One of the things that I’ve come to understand is that, despite its efforts to attack God, the personal mind is actually benign. It is only trying to survive; everything that it does is for its own self-preservation, so how can I blame it? It’s like an animal that kills to eat for survival, not to be merely malicious. The personal mind wants to perpetuate itself, and isn’t that just like God extending only God? This realization has come as I’ve been able to detach from the personal mind more and more and merely observe it. It’s also come as I am willing to take responsibility for my perception of separation from God, instead of blaming the personal mind as though it is something separate from me. I made it (not personally, but as the one split mind; the ‘dreamer-of-the-dream’); it does not make me. And, if I listen to and follow it, that’s my choice. Nothing is happening against my will.
Years ago, when I said to the Holy Spirit ‘God is All-powerful, so how could even the idea of separation from God have occurred in part of God’s Mind without God intending the thought?’, the Holy Spirit answered that God, being All, must contain even the idea of Its Own opposite. But God, being All, cannot have an opposite, so the idea of not-God is undone before it even begins. I learned here, too, then, that the origin of not-God (the personal mind; the world) is also benign. Not only is it over as soon as it is thought, but there was also no ‘intention’ behind it. Like God, not-God just is – or it would be if it could ‘be’ at all!
So this brought me to ask the Holy Spirit about why A Course in Miracles talks about the personal mind as something that had, and has, the intention of separating me from God. And the answer is that, while the origin of not-God was benign, within not-God there is intention to be separate from God. The personal mind does intend to perpetuate itself; it intends to survive, and it will do so with whatever means it can. But it is wholly benign, because it can never be real. It is only an idea that is already over, and I experience this every time that I enter into the Holy Instant.
(If this brings up more questions for you, see the link, ‘Understanding One Mind’ at www.acimmentor.com).
>>>>>
Read The Message of A Course in Miracles: A translation of the Text in plain language at www.themessageofacim.com.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
No Sacrifice Required
Occasionally, I hear from students who fear that they will be asked by the Holy Spirit to make some great sacrifice. I, too, used to wait to be crucified. Despite what A Course in Miracles says about no sacrifice being required, I couldn’t shake the expectation that at some point the Holy Spirit was going to ask something greatly torturous of me. I didn’t know what form that would take – physical, mental, emotional, or some combination of these – but the belief that sacrifice is required to spiritually awaken was deeply imbedded in my mind. I finally had to fully confront it when I went through the ‘period of relinquishment’, because this was the stage where I found myself having an incredible willingness to step back and let the Holy Spirit lead the way. My expectation of suffering was an obstacle I had to overcome, then.
This belief took me some time to work out. It was really a matter of trusting the Holy Spirit day-by-day, and finding that, in fact, I was never asked to sacrifice. I found, too, that the Holy Spirit worked with me, not against me. Sure, I’m not really a personal self, but I didn’t know that, so the Holy Spirit used my personal inclinations and abilities to teach me that I am not a personal self. For example, I’ve been writing since I was ten years old, so the Holy Spirit has taught me through my writing. I have an innate understanding and interest in of human psychology, so the Holy Spirit has used that to teach me by guiding me to become a life coaching and mentor for students of the Course. I wanted a home of my own, a life-partner, to be self-employed, to work out of my home – I have all of these, and the Holy Spirit has used my desire for these to teach me. The Holy Spirit never took anything away; the Holy Spirit simply transformed everything I wanted into a means for my awakening.
And now, looking back, I see how this makes perfect sense. Why would the Holy Spirit work against what I thought was me, rather than with what I thought was me? Isn’t it more Loving for the Holy Spirit to teach me through what I think that I naturally have and want, then to try and force me to be something else, or to give up what I think that I desire? I’m certainly far less resistant this way, and therefore less afraid. I’m certain that the Holy Spirit has no desire to struggle with me! Oh, sure, the personal mind has still found ways to bring fear in and make me resistant, but it is only in anticipation that I fear; in executing whatever the Holy Spirit has asked of me, I have never found fear to be justified. In fact, I’ve always found it to be very easy, because I just show up and the Holy Spirit does it all! I have never been required to sacrifice or suffer in any way. And even when something must fall away, I always find that it is to make room for something of much greater value to me.
It is so clear to me now how ideas like sacrifice, struggle, and suffering are ideas only of the personal mind, not of God. How Loving that, to teach me to go with Its Flow, the Holy Spirit first flowed with me. It has all unfolded so very naturally and easily for me that often I cannot sort out now what is my personal desire and what is the Holy Spirit’s guidance. Sometimes, it seems like the Holy Spirit takes over my personal desires for Its purposes; sometimes, I’m so willing that what the Holy Spirit’s guides me to do becomes my own desire. Over time, the line between ‘me’ and the Holy Spirit has blurred, and this is no sacrifice, but the beginning of Joy!
>>>>>
Read The Message of A Course in Miracles: A translation of the Text in plain language at www.themessageofacim.com.
This belief took me some time to work out. It was really a matter of trusting the Holy Spirit day-by-day, and finding that, in fact, I was never asked to sacrifice. I found, too, that the Holy Spirit worked with me, not against me. Sure, I’m not really a personal self, but I didn’t know that, so the Holy Spirit used my personal inclinations and abilities to teach me that I am not a personal self. For example, I’ve been writing since I was ten years old, so the Holy Spirit has taught me through my writing. I have an innate understanding and interest in of human psychology, so the Holy Spirit has used that to teach me by guiding me to become a life coaching and mentor for students of the Course. I wanted a home of my own, a life-partner, to be self-employed, to work out of my home – I have all of these, and the Holy Spirit has used my desire for these to teach me. The Holy Spirit never took anything away; the Holy Spirit simply transformed everything I wanted into a means for my awakening.
And now, looking back, I see how this makes perfect sense. Why would the Holy Spirit work against what I thought was me, rather than with what I thought was me? Isn’t it more Loving for the Holy Spirit to teach me through what I think that I naturally have and want, then to try and force me to be something else, or to give up what I think that I desire? I’m certainly far less resistant this way, and therefore less afraid. I’m certain that the Holy Spirit has no desire to struggle with me! Oh, sure, the personal mind has still found ways to bring fear in and make me resistant, but it is only in anticipation that I fear; in executing whatever the Holy Spirit has asked of me, I have never found fear to be justified. In fact, I’ve always found it to be very easy, because I just show up and the Holy Spirit does it all! I have never been required to sacrifice or suffer in any way. And even when something must fall away, I always find that it is to make room for something of much greater value to me.
It is so clear to me now how ideas like sacrifice, struggle, and suffering are ideas only of the personal mind, not of God. How Loving that, to teach me to go with Its Flow, the Holy Spirit first flowed with me. It has all unfolded so very naturally and easily for me that often I cannot sort out now what is my personal desire and what is the Holy Spirit’s guidance. Sometimes, it seems like the Holy Spirit takes over my personal desires for Its purposes; sometimes, I’m so willing that what the Holy Spirit’s guides me to do becomes my own desire. Over time, the line between ‘me’ and the Holy Spirit has blurred, and this is no sacrifice, but the beginning of Joy!
>>>>>
Read The Message of A Course in Miracles: A translation of the Text in plain language at www.themessageofacim.com.
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
Pseudo-Oneness
A Course in Miracles teaches that the personal mind insists on your complete independence, not just from God, but from others as well. It is threatened by any kind of joining, even with other personal selves, because there’s always the threat that you will break through your perception of separation and become aware that you are not limited to a personal self. But you long for Oneness, or Love, because your True Nature is Oneness in God, not a limited personal self. So the personal mind has had to concoct its own version of ‘love’, which allows you temporary moments of connectedness, but which overall reinforces your sense of separation and guilt. A couple of ways that longing for True Love shows up is in one’s desire to ‘belong’, even if only to one other or a small family; or to be a ‘part of something bigger’, in organizations like churches, the military, corporations, etc. This ‘belonging’, though, is a poor substitute for the Oneness of God, Which is Limitless and Eternal, so it inevitably fails.
There are other forms of artificial ‘oneness’ that the personal mind has concocted to keep you distracted from seeking out True Oneness, as well. For example, I recently finished reading Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol. It was an entertaining thriller, full of a lot of the usual Dan Brown mix of thrills, mystery, symbology, and history. If you intend to read it, don’t worry, I’m not going to spoil anything here. Interestingly, this book brings forth many quotes from the world’s various spiritual practices that refer to God as within you, rather than as something over you. It even says outright that ‘made in God’s image’ refers to mind, not body, but then it refers to the mind as in the brain! Of course, as part of the body, which is in the mind, the brain is in the mind, too; it is not the other way around. The Lost Symbol’s message is that your mind is far more powerful than you realize, and that Noetics, which is the study of ‘mind-over-matter’ is revealing spiritual truths, including how everything is interconnected on an unseen level. Physics, too, seems to bear this out. But the Oneness of God is not the oneness of matter. God is Formless Being, not one form that takes many forms. God cannot be measured, as matter and energy can, because God has no form and no limits. God is Spirit, and cannot be found in the physical universe, which was made to be the opposite of God in every way. And it is not the purpose of mind to have power over anything; the Purpose of Mind is to be.
The personal mind has to do something with your true longing for God, so it makes substitutes that temporarily appease and distract you, and that validate separation-from-God-as-reality to perpetuate itself. But God is found within you, and nowhere in the world. When you go within and touch God, God extends into your perception of the world, but you cannot ‘prove’ God through the world, because God did not make the world, and God has nothing at all to do with the world. By learning that you can change your perception, you learn that your mind is the mind behind your perception of the world, and that your mind is not limited to a personal self, but this does not make you matter or one with matter. In fact, ‘matter’ is just an idea in your mind, too. It is in your mind, but it is an erroneous idea, so you can never be ‘one’ with it. You are One with God’s Formless Being. To know this again, you have to open your mind to experiences of ‘mind’ and ‘oneness’ that cannot be conceptualized by a personal mind.
>>>>>
Read The Message of A Course in Miracles: A translation of the Text in plain language at www.themessageofacim.com.
There are other forms of artificial ‘oneness’ that the personal mind has concocted to keep you distracted from seeking out True Oneness, as well. For example, I recently finished reading Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol. It was an entertaining thriller, full of a lot of the usual Dan Brown mix of thrills, mystery, symbology, and history. If you intend to read it, don’t worry, I’m not going to spoil anything here. Interestingly, this book brings forth many quotes from the world’s various spiritual practices that refer to God as within you, rather than as something over you. It even says outright that ‘made in God’s image’ refers to mind, not body, but then it refers to the mind as in the brain! Of course, as part of the body, which is in the mind, the brain is in the mind, too; it is not the other way around. The Lost Symbol’s message is that your mind is far more powerful than you realize, and that Noetics, which is the study of ‘mind-over-matter’ is revealing spiritual truths, including how everything is interconnected on an unseen level. Physics, too, seems to bear this out. But the Oneness of God is not the oneness of matter. God is Formless Being, not one form that takes many forms. God cannot be measured, as matter and energy can, because God has no form and no limits. God is Spirit, and cannot be found in the physical universe, which was made to be the opposite of God in every way. And it is not the purpose of mind to have power over anything; the Purpose of Mind is to be.
The personal mind has to do something with your true longing for God, so it makes substitutes that temporarily appease and distract you, and that validate separation-from-God-as-reality to perpetuate itself. But God is found within you, and nowhere in the world. When you go within and touch God, God extends into your perception of the world, but you cannot ‘prove’ God through the world, because God did not make the world, and God has nothing at all to do with the world. By learning that you can change your perception, you learn that your mind is the mind behind your perception of the world, and that your mind is not limited to a personal self, but this does not make you matter or one with matter. In fact, ‘matter’ is just an idea in your mind, too. It is in your mind, but it is an erroneous idea, so you can never be ‘one’ with it. You are One with God’s Formless Being. To know this again, you have to open your mind to experiences of ‘mind’ and ‘oneness’ that cannot be conceptualized by a personal mind.
>>>>>
Read The Message of A Course in Miracles: A translation of the Text in plain language at www.themessageofacim.com.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
What Happens When I'm Gone?
A few years ago, my wife, Courtney, was going through a bad spell. She was speculating about what would happen to her if I awakened. I thought about how to answer this for a moment, then I suddenly understood what would happen, and I told her that I would take her with me. I was really answering the question for myself, and, interestingly, she didn’t ask me what I meant. This was a relief, because what I have come to understand about God and the world from my experiences in the Holy Instant is so far from what she believes that I knew I would have a hard time explaining it to her!
What I meant was that Courtney is an idea in my mind, so of course she will go with me when I put aside the world. I don’t mean that literally ‘Courtney’ – the body/personal self – will go with me, but that the mind behind the idea of ‘Courtney’ will go with me, because it’s my mind. There is only one mind, and ‘Courtney’ and ‘Liz’ are just figures in its dream. This started to undo the ‘two realities’ idea that was always lurking in my mind. I can put the world aside, but I cannot ‘leave the world’, because there is no world. The world is in me; I am not in it.
For a long time I had a sense of loss when I thought of awakening to God, because I thought of the world as a real place that I would leave behind. I was really thinking in terms of exchanging realities, rather than of letting go of an illusion and accepting Reality. It made me sad to think of what I would miss in the world when I was ‘gone’, as though it would continue on without me. I thought of my loved ones and what I would miss happening in their lives. I thought of the inventions to come, the discoveries and the history to be made, etc, as though all of this was a reality, not just a temporary story in my mind right now that is only meant to distract me from the fact that God is right here, right now. There is only One Reality, and that is God.
>>>>>
Read The Message of A Course in Miracles: A translation of the Text in plain language at www.themessageofacim.com.
What I meant was that Courtney is an idea in my mind, so of course she will go with me when I put aside the world. I don’t mean that literally ‘Courtney’ – the body/personal self – will go with me, but that the mind behind the idea of ‘Courtney’ will go with me, because it’s my mind. There is only one mind, and ‘Courtney’ and ‘Liz’ are just figures in its dream. This started to undo the ‘two realities’ idea that was always lurking in my mind. I can put the world aside, but I cannot ‘leave the world’, because there is no world. The world is in me; I am not in it.
For a long time I had a sense of loss when I thought of awakening to God, because I thought of the world as a real place that I would leave behind. I was really thinking in terms of exchanging realities, rather than of letting go of an illusion and accepting Reality. It made me sad to think of what I would miss in the world when I was ‘gone’, as though it would continue on without me. I thought of my loved ones and what I would miss happening in their lives. I thought of the inventions to come, the discoveries and the history to be made, etc, as though all of this was a reality, not just a temporary story in my mind right now that is only meant to distract me from the fact that God is right here, right now. There is only One Reality, and that is God.
>>>>>
Read The Message of A Course in Miracles: A translation of the Text in plain language at www.themessageofacim.com.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
A Somewhat Healthy Ego Required
It’s ironic, but true, that you must have a somewhat healthy personal mind to be able to let it go. Think about it: If all that you know of yourself is a personal self, then your feeling worthy of God’s Love must initially come to you in that identification. The personal mind is inherently unstable and insecure and can never be truly ‘healthy’, but if it is all that you know, then, at first, it is only through the personal self that you can learn about yourself. When your self-esteem in your identification with a personal self rises to a point where you can let the Holy Spirit into your awareness and begin to trust It, then you are ready to begin to let go of the personal self.
Remember, you are Christ, but you have been identifying with a personal self. You cannot be without an identity; if you are one, then you are not the other. Everyone hears the Holy Spirit, but you have to learn to single It out of the personal mind’s cacophony of voices in your mind. You are not going to do this, much less accept that the Holy Spirit is in you, if in your personal identity you feel so unworthy of God that to hear God would terrify you. You will end up punishing yourself to justify hearing the Holy Spirit, or to mitigate the punishment that you feel you deserve from God for hearing God in your unworthy state.
Most students who come to A Course in Miracles have already done a lot of personal work, through personal-growth programs; traditional psychotherapy; kinder, gentler forms of religion, etc. All of that was necessary to prepare them for God’s Unconditional Love. Some students, after starting the Course, still have some personal work to do to accept God’s Love. The tremendous fear that they experience during the initial Loving experiences that they have practicing the Course reveals how unprepared they are for God’s Love. Don’t make any mistake: The personal mind will always tell you that you are unworthy of God. It will always be insecure and defensive. But, after you have reached a point in your personal self-esteem where you can let the Holy Spirit into your awareness, you have an Identity to replace the personal self, and you can let it go.
>>>>>
Read The Message of A Course in Miracles: A translation of the Text in plain language at www.themessageofacim.com.
Remember, you are Christ, but you have been identifying with a personal self. You cannot be without an identity; if you are one, then you are not the other. Everyone hears the Holy Spirit, but you have to learn to single It out of the personal mind’s cacophony of voices in your mind. You are not going to do this, much less accept that the Holy Spirit is in you, if in your personal identity you feel so unworthy of God that to hear God would terrify you. You will end up punishing yourself to justify hearing the Holy Spirit, or to mitigate the punishment that you feel you deserve from God for hearing God in your unworthy state.
Most students who come to A Course in Miracles have already done a lot of personal work, through personal-growth programs; traditional psychotherapy; kinder, gentler forms of religion, etc. All of that was necessary to prepare them for God’s Unconditional Love. Some students, after starting the Course, still have some personal work to do to accept God’s Love. The tremendous fear that they experience during the initial Loving experiences that they have practicing the Course reveals how unprepared they are for God’s Love. Don’t make any mistake: The personal mind will always tell you that you are unworthy of God. It will always be insecure and defensive. But, after you have reached a point in your personal self-esteem where you can let the Holy Spirit into your awareness, you have an Identity to replace the personal self, and you can let it go.
>>>>>
Read The Message of A Course in Miracles: A translation of the Text in plain language at www.themessageofacim.com.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Pissed Off at a Cold God
It is essential for the preservation of the personal self that you believe that specialness is Heaven, not hell. – MACIM-16.5.4
When I was first a student of A Course in Miracles, I both loved and hated its message. It made me feel loved by God, but I was pissed off that what God loves is not the personal “me”. I wanted God to love my specialness, my uniqueness. I wanted who I was and what I did in the world to matter to God. How self-centered was God, loving the Part of me that is Part of God, but not the rest of me? Oh, it was so wonderfully liberating that it didn’t matter what I did in the world! And yet, it was so terribly crushing that what I wanted to be in the world didn’t matter one iota to God. God couldn’t even conceive of it.
Liberation has won out. This feeling of freedom is what kept drawing me to God again and again, until finally I accepted that I wanted it more than anything that the world had to offer. But I hear the same pouting upset from students when they realize that God is impersonal. I watch as they struggle to have the freedom that detachment from the world will bring them, while they try to hold on to the world at the same time. They don’t want the pain of the world, but they want to be involved in the world. They fear that others will see their detachment as “cold”, not realizing that it’s not others’ perception of them that bothers them; it is the personal mind in them that perceives detachment from the world as “cold”. Of course it does! You are the personal mind’s power source, but you are not the personal mind. Your realizing that is the end of it.
It cannot be both ways: You cannot be both involved with the world and detached from it. Here I am speaking of an internal state of awareness, not of what it looks like the body is doing in the world. To others, you will appear to be involved in the world to some extent. No doubt, they will see you as being as involved as they are. But when you are detached, within yourself you are not concerned with the world and its values and dramas. You rest in God, Which is not cold at all, but Warm and Loving and Welcoming. And you are only grateful that nothing personal is real.
>>>>>
Read The Message of A Course in Miracles: A translation of the Text in plain language at www.themessageofacim.com.
When I was first a student of A Course in Miracles, I both loved and hated its message. It made me feel loved by God, but I was pissed off that what God loves is not the personal “me”. I wanted God to love my specialness, my uniqueness. I wanted who I was and what I did in the world to matter to God. How self-centered was God, loving the Part of me that is Part of God, but not the rest of me? Oh, it was so wonderfully liberating that it didn’t matter what I did in the world! And yet, it was so terribly crushing that what I wanted to be in the world didn’t matter one iota to God. God couldn’t even conceive of it.
Liberation has won out. This feeling of freedom is what kept drawing me to God again and again, until finally I accepted that I wanted it more than anything that the world had to offer. But I hear the same pouting upset from students when they realize that God is impersonal. I watch as they struggle to have the freedom that detachment from the world will bring them, while they try to hold on to the world at the same time. They don’t want the pain of the world, but they want to be involved in the world. They fear that others will see their detachment as “cold”, not realizing that it’s not others’ perception of them that bothers them; it is the personal mind in them that perceives detachment from the world as “cold”. Of course it does! You are the personal mind’s power source, but you are not the personal mind. Your realizing that is the end of it.
It cannot be both ways: You cannot be both involved with the world and detached from it. Here I am speaking of an internal state of awareness, not of what it looks like the body is doing in the world. To others, you will appear to be involved in the world to some extent. No doubt, they will see you as being as involved as they are. But when you are detached, within yourself you are not concerned with the world and its values and dramas. You rest in God, Which is not cold at all, but Warm and Loving and Welcoming. And you are only grateful that nothing personal is real.
>>>>>
Read The Message of A Course in Miracles: A translation of the Text in plain language at www.themessageofacim.com.
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
You Don't Have to Make Things to Forgive
Sometimes students will tell me that they really don’t want to do something, but they are going to do it anyway, because they think that they need to forgive it or to use it as an opportunity to extend Love. This is a classic example of how the personal mind distorts what is taught in A Course in Miracles. Life in the world grants you enough obligations to practice forgiveness without you having to force yourself to accept situations just so that you can forgive them. You also don’t have to go out of your way to find situations to forgive or in which to extend Love. If you do either of these, you are actually making these situations special, so you cannot forgive them. You are making them real to you, and you can only forgive illusions. And it is not up to you to decide for yourself what you should forgive and where to extend Love; that’s the Holy Spirit’s job. The Holy Spirit is never going to force you into a situation, because It recognizes that all situations are all equally unreal, and all are equally perfect for forgiveness. So it is the same to the Holy Spirit whether or not you go to the company Christmas party or not, for example. In fact, your thinking that it matters one way or the other is exactly what you have to forgive. This is what the Course means when it says that you can’t but be in the right place at the right time: Every place and every time is exactly right for forgiveness.
To awaken to the Fact that you are really always in God, you must forgive what naturally shows up in your particular awareness. Making something to forgive is going in the exact opposite direction of forgiveness. For example, I’ve heard from students who think that they must watch the news or read newspapers to forgive the disturbing things that show up in them. But if they have truly forgiven what they see on TV or read in a newspaper, they would not have to return to it again and again. If they recognized that what is in the news is not real, they would have no motivation to watch it.
Of course, forcing themselves into situations to practice forgiveness, or making situations to extend love, is often a tactic a student will use to avoid dealing with their own specific obstacles to Peace. Like the philanthropist who takes care of everyone but their own family, picking what you must forgive and where you must extend Love can be a way of avoiding the hard work of forgiving and extending Love to what it right in front of you. What flows into your awareness naturally is flowing from your seemingly specific mind. When it does not reflect your Peace, it reflects your specific obstacles to Peace. Your real obstacles are much harder to face than the ones that you make for yourself! Center your life in God, and forgive whatever shows up right in front of you; extend Love right where you are. You do not have to make special occasions for this.
>>>>>
Read The Message of A Course in Miracles: A translation of the Text in plain language at www.themessageofacim.com.
To awaken to the Fact that you are really always in God, you must forgive what naturally shows up in your particular awareness. Making something to forgive is going in the exact opposite direction of forgiveness. For example, I’ve heard from students who think that they must watch the news or read newspapers to forgive the disturbing things that show up in them. But if they have truly forgiven what they see on TV or read in a newspaper, they would not have to return to it again and again. If they recognized that what is in the news is not real, they would have no motivation to watch it.
Of course, forcing themselves into situations to practice forgiveness, or making situations to extend love, is often a tactic a student will use to avoid dealing with their own specific obstacles to Peace. Like the philanthropist who takes care of everyone but their own family, picking what you must forgive and where you must extend Love can be a way of avoiding the hard work of forgiving and extending Love to what it right in front of you. What flows into your awareness naturally is flowing from your seemingly specific mind. When it does not reflect your Peace, it reflects your specific obstacles to Peace. Your real obstacles are much harder to face than the ones that you make for yourself! Center your life in God, and forgive whatever shows up right in front of you; extend Love right where you are. You do not have to make special occasions for this.
>>>>>
Read The Message of A Course in Miracles: A translation of the Text in plain language at www.themessageofacim.com.
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