November 28, 2017

What does the world you inhabit look like? How does it appear to you? Is it a world filled with light and love or is it filled with darkness and heaviness? Take a good look at what you think you see. Decide if this is where you really want to be. Perhaps the world you see appears as a dark bank of clouds, dense and forbidding, blocking out even the light of the sun from sight. The world we see appears substantial and permanent, impenetrable. Yet, its solidity and permanence has no substance – it is merely temporal, an illusion. The Course tells us this about the world we think we see:

Yet in this cloud bank it is easy to see a whole world rising. A solid mountain range, a lake, a city, all rise in your imagination, and from the clouds the messengers of your perception return to you, assuring you that it is there. Figures stand out and move about, actions seem real, and forms appear and shift from loveliness to the grotesque. And back and forth they go, as long as you would play the game of children’s make-believe. Yet however long you play it, and regardless of how much imagination you bring to it, you do not confuse it with the world below, nor seek to make it real.  T-18.IX.7:1-5

Deep beneath and beyond this world is another world free of the dark and heavy clouds appearing before us. We needn’t fret about these dark and dreary clouds before us. They have no substance except that which we give them by believing they are real. While we are engulfed in this world and all it seems to surround us with, there is another world, another reality that has never left us. It remains within us filled with love and light, waiting for us to tire of the darkness and heaviness and turn to our Guide to lead us into the awareness of its light ad love. Let your Guide teach you the dark cloud’s unsubstantial nature as your Guide leads you past them, for beyond them is a world of light whereupon they cast no shadows. Their shadows lie upon the world still further from the light. Yet from them to the light their shadows cannot fall.

This world of light, this circle of brightness is the real world, where guilt meets with forgiveness. Here the world outside is seen anew, without the shadow of guilt upon it. Here are you forgiven, for here you have forgiven everyone. Here is the new perception, where everything is bright and shining with innocence, washed in the waters of forgiveness, and cleansed of every evil thought you laid upon it. Here there is no attack upon the One Child of Oneness, and you are welcome. Here is your innocence, waiting to clothe you and protect you, and make you ready for the final step in the journey inward. Here are the dark and heavy garments of guilt laid by, and gently replaced by purity and love.   T-18.IX.9:1-7

You are ready to leave this dark world behind and step into the world of light. We step from the world of shadows into the light with our brothers and sisters.  It is when we allow our relationships to be healed or made whole through forgiveness – the messenger of love – that we find ourselves standing in the brilliant light of Oneness.  This is the holy instant in which we are united with each other and lifts us gently far above the darkness to the light of Oneness.  As we are lifted gently beyond the shadows, only what is untrue is removed and we are left with only bright and true perception.  This is our purpose now.  And peace awaits us here in this real world. Chose this world of Oneness and light and love now.

November 21, 2017

When we visited this section in a previous reading of the Course, I wrote the following in September of 2007:

“We have all experienced life in ways that seem like there are two totally different worlds.  One is heavy and full of challenges, seeming dark and lonely much of the time.  The other is light, fun and seemingly easy and effortless.  Each world seems to come and go with no rhyme or reason.  We seem to be at the mercy of something beyond our control.  But we have more control of which world we see than we may think we do.  We choose which world we see. The world that feels light, easy, and effortless is always present.  It is the world of our natural state.  The other world, the one that seems dark and challenging, is one that is made by the way we see it.  We have gotten used to seeing the world through the filters of our past experiences.  We experience life through the filter of the idea of separation; the idea that we are separate.  And so, we see and experience the events of our human existence through all these complex layers of experience.  It is like experiencing life from the other side of layers of veils, the veils of our perception, or looking at life through a fog bank.  Sometimes we can’t see anything at all through it.  Yet it is easy to walk through the fog bank or pull the veils aside and see correctly what is there.  It doesn’t matter what events are happening around us, when we begin to see without the filters, we see more clearly.  The Holy Spirit is waiting to help us, to be our guide.  All we need do is ask and let go of our attachment to our veils or filters.  Then we can see through God’s eyes and experience the peace, love and joy that is our natural state.  Nothing else has to change for us to see clearly.  Try it and see.  What have you got to lose?”

The filters and veils are the making of our egoic thought system. They are designed to distort the real world – the world that is Heaven and is our natural world, our home. We have blocked the real world out for so long that we have gotten accustomed to this dark and challenging world and accept it as real and inevitable without question. Are we really happy with that choice? I think we really want something better for ourselves and each other. Perhaps we are afraid that if we let go of the world we currently seem to see things will get worse. The question is, “Who and what do we believe we are?” Perhaps we believe we deserve the dark and challenging world. I say, “No!” We are created whole, complete and limitless. We have everything we need within our being to be the happy divine unified Child of God we truly are. No ifs, ands or buts about it. We are the One Divine Child of our Creator. And when we turn to that Source, we find ourselves complete and whole. This is waiting for us to wake up to. This is the world we are meant to see as we dwell there.

As we look at the world in which we seem to dwell, there seems to be a wall around it, keeping the bad out and what we have chosen to see in. We think it protects us, yet we still feel unsafe in our walled off world.  The previous section called this our little garden which we keep fenced off from the rest of the world. Do we really like this world that much? Are we realty thankful for this world? Perhaps we want something better.

This heavy-seeming barrier, this artificial floor that looks like rock, is like a bank of low dark clouds that seem to be a solid wall before the sun. Its impenetrable appearance is wholly an illusion. It gives way softly to the mountain tops that rise above it, and has no power at all to hold back anyone willing to climb above it and see the sun. It is not strong enough to stop a button’s fall, nor hold a feather. Nothing can rest upon it, for it is but an illusion of a foundation. Try but to touch it and it disappears; attempt to grasp it and your hands hold nothing.   T-18.IX.6:1-6

The dark world we seem to see has no substance. It appears to have substance only because we believe it has substance. Have we ever challenged or tested it? We don’t challenge it because we are afraid to. We are afraid that if it isn’t real there will be nothing there and we will fall into a never-ending void. The Course asks us to have even a tiny bit of willingness – perhaps the size of a mustard seed – to allow Spirit to guide us to a new, but ancient, understanding of our true Self in Oneness with each other. Together we discover the truth about who we really are and have always been and step into the light of the real world. Come and take another’s hand and walk into Oneness together and leave the little dark world to vanish into nothingness.

November 14, 20174

We are ultimately whole and complete, divine in nature and inseparable from Oneness. This cannot be changed. Nothing we think or believe can change the reality of our divine nature. Our world is Heaven, whole and complete as we are. We have chosen another thought.  We have chosen to believe that we can fence off a tiny little portion of our world and make it self-sustaining, independent of any other aspect of creation. We believe we can be completely separate from all others, not dependent and not responsible for any other aspect of creation we choose to wall out. Though we think and believe this gives us complete control in our lives, it actually limits us severely and denies much of who we really are. It, in fact, denies us of any meaningful happiness or peace as we have walled off much of our true identity from ourselves.

It is the tiny part of yourself, the little thought that seems split off and separate, the Holy Spirit needs. The rest is fully in the One’s keeping, and needs no guide.  This is the little part you think you stole from Heaven. Give it back to Heaven. Heaven has not lost it, but you have lost sight of Heaven. Let the Holy Spirit remove it from the withered realm in which you set it off, surrounded by darkness, guarded by attack and reinforced by hate. Within its barricades is still a tiny segment of your true Self, complete and holy, serene and unaware of what you think surrounds it.   T-18.IX.1:3-4, 6-10

We have completely identified ourselves with this walled off world we seek to protect from the world “out there.” This world we walled off is symbolized as our body. Just beneath this little world lies the circle of fear and guilt that appears to be the foundation of our whole world. The world appears to threaten us at every turn. This world’s shadow rises in our mind, casting all we perceive into darkness that may seem impenetrable so often. Its darkness is designed by our belief in this walled-off world to keep the light of our true Self hidden from our awareness. The body cannot see this, for the body rose from this belief for its protection, which depends on keeping our true Self hidden. The body’s eyes will never look on it. Yet they will see what it dictates.

The body will remain guilt’s messenger, and will act as it directs as long as you believe that guilt is real. For the reality of guilt is the illusion that seems to make it heavy and opaque, impenetrable, and a real foundation for the ego’s thought system. Its thinness and transparency are not apparent until you see the light behind it. And then you see it as a fragile veil before the light.   T-18.IX.5:1-4

This little world does not represent reality. Its purpose is to hide Heaven from us while we are smack dab in the middle of it. Is this not an illusion? We are dwelling in Heaven and Oneness, perfect love and perfect peace and we do not see it where it is all around us. Let’s come together and begin looking at the other world that is our real world. Look to the light within you behind the thin veil that surrounds your little world. Let’s let go of our belief in the little world we walled off and let the awareness of Heaven and Oneness that surrounds us rise in our minds. This is our home. This is our true Identity.

November 7, 2017

We are created whole, complete, limitless and divine. This is our true nature, our essence, our being. We cannot change this beautiful state of being no matter how hard we try. We may expend great effort trying to create a world of our own separate from others and even separate from the One who created us – separate from Oneness. We endeavor to achieve the impossible by making ourselves unaware of our true Self and the infinite power we are. But Reality knows who we really are. Like a loving parent, Oneness waits patiently allowing us the free will to explore our idea of independence – separation – until we realize that we can wake up from this insane dream of separation and again become conscious of the divine being in Oneness we truly are. We try to limit everything in an attempt to get more, and yet we deny ourselves the awareness of our joined beingness.

Like to the sun and ocean your Self continues, unmindful that this tiny part regards itself as you. It is not missing; it could not exist if it were separate, nor would the Whole be whole without it. It is not a separate realm, ruled by an idea of separation from the rest. Nor does a fence surround it, preventing it from joining with the rest, and keeping it apart from its Creator. This little aspect is no different from the whole, being continuous with it and at one with it. It leads no separate life, because its life is the oneness in which its being was created.   T-18.VIII.6:1-6

Do not accept this little fenced off aspect as who you are. It is not who you really are. It is, at best, a tiny little hint of who you are colored by many misperceptions that make you seem tiny – so limited. Do you really want to remain in this tiny garden? This tiny garden is not your realm. It offers you nothing you deserve. The fence you built around it only separates you from the awareness of the grandeur of Heaven all around you. You never left it, but you walled it off from your awareness.

Love knows no bodies, no fences, and reaches to everything created like itself. Its total lack of limit is its meaning. Love is completely impartial in its giving, encompassing only to preserve and keep complete what it would give. Should it not be in your tiny garden that you call on love to enter?  And, thus, realize the life and joy that love would bring to you from where it comes, and where it would return with you.

The Thought of the One surrounds your little realm, waiting at the barrier you built to come inside and shine upon the barren ground. See how life springs up everywhere! The desert becomes a garden, green and deep and quiet, offering rest to those who lost their way and wander in the dust. Give them a place of refuge, prepared by love for them where once a desert was. And everyone you welcome will bring love with them from Heaven for you. They enter one by one into this holy place, but they will not depart as they had come, alone. The love they brought with them will stay with them, as it will stay with you. And under its beneficence your little garden will expand, and reach out to everyone who thirsts for living water, but has grown too weary to go on alone.   T-18.VIII.9:1-8

We are not alone, nor have we ever been alone. We are One with all Creation. Oneness is our natural state. We cannot separate ourselves from Oneness. Let the fences fall around your little garden – the little world you have made separate – and rejoin in the awareness of the grandeur of Heaven in which we dwell even while we walk in this illusion of separation. Oneness – Unity – is our divine state of being. Choose to allow Oneness to rise in you and be all that you really are.

October 31, 2017

We began this journey by believing we are limited. Our belief in limited love was the idea of separation’s origin, and it was made to limit the unlimited. Think not that this is merely allegorical, for it was made by us to limit us. The manifestation of this belief in limitation is the body – the symbol of separation. The identification as our body is a constant reinforcement of our belief in separation. We also constantly reinforce the idea of separation by believing that anything worthwhile is outside of us. We have even given the idea of God a body similar to ours and placed it outside ourselves. Every thought and lesson we have learned during our lives has been perceived to support the idea that we are limited and separate. Is it possible to find something better?

While we limit our awareness to the limited senses of the body, we cannot be aware of the grandeur that surrounds us. The idea of limitless love cannot enter the body, nor can anything so grand enter the idea of a body which sees itself so small. We resist even seeing ourselves joined with our brothers and sisters, let alone being One in Oneness with all Creation. We often find ourselves lost in this grand and beautiful universe rather than sensing our own limitless connection with all of it.

The body is a tiny fence around a little part of a glorious and complete idea.  It draws a circle, infinitely small, around a very little segment of Heaven, splintered from the whole, proclaiming that within it is your realm, where the One can enter not.   T-18. VIII.2:5-6

We have become so focused on our “domain,” wanting to protect it from any outside influence. As a result, we have denied ourselves the unlimited love and peace that are ours.  Our true nature is within us, recognizable only when we look within and release our attachment to the world we have made – our past. In the awareness of our Oneness will we discover that we are really whole, that we are really complete, that we are love and peace in an unlimited world. In our little fenced garden we forget that the sun’s rays that shine on our little garden shine from the same sun that shines on all. We also forget that the rain that falls on our little plot falls from a greater source that falls on all. No matter how hard we try, we cannot limit our little world to any physical boundaries. Like the sunbeam and the rain, we cannot be separate from the whole. We are One with all of Creation. Even if we don’t believe or recognize our connection – our Oneness – we remain One, waiting to rise in our consciousness to the awareness of our limitless love and wholeness.

Such is the strange position in which those in a world inhabited by bodies seem to be. Each body seems to house a separate mind, a disconnected thought, living alone and in no way joined to the Thought by which it was created. Each tiny fragment seems to be self-contained, needing another for some things, but by no means totally dependent on its one Creator for everything; needing the whole to give it any meaning, for by itself it does mean nothing. Nor has it any life apart and by itself.   T-18. VIII.5:1-4

Today we can begin to allow ourselves to see ourselves differently, to allow ourselves to connect with the Oneness we are. Love, joy and peace will well up within us and we will begin to see our world in a different light. Isn’t this what we really want?

October 24, 2017

Our road to happiness is different than we envision. It does not require effort or great searching or doing. It is a road that brings the awareness of the happiness within us to our awareness. The road is one we take with another, the one with us at any given moment. Our relationships are the catalyst. When we allow ourselves to see another as the divine one they truly are, that relationship is healed – it becomes holy – and we find peace and light, and rest in that relationship.  There is nothing we need do but let our relationship be what it really is – a holy relationship. One instant spent together with another restores the universe to both of you. You are prepared. Now you need but to remember you need do nothing.

Here is the ultimate release which everyone will one day find in their own way, at their own time. You do not need this time. Time has been saved for you because you and another are together. This is the special means this course is using to save you time. You are not making use of the course if you insist on using means which have served others well, neglecting what was made for you. Save time for me by only this one preparation, and practice doing nothing else. “I need do nothing” is a statement of allegiance, a truly undivided loyalty. Believe it for just one instant, and you will accomplish more than is given to a century of contemplation, or of struggle against temptation.   T-18.VII.6:1-8

There is no need to suffer, and no need to grovel and beat ourselves up for anything. We simply allow Spirit to guide our thoughts to the awareness of who and what we really are. We allow ourselves to realize we are not this body we appear to be and thus allow this body to be used for the holy purpose Spirit gives it.

We who need do nothing have no need for time. To do nothing is to rest, and make a place within us where the activity of the body ceases to demand attention. Into this place Spirit comes, and abides. And Spirit will remain when we forget, and the body’s activities return to occupy our conscious mind. In this place will we always find light and peace waiting for us to remember that what we want is within us. It always has been and always will be. The Course assures us:

Yet there will always be this place of rest to which you can return. And you will be more aware of this quiet center of the storm than all its raging activity. This quiet center, in which you do nothing, will remain with you, giving you rest in the midst of every busy doing on which you are sent. For from this center will you be directed how to use the body sinlessly. It is this center, from which the body is absent, that will keep it so in your awareness of it.   T-18.VII.8:1-5

As we allow ourselves to be in this place of peaceful rest within us, the light within us will shine brightly for all who so wish to see. The light we are cannot be shuttered.  The peace we are cannot be denied.  It is as sure as our divine nature which cannot be hidden. Release your attachment to all you have placed in the way of your awareness of who you truly are and rest in the peace and light of Spirit’s presence within you. Only then will the whole world see you as you truly are and join you in the peace within all of us.

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.

October 10, 2017

Our true Identity is shared.  We share it with all creation.  We share it with each other, without exception.  When we take the hand of another – our brother, our sister – and reach beyond the appearance of our bodies to our shared Identity in Oneness.  We reach to Heaven beyond our bodies but not outside ourselves.  Our shared Identity is within us, but cannot be contained within the body.  For our Identity is limitless.  It knows no boundaries and extends in perfect peace and love to all creation.  We know this deep within us in that place of knowing wisdom.

Everyone has experienced what they would call a sense of being transported beyond themselves.  This feeling of liberation far exceeds the dream of freedom sometimes hoped for in special relationships.  It is a sense of actual escape from limitations.  If we will consider what this “transportation” really entails, we will realize that it is a sudden unawareness of the body, and a joining of ourselves and something else in which our mind enlarges to encompass it.  It becomes part of us, as we unite with it.  And both become whole, as neither is perceived as separate.  What really happens is that we have given up the illusion of a limited awareness, and lost our fear of union.  The love that instantly replaces it extends to what has freed us, and unites with it.  And while this lasts we are not uncertain of our Identity, and would not limit It.   We have escaped from fear to peace, asking no questions of reality, but merely accepting it.   We have accepted this instead of the body, and have let ourselves be one with something beyond it, simply by not letting our mind be limited by it.   T-18.VI.11:1-11

As we join with another we are transported in the holy instant to an awareness beyond the body.  We transcend into an awareness of our limitless freedom that can know no bounds.  We are no longer limited by our attachment to the past as we soar in perfect peace and love.  Time, space, differences in size or any physical attribute have no impact whatsoever on this transformation for it is a transformation to reality.  It is a transformation in our awareness of who we really are.    Time is not relevant; it can occur with something past, present or anticipated.  The “something” can be anything and anywhere; a sound, a sight, a thought, a memory, and even a general idea without specific reference.  Yet in every case, we join the holy instant without reservation because we love it, and would be with it.  And so we rush to meet it, letting our limits melt away, suspending all the “laws” our body obeys, gently setting them aside.  We even set aside our “need” to question whether this is even possible.

It is possible because you want it.  The sudden expansion of awareness that takes place with your desire for it is the irresistible appeal the holy instant holds.  It calls to you to be yourself, within its safe embrace.  There are the laws of limit lifted for you, to welcome you to openness of mind and freedom.  Come to this place of refuge, where you can be yourself in peace.  Not through destruction, not through a breaking out, but merely by a quiet melting in.  For peace will join you there, simply because you have been willing to let go the limits you have placed upon love, and joined it where it is and where it led you, in answer to its gentle call to be at peace.   T-18.VI.14:1-7

What more could we possibly want?  Could we want more than bliss?  All we need do is be willing to look beyond the appearance of the body – the symbol of separation and illusion – to the freedom that lies beyond where we accept the awareness of who we really are.  Answer the call to be in perfect love and peace now.  Allow yourself to be transported into the transcendence of the holy instant.  Choose now to let this be so.

October 3, 2017

We are not our bodies.  Our bodies are not the host of God – or the One.  We are One Mind, all of us and the One and inseparable.  Our belief that we are this body we made is the idea that stands between us and other minds.  Our minds are joined with all other minds, yet we do not identify with them.  We see ourselves locked in a separate prison, removed and unreachable, incapable of reaching out to others as being reached by others.  We hate this prison we have made, and would destroy it.  But we would not escape from it, leaving it unharmed, without our guilt on it.  We identify ourselves too closely with our body to see it for what it is.  Yet our so-called body has a higher purpose in our journey.  It can be used by Spirit as a learning device to help guide us back to the awareness of who we really are.

We are pure mind – nothing more and nothing less.  Our body is a limit imposed on the universal communication that is an eternal property of mind.  But the communication, though unlimited, is internal.  Mind reaches only to itself.  It is not made up of many different parts which reach out to each other.  Within itself it has no limits, and there is nothing outside it.  It encompasses everything.  It encompasses us entirely; us within it and it within us.  There is nothing else, anywhere, ever.  Mind is all there is and it is limitless, whole and complete.  Mind needs nothing more, ever.  Our belief that we are separate is the mistake in perception that made our body appear real to us and thus our identity of who we are.  Then we projected our life story, whatever the story is, on our body, thus replacing the One Mind as our identity.  This blocks us from the awareness of our true holy and divine essence that we are.  We cannot be separate, for it is impossible to put a barrier between ourselves and our Creator because our Creator did not place one there.

You can stretch out your hand and reach to Heaven.  You whose hand is joined with another’s have begun to reach beyond the body, but not outside yourself, to reach your shared Identity together.  Could this be outside you?  Where the One is not?  Is the One a body, and did the One create you as the One is not, and where the One cannot be?  You are surrounded only by the One – Oneness.  What limits can there be on you whom the One encompasses?   T-18.VI.10:1-7

We are Oneness.  There is nothing else but Oneness.  We are all Oneness as we join with each other and recognize that we all are the One Mind where communication is.  Once we decide we want to return to the awareness of who we really are and be the peace and love we are, Spirit will guide our minds in healing.  We need healing of nothing but our misperceptions of who we are and who our brothers and sisters are. As we allow Spirit to guide the healing of our thoughts, we join with each other in Oneness in the joy and peace and love that we truly are.  We look beyond the body to the reality of our divine Identity, and there is much rejoicing in Oneness.

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.