May 19, 2015

In this world we have made we are so obsessed with how others act and think. How others act and think is not the problem. How others act and think is merely a reflection of how we are acting and thinking. Be careful not to take this reflection too literally, for it is not the form that is the problem, it is our perception that is the problem. If someone we are in relationship with – and if we are encountering them we are in relationship with them – seems to be pushing our buttons, we need to look at our buttons, not at the other person. If we have buttons to push, we are perceiving something about ourselves that is incorrect. We believe there is something about ourselves that is not complete, not whole and lacking. We chose to believe we are not who we really are. We chose to believe we are separate from each other and Oneness. This is the only problem that can possibly be. The problem is in our mind and the only healing that will work is healing of our own mind.

The Course tells us:

Do not accept another’s variable perception of themselves for their split mind is yours, and you will not accept your healing without theirs. For you share the real world as you share Heaven, and their healing is yours. To love yourself is to heal yourself, and you cannot perceive part of you as sick and achieve your goal. My friend, we heal together as we live together and love together. Be not deceived in Source’s One Child, for we are one with each other and one with our Source. Love another who is beloved of their Source, and you will learn of the Source’s Love for you. ACIM T-11.VIII.11.1-6

Love another as you love yourself. Let all else fall away. If we perceive fault or offense in another, we are seeing the same in ourselves, for that “another” is one with us. The Course goes on to say:

If you perceive offense in another, pluck the offense from your mind, for you are offended by your Self and are deceived in who you are. Heal in your Self and be not offended by who you really are, for there is no offense in You. If what you perceive offends you, you are offended in yourself and are condemning your Self whom Spirit condemneth not. Let the Holy Spirit remove all our offenses against ourselves and perceive no one but through Spirit’s guidance, for Spirit would save you from all condemnation. Accept Spirit’s healing power and use it for all Spirit sends you, for Spirit wills to heal Us, in whom Spirit is not deceived. ACIM T-11.VIII.12.1-5

We are whole, we are complete, we lack nothing and we are limitless. We simply ask Spirit for the guidance we need to shift our perception to this reality and see the real world through our Spirit eyes.

Like children who are afraid of something they don’t understand, we are afraid of the world we think we see because we don’t understand reality. It doesn’t make any sense to our split mind. A child will ask its parent to explain and trusts what its parent tells them. Why do we not do the same with our Creator? We choose to rely on our own perception and trust only our perception. Spirit is within us and is the One who knows us as we are and will guide us to correct perception and the truth. We needn’t be afraid to ask Spirit for guidance.

Would you not exchange your fears for truth, if the exchange is yours for the asking? For if Oneness is not deceived in you, you can be deceived only in yourself. Yet you can learn the truth about yourself from Spirit, Who will teach you that, as part of Oneness, deceit in you is impossible. When you perceive yourself without deceit, you will accept the real world in place of the false one you have made. And then Source will lean down to you and take the last step for you, by raising you unto Oneness. ACIM T-11.VIII.15.1-5

The perception of the real world and Oneness is ours for the asking. What is stopping us from asking and then believing? Choose and set yourself and all others free.

May 12, 2015

We are afraid of the world we perceive. No matter where we are on this journey, we still harbor some sort of fear towards the world we see. We have taught ourselves all we believe about the world we perceive and the God we perceive. We even fear the God who created us out of Love, for we have misperceived even God. We have misperceived it all, the world, our Source and Creator, the Holy Spirit and each other. We have looked at Love and perceived something fearful of it. Is it any wonder we are afraid of the world we see? Our Creator gave us the power to create like ourselves just as we are created like our Creator. However, we have made like we perceive ourselves and thus made a perceived world that has no more substance than perception. And therein lies the problem. We perceive a world that is not real because we perceive it through the lens of mistaken beliefs. Our task now is to find the answer to our problem of misperception.

The answer lies in our freedom to choose. No matter what we have chosen to believe, we cannot harm or damage the truth about us. Our divine nature is within our being. We are whole, complete, limitless and free as we are created. We share all this with each other as One in our Natural state of being. Source and Spirit are within that Oneness, too. We are the Holy One and the Holy One never fragments of lessens. It can only grow by extending ever increasing Love. How do we begin our awakening?

You believe in a world that takes, because you believe that you can get by taking. And by that perception you have lost sight of the real world. You are afraid of the world as you see it, but the real world is still yours for the asking. Do not deny it to yourself, for it can only free you. Nothing of the One will enslave Us whom Source created free and whose freedom is protected by the One’s Being. Blessed are you who are willing to ask the truth of Source without fear, for only thus can you learn that the Answer is the release from fear. ACIM T-11.VIII.7.2-7

We are free to choose a different perception. And we have a guide in Spirit, One with our true Self, who will guide us in the way of correct perception. All we need do is ask and relinquish our attachment to the fearful world we have perceived. Love is our true nature and Love is our all-powerful Source. The seemingly dark and fearful world fades to nothing in the light of Love as we allow it to flood our awareness. The real world rises in its place allowing the awareness of peace, love and joy to rise in us and radiate from us.

It is time to stop deceiving ourselves with mistaken beliefs and misperceptions and allow Spirit to guide our minds in joining the One Mind we already are. Separation and misperception cannot remain in the awareness of our true nature. The real world must rise in our minds as we allow Spirit to guide us.

In the real world there is no sickness, for there is no separation and no division. Only loving thoughts are recognized, and because no one is without your help, the Help of Source goes with you everywhere. As you become willing to accept this Help by asking for It, you will give It because you want It. Nothing will be beyond your healing power, because nothing will be denied your simple request. What problems will not disappear in the Presence of Source’s Answer? Ask, then, to learn of the reality of each other, because this is what you will perceive in each of them, and you will see your beauty reflected in them. ACIM T-11.VIII.10.1-6

This is our quest. We find our own Divine nature reflected in our brothers and sisters as we allow our perception to be guided by Spirit. Nothing must change outside of us, for there is nothing real outside of us. Love wells up within us and transcends the world we thought we saw outside ourselves. Choose the Answer Spirit holds within our mind today. We have always had the answer but never saw it there. Accept Spirit’s offering and release all else we are hanging on to. What is real will remain. And what is not real will simply fade away. Make the choice for the Answer today and relinquish the problem altogether.

May 5, 2015

What do we really know? Our world is built on perception, whether correct or mistaken. Is our perception correct? As we journey through the world we live in, we use all of our experiences to perceive the world we think we are in. We think it’s all around us. Every perception is based on some evaluation we have made based on what we have experienced at some point in our life and what we believe about those experiences and about life in general. As we grew older we stopped asking our parents, teachers, friends and others for interpretations and assistance and relied on our own mind to interpret and perceive for us. How can we possibly know we are perceiving correctly? The Course tells us we cannot without guidance!

Do not make the mistake of believing that you understand what you perceive, for its meaning is lost to you. Yet the Holy Spirit has saved its meaning for you, and if you will let Spirit interpret it, Spirit will restore to you what you have thrown away. Yet while you think you know its meaning, you will see no need to ask it of Spirit. ACIM T-11.VIII.2.3-5

It isn’t that we are incapable of understanding or perceiving correctly. Our true mind is one with the One Mind and knows Reality. The problem is that we have chosen to believe we are less than the fullness of who we are. We have lost sight of our wholeness and completeness in Unity with all creation. We have chosen to believe we are separate from Source in an effort to become autonomous and make our own “reality”, our own world on our own terms. The problem with this belief is that it is based in a fundamental error of belief in the possibility that One can ever be separated into parts.

There is an answer to this problem. We are One with our Creator, our Source, and that can never be severed regardless of what we choose to believe. Source created us in complete freedom and gave us the freedom to even choose to believe something mistaken about ourselves. The lessons of the Course give us a way to correctly and gently change our mistaken beliefs. It understands how deeply rooted in our minds these mistaken beliefs have become. These mistaken beliefs comprise the egoic thought system that has kept us from the awareness of who we really are. The entity that still binds us, if we are willing to listen, is the Holy Spirit, the Voice for the One.

We can begin this transformation by letting go of our attachment to our beliefs and our perceptions. Are we willing to allow Spirit to guide us? From the Course:

You do not know the meaning of anything you perceive. Not one thought you hold is wholly true. The recognition of this is your firm beginning. You are not misguided; you have accepted no guide at all. Instruction in perception is your great need, for you understand nothing. Recognize this but do not accept it, for understanding is your inheritance. Perceptions are learned, and you are not without a Teacher. Yet your willingness to learn of your Teacher depends on your willingness to question everything you learned of yourself, for you who learned amiss should not be your own teacher. ACIM T-11.VIII.3.1-8

No one can withhold Truth except from themselves. We are the ones who have misperceived and believed mistaken beliefs. There is no shame or harm in this, for we cannot remove our wholeness and completeness from ourselves. The most we can do is hide it from ourselves and journey through our world unaware of who we really are. We have made up the problem. What do we really want? We have a choice; the problem or the Answer. Decide for the Answer and you will have it, for you will see it as it is, and it is yours already. Simply ask Spirit for guidance and keep your mind tuned to Spirit. We walk this journey together in Oneness whether we recognize it or not. Choose to recognize it.

April 28, 2015

The Course teaches us Reality is eternal. What do we see in our world as we see it? Is it perishable or is it eternal? Is it permanent or is it temporary? I don’t think anything we see with the body’s eyes could ever be called eternal or permanent. No aspect of nature could be called permanent or eternal. Even the tallest most solid mountain is subject to erosion. Wind, water and plant life constantly wear away and break apart the most solid rock we ca imagine. The earth and the universe are incredibly beautiful creations, but even science would agree that they are not eternal. So there must be another world that the Course is referring to when it speaks of the Real world, Reality.

We don’t see this eternal world, so there must be another world, another Reality we don’t see. If what we are seeing or perceiving is not real, perhaps we can perceive anew or more simply perceive again. What, then, is the world that awaits our perception when we see it? From the Course:

Every loving thought that We ever had is eternal. The loving thoughts our mind perceives in this world are the world’s only reality. They are still perceptions, because we still believe that we are separate. Yet they are eternal because they are loving. And being loving they are like the Creator, and therefore cannot die. The real world can actually be perceived. All that is necessary is a willingness to perceive nothing else. For if we perceive both good and evil, we are accepting both the false and the true and making no distinction between them. ACIM T-11.VII.2.1-7

Reality is simply Love. It is mothing more and nothing less. Love is all there is. Reality is simply loving thoughts. And further, Reality is loving thoughts that are shared. Loving thoughts can certainly be seen as eternal. This is definitely not the world we have come to see as “real.” The world we see has some good in it and some love in it, but never only good and love.

We have chosen to believe we are separate and that we want to create separately from our Source, our Creator rather than co-create with our Source. Thus we made our egoic thought system to support the mistaken idea of personal autonomy. We could never accept any perception of the world that contained no good or love, so our wrong-mindedness adds misperceptions to our world to support our belief in separation. It colors our perception of everything we see and thus distorts our perception of ourselves and the world we see. Since we now believe that both truth and illusion are true, we cannot tell them apart and thus confuse illusion and reality. It is possible, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to perceive only the real world which will lead us to the real Heaven, because it will make us capable of understanding it.

The Course gives us this instruction:

The perception of goodness is not knowledge, but the denial of the opposite of goodness enables us to recognize a condition in which opposites do not exist. And this is the condition of knowledge. Without this awareness we have not met its conditions, and until we do we will not know it is ours already. We have made many ideas that we have placed between ourselves and our Source, and these beliefs are the world as we perceive it. Truth is not absent here, but it is obscure. We do not know the difference between what we have made and what Source created, and so we do not know the difference between what we have made and what we have created. To believe that we can perceive the real world is to believe that we can know ourselves. We can know Source because Source Wills to be known. The real world is all that the Holy Spirit has saved for us out of what we have made, and to perceive only this is salvation, because it is the recognition that reality is only what is true. ACIM T-11.VII.4.1-9

All is possible when we turn our minds to Spirit within us. Love, our true nature, has never left us. We have simply confused it with the layers of illusion we have also believed. The conditions of Reality are within us and Spirit will guide us in setting aside all the mistaken conditions we have added to our minds. Trust the guidance of Spirit and allow the fullness of Reality to well up in your being. You are complete and whole. Be the limitless love that is your Reality.

April 21, 2015

Wakening to redemption is a choice. It is our choice. We either choose to waken to the awareness of who we are or remain in the perceived world of suffering we have dreamed up. To choose to remain in the dream world of suffering is to choose to crucify ourselves. Who would ever want to do such a thing? But we choose to not awaken to the awareness of who we really are by remaining attached to the ideas and thoughts we have made. To align our minds with the egoic thought system is choosing suffering the unawareness of our wholeness, completeness and divine essence. It is denying the truth about who we are.

The freedom to leave behind everything that hurts you and humbles you and frightens you cannot be thrust upon you, but it can be offered you through the grace of the One. And you can accept it by the One’s grace, for the One is gracious to Us, accepting us without question as the One’s Own. ACIM T-11.VI.6.3-4

It is our choice to accept freedom, the freedom of being who we really are. Waking to redemption is waking to the awareness of who we really are and always have been. This wakening is our resurrection.

Our insistence on remaining aligned and attached to our egoic thought system is the single factor that keeps us separated from the awareness of our divine nature. It is actually impossible to be separated from our divine nature. It is also impossible to be aware of our divine nature and aligned with our egoic thought system simultaneously. They are completely incompatible since they each completely contradict the other. This is what is meant by not being able to serve more than one God. We can either align ourselves with truth and reality, or we can align ourselves with illusion and deception. Perceiving ourselves as separate is essentially deceiving ourselves about who we are. It is the ultimate denial of our Self!

Yet, it is easily changed by the miracle of healing our thoughts, the process of healing our minds. All we need do is choose to allow Spirit to guide our choices. Our willingness to do this is the beginning of our journey back to the awareness of who we really are. And if we choose incorrectly, we simply let it go, ask for guidance and choose again. What we gain is the peace of knowing love, joy and happiness already within us. Spirit calls from within us every moment of every day, reminding us of our divine essence. Are we ready to listen? As we begin to waken, we are still aware of the dreams we continue to hang on to. But, the forgetting of these dreams and the awareness of our own divine nature come with the awakening of others to share our awakening.

You will awaken to your own call, for the Call to awake is within you. If the One lives in you, you are awake. Yet you must see the works the One does through you, or you will not perceive that the One has done them unto you. Do not set limits on what you believe the One can do through you, or you will not accept what the One can do for you. Yet it is done already. Give all that you have received and you will know your true Identity and that you have awakened to the awareness of your divine essence. Redemption is recognized only by sharing it. ACIM T-11.VI.9.1-6

Choose now to realign your mind with the One Mind. Be willing to allow Spirit to guide you in your choices. Nothing is more healing. Nothing will bring you more joy. Choose again when your choice is mistaken. You can’t harm yourself. That is guaranteed. Bu you can awaken to the lasting love and joy that is already within you. This is your redemption. This is the resurrection of the awareness of who you are and your divine essence. Be the divine One you truly are.

April 14, 2015

The world we see is determined by our perception. Our experiences are interpreted by our perception. And our perception is guided by our beliefs. Our perceptions and our beliefs go hand in hand. Remember the phrase, “What I believe I will see.” This statement is always true. It doesn’t mean what we believe and see is true, it just means we believe what we think we see is real. Perception is that powerful to our consciousness. The Course begins this section with this:

It is impossible not to believe what you see, but it is equally impossible to see what you do not believe. Perceptions are built up on the basis of experience, and experience leads to beliefs. It is not until beliefs are fixed that perceptions stabilize. In effect, then, what you believe you do see. ACIM T-11.VI.1.12-4

How do we choose to perceive ourselves? What do we really believe about ourselves? Do we believe the truth about who we are or do we believe we are the product of our past experiences? No experience and no perception can change who we really are, but we can only see ourselves through the perception of what we believe about ourselves.

Left to our egoic thought system, which is invested in separation, we see ourselves as lacking, a small individual cog in the wheel of a world we think controls us. We seem to be at its mercy, subject to attack and a victim if all its separate parts. However, when we turn our perception over to the Spirit within us, we tap into a bigger view of ourselves. Spirit guides us in the awareness that we are all One, that we are all whole and complete just the way we are. This vision works two ways. Once we see another whole and complete, we then see ourselves whole and complete. And once we see ourselves whole and complete, we see others whole and complete. Spirit guides our minds in transcending the perception of the world we think we see, seeing beyond its appearances to the truth about our true nature as we are created, whole and complete. This awareness, this transcendence, is the truth we are seeking, yet seeking outside ourselves when it is already within us, there to be seen if we will open our eyes. Our body’s eyes will never see this on their own, but our Spirit Vision will see this when we allow our minds to rise to its Sight. We allow our Vision to awaken and there it is!

We have all we need to rise to the awareness our divine nature. The Course tells us:

Do not underestimate the power of the devotion of your One Self, nor the power the god you worship has over you. For you place yourself at the altar of your god, whether it be the god you made or the God Who created you. That is why your slavery is as complete as your freedom, for you will obey only the god you accept. ACIM T-11.VI.5.1-3

It all comes down to the choices we make about what we believe about ourselves. Do we believe the god of sacrifice and suffering we made and crucify our awareness of who we really are, separating us from the Love of the One we are created by? Or do we believe the Spirit Vision within us showing us the truth of who we really are, resurrecting the awareness of who we really are and transcending the world we thought we were trapped in? The One does not require obedience, for our divine nature is natural. It releases us from the sacrifice of submission and rejoices with us in the gladness of freedom. What more could we possibly want? It is our choice. And the time to make that choice for the gladness of freedom is now.

April 7, 2015

We are whole, complete, and divine. This is our true nature. When we align our thoughts and perception with this true nature without exception, we are aligning our minds with the One Mind and true perception. In this state of being we allow all perception to be guided by our one true thought system, the One Mind. We find that all thoughts lead to joy, love, and peace. And we experience the divine nature of who we really are. No mistake we make can possibly change the reality of our true nature. No thought, no matter how real we believe it to be, can alter the truth of our divine nature. Our freedom and our happiness is in our allegiance to our true nature and our true Mind. Love, joy and happiness flow from the freedom of living in the awareness of who we really are.

We fall out of awareness of who we really are when we begin to limit our perception. Selective perception is the process of limiting our perception. Our egoic thought system is so involved with “protecting” us from our thoughts it dramatically limits the thoughts we bring to our awareness. Yet, many of the thoughts it allows to rise to our awareness are misperceptions and selective at that. Our egoic way of thinking allows only the thoughts we are used to from past experiences and lessons to rise to the surface of our awareness. This is our “thought dispatcher” we have been training all our life. However, we have a better dispatcher already within us in Spirit. This dispatcher is our Higher Holy Spirit Self, our true Identity, though we can think if as a holy friend to help guide us. The Course reminds us again and again to rely on Spirit to guide our thoughts. Spirit knows the exact right thing we need at each and every moment. Spirit will guider our perception as we allow It to. We have nothing to fear since nothing unreal can harm us because nothing unreal even exists except in our separated minds.

Every moment of every day we are reminded of our wholeness, our completeness and our divine nature. We need simply look to Spirit for guidance in all we think. Every encounter is a chance to see more clearly. Every experience is a chance to shift our perception and allow a more correct perception to enter our minds. This section ends with this lovely passage:

Every one you meet becomes a witness for the One Mind or for the egoic thought system, depending on what you perceive in them. Everyone convinces you of what you want to perceive, and of the reality of the state of mind you have chosen for your vigilance. Everything you perceive is a witness to the thought system you want to be true. Every One has the power to release you, if you choose to be free. You cannot accept false witness of them unless you have evoked false witnesses against them. If they speak not of Oneness to you, you spoke not of Oneness to them. You hear but your own voice, and if Oneness speaks through you, you will hear the One. ACIM T-11.V.18.1-7

Release your mind from the chains of the egoic thought system and separation and enter the freedom of completeness, wholeness and the divine nature that wells up within you. Be the reality of who you really are and dwell in the Realm of Heaven as you see each other dwelling there, too. The healed mind is the recognition of the Whole Mind we always are.

March 31, 2015

The egoic thought system, which we aligned our minds with as we chose to believe we are separate, allows our minds to experience a plethora of varied emotions through our perception. However, it minimizes any fear that comes to our awareness. It will allow us to feel shallow, inadequate, distant, limited, or anything else that keeps us distracted from the awareness of who we really are. It avoids any recognition about what may really be going on in our minds. From the Course:

Your recognition that whatever seems to separate you from the One is only fear, regardless of the form it takes and quite apart from how the egoic thought system wants you to experience it, is therefore the basic ego threat. Its dream of autonomy is shaken to its foundation by this awareness. For though you may countenance a false idea of independence, you will not accept the cost of fear if you recognize it. ACIM T-11.V.10.1-3

Once we recognize the cost of aligning our minds with the egoic thought system and fear we no longer want the trappings of the separation state of mind. We want to return to the awareness of our wholeness and completeness and our divine nature. Awareness of who we really are comes flooding into our consciousness as we allow the illusion of fear to drop away. Fear is really the last thing we want, for it is our nature to dwell in happiness.

Our salvation is in the recognition that fear is all that separates us from Oneness and the awareness of who we really are. Fear is the “dynamic” of the egoic thought system that keeps us from this awareness. It has no real power. It just appears to have power because we believe it does. As a result we essentially deny ourselves and thus become afraid of ourselves. In this mistaken way of thinking we simply don’t recognize ourselves in the illusion we perceive. We appear incomplete and lacking to ourselves for we aren’t seeing all of ourselves.

There is nothing real that isn’t dependent on all of reality. All that is real is interdependent. Nothing can appear whole until we look at all as interconnected and unified. The Couse tells us this:

The One is as dependent on you as you are on the One, because the One’s Autonomy encompasses yours, and is therefore incomplete without it. You can only establish your autonomy by identifying with the One, and fulfilling your function as it exists in truth. The egoic thought system believes that to accomplish its goal is happiness. But it is given you to know that the One’s function is yours, and happiness cannot be found apart from Your joint Will. Recognize only that the egoic thought system’s goal, which you have pursued so diligently, has merely brought you fear, and it becomes difficult to maintain that fear is happiness.                  ACIM T-11.V.12.1-5

What is real is One. It is interdependent and interconnected. No one part of reality can or does function without the Whole. Any idea that any part can be autonomous is merely mistaken. We may have convinced ourselves that we can operate autonomously in this world. The truth is autonomy separate from the whole is impossible. Our true function is our joint Will with all of Creation. Set aside the egoic thought system and its identification with separation and allow the Wholeness of Oneness to fill your being and align with the One Mind. This is the Realm of Heaven filled with the Love of Oneness. This is true happiness. This is who we all really are.

February 22, 2011

Do we have hindrances in our lives on our journey? We certainly seem to. They take many forms; seem large or small, high or low, deep or shallow, and impossible or easy. If we are honest, most of these hindrances seem large to us, for we cling to thee idea that miracles are not all the same. The Course is all about teaching us that miracles are all the same, there is no order of difficulty in miracles. See the very beginning of the text. We have many opportunities and ways to learn this. In fact, our whole life is about learning this one lesson.

Every moment of our life presents us with a choice. There choices take many forms, but in every choice is the choice to mover toward Oneness or to move toward separation. Our desire is for Oneness. It is the essence of who we really are. It cannot /be taken away from us or left behind. But we can look away from Oneness and think we are separate. It is an idea made up in our mind and believed. The act of believing this mistaken thought makes it seem real to, it gives the idea power.

All the hindrances we seem to have on our journey may seem different and of differing magnitude. But they are, in actuality, all very small, even tiny. We have made them what they seem to us by our belief that they are as we think we see them. And we think we lose something dealing with these hindrances. But it is impossible for us to lose anything real. Even the loss of time is meaningless for it is but an instant in eternity and meaningless to our Teacher. Since we believe in time, why do we waste it going nowhere when we can use it for the higher purpose of returning to the awareness of who we really are?

The road to Heaven’s gate, the awareness of who we really are, is not difficult. Nothing we undertake with our eyes, ears, and mind set on this certain purpose with high resolve and happy confidence, holding the hand of each One, and keeping step to the Song of Heaven is difficult to do. There is only one road we can take. It is the road to Heaven. But it is our choice which way we go; toward Heaven or away from it. It is hard to wander down the road that goes nowhere with no purpose. But it is easy to take the hand of Spirit and let Spirit guide us in the direction of Heaven and the awareness of our wholeness. Choose to take the high road, the easy road, whatever you may call it and join in the song of Heaven.

March 24, 2015

We are looking at Section V of Chapter 11, The “Dynamics” of the Ego. Yet the Course goes on to tell us, When we look at the ego, then, we are not considering dynamics but delusions. ACIM T-11.V.4.1. The ego has no substance, for it is an illusion. In working with the Course we have a tendency to make the ego a personality, a thing that does this and that to us. It may certainly appear that way. However, the ego is not an entity. It is an idea entirely of our own making. I like to refer to this idea as our egoic thought system. I am the one who has made up this way of thinking and believed that it is actually real. I also know that I can choose to change the way I think when it fails me. I think the idea of the egoic thought system is much less daunting than the idea of an ego. Many tend to blame the ego as an entity outside themselves. This method doesn’t really help me take responsibility for my mind’s state of being. We may be making errors in our perception, but we can’t harm our true identity no matter how mistaken our thought system is.

The egoic thought system is merely a thought system we have made up and believed real that walls or cages off a part of our mind to separate it from the One Mind. It’s an effort to make us unique from our Creator. What this idea ends up doing is limiting us in many, many, ways. We are created like our Creator; limitless, complete, and whole. And we remain limitless, complete, and whole no matter what thought system we may choose to align with. But our creative power allows us to block our awareness of our true nature and being by aligning with a thought system that is mistaken. Even though all the power of our true Self is coursing through us, we can’t see it when we choose to believe we are separate from that Oneness. The question to ask ourselves is “Who and what do I believe I am?” Looking within and examining our thoughts will reveal a great deal if we are willing to ask with an open mind and listen to Spirit’s guidance.

We are asked to look at every idea that comes into our mind. Examine it without prejudice. Do not judge any idea unworthy of bringing to the light of Spirit. The Course tells us:

Every idea has a purpose, and its purpose is always the natural outcome of what it is. Everything that stems from the egoic thought system is the natural outcome of its central belief, and the way to undo its results is merely to recognize that their source is not natural, being out of accord with your true nature. ACIM T-11.V.5.1-2

Our natural state is free. Our natural state flows freely from a deep knowing within us. Peace, Love, and Joy flow from this natural state of mind. It is effortless, because it is natural. Let the walls of your egoic thought system evaporate before your very mind as you soar free in the awareness of who you really are. The world we think we see transforms into the Realm of Heaven on earth as we allow ourselves to align our minds with the One Mind. Don’t be afraid to look at your thoughts and you beliefs, for there is nothing to fear. We are Love and nothing less.