July 14, 2015

We choose either a sane curriculum or an insane curriculum. Which have you chosen? Is your life in the flow with love or are you riding the peaks and valleys of the egoic thought system, separation from love? At some point we chose to align our mind with the egoic thought system and believe we are separate. The result of this choice is to separate us from the awareness of who we are and the awareness of the power of love within us. Love thus appears to be limited and we see ourselves as weak and limited, needing to find love for ourselves somewhere out there in the world. Often, it appears that the only way to gain any love or power is to take it from another by attacking them. What we don’t realize in this limited way of thinking is that we are actually attacking ourselves and taking what we are seeking away from ourselves. This is the insane curriculum we have been learning by aligning our thoughts and minds with the belief in separation and the egoic thought system we made.

The truth is that we are love and lack nothing. We are unlimited, complete and whole in our true loving state, One with our Source and all Creation. We are one with all our brothers and sisters in this world and share all that is real equally. That doesn’t mean equal parts, but we share the totality of reality in our Oneness. The Course tells us this:

That is why the recognition of your own invulnerability is so important to the restoration of your sanity. For if you accept your invulnerability, you are recognizing that attack has no effect. Although you have attacked yourself, you will be demonstrating that nothing really happened. Therefore, by attacking you have not done anything. Once you realize this you will no longer see any sense in attack, for it manifestly does not work and cannot protect you. Yet the recognition of your invulnerability has more than negative value. If your attacks on yourself have failed to weaken you, you are still strong. You therefore have no need to “equalize” the situation to establish your strength. T-12.V.2.1-8

This is the sane curriculum. It is the learning that unlearns the insane curriculum and replaces it with sanity and the awareness of what is real.

We need a teacher that can transcend our mistaken allegiance to our egoic thought system, one that is not swayed by any belief in limitation. A teacher that knows the true power of real Love. Spirit is this teacher and Its Love is our strength. We do not embark on this sane curriculum alone, for Spirit is the teacher within us that guides us on this journey of learning the sane curriculum.

You have learning handicaps in a very literal sense. There are areas in your learning skills that are so impaired that you can progress only under constant, clear-cut direction, provided by a Teacher Who can transcend your limited resources. This Teacher becomes your Resource because of yourself you cannot learn. The learning situation in which you placed yourself is impossible, and in this situation you clearly require a special Teacher and a special curriculum. Poor learners are not good choices as teachers, either for themselves or for anyone else. You would hardly turn to them to establish the curriculum by which they can escape from their limitations. If they understood what is beyond them, they would not be handicapped. T-12.V.5.1-7

When we try to teach ourselves alone without Spirit’s guidance, we learn with very limited resources and understanding. Spirit is the Teacher that has held our true essence within us, knowing it cannot be harmed. We have always been and always are and will be who we really are, even though we have denied the awareness of that reality. The power of Love is within us waiting to be rediscovered as we allow Spirit to guide us on the sane curriculum that teaches us to see who we really are and recognize that every one of our brothers and sisters are One with us and our Source. As we release our mind to Spirit’s Teaching, we learn and remember the reality of our Divine wholeness. The sane curriculum, taught by our Teacher, is powerful in Love that has no limits. We already have what we are seeking within us. It is ours and there is no sane reason to attack anyone or anything to get it. Let go of the insane curriculum and allow Spirit to guide you in the sane curriculum that brings you home. Join together in the I Am flow of Divine Love.

July 7, 2015

If we are truly honest with ourselves, I think we will each say that what we are seeking is love. That is, real love. Love that brings us peace, completeness, wholeness and security. This sounds like we are seeking reality, and so we are. We have lost the awareness of reality by investing in the idea of separation and thus invested in our own egoic thought system we made up in our mind. And for our egoic thought system to exist, it invests in maintaining and reinforcing the belief that we are separate from each other and all creation, thus maintaining a split mind.

Everyone who believes their egoic thought system’s plan for salvation seems to be intensely engaged in seeking love. Yet the egoic thought system, though encouraging the search for love very actively, makes one provision; do not find it. This is the one thing the ego is completely consistent in. It does everything in its power to keep us from finding what we are really seeking. Thus the search we take guided by the egoic thought system is bound to be defeated. The Course tells us:

And since the ego also teaches that it is your identification, its guidance leads you to a journey which must end in perceived self-defeat. For the ego cannot love, and in its frantic search for love it is seeking what it is afraid to find. The search is inevitable because the ego is part of your mind, and because of its source the ego is not wholly split off, or it could not be believed at all. For it is your mind that believes in it and gives existence to it. Yet it is also your mind that has the power to deny the ego’s existence, and you will surely do so when you realize exactly what the journey is on which the ego sets you. ACIM T-12.IV.2,2-6

Our salvation, our certainty, is that we cannot completely sever our split mind from the One Mind. It is impossible. The fact is, the split is not possible at all for we always remain completely connected to the One. Any sense of being split is a complete illusion or a dream from which we will awaken.

The journey on which the belief in separation takes us is anything but joyous. Its purpose is to keep us from finding love and reality, wholeness and completeness. But Spirit offers us a different promise, one that will lead to joy. Spirit promises, “Seek and you will find.” As we accept Spirit’s guidance, we cannot fail and we will not be defeated. The Course tells us this about our journey:

You will undertake a journey because you are not at home in this world. And you will search for your home whether you realize where it is or not. If you believe it is outside you the search will be futile, for you will be seeking it where it is not. You do not remember how to look within for you do not believe your home is there. Yet the Holy Spirit remembers it for you, and will guide you to your home because that is Spirit’s mission. As Spirit fulfills Its mission Spirit will teach you yours, for your mission is the same. By guiding each other home you are but following the One. ACIM T-12.IV.5.1-7

Changing our belief about who we are is the healing of our mind that is Atonement. In our mind’s healing we begin to awaken to the reality that we are really One and that there is no separation. Spirit is our guide on this journey showing us in each one we encounter a lesson in seeing who we really are, seeing the Divine within. Our journey is not an outside journey, it is an inner journey. Spirit guides us to and interprets every lesson on this journey if we will allow ourselves to see. The return to the awareness of our own Divine essence is inevitable. It’s our choice when we will allow ourselves to go there. Choose now and let us be on our way to the awareness of Heaven and Love within us.

June 30, 2015

We know not what we do. We do not realize what we do when we believe the mistaken idea of separation, the mistaken belief that we are not who we really are. Identifying with separation, the alignment with the egoic thought system, is to attack ourselves and make ourselves seem poor. Thus we feel deprived. We then experience depression or anger among a myriad of other feelings because we have exchanged Self-love for self-hate, making us afraid of ourselves. And we have believed this so thoroughly that we don’t realize we have done this. No matter how aware we are of our anxieties, depression or anger, we do not recognize its source as our own identification with our own egoic thought system, so we attempt to resolve it with some arrangement with the world we think we see. Since we believe the world we think we see is outside of us, we never get to the root of the problem and thus our attempts at resolution are futile. We do not realize that we make the world we think we see, for there is no world outside of us and our mind.

The real world is the loving thoughts that are in the Mind of the One Child of God, all of us in Oneness. This truth has always been, is now and will always be. This is incontrovertible. Our mistaken “insane” thoughts are also in our mind, creating an internal conflict of such magnitude that is intolerable. Our recognition that a split mind encompassing completely opposing thoughts within itself, and that this is completely intolerable, cause the mind to project the split, not the reality. Thus, everything we perceive as the outside world is mainly our attempt to maintain our egoic thought system identification. We believe this world we made up is real, more real than reality, and we are at odds with it because we think it is antagonistic to us. This antagonistic world, or any world we see outside ourselves, is not reality. Reality is within our mind. Reality is only love. Our real thoughts are loving thoughts. This “other” world we believe we see outside ourselves is also within our minds. We must first accept that this is so to begin to get rid of it by releasing our attachment to its reality and thus begin to see and perceive the world as it really is, completely loving.

How do we escape this misery? How do we resolve this conflict in our minds? The Course tells us this:

If you will recognize that all the attack you perceive is in your own mind and nowhere else, you will at last have placed its source, and where it begins it must end. For in this same place also lies salvation. The altar of the One where Oneness abideth is there. You have defiled the altar, but not the world. Yet the One has placed the Atonement on the altar for you. Bring your perceptions of the world to this altar, for it is the altar to truth. There you will see your vision changed, and there you will learn to see truly. From this place, where the One and the One Holy Child dwell in peace and where you are welcome, you will look out in peace and behold the world truly. Yet to find the place, you must relinquish your investment in the world as you project it, allowing the Holy Spirit to extend the real world to you from the altar of the One. T-12.III.10.1-9

It is really a matter of release rather than accomplishing. Letting go of our alignment with the egoic thought system we made is a most freeing release. It takes little effort compared to the effort we expend to maintain our belief in separation contrary to our Oneness. Take a moment, decide to be open to Spirit’s guidance and let reality flood your mind with what is already there – the awareness of who we really ate.

June 23, 2015

We are in this world to give and receive – share – love. We are here to find our way back to the awareness of love and to answer the call for love of others. When we are attached to this world, it is difficult for us to see the reality of love from the perspective of our egoic thought system until we decide to ask Spirit for guidance. Once we accept Spirit’s guidance, we can then recognize others’ calls for love and be in a state of mind where we can understand their belief in their lack. We are much more likely to be truly helpful when another sees that we understand and have experienced where they think they are. This is what Jesus meant when he asked his disciples to sell all they had and give it to the poor. We must know where our treasure is to be able to share it with others who do not know. Are we invested in our real treasure or are we invested in lack or the things of this world?

A similar condition arises when another asks us to do something we think we don’t want to do. That one’s insistence demonstrates their belief that their salvation lies in it. In refusing to do what they ask, we may create opposition in that one which demonstrated that we believe our salvation lies in not doing what they ask. Is opposition truly helpful? The Course asks us, Would you rather be right or happy? What are we invested in? Our investment is always related to our notion of salvation and reality. As with all other actions in this world, ask Spirit for guidance. When someone asks us to do something, ask Spirit how we can be truly helpful. Perhaps doing what another asks will show them love and won’t hurt anyone or make any real difference in reality. Then we have answered their call for love and perhaps allowed them to be willing to see a little differently. Are we invested in being right or in being happy? Investing in reality rather than separation always brings happiness and peace.

Salvation is healing and healing is always of the mind. It has nothing to do with the world, just our mind. Salvation and healing are attained or recognized through peace. Any response other than love arises out of an investment in our egoic thought system. The Course tells us:

Salvation is for the mind, and it is attained through peace. This is the only thing that can be saved and the only way to save it. Any response other than love arises from a confusion about the “what” and the “how” of salvation, and this is the only answer. Never lose sight of this, and never allow yourself to believe, even for an instant, that there is another answer. For you will surely place yourself among the poor, who do not understand that they dwell in abundance and that salvation is come. T-12.III.5.1-5

Recognize what does not really matter. Ask Spirit – your Higher Holy Self – for guidance in recognizing what does and does not matter. Do not make it matter to you, for then you have invested in the world and lack and made the unreal seem real to you. Thus you have placed in your mind another block to your awareness of who you really are. No “outrageous” requests can be made of one who recognizes what is truly valuable and real and does not want to accept nothing else. Remember, nothing unreal exists, nor does it matter. What does matter is recognizing and answering another’s call for love. Ask Spirit for guidance and let it be so.

June 16, 2015

Do not let anything stand in the way of love. Nothing can withstand the power of love, unless we hide it from love. Awake and remember your purpose, for it is your will to fulfill your purpose. Our purpose is to share love, giving and receiving the unlimited love we are. There is nothing that can block this purpose, nothing that can take away this purpose and nothing that can destroy this purpose. Our purpose goes on in eternity, never beginning or ending. The only thing that can interrupt this is our lapsing into an unawareness that we are love. If we allow the distractions of our egoic thought system – a mistaken way of thinking rooted in our belief in the thought that we are not love – to occupy our mind, we block our awareness of who we really are and our true divine purpose. Little do we realize we have a divine purpose and we share that divine purpose with all of Creation.

We cannot, nor do we need to, fulfill this divine purpose alone. To attempt to do this alone is contrary to the very idea of sharing. We must come together to share. We must join in unity to share. To divide and separate is completely foreign to sharing. Yet we still hang on to our mistaken idea that we are separate and need to “get” some little part of a limited “something” to find love. We have Spirit to guide us to the fulfillment of our purpose. Not only is Spirit there to guide us, but Spirit is already within us holding us in Its love waiting for us to ask for guidance. Perhaps we think Spirit is hiding from us. However, the opposite is true. We are hiding from Spirit. We are hiding from the One, our Source, who we are One with. In essence, we are hiding from our true Self! As long as we hide one thought, one idea, one fear from the light of Spirit within us, we remain in the darkness made by that one wall that blocks our full awareness of who we really are and our divine love.

 There is no fear in perfect love. We will but be making perfect to you what is already perfect in you. You do not fear the unknown but the known. You will not fail in your mission because I did not fail in mine. Give me but a little trust in the name of the complete trust I have in you, and we will easily accomplish the goal of perfection together. For perfection is, and cannot be denied. To deny the denial of perfection is not so difficult as to deny truth, and what we can accomplish together will be believed when you see it as accomplished. T-12.II.8.1-7

As it states in this paragraph from this section, we accomplish this together. We accomplish this together with Spirit, with the Christ Spirit, and also with each other. Every One we encounter in this world is one we are meant to join with in Oneness. We are to recognize perfection in each other, not by looking at how they appear in this world, but beyond that appearance to the divine perfection beyond we share with them in Oneness. Trust in each other that we are the divine love we are and look beyond the appearance that anything else is real. Once we pull down all the walls that are keeping our belief in fear, attack and guilt hidden, the light of divine love will shine away any doubt that they are unreal and do not exist at all.

We are embarking on an organized, well structured and carefully planned program aimed at learning how to offer Spirit everything we do not want. Spirit knows what to do with it and will guide us in doing so. Yet we must be willing to look at everything we have hidden, for otherwise it remains hidden to Spirit and cannot be released from our mind. As long as we hide any thought from the light of Spirit and love, we cannot release it and let it go and it therefore keeps us limited. It is time to release all the thoughts we have hidden in the dark recesses of our egoic mind and remember the divine nature of who we really are. We are complete, whole and perfect and are divine love itself. Be who you are.

June 9, 2015

As I read this section, I think, “Do we love?” If, as the Course tells us, we are Love, and Love is all that is real, what else is there but Love? I want to hold the intention to love, to see love, and to share and offer love in all I think, do and say. If I do not hold love in my mind and love is my essence, am I not denying love and myself? The truth is I am Love. The truth is we are all Love. The truth is that all that is real is Love and nothing else exists. This sounds insane to me when I think with a split mind, but it is nevertheless the truth the Couse teaches. This section begins with the statement that miracles are merely the translation of denial to truth. To love oneself is to heal oneself. And to love another is to heal another. So when we or another call for love – anything that is not love itself – we are asking for healing by being loved. Of course, we must also be willing to be loved to be healed.

As a miracle worker, whose purpose is “Only to be truly helpful”, our task is simply to deny the denial of truth! We must heal ourselves for the truth is already within us. Yet we have obscured it from our minds, so light in another’s mind must shine into ours because that light is also ours. The Course tells us:

The light in them shines as brightly regardless of the density of the fog that obscures it. If you give no power to the fog to obscure the light, it has none. For it has power only if We give power to it. We must ourselves withdraw that power, remembering that all power is of the One. You can remember this for all of Us. Do not allow another not to remember, for their forgetfulness is yours. But your remembering is theirs, for the One cannot be remembered alone. This is what you have forgotten. To perceive the healing of another as the healing of yourself is thus the way to remember Oneness. For you forgot your sisters and brothers with Oneness, and the One’s Answer to your forgetting is but the way to remember. ACIM T-12.II.2.1-10

The light and love we are is within us and has always been within us. We have simply forgotten who we are and our healing is to remember who we are. This is the answer we so diligently seek, yet seek it outside of us when it can only be found within us.

Whatever seems to be amiss in the world we think we see, perceive it as a call for love and offer another what they believe they cannot offer themselves. Whatever condition we perceive in this world, it has one and only one remedy. Allow the light and love of truth to shine into the mind of each One we encounter.

Learn to be quiet in the midst of turmoil, for in the quietness is the end of strife and is the journey to peace. Look at each obstacle that arises in our way to delay us and let it fade in the light of the goal before us as it is inevitable because it is eternal. The Love we are is eternal and nothing can destroy the eternal within us. The goal of love is our right because it belongs to us. Let its light shine away all doubt that this is so. Ask then for the guidance of Spirit in all you do, for Spirit will assist us to fling open the shutters of our split mind letting the light of love shine through us into another’s mind where they will recognize the truth about themselves. Yhis is the miracle. This is the return to the awareness of who we really are.

June 2, 2015

Appreciation is the only appropriate response to the one we are encountering at any given moment. This may be someone we encounter by “chance” on the street or someone we have been in relationship with for some time. Each one is in our life at any given moment for a reason. That reason is for us to appreciate them. Our gratitude is due them for their loving thoughts and their appeal for help.   Both are capable of bringing love into our awareness if we perceive them truly. Reality is revealed in our perceiving them truly. If we feel love and peace as we see this one, we are seeing truly. But if we feel a sense of strain, it comes from our attempts not to perceive truly, to perceive from our egoic thought system made of our desire to be separate. Being in unity and Oneness with one another is our natural state of being and is truly effortless. However, we seem to want to expend great effort to maintain a false sense of separation from our whole Self.

Spirit’s job is to work with us and guide us in correct perception, guiding us in the awareness of the love that we are. When we begin to appreciate our brothers and sisters and are grateful for their presence in our lives, no matter the circumstance, we allow Spirit to shift our perception and see each other more clearly. Truly recognizing a call for help for what it is as Spirit guides us allows us the opportunity to see the healing of not just another, but of ourselves.

Your interpretations of another’s needs are your interpretation of yours. By giving help you are asking for it, and if you perceive but one need in yourself you will be healed. For you will recognize the One’s Answer as you want It to be, and if you want It in truth, It will be truly yours. ACIM T-12.I.7.1-3

Our desire for truth is key. Our desire to appreciate, be grateful and extend love and help are the key intentions that open our minds to Spirit’s guidance. Can we set the intention to be only truly helpful? Yes we can and that is really what we want.

By applying Spirit’s interpretation of the reactions of others more and more consistently, we will gain an increasing awareness that Spirit’s criteria are equally applicable to us. Should we recognize fear? Yes, but simply recognizing it is not enough to escape it. We must open our minds and allow Spirit to correctly translate fear into truth for us. Just recognizing fear leaves us stuck in fear, but accepting Spirit’s translation of fear into truth opens us to the love that lies beyond it. That love is rooted in reality and opens our minds to the awareness of who we really are. We are complete, whole, limitless, and filled with peace. What more could we wish to be? By interpreting fear correctly as a positive affirmation of the underlying belief it masks, we are undermining its perceived usefulness by rendering it useless. We have undone the misperception and revealed love in its place. The veil we have drawn across love’s face has now disappeared.

If you would look upon love, which is the world’s reality, how could you do better than to recognize, in every defense against it, the underlying appeal for it? And how could you better learn of its reality than by answering the appeal for it by giving it? Spirit’s interpretation of fear does dispel it, for the awareness of truth cannot be denied. Thus does Spirit replace fear with love and translate error into truth. And thus will you learn of Spirit how to replace your dream of separation with the fact of unity. For the separation is only the denial of union, and correctly interpreted, attests to your eternal knowledge that union is true. ACIM T-12.I.10.1-6

Our eternal knowledge of our Oneness is within us and has never left us. Waken to that knowledge now and live in the awareness of love and peace. It is our function in this world to be who we really are and share that with each other and all creation. Let it be so.

May 26, 2015

In our human existence we do not respond to anything directly. We respond to our own interpretation of anything we encounter or experience. Everything is colored through the lens of our egoic thought system which is the result of a lifetime of perceiving with our split mind. We have forfeited true perception by relying on our own efforts and denying the guidance of Spirit. We truly believe that we are judging correctly, for we believe that what we perceive on our own is true. Thus our belief that what we perceive is true justifies any response we make. This is why analyzing the motives of others is hazardous to us and our own peace of mind.

Analyzing anything from our egoic thought system is very complicated, very confusing, and never without ego involvement. The whole process represents an attempt to demonstrate our own individual ability to understand what we perceive. We then react to our interpretations as if they were real and true. Our interpretations, whether correct or not, become the justification for our reactions. We may control our reactions behaviorally, but not emotionally. This creates a split or an attack on the integrity of our minds, pitting one level within the mind against another. This can only result in conflict and any conflict within the mind is insanity.

The Curse teaches:

There is but one interpretation of motivation that makes any sense. And because it is the Holy Spirit’s judgment it requires no effort at all on your part. Every loving thought is true. Everything else is an appeal for healing and help, regardless of the form it takes. Can anyone be justified in responding with anger to another’s plea for help? No response can be appropriate except the willingness to give it to them, for this and only this is what they are asking for. Offer them anything else, and you are assuming the right to attack their reality by interpreting it as you see fit. Perhaps the danger of this to your own mind is not yet fully apparent. If you believe that an appeal for help is something else you will react to something else. Your response will therefore be inappropriate to reality as it is, but not to your perception of it. ACIM T-12.I.3.1-10

If we are aware, there is nothing that prevents us from recognizing all calls for help or love for what they are except our own belief in our own mistaken perception. Are we willing to continually maintain our “battles” with reality in which we deny the need for healing? We would never do thus except for our unwillingness to accept reality as it is, and thus withhold it from ourselves.

It is surely good advice to tell you not to judge what you do not understand. No one with a personal investment is a reliable witness, for truth to them has become what they want it to be. If you are unwilling to perceive an appeal for help as what it is, it is because you are unwilling to give help and to receive it. To fail to recognize a call for help is to refuse help. Would you maintain that you do not need it? Yet this is what you are maintaining when you refuse to recognize another’s appeal, for only by answering their appeal can you be helped. Deny them your help and you will not recognize the One’s Answer to you. Spirit does not need your help in interpreting motivation, but you do need Spirit’s. T-12.I.5.1-8

Accept Spirit’s interpretation and accept the awareness of reality into your mind. It’s already and has always been within you. We have simply been unwilling to open our minds and see the truth about ourselves. Remember, every loving thought is true. Everything else, regardless of the form it takes, is a call for healing and help – love. Accept the reality of who you are and always extend love thus opening yourself to that same love.