a limit on awareness. Perception sees through the body's eyes and hears through the body's ears. It appears to be largely self-motivated and independent, yet actually responds only to the intentions of the mind. The opposite of seeing through the body's eyes is the vision of Christ, which reflects strength rather than weakness, unity rather than separation, and love rather than fear. The opposite of hearing through the body's ears is communication through the Voice for God, the Holy Spirit, which abides in each of us."
Jeshua ben Joseph also put it this way: "No man putteth new wine into old bottles, else the new wine doth burst the bottles and the wine is spilled; but new wine must be put into new bottles." He also said, "No man can serve two masters." This dissolving of old allegiances and identities is often experienced as painful when we are trying to pour the new wine of spiritual awareness into old ways of being, trying to remember our true Self while still clinging to the separated self and its pleasures and pains.
The letting go of old identities, both our own and our perceptions of others, is what A Course in Miracles calls forgiveness. It is the complete relinquishment of the need to judge. Judgement always involves illusions, the projections of the seemingly separated mind... because "whatever is True is eternal, and cannot change or be changed... because it is already perfect."
When we are willing to decrease our allegiance to limited, human things, the great paradox is that we gain everything as our awareness of the Christ increases. The remembrance of Who We Are in God is the door to the limitless Joy and Abundance and Peace that is our Eternal Reality.
"Behold, I make all things new." The Bible; Revelation 21:5
I love this quote from John the Baptist. It expresses so eloquently what Mary Baker Eddy calls the 'unselfing' that we all must go through to remember Who We Are. The little self must be seen-through, must be exposed as a fiction, to allow the Christ to be revealed in us. Our allegiance to the little self must decrease, so that our awareness of the Christ, our Oneness with God, may increase.
A Course in Miracles puts it this way: "Perception is a function of the body, and therefore represents a limit on awareness. Perception sees through the body's eyes and hears through the body's ears. It appears to be largely self-motivated and independent, yet actually responds only to the intentions of the mind. The opposite of seeing through the body's eyes is the vision of Christ, which reflects strength rather than weakness, unity rather than separation, and love rather than fear. The opposite of hearing through the body's ears is communication through the Voice for God, the Holy Spirit, which abides in each of us."
Jeshua ben Joseph also put it this way: "No man putteth new wine into old bottles, else the new wine doth burst the bottles and the wine is spilled; but new wine must be put into new bottles." He also said, "No man can serve two masters." This dissolving of old allegiances and identities is often experienced as painful when we are trying to pour the new wine of spiritual awareness into old ways of being, trying to remember our true Self while still clinging to the separated self and its pleasures and pains.
The letting go of old identities, both our own and our perceptions of others, is what A Course in Miracles calls forgiveness. It is the complete relinquishment of the need to judge. Judgement always involves illusions, the projections of the seemingly separated mind... because "whatever is True is eternal, and cannot change or be changed... because it is already perfect."
When we are willing to decrease our allegiance to limited, human things, the great paradox is that we gain everything as our awareness of the Christ increases. The remembrance of Who We Are in God is the door to the limitless Joy and Abundance and Peace that is our Eternal Reality.
"Behold, I make all things new." The Bible; Revelation 21:5
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Our Treasure House
"My treasure house is full, and angels watch its open doors..." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook Lesson 316, 1:4
"We find that whatever blesses one blesses all, as Jesus showed with the loaves and the fishes... Spirit, not matter, being the Source of supply." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 206, Lines 15-18
In moments of peace, resting in God, there is such an indescribable sense of wholeness and peace, of divine fulfillment and contentment. "My treasure house is full" is an apt description... or as the Psalmist said, "My cup runneth over." This has nothing to do with material structures or economic ups and downs. This sense of wholeness and fullness is Who We Are.
This treasure of wealth and wholeness is not dependent on anything at all... in fact, it is often most readily turned to and recognized when we feel most separate from it. As William Shakespeare said, "Sweet are the uses of adversity, which like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in its head; and this our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything." Our challenges drive us to remember Who We Are.
Let's keep this in mind, regardless of economic swings or financial challenges. God is All, and our treasure house remains full, eternally.
"Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever." -- The Bible; Psalm 23:6
"God is lavish, unfailing abundance; the rich, omnipresent Substance of the universe." -- John Randolph Price
"We find that whatever blesses one blesses all, as Jesus showed with the loaves and the fishes... Spirit, not matter, being the Source of supply." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 206, Lines 15-18
In moments of peace, resting in God, there is such an indescribable sense of wholeness and peace, of divine fulfillment and contentment. "My treasure house is full" is an apt description... or as the Psalmist said, "My cup runneth over." This has nothing to do with material structures or economic ups and downs. This sense of wholeness and fullness is Who We Are.
This treasure of wealth and wholeness is not dependent on anything at all... in fact, it is often most readily turned to and recognized when we feel most separate from it. As William Shakespeare said, "Sweet are the uses of adversity, which like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in its head; and this our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything." Our challenges drive us to remember Who We Are.
Let's keep this in mind, regardless of economic swings or financial challenges. God is All, and our treasure house remains full, eternally.
"Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever." -- The Bible; Psalm 23:6
"God is lavish, unfailing abundance; the rich, omnipresent Substance of the universe." -- John Randolph Price
Monday, June 9, 2008
It's Not Magic
"Question: What is the scientific statement of Being? Answer: There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all. Spirit is immortal Truth; matter is mortal error. Spirit is the real and eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal. Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness. Therefore man is not material; he is spiritual." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 468, Lines 8-15
"Miracles bear witness to Truth. They are convincing because they arise from conviction. Without conviction they deteriorate into magic, which is mindless and therefore destructive; or rather, the uncreative use of mind." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 1, Section I, 14:1-3
"Sickness, or 'not-right-mindedness' is the result of level confusion, because it always entails the belief that what is amiss on one level can adversely affect another. We have referred to miracles as the means of correcting level confusion, for all mistakes must be corrected at the level on which they occur. Only the mind is capable of error. The body can act wrongly only when it is responding to misthought. The body cannot create, and the belief that it can, a fundamental error, produces all physical symptoms. Physical illness represents a belief in magic. The whole distortion that made magic rests on the belief that there is a creative ability in matter which the mind cannot control." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 2, Section IV, 2:2-9
Hmmm... the belief in a creative ability in matter which the mind cannot control... the big bang, supernovas, the conception and birth of a child, the sprouting of a seed... all of these seem to prove an innate creative ability in matter that the mind definitely cannot control. Let's look more closely at this common error.
From the broader perspective of wholeness, everything is idea... there is a corresponding spiritual idea for every form and experience within the dream of materiality. When our minds are open and aware of our Oneness with God, with All, there is always and only harmony between the many spiritual ideas and their thoughts that populate our mind and experience. When our minds are contracted and we imagine ourselves as separate, then our ideas, too, are distorted and inverted, so that our corresponding forms and experiences are unstable and unpredictable and often unpleasant.
From the contracted, uncreative level of the unawakened ego, the story is that matter has it's own creative power... and we find evidence for it everywhere. From the awakened, expansive level of the awakened Self, we see that there is only One Power and One Creator, All-in-All. As emanations of the One, we are fully supplied with an abundance of Divine Ideas. These ideas are what reflect in the dream of matter as health, wholeness, and prosperity... Life, and Life more abundant and harmonious than we can now imagine. But the dream-forms are not the point, or the object, since they are nothing at all, nothing but shadows of the Real.
The Awakened Mind knows there is only One Power, One Self... for God is All-in-All. In Oneness there is only harmony and peace and joy. So the conception of life, the sprouting of a seed, the beauty of nature... these are shadow reflections of the Divine Harmony, the One Power that is Our Reality. This is not magic. This is Reality.
"All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Miracles bear witness to Truth. They are convincing because they arise from conviction. Without conviction they deteriorate into magic, which is mindless and therefore destructive; or rather, the uncreative use of mind." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 1, Section I, 14:1-3
"Sickness, or 'not-right-mindedness' is the result of level confusion, because it always entails the belief that what is amiss on one level can adversely affect another. We have referred to miracles as the means of correcting level confusion, for all mistakes must be corrected at the level on which they occur. Only the mind is capable of error. The body can act wrongly only when it is responding to misthought. The body cannot create, and the belief that it can, a fundamental error, produces all physical symptoms. Physical illness represents a belief in magic. The whole distortion that made magic rests on the belief that there is a creative ability in matter which the mind cannot control." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 2, Section IV, 2:2-9
Hmmm... the belief in a creative ability in matter which the mind cannot control... the big bang, supernovas, the conception and birth of a child, the sprouting of a seed... all of these seem to prove an innate creative ability in matter that the mind definitely cannot control. Let's look more closely at this common error.
From the broader perspective of wholeness, everything is idea... there is a corresponding spiritual idea for every form and experience within the dream of materiality. When our minds are open and aware of our Oneness with God, with All, there is always and only harmony between the many spiritual ideas and their thoughts that populate our mind and experience. When our minds are contracted and we imagine ourselves as separate, then our ideas, too, are distorted and inverted, so that our corresponding forms and experiences are unstable and unpredictable and often unpleasant.
From the contracted, uncreative level of the unawakened ego, the story is that matter has it's own creative power... and we find evidence for it everywhere. From the awakened, expansive level of the awakened Self, we see that there is only One Power and One Creator, All-in-All. As emanations of the One, we are fully supplied with an abundance of Divine Ideas. These ideas are what reflect in the dream of matter as health, wholeness, and prosperity... Life, and Life more abundant and harmonious than we can now imagine. But the dream-forms are not the point, or the object, since they are nothing at all, nothing but shadows of the Real.
The Awakened Mind knows there is only One Power, One Self... for God is All-in-All. In Oneness there is only harmony and peace and joy. So the conception of life, the sprouting of a seed, the beauty of nature... these are shadow reflections of the Divine Harmony, the One Power that is Our Reality. This is not magic. This is Reality.
"All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Our Riches in Glory
"Those who would see the witnesses to Truth instead of to illusion merely ask that they might see a purpose in the world that gives it sense and makes it meaningful. Without your special function [forgiveness] has this world no meaning for you. Yet it can become a treasure house as rich and limitless as Heaven ItSelf." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 26, Section I, 5:1-3
"But I have all, and abound; I am full... my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in Glory." -- The Bible; Philippians 4:18-19
Like everything else in this upside down and backwards world, the notion of wealth and riches has been co opted by the ego, the imagined autonomous self. Wealth and riches have become a symbol of greed and separate, special interests. We have to work, fight, struggle, and grab to get what is ours. And sharing with another separate ego means there is less for us. Do you see how this aberrant idea is mirrored in every aspect of the ego's story? Separate interests, separate lives, separate assets... it's mirrored everywhere.
Nothing could be further from the Truth of God's Kingdom. The Kingdom of Heaven is "an awareness of Perfect Oneness, and the knowledge that there is nothing else; nothing outside this Oneness, and nothing else within." (ACIM; Chapter 18, Section VI, 1:6) But as long as we are caught in the ego story of separate interests, there is never enough. We can't know the Wealth of Our Being, when who we think we're being is a fragment, a little sliver of our True Self.
In the Allness of God our true wealth lies. In the Allness of God there is nothing missing, nothing absent... that's the meaning of Omnipresence. Since we are One with God, the Omnipresent, Omniscient Awareness of Being is IN us in a very real sense... not in an illusory separate body, or in our imagined sense perceptions... but in the Spirit of God that is Our True Self. Being Omnipresent and Omniscient, this Awareness sees everyone and everything as they are, a part of the One Self, and not what they appear to be in the dream of sense perception. In other words, the Awareness of Self sees FROM Being Oneness, AS Oneness.
All-encompassing Love and Goodness without measure is Our True Wealth. As we forgive each separate dream, our awareness returns to Christ, the Oneness that has always been. The living Wealth of God has never left us. Our Riches in Glory are eternal and free.
"Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest... God would make known what is the Riches of the Glory of this mystery... Christ in you, the hope of Glory." -- The Bible; Colossians 1:26-28
"In God's Own Justice does He recognize all you deserve. It is His special function to hold out to you the gifts the innocent deserve. And every one that you accept brings joy to Him as well as you. He knows that Heaven is richer made by each one you accept. And God rejoices as His Son receives what loving justice knows to be his due. For Love and Justice are not different. Because they are the same does Mercy stand at God's right Hand, and gives the Son of God the Power to forgive himself of sin." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 25, Section VIII, 9:5-11
"But I have all, and abound; I am full... my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in Glory." -- The Bible; Philippians 4:18-19
Like everything else in this upside down and backwards world, the notion of wealth and riches has been co opted by the ego, the imagined autonomous self. Wealth and riches have become a symbol of greed and separate, special interests. We have to work, fight, struggle, and grab to get what is ours. And sharing with another separate ego means there is less for us. Do you see how this aberrant idea is mirrored in every aspect of the ego's story? Separate interests, separate lives, separate assets... it's mirrored everywhere.
Nothing could be further from the Truth of God's Kingdom. The Kingdom of Heaven is "an awareness of Perfect Oneness, and the knowledge that there is nothing else; nothing outside this Oneness, and nothing else within." (ACIM; Chapter 18, Section VI, 1:6) But as long as we are caught in the ego story of separate interests, there is never enough. We can't know the Wealth of Our Being, when who we think we're being is a fragment, a little sliver of our True Self.
In the Allness of God our true wealth lies. In the Allness of God there is nothing missing, nothing absent... that's the meaning of Omnipresence. Since we are One with God, the Omnipresent, Omniscient Awareness of Being is IN us in a very real sense... not in an illusory separate body, or in our imagined sense perceptions... but in the Spirit of God that is Our True Self. Being Omnipresent and Omniscient, this Awareness sees everyone and everything as they are, a part of the One Self, and not what they appear to be in the dream of sense perception. In other words, the Awareness of Self sees FROM Being Oneness, AS Oneness.
All-encompassing Love and Goodness without measure is Our True Wealth. As we forgive each separate dream, our awareness returns to Christ, the Oneness that has always been. The living Wealth of God has never left us. Our Riches in Glory are eternal and free.
"Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest... God would make known what is the Riches of the Glory of this mystery... Christ in you, the hope of Glory." -- The Bible; Colossians 1:26-28
"In God's Own Justice does He recognize all you deserve. It is His special function to hold out to you the gifts the innocent deserve. And every one that you accept brings joy to Him as well as you. He knows that Heaven is richer made by each one you accept. And God rejoices as His Son receives what loving justice knows to be his due. For Love and Justice are not different. Because they are the same does Mercy stand at God's right Hand, and gives the Son of God the Power to forgive himself of sin." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 25, Section VIII, 9:5-11
Monday, April 21, 2008
God is My Inheritance
"The Thought of God created You. It left You not, nor have You ever been apart from it an instant. It belongs to You. By it you Live. It is your Source of Life, holding You One with it, and everything is One with You because it left You not. The Thought of God protects You, cares for You, makes soft Your resting place and smooth Your way, lighting Your mind with happiness and Love. Deny not Heaven. It is yours today, but for the asking." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 165, 2:1-6, 4:1-2
"What makes this world seem real except your own denial of the Truth that lies beyond? What but your thoughts of misery and death obscure the perfect happiness and the eternal life your Father wills for you? And what could hide what cannot be concealed but illusion? What could keep from you what you already have except your choice to see it not, denying it is there? Your mind has come to lay aside denial, and accept the Thought of God as your inheritance." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 165, 1:1-4, 5:6
We all accept and take pride in our heritage. Even when we come from the humblest of earthly origins, we are fascinated with our ancestors, who they were and how they lived, as if somehow that gives meaning to us, that we can figure out what we have inherited from them. And now with DNA testing, we are eager to explore whether we share dysfunctional tendencies for disease. But really, what's the difference if we're looking for admirable qualities or dysfunctional ones? It's all a mockery of our true heritage.
The fact that we are not who we think we are, not bodies that come from the earth and return to it, is central to Awakening. And it's a sticking point for most of us. Who am I? Who are my parents? Where did I go to school? What are my personal habits? What are my spiritual beliefs? These are the types of things people want to know about us when getting to know us... and we do the same with them. But none of this matters, none of it has anything to do with my reality, or yours. Jeshua ben Joseph could walk among total strangers from vastly different socioeconomic and religious groups without differentiating. To Him, all were Perfect Ideas in the Mind of God, longing to Remember their true Inheritance. End of story.
God is my true heritage, my True Inheritance. I am as God created me, and have not left the Mind of God. In Him I live and move and have my Being. As do You.
"Would God consent to let His Son remain forever starved by his denial of the nourishment he needs to live? Abundance dwells in him, and deprivation cannot cut him off from God's sustaining Love and from his Home." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 165, 6:5-6
"What makes this world seem real except your own denial of the Truth that lies beyond? What but your thoughts of misery and death obscure the perfect happiness and the eternal life your Father wills for you? And what could hide what cannot be concealed but illusion? What could keep from you what you already have except your choice to see it not, denying it is there? Your mind has come to lay aside denial, and accept the Thought of God as your inheritance." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 165, 1:1-4, 5:6
We all accept and take pride in our heritage. Even when we come from the humblest of earthly origins, we are fascinated with our ancestors, who they were and how they lived, as if somehow that gives meaning to us, that we can figure out what we have inherited from them. And now with DNA testing, we are eager to explore whether we share dysfunctional tendencies for disease. But really, what's the difference if we're looking for admirable qualities or dysfunctional ones? It's all a mockery of our true heritage.
The fact that we are not who we think we are, not bodies that come from the earth and return to it, is central to Awakening. And it's a sticking point for most of us. Who am I? Who are my parents? Where did I go to school? What are my personal habits? What are my spiritual beliefs? These are the types of things people want to know about us when getting to know us... and we do the same with them. But none of this matters, none of it has anything to do with my reality, or yours. Jeshua ben Joseph could walk among total strangers from vastly different socioeconomic and religious groups without differentiating. To Him, all were Perfect Ideas in the Mind of God, longing to Remember their true Inheritance. End of story.
God is my true heritage, my True Inheritance. I am as God created me, and have not left the Mind of God. In Him I live and move and have my Being. As do You.
"Would God consent to let His Son remain forever starved by his denial of the nourishment he needs to live? Abundance dwells in him, and deprivation cannot cut him off from God's sustaining Love and from his Home." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 165, 6:5-6
Friday, April 18, 2008
Life is God
"We all must learn that Life is God. The law of mortal belief, at war with the facts of immortal Life, even with the spiritual law which says to the grave, Where is thy victory? But when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 494, Lines 9, 20-27
"What is temptation but a wish to make the wrong decision on what you would learn, and have an outcome that you do not want? Let us be still an instant, and forget all things we ever learned, all thoughts we had, and every preconception that we hold of what things mean and what their purpose is. Let us remember not our own ideas of what the world is for. We do not know. Let every image held be loosened from our minds and swept away." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 31, Section I, 11:1, 12:1-4
Life is God. God is Infinite, eternal, omnipresent. There can be no place, no time, no circumstance where Life is not. The lie that presents itself to us as life, filled with war, poverty, famine, violence, disaster, and inevitable death, cannot be life. And so it cannot be real. As it is expressed in Mary Baker Eddy's scientific statement of Being: "There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is Infinite Mind and Its Infinite Manifestation, for God is All-in-All." (Science and Health; Page 468, Lines 9-11) And A Course in Miracles tells us:
"Nothing Real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the Peace of God." (ACIM; Introduction, 2:2-4)
Why are we so enamored of a dream of suffering and death? We cling to our little comforts and pleasures, and stick our heads in the sand. We pretend that suffering and death are not a part of our dream... it's just other people who bad things happen to. Aren't' we lucky? We congratulate ourselves on our good fortune (comparatively speaking), all the while knowing it is temporary. Look at the lives of all the rich and famous of the past. They share two things in common... they all suffered and they all are dead.
This illusion we call life can have nothing at all to do with reality. As we read in The Bible, "All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was Life, and the Life was the Light of men." (John 1:3-4) God, Good, Life, Light, Truth, Love, Peace, Joy, Abundance, Wholeness... these are synonyms for the Divine Being in scriptures everywhere. Are these not the very opposite of the world we live in? What's wrong with this picture? Why do we go on day after day, accepting the status quo of the dream as if it were life?
We have dreamed a dream of being separate from our Source. How else could such a dream unfold except with suffering and futile searching? We can never find wholeness and life and love in the dream. When we seem to succeed for a time, they are only shadows that pass. In this world everything shifts and changes, seems to live and seems to die, seems to love and seems to hate. And yet it is given us to Remember the Truth... that Who We Really Are can never shift and change, never live only to die, never love only to leave... for we are One with God, the only Source and Substance of All that Is.
God is Life. There is no Life, Love, or Substance but God, Good. We are the images of God, born to radiate this Life. And yet we insist that we live and die as if we're nothing, as if we are simply an effect of an insane world. ACIM asks us, "What have you done that this should be your world? What have you done that this is what you see? Deny your own Identity, and this is what remains. You look on chaos and proclaim it is yourself. 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. Your Self is radiant in this Holy Joy, unchanged, unchanging, and unchangeable, forever and forever." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 191, 2:1-4, and 190, 6:1-5
"Why wait for Heaven? Those who seek the Light are merely covering their eyes. The Light is in them now. Enlightenment is but a recognition, not a change at all. Light is not of the world, yet you who bear the Light in you are alien here as well. It is the only thing you bring with you from Him Who is your Source. It shines in you because it lights your Home, and leads you back to where it came from and you are at Home. This Light cannot be lost. Why wait to find it in the future, or believe it has been lost already, or was never there? The Peace of God is shining in you now." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 188, 1:1-8, 2:1-2
"What is temptation but a wish to make the wrong decision on what you would learn, and have an outcome that you do not want? Let us be still an instant, and forget all things we ever learned, all thoughts we had, and every preconception that we hold of what things mean and what their purpose is. Let us remember not our own ideas of what the world is for. We do not know. Let every image held be loosened from our minds and swept away." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 31, Section I, 11:1, 12:1-4
Life is God. God is Infinite, eternal, omnipresent. There can be no place, no time, no circumstance where Life is not. The lie that presents itself to us as life, filled with war, poverty, famine, violence, disaster, and inevitable death, cannot be life. And so it cannot be real. As it is expressed in Mary Baker Eddy's scientific statement of Being: "There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is Infinite Mind and Its Infinite Manifestation, for God is All-in-All." (Science and Health; Page 468, Lines 9-11) And A Course in Miracles tells us:
"Nothing Real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the Peace of God." (ACIM; Introduction, 2:2-4)
Why are we so enamored of a dream of suffering and death? We cling to our little comforts and pleasures, and stick our heads in the sand. We pretend that suffering and death are not a part of our dream... it's just other people who bad things happen to. Aren't' we lucky? We congratulate ourselves on our good fortune (comparatively speaking), all the while knowing it is temporary. Look at the lives of all the rich and famous of the past. They share two things in common... they all suffered and they all are dead.
This illusion we call life can have nothing at all to do with reality. As we read in The Bible, "All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was Life, and the Life was the Light of men." (John 1:3-4) God, Good, Life, Light, Truth, Love, Peace, Joy, Abundance, Wholeness... these are synonyms for the Divine Being in scriptures everywhere. Are these not the very opposite of the world we live in? What's wrong with this picture? Why do we go on day after day, accepting the status quo of the dream as if it were life?
We have dreamed a dream of being separate from our Source. How else could such a dream unfold except with suffering and futile searching? We can never find wholeness and life and love in the dream. When we seem to succeed for a time, they are only shadows that pass. In this world everything shifts and changes, seems to live and seems to die, seems to love and seems to hate. And yet it is given us to Remember the Truth... that Who We Really Are can never shift and change, never live only to die, never love only to leave... for we are One with God, the only Source and Substance of All that Is.
God is Life. There is no Life, Love, or Substance but God, Good. We are the images of God, born to radiate this Life. And yet we insist that we live and die as if we're nothing, as if we are simply an effect of an insane world. ACIM asks us, "What have you done that this should be your world? What have you done that this is what you see? Deny your own Identity, and this is what remains. You look on chaos and proclaim it is yourself. 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. Your Self is radiant in this Holy Joy, unchanged, unchanging, and unchangeable, forever and forever." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 191, 2:1-4, and 190, 6:1-5
"Why wait for Heaven? Those who seek the Light are merely covering their eyes. The Light is in them now. Enlightenment is but a recognition, not a change at all. Light is not of the world, yet you who bear the Light in you are alien here as well. It is the only thing you bring with you from Him Who is your Source. It shines in you because it lights your Home, and leads you back to where it came from and you are at Home. This Light cannot be lost. Why wait to find it in the future, or believe it has been lost already, or was never there? The Peace of God is shining in you now." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 188, 1:1-8, 2:1-2
Monday, April 14, 2008
Money and Sacrifice
"It takes great learning both to realize and to accept the fact that the world has nothing to give. What can the sacrifice of nothing mean? There is no sacrifice in the world's terms that does not involve the body. Think a while about what the world calls sacrifice. Power, fame, money, physical pleasure; who is the "hero" to whom all these things belong? Could they mean anything except to a body? Yet a body cannot evaluate. By seeking after such things the mind associates itself with the body, obscuring its Identity and losing sight of what It really is." -- A Course in Miracles; Manual for Teachers 13, 2:1-9
"Money is not evil. It is nothing... The right to live is something no one need fight for. It is promised him, and guaranteed by God." -- Psychotherapy: Purpose, Process, and Practice (An Extension of the Principles of A Course in Miracles); Chapter 3, Section III, 1:5-6, 4:1-2
"Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin. And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek)) For your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow; for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. -- The Bible; Matthew 6:27-34
There is not one thought within the world, not one strategy or method, not one way of being that has an ounce of truth in it... it's all based on a fictional world of matter and supposedly real bodies walking around in it. It's all based on a fiction. All of it, all of it is some version of the lie that Oneness must be sacrificed to protect and defend a limited, separate, autonomous (real) self. What we are unwilling to see is that this self that we cherish and defend (in all its flawed glory) is completely fictional. We give a fiction all our time and attention and belief, and sacrifice the treasure of our true Joy and Peace to keep this fictional puff of smoke in circulation. We are addicted to pain and suffering because they give our fictional selves the illusion of reality. We are intent on being right if it kills us...and it does eventually, in the dream.
Money is a like everything else in the dream... nothing at all. It symbolizes the sacrifice of wholeness for specialness and debt (pseudonyms for fear and guilt). The good news is that the Holy Spirit within us retains the Awareness of Oneness, and when we bring our perceptions and symbols to the Truth in us, all is forgiven and released, re-interpreted and used for Awakening.
Everything in the dream is simply symbol... and our only choice in a world of dreams is what we choose to have it symbolize. What is it for? There are only two choices, ever. Truth or illusions, Awakening or endless dreams. Though it looks like hundreds of decisions and choices lie before us, there is always only this one decision in our imagined prison of the Son of God, a separate body in a world of dreams.
Jeshua ben Joseph taught us to not give allegiance to a single thought, to a single imagined need in the dream. He said to take no thought for anything in the world. "Seek first the Kingdom," he said, "and all these things shall be added unto you." He also taught us to pray in this manner: "Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." In other words, let us reflect only the Truth of Being even as we walk in the dream... we know we always have whatever is needed as we serve only Awakening... and we forgive ourselves the thought of separation and lack, as we forgive our projections of separation and lack all around us. We know that as we release the so-called others in the dream, we are released. We can always only meet our own projections. It's the nature of the dream.
The thought of lack can only arise when we dream we are separate from God Who is our Source. When we forgive this we see that in reality we are forever Whole in the Allness of God, living and moving and having our Being only in God. There is nothing more or less than Allness. We always reflect only the Allness and Wholeness and Abundance that Is God.
Like all special relationships within the dream, our relationship with money is all made up. It's nothing at all. The laws and rituals that seem to govern are simply what we have agreed to. They are nothing. They have no cause, and no real effects. It is the fear of our own illusions that gives them seeming reality. We are like little children afraid to look under the bed. And so we sacrifice our Self to fear and bondage in a world of dreams.
Money and the sacrifice it appears to demand of us does not need to be a big deal. There is a miracle of healing for every appearance of lack and limitation within the dream. And the Miracle is always Remembering Who We Are, a return to sanity for the Holy Son of God.
"It is as needful that you recognize you made the world you see, as that you recognize that you did not create your Self. They are the same mistake. Nothing created not by your Creator has any influence on you. And if you think what you have made can tell you what you see and feel, and place your faith in its ability to do so, you are denying your Creator and believing that you made yourself. For if you think the world you made has power to make you what it wills, you are confusing Son and Father, effect and Source." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 21, Section II, 11:1-5
"But grant that everything that seems to be, you made in secret, and the instant of release has come to you. All its effects are gone, because its source has been uncovered. It is its seeming independence of its source that keeps you prisoner. This is the same mistake as thinking you are independent of the Source by which You were created, and have never left." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 21, Section II, 13:3-6
"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
"Money is not evil. It is nothing... The right to live is something no one need fight for. It is promised him, and guaranteed by God." -- Psychotherapy: Purpose, Process, and Practice (An Extension of the Principles of A Course in Miracles); Chapter 3, Section III, 1:5-6, 4:1-2
"Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin. And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek)) For your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow; for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. -- The Bible; Matthew 6:27-34
There is not one thought within the world, not one strategy or method, not one way of being that has an ounce of truth in it... it's all based on a fictional world of matter and supposedly real bodies walking around in it. It's all based on a fiction. All of it, all of it is some version of the lie that Oneness must be sacrificed to protect and defend a limited, separate, autonomous (real) self. What we are unwilling to see is that this self that we cherish and defend (in all its flawed glory) is completely fictional. We give a fiction all our time and attention and belief, and sacrifice the treasure of our true Joy and Peace to keep this fictional puff of smoke in circulation. We are addicted to pain and suffering because they give our fictional selves the illusion of reality. We are intent on being right if it kills us...and it does eventually, in the dream.
Money is a like everything else in the dream... nothing at all. It symbolizes the sacrifice of wholeness for specialness and debt (pseudonyms for fear and guilt). The good news is that the Holy Spirit within us retains the Awareness of Oneness, and when we bring our perceptions and symbols to the Truth in us, all is forgiven and released, re-interpreted and used for Awakening.
Everything in the dream is simply symbol... and our only choice in a world of dreams is what we choose to have it symbolize. What is it for? There are only two choices, ever. Truth or illusions, Awakening or endless dreams. Though it looks like hundreds of decisions and choices lie before us, there is always only this one decision in our imagined prison of the Son of God, a separate body in a world of dreams.
Jeshua ben Joseph taught us to not give allegiance to a single thought, to a single imagined need in the dream. He said to take no thought for anything in the world. "Seek first the Kingdom," he said, "and all these things shall be added unto you." He also taught us to pray in this manner: "Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." In other words, let us reflect only the Truth of Being even as we walk in the dream... we know we always have whatever is needed as we serve only Awakening... and we forgive ourselves the thought of separation and lack, as we forgive our projections of separation and lack all around us. We know that as we release the so-called others in the dream, we are released. We can always only meet our own projections. It's the nature of the dream.
The thought of lack can only arise when we dream we are separate from God Who is our Source. When we forgive this we see that in reality we are forever Whole in the Allness of God, living and moving and having our Being only in God. There is nothing more or less than Allness. We always reflect only the Allness and Wholeness and Abundance that Is God.
Like all special relationships within the dream, our relationship with money is all made up. It's nothing at all. The laws and rituals that seem to govern are simply what we have agreed to. They are nothing. They have no cause, and no real effects. It is the fear of our own illusions that gives them seeming reality. We are like little children afraid to look under the bed. And so we sacrifice our Self to fear and bondage in a world of dreams.
Money and the sacrifice it appears to demand of us does not need to be a big deal. There is a miracle of healing for every appearance of lack and limitation within the dream. And the Miracle is always Remembering Who We Are, a return to sanity for the Holy Son of God.
"It is as needful that you recognize you made the world you see, as that you recognize that you did not create your Self. They are the same mistake. Nothing created not by your Creator has any influence on you. And if you think what you have made can tell you what you see and feel, and place your faith in its ability to do so, you are denying your Creator and believing that you made yourself. For if you think the world you made has power to make you what it wills, you are confusing Son and Father, effect and Source." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 21, Section II, 11:1-5
"But grant that everything that seems to be, you made in secret, and the instant of release has come to you. All its effects are gone, because its source has been uncovered. It is its seeming independence of its source that keeps you prisoner. This is the same mistake as thinking you are independent of the Source by which You were created, and have never left." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 21, Section II, 13:3-6
"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
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Playing Our Part
"As you share My unwillingness to accept error in yourself and others, you must join the great crusade to correct it; listen to My Voice, learn to undo error, and act to correct it. The power to work miracles belongs to you. I will provide the opportunities to do them, but you must be ready and willing." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 1, Section III, 5:6-8
"Each day should be devoted to miracles. Miracles reawaken the awareness that Spirit, not the body, is the Altar of Truth. This is the recognition that leads to the healing power of the miracle. Only the creations of Light are real. The Holy Spirit is the mechanism of miracles." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 1, Section I, 15:1, 20:1-2, 24:4, 38:1
Playing our part in the Great Awakening of the Son of God is our true purpose in life. Each of us moves within the dream that ACIM calls the great projection, each with individualized issues and dramas. These don't really matter. What matters is that wherever and however we find ourselves today, every moment of every day can be devoted to restoring our minds to Truth. We don't have to go to a deserted island or a cave to do this... in fact, many who have done so have found their unhealed perceptions simply morphed and stayed with them. We are simply asked to bring ALL our perceptions to the Holy Spirit ALL the time, every Holy Instant, where Truth enfolds our errors and projections and restores our holy awareness to Oneness, undoing the effects of our errors omnidirectionally, throughout imagined time and space. This is the healing aspect of the miracle.
The miracle is a corrective device, since the reality of Spirit is forever whole and perfect and complete. The Holy Spirit, the part of our minds that remains in perfect communication with God and Truth, is the mechanism of miracles. In other words, the Holy Spirit is like the cooking pot... our perceptions and problems and fears are the ingredients we put into the cooking pot... and the Truth that remains eternally in the awareness of the Holy Spirit is the alchemical ingredient that transforms all ingredients into their eternal and essential Truth.
There is another way to look at how we play our part, using analogies within the world as we know it. In acoustics, there is a phenomenon called phase cancellation. For every frequency of sound, there is an opposing frequency, its mirror opposite. When these two frequencies of sound are brought together, there is no sound. You could say that they have achieved the perfect balance and become One. Using this idea, we can see that the Holy Spirit holds within it the balancing frequency for every thought, every error that could possibly exist. By bringing these errors to Truth, we allow the error to meet with its mirror opposite, and so it is no more. Out of this marriage of error and its opposite, there emerges the miracle. In my book (http://www.thelittlebookoforganicabundance.com), I call this spontaneous emergence within the dream Vibratory Kinesis.
A Course in Miracles reminds us that "Miracles are habits, and should be involuntary. They should not be under conscious control." (ACIM; Chapter 1, Section I, 5:1-2) In other words, playing our part is simply to bring all our perceptions, without exception, to the Holy Spirit, all the time. The alchemy of miracles is not our function. Our part is to bring all that we think we are to the Holy Spirit, all the time. The Holy Spirit holds the Truth that corrects all errors, all the time. So playing our part is entirely the willingness to do this, all the time.
Are we willing to play our part? This is not an exercise for the faint of heart. It will cost you the world as you have known it. But, as Dr. Phil might say... how's that working for you?
"Whatever is True is eternal, and cannot change or be changed. Spirit is therefore unalterable because It is already Perfect, but the mind can elect what it chooses to serve. The only limit put on its choice is that it cannot serve two masters. The miracle is a sign that the mind has chosen to be led by Me in Christ's service. The Abundance of Christ is the natural result of choosing to follow Him. Truth is always Abundant." A Course in Miracles; Chapter 1, Section IV, 5:1-3,6:1-2, 3:4
"Each day should be devoted to miracles. Miracles reawaken the awareness that Spirit, not the body, is the Altar of Truth. This is the recognition that leads to the healing power of the miracle. Only the creations of Light are real. The Holy Spirit is the mechanism of miracles." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 1, Section I, 15:1, 20:1-2, 24:4, 38:1
Playing our part in the Great Awakening of the Son of God is our true purpose in life. Each of us moves within the dream that ACIM calls the great projection, each with individualized issues and dramas. These don't really matter. What matters is that wherever and however we find ourselves today, every moment of every day can be devoted to restoring our minds to Truth. We don't have to go to a deserted island or a cave to do this... in fact, many who have done so have found their unhealed perceptions simply morphed and stayed with them. We are simply asked to bring ALL our perceptions to the Holy Spirit ALL the time, every Holy Instant, where Truth enfolds our errors and projections and restores our holy awareness to Oneness, undoing the effects of our errors omnidirectionally, throughout imagined time and space. This is the healing aspect of the miracle.
The miracle is a corrective device, since the reality of Spirit is forever whole and perfect and complete. The Holy Spirit, the part of our minds that remains in perfect communication with God and Truth, is the mechanism of miracles. In other words, the Holy Spirit is like the cooking pot... our perceptions and problems and fears are the ingredients we put into the cooking pot... and the Truth that remains eternally in the awareness of the Holy Spirit is the alchemical ingredient that transforms all ingredients into their eternal and essential Truth.
There is another way to look at how we play our part, using analogies within the world as we know it. In acoustics, there is a phenomenon called phase cancellation. For every frequency of sound, there is an opposing frequency, its mirror opposite. When these two frequencies of sound are brought together, there is no sound. You could say that they have achieved the perfect balance and become One. Using this idea, we can see that the Holy Spirit holds within it the balancing frequency for every thought, every error that could possibly exist. By bringing these errors to Truth, we allow the error to meet with its mirror opposite, and so it is no more. Out of this marriage of error and its opposite, there emerges the miracle. In my book (http://www.thelittlebookoforganicabundance.com), I call this spontaneous emergence within the dream Vibratory Kinesis.
A Course in Miracles reminds us that "Miracles are habits, and should be involuntary. They should not be under conscious control." (ACIM; Chapter 1, Section I, 5:1-2) In other words, playing our part is simply to bring all our perceptions, without exception, to the Holy Spirit, all the time. The alchemy of miracles is not our function. Our part is to bring all that we think we are to the Holy Spirit, all the time. The Holy Spirit holds the Truth that corrects all errors, all the time. So playing our part is entirely the willingness to do this, all the time.
Are we willing to play our part? This is not an exercise for the faint of heart. It will cost you the world as you have known it. But, as Dr. Phil might say... how's that working for you?
"Whatever is True is eternal, and cannot change or be changed. Spirit is therefore unalterable because It is already Perfect, but the mind can elect what it chooses to serve. The only limit put on its choice is that it cannot serve two masters. The miracle is a sign that the mind has chosen to be led by Me in Christ's service. The Abundance of Christ is the natural result of choosing to follow Him. Truth is always Abundant." A Course in Miracles; Chapter 1, Section IV, 5:1-3,6:1-2, 3:4
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Health and Wealth and Wholeness
"Divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need. It is not well to imagine that Jesus demonstrated the Divine Power to heal only for a select number or for a limited period of time, since to all mankind and in every hour, Divine Love supplies all good." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 494, Lines 10-14
"He would comfort you, although He knows no sorrow. He would make a restitution, though He is complete; a gift to you, although He knows that you have everything already. He has Thoughts which answer every need His Son perceives, although He sees them not. For Love must give, and what is given in His Name takes on the form most useful in a world of form. These are the forms which never can deceive, because they come from Formlessness ItSelf." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 186, 13:2-5, 14:1
We are told by Scripture that we are made in the image and likeness of God, Who is pure Spirit and All-in-All. We are reflections of eternity, radiating the Infinite Love that is Our Source. The very definition of infinity is that it cannot be limited or defined in any way, in any direction. Omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent... these are all words we use to attempt to describe and define what is undefinable.
As radiant images of the One, we are limitless Spirit. Just as the ray of sunlight is one with the sun which is its source, we are One with the Allness of God Who Is Our Source. And just as the sun, by being what it is, radiates sunlight, God, Being the Allness of Life, Truth, and Love, radiates US. We are the Divine radiance.
ALL that the Father has is ours by right of spiritual reflection, here and now and always. A conscious awareness of Being One with God is its own gift... awareness of the Grace of Being is beyond any earthly experience. And yet, we are promised by Scripture and by Jesus and by all those who have lived the experience of Oneness that Awareness of Being One with God IS our health and wealth. That the Glory of True Being is reflected even in the dream, on earth as it is in Heaven.
As radiant images of God, we are everything and have everything. What more than ALL could we want or need? Can we ever have more than ALL? It is the tunnel vision of the false, limited self that reflects distorted images of lack and sickness. Limited perception is simply the distorted, false reflection of a limited, contracted awareness. Returning our minds and hearts to God, we return to our true Self, and our true function as radiant reflections of our Source.
As the Divine Radiance, we know the Allness of Good, individually and collectively. Mary Baker Eddy wrote that the Divine Mind of God continually supplies us with beautiful and refreshing images of thought to meet every imagined need. As the Divine Radiance, health and wealth and wholeness of every sort become Divine Ideas that are our heritage as Radiant Images of God.
"The Will of God is One, and ALL there Is. This is your heritage. The universe beyond the sun and stars and all the Thoughts of which you can conceive belong to you." -- A Course in Miracles; Manual for Teachers 20, 6:9-11
"Do you really believe you can make a voice that can drown out God's? Do you really believe you can devise a thought system that can separate you from Him? Do you really believe you can plan for your safety and joy better than He can? You need be neither careful nor careless; you need merely cast your cares upon Him because He careth for you. You are His care because He Loves you. His Voice reminds you always that all hope is yours because of His care. You cannot choose to escape His care because that is not His Will, but you can choose to accept His care and use the Infinite Power of His care for all those He created by it." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 5, Section VII, 1:1-7
"He would comfort you, although He knows no sorrow. He would make a restitution, though He is complete; a gift to you, although He knows that you have everything already. He has Thoughts which answer every need His Son perceives, although He sees them not. For Love must give, and what is given in His Name takes on the form most useful in a world of form. These are the forms which never can deceive, because they come from Formlessness ItSelf." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 186, 13:2-5, 14:1
We are told by Scripture that we are made in the image and likeness of God, Who is pure Spirit and All-in-All. We are reflections of eternity, radiating the Infinite Love that is Our Source. The very definition of infinity is that it cannot be limited or defined in any way, in any direction. Omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent... these are all words we use to attempt to describe and define what is undefinable.
As radiant images of the One, we are limitless Spirit. Just as the ray of sunlight is one with the sun which is its source, we are One with the Allness of God Who Is Our Source. And just as the sun, by being what it is, radiates sunlight, God, Being the Allness of Life, Truth, and Love, radiates US. We are the Divine radiance.
ALL that the Father has is ours by right of spiritual reflection, here and now and always. A conscious awareness of Being One with God is its own gift... awareness of the Grace of Being is beyond any earthly experience. And yet, we are promised by Scripture and by Jesus and by all those who have lived the experience of Oneness that Awareness of Being One with God IS our health and wealth. That the Glory of True Being is reflected even in the dream, on earth as it is in Heaven.
As radiant images of God, we are everything and have everything. What more than ALL could we want or need? Can we ever have more than ALL? It is the tunnel vision of the false, limited self that reflects distorted images of lack and sickness. Limited perception is simply the distorted, false reflection of a limited, contracted awareness. Returning our minds and hearts to God, we return to our true Self, and our true function as radiant reflections of our Source.
As the Divine Radiance, we know the Allness of Good, individually and collectively. Mary Baker Eddy wrote that the Divine Mind of God continually supplies us with beautiful and refreshing images of thought to meet every imagined need. As the Divine Radiance, health and wealth and wholeness of every sort become Divine Ideas that are our heritage as Radiant Images of God.
"The Will of God is One, and ALL there Is. This is your heritage. The universe beyond the sun and stars and all the Thoughts of which you can conceive belong to you." -- A Course in Miracles; Manual for Teachers 20, 6:9-11
"Do you really believe you can make a voice that can drown out God's? Do you really believe you can devise a thought system that can separate you from Him? Do you really believe you can plan for your safety and joy better than He can? You need be neither careful nor careless; you need merely cast your cares upon Him because He careth for you. You are His care because He Loves you. His Voice reminds you always that all hope is yours because of His care. You cannot choose to escape His care because that is not His Will, but you can choose to accept His care and use the Infinite Power of His care for all those He created by it." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 5, Section VII, 1:1-7
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