September 11, 2018

What if we have everything we need within us? What if we lack nothing? What if the world we really want is all there is and the world we see is really a distorted insane perception of the real world we want? Wholeness, completeness, peace and love are within our reach. They are right in front of us waiting for us to recognize them. The light of reality is within us and wanting us to let it shine brightly from our soul. The darkness in which we seem to be surrounded is merely an illusion – an incorrect interpretation of our reality. What will it take for us to be willing to release our attachment to what we think we see and allow something else to rise in its place? Our happiness relies on this willingness. Our peace of mind relies on this willingness. Stepping into the world already within us relies on this willingness. It is ours in an instant if we decide we want it enough to let all else go. The Course tells us:

Be willing, for an instant, to leave your altars free of what you placed upon them, and what is really there you cannot fail to see. The holy instant is not an instant of creation, but of recognition. For recognition comes of vision and suspended judgment. Then only it is possible to look within and see what must be there, plainly in sight, and wholly independent of inference and judgment. Undoing is not your task, but it is up to you to welcome it or not. Faith and desire go hand in hand, for everyone believes in what they want.   T-21.II.8:1-6

In the holy instant we are transformed. Our mind awakes to the reality right before us. It is a holy instant because all unreality disappears for that instant and we have suspended judgement for just that instant. We have allowed vision to surface in our minds, enabling us to see clearly what is already there. No amount of effort, schooling or compromising will get us to this holy instant. Only a complete surrender of all our attachments to our own misperceptions we hold so dear. Do these misperceptions serve us at all? They only serve to keep us locked into a miserable pattern of misperceived judgements that keep us from recognizing the peaceable world within us.

We deny the real world within us by our wishful thinking that there is something outside us that will bring something better to us. This denial is so powerful it hides a peaceful and loving world from our minds. It is so powerful it blocks our holy vision, for we cannot see a false and a real world at the same time. We choose, then, what we see by where and with what we align our minds. Which thought system do you prefer? Rightmindedness – the Mind of Oneness, or wrongmindedness – the egoic thought system rooted in the belief in separation. What we believe we will see, right or wrong.

Yet the truth is you and your friend were both created by a loving Creator, Who created you together and as one. See what “proves” otherwise, and you deny your whole reality. But grant that everything that seems to stand between you and your friend, keeping you from each other and separate from your Creator, you made in secret, and the instant of release has come to you. All its effects are gone, because its source has been uncovered. It is its seeming independence of its source that keeps you prisoner. This is the same mistake as thinking you are independent of the Source by which you were created and have never left.   T-21.II.13:7-6

Look at each other and allow yourself to see each other as the holy and complete Ones you already are. Don’t let their appearance in this world fool you. We are all really holy and we are all really One, joined in Oneness as we are created. Allow your holy vision to rise and be guided by your higher Spirit Self. Truth is within you. Allow your mind to recognize that truth and let it show you the way to the recognition of reality. It is not hard, though it may seem impossible right now. Start with just a little willingness to be shown a different way and see the world transformed before your very eyes. This little willingness is our responsibility. Say “yes” to it now.

September 4, 2018

Since we entered this world we have been looking for something, for meaning and for peace and love. Have we found it yet? Where are we looking? Perhaps we are making it much more difficult than we need. Perhaps we are looking in all the wrong places when what we are looking for is right in front of us and we refuse to see it. The Course has repeated how little is asked of us to learn the lessons of this course. It is the same small willingness we need to have our whole relationship transformed to joy; the little gift we offer to Spirit for which we are given everything; the very little on which salvation rests; the tiny change of mind by which our mind is transformed. This transformation is so simple that it cannot fail to be completely understood. We can reject or deny it, but it is not ambiguous. If we choose against these lessons now, it will not be because the message is obscure, but rather that this little cost seemed, in our judgment, to be too much to pay for peace.

This is the only thing that you need do for vision, happiness, release from pain and the complete escape from sin, all to be given you. Say only this, but mean it with no reservations, for here the power of salvation lies:

•  I am responsible for what I see.
•  I choose the feelings I experience, and I decide upon the goal I would achieve.
•  And everything that seems to happen to me I ask for, and receive as I have asked.

 Deceive yourself no longer that you are helpless in the face of what is done to you. Acknowledge but that you have been mistaken, and all effects of your mistakes will disappear.   T-21.II.2:1-7

The transformation of our mind, and thus our world, is really very simple. Yet, we are the ones who make it difficult and sometimes seemingly impossible. We have become so attached to the world we think we see and our own mistaken perception of it that we resist letting go of it. We believe in our perception of this world so strongly that it blocks all other ideas that conflict with it. It is our fear of the unknown that keeps us clinging to that which is familiar to us, even if it makes us miserable. In reality, it is impossible that we are driven by events outside of us. Yet, we think we are. It is also impossible, in reality, that happenings that come to us are not our choice. Yet, we think it so. Our power of decision is the determiner of every situation in which we seem to find ourselves by chance or accident. There are no accidents, for we are responsible for our view of the world. We are responsible for our sight – how we see the world.

If we suffer, we decided separation was our goal. Be happy, and we give the power of decision to the One Who must decide for Oneness for us. This is the little gift we can offer to the Spirit within us, and even this Spirit gives to us to give ourselves. For by this gift we are given the power to release each other, that they may give salvation to us.

Begrudge not then this little offering. Withhold it, and you keep the world as now you see it. Give it away, and everything you see goes with it. Never was so much given for so little. In the holy instant is this exchange effected and maintained. Here is the world you do not want brought to the one you do. And here the one you do is given you because you want it. Yet for this, the power of your wanting must first be recognized. You must accept its strength, and not its weakness. You must perceive that what is strong enough to make a world can let it go, and can accept correction if it is willing to see that it was wrong.   T-21.II.4:1-10

We all have the power to see. We can see an illusion of the world – a distorted and convoluted perception. Or, we can choose to see with Holy Vision, as Spirit guides us. With this guided vision, the world is transformed before us. It is transformed to a world of peace, love and joy. In this real world we are complete, whole, limitless and free. It is a world we rest in. Which world do you want? We are already in the real world – the transformed world – yet it looks like something else. It is our responsibility how we see the world. It’s our choice. Accept the gift of Vision the Holy offers you. This is your home, and this is your salvation.

August 28, 2018

We have adjusted our minds to the world we made up. We have adjusted our minds to the limits we have placed on this world and, thus think we are limited. We have learned these lessons, believing they came from outside ourselves, from something we have no control over. Yet these lessons we made up, denying we have any control over what seems to affect our happiness and well-being. Some keep this world we think we “see” in our imagination, believing with all our mind that our choice is this world or nothing at all. We hate this world we learned and everything we think it serves appears to remind us we are incomplete and bitterly deprived – hell on earth.

To this seeming “truth” we adjust everything about ourselves. We see this as a necessity to avoid losing what little security we seem to glean from this world. We try and fail, disappointed again and again as we try to connect with each other meaningfully. And so we settle. We settle for loneliness, believing we must retreat to preserve what little we think we have. Stop! Look! Listen for just a moment and try to remember an ancient melody that speaks to you now.

Listen,–perhaps you catch a hint of an ancient state not quite forgotten; dim, perhaps, and yet not altogether unfamiliar, like a song whose name is long forgotten, and the circumstances in which you heard completely unremembered. Not the whole song has stayed with you, but just a little wisp of melody, attached not to a person or a place or anything particular. But you remember, from just this little part, how lovely was the song, how wonderful the setting where you heard it, and how you loved those who were there and listened with you.   T-21.I.6::1-3

-The notes are nothing. Yet we have kept them with us, not for themselves, but as a soft reminder of what would make us weep if we remembered how dear it was to us. We could remember, yet we are afraid, believing we would lose the world we learned since then. Yet we know that nothing in the world we learned is half so dear as this. Let us listen, and see if we remember an ancient song we knew so long ago and held more dear than any melody we taught ourselves to cherish since.

Beyond the body, beyond the sun and stars, past everything you see and yet somehow familiar, is an arc of golden light that stretches as you look into a great and shining circle. And all the circle fills with light before your eyes. The edges of the circle disappear, and what is in it is no longer contained at all. The light expands and covers everything, extending to infinity forever shining and with no break or limit anywhere. Within it everything is joined in perfect continuity. Nor is it possible to imagine that anything could be outside, for there is nowhere that this light is not.   T-21.I.8:1-6

Here is our Vision reawakened. Here is the gift of the remembrance of who we really are, memory of what is wholly true and still within us and joined to all as surely as it is joined in us. Accept the Vision Spirit offer us. We know this ancient song of joy well. It reminds us of our wholeness. It reminds us of our completeness. It reminds us of the light of holiness that shines from the core of our being. This is the truth we have forgotten. Accept its return to our awareness. Release the limits we have placed on it. Nothing can or will be as dear as this ever present song of joy that lifts us into the present – the now – as we realize the truth that love is all we are and all that surrounds us.

What is a miracle but this reawakening? The light in one of us awakens the light in all. As we see and realize this light in each other, we are reawakening this light for everyone.

August 21, 2018

Is the world we see the world we want? If not, there is a simple way to change it. Simply choose another way of looking at the world. It is that simple, and we have the guidance of Spirit at our disposal if we choose to allow Spirit’s guidance. We see the world through our perception, determined by what we believe about ourselves and others and even the world. I remember the prayer response we used at my church years ago. Its words were, “My God hears my prayer. What I believe I will see.” There is incredible power in what we believe. We will see anything distorted by the lens of what we believe. This is how so many of us can witness the same event but see it so differently that some may wonder if we even saw the same event. This is the partnership of belief and perception. We project whatever we believe on the world and thus see it according to what we believe. There is, however, another way to see.

Projection makes perception. The world you see is what you gave it, nothing more than that. But though it is no more than that, it is not less. Therefore, to you it is important. It is the witness to your state of mind, the outside picture of an inward condition. As a man thinketh, so does he perceive. Therefore, seek not to change the world, but choose to change your mind about the world. Perception is a result and not a cause. And that is why order of difficulty in miracles is meaningless. Everything looked upon with vision is healed and holy. Nothing perceived without it means anything. And where there is no meaning, there is chaos.   T-21.in.1:1-12

Be willing to change your mind about the world. And rather than trying this on your own from the mindset of separation, allow Spirit to guide your mind to the correct perception of the world. This probably will not happen in one fell swoop, but in steps, small or large that are appropriate for your perfect growth. Begin by allowing yourself to entertain the idea that your true nature is loving and whole and that others and the world are as well, even if you can’t see it right now. Spirit will reveal your loving wholeness to you as you are willing to receive it – in perfect time.

Do not forget the world we “see” with the body’s eyes is imagined. What the real world looks like is unknown to the body’s eyes for they are blind to reality. Because we try to see with the body’s eyes, we do not really see. Our cues for interpretation are wrong, and so we stumble and fall down upon the stones we did not recognize, but fail to be aware we can go through the doors we thought were closed, but which stand open before our unseeing eyes, waiting to welcome us. The world we want and that is our real world, is there behind those seemingly closed doors that are really open wide beckoning us to pass through.

It is not necessary for us to imagine what the world must look like. It must be seen before we recognize it for what it is. We can be shown which doors are open, and we can see where safety lies; and which way leads to darkness, which way to light. Our Higher Vision, given us by Spirit, shows us where to go. Why should we guess?

There is no need to learn through pain. And gentle lessons are acquired joyously, and are remembered gladly. What gives you happiness you want to learn and not forget. It is not this you would deny. Your question is whether the means by which this course is learned will bring to you the joy it promises. If you believed it would, the learning of it would be no problem. You are not a happy learner yet because you still remain uncertain that vision gives you more than judgment does, and you have learned that both you cannot have.  T-21.I.3:1-7

The world we seek is already available to us through our Holy Vision. However, we must choose our own Holy Vision guided by Spirit to open our Spirit eyes. Allow Spirit to grant you that guidance, for that allowing makes us a happy learner and brings the awareness of our loving wholeness and the real world to us when we do just that. Be the happy learner today. What else could you be waiting for?