October 27, 2015

The Course equates our vision or lack thereof with the two emotions; fear which we made and love which we are given. When we chose to “see” with the body’s eyes which perceive incorrectly we feel fear in some form. When we choose to see with spirit vision, our higher vision, we feel love in all its wonder and compassion. The world we made when we chose separation and the denial of who we really are is devoid of the light of spirit and thus is darkness. It does nothing but reflect our perceptions of the past and thus we live in fear of the past recurring. We adapted our body’s eyes to see our perceptions of the past projected on the limits of this little world we made. Yet, we have the ability to see clearly when we allow the light of sprit to shine in our world and reveal the correct perception of everything we have misperceived. Within us is the Christ Spirit which is our true One Self hidden from our sight by our belief that we are less than our One Self. Once we choose to allow ourselves to be even a little willing to allow Spirit to show us the Christ Spirit within us, our true vision rises to our awareness and we begin to understand all that we have misperceived and thus believed about the world and ourselves.

We begin to realize that it is our own state of mind and our own belief about ourselves that has limited our world because it has limited our idea of ourselves. We have perceived the world around us as limiting and destructive when it has been offering us opportunity after opportunity to heal our sight and recognize the wholeness and completeness and divinity of who we really are. The way to tell where our mind is at is by what we are feeling. Are we feeling love or fear? If we feel fear in any form, our mind is set on the choice to deny our true identity by believing we are less than who we really are. Yet, a simple shift in our belief will bring the feeling of unconditional love into our mind, changing our perception of all those challenging things in our world. Love is what our true vision is about. Love is the basis of our true purpose and function. Love is what brings our world together with worlds of others in true harmony as we share love with each other. Turning to and allowing Spirit to guide us is the path to the remembrance of who we really are. We never un-became who we are – that is impossible – but we can block our awareness of who we are by denying or believing we are less than who we are. The emotions we feel then indicate where our mind is at and nothing else.

We are asked to let the light of Spirit shine in our world. Where there is darkness, it will vanish in the light for darkness cannot be seen in light. As we allow the barriers to light we have made to fall, there are no shadows left to remind us of the darkness of the world we made. This light is within us. We have been denying it as we made and reinforced our beliefs that the world we made of our misperceptions is real. The Christ Spirit within us is the true identity we share with all our brothers and sisters. It is the whole complete, limitless and divine nature we really are. And our shift to this awareness is in the present moment. It is not in the past nor is it in the future. It is in the light of now. This is the Course’s promise:

The Holy Spirit is the light in which Christ – our true Self – stands revealed. And all who would behold their true Self can see their true Self, for they have asked for light. Because they saw their true Self, they have risen in Spirit to the Creator. And all this will they understand, because they looked within and saw beyond the darkness the Christ – their true Self – in them, and recognized themselves. In the sanity of their true Vision they looked upon themselves with love, seeing themselves as the Holy Spirit sees them. And with this vision of the truth in them came all the beauty of the world to shine upon them.    T-13.V.11.1-2, 4-7

We are love. We are light. We are the Divine beings we really are. Nothing can change that fact. Experience love and allow that joy to rise within you and be who you really are.

October 20, 2015

The Course describes the two emotions as follows:

I have said you have but two emotions, love and fear. One is changeless but continually exchanged, being offered by the eternal to the eternal. In this exchange it is extended, for it increases as it is given. The other has many forms, for the content of individual illusions differs greatly. Yet they have one thing in common; they are all insane. They are made of sights that are not seen, and sounds that are not heard. They make up a private world that cannot be shared. For they are meaningful only to their maker, and so they have no meaning at all. In this world their maker moves alone, for only their maker perceives them.   T-13.V.1.1-9

We each make up our own private world as we journey through life believing we are separate. This private world has nothing to do with a physical world, for our private world exists only in our mind. Everything we think about our world is based on the perception our mind projects on it. Perception is burdened by our past as we continually again and again bring our perception of the past into the present and the future. After a time there is so much past projected on everything in our life that what is real is completely hidden from our mind. The same is true of each one we encounter in our life. Our perception of another consists of so many layers of perception projected from the past that we can no longer see the real One behind the layers of perception. I think that this is one of the most difficult ideas the Course presents to us – that we each people our private world with figures from our individual past yet these figures we see were never real. Everyone in our lives certainly appears real.

How could this possibly be? Everyone in my private world seems to be acting of their own volition. We can’t even begin to understand this idea from our current perspective. We must begin by having faith that there is something to this idea. First of all, if we are all one, then each one in my private world is me – or an idea of me. Since I have made an isolated mind, I project an idea on each of those ideas of me and give them autonomy to act seemingly on their own. I am projecting my perceived ideas of each one’s personality and identity on each part of me that seems not to be part of me. It’s like I am the director of a play or movie directing all these seemingly separate ideas of me to act out my perceptions and make my private world. Does all this sound insane? The Course calls all this insane, but it also tells us it’s not real and can be changed and healed into love at any time we choose to allow ourselves to be guided in that change. Our private worlds are based in fear, the one emotion that can take on so many forms that it becomes unrecognizable. However, fear is basically a fear of the joining of love. It is a fear that we are not separate, that our private world, no matter how unpleasant, is not real and that those shadowy figures in our private worlds are really us! Fear separates and limits where love joins and increases.

Our body’s eyes will never see anything but our private world. But we have within us spirit eyes, spiritual vision, that can see beyond our perceptions and the private world we have made. As we allow our higher Holy Spirit Self within us to open our spiritual eyes, we will find the willingness to open our minds and our eyes to the truth about ourselves and our private worlds. The Course tells us this:

As we look with open eyes upon our world, it must occur to us that we have withdrawn into insanity. We see what is not there, and we hear what makes no sound. Our manifestations of emotions are the opposite of what the emotions are. We communicate with no one, and we are as isolated from reality as if we were alone in all the universe. In our madness we overlook reality completely, and we see only our own split mind everywhere we look. God calls us and we do not hear, for we are preoccupied with our own voice. And the vision of Christ is not in our sight, for we look upon ourselves alone.   T-13.V.6.1-7

Understanding what our private world is and how it came to appear so powerful to us is key in returning to the awareness of who we really are. What we really want is to rest in the love and Oneness of who we really are and let go of all the fear we carry in our minds. Let Love come forward in your mind and show you how to live in this world and allow it to be transformed into the real world – Heaven on earth. Are you ready to let go of fear and let love rise up within you? Then let it be so right now. It is your choice.

October 13, 2015

The Course has told us many times that time is an illusion and therefore not real. It has also told us that time does have a Holy function as used by Spirit. Its one function is healing. As with all things in the world of form – the unreal world – there is another Holy function when perceived correctly. We tend to focus on the past and then project the past into the future, obliterating the present moment – now – from our awareness, thus denying ourselves the one place in time that is real. When we dwell upon the past and project it into the future, we are held captive in all the fear and pain we have been feeling. The past is gone, over with, done. Yet we hold ourselves captive by projecting the past into the future and denying ourselves the release from the past the “now” offers us. Every encounter we experience is a holy encounter, but do we recognize it so? The Couse tells us this:

Would you recognize a holy encounter if you are merely perceiving it as a meeting with your own past? For you would be meeting no one, and the sharing of salvation, which makes the encounter holy, would be excluded from your sight. The Holy Spirit teaches that you always meet yourself, and the encounter is holy because you are. The ego teaches that you always encounter your past, and because your dreams were not holy, the future cannot be, and the present is without meaning. T-13.IV.7-10

Spirit uses time to teach us. Time serves the function of learning. Since we have decided to believe we are separate from each other and the One, we are blinded by the illusion of time, hiding the freedom of the present “now” from our awareness. We rarely take the time to rest in the present moment without fretting about the past or fretting about the future. These thoughts are currently occupying our mind in the “now.” Yet if we release these thoughts and worries we will find a freedom to experience who we really are in this present moment. The light of our Divine essence will come welling up within us and bubble to the surface, bringing peace and joy to us we thought we never knew. Our salvation – the awareness of who we really are – is known in eternity and the present moment is the only time in our temporal “existence” that is an approximation of eternity. This is the introduction and the experience of the Holy Instant. This is the moment when the remembrance of who we really are erupts from deep within our mind and floods our whole being with peace, love and joy.

However, it is our choice to open ourselves to this freedom. Spirit will never force it on us. Though this knowledge is deep within us, our awareness of it is blocked by our attachment and belief in all the blocks we have placed to prevent us from recognizing who we really are. Ask yourself how you perceive your function in your world. What is you answer?

You, too, will interpret the function of time as you interpret yours. If you accept your function in the world of time as one of healing, you will emphasize only the aspect of time in which healing can occur. Healing cannot be accomplished in the past. It must be accomplished in the present to release the future. This interpretation ties the future to the present, and extends the present rather than the past.  T-13.IV.9.1-5

Are you ready for your healing? Are you willing to accept the Holy function of time and release all other perceived functions of time? It is our choice. Do we choose to be limited by the past, or do we change our interpretation of time to its Holy function and realize our freedom? Time will be as we interpret it, for time has no purpose of its own.

October 6, 2015

The Course keeps telling us we are afraid of the Course. What’s that about? Our problem is fear. The list of what we fear goes on and on. Yet, there is only one basic fear. It is the fear that we are not who we think we are. We have invested a lifetime developing an identity that we think we are. It is embodied in our physical bodies whether we like them or not. It is built on our perception of everything that has ever happened to us and every one whom we have ever encountered and related to in our lives. We have placed value on all of this and determined our worth based on all of this. Then, when the Course tells us this is all an illusion, we balk at the idea. How could all that we have invested in as our identity not be real?

The Course tells us our worth is far greater than we could imagine in our split mind. It tells us we don’t recognize the truth about ourselves that is within us. The responsibility of our true Identity seems far too great for us to ever live up to. So, how can we look at this differently and begin to find the healing we so desire? Perhaps we are afraid of simply being wrong or mistaken. Perhaps we can begin by opening our minds enough to be willing to entertain the thought that we might be mistaken about who we really are. Perhaps there is something beyond this separate physical identity that has a greater meaning and purpose. Perhaps there is a divine spark of light within us that reminds us of the Holiness of our true Identity. Our Source, the One, creates like Itself, extending its Oneness to all of Creation. All that is created is whole, complete, perfect, limitless, and loving as the One is, none of which can be even threatened. It is only in our thoughts apart from the One that we can make the illusion of something less.

What we fear is the past which we remain so attached to. We are also afraid of the future, which we think of as the past projected into the future. We are afraid that the past will repeat itself in the future. Guess what? The past will repeat itself as long as we continue to remain attached to it and believe it is who we are. What if we were to let go of the past and look at the present?

“Now” has no meaning to the ego. The present merely reminds the ego of past hurts, and it reacts to the present as if it were the past. The ego cannot tolerate release from the past, and although the past is over, the ego tries to preserve its image by responding as if it were present. It dictates your reactions to those you meet in the present from a past reference point, obscuring their present reality. In effect, if you follow the ego’s dictates you will react to another as though they were someone else, and this will surely prevent you from recognizing them as they really are. And you will receive messages from them out of your own past because, by making it real in the present, you are forbidding yourself to let it go. You thus deny yourself the message of release that every One offers you now. T-13.IV.5.1-7

Be willing to set aside everything you know and believe. We all have the holy wisdom of Spirit within us waiting to be remembered and recognized. Given the opportunity – allowing – our Higher Holy Spirit will transform our mind, rejoining its awareness with the One Mind, and bring us to the awareness of our true Identity by recognizing the Identity of Oneness in each other. We do not return to the awareness of who we are alone. We return to this awareness in communion with all of Creation. Love, Joy, and Peace are the recognition of reality. Allow Spirit to open your mind and rejoin with the awareness of our true Identity. Now is the moment, whenever we are willing to let it be.