September 26, 2017

Our misperceptions about our identity is limiting us.  It is keeping us unaware of who we really are. Our belief that we are that identity blocks our awareness of our wholeness, completeness, limitlessness and divinity. So, we keep looking outside ourselves to separation and illusion for meaning in our so-called lives.  We have greatly misunderstood our identity and, as a result, the world.

There is nothing outside you.  That is what you must ultimately learn, for it is the realization that the Realm of Heaven is restored to you.  For the One created only this, and did not depart from it nor leave it separate from the One.  The Realm of Heaven is the dwelling place of the One Child of the One, who left not their Creator and dwells not apart from Oneness.  Heaven is not a place nor a condition.  It is merely an awareness of perfect Oneness, and the knowledge that there is nothing else; nothing outside this Oneness, and nothing else within.   T-18.VI.1:1-6

Heaven, our home, is simply an awareness of perfect Oneness and a knowing through that Oneness that there is nothing else.  All else is nothing more than misperception. The world we think we see has no consequence other than to lead us to the awareness of Oneness. We cannot realize Oneness through getting or seeking but through releasing, accepting and allowing. The belief that we must seek something else, outside of us, has cost us dearly. It has cost us our awareness of Heaven and our Identity. In this mistake, we have done ourselves a great disservice by displacing our mind to our body, thus deceiving ourselves that we are a body rather than mind.  We deny ourselves the awareness of Oneness in this way for bodies cannot join where minds can and do join. Then by assigning the properties of the body – separation – to the mind do we make the mind seem separate from all other minds.

The Course asks us many times to look beyond the appearance of things to what is real. Could we, just, for a moment, entertain the idea of looking beyond the appearance of our body that we have identified as and be willing to see our identity as Oneness? Perhaps we would allow Spirit to bring us into the holy instant that brings the awareness of Oneness to our experience. This brings us the awareness of our identity, even if just for a moment. We may return to our belief that we are a body time after time, but we remember that we are more than that body.  We remember that we can allow ourselves to let go of our misperceptions at any moment and allow Spirit to bring our minds into the awareness of who we really are. Take a moment and look within to the limitless mind we are joined with all Creation and step into the awareness of Oneness. This is what we have been seeking unsuccessfully outside ourselves. Allow yourself to look within and find what you’ve had all along.

September 19, 2017

Ask yourself if the world you see is the world you want.  What do you think about the world around you?  How do you perceive it?  Is there a sense of love and peace, even joy within your mind as you gaze upon the world?  Or, does the way you see the world fill you with fear, anxiety, guilt or even hatred?  What we feel when we gaze upon the world gives us a clue to the condition of our thinking at any moment.  We are either thinking with our One Mind, rooted in Oneness and our Source, or we are thinking with our egoic mind, rooted in our belief in separation.  We can choose to be in the freedom and abundance of Oneness or the captivity and limitation of separation.  Perhaps we even feel “safe” as we perceive in separation.

Yet, even so, we do not know real safety and freedom from the perspective of separation and the egoic thought system.  This is what the Course calls our waking dream.  The dream full of uncertainty we call our human life and the world we seem to live in.  Perhaps we would prefer a happier dream?  The holy instant can bring us to just that happy dream.

Never approach the holy instant after you have tried to remove all fear and hatred from your mind.  That is its function.  Never attempt to overlook your guilt before you ask the Holy Spirit’s help.  That is Spirit’s function.  Your part is only to offer Spirit a little willingness to let Spirit remove all fear and hatred, and to be forgiven.  On your little faith, joined with Spirit’s understanding, Spirit will build your part in the At-One-mint and make sure that you fulfill it easily.  And with Spirit, you will build a ladder planted in the solid rock of faith, and rising even to Heaven.  Nor will you use it to ascend to Heaven alone.   T-18. V.2:1-8

Heaven on earth is ours for the asking, for even a little willingness.  No great effort is needed.  Great effort does nothing but get in the way.  Letting go, releasing our minds, even getting out of the way is the little we need do to allow Spirit to raise our awareness in the holy instant to the freedom of our natural state of being.  Wholeness, completeness, freedom, love and peace are all the conditions of our natural being, our divine essence in Oneness.  We do not awaken to this alone, but hand in hand with each other and Spirit, recognizing we are all One.  As we walk in Heaven, even as we are still in this world, we walk in this happy dream guided by Spirit, our Higher Holy Spirit Self.  We walk with Love in our hearts and minds remembering the divine beings we are.

Our holy relationship is reborn and blessed in every holy instant we do not arrange and thousands will rise to Heaven with us as we allow our relationship to be transformed by Spirit in that holy instant.  We need do nothing more than release that iron grip we hold on our perceptions to soar into the freedom of the holy instant and the awareness of who we really are.

It is no dream to love another as yourself.  Nor is your holy relationship a dream.  All that remains of dreams within it is that it is still a special relationship.  Yet it is very useful to the Holy Spirit, Who has a special function here.  It will become the happy dream through which Spirit can spread joy to thousands on thousands who believe that love is fear, not happiness.  Let Spirit fulfill the function that Spirit gave to your relationship by accepting it for you, and nothing will be wanting that would make of it what Spirit would have it be.   T-18.V.5:1-6

If at any time your holy relationship seems to be threatened, remember how deep your indebtedness is to the other and how much gratitude is due the other, and be glad that you can pay your debt by bringing happiness to both of you.  Remember this, and say:

I desire this holy instant for myself, that I may share it with another, whom I love.

It is not possible that I offer to the Holy Spirit, that Its blessing may descend on us, and keep us both in peace.   T-18.V.7:3-6can have it without them, or they without me.

Yet it is wholly possible for us to share it now.

And so I choose this instant as the one to offer to the Holy Spirit, that Its blessing may descend on us, and keep us both in peace.   T-18.V.7:3-6

Relax and be willing, even just a little willing, to transform your special relationship into the holy relationship it is in the holy instant.  As we do so we allow ourselves to step into the awareness of our divine nature in Oneness with all of Creation.  Let this be so now.

September 12, 2017

We have programmed ourselves to prepare, prepare, prepare.  To seek some more and prepare again.  We think we need to make ourselves worthy of what the One has to offer us.  We believe that the One will not even look at us until we are thoroughly cleansed and purged of all “sin”.  Even while we are seeking and preparing and cleansing ourselves, we fail to see and understand that we are already what we seek to be, let alone worthy of it.  We are created by the One in Their image and one with Them.  It is impossible for us to be anything other than the One who creates us.  Yet we firmly believe we are something outside and separate from the One.  Our problem is merely a problem of awareness of Self.

Rather than seek to prepare yourself for the One, try to think thus:

“I who am host to the One am worthy of Them.

The One Who established Their dwelling place in me created it as They would have it be.

It is not needful that I make it ready for Them, but only that I do not interfere with Their plan to restore to me my own awareness of my readiness, which is eternal.

I need add nothing to Their plan.

But to receive it, I must be willing not to substitute my own in place of it.”

T-18.IV.5:8-13

To think we need to prepare ourselves for what we already are must be insane.  It certainly makes a lot of unnecessary work that does nothing but run us in circles around who we really are.  We are eternally what we seek to be.  We are as the One creates us and nothing less.  The idea we are anything less is surely insanity.  Relax and look within to the Higher Holy Spirit Self we truly are.

And that is all. Add nothing more.  Add more, and we will merely take away the little that is asked of us.  We are worthy.  Our fear of being worthy is one of the greatest blocks we have made to the awareness of who we really are.  Let go of that fear, for it does not serve us.  In fact, let go of everything, all doubts, fear, and guilt.  None of that serves us one bit.  It is our choice to let go of all that blocks us from the awareness of who we really are.  It is only fear that we will add, if we prepare ourselves for love.  The preparation for the holy instant belongs to the One Who gives it.  It is this that makes the holy instant so easy and so natural.

Forget not that it has been your decision to make everything that is natural and easy for you impossible.  If you believe the holy instant is difficult for you, it is because you have become the arbiter of what is possible, and remain unwilling to give place to One Who knows.  The whole belief in orders of difficulty in miracles is centered on this.  Everything the One wills is not only possible, but has already happened.  And that is why the past has gone.  It never happened in reality.  Only in your mind, which thought it did, is its undoing needful.   T-18.IV.8:1-7

The holy instant is our natural state of being.  Let yourself rest into the holy instant and recognize the real you in that moment.  It is always there within us, even when we fall out of awareness and forget who we really are.  Let the desire to prepare yourself for something you already are be the reminder that you already are what you think you need to prepare yourself to be.  In essence, just be.  Be the You you are.

September 5, 2017

Ease up!  Stop trying so hard.  Little effort is required.  The Course tells us again and again that we are expending way too much effort in achieving our desire.  The Course teaches us that we need only set our desire for wholeness and healing and Spirit will lead us from there.

The holy instant is the result of your determination to be holy.  It is the answer.  The desire and the willingness to let it come precede its coming.  You prepare your mind for it only to the extent of recognizing that you want it above all else.  It is not necessary that you do more; indeed, it is necessary that you realize that you cannot do more.  Do not attempt to give the Holy Spirit what It does not ask, or you will add the ego to Spirit and confuse the two.  Spirit asks but little.  It is Spirit Who adds the greatness and the might.  Spirit joins with you to make the holy instant far greater than you can understand.  It is your realization that you need do so little that enables Spirit to give so much.   T-18.IV.1:1-10

We want to make this complicated.  We have grown to believe that anything worthwhile must be worked hard for.  This is simply untrue – it is an egoic belief that is wholly mistaken.  We are what we desire to be, yet we have blocked the awareness of who we are from our awareness.  Spirit’s purpose is to gently awaken us to the awareness of who we really are.  We have the best of intentions.  We want the best for ourselves.  Yet we try to accomplish this for ourselves.  We attempt to do it alone without the benefit of Spirit.  What happens then is that our egoic thought system gets involved and twists the whole attempt to distract us from our goal.  Spirit asks us for just a little willingness, a little willingness to rely on Spirit’s guidance.  Trust your little willingness implicitly.  Do not be distracted by the shadows that seem to appear along the way.  The shadows are an egoic device to distract you from your goal which is so close.  Spirit guides us to the holy instant.  The miracle of the holy instant lies in our willingness to allow it to be what it is.  It needs no embellishment, nor any bells and whistles.  In our willingness lies our acceptance of ourselves as we are meant to be.  Oneness.

Our barrier to our awareness is our belief that we are unworthy of such Oneness.  We have convinced ourselves that we are unworthy of anything so wonderful.  We feel ourselves unworthy of the Great Rays of light that emanate from us in the holy instant and so are afraid.  Fear has no place in our wholeness.  Our wholeness is limitless.  The only thing lacking is our awareness of our true nature and our trust in who we really are.  In the awareness of our Oneness we are never alone and we never do anything alone.  Our minds are all joined with the Mind of Source as One Mind.  This One Mind is all powerful and nothing can prevail against it.  We are this limitlessness.  And it comes to us in this holy instant.

The holy instant does not come from your little willingness alone.  It is always the result of your small willingness combined with the unlimited power of Source’s Will.  You have been wrong in thinking that it is needful to prepare yourself for Source.  It is impossible to make arrogant preparations for holiness, and not believe that it is up to you to establish the conditions for peace.  Source has established them.  They do not wait upon your willingness for what they are.  Your willingness is needed only to make it possible to teach you what they are.  If you maintain you are unworthy of learning this, you are interfering with the lesson by believing that you must make the learner different.  You did not make the learner, nor can you make them different.  Would you first make a miracle yourself, and then expect one to be made for you?   T-18.IV.4:1-10

Wait not one more moment.  Lay aside all feelings of unworthiness and allow the holy instant to rise within you.  Allow the awareness of worthiness and limitlessness to rise in your mind.  As you do, peace and love will rise also, bringing you to the awareness of the Great Rays that shine around and within you to all the world.  Rest in the light you are.  It is worth your little willingness.