Appearances Are Meaningless, But Not Random

           It is not a contradiction to say that what arises in consciousness is a meaningless appearance and to call it the Atonement, or correction of the perception of separation from God. Recognizing appearances as the Atonement simply acknowledges they are not random. They have a shape. What appears in consciousness expresses an idea. But that idea is meaningless because separation from God is not possible, so its correction is not necessary.

The final expression of a plant is its flowering. The blooms arrive and fall away. And so it is in consciousness with thoughts, feelings, and actions rising to conscious awareness only to fall away. And just as a plant has a shape, so does consciousness. That is the Atonement. The idea of not-God blooms and is corrected by the Idea of God (Spirit) and falls away again and again.

Nothing in a garden blooms in isolation. Each blossom that arises is the result of genetics and environment. Water, nutrients, wind, rain, sun, shade, the general climate of the region, the micro climate of the garden, insects, bacteria—all of this affects the appearance of the blossom. And how it blooms affects the rest of the garden, as it gives off pollen, moisture, light, bacteria, etc. and returns to earth to feed other plants.

And so it is with how the Atonement blooms through you. There is no you independent from the whole of the Atonement that is responsible for the particular shape it takes through you. Everything in consciousness affects how the Atonement blooms through you just as what you think, feel, and do ripples out to affect the rest of consciousness.

But shape and interconnectedness do not give meaning, they simply describe what appears, whether in a garden or in consciousness as a whole. Identifying with what appears gives it meaning to you. But when that falls away, you see what appears only expresses a false idea and you let it pass through your mind. 

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