Multiplying Nothing

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The End of Denial

"By knowing the unreality of disease, sin, and death, you demonstrate the Allness of God... utter reliance upon the One God, to Whom belong all things." --Unity of Good by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 9, Line 28, & Page 10, Lines 9-10

Have you noticed that we all have a tendency to interpret our spirituality personally and selfishly? When confronted with unpleasantness, like starving children or human trafficking or animal abuse, or even the reality of where the meat we insist on eating is coming from and how barbarically the animals are treated, the tendency is to fall back on, "It's not real anyway." And then we do whatever we want and pretend it's not there. This is not the proper use of denial. This is the co opting of denial by the little, imaginary self, that wants its own comfort and survival and pleasure above all else.

Not one thing in this world is true, and that is certain. And yet, whatever we encounter in our own consciousness is true for us, and therefore must be forgiven, not avoided by sticking our heads in the sand. And as we forgive, I guarantee the Holy Spirit will urge us to action within the dream to reinforce that there is nothing to fear, nothing to avoid. The thing about the courage to walk our talk is that we are saying 'no' to what is not real, saying no to the fear and appearance of suffering encountered in consciousness. Everything is met in consciousness. There is nothing else.

The actions we take in the world are symbols in the dream, symbols of where we are in consciousness. I notice that Jeshua ben Joseph did not continue to sit on the mountain top or in the desert, but was actively led to the poorest, neediest, most despised people and places. He looked it all in the face and knew it was not of God, and therefore not real... and yet he walked and talked and healed and comforted while knowing the Truth. "Jesus taught us to walk over, not into or with, the currents of matter, or mortal mind." (Unity of Good by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 11, Lines 3-4)

So when we turn away from suffering by saying it's not real, we're really just acknowledging that to us, it seems scary and real and we don't want to go there. "Whatever you accept into your mind has reality for you. It is your acceptance of it that makes it real to you." (A Course in Miracles; Chapter 5, Section V, 4:1-2) The trick is, as Tolkien said, to "...take care of the evil in the fields that we know..."; we do what we can, moving over the illusion, untouched by it, while silently knowing the Truth in consciousness, the Allness of God and the Nothingness of suffering and death.

The end of denial comes as we realize there is nothing to deny. We don't need to pretend as we go through life... we simply meet whatever we meet in consciousness, knowing the Allness of God and our Oneness with Her... and we willingly meet any and all challenges in consciousness as the nothingness they are. World problems or family problems, the healing is the same. Fear not... there's nothing and no one but God. We learn to play our part with the assurance that it's our own True Self we are always meeting.

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

"All your difficulties stem from the fact that you do not recognize yourself, your brother, or God." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 3, Section III, 2:1

A Brighter Day

"And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God." -- The Bible; Revelation 12:6

My whole life I have been withdrawing from one thing or another. Always, like the woman in Revelation, I have withdrawn to a quiet wilderness in one form or another, a place where I can breathe and hear the Voice again. This "place prepared of God" doesn't have to be literal, in the external. It can and must eventually be the wilderness within... the unexamined stories and assumptions that make up your particular life stream. Within your unexamined stories, hidden by them, is the "place prepared of God." It's always with us. Immanuel, God with Us. Always.

There is of course nothing wrong in withdrawing, nor is there anything right about it. It is simply one way of gaining perspective, of seeing through the dream. The only danger lies when we think it is the external act that is the point. The external matters not at all. Its only significance is that it may seem to lead us to the "place prepared of God" within us.

There is nothing to fear in the dream, and certainly nothing to run and withdraw from. And yet there is a need felt by every heart for silence and a deeper knowing. We long for home, for the deepening awareness of God that is our True Self. We have an innate longing for clarity and Truth. Sadly we settle for substitutes, distortions of truth. Just as we substitute for real nutrition with processed foods that don't nourish the body, we substitute for our Spiritual Reality with manufactured truths, dreams and idols that leave the soul starving.

So how do we withdraw from the world of half-truths, this world of slow spiritual starvation? How do we find the "place prepared of God" that is our salvation from the nonsense we have perpetuated in the name of being 'good' or 'practical' or whatever? How do we find our way when our own stories and manufactured values are designed to obscure the way? They are the ego's insurance policy that we will never walk away. Because, so the story goes, if you walk away you will be bad, or irresponsible, or cruel, or thoughtless, or crazy, or (fill in the blank).

What stories bind you? What keeps you from withdrawing, from gaining the perspective that distance will bring you? They are now and always your own creations... they are all made up. Not one of them has any power or any hold on you other than your own determination to be right in choosing them. Give it up. Would you rather be right than happy?

A brighter day dawns when we are willing to withdraw every single day to the "place prepared of God," to spend time listening to a different Voice. This Voice speaks always of Love and Goodness. This Voice never blames, and gently guides us in paths of Good for All. This Voice has no favorites, and no exceptions from its Love. This Love is All-in-All. And yet this Love appears to be obscured by our unexamined stories of praise and blame. And so we flee into the wilderness of our own stories, braving the savage wildness to find our "place prepared of God." It's here, always here. But we have to brave the wilderness to find it.

"Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning." -- The Bible; Psalm 30:5

What is a Grievance?

"Love holds no grievances. My grievances hide the light of the world in me." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 68 & 69

"With your own wrists manacled, it is hard to break another's chains." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 449, Lines 1-2

What is a grievance? A Course in Miracles says that, "You who were created by Love like ItSelf can hold no grievances and know your Self. To hold a grievance is to forget Who You Are. To hold a grievance is to see yourself as a body. To hold a grievance is to let the ego rule your mind and to condemn the body to death. It seems to split you off from your Source and make you unlike Him. It makes you believe that He is like what you think you have become, for no one can conceive of His Creator as unlike himself. Shut off from your Self, which remains aware of Its likeness to Its Creator, your Self seems to sleep, while the part of your mind that weaves illusions in its sleep appears to be awake. Can all this arise from holding grievances? Oh, yes! For he who holds grievances denies he was created by Love, and his Creator has become fearful to him in his dream of hate." (ACIM; Workbook 68, 1:1-7, & 2:1-4)

Whew. That pretty much covers life as we know it, doesn't it? The symptoms of holding a grievance are clearly given in the above quote: seeing ourselves as physical beings; seeing ourselves as ruled by our ego reactions and emotions; seeing ourselves as separate and cut off from Love; seeing death as a part of life; seeing others, including God and His world, as punitive and vengeful, when it is always and only our own grievances we are projecting and seeing. An isolated mind sees only its lonely and miserable self. Thank God it's all made up. Thank God it's not Who We Are.

We can awaken from dreams. We can wallow in them and remain fascinated by them as long as we choose... but we can awaken. Forgiveness of grievances is the key. No matter what appears 'wrong' in our life and world, we can forgive and let the dream go. God created nothing unlike HimSelf. And as ACIM says, "God is still Love, and this is not His Will." Mary Baker Eddy calls grievances 'sins.' To sin is to 'miss the mark.' We miss it completely when we project our separated mind as emotional baggage, physical suffering, and death. We let it go by forgiving, and having the courage to hold fast to what is True. "God is still Love, and this is not His Will."

The willingness to indulge our grievances, to nurse them as if they were precious to us, is the greatest sin of all. We miss the mark completely, and are lost in the dream. The courage to forgive and let them go, to allow the Holy Spirit in us to do Its perfect work, is our only task in the world. There is not one illusion of suffering that will not fall away in the presence of true forgiveness. What is Real is always effortlessly Present. "My grievances hide the Light of the world in me." And yet, "God is still Love, and this is not His Will."

So no matter what lies before us today, no matter what form our seeming problems take, we know that they are simply some form of grievance we are hanging onto, projected out so it doesn't seem like we are doing it at all. The good news is that we can forgive. We can ask for Light, and for courage to forgive and forgive again, seventy times seven, to infinity and beyond. We can be willing to bare our hearts and minds to God, and cleanse them of all selfish desires and self-interest. We can return Home to Self.

What is a grievance? It is the unwillingness to be Whole, the desire to be special and separate, fragmented and wounded and autonomous to the end. We may only have this little identity, but we insist that at least it is ours. And we nurse and cherish it and struggle to maintain it against every perceived grievance, not recognizing that every grievance (every person, place, or situation) is a fragment of Self that must be welcomed Home through forgiveness. And that everything we truly long for lies in this Re-membering of the Son of God.

It is impossible to really care about anyone or anything when we are drowning in our own grievances. We can't be a true friend or a true lover or a true parent when our grievances rise like a wall between us and what we supposedly love. Until we forgive every grievance, until we release our stories of grievances (no matter how self-righteous and subtle), we will continue to project our own stories of sin and suffering onto other people and situations, and onto our own bodies.

What is a grievance? It is the insistence that we are not the cause of the world we see, and that guilt lies outside of us. As ACIM puts it, "You see neither guilt nor salvation as in your own mind and nowhere else. When you realize that all guilt is solely an invention of your mind, you also realize that guilt and salvation must be in the same place. In understanding this you are saved." Truth remains, quietly shining in the part of your Holy Mind that has never slept. The world is not as we imagine it, for as God's True Creations we remain forever Whole and Loving and Free.

"Love holds no grievances. I would wake to my Self by laying all grievances aside and wakening in Him." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 68, 7:5-6

Moral Courage

"Moral courage is 'the lion of the tribe of Judah,' the king of the mental realm. Free and fearless it roams in the forest. Undisturbed it lies in the open field, or rests in 'green pastures, beside the still waters.' In the figurative transmission from the Divine Thought to the human, diligence, promptness, and perseverance are likened to 'the cattle upon a thousand hills.' They carry the baggage of stern resolve, and keep pace with highest purpose. Tenderness accompanies all the might imparted by Spirit. The individuality created by God is not carnivorous, as witness the millennial estate pictured by Isaiah: The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion, and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 514, Lines 10-25

"I am the Holy Son of God HimSelf. I cannot suffer, cannot be in pain, cannot suffer loss, nor fail to do all that salvation asks." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 191, 7:3-4

I love the thought of moral courage. It is like a shot of vigor, like standing in the face of whatever seems to be with calm assurance that all is, and has forever been, very well. It is a complete letting go of the seduction of arguing for lack, limitation, and mortality as real. As the Son of God, we emanate and radiate God, and only God. A ray of sun radiates sunlight, and only sunlight. A Course in Miracles says it this way: "Ideas leave not their source."

As the Son of God, we cannot be unlike God... therefore we cannot suffer, cannot be in pain, cannot be inflamed or depleted, cannot suffer lack, loss, or limitation of any kind. We radiate all the attributes of God, and only God. Moral courage is the willingness to simply Be as God created us, without any need to embellish. No needs at all.

I have had some experiences lately that have given me the opportunity to experience this more fully. The willingness to fully engage with whatever God asks of me in any moment, without judgement or rationalization, without argument or trying to change it... this is the moral courage Mary Baker Eddy speaks of, like the lion roaming the forest without fear, in perfect freedom. And this lion truly isn't carnivorous, and exists peacefully with every other idea. There is no competition among the radiant thoughts of God. "And a little child shall lead them." As the Son of God, I am also like a little child, walking without fear among all people and all experiences, and willing to go wherever my Father leads me. Like that ray of sunlight, I shine where I am shone.

There is no self-consciousness in Being the Son of God, because there is no separate self that needs to look a certain way or appear this way or that. There is One Self, shining through the prism of Life as myriad colors and expressions, Infinite Love and Variety, all so very Good. As Yogananda put it, "God is ever-new Joy." There's nothing dull about being as God created me.

So moral courage is the willingness to Be as God created us, not as we imagine ourselves. "Stand and see the salvation of the Lord." Truly, there is nothing else.

"You who perceive yourself as weak and frail, with futile hopes and devastated dreams, born but to die, to weep and suffer pain, hear this: All Power is given unto you in earth and Heaven. There is nothing that you cannot do. You play the game of death, of being helpless, pitifully tied to dissolution in a world which shows no mercy to you. Yet when you accord it mercy, will its mercy shine on you. Then let the Son of God awaken from his sleep, and opening his holy eyes, return again to bless the world he made. In error it began, but it will end in the reflection of His Holiness." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 191, 9:1-4, & 10:1-2