September 17, 2019

We return to Section II this week. I am touched by the great love that is communicated in this passage. Our Creator’s magnificent creation is given us to show we are also our Creator’s magnificent creation. Our brother, our sister, the One we are with right now is our savior. Their purpose in this world is to show us our magnificence as our purpose is to show another their magnificence. It’s not so much to “show”, but to recognize. We are here to recognize the holiness in each other. We are here to recognize each other’s wholeness, completeness, limitlessness and purity. We are here to recognize who we really are by recognizing who another is. Our essence is light, love, peace and joy. The recognition is not physical or anything that can be seen with the body’s eyes. It is of the mind. It is beyond the appearance of the body.

The shift in our mind is reflected in our relationships. This is where we begin. We can choose to see those we are in relationship with differently. Once we decide to be willing to see holiness in another rather than their “sins”, we allow our mind to shift from the little separated mind we identified as “me” to the One Mind we all are. We allow the Grace of our Creator to flow within and through us as It joins us all in Oneness. As we allow this transformation to manifest within and around us, we open to the fullness of the magnificence of our true Self in Oneness. All that seemed to limit us and keep us captive suddenly releases us into the freedom of Oneness. We may – for a time – waffle in and out of this awareness, but we are learning to accept something heavenly about ourselves we had been denying all our lives.

Where do we begin? Forgiveness. Just a little willingness to forgive ourselves and each other. Forgiveness means we recognize another’s true nature – their holiness. Accepting that our true Self can’t be harmed in reality. This world is an opportunity to let go of the attack and suffering we decided was our plight and see differently, beginning to see the holiness and divine purpose in everything we see.

Forgive your friend, and you cannot separate yourself from them nor from their Creator. You need no forgiveness, for the wholly pure have never sinned. Give, then, what Source has given you, that you may see this One Child as one, and thank their Creator as the Creator thanks you. Nor believe that all the Creator’s praise is given not to you. For what you give is your Creator’s, and giving it, you learn to understand your Creator’s gift to you. And give the Holy Spirit what It offers unto the Creator and the One Child alike. Nothing has power over you except the Creator’s Will and yours, which but extends the Creator’s Will. It was for this you were created, and your friend with you and at one with you.   T-25.II.10:1-8

Open your eyes and ears, not your body’s, but your Spirit’s. Hear the ancient song that reminds you of who you are and always have been. Your holiness resonates here. There is no more doubt. We recognize who we really are as we recognize who our friend really is. The Great Rays of Light that radiate from all that is holy shine away any remaining darkness. Let the darkness go. And when we find ourselves in darkness again, turn to your friend again and allow the Great Rays to shine on the magnificence of who you and you friend really are. Heaven will be revealed in all the world as we allow it to be transformed in the awareness of who we really are.

September 10, 2019

There is another one who is in our life at any time who we are meant to connect with. There are probably many ones in our life filling this purpose. This one may be with us for some time or this one may be someone passing by on the street, in the mall or anywhere we may choose to be. These ones are our savior. These ones are the ones in whom we find holiness. Our egoic thought system sees these ones as separate. They may appear challenging or they may appear friendly and helpful. However, we tend to not look beyond the surface as we interact with them.  Our frame of reference is usually determined and viewed through the frame of egoic perception. If we only look at this surface perception we miss the one that lies just beyond our view. There is something deeper. There is something different. There is something there for us to see and share. This one is holy beyond that surface appearance we think we see. Without looking deeper and beyond appearances, we see merely a frame, a shell, that is a distortion of the reality of this one. There is another frame of reference that we are given in which to see this One as they really are.

Accept the One’s frame instead of yours, and you will see the masterpiece. Look at its loveliness, and understand the Mind that thought it, not in flesh and bones, but in a frame as lovely as itself. Its holiness lights up the sinlessness the frame of darkness hides, and casts a veil of light across the picture’s face which but reflects the light that shines from it to its Creator. Think not this face was ever darkened because you saw it in a frame of death. The One kept it safe that you might look on it, and see the holiness that the One has given it.   T-25.II.7:1-5

What we are seeing may be dark. It may seem to be nothing but darkness. But, within the darkness we see the savior from the dark, and understand our friend as their Creator’s Mind showing them to us. They will step from darkness as we look on them, and we will no longer see the dark. The darkness never touched them. And likewise the dark never toughed us. Their holiness mirrors ours. Their gentleness becomes our strength, and both of us look within, and see the holiness that is there. This one is the frame in which our holiness is set, for what our Creator gave them must have been given us. What matters is not what this one sees in us, but what we see in them. In this seeing is our vision shared. We look on the Christ in us instead of seeing darkness.

Salvation is the seeing of holiness within another and then recognizing it is also our own holiness. As we allow this shift in vision to change our mind, we see the holiness we share. Each and every one of us share this holiness in Oneness. We are holiness. We are light. Our light continues to shine whether we recognize it or not. It is our own holiness that shines forth from what appears to be darkness. It is the light we are and the light we share with each other. We have been seeking this light outside each other all this time when it was right there within us. We have not harmed ourselves by denying this light. We simply blocked our awareness of who we really are. Anytime we wish we can let that light shine again.

You and this one are the same, as the One is One and not divided in Their Will. And you must have one purpose, since the One gave the same to both of you. The One’s Will is brought together as you join in will, that you be made complete by offering completion to this one. See not in them the sinfulness they see, but give them honor that you may esteem yourself and them. To you and this one is given the power of salvation, that escape from darkness into light be yours to share; that you may see as one what never has been separate, nor apart from all the One’s Love as given equally.   T-25.II.11:1-5

Look for the light in another. Look for holiness in another. Look beyond their appearance to the holiness and light beyond first glance. What we then see is not only another’s holiness but ours as well in our holy Oneness.

September 3, 2019

Very often, we try so hard in this life to make sense of who we are and the life we seem to be living. The challenges still come. We still feel fear at times. Yes, there are good moments and good times. We find happiness and then it can seem to slip away again. We ask ourselves, “Why am I here?” Perhaps we should ask ourselves a different question, “Who am I, really?” Our identity is beyond this world of form. Our identity is beyond this body we appear to inhabit. We are created by a loving, infinite and eternal Creator in that One’s image. Therefore, we must be loving, infinite and eternal. Perhaps we are seeing incorrectly.

This chapter has been teaching about the appearances we think are real. The Course teaches us the things we think we see are perceptions and thus not real. Yet, it all appears very real to us. We look for hope in what we see in this world. But, are we seeing truth or non-truths? I can say that we have seen hope. There is hopefulness in our minds even when we don’t fully understand what that hopefulness is and where it comes from. We look at each other and see first the outer trappings; the appearance of the body and the actions we take in this world. We are asked to see each other differently. The appearance we see is like a frame. If we only look at the frame and its appearance – whether beautiful or ugly – that’s all we seem to see. The frame is not what’s real. The magnificent creation is the work of art. Its beauty surpasses anything we can do to make the “frame” attractive. We are relying on our egoic thought system to show us what is real even when it is incapable of showing us reality. Can it make sense to hold the fixed belief that there is reason to uphold pursuit of what has always failed, on grounds that it will suddenly succeed and bring us the peace it has never brought before?

Its past has failed. Be glad that it is gone within your mind, to darken what is there. Take not the form for content, for the form is but a means for content. And the frame is but a means to hold the picture up, so that it can be seen. A frame that hides the picture has no purpose. It cannot be a frame if it is what you see. Without the picture is the frame without its meaning. Its purpose is to set the picture off, and not itself.   T-25.II.4:1-8

What do we benefit from hanging an empty frame on a wall and stand, deep in reverence, as if a masterpiece were there to see? When we see another as a body, this is what we do. The masterpiece that our Creator has set in this frame is all there is to see. The body frames it for a while, without obscuring it in any way. Yet what our Creator has created needs no frame. What the Creator has created is supported and framed within the Creator. This masterpiece is offered us to see. Would you rather see the frame instead of this and not see the picture at all? It is our choice.

It does not matter what we have been seeing in the past or what we see now. We always have the opportunity to choose again. Choose to see the light of holiness within each other. We are all truly the light of the world. Whether or not we see that light is our choice. Make that choice again now.

August 27, 2019

Are you willing to see your own holiness? We must change our minds to begin to look at ourselves and others differently. Our perception is the means by which we see ourselves and each other and this world as long as we believe we are separate. Our perception is guided by what we believe we are at any given moment. When we believe ourselves to be a body, we see separation and a temporary world which ends ultimately in death. What is holy about this? We have denied our holy Creation in the image the One through holiness. Believing we are a body we deny our own holiness. How can we begin to recognize the Christ in us, or in another, when we deny our holiness?

Perception is a choice of what we want ourselves to be; the world we want to live in, and the state in which we think our mind will be content and satisfied. Perception chooses where we think our safety lies. It is our decision. It reveals who we believe we are to ourselves as we would have us be. It is always faithful to our perceived purpose, from which it never separates, nor gives the slightest witness to anything the perceived purpose in our mind does not support. Perception is a part of what it is our purpose to behold, for means and end are never separate. Thus we learn what seems to have a life apart has none.

You are the means for the One; not separate, nor with a life apart from the One’s. The One’s life is manifest in you who are It’s Creation. Each aspect of the Created is framed in holiness and perfect purity, in love celestial and so complete it wishes only that it may release all that it looks upon unto itself. Its radiance shines through each body that it looks upon, and brushes all its darkness into light merely by looking past it to the light. The veil is lifted through its gentleness, and nothing hides the face of Christ from its beholders. You and your friend stand before the Christ in you  now, to let the Christ in you draw aside the veil that seems to keep you separate and apart.   T-25.I.4:1-10

We have a purpose even in this world of perception and separation. Because we perceive ourselves as separate, Heaven is presented to us as the link to truth. We need to find the connection that lifts us out of our belief we are a body and moves us to seeing ourselves as holy – as one with our Creator. The Holy Spirit has been given to us to guide our perception in correction, guiding us gently back to the awareness of who we really are. The recognition of our wholeness, completeness and holiness is a change in perception that can be so great and unbelievable that Spirit guides us in doable steps. This is the gift we are offered. It is our choice to accept this gift as we are willing, but it is our return home. The Holy Spirit serves Christ’s purpose in our mind, so that the aim of specialness can be corrected where the misperception lies. It is the Holy Spirit’s function to teach us how this oneness is experienced, what we must do that it can be experienced, and where we should go to do it.

All this takes note of time and place as if they were discrete, for while you think that part of you is separate, the concept of a Oneness joined as One is meaningless. It is apparent that a mind so split could never be the Teacher of a Oneness which unites all things within Itself. And so What is within this mind, and does unite all things together, must be its Teacher. Yet must It use the language that this mind can understand, in the condition in which it thinks it is. And It must use all learning to transfer illusions to the truth, taking all false ideas of what you are, and leading you beyond them to the truth that is beyond them. All this can very simply be reduced to this:

What is the same can not be different, and what is one can not have separate parts.  T-25.I.7:1-7

The link to truth – Heaven on earth – is our link to the awareness of our Oneness – who we really are. We are guided in looking beyond the appearance of all things to the truth beyond. What lies there is our home. It is the home we never left, but blocked from our awareness by the belief we are a body, our belief that we were ever separate from reality. Choose to rejoin the awareness of Oneness, for this is the salvation we offer each other and ourselves. It is time to come together.

December 14, 2010

We are so ready and willing to go through hell in this life as we make our journey.  And we really work at it.  We put out the effort, we work hard to do what we think we need to do, and many times it feels like hell.  We’re really looking for heaven.  We’re looking for our purpose.  We’re looking for the road that is ours and that will lead us home.  But something’s off, something’s not right.  We seem to have missed something along the way.

Whether we know it or not, we are looking for our divinity.  We’re looking for our connection to God, the holy, and what is real in the highest sense of reality.  But we are working too hard.  We’re looking in all the wrong places.  We’re taking the journey that circles round and round, making the journey a journey.  What we have forgotten is that what we are looking for is already with us.  It’s deep within our true being.  It is the reality of who we are.  And we’ve been looking so hard for it everywhere outside of us where it is not.

Just for a moment, stop.  Spirit is waiting for us to just open up the door a little.  The realm of heaven on earth is right there within us. Our Divinity is there within the depths of our own being.  It’s shining brightly, beckoning us to let Spirit show us, speak to us, and shine through us.  It is our task to relax and let what is within us come out; let our true Oneness shine on all around us.  This is the path to the awareness of who we really are.  The journey need not be difficult, foe we have the wings of Spirit to carry us and we have the arms of God to hold us.  This is the Justice of God returned to Love.  And as we return to Love, we are in the Peace of God where we are home.

December 7, 2010

In this world we have a certain idea of what justice is.  We often say “justice has been served” when a wrong has been paid for, the perpetrator of the wrong has been punished, and the accused found guilty.  This is what the world generally calls justice.  Sometimes we also say justice has been served when a wrong has been made right.  Though we load this statement with a lot of baggage based of the previous thoughts, this concept is closer to the Course idea of justice.

The Course asks for no punishment, no guilt, and no payment for any wrong or mistake.  It only asks us to forgive, to change our perception and see more correctly.  It asks us to be wiling to see differently.  In many ways the Course’s idea of justice is closer to our world’s idea of Social Justice.  In most cases, social justice is the effort to raise the less fortunate close to some level of equality, whether it is access to housing, food on the table, fair employment, or equal rights in our society.

As we move through our lives, are we willing to forgive?  Are we willing to see each one we come into relationship with as God created them?  Are we willing to even see ourselves as God created us, as God sees us now?  Everything that has ever come into our lives is a place to start.  The Holy Spirit uses whatever we have where we are right now to help us make the shift to the awareness of who we really are and who all others we encounter really are.  Simply allowing ourselves to see with the eyes, hear with the ears, and think with the mind of Spirit is our step to understanding God’s justice and return to the awareness of Love deep within us and all around us.

We need not make this shift ourselves.  We are so attached to our habitual way of thinking and the ideas we have believed all our lives that to make this shift alone is nearly impossible.  Yet we are already there and don’t see it.  This is the paradox.  Spirit asks us only to be a little willing to allow Spirit to show us.  Spirit asks only a little faith, just enough to be a little open to its guidance.  Each time we allow that little bit of enlightenment, we shift into the holy instant and experience the fullness of who we really are.  And step by step we begin to see God’s justice, the return to the awareness where there is never a lack of love and no one must lose anything to have the full abundant love of God flowing from deep within each soul.  As the awareness of justice comes to us, we return to Love.

November 30, 2010

In God’s plan it is impossible for anyone to lose for any one to gain.  Losing and gaining cannot exist together.  For anyone to lose, God and God’s creation would have to be limited.  This is simply not true!  The rebirth of this realization, that no one can lose for one to gain, and that when one gains, all gain, is the rock of our salvation.  It is the return to sane thinking.  It is the realization that God is unlimited and not mad.  It is the return to the knowledge of who we really are.

So much of our lives, we have thought we must lose to gain.  We have thought that we must give up our identity to be in God’s Will.  What we don’t realize is that our own will is God’s Will and we have simply made up a will we think we want instead.  Even though our made up will leads us to separation and suffering, unhappiness and guilt, it is a will we have become accustomed to.  It is a will we have come to believe in.  And we think it has little or nothing to do with God.

But we are One with God, an extension of God and God’s creation.  To think anything else is an insane idea that is not based in any reality.  We know that when we do experience the love and peace of God we feel the presence and connectedness with God that is our true nature.

The rock of salvation is the return to sane thinking, to the thinking guided by Spirit, to the thinking that comes from the awareness of our union with God and each other.  Knowing we are One with God and each other is the basis for our sanity.  We gain in our Oneness with God and so do all gain in our Oneness with God.  We are united in Spirit, we have returned to the awareness of who we really are and have always been.  This is the state of Heaven on earth, our home in God.  Here do we dwell as we return to the awareness of who we really are, unlimited, unchangeable, abundant, and free.

November 23, 2010

God has provided each of us with a unique function in a form that is uniquely ours.  God could not leave us floundering in the insane world we have made with no plan for our salvation from it.  For God could never shut out any part of God’s creation.  Every creation is just as important as another and just as loved as another.  God’s love extends to each of us unconditionally in all its fullness.  So we cannot be separate from God’s love, only unaware of it if we so choose.

Each of us has a special function for each of us.  It is the special form in which we find the idea of God most believable and reachable, sensible and meaningful.  The form for each of us is suited to our special needs and to the time and place where we are at, whenever and wherever that is.  It is always in the moment we are in now, the present moment.  And it adjusts to the present moment we are in now.  Or it adjusts to another present moment we are in then.  It is uniquely ours, and is never quite the same as anyone else’s.

Each of our worlds is uniquely ours, only because we made it up out of the thoughts we had about each and every experience and what we chose to believe about all of them.  The world we see is each of ours and only each of ours because we believe what we have thought about it.  The world of another may seem very similar to ours, but each one’s world is never the same.  Therefore each of us needs a special plan to help us shift our perception to a more correct understanding of our world.  God through the Holy Spirit will use everything we have believed, done, and thought to help us see how what we have believed has limited us.  This is the path to our salvation, the opening of the awareness of who we really are.

God has appointed One to raise before us a saner world.  That One chooses a form that meets our mistaken perception and shows us another world in its place.  It is the same world, but seen differently through the eyes of Spirit, the Vision that we have always had but chose not to believe because we believed something else.  What we have lived and thought is seen in a new light.  We begin to see the light ad love of God in all of creation, the same as what we have always seen, but transformed in the light and eyes of God in a new understanding.  Our unique function is always at hand and ready for the moment we choose to let go of insanity and see sanity and the truth about who we really are.  What a beautiful sight it is as we step into the Light and the Oneness of who we really are.

November 16, 2010

I remember a hymn we used to sing when I was a child where the chorus said, “On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.” The sinking sand is like quicksand.  It looks solid, but when one steps on it, one begins sinking.  And the more one struggles, the deeper one sinks.  The quicksand is like the world of separation or illusion; it appears solid, but is not.  And the more we struggle in it, the deeper we immerse ourselves in it.  Yet we can also choose to stand on the solid rock; the real world that we experience in the awareness that we are One with the Christ Spirit.

The mistake we often make is looking for the rock in the world of illusion, separate from the One.  The rock is not a physical thing that we can see and touch, but an analogy for the Mind of God, Truth.  The Mind of God is constant, changeless, and never waivers from Truth, for there is nothing else.  Our perceived reality is built on what we think or believe we see.  When we see with the eyes of Spirit, and think with the Mind of God, we are placing our trust in the Mind of God, in Truth.  That becomes the foundation of our faith.

When we place our trust in separation and illusion, that becomes the foundation of our faith and quickly fails us.  The more we scramble around looking for something solid in illusion the deeper we sink into that illusion.  Yet, all is not lost.  At any time, in any place, in any circumstance, the Holy Spirit is there waiting for us to be ready to reach out and change our mind.  The Spirit within us has the power to transform the whole foundation on which we have based the world we see into something else.  It is merely a shift in perception, divinely guided, that transforms the world we see into one that has no contradiction and leads us to sanity, joy, and peace.  In a thought we leave behind the world of insanity and sin as we forgive and let go of our old way of thinking.

There is nothing to fear in this shift.  The resulting world we see is changeless, it is peaceful, and it is home.  Test everything you believe against the vision Spirit brings.  What is not love is meaningless, and so all that remains is love.  Look with gentle eyes past the insanity of separation and illusion to what is wholly true and see that you are One with God and all of creation.  Rest in the awareness of who you really are and experience the fullness of God’s Love in the forgiveness of the world.