The Miracle

"Judgment is the weapon I would use against myself, to keep the miracle away from me." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook Lesson 347

The miracle.  How often are those two words repeated in ACIM, always pointing to the wholeness and perfection that exist without an opposite.  It isn't really anything, doesn't really do anything, never changes and never opposes.  The miracle is what is revealed with a shift in awareness from physical sight (projection) to Spiritual Sight (extension).  It reveals the Spiritual Reality that is all there is, or ever will be. Only the perceptual mechanism of judgment made a world other than perfect and whole appear to exist.  When judgment is forgiven and released, only the innocence of Spiritual Perfection is here.  Only One, only God, only pure Spirit, Mind Awake and Aware of Its Infinite Beauty.

So why would any aspect of mind judge?  Why would any aspect of this Infinite I Am attempt to hide from Self-Awareness?  What part of One Self imagines that there is another to defend against or hide from?  How foolish this all sounds, and yet how familiar.

The great reversal, as ACIM calls the process of mind awakening to Itself, can seem long indeed.  Judgment is used in many forms, in many disguises, always to justify our addiction to the contracted mental state we call a self.  But no matter what we call this upside down perception, these inverted and projected images have no relationship to Reality.  They don't need to be changed or understood.  They simply need to be forgiven and released.

When all judgment is finally put aside, projected images fall away and reveal the miracle of One Spiritual Self abiding and unchanging, All-Loving and All-Whole, Encompassing all that appears to be with pure and radiant Joy.  This is the miracle, the coming of the Christ Child... your own Beloved Self.

"And the angel said unto them, "Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people." -- Luke 2:10

The Key to Happiness

“You made this up.  It is a picture of what you think you are; of how you see yourself… Have you not wondered what the world is really like; how it would look through happy eyes?  The world you see is but a judgment on yourself.  It is not there at all.” – A Course in Miracles; Chapter 20, Section III, 4:3-4, 5:1-3

A friend recently asked me about the practice of forgiveness as the Course teaches it.  It’s not really forgiveness as the world thinks about it, because it’s not about anything ‘out there’ at all.  It’s a mental process, because everything I experience is in my mind, and then projected outward.  And while our minds appear to sleep, there is a great need for reminders that the nightmares we project have no real effects.  “What God has created follows His Laws, and His alone.  Nor is it possible for those who follow them to suffer the results of any other source.” (ACIM 20, IV, 3:6-7)  This means our insane projections, though scary, can have no real effects.  Of course, as long as we’re asleep, we’re stuck in a nightmare thinking it’s really happening.  So forgiveness is the way out of the dream.

Forgiveness as the Course teaches it makes use of the Holy Instant, the “little breath of eternity that runs through time like golden Light that is all the same; nothing before it, nothing afterwards.”  The reality of God and the Holy Spirit (which is our reality) is always, now, and forever.  “The past takes nothing from it, and the future will add no more.  Here then, is everything.  This gift returns the laws of God to your remembrance.” 

Because our reality in God is already perfect, whole, and complete, there really is only one purpose to everything… to awaken from the dream we made up.  So the Course reminds us repeatedly that forgiveness is our only function.  Don’t bother judging the seeming situation, since trying to judge a dream is insane… it’s all made up.  Practice forgiveness, and wake up to Perfection.  Practice forgiveness, and be Happy.

“God’s Will for me is perfect happiness.” --  A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 101

Here is an example of how the function of forgiveness unfolds in the mind.  Use your own words, and be specific and thorough with each individual person, situation, or feeling you are examining.  Once you experience the deep peace this process brings, don't try and fill the clean and open space with concepts and stories again.  Remember that it’s the false concepts and beliefs in your mind that project as the world you think you see.  So step back and let Truth arise and lead the way.  Ask the Holy Spirit whenever you need to make a decision.  BE peace.

This feeling (fear, anger, hurt, pride, jealousy, frustration, pain, hopelessness or whatever the unsettling emotion may be) that I feel toward and about you and this situation seems to be about:

(Take time to be honest about this, in detail)
 

I see that every aspect of this is a projection of my belief that I am separate from God and everyone and everything, which means I think I’m separate from this situation and from the All, the Everything that is God, which includes all Goodness and Love and Perfection and Completeness.  Because I think I’m separate, I’m projecting false images of conflict and pain and lack instead of radiating the Wholeness and Peace that I am.  I’m projecting false images of lack and limitation instead of radiating the perfect Love and Completeness that I am.
 

I see that it’s impossible to be separate from the Love of God, which is Everything and All.   I have never been separate and my fear is all made up and projected as false images.  Everyone and everything that seems to be involved is also eternally One with the Love of God, and so everyone and everything that seems to be in conflict is actually all Good and only Good, Perfect, Innocent and Complete.
 

And so I forgive myself and everyone and everything for what never even happened!  I let it go, and overlook all the seeming ‘evidence’ of lack and pain and suffering.  I look instead to the Holy Spirit, and I give all these images to the Holy Spirit to be dissolved in my perception throughout imaginary space and time.
 

I know that as I release these images to the Holy Spirit, they are completely undone throughout the dream (past, present, and future… which are all made up, too)... the false concepts and images dissolve in the Light like the dreams they are, and now I know none of it ever happened in reality.  All that remains is the Holy Instant of Light and Love.  There is only God, only innocence and peace, only the clean and open space of Spirit… the Light, Perfection, Peace, Love, and Joy that is our eternal Home. 
 

By being honest about our thoughts and feelings in this way, and giving them to the Holy Spirit, we let Truth correct all such errors in our minds (which is where it all appears to be happening!).  We can then step back and let our Wholeness (holiness) lead the way, and the symbols and projections in the dream we call life begin to reflect this Wholeness.  Innocence and Peace, Joy and Happiness… these are the Reality behind everything.  And forgiveness is the way to remember the Reality behind it all. 
 

“Forgiveness is the key to happiness.”  A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 121
 

Please join us for ACIM Teleclasses every Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. central time.

Altered States

"The opportunity of spiritual awakening, enlightenment and Self-realization is that what we call the mind is stilled.  Since we are no longer misidentified with thought as our true identity, then thought [ego] can no longer use us.  The ego [thought] and its push and pull strategies are finished.  Instead, the altered state of consciousness that appears to be ego dissolves, to reveal the pure Awareness that really IS.  The mind then becomes the willing servant of Truth; the Heart of unconditional Love and perfect Peace and Joy." -- Katie Davis

When I read the above quote, it struck me first because she equates thought with ego, which is also what A Course in Miracles teaches.  I also loved it because the term 'altered states' has been so extensively used to describe mystical, spiritual experiences.  But how can you alter what is real and eternal?  The altered states must actually be those that seem to alter Reality, that seem to be separate from the One, that seem to produce thoughts and feelings and experiences that are other than Good, other than God.  Of course!  And the only thing that can think it is separate from Allness is a thought.  The egoic notion of self is simply a thought, an identification with thought and its images (projections) as self.

As a child of the 60's and long-time spiritual dilettante, I was a major worshiper of altered states... of spiritual experiences and the Truth I thought they pointed to.  What a shock to realize I was really worshiping images, like any other image, no more 'spiritual' than any other projection.  I was seeking a concept of awakening, a thought, always another and higher thought.  The seeking of altered states of consciousness is itself the egoic notion of something 'other' or 'better' or 'higher'.  When right here, silently Present and Aware, our Self IS unaltered, infinite Perfection.

It takes a lot of letting go to begin to realize that a projector simply projects images, and that those images are all the same.  The projector and the images are neutral... they're nothing substantial at all.   All images and the thoughts they reflect have one thing in common... they're not really here.  Once we put the projector and its images away, there's nothing here but pure Awareness, the Truth of Being.  And this Perfect Awareness then becomes the Source of any images reflected while we remain as seemingly separate entities.  Because the Source is True, the images reflected become closer and closer to Reality. 

So like children coming in from a day of make-believe, let's lay aside the thinking mind, letting go of all compulsion to seek altered states of consciousness.  Instead, let's simply come in, always inward, and sit in silent contentment with the Love and Perfection that is our true Self.  This inner vigil, this resting in our God-Self... this is the only natural state there is.

"All this can very simply be reduced to this: "What is the same can not be different [can not be altered!], and what is One can not have separate parts." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 25, Section I, 7:6-7

In Our Own Image

"No one can conceive of his Creator as unlike himself." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook Lesson 68, 1:7

I have been practicing self-inquiry as taught by A Course in Miracles for a long time now.  It's a version of self-inquiry very similar to "Who am I,"the form given by such advaita masters as Ramana Maharshi and Nisargadatta Maharaj.  The drill goes that as you examine your body, you realize that if you're looking at it, it's not 'I' but a projected image.  The 'I' is actually what is looking and witnessing.  As you look at the senses and their subject/object relationship with the world, you realize the senses are not 'I'.  As you look at your thinking mind, you realize that there is some 'I' looking even at the thoughts that come and go.  And so you gradually refocus the mind to Source, the 'I Am' at the heart of all Being.  As A Course in Miracles teaches it, you reverse the process of projection to return to Self with a capital 'S.'   This Self is All-Inclusiveness, a Oneness or Singularity without an object.

This is a very effective tool for those who really want to remember who they are.  But for most of us, the desire and self-discipline is pretty much lacking.  We can't focus for any length of time on who is looking because we're too distracted by what we're looking at... and that is because we don't really want to know.  We're enamored of our own images... and why wouldn't we be?  We projected them... they're our babies, and we're attached to our own images and thought-forms.  And so we pretend they're real.  As A Course in Miracles reminds us, "Projection will always hurt you.  It reinforces your belief in your own split mind." (ACIM; Chapter 6, Section II, 3:1-2)  Our imagined separateness seems to defend and protect that separateness by forgetting, and by projecting outward the images of the sleeping mind.

The real problem, though, is also the good news.  Because our sleeping minds are constantly projecting, the projected world appears as divided as our minds.  We can have lovely dreams, but we also will have nightmares.  The experience of one guarantees the experience of the other.  Or you could say that suffering is implicit in pleasure, and pleasure is implicit in suffering.  And how is this good news, you may well ask?  Because the unstable nature of our projections sooner or later drives us to self-inquiry.  Sooner or later our undisciplined minds seek meaning beyond the appearance of our own projections. 

The real Truth is that the projected world is a collection of thought-forms in our own image.  We project who we think we are, divided into a cast of thousands.  The quote I used at the beginning of this blog points out that for the mind asleep, even our conception of Source is projected and experienced in our own image.  This is why the God of Christianity and Islam is so often seen as violent, judgmental, vindictive, etc.  It's not our Source that we're seeing, but our own sleeping minds.

The even better news is that our actual Source is not the sleeping mind, but Mind Awake.  This Mind is One, All-Inclusive, All-in-All.  As the Tao te Ching puts it:  "There is a Being, All Inclusive, Who surrounds everything with Its Love like a garment.  I do not know Its name, and so I call it Tao, the Way, and I rejoice in Its Presence."  Source doesn't project... it IS.  The refocusing of the mind through self-inquiry returns us to this primal Awareness.  And this Awareness then is reflected in the seeming individual mind as Self, a Oneness that is reflected in the projected world as unified vision and experience.  In this Awareness of Self there is only Perfection, only Love, and a Joyous Peace that includes everything.  

So whose image am I projecting?  As long as we live in this dream world, we will always be projecting a world and its imagined source in our own image.  So the real question is: Who am I?

"The concept of the self has always been the great preoccupation of the world.  And everyone believes that he must find the answer to the riddle of himself.  Salvation can be seen as nothing more than the escape from concepts [images].  The world can teach no images of you unless you want to learn them.  There will come a time when images have all gone by, and you will see you know not what you are.  It is to this unsealed and open mind that Truth returns, unhindered and unbound.  Where concepts of the self have been laid by is Truth revealed exactly as it IS." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 31, Section V, 14:1-3, 17:1-4

Decisions, Decisions

In this so-called life, decisions make up every minute of every day.  Even my youngest grandson is choosing his state of mind minute by minute, second by second.  I can see the impulses arise and cross his little three-month-old face like clouds.  I can see the second he decides to smile instead of cry.  I can see him struggle to give voice (and I mean voice) to his discomfort.  Little Kai Joseph is just like us... choosing to react to external forms, or to interact with the Love that is in him and all around him, always.

We're not talking about will-power here.  That's the mistaken belief that we can exert control over our bodies and other forms in the external world.  As Mary Baker Eddy put it, "Will power is a product of belief... and is not a faculty of Soul.  Hence it cannot govern man aright."  And A Course in Miracles says it very simply: "There is no Will but God's."

So what are all the decisions we make every day?  We have to first remember that all decisions are of the mind, and have nothing to do with form.  My grandson's decisions may reflect in his face, but it's all in his mind.  Similarly, our minute-by-minute decisions are mental processes.  The illusion of a world arises from these mental projections.  "Perception is a mirror, not a fact.  And what I look on is my state of mind, reflected outward." (A Course in Miracles; Workbook 304, 1:3-4)

Decisions, decisions... how can we make decisions, then, if we're not in our right mind... if we think we've made a will other than God's?  Again, A Course in Miracles gives us a way out: "Let us today be truly humble, and accept what we have made as what it is.  The power of decision is our own.  Decide but to accept your rightful place as co-creator of the universe, and all you think you made will disappear.  What rises to awareness then will be all that there ever was, eternally as it is now.  And it will take the place of self-deceptions made but to usurp the altar to the Father and the Son." (A Course in Miracles; Workbook 152, 8:1-5)

Decisions are continuous, and we are always looking at only two choices, two mental states.  Our True Self, the Son of God Who is Peace and Love and Life and Reality... or an illusion of a separate self, which projects as fear and lack and limitation and death.  We know which we're choosing by our state of mind. 

"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.  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, 9:1-2 & 10:1-2

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

Gang Wars

"You always choose between your weakness and the strength of Christ in you.  And what you choose is what you think is real.  Simply by never using weakness to direct your actions, you have given it no power.  And the light of Christ in you is given charge of everything you do." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 31, Section VIII, 2:3-6

I was watching some crime drama on T.V. (don't ask me why!) and I saw very clearly the choices that led a young man from a good family to become a member of a street gang... and not just a member, but an active participant in an ongoing war against other street gangs.  The choices he made were always based on who he thought he was, and where his safety and fulfillment could be found.  Wrong choice after wrong choice led him to a nasty ending.  Does this sound familiar?

I love how extreme examples in our lives and cultures serve to show us our own mental choices.  We project them and create cultural stories and tragedies to pretend they are 'out there.'  We live in perpetual cultural gang wars... clashing ideas, values, stories, all seemingly competing for our time, our allegiance, our money, and our very souls.  What gang do you belong to?  What are your colors?

I used to belong to the 'spiritual' gang.  We tend to act like we're not a gang, but we are.  We pretend we're lacking enlightenment, so we have to perpetually seek fulfillment.  We attack the culture and society that seem to prevent us from living as we want to live, that doesn't seem to honor us or understand us.  We pretend to be 'better' and more evolved, and so we are entitled to judge the other gangs.  We think our safety and fulfillment lie in these games.  We are no different than any other gang.  We are mentally at war with the world.

Every country, every culture, every political party, every passionate cause, and even every family has its colors and its gang culture.  We all belong to gangs within gangs, and sometimes our gang wars overlap and intertwine with each other.  But make no mistake... every conflict, no matter how mild, is the result of gang wars, always based on choosing to value a weak and fictional self as real.  "Trials are but lessons that you failed to learn presented once again, so where you made a faulty choice before you now can make a better one, and thus escape all pain that what you chose before has brought to you.  In every difficulty, all distress, and each perplexity Christ calls to you and gently says, "My brother, choose again."  He would not leave one source of pain unhealed, nor any image left to veil the Truth." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 31, Section VIII, 3:1-3 

How simple to realize that we are always choosing between the false self, the gang member, or our True Self, the Christ in us!  The false self is like that boy in the crime drama... he thought he was weak and limited, thought he needed to belong to a gang to be strong and protected.  Was he ever wrong!  And so are we.  "The images you make cannot prevail against what God HimSelf would have you be.  Be never fearful of temptation then, but see it as it is; another chance to choose again, and let Christ's strength [your True Self] prevail in every circumstance and every place you raised an image of yourself before.  You are as God created you, and so is every living thing you look upon, regardless of the images you see.  What you behold as sickness and as pain, as weakness and as suffering and loss, is but temptation to perceive yourself defenseless and in hell.  Yield not to this, and you will see all pain, in every form, wherever it occurs, but disappear as mists before the sun." -- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 31, Section VIII, 4:1-2 & 6:1-3

Wow.  This seems too good to be true, doesn't it?  And besides, we are loyal to our gangs.  Our family is still our family.  We should be grateful to belong to (fill in the blank).  Our family, country, church, school, group, etc.  is so much better, isn't it?  What if we belonged to that country?  What if we had those people as relatives?  What if, what if, what if... an endless litany of justification for our choices of misplaced allegiance and mis-identification.  We feel safe and protected by the numbing familiarity of belonging.  And we never question.

But we can always choose again.  As Scarlett said, "Tomorrow is another day."  Each instant is new, fresh, infinite in possibility and beauty.  We have only to choose again.  Gang wars only go on as long as we think there are separate, conflicting gangs.  When we remember that we are collectively One Self, one with God and everything that lives, there can be no more war... only endless love, appreciation, and joy.  We have simply awakened to the Truth, safe in God.

"Learn then the happy habit of response to all temptation to perceive yourself as weak and miserable with these words:  I Am as God created me.  His Son can suffer nothing.  And I Am His Son.  Thus is Christ's strength invited to prevail, replacing all your weakness with the strength that comes from God and that can never fail.  And thus are miracles as natural as fear and agony appeared to be before the choice for holiness was made.  For in this choice are false distinctions gone, illusory alternatives laid by, and nothing left to interfere with Truth." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 31, Section VIII, 5:1-7

Changing Thoughts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Two Selves

In working with clients and with prayer requests (and with my own life) I have observed a persistent phenomenon that I will call the two selves.  This seems to be the delusion that all who walk the earth share.  We believe (and have a lot of sensory evidence to validate this belief) that we are human, weak, lacking, and subject to suffering.  At the same time, we believe we have infinite potential, that we are created in the image of the Divine.  So we all have a kind of split personality... there's the imaginary historical self that thinks we're a product of heredity and hierarchy and environment, that sees flaws in ourselves and every other living thing, that judges, criticizes, and condemns.  And there's the quiet true Self that loves and blesses, that takes joy in life, that gives of itself naturally and freely, that knows wholeness and freedom and love are all words for the same thing.

If you were suffering from multiple personalities, a good therapist would find a way to help you become unified again... because a house divided against itself cannot stand.  So spiritually, our task in healing and awakening is always a return to unified consciousness, to Oneness.  This is enlightenment... the realization that we are not two selves. 

To say we're created in the image of God is to perpetuate this split.  To say that we're a shadow, an image, a mere potential, is to put our becoming into the future, into perpetual process.  And where's the peace in that?  Where is the being?  If we are endlessly processing and becoming, we must still be incomplete, lacking in some way, still subject to suffering and failure.  This is the set-up we're born into.  It's a lose/lose proposition, and always has been.

There is good news.  We are not created in the image of a god... a mere shadowy image of some nebulous force that all are subject to.  We are living and moving and having our being in God, reflecting God, and nothing else.  Not a nebulous force that bosses us around, but the very Ground of our Being, and Source and Substance of Self.  There isn't anything but God. 

And what is God, my skeptical readers will ask?  GOD IS AN IDEA we share about the Source of all that is.  We can have false thoughts about this Source, but Source ItSelf can't be false.  We can have incorrect understanding of multiplication.  We might think that we can multiply ten thousand times a zero and still have ten thousand.  But the principle, the idea of multiplying anything with zero remains the same... it's always zero, no matter how you try to make it something else.  And anything multiplied by one always remains the same, remains itself.  Ideas are principles, and they are unchanging and true.  Thoughts are stories about ideas, they involve judgment, and can often be false, or at least only relative (two-sided, not unified).

Webster defines idea as "a transcendent entity that is a real pattern, of which existing things are imperfect representations."  Thought is defined as "the action or process of thinking, or something that is thought."  So we can say, as did Mary Baker Eddy, that GOD IS PRINCIPLE... the Idea that is the Ground of All Being, in Truth and in Love.  A Course in Miracles tells us that "God is Idea" and "Ideas leave not their Source." When we allow this transcendent Idea to take root, we realize that we cannot and have never left our Source.  We remain rooted and grounded in God.  And then our thoughts, our judgments and stories about the world begin to reflect the Truth of Being, rather than the weak and imperfect (and insubstantial!) image of self our stories have perpetuated up until now.   

We are not two selves.  This is the root of all our struggles.  No matter how we attempt to prove that our weak and human image of self is real, it's still multiplying by zero.  So take some time listen to the Real, the True, the God-Self that we all share.  It is very quiet, because It doesn't need to defend ItSelf, being wholly true and forever our Reality.  Thank God!

See No Evil

"See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil." -- 17th Century Japanese Proverb

Sometimes the oddest things inspire me.  This proverb, which comes from a carving above the door of the Tosho-gu Shrine in Nikko, Japan, has been a part of our culture as long as I can remember.  It's one of those things that everybody says, but nobody actually does.  There was a hilarious movie (See No Evil, Hear No Evil with Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder) that played on that very thing.  Part of their promo line was, "The blind guy couldn't see it.  The deaf guy couldn't hear it."  Obviously when you're blind, you have no choice but to see no evil... or anything else.

But of course this proverb refers to a deeper meaning, one that is embedded in collective consciousness, even though we choose to ignore it.  There is no real evil.  There is only an upside-down projection, and our reaction to those projections (after all, the word 'evil' is the word 'live' spelled backwards!).  Action (projection) and reaction to our own projections maintains the momentum, and is the karmic wheel of suffering referred to in eastern philosophy.  

Another way to put it is in terms of quantum physics.  There is nothing there until we look at it.  It is only energy, waves of energy, until we look and project that something is there.  This is called the complementary principle, and says that it is the observer that creates the appearance (particles) upon observation (projection).  Until then, everything remains pure potential, pure unconditioned energy.

Jeshua ben Joseph, whose birth we're celebrating at this time of year, said it this way: "Resist not evil." (Matthew 5:39)  And later in the Bible we're told to "Overcome evil with Good." (Romans 12:21) You could paraphrase this to say, you can't fight evil by seeing it (that is what gives it the illusion of reality!)... but you can dissolve the reality of illusion by knowing this Truth and seeing only the Good, which is another name for God. 

I found this passage in the writings of Mary Baker Eddy: "We must learn that evil is the awful deception and unreality of existence.  Good is not helpless; nor are the so-called laws of matter primary, and the law of Spirit Secondary.  There is but One primal cause [GOD, Who is All-Good].  Therefore there can be no effect from any other cause, and there can be no reality in aught which does not proceed from this great and only Cause.  The spiritual Reality is the scientific fact in all things." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 207, Lines 9, 20, and 27

The scientific fact in all things is Spiritual Reality.  Quantum physics couches it in different terms, but says the same thing.  It really is the scientific reality... and spiritual wisdom has been telling us this in all cultures and all languages for all of recorded history.  This everyday proverb is a good example. 

But how?  How do we do this?  Well, how do you see anything differently?  You can change your mind about a person, so that one who was previously someone you liked or even loved, you now find offensive, or vice versa.  What changed?  Your mind.  Who changed it?  You did.  You can change your mind about most anything, and do on a daily basis.  The problem is not the ability to change how we see things.  It's what we're basing those choices on.

We are constantly looking 'out there' for reasons and validity, not remembering that it's our projection in the first place... we're reacting to our own mental constructs, not reality.  These 'false gods' give us the illusion of not being responsible... but at what price?  If we base our changing mind on trying to manipulate or change something 'out there', we're basing our choices on phantoms, on illusions, the false gods and idols of the world we've projected  by our split mind.  However, if we first understand the Truth of Being, that we live and move and have our being in the Allness and Oneness of God, of All-Good, then that's all we can project and see.  We begin to take responsibility for sight, and understand the Biblical injunction to "Choose this day whom you shall serve."

A Course in Miracles happily reminds us, "The images you make cannot prevail against what God Himself would have you be.  Be never fearful of temptation [evil] then, but see it as it is; another chance to choose again." (ACIM Chapter 31, Section VIII, 4:1-2)  And again, "You are as God created you, and so is every living thing you look upon, regardless of the images you see." (ACIM Chapter 31, Section VIII, 6:1)  We have a choice about what we project and therefore see in this world... but no choice in Reality.  Our Reality is safe in God.  To see no evil in this world is the result of remembering that Truth. 

"Nothing inharmonious can enter being, for Life IS God." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 228, Line 5

"Learn then, the happy habit of response to all temptation to perceive yourself as weak and miserable with these words:  I am as God created me.  His Son can suffer nothing.  And I am His Son." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 31, Section VIII, 5:1-4

Just Like Him

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

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

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

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

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

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

Beyond Belief

"Spirit is all-knowing; this precludes the need of believing. Mere belief is blindness without Principle." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 487, Lines 15 & 22

"It is, then, only your wish to change reality that is fearful, because by your wish you think you have accomplished what you wish. When you maintain that there must be an order of difficulty in miracles, all you mean is that there are some things you would withhold from Truth. You believe Truth cannot deal with them only because you would keep them from Truth." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 17, Section I, 2:1 & 3:1-2

The seeming power of belief is a highly extolled and hotly debated issue in the world. The definition of belief is "assent to the truth of something offered for acceptance." This implies that we can believe anything is true or false, based on the evidence. Our criminal justice system is a good example of that. True or false? Right or wrong? This way or that way? Is he telling the truth or is he lying? The answer is what we believe. And we believe we can believe wrongly.

Remember in the last blog we talked about Principle, the unchanging, unmovable Truth that is the Source of everything. The realization that this is beyond belief is our first glimmer of awakening. That there is Being, utterly natural and unchanging, complete in all aspects, whole and perfect and infinite... and that this Being is Source and Substance of all that IS... and that this Truth is the Principle that shines through all true spirituality... this is beyond belief. It can't be believed. But it can be known. It can be experienced directly, as we let go of all relative beliefs and stories. This is what A Course in Miracles calls the act of forgiveness, our only truly active function in this world of many-storied dreams.

The process is usually gradual. There are exceptions of course, like Byron Katie's experience of seemingly instantaneous shedding of all stories and beliefs, leaving her as innocent as a newborn baby. She had to acquire the ability to live in the stories again, but this time without believing them. She now knows from direct experience that Who We Are is beyond belief.

For the rest of us, the shedding of stories and belief systems and identities, which are all fictional, is a gradual process. We learn to live in the stories of our lives, even in the belief systems and identities, without mistaking them for Who We Are. We learn to forgive and release every single aspect (whether it seems good or bad) to the Holy Spirit, the eternal and Awakened Voice within each of us, to be used within the dream of Awakening for all. And every single story, every belief, every identity will then have served its only true purpose. For this is a dream of Awakening to Self. And that is most definitely beyond belief.

"You cannot be faithful to two masters who ask conflicting things of you. What you use in fantasy you deny to Truth. Yet what you give to Truth to use for you is safe from fantasy." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 17, Section I, 2:4-5

Life Eternal

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Building a Bridge

"Recognition is the power, and every state that you have ever recognized you have embodied. That which you are recognizing as true of yourself today is that which you are experiencing." -- Neville Goddard

"To your most holy Self all praise is due for what you are, and for what He is Who created you as you are. Sooner or later must everyone bridge the gap he imagines exists between his selves. Each one builds this bridge, which carries him across the gap as soon as he is willing to expend some little effort on behalf of bridging it. His little efforts are powerfully supplemented by the strength of Heaven, and by the united will of all who make Heaven what it is, being joined within it. And so the one who would cross over is literally transported there. Your bridge is builded, stronger than you think, and your foot is planted firmly on it. Have no fear that the attraction of those who stand on the other side and wait for you will not draw you safely across. For you will come where you would be, and where your Self awaits you." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 16, Section III, 8:1-5, 9:1-3

Building a bridge between the self I imagine myself to be and the true Self that I really am... recognizing that I am imagining that I embody the state of who I think I am... this is huge. In new thought circles, people often speak of the power of imagination... but what we are really talking about is the imagined self, the imagined gap, the imagined state of being separate from our God-Self. And this is the dead end that all of us must sooner or later turn back from. Sooner or later we all must see that we are looking at our own consciousness, always and only our own imagined self projected outward.

The bridge we are building is really the willingness to see that we made it all up. We have never been separate from God, our True Self, nor could we ever do anything to separate ourselves. It's all made up.

So in this virtual world of virtual experiences, we make decisions over and over that are based on outer experiences and aimed at outer results. We keep trying to change, pandering to the reflection in the mirror, which has no life of its own. It's just a projected reflection. Like hamsters on wheels we spin and spin, choosing this way of spinning now and then we try that way of spinning, always trying to develop a better way to spin. But sooner or later we grow weary of spinning, and want to see what would happen if we just stopped. Who or what would we be without the spinning that our imaginary world seems to require?

Building this bridge between our imagined, separate self and our True Self requires, as ACIM reminds us, some effort. This is simply because we made it all up and maintained the illusion through enormous expenditures of time and attention... and it's going to take some refocusing of our holy mind and attention to build our virtual bridge home. And returning our whole heart and mind to God is the way the bridge is built.

"Having no other gods, turning to no other but the One Perfect Mind... man is the likeness of God, pure and eternal, having that Mind which was also in Christ." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 467, Lines 13-16

Allness, Oneness, Nothingness

"There is no fear in perfect Love because It knows no sin, and It must look on others as on ItSelf. Here there is only holiness and joining without limit. For what is Heaven but union, direct and perfect, and without the veil of fear upon it? Here we are One, looking with perfect gentleness upon each other and on ourselves. Here all thoughts of any separation between us become impossible." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 20, Section III, 10:2-5, 11:3

"We love Him, because He first loved us." -- The Bible; 1 John 4:19

I had a reader e-mail with some great questions. How, the reader wanted to know, do we know what is real and what is not? How do we know that God is? All of us have asked these questions... and if we are honest, we continue to ask them in times of challenge and personal anguish. Even Mother Theresa had her dark nights of the soul.

So let's look at three questions that lead us to the Truth:

1. What is God? Every scripture and every spiritual teacher throughout time agrees on one very important description of God... Allness. What does this mean to me? If God is All in All to me and in my life, then everything I do and everything I say and everything I think about is God... there can be no escaping this Allness or being separate from it, no going unconscious, no fear of what it All means. "And thou shalt love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your mind and with all your soul and with all your strength." All. This means that when times are apparently challenging, the Allness of God includes the opposite. Allness includes all Divine Ideas and their expressions... all ideas in harmony with every other idea. There is no competition in Allness. My judgements about what appears are made up, illusory stories about appearances. But every idea that appears in the Mind of God is self-complete, is ALL. As I rest in this, I do whatever needs to be done in any given situation in harmony with All, as a transparency for this Divine harmony, without resistance or judgment.

2. What does it mean that I am One with God, the image and likeness of God? What does this tell me about my spiritual nature and the Truth of my Being? What does it tell me about the situation in which I find myself now? Oneness with God means that there is no attribute of God that I do not share, and share equally. "Beloved, All that I have is thine." Oneness with God means that there is nothing in me that is not perfect and good and in Divine harmony with everything else, which is also my Self. Oneness with God means eternal love and companionship and sufficiency and ever-new joy. Oneness with God means that I can only ever find my Self in God, and that there can be no other situation. Only the Allness and Oneness of Self, of God, of the One.

3. What is my actual relationship with and to God? What does it mean? What is this Oneness we share with God, and how does it help in this situation? How does this relationship bring healing even when faced with seemingly insurmountable circumstances? If you stop and think about it, how can the Allness and Oneness that I am in God be anything other than self-complete and harmonious? Nothingness is the word that spiritual teachers and scriptures have used to describe all situations that seem to be problematic, insufficient, lacking, or full of fear and loss. How can that which is forever One and Whole be anything other than in Divine Order and Self-Loving? Nothingness is the only word to describe the nightmare stories we believe about ourselves and the world. Just as the stories about who I thought I was as a teenager had no real effect on Who I Am (as a matter of fact, I can now look at them and laugh, knowing it was all made up and ridiculous), in the same way, all stories of fear and loss and lack and limitation (whether of the body or finances or relationships or personal identity in any form) are all make believe, hurtful images that we have made. And that is all they ever are, images with no real substance. Nothing at all.

There is one other thing to remember... we reflect the Allness of God, and our Oneness with God assures that we Love and express that Love as God does. Everything else is the Nothingness of the dream. As A Course in Miracles reminds us, only that Love is real.

"The meaning of the Son of God lies solely in his relationship with his Creator." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 20, Section VI, 1:1

Divine Ideas

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reflections of Love

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Awakened Imagination

"Watch the images your imagination presents to your awareness." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 32, 3:4

"You are not the victim of the world you see because you invented it. You can give it up as easily as you made it up. You will see it or not see it, as you wish. While you want it you will see it; when you no longer want it, it will not be there for you to see. This applies to your inner and outer worlds, which are actually the same." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 32, 1:2-5, 2:1

"God is in everything I see because God is in my mind." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 30

"According to Christian Science, the only real senses of man are spiritual, emanating from Divine Mind. Thought passes from God to man, but neither sensation nor report goes from material body to Mind. The intercommunication is always from God to His idea, man. God's Thoughts are perfect and eternal, are Substance and Life." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 284, Lines 28-32, & Page 286, Lines 21-22

Oh my, this is a rich topic! Have you noticed how we minimize and ridicule the imagination as something that must be just for children... once we grow up, we are told, we have to accept the 'real' world. How funny! There is no real world... only the worlds within worlds that arise out of the thought that we could be separate from God, Who is our Source. God is Pure Spirit, the Clear Mind of Awareness in which everything lives and moves and has its being. God is very literally in everything I see, because even my false sense of a separate mind cannot possibly leave its Source.

Everything emanates from God. We are Perfect Ideas radiating from the Mind of God. Yet by imagining ourselves as separate, we see our error reflected, like refracted (bent or distorted) light. It's as if a beam of sunlight decided it knew how to be the sun. As radiance from its source, it is perfect and complete, but when separated from its source, where is its radiance? It either distorts the radiance of its source through refraction, or it no longer appears to be at all. That pretty much describes the world we dream, when we imagine ourselves separate from God.

Like all things in this distorted world, imagination has a higher purpose. It can radiate the Light of God, Our Source, within the dream. As Awakened Imagination, we know that the images we see are not separate from our own mind, but simply projections and extensions of the mind who dreams. Awakened Imagination aligns itself so completely to Source that it receives its images directly from Source, instead of from the fragmented and distorted images of the separated self. These Perfect Ideas, the Thoughts of God, are always here and available, as a part of the Radiance that emanates from God through us. We simply aren't aware of them in the contracted state of mind that thinks it's separate.

One of the experiences that is common as we awaken is the tendency to not trust ourselves. We have lost our way in egoic desires and delusions so many times that we won't let ourselves imagine anything! This is simply another ego defense. What passes for imagination in the ego's dream is a set-up to keep us forever seeking and never finding. Always on the journey, always imagining that some other place, some other person, some other way will give us what we imagine we want. Truly, there is nothing to trust in a separated mind. On the other hand, Awakened Imagination is completely Trustworthy. It never excludes or avoids anything. It is an expansive state that sees literally everything as a part of its fulfillment. The ideas that flow from Awakened Imagination flow directly from God, and are the intercommunication with our Source, a vital part of our happiness and fulfillment. The expansive ideas of Source simply embrace and dissolve whatever distorted ideas and images appear to be in the mind, transfiguring them into True Ideas.

Awakened Imagination is the reflection of our complete dependence on God, our True Self. The imagination of the egoic self is "false, mortal belief; it is illusion, without spiritual identity or foundation, and it has no real substance." (Science and Health; Page 287, Lines 22-23) Both are reflections, not source... yet One reflects its Source without distortion or separation, while the other is fragmented and completely distorted... and so, completely false.

It's up to us how we dream this dream. Will we stop pretending we are doing it autonomously, with our fragmented images of suffering and sorrow? Will we realize, like Jeshua ben Joseph, that God is the only Source and Radiance of All Light, in the dream and beyond? As we forgive our willful and imaginary autonomy, we return the awareness in our holy minds to the One Mind of Awakened Imagination. And so is Heaven reflected on earth at last.

"You are holy because your mind is part of God's. And because you are holy, your sight must be holy as well. Your sight is related to His Holiness, not to your ego, and therefore not to your body." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 36, 1:2, 3,

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

I Already Am

"God asks for nothing, and His Son, like Him, need ask for nothing. For there is no lack in Him. An empty space, a little gap, would be a lack. And it is only there that he could want for something he has not." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 28, Section VII, 1:1-4

"You are prepared. Now you need but to remember you need do nothing. It would be far more profitable now merely to concentrate on this than to consider what you should do. When the goal is finally achieved by anyone, it always comes with just one happy realization; "I need do nothing." Here is the ultimate release which everyone will one day find in his own time, in his own way. You do not need this time. Save time for me by only this one preparation, and practice doing nothing else. "I need do nothing" is a statement of allegiance, a truly undivided loyalty. Believe it for one instant, and you will accomplish more than is given to a century of contemplation, or of struggle against temptation." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 18, Section VII, 5:4-6, 7, 6:1-2, 6-8

This is the razor's edge of Awakening to Self. Our entire existence as limited human bodies within the dream is a negation. It's based entirely on what we're NOT, with the illusion that we can or will become what we're not. It never happens. Though the plot twists and turns and people have success along with failure, the one sure thing is that we remain mortal, subject to sickness, struggle, suffering, and death... the rich and famous along with the poor and lost. And the most interesting part of this dream of negation is that we pretend that none of this is true, while secretly believing it is reality and fearing it. And none of it is true.

How can a negation be true? Even within the dream this is not possible. The very nature of a negative is that it is the reverse image of what it exposes. So it is not reality, but a reversal. This is why ACIM reminds us over and over that not one thing the world believes is true, and so we must reverse ourselves. And that even more to the point, there is no world. Like quantum physics, the Truth of Being exposes that what we pretend is solid and real is nothing more than a smokescreen, the dream of the person who is looking. As Mary Baker Eddy so clearly stated, "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." --Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 468, Lines 9-12

Reality is solid and dependable, but not as we imagine it. It is the Ground of Being, the clear Light of Omnipresence. There is nowhere and no one and nothing that does not share this Omnipresent Being that is Reality. We have nothing to do to make this so... it already and always IS. Yet we cannot know this when we are intent on dreaming a negation. We struggle against phantoms and say that we want what we already are.

"Evil is a negation, because it is the absence of Truth. It is nothing, because it is the absence of Something. It is unreal, because it presupposes the absence of God, the Omnipotent and Omnipresent. Every mortal must learn that there is neither power nor reality in evil." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 186, Lines 11-16

As long as we struggle with the negations that make up the world of the dream, we remain lost in the maze of forgetfulness. How can I remember Who I already AM, when I am intent on remembering and living what I imagine I am NOT? And here's where it gets tricky.

We already are the Son of God, collectively. We individually reflect this Light and Truth. Of ourselves, we literally are nothing. The imagined separate self is simply a negation of what is... it is a fiction. So when ACIM reminds us that we need do nothing, literally, it is speaking the absolute Truth. Who we think we are is not real. Our True Self doesn't need anything from our fictional self except the willingness to let it go by not feeding it, by not doing anything to perpetuate the fiction. The statement, "I already AM" is not spoken by the contracted awareness of the fictional personality. It is the statement of Awareness of Being, the expanded, inclusive awareness of Our True Self.

This is the razor's edge of Awakening, because we still appear to live and move and interact within the dream. We dream Awake, yet know that we do nothing. Jeshua ben Joseph spoke the literal Truth when he said, "I can of mine own self do nothing." -- The Bible; John 5:30

As we Awaken, we reflect the Truth even within the dream, not by anything we do or by any external changes in behavior or appearance of the fictional self, but by Being One with God and reflecting only this Awareness. There is no individual I, only the Allness of God as I AM. I ALREADY AM is the literal Truth.

"No miracle can ever be denied to those who know that they are One with God. Let me remember I am One with God, at One with all my Brothers and my Self, in everlasting Holiness and Peace." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 124, 6:1, 12:2