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.