October 11, 2016

In reality, relationships have no conflict. They do not conflict with each other or contain conflict within them. What makes the difference is how we use our relationships. Do we use them to separate for the purpose of division or do we use them to share love?  Under the Holy Spirit’s teaching all relationships are seen as total commitments, yet they do not conflict with one another in any way. If conflict is present in any relationship, we have denied Spirit’s teaching and guidance. Relationships can be used to divide or to join together. As we are all One, joined together in Oneness, all relationships are One, joined together in Oneness.

The purpose of every relationship is perfect peace. We probably do not experience perfect peace or even some semblance of peace in every relationship right now. But we can have faith that we can experience peace in our relationships if we allow Spirit to teach us how. We often have other expectations of our relationships. We expect them to complete us. We expect them to bring us something we think we do not have. We expect them to fill a lack we think we have and feel the other must give up something to fill our lack. However, Spirit teaches us that we have no lack just as Spirit teaches others they have no lack. Perfect faith in each relationship, for its ability to satisfy you completely, arises only from perfect faith in yourself and your holiness. We are already holy, and this holiness is within us. We may have difficulty believing this alone, but Spirit is within us waiting for us to allow even the possibility of the idea to enter our mind.

You have so little faith in yourself because you are unwilling to accept the fact that perfect love is in you. And so you seek without for what you cannot find without. I offer you my perfect faith in you, in place of all your doubts. But forget not that my faith must be as perfect in all your sisters and brothers as it is in you, or it would be a limited gift to you. In the holy instant we share our faith in the One Child of God because we recognize, together, that the One Child of God is wholly worthy of it, and in our appreciation of Our worth we cannot doubt Our holiness. And so we love each other. T-15.VI.2.1-6

Love is the true essence of our relationships. Love is the only quality that can be real in our relationships. Anything other than love and peace is mistaken and merely an indication that we have denied the truth about who we are. The remedy is to simply turn to Spirit for guidance.

All separation vanishes as holiness is shared. For holiness is power, and by sharing it, it gains in strength. If you seek for satisfaction in gratifying your needs as you perceive them, you must believe that strength comes from another, and what you gain another loses. Someone must always lose if you perceive yourself as weak. Yet there is another interpretation of relationships that transcends the concept of loss of power completely. T-15.VI.3:1-5

Allow Spirit to teach you another interpretation of relationships. Release your attachment to the ideas of yourself and others you hold so tightly in your mind. Allow Spirit to guide your relationships to transcend the ideas of loss and lack completely. You will find perfect peace and love in the healing of your relationships. The miracle of healed relationships is yours for your willingness to allow them healing.

October 4, 2016

Our relationships reflect where we have placed our allegiance.  Have we placed our allegiance with Love?  Or have we placed our allegiance with our desire to judge?  Take a look at the quality and characteristics of your relationships.  Take a step away from each relationship as you do so.  Notice if there is fear, guilt or judgement there.  Each relationship has a purpose as we journey back to the awareness of who we really are.  We ae one with each one we encounter on this journey.  The eternal essence of each of our relationships is love, for that is what we are in Oneness.  The Holy Instant is when that Oneness joins us with each of the ones we are in relationship with in the now.  All perception rooted in the past falls away in that instant and we find eternity in the expression of love as we join together in love.

As long as we adhere to our egoic thought system, we will use our relationships to divide us.  We will use them to justify every one of our misperceptions of lack, un-wholeness and incompleteness.  Each time we judge another, we make that relationship “special”.  We make it unholy.  And thus remove our minds from the awareness of our holiness.  Yet each relationship is between two holy expressions of holiness and love.  Our egoic thought systems picks and chooses limited aspects of each relationship, focusing on our perceptive mistakes rather than the whole of what is real about us.  We allow our egoic thought system to focus on our personal needs that we lack rather than the abundance of our true One nature.  Spirit is waiting for us to allow It to enter our relationships and show us the whole of each other.  Spirit focuses our minds in the holy instant on the true essence of each One, allowing all fear and judgement to fall away and allowing forgiveness and love to rise in its place.

Everyone on earth has formed special relationships, and although this is not so in Heaven, the Holy Spirit knows how to bring a touch of Heaven to them here.  In the holy instant no one is special, for your personal needs intrude on no one to make your sisters and brothers seem different.  Without the values from the past, you would see them all the same and like yourself.  Nor would you see any separation between yourself and them.  In the holy instant, you see in each relationship what it will be when you perceive only the present.   T-15.V.8.1-5

All our relationships are blessed in the holy instant for our blessing is unlimited.  In the holy instant we step into eternity where there is no lack, where we are complete and whole, and where we are joined in Oneness.  In eternity we cannot be separate.  We cannot come apart, for we are joined in Spirit.  Love knows no bounds.  Open your mind to the Love in which the One created all of us.  Love knows no parts or degrees.  Love knows no specialness.  Allow Spirit to bring each one to you who needs the gift of love and the healing from specialness.  Allow each one you encounter to enter with you into the Holy Instant and thus the infinite blessing of the holy relationship.  Nowhere else will you find the peace, love and joy of eternity.  Every relationship has, at its core, the miracle of healing from a special relationship to a holy relationship.  Enter the awareness of holiness in each holy instant Spirit guides us to.

September 27, 2016

We have been looking at and discussing the holy instant recently.  The holy instant is Spirit’s most effective learning device.  For when we step into the holy instant all judgement ceases because we step into the awareness of love.  We may not understand that we have stepped into the holy instant as such, but we are aware that for an instant or a short time we experience peace and love.  We are free from the constant judgement we tend to wallow in.  Everything is good in the holy instant.  Nothing worries us in the holy instant.  We rest in our Source, the One, in the holy instant.  We extend and receive love, whether we realize it or not, in the holy instant.  And all is well.

Do we really know love’s true meaning?  Can we say that we know what love is without relating to our past?  Our whole life story is based on our past experiences.  It’s the only way the egoic thought system can make a separate identity that supports the idea of separation.  So it makes up the meaning of love that supports the idea of separation.  Relating everything to the past is also called judgment.  We compare everything new to something in our past and form ideas about it in duality – the idea of opposites.  We decide if it is love or not love, good or bad, and judge accordingly.  Yet all of creation is good.  The creation story repeats again and again that God saw it was good.  It all is good because God creates by extending love.  When we release our attachment to the past, we have just the present.  The only real meaning of love is unconditional.  There is no degree or “how much” to love.  Love is shared completely.  Love in it’s pure or true sense is Oneness.  We step into this incredible love when we let go of the past and our unreasonable expectations of all that the past tells us.  The holy instant is the time when we let go of all the thoughts that keep us from being aware of the One love within us that is already ours and is really who we are.

Our relationships are the learning devices in which we learn about love.  There appears to be many different kinds of love in this world.  However, many forms of “love” are rooted in our egoic ideas about our past.  Yes, love can appear to carry hurt, guilt and fear from the past.  Remaining attached to those aspects of past “love” will keep us distracted from the holy instant to which Spirit is calling us.  Is the love we cling to “special” or is it unconditional?

You cannot love parts of reality and understand what love means.  If you would love unlike to the One, Who knows no special love, how can you understand it?  To believe that special relationships, with special love, can offer you salvation is the belief that separation is salvation.  For it is the complete equality of the At-One-ment in which salvation lies.  How can you decide that special aspects of the One Child of the One can give you more than others?  The past has taught you this.  Yet the holy instant teaches you it is not so.   T-15.V.3.1-7

Our egoic way of making our relationships “special” supports our idea of separation.  We believe that this relationship will make us complete.  Or that relationship will make us happy.  Perhaps another relationship will permanently damage us.  “Special relationships” may not be so “special” after all.  Our special relationships become holy relationships in the holy instant.  Let go of your attachment to the past and step into the holy instant.  In that instant we are healed, we are forgiven, and we forgive.  We truly are holy.

September 20, 2016

In our spiritual practice and our daily living, are we willing to try to be vigilant for any deception we may be holding. Any thoughts we consider private are therefore hidden and thus we deceive ourselves that we are willing. Our natural state of mind is in complete communication with everyone and our Source. The continuance of the holy instant is dependent on an open mind, a mind that holds no thoughts hidden. Spirit calls to us to make the holy instant ours at once, for the release from littleness in the mind of the host of the One depends on willingness, and not on time. Ask yourself, “Do I want the holy instant now?” Once we decide we want to be in communication, Spirit can then guide us to that transformation. It will come as quickly or as slowly as we are willing to release our hidden thoughts.

We could live forever in the holy instant, beginning right now and reaching to eternity, but for a very simple reason. We must not obscure the simplicity of this reason, for if we do, it will be only because we prefer not to recognize it and not to let it go. The simple reason, simply stated, is this: The holy instant is a time in which we receive and give perfect communication. This means, however, that it is a time in which our mind is open, both to receive and give. It is the recognition that all minds are in communication. It therefore seeks to change nothing, but merely to accept everything. What do we really want? We can release our need to change the world as we see it and look beyond its appearance to Oneness in eternity. Thus do we release our littleness, accept our magnitude and step into the holy instant.

The Course instructs us thus:

The necessary condition for the holy instant does not require that you have no thoughts that are not pure. But it does require that you have none that you would keep. Innocence is not of your making. It is given you the instant you would have it. At-One-ment would not be if there were no need for it. You will not be able to accept perfect communication as long as you would hide it from yourself. For what you would hide is hidden from you. In your practice, then, try only to be vigilant against deception, and seek not to protect the thoughts you would keep to yourself. Let the Holy Spirit’s purity shine them away, and bring all your awareness to the readiness for purity Spirit offers you. Thus will Spirit make you ready to acknowledge that you are host to the One, and hostage to no one and to nothing.   T-15.IV.9.1-10

Relax a moment. Allow yourself to stop trying so hard. Awakening to the awareness of who we really are is truly simple. Release the thoughts you think you need to keep hidden. Open your mind to the direct communication you share with Source and all creation. We do not need to change anything but simply accept everything as it is. Spirit will guide us in what is holy and real. All that is false will fade into nothingness. No thought can harm what is eternal. And what is not eternal is not real and cannot harm anything. Stop a moment, ask yourself what you really want and then be willing to release any littleness you still harbor and step into your magnitude in Oneness. In this do we rejoin and recognize our Oneness.

September 13, 2016

The holy instant stands in shimmering readiness waiting for our acceptance. The holy instant stands within our mind in the present moment. It is not in the past or the future where we seem to be searching for it, but the present now. Are we ready for that transformation? Are we ready to look upon truth and release our belief in our littleness? It is our choice. We can choose to step into the holy instant now or delay it until we change our mind. To accept the holy instant into our awareness is to step into freedom from the “little” world we have made for ourselves and believed is real. We move from the belief we are limited, incomplete, broken and unloved into the awareness that we are limitless, complete, whole and completely loved. We couldn’t be more free than we truly are.

Our practice of the holy instant rests in our willingness to release our belief in our littleness. This doesn’t say we must release our belief, it says we must be willing to release our belief in littleness. We must be willing to accept a change in our thinking. All that is asked is for us to want to delay the holy instant no longer. Once we decide we are willing to see differently, are willing to accept something greater, Spirit can guide us in that acceptance and that transformation. For we cannot accept the transformation alone – in separation – as it involves joining. Our egoic thought system resists joining at all costs for joining releases us from the limitations we have placed upon ourselves through our egoic belief system. The Course asks us why we delay our awareness of our freedom. The answer is fear, the fear of being something greater than we believe we are. Are we ready yet to practice the holy instant? Are we ready yet to want it?

So, how do we practice the holy instant? The Course gives us this direction:

Would you learn how perfect and immaculate is the holy altar on which your Creator has placed Itself? This you will recognize in the holy instant, in which you willingly and gladly give over every plan but the One’s. For there lies peace, perfectly clear because you have been willing to meet its conditions. You can claim the holy instant anytime and anywhere you want it. In your practice, try to give over every plan you have accepted for finding magnitude in littleness. It is not there. Use the holy instant only to recognize that you alone cannot know where it is, and can only deceive yourself.  T-15.IV.4.1-7

Look within to the holiness within you and let Spirit guide your mind to the awareness of your holiness. All Spirit asks is a little willingness, a desire to be all you really are. Throw off the chains of littleness and allow Spirit to guide you to the awareness of your magnitude as you join with your brothers and sisters in Oneness with Spirit and the One. This is the plan for salvation the One has given us – to release our littleness and rest in our magnitude. The holy instant is where this is recognized. Release, let go, and let it be so.

September 6, 2016

Holiness abides within us in perfect peace. Do we recognize this about ourselves? Do we recognize this in each other? Our journey in this world is to reawaken to this perfect existence within us. We have spent a lifetime learning to believe in an identity in littleness. It’s what we have been taught and it’s what we have chosen to believe over the magnitude of our true Self. There is no blame or guilt. Our parents, our teachers, our priests and pastors, our friends and our brothers and sisters did the best they knew at the time. We even did the best we could at the time with the information and guidance we had. There was no damage or injury. We just made incorrect decisions in how we perceived the world we thought we saw. Holiness and perfect peace have always been within each and every one of us. Our grandeur has always been within us waiting to be recognized. The truth in us has been waiting for us simply to join together in Spirit and allow Spirit to guide us to the recognition of who we really are.

Accept now who and what you truly are. Allow Spirit to guide you in the discovery of the truth about who you are. Allow yourself to see that truth in all you encounter and see. We have accepted the idea of littleness about ourselves. Can we not accept something better? Spirit is waiting and, yes, calling to us to look with Spirit eyes on our wholeness, our completeness, our grandeur and magnitude. Can we not listen with our Spirit ears to this call and accept this truth about ourselves? It is really that simple if we are willing to let go of our attachment to what we think we see and believe and open our minds to the possibility of the idea of our greatness? We are One with the One, our Source. What could be greater than that?

We are on a journey to Love. Everything, everyone, every experience we encounter is a step on our spiritual journey. We choose how we see each element on that journey. We can choose to see an experience with difficulty in separation alone or we can choose to allow Spirit to guide us to the Love and Joy and Perfect Peace welling up beneath every thought. If we are wholly willing to leave salvation to the plan of the One and unwilling to attempt to grasp for peace ourselves, salvation will be given us in an instant.

Here is what the Course calls us to do:

Call forth in everyone only the remembrance of the One, and of the Heaven that is in each of us. For where you would have another be, there will you think you are. Hear not another’s appeal to hell and littleness, but only their call for Heaven and greatness. Forget not that their call is yours, and answer them with me. The One’s power is forever on the side of the One’s host, us, for it protects only the peace in which the One dwells. Lay not littleness before the One’s holy altar, which rises above the stars and reaches even to Heaven, because of what is given it.        T-15.III.12.1-6

We do not do this alone. To call only to ourselves is futile. We call to each other to join and enter the awareness that we are all One. To join in Oneness is to remember who we really are and recognize the magnitude and grandeur of our Oneness. Now is the time. Let it be now and enter into this holy instant together.

August 30, 2016

Every decision we make is reflective of what we think about ourselves. Every decision we make brings either joy or sorrow. Every decision we make is for Heaven or hell and brings us the awareness of what we decided for. Every decision we make is for separation or Oneness. The decision takes many different forms yet the essence of our decision is to live in the awareness of who we really are or to deny who we really are. Would we rather be hostage to our egoic thought system or host to the One, our Source? It is always our choice, whether we recognize it or not. Our true wish is to be in the awareness of the Oneness we truly are. This is Heaven. This is the One’s Will for us. This is Spirit’s purpose for us; to guide our decisions whenever we choose. It doesn’t matter how trivial the decision may seem. Spirit will guide us to the best choice for us in any given time or place or situation.

Spirit holds our Magnitude in perfect safety in our mind for us even as we decide mistakenly. No littleness can affect our magnitude no matter how dedicated we are to our belief in our littleness. We are created One with the One and thus are host to the One in this world. Nothing can change this. We can choose to deny this and thus separate ourselves from the awareness of our peace within us, but we cannot change it. Our holiness continues under the surface of our mind waiting for us to choose to recognize it again. Spirit calls gently to us to awaken to our true nature. There is no price to pay, no punishment to endure other than the loss of hell and misery. The choice is there in every decision and choice that comes our way.

We are the bringers of holiness into our world. It’s not a difficult task and we do not do it alone. Holiness is found in joining, not in separation. Holiness is in seeing that we are all One and that we are One with our Source, the One. The awareness of our holiness is remembered in the release from attachment and separation in our choices. Here is true happiness found. Here we recognize the peace and love that are at the core of our being. Here we remember who we really are. Believe and know there is no sacrifice in this decision.

The Course tells us this:

Is it a sacrifice to leave littleness behind, and wander not in vain? It is not sacrifice to wake to glory. But it is sacrifice to accept anything less than glory. Learn that you must be worthy of the Prince of Peace, born in you in honor of the One Whose host you are. You know not what love means because you have sought to purchase it with little gifts, thus valuing it too little to understand its magnitude. Love is not little and love dwells in you, for you are host to the One. Before the greatness that lives in you, your poor appreciation of yourself and all the little offerings you give slip into nothingness.  T-15.III.8.1-7

Choose now to step into the awareness of your greatness. Be content no longer with littleness and the little world it shows you. Step into reality. Step into the awareness of eternity. Step into Oneness and be aware of the true magnitude of who you truly are. Choose now and choose for eternity.

August 23, 2016

Are you happy with what you believe you are in this world? Are you content with what separation gives you? We may resign ourselves to littleness and lack, but it is not characteristic of our true nature. We are One with God, our Source. Would we call Source or God “little”? The Course asks us to be not content with littleness. When we strive for anything in this world in the belief that it will bring us peace, we are belittling ourselves and blinding ourselves to glory. That would be the glory within our Oneness. Each time we choose to believe ourselves little, lacking, less than whole, we deny who we really are. We deny our wholeness, our limitlessness and our holiness. We deny who we really are and block our awareness of peace and love which dwell within us. Every time we choose to deny who we really are we make an evaluation of ourselves. And so if we evaluate ourselves lacking and little, we see ourselves lacking and little. The world around us thus reflects the choice we have made.

It is essential that we accept the fact gladly, that there is no form of littleness that can ever content us. We are free to try as many forms of littleness as we wish, but all we will be doing is to delay our homecoming. For we will be content only in magnitude, which is our home. And peace and love are in that home. The choice is our responsibility. We cannot be forced to be aware of who we really are, for we are created with free will, even to deny the awareness of who we really are.

There is a deep responsibility you owe yourself, and one you must learn to remember all the time. The lesson may seem hard at first, but you will learn to love it when you realize that it is true and is but a tribute to your power. You who have sought and found littleness, remember this: Every decision you make stems from what you think you are, and represents the value that you put upon yourself. Believe the little can content you, and by limiting yourself you will not be satisfied. For your function is not little, and it is only by finding your function and fulfilling it that you can escape from littleness.   T-15.III.3.1-5

There is no doubt about what our function is for Spirit within us knows. And there is no doubt about the magnitude of our function for it reaches us through Spirit from Magnitude itself. There is no question of who we really are if we will look within ad allow Spirit to bring it to our awareness. We need not strive for it for we already have it. We already are who we really are. But we need to be vigilant for the thoughts of littleness that creep into our minds. To hold our magnitude in perfect awareness in a world of littleness is a task the little cannot undertake. Yet it is asked of us, in tribute to our magnitude and not our littleness. Nor is it asked of us alone. The power of the One will support every effort we make on behalf of our true Self in Oneness.

Be vigilant for the thoughts of littleness that creep unbidden into your mind. Reach to the Spirit within for guidance to the awareness of the magnitude of who you really are in Oneness. This is where we realize the peace, love and joy that are already ours. Let go all your doubts and move into the awareness of who you really are and always have been. Be who you really are.

August 16, 2016

Our freedom is found in the awareness of our Oneness. It is an all-encompassing Oneness. At any moment we can choose freedom for the one we are with and thus free ourselves in that moment. It wells up within us as we release another from our misperceptions about them. We are filled with doubt thoughts about ourselves but more so about each other. Doubting our holiness, whether our own or another’s, is a way our egoic thought system keeps us distracted from the awareness of who we really are and the peace of the holy instant. Our home is in the holy instant. Our true Self is in the holy instant. Can we release our iron will of separation for just an instant and allow Spirit, God’s Teacher, to lift us into the freedom of that instant? That’s all it takes, just one moment to fly free of the bonds of separation if we are willing.

The Course gives us this instruction:

Start now to practice your little part in separating out the holy instant. You will receive very specific instructions as you go along. To learn to separate out this single second, and to experience it as timeless, is to begin to experience yourself as not separate. Fear not that you will not be given help in this. God’s Teacher and the lesson will support your strength. It is only your weakness that will depart from you in this practice, for it is the practice of the power of God in you. Use it but for one instant, and you will never deny it again. Who can deny the Presence of what the universe bows to, in appreciation and gladness? Before the recognition of the universe that witnesses to It, your doubts must disappear.   T-15.II.6.1-9

Take a moment and try it. Rest your mind for just an instant and allow Spirit to guide you. You will see your brother or sister as they truly are, whole, complete, and holy, and thus recognize your holy Self in them. Take this moment and rest an instant. There is nothing to lose but your doubt and thus your uncertainty. Release all to Spirit and let yourself soar on the wings of love and peace.

August 9, 2016

Transformation in the form of the holy instant is the experience of Heaven, yet it cannot be forced on our mind. We must learn to be willing to allow our mind to be open. Time is used by Spirit to help us learn to be willing to allow Spirit to guide us. Spirit gives us the holy instant as we release ourselves and each other from the limits we have placed on ourselves and each other. In reality we are One, so we must be willing to allow our minds to accept that we are One or at least to open to the idea that we may be One. There are times we have each experienced connection with others that go beyond the physical. We have each experienced times when all seems aligned and in perfect order where all feels right and good for that moment. We are not strangers to these instants but have not recognized them as holy. They occur naturally as the result of miracles that occur naturally.

You will never give this holy instant to the Holy Spirit on behalf of your release while you are unwilling to give it to all others on behalf of theirs. For the instant of holiness is shared, and cannot be yours alone. Remember, then, when you are tempted to attack another, that their instant of release is yours. Miracles are the instants of release you offer, and will receive. They attest to your willingness to be released, and to offer time to the Holy Spirit for Spirit’s use of it.   T-15.I.12.1-5

Release is the lesson we need learn. Letting go of our attachment to our beliefs is where we start. Trust Spirit to guide you in this release. Spirit is within us. Spirit has our awareness of our peace as Its goal. There is nothing to be afraid of except losing our fear and misery.

How long does this take? Don’t worry about that. Practice giving this blessed instant of freedom to all who are enslaved by time, and thus make time their friend. Spirit gives their blessed instant to you through your giving it to them. As you give it, Spirit offers it to you. Be willing to give what you would receive, for you join with Spirit in giving. Your instantaneous freedom is in the crystal cleanness of the release you give. You are holy as you offer holiness.

How long is an instant? As long as it takes to re-establish perfect sanity, perfect peace and perfect love for everyone, for Source and for yourself. As long as it takes to remember immortality, and your immortal creations who share it with you. As long as it takes to exchange hell for Heaven. Long enough to transcend all of the ego’s making, and ascend unto your Creator.  T-15.I.14.1-5

The correct use of time is our friend as we allow Spirit to use it for us. Spirit Who transcends time for us understands what time is for. Holiness lies in eternity, not in time. There never was an instant in which we could lose our purity. Our changeless state is beyond time, for our purity remains forever beyond attack and without variability. Give the eternal instant, that eternity may be remembered for you, in that shining instant of perfect release. Offer the miracle of the holy instant through Spirit, and leave the giving it to you to Spirit. Allow the correct use of time and receive the holy instant for eternity.