October 30, 2018

Nothing happens in this world in isolation. Nothing ever happens in isolation. We are all part of everything. We may think that some things happen either to us alone or don’t affect us alone, but we are a part of everything. Isolation is an illusion as is separation. What we seem to see happening is a result of how we perceive the world. This is a difficult concept to grasp, especially as we ponder recent events in the world around us. We each perceive them differently and thus understand them differently. The Course tells us we are not attacked alone, but neither can we accept a miracle alone, for we are all blessed equally by the miracle’s healing of pain. Reason, like love, reassures us, and seeks not to frighten us. The power to heal is given all of us because we must be one with each other. Because we are all One, it is our responsibility how others see themselves. This responsibility may seem overwhelming in this world until we begin to see with our spirit Vision that is deep within our true being.

Does this feel like an immense burden? The instant that we choose to let ourselves be healed, in that same instant is another’s whole salvation seen as complete with ours. We are given reason to understand that this is so. For reason, kind as is the purpose for which it is the means, leads steadily away from madness toward truth. Here we will lay down the burden of denying truth. This is the burden that is terrible, and not the “burden” of truth. The reality that we are all joined in Oneness and responsible for recognizing just that is the truth and therefore not any kind of burden.

You are another’s savior. They are yours. Reason speaks happily indeed of this. This gracious plan was given love by Love. And what Love plans is like Itself in this: Being united, It would have you learn what you must be. And being one with It, it must be given you to give what It has given, and gives still. Spend but an instant in the glad acceptance of what is given you to give another, and learn with them what has been given both of you. To give is no more blessed than to receive. But neither is it less.   T-21.VI.9:1-9

The release of our burdens frees us from all the limitations of the world we think we see. The world we think we see is a major distortion of reality. Our belief in separation, long fortified in our split mind, shows a world full of attack, hate, fear and isolation that cannot be real in a reality where only wholeness, limitlessness, love and peace are real. We have made up this distorted world and then believed it was thrust upon us making us miserable. Perhaps we do feel miserable right now as we ponder this distorted world. However, we can see this world differently by following and living the principles of the Course.

The One Child of God [Us as One] is always blessed as one. And as another’s gratitude goes out to you who blessed them, reason will tell you that it cannot be you stand apart from blessing. The gratitude another offers you reminds you of the thanks your Source gives you for completing Oneness. And here alone does reason tell you that you can understand what you must be. Your Source is as close to you as is any other one. Yet what is there that could be nearer you than is your Self?   T-21.VI.10:1-6

Allow yourself to join in Oneness with each other. Allow yourself to join again and again. We begin to glimpse our true nature in this way. We begin to understand the difference between illusion and reality. We begin to realize that our efforts to remain isolated and build walls between us does not serve our happiness and joining together in Oneness does. Rejoice in this awakening. Allow reason within your holy mind to come forward and guide you to the realization and awareness of who you really are in Oneness with all creation. Blessings and gratitude are abundant in this state of mind. Be here in holiness and Oneness now.

October 23, 2018

We have learned that reason is within the part of our mind that remains untouched, unchanged and holy. Reason cannot be corrupted. There is great power in reason and thus within us if we will recognize it. Reason has the power to correct errors if we will allow it to do so. But to deny reason the permission to correct our errors, we deny it both to ourselves and each other. When we deny ourselves correction, we allow misery to occur in everyone. Reason cannot make way for correction in you or me alone, but in all of us together. Reason does not recognize separation, only Oneness. The Course asks us how the belief in separation could possibly make any sense and so separation must be insane.

Correction cannot be accepted or refused by you without your friend. Sin would maintain it can. Yet reason tells you that you cannot see your friend or yourself as sinful and still perceive the other innocent. Who looks upon themselves as guilty and sees a sinless world? And who can see a sinful world and look upon themselves apart from it? Sin would maintain you and your friend must be separate. But reason tells you that this must be wrong. If you and your friend are joined, how could it be that you have private thoughts? And how could thoughts that enter into what but seems like yours alone have no effect at all on what is yours? If minds are joined, this is impossible.   T-21.VI.2:1-10

The Reason in our right mind holds our Oneness for us when we deny it to ourselves by believing in separation. Sin is really nothing more than the belief in separation – an idea that is mistaken and cannot possibly be true. So, reason remembers it for us and gently reminds us when we allow ourselves to revisit our true nature. This place in our mind dedicated to holding our sanity and undoing our insanity is joined with all “other minds” in the One Mind, remembering our wholeness and our wholeness and divine nature. Allowing ourselves to go within and reconnect with this right mind is all we need ask for. The Spirit within us is waiting for our willingness to guide us to this reconnection we never lost, yet blocked form our awareness. All we need is within us and so why continue seeking outside us for what is already within us? There is no sane answer to that question. It is nothing more than a mad attack on reason which cannot succeed.

If you teach another that they are separate from you and from their Source forever, without a hope of safe return, you will learn of them exactly what you taught. For you can teach them only that they are as you would have them, and what you choose they be is but your choice for you. Yet think not this is fearful. That you are joined to them is but a fact, not an interpretation. How can a fact be fearful unless it disagrees with what you hold more dear than truth? Reason will tell you that this fact is your release.   T-21.VI.6:3-8

What do you hold dear in your mind – separation or Oneness? It’s your choice. And your choice determines the world you see. Your belief in separation will show you a world that appears to be full of attack and limitation. Reason will show you the real world of peace, love and joy. It’s the same world viewed through the lens of insanity or sanity. Make your choice but know that your mind holds a place of reason and sanity you can return to at any time you choose. Choose to return there now and return to the awareness of Oneness that has always been within you.

October 16, 2018

We are created inseparable from the One and our true nature. We are whole and complete, divine and limitless. Yet, we have chosen to see ourselves differently. We have chosen to forgo all reason and believe we are separate from the One and each other – that we are separate from our own divine nature and identity. Does this sound insane? Yes it does, but we believe it anyway. There is no reason in this way of thinking, for who would abandon and deny their own wholeness. Yet, we choose to align our thinking with the insane idea of separateness our egoic thought system presents us. There is no reason in this. It is completely mistaken ad leads us only to loneliness and frustration. Our holiness is within us. Our sanity is within us. Reason is within us. If only we will turn our thoughts to the higher holy Self within us and allow it to show us who we really are. The answer we are seeking is waiting for us. Are you willing to ask the question you need to ask?

Where would the answer be but in the Source? And where are you but there, where this same answer is? Your Identity, as much a true Effect of this same Source as is the answer, must therefore be together and the same. O yes, you know this, and more than this alone. Yet any part of knowledge threatens dissociation as much as all of it. And all of it will come with any part. Here is the part you can accept. What reason points to you can see, because the witnesses on its behalf are clear. Only the totally insane can disregard them, and you have gone past this. Reason is a means that serves the Holy Spirit’s purpose in its own right. It is not reinterpreted and redirected from the goal of sin, as are the others. For reason is beyond the ego’s range of means.   T-21.V.7:1-12

We need not suffer this insanity. There is a place in our mind that remains untouched, unchanged and holy. This place in our mind is dedicated to hold our sanity and the remembrance of our true nature. This part of our mind is joined in its own and its Source’s Will to the undoing of insanity. In this mind is Spirit’s purpose accepted and accomplished, both at once. Reason resides here, too. It is untouched by the insane thoughts our egoic thought system bombards us with. This reason serves to open doors we closed against it in our mistaken faith and belief in separation.

You have come very close to this. Faith and belief have shifted, and you have asked the question the ego will never ask. Does not your reason tell you now the question must have come from something that you do not know, but must belong to you? Faith and belief, upheld by reason, cannot fail to lead to changed perception. And in this change is room made way for vision. Vision extends beyond itself, as does the purpose that it serves, and all the means for its accomplishment.   T-21.V.10:1-6

Our belief in the separation idea presented us by our egoic thought system occupies only a part of our mind. It is impossible to make all of our mind insane – although sometimes it feels like we have done just that. We could only accomplish making a split mind, choosing to block the portion of our mind that is whole and retains reason and the remembrance of who we really are. Is this insanity working for us? Is it bringing us the peace, love and joy we desire? The plan of salvation from this insane thought system willed together by our higher Self and Source is in that part of our mind dedicated to the undoing of the insanity we chose by aligning our split mind with the egoic thought system. We are free to choose again. We are free to allow the Higher Spirit Self within us to guide us in this plan of salvation that frees us from the limitations of the egoic thought system. What will you choose? Will you choose the wrongmindedness of the split mind or the rightmindedness of the One Mind? There’s nothing to lose except misery and everything to gain through the awareness of peace within you.

October 2, 2018

I think there are many things about ourselves we are afraid of. We may be afraid of failure, success, getting hurt, getting what we want. No matter what we are afraid of, it often paralyzes us and forfeits any benefit we might gain just because we are afraid of something that may or may not happen. We often settle for that which is familiar just because it’s familiar. We are more content to stay with what we know rather than take any risks. What if there were no risks? What if what we really want is guaranteed? We’re also afraid of that, too.

The Course tells us we have everything we need within us. Yet, we refuse to accept this fact we have denied. We have convinced ourselves we are inadequate. We have convinced ourselves we are limited, lacking and even sinful. We are created in the image of the Holy One! The Course teaches this. The Course teaches us we are sinless and could never really sin as we are one with the Holy One. The Course teaches us that each and every one of us is One with the Holy One – no exceptions. The only mistake we ever made was to believe we are separate from each other and the Holy One. We believe that if we look within we will see something sinful, something awful and perhaps evil. Our faith that sin is there witnesses to our desire that it be there to see. This merely seems to be the source of fear. What if there is an even deeper fear?

What if you looked within and saw no sin? This “fearful” question is one the ego never asks. And you who ask it now are threatening the ego’s whole defensive system too seriously for it to bother to pretend it is your friend. Those who have joined their sisters and brothers have detached themselves from their belief that their identity lies in the ego. A holy relationship is one in which you join with what is part of you in truth. And your belief in sin has been already shaken, nor are you now entirely unwilling to look within and see it not.   T-21.IV.3:1-6

Perhaps we have suffered enough to allow Spirit to take our hand as we turn to look within at what just might be there hidden beyond the egoic identity we thought we were.

To be willing – even just a little – to open our eyes and see what lies beyond in truth and reality allows Spirit – also within us – to guide us to a new understanding of who we are. We find that understanding as we allow Spirit to join in our relationships and heal them into holy relationships. We will see them healed in a holy instant even as we tend to look away again. But once we have seen the healing we will want to return again and again. Spirit will guide us there as we desire and allow. Realize that this holy Self has always been within us. This holy Self is who we really are in Oneness with each and every other One we encounter.

The Holy Self within us – awakened in our healed relationship – recognizes the sweetest song that echoes through the ages. The song of freedom, which sings the praises of another world, brings to it hope of peace. For it remembers and now sees that Heaven has come to earth. Heaven has come because it found a home in our relationship on earth. And earth can hold no longer what has been given Heaven as its own.

Look gently on each other, and remember the ego’s weakness is revealed in both your sight. What it would keep apart has met and joined, and looks upon the ego unafraid. Little child, innocent of sin, follow in gladness the way to certainty. Be not held back by fear’s insane insistence that sureness lies in doubt. This has no meaning. What matters it to you how loudly it is proclaimed? The senseless is not made meaningful by repetition and by clamor. The quiet way is open. Follow it happily, and question not what must be so.   T-21.IV.8:1-9

Look within and allow yourself to see your strength, to see your limitlessness, to see your holiness in unity in all your relationships. We are the holy One in Oneness and nothing less. Be not afraid to look within and find there what you’ve been seeking.