Credo
Ten Thoughts
Jan 29th, 2010
1. I want the peace of God.
2. I perceive a world of egoic projections.
3. They are all false and unreal.
4. I am not a body; I am still as God created me.
5. I do not know my own best interests.
6. I must learn from a Teacher other than myself.
7. “This holy instant would I give to You. Be You in charge, for I would follow You, certain that your direction brings me peace. “
8. I forgive all my brothers completely; our minds are joined.
9. I perceive all things as kindly and as good.
10. I share God’s Will for happiness for me.
Tags: Forgiveness Self
Forgiveness in the Course
Organized
Jan 28th, 2010
We must learn to forgive all evil, destruction, malice, envy and despair because what we are seeing is not true. We have distorted the world by our twisted defenses. As we learn to recognize our perceptual errors, we also learn to look past them or “forgive.” Preface
An unforgiving thought is one which makes a judgment that it will not raise to doubt, although it is not true. The mind is closed, and will not be released. The thought protects projection, tightening its chains, so that distortions are more veiled and more obscure; less easily accessible to doubt, and further kept from reason. What can come between a fixed projection and the aim that it has chosen as its wanted goal? An unforgiving thought does many things. In frantic action it pursues its goal, twisting and overturning what it sees as interfering with its chosen path. Distortion is its purpose, and the means by which it would accomplish it as well. It sets about its furious attempts to smash reality, without concern for anything that would appear to pose a contradiction to its point of view. W-pII.1
Forgiveness is Non-judgmental
Miracle-minded forgiveness has no element of judgment at all. The statement "Father forgive them for they know not what they do" in no way evaluates what they do. T-2.V.A.16
Correction is not your function. It belongs to One Who knows of fairness, not of guilt. If you assume correction's role, you lose the function of forgiveness. No one can forgive until he learns correction is but to forgive, and never to accuse. T-27.II.10
Forgiveness looks on sinlessness alone, and judges not. W-352
Forgiveness, on the other hand, is still, and quietly does nothing. It offends no aspect of reality, nor seeks to twist it to appearances it likes. It merely looks, and waits, and judges not. He who would not forgive must judge, for he must justify his failure to forgive. But he who would forgive himself must learn to welcome truth exactly as it is.W-pII.1.4
What Forgiveness is
Do nothing, then, and let forgiveness show you what to do, through Him Who is your Guide, your Savior and Protector, strong in hope, and certain of your ultimate success. He has forgiven you already, for such is His function, given Him by God. Now must you share His function, and forgive whom He has saved, whose sinlessness He sees, and whom He honors as the Son of God. W-pII.1
Forgiveness is the healing of the perception of separation. T-3.V.9 Forgiveness is the only means whereby Christ's vision comes to me. W-247
Forgiveness ends all suffering and loss. Forgiveness paints a picture of a world where suffering is over, loss becomes impossible and anger makes no sense. Attack is gone, and madness has an end. What suffering is now conceivable? What loss can be sustained? The world becomes a place of joy, abundance, charity and endless giving. W-249
Forgiveness is the answer to attack of any kind. So is attack deprived of its effects, and hate is answered in the name of love. T-26.VII.17 The miracle forgives; the ego damns. C-2
The way to God is through forgiveness here. There is no other way. God is our goal; forgiveness is the means by which our minds return to Him at last. W-256
Forgiveness is the key to happiness. Forgiveness is acquired. It is not inherent in the mind, which cannot sin. As sin is an idea you taught yourself, forgiveness must be learned by you as well, but from a Teacher other than yourself, Who represents the other Self in you. Through Him you learn how to forgive the self you think you made, and let it disappear. Thus you return your mind as one to Him Who is your Self, and Who can never sin. W-121.6
Forgiveness recognizes what you thought your brother did to you has not occurred. It does not pardon sins and make them real. It sees there was no sin. And in that view are all your sins forgiven. What is sin, except a false idea about God's Son? Forgiveness merely sees its falsity, and therefore lets it go. What then is free to take its place is now the Will of God. W-pII.1.1
To forgive is to overlook. T-9.IV.1 Forgiveness through the Holy Spirit lies simply in looking beyond error from the beginning, and thus keeping it unreal for you. T-9.IV.5
To forgive is merely to remember only the loving thoughts you gave in the past, and those that were given you. All the rest must be forgotten. Forgiveness is a selective remembering, based not on your selection. For the shadow figures you would make immortal are "enemies" of reality. Be willing to forgive the Son of God for what he did not do. T-17.III.1
Forgiveness is the end of specialness. Only illusions can be forgiven, and then they disappear. Forgiveness is release from all illusions, and that is why it is impossible but partly to forgive. T-24.III.1
The unforgiven have no mercy to bestow upon another. That is why your sole responsibility must be to take forgiveness for yourself. T-25.IX.9
Forgiveness is this world's equivalent of Heaven's justice. No one forgives unless he has believed in sin, and still believes that he has much to be forgiven. Forgiveness thus becomes the means by which he learns he has done nothing to forgive. T-26.IV.1
Forgiveness is the great release from time. It is the key to learning that the past is over. T-26.V.6
Forgiveness lets the Holy Spirit make exchange of pictures possible, until the time when aids are meaningless and learning done. T-27.III.5
Forgiveness is for all. T-25.VI.5 It is recognized that all things must be first forgiven, and then understood. T-30.V.1
Pardon is always justified. It has a sure foundation. You do not forgive the unforgivable, nor overlook a real attack that calls for punishment. Salvation does not lie in being asked to make unnatural responses which are inappropriate to what is real. Instead, it merely asks that you respond appropriately to what is not real by not perceiving what has not occurred. You are merely asked to see forgiveness as the natural reaction to distress that rests on error, and thus calls for help. Forgiveness is the only sane response. It keeps your rights from being sacrificed. T-30.VI.2
Forgiveness recognized as merited will heal. It gives the miracle its strength to overlook illusions. This is how you learn that you must be forgiven too. There can be no appearance that can not be overlooked. For if there were, it would be necessary first there be some sin that stands beyond forgiveness. T-30.VI.5
Forgiveness is the great need of this world, but that is because it is a world of illusions. Those who forgive are thus releasing themselves from illusions, while those who withhold forgiveness are binding themselves to them. As you condemn only yourself, so do you forgive only yourself. God’s Love is the basis of forgiveness. Fear condemns and love forgives. Forgiveness thus undoes what fear has produced, returning the mind to the awareness of God. For this reason, forgiveness can truly be called salvation. It is the means by which illusions disappear. It is your forgiveness that will bring the world of darkness to the light. W-46
Forgiveness is my function as the light of the world. It is your forgiveness that lets you recognize the light in which you see. Forgiveness is the demonstration that you are the light of the world. Through your forgiveness does the truth about yourself return to your memory. Therefore, in your forgiveness lies your salvation.W-62.1
A miracle is a correction. It does not create, nor really change at all. It merely looks on devastation, and reminds the mind that what it sees is false. It undoes error, but does not attempt to go beyond perception, nor exceed the function of forgiveness. Thus it stays within time's limits. Yet it paves the way for the return of timelessness and love's awakening, for fear must slip away under the gentle remedy it brings. A miracle contains the gift of grace, for it is given and received as one. And thus it illustrates the law of truth the world does not obey, because it fails entirely to understand its ways. A miracle inverts perception which was upside down before, and thus it ends the strange distortions that were manifest. Now is perception open to the truth. Now is forgiveness seen as justified. Forgiveness is the home of miracles. The eyes of Christ deliver them to all they look upon in mercy and in love. Perception stands corrected in His sight, and what was meant to curse has come to bless. Each lily of forgiveness offers all the world the silent miracle of love. W-pII.13
Forgiveness is an illusion, but because of its purpose, which is the Holy Spirit's, it leads away from error and not towards it. Forgiveness might be called a kind of happy fiction; a way in which the unknowing can bridge the gap between their perception and the truth. They cannot go directly from perception to knowledge because they do not think it is their will to do so. This makes God appear to be an enemy instead of what He really is. And it is just this insane perception that makes them unwilling merely to rise up and to return to Him in peace. And so they need an illusion of help because they are helpless; a Thought of peace because they are in conflict. God knows what His Son needs before he asks. He is not at all concerned with form, but having given the content it is His Will that it be understood. And that suffices. The form adapts itself to need; the content is unchanging, as eternal as its Creator. C-3
The face of Christ has to be seen before the memory of God can return. The face of Christ is the great symbol of forgiveness. Whoever looks on this no longer sees the world. It is the bridge to Heaven. C-3
Forgiveness ends the dream of conflict here. Conflict must be resolved. It cannot be evaded, set aside, denied, disguised, seen somewhere else, called by another name, or hidden by deceit of any kind, if it would be escaped. It must be seen exactly as it is, where it is thought to be, in the reality which has been given it, and with the purpose that the mind accorded it. For only then are its defenses lifted, and the truth can shine upon it as it disappears. W-333
My Brother
Brother, you need forgiveness of your brother, for you will share in madness or in Heaven together. T-19.IV.D.12
Forgive your brother all appearances, that are but ancient lessons you have taught yourself about the sinfulness in you. T-31.II.9 You must forgive God's Son entirely. Or you will keep an image of yourself that is not whole, and will remain afraid to look within and find escape from every idol there. Salvation rests on faith there cannot be some forms of guilt that you cannot forgive. T-30.VI.7
The fear of God is the sure result of seeing pardon as unmerited. No one who sees himself as guilty can avoid the fear of God. But he is saved from this dilemma if he can forgive. The mind must think of its Creator as it looks upon itself. If you can see your brother merits pardon, you have learned forgiveness is your right as much as his. Nor will you think that God intends for you a fearful judgment that your brother does not merit. For it is the truth that you can merit neither more nor less than he. T-30.VI.4
You cannot wake yourself. Yet you can let yourself be wakened. You can overlook your brother's dreams. So perfectly can you forgive him his illusions he becomes your savior from your dreams. And as you see him shining in the space of light where God abides within the darkness, you will see that God Himself is where his body is. Whom you forgive is given power to forgive you your illusions. T-29.III.3
How willing are you to forgive your brother? How much do you desire peace instead of endless strife and misery and pain? These questions are the same, in different form. Forgiveness is your peace, for herein lies the end of separation and the dream of danger and destruction, sin and death; of madness and of murder, grief and loss. This is the "sacrifice" salvation asks, and gladly offers peace instead of this. T-29.VI.1
You share no evil dreams if you forgive the dreamer, and perceive that he is not the dream he made. And so he cannot be a part of yours, from which you both are free. Forgiveness separates the dreamer from the evil dream, and thus releases him. T-28.V.3
Forgiveness takes away what stands between your brother and yourself. It is the wish that you be joined with him, and not apart. T-26.VII.9
We are the bringers of salvation. We accept our part as saviors of the world, which through our joint forgiveness is redeemed. And this, our gift, is therefore given us. We look on everyone as brother, and perceive all things as kindly and as good. W-pII.14
Each unforgiving mind presents you with an opportunity to teach your own how to forgive itself. Each one awaits release from hell through you, and turns to you imploringly for Heaven here and now. It has no hope, but you become its hope. And as its hope, do you become your own. The unforgiving mind must learn through your forgiveness that it has been saved from hell. And as you teach salvation, you will learn. Yet all your teaching and your learning will be not of you, but of the Teacher Who was given you to show the way to you. W-121
Would you not offer him forgiveness, when only he can offer it to you? Whom you forgive is free, and what you give you share. Forgive the sins your brother thinks he has committed, and all the guilt you think you see in him. T-19.IV.D.15
Unto us the aim is given to forgive the world. It is the goal that God has given us. It is His ending to the dream we seek, and not our own. For all that we forgive we will not fail to recognize as part of God Himself. And thus His memory is given back, completely and complete. It is our function to remember Him on earth, as it is given us to be His Own completion in reality. So let us not forget our goal is shared, for it is that remembrance which contains the memory of God, and points the way to Him and to the Heaven of His peace. And shall we not forgive our brother, who can offer this to us? He is the way, the truth and life that shows the way to us. In him resides salvation, offered us through our forgiveness, given unto him. We will not end this year without the gift our Father promised to His holy Son. We are forgiven now. And we are saved from all the wrath we thought belonged to God, and found it was a dream. W.fl.in
Benefits
Forgiveness offers everything you want. Today all things you want are given you. Let not your gifts recede throughout the day, as you return again to meet a world of shifting change and bleak appearances. Retain your gifts in clear awareness as you see the changeless in the heart of change; the light of truth behind appearances. Be tempted not to let your gifts slip by and drift into forgetfulness, but hold them firmly in your mind by your attempts to think of them at least a minute as each quarter of an hour passes by. Remind yourself how precious are these gifts with this reminder, which has power to hold your gifts in your awareness through the day: Forgiveness offers everything I want. Today I have accepted this as true. Today I have received the gifts of God. W-122 I will forgive, and this will disappear. W-193
Remember that in every attack you call upon your own weakness, while each time you forgive you call upon the strength of Christ in you. Do you not then begin to understand what forgiveness will do for you? It will remove all sense of weakness, strain and fatigue from your mind. It will take away all fear and guilt and pain. It will restore the invulnerability and power God gave His Son to your awareness. Illusions about yourself and the world are one. That is why all forgiveness is a gift to yourself. Your goal is to find out who you are, having denied your Identity by attacking creation and its Creator. Now you are learning how to remember the truth. For this attack must be replaced by forgiveness, so that thoughts of life may replace thoughts of death. W-62
What could you want forgiveness cannot give? Do you want peace? Forgiveness offers it. Do you want happiness, a quiet mind, a certainty of purpose, and a sense of worth and beauty that transcends the world? Do you want care and safety, and the warmth of sure protection always? Do you want a quietness that cannot be disturbed, a gentleness that never can be hurt, a deep, abiding comfort, and a rest so perfect it can never be upset?
All this forgiveness offers you, and more. It sparkles on your eyes as you awake, and gives you joy with which to meet the day. It soothes your forehead while you sleep, and rests upon your eyelids so you see no dreams of fear and evil, malice and attack. And when you wake again, it offers you another day of happiness and peace. All this forgiveness offers you, and more.
Forgiveness lets the veil be lifted up that hides the face of Christ from those who look with unforgiving eyes upon the world. It lets you recognize the Son of God, and clears your memory of all dead thoughts so that remembrance of your Father can arise across the threshold of your mind. What would you want forgiveness cannot give? What gifts but these are worthy to be sought? What fancied value, trivial effect or transient promise, never to be kept, can hold more hope than what forgiveness brings?
Why would you seek an answer other than the answer that will answer everything? Here is the perfect answer, given to imperfect questions, meaningless requests, halfhearted willingness to hear, and less than halfway diligence and partial trust. Here is the answer! Seek for it no more. You will not find another one instead.
Here is the answer! Would you stand outside while all of Heaven waits for you within? Forgive and be forgiven. As you give you will receive. There is no plan but this for the salvation of the Son of God. Let us today rejoice that this is so, for here we have an answer, clear and plain, beyond deceit in its simplicity. All the complexities the world has spun of fragile cobwebs disappear before the power and the majesty of this extremely simple statement of the truth.
Open your eyes today and look upon a happy world of safety and of peace. Forgiveness is the means by which it comes to take the place of hell. In quietness it rises up to greet your open eyes, and fill your heart with deep tranquility as ancient truths, forever newly born, arise in your awareness. What you will remember then can never be described. Yet your forgiveness offers it to you.
Remembering the gifts forgiveness gives, we undertake our practicing today with hope and faith that this will be the day salvation will be ours. Earnestly and gladly will we seek for it today, aware we hold the key within our hands, accepting Heaven's answer to the hell we made, but where we would remain no more.
Morning and evening do we gladly give a quarter of an hour to the search in which the end of hell is guaranteed. Begin in hopefulness, for we have reached the turning point at which the road becomes far easier. And now the way is short that yet we travel. We are close indeed to the appointed ending of the dream. W-333
Forgiveness in Meditation
Father, forgiveness is the light You chose to shine away all conflict and all doubt, and light the way for our return to You. No light but this can end our evil dream. No light but this can save the world. For this alone will never fail in anything, being Your gift to Your beloved Son. W-333
The only meaningful prayer is for forgiveness, because those who have been forgiven have everything. T-3.V.6
Sink into happiness as you begin these practice periods, for they hold out the sure rewards of questions answered and what your acceptance of the answer brings. Today it will be given you to feel the peace forgiveness offers, and the joy the lifting of the veil holds out to you. Before the light you will receive today the world will fade until it disappears, and you will see another world arise you have no words to picture. Now we walk directly into light, and we receive the gifts that have been held in store for us since time began, kept waiting for today. W-122
Father, forgiveness is Your chosen means for our salvation. Let us not forget today that we can have no will but Yours. And thus our purpose must be Yours as well, if we would reach the peace You will for us. W-257
Forgiveness is the only gift I give. Forgiveness is the only gift I give, because it is the only gift I want. And everything I give I give myself. This is salvation's simple formula. W-297
Forgiveness shows us that God's Will is One, and that we share it. Let us look upon theholy sights forgiveness shows today, that we may find the peace of God. Amen. W-331
Tags: Forgiveness
Change your Mind about the World
A helpful clarification
Jan 26th, 2010
David Hoffmeister recently communicated with a friend who was trying to “do good things” in the world and was confused when the Course said, “Seek not to change the world, but choose to change your mind about the world.” T-21.in.1
Here is David’s reply paraphrased:
You and I believe we are physical bodies. Otherwise we would not be communicating in bodies as we are. Our individual perception makes the physical world we see our reality. The Course is built around helping us let go of our accepted reality in physical form. So we stop trying to improve or change the world in a physical context. We seek instead to change it in a way that is beyond the physical—the metaphysical, or spiritual.
In that context we identify with being a Thought of God and we must learn to think only God Thoughts. We make our choices based on what God would “think.” God is Love, and forgiving is the closest we come to expressing that love in the world. So we use forgiveness to change the world.
Tags: Forgiveness
Relationship Agreement
Sample
Jan 26th, 2010
Our Relationship Agreement
We are each complete within ourselves.
Our thoughts make our reality.
We each want a loving relationship and
Seek to be in, and stay in, our right mind.
Tags: Relationships
Responsibility for Sight
The power of my wanting
Jan 24th, 2010
In a secret dream, I believed I separated from God and created myself, the ego. I felt tremendous guilt because of this sin and desperately wanted to hide from the responsibility of creating myself.
My desire was so great, and my mind so powerful, that I caused a dream world. I erased the memory that I was the dreamer of it and substituted the belief that I was just a figure in the dream of other people. I could now believe that someone else: my parents, spouse, boss or friends, caused my happiness and my upsets.
Tags: Ego Forgiveness Guilt Love
Holy Relationship - Means to Oneness
The light of the holy relationship
Jan 23rd, 2010
You are one with God and every aspect of creation. God’s power is yours. Attack is impossible because the universe is one.
But you will not remember this while you believe attack of any kind means anything. [Your wrong mind uses attack in its ongoing attempt to prove separation.] Because of fear, you think the Father and the Son are separate. And it seems safer to attack another than to attack the great Creator of the universe.
Yet every sin and every condemnation that you perceive and justify is an attack upon your Father. You choose attack because you see it separated from its maker [yourself. You project attack onto the other, then feel justified in your defense.] And thus it seems as if love could attack and become fearful. It has no meaning. Attack is impossible because the universe is one. And that is why it has not happened, nor could be real.
Because you and your brother are not different, you cannot attack. It is necessary that you have experiences in line with truth to teach you what is natural and true. This is the function of your holy relationship. For what one thinks, the other will experience with him. What can this mean except your mind and your brother's are one? And every thought in one brings gladness to the other because they are the same. T-22.VI.11-14
This holy relationship, lovely in its innocence, mighty in strength, and blazing with a light far brighter than the sun that lights the sky you see, is chosen of your Father as a means for His Own plan. This holy relationship has the power to heal all pain, regardless of its form. Only in your joint will does healing lie. For here your healing is, and here will you accept Atonement. And in your healing is the Sonship healed because your will and your brother's are joined.
Before a holy relationship there is no sin. The form of error is no longer seen, [because I no longer read false meaning into what I projected]; and reason, joined with love, looks quietly on all confusion, observing merely, "This was a mistake." And then the same Atonement you accepted in your relationship corrects the error. T-22.VI.4-5
You will see your value through your brother's eyes, and each one is released as he beholds his savior in place of the attacker who he thought was there. Through this releasing is the world released. This is your part in bringing peace. For you have asked what is your function here, and have been answered [forgiveness]. Seek not to change it, nor to substitute another goal. This one was given you, and only this. Accept this one and serve it willingly, for what the Holy Spirit does with gifts you give your brother, to whom He offers them, and where and when, is up to Him. He will bestow them where they are received and welcomed. He will use every one of them for peace. Nor will one little smile or willingness to overlook the tiniest mistake be lost to anyone. T-22.VI.8
Child of peace, the light has come to you. T-22.VI.6
My Relationship with my Brother
Tags: Forgiveness Relationships
Updated Posts
Information added
Jan 21st, 2010
These posts have just been updated with additional information:
Reversing Effect and Cause – Getting to the Bottom of the Belief in Linear Time - summary
The Script is Written
False Beliefs
The Five Levels of Mind
Movie Guide Supplement
Tags:
Be You in Charge
For I would follow You
Jan 19th, 2010
I was restless during my meditation this morning. I tried all my usual ways to become still, but none of them worked. Then I remembered a phrase I usually say to myself and tried it:
This holy instant would I give to you.
Be You in charge. For I would follow You,
Certain that Your direction gives me peace.
Tags: Awakening Ego Forgiveness Guilt Judgment
Advaita Vedanta and ACIM
David Hoffmeister speaks on non-dualistic philosophy in Belgium
Jan 17th, 2010
Advaita Vedanta is basically like A Course in Miracles and, at the highest point—the experience— they meet. The metaphysics of the Course are very deep and some parts are not talked about in the Advaita Vedanta. The Course is a training program that has many stepping stone teachings, but the Course is not internally consistent. Both philosophies agree that “I need do nothing,” and that at the highest level there is no ego. But there are several differences between them. The Course differentiates between choice and free will, saying in the Clarification of Terms that there is no free will in this world. Free will is just pure happiness. The Advaita Vedanta says that at the highest level there is no choice. They lead to the same place. Some find it difficult, because these philosophies don’t meet with their experiences in this world. I am equally comfortable with both.
Enlightenment is an experience without exceptions; the personal experience disappears; it is an impersonal state of mind. Practical things still get done. We just had 25 people living together in Mallorca for a month, with all the usual cooking and laundry things to get done. Yet, without anyone giving instructions, we were all practicing guidance, being in the flow. There is no practice in the Advaita Vedanta. The Course provides a program of exercises that you can practice. In the Course, Jesus says that miracles should be involuntary, not under conscious control; one is in a state of full acceptance. Advaita Vedanta can be frustrating because one can see lazy or apathetic people who have a sort of acceptance; they just don’t care about anything. But they have no consistent state of joy, so it isn’t enlightenment.
Tags: Awakening
Living Experience of Forgiveness
Told by Erik and Armelle Archbold
Jan 16th, 2010
This posting is about an amazing story/opportunity now unfolding.
In October 2009 Armelle was guided to marry Erik on two weeks notice, even though she had never met him, and go on a world tour with him to demonstrate Healing the Mind. He promptly agreed to both ideas; they were married, and the tour has begun.
Many Forms One Correction
There is no loss
Jan 15th, 2010
David Hoffmeister: Today we’ll look at form and content. This Course sentence is probably an idea you’re familiar with: "The only judgment involved is the Holy Spirit's one division into two categories; one of love, and the other the call for love." T-14.X.7.
The Holy Spirit sorts all the messages that the mind seems to receive from the outside world into two categories. One is an extension of love, when you feel a warm resonance, like love is being extended to you. And the other one is the call for love: when someone is in fear or believes in the lack of love, then they’re calling for love. If it’s a call for love, then you need to answer with love.
Private Thoughts
Awakening Mind summary
Jan 12th, 2010
Private Thoughts Are an Ego Defense
The ego cannot separate What God created as One. No thought of disharmony can stand the Light of Truth. All things work together for good because there is a common perspective which sees all things as illusory. In quietness are all concerns already answered and is every seeming problem already resolved.
There is nothing to fear in honesty inquiry. Stop running and avoiding and projecting and justifying and rationalizing what you think you know. Admit that you have been deceived and be open to question all that you think you know. How else can you allow for a complete change of mind about yourself, and accept your Reality as the Self God created? Stop pretending that you are an autonomous, independent person who knows something of Divine Mind. The Mind and body have no meeting point, no point of reconciliation. You are not a person with a mind. You are wholly, purely, completely Mind. True independence is not the independence of autonomy but of complete dependence on God. Surrender all ideas of what you think you are to the Holy Spirit and allow Him to teach you to forgive and thus remember Divine Mind.
The ego made the world and all idols to distract you from looking within and following the Teacher Who remembers your innocence. The ego wants you to find scapegoats to bear the blame, and idols to raise up and cling to that you may retain autonomy and independence as a person with a separate will, be it leader or follower. Open to the Teacher within, and hear Him speak to you through a variety of symbols in which you believe. The world is nothing but a representation of private thoughts. The Holy Spirit uses what was made in hate to teach the meaning of true forgiveness. Meaning is within. Meaninglessness is outside.
The ego says, "You don't need to look at the ego, just love." Can one love a world of images, something which was made to take the place of God? The world was made by belief, not by God. Can one remember love, which has been veiled from awareness by belief, without questioning such belief? Jesus has said: "To learn this course requires willingness to question every value that you hold. Not one can be kept hidden and obscure but it win jeopardize your learning."
“No one can escape from illusions unless he looks at them, for not looking is the way they are protected. There is no need to shrink from illusions, for they cannot be dangerous. We are ready to look more closely at the ego's thought system because together we have the lamp that will dispel it, and since you realize you do not want it, you must be ready." T-11.V.1. Don’t be fooled into thinking you can forgive a world without raising to awareness the belief system that made it. The mind cannot release what it has denied from awareness.
The ego demands its freedom: "I will not be confined by another person, institution, teacher, group or set of rules. I am a free person." The ego tells the mind that it is possible for a person to be free from a world external to itself. The ego feels free when it’s not being looked at. It does not bring to awareness the law "ideas leave not there source" and the realization that there is no world apart from one's mind. Persons can never be free, for the mind that believes it is a person has enslaved itself by deception. One cannot be mind and body, spirit and matter, eternal and temporary.
The concept of person is an attempt to combine or reconcile what can never be combined or reconciled. Since there is no world apart from the mind, there are no "other" persons, institutions, or sets of rules" outside." Images can seem to act out the belief in control, but can do no more than symbolize the illusion of control, since God did not create control. Freedom from control cannot, therefore, come to a mind which believes it is a person in a world external to itself: but only to a mind which realizes it has dreamed the entire world and that the world is merely a world of ideas. The forgiven world is quickly forgotten and the Kingdom of Heaven, Life Eternal, is True Freedom.
Your mind is powerful, powerful enough to make a world, to make up bodies and construct institutions within time and space. Only a mind that believes itself to be a body, a person, in a world of other persons and institutions, groups, external to itself could perceive itself as capable of being controlled, institutionalized, or feel happier because another body is not around. One is responsible for choosing peace. Nothing can happen to oneself apart from what the mind desires, and if one wholly desires the peace of God and nothing else, that must be one's experience.
The ego always focuses on specifics and persons, past and future, for it has no awareness of the Holy Spirit's purpose in the present. When you notice that your mind is preoccupied with such senseless musings, choose again. The miracle will remind you that the false is false, and you will feel the ease of your position on High, above the battleground. There is no peace, no safety, and no security on the battleground of thoughts of persons and specifics. Be clear of what you really want, and you will not feel the need to pay attention to the world of images. The truth is the light within.
Private Thoughts Block the Holy Instant
If I have no private thoughts, I cannot see a private world. I can also call upon my real thoughts, which share everything with everyone. As my thoughts of separation call to the separation thoughts of others, so my real thoughts awaken the real thoughts in them. And the world my real thoughts show me will dawn on their sight as well as mine. W-54.3. (18)
The holy instant is a time in which you receive and give perfect communication. It is a time in which your mind is open, both to receive and give. It is the recognition that all minds are in communication. It therefore seeks to change nothing, but merely to accept everything. T-15.IV.6
How can you do this when you would prefer to have private thoughts and keep them? The only way you could do that would be to deny the perfect communication that makes the holy instant what it is. You believe you can harbor thoughts you would not share, and that salvation lies in keeping thoughts to yourself alone. For in private thoughts, known only to yourself, you think you find a way to keep what you would have alone, and share what you would share. And then you wonder why it is that you are not in full communication with those around you, and with God Who surrounds all of you together. T-15.IV.7
Every thought you would keep hidden shuts communication off, because you would have it so. It is impossible to recognize perfect communication while breaking communication holds value to you. Ask yourself honestly, "Would I want to have perfect communication, and am I wholly willing to let everything that interferes with it go forever?" If the answer is no, then the Holy Spirit's readiness to give it to you is not enough to make it yours, for you are not ready to share it with Him. And it cannot come into a mind that has decided to oppose it. For the holy instant is given and received with equal willingness, being the acceptance of the single Will that governs all thought. T-15.IV.8.
The necessary condition for the holy instant does not require that you have no thoughts that are not pure. But it does require that you have none that you would keep. Innocence is not of your making. It is given you the instant you would have it. Atonement would not be if there were no need for it. You will not be able to accept perfect communication as long as you would hide it from yourself. For what you would hide [is] hidden from you. In your practice, then, try only to be vigilant against deception, and seek not to protect the thoughts you would keep to yourself. Let the Holy Spirit's purity shine them away, and bring all your awareness to the readiness for purity He offers you. Thus will He make you ready to acknowledge that you are host to God, and hostage to no one and to nothing. T-15.IV.9.
Exposing Private Thoughts
It is important to expose private thoughts in order to be in full communication, which is the only state in which God can be known. The ego wants to keep them hidden and will always defend against exposing private thoughts. Having "no private thoughts," however, is a fast-track for healing. Intense as it may be at first, trusting mighty companions and being willing to "put it out there" brings peace, because then you can see that the thoughts are not true; they are not reflective of who you are, which allows you to laugh at them.
We all have private thoughts. It is important not to try and hide your private thoughts, because to do that is to give them value, which is to make them real to you. The best alternative view is to look at the world as if it were a fairy tale in which everything is symbolic. There are no serious consequences; just stay in the present remembering that you are dreaming.
The purpose of Holy relationship is healing, seeing the perfect Christ in ourselves and in each other. In relationships, issues may come up around expectations for intimacy and role expectations. Each time your peace is disturbed, whenever you feel irritated or unsettled, it is an opportunity to take an honest look at your beliefs and bring them up so they can be released. When they are cleared you can see things differently. But trust is needed to bring them up.
Here is an example: “The first time I really ‘let loose’ with my partner, I had been suppressing my feelings for a while because I knew that what I was annoyed about wasn't his fault. I knew intellectually that it was all in my mind and that I was projecting it all on to him, and so I either repressed the negative thoughts or I handed them over to the Holy Spirit and hoped that they were gone. Well they weren't. I flicked them away and they kept coming back to annoy me again and again. And it felt so personal! I couldn't possibly say these judgmental, insulting, persnickety things to him!
“As I kept distancing myself from these thoughts, I found myself distancing myself from him, which just seemed to make it all worse. Finally it all had to come up. Jesus says that when one of you is letting it come up, the role of the other is to stay in his right mind, to hold with the Holy Spirit and remember his indebtedness to his brother.”
When we take the plunge and allow ourselves to take the lid off and uncover what is down there, we give ourselves the opportunity to heal. Our relationships can only become more trusting, loving, open and honest when we continue to trust the Holy Spirit and allow him to lead the way.
Tags: Ego
I Want the Peace of God
I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.
Jan 11th, 2010
I want the peace of God. The peace of God is everything I want. The peace of God is my one goal; the aim of all my living here, the end I seek, my purpose and my function and my life, while I abide where I am not at home. W-205
| I am not a body. I am free. I am not a person. I do not have a separate mind. |
For I am still as God created me. I am spirit, the Son of God. There is only One Mind. |
I must choose to hear one of two voices in my mind.
1) In the past I chose to listen to the ego, or self-concept, which is the voice for separation.
Listening to the ego I perceived an objective world and kept busy in it. This demonstrated my choice to be separate from God. I used everything and everyone to maintain separation.
Tags: Forgiveness
I Don’t Know
What the darkness is
Jan 09th, 2010
When my older brother committed suicide I was 19 and my world fell apart. He was my idol and my hero. He alone made sense to me in an alcoholic household. My whole belief system seemed to collapse with his death. I felt I no longer knew anything about life, except that I didn’t fit in it. Depressed, I hitchhiked around Europe for a few months, then took the ferry over to Tangiers, intent on crawling off, perhaps to die.
The main square in Marrakesh was surreally bright, hot and almost completely deserted in the middle of the day. In the distance I heard the light tinkle of laughter. It was such a free and breezy sound I was drawn toward it. I found an American couple trying to communicate with a Moroccan electrician who spoke French, Berber and Arabic, but no English. Yet they were all not only good-natured about their misunderstandings, they were really enjoying them. Michael and Lee would slowly ask “Joe” a question. He would pause a second, then earnestly reply. They would look at each other with puzzled faces, make playful guesses about what they thought he said, and burst out laughing. He would laugh too. They were walking slowly along having a great time and getting nowhere.
Tags: Love
The Ego’s Theater
Cause, effect and time
Jan 08th, 2010
God is. God is Cause and His Effect is His Son. Both create with their thoughts. Cause and effect are simultaneous. All is One.
In a single instant, a thought believed separation from God could be possible, fell into a dream, made the world of form and time, and forgot doing so.
The belief in separation then seemed to separate into separate minds, each in a body with which it identified. The wrong mind made the world like a movie theatre to keep the mind deceived while attempting to manage its guilt and its fear of being punished by God for the sin of separation.
To make the movie convincing, the wrong mind split cause and effect apart and turned them around. The wrong mind’s special effects process worked like this: The wrong mind, (false) cause would project its guilt as a thought-image (effect) onto the screen of the world. Then, in a gap in linear time immediately after each projection, it would forget having projected it. The mind would then perceive the image as a real independent agent attacking its innocence. Thus the thought-image that started as effect reappeared as a causal agent, and a guilty one at that. The mind would then plan and execute its defense against it. This process presented itself as a constant steam of (false) perception, making it appear as though illusions from the past determined the present. The mind was doing this to itself with no awareness that the wrong mind was making it all up.
“What you believe is true for you. In this sense the separation has occurred.” T-2.VII.5.
We pretend to live in this nightmare past. The mind is addicted to fear, to the wrong mind. It attempts to resolve its fears and problems by the magic of changing or rearranging images in the world. This may appear to work for a time, but it never really works because the fear is not in the world; it has just been set up to appear there. The fear is in the mind.
But we are saved. In the instant of the separation illusion, God placed the Holy Spirit in the mind. Each moment the mind has a choice between the right mind of Love and the wrong mind of fear.
Mastery through Love is the only way for us to resolve our problems. Forgiveness, seeing the false as false and allowing correction by the Holy Spirit, is a reflection of love. To choose the right mind is to choose miracle-minded thinking. A miracle is a present decision to forgive that ends wrong-minded thought, thus collapsing time and returning the mind to love. Fear guilt and anger are no more; in place of the reeking movie theater, the Holy Spirit gives us the smiling and peaceful real world.
I Give Purpose
There are only two purposes
Jan 04th, 2010
The Purpose of Separation requires multiple choices in form.
It is never the forms that I am watching that upset me.
It is the thought that if things were different I would be better off.
This thought occurs because I am feeling incompletion and lack within.
I have forgotten my mistaken choice—the choice for separation (fear, guilt, death), for the ego thought system.
I think there is something to do, something to choose between.
I select images, make orders of objects and sequence events.
This is judgment, the making of my reality, the usurping of God, for which I feel guilt.
My beliefs are projected on the screen of the world and guilt is attributed to a doing or a not-doing.
But there are no real choices between specifics in form because all are unreal projections.
Each choice is based on the false premise that I am a person, the subject, the ego.
If I am feeling upset I am choosing separation, giving value to the ego, believing that the past is present.
Tags: Awakening Ego Forgiveness Guilt Judgment
