You Are Of God

            A Course in Miracles makes a distinction between God, Christ, and Spirit, while also explaining they are One. God is Source, and Christ and Spirit are God’s Extension (or Creation in the Course). This is not merely to use familiar Christian symbols. The distinction is made because it is different to have a Source than to be the Source.

Let me use again my analogy of sun and sunlight to illustrate this. If God were the sun, then sunlight would be Christ, Earth would be consciousness, and where sunlight reaches Earth would be Spirit. Sunlight is the sun’s extension as Christ/Spirit are God’s Extension.

Sun and sunlight are one because a sun shines (extends) light. God and Christ/Spirit (Love, Wholeness, Peace, Happiness) are One because God’s Glory extends without limit. But cause and effect flow in only one direction. Sunlight establishes the sun’s causation, but it never causes the sun, just as Christ/Spirit establish God’s Causation but they never cause God.

Earth is as different from the sun as not-God, or consciousness, is different from God. Earth is in sunlight and not in the sun just as the idea of not-God arises in God’s Extension, not in God. Yet, the sun’s light reaches Earth, just as God’s Spirit reaches consciousness through Christ.

Keep in mind this distinction between Cause and Effect in Reality is only from our view in consciousness, as God extends God and does not parse Itself into parts. But, in consciousness, this is an essential distinction if you want answers to questions like “What is real?” and “What am I?” To know what you truly are, you must know your place in the Orientation of Reality.

In ego, you feel you are one autonomous being among many, each a little god in your own worlds. You feel you are self-made, causeless. (No matter you may espouse a cause, or creator, the experience of ego is isolation and opposition to Truth.) This is what the Course calls the authority problem (author=creator). You can see how this is not resolved if you think you are God (Cause) rather than understand yourself as God’s Extension (Effect). Claiming to be God is the same as claiming to be without God (ego). Both are false and both would usurp God’s Position as your Source.

 “‘Except ye become as little children’ means that unless you fully recognize your complete dependence on God, you cannot know the real power of the Son in his true relationship with the Father.” (T-1.V.3)

 In Christ, your sense of self expands to be What It is, God’s Extension, not a god unto yourself, not causeless. A sunbeam comes to understand it is the sun’s light, not a light without a source. There is no separation between Cause and Effect, but there is correct orientation. “…the real power of the Son is his true relationship with the Father…” You can only be empowered as you are, and that is of God.

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If you have a question the answer to which you feel may be helpful to others, send it to Liz@acimmentor.com and I will answer it in this newsletter/blog.

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