March 27, 2018

The third obstacle that peace must flow across is our strange devotion to death. This idea may puzzle us and sound irrational. But we have devoted ourselves to the idea of death through our fear of death. According to the Course, there is no death. It is merely a mistaken thought. We are created in the image of the One – our Source – who does not know death. If the Divine cannot die and we are Divine, how could death affect us in any way? Only our identification as a body, which we have given value due to our belief in separation, do we fear death in any way. We have forgotten that we are created eternal and remain eternal even when we block our awareness of our eternal being. Because we fear the end of the body will be the end of us, we fear death. The Holy Spirit offered us release from this dedication to death and we accepted that release when we invited Spirit into our relationships. We offered Spirit a little willingness to accept the miracle of healing. Though we can place obstacles to peace entering our awareness, we cannot remove it from our true being. Peace dwells within us. Nothing can change that fact. We can do no more than block peace from our awareness. Death is no more than a shadow of a mistaken idea.

And yet a shadow cannot kill. What is a shadow to the living? They but walk past and it is gone. But what of those whose dedication is not to live; the black-draped “sinners,” the ego’s mournful chorus, plodding so heavily away from life, dragging their chains and marching in the slow procession that honors their grim master, lord of death? Touch any one of them with the gentle hands of forgiveness, and watch the chains fall away, along with yours. See them throw aside the black robe they were wearing to their funeral, and hear them laugh at death. The sentence sin would lay upon them they can escape through your forgiveness. This is no arrogance. It is the Will of our Creator. What is impossible to you who chose your Creator’s Will as yours? What is death to you? Your dedication is not to death, nor to its master. When you accepted the Holy Spirit’s purpose in place of the ego’s you renounced death, exchanging it for life. We know that an idea leaves not its source. And death is the result of the thought we call the ego, as surely as life is the result of the Thought of our Creator.   T-19.IV.C.2:1-15

Put aside the melodramatic description of separation and the dedication to death, for it is an insane illusion of an idea. The idea of death does not even occur to our Creator. Our home in Heaven is not capable of death, sin or anything else of separation’s nature. We have been released form that idea which seems to imprison us. Accept that release and step into the freedom that is ours. Accept and honor the Will of our Creator by releasing each other from the idea of death and separation. Free another from any limitation you harbor in your mind and find yourself also free of limitation. Free each other from this obstacle to peace.

You have another dedication that would keep the body incorruptible and perfect as long as it is useful for your holy purpose. The body no more dies than it can feel. It does nothing. Of itself it is neither corruptible nor incorruptible. It is nothing. It is the result of a tiny, mad idea of corruption that can be corrected. For the One has answered this insane idea with Its Own; an Answer which left the One not, and therefore brings the Creator to the awareness of every mind which heard the One’s Answer and accepted It.   T-19.IV.C.5:1-7

We have the power, the strength, to release each other and thus all Creation from the bonds with which we have imprisoned them. We need do nothing more than accept the Gift offered us which is already ours. Allow peace to flow across any obstacle you still harbor that seems to protect you from the awareness of your true identity. You are and have always been whole, complete and limitless. Let this be so in your awareness and remember who you really are. Heaven is your only home.

March 20, 2018

There is a song I enjoy singing that contains the following line: “I’m attracting the people in my life whom I’ll be serving, and who will teach me lessons that I need to know.” We may read this and think that can’t possibly be true. Or perhaps we think that most are an exception to this rule. Maybe we’re not allowing ourselves to be open to the lessons Spirit is offering us. Perhaps we need to look at all the things we encounter through a different perception. Perhaps the obstacles we have placed in our minds are not protecting us, as we may think, but are actually hurting us. Maybe we’ve grabbed the wrong end of the stick and are hanging on for dear life when the best thing for us to do is let go of it.

When we approach this world from a mindset of doing it alone or by ourselves, we make a simple task extremely difficult. Reality is meant to flow gracefully through and above all this world offers. And much of what the world has to offer would be helpful if we allowed our Higher Holy Spirit to guide us in each aspect of our journey. Our natural state of mind is peace. Peace still dwells within us, being so much a part of us we can’t get rid of it. But we expend great effort blocking the awareness of peace from our mind. Perhaps it would be more correct to say we block our Mind from our mind. We block the awareness of our Holy Divine Self form our awareness. Our Creator, though creating us as Itself, gave us the power to choose our own perception and thus our awareness. What and how we choose to see sends its own messengers reinforcing what we have chosen to see. Those who appear in our lives reflect the perception we have chosen to color our world with. What if we choose a different perception, a different lens with which to see? I propose we would see a different world – a different reality. Is our perception aligned with our egoic thought system or our Higher Holy Spirit Self? It’s a question worth asking ourselves.

It is not given to the ego’s disciples to realize that they have dedicated themselves to death. Freedom is offered them but they have not accepted it, and what is offered must also be received, to be truly given. For the Holy Spirit, too, is a communication medium, receiving from the Creator and offering the Creator’s messages unto Us. Like the ego, the Holy Spirit is both the sender and the receiver. For what is sent through Spirit returns to Spirit, seeking itself along the way, and finding what it seeks. So does the ego find the death it seeks, returning it to you.   T-19.IV.B.17:1-6

What messages do we choose to listen to? Furthermore, what messages do we choose to take in and make our own? Allow yourself to really look at each message you receive and ask Spirit for the guidance in which you welcome in and which you set aside. Do not worry about making a mistake. Any message you set aside that is holy will remain waiting for you to realize its truth and will welcome your acceptance when it comes. The messages of eternity and love and joy and peace will never fade, for there is no death in them. Only the messages of separation and the temporary deceive us to make us think they are real and lasting. They will let us down when we align with them. But the messages of eternity will remain ready for us to welcome when we are ready to see them.

There is no obstacle to peace too great to keep us from peace. Let your Higher Holy Spirit Self do the heavy lifting to remove them from your sight, for they are nothing more than an illusion and fade to nothingness when seen for what they are.

March 13, 2018

The section we are reading and discussing tonight is subtitled “The Attraction of Pain.” One may wonder why anyone would be attracted to pain. Yet, in our own upside-down way, we are. Our egoic thought system makes pain look more attractive than the “pain” it convinces us peace will cost. If peace seems too costly, then maybe our minds will remain aligned with separation rather than Oneness. Are we willing to step into eternity? Or are we afraid to go where we want to be?

Faith in the eternal is always justified, for the eternal is forever kind, infinite in its patience and wholly loving. It will accept you wholly and give you peace. Yet it can unite only with what already is at peace in you, immortal as itself. The body can bring you neither peace nor turmoil; neither joy nor pain. It is a means, and not an end. It has no purpose of itself, but only what is given to it. The body will seem to be whatever is the means for reaching the goal that you assign to it. Only the mind can set a purpose, and only the mind can see the means for its accomplishment and justify its use. Peace and guilt are both conditions of the mind, to be attained. And these conditions are the home of the emotion that calls them forth, and therefore is compatible with them.   T-19.IV.B.10:1-10

We identify very strongly as our body in this crazy world. We may even believe that our body offers some sort of protection from the world. The Course teaches us otherwise. Our body has no purpose other than the purpose we give it. Our body is merely a tool which we can use for one purpose or another. We can use our body to reinforce separation and fear and even pain. Or we can use the body to facilitate our joining together in Oneness. The body will reflect the choices of the mind.  What have you chosen? Have you chosen peace or something else? When we make our choice, all the conditions of that choice come with it. It’s all or nothing. There is no middle ground. Yet, Spirit will lead us to and on the steps we need to take to get where we are going.

Sometimes we get the idea in our minds that the body is bad or evil. There is no truth in this idea. The body is neither good nor bad. It is merely a means in our journey to the awareness of who we really are. Our body can be our obstacles to peace. But, it can also be the catalyst to discovering peace within our being. What purpose do we give it? Why are we attracted to pain? Is it really more desirable than peace? The truth is we have separated ourselves from the awareness of our true nature. We have separated ourselves from the peace and joy we carry within us. We have denied the simple fact that we are whole, complete, limitless, and the essence of love. We have chosen to believe that pain, fear and guilt can actually exist and that in believing they do, we make them appear very real.

It is not given to the ego’s disciples to realize that they have dedicated themselves to death. Freedom is offered them but they have not accepted it, and what is offered must also be received, to be truly given. For the Holy Spirit, too, is a communication medium, receiving from the Creator and offering the Creator’s messages unto Us. Like the ego, the Holy Spirit is both the sender and the receiver. For what is sent through Spirit returns to Spirit, seeking itself along the way, and finding what it seeks. So does the ego find the death it seeks, returning it to you.   T-19.IV.B.17:1-6

We will find the peace we seek. It may take a long time if we choose to place obstacles it the way. But, it can also be a shorter, easier journey if we choose to let the obstacles to peace fade as we realize they are not real. It’s our choice. We can make the road difficult or easy. It can be the easy road if we choose to let Spirit guide us beyond what appears to be obstacles. Once Spirit has led us through them, we look back and realize there was nothing there to begin with. Seek pain no more. It may appear attractive, but it needn’t be at all. When the going gets rough, choose again.

March 6, 2018

The second obstacle that peace must flow across, and closely related to the first, is the belief that the body is valuable for what it offers. Here is the attraction of guilt made manifest in the body and seen in it. We tend to think that anything worthwhile requires sacrifice. Is it reasonable to think we must sacrifice happiness to attain peace? We have come to believe in this world that our identity is our body. We believe our identity is what our body does, how it speaks, how it looks. We may also think we have some soul identity, but it is secondary to our body and the history of our body’s life. This idea places our identity squarely in our past. We so strongly place our identity in this past experience of the body that we end up denying our present. Thus, we deny who we really are. We never found real happiness in this idea, so we identify with some sort of guilt for the failing we identify with. We feel we have sacrificed happiness for some sense of identity. Here is the source of the idea that love is fear. And so, we send out messengers of fear.

The Holy Spirit’s messengers are sent far beyond the body, calling the mind to join in holy communion and be at peace. Such is the message that I gave them for you. It is only the messengers of fear that see the body, for they look for what can suffer. Is it a sacrifice to be removed from what can suffer? The Holy Spirit does not demand you sacrifice the hope of the body’s pleasure; it has no hope of pleasure. But neither can it bring you fear of pain. Pain is the only “sacrifice” the Holy Spirit asks, and this Spirit would remove.   T-19.IV.B.3:1-7

We may not realize it, but Spirit is working within us. Spirit knows us intimately. Spirit quietly dwells within our being and gently calls to us, waiting until we are ready to listen to the Holy within us. We’ve forgotten the Holy was there within us. We’ve been so busy seeking it outside ourselves that we missed the fact it has always been right here within us. Each of our relationships in this world reflect how aware we are of our true Holy Identity. Our Holy Identity has never left us. It has never been sullied. It is wholly intact.

Peace is extended from you only to the eternal, and it reaches out from the eternal in you. It flows across all else. The second obstacle is no more solid than the first. For you want neither to get rid of peace nor limit it. What are these obstacles that you would interpose between peace and its going forth but barriers you place between your will and its accomplishment? You want communion, not the feast of fear. You want salvation, not the pain of guilt. And you want your Source, not a little mound of clay, to be your home. In your holy relationship is your Source’s Creation. We have not lost communion with Source, nor with yourself. When you agreed to join another, you acknowledged this is so. This has no cost, but it has release from cost.   T-19.IV.B.4:1-11

We have paid the price of our illusions with the sacrifice of the awareness of peace in our minds. Yet, it is a simple matter to reconnect with that peace. Simply releasing our attachment to the value we place on our body as our identity will bring an opening of our minds to the reality of our Holy Identity. Spirit gently holds it for us and our readiness to welcome it back into our minds. We cannot sacrifice Heaven at all. There is no obstacle we can place between ourselves and peace that our holy relationship cannot diminish to nothing. In the light of our Holiness, all that is fear and guilt must fade away. Nothing can dim or extinguish the light we are. Look to one-another in your holy relationship and see all separation vanish. We truly are One in eternity and there is no real reason not to step into that awareness in this moment. Delay no longer, for the time is now.