July 19, 2016

We are always One. We are indivisible. We are One with our Creator, God, the One, and we are One with each other. Nothing can ever change this. If we don’t know this about ourselves, we have simply blocked our awareness of our Oneness with a belief that we are separate. This mistaken belief cannot harm us, but it can make our life in this world seem miserable. This mistaken belief also blocks our awareness of the deep peace and understanding within us. The Course tells us:

We – our true Self – will always be indivisible. As we are held as one in Oneness, so do we learn as one in our Creator. The One’s Teacher is as like to the Creator as is the One Child – Us, and through the Teacher does the One proclaim the Teacher’s Oneness and Ours. Listen in silence, and do not raise your voice against the Teacher’s. For the Teacher teaches the miracle of oneness, and before the Teacher’s lesson division disappears. Teach like the Teacher here, and you will remember that you have always created like your Creator. The miracle of creation has never ceased, having the holy stamp of immortality upon it. This is the Will of the One for all creation, and all creation joins in willing this.   T-14.XI.11.1-8

Those who remember always that they know nothing in separation, and have become willing to learn everything, will learn everything. But those that remain believing in separation will not learn. We have convinced ourselves, believing we are separate, that we know through our past perceptions rooted in separation. Release your mind from your past and come with an open receptive mind to Spirit, the Teacher, until you pass the test of perfect peace, for peace and understanding go together and can never be found alone. Recall the test of peace from paragraph 5 of this section:

If you are wholly free of fear of any kind, and if all those who meet or even think of you share in your perfect peace, then you can be sure that you have learned the One’s lesson, and not your own.

Let go of fear. What fear? Any and all fear. Release all you hold as true so that the Teacher may undo all that is mistaken and leave remaining all that we have created that is of Oneness. We needn’t fear we will lose anything for what is real and true and holy will remain while what is mistaken will fade from our mind as the illusion it is. In this perfect peace will we find that our creations are much more in our right healed mind than they ever seemed in our separated mind. Allow the Teacher – Spirit – to undo our misperceptions and see perfect peace and understanding rise in our One Mind.

If you want peace you must abandon the teacher of attack. The Teacher of peace will never abandon you. You can desert the Teacher of peace but that Teacher will never reciprocate, for your Teacher’s faith in you is your Teacher’s understanding. It is as firm as is your Teacher’s faith in the Creator, and your Teacher knows that faith in the Creator must encompass faith in all creation. In this consistency lies the Teacher’s Holiness which the Teacher cannot abandon, for it is not the Teacher’s Will to do so. 6 With your perfection ever in your Teacher’s sight, your Teacher gives the gift of peace to everyone who perceives the need for peace, and who would have it. Make way for peace, and it will come. For understanding is in you, and from it peace must come.   T-14.XI.14.1-8

The power of our Oneness is within us. It remains hidden as long as we harbor any hidden thoughts of separation. Each miracle of forgiveness lets go of another block to our awareness of who we really are. Release all the attachments held so dear about our past experiences and what we think they mean. Do not fear the miracle of freedom each transcendence brings. Leave room for your Teacher, and you will find yourself so filled with power that nothing will prevail against your peace. And this will be the test by which you recognize that you have understood. Release yourself from the limitations of separation and find perfect peace and understanding right where it’s always been – within you. Peace be unto you.

July 12, 2016

Last week we discussed the test of Truth:

You have one test, as sure as the One, by which to recognize if what you learned is true. If you are wholly free of fear of any kind, and if all those who meet or even think of you share in your perfect peace, then you can be sure that you have learned the One’s lesson, and not your own.   T-14.XI.5.1-2

Freedom from fear and freedom from the perception of fear. Sharing in perfect peace. These are the indications of our awareness of our Oneness – who we really are. It is possible while we remain in this world. However, we don’t do it alone. It is shared will all of Oneness we all are. Our willingness to release our attachment to all past experiences is the key to our transcendence. Our problem that needs solving is that we rely on the lessons we learned in separation to join in Oneness. Separation has no role in Oneness for it is contradictory to Oneness.

When our peace seems threatened, the Course offers us a prayer to help us turn our minds from its attachment to the lessons we have taught ourselves from our past experiences.

I do not know what anything, including this, means. And so I do not know how to respond to it. And I will not use my own past learning as the light to guide me now.   T-14.XI.6.7-9

We must look to the Guide within us – our Higher Holy Spirit Self – that knows our true Self and the truth about who we really are. We have never lost who we are, just ignored our true Self within us as we tried to make sense of our past experiences on our own without benefit of true Vision. Thus have we separated ourselves from the awareness of our perfect peace also within us.

We have a Teacher within us waiting for us to allow ourselves to be taught and guided. This Teacher, whether we call it Teacher, Spirit or our Higher Self, is within our Divine Self. It is Oneness. It is the Unity of all that is. It is eternal where all else is temporary and illusion. As we allow this Divine essence within us to guide us, our eyes are opened to the reality of who we are and our perception of the world is reinterpreted for us. We begin to understand that peace lies within us. We begin to understand that love and compassion are within the core of our being. All else fades away in the light of the truth within us. This is our salvation. This is the remembrance of who we really are and our return to the awareness of who we really are.

The Guide Who has freed you from the past would teach you are free of it. The Guide would but have you accept Its accomplishments as yours, because It did them for you. And because It did, they are yours. The Guide has made you free of what you made. 5 You can deny Him, but you cannot call on Him in vain. Thank the One that this Guide is there and works through you. And all Its works are yours. This Guide offers you a miracle with every one you let be done through you.  T-14.XI.10.1-5, 8-10

Release your mind from the lessons you have made. Freedom lies in the awareness of who you really are. Perfect peace and love are within you waiting to rise to your awareness. Step aside and allow the Divine essence within you to rise and overflow. There is a never-ending supply that will reach all of creation as we allow our self-taught lessons to be undone. The One transcends the seeming limitations of our self-taught lessons and teaches us Truth. Let it be done.

July 5, 2016

The truth is that we are powerful. Yet because we have tried to keep power for ourselves we have “lost” it. We have denied the truth about who we really are and thus limited everything about ourselves. We interposed so much between our power and our awareness of it that we cannot use it. All that we have taught ourselves through our egouc thought system – the belief we are separate – have caused who we really are to become more and more obscure to us. We have made a semblance of power and a show of strength so pitiful that it can only fail us. Yet, all that stands between us and the power of the One within us is our learning the false and our attempts to undo what is true about us.

Be willing, then, for all of it to be undone, and be glad that you are not bound to it forever. For you have taught yourself how to imprison the One Self, a lesson so unthinkable that only the insane, in deepest sleep, could even dream of it. Can the One learn how not to be the One? And can You, given all power by the One, learn to be powerless? What have you taught yourself that you can possibly prefer to keep, in place of what you have and what you are?   T-14.XI.2.1-5

Surrender all, then, to Spirit who will strip away the false notions we have attached our minds to and correct our seeing – our perception – opening our minds to the awareness of who we really are and the truth within us. At-One-ment teaches us everything we need to escape forever from the limitation of everything we have ever learned in the past by showing us only what we truly are now. The past disappears in the light of truth whenever we allow our eyes to be opened. Let everything go. Do not even try to attempt to choose or judge what is true or false. Release it all to the light of Spirit. Truth is revealed in light and all that is false fades to nothing. But be sure to bring it all to the light. What we hide from the light will continue to limit us. Complete release of darkness is necessary to the disappearance of all darkness. This lesson shines with the One’s glory, for in it lies true power which the One gladly shares with us.

You have one test, as sure as the One, by which to recognize if what you learned is true. If you are wholly free of fear of any kind, and if all those who meet or even think of you share in your perfect peace, then you can be sure that you have learned the One’s lesson, and not your own. Unless all this is true, there are dark lessons in your mind that hurt and hinder you, and everyone around you. The absence of perfect peace means but one thing: You think you do not will for each other what their Creator wills for them. Every dark lesson teaches this, in one form or another. And each bright lesson with which the Holy Spirit will replace the dark ones you do not accept, teaches you that you will with the One and Oneness.   T-14.XI.5.1-6

Release all to Spirit so all darkness may vanish from your minds. Leave no dark corner of your mind hidden for there is no darkness at all. Allow perfect peace to fill your mind. Allow it to banish any false ideas from you mind. Be wholly free of fear and know you have recognized the truth about who you really are. Step into this awareness and remember your true One Self.