October 25, 2016

 The Course tells us we are Host to God in this world.  Yet our egoic thought system also demands that we be host to it.  The ego counsels, therefore, that if we are host to it, it will enable us to direct its anger outward, thus protecting us.  And thus, it embarks on an endless, unrewarding chain of special relationships, forged out of anger and dedicated to but one insane belief; that the more anger we invest outside ourselves, the safer we become.  If we choose to be host to our egoic thought system, we cannot see that we are Host to God, for the ego is not real and cannot exist in the presence of our awareness of our role as Host to God.

It is this chain of special relationships that binds us to guilt and thus the denial of our holiness.  We block our own awareness of our divine nature by continually placing our faith in the idea that we must give something up in us that is “bad” and replacing it with something from outside us that will save us.  Truly, what we are seeking we already have, but deny.  What we believe about ourselves, that we are unholy and flawed, is merely not true and impossible.  How could One who is One with God be unholy or flawed?  The reality of our divine nature cannot be undone, yet we believe it has been.  Every time we make a relationship “special” or unholy and project any expectation on it we erect a barrier to the expression of Love in that relationship.  Isn’t it about time to allow each of our relationships to be transformed from special to holy?  Every relationship is an opportunity for the miracle of healing, for transformation.

It is this chain that binds Us to guilt, and it is this chain the Holy Spirit would remove from our holy mind.  For the chain of savagery belongs not around the chosen host of God, who cannot make themselves host to the ego.  In the name of our release, and in the Name of the One Who would release us, let us look more closely at the relationships the egoic thought system contrives, and let the Holy Spirit judge them truly.  For it is certain that if we will look at them, we will offer them gladly to Spirit.  What Spirit can make of them we do not know, but we will become willing to find out, if we are willing first to perceive what we have made of them.   T-15.VII.5:1-5

How often have we believed that we must give up or sacrifice something to find peace or love?  We firmly believe that nothing good can be gained without sacrifice.  Yet we already are the peace and love we are looking for.  And all that stuff we believe we must sacrifice is inconsequential and not real at all.  The Course tells us this:

In one way or another, every relationship the ego makes is based on the idea that by sacrificing itself, it becomes bigger.  The “sacrifice,” which it regards as purification, is actually the root of its bitter resentment.  For it would prefer to attack directly, and avoid delaying what it really wants.  Yet the ego acknowledges “reality” as it sees it, and recognizes that no one could interpret direct attack as love.  Yet to make guilty is direct attack, although it does not seem to be.  For the guilty expect attack, and having asked for it they are attracted to it.   T-15.VII.6:1-6

The minute sacrifice enters any relationship, we become resentful, no matter how willing we are to make that sacrifice.  So, we go from relationship to relationship making unnecessary sacrifices until we become wiling to realize that we want something different.  Spirit is waiting for that moment.  Spirit is waiting for that realization that we want something different.  Ask Spirit to show you that something different.  Spirit will transform your mind and how you see those relationships.  They will be healed in your mind.  The reflection of that healing in the world will vary, but the miracle of transformation will take place in your mind.  Take a moment and pause.  Look within to the Higher Holy Spirit Self and allow each relationship to be healed.  All you need sacrifice is sacrifice itself.

October 18, 2016

Our lives in this world of form are full of relationships.  There are many, all at one time, and many that come one after another.  One thing we can say about most relationships is that they often let us down.  We usually enter into relationships because we think we can get something from them or we feel obliged to give or pay something in return.  If we are honest with ourselves, they are all about seeking and getting love outside ourselves that we think we don’t have.  The Course tells us this about relationships.

Beyond the poor attraction of the special love relationship, and always obscured by it, is the powerful attraction of the Creator for Us.  There is no other love that can satisfy us, because there is no other love.  This is the only love that is fully given and fully returned.  Being complete, it asks nothing.  Being wholly pure, everyone joined in it has everything.  This is not the basis for any relationship in which the ego enters.  For every relationship on which the ego embarks is special.   T-15.VII.1:1-7

We always seem to have some sort of attachments in our relationships.  This one will complete me.  This one will give me something I lack.  This one will release me from something or some obligation.  Yet each of these ideas about our relationships actually limits us by making us a slave to them.  We are seeking love in our relationships, yet we find ourselves captive to them.  Are any of our relationships really free of any obligations or conditions?  Are obligations and conditions the love we seek in our relationships?

Guilt is the tool our egoic thought system uses to maintain the “specialness” of relationships in our minds.  The Course has said before that the ego attempts to maintain and increase guilt, but in such a way that we do not recognize what it would do to us.  For it is the ego’s fundamental doctrine that what we do to others we have escaped.  What really happens is that what we do to others we do to ourselves.  So when we limit others by making obligations and conditions on our relationships, we are limiting ourselves and making ourselves captive to our “special” relationships.  Under these conditions, we certainly feel we have sacrificed for the love that we seek in our relationships.  We have essentially bound ourselves with the chains of guilt to the obligations and conditions of our special relationships and thus have seemed to sacrifice our freedom.

It is this chain that binds the One Child of God to guilt, and it is this chain the Holy Spirit would remove from our holy mind.  For the chain of savagery belongs not around the chosen host of God, who cannot make themselves host to the ego.  In the name of our release, and in the Name of the One Who would release us, let us look more closely at the relationships the egoic thought system contrives, and let the Holy Spirit judge them truly.  For it is certain that if we will look at them, we will offer them gladly to Spirit.  What Spirit can make of them we do not know, but we will become willing to find out, if we are willing first to perceive what we have made of them.   T-15.VII.5:1-5

We need not do this alone.  We cannot do this alone.  Once we are even a little willing to allow Spirit to guide us, our relationships will be transformed from limiting, conditional relationships to holy relationships where love is the freedom that looses all the chains we have limited them with.  Take a moment and step out of the captivity we have made for ourselves in our relationships and allow those relationships to be healed and transformed.  Eternal Love will be there at the core of each relationship, where it has always been, as we allow it to rise in our awareness.  No more do we need sacrifice our freedom to dwell in the awareness of Eternal Love.

October 11, 2016

In reality, relationships have no conflict. They do not conflict with each other or contain conflict within them. What makes the difference is how we use our relationships. Do we use them to separate for the purpose of division or do we use them to share love?  Under the Holy Spirit’s teaching all relationships are seen as total commitments, yet they do not conflict with one another in any way. If conflict is present in any relationship, we have denied Spirit’s teaching and guidance. Relationships can be used to divide or to join together. As we are all One, joined together in Oneness, all relationships are One, joined together in Oneness.

The purpose of every relationship is perfect peace. We probably do not experience perfect peace or even some semblance of peace in every relationship right now. But we can have faith that we can experience peace in our relationships if we allow Spirit to teach us how. We often have other expectations of our relationships. We expect them to complete us. We expect them to bring us something we think we do not have. We expect them to fill a lack we think we have and feel the other must give up something to fill our lack. However, Spirit teaches us that we have no lack just as Spirit teaches others they have no lack. Perfect faith in each relationship, for its ability to satisfy you completely, arises only from perfect faith in yourself and your holiness. We are already holy, and this holiness is within us. We may have difficulty believing this alone, but Spirit is within us waiting for us to allow even the possibility of the idea to enter our mind.

You have so little faith in yourself because you are unwilling to accept the fact that perfect love is in you. And so you seek without for what you cannot find without. I offer you my perfect faith in you, in place of all your doubts. But forget not that my faith must be as perfect in all your sisters and brothers as it is in you, or it would be a limited gift to you. In the holy instant we share our faith in the One Child of God because we recognize, together, that the One Child of God is wholly worthy of it, and in our appreciation of Our worth we cannot doubt Our holiness. And so we love each other. T-15.VI.2.1-6

Love is the true essence of our relationships. Love is the only quality that can be real in our relationships. Anything other than love and peace is mistaken and merely an indication that we have denied the truth about who we are. The remedy is to simply turn to Spirit for guidance.

All separation vanishes as holiness is shared. For holiness is power, and by sharing it, it gains in strength. If you seek for satisfaction in gratifying your needs as you perceive them, you must believe that strength comes from another, and what you gain another loses. Someone must always lose if you perceive yourself as weak. Yet there is another interpretation of relationships that transcends the concept of loss of power completely. T-15.VI.3:1-5

Allow Spirit to teach you another interpretation of relationships. Release your attachment to the ideas of yourself and others you hold so tightly in your mind. Allow Spirit to guide your relationships to transcend the ideas of loss and lack completely. You will find perfect peace and love in the healing of your relationships. The miracle of healed relationships is yours for your willingness to allow them healing.

October 4, 2016

Our relationships reflect where we have placed our allegiance.  Have we placed our allegiance with Love?  Or have we placed our allegiance with our desire to judge?  Take a look at the quality and characteristics of your relationships.  Take a step away from each relationship as you do so.  Notice if there is fear, guilt or judgement there.  Each relationship has a purpose as we journey back to the awareness of who we really are.  We ae one with each one we encounter on this journey.  The eternal essence of each of our relationships is love, for that is what we are in Oneness.  The Holy Instant is when that Oneness joins us with each of the ones we are in relationship with in the now.  All perception rooted in the past falls away in that instant and we find eternity in the expression of love as we join together in love.

As long as we adhere to our egoic thought system, we will use our relationships to divide us.  We will use them to justify every one of our misperceptions of lack, un-wholeness and incompleteness.  Each time we judge another, we make that relationship “special”.  We make it unholy.  And thus remove our minds from the awareness of our holiness.  Yet each relationship is between two holy expressions of holiness and love.  Our egoic thought systems picks and chooses limited aspects of each relationship, focusing on our perceptive mistakes rather than the whole of what is real about us.  We allow our egoic thought system to focus on our personal needs that we lack rather than the abundance of our true One nature.  Spirit is waiting for us to allow It to enter our relationships and show us the whole of each other.  Spirit focuses our minds in the holy instant on the true essence of each One, allowing all fear and judgement to fall away and allowing forgiveness and love to rise in its place.

Everyone on earth has formed special relationships, and although this is not so in Heaven, the Holy Spirit knows how to bring a touch of Heaven to them here.  In the holy instant no one is special, for your personal needs intrude on no one to make your sisters and brothers seem different.  Without the values from the past, you would see them all the same and like yourself.  Nor would you see any separation between yourself and them.  In the holy instant, you see in each relationship what it will be when you perceive only the present.   T-15.V.8.1-5

All our relationships are blessed in the holy instant for our blessing is unlimited.  In the holy instant we step into eternity where there is no lack, where we are complete and whole, and where we are joined in Oneness.  In eternity we cannot be separate.  We cannot come apart, for we are joined in Spirit.  Love knows no bounds.  Open your mind to the Love in which the One created all of us.  Love knows no parts or degrees.  Love knows no specialness.  Allow Spirit to bring each one to you who needs the gift of love and the healing from specialness.  Allow each one you encounter to enter with you into the Holy Instant and thus the infinite blessing of the holy relationship.  Nowhere else will you find the peace, love and joy of eternity.  Every relationship has, at its core, the miracle of healing from a special relationship to a holy relationship.  Enter the awareness of holiness in each holy instant Spirit guides us to.