July 11, 2017

What do you believe about your relationships?  What do you value them for?  How do you honor those who you have a relationship with?  Do you see the real goal of your relationships clearly?  There are a lot of ideas we have about our relationships.  Do we see those ideas clearly and do they honor the purpose and goal of relationships?  Maybe it’s time we really look at our relationships with the guidance of Spirit by looking deep into our thoughts and goals for our relationships.

We begin relationships for a wide variety of reasons.  Some are expected of us, such as familial relationships; parents, siblings, etc.  Others we begin for other reasons.  We are looking for someone to make us feel wanted, loved, happy, valued, important, secure, safe and/or loved. All of these reasons are goals we project on our relationships.  And when we don’t feel they provide us with all these reasons, we blame them for failing to fulfil our goals for these relationships.  Have we stopped and really thought about what we really want from our relationships?  The Course teaches us to set the goals or reasons for our relationships with the guidance of Spirit.  Spirit and guidance are always found within us when we allow our minds to be quiet and listen for that guidance.  Our relationships are the vehicles for learning the lessons we need to learn about who we really are and what our purpose is in this world of form.

Every situation in which we find ourselves – every situation is a relationship – is an opportunity for us to step into a healing of our mind.  We have misinterpreted this world and everything in it as we reinforced our belief that we are separate. We really believe we are separate from, not only the One, but each other.  We have lost sight of the fact that we are all One in Oneness and eternity because we believe the opposite.  We cannot believe we are One and separate at the same time.  We have brought everyone we have a relationship into our lives for a purpose.  Not one of them is accidental.  They will either support our belief that we are separate or support our belief in the Oneness of all creation.  We have created every one of our relationships and situations in our lives and what we see as their purpose or goal.  Where do we place our faith in each of our situations and relationships?  Do we place our faith in truth or illusion?

Enter each situation with the faith you give another, or you are faithless to your own relationship.  Your faith will call the others to share your purpose, as the same purpose called forth the faith in you.  And you will see the means you once employed to lead you to illusions transformed to means for truth.  Truth calls for faith, and faith makes room for truth.  When the Holy Spirit changed the purpose of your relationship by exchanging yours for Spirit’s, the goal Spirit placed there was extended to every situation in which you enter, or will ever enter.  And every situation was thus made free of the past, which would have made it purposeless.   T-17.VII.9:1-6

Call for faith in the wholeness of every situation and relationship because of the One who walks with us always.  We are no longer wholly insane, nor alone.  Loneliness is impossible when we walk in Oneness.  We whose relationship shares Spirit’s goal are set apart from loneliness because the truth has come.  Its call for faith is strong and calls us to peace.  Have faith that every situation and relationship we enter in is, at its core, divine.  Set the purpose of every relationship to reflect its divine purpose.  Let the truth of its divine peace and love shine from within your divine being as Spirit guides our minds in their healing.  Have just a little faith that this is so and see where Spirit takes your mind.  This allows the presence of Heaven to rise within you.

June 27, 2017

We have been talking about the necessity of faith in this chapter.  What is faith?  I’m sure we all have different ideas about what faith actually is.  These ideas  come from our past.  We have formed this idea of faith, sometimes pleasant, sometimes not so pleasant.  I believe the Course is asking us to have faith that we really are whole and complete deep beneath the perception we have of ourselves.  It asks us to have faith that Spirit will guide us in the situations in which we find ourselves in this world.  The Course asks us to have even just a little faith that our problems and the solutions to our problems are simply one problem requiring one solution even as it presents in a myriad of forms until we understand what Spirit is teaching us.

There is no problem in any situation that faith will not solve.  There is no shift in any aspect of the problem but will make solution impossible.  For if you shift part of the problem elsewhere the meaning of the problem must be lost, and the solution to the problem is inherent in its meaning.  Is it not possible that all your problems have been solved, but you have removed yourself from the solution?  Yet faith must be where something has been done, and where you see it done.   T-17.VII.2:1-5

We get so involved in the minutia of our situations that we lose sight of the big picture and what is important.  The details of the situation distract us from the basic problem, that we have aligned ourselves with our egoic thought system which perpetrates separation rather than Oneness.  There is no meaning in separation while there is all meaning and great value in joining and Oneness.  We lose sight of the fact that we are really One with each other and therefore can’t be separate.  Our problems arise from our attempts to see ourselves as separate from each other.

A situation is simply a relationship, being the joining of thoughts.  If problems are perceived, it is because the thoughts are judged to be in conflict.  But if the goal is truth, this is impossible.  We will make this error, but do not be concerned with that.  The error does not matter. What matters is that faithlessness brought to faith will never interfere with truth.  But faithlessness used against truth will always destroy faith.  If we lack faith, we must ask that faith be restored where it was lost, and seek not to have faith made up to us elsewhere, as if we had been unjustly deprived of it.  Faith is faith in truth – that truth is and that Spirit reveals truth to us in this world.

Every situation in which you find yourself is but a means to meet the purpose set for your relationship.  See it as something else and you are faithless.  Use not your faithlessness.  Let it enter and look upon it calmly, but do not use it.  Faithlessness is the servant of illusion, and wholly faithful to its master.  Use it, and it will carry you straight to illusions.  Be tempted not by what it offers you.  It interferes, not with the goal, but with the value of the goal to you.  Accept not the illusion of peace it offers, but look upon its offering and recognize it is illusion.   T-17.VII.5:1-9

Allow every situation, no matter its form, to seek truth in its purpose.  Allow each situation – relationship – to be a reflection of our true nature.  Allow the holy light and love of our divine nature to shine forth as we allow each relationship to be healed by Spirit.  Have faith that Spirit’s promise will rise from within us and answer the call for faith.  We will find ourselves rejoicing in the joy that fills our being as we reconnect with the Oneness our relationships are meant to reflect.  Lighten up and let the light and love we all are in Oneness shine brightly from within.  This is what we all really seek.

June 20, 2017

We have been discussing relationships in this chapter.  The change we are making is allowing the transformation of our relationships from “special”, or unholy, to holy. We begin our healing by deciding to change the purpose of our relationships as guided by Spirit; our Higher Holy Spirit Self.  We change the purpose of our relationships from division and separation to joining, unity and Oneness.  Once we have made this choice with Spirit, it is irreversible yet it causes discomfort and challenges as we learn to change our perception about the relationship.  Each relationship we experience on this journey is a lesson toward total healing.  Be patient, for we have setbacks and challenges as we make progress on this journey back to the awareness of who we really are.

We start by setting the goal.

The practical application of the Holy Spirit’s purpose is extremely simple, but it is unequivocal.  In fact, in order to be simple it must be unequivocal.  The simple is merely what is easily understood, and for this it is apparent that it must be clear.  The setting of the Holy Spirit’s goal is general.  Now Spirit will work with you to make it specific, for application is specific.  There are certain very specific guidelines Spirit provides for any situation, but remember that you do not yet realize their universal application.  Therefore, it is essential at this point to use them in each situation separately, until you can more safely look beyond each situation, in an understanding far broader than you now possess.   T-17.VI.1:1-7

The most important thing to remember is to join with Spirit in setting the goal.  There is only one goal, yet Spirit will help us understand the application of this goal in the right forms for us to successfully learn in each situation on our journey.  Every situation and relationship we encounter is a potential opportunity to learn and heal.  Have faith that Spirit will guide you correctly in the lessons you need to learn.

In any situation in which we are uncertain, the first thing to consider, very simply, is “What do I want to come of this?  What is it for?”  The clarification of the goal belongs at the beginning, for it is this which will determine the outcome.  Without a clear-cut, positive goal, set at the outset, the situation just seems to happen, and makes no sense until it has already happened.  Then we look back at it, and try to piece together what it must have meant.  And we will be wrong.  Not only is our judgment in the past, but we have no idea what should happen.  No goal was set with which to bring the means in line with the goal.  The value of setting the goal in partnership with Spirit at the outset is that we will perceive the situation as a means to make the goal happen.  This partnership will help us overlook the interferences that seem to come between us and the lesson we need to learn through the healing of this relationship.  If we use the situation for truth and sanity, the outcome will be peace.  Where peace is, truth and sanity must also be.

The goal of truth requires faith.  Faith is implicit in the acceptance of the Holy Spirit’s purpose, and this faith is all-inclusive.  Where the goal of truth is set, there faith must be.  The Holy Spirit sees the situation as a whole.  The goal establishes the fact that everyone involved in it will play their part in its accomplishment.  This is inevitable.  No one will fail in anything.  This seems to ask for faith beyond you, and beyond what you can give.  Yet this is so only from the viewpoint of the ego, for the ego believes in “solving” conflict through fragmentation, and does not perceive the situation as a whole.  Therefore, it seeks to split off segments of the situation and deal with them separately, for it has faith in separation and not in wholeness.   T-17.VI.6:1-10

Resist the temptation to fragment any part of the situation as irrelevant to the lesson and the goal.  Have faith that Spirit will guide us in all the lesson.  Once we fragment the situation, we limit the goal and therefore the teaching and the peace we might realize.  Give yourself completely to the guidance of Spirit in each situation.  The goal we set was to learn completely.  Yet, if we make a mistake in one lesson, there will always be another opportunity to learn the complete lesson.  Just set the goal again with Spirit and trust Spirit to teach you well.  The outcome of living in the presence of truth and sanity is peace.  Spirit will guide us there gently and completely once we decide to partner with the Higher Holy Spirit Self in all things.  Choose this partnership and return to the awareness of who you really are in peace, love and Oneness.

June 13, 2017

We choose what we are willing to see in our relationships.  There is nothing wrong with our relationships.  This idea may seem hard if we are choosing to see our relationships negatively.  Our relationships are holy.  They are holy in Oneness and the eyes of the One.  There is no other truth.  Yet many of our relationships are challenging to us, for we do not see them as they really are.  We see them through the perception guided by the idea of separation and limitation with which we have aligned our egoic mind.  This distorted view of our relationships causes them to appear as something they are not.  As we turn our relationships over to Spirit for healing and transformation, our relationships may and probably will seem to get worse and become more challenging.  We have chosen to allow Spirit to change the purpose of our relationships from division to unification.  We are all unified in Oneness and therefore the true purpose of our relationships is to reflect our Oneness and extend love and peace to each one.

We have experienced the holy instant in our relationship with our brother or sister.  We have glimpsed the forgiveness we have offered and the resulting healing.  Yet, if we lose sight of the experience of that instant, we allow time to cover and hide that experience.  Our experience of the holy instant must be kept shining and gracious in our awareness of time, but not concealed within it. The instant remains.  The gift of the experience of the holy instant is given to us, not only by Spirit, but by the one we are in relationship with.  Be grateful to them.  Allow your gratitude for them to shine and thus retain the powerfulness of the holy instant in each present moment.

You have received the holy instant, but you may have established a condition in which you cannot use it.  As a result, you do not realize that it is with you still.  And by cutting yourself off from its expression, you have denied yourself its benefit.  You reinforce this every time you attack another, for the attack must blind you to yourself.  And it is impossible to deny yourself, and to recognize what has been given and received by you.   T-17.V.13:1-5

We all stand together in the holy presence of truth.  There are no ifs, ands or buts about this.  Heaven rejoices in this truth and because Heaven is within us, the gladness is also ours.  We are joined in purpose, but remain still separate and divided on the means.  Yet the goal is fixed, firm and unalterable, and the means will surely fall in place because the goal is sure.  We will share the gladness of the One Child that it is so.

As you begin to recognize and accept the gifts you have so freely given to another, you will also accept the effects of the holy instant and use them to correct all your mistakes and free you from their results.  And learning this, you will have also learned how to release all the One Child, and offer it in gladness and thanksgiving to the One Who gave you your release, and Who would extend it through you.   T-17.V.15:1-2

Release your relationships from the limitations with which you have bound them.  Release them to Spirit and offer them healing.  Allow the experience of the holy instant, where it is revealed that we are all joined in Oneness, to remain in our awareness.  The truth of Heaven will stay forefront in our minds and bless us with the rejoicing and gladness of Heaven.  The healed nature of our relationships is thus revealed.

June 6, 2017

We have now chosen healing for our relationship.  We have asked Spirit to heal and transform our relationship from a “special” relationship to a holy relationship.  Are we willing to see this through?  This is the choice we have made.  Will we stick with it when the going gets a bit uncomfortable?  This is a time when a bit of faith is helpful.

This is the time for faith.  You let this goal be set for you.  That was an act of faith.  Do not abandon faith, now that the rewards of faith are being introduced.  If you believed the Holy Spirit was there to accept the relationship, why would you now not still believe that He is there to purify what Spirit has taken under Its guidance?  Have faith in your brother or sister in what but seems to be a trying time.  The goal is set.  And your relationship has sanity as its purpose.  For now you find yourself in an insane relationship, recognized as such in the light of its goal.   T-17.V.6:1-9

The relationship feels insane because it now has two conflicting purposes in our mind.  The purpose according to our egoic thought system is separation, while the purpose according to Spirit and our healed mind is joining – Oneness.  Is it a wonder that we feel conflicted at this moment?  Have faith and be patient.  Our egoic thought system screams in our mind, “No, don’t allow this relationship to be changed.  Get out of this one and find another that will serve your separation like that one did and no longer can.”  It appears the only way to escape from the distress you feel is to get rid of the one you gave to Spirit for healing.  Do not abandon Spirit now, nor your brother or sister, but have faith that this relationship has been transformed to holiness.  Accept this idea with gladness, even when you do not understand it.  Do not forget, now, the misery your relationship brought you that prompted you to ask for healing and transformation in the first place.  Give Spirit the time and faith to transform your relationship, bringing light and understanding into your mind as you patiently observe the transformation.

We are new at this.  Allow Spirit to guide you in this healing.  This is what we really want.  Spirit will guide us to the holiness we seek with this One, guiding us to the correct form it needs to take for us.  Be vigilant for Spirit’s guidance.  Have faith that it is there and will come when needed.  Our true intent is holy and will come as we allow Spirit to make it so.

Throughout the One Child is the song of freedom heard, in joyous echo of your choice.  You have joined with many in the holy instant, and they have joined with you.  Think not your choice will leave you comfortless, for the One has blessed your holy relationship.  Join in the One’s blessing, and withhold not yours upon it.  For all it needs now is your blessing, that you may see that in it rests salvation.  Condemn salvation not, for it has come to you.  And welcome it together, for it has come to join you and your brothers and sisters together in a relationship in which all the One Child – Oneness – is together blessed.   T-17.V.10:1-7

We undertook this journey of healing together.  We realize that our “special” relationships serve only separation and the loneliness and misery separpation brings us.  Allowing the healing transformation of our relationships brings to our minds the awareness of our wholeness, our completeness and our divine nature in unity with all our brothers and sisters.  Give your relationships to Spirit for healing and allow your divine nature in Oneness to arise in your mind.  Have faith, even when the going gets rough, that Spirit is doing its job and bringing healing to your relationships.

May 30, 2017

Our relationships are where we learn our lessons of love and forgiveness in this world.  How we experience our relationships reflect our beliefs about ourselves and who we think we are.  They reflect the thought system we align our minds with.  We need relationships in this world to learn about joining and rejoining with each other in the truth that we are all One.  Yet we appear to be separate in this world.  And most of us seek to be with others.  This draw sits deep within our being.  We are drawn to connect with each other on many levels.  Relationships take many forms in this world, such as family, romance, friends, business and others.  Each form has a purpose to assist us in remembering that we are all joined in Oneness and can never be separated.  We learn our connectedness through the healing of each relationship we choose to enter.

The holy, or healed, relationship is an expression of the Oneness in which we see that relationship.  It is an expression of the holy instant in living in this world.  The holy instant never fails us.  We always feel the experience of the holy instant.  Yet without expression it is not remembered.  The holy relationship is a constant reminder of the experience in which the relationship became what it is.  Likewise, the “special” or unholy relationship is a constant reminder of the experience of what it is, the experience of separation.  Each relationship is a song reminding us of the thought system with which we align our minds.  Are our relationships singing a song of joy or a song of discord?  Listen carefully and ask if that is the song you wish to hear.

The holy relationship, a major step toward the perception of the real world, is learned.  It is the old, unholy relationship, transformed and seen anew.  The holy relationship is a phenomenal teaching accomplishment.  In all its aspects, as it begins, develops and becomes accomplished, it represents the reversal of the unholy relationship.  Be comforted in this; the only difficult phase is the beginning.  For here, the goal of the relationship is abruptly shifted to the exact opposite of what it was.  This is the first result of offering the relationship to the Holy Spirit, to use for Its purposes.   T-17.V.2:1-7

When we decide to invite Spirit to enter and heal our relationships, the invitation is immediately accepted.  The goal of our relationships is instantly changed.  This is accomplished very rapidly, but it makes the relationship seem disturbed, disjunctive and even quite distressing.  The reason is quite clear, for the relationship in its new purpose is out of line with its own goal, and clearly unsuited to the new purpose we accepted for it.  It now seems to make no sense whatsoever.  As a result, many relationships have been broken off at this point, and the pursuit of the old goal re-established in another relationship.  Once the unholy relationship has accepted the goal of holiness, it can never again be what it was due to the great conflict between goals that remains.

The temptation of the egoic thought system becomes extremely intense with this shift in goals.  The relationship has not yet been changed sufficiently to make its former goal completely without attraction, and its structure is “threatened” by the recognition of its inappropriateness for meeting its new purpose.  The conflict between the goal and the structure of the relationship is so apparent that they cannot coexist.  Yet now the new goal will not be changed.  With the new goal set firmly in the unholy relationship, there is no course except to change the relationship to fit the new goal.  Until this happy solution is seen and accepted as the only way out of the conflict, the relationship may seem to be severely strained.

Keep your mind focused on the healing of the relationship.  Spirit will guide you in the healing of your relationship.  Remember that the remembrance of the real world and Heaven is learned through our relationships.  The holy instant reminds us of our holiness and the holiness of our relationships in their natural form.  Yet they will be difficult and challenging during the healing process.  Allow Spirit to guide you in all aspects of the healing of any relationship.  We will see its healing if we will let go of our attachment to the past and allow the divine light of forgiveness, love and healing to enter our minds.  Open to the divine and healing will follow.

May 23, 2017

We continue to discuss the two pictures.  What are they and what do they represent?  There are two pictures, very different, that represent two very different ways of thinking.  They are also a result of our free will.  We are free to choose whichever picture we want and live with the consequences of that decision.  Yet, because we have free will, we are always free to choose again.  Whenever our choice doesn’t serve us well, we can revisit the decision and choose again.  It is a choice between darkness and light, evil and good, nothingness and substance, unrealness and reality.  One picture will show us darkness or even nothingness made attractive by an attractive frame that disguises the darkness or nothingness, thus making it attractive to us.  The other picture shows us reality in all its peace, love and light in a frame that is designed to let the beauty of the reality of the picture shine through.  Take a moment and really look at the pictures we are choosing between.  The choice should be obvious, but that depends on how clearly we are thinking.

The other picture is lightly framed, for time cannot contain eternity. There is no distraction here.  The picture of Heaven and eternity grows more convincing as you look at it.  And now, by real comparison, a transformation of both pictures can at last occur.  And each is given its rightful place when both are seen in relation to each other.  The dark picture, brought to light, is not perceived as fearful, but the fact that it is just a picture is as what it is; a picture of what you thought was real, and nothing more.  For beyond this picture you brought home at last.  And what you see there you will recognize will see nothing.   T-17.IV.14:1-7

The first picture – the one with the fancy frame – will give us separation.  The picture with the light frame will show us Heaven and eternity.  Which one would you choose?  Even when we choose the one we don’t really want, we can choose again.  And choose again and again until we choose the one we really want.  You see, there is no other choice but the right one.  Even the choice we don’t want is an illusion, made from the mistaken idea that we could possibly be less than the divine One we are in Oneness with all Creation.  The choice for Heaven and Oneness will always be there until we choose it.  Then we will realize that was the only real choice after all.  It is the choice between what is and what isn’t.

The picture of light, in clear-cut and unmistakable contrast, is transformed into what lies beyond the picture.  As you look on this, you realize that it is not a picture, but a reality.  This is no figured representation of a thought system, but the Thought itself.  What it represents is there.  The frame fades gently and the One rises to your remembrance, offering you the whole of creation in exchange for your little picture, wholly without value and entirely deprived of meaning.   T-17.IV.15:1-5

Let the light you see shine brightly and join with the light within you, for they are the same light.  Your mind will clear.  Your sight will begin to focus with a sharpness you haven’t seen for some time.  You will hear the song of Heaven again and recognize the ancient song had been playing in your mind all along.

We ascend in peace to our rightful place and experience again the meaning of relationship and know it to be true.  This light shines in every one of us, as in the whole.  The whole reality of our relationship with the One lies in our relationship to one another.  The holy instant shines alike on all relationships, for in it they are one.  For here is only healing, already complete and perfect as we are and always have been.  Look at the two pictures and let be the one you really are.  You will recognize the real you there.

May 16, 2017

Last week I wrote about the glittery bejeweled frame that distracted us from the picture within the frame.  This section goes on to describe the picture as that of death and destruction, a different concept than the concept I mentioned last week.  Our egoic thought system wants to keep us distracted from the awareness of the misery of separation from the awareness of our divine nature in Oneness – who we really are.  Our egoic thought system encourages us to look at the trappings of the frame and value the frame’s beauty while it distracts us from the unhappiness and loneness of our separated life depicted in the picture.  Look beyond the glitzy frame to the picture of how we perceive ourselves within it and recognize the misery depicted there.  We have chosen to align our thought system with this misery and value the frame that holds it rather than seeing it for what it is.

That is why the holy instant is so important in the defense of truth.  The truth itself needs no defense, but you do need defense against your acceptance of the gift of death.  When you who are truth accept an idea so dangerous to truth, you threaten truth with destruction.  And your defense must now be undertaken, to keep truth whole.  The power of Heaven, the Love of God, the tears of Christ, and the joy of this eternal Spirit are marshalled to defend you from your own attack.  For you attack Them, being part of Them, and They must save you, for They love Themselves.   T-17.IV.10:1-6

There is another picture.  This picture depicts the truth about who we are.  It depicts the Holy Child of the One – Us as we ae created.  It glows with love and peace.  It radiates happiness.  It depicts us as we are, whole, complete and divine.  It depicts the reality of who we are and always have been.  All there is to value is depicted in the picture so beautifully that no frame is even needed.  On its own it is all.  On its own it is complete and whole.  There is no need for a frame to make it attractive and distract us from the picture itself.  This becomes apparent when we allow ourselves to be guided by Spirit to the holy instant.  That instant when we let go of our attachment to our perception of the past and allow our divine nature to well up within us and emerge as the light we truly are.

The holy instant is a miniature of Heaven, sent you from Heaven.  It is a picture, too, set in a frame.  Yet if you accept this gift you will not see the frame at all, because the gift can only be accepted through your willingness to focus all your attention on the picture.  The holy instant is a miniature of eternity.  It is a picture of timelessness, set in a frame of time.  If you focus on the picture, you will realize that it was only the frame that made you think it was a picture.  Without the frame, the picture is seen as what it represents.  For as the whole thought system of the ego lies in its gifts, so the whole of Heaven lies in this instant, borrowed from eternity and set in time for you.   T-17.IV.11:1-8

We are offered these two pictures.  One is a depiction of ourselves as perceived by our egoic thought system – an incomplete lonely and unhappy person hidden within an expensive glitzy frame.  The other is a depiction of ourselves as perceived by our higher Holy Spirit Self – a whole, complete, divine person shining with the love and peace of our divine nature.  Which picture will we choose to identify with?  In which picture will we choose to recognize our true Self?  Only one picture depicts who we really are.  Be the divine One you are.

May 9, 2017

This section of the Course has always spoken deeply to me.  Even from my first reading and study to now, it continues to speak to me and teach a valuable lesson.  Relationships are important in our journey back to the awareness of who we are.  Relationships are the vehicles for the lessons in love we must remember to heal ourselves and the world.  The purpose of relationships is the extension and sharing of pure unconditional love.  If we don’t feel this love in our relationships, then their purpose is to teach and learn love as guided by Spirit.  That is, to heal our relationships with the guidance of Spirit from separation to union in love.

Our relationships are our creations.  And they will reflect whatever we think of them and what we are using them for.  The purpose of our Creator’s relationship with us, our Creator’s creation, is happiness and nothing else.  Likewise, the purpose of our relationship with our creations is to extend happiness, as our Creator did with us, and nothing else.  Whatever does not fulfil this function is not and cannot be real.  In this world, we tend to make our relationships “special”, meaning we have given them a purpose other than happiness and love.  Every special relationship we have made is a substitute for our Creator’s Will, and glorifies our purpose instead of our Creator’s because of the illusion that they are different.  Believing our own purpose, we deny our Creator’s purpose because they are in conflict with each other.  Look at the purpose you have given to your relationships in this world. Is their purpose pure and unconditional love?  If so they will be happy relationships.  If not, and we allow, Spirit would not deprive us of our special relationships, but would transform them.  And all that is meant by that is that Spirit will restore to them the function given them by our Creator.

The “special” relationships we seem to enter in this world have the purpose we have given them through our belief in our egoic thought system.  Whatever thought system we believe, we will defend no matter how much pain and guilt it brings us.  Every defense operates by giving gifts, and the gift is always a miniature of the thought system the defense protects, set in a golden frame.  The frame is very elaborate, all set with jewels, and deeply carved and polished.  Its purpose is to be of value in itself, and to divert your attention from what it encloses.  But the frame without the picture, you cannot have.  Defenses operate to make you think you can.  The Course tells us this of what we think we see:

The special relationship has the most imposing and deceptive frame of all the defenses the ego uses.  Its thought system is offered here, surrounded by a frame so heavy and so elaborate that the picture is almost obliterated by its imposing structure.  Into the frame are woven all sorts of fanciful and fragmented illusions of love, set with dreams of sacrifice and self-aggrandizement, and interlaced with gilded threads of self-destruction.  The glitter of blood shines like rubies, and the tears are faceted like diamonds and gleam in the dim light in which the offering is made.   T-17.IV.8:1-4

We are so focused on the fanciful frame that we miss the picture contained in the frame.  The picture is of our holy and healed relationship, the reflection of our real relationship with the Creator whose only purpose is happiness.  The essence of our relationship is happiness, love and peace.  When we align our thoughts with the egoic thought system, it bids us focus on the glittery gaudy frame that has no substance or any element of the holiness contained in the picture itself.  Look beyond the appearance of the fanciful frame of the “special” relationship to the holiness of the relationship beyond.  We need not accomplish this from our egoic thought system, but allow Spirit to guide our thoughts beyond the frame to the content of the picture within.  Once we allow ourselves to see the holiness, happiness and love contained in the picture within, the frame will fade to nothingness and no longer distract us.  This is how to discover the happiness and love in each relationship in which we find ourselves, no matter what it looks like on the surface

May 2, 2017

We are light.  We are love.  We are peace.  We are whole, complete and free.  This is our true essence.  This encompass who we really are.  But do we agree?  Do we feel this in our bones?  The Course tells us that we are the light of the world in lesson 61.  Yet we deny this about ourselves because we have come to believe something completely opposite. We have these characteristics within us as this is who we are, yet we have denied them by trying to make an identity for ourselves that establishes us as a unique individual separate from all of creation; something that cannot be done successfully because it denies our very essence.  We can deny our very essence as much as we want, but we cannot change it.  It remains within us waiting to be recognized again as it inevitably will be.  The Course tells us this:

The Holy Spirit wants only to make Its resolutions complete and perfect, and so It seeks and finds the source of problems where it is, and there undoes it.  And with each step in Spirit’s undoing is the separation more and more undone, and union brought closer.  Spirit is not at all confused by any “reasons” for separation.  All Spirit perceives in separation is that it must be undone.  Let Spirit uncover the hidden spark of beauty in your relationships, and show it to you.  Its loveliness will so attract you that you will be unwilling ever to lose the sight of it again.  And you will let this spark transform the relationship so you can see it more and more.  For you will want it more and more, and become increasingly unwilling to let it be hidden from you.  And you will learn to seek for and establish the conditions in which this beauty can be seen.   T-17.III.6:3-11

Our relationships are the opportunities we have to offer healing to each other.  Each one we encounter is a chance to let our light shine and see another in unity as we are one with them.  When we offer another the willingness to see the holiness within them, we offer them the miracle of healing.  The weekly thought from the Foundation for Inner Peace this week said, “The Holy Spirit is the mechanism of miracles. Holy Spirit recognizes both God’s creations and your illusions. Holy Spirit separates the true from the false by the Holy Spirit’s ability to perceive totally rather than selectively.” (T-1.I.38:1-3)  The Holy Spirit can also be referred to as our Higher Spirit Self.  It is the essence of who we really are that has never separated from Oneness and remembers who we really are even as our egoic thought system denies who we really are.

The spark within us is strong.  Its light cannot be extinguished.  Our light remains beckoning to us even as we hide it under a bushel basket.  Our light remains lit for eternity, waiting patiently for us to open the lamp and let our light shine the way, not only for us, but for our sisters and brothers, too.  This light is the light of the miracle we offer.  This light is the light of healing that reveals the truth about who we really are to our minds that have believed we are separate.  This light is the light that enters our relationships as we allow it to heal those relationships from “special” to holy. It reveals the Oneness we are and how inseparable we have been created.  Only joining together in Oneness can bring us home to the awareness of our divine nature we all share in totality.

While the past is the justification for entering into a continuing, unholy alliance with the egoic thought system against the present, the present is forgiveness.  The present is where all the misperceptions of the past are released.  Forgiveness is the release of misperceptions.  It is the changing of our minds about who we really are.  The holiness of our creations is now clearly seen.  What thought system do we choose to align our minds with?  The egoic or Oneness?  It is our choice, totally.  And at any time, we may choose one or the other.

It is still up to you to choose to join with truth or with illusion. But remember that to choose one is to let the other go.  Which one you choose you will endow with beauty and reality, because the choice depends on which you value more.  The spark of beauty or the veil of ugliness, the real world or the world of guilt and fear, truth or illusion, freedom or slavery–it is all the same.  For you can never choose except between Oneness and the ego.  Thought systems are but true or false, and all their attributes come simply from what they are.  Only the Thoughts of Oneness are true.  And all that follows from them comes from what they are, and is as true as is the holy Source from which they came.   T-17.III.9:1-8

We make this choice for ourselves.  What do we really want in our relationships?  Do we wat to live in the shadows of the past in an illusion that is an alternative to reality.  Or do we want to accept the guidance of the higher Spirit Self within us that knows who we really are and leads us to the light that heals our relationships?  Choose to be the light you are.  Choose the love and peace you are.  Step into the light of eternity and leave the shadows of the past behind.