July 9, 2013

The Course tells us that Creation and Communication are synonyms.  We probably don’t think this way in our accustomed way of thinking.  We generally think that creating is concrete – things – and communication is not concrete – ideas and thought.  The world of form is the world we think is real and therefore concrete or solid.  Our idea about our identity is primarily based on this idea.  It involves a body we believe we are, physical things and needs we have, other people we interact with and either love and care for or wish they would get out of our lives, and a God “out there somewhere” we want or don’t want to intervene in our physical world.  This “concrete” world is the egoic world, the world of form, the separate world that is the ego’s existence.  This world we identify as real is not the actual physical world, but the world we perceive with our separated or split mind governed by the ego.  The egoic mind perceives each thing or idea as a separate whole that has no relationship to anything else, thus making everything appear separate unless it is in the ego’s interest to see some benefit to that relationship.

The Realm of God – the real world – is the opposite of this.  Spirit reacts the same to all that is true and real and does not respond to anything else.  In Truth, nothing unreal exists.  Spirit knows that all that is true is everything created by the Creator.  Everything true is in direct and complete communication with all of creation and thus the Creator and Spirit.  The Creator creates every mind by communicating the One Mind to each of us, thus establishing a permanent natural channel of communicating the One Mind and Will.  This is our natural order of being and we cannot lose this.  It is always our natural state of being whether or not we are aware of it.  Allowing our mind to believe we are separate from the reality of who we are blocks our awareness of who we really are, but it doesn’t change our natural order of being.

The Creator created us with everything, both in Oneness and individually, with the natural desire to share all of what we have.  Nothing real can be increased except by sharing.  Divine Abstraction takes joy in sharing.  The Realm of Heaven is not about the physical world at all.  It is about an abstract world, a world that is perceived by the mind.  It is our choice whether we perceive with the split or separate mind or the One Mind.  The One Mind is the connected Mind.  It is the Mind in communication with Source and all of Creation.  It is the Mind we were created from and to be.  Our state on being is certainly abstract.  It is not determined by our circumstances, conditions, or experiences.  Our state of being is determined by our state of mind and the belief and thought system to which we hold allegiance.

The Realm of Heaven rises in our mind whenever we learn to be wholly helpful and thus harmless.  The Miracle Workers’ Prayer in Chapter 2 of the Course sums it up; “I am here only to be truly helpful.”  This is our purpose in this world.  We raise our mind’s vibration to the transforming perception of Spirit that moves us into the awareness of who we really are allowed by our mind’s willingness to let the blocks to our awareness of our true being fall away.  Yes, it takes practice.  Yes, we will try, succeed, and then fall back again.  But we always carry with us our true and natural state of being that we truly are.  Our memory of that will bring us back to the awareness of who we really are again and again.  Meanwhile we share and multiply the Peace, Love, and Joy of our One Mind all along the journey.

July 2, 2013

Our real life has continued without interruption, and has been and always will be unaffected by our attempts to dissociate from our true Self.  Our Divine real life cannot be interrupted or diminished in any way by our attempts at separation.  We can and do dissociate form it and block it from our awareness in an attempt to create an individual identity separate from God.  In essence we are living two lives; one in peace and joy in Communication with God, and one in separation fraught with feelings of fear and lack.  No wonder we’re confused.

The ego is not an entity that attacks us.  It is an idea in our mind made by our dissociation with who we really are.  We made it.  It didn’t invade us.  We have given that idea – albeit a mistaken idea – the power to govern our thinking – our mind.  We have given a mistaken idea power over our thoughts and believed it.  The mistaken thought system has no power unless we give it power.  And, we have become so accustomed to this mistaken thought system that we find it difficult if not impossible to let go of it, especially on our own.  We also have convinced ourselves that we could not possibly be who we really are.

We are inherently indebted to each other.  I perceive this indebtedness as responsibility.  Or, we are responsible to each other and for each other.  We are certainly responsible for what and how we think about each other.  We are responsible to each other by seeing the truth about who our brothers and sisters really are.  If we throw this responsibility away, we throw away the graciousness of each other’s Divinity including dignity; theirs and ours.  Thus we throw away – ignore – the holy perception our loving thoughts would produce.  Holy perception comes as close to knowledge as perception can.  The gap is so small at this point that knowledge easily flows across the gap, obliterating it forever.  It’s our choice to allow our thought system to be guided to change.

We really are the perfect creations of God we are created to be.  There are no ifs, and, or buts about it.  We are and have always been and always will be Divine.  We are to simply wake up and smell whatever we are meant to smell and be who we really are.  Whatever thought system is keeping you blocked from the awareness of who you really are can be offered to Spirit for evaluation.  What is mistaken will fall away.  What is mistaken cannot exist in the light of the divine.  Look in another’s eyes and see the Divine withu.  Let what is not Divine and therefore not real fall away.  The joy of the Realm of Heaven is awaiting your awakening.  We exist in the peace, love, and joy of Heaven and nowhere else.  Be where you really are and be who you really are.

June 25, 2013

This Section opens with the statement, “All things work together for good.”  This is a powerful idea. Then it goes on to say that the only exceptions to this absolute statement is in the ego’s thought system.  Do we approach all people, experiences, and things that come into our lives this way?  If all things truly work together for good, we must welcome every situation, experience, and person that comes our way.  What would happen if we embraced all things we encounter without judgment and looked for the good in all of it?  We just might find something we are seeking.  We just might find the awareness of who we really are as we change the way we think and perceive our world.

Our ego is totally invested in its existence and survival.  Its whole existence is based on an illusion, a separate thought system.  It is based on the premise that we each exist separately and are completely independent from each other and God.  This premise is untrue, but our ego has convinced us that we are separate and that that is our identity.  Our true identity created by God cannot be undone or changed.  But the ego has devised ways to keep our awareness of our true Self hidden.  Our ego uses distraction as its way of keeping us from the awareness of our true identity.  It also uses each and every situation, experience and person that comes into our lives as a distraction.    Instead of all things working together for good, all things become threats, challenges, and stumbling blocks that others throw at us to make our lives difficult and keep us from a life we think we should have.  Both ways of thinking about this are perceptions.  One is correct and one is not.

God creates us whole and One with God, each other, and all creation.  Nothing can change that fact.  This knowing is always with us.  It is our natural state of being.  We can never really be separated from the peace, love, and joy that is the manifestation of this being.  But we can hide the awareness of this truth from our consciousness simply by believing the thought that we are not this truth.  This makes the ego’s thought system which then teaches us to see everything as attacks and challenges to our happiness and our very existence.  The ego even sees the body as against us because it is temporary.  Yet the ego identifies itself strongly with the body as our identity because the only other alternative points to the nonexistence of the ego.  So all is interpreted within the egoic thought system as a challenge to what we want most; happiness, peace, love, and joy.

However, the opposite is true.  All things do work together to bring about the awareness of the real happiness, peace, love, and joy that are and always have been within us.  A simple choice to allow Spirit to help us see more clearly each experience, person, and thing in our lives.  Spirit will show us new ways to perceive all that comes into our lives.  We just need to let go of our attachment to the way we have been perceiving from our egoic thought system and allow Spirit to show us the correct perception.  Spirit is always with us even when we don’t recognize or see It. Let all things work together for good in your life and return to the awareness of who you really are, the Divine One Child of God.

June 18, 2013

The Divine Presence that is truly who we are shines within us.  It is part of our Creation.  And it cannot be hurt, damaged, or put out.  It shines in all its holiness within us for eternity.  The only thing we can do with this shining Presence is choose to let it shine through us or to prevent it from shining through us in this world. This all depends on our belief about who we think we are.  In a like way, there is no limit to the power of a Child of God – us.  We can only choose to limit or express that power.  Our belief that we are limited is the choice we make that limits our awareness of who we really are.

The Christ Spirit is within us.  Spirit dwells in our higher mind, the mind that was created by the Creator and is One with and inseparable from the One Mind – the Mind of God.  We have, however, made the choice to make a lower mind that we have chosen to identify as.  This lower mind believes it is separate and independent from the Whole.  Our choice to believe that idea is the belief that set up our separation from the awareness of who we really are.   We still are the Love, Peace, and Joy of our Source, but we have chosen to hide it from our awareness – our mind.  So our higher mind goes on knowing who we really are, yet honoring our lower mind’s choice to think we are separate from the rest of creation.  Jesus called this hiding our light under a bushel basket!  And we have believed our lower mind run by the ego that there is no light, love, or peace there.

Spirit within us waits.  Spirit gently calls to us.  Sprit patiently waits for us to make another choice, to come to the place where we want something other than separation.  The wall we have put up between our higher and lower mind is not real, though we believe it’s real.  When we look at the wall, all we see is the wall.   But, when we look beyond the wall to what is real beyond, the wall dissolves into nothingness.  The hand of Spirit reaches out to us inviting us to take it and walk hand in hand with each other into the awareness of our truth.  Our world begins to transform before us, not because its form changes, but because our perception of it changes.  We begin to see the world differently through the eyes of Spirit.

Joining in the awareness of who we really are lifts the bushel from our light and it shines forth, not only in the Realm of Heaven, but in the world of form.  It shines on our sisters and brothers calling them to the awareness of who they really are.  As we remain in this awareness of our truth, we experience the deep Peace Love, and Joy of our Source.  When we experience this deep peace, love, ad joy, we know we are living from our higher mind – the One Mind.  If we experience feelings other than these, such as fear, anger, loneliness, or lack, we can use the presence of these feelings as an indication that we have shifted back to the lower mind governed by the ego.  Now we know it’s a simple shift in our thinking that will bring us back to the awareness of who we really are and the shining presence of love and light.

June 11, 2013

We are the masters of our choosing.  This is where our power lies.  We have the power to choose at any moment of any day, in any situation, and in any experience.  And, the most important thing to realize is that the only choice that makes a difference is the choice in how we think.  It’s not about a choice between colors or alternatives.  It’s about how we make that choice.  Our feelings will tell us how we are making our choices.  Are we feeling joyous?  Joyousness is our natural whole state of being.  If not, we have chosen to think and choose outside of the Mind of God, our higher mind.

Are we feeling sad?  The Course tells us “This need not be.”  Lonely?  “This need not be.”  Anxious or full of anxiety?  “This need not be.”  No matter what we are doing or experiencing our natural state of being is deep peace and joy.  This is the only state of being when we are in the awareness of who we really are.  It is the state of being we experience when we realize our Oneness with our Source and each other.  This awareness is our natural thought system – also called our higher mind.  We have severed our awareness of our higher mind by making and thinking with a “lower mind” that the Course refers to as the ego.  We have chosen to think with this lower mind and since it’s not real, it blocks our awareness of our higher mind.  This lower mind has made an identity for us that is separate from our true identity as One with God.  We have thus perceived ourselves as separate, victim, conqueror, defender, attacker, guilty, blamed, or blaming.  And then we believe it!  We believe this mistaken idea of who we think we are.  Yet nothing could be further from the truth.

This need not be.  This is our choice.  We have become so attached to our misperception of who we think we are that we have lost sight of our true real Self.  That true real Self has never gone away.  It remains within us, lying just above the misperceptions we have chosen to believe about ourselves.  The Voice for God gently calls to us, gently reminding us of who we really are.  But we choose to direct our listening to our lower mind, shutting out that gentle call.  We choose to listen to the noise of the lower mind instead.  However, we have not changed or harmed who we really are.  We are there above the din; patiently waiting for our mind to wake up and recognize its true reality.  We are waiting for our radiant awareness to shine through the opening we allow in our mind.  Spirit is also within us waiting for us to allow a little willingness to reach out for what we are really seeking.  Once we let go of our attachment to all that miss-thinking, we will recognize our true Self and our Oneness with God and all creation.  Isn’t it time to look at what we are feeling and recognize that this need not be?!  The door will open when we allow it to open.  Let it open.

June 4, 2013

The Course tells us that God has given us everything.  There are no conditions.  This is an absolute truth.  This knowledge is present in our sane mind, the mind in constant communication with the Mind of God.  This sane mind is our true mind.  But we have chosen to separate our awareness from this sane mind where we have and are all and walk in the Realm of Heaven.  This is our choice.  God created us with free will and we can choose to use our creative gifts to make this separate mind we think is who we are.  When we perceive with this separate mind – the ego – we block our perception from the Light and Presence of the Divine within us, for that true identity is always in our sane mind – our right mind.

God gave us this free will to create.  It is our choice whether we Co-create with God, in partnership with God, from our right mind or make from our separate mind on our own.  The Holy Spirit respects our choices and will never interfere unless asked to do so.  But we have to really mean it when we ask.  Any reservation, any part of our mind held back, will prevent the fullness of what we already have from blossoming.  We’ve built this wall in our mind that we believe is impenetrable.  We have effectively blocked the Light of Love from our awareness with this wall.  Spirit sees through it.  Our right mind sees through it.  But we have believed so strongly in this separate identity we cannot see back through it to who we really are.  It’s like a one way mirror.  Our real right sane mind can see clearly exactly what we are doing and how we are thinking while our separate identity – our mistaken separated mind – looks and sees itself and what it made reflected back, confirming that what it made is indeed real.  From this state of mind we experience all the conflicts, lacks, and fears of the world of illusion – the world we have perceived without the guidance of Spirit.

This isn’t the existence God wills for us.  This isn’t the existence we will for ourselves.  The separate existence we made up with our split mind can’t really harm us.  We are really One with God and unchangeable.  But can surely feel painful.  Spirit knows we can’t harm who we really are.  But it also knows it cannot fight with us or go against our will.  That would violate God’s creation.  So Spirit waits with our sane right mind for an opening in our perception, a willingness to reawaken to the awareness of who we really are.  How bad does the world we made up have to seem before we are ready to see differently?  Lesson 153 says, “In my defenselessness my safety lies.”  (Sunday’s lesson)  There is no need to defend any perception we have made up.  Nothing real can be threatened for nothing unreal exists at all.  This is the comfort that surrounds and enfolds us.  The Light and Love of the Realm of Heaven are invincible and infinite.  Let all that is already you well up and shine from your radiant eyes illuminating the way for all your brothers and sisters.  It only takes this moment to shift your mind and your world.  You will realize you won’t be doing it alone.  Let it be so.

May 28, 2013

We are created in the Creator’s image.  We are created as extensions of the Creator.  We are created One with the Creator and nothing can change or take away any of this.  When the Course tells us that the Realm of Heaven is within us, it means we are inseparable from the Realm of Heaven.  The Realm of Heaven is an essential part of us.  It’s within, around, under, above, and throughout our being.  The Realm of Heaven just is!  And we are there, always.  But we can block ourselves from the awareness of that reality.  One might ask why anyone would do that or even want to do that, but we do it anyway.  In our effort to make a separate “identity” for ourselves we have made up ideas and beliefs that form these blocks to the awareness of who we really are.

Rather than uniting with the whole of Creation, we have misperceived ourselves as independent and separate from the Whole, the One.  We have convinced ourselves that we are each independent beings defined by and identified with a physical body.  We think our thoughts are unique and independent and that they do not necessarily have any impact on others.  The belief in this separate identity has made a split mind that we think is us.  Thus the thoughts we think and believe about ourselves have perceived a “reality” that is anything but real even though it seems and feels very real.  This split mind, this collection of misperceived ideas and thoughts makes up our ego.  Our ego is a self-centered illusion about who we think we really are.

This thought system – which is properly identified as “wrong-mindedness” – is all about preserving its perceived existence.  It uses whatever it can to perpetuate this illusion of separation from the awareness of who we really are.  It uses fear, judgment, conflict, guilt, and many other feelings to reinforce the idea of how alone and separate we appear to be.  If we become aware of our true created nature, there is nothing to fear, attack, defend, or feel guilty about.  The awareness of our wholeness, our Oneness with Source and all Creation, and our Divinity exposes the illusion of the split mind and wrong-mindedness.  We have also blocked the awareness of our Guidance from our mind.

Our true state of being is One-mindedness.  But since we are so attached to our separateness and our split-mindedness, Spirit is given us to guide us in shifting our thought system from wrong-mindedness to right-mindedness.  This places our state of mind in correct perception where we can see the world we live in with new eyes and new understanding.  We see each other as the Holy Child of God we really are.  We find peace, love, and joy within and around us.  Light and love radiate from within us and to each and every one we encounter.  The Bliss of Holiness and the Divine essence of who we really are wells up and directs us in our lives.  Let go of all the thoughts that limit and be who you really are.

May 21, 2013

The world we seem to see around us and that we seem to live in is a world of perception.  As we see it there is nothing neutral about it.  It is full of judgments; good, bad, evil, pleasure, pain, blame, guilt, attack, defense, right and wrong. The world we perceive is seen through the lens of our perception or our mind.  How we see and perceive the world is determined by our thought system or our state of mind.  The world itself is neutral.  There is nothing good or bad about the world – it just is.  Our thought system brings about all the thoughts we have about the world.  Is it any wonder that no two people see any event exactly the same?

As long as we aspire to identify as the body we live in and believe that some part of that body identifies who we are, we are perceiving the world in whatever way we are perceiving it.  When we begin our journey by beginning to remove the blocks to our awareness of who we really are, we must first accept the idea that we are using a thought system that is “wrong-minded.”  It is based on perception that reinforces the idea that we are separate from God and are independent from the rest of the world.  Once we begin to allow Spirit to guide our perception we move toward right-mindedness.  It a state of “right-mindedness” we perceive more uniformly and correctly.  We begin to perceive the Divine order of the world and the Divine order of our being.  From a state of “right-mindedness”, it is a simple step to One-mindedness, our true state of being.  From here we begin to see and understand that all is as it should be and that all we see, experience, and encounter is useful in right perceiving the world.  We begin to see our wholeness.  We begin to see our Divinity and our Oneness with God and Creation.  We begin to understand the natural order of our Spirit and realize that we are not the separate body we appear to inhabit that seems to limit us, but that we are limitless, holy, and perfect just as we are; as God created us.

The Course suggests that we let go of our attachment to our “wrong-mindedness” or misperception and allow Spirit to guide our mind into “right-mindedness.”  Our whole experience will shift.  Our thinking will shift.  The world will shift.  As all this shifts, we become aware that the world we think we see is more about our thoughts about it than the world itself.  As we allow our mind to shift into “right-mindedness” we reawaken to the awareness of our true Self.  We return to the awareness of our Oneness with God and all Creation.  We again are aware of God’s peace, love, and joy that well up within us and radiate to all those around us and beyond.  All the ideas of separation or “wrong-mindedness”; conflict, blame, fear, and lack fade away and we rest in the reality of our Divine nature.  Love without conflict wells up within us and extends from us, connecting with the abundant Love that flows from every One in this world.  Let your mind shift to its natural state and be the One you really are.

May 14, 2013

We are spiritual beings having a human experience, not human beings having a spiritual experience.  This is a clear statement with which to evaluate the condition of our thinking.  The first is right side up thinking and the second is upside down thinking according to the Course.  The belief that we are a human being is the belief that separates us from the awareness of our true nature.  The Course explains that our belief that we are human, that we are separate beings in a physical body, blocks our awareness of who we really are.  How could we possibly believe we are limitless, abundant, and powerful when we believe we are limited by our bodies, by being human, and therefore separate?    As long as we believe we are a body, that we are separate from God and all Creation, we will continue to perceive ourselves and the world we see as limited, lacking, unfair, cruel, and hateful.  We will see a world divided and in conflict.  This is not a real world we are seeing.

The real world is a world of peace, joy, love, harmony, and understanding.  It is a world where we find we are happy ad experience the love and light of God in everything on which we rest our eyes.  This change is not a change wrought by amazing works, perseverance, or continuous sacrifice.  This change is brought about by a simple change in our belief of who we are and a resulting change in our thought system.  By beginning to believe we are as God created us – One with God, each other, and all Creation – our thinking begins to be guided by Spirit who understands our separated thinking, but will guide that thinking to a more correct way of thinking.  We see ourselves and the world through a system of perception made up by our separated or split mind called the ego.  Since there is no such reality as separation, the perceptions we see are really misperceptions or wrong-mindedness.  This is not our natural thought system.  This is not who we really are.  This is not the reality God sees.

We have another choice.  Though we are free to choose to experience and pursue separation and block our minds from the awareness of our Divinity and our Holiness, we are also free to choose to be who we really are.  From a separation perception this nay appear daunting, if not impossible, but the Holy Spirit is already with us waiting for our willingness to be guided into correct perception.  Spirit guides us in shifting our perception, shifting our thought system to one grounded in the awareness that we are as God created us – that we are the divine, holy, and pure creations we always have been. It is based in the realization that we simply thought wrongly because we had blocked our awareness of who we really are.  Spirit guides us to correct perception and right-mindedness.  This is still perception, but it is the perception that places us in a state of being where we are in communication with God and see the love of God extending from God to us and all we see.  We see and understand ourselves, each other, and the world differently.  From this awareness all we encounter and experience are opportunities to extend and receive love.  Each is a perfect lesson for us to learn to extend and receive love and light.  Let it be so.

May 7, 2013

We use our God given creative power to make up – miscreate – our separate identity using the split mind we made up.  This idea is our ego.  It is not real, because it is separate from and not created by God.  But because we believe it is real it blocks us from the awareness of who we really are, One with and an inseparable part of God – Spirit.  Because we are One with God and created in God’s image – an extension of God – we have all God is, yet we have blocked our awareness of who we really are and all we have by believing in this ego or separate identity we have miscreated.  This identity we have made up sometimes seems askew, or inadequate, lacking in many ways, but we have given it – a mistaken idea – autonomy to guide us.  And so it tries to explain any situation or experience it doesn’t know what to do with.  It looks at past experiences and tries to apply them to the situation, and tries to make decisions without the full benefit of the whole picture.  Is it any wonder we struggle with all this confusion?

We also make up egos for all those we encounter in this would.  Yes, we each make up our own identity and ego, but we also make up identities and egos for each of our friends, family members, teachers, students, coworkers, and eve the person we see walking down the other side of the street.  Guess what?!  The identities we make up of others doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the identities those others have made up for themselves.  Nor does the identity they made up for us resemble the one we made up for ourselves.  Sound confusing?  Confusing barely touches the surface of the thought chaos all this separated thinking makes.  It’s probably a blessing none of it is really real.  It’s all in our thoughts.  It all stems from a world of illusion we have made up in our individually separate minds.  My perception of who you are is very different from your perception of who you are, and yours of mine.  And each of our perceptions of another are very different even when we seem to agree.

How do we resolve all this differing perception?  It comes down to our willingness to allow Spirit to show us a “new” thought system, a different way to see everything, one perception at a time.  We have never left the Mind of God and have never actually separated from God.  We have just built up barriers to our awareness of our Unity and Oneness with God, each other, and all of Creation.  We lost the awareness of our completeness, peacefulness, abundance, and power that are within us at all times and places waiting for us to realize they are there.  Spirit will guide us in the proper use of all of this.  Spirit will guide us in each and every one of our relationships and teach us through them if we will simply allow Sprit to do so.  Each encounter is a relationship to be learned from.  Each encounter is an opportunity to allow ourselves to see each other and ourselves differently and return to the awareness of who we really are.  We can begin right now, this very moment by thinking “I can see this differently.”  It is never too late or too soon.  Right now is the perfect time to decide to decide with Spirit’s guidance.  Take a moment to take that small step of willingness to change your thinking and let it be guided by Source.  What a difference it will make.