September 6, 2011

We continue to experience suffering, pain, guilt. We feel like a victim of the world we live in. Or perhaps we feel helpless to control our life and the world closest to us. We have confused the concepts of cause and effect. We have misunderstood the causes of our suffering. We think the world causes our suffering or, put another way, that something outside of us causes our suffering. The truth is that our suffering is caused within us, not by any malicious act, but by our mistaken idea of what the world is and what it can do. The world we see is comprised of all we think and have ever thought about what we experience. These thoughts come from within. When we begin to understand that we create our own thoughts, we begin to understand that our suffering is caused by what we are thinking.

This idea may seem strange, or perhaps totally insane. How could I possibly be responsible for causing my own suffering? Yet we are because it is nothing more that a mistaken idea. The Course teaches us that the life and world we think we see is mostly about what we think about it, both what is happening now and all that has ever happened in our lives. The Course explains that it is like a dream we have when we are sleeping. We understand that a dream while we are sleeping is not real because it is all in our mind. The Course teaches us that we are spiritually asleep and have forgotten that we went to sleep. So, we think what we see and experience is real and happening to us because we are not waking up from the dream we call reality.

The Holy Spirit will, if we allow it, teach us in this dream state the truth that our suffering, our pain, is just a dream. Spirit, as our parents may have, gently wakes us from this dream (or nightmare), little by little, to the truth that our dreaming is the cause of our suffering, not what seems so real in the dream. Spirit reminds us that we are and always have been whole, that we are the holy Child of God. In this awakening we gradually begin to see as Spirit sees, truly. We begin to understand that our dreaming is the cause of all we thought was outside of us and doing to us.

The Course puts it this way: Into eternity, where all is one, there crept a tiny, mad idea (dream), at which we remembered (decided) not to laugh. In our forgetting (it was a dream) did the thought (dream) become a serious idea, and possible of both accomplishment and real effects. Together (with Spirit), we can laugh them both (the dream and its effects) away. T-27.VIII.6. The life we think we are in is actually in us because it is mostly comprised of our thoughts and ideas about it we believe. Letting Spirit teach us about this dream frees us from the prison of the dream we made up. Realizing that the cause is the dream and nothing more, frees us for all eternity. Let it be so.

August 30, 2011

We have come to the point where we are willing to accept that we are the dreamers of the world we think we see. That world seems so real to us that we don’t understand how that dream could be anything less than real, but we are wiling to be open to a new vision, or at least a new dream. We are beginning to understand how everything we think is real is more about our thoughts about the world than what the world actually is. We have learned that we can change our thoughts, at least to some degree, about our world and thus see it a bit differently.

This little change in our attitude and willingness gives Spirit the opening it needs to give us a gentler dream, a dream that lessens our suffering, that allows us to let go of our attachment to the way we have always thought and dreamed. We have opened a door just a little. We may be wary and ready to slam the door closed at any instant, but we have opened it just a little. And therefore we have opened our minds just a little to the Voice for God, the voice that calls and reminds us of an ancient song that remains with us still, yet has called unheard as we went blindly on our separate way.

The Voice calls gently. Spirit gives us a new dream in which we see ourselves differently. We see each other differently. Now we release the dwelling on our suffering we were so focused on, for we now see that it was our dwelling on it that caused the suffering rather than whatever else we thought was causing it. We are freed from our suffering. And we also begin to realize that the ones we encounter are calling for love rather than attacking us. We begin to dream a gentler dream and see the world in a gentler, more loving way. We are again freed from our old dream and find a calmer mind within us in that new dream.

It is not our own individual doing that frees us from our dream. It is our willingness to let Spirit bring us the new gentler dream. If we were aware of the gentler dream, we certainly would have chosen it for ourselves, but we are so preoccupied with our dwelling on our thoughts of suffering that we become unaware of what Spirit offers us. As we move further and further in an unaware state of mind, we need to let lo of our own individual way and let Spirit replace our unawareness with something more aware, yet believable to us. God provides the perfect steps for us to take. Take them, each a step at a time. Dream the gentler dream. And know who you really are.

August 23, 2011

We may be surprised to learn that we have been mistaken about the purpose of the world we see. We do not understand it and thus we perceive the world incorrectly. This may seem impossible to us. Doesn’t the world just happen? It may seem that the world is out of our control and that the events of the world happen to us. Though events happen and may be out of our direct control, what we think about each event and experience is usually more powerful that the events themselves. The world is said to be an illusion not because it isn’t real, but because what we think about it isn’t concrete and absolutely true.

No two people will describe an event exactly the same. Their description will be colored by all of their thoughts and beliefs about their past experiences. Our thoughts are never concrete, even though we may believe them to be absolute truth about what we experience. The thoughts and ideas we hold dear and become attached to witness to our idea of “reality.” These ideas show us the world we believe to be real. Our reality is never as much about the events we experience as it is about our feelings, thoughts, and beliefs about the world we think we see!

When we perceive the world not understanding its purpose, we experience a wide variety of thoughts that we rationalize as true. We may experience painful thoughts that cause us suffering, or the dwelling on our painful thoughts. When we begin to realize that our thoughts and beliefs affect how we see the happenings of the world, we begin to understand that we can think differently; we can change our mind and our thoughts and thus see the world differently. The world we see gives us a way to learn that our thoughts are not absolute and that we can change our thoughts to see a more correct way of looking at and understanding our world.

We begin to understand that our thoughts show us how we are thinking; they witness to the health of our thought process. As we learn and correct our thoughts, we experience the love, peace, and joy of Spirit dwelling within us. It is a connection to the Divine that we really are. It has never been apart form our being, but we have chosen to see and experience something else we rationalized from our usual way of thinking. As we learn to recognize our feelings of suffering as a witness to our state of mind, we have the choice to change our state of mind and recognize the Divine within us. There is never any accusation about why we never realized this before, just the rush of the blessing that washes over us as we return our awareness to the truth about who we really are. Let it be so.

August 16, 2011

We experience suffering when we dwell on all the world has done to injure us. Or when we dwell on all others have done to hurt us. This is the way we think the world works, and so we think it is real. But way of thinking is like a dream where the dreamer experiences what it thinks it sees and, not understanding its source, thinks that it is all happening to the dreamer from outside of the dreamer’s self. So it must be happening to the dreamer. In this way we think we are suffering at the hands of each other. In this way, the causes of our suffering take on many different forms, each appearing very different and requiring different solutions with varying degrees of difficulty and complexity. This can be overwhelming to us.

What is there was a way to escape all this suffering we experience? What if it were simple and complete? Would we want it? Would we be willing to do it? Though the problems seem and appear to be many and varied, there is only one problem. If we are willing to accept a different way of perceiving the world and each other, we can escape this suffering we are experiencing. We actually release ourselves from the suffering we are dwelling on.

There is a simple solution to the problem. The simple solution has always been there, but we have kept it obscured by clouds of complication. What better way to keep anyone distracted from anything than by making everything seem complicated? Then we are so consumed in the distraction of thoughts going in many different directions that we fail to see the simple answer right in front of us. The truth is the solution lies within us. The source of our perceived suffering actually lies within us rather than outside of us. The source of our suffering is not from outside, what others are doing to hurt or attack us. The source is actually our dwelling on the idea that our suffering is coming from others and not from our mistaken way of perceiving the world. Once we are willing to consider that the problem is the way we are perceiving the world, there is only one solution; correct the way we are perceiving the world.

Once the problem is seen clearly, it is recognized as absurd and without reason. This may seem a big leap for our minds that have become so used to seeing everything as outside of us. So God has given us a helper, a guide to help us make this shift in thinking. The Holy Spirit is within each and every one of us offering continuous guidance if we are willing to listen and accept it. Each one that we encounter in our life is there with the perfect way to see correctly as we

Let Spirit guide us in that moment and situation. Spirit blesses each of us with the peace, love and joy of Heaven as we let ourselves be guided to live our lives from the inside out rather than from the outside in. In this change does our world change from upside down to right side up, from insanity to sanity. Let it be so.

August 9, 2011

Miracles are given to take the place of our suffering and our fear. It matters not what form our suffering or our fear take. The miracle takes its place. A miracle can take many forms, that which is best suited to the situation of that it takes the place of. But a miracle is a constant, it has only one purpose and that is to take the place of whatever mistaken though is keeping us distracted for the awareness of who we are.

We have been discussing witnesses to sin or separation. The thoughts we have are the witnesses to the state of mind we are currently in. If we are thinking in a state of separation, we will experience some idea or though that reinforces the idea that we are separate. But if we allow Spirit to show us a different idea, we experience a miracle, the coming of an idea that witnesses to the truth about who we really are. The experience of our life is determined by the way we think, by the ideas we identify ourselves with. We do this because we are so used to it. It’s the way we taught to think about ourselves and build our identity in our mind. And we believe it wholly.

The problem with this way of thinking is that we have not taken the time to listen and look to Spirit for the truth about ourselves and each other. We have looked at all the symbols and witnesses that we have made up and believed them. We have believed suffering and fear and believed that those ideas are the truth about who we are. And then we don’t question them. The One who has the perfect miracle for us, wherever we are, is right there with us, waiting for us to take a step aside and allow ourselves to consider the idea it brings in the miracle. The miracle is the perfect replacement for whatever witness we believed. The miracle is a new witness, indeed that that witnesses to our true being, to the truth about who we really are.

Take a moment, step aside. Let g of your attachment to the witnesses to fear and suffering in you life. Spirit has a new witness that gently takes the place of the old witnesses. It shows us a new idea, a change of thought that attests to the truth of who we really are. The witness recognizes in us the One Child of God, the whole being God created and has never lost sight of. The holy instant comes through us in that moment and we are healed. And as we are healed, that healing extends to the whole world. God’s love, joy, and peace shine from our face and bathes the world in the light and love of God. All that is false, all that is illusion, all fear and suffering fade away in that moment. Believe what the miracle brings, and be healed in that instant. It is God’s will and so it is also yours.