By grace we live, by grace we are released. I love that idea! I get it! Of myself, as Jesus said, I can do nothing. And he also said, it is my father in heaven who doeth the work. It means I am most mySelf when I am not myself. It means that I am not the pathetic, puny, frightened mouse ego, but the peace, harmony and glory of spirit itself – mySelf.
More and more lately, each time I can forgive myself for thinking I’m a separate ego entity, and not blame myself fearing punishment for the original sin of thinking myself separate, and remember, by grace I live, by grace I am released, each time I am able to experience the reality of those words, I am able to experience the reality of those words – grace, peace, joy, even anticipation and a little excitement. I feel like a kid on Christmas morning, eager to see what Santa has brought him, knowing that whatever it is, whatever transpires – big coaching contract or computer crash – will, if I allow it and get my bloated nothingness out of the way, bring me a reflection of my spiritual reality.
By grace we live, by grace we are released. Think about it; feel it - by grace we live, by grace we are released – and let it be true for you, too.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
By Grace We Live, By Grace We Are Released
By grace we live, by grace we are released. I love that idea! I get it! Of myself, as Jesus said, I can do nothing. And he also said, it is my father in heaven who doeth the work. It means I am most mySelf when I am not myself. It means that I am not the pathetic, puny, frightened mouse ego, but the peace, harmony and glory of spirit itself – mySelf.
More and more lately, each time I can forgive myself for thinking I’m a separate ego entity, and not blame myself fearing punishment for the original sin of thinking myself separate, and remember, by grace I live, by grace I am released, each time I am able to experience the reality of those words, I am able to experience the reality of those words – grace, peace, joy, even anticipation and a little excitement. I feel like a kid on Christmas morning, eager to see what Santa has brought him, knowing that whatever it is, whatever transpires – big coaching contract or computer crash – will, if I allow it and get my bloated nothingness out of the way, bring me a reflection of my spiritual reality.
By grace we live, by grace we are released. Think about it; feel it - by grace we live, by grace we are released – and let it be true for you, too.
More and more lately, each time I can forgive myself for thinking I’m a separate ego entity, and not blame myself fearing punishment for the original sin of thinking myself separate, and remember, by grace I live, by grace I am released, each time I am able to experience the reality of those words, I am able to experience the reality of those words – grace, peace, joy, even anticipation and a little excitement. I feel like a kid on Christmas morning, eager to see what Santa has brought him, knowing that whatever it is, whatever transpires – big coaching contract or computer crash – will, if I allow it and get my bloated nothingness out of the way, bring me a reflection of my spiritual reality.
By grace we live, by grace we are released. Think about it; feel it - by grace we live, by grace we are released – and let it be true for you, too.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Forgiveness
Forgiveness reflects the willingness and the choice to experience our experience in the illusion differently. Each person, place or thing we forgive, returns us to our minds and allows the decision maker choose again, this time, this second, this moment, selecting spirit instead of the ego.
Forgiveness is about changing the focus from body to mind, from the specific to the general, allowing us to experience the world as a learning laboratory. Each time we forgive, and we need to forgive constantly, we learn we are not sinful body/minds, but spiritual beings who have simply made a mistake in the choice of our teacher.
Learning we have made a mistaken choice is the only useful purpose the world serves. Allowing ourselves to experience our experience here as a learning laboratory is the best that can come from the ego’s illusion. Constantly forgiving everyone and everything we experience here for what they have not done, returns our focus to the mind’s decision for guilt, and to release the guilt, fear and pain.
By grace we live, by grace we are released.
There is nothing out there to forgive in any event, for ideas leave not their source. If I’m thinking I’m a guilty, sinful, evil, fearful body/mind then I’m with ego. If I forgive those thoughts and seek to experience my real thoughts as spirit, I will no longer feel like a guilty, sinful, evil, fearful body/mind, but feel like a spiritual being connected to my Source. Ideas leave not their source.
We need not be concerned with the many forms taken by the one idea of separation from spirit - the root cause and source of the ego’s ‘reality’, because they are all as illusory as their source, all incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial, existing only to serve the ego’s purpose of distracting us from the mind’s ability to choose forgiveness. Learning to forgive ourselves our mistaken choice, and in turn forgive the myriad forms out there, gives us a moment of grace and reflects our reality as spirit.
Forgiveness is about changing the focus from body to mind, from the specific to the general, allowing us to experience the world as a learning laboratory. Each time we forgive, and we need to forgive constantly, we learn we are not sinful body/minds, but spiritual beings who have simply made a mistake in the choice of our teacher.
Learning we have made a mistaken choice is the only useful purpose the world serves. Allowing ourselves to experience our experience here as a learning laboratory is the best that can come from the ego’s illusion. Constantly forgiving everyone and everything we experience here for what they have not done, returns our focus to the mind’s decision for guilt, and to release the guilt, fear and pain.
By grace we live, by grace we are released.
There is nothing out there to forgive in any event, for ideas leave not their source. If I’m thinking I’m a guilty, sinful, evil, fearful body/mind then I’m with ego. If I forgive those thoughts and seek to experience my real thoughts as spirit, I will no longer feel like a guilty, sinful, evil, fearful body/mind, but feel like a spiritual being connected to my Source. Ideas leave not their source.
We need not be concerned with the many forms taken by the one idea of separation from spirit - the root cause and source of the ego’s ‘reality’, because they are all as illusory as their source, all incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial, existing only to serve the ego’s purpose of distracting us from the mind’s ability to choose forgiveness. Learning to forgive ourselves our mistaken choice, and in turn forgive the myriad forms out there, gives us a moment of grace and reflects our reality as spirit.
Monday, November 28, 2011
Purpose
Purpose – whether to awaken our spiritual reality, or sleep in the ego’s world illusion, is the sole determiner of meaning, uniting our disparate perceptions and reactions, allowing them to contribute to or disturb our inner peace. “Pain,” the Course says, “demonstrates the body must be real. It is a loud, obscuring voice whose shrieks would silence [the still small voice within us].
“Pain compels attention, drawing it away from [our reality] and focusing upon itself. Its purpose is the same as pleasure, for they both are means to make the body real. What shares a common purpose is the same. This is the law of purpose, which unites all those who share in it within itself.”
And so, the Course asks us to share true perception, the vision that sees beyond the illusions of differences, to the truth of the inner sameness of our minds. Using it, we can come to understand that since it’s all illusions, there can be no hierarchy of illusions - one being ‘better’ or ‘more important’ than the other, that everything we perceive with the ego is equally meaningless.
What is meaningful is how we interpret what we experience, who our teacher and guide is, whether our decision maker has chosen the ego or spirit. If we are able to be aware of the decision maker in our minds, then, when we experience the madness of believing in the ego, we are able to shift our purpose and teacher from remaining mired in the ego’s dreamworld of guilt - form over content, to awakening from this nightmare into the reality of our shared identity of oneness as spiritual beings, “God’s innocent Son” [masculine language courtesy of the Course].
“Pain compels attention, drawing it away from [our reality] and focusing upon itself. Its purpose is the same as pleasure, for they both are means to make the body real. What shares a common purpose is the same. This is the law of purpose, which unites all those who share in it within itself.”
And so, the Course asks us to share true perception, the vision that sees beyond the illusions of differences, to the truth of the inner sameness of our minds. Using it, we can come to understand that since it’s all illusions, there can be no hierarchy of illusions - one being ‘better’ or ‘more important’ than the other, that everything we perceive with the ego is equally meaningless.
What is meaningful is how we interpret what we experience, who our teacher and guide is, whether our decision maker has chosen the ego or spirit. If we are able to be aware of the decision maker in our minds, then, when we experience the madness of believing in the ego, we are able to shift our purpose and teacher from remaining mired in the ego’s dreamworld of guilt - form over content, to awakening from this nightmare into the reality of our shared identity of oneness as spiritual beings, “God’s innocent Son” [masculine language courtesy of the Course].
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Non-Existent Problems
Seek but do not find is a core dynamic of the ego’s strategy to use the world to keep the problem of the decision maker’s wrong decision from awareness. The ego knows that a problem cannot be solved if you do not know what it is. That’s why it keeps us busy in the world. The problem of separation, which is really the only problem, has already been solved; indeed, it never happened. All the complexity of the world is but a desperate attempt not to recognize the real problem, and therefore not to let it be resolved.
The ego loves to make up nonexsistent problems and trick us into devoting our time and energy to solving them. Haven’t you noticed this phenomena in your own life, where something seems like a problem and you wonder and worry and as it unfolds it’s no problem at all? So much of our experience is coming up with solutions to nonexistent problems. One of my favorite sayings in the Course helps me remember this – I am never upset for the reasons I think. There is only one reason I am upset and one problem to be soled, my mistaken belief that the impossible has happened and I have separated from God.
That’s what forgiveness can help us understand, that there is no real reason for guilt, fear and terror except in the illusion; that when we’re feeling guilt, fear and terror we need to know we’re experiencing the illusion and need to forgive ourselves and the other people and things we mistakenly believe are the cause of our misperceptions. Trying to work out the seeming problem’s meaning, why is it there, why it is happening now instead of yesterday or tomorrow, why me and not my friend - is all taking the tiny mad idea of separation seriously.
Saying, ‘oh, well, there I go again,’ is the way to deal with taking things and seeming problems too seriously and returning our minds to choosing again.
The ego loves to make up nonexsistent problems and trick us into devoting our time and energy to solving them. Haven’t you noticed this phenomena in your own life, where something seems like a problem and you wonder and worry and as it unfolds it’s no problem at all? So much of our experience is coming up with solutions to nonexistent problems. One of my favorite sayings in the Course helps me remember this – I am never upset for the reasons I think. There is only one reason I am upset and one problem to be soled, my mistaken belief that the impossible has happened and I have separated from God.
That’s what forgiveness can help us understand, that there is no real reason for guilt, fear and terror except in the illusion; that when we’re feeling guilt, fear and terror we need to know we’re experiencing the illusion and need to forgive ourselves and the other people and things we mistakenly believe are the cause of our misperceptions. Trying to work out the seeming problem’s meaning, why is it there, why it is happening now instead of yesterday or tomorrow, why me and not my friend - is all taking the tiny mad idea of separation seriously.
Saying, ‘oh, well, there I go again,’ is the way to deal with taking things and seeming problems too seriously and returning our minds to choosing again.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Illusions
Despite the ego’s lies about the reality of specific forms and validity of our perceptions, we remain abstract spirit. The forms the illusions take are nothing - no thing. What is true is true and what is false is false – the size, shape and significance [to the ego] of the illusory forms notwithstanding.
The truth of this is available in our experience of being in our right minds, awaiting our joyful acceptance. The separation never happened, the impossible could not have happened! This means that not only does the problem of guilt, fear and pain engendered by the belief in the separation rest firmly in the mind’s content [the decision maker’s choice] and not the bodily world of form, but so does the solution – forgiveness – releasing the seeming reality of the illusion and accepting the peace of our, and everyone and everything’s, reality as spirit.
Yet this solution cannot be chosen if we deny the only place it can be found – our mind’s and the decision maker’s choice. That’s why looking to the world for happiness makes no sense and is like going up to the movie screen to fix an out of focus film. We continuously search for solutions to our perceived multitudinous problems in a world that was specifically designed not to have us discover them.
The truth of this is available in our experience of being in our right minds, awaiting our joyful acceptance. The separation never happened, the impossible could not have happened! This means that not only does the problem of guilt, fear and pain engendered by the belief in the separation rest firmly in the mind’s content [the decision maker’s choice] and not the bodily world of form, but so does the solution – forgiveness – releasing the seeming reality of the illusion and accepting the peace of our, and everyone and everything’s, reality as spirit.
Yet this solution cannot be chosen if we deny the only place it can be found – our mind’s and the decision maker’s choice. That’s why looking to the world for happiness makes no sense and is like going up to the movie screen to fix an out of focus film. We continuously search for solutions to our perceived multitudinous problems in a world that was specifically designed not to have us discover them.
Monday, November 21, 2011
War and Peace
Only the mind’s purpose – who the decision maker has chosen - spirit or ego – establishes the holiness or unholiness of the external, not the value or lack of value we perceive in an object. Since our attraction as egos is always to form and form is unreal and illusory, how can there really be holy lands, books, garments, people, or theologies? Only the non-ego formlessness of spirit is holy. Externals can reflect the decision maker’s choice for spirit, but in and of themselves, they can never be holy.
Thus all conflicts and wars are, especially the ‘holy’ ones fought over plots of earth, stones and thought systems, absurd and meaningless. They are, without exception, mere acting out in form the mind’s conflict between itself and itSelf, our bloated ego nothingness trying to make itself right and spirit wrong.
As long as we believe, as you and I do, in the reality of duality, of a self separated from itSelf, and stay locked in conflicts and wars, the sheer insanity of the basic conflict remains safely buried within the locked vaults of the mind, entry forbidden the Sons of God who think they are bodies. The good news is we are free within the dream to believe whatever we wish, but such belief has no effect upon our Self and Reality. We remain as God created us, one with It, now and forever.
Thus all conflicts and wars are, especially the ‘holy’ ones fought over plots of earth, stones and thought systems, absurd and meaningless. They are, without exception, mere acting out in form the mind’s conflict between itself and itSelf, our bloated ego nothingness trying to make itself right and spirit wrong.
As long as we believe, as you and I do, in the reality of duality, of a self separated from itSelf, and stay locked in conflicts and wars, the sheer insanity of the basic conflict remains safely buried within the locked vaults of the mind, entry forbidden the Sons of God who think they are bodies. The good news is we are free within the dream to believe whatever we wish, but such belief has no effect upon our Self and Reality. We remain as God created us, one with It, now and forever.
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