June 26, 2018

What if our real world is nothing but peace, love and joy? Could we be open to this possibility for just a moment? The Course teaches there is nothing but peace, love and joy. It also teaches that all fear, limitation and suffering is merely a mistaken perception and is not real. However, for those of us who experience these feelings, they seem very real and we see no way to escape from them. The world we think we see with our bodies’ eyes is a world distorted through the lens of separation. As we have aligned our thoughts with our belief that we are many separate beings, we have perceived a world of many unlike identities. The world appears to be comprised of many competing beings and ideas. Sometimes it can feel very lonely. Could it be possible that there is another interpretation? Most of us have felt some sort of wider connection with others at some point in our existence. Whether of not we believe in a God or some other larger concept, we have somehow felt this connection among beings some way. Perhaps there is a deeper or higher connection.

The Course teaches there is another way, another plan. We give as we receive. There is power within us to see power within another and share with them the power of the release from separation we offer them. To each who walks this earth in seeming solitude a savior is given, whose special function here is to release them, and so to free themselves. In the world of separation each is appointed separately, though they are all the same. Yet those who know that they are all One do not need salvation. Each one of us finds our savior when we are ready to look upon the face of Oneness within another and see them whole and joined. In reality we are all joined in Oneness with each other and with Source. Nothing can change this fact, yet we can perceive our world differently.

Our purpose given to us in this world is to heal this belief in separation. Do not think the forgiveness of another serves only the two of you alone. The whole new world rests in the hands of every two who enter here to rest. As we rest, the face of Heaven shines on us and we remember the reality of Oneness, forgetting all else that is not real. We can no more leave one of us outside than Source could leave us and forget part of what is One. Through our relationships we heal our belief in separation and remember we are One with each other and One with all of Creation. The friend with whom we will heal our relationship is with us when we are ready. Is that time now? It is our choice. We will decide to open our minds when we are ready to accept real happiness, love, and peace. There the awareness of our Oneness will follow our willingness to leave separation behind.

You may wonder how you can be at peace when, while you are in time, there is so much that must be done before the way to peace is open. Perhaps this seems impossible to you. But ask yourself if it is possible that God would have a plan for your salvation that does not work. Once you accept God’s plan as the one function that you would fulfill, there will be nothing else the Holy Spirit will not arrange for you without your effort. Spirit will go before you making straight your path, and leaving in your way no stones to trip on, and no obstacles to bar your way. Nothing you need will be denied you. Not one seeming difficulty but will melt away before you reach it. You need take thought for nothing, careless of everything except the only purpose that you would fulfill. As that was given you, so will its fulfillment be. God’s guarantee will hold against all obstacles, for it rests on certainty and not contingency. It rests on you.  And what can be more certain than the One Child of God?   T-20.IV.8:1-12

Do not think that you do not need to do your part in the whole. In your part lies all of it, without which is no part complete, nor is the whole completed without your part. The ark of peace is entered two by two, yet the beginning of another world goes with them. Each holy relationship must enter here, to learn its special function in Spirit’s plan, now that it shares Spirit’s purpose. As this purpose is fulfilled, a new world rises in which separation cannot enter, and where we can enter without fear and where we rest a while, to forget imprisonment and to remember freedom. Choose today to see another as they really are and step into the ark of peace that is the Heaven we seek.

June 19, 2018

As in the previous section, Section IV teaches us about our relationships and the importance of healing our relationships. The One we are in relationship with in this world right now is the one to whom we are to offer healing. The Course has taught us there is only one problem – belief in separation. It has also taught us there is only one solution – the end of separation in the awareness of Oneness. If we give our friend the power to hurt us, we have believed that power can be split – separated – that we can give something away and no longer have it. This is impossible in reality where everything is shared. The Course has taught us that giving and receiving are the same. Thus, everything real is shared. The body’s eyes do not see this, for they are designed to see separation. Whatever we seem to have seen in this world has another interpretation. Our own Higher Holy Spirit Self within us will show us the correct interpretation if we will allow ourselves to be open minded. The answer is already within us.

Sin has no place in Heaven, where its results are alien and can no more enter than can their source. And therein lies your need to see your friend sinless. In them is Heaven. See sin in them instead, and Heaven is lost to you. But see them as they are, and what is yours shines from them to you. Your savior gives you only love, but what you would receive of them is up to you. It lies in them to overlook all your mistakes, and therein lies their own salvation. And so it is with yours. Salvation is a lesson in giving, as the Holy Spirit interprets it. It is the reawakening of the laws of the One in minds that have established other laws, and given them power to enforce what the One created not.   T-20.IV.2:1-10

Salvation is freedom. Our salvation is the release of our friend from the perception we have of them that limits them and thus likewise limits us. We are limited by the perception we hold true of our friend. The insane world we made up rooted in our mistaken belief in separation is the world we have given power over our freedom and relationships. We have believed this world is our “just reward” when it can’t really reach our true holy Self. This is nothing but madness! Is this what we would see within our savior from insanity? Our savior is as free from this as we are, and in the freedom that we see in them we see our own. For this freedom – salvation – we share.

Those who choose freedom will experience only its results. Their power is of the One, and they will give it only to what the One has given, to share with them. Nothing but this can touch them, for they see only this, sharing their power according to the Will of the One. And thus their freedom is established and maintained. It is upheld through all temptation to imprison and to be imprisoned. It is of them who learned of freedom that you should ask what freedom is. Ask not the sparrow how the eagle soars, for those with little wings have not accepted for themselves the power to share with you.   T-20.IV.4:1-7

What will you accept for yourself? What will you accept for your friend? Your friend is your savior and you are your friend’s savior. It doesn’t matter what your friend does in this temporal world. Begin by recognizing the holy within them they may not see right now. Grant your friend freedom from all you have previously believed about them and reveal their holy Self in your mind. This is what begins the healing of your relationship. Take the first step, for that is a step toward Heaven that is within both of you. Thus, we enter peace hand in hand with our friend. Take this first step right now.

June 12, 2018

Through the lens of separation, we perceive our relationships adjusted from their true meaning. The belief in the idea of separation adjusts our relationships to appear “special” – meaning not holy. All our relationships are holy in reality. It is only in this “adjusted” world that they appear “special.” Are we not tired of relationships that seem to attack, produce guilt or appear dysfunctional in any way? We have made this misperception, this adjustment, through our alignment with our own egoic thought system. Believing this adjusted perception is real blocks our awareness of the true nature of our relationships. We have made our relationships appear to be something they are not, nor have they ever been in reality. This adjusted world and this adjusted relationship is merely a puff of madness in a moment of mistaken thinking in separation.

Does one ask judgment of what is totally bereft of judgment? And if you have, would you believe the answer, and adjust to it as if it were the truth? The world you look on is the answer that it gave you, and you have given it power to adjust the world to make its answer true. You asked this puff of madness for the meaning of your unholy relationship and adjusted it according to its insane answer. How happy did it make you? Did you meet your friend with joy to bless the One Child of God, and give them thanks for all the happiness that they held out to you? Did you recognize your friend as the eternal gift of God to you? Did you see the holiness that shone in both you and your friend, to bless the other? That is the purpose of your holy relationship. Ask not the means of its attainment of the one thing that still would have it be unholy. Give it no power to adjust the means and end.   T-20.III.8:1-11

Reach out to your friend and offer them freedom from this adjusted world. Offer them the freedom you so crave. We may not recognize it at once, for we are so aligned with the world we made up, we find the freedom of the real world frightening and even daunting. It seems so strange to us, yet somehow familiar. Allow yourself the time to adjust again. We can adjust again to the real world, the holy world – to real relationships, holy relationships. Spirit will guide us in the healing and transformation of our relationships into their natural state. Give it time. This is the holy purpose of time. The miracle of healing our relationships brings the real world without our adjustments to light. The light within us is shining on the real world within us. Remove the shutters on your inner light and let it illuminate the real world around you.

Your gift unto your friend has given me the certainty our union will be soon. Share, then, this faith with me, and know that it is justified. There is no fear in perfect love because it knows no sin, and it must look on others as on itself. Looking with charity within, what can it fear without? The innocent see safety, and the pure in heart see Source within Us, and look unto Us to lead them to Source. And where else would they go but where they will to be? You and your friend now will lead the other to Source as surely as Source created Us holy, and kept us so. In your friend is the light of Source’s eternal promise of your immortality. See them as sinless, and there can be no fear in you.   T-20.III.11:1-9

Set your friend free – and yourself, too. The prison of separation is merely a distortion and an adjustment to freedom. Freedom is our truth. Holiness is our truth. Completeness and wholeness is our truth. Offer your friend the gift of forgiveness and healing; release from the adjustment of sin and misperception. Wholeness is waiting to take its place. Love and peace are already welling up within us. Make your choice today and set the world free.

June 5, 2018

In the presence of holiness, we can be only holy. Yet we continue to deny our holiness. Holiness is all there is. However, we continue to deny our holiness and the holiness of each other. We become attached to the idea of unholiness and then reinforce it again and again. We perceive the world around us as unholy and cement that idea in our minds, blocking all ideas that seem to contradict it. What if our perception is mistaken? What if our mind has adjusted the appearance of the world around us to make it appear unholy? There’s something to think about.

Who in a holy relationship can long remain unholy? The world the holy see is one with them, just as the world the ego looks upon is like itself. The world the holy see is beautiful because they see their innocence in it. They did not tell it what it was; they did not make adjustments to fit their orders. They gently questioned it and whispered, “What are you?” And the One Who watches over all perception answered. Take not the judgment of the world as answer to the question, “What am I?” The world believes in sin, but the belief that made it as you see it is not outside you.   T-20.III.6:1-8

Look at the relationships you have chosen – or that have chosen you. Are they holy? If not, they are there in your life to be healed. Our own egoic thought system has adjusted our perception of these relationships to appear unholy. We thus blame, attack or deprive the one in relationship with us in an effort to make them change their behavior or perception. We want them to adjust their sense of “right” to our sense of “right.” The reason we see another as unholy is that our own perception is distorted, not theirs. They need do nothing to heal our relationship. We are the ones who need to decide that we want to perceive our relationship differently. The willingness for healing and change is our responsibility and no one else’s. Are we even a little willing to open ourselves to this possibility?

Seek not to make the One Holy Child of God adjust to their insanity. There is a stranger in them, who wandered carelessly into the home of truth and who will wander off. They came without a purpose, but they will not remain before the shining light the Holy Spirit offered, and you accepted. For there the stranger is made homeless and you are welcome. Ask not this transient stranger, “What am I?” They are the only thing in all the universe that does not know. Yet it is they you ask, and it is to their answer that you would adjust. This one wild thought, fierce in its arrogance, and yet so tiny and so meaningless it slips unnoticed through the universe of truth, becomes your guide. To it you turn to ask the meaning of the universe. And of the one blind thing in all the seeing universe of truth you ask, “How shall I look upon the One Holy Child of God?”   T-20.III.7:1-10

We’ve been looking for love in all the wrong places! The light of truth and knowledge is already within us planted there at our creation. It has never gone away, it has never been corrupted. No sin has ever or could ever blemish our true Self. Spirit holds this for us to offer again to our awareness when we are ready and willing to see again. Allow your relationships to be healed as Spirit directs. Just a bit of willingness is needed to begin. Then the willingness to follow the guidance of Spirit within us will bring our light to shine within us and radiate holiness. Allow your light to shine on your relationships and see the holiness that was there all the time waiting to be recognized. This is why this One is in our life right now.