Being Perfect

"The children of God are entitled to the perfect comfort that comes from perfect trust.  God and His creations are completely dependent on Each Other.  He depends on them because He created them perfect." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 2, Section III, 5:1, 6-7

"Be ye therefore perfect, as your Father in Heaven is perfect." -- The Bible; Matthew 5:48

Definition of the word perfect:  

• being entirely without fault or defect 
• absolute; unequivocal
• faithfully reproducing the original
• lacking in no essential detail; complete 
  

Wow.  I can feel myself relaxing.  Relaxing in perfect trust.  Resting in perfection.  An unshakeable certainty of inseparable Oneness with the Love Intelligence and Infinite Goodness that is God. Completeness and fulfillment that never changes.  Wow.

Who are we, that we should be entitled to all this, and more?

"See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, NOW we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." -- The Bible; 1 John 3:1-2  

How many times a day do our thoughts about ourselves and others shift and change?  From liking to not-liking, from kindness and acceptance to judging and blaming, from grandiose aspirations to morose regrets, we are like mental yo-yo's in the ever-shifting concept of self and other. These images are not who we are!  They are mental constructs, projections with no substance.   

The good news is that Being Perfect has nothing to do with who and what we imagine ourselves to be as bodies and personalities.  Being and Perfection are the Reality of God, which is Principle.  Like an axiom in mathematics, it is a given, an unchanging Principle.  This is our Spiritual Reality!  Our Reality is forever perfect and unchanging in the Mind of God, radiant with Love and Light and Life.  Unchanging.  Joyous.  Free of all limits.  Pure Love.  Encompassing all with our Love and Light and Life.  Being Perfect is our natural state. 

"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 

It Really Is That Simple

"The Law of Existence is Perfection.  Not moving toward or away from anything, not trying to add anything, but every whit Whole.  Everything else is perception, point of view, and is not the Wholeness and Perfection of Being.  Every point of view is the out-picturing of a belief in non-perfection.  If beliefs didn't get uncomfortable, I'd have no reason to give them up." -- Betty Albee

"Altars are beliefs, but God and His creations are beyond belief because they are, beyond question." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 6, Section V:C, 7:2

When I was first introduced to Betty Albee's statement a couple of years ago (that every perception is the projection of a belief in non-perfection) I glossed over it. It didn't resonate, and seemed too abstract for me at the time.  But I have come to realize it is a simple statement of Truth that I didn't want to hear.  As the Course reminds me: "You have made many ideas that you have placed between yourself and your Creator, and these beliefs are the world as you perceive it." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 11, Section VII, 4:4

The Laws of God. the Laws of Truth, are Perfection, Wholeness, Abundance, Innocence, Peace, Joy, Love and All ideas of Goodness and Perfection without an opposite and without limits or possibility of change.  These Laws are not imposed from without, but are actually our very Being.  We can put I Am in front of any one of them and be telling the Truth.  And the Course reminds us that these Laws of Oneness are the only Reality there is: "I am under no laws but God's.  I am constantly tempted to make up other laws and give them power over me.  I suffer only because of my belief in them.  They have no real effect on me at all.  I am perfectly free of the effects of all laws save God's.  And His are the Laws of Freedom." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 88

Now if your eyes haven't glazed over and you are actually contemplating the Truth presented here, you are beginning to feel the joy that only a glimpse of true Freedom can bring. I am perfectly free of the effects of ALL the beliefs and concepts, the rules and limitations... they are all made up!  In other words, "Concepts are learned.  They are not natural." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 31, Section V, 7:1-2 

So we find that we are only under the influence of our own belief in imperfection, which is the same as saying we believe God has been rendered imperfect, separated from creation, and our point of view (our perception) reflects this illusion.  It's crazy, but it's these false perceptions that make up the world as we know it. "Illusions are but beliefs in what is not there." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 16, Section III, 4:9

Please don't take my word for it.  There are so many teachers of non-duality that are more eloquent in explaining all this.  What you need is proof.  And the proof is in the pudding, as the saying goes.  If you start with "God IS" and "God is ALL"(ALL must include all) and work from there, you will always find that imperfection and all the world of projection is an impossibility. "How simple is salvation!  All it says is what was never true is not true now, and never will be.  The impossible has not occurred, and can have no effects.  And that is all." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 31, Section I, 1:1-4

There is only One Self.  God IS, and we are the Light of God... that's our Reality.  Miracles light the mind that begins to forgive and release all human concepts and beliefs and points of view. "You are a miracle, capable of creating in the likeness of your Creator.  Everything else is your own nightmare, and does not exist.  Only the creations of Light are real." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 1, Section I, 24:2-4 

Salvation really is that simple. 

"Let us be still an instant, and forget all things we ever learned, all thoughts we had, and every preconception that we hold of what things mean and what their purpose is.  Let us remember not our own ideas of what the world is for.  We do not know.  Let every image be loosened from our minds and swept away." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 31, Section I, 12:1-4

Sharing and Ownership

"There are no strange images in the Mind of God, and what is not in His Mind cannot be in yours, because you are of One Mind, and that Mind belongs to Him.  It is yours because it belongs to Him, for to Him ownership is sharing.  And if it is so for Him, it is so for you." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 10, Section IV, 6:2-4

It's always amazing to me that after all these years, I still find sections of the Course that blow me away, as if I've never read them before.  And this in spite of the heavy underlining and highlighting that shows I did indeed read it and find it important.  But how could I miss the import of the statement, "It is yours because it belongs to Him, for to him ownership is sharing."  There's no putting a spin on this statement.  And then this morning I read in Workbook Lesson 106, "Thus does salvation start and thus it ends: when everything is yours, and everything is given away, it will remain with you forever."  It doesn't say some things are given away... it states everything.  And promises that because we give it away, we have it forever.

This is obviously not the way the world seems to work, and it certainly is not the way we have been taught to understand giving and receiving.  It's radical and blunt... whatever we have must belong to all, because to God ownership is sharing, and so it must be for us.  The Course tells us over and over in so many ways that to have, we have to give.  Not giving to get, but giving because it's Who We Are... the outpouring of unconditioned and unconditional Love that simply extends for eternity.

I've always had the tendency to be idealistic and non-materialistic, as a child of the 60's and a life-long lover of the Spiritual.  I remember as a youth being inspired by the book, Stranger in a Strange Land, with its message of Love without limits and sharing without boundaries.  But all of my ideas and concepts through the years still centered on the notion of me in a body, and other people in the form of their bodies, attempting to share and love in a world of limitation and competition.  It never works.  These are the strange images the opening quotation refers to... images of discrete forms that seem to divide and limit the Oneness of Spirit.  But no such strange images exist in the Real World.

The Course reminds us that we are not bodies... we are pure Spirit, the image and reflection of God:  "I am as God created me." (ACIM Workbook Lesson 110) and "Spirit am I, a holy Son of God; free of all limits, safe and healed and whole; free to forgive, and free to save the world." (ACIM Workbook Lesson 97, 7:2)  The dream world of strange images seems to come and go, seems to enjoy or seems to suffer.  But consider all your night dreaming over the years.  You have had dreams of every description, and have lived and died many times and in many ways.  You have defied the seeming laws of the world, and failed and triumphed again and again.  And yet, what real effects have any of those dreams had?  Not one dream was ever cause of anything, and none of the seeming effects survived your waking.  No dream analysis has ever done anything except give us a new story to tell.  Our 'past lives' in dreams have absolutely no effect.. they are just dreams. 

The really good news is that our supposed waking life is another layer of dreaming.  "Hear the one answer of the Holy Spirit to all the questions the ego raises: You are a child of God, a priceless part of His Kingdom, which He created as part of Him.  Nothing else exists and only this is Real.  You have chosen a sleep in which you have had bad dreams, but the sleep is not real and God calls you to awake.  There will be nothing left of your dream when you hear Him, because you will awaken.  Your dreams contain many of the ego's symbols, and they have confused you.  Yet that was only because you were asleep and did not know.  When you wake you will see the Truth around you and in you, and you will no longer believe in dreams because they will have no reality for you." (ACIM Chapter 6, Section IV, 6:1-7)

Our Reality is the unified Oneness of Spirit, the unconditioned Awareness of One Self, One Mind, One Life and Love.  Competition and ownership cease to have meaning in Oneness, for who would have more than another?  Who in Oneness could possibly know anything other than perfect sharing with All?  And what could be lacking in All? Our dreaming mind has imagined a self that is split into infinite pieces, projecting infinite dreams of competition, striving, ownership, and struggle... always in the vain attempt to reclaim for the split self the sense of wholeness and completion that seems to be lost in separation.  The joke is that we never lost the Wholeness and Perfection we seek.  And we regain our memory of our True Self by giving... as we give, as we share, as we no longer seek to divide and keep divided bits of life to ourselves through ownership, we re-discover the infinite Being that we are.

"God gave you all there is.  And to be sure you could not lose it, did He also give the same to every living thing as well.  And thus is every living thing a part of you, as of HimSelf." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 29, Section VIII, 9:7-9

Forgiveness Is the Miracle

"It must be true the miracle can heal all forms of sickness, or it cannot heal.  Its purpose cannot be to judge which forms are real, and which appearances are true.  If one appearance must remain apart from healing, one illusion must be part of truth.  And you could not escape guilt, but only some of it.  You must forgive God's Son entirely.  Or you will keep an image of yourself that is not whole, and will remain afraid to look within and find escape from every idol there.  Salvation rests on faith there cannot be some forms of guilt that you cannot forgive." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 30, Section VI, 7:1-7

Both the miracle and forgiveness are the state of mind that looks beyond appearances, that overlooks the ephemeral, projected world and sees everything through the eyes of Christ.  Forgiveness sees only perfection and innocence, and the miracle sees only the effects of that perfection everywhere.

"There can be no form of suffering that fails to hide an unforgiving thought.  Nor can there be a form of pain forgiveness cannot heal." -- Workbook 198, 9:5-6

Every form of pain and suffering is the projection of the belief in a separated world, a world that is imperfect, a world apart from God.  Because everything lives and moves and has its very being in God, where would this world be?  With the Holy Spirit's help, we look beyond such false concepts and projections, into the heart of Love, which is everpresent.  The Awareness of Love's Presence dissolves everything else.  This is the miracle of forgiveness.

"An unforgiving thought is one that makes a judgment that it will not raise to doubt, although it is not true." -- Workbook Part II, 1.2:1

It's hard to recognize our own unforgiving thoughts when the entire world we see is based on them.  There are so many things we are unwilling to question, because we have an investment in not seeing... our entire identity is wrapped up in our unquestioned thoughts and beliefs, the judgments that make up our thought process.  That's why problems and challenges are such a gift... they give us the opportunity to question everything, to realize that nothing is what we judged it to be.  They give us the miracle, when we are willing to see the Love and Perfection that are the Reality of everyone, everything, every seeming.

The Course says that all of our time, every day, should be devoted to forgiveness and miracles.  It can become a habit, just like the conditioned self and its serial narratives has been habit since we were children.  And each of us has a vital role to play, so our forgiveness is essential.  The Course reminds us that "the salvation of the world depends on me." (ACIM Workbook Lesson 186)  Forgiveness is the Miracle of remembering that we are the holy Son of God, the Christ, pure and innocent... and so is everyone and everything.  Forgiveness is the Miracle that returns us to this One Mind, this One Self, this One Love. 

"Forgiveness is the the only function meaningful in time.  It is the means the Holy Spirit uses to translate specialness from sin into salvation.  Forgiveness is for all... Each must do what is allotted him, for on his part does all the plan depend.  He has a special part in time for so he chose, and choosing it, he made it for himself.  His wish was not denied but changed in form, to let it serve his brother and himself, and thus become a means to save instead of lose." -- ACIM; Chapter 25, Section VI, 5:3-11

The Light of Strength

"The light of strength is constant, sure as love, forever glad to give itself away, because it cannot give but to itself.  No one can ask in vain to share its sight, and none who enters its abode can leave without a miracle before his eyes, and strength and light abiding in his heart." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook Lesson 92, 8:1-2

Constant, sure, abiding... these are the shining attributes of the ever-present, unchanging Christ Self that is our Reality.  Vacillating, uncertain, always in flux... these are the attributes of the conditioned self, the egoic self-concept.  Sometimes in the midst of the egoic delusion, the only way to give ourselves over to the Holy Spirit and return to sanity is to gently remind ourselves that what is true doesn't shift and change, and so this (whatever version of egoic stuff is arising) must not be true.  It's like Ramana Maharshi asking, "Who am I?", and going through the process of elimination... "Not this, not this..."  All of 'this' that the mind can conceive is simply concept, not reality.  When the mind is wiped clean of all its concepts, what remains is the effortless light and strength of Mind Awake, which is pure Love.

Forgiveness is the process of washing the mind of concepts.  As we give over every thought, emotion, judgment, and experience to the Holy Spirit for healing, the mind becomes quiet.  In the Introduction to the Course, we are told that, "The Course does not aim at teaching the meaning of Love, for that is beyond what can be taught.  It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of Love's Presence, which is your natural inheritance." (ACIM; Introduction, 1:6-7)  Every single apparent block to awareness is a mental construct, a concept held as true in the sleeping mind.  "Salvation can be seen as nothing more than the escape from concepts." (ACIM; Chapter 31, V, 14:3)

As we forgive all concepts of a world and of a self, the mind becomes still, radiating only the light of strength and that is the ever-present reality of our true Self. 

"The power of decision is our own.  And we accept of Him that which we are, and humbly recognize the Son of God.  To recognize God's Son implies as well that all self-concepts have been laid aside, and recognized as false.  Their arrogance has been perceived.  And in humility the radiance of God's Son, his gentleness, his perfect sinlessness, his Father's Love, his right to Heaven and release from hell, are joyously accepted as our own." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook Lesson 152, 10:1-5

As Common as Grass

"Therefore the Master says... I let go of all desire for the common good, and the good becomes common as grass." -- Tao te Ching, p. 57; Stephen Mitchell Translation

"Miracles are natural.  When they do not occur, something has gone wrong." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 1, Section I, 6:1-2

What seems to come naturally in our lives is evidently not really natural.  For example, babies aren't born with the ability to sing an Aria, or a pop song.  But singing feels natural to me.  If I inquire honestly though, it took a lot of practicing as a child and then as an adult to get to the point where it feels so automatic.  Reading the above quotations has me thinking about just what is natural, what is common and ordinary?  If Goodness and Miracles are actually what is common and natural, then we have done a bang-up job of obscuring the Truth with a lot of the un-natural and un-common.

A Course in Miracles explains that defenses are the costliest of habits.  They obscure the ever-present Goodness and perfection of our true Self.  And what are defenses?  They are thoughts, perceptions, habits, projections... all to distract the awareness and attention from the perfection of Self.  All with the common attribute of dividing and dissecting the awareness into multitudes of judgements about what is good, what is bad, what is me, what is them, what is here, what is there... and on and on and on.  It's the original and ultimate defamation of character. 

But what remains when these defenses are forgiven and released is the natural perfection of our Christ Self.  The miracle is natural because the Christ is our reality.  The miracle reveals what has always been effortlessly true, and so is the most natural thing in the world.  All that is required of us is the willingness to let our judgements go, to forgive our false witness to the Son of God.  We can twist ourselves into un-natural and un-worthy caricatures, but we can never make them true.  Who we are remains holy... wholly innocent and free, eternally One in the Mind of God.

"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

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

Enlightenment

"There are those who have reached God directly, retaining no trace of worldly limits and remembering their own Identity perfectly.  These might be called the Teachers of teachers because, although they are no longer visible, their image can yet be called upon.  No one can call upon them in vain." -- A Course in Miracles; Manual for Teachers 26. 2:1-2, 5

"Sometimes a teacher of God may have a brief experience of direct union with God.  In this world, it is almost impossible that this endure.  If God were reached directly in sustained awareness, the body would not be long maintained.  Those who have laid the body down merely to extend their helpfulness to those remaining behind are few indeed.  And they need helpers who are still in bondage and still asleep, so that by their awakening can God's Voice be heard." -- A Course in Miracles; Manual for Teachers 26. 3:1-2, 8-10

Yesterday a friend and I were talking about enlightenment... about the tendency to look for teachers, gurus, for someone who gets it and knows more than we do.  Maybe even someone whose state of consciousness can be directly transmitted to us, like taking a pill, or being given all the answers.

I remember in the late 60's and early 70's when I was reading Alan Watts and experimenting with hallucinogens to experience God.  I had some amazing openings, and it did indeed change my life.  I experienced enlightenment more times than I can say.  And yet it seemed that I couldn't stay there.  Taking a pill can give us a glimpse.  Being in the presence of an enlightened teacher can give us a glimpse.  But it's not a glimpse of something we have to attain or somewhere we have to go.  It's a glimpse of our True Self... always here and always readily available.

So why do I say I couldn't stay there?  Why after we leave the retreat do we fall back into old ways of seeing and believing?  Because an awareness of Self requires the conscious relinquishment of perception and sensory data.  Taking a pill or being in a holy place can give us a glimpse of what is always here... but we can only see it by giving up the false.  This is why the Course says that these glimpses are almost impossible to maintain here in the dream we call life.  The sensory data and the collective beliefs are seen as necessary and even good (really, they're neither good nor bad... just all made up).  The conscious choice, which must be continuous, to shed all such judgments and perceptions... well, as Jesus would have put it, it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.  Not because it's hard... illusions aren't easy or hard, big or little... but because we have a vested interest in the world we walk in.  It's our dream.  As ACIM puts it: "I have done this, and this I would undo."

So here we are.  We can call on the image of our enlightened Self, in the form of Jesus or Buddha or Quan Yin or a host of others.  These images will always respond, because they are not anywhere but in us.  They are the Voice and image of Self in a language we can currently hear and respond to.  This is not the same as looking outside of ourself, to pills or physical gurus, to save us.  The images of Self we find within, like the Voice of the Holy Spirit, ARE Self.  A Self so vast and loving and perfect that tears of joy and gratitude are often shed as we remember, however briefly.

Finally, the Course reminds us: "Do not despair, then, because of limitations.  It is your function to escape from them, but not to be without them.  If you would be heard by those who suffer, you must speak their language.  If you would be a savior, you must understand what needs to be escaped." 

Enlightenment, the remembering of Self, requires the conscious shedding of the false self we have constructed.  This is the interlocking chain of forgiveness that A Course in Miracles calls the Atonement Principle.  Perfection and Radiance is the Truth at the heart of it all.  Everything else is only for forgiving.