First, I want to send everyone infinite love and blessings for the New Year. This is Who We Are! May all Being remember this!
"I am the goal the world is searching for." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 318
"I am that I am." -- The Bible
"I am That." -- Nisargadatta Maharaj
Reading the above quotations, the natural response of the conditioned self is, "No, I'm not." Or if you are a bit more open to the possibility, it may lead naturally into self-inquiry... "Who am I?" Or maybe even "What am I?" Am I what I seem to be, or am I beyond the seeming? Am I what is experiencing the seeming, or what is noticing the seeming? And if there is both, then are there two of me? What is the truth of all of this???
For those of us that have been reading and studying and even teaching A Course in Miracles for a while, it is apparent that every sentence and even every word is pointing to this Truth. "My mind is part of God's, and I am very holy." I am. I already am. So who or what is it that is constantly trying to fix up an unholy, flawed self? And who or what is that flawed self? Who, what, and why?
This morning I turned in the Workbook to Lesson 47: "God is the strength in which I trusts." To the split mind, this is a dualistic statement of God and me, self and other. But it is actually referring to God as our True Self.
To trust in a false sense of self is to suffer, and to live in the constant fear that is the world we see every day. But when we remember our shared God Self there is only Love, Goodness, Infinite Strength and Power and Security and Joy. And there is no limit to the miracles that are revealed when this is truly known. "I am the goal the world is searching for." Try contemplating this statement between now and the new year. Try remembering Who You Really Are throughout the new year, and always.
"Let go all the trivial things that churn and bubble on the surface of your mind, and reach down and below them to the Kingdom of Heaven. There is a place in you where there is perfect peace. There is a place in you where nothing is impossible. There is a place in you where the strength of God abides." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 47:7:3-6
Showing posts with label I Am. Show all posts
Showing posts with label I Am. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 29, 2015
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
The Great I Am
"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
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
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