May 27, 2014

Grace is the natural state of every One of us. If we are not in a state of grace, we do not function well because we are out of our natural environment – our natural state of mind. When we are in a state of grace, we move through the world with ease. We move with confidence and certainty, knowing that we are guided from that holy place of Oneness that we are. Our lives flow with ease and grace. Challenges come and go with ease for we know our higher Spirit guides us in all we do. I think of the grace of a dancer who expressively moves to the purposeful melodies of the music that guides their dance. Our higher One Spirit guides us similarly in the graceful expression of our Divinity and Love in this world.

Being in our natural state of grace takes no real effort. It is natural and flows naturally from our higher One mind. But if we think outside our natural state of grace, everything we do becomes a strain, for we are not created for this environment we have made up. We cannot adapt to this out-of-grace environment nor can we adapt it to us. It doesn’t matter how hard we try, there is no point in trying. We are happy only when we are with our Source in a state of grace, for that is where we belong. And grace is the only state of mind worthy of us, for it is the state for which we are created.

Heaven is the state of grace. Heaven is our home. There is no need to shed the body or complete some mission in this world to be who we really are. Fulfilling our mission in this world of form will have a sense of grace and ease as we move and act from a state of grace and the awareness of who we really are. Paragraph 3 asks us some simple questions about the world we see so we can judge its worth fairly. Is the world we see worthy of the Child of God? Does the world we see protect our peace and shine love on us? Does the world we see keep our heart untouched by fear and allow us to give always without any sense of loss? Does the world we see teach us this giving and sharing is our joy and that Source thanks us for our giving and sharing? The state of grace is the only real world and it is the only world in which we can be truly happy. Why would we ever deny ourselves a world where we share the Love of God with everything and everyone we see, touch and remember? Why would we ever deny ourselves Heaven, our home?

Are we ready to awaken to the state of grace that is our natural environment and our natural state of mind? Are we willing to see the Divine in everything we see and encounter? Grace, Divine, and truth are who and what we really are. We are the whole, complete and perfect Creation of our Creator. Be willing to allow Spirit to guide you to this awareness of who we really are. Be guided by Spirit into a world where happiness and love are the norm. We need not move somewhere else, to another planet or another city. This shift happens in our mind as we awaken to our One state of grace and the environment that is our home. It doesn’t matter where our mind is at or how impossible the shift appears to be. Spirit has the perfect path for us. Take a step toward grace and ease. We find ourselves miraculously home – Heaven on earth.

May 20, 2014

The Holy Spirit is our guide. Spirit guides us in resolving our confusion between joy and pain. The question is, do we trust Spirit enough to follow Its guidance? Or, are we projecting distrust of ourselves on Spirit? Trustworthiness comes from what we really believe about who we are. Our perfect wholeness is the Will of our Creator. We are created whole and One with all Creation. There is truth in the statement, “What I believe I will see.” Begin with belief. If we believe in opposing ideas, we will experience confusion. Opposing ideas cannot both be true at once. As we alternate our allegiance between two opposing ideas we have chosen to believe, confusion is inevitable. Spirit is our guide in resolving any confusion we might have.

Spirit is perfectly trustworthy, as we are. God trusts us, for we are an extension of God, and therefore our trustworthiness is beyond question. Our trustworthiness will always remain beyond question no matter how much we may question it. Our Oneness, our Divinity, our Holiness and perfection is beyond question. No idea, thought, or belief can alter this truth in any way. The whole separation error lies in the appearance of an unbelievable belief. Trust Spirit to guide your way. Trust Spirit to show you your own wisdom and strength. It may be the road less travelled, but it will be the level road. And, it will be a road filled with joy.

Peace and Joy are ours for the realizing. Peace and Joy are within us. They are our natural state of being. Miracles are in accord with joy and who we really are. Miracles are the shift in our belief in who we are. Our Creator’s Will for us is to know and be the fullness of who we really are and that is also our Will which we share with Source. All we encounter in this world is designed to correct our belief about who we really are. We may choose to look at it and perceive it differently. Instead, choose to allow Spirit to guide you in the correction of perception and teach you the lesson that you really are whole, perfect, and Divine. Miracles are lessons in what joy is. Share that miracle. Being a lesson in sharing joy is a lesson in love which is joy! All miracles are thus lessons in truth, and by sharing truth we learn the difference between pain and joy. The time is now. Allow Spirit to guide you in the awareness of the peace and joy that already you.

May 13, 2014

For each of us our state of mind and our recognition of what is in our mind depend on what we believe about our mind.  Whatever we believe about our mind, these beliefs are the premises that determine what we accept into our mind.  We ultimately determine what we accept into our mind based on what we believe about ourselves.  We are created by the Mind of God as an extension of the Mind of God.  Thus we are Mind.  The Mind is eternal and limitless, for it is real.  Though we cannot change this reality about who we really are, we can choose to believe we are something else ˗ something separate from the Mind of God.  We are still an extension of the Mind of God, but we have chosen to separate from the awareness of that knowledge and believe that separation to be real and true.  So we have chosen to live out this “dream”, a separated existence for a time in a temporary body that becomes the learning tool for us to reawaken to the awareness of who we really are.

The premises we adhere to in our mind that support our so-called separation dream – a temporary existence – are premises we have chosen to believe about ourselves.  These premises are mistaken, but we have chosen to believe them.  As these premises are mistaken they can only lead to confusion at best.  And confusion is what keeps us firmly ensconced in separation, blocking the awareness of who we really are, an extension of the Mind of God, our Source.  We muddle around thinking with our lower thought system oblivious to the power and insight of our higher thought system which is at our disposal if we will just recognize it.  We have so solidly aligned our mind with the belief in separation that we have blocked our own access to our higher thought system with nothing more than that belief.  Even though we have aligned with a lower thought system, we do amazing things with our minds.  We are still our higher Mind with a higher thought system using our gift of creation and extension in this world.  We don’t always recognize what is working in us.

Joy is a state of mind that is God given and natural for us.  It comes from the awareness of our Oneness with God and all Creation.  It is inherent in our higher thought system; that of the Mind of God of which we are an extension.  Pain is a state of mind that is associated with separation, the condition that comes from the belief that we are separate or alone and not who we really are.  The world we think we see is colored by all the beliefs, values and judgments we have made with our lower separated mind that believes we are a separate identity.  We are so attached to our belief in the idea that we are separate that we refuse to see beyond our mistaken perception and see what is really true.  Fortunately, for our healing, the Holy Spirit will direct us, if we will allow It, only to avoid pain – the resulting perception of our belief that we are separate.  As we move on our journey in this life of form believing we are separate, we may think we experience joy, but we have much to realize about the joy we experience from the awareness of our wholeness.  We may have even dulled our perception of pain in the belief we are separate just to cope with the world as we perceive it.

Now is the time to begin to release our belief that we are separate.  Allow your mind to entertain the possibility that you may have been mistaken and that you have been whole all along.  The Holy Spirit will gently guide us in this shift.  Spirit is always with us.  Spirit guides us on a path we can handle.  Every encounter, every experience, every situation is a learning experience for us to learn the truth about who we really are.  Every relationship is an opportunity to heal our mind and raise our awareness to the Mind of God, our Mind.  Believe this premise.  Ask Spirit’s guidance in everything and learn to always extend Love in whatever situation in which we find ourselves.  The pain of separation will transcend to the Joy of Oneness.  Let it be so.

May 6, 2014

Our Self-fullness is boundless, for it comes from spirit and is created in us by our Source.  What can this realization bring but peacefulness and joyfulness?  Our Self-fullness extends forever to the limitless extent of the universe and to eternity.  The belief in our wholeness and perfection – our creation – leads us to the knowledge of our wholeness and our divine essence.  This is the Realm of Heaven.    Living in Self-fullness is our place, our spiritual home.  Only the belief that we are separate from Source and each other can keep us from the awareness of who we really are.  Spirit is the bridge between our spirit and the idea of separateness that continually reminds us that we are One and beckons us back to the awareness of our Self-fullness.

Our Source-given power lies in our Self-fullness.  Nothing can deny this power.  Nothing can take it away.  And, it can be used only to result in Divine purpose.  This Divine power lies under everything we see or think we see.  This power lies even under all our misperceptions.  Allowing Spirit to guide our perception reveals the interpretation beyond the appearance of any situation or thing.  This transforms the world we think we see into the Realm of Heaven.  Peace, joy and love well up within our minds as we allow Spirit to guide us in our perception.

Where is our focus at this moment?  Where is our attention focused at this moment?  Be aware of where.  The underlying focus of our mind determines how we perceive the world around us.  If our mind’s underlying focus is based in a belief that we are separate and alone, we will perceive the world around us through this lens.  But if we shift our mind’s underlying focus to a belief in our wholeness and Self-fullness, we will perceive the world around us through a completely different lens, the lens of the Holy Spirit.  Spirit shows us the interpretation that reflects the higher holy meaning of what we see.  Our function is to learn to rely on the belief that we are whole, perfect and divine as we are created.  Understanding this from the Mind of Source is not arrogant.  It is sane.  It understands that we are all as whole, perfect, complete and divine as the next.  It also understands that any interpretation that is not guided by Spirit and Self-fullness is merely a misinterpretation and will not last.

Living our lives from the belief in and knowledge of our wholeness places our awareness in the Realm of Heaven.  This is the Will of Source for us and our will, too.  What more could we want than to be full of joy, full of love, and full of peace?  Focusing our minds on our Self-fullness raises our minds to this awareness.  We are meant to be happy, peaceful, joyful, and filled with love right now, this very moment.  Allow the awareness of who we really are to raise up in our minds.  Allow Spirit to guide our minds in this shift.  It has been said, “What we believe we will see.”  Believe in your Self-fullness rather than your separateness.  And see the Realm of Heaven within you right now extending to all others and Source and to the very ends of eternity.  We are, as One, limitless.

April 29, 2014

The unbelievable belief is the belief that we are something we are not and cannot be.  Does this sound just a bit insane?  The idea that we could possibly believe something untrue about us is a form of insanity.  Yet we have all believed this insane thought in its various forms and manifestations to some degree.  How many of us truly believe we are completely whole, completely divine, and completely One with Source 100% of the time?  At some point we entertained the idea that we were separate from Source and gave the idea our belief and thus gave that belief our power.    Our journey in this life is to undo or relinquish our belief that we are separate from Source and each other.  We have many tools given to us to accomplish this belief correction and infinite assistance in doing so.  The assistance is found in Spirit, in each other, and in every experience and encounter that faces us in our human lives as we move on this journey.  The help is unique to each of us and is infinite.  It’s all embodied in the miracle of Atonement guided by Spirit.  It’s God’s Plan for Salvation, GPS.

We are all created whole, complete, limitless, and divine by Source.  This is an irrefutable fact.  Our belief that we are separate and thus less than our creation is a result of our own disbelief in who we really are and has no more substance than a mistaken thought.  However, because we so strongly believe it, we have given the belief the power to block our awareness of who we really are.  Each of us has embarked on our own journey.  Our journeys appear to be random and perhaps at the mercy of others and outside circumstances.  I believe we have each made choices in our lives that brought us to the place we are right now.  Since we are all really One, the web of all our decisions and choices weave together in the fabric of human life.  The Course tells us this web of life is an illusion.  That’s a challenging idea for anyone believing they are being carried along by the web of life.  I have come to see that the illusion the Course refers to is not so much the events, experiences and relationships of our lives.  I see the illusion as our thoughts and perceptions about all these events, experiences and relationships, all built on our belief that we are separate and therefore limited and flawed in some way.

The Course tells us that nothing unreal exists and that anything real is eternal.  I totally get that.  So I understand that the world of form is temporary.  It changes, it dies, it can be attacked, and therefore is not real.  Yet, there is such beauty in the world of form interwoven with all the events, experiences and relationships that seem to be so hurtful.  But haven’t we used our creative power to make up this world?  Sometimes I was thinking with my higher mind, the Mind of Source, and sometimes I was thinking with my lower or egoic mind.  It’s no wonder I feel confused at times.  The Course also tells us that Spirit can use anything we made or perceived, retaining the holy and releasing the mistaken from it, transforming our perception for us if we will allow the transformation.  All the events, experiences and relationships we encounter are used by Spirit as learning opportunities to teach us.  This means to me that they, including the body, are neutral, neither good nor bad.  They just are.  It is our perception, our beliefs about ourselves and who we believe we are that determine our thoughts about anything in our lives.

At any moment of any hour of any day, it is our choice what we believe about ourselves and who we are.  What is past is past.  What’s to come is not yet cast.  The present moment is where we are right now.  We can chose to believe the unbelievable belief that we are separate from Source and all Creation.  Or, we can choose to allow Spirit to guide us in changing our belief about ourselves.  We can choose to be willing to believe we are the One whole, complete, limitless and divine Child of God as we are created.  The awareness of this truth will arise in our mind as we allow Spirit to guide us in learning this very believable belief that has always been and always will be true.  This transformation of our belief about who we really are is the journey we have taken.  Embrace all of it, for it is Our Plan for Salvation, too.

April 22, 2014

The Course tells us, “without projection there can be no anger, but it is also true that without extension there can be no love.”  These words represent a fundamental law of the mind, and therefore a law that always operates.  It is the law that either unifies us with the mind of God or separates us from the awareness of the Mind of God within.  Projection is our attempt to separate ourselves from something we do not want.  However, our attempt to project anything unreal away from us to another reinforces our mistaken belief in its reality and it remains in our mind.  Spirit uses the same law, the fundamental law of sharing, to extend love.  What we give, we actually share, because sharing is the only real thing we can do.  Sharing or extending Love is our function.

It really comes down to what we believe we are.  Do we believe we are separate or do we believe we are One.  The unbelievable belief is the belief we are separate and not One.  The belief that we are separate brings a belief in scarcity, that there is not enough to go around and that we must take what we need from others.  A belief in our Oneness fosters an awareness of our abundance and the principle that what we give is shared or extended and we still have what we have given, for we all have all.  The joy of our awareness of our Oneness is that we can rest in the assurance that we are as we are created.  We are holy, divine, and filled with the blessing of our true nature.  We either align our mind’s allegiance with separation or Oneness.  What we believe about ourselves is how we perceive ourselves.  Hence, this determines the world we see.

Truly, separation cannot be for it is not real.  We cannot change the holy divine nature of our being.  But we can block our wholeness from the awareness of our mind by disbelieving it.  And just as simply, we can reverse our belief about who we are and step back into the awareness of who we really are.  The unbelievable belief is the belief we are not whole or divine, that we lack something in any way.  It is not necessary to defeat any idea of conflict or separation.  We simply accept the idea of Oneness.  Since that is who we really are, our belief in our Oneness shifts into knowing our Oneness and our knowing another’s Oneness.  This is how we look beyond the appearance of anything, knowing that there is nothing but wholeness.  The differences we seem to see are merely appearances in this world of form.  Spirit is our guide in this mind shift.  Spirit guides us to correct perception and belief.  When confusion enters the mind, ask Spirit for the correct perception.  Spirit never fails us when we ask and listen.  Be open to the guidance of Spirit and let the believable belief be in you awareness.  And be the extension of Love, Peace, and Wholeness you are.

April 15, 2014

Every one of us, in reality, is completely blessed.  There are no exceptions, no conditions, and no degrees of blessedness.  The only thing that can keep us from the awareness of the blessings we are receiving and the blessedness of our being is the thought system we have aligned our mind with.  If we have aligned our mind with the egoic or lower thought system, we will not see and perceive the blessedness we inherently are.  But, if we have aligned our mind with the guidance of Spirit and our higher thought system, we will experience the fullness and blessedness of who we really are and all that comes with that awareness.  We are complete and whole whether or not we are aware of it.

The Course tells us in paragraph 7 of Chapter 7, Section VII (are there enough 7’s there?), that the only teacher sufficiently worthy to teach us is already within our mind and teaches the same lesson to all.  The lesson is the inestimable worth of every one of us, no exceptions.  This lesson is taught with infinite patience born of infinite Love, which is our Creation.  We do not recognize this teacher within, for we have aligned our minds with the egoic thought system – belief in separation – and have invested it its seeming authenticity.  When we see and believe ourselves separate, we believe we are limited.  We believe we are lacking and so “attack” to fill our lack.  The teacher within knows that we lack nothing, that we are abundant with all of creation shared with us.  Share your awareness of this abundance with another, for if we share their illusion of scarcity, we will perceive ourselves as lacking.

Do not accept anything less than the lesson the one teacher within teaches.  Learn to recognize its voice.  The teacher gently calls to us every moment of every day, reminding us of who we really are, gently reminding us of our wholeness and abundance.  Letting go of our attachment to the thoughts and ideas that block our minds from the awareness of our wholeness and divine nature raises our mind to a higher level, a higher vibration.  Thoughts of lack fall away.  Thoughts of inadequacy fade away.  Thoughts of inequality disappear.  Imagine a world where we all see the full wholeness and divine presence of each one we encounter.  That is the Realm of Heaven.  That is our home.  There is no need to wait until our body dies to be in the Realm.  The Realm of Heaven is in our higher mind.  Let the teacher teach you the one lesson of each one’s full worth and find that you have been lifted to that Realm.  Relax in the knowledge that we are all whole and Divine, and that the One teacher within holds infinite patience and Love in our learning.  Happiness is already ours in the Realm of Heaven which we have never left.  Allow yourself to be lifted home and let the blessings flow.

April 8, 2014

To be in the Realm is to be in the Mind of God, or the Higher Mind.  In order to be in the Higher Mind, we must be totally committed to the Higher Mind.  The moment we look to our lower mind, we lose our awareness of our higher mind.  We cannot serve two minds.  This is particularly true because the higher ad lower minds are in conflict.  They have different purposes.  The higher mind is only Oneness.  The Higher Mind created only Oneness and so Oneness is the only reality.  The lower mind makes separation.  It makes separation by making division and limitation.  Oneness and separation cannot exist in the same thought for they are diametrically opposed.  If we turn our thoughts toward separation and limitation, we deny Oneness, for we have placed our belief and trust in the idea of separation.  If we place our trust and belief in Oneness and Unity, the idea of separation and limitation fade into the nothingness they are.  Denial itself is limiting, for there is nothing real to deny, but while we still perceive, Spirit can use denial constructively to guide our thoughts to higher thinking. All power lies in the mind, and so our thoughts determine how we perceive.

All that is real is completely shared.  When we perceive some lack, whether in ourselves or another, it is a sign that our thoughts are misaligned with the mind.  Spirit uses our thoughts and our awareness of our thoughts to transform our minds and raise our thoughts to higher thinking.  When another thinks insanely – separation and lack – that one is offering us an opportunity to bless them.  Another’s need is also ours, for we need the blessing we offer them.  There is no way we can receive except by giving.  This is the Law of God.  When we deny anything in another we deny it in ourselves.  So when we deny Oneness in another we deny it in ourselves.  The healing miracle is the reversal of this thought.  With the guidance of Spirit we shift our perception form denying Oneness in another to perceiving Oneness in another and thus recognizing Oneness in ourselves.  Spirit guides us in this shift in perception in steps we can handle.  In this way we shift form the lower mind to the higher mind, opening our minds to the truth about who we really are.  As we continue on this journey, we will find ourselves experiencing the peace, love, and joy that are our natural being.

As we move into this awareness, we find ourselves in appreciation of the Realm we have never left.  We have no need of God’s blessing, for we always have that, but we do need our own blessing through the appreciation of all that moves our perception to a higher level.  As we allow Spirit to guide the shift in our perceiving, we release our investment in separation and limitation, letting go of our attachment to the ideas ad thoughts that block our awareness of who we really are.  We need not do this on our own.  Spirit guides us every step of the way as we allow.  Every one we encounter, every experience we experience has a lesson in allowing Spirit to guide the shift in our perception we need at that moment.  We become totally present in the now as we allow Spirit to shift our perception and our thoughts.  Make the choice to allow Spirit to guide your mind to its miracle of healing.  It can only be truly helpful.

April 1, 2014

The Oneness of the Creator and the creation is our wholeness, our sanity, and our limitless power.  This wholeness, sanity and power is the Creator’s gift to us because it is who and what we are.  If we dissociate our mind from this reality, we perceive the most powerful force in the universe as weak because we do not believe we are part of it.  The power of creation lies within our mind, and our recognition of it determines the world we see and perceive.  The Creator create in its image; whole, peaceful, joyful, powerful, and loving.  We, the Creator’s creations, are One with the Creator and all creation.  Only our disbelief of who we are denies us the awareness of this Truth.  Because Creation is absolute and cannot be defiled, that is undeniably who we are, even if we don’t see it at the moment.  Only our disbelief of that truth separates us from the awareness of who we really are and the awareness of our presence in the Realm of Heaven and all that entails.

The Creator loves us unconditionally.  We are imbued with the ability to create like the Creator.  As we come from Love, we can create only Love in reality.  However, since we have disbelieved the truth about who we really are and believed we are separate and thus different from who we really are, we have made a different meaning for ourselves that serves and strengthens our belief in our separateness.   Though we have embedded our minds in an existence of separation, we have not changed who we really are.  We have simply believed some other idea about our identity and built our belief in a separate world on those e beliefs.  Our belief in these ideas and thoughts gives our lower thought system the power to block our awareness of who we really are.  And so, this incorrect perceived world seems to be our “real” world.

The Course asks us to be vigilant.  Oneness with the Creator and creation; who we really are, is never in question.  We cannot change truth.  Spirit asks us to be vigilant for whatever blocks our awareness of this truth.  Spirit will guide us, if we allow, in the discernment of what is real and true and what is false.  Spirit will guide us to discern the blocks to the awareness of who we are, and transform them into miracles pointing the way to the awareness of our Divine essence.  Miracles are shifts in thought from thoughts of separation to thoughts of Oneness.  The belief in separation fades away to nothingness when we allow the belief in Oneness to rise in our minds.  The world becomes a happy place in this mind shift.  Wholeness, peace, love, and joy become the experiences of the world we live in.  We rejoice with one another at this transformation as it rises in our mind.  This is the real world the Creator created by creating each creation.  Allow Spirit to be heard in your mind and heed its guidance.  Be vigilant for blocks to the awareness of who you really are. Release these blocks, for we don’t need or want them.  Allow the blessing of the awareness of who we really are to wash over and through us and be the Divine creation we really are.

March 25, 2014

We have divided our allegiance between two realms, or more correctly, thought systems.  And therefore, we are totally committed to neither.  Is it any wonder we are conflicted and confused?  One of those realms is the Realm of God, or the Mind of God, and that is never in question except by us when we are thinking insanely.  What we are is not established by our perception and cannot be influenced by perception at all.  We are the Holy Creation of God, extending from the Mind of God and One with God.  We are Divine co-creators with God, One with God and all Creation.  This is who we really are.  Our perceived problems in the identification of who we think we are at any level are not problems of fact.  They are problems of understanding and the belief that we are something less than who and what we really are.  There are no problems outside our mind.  The root of any problem we perceive in this world is a problem in the thought system we have chosen allegiance to.

If we are totally committed to our higher thought system, the Mind of God, we are in full awareness of who we really are and dwell in peace, love, and joy, sharing and extending that which we are to all.  But when we choose to align our thoughts with the lower thought system, we separate our mind from the awareness of who we really are, for we cannot be committed to both at once.  This causes conflict in our world and so blocks the awareness of who we really are from us.  The root of all problems we perceive in our lives is simply what thought system we are allegiant to at the moment.  Who and what we believe we are at any given moment determines the thought system we are committed to at that moment. And we are capable of swinging widely from one to another at any moment.  Spirit asks us to be vigilant for where our belief of who we are stands at any moment.  Are we feeling conflicted?  Are we feeling peace, love, or joy?  The answer tells us where our allegiance lies at that moment.  Our feelings tell us when we need to stop a moment and ask Spirit to help us see differently, and ask Spirit to remind us of our Divine nature.

God’s will for us is happiness.  God’s will is for us to extend peace, love, and joy.  This is our natural state of being.  Nothing can take this away from us except us when we lose sight of who we really are.  Returning to that awareness is a simple choice to let go of our allegiance to misperception about who we are and allowing Spirit to guide our thoughts back to the Mind of God, where we are at home.  There is much joy to be felt when we join in the awareness of our Divinity.  We take the world we perceive in separation much too seriously. The Realm of God is filled with love.  It is filled with joy.  And it is filled with infinite peace.  After all, it is our real home.  Are we treading with heavy feet?  It’s a sign to stop and turn to Spirit.  See the block to the awareness of who we really are fade to nothing, for it was never really there except in our mind.  Rejoice as Spirit raises the awareness of the truth about who we really are in our minds and brings joy to our hearts and minds. This is who we really are.  Believe it and know it!