October 17, 2017
What do we need to do to feel the freedom of Spirit that we are? The Course tells us we need do nothing. How can this be? We believe that nothing good or worthwhile comes without great effort. We have been taught and thus come to believe that we must work for what we want. We want peace and love in our lives, so we believe we must expend a great deal of effort with our body and its mind to achieve such freedom. We identify so strongly with our body that we cannot envision anything that does not involve the body. We look to our body as our source of strength. And every plan we make involves the body’s comfort, protection or enjoyment in some way. We make the end result of anything we seek in the body – we make the body the end rather than the means. The Course teaches us that the body is not real. I interpret that as temporal or temporary. Though the body is temporal, it does have a purpose. It can either be used to reinforce our identity as separate or we can allow Spirit to use it to lead us to the awareness of who we really are.
At no single instant does the body exist at all. It is always remembered or anticipated, but never experienced just now. Only its past and future make it seem real. Time controls it entirely. It has no attraction now. Its whole attraction is imaginary, and therefore must be thought of in the past or in the future. The freedom of peace and love we seek are experienced only in the present moment – the now. The now needs no effort. Hence, we need do nothing.
It is impossible to accept the holy instant without reservation unless, just for an instant, you are willing to see no past or future. You cannot prepare for it without placing it in the future. Release is given you the instant you desire it. T-18.VII.4:1-3
We may choose to spend a lifetime in preparation, and achieve our instants of success. The Course does not attempt to teach more than what we may learn in time, but it does aim at saving time. It is extremely difficult to reach At-One-met by fighting against separation. Enormous effort is expended in a lifetime of contemplation and long periods of meditation aimed at detachment from the body. Yet this is not necessary. All such attempts will ultimately succeed because of their purpose. Yet the means are very time consuming, for all of them look to the future for release from a state of present unworthiness and inadequacy. Wouldn’t we rather have the freedom of peace and love right now? Know I do not belittle anyone’s choice of journey. We are free to choose our own journey.
Allowing Spirit to guide us in releasing our attachment to our past and future brings us into the holy instant. In that instant all awareness of our identification with the body falls away and we join with each other in the now – the present. Limitless freedom, peace and love fill our being as we reconnect with the awareness of who we really are in Oneness. In that instant we are whole, complete and limitless. All that really happens is that we release – we let go. We find ourselves in our center. It is this center, from which the body is absent, that will keep it so in our awareness of it. We need do nothing, simply allow it to be.
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