April 24, 2018

Everyone who comes into our lives, no matter how brief, has a purpose in our life. Their real purpose is healing, the salvation of our sanity. We have chosen them. They arrive in the form that Spirit uses to teach us. It is our choice whether to choose to learn the lesson or deny the lesson. That is the free will we are given in our creation. Perhaps we are too quick to judge this one we have encountered. Perhaps we are so apt to put up the walls of separation between us and anyone else that we do so without thinking. Would we allow a bit of compassion to enter our mind? Perhaps this would allow us to perceive this one a bit differently. They may be simply calling for love or even extending love to us. Perhaps we can set aside our habitual denial of love, look beyond the first appearance of things and allow Spirit to guide us to see and perceive this one through the lens of love and compassion.

Forget not that you came this far together, you and this one. And it was surely not the ego that led you here. No obstacle to peace can be surmounted through the ego’s help. The ego does not open up its secrets, and bid you look on them and go beyond them. The ego would not have you see its weakness, and learn it has no power to keep you from the truth. The Guide Who brought you here remains with you, and when you raise your eyes you will be ready to look on terror with no fear at all. But first, lift up your eyes and look on this one in innocence born of complete forgiveness of their illusions, and through the eyes of faith that sees them not.   T-19.IV.D.8:1-7

We tend to journey through life with our eyes cast down. What are we avoiding? What are we afraid to look at? Keeping our eyes cast down is an avoidance of seeing correctly. We can’t look beyond the appearance of things unless we look up. We need to look up to see reality, to see the abundance before us, to see the one we travel with at this moment as they really are. When I encounter you at the store, you bring joy to me and thus I bring joy to you in this present moment. When I raise my eyes, I have a chance at seeing the Heaven that is my home. I am already there, but I don’t recognize it because I am keeping my eyes averted. When I encounter you, it is an opportunity for us to recognize our holy relationship in this holy instant and rejoice in our Oneness. In the same manner, when I encounter a stranger in any situation, it is an opportunity for me to recognize the holy in that one and thus they can recognize the same in me, whether at this moment or at some point in the illusion of time. The forgiving of misperception is our purpose in this world.

We fear the One because we look upon each other with fear We have misperceived each other as fearful. What if we could look upon each other without fear and allow ourselves to see holiness and love in each other? This is the meaning of forgiveness, to see another as they really are. Who is this one who stands beside me, even if only for a short while? They are meant to be there with me. Perhaps they are a teacher, a learner, a messenger. They have something for us – and we for them – guided from Spirit. We can pause a moment and look beyond our busy day to the gift that lies beyond and is offered us.

Beside you is one who offers you the chalice of Atonement, for the Holy Spirit is in them. Would you hold their sins against them, or accept their gift to you? Is this giver of salvation your friend or enemy? Choose which they are, remembering that you will receive of them according to your choice. they have in them the power to forgive your sin, as you for them. Neither can give it to themselves alone. And yet your savior stands beside each one. Let them be what they are, and seek not to make of love an enemy.   T-19.IV.D.13:1-8

Look again at the one beside you. Look beyond the first appearance to what is beyond. See them anew. Let the heavy dark veil be pulled aside. How holy and how beautiful they are. Their light shines brightly as their light joins with the Great Rays that shine from your holy Self and remember your Oneness. Joy, Peace and Love rise in us having always been there waiting to be recognized. Join with your friend and share in your Oneness. Know the truth about who you both really are, One with all Creation. There are no obstacles left for Peace to flow over. Peace is within you.

April 17, 2018

We hang the darkened veil of our mistaken perception between our mind and peace. This veil obscures our view of reality. It obscures our view of love and joy. It is the obstacle to peace we can choose to push aside so easily if we are just a little willing to allow Spirit into our perception. As we allow Spirit to guide our minds, the darkened and heavy veil fades into nothingness before our very eyes to reveal light, laughter and love within and around us. The awareness of our divine nature reveals itself in Oneness with each other. We find it possible and even easy to relax into the awareness of who we really are right now in this holy instant. Peace will flow across this seemingly insurmountable obstacle with ease and grace, bringing the awareness of eternal reality to our minds.

It seems to you the world will utterly abandon you if you but raise your eyes. Yet all that will occur is you will leave the world forever. This is the re-establishment of your will. Look upon it, open-eyed, and you will nevermore believe that you are at the mercy of things beyond you, forces you cannot control, and thoughts that come to you against your will. It is your will to look on this. No mad desire, no trivial impulse to forget again, no stab of fear nor the cold sweat of seeming death can stand against your will. For what attracts you from beyond the veil is also deep within you, unseparated from it and completely one.   T-19.IV.D.7:1-7

It is time to lift the veil. It is time to look beyond the veil and see peace, allowing peace to flow across this obstacle that is now reduced to nothing. Join in Oneness with the Ones who travel with you on this journey back to the awareness of who you really are. We are all in this together and will all complete the journey together, for we are all One. The appearance of separation is no more as we join together in Unity as our true Identity. Our egoic thought system has not led us to this desire to awaken. The light and Spirit within us has led us to this place where we realize there has got to be a better way. Our Higher Holy Spirit Self has called us to awaken our mind to the Divine nature we are and have always been. This is the call we have heard and chosen to accept for ourselves and each other.

Stand you here a while and tremble not. You will be ready. Let us join together in a holy instant, here in this place where the purpose, given in a holy instant, has led you. And let us join in faith that the One Who brought us here together will offer you the innocence you need, and that you will accept it for my love and the One’s.   T-19.IV.D.9:4-7

Take a step back. Observe this holy instant and recognize its power. All that is not real has faded away just for this moment. This instant is pure, holy, complete and infinite in its reality. Welcome this instant and simply allow it to be. Rest in this “now” moment. It reveals to you all that is true. We can allow ourselves to return here any time we find ourselves caught up in the absence of peace. In this holy instant we are home. The presence of peace within us is all encompassing – it is total. Let Spirit within put into perspective your purpose. Accept this purpose as Spirit reveals it to you. Peace will flow like a river as peace rises in you.

April 10, 2018

The fourth obstacle peace must flow over is like a heavy veil that hangs between our mind and our Mind. This heavy veil obscures the reality of Love by making it seem disfigured, diseased and ugly to our separated mind. Love seems to appear scarred and repulsive. Love’s appearance through this heavy veil appears undesirable and something that instills fear in our mind. Even though it is an illusion caused by the distortion of the veil of fear, it appears very real to us when we are unwilling to seek the guidance of Spirit in our perceiving. As we rely on our egoic thought system to guide our perception of the world, we see a world colored by fear: fear of peace, fear of death, fear of pain and fear of God. All this “fear of” occupies our mind and paralyzes our ability to see with our Spirit Eye. We have the ability within us to see clearly, to see Love, Joy and Peace holding steadfastly within our One Mind waiting for us to realize we want to see clearly.

The fourth obstacle to be surmounted hangs like a heavy veil before the face of Christ. As the face of Christ rises beyond it, shining with joy because the Christ is in the Creator’s Love, peace will lightly brush the veil aside and run to meet Love, and to join with Love at last. For this dark veil, which seems to make the face of Christ like to a leper’s, and the bright Rays of the Creator’s Love that light the face of Christ with glory appear as streams of blood, fades in the blazing light beyond it when the fear of death is gone.   T-19.IV.D.2:1-3

No matter what form this imagery takes for us, the distortion in our perception is easily pulled aside when we look for the divine guidance within us; the presence of our Higher Holy Spirit Self. We are the Divine guidance we seek. We have simply denied its existence within our mind. And, our denial has kept it well hidden behind this veil. This darkest veil is the result of our solemn vow, the promise we made in secret to our egoic thought system, never to lift this veil. Not to approach it, nor even to suspect that it is even there. This is the secret bargain we made with our egoic thought system to keep what lies beyond the veil forever blotted out and unremembered. Here is our promise never to allow union to call us out of separation; the great amnesia in which the memory of the Divine seems quite forgotten; the cleavage of our Self from us, the fear of God, the final step in our dissociation.

Every obstacle that peace must flow across is surmounted in just the same way; the fear that raised it yields to the love beyond, and so the fear is gone. And so it is with this. The desire to get rid of peace and drive the Holy Spirit from you fades in the presence of the quiet recognition that you love Spirit. The exaltation of the body is given up in favor of the spirit, which you love as you could never love the body. And the appeal of death is lost forever as love’s attraction stirs and calls to you. From beyond each of the obstacles to love, Love Itself has called. And each has been surmounted by the power of the attraction of what lies beyond. Your wanting fear seemed to be holding them in place. Yet when you heard the Voice of Love beyond them, you answered and they disappeared.   T-19.IV.D.5:1-8

Listen, then, for the call of Love that calls from its dwelling place within us. Love’s attraction points us to what lies beyond all the obstacles to peace we could ever dream up to the Divine truth of the Love we are. Peace dwells within that Love. We are and have always been that Love and Peace. This is what we really are. When we choose to allow our Divine nature to rise in our consciousness, all else fades gently into nothingness, for all that is not Love and Peace is surely nothing. Look within to the Holy and recognize yourself in the One of Oneness.

April 3, 2018

Dedication is the telltale sign of where our mind is focused and what we believe about ourselves. I am dedicated to love. Are you? I am dedicated to life and freedom. Are you? I am dedicated to seeing the holy in each one I encounter in this world. Are you? I am dedicated to allowing Spirit to enter my relationships and transform them into holy relationships, granting the miracle of healing to both of us. Are you? Consider making this choice. You need not do all the work but offer just a little willingness for Spirit to enter and do the heavy lifting. Would you deny communication or accept communication?

You who are dedicated to the incorruptible have been given through your acceptance, the power to release from corruption. What better way to teach the first and fundamental principle in a course on miracles than by showing you the one that seems to be the hardest can be accomplished first? The body can but serve your purpose. As you look on it, so will it seem to be. Death, were it true, would be the final and complete disruption of communication, which is the ego’s goal.   T-19.IV.C.6:1-5

Fear has no place in our lives. In the real world, the eternal world of love and grace, there is nothing to fear. In fact, there is no fear at all in the real world. We are One with Source – the One – who is Us as we are the One. The adage, “There is nothing to fear but fear itself.” has a ring of truth. As we allow ourselves to remain in communication with the Divine in each other we begin to recognize our Divine Oneness in eternity. What can eternity be but peace? The fear of death will retreat from our awareness as its appeal is yielded to love’s attraction. The end of separation, which nestles quietly in the safety of our relationship, protected by our union with each other, and ready to grow into a mighty force for Truth and Peace is very near. The infancy of the miracle of healing is carefully guarded by love, preserved from every thought that would attack it, and quietly made ready to fulfill the mighty task for which it was given us. Our newborn purpose is nursed by angels, cherished by Spirit and protected by Oneness. It does not need our protection; it is ours. It is deathless, and within it lies the end of death and separation.

When anything seems to you to be a source of fear, when any situation strikes you with terror and makes your body tremble and the cold sweat of fear comes over it, remember it is always for one reason; the ego has perceived it as a symbol of fear, a sign of sin and death. Remember, then, that neither sign nor symbol should be confused with source, for they must stand for something other than themselves. Their meaning cannot lie in them but must be sought in what they represent. And they may thus mean everything or nothing, according to the truth or falsity of the idea which they reflect. Confronted with such seeming uncertainty of meaning, judge it not. Remember the holy Presence of the One given to you to be the Source of judgment. Give it to the One to judge for you, and say:

Take this from me and look upon it, judging it for me.

Let me not see it as a sign of sin and death, nor use it for destruction.

Teach me how not to make of it an obstacle to peace, but let You use it for me, to facilitate its coming.   T-19.IV.C.11:1-10

Begin this process today. Allow the miracle of healing to enter your heart and mind as you invite Spirit into your relationships. Eternity will flow across the obstacles to peace you have place between your mistaken thoughts and who you really are. Now is the time to rest in Peace.