May 30, 2017

Our relationships are where we learn our lessons of love and forgiveness in this world.  How we experience our relationships reflect our beliefs about ourselves and who we think we are.  They reflect the thought system we align our minds with.  We need relationships in this world to learn about joining and rejoining with each other in the truth that we are all One.  Yet we appear to be separate in this world.  And most of us seek to be with others.  This draw sits deep within our being.  We are drawn to connect with each other on many levels.  Relationships take many forms in this world, such as family, romance, friends, business and others.  Each form has a purpose to assist us in remembering that we are all joined in Oneness and can never be separated.  We learn our connectedness through the healing of each relationship we choose to enter.

The holy, or healed, relationship is an expression of the Oneness in which we see that relationship.  It is an expression of the holy instant in living in this world.  The holy instant never fails us.  We always feel the experience of the holy instant.  Yet without expression it is not remembered.  The holy relationship is a constant reminder of the experience in which the relationship became what it is.  Likewise, the “special” or unholy relationship is a constant reminder of the experience of what it is, the experience of separation.  Each relationship is a song reminding us of the thought system with which we align our minds.  Are our relationships singing a song of joy or a song of discord?  Listen carefully and ask if that is the song you wish to hear.

The holy relationship, a major step toward the perception of the real world, is learned.  It is the old, unholy relationship, transformed and seen anew.  The holy relationship is a phenomenal teaching accomplishment.  In all its aspects, as it begins, develops and becomes accomplished, it represents the reversal of the unholy relationship.  Be comforted in this; the only difficult phase is the beginning.  For here, the goal of the relationship is abruptly shifted to the exact opposite of what it was.  This is the first result of offering the relationship to the Holy Spirit, to use for Its purposes.   T-17.V.2:1-7

When we decide to invite Spirit to enter and heal our relationships, the invitation is immediately accepted.  The goal of our relationships is instantly changed.  This is accomplished very rapidly, but it makes the relationship seem disturbed, disjunctive and even quite distressing.  The reason is quite clear, for the relationship in its new purpose is out of line with its own goal, and clearly unsuited to the new purpose we accepted for it.  It now seems to make no sense whatsoever.  As a result, many relationships have been broken off at this point, and the pursuit of the old goal re-established in another relationship.  Once the unholy relationship has accepted the goal of holiness, it can never again be what it was due to the great conflict between goals that remains.

The temptation of the egoic thought system becomes extremely intense with this shift in goals.  The relationship has not yet been changed sufficiently to make its former goal completely without attraction, and its structure is “threatened” by the recognition of its inappropriateness for meeting its new purpose.  The conflict between the goal and the structure of the relationship is so apparent that they cannot coexist.  Yet now the new goal will not be changed.  With the new goal set firmly in the unholy relationship, there is no course except to change the relationship to fit the new goal.  Until this happy solution is seen and accepted as the only way out of the conflict, the relationship may seem to be severely strained.

Keep your mind focused on the healing of the relationship.  Spirit will guide you in the healing of your relationship.  Remember that the remembrance of the real world and Heaven is learned through our relationships.  The holy instant reminds us of our holiness and the holiness of our relationships in their natural form.  Yet they will be difficult and challenging during the healing process.  Allow Spirit to guide you in all aspects of the healing of any relationship.  We will see its healing if we will let go of our attachment to the past and allow the divine light of forgiveness, love and healing to enter our minds.  Open to the divine and healing will follow.

May 23, 2017

We continue to discuss the two pictures.  What are they and what do they represent?  There are two pictures, very different, that represent two very different ways of thinking.  They are also a result of our free will.  We are free to choose whichever picture we want and live with the consequences of that decision.  Yet, because we have free will, we are always free to choose again.  Whenever our choice doesn’t serve us well, we can revisit the decision and choose again.  It is a choice between darkness and light, evil and good, nothingness and substance, unrealness and reality.  One picture will show us darkness or even nothingness made attractive by an attractive frame that disguises the darkness or nothingness, thus making it attractive to us.  The other picture shows us reality in all its peace, love and light in a frame that is designed to let the beauty of the reality of the picture shine through.  Take a moment and really look at the pictures we are choosing between.  The choice should be obvious, but that depends on how clearly we are thinking.

The other picture is lightly framed, for time cannot contain eternity. There is no distraction here.  The picture of Heaven and eternity grows more convincing as you look at it.  And now, by real comparison, a transformation of both pictures can at last occur.  And each is given its rightful place when both are seen in relation to each other.  The dark picture, brought to light, is not perceived as fearful, but the fact that it is just a picture is as what it is; a picture of what you thought was real, and nothing more.  For beyond this picture you brought home at last.  And what you see there you will recognize will see nothing.   T-17.IV.14:1-7

The first picture – the one with the fancy frame – will give us separation.  The picture with the light frame will show us Heaven and eternity.  Which one would you choose?  Even when we choose the one we don’t really want, we can choose again.  And choose again and again until we choose the one we really want.  You see, there is no other choice but the right one.  Even the choice we don’t want is an illusion, made from the mistaken idea that we could possibly be less than the divine One we are in Oneness with all Creation.  The choice for Heaven and Oneness will always be there until we choose it.  Then we will realize that was the only real choice after all.  It is the choice between what is and what isn’t.

The picture of light, in clear-cut and unmistakable contrast, is transformed into what lies beyond the picture.  As you look on this, you realize that it is not a picture, but a reality.  This is no figured representation of a thought system, but the Thought itself.  What it represents is there.  The frame fades gently and the One rises to your remembrance, offering you the whole of creation in exchange for your little picture, wholly without value and entirely deprived of meaning.   T-17.IV.15:1-5

Let the light you see shine brightly and join with the light within you, for they are the same light.  Your mind will clear.  Your sight will begin to focus with a sharpness you haven’t seen for some time.  You will hear the song of Heaven again and recognize the ancient song had been playing in your mind all along.

We ascend in peace to our rightful place and experience again the meaning of relationship and know it to be true.  This light shines in every one of us, as in the whole.  The whole reality of our relationship with the One lies in our relationship to one another.  The holy instant shines alike on all relationships, for in it they are one.  For here is only healing, already complete and perfect as we are and always have been.  Look at the two pictures and let be the one you really are.  You will recognize the real you there.

May 16, 2017

Last week I wrote about the glittery bejeweled frame that distracted us from the picture within the frame.  This section goes on to describe the picture as that of death and destruction, a different concept than the concept I mentioned last week.  Our egoic thought system wants to keep us distracted from the awareness of the misery of separation from the awareness of our divine nature in Oneness – who we really are.  Our egoic thought system encourages us to look at the trappings of the frame and value the frame’s beauty while it distracts us from the unhappiness and loneness of our separated life depicted in the picture.  Look beyond the glitzy frame to the picture of how we perceive ourselves within it and recognize the misery depicted there.  We have chosen to align our thought system with this misery and value the frame that holds it rather than seeing it for what it is.

That is why the holy instant is so important in the defense of truth.  The truth itself needs no defense, but you do need defense against your acceptance of the gift of death.  When you who are truth accept an idea so dangerous to truth, you threaten truth with destruction.  And your defense must now be undertaken, to keep truth whole.  The power of Heaven, the Love of God, the tears of Christ, and the joy of this eternal Spirit are marshalled to defend you from your own attack.  For you attack Them, being part of Them, and They must save you, for They love Themselves.   T-17.IV.10:1-6

There is another picture.  This picture depicts the truth about who we are.  It depicts the Holy Child of the One – Us as we ae created.  It glows with love and peace.  It radiates happiness.  It depicts us as we are, whole, complete and divine.  It depicts the reality of who we are and always have been.  All there is to value is depicted in the picture so beautifully that no frame is even needed.  On its own it is all.  On its own it is complete and whole.  There is no need for a frame to make it attractive and distract us from the picture itself.  This becomes apparent when we allow ourselves to be guided by Spirit to the holy instant.  That instant when we let go of our attachment to our perception of the past and allow our divine nature to well up within us and emerge as the light we truly are.

The holy instant is a miniature of Heaven, sent you from Heaven.  It is a picture, too, set in a frame.  Yet if you accept this gift you will not see the frame at all, because the gift can only be accepted through your willingness to focus all your attention on the picture.  The holy instant is a miniature of eternity.  It is a picture of timelessness, set in a frame of time.  If you focus on the picture, you will realize that it was only the frame that made you think it was a picture.  Without the frame, the picture is seen as what it represents.  For as the whole thought system of the ego lies in its gifts, so the whole of Heaven lies in this instant, borrowed from eternity and set in time for you.   T-17.IV.11:1-8

We are offered these two pictures.  One is a depiction of ourselves as perceived by our egoic thought system – an incomplete lonely and unhappy person hidden within an expensive glitzy frame.  The other is a depiction of ourselves as perceived by our higher Holy Spirit Self – a whole, complete, divine person shining with the love and peace of our divine nature.  Which picture will we choose to identify with?  In which picture will we choose to recognize our true Self?  Only one picture depicts who we really are.  Be the divine One you are.

May 9, 2017

This section of the Course has always spoken deeply to me.  Even from my first reading and study to now, it continues to speak to me and teach a valuable lesson.  Relationships are important in our journey back to the awareness of who we are.  Relationships are the vehicles for the lessons in love we must remember to heal ourselves and the world.  The purpose of relationships is the extension and sharing of pure unconditional love.  If we don’t feel this love in our relationships, then their purpose is to teach and learn love as guided by Spirit.  That is, to heal our relationships with the guidance of Spirit from separation to union in love.

Our relationships are our creations.  And they will reflect whatever we think of them and what we are using them for.  The purpose of our Creator’s relationship with us, our Creator’s creation, is happiness and nothing else.  Likewise, the purpose of our relationship with our creations is to extend happiness, as our Creator did with us, and nothing else.  Whatever does not fulfil this function is not and cannot be real.  In this world, we tend to make our relationships “special”, meaning we have given them a purpose other than happiness and love.  Every special relationship we have made is a substitute for our Creator’s Will, and glorifies our purpose instead of our Creator’s because of the illusion that they are different.  Believing our own purpose, we deny our Creator’s purpose because they are in conflict with each other.  Look at the purpose you have given to your relationships in this world. Is their purpose pure and unconditional love?  If so they will be happy relationships.  If not, and we allow, Spirit would not deprive us of our special relationships, but would transform them.  And all that is meant by that is that Spirit will restore to them the function given them by our Creator.

The “special” relationships we seem to enter in this world have the purpose we have given them through our belief in our egoic thought system.  Whatever thought system we believe, we will defend no matter how much pain and guilt it brings us.  Every defense operates by giving gifts, and the gift is always a miniature of the thought system the defense protects, set in a golden frame.  The frame is very elaborate, all set with jewels, and deeply carved and polished.  Its purpose is to be of value in itself, and to divert your attention from what it encloses.  But the frame without the picture, you cannot have.  Defenses operate to make you think you can.  The Course tells us this of what we think we see:

The special relationship has the most imposing and deceptive frame of all the defenses the ego uses.  Its thought system is offered here, surrounded by a frame so heavy and so elaborate that the picture is almost obliterated by its imposing structure.  Into the frame are woven all sorts of fanciful and fragmented illusions of love, set with dreams of sacrifice and self-aggrandizement, and interlaced with gilded threads of self-destruction.  The glitter of blood shines like rubies, and the tears are faceted like diamonds and gleam in the dim light in which the offering is made.   T-17.IV.8:1-4

We are so focused on the fanciful frame that we miss the picture contained in the frame.  The picture is of our holy and healed relationship, the reflection of our real relationship with the Creator whose only purpose is happiness.  The essence of our relationship is happiness, love and peace.  When we align our thoughts with the egoic thought system, it bids us focus on the glittery gaudy frame that has no substance or any element of the holiness contained in the picture itself.  Look beyond the appearance of the fanciful frame of the “special” relationship to the holiness of the relationship beyond.  We need not accomplish this from our egoic thought system, but allow Spirit to guide our thoughts beyond the frame to the content of the picture within.  Once we allow ourselves to see the holiness, happiness and love contained in the picture within, the frame will fade to nothingness and no longer distract us.  This is how to discover the happiness and love in each relationship in which we find ourselves, no matter what it looks like on the surface

May 2, 2017

We are light.  We are love.  We are peace.  We are whole, complete and free.  This is our true essence.  This encompass who we really are.  But do we agree?  Do we feel this in our bones?  The Course tells us that we are the light of the world in lesson 61.  Yet we deny this about ourselves because we have come to believe something completely opposite. We have these characteristics within us as this is who we are, yet we have denied them by trying to make an identity for ourselves that establishes us as a unique individual separate from all of creation; something that cannot be done successfully because it denies our very essence.  We can deny our very essence as much as we want, but we cannot change it.  It remains within us waiting to be recognized again as it inevitably will be.  The Course tells us this:

The Holy Spirit wants only to make Its resolutions complete and perfect, and so It seeks and finds the source of problems where it is, and there undoes it.  And with each step in Spirit’s undoing is the separation more and more undone, and union brought closer.  Spirit is not at all confused by any “reasons” for separation.  All Spirit perceives in separation is that it must be undone.  Let Spirit uncover the hidden spark of beauty in your relationships, and show it to you.  Its loveliness will so attract you that you will be unwilling ever to lose the sight of it again.  And you will let this spark transform the relationship so you can see it more and more.  For you will want it more and more, and become increasingly unwilling to let it be hidden from you.  And you will learn to seek for and establish the conditions in which this beauty can be seen.   T-17.III.6:3-11

Our relationships are the opportunities we have to offer healing to each other.  Each one we encounter is a chance to let our light shine and see another in unity as we are one with them.  When we offer another the willingness to see the holiness within them, we offer them the miracle of healing.  The weekly thought from the Foundation for Inner Peace this week said, “The Holy Spirit is the mechanism of miracles. Holy Spirit recognizes both God’s creations and your illusions. Holy Spirit separates the true from the false by the Holy Spirit’s ability to perceive totally rather than selectively.” (T-1.I.38:1-3)  The Holy Spirit can also be referred to as our Higher Spirit Self.  It is the essence of who we really are that has never separated from Oneness and remembers who we really are even as our egoic thought system denies who we really are.

The spark within us is strong.  Its light cannot be extinguished.  Our light remains beckoning to us even as we hide it under a bushel basket.  Our light remains lit for eternity, waiting patiently for us to open the lamp and let our light shine the way, not only for us, but for our sisters and brothers, too.  This light is the light of the miracle we offer.  This light is the light of healing that reveals the truth about who we really are to our minds that have believed we are separate.  This light is the light that enters our relationships as we allow it to heal those relationships from “special” to holy. It reveals the Oneness we are and how inseparable we have been created.  Only joining together in Oneness can bring us home to the awareness of our divine nature we all share in totality.

While the past is the justification for entering into a continuing, unholy alliance with the egoic thought system against the present, the present is forgiveness.  The present is where all the misperceptions of the past are released.  Forgiveness is the release of misperceptions.  It is the changing of our minds about who we really are.  The holiness of our creations is now clearly seen.  What thought system do we choose to align our minds with?  The egoic or Oneness?  It is our choice, totally.  And at any time, we may choose one or the other.

It is still up to you to choose to join with truth or with illusion. But remember that to choose one is to let the other go.  Which one you choose you will endow with beauty and reality, because the choice depends on which you value more.  The spark of beauty or the veil of ugliness, the real world or the world of guilt and fear, truth or illusion, freedom or slavery–it is all the same.  For you can never choose except between Oneness and the ego.  Thought systems are but true or false, and all their attributes come simply from what they are.  Only the Thoughts of Oneness are true.  And all that follows from them comes from what they are, and is as true as is the holy Source from which they came.   T-17.III.9:1-8

We make this choice for ourselves.  What do we really want in our relationships?  Do we wat to live in the shadows of the past in an illusion that is an alternative to reality.  Or do we want to accept the guidance of the higher Spirit Self within us that knows who we really are and leads us to the light that heals our relationships?  Choose to be the light you are.  Choose the love and peace you are.  Step into the light of eternity and leave the shadows of the past behind.