June 9, 2015

As I read this section, I think, “Do we love?” If, as the Course tells us, we are Love, and Love is all that is real, what else is there but Love? I want to hold the intention to love, to see love, and to share and offer love in all I think, do and say. If I do not hold love in my mind and love is my essence, am I not denying love and myself? The truth is I am Love. The truth is we are all Love. The truth is that all that is real is Love and nothing else exists. This sounds insane to me when I think with a split mind, but it is nevertheless the truth the Couse teaches. This section begins with the statement that miracles are merely the translation of denial to truth. To love oneself is to heal oneself. And to love another is to heal another. So when we or another call for love – anything that is not love itself – we are asking for healing by being loved. Of course, we must also be willing to be loved to be healed.

As a miracle worker, whose purpose is “Only to be truly helpful”, our task is simply to deny the denial of truth! We must heal ourselves for the truth is already within us. Yet we have obscured it from our minds, so light in another’s mind must shine into ours because that light is also ours. The Course tells us:

The light in them shines as brightly regardless of the density of the fog that obscures it. If you give no power to the fog to obscure the light, it has none. For it has power only if We give power to it. We must ourselves withdraw that power, remembering that all power is of the One. You can remember this for all of Us. Do not allow another not to remember, for their forgetfulness is yours. But your remembering is theirs, for the One cannot be remembered alone. This is what you have forgotten. To perceive the healing of another as the healing of yourself is thus the way to remember Oneness. For you forgot your sisters and brothers with Oneness, and the One’s Answer to your forgetting is but the way to remember. ACIM T-12.II.2.1-10

The light and love we are is within us and has always been within us. We have simply forgotten who we are and our healing is to remember who we are. This is the answer we so diligently seek, yet seek it outside of us when it can only be found within us.

Whatever seems to be amiss in the world we think we see, perceive it as a call for love and offer another what they believe they cannot offer themselves. Whatever condition we perceive in this world, it has one and only one remedy. Allow the light and love of truth to shine into the mind of each One we encounter.

Learn to be quiet in the midst of turmoil, for in the quietness is the end of strife and is the journey to peace. Look at each obstacle that arises in our way to delay us and let it fade in the light of the goal before us as it is inevitable because it is eternal. The Love we are is eternal and nothing can destroy the eternal within us. The goal of love is our right because it belongs to us. Let its light shine away all doubt that this is so. Ask then for the guidance of Spirit in all you do, for Spirit will assist us to fling open the shutters of our split mind letting the light of love shine through us into another’s mind where they will recognize the truth about themselves. Yhis is the miracle. This is the return to the awareness of who we really are.

June 2, 2015

Appreciation is the only appropriate response to the one we are encountering at any given moment. This may be someone we encounter by “chance” on the street or someone we have been in relationship with for some time. Each one is in our life at any given moment for a reason. That reason is for us to appreciate them. Our gratitude is due them for their loving thoughts and their appeal for help.   Both are capable of bringing love into our awareness if we perceive them truly. Reality is revealed in our perceiving them truly. If we feel love and peace as we see this one, we are seeing truly. But if we feel a sense of strain, it comes from our attempts not to perceive truly, to perceive from our egoic thought system made of our desire to be separate. Being in unity and Oneness with one another is our natural state of being and is truly effortless. However, we seem to want to expend great effort to maintain a false sense of separation from our whole Self.

Spirit’s job is to work with us and guide us in correct perception, guiding us in the awareness of the love that we are. When we begin to appreciate our brothers and sisters and are grateful for their presence in our lives, no matter the circumstance, we allow Spirit to shift our perception and see each other more clearly. Truly recognizing a call for help for what it is as Spirit guides us allows us the opportunity to see the healing of not just another, but of ourselves.

Your interpretations of another’s needs are your interpretation of yours. By giving help you are asking for it, and if you perceive but one need in yourself you will be healed. For you will recognize the One’s Answer as you want It to be, and if you want It in truth, It will be truly yours. ACIM T-12.I.7.1-3

Our desire for truth is key. Our desire to appreciate, be grateful and extend love and help are the key intentions that open our minds to Spirit’s guidance. Can we set the intention to be only truly helpful? Yes we can and that is really what we want.

By applying Spirit’s interpretation of the reactions of others more and more consistently, we will gain an increasing awareness that Spirit’s criteria are equally applicable to us. Should we recognize fear? Yes, but simply recognizing it is not enough to escape it. We must open our minds and allow Spirit to correctly translate fear into truth for us. Just recognizing fear leaves us stuck in fear, but accepting Spirit’s translation of fear into truth opens us to the love that lies beyond it. That love is rooted in reality and opens our minds to the awareness of who we really are. We are complete, whole, limitless, and filled with peace. What more could we wish to be? By interpreting fear correctly as a positive affirmation of the underlying belief it masks, we are undermining its perceived usefulness by rendering it useless. We have undone the misperception and revealed love in its place. The veil we have drawn across love’s face has now disappeared.

If you would look upon love, which is the world’s reality, how could you do better than to recognize, in every defense against it, the underlying appeal for it? And how could you better learn of its reality than by answering the appeal for it by giving it? Spirit’s interpretation of fear does dispel it, for the awareness of truth cannot be denied. Thus does Spirit replace fear with love and translate error into truth. And thus will you learn of Spirit how to replace your dream of separation with the fact of unity. For the separation is only the denial of union, and correctly interpreted, attests to your eternal knowledge that union is true. ACIM T-12.I.10.1-6

Our eternal knowledge of our Oneness is within us and has never left us. Waken to that knowledge now and live in the awareness of love and peace. It is our function in this world to be who we really are and share that with each other and all creation. Let it be so.

May 26, 2015

In our human existence we do not respond to anything directly. We respond to our own interpretation of anything we encounter or experience. Everything is colored through the lens of our egoic thought system which is the result of a lifetime of perceiving with our split mind. We have forfeited true perception by relying on our own efforts and denying the guidance of Spirit. We truly believe that we are judging correctly, for we believe that what we perceive on our own is true. Thus our belief that what we perceive is true justifies any response we make. This is why analyzing the motives of others is hazardous to us and our own peace of mind.

Analyzing anything from our egoic thought system is very complicated, very confusing, and never without ego involvement. The whole process represents an attempt to demonstrate our own individual ability to understand what we perceive. We then react to our interpretations as if they were real and true. Our interpretations, whether correct or not, become the justification for our reactions. We may control our reactions behaviorally, but not emotionally. This creates a split or an attack on the integrity of our minds, pitting one level within the mind against another. This can only result in conflict and any conflict within the mind is insanity.

The Curse teaches:

There is but one interpretation of motivation that makes any sense. And because it is the Holy Spirit’s judgment it requires no effort at all on your part. Every loving thought is true. Everything else is an appeal for healing and help, regardless of the form it takes. Can anyone be justified in responding with anger to another’s plea for help? No response can be appropriate except the willingness to give it to them, for this and only this is what they are asking for. Offer them anything else, and you are assuming the right to attack their reality by interpreting it as you see fit. Perhaps the danger of this to your own mind is not yet fully apparent. If you believe that an appeal for help is something else you will react to something else. Your response will therefore be inappropriate to reality as it is, but not to your perception of it. ACIM T-12.I.3.1-10

If we are aware, there is nothing that prevents us from recognizing all calls for help or love for what they are except our own belief in our own mistaken perception. Are we willing to continually maintain our “battles” with reality in which we deny the need for healing? We would never do thus except for our unwillingness to accept reality as it is, and thus withhold it from ourselves.

It is surely good advice to tell you not to judge what you do not understand. No one with a personal investment is a reliable witness, for truth to them has become what they want it to be. If you are unwilling to perceive an appeal for help as what it is, it is because you are unwilling to give help and to receive it. To fail to recognize a call for help is to refuse help. Would you maintain that you do not need it? Yet this is what you are maintaining when you refuse to recognize another’s appeal, for only by answering their appeal can you be helped. Deny them your help and you will not recognize the One’s Answer to you. Spirit does not need your help in interpreting motivation, but you do need Spirit’s. T-12.I.5.1-8

Accept Spirit’s interpretation and accept the awareness of reality into your mind. It’s already and has always been within you. We have simply been unwilling to open our minds and see the truth about ourselves. Remember, every loving thought is true. Everything else, regardless of the form it takes, is a call for healing and help – love. Accept the reality of who you are and always extend love thus opening yourself to that same love.