"Light carries not just energy but also momentum -- a story told by every comet tail, which consists of dust blown by sunlight from a comet's core." -- Setting Sail into Space, Propelled by Sunshine; by Dennis Overbye for the NY Times, November 10, 2009
"Being must be extended. The Kingdom is forever extending because it is in the Mind of God. Your Self-fulness is as boundless as God's. Like His, It extends forever and in perfect peace. Its radiance is so intense that It creates in perfect joy, and only the whole can be born of Its Wholeness." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 7, Section IX, 2:6, 4:1, & 6:7-9
Sometimes I read a phrase or even a word, and I'm transported or returned. Sometimes it will be a passage of music or the eyes of a friend. Whatever the symbol, whatever the reminder, it returns me momentarily to my Self. It can be anyone, anywhere. It IS everyone, everywhere. And the awareness of expansion, of inclusive vision, IS our natural state. So when I read the above quote in the NY Times this morning, it worked in consciousness like yeast in a loaf of bread...
We are such expansive Beings, living and moving and having our Being in the Mind of God. We are emanations of that Light, in relationship with It like the sunbeam is to the sun. The notion that light has not just energy but momentum is pregnant with meaning for us. It means that just by being what it is, light creates. It means that the simplicity of Being is our vital and essential function, and that function has energy and momentum. We are. We radiate. We extend. Just like our Source.
Unlike our material experience with its limited life spans, ideas expand and extend without limit when they're shared. We're spiritual creations, ideas in the Mind of God, and are blessed with each other to allow the Love and Light that is the core of our Being to extend and emanate forever. As it says in Christian liturgy, "Glory to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit; as it was in the beginning, is now and will be forever. Amen." We're still always and only talking about the Oneness and Allness of God. The Son emanates from the Source, and Spirit extends, expands, communicates and expresses. To paraphrase the quote from the NY Times, the Allness of Being (God) extends ItSelf through energy and momentum that are forever One with their Source.
What does this mean for us? Or is this just a beautiful abstraction? Oh, it's so much more than that. It's an affirmation of the simplicitiy of Being, a reminder that all our human machinations are beside the point. That whatever we do, wherever we find ourselves in our human drama, Who we are is untouched and eternal and forever emanating the Light of God. It's not ours to decide. It's not ours to do. It's simply ours to BE.
Let there be Light. I Am as God created me. I Am Being, sailing on Light, extending as the Light and Love of God. No other prayer is needed.
"God is All in all in a very literal sense. All being is in Him Who IS all Being." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 7, Section IV, 7:4-5
Showing posts with label Special Relationships. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Special Relationships. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
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
"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
Monday, April 14, 2008
Money and Sacrifice
"It takes great learning both to realize and to accept the fact that the world has nothing to give. What can the sacrifice of nothing mean? There is no sacrifice in the world's terms that does not involve the body. Think a while about what the world calls sacrifice. Power, fame, money, physical pleasure; who is the "hero" to whom all these things belong? Could they mean anything except to a body? Yet a body cannot evaluate. By seeking after such things the mind associates itself with the body, obscuring its Identity and losing sight of what It really is." -- A Course in Miracles; Manual for Teachers 13, 2:1-9
"Money is not evil. It is nothing... The right to live is something no one need fight for. It is promised him, and guaranteed by God." -- Psychotherapy: Purpose, Process, and Practice (An Extension of the Principles of A Course in Miracles); Chapter 3, Section III, 1:5-6, 4:1-2
"Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin. And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek)) For your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow; for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. -- The Bible; Matthew 6:27-34
There is not one thought within the world, not one strategy or method, not one way of being that has an ounce of truth in it... it's all based on a fictional world of matter and supposedly real bodies walking around in it. It's all based on a fiction. All of it, all of it is some version of the lie that Oneness must be sacrificed to protect and defend a limited, separate, autonomous (real) self. What we are unwilling to see is that this self that we cherish and defend (in all its flawed glory) is completely fictional. We give a fiction all our time and attention and belief, and sacrifice the treasure of our true Joy and Peace to keep this fictional puff of smoke in circulation. We are addicted to pain and suffering because they give our fictional selves the illusion of reality. We are intent on being right if it kills us...and it does eventually, in the dream.
Money is a like everything else in the dream... nothing at all. It symbolizes the sacrifice of wholeness for specialness and debt (pseudonyms for fear and guilt). The good news is that the Holy Spirit within us retains the Awareness of Oneness, and when we bring our perceptions and symbols to the Truth in us, all is forgiven and released, re-interpreted and used for Awakening.
Everything in the dream is simply symbol... and our only choice in a world of dreams is what we choose to have it symbolize. What is it for? There are only two choices, ever. Truth or illusions, Awakening or endless dreams. Though it looks like hundreds of decisions and choices lie before us, there is always only this one decision in our imagined prison of the Son of God, a separate body in a world of dreams.
Jeshua ben Joseph taught us to not give allegiance to a single thought, to a single imagined need in the dream. He said to take no thought for anything in the world. "Seek first the Kingdom," he said, "and all these things shall be added unto you." He also taught us to pray in this manner: "Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." In other words, let us reflect only the Truth of Being even as we walk in the dream... we know we always have whatever is needed as we serve only Awakening... and we forgive ourselves the thought of separation and lack, as we forgive our projections of separation and lack all around us. We know that as we release the so-called others in the dream, we are released. We can always only meet our own projections. It's the nature of the dream.
The thought of lack can only arise when we dream we are separate from God Who is our Source. When we forgive this we see that in reality we are forever Whole in the Allness of God, living and moving and having our Being only in God. There is nothing more or less than Allness. We always reflect only the Allness and Wholeness and Abundance that Is God.
Like all special relationships within the dream, our relationship with money is all made up. It's nothing at all. The laws and rituals that seem to govern are simply what we have agreed to. They are nothing. They have no cause, and no real effects. It is the fear of our own illusions that gives them seeming reality. We are like little children afraid to look under the bed. And so we sacrifice our Self to fear and bondage in a world of dreams.
Money and the sacrifice it appears to demand of us does not need to be a big deal. There is a miracle of healing for every appearance of lack and limitation within the dream. And the Miracle is always Remembering Who We Are, a return to sanity for the Holy Son of God.
"It is as needful that you recognize you made the world you see, as that you recognize that you did not create your Self. They are the same mistake. Nothing created not by your Creator has any influence on you. And if you think what you have made can tell you what you see and feel, and place your faith in its ability to do so, you are denying your Creator and believing that you made yourself. For if you think the world you made has power to make you what it wills, you are confusing Son and Father, effect and Source." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 21, Section II, 11:1-5
"But grant that everything that seems to be, you made in secret, and the instant of release has come to you. All its effects are gone, because its source has been uncovered. It is its seeming independence of its source that keeps you prisoner. This is the same mistake as thinking you are independent of the Source by which You were created, and have never left." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 21, Section II, 13:3-6
"All Power is of God. What is not of Him has no power to do anything." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 11, Section V, 3:6-7
"Money is not evil. It is nothing... The right to live is something no one need fight for. It is promised him, and guaranteed by God." -- Psychotherapy: Purpose, Process, and Practice (An Extension of the Principles of A Course in Miracles); Chapter 3, Section III, 1:5-6, 4:1-2
"Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin. And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek)) For your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow; for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. -- The Bible; Matthew 6:27-34
There is not one thought within the world, not one strategy or method, not one way of being that has an ounce of truth in it... it's all based on a fictional world of matter and supposedly real bodies walking around in it. It's all based on a fiction. All of it, all of it is some version of the lie that Oneness must be sacrificed to protect and defend a limited, separate, autonomous (real) self. What we are unwilling to see is that this self that we cherish and defend (in all its flawed glory) is completely fictional. We give a fiction all our time and attention and belief, and sacrifice the treasure of our true Joy and Peace to keep this fictional puff of smoke in circulation. We are addicted to pain and suffering because they give our fictional selves the illusion of reality. We are intent on being right if it kills us...and it does eventually, in the dream.
Money is a like everything else in the dream... nothing at all. It symbolizes the sacrifice of wholeness for specialness and debt (pseudonyms for fear and guilt). The good news is that the Holy Spirit within us retains the Awareness of Oneness, and when we bring our perceptions and symbols to the Truth in us, all is forgiven and released, re-interpreted and used for Awakening.
Everything in the dream is simply symbol... and our only choice in a world of dreams is what we choose to have it symbolize. What is it for? There are only two choices, ever. Truth or illusions, Awakening or endless dreams. Though it looks like hundreds of decisions and choices lie before us, there is always only this one decision in our imagined prison of the Son of God, a separate body in a world of dreams.
Jeshua ben Joseph taught us to not give allegiance to a single thought, to a single imagined need in the dream. He said to take no thought for anything in the world. "Seek first the Kingdom," he said, "and all these things shall be added unto you." He also taught us to pray in this manner: "Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." In other words, let us reflect only the Truth of Being even as we walk in the dream... we know we always have whatever is needed as we serve only Awakening... and we forgive ourselves the thought of separation and lack, as we forgive our projections of separation and lack all around us. We know that as we release the so-called others in the dream, we are released. We can always only meet our own projections. It's the nature of the dream.
The thought of lack can only arise when we dream we are separate from God Who is our Source. When we forgive this we see that in reality we are forever Whole in the Allness of God, living and moving and having our Being only in God. There is nothing more or less than Allness. We always reflect only the Allness and Wholeness and Abundance that Is God.
Like all special relationships within the dream, our relationship with money is all made up. It's nothing at all. The laws and rituals that seem to govern are simply what we have agreed to. They are nothing. They have no cause, and no real effects. It is the fear of our own illusions that gives them seeming reality. We are like little children afraid to look under the bed. And so we sacrifice our Self to fear and bondage in a world of dreams.
Money and the sacrifice it appears to demand of us does not need to be a big deal. There is a miracle of healing for every appearance of lack and limitation within the dream. And the Miracle is always Remembering Who We Are, a return to sanity for the Holy Son of God.
"It is as needful that you recognize you made the world you see, as that you recognize that you did not create your Self. They are the same mistake. Nothing created not by your Creator has any influence on you. And if you think what you have made can tell you what you see and feel, and place your faith in its ability to do so, you are denying your Creator and believing that you made yourself. For if you think the world you made has power to make you what it wills, you are confusing Son and Father, effect and Source." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 21, Section II, 11:1-5
"But grant that everything that seems to be, you made in secret, and the instant of release has come to you. All its effects are gone, because its source has been uncovered. It is its seeming independence of its source that keeps you prisoner. This is the same mistake as thinking you are independent of the Source by which You were created, and have never left." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 21, Section II, 13:3-6
"All Power is of God. What is not of Him has no power to do anything." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 11, Section V, 3:6-7
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
A Hostage to Love
"The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite. This course can therefore be summed up very simply in this way: Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God." -- A Course in Miracles; Introduction 1:8 & 2:1-4
"Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you." -- The Bible, Matthew 7:5-7
"What we do not forgive we are destined to relive." -- Anonymous
The Allness of the Love of God is so immeasurably sweet, so all-encompassing. We are created Self-Complete, in the Image of God. The Allness of God is the Divine Completeness of Love that we all search for within the dream. And that makes it all the more ironic that we continually sacrifice ourselves to the illusion of love. ACIM says that "The body is itself a sacrifice; a giving up of power in the name of saving just a little for yourself. The world you see is based on 'sacrifice' of Oneness. The little that the body fences off becomes the self, preserved through sacrifice of all the rest. The body is a loss, and can be made to sacrifice. The memory of God must be denied if sacrifice is asked of anyone. What witness to the Wholeness of God's Son is seen within a world of separate bodies, however much he witnesses to truth? You can lose sight of Oneness, but can not make sacrifice of its reality. Nor can you lose what you would sacrifice, nor keep the Holy Spirit from His task of showing you that it has not been lost. Every instant can you be reborn, and given life again."
We have the power to be reborn every instant. This means simply that Love, which is everyone and everywhere, can be remembered every instant. When this happens, the illusion of sacrifice that we call love vanishes like the illusion it is. But meanwhile, most of us are hostages to a warped ego game that has co-opted the name of love. Love takes no hostages, and cannot be recognized in the fog of sacrifice and guilt that cloud the hearts of those who dwell in the fragmented, separated mind, who want to believe in this psychotic parody of love. And we wonder why we feel depressed, anxious, restless, and unfulfilled.
There is no giving and receiving in Divine Love. There is only BEING. There is no need or obligate in Divine Love. There is only WHOLENESS. There is no question and no answer in Divine Love. There is only KNOWING. There is no past or future in Divine Love, no grievances or failures. There is only the Completeness of NOW. Not now as the ego would define now, as in imaginary time and space. But the eternity of the Presence, the Holy Instant that reveals Love's Presence in the midst of everything. So in the Presence of the Reality of Love, there is only GRACE.
We are not hostages to love, and love is not fear or guilt. These are the lies that keep us in knots of drama and dysfunction, that keep us endlessly preoccupied with imaginary relationships and stories. Your real relationships in Divine Love are always safely Whole. They have never been otherwise. And once we stop struggling to improve the dream, to fix the illusion of relationship (whose only purpose is ever and always to hold your story of separation firmly in your mind and attention), we find the Oneness of Love that is our REALITY, the only Real Relationship. No longer a hostage to the lie of special love, we find ourselves safely HOME, where we have always been. Thank God.
"Nothing in boundless Love could need forgiveness... forgiveness thus becomes the means by which he learns he has done nothing to forgive." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 26, Section IV 1:3, 6
"Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you." -- The Bible, Matthew 7:5-7
"What we do not forgive we are destined to relive." -- Anonymous
The Allness of the Love of God is so immeasurably sweet, so all-encompassing. We are created Self-Complete, in the Image of God. The Allness of God is the Divine Completeness of Love that we all search for within the dream. And that makes it all the more ironic that we continually sacrifice ourselves to the illusion of love. ACIM says that "The body is itself a sacrifice; a giving up of power in the name of saving just a little for yourself. The world you see is based on 'sacrifice' of Oneness. The little that the body fences off becomes the self, preserved through sacrifice of all the rest. The body is a loss, and can be made to sacrifice. The memory of God must be denied if sacrifice is asked of anyone. What witness to the Wholeness of God's Son is seen within a world of separate bodies, however much he witnesses to truth? You can lose sight of Oneness, but can not make sacrifice of its reality. Nor can you lose what you would sacrifice, nor keep the Holy Spirit from His task of showing you that it has not been lost. Every instant can you be reborn, and given life again."
We have the power to be reborn every instant. This means simply that Love, which is everyone and everywhere, can be remembered every instant. When this happens, the illusion of sacrifice that we call love vanishes like the illusion it is. But meanwhile, most of us are hostages to a warped ego game that has co-opted the name of love. Love takes no hostages, and cannot be recognized in the fog of sacrifice and guilt that cloud the hearts of those who dwell in the fragmented, separated mind, who want to believe in this psychotic parody of love. And we wonder why we feel depressed, anxious, restless, and unfulfilled.
There is no giving and receiving in Divine Love. There is only BEING. There is no need or obligate in Divine Love. There is only WHOLENESS. There is no question and no answer in Divine Love. There is only KNOWING. There is no past or future in Divine Love, no grievances or failures. There is only the Completeness of NOW. Not now as the ego would define now, as in imaginary time and space. But the eternity of the Presence, the Holy Instant that reveals Love's Presence in the midst of everything. So in the Presence of the Reality of Love, there is only GRACE.
We are not hostages to love, and love is not fear or guilt. These are the lies that keep us in knots of drama and dysfunction, that keep us endlessly preoccupied with imaginary relationships and stories. Your real relationships in Divine Love are always safely Whole. They have never been otherwise. And once we stop struggling to improve the dream, to fix the illusion of relationship (whose only purpose is ever and always to hold your story of separation firmly in your mind and attention), we find the Oneness of Love that is our REALITY, the only Real Relationship. No longer a hostage to the lie of special love, we find ourselves safely HOME, where we have always been. Thank God.
"Nothing in boundless Love could need forgiveness... forgiveness thus becomes the means by which he learns he has done nothing to forgive." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 26, Section IV 1:3, 6
Friday, March 14, 2008
No Respecter of Persons
[For those that are interested, I hold a weekly ACIM conference call every Saturday morning at 9 a.m. central time. All are welcome. The call-in number is 605-475-4333, and the access Code is 101546.]
"Then Peter opened his mouth and said, "Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons." -- The Bible, Acts 10:34
"All that is ever cherished as a hidden belief, to be defended though unrecognized, is faith in specialness. And difference of any kind imposes orders of reality, and a need to judge that cannot be escaped." -- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 24, Section I, 3:1, 6
While questioning the presence of a particular issue in my life, I was given the above guidance. The answer is abundantly clear. Why would this issue be different? Why would it have anything to do with what I do or don't do? The Will of God is One, and is endless Love and Substance and Goodness and Wholeness, Divine Harmony in the Allness of Being. How could there be an exception to Allness?
And then I turned to this passage in ACIM: "Those who are special must defend illusions against the Truth. For what is specialness but an attack upon the Will of God?" To think that my problem or issue or even my love is especially fascinating, especially good, especially hard, especially important, or unique in any way, is to keep the illusion of separation from Self intact. It's amazing how the ego creates the illusion of separateness, keeps the identity of specialness one way or another, in order to establish itself as god. Notice how often we describe things to ourselves or others as 'so good,' or 'so awful,' or 'so easy,' or 'so hard.' Anything to make it stand out as unique and special, worthy of attention, worthy of assumed reality. Ha!
"There is no order of difficulty in miracles. One is not "harder" or "bigger" than another. They are all the same." -- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 1, Section I, 1:1-3
So the sameness of Good, the universality of Good, the duplicability of demonstration through the miracle of healed perception is not because we do anything to deserve it or do it right, but because God IS, everywhere, always, forever. It is hard at first to see that imagined problems are perceived specialness, just as imagined personal love is specialness... and that both have exactly the same goal. The goal is always separation, autonomy, something apart that is yours alone. And this can never be, in Truth. Oneness remains the Truth of Being, and in that Oneness, the Allness of Being is equal and free.
As soon as we stop generating imagined differences, we see that there are none. It's not that it's bad or wrong to generate and live by illusions... it's simply that there are none in reality, and so we suffer through our endless quest to make the illusory and ephemeral be real and eternal. It can never be. As soon as we stop respecting persons and all material illusion, we begin to see as God sees. For make no mistake about it, whether we awaken and see or choose to remain asleep, we remain together in the Oneness of Self, the pure and Holy reflection of God.
"Comparison must be an ego device, for Love makes none. Specialness always makes comparisons. Pursuit of specialness is always at the cost of Peace." -- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 24, Section II, 1:1-2, 2:1
"You are not special. If you think you are, and would defend your specialness against the Truth of what you really are, how can you know the Truth? What answer that the Holy Spirit gives can reach you, when it is your specialness to which you listen, and which asks and answers? You can defend your specialness, but never will you hear the Voice for God beside it." -- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 24, Section II, 4:1-3, 5:1
"Then Peter opened his mouth and said, "Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons." -- The Bible, Acts 10:34
"All that is ever cherished as a hidden belief, to be defended though unrecognized, is faith in specialness. And difference of any kind imposes orders of reality, and a need to judge that cannot be escaped." -- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 24, Section I, 3:1, 6
While questioning the presence of a particular issue in my life, I was given the above guidance. The answer is abundantly clear. Why would this issue be different? Why would it have anything to do with what I do or don't do? The Will of God is One, and is endless Love and Substance and Goodness and Wholeness, Divine Harmony in the Allness of Being. How could there be an exception to Allness?
And then I turned to this passage in ACIM: "Those who are special must defend illusions against the Truth. For what is specialness but an attack upon the Will of God?" To think that my problem or issue or even my love is especially fascinating, especially good, especially hard, especially important, or unique in any way, is to keep the illusion of separation from Self intact. It's amazing how the ego creates the illusion of separateness, keeps the identity of specialness one way or another, in order to establish itself as god. Notice how often we describe things to ourselves or others as 'so good,' or 'so awful,' or 'so easy,' or 'so hard.' Anything to make it stand out as unique and special, worthy of attention, worthy of assumed reality. Ha!
"There is no order of difficulty in miracles. One is not "harder" or "bigger" than another. They are all the same." -- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 1, Section I, 1:1-3
So the sameness of Good, the universality of Good, the duplicability of demonstration through the miracle of healed perception is not because we do anything to deserve it or do it right, but because God IS, everywhere, always, forever. It is hard at first to see that imagined problems are perceived specialness, just as imagined personal love is specialness... and that both have exactly the same goal. The goal is always separation, autonomy, something apart that is yours alone. And this can never be, in Truth. Oneness remains the Truth of Being, and in that Oneness, the Allness of Being is equal and free.
As soon as we stop generating imagined differences, we see that there are none. It's not that it's bad or wrong to generate and live by illusions... it's simply that there are none in reality, and so we suffer through our endless quest to make the illusory and ephemeral be real and eternal. It can never be. As soon as we stop respecting persons and all material illusion, we begin to see as God sees. For make no mistake about it, whether we awaken and see or choose to remain asleep, we remain together in the Oneness of Self, the pure and Holy reflection of God.
"Comparison must be an ego device, for Love makes none. Specialness always makes comparisons. Pursuit of specialness is always at the cost of Peace." -- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 24, Section II, 1:1-2, 2:1
"You are not special. If you think you are, and would defend your specialness against the Truth of what you really are, how can you know the Truth? What answer that the Holy Spirit gives can reach you, when it is your specialness to which you listen, and which asks and answers? You can defend your specialness, but never will you hear the Voice for God beside it." -- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 24, Section II, 4:1-3, 5:1
Monday, March 10, 2008
The Source of Joy
"The Christ in you is very still. He looks on what He loves, and knows it as Himself. And thus does He rejoice at what He sees, because He knows that it is One with Him and with His Father. Specialness, too, takes joy in what it sees, although it is not true. Yet what you seek for is a source of joy as you conceive it. What you wish is true for you. Nor is it possible that you can wish for something and lack faith that it is so. Wishing makes real, as surely as does will create. The power of a wish upholds illusions as strongly as does love extend itself. Except that one deludes; the other heals." -- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 24, Section V, 1:1-10
"There is no dream of specialness, however hidden or disguised the form, however lovely it may seem to be, however much it delicately offers the hope of peace and the escape from pain, in which you suffer not your condemnation,. In dreams effect and cause are interchanged, for here the maker of the dream believes that what he made is happening to him. He does not realize he picked a thread from here, a scrap from there, and wove a picture out of nothing." -- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 24, Section V, 2:1-3
Joy and happiness are not topics that people discuss everyday, although we think they are our motivation for doing what we do. Who does not profess to wanting to be happy? Who in their right mind would run away from joy? Well, most of us are usually not in our right mind, so that explains it!
What a conundrum! We say we want joy and happiness, but we continually make decisions in life based on fear. Fear that we might not find a better job. Fear that the pain of this relationship might just be my fault, or that I might be making a mistake. Fear that we might lose what we're 'supposed' to have. Fear that without this or that, we can never be happy or complete. Fear that joy only comes from... fill in the blank.
Fear is not Joy. Fear is not Happiness. Fear is not Love. And joy, happiness, and love can never come from fear. They can only come from Love ItSelf, which is the only Source of everything. The thing is, we can and do generate illusions based on fear, and keep ourselves deluded. As the above quotes tell us, we can and do take joy in our illusions... but it is not Joy. It is a counterfeit, a sleight-of-hand, and sooner or later we suffer. Illusions do, after all, always go up in a puff of smoke, sooner or later.
In our dreams, what we want to be true is true for us. In our dreams, we weave a world and populate it. In our dreams, it all comes to pass... literally. All things pass. God never changes. What is REAL never changes... It is the Ground of our Being and our True Joy.
We suffer not because we are wrong or bad... we suffer because we cannot keep the specialness of the dreams we have created. We are like small children who weep and throw tantrums when our toys grow old and break or fall apart. Specialness deludes not because it is anything at all... but because it is the means by which we stay asleep and dreaming, always hoping for a better dream.
The Source of All Joy and Happiness is not out there. It lives and moves and has Its Being in YOU. Join me today, and make time to be still, to listen, and to remember Who You Are. The Source of Joy is the Allness and Oneness of the Self that we share. The Source of Joy is constant and free. The Source of Joy can never be lost. The Source of all Joy is HERE, NOW.
"The Christ in you is very still. He knows where you are going, and He leads you there in gentleness and blessing all the way." -- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 24, Section V, 6:1-2
"There is no dream of specialness, however hidden or disguised the form, however lovely it may seem to be, however much it delicately offers the hope of peace and the escape from pain, in which you suffer not your condemnation,. In dreams effect and cause are interchanged, for here the maker of the dream believes that what he made is happening to him. He does not realize he picked a thread from here, a scrap from there, and wove a picture out of nothing." -- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 24, Section V, 2:1-3
Joy and happiness are not topics that people discuss everyday, although we think they are our motivation for doing what we do. Who does not profess to wanting to be happy? Who in their right mind would run away from joy? Well, most of us are usually not in our right mind, so that explains it!
What a conundrum! We say we want joy and happiness, but we continually make decisions in life based on fear. Fear that we might not find a better job. Fear that the pain of this relationship might just be my fault, or that I might be making a mistake. Fear that we might lose what we're 'supposed' to have. Fear that without this or that, we can never be happy or complete. Fear that joy only comes from... fill in the blank.
Fear is not Joy. Fear is not Happiness. Fear is not Love. And joy, happiness, and love can never come from fear. They can only come from Love ItSelf, which is the only Source of everything. The thing is, we can and do generate illusions based on fear, and keep ourselves deluded. As the above quotes tell us, we can and do take joy in our illusions... but it is not Joy. It is a counterfeit, a sleight-of-hand, and sooner or later we suffer. Illusions do, after all, always go up in a puff of smoke, sooner or later.
In our dreams, what we want to be true is true for us. In our dreams, we weave a world and populate it. In our dreams, it all comes to pass... literally. All things pass. God never changes. What is REAL never changes... It is the Ground of our Being and our True Joy.
We suffer not because we are wrong or bad... we suffer because we cannot keep the specialness of the dreams we have created. We are like small children who weep and throw tantrums when our toys grow old and break or fall apart. Specialness deludes not because it is anything at all... but because it is the means by which we stay asleep and dreaming, always hoping for a better dream.
The Source of All Joy and Happiness is not out there. It lives and moves and has Its Being in YOU. Join me today, and make time to be still, to listen, and to remember Who You Are. The Source of Joy is the Allness and Oneness of the Self that we share. The Source of Joy is constant and free. The Source of Joy can never be lost. The Source of all Joy is HERE, NOW.
"The Christ in you is very still. He knows where you are going, and He leads you there in gentleness and blessing all the way." -- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 24, Section V, 6:1-2
Thursday, March 6, 2008
An Inside Job
"You command the situation if you understand that mortal existence is a state of self-deception and not the Truth of Being." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p.403, lines 14-16
"The Science of Being unveils the errors of sense, and spiritual perception, aided by Science, reaches Truth. Then error disappears." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 406, lines 11-13
"I will forgive, and this will disappear." -- A Course in Miracles, Workbook 193, 13:3
One of my readers asked me to use this forum as a reminder... I host a weekly ACIM conference call every Saturday morning at 9 a.m. central time. All are welcome. The call-in number is 605-475-4333, and the access Code is 101546. We would love to have you join us.
We are always talking about our delusion of mistaken identity, in one way or another. And we use whatever is up in our lives to Awaken and Remember. We are learning to listen and follow the Voice for God in us, and to notice with increasing awareness our judgments and projections. These usually consist of some version of health and money and sex or relationships in general... anything to prove that the body and the material laws around us are true. We would rather be right about that than happy in forgiveness of our mistakes. Go figure...
This Re-membering of the Son of God, the restoration of our collective Self, is not intellectual, it's experiential. But the ego will still make that something to do or be differently, when it's really a case of mistaken identity. Who are you, really? Either you are the Son of God or you are the little version with all the trials, tribulations, and limitations thereof. Can't have it both ways.
The illusory stuff about relationships and money and body image and self-love... we all know these smokescreens very well, and it's all made up. ACIM says that trying to make more money to be secure, or to eat a certain way to be healthy, or striving to adorn a fictional self to attract other fictional selves with bodies.. all of this is the height of insanity. Even when we succeed, we simply prolong our suffering, because as long as we think who we are and our life and love is dependent on anything so illusory, we are in deep trouble. Bodies change, they come and they go... money comes and goes... personalities come and go... they are only thought forms. Who cares? No, I mean that literally... who are you being when you care? The Son of God, or some fictional and very limited version of yourself? And why would you do that to yourself? Smokescreen, that's why.
As long as our attentions are hooked 'out there' (and our own bodies are 'out there' too) we keep projecting it all and don't end the illusion of a separate existence. As long as there is some hope of fixing the dream, we stay on the wheel of suffering that in Sanskrit is called Samsara. There is no such thing as a 'better' dream. Let me repeat that. There is no such thing as a dream that is better or more real than any other dream. Some are scary, some pass for beautiful or loving. There is absolutely no difference. There are no REAL differences... how could there be in Oneness?
So this is the ultimate pass we come to... what we see as our greatest successes and our pride and joys are really our greatest failures... and what we see as our greatest failures and liabilities are actually our greatest successes. ANYTHING that brings us closer to the dissolving of the separation is our best friend. And what keeps us attached and striving is truly what binds us to hell.
So whether it's money, love, sex. or real estate... whether it's your body or someone else's or both... they are all judgments that are really statements about who and what you believe yourself to be. And thank Goodness, you are not who you think you are. Thank goodness none of us are! :-)) There are no material solutions that will ever be real, or help us to remember Who We Are. There is nothing outside of you... nothing, literally. It's an inside job.
"Seek not outside yourself. For it will fail, and you will weep each time an idol falls... Seek not outside yourself. For all your pain comes from a futile search for what you want, insisting where it must be found. What if it is not there? Do you prefer that you be right or happy? Be glad that you are told where happiness abides, and seek no longer elsewhere. You will fail. But it is given you to know the Truth, and not to seek for it outside yourself." -- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 29, Section VII, 1:1, and 1:6-12
"The Science of Being unveils the errors of sense, and spiritual perception, aided by Science, reaches Truth. Then error disappears." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 406, lines 11-13
"I will forgive, and this will disappear." -- A Course in Miracles, Workbook 193, 13:3
One of my readers asked me to use this forum as a reminder... I host a weekly ACIM conference call every Saturday morning at 9 a.m. central time. All are welcome. The call-in number is 605-475-4333, and the access Code is 101546. We would love to have you join us.
We are always talking about our delusion of mistaken identity, in one way or another. And we use whatever is up in our lives to Awaken and Remember. We are learning to listen and follow the Voice for God in us, and to notice with increasing awareness our judgments and projections. These usually consist of some version of health and money and sex or relationships in general... anything to prove that the body and the material laws around us are true. We would rather be right about that than happy in forgiveness of our mistakes. Go figure...
This Re-membering of the Son of God, the restoration of our collective Self, is not intellectual, it's experiential. But the ego will still make that something to do or be differently, when it's really a case of mistaken identity. Who are you, really? Either you are the Son of God or you are the little version with all the trials, tribulations, and limitations thereof. Can't have it both ways.
The illusory stuff about relationships and money and body image and self-love... we all know these smokescreens very well, and it's all made up. ACIM says that trying to make more money to be secure, or to eat a certain way to be healthy, or striving to adorn a fictional self to attract other fictional selves with bodies.. all of this is the height of insanity. Even when we succeed, we simply prolong our suffering, because as long as we think who we are and our life and love is dependent on anything so illusory, we are in deep trouble. Bodies change, they come and they go... money comes and goes... personalities come and go... they are only thought forms. Who cares? No, I mean that literally... who are you being when you care? The Son of God, or some fictional and very limited version of yourself? And why would you do that to yourself? Smokescreen, that's why.
As long as our attentions are hooked 'out there' (and our own bodies are 'out there' too) we keep projecting it all and don't end the illusion of a separate existence. As long as there is some hope of fixing the dream, we stay on the wheel of suffering that in Sanskrit is called Samsara. There is no such thing as a 'better' dream. Let me repeat that. There is no such thing as a dream that is better or more real than any other dream. Some are scary, some pass for beautiful or loving. There is absolutely no difference. There are no REAL differences... how could there be in Oneness?
So this is the ultimate pass we come to... what we see as our greatest successes and our pride and joys are really our greatest failures... and what we see as our greatest failures and liabilities are actually our greatest successes. ANYTHING that brings us closer to the dissolving of the separation is our best friend. And what keeps us attached and striving is truly what binds us to hell.
So whether it's money, love, sex. or real estate... whether it's your body or someone else's or both... they are all judgments that are really statements about who and what you believe yourself to be. And thank Goodness, you are not who you think you are. Thank goodness none of us are! :-)) There are no material solutions that will ever be real, or help us to remember Who We Are. There is nothing outside of you... nothing, literally. It's an inside job.
"Seek not outside yourself. For it will fail, and you will weep each time an idol falls... Seek not outside yourself. For all your pain comes from a futile search for what you want, insisting where it must be found. What if it is not there? Do you prefer that you be right or happy? Be glad that you are told where happiness abides, and seek no longer elsewhere. You will fail. But it is given you to know the Truth, and not to seek for it outside yourself." -- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 29, Section VII, 1:1, and 1:6-12
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Love in Ritual
"The special relationship must be recognized for what it is; a senseless ritual in which strength is extracted from the death of God, and invested in His killer as the sign that form has triumphed over content, and Love has lost its meaning. See how exactly is this ritual enacted in the special relationship. An altar is erected in between two separate people, on which each seeks to kill his self, and on his body raise another self to take its power from his death. Over and over and over this ritual is enacted. And it is never completed, nor ever will be completed. The ritual of completion cannot complete, for Life arises not from death, nor Heaven from hell." -- A Course in Miracles
"The core of the separation illusion lies simply in the fantasy of destruction of Love's meaning. And unless Love's meaning is restored to you, you cannot know your Self Who share its meaning. Separation is only a decision not to know your Self." -- A Course in Miracles
One of the regular readers of this blog e-mailed a question: "How do you have a romantic relationship without what appears to be a man's body walking this earth with you? Hmmmmm???" Our egos love to ask questions like this, which are not real questions. They are statements of points of view, ways of being, that are couched as a question. Not a real question at all. It assumes that romantic relationships as the world defines them are good and necessary, and that we are bodies. O.K.
We are here in the dream. Bodies are our vehicles, apparently, in the dream. And yet... we are told that literally nothing in the dream has any meaning whatsoever, since it is nothing, is unreal. And so within the dream, we give everything all the meaning it has for us. By accepting the world's interpretation of any part of the dream, in this case by accepting the story of romance that is bought and sold throughout our dream, we are lost. If this is the chief tool of the ego, and if through this story Love has lost its meaning to us, then we are well and truly lost.
And yet... we are told that we can give all relationships to the Holy Spirit, the part of our Mind that remains in open communion with God. And that all relationships within the dream are destined to become Holy. We will all eventually wake up and Remember Who We Are. However, this is a dangerous statement in the hands of the ego. It will use any aspect of Truth and twist it to suit its desires... and will surely use it to justify doing what it wants. But given to Truth, this is our ticket Home.
Given to Truth, we see that all relationships already are Holy. And it has absolutely nothing to do with bodies, which interact or don't. We are told that "Salvation lies in the simple fact that illusions are not fearful because they are not true. They but seem to be fearful to the extent to which you fail to recognize them for what they are; and you will fail to do this to the extent to which you want them to be true." This is the hard Truth. The illusion of the romantic relationship seems to be the hardest to see through because our egos know it is the foundation of its thought system, its rebellion against Love and the Allness of God. ACIM says, "See in the special relationship nothing more than a meaningless attempt to raise other gods before Him."
We have very real relationships even in this world. They are the Holy Relationships that exist across space and time without regard to bodies, and that are not based on special value... not based on what either one can get from the other, not even based on sharing as the world knows sharing. Holy Relationships exist wherever two imaginary selves lose sight of their imaginary twoness, and Remember the Allness of God.
Can this happen in relationships between bodies, relationships that began as special? Who asks this question? One who believes that we are bodies. One who wants to keep its littleness rather than know its Self. The Truth is that all relationships are Holy, and none of us are limited by the bodies we have identified with. So whatever relationships are in your world, and whatever ones come and go, are all Holy encounters when seen from the Allness of God and our Oneness. Seen from the ego's perspective, the ego will try to make an illusion of a holy relationship to justify and hide its agenda. That's pretty much the way of it in the dream.
And yet... we are told that "For every learning that would hurt you, God offers you correction and complete escape from all its consequences." Complete escape from all the pain, all the suffering, all the hurtfulness, all the nonsense... sign me up! Why would we not immediately give all of it to the Holy Spirit and ask that our perception be healed? Why do we walk in blindness even another second? Because "only fantasies make confusion in choosing possible, and they are totally unreal." Yep. We like our fantasy worlds, even when they kill us. Which they do.
One more thing... all of this takes place in consciousness. This has nothing to do with 'other' people or bodies. It is our fantasy stories about people, places, and things that perpetuate the lie of the special relationship. Every part of Reality is always and forever Loving and as Holy as You. Love doesn't need ritual or to be proven or even to be seen. Love is Who We Are.
"The special relationship is totally meaningless without a body. The special relationship is a device for limiting yourself to a body, and for limiting your perception of others to theirs." -- A Course in Miracles
"The real purpose of the special relationship, in strict accordance with the ego's goals, is to destroy reality and substitute illusion. For the ego is itself an illusion, and only illusions can be the witnesses to its reality." -- A Course in Miracles
"The core of the separation illusion lies simply in the fantasy of destruction of Love's meaning. And unless Love's meaning is restored to you, you cannot know your Self Who share its meaning. Separation is only a decision not to know your Self." -- A Course in Miracles
One of the regular readers of this blog e-mailed a question: "How do you have a romantic relationship without what appears to be a man's body walking this earth with you? Hmmmmm???" Our egos love to ask questions like this, which are not real questions. They are statements of points of view, ways of being, that are couched as a question. Not a real question at all. It assumes that romantic relationships as the world defines them are good and necessary, and that we are bodies. O.K.
We are here in the dream. Bodies are our vehicles, apparently, in the dream. And yet... we are told that literally nothing in the dream has any meaning whatsoever, since it is nothing, is unreal. And so within the dream, we give everything all the meaning it has for us. By accepting the world's interpretation of any part of the dream, in this case by accepting the story of romance that is bought and sold throughout our dream, we are lost. If this is the chief tool of the ego, and if through this story Love has lost its meaning to us, then we are well and truly lost.
And yet... we are told that we can give all relationships to the Holy Spirit, the part of our Mind that remains in open communion with God. And that all relationships within the dream are destined to become Holy. We will all eventually wake up and Remember Who We Are. However, this is a dangerous statement in the hands of the ego. It will use any aspect of Truth and twist it to suit its desires... and will surely use it to justify doing what it wants. But given to Truth, this is our ticket Home.
Given to Truth, we see that all relationships already are Holy. And it has absolutely nothing to do with bodies, which interact or don't. We are told that "Salvation lies in the simple fact that illusions are not fearful because they are not true. They but seem to be fearful to the extent to which you fail to recognize them for what they are; and you will fail to do this to the extent to which you want them to be true." This is the hard Truth. The illusion of the romantic relationship seems to be the hardest to see through because our egos know it is the foundation of its thought system, its rebellion against Love and the Allness of God. ACIM says, "See in the special relationship nothing more than a meaningless attempt to raise other gods before Him."
We have very real relationships even in this world. They are the Holy Relationships that exist across space and time without regard to bodies, and that are not based on special value... not based on what either one can get from the other, not even based on sharing as the world knows sharing. Holy Relationships exist wherever two imaginary selves lose sight of their imaginary twoness, and Remember the Allness of God.
Can this happen in relationships between bodies, relationships that began as special? Who asks this question? One who believes that we are bodies. One who wants to keep its littleness rather than know its Self. The Truth is that all relationships are Holy, and none of us are limited by the bodies we have identified with. So whatever relationships are in your world, and whatever ones come and go, are all Holy encounters when seen from the Allness of God and our Oneness. Seen from the ego's perspective, the ego will try to make an illusion of a holy relationship to justify and hide its agenda. That's pretty much the way of it in the dream.
And yet... we are told that "For every learning that would hurt you, God offers you correction and complete escape from all its consequences." Complete escape from all the pain, all the suffering, all the hurtfulness, all the nonsense... sign me up! Why would we not immediately give all of it to the Holy Spirit and ask that our perception be healed? Why do we walk in blindness even another second? Because "only fantasies make confusion in choosing possible, and they are totally unreal." Yep. We like our fantasy worlds, even when they kill us. Which they do.
One more thing... all of this takes place in consciousness. This has nothing to do with 'other' people or bodies. It is our fantasy stories about people, places, and things that perpetuate the lie of the special relationship. Every part of Reality is always and forever Loving and as Holy as You. Love doesn't need ritual or to be proven or even to be seen. Love is Who We Are.
"The special relationship is totally meaningless without a body. The special relationship is a device for limiting yourself to a body, and for limiting your perception of others to theirs." -- A Course in Miracles
"The real purpose of the special relationship, in strict accordance with the ego's goals, is to destroy reality and substitute illusion. For the ego is itself an illusion, and only illusions can be the witnesses to its reality." -- A Course in Miracles
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