March 26, 2013

This section addresses the authority problem.  We have misplaced authority in our perception of ourselves and others.  In reality there is only one Authority and nothing else.  God and God’s Children are Authority.  But we have lost sight of that concept for the time being.  Authority can be thought of as authorship. We have forgotten that God created us in God’s image and like God.  We have forgotten who authored us.  So we begin to author ourselves and make ourselves the author of our own lives.  The problem with this is that each of us is doing this on our own without consideration of each other.  Sure, we cooperate with some who are close to us who we choose to like and get along with, but we want to make our own world.  Then we hope that this world will please God and serve us well.

When each of us authors or makes our own reality, it is made to serve ourselves, not others.  This results in conflict.  Each one’s world is at odds with another’s world.  No one world meshes well with another unless we compromise and give something up to make peace with another.  We only do that out of necessity, and sometimes there is no way we are willing to compromise with some in our world.  So conflict is present in our lives.  Since we are really One with each other, and inseparable, these differing worlds we have authored must be conflicted in the world we think we see.  The “reality” we have made up is not reality at all.  It exists only in our perception.  We can do many things to attempt to resolve these issues, but only a shift in perception, a miracle, a change of thinking guided by Spirit will help us move closer to right perception which leads to understanding and the recognition of our true reality.

All this may sound complicated and difficult to achieve, but God has created a plan for us to make this shift.  Every shift in our thinking towards correct perception is guided by Spirit.  This is Spirit’s function in our minds.  Spirit bridges the gap between the Mind of God and our individual minds we see as separate from the Mind of God.  We need not do this ourselves.  In fact we cannot achieve this shift on our own.  We will make up another choice based on our individual learned perceptions.  Spirit knows and will guide us in the perfect size and content of each shift in thinking for each of us at any particular time and place.  These are the miracles for each of us.  Miracle after miracle lifts us out of misperception closer and closer to correct perception.  Higher thinking brings open-mindedness which opens our spiritual eyes wider and wider.  We see ourselves and each other as we truly are, Holy Creations of God, whole and One with God.  This awareness of who we really are is the gift that allows us to see the world correctly and understand the plan God has for each and all of us.  Let go of all that you believe is concretized in your mind and grant Spirit permission to gently disintegrate its seeming solidity.  Freedom from our mistaken authorship is waiting for us.

March 19, 2013

Judgment is a form of perception.  When we are using judgment we believe in a world of duality or separation.  We make each one’s degree of holiness or un-holiness real in our minds.  The truth is we are all equally holy as we are created by God.  There is no exception in reality.  But we who insist on holding on to judgment and perception as real will continue to be separated from all that Gad gives us.  Total peace, total joy, and total love come from total forgiveness, the change in our perception of ourselves and each other.  The miracle of total forgiveness is a shift in what we think about ourselves and each other.  Total forgiveness is recognizing that we are all as we are created by God, perfect, whole, and peaceful.

Our choice is between judging and knowing.  Judging results in a loss of our awareness of the peace within us.  Peace is still within us, but we don’t see it because we choose to judge ourselves and each other and find us all lacking.  We find ourselves lacking even though God has provided and given us all that is real.  Allowing Spirit to help guide our perception and judgment will shift our minds closer and closer to the thoughts of the Mind of God which our minds are a part of.  As we shift our thinking closer and closer to the Mind of God, we will experience a deeper and deeper sense of peace flowing from within us.  We will find a deeper understanding and know with ever more surety we are One with God.

It doesn’t matter whether we are judging right or wrong, good or bad.  If we are judging, we are perceiving from a state of separation and not from Sprit’s guidance.  Yes, we will still use some form of perception, but our proper use of perception is to let it be guided more and more by Spirit, bringing our minds further and further out of misperception and closer to reality and truth.  Meeting ourselves and each other totally without judgment brings a tremendous release and deep peace to our minds.  The suspension of judgment results in knowing.  This is the process that replaces perception with recognizing what we already know.

Since we have chosen to control our thoughts based on our own judgment, we have thus lost control over our awareness of who we are.  In seeming to take control of our lives over from Spirit, we have essentially given control of our mind and therefore our lives to forces separate from who we are, and thus not real.  We have seemingly usurped the natural order of reality and placed something else in it a place that is not true.  The result is misery of varying degrees.  Some don’t seem so bad, but others are worse.  None, though can come up to the standards of Spirits guidance which holds the recognition of who we really are out to us for us to reclaim.  When we wholeheartedly join with Spirit in the knowledge of who we really are we find the joy, peace and love that is and always has been ours.  Let Spirit guide us to this knowing today and rejoice that we finally recognize our holiness.

March 12, 2013

The text we are discussing this week addresses prayer.  Most of us have grown up with some idea of what prayer is.  The Course describes prayer as asking for something.  That’s not so different from the idea we grew up with.  But, asking for something implies that we lack something, and the Course has taught us we lack nothing at all.  Prayer is a part of perception.  And it has a use for us in our journey back to the awareness of who we really are.  Prayer is also the medium of miracles.  One caviat is that there is only one meaningful prayer and that is for forgiveness, because those who accept forgiveness have everything.

Being in a mind-set of separation requires perception.  Perception involves evaluation as we make judgments to decide what we will or will not believe.  Left to our habitual way of thinking, we will always evaluate the way we perceive anything based on separation.   Allowing Spirit to guide our evaluating as we perceive will shift our perception closer and closer to Truth and Knowledge.  Step by step Spirit, as we allow, guides our perception and moves us in shifts of perception we can manage.  We are moveing from a perception that we lack anything we need to the knowedge that we already have everything and lack nothing.  Once we realize we have and always have had all there really is, we have accepted forgiveness and no longer have any need to ask.

As long as perception is a part of the way we think, there is a need for prayer.  There is a need to seee differently.  There is nothing wrong or bad about perception.  It happens to be what we do in a state of separation.  And it has a purpose.  It can be used by Spirit to help us correct our perception, change the way we see in this world.  As our perception iscorrected we see the world we live in differently and we understand it in a more loving way.  We begin to see the peace, love, and joy of God that is always present in each and every one.  Our true reality is that we are the holy Thoughts of God, we are the Light of God.  That Light shines from within us.  We can never estinguish that light, but we can ignore or hide it.  Use the tool of prayer and perception to allow Sprit to guide you each and every moment.  It takes vigilance at first.  But after awhile it will become a part of your way of doing things and become a new healthier habit.  allow Spirit to work in you and experience the fullness of Spirit’s peace, love, and joy as it radiates from the light within you.

March 5, 2013

One of the critical lessons the Course teaches us is to understand perception.  Understanding perception gives us some understanding of how we think, how we think incorrectly, and how we change and correct the way we think.  We actually don’t have a clue that we are thinking and perceiving incorrectly.  And we are doing so most of the time.  We are so used to this practice that we don’t even realize we are misperceiving.  We think, act, perceive, and plan from a state of mind that believes we are separate and independent from all the rest of the world.  We believe that we lack something.  We believe that we are alone.  We believe our own actions are independent.  We believe we know the Mind of God, when we actually have separated ourselves from the Mind of God.

We are created by God and are extensions of God.  We are God-like and one with God.  We have in the essence of our being all that the Divine nature of God is.  We have the strength of God, the power of God, and the Mind of God.  But we have separated ourselves from the awareness of that reality and made up a separate “reality” of our own.  This attempt was an effort to make ourselves our own god and determine a world of our own making.  God created reality as one interconnected reality, unable to be changed from its true nature: holy, innocent, loving, and peaceful.  But we have made up a way of perceiving that makes things seem separate and limited.  When we make a perception that seems to fill a lack or need, we are making separation, thus adding to our perception of separation rather than eliminating it.

This continual reinforcement of the perception of separation blocks our minds from the awareness of who we really are.  Our true Self knows who we really are, but we have chosen to perceive something else of ourselves.  The knowledge of who we are is within us.  It has never leaft us, ror we are and have always been an inseparable part of God.  The Curse helps us to let go of the perceptions we have become so attached to in manageable steps moving ever closer to the correct perception of who we really are.  When we come close enough Spirit reconnects our awareness to what is already within us.  This awareness is no stranger to us.  Our true identity has always been within us, waiting for us to return to our awareness.  The peace of God fills our awareness and carries us on the tide of that incredible knowledge within us to Communication with God.

This is no stranger to us.  We’ve been here before.  We’ve seen glimpses of it all our lives.  We’ve felt that inner knowing and connection so many times in the course of our lives in this world.   We are returning to the awareness of our true Selves, who we really are.  Follow the guidance of Spirit.  We must learn to release out attachment to our separation perception.  Let Spirit guide the change in your perception.  Refrain from trying to do it on you own.  It was your own efforts that got you so far from the Truth about yourself.  Now is the time to let go and change your mind.  All you have to lose are your misperceptions.  What you will gain is the awareness of your wholeness and the truth of who you really are.  Let it be so.