"With each one, each day, be born again." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 13, Section X, 5:2
A forehead resting on mine. A touch that speaks volumes. I'm so accustomed to communicating with my body, to processing information through my body, that I sometimes forget Who is really here. Yet these moments of presence with another human being are the portal to remembering.
Here, now, Love is. And we can love only as God loves, be loved only as God loves. "Love is not special. If you single out part of the Sonship for your love, you are imposing guilt on your relationships and making them unreal. Until you recognize that this is true, you will have no idea what love is like." (ACIM; Chapter 13, Section X, 11:2-3, 6)
Here now, Love is. Experienced within all relationships, it's the reflection of the Allness and Oneness of God's Love. There are no exceptions, no limits, no exclusions, nothing to grasp or hold onto. Simply Love without beginning or end.
"Together we shine with brightness so intense that none of us alone can even think of it." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 13, Section X, 14:2
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Monday, July 6, 2009
Deeper and Deeper
"I choose the joy of God instead of pain." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook Lesson 190
This morning while showering I had an image of a spring of water bubbling up out of the earth. Wherever springs bubble up, watercress will grow. It will only grow in the purest of spring water. The joy of God is like that... it bubbles up from deep within us, but we're only aware of it when we let go of all our stories and judgements about ourselves and the world. Happiness and fulfillment can only be known in this purest of springs. Joy bubbles up in us continually and permanently... but we become aware of it when we allow it, from deeper and deeper within our True Self.
This joyful awareness of our Oneness with All appears to deepen over time. I say appears, because the eternal is the same yesterday, today, and always... it's only our perception that's expanding and deepening, to remember what has always been. But this experience of deeper and deeper, immersed in the oceanic feeling of Spirit, filled with the bubbling bliss of joy, timeless and eternal... it feels new every day. God has been described by many as 'ever-new joy.'
What possible phenomena could attract my attention when I'm filled with such divine contentment? What possible need could there be in the midst of such divine completeness? What is there to do? Where is there to go? What is there to say? Who else is there to be? All that remains is the bliss of deeper and deeper awareness of effortless, endless, ever-new, bubbling joy. Deeper and deeper into Self. Effortless and free.
"Your Self is radiant in this holy joy; unchanged, unchanging, and unchangeable, forever and forever." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook Lesson 190, 6:5
This morning while showering I had an image of a spring of water bubbling up out of the earth. Wherever springs bubble up, watercress will grow. It will only grow in the purest of spring water. The joy of God is like that... it bubbles up from deep within us, but we're only aware of it when we let go of all our stories and judgements about ourselves and the world. Happiness and fulfillment can only be known in this purest of springs. Joy bubbles up in us continually and permanently... but we become aware of it when we allow it, from deeper and deeper within our True Self.
This joyful awareness of our Oneness with All appears to deepen over time. I say appears, because the eternal is the same yesterday, today, and always... it's only our perception that's expanding and deepening, to remember what has always been. But this experience of deeper and deeper, immersed in the oceanic feeling of Spirit, filled with the bubbling bliss of joy, timeless and eternal... it feels new every day. God has been described by many as 'ever-new joy.'
What possible phenomena could attract my attention when I'm filled with such divine contentment? What possible need could there be in the midst of such divine completeness? What is there to do? Where is there to go? What is there to say? Who else is there to be? All that remains is the bliss of deeper and deeper awareness of effortless, endless, ever-new, bubbling joy. Deeper and deeper into Self. Effortless and free.
"Your Self is radiant in this holy joy; unchanged, unchanging, and unchangeable, forever and forever." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook Lesson 190, 6:5
Friday, June 5, 2009
Just Like Him
"Whenever you question your value, say: God HimSelf is incomplete without me." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 9, Section VII, 8:1-2
When we meet someone's children, it's very common for us to comment on how much like the parents the children are. "Oh, he's just like his father," we like to say. We find no cause for surprise in this... it's expected. And yet we base our religions on how unlike God we are... we're expected to focus on the litany of our shortcomings and sins, and to accept that we'll always fall short of the glory of God. We're expected to bow and recite and genuflect to this parent that we are nothing like... it's like being the ultimate foster child with a very stern, dysfunctional parent. It makes no sense at all.
The Reality of God isn't father or mother... God is Infinite Mind, Infinite Awareness, the Ocean of Consciousness in which we live and move and have our being. We speak of God as He only because we don't have a gender neutral pronoun in our language. I often use Self, because it describes most accurately our very Real relationship with this Infinite Awareness that we are. All our self-created individual identities veil this relationship, but do not and cannot sever it.
Our individuality was never meant to be separate... simply a current in the larger Awareness of Self, like a current in the ocean. The current is still ocean, and is completely dependent on the ocean to be at all. The current has all the qualities of ocean. Through the act of clinging to separate identities as autonomous and finite, we seem to lose our memory of the infinite nature of Self. But thank God our memory remains, unnoticed, like something so familiar and obvious that we no longer pay attention to it. And when our attention returns, when we forgive and release our stories of a separate self even temporarily, in that sacred stillness we discover our very own Self... closer than breathing, nearer than hands or feet.
So the gist of all this is that we can have no real qualities or attributes that we don't share with God. We share the Wholeness, the Wisdom, the Peace, the Joy, the all-encompassing Love. God is All-Inclusive. And we (every living thing) are currents in the Mind of God, reflections of the Infinite nature of our True Self. We are chips off the proverbial block, the spitting image of our Source. We are just like Him.
"No attribute of His remains unshared by everything that lives." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook Lesson 156, 3:2
When we meet someone's children, it's very common for us to comment on how much like the parents the children are. "Oh, he's just like his father," we like to say. We find no cause for surprise in this... it's expected. And yet we base our religions on how unlike God we are... we're expected to focus on the litany of our shortcomings and sins, and to accept that we'll always fall short of the glory of God. We're expected to bow and recite and genuflect to this parent that we are nothing like... it's like being the ultimate foster child with a very stern, dysfunctional parent. It makes no sense at all.
The Reality of God isn't father or mother... God is Infinite Mind, Infinite Awareness, the Ocean of Consciousness in which we live and move and have our being. We speak of God as He only because we don't have a gender neutral pronoun in our language. I often use Self, because it describes most accurately our very Real relationship with this Infinite Awareness that we are. All our self-created individual identities veil this relationship, but do not and cannot sever it.
Our individuality was never meant to be separate... simply a current in the larger Awareness of Self, like a current in the ocean. The current is still ocean, and is completely dependent on the ocean to be at all. The current has all the qualities of ocean. Through the act of clinging to separate identities as autonomous and finite, we seem to lose our memory of the infinite nature of Self. But thank God our memory remains, unnoticed, like something so familiar and obvious that we no longer pay attention to it. And when our attention returns, when we forgive and release our stories of a separate self even temporarily, in that sacred stillness we discover our very own Self... closer than breathing, nearer than hands or feet.
So the gist of all this is that we can have no real qualities or attributes that we don't share with God. We share the Wholeness, the Wisdom, the Peace, the Joy, the all-encompassing Love. God is All-Inclusive. And we (every living thing) are currents in the Mind of God, reflections of the Infinite nature of our True Self. We are chips off the proverbial block, the spitting image of our Source. We are just like Him.
"No attribute of His remains unshared by everything that lives." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook Lesson 156, 3:2
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Constant Comfort
"The miracle establishes you dream a dream, and that its content is not true. This is a crucial step in dealing with illusions. No one is afraid of them when he perceives he made them up." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 28, Section II, 7:1-3
"The world is full of miracles. They stand in shining silence next to every dream of pain and suffering, of sin and guilt. They are the dream's alternative, the choice to be the dreamer, rather than deny the active role in making up the dream. Beginning here, salvation will proceed to change the course of every step in the descent to separation, until all the steps have been retraced, the ladder gone, and all the dreaming of the world undone." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 28, Section II, 12:1-3, 7
When I was very small, comfort was hanging out under the trees, or in the barn with the animals. There was no pressure to be or do anything there... just the constant comfort of natural rhythms and living in the moment. Now I realize that the comfort I experienced was the miracle of the holy instant... a glimpse of reality that is always available to us. Miracles show us the constant comfort of reality behind every appearance.
What we consider our normal, everyday perceptions and activities are the dreams we choose to immerse ourselves in, to absorb our attention so completely that we aren't aware of our true Self. It's like immersing yourself in a good book, a good story (or a scary one); you become so involved you're no longer conscious or aware of who or where you really are. It's interesting, isn't it, that we live in a world that so values the ability to lose oneself in a book or a movie? Dreams beget dreams... worlds within worlds...
There is constant comfort in knowing that none of it is true. There is constant comfort in resting in what IS. There is constant comfort in knowing Who We Are: "You are One Self, united and secure in light and joy and peace. You are God's Son, One Self, with One Creator and one goal; to bring awareness of this Oneness to all minds." (ACIM; Workbook Lesson 95, 12:1-2) To remember this, and to make it primary in our lives... this IS the miracle. And it extends beyond our imagining.
"You are One Self, and it is given you to feel this Self within you, and to cast all your illusions out of the One Mind that is this Self, the holy Truth in you." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook Lesson 95, 13:3
"The world is full of miracles. They stand in shining silence next to every dream of pain and suffering, of sin and guilt. They are the dream's alternative, the choice to be the dreamer, rather than deny the active role in making up the dream. Beginning here, salvation will proceed to change the course of every step in the descent to separation, until all the steps have been retraced, the ladder gone, and all the dreaming of the world undone." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 28, Section II, 12:1-3, 7
When I was very small, comfort was hanging out under the trees, or in the barn with the animals. There was no pressure to be or do anything there... just the constant comfort of natural rhythms and living in the moment. Now I realize that the comfort I experienced was the miracle of the holy instant... a glimpse of reality that is always available to us. Miracles show us the constant comfort of reality behind every appearance.
What we consider our normal, everyday perceptions and activities are the dreams we choose to immerse ourselves in, to absorb our attention so completely that we aren't aware of our true Self. It's like immersing yourself in a good book, a good story (or a scary one); you become so involved you're no longer conscious or aware of who or where you really are. It's interesting, isn't it, that we live in a world that so values the ability to lose oneself in a book or a movie? Dreams beget dreams... worlds within worlds...
There is constant comfort in knowing that none of it is true. There is constant comfort in resting in what IS. There is constant comfort in knowing Who We Are: "You are One Self, united and secure in light and joy and peace. You are God's Son, One Self, with One Creator and one goal; to bring awareness of this Oneness to all minds." (ACIM; Workbook Lesson 95, 12:1-2) To remember this, and to make it primary in our lives... this IS the miracle. And it extends beyond our imagining.
"You are One Self, and it is given you to feel this Self within you, and to cast all your illusions out of the One Mind that is this Self, the holy Truth in you." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook Lesson 95, 13:3
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Love is Freedom
"Love is freedom. To look for it by placing yourself in bondage is to separate yourself from it." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 16, Section VI, 2:1-2
"Your self-deceptions cannot take the place of Truth." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook Part I, Review IV, 4:2
Have you noticed that everything about our lives is bondage? We're always struggling, efforting to do the right thing... or to avoid doing it. Same struggle. Or we're struggling to discover what the right thing is... or going unconscious to avoid discovering it. Or we're simply struggling and efforting to make our lives work the way we want them to. The right job, the right beliefs, the right body, the right mate, the right thoughts... how can we possibly know the freedom and grace of Love when our whole attention is focused on these ways of limiting ourselves, of placing ourselves in bondage? Can Love, which is infinite and unchanging, be dependent on any of these things and still be Love? Can Love, which is free of all limits, be dependent on person, place, or thing?
I notice this especially among my spiritual friends. Their limits and beliefs have morphed into spiritual principles, but they're still bondage, still limits on awareness. To think that your reality depends on your own thoughts and what you believe is a form of bondage, and no different than thinking that your job depends on your performance. How can what is infinite and unchanging be affected by you at all, one way or the other? This false sense of responsibility is simply another form of bondage.
A Course in Miracles reminds us that our reality is eternal and unchanging. We live and move and have our being in Awareness ItSelf, in Oneness without an opposite, in God, our true Self. Our individualities are infinite expressions of the One. We can't change who we are through our self-deceptions, anymore "than can a child who throws a stick into the ocean change the coming and the going of the tides." And yet our lives are dedicated to proving that we can. This is our bondage.
We seek for love through bondage in every aspect of our life. We think loving something means losing ourselves to it. We idealize those whose passions lead them to forsake all for their art or their work or their relationships... even when it's obvious they're prisoners of their own dysfunctions. We envy those with passionate interests and relationships... even though it's obvious how little light there is in them, and how much bondage. We place ourselves in bondage to diet and exercise and call it loving our bodies. Every obsession, every self-discipline is a form of bondage. Love is freedom.
Look at it this way... you are like an authentic masterpiece, a painting beyond price. But you're covered with layers of ghastly color and veneer. The truth of you remains hidden by all that appears... and you're truly revealed only by the removal (the letting go) of what is covering you up. All that you remain in bondage to is like the paint and veneer that hides your real Self. "Nothing you seek to strengthen in the special relationship is really part of you. And you cannot keep part of the thought system that taught you it was real, and understand the Thought that knows what you are." Now is the time to "learn how much awaits you for the simple willingness to give up nothing because it is nothing." (ACIM; Chapter 16, Section VI)
Which brings us to a final and important point... we can't know the freedom that is Love without letting go of our obsessions and control issues. ACIM calls them special relationships. "It is impossible to let the past go without relinquishing the special relationship. For the special relationship is an attempt to re-enact the past and change it." (ACIM; Chapter 16, Section VII, 1:1-2) In other words, all of our human relationships (whether with people or places or food or ideologies or music or art) are simply attempts to finally get it right, the struggles and efforts that keep us in bondage. Maybe this one will be different. Maybe this place will be the right one. Maybe this time we can work it out. But there is no getting it right at the level of form... for the simple reason that all form is special relationship.
So how do we live in this world? How do we remember the Love that we are? How do we have jobs or hobbies or relationships at all? ACIM reminds us that forgiveness is our only function, and offers everything we truly want. Forgiveness is the solvent that washes away all the layers of delusion from the masterpiece that we are. Forgiveness is the continual act of letting go of all judgments, obsessions, control issues, all false gods... and letting the Truth of Being light our way. What is left when everything false is forgiven? What remains when we realize that all of our stories are fiction? What is revealed then is the Real World, and the unchanging freedom of Love.
"Your self-deceptions cannot take the place of Truth." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook Part I, Review IV, 4:2
Have you noticed that everything about our lives is bondage? We're always struggling, efforting to do the right thing... or to avoid doing it. Same struggle. Or we're struggling to discover what the right thing is... or going unconscious to avoid discovering it. Or we're simply struggling and efforting to make our lives work the way we want them to. The right job, the right beliefs, the right body, the right mate, the right thoughts... how can we possibly know the freedom and grace of Love when our whole attention is focused on these ways of limiting ourselves, of placing ourselves in bondage? Can Love, which is infinite and unchanging, be dependent on any of these things and still be Love? Can Love, which is free of all limits, be dependent on person, place, or thing?
I notice this especially among my spiritual friends. Their limits and beliefs have morphed into spiritual principles, but they're still bondage, still limits on awareness. To think that your reality depends on your own thoughts and what you believe is a form of bondage, and no different than thinking that your job depends on your performance. How can what is infinite and unchanging be affected by you at all, one way or the other? This false sense of responsibility is simply another form of bondage.
A Course in Miracles reminds us that our reality is eternal and unchanging. We live and move and have our being in Awareness ItSelf, in Oneness without an opposite, in God, our true Self. Our individualities are infinite expressions of the One. We can't change who we are through our self-deceptions, anymore "than can a child who throws a stick into the ocean change the coming and the going of the tides." And yet our lives are dedicated to proving that we can. This is our bondage.
We seek for love through bondage in every aspect of our life. We think loving something means losing ourselves to it. We idealize those whose passions lead them to forsake all for their art or their work or their relationships... even when it's obvious they're prisoners of their own dysfunctions. We envy those with passionate interests and relationships... even though it's obvious how little light there is in them, and how much bondage. We place ourselves in bondage to diet and exercise and call it loving our bodies. Every obsession, every self-discipline is a form of bondage. Love is freedom.
Look at it this way... you are like an authentic masterpiece, a painting beyond price. But you're covered with layers of ghastly color and veneer. The truth of you remains hidden by all that appears... and you're truly revealed only by the removal (the letting go) of what is covering you up. All that you remain in bondage to is like the paint and veneer that hides your real Self. "Nothing you seek to strengthen in the special relationship is really part of you. And you cannot keep part of the thought system that taught you it was real, and understand the Thought that knows what you are." Now is the time to "learn how much awaits you for the simple willingness to give up nothing because it is nothing." (ACIM; Chapter 16, Section VI)
Which brings us to a final and important point... we can't know the freedom that is Love without letting go of our obsessions and control issues. ACIM calls them special relationships. "It is impossible to let the past go without relinquishing the special relationship. For the special relationship is an attempt to re-enact the past and change it." (ACIM; Chapter 16, Section VII, 1:1-2) In other words, all of our human relationships (whether with people or places or food or ideologies or music or art) are simply attempts to finally get it right, the struggles and efforts that keep us in bondage. Maybe this one will be different. Maybe this place will be the right one. Maybe this time we can work it out. But there is no getting it right at the level of form... for the simple reason that all form is special relationship.
So how do we live in this world? How do we remember the Love that we are? How do we have jobs or hobbies or relationships at all? ACIM reminds us that forgiveness is our only function, and offers everything we truly want. Forgiveness is the solvent that washes away all the layers of delusion from the masterpiece that we are. Forgiveness is the continual act of letting go of all judgments, obsessions, control issues, all false gods... and letting the Truth of Being light our way. What is left when everything false is forgiven? What remains when we realize that all of our stories are fiction? What is revealed then is the Real World, and the unchanging freedom of Love.
Monday, April 27, 2009
The Script is Written
"Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them." -- The Bible; Genesis 2:1
"Christ's vision has one law. It does not look upon a body, and mistake it for the Son whom God created. It beholds a light beyond the body; an idea beyond what can be touched, a purity undimmed by errors, pitiful mistakes, and fearful thoughts of guilt from dreams of sin. It sees no separation. And it looks on everyone, on every circumstance, all happenings and all events, without the slightest fading of the light it sees. This can be taught; and must be taught by all who would achieve it." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook Lesson 158, 7:1-5 & 8:1
Creation is finished. The script is written. We are complete. Our reality is a perfect Idea, a Light that can't be touched or changed or screwed up. Whew.
Alright, so most days it really doesn't feel like it. Most days we're caught up in the serial adventures of seeming... we seem to be limited by our body, by our circumstances, by life itself. None of this seeming is true at all, and is our own projection, cleverly designed by our longing for autonomy to distract and defend against the Truth. We want to be separate and special, and we want to stay that way, to defend our little scrap of nothing... even at the cost of Everything.
A Course in Miracles asks us this pertinent question: "How long can it take to be where God would have you be? For you are where you have forever been and will forever be. All that you have, you have forever." (ACIM; Chapter 15, Section II, 3:1-3) To relax and remember and BE takes no time and no effort at all. We remain, eternally, as God created us. Creation is finished. The script is already written!
We spend our days giving time and attention and resources to valueless habits and relationships. Through forgiveness, we sort the wheat from the chaff. And each of us begins to realize that "many, if not most of the things he valued before will merely hinder his ability to transfer what he has learned to new situations as they arise. Because he has valued the valueless, he will not generalize the lesson for fear of loss and sacrifice." (ACIM; Manual for Teachers 4.I.A. 4:3-4) We don't allow ourselves to remember what we already know, what we already are, because we don't want to 'lose' any of our cherished illusions. We fear the loss of nothing. So we exclude huge chunks of our life and relationships from Truth. We try to keep them separate.
The decision to use time only for Awakening is a monumental one. Are we willing to walk our talk? Are we willing to give our time and attention, our abilities and our relationships, and yes, even our money to the Holy Spirit to use solely for Truth? Everything has to be translated, since this is a world of illusion, a world of distorted perception of what we really are. Dissolving all illusion to reveal what has always been remains the only purpose of everything in this dream we call life. Because there really is nothing else. We remain perfect, as God created us, an idea beyond what can be touched. Creation is finished. The script is already written!
"Time is a trick, a sleight of hand, a vast illusion in which figures come and go as if by magic. Yet there is a plan behind appearances that does not change. The script is written." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook Lesson 158, 4:1-3
"Christ's vision has one law. It does not look upon a body, and mistake it for the Son whom God created. It beholds a light beyond the body; an idea beyond what can be touched, a purity undimmed by errors, pitiful mistakes, and fearful thoughts of guilt from dreams of sin. It sees no separation. And it looks on everyone, on every circumstance, all happenings and all events, without the slightest fading of the light it sees. This can be taught; and must be taught by all who would achieve it." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook Lesson 158, 7:1-5 & 8:1
Creation is finished. The script is written. We are complete. Our reality is a perfect Idea, a Light that can't be touched or changed or screwed up. Whew.
Alright, so most days it really doesn't feel like it. Most days we're caught up in the serial adventures of seeming... we seem to be limited by our body, by our circumstances, by life itself. None of this seeming is true at all, and is our own projection, cleverly designed by our longing for autonomy to distract and defend against the Truth. We want to be separate and special, and we want to stay that way, to defend our little scrap of nothing... even at the cost of Everything.
A Course in Miracles asks us this pertinent question: "How long can it take to be where God would have you be? For you are where you have forever been and will forever be. All that you have, you have forever." (ACIM; Chapter 15, Section II, 3:1-3) To relax and remember and BE takes no time and no effort at all. We remain, eternally, as God created us. Creation is finished. The script is already written!
We spend our days giving time and attention and resources to valueless habits and relationships. Through forgiveness, we sort the wheat from the chaff. And each of us begins to realize that "many, if not most of the things he valued before will merely hinder his ability to transfer what he has learned to new situations as they arise. Because he has valued the valueless, he will not generalize the lesson for fear of loss and sacrifice." (ACIM; Manual for Teachers 4.I.A. 4:3-4) We don't allow ourselves to remember what we already know, what we already are, because we don't want to 'lose' any of our cherished illusions. We fear the loss of nothing. So we exclude huge chunks of our life and relationships from Truth. We try to keep them separate.
The decision to use time only for Awakening is a monumental one. Are we willing to walk our talk? Are we willing to give our time and attention, our abilities and our relationships, and yes, even our money to the Holy Spirit to use solely for Truth? Everything has to be translated, since this is a world of illusion, a world of distorted perception of what we really are. Dissolving all illusion to reveal what has always been remains the only purpose of everything in this dream we call life. Because there really is nothing else. We remain perfect, as God created us, an idea beyond what can be touched. Creation is finished. The script is already written!
"Time is a trick, a sleight of hand, a vast illusion in which figures come and go as if by magic. Yet there is a plan behind appearances that does not change. The script is written." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook Lesson 158, 4:1-3
Saturday, April 25, 2009
One Forever
"The separation [from God] is merely a faulty formulation of reality, with no effect at all. This is the miracle of creation; that it is One forever. Every miracle you offer to the Son of God is but the true perception of one aspect of the whole. Though every aspect is the whole, you cannot know this until you see that every aspect is the same, perceived in the same light and therefore One." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 13, Section VIII, 3:5 & 5:1-3
"Man is tributary to God, Spirit, and to nothing else. God's Being is infinity, freedom, harmony, and boundless bliss." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 481, Lines 2-4
"Man is tributary to God, Spirit, and to nothing else. God's Being is infinity, freedom, harmony, and boundless bliss." -- Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 481, Lines 2-4
The thought that anything unlike God, unlike Good, unlike Love, is simply an aberrant formulation of reality... this seems unlikely, an unrealistic and idealistic philosophy at best. Our practical, worldly selves base our judgements on experience and the views of other wiser people and their experience. We base our judgements on numbers, too... we love statistics as 'evidence.' What we don't take into account is that numbers are neutral... they are simply another mental construct to attempt to quantify reality. And they are only 'evidence' for what we already believe to be true. This is why statistics are used to justify both sides of pretty much every issue at one time or another. What we fail to realize is that Reality, what is True, cannot be quantified. What is One cannot be divided, cannot be compared, cannot be opposed. It is One forever.
We think that we experience what is already manifest. So we're always trying to judge and quantify the manifest world. But A Course in Miracles reminds us, "What I experience I will make manifest." The world that appears to be outside is simply the reflection of our own consciousness, our own inner experience. It is the fragmented perception of the Son of God, where what is One appears to be many... where what is forever whole and harmonious and loving appears to be divided and at war with itself.
Our Reality is One forever. We are collectively One Self, and reflect One Being which we call God. We are emanations, reflections of all that is Good. We can have no qualities but those of our Source. And so we come to question the 'rational' self, with its hidden agendas and skewed perceptions... and all it takes is a truly questioning mind to begin to glimpse Reality. Self-inquiry is the key to moving beyond the false perceptions of the human mind. Self-inquiry makes it possible for us to forgive, to really let our false perceptions go, and welcome the miracle of true perception in every circumstance, with every person.
Our Reality is One forever. But we can't know that until we see that every single aspect, every single person, every single situation as the same. The miracle of forgiveness returns our healed perception to this sameness... the awareness that God is All-Inclusive, and Everywhere. There is nothing else.
"You cannot enter into real relationships with any of God's Sons unless you love them all and equally. Love is not special. You can only love as God loves." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 13, Section X, 11:1-2 & 4
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
