Friday, December 30, 2011

Prayers Transformed for the New Year

Each morning, my wife and I pray and do affirmations. The prayers we use are a mix of traditional Hebrew and New Thought. The following are three of the traditional prayers, transformed into New Thought:

Blessed art thou, oh Lord our god, king of the universe. Heneni, rebono shell olam.

Blessed are we, oh wondrous Spirit, one with everything and everyone; fully present in and around us, right now. We feel Your guidance, love, grace, compassion and peace and joyously allow it to use us. Thank You.


And I love the Lord my God with all my heart, all my soul and all my might.

And I feel the peace, joy and compassion of my oneness with Spirit constantly, all the time, and in all that transpires, and allow it to flow through me into the world.

Thursday, December 29, 2011

Forgiveness and Sameness

“God’s sons [and daughters, the Course’s name for our un-separated Selves] are equal to each other, for they share not only the same mind but the same goal: a unity of self and purpose,” Ken Wapnick says. “Recognizing this shared purpose undoes the belief in differences that was the foundation of sin [the idea that we separated from God and by so doing, destroyed Him, thus sinning]. The vision of sameness becomes the radiant means of salvation, leading us out of the darkness of sin into the light of Heaven’s love.”

“You and your brother are the same,” the Course says, “as God Himself in One and not divided in His Will. And you must have one purpose, since He gave the same to both of you [without favor, be you Muslim or Buddhist, Jew or Christian]. To you and your brother is given the power of salvation [not only to Jesus]; that escape from darkness into light be yours to share; that you may see as one what has never been separate, nor apart from all God’s Love as given equally.”

Thus, “kindness is inevitable, and is the only joyful response to the world, regardless of what seems to happen.” Since we are all the same to forgive one, to awake and realize what seemed to happen didn’t really happen because it is part of the ego’s nightmare, is to forgive all. “Our only task,” Ken says, “is to forgive the person in front of us – mentally [if only in our thoughts, the person could be dead] or physically. The extension of our forgiveness to the entire world [and thus, salvation] happens automatically.

“Leave then, the transfer of your learning to the One Who really understands its laws, and Who will guarantee that they remain unviolated and unlimited.” I will work with the person before me now [especially myself, but know that] thousands stand behind him, and beyond each one of them are a thousand more.” My only task is to forgive the person in front of me.

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

We are all the same

Everyone - Democrats and Republicans, terrorists and victims, male and female – is wrestling with the same basic problem/opportunity – release of the ego nightmare and awakening to spirit – and therefore we are all the same. How would it be if we acted as if this was true – that we share the same basic problem/opportunity? Would we be more peaceful, compassionate, kinder? Probably.

There is not one of us who deep within does not experience the pain of existence, a yearning for an end to the suffering that seems endless and without purpose. In desperation we silently cry out for help, but hear only the ego’s call to analyze, judge, blame, then attack and punish; all maladaptive attempts to find relief from the guilt of our original sin - the ego idea that we have separated from God and destroyed Him. This actually reinforces the very guilt we are attempting to defend against (defenses do what they would defend), leaving all of us – victim and victimizer, guilty and innocent – locked in the ego’s vicious circle and prison of sin.

To see everyone the same and wrestling with the same basic problem/opportunity is to understand that all the forms of attack – blame, judgment, doubt and fear – are never justified; that judgment is impossible, and peace our only true emotion. The Course says, “I will be still an instant [cease struggling, analyzing, judging, blaming, attacking and punishing] and go [be] home [awake and aware of my spiritual reality].”

To see everyone the same and wrestling with the same basic problem/opportunity is to understand that no one and no thing can truly harm us. For sure we can be battered and bruised here in the illusion, but what could stand against the truth of our reality as spirit? That’s what the famous bible story of the fiery furnace and Meeshack, Shadrack and Abednego was trying to show us.

Peace, joy and salvation are available right now, regardless of what seems to be happening here; because in truth, nothing is happening here. It’s all in our minds, not our brains, and once we return to the awareness that mind is the only player in the ego’s game of separation, that in fact the separation never happened, we will know that the mind is a decision making tool we can use right this second, and that we always have the ability to choose peace and joy over imprisonment and pain.

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Judgment and Regret

Lately, I notice a feeling of regret and guilt when I blame, criticize or judge another person, or even myself. The feeling of regret doesn’t always come immediately after I do the deed, tho it does more and more, but usually a little later when I’ve had a chance to reflect and be centered. My thoughts go something like: There I go again! Or, what did that accomplish? Or, feel better now? Or, gee, I could have had a V8 (juice) – made things better, instead of worse. The more I’m able to catch myself doing what I don’t want to do, being with the ego instead of spirit, the more I’m able to be with spirit instead of the ego.

The decision for the right-minded teacher, spirit, is the choice for vision over judgment. It is the moment to moment release of the ego’s nightmare that is held in place by my belief that my judgments of myself and others are justified and deserved. As soon as I become aware of thinking that my judgments of myself and others are justified and deserved, it’s time to pause and say: There I go again! Or, what did that accomplish? Or, feel better now? Or, gee, I could have had a V8.

Judgment, a form of attack, is impossible when I appreciate that everyone: Democrats and Republicans, terrorists and victims, male and female, are all wrestling with the same basic problem/opportunity – release of the ego nightmare and awakening to spirit – and therefore we are all the same.

Attack and judgment are merely mental/emotional tricks, defenses set up by the ego, to keep us busy here in the world, instead of being with spirit. In truth, we are alike in sharing the shared interest in awakening from this hellish dream of separation and death. And a simple thing like being aware I’m judging and blaming then pausing to say: There I go again! Or, what did that accomplish? Or, feel better now? Or, gee, I could have had a V8, can move us towards awakening.

Friday, December 23, 2011

Victory for the Terrorists Denied, 4

Does this – this pain, joy, news report, this experience – impede or contribute to my goal of awakening from the ego’s dream of separation? That’s all I need do, just ask this question. No analysis of the news, or source of the pain or joy, for all that is illusion, tho God help me, I believe it’s real; and so do you. That’s what we have in common – two things: the belief that the illusion is real and the need to wake from it.

Asking this question each time we find ourselves taking things seriously, which is all the time, will undo the ego and is part of the process of awakening from its illusion. This question shifts our focus from the nearly all consuming world of the ego to the source of our ego experience, the decision maker in my mind.

In truth, you and I are not held captive by what the Course calls the body’s “engine of destruction” nor its “rotting prison”, but only by the mind’s having chosen the wrong teacher, the voice for differences and specialness, rather than the voice for sameness and oneness. And that being the case, we can choose again.

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Victory for the Terrorists Denied, 3

The Course in Miracles reinforces the need for us to take responsibility for the way we think about things, such as the ‘threats’ in the defense authorization legislation, and work from the inside out to deal with them. Doing that instead of blaming and fearing what’s outside our minds, is the change of thinking Einstein mentioned when he said you can’t solve the problem at the level of thinking that created it in the first place. The level of thinking we’ve been using is outside-in. It’s that level of thinking that holds the problems in place and perpetuates them.

“You would not react at all to figures in a dream you knew you were dreaming,” the Course says. “Let them be as hateful [or happy,] as vicious [or kind] as they may, they could have no effect you unless you failed to recognize you’re dreaming.”

In other words, all dream figures are the same because they all have no effect on our [waking] lives, unless we give them that power” and believe them to be real. This means that the ‘miracle’ - the awakening from the dream and experiencing the very same phenomena differently, as reflections of spirit’s love, compassion, goodness, joy and creativity, is the same no matter what we’re dreaming. So the Course says, “there is no order of difficulty in miracles. One is not ‘harder’ or ‘bigger’ than another. They are all the same. All expressions of love are maximal.”

The dreams of others affect me only when I choose to make myself part of their dreams of separation, suffering, and attack. Understanding this makes me responsible, not for the egos of others, but only for my reactions to their egos. In this sense, others – those I label terrorists, friends, lovers or enemies, are irrelevant to my reactions and feelings.

Thinking I’m in the world - the ego’s nightmare, and knowing that the ego always speaks first, I will react to others. But then I can catch myself, pause, and ask ‘do my reactions impede or contribute to my goal of awakening from the ego’s dream of separation’ and contributing to a world that works for everyone and everything, and if it impedes, as 99.5% of every experience does, then I can invite the decision maker in my mind to choose again.

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Victory for the Terrorists Denied, 2

Addressing problems by asking everyone and everything I encounter: ‘Does this impede or contribute to my goal of awakening from the ego’s dream of separation,’ enables me to return to the source of my experience (my mind) and if necessary, choose again. Asking continues the process of undoing my investment in the ego’s projections of responsibility onto others instead of myself, thus doing what Einstein recommended - solving the problem at a level of thinking different from the level that created it in the first place, and agrees with Pogo that we have met the ‘enemy’ and they is us.

Imagine how meaningful our lives would become if this question were uppermost in our minds as we went through each day. The seemingly separate events, relationships, situations and our responses to them would be unified in a new way, giving us a sense of purpose we lacked. Asking the question puts the goal of awakening from the ego’s nightmare and experiencing the reflection of spirit’s love here, at the center of our lives.
And really, what else is there? Isn’t that all we really want?

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Victory for the Terrorists Denied!

The Course in Miracles reinforces the need for us to take responsibility for the way we think about things, such as the ‘threats’ in the defense authorization legislation, and work from the inside out to deal with them. Doing that instead of blaming and fearing what’s outside our minds, is the change of thinking Einstein mentioned when he said you can’t solve the problem at the level of thinking that created it in the first place. The level of thinking we’ve been using is outside-in. It’s that level of thinking that holds the problems in place and perpetuates them.

When we take responsibility for our own hearts and minds, refusing to be manipulated, shifting to inside-out thinking, guidance and solutions enabling us to contribute to a world that works for everyone and everything, thus solving the problem, will be available. There is something within us that knows, that is not overwhelmed by the interdependent complexities surrounding us, but appreciates the interdependence and can use the complexities, not by simplifying them or dumbing them down into sound bites and slogans, as we do now, but by accepting them and our responsibility for them.

“Choosing vision over judgment,” Ken Wapnick, a powerful interpreter of the Course says, “we can no longer make others responsible for our pain or joy. Remembering that nothing exists outside the projecting mind, we know that everything comes from decisions the mind makes, generated from the basic choice between the ego and (spirit).” Knowing this, experiencing the peace and joy that can come from this knowledge, we want to “meet everyone (and everything) in the same way, with an openness of heart and mind that frees us from the prison house of hate.”

Meeting everyone (and everything) in the same way, “allows us to return to the source of all worldly things and experiences.” We return to the source by asking “one simple question of absolutely everything that befalls us throughout our lives: Does this impede or contribute to my goal of awakening from the ego’s dream of separation. We are not asked to be ego free, but simply to ask the question, thus beginning the process of undoing our investment in the ego’s projections of responsibility onto others instead of ourselves,” and thus solving the problem at a different level of thinking than what created it in the first place, as Einstein recommended, and agreeing with Pogo that we have met the ‘enemy’ and they is us.”

Monday, December 19, 2011

Victory for the Terrorists?

Osama bin Laden is dead, or so we’re told, but the President of the United States and the US Congress have given Al Qaeda, Hizbolah, the Taliban and all the other anti-democratic terrorists the greatest victory they have ever had, a victory they could have never, ever, have gotten on their own. By a margin of 87 to 13 the US Senate passed and the President will ‘reluctantly’ sign the defense appropriations bill that includes three provisions that effectively undo the 5th and 6th amendments to the US Constitution, allowing the President or his designees to arrest and detain anybody, US citizen or no, and hold them incommunicado, if they are labeled by said President or his designees as aiding, supporting or in anyway participating in acts of terrorism against the US and its allies.

Think about that! Do you hear the sigh of relief going up to heaven around the nation? At long last we are finally safe! Thank God! Now, a person can be labeled a terrorist by some bureaucrat, picked up and held, but not tortured of course, the US doesn’t torture, and held until God knows when. So what, you say, I’m not a terrorist. You are if ‘they’ say you are. That’s all it takes, and you have no recourse; can’t have a lawyer, can’t confront your accusers who need no evidence; you just go to jail. Too bad for your family and business; too bad for you.

This passed 87-13 and will be ‘reluctantly’ signed by the President. Who are these people? What do they think they’re doing? What happens to common sense, compassion and support for the Constitution once these people get to Washington? We have met the enemy and they is us. We did this to ourselves, not the Nazis, Commies or terrorists, but our so-called elected ‘representatives.’ Who or what do they represent? Don’t they take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States? Which Constitution are they protecting and defending?

Fear, blame, anger, laziness and competition – the way we’ve been thinking about things and doing things lately in the good old USA, has taken us to this place. It’s a place we’ve never been before, one that doesn’t bode well for Truth, Justice and The American Way. If we always do what we always did, we’ll always get what we always got. Haven’t we had enough of this garbage? Must we go the way of the Roman and British empires? Can’t we stop before it’s too late?

Einstein said you can’t solve the problem at the level of thinking that produced it in the first place. We’ve met the enemy and they is us. If we want things to be different we’ve got to be different. We’ve got to change how we think and behave. We’ve got to look within at our own hearts and minds, not without at terrorists. It’s us. The terrorists are only doing what they’ve sworn to do. What are we doing? Who have we become? What’s going on in our hearts and minds? Can we finally take responsibility for our own thinking and behavior? If we can’t or won’t do that, control ourselves in our own homes, what chance do we have to control others?

The fear mongers and terrorists we’ve got to watch out for are the people we elected in Washington and in many state capitols. The level of thinking we need to solve our current problems is within us, not outside us. We’re the ones eviscerating the Constitution and endangering our own safety. We’re the ones who need to take responsibility for our dysfunctional thinking and behavior. If we do that, we have a chance. If we don’t, we’re doomed. Business as usual, blaming, denial and finger pointing will destroy us.

I don’t have the answer. I don’t think there is an answer. I think wanting a single answer and not wanting to face the uncertainty of dealing with the complexities we’ve created, is a big part of the problem. But I do know that if we don’t recognize the real problem – our own thinking and behavior – we’ll never find a viable solution.

I invite you to think about this, see and understand the problem, then join with me in exploring new ways of thinking, feeling and behaving that as Einstein said, take us to a new level so that we can, together, people of all beliefs and natures, come up with something that will deny the terrorists, both foreign and domestic their victory, and enable us to contribute to a world that works for everyone and everything.

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Sameness and Oneness

Everyone – men and women, grown-ups and children, Americans and Africans, old and young – is the same, facing the same minute-to-minute choice in our minds, between our transcendent reality as spirit or acceptance of the ego’s illusion of the world. No matter what I choose in this moment – ego or spirit - this sameness is the truth and the reality behind all appearances of difference. And no matter what I choose in this moment – ego or spirit – eventually, I will come to experience this sameness in everyone and everything, and know my reality as spirit.

This process of constantly choosing, understanding and moving towards my sameness/oneness with spirit, begins as I learn that my interpretation of the sensory data, brought by my sensory organs to my brain, is solely instigated by the mind, because ideas leave not their source. So, its not the sensory data I need to work with but my mind’s (my decision maker’s) interpretation of that data. Does my interpretation of what I’m perceiving bring me closer to spirit, revealing the sameness beneath the appearances of difference, or does it entangle me more deeply in the ego’s illusion?

So, I come to understand that projection – what I’m experiencing outside me as a result of my decision maker’s choice for the ego – makes perception. Once I have projected the mind’s interpretation of differences beyond the mind and onto the world, I conveniently forget I have done so. Thus, there is no way out of this vicious cycle of projection and perception unless I begin to question the validity of my perceptions. “Escape is impossible,” the Course says, “until [I] see that [I] have responded to my own interpretation” of my own projection. What I perceive, “is the witness to [my] state of mind, the outward picture of an inward condition.”

Understanding this projection/perception phenomenon is the beginning of constructive change and spiritual growth.

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Joy!

Joy is different from happiness. Joy, arising from an awareness of my reality as spirit, is available all the time. Happiness, arising from my experiences in the world, is available only when things go ‘right’ in the world.

Most of us are rarely happy for no reason. Happiness is dependent on something happening outside of us. Joy, on the other hand, can just well up and be experienced for no reason, without anything happening.

Of course I can experience joy and happiness at the same time and often do. But just knowing that joy - the feeling of grace, gratitude, meritless well being and peace, is always available, encourages me to access it more often. I’m practicing joy – choosing to go within, realize my Reality, and consciously choose joy.

Joy, joy, joy! I’m getting so good in my practice that often all I have to do is see the word, hear it in my mind or say it to myself and I can experience it. I’m practicing this no matter what’s going on around me. It’s amazing! Stuck in traffic, stubbed toe, malfunctioning computer, even cancer - joy, joy, joy, and I begin to feel it.

As soon as I get over my initial disappointment, anger, fear, doubt and worry (remember, the ego always speaks first), I pause, take a deep breath and invite joy in…and it comes…eventually. Sometimes sooner than others, but it always comes.

It’s so cool! Try it. You don’t have to be special, do anything special or have anything special happen, just pause take a deep breath and invite joy in. It comes…eventually. In fact, all you can do is invite it and make it welcome. Any other activity is part of your bloated nothingness and will block the divine circuits. Try it, invite joy in now.

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Direct Democracy, 3

So, our so-called ‘representatives’ do not write nor read legislation - staff and lobbyists do that; they are more loyal to their parties and ideologies than to the majority of the people they supposedly represent; they do what their parties or a small faction in their parties, not their consciousness’, tell them to do, cashing in their integrity, hearts and souls to keep their jobs (again please note the glaring flip flops of McCain and Romney, but not Ron Paul).

We can tinker around the edges of this system of so-called ‘representative government’ encouraging third parties, redistricting, campaign finance reform, etc – which we should do. But really, it’s broken and can never be truelyfixed, especially by the people who are in it and benefiting from it [fixing the system from within is a foolish, non-viable cliché]. We need something else some other system, a system of direct democracy in which the people represent themselves without intermediaries. This is the same issue Martin Luther addressed when he nailed his 95 to the church door.

Here’s my paraphrasing of what Luther was saying: priests, rabbis and gurus (representatives) and the churches and other religious institutions (political parties) have a place but that place is not between God and individual human beings. We too, need nothing between ourselves and our government. I am not sure, nor have I thought seriously about, how we will replace the current system. However, I do know, as I hope you do too, that it is broken almost beyond repair and that before it implodes completely, tearing down our nation and society, we need to be thinking about alternatives to it.

With computers and the internet we now have the technology to support an alternative. The subject matter expertise in Congressional staffers and corporate lobbyists is necessary and can never be duplicated by individual voters. New scientific research on crowd sourcing reported in a book of that name and a book called, The Starfish and the Spider, show that rather than the stereotype of crowd as a dangerous mob, the crowd has access to greater intelligence about more sustainable solutions and opportunities. Somehow, we need to figure out how to use these tools to directly inform and involve voters, once the so-called ‘representatives’ are gone – to transition to a form of direct democracy.

The intent of this series of posts is to invite readers to awake to the need for a change in our current political system, join with each other, and together, create a more effective and efficient political system more in line with our ideals and aspirations, and then develop the means to transition from what we have, to the better alternative. This is something to start thinking about now, before we’re torn apart by the flaws of the current system. It won’t be easy, but it is necessary. This is a time of great opportunity! We need to seize it! The parallels between this time, Washington’s and Martin Luther’s are there and can be seen if you look for them.

We have more in common than what separates us. We are all Americans! Let’s get in touch with that – our shared, ideals, hopes and aspirations. Everyone has a right to their own opinions, but not their own facts. Can’t we agree on the facts and work from there to build a system and a world that works for everyone and everything?

Monday, December 12, 2011

Direct Democracy, 2

Tell me, what’s the difference between a ‘campaign contribution’ and a bribe? It’s always been this we and we know it, but the problems with this system of ‘representation’ are becoming more critical now, than ever before.

It needn’t be this way. Please get that! It needn’t be this way. So many of us see the charade of so called ‘representation’ for what it is, but don’t know what to do about it, or think there’s nothing to be done, so we do nothing or drop out, leaving the field to fanatics and idiots. One only has to look at the current crop of Republican presidential candidates to see that. It needn’t be this way.

What would replace the current system? Let’s examine what we’ve got before we answer that. What really, bottom line, is the function of our so called ‘representatives’? Is it to write legislation with the best interests of the majority of the people in their districts in mind? That’s the concept everyone gives lip service to, but is that what they really do? No. What do they really do? They do everything they can to keep their cushy jobs and represent the moneyed interests who can keep them in those jobs. They are just like any other group of employees, doing what their bosses - the people who pay them, want them to do.

In addition to that, they are there as negotiators, brokers and deal makers. Given the current system, that is their only legitimate role, the closest they come to ‘representing’ ‘the people’ in their districts. They do not really write legislation, their staffs and lobbyists do that. They do not study situations comprehensively nor seek ways to create sustainable opportunities for the majority of ‘the people’. They fight fires.

Eyes fixed on the media - which is a player in its own right that doesn’t really try to inform nor educate the population but merely tries to keep it riled up, stressed out, entertained and confused so its sponsors will benefit - our so-called ‘representatives’ address the so-called ‘issue’ of the day – Janet Jackson’s costume malfunction, gays in the military, flag burning, Michael Jackson’s physician, the basketball player’s greed, ball players’ use of steroids, etc. Anything but the really substantive challenges and opportunities like health care, energy and the environment. Anything to keep ‘the people’s’ minds off the really important stuff.

Together, the media and so-called elected ‘representatives’, serve the moneyed interests who own them by providing the fear of Al Qaeda and the bread and circuses that keep us immobilized and unable to find sustainable opportunities for growth and improvement. The status quo is what they serve and who they represent.

Friday, December 9, 2011

Direct Democracy

The intent of this series of posts is to invite readers to awake to the need for a change in our current political system, join with each other, and together, create a more effective and efficient political system more in line with our ideals and aspirations, and then develop the means to transition from what we have, to the better alternative. This is something to start thinking about now, before we’re torn apart by the flaws of the current system. It won’t be easy, but it is necessary. This is a time of great opportunity! We need to seize it! The parallels between this time, Washington’s and Martin Luther’s are there and can be seen if you look for them.

We have more in common than what separates us. We are all Americans! Let’s get in touch with that – our shared, ideals, hopes and aspirations. Everyone has a right to their own opinions, but not their own facts. Can’t we agree on the facts and work from there to build a system and a world that works for everyone and everything?

Perhaps, given the current dysfunction in DC and at the state level, it’s time to take a fresh look at the concept of ‘representation’ in government. Perhaps the very idea of ‘representative government’ is fundamentally flawed, and always has been.

How well are ‘the people’ represented when they elect someone and send them to the legislature? Who do the so-called ‘representatives’ really represent? Who has access to these so-called ‘representatives’? Who can speak with them on the phone or drop by their offices for a chat? Who actually drafts the legislation that they vote on, more often than not, without reading or fully understanding it?

You know the answers to these questions, they’ve been the same since the founding. Moneyed interests – the people and so called ‘corporate individuals’ who can give large sums of money. Tell me, what’s the difference between a ‘campaign contribution’ and a bribe? It’s always been this we and we know it, but the problems with this system of ‘representation’ are becoming more critical now, than ever before.

It needn’t be this way. Please get that! It needn’t be this way. So many of us see the charade of so called ‘representation’ for what it is, but don’t know what to do about it, or think there’s nothing to be done, so we do nothing or drop out, leaving the field to fanatics and idiots. One only has to look at the current crop of Republican presidential candidates to see that. It needn’t be this way.

Thursday, December 8, 2011

A Thing of Wonder

It is possible, from a place of oneness with spirit, to experience spirit in everything that happens. It is possible to look upon all things with love, appreciation and open mindedness, understanding that no thing is as it appears and that its holy purpose stands beyond my ego’s little range, but accessible from the place of oneness.

Allowing the decision maker to choose again, I can see all things differently, with a mind that holds only what it thinks with God. The holiness of this thought extends to embrace the world and all its seemingly separated fragments. No longer deceived by perceptual illusions of special differences, my vision sees beyond appearances to the loving beauty of the right mind that is in each broken piece. And I am able to see in this beauty the doorway to eternity.

“All this beauty will rise to bless your sight as you look upon the world with forgiving eyes. For forgiveness literally transforms vision, and lets you see the real world reaching quietly and gently across chaos, removing [the] illusions that had twisted your perceptions. The smallest leaf becomes a thing of wonder, and a blade of grass a sign of God’s [and my own] perfection.”

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

The Stately Calm Within

As I stay centered in the decision maker’s choice for the “stately calm within,” my outer world, like the spokes of a wheel with spirit at its hub, radiate and extend the “holy stillness”. My interactions with the world of matter would share the same purpose of learning to be kind, caring, gentle, and loving. Spirit is not actually present in matter, for all is illusion, but I may experience Its reflection and purpose there, if I am with It in my mind. That is what forgiveness is - not holding to past perceptions generated by the ego, but choosing to see spirit’s purpose of loving kindness and oneness in all the “little things” of the world. So of myself, I do nothing but allow mySelf to shine through.

“All things are lessons God would have me learn,” opportunities to recognize the ego’s illusion, return to my mind and allow, encourage, the decision maker to choose again. The greater the discomfort, disease, guilt, fear, and anger – the greater the difference between the ego’s interpretation of the world and spirit’s - the greater the motivation to see things differently and choose again.

So, the Course says, “God is in everything I see because God is in my mind. From this idea will the world open up before you, and you will look upon it and see in it what you have never seen before…we are trying to see in the world what [the reality of spirit that] is [already] in our minds…trying to join with what we see rather than keeping it apart from us.” To do this - join with everything I experience and accept it all as a learning opportunity, I become aware of my choices and seek to no longer project the ego’s purpose of reinforcing guilt about the perceived original sin of separation.

The separation never happened; could not have happened; it is a “tiny mad idea.” We are one with spirit right now as we have always been.

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Patience and Doing Nothing

Patience is the natural teacher of God. All it sees in the certain outcome of timeless love and peace stretching out before it like an endless vista of sea and sky. Filled with this certitude, why would we even attempt to make things happen? Wouldn’t we let the forms of our behavior be guided by the content of our loving thoughts? Wouldn’t everything we think, feel and do be done with kindness and caring, gentleness and love?

Patiently centered in spirit, our earthly lives become like spokes of a wheel, the hub being our choice for spirit. Now, this quiet center informs our thoughts, feelings, words, and actions, determining the outcome of situations and relationships, bringing peace and love instead of conflict and fear.

“To [be patient and] do nothing is to rest,” the Course says. “And make a place within you where the activity of the body ceases to demand attention. Into this place spirit comes and there it abides.” It will still be there when we forget and the body’s activities return to occupy your conscious mind. “Yet there will always be this place of rest to which you can return. And you will become more aware of this quiet center of the storm than all its raging activity.

“The quiet center, in which you [patiently] do nothing, will remain with you, giving you rest in the midst of every busy doing on which you are sent. For from this center will you be directed how to use the body sinlessly.”

Monday, December 5, 2011

The Outcome is Certain

“Love knows no bodies [or things], and reaches to everything created like itself. Its total lack of limit IS its meaning. It is completely impartial [and unconditional] in its giving….” When I feel frustrated and lose my peace, I am without love and attributing my upset to something outside me. The absence of love manifesting as guilt, urgency, a hierarchy of values, fear, worry, and blaming – either myself or someone/something else, tips me that I am out of my mind, and not with the decision maker who must have decided wrongly.

Asking to experience things differently, getting my bloated nothingness out of the way of the divine circuits, and allowing my decision maker to choose again, this time peace and love, enables me to function in this world effectively, efficiently and kindly until I am able to release myself and choose mySelf.

Understanding this, I understand that there is nothing outside me and so there can be nothing that can affect me either positively or negatively. But understanding this, difficult as it is, is still easier than living it. Faith and practice build confidence. Giving over guilt, urgency, my hierarchy of values, fear, worry, and blame and acting as if, nothing outside myself can save me or give me peace, that only spirit can do that, also means that nothing outside me can hurt me, disturb my peace, or stop the love that is mySelf from flowing into my experience.

The outcome is certain - giving over guilt, urgency, a hierarchy of values, fear, worry, and blaming always allows the peace and love which were always present, to manifest. Why furiously press forward with something that is not there, stubbornly convinced that if I do not, the ‘right thing’ will never happen?

Reflect – this attitude – which I suffer greatly from, makes no sense if I am already sure that the result of anything done with mySelf, will be loving and peaceful. Patience is natural when my beingness is with mySelf, for I’m focused on a certain wonderful and inevitable outcome, the time and details unknown to me, but never in doubt.

Friday, December 2, 2011

Knowing and Doing

Knowing the things I posted yesterday, isn’t the same as doing them. And doing them, isn’t the same as immediately getting the results – the feeling of oneness, peace, and connection to Source. It’s not easy to undo identification with ego, even for a moment. But ah, when I am able to, it’s so worth while!

I’m going thru a period of heavy ego identification right now. There’s something I want to do, and will do that ego doesn’t want me to do. Or, part of the ego - the parent, moralistic, punishing part doesn’t want me to. Whenever I think of what I want to do - something new and slightly dangerous, something on the fringes of main stream acceptability, but something I’ve wanted to do for my entire life, I get the thrills of anticipation, then the stress of doubt, anxiety and guilt.

Of course, it’s all ego – both what I want to do and the fear of what I want to do. However, the part that wants to do, feels more inspired and spiritually connected, as if it’s leading me to a fulfillment and completion. So, I commit to doing what I want to do, even tho the punishing, fearful ego is making me crazy, trying to talk me out of doing it and almost ruining it by taking the edge off and the joy out.

So, I pause, breath deeply, say a mental ‘thank you’ for the opportunity to remember and actually experience the ideas: by grace I live and by grace I am released, and the lord doeth the work, and invite my decision maker to let go of the ego and choose spirit instead. I forgive myself for once again falling into the ego’s web of illusion. No guilt, no blame, no drama, just a deep breath, a sigh and a ‘there I go again.’ Eventually this will work. But it’s a constant, frustrating back and forth until it does. But at least I have this to do. If I didn’t, I’d be crazier and more depressed, less happy and less creative than I am.

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Knowing What to Do

One of the ‘things’ I go back and forth on, given the ideas of living by grace, and the spirit within doeth the work, is: if anything I do is OK as long as I’m doing it with spirit, then how do I know what to choose when what I choose to do kind of doesn’t matter, how do I know what to choose to do in any given situation?

The Course says the ego always speaks first and loudest, meaning that my first, often habitual and therefore most comfortable reaction/decision/choice arises from the ego. But what about intuition and gut, I think of these as more spiritual? Don’t these often speak first but more softly? Yes. I’ll often have an intuitive sense of or gut feel for what to do but talk myself out of it.

Spirit’s still small voice is always there, always advising, always whispering of grace and release of ego, sometimes as intuition and gut feel. But even these things can become habituated to my world view and obscure my grace and reality as spirit. Besides, the ‘answers’ to so many questions and concerns in the world are counter-intuitive. For instance: the best thing to do to improve myself, is to not improve myself, but to get my bloated nothingness out of the way and allow mySelf to shine through. MySelf, being of spirit, needs no improvement, is already perfect as spirit is perfect, and if I, of myself, seek to improve myself, others or the world, I am deep in the illusion and under the influence of ego.

Yet I believe I am here in the world and do seek to improve myself, others or the world itself. To know what to do or refrain from doing, I need to undo the illusion of the ego and awake to my reality as spirit. This is a choice by choice process, an often frustrating, ongoing, never ending process. I discover what to choose by knowing how I feel when I choose the ego.

When I think about choosing something, and whenever possible I need to develop the habit of pausing, thinking, reflecting and gut checking before I choose - if I’m feeling rushed, urgent, excited, worried, ‘should’ or ‘must do’ and worst of all, ‘have no other choice’, then I’m deep with ego.

When those feelings and thoughts are present, my practice is to pause, breath deeply, say a mental ‘thank you’ for the opportunity to remember and actually experience the ideas by grace I live and by grace I am released, and the lord doeth the work, and invite my decision maker to let go of the ego and choose spirit instead. I forgive myself for once again falling into the ego’s web of illusion and wanting to fix everyone and everything but myself. No guilt, no blame, no drama, just a deep breath, a sigh and a ‘there I go again.’ Then from that place, the choice is usually clear.

This is a moment by moment, choice by choice process, an often frustrating, ongoing, never ending process. But the more I do it, the easier it gets and the more I want to do it.

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.

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.

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].

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.

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.

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.

Friday, November 18, 2011

Words, 2

Words, like the body, and everything here in the illusory world, are neutral. They can be used to anchor me more deeply in the ego’s illusion or by reflecting spirit, remind me I too, am spirit. Words in and of themselves are meaningless. They only represent what s meaningful, and are intended to teach we have two minds – wrong and right – and a decision maker that can choose between them.

Am I to avoid the use of words, then? No, but I can learn to use words in a new way. Gradually, I can learn to let my words be chosen for me by ceasing to decide for myself what I will say. Thru this process, I learn to accept the words offered me by spirit and give as I receive. I listen, hear and speak.

My faith is not in the words – they are only symbols – but in the experience of peace, happiness and joy and the absence of pain, conflict and fear that comes when the words are used to remind me of my mistaken choice. It is the experience I learn to trust, not the words. That is why the Course emphasizes content, over form. It is the experience we want, not the words.

“We wait for the experience,” the Course says, “and recognize that it is only here conviction lies. We use the words, and try and try again to go beyond them to their meaning, which is far beyond their sound.” The crucial difference between words and meaning is that neither sign nor symbol should be confused with source, and we will know source by our experience.

The only issue is not whether we hear an inner voice, but which inner voice we pay attention to - spirit’s voice of peace, or the ego’s voice of hate and fear. Simply going within and listening, is no guarantee we are hearing the right voice. We also need our experience to guide us.

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Surrender

Admitting that not only do I not know, but that I am wrong about what I think I do know, and that there is Someone who does know and Who is right, begins the process of undoing the ego illusion. Guilt over my original ‘sin’ of choosing the ego instead of spirit, and fear that I will be punished, prevents me from letting go of the ego. But I can begin letting go by looking at my original ‘sin’, fear and guilt through the eyes of vision, not judgment.

“Call it not sin but madness,” the Course advises. “For such it was and so it still remains. Invest it not with guilt, for guilt implies it was accomplished in reality [which it wasn’t]. And above all, be not afraid of it.” This holds not matter how serious the ‘sin’ seems to be, because there is only one problem despite appearances to the contrary – my belief that I am better off separate from spirit. Consequently, there is one solution: recognizing I was wrong in accepting the idea that the separation is true.

Deep down, my decision maker knows it is part of the oneness, not separate from It. My decision maker wants to make a complete surrender of itself to spirit, knowing that it has been wrong and that ‘surrender’ means coming over to the winning side. Surrender comes when I realize I cannot do it on my own, that I - my ego, has been wrong and doesn’t know, but there is that within me that is right and does know.

Surrender is a never ending process that brings a grateful sigh of relief each time I do it as, saying, ‘Enough, already!’ I put down the burden of feeding, supporting, and protecting my bloated nothingness, and exchange nothing for everything - the joy, grace and peace, brotherhood, cooperation, compassion and love of spirit.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Words

The goal is to let my bloated nothingness, my ego, get out of the way of the divine circuits. Let it - no struggle, no battle. Just turn away from it and quiet my mind so I can hear my real Self speaking to me. I hear it once in awhile, but I’d like to hear it more often. I know it’s always speaking to me, saying love, grace, blessings and compassion, if I could just shut up and listen.

Part of the difficulty in hearing It and having a relationship with mySelf, is that I’m using words. What else could you use, you ask, and quite rightly. But words are of the ego. When I ask spirit for help or advice, I ask in my words. I am the one defining the situation, my hopes, desires and needs. I am literally putting words in spirit’s mouth. Words frame the situation and make it real, when what I want to do is see the situation as an illusion, not make it real. What I want to do is awaken to the truth beyond all words.

Choosing words is part of the ego’s plan to make the illusion real. Choosing words deepens the illusion, involving a large number of assumptions which inevitably limit the response, taking me still deeper into the illusion. A choice of words is actually a decision about the kind of response within the illusion that would be acceptable. The purpose of words is to limit and by limiting, make a vast area of experience more manageable by me. For many aspects of living in the world this is necessary. But not for having a relationship with mySelf.

Spirit, mySelf, does not use words and does not communicate in words. Haven’t you experienced this? Spirit only communicates with that part of my mind, where mySelf always abides, when the decision maker chooses to join with It. My job in getting my bloated nothingness out of the way is to realize that words are part of the problem; that I do not know what I think I know; that I do not even know what to ask or the nature of my problems.

Monday, November 14, 2011

Now!

Today is the day of complete salvation, not tomorrow or the day after, but now.
All who seek the way, please, do not waste this moment now.

No matter how hard I try, I cannot breathe for a moment ago, nor for the moment to come. I can only take this breath now. Now is all there is and all there will ever be. There is no past or future, there is only what we think about the past or future; and the thinking is always done now.

Being present means being awake and aware now. Now exists whether I am present or not. Now am I, and you, the sons and daughters of the most high. Not when we die, but now. In the now, we can listen to the still small voice within and experience life as it really is. Now I can know my purpose. Now I forgive myself and everyone and everything for taking the illusion so seriously. Now I set my intention to contribute to a world that works for everyone and everything. Now I trust divine timing and am patient.

Now it is done unto me as I believe, and I choose to believe that I, and you, are spiritual beings having an earthly experience. Now I set my intention to awake to this reality, letting go of my bloated nothingness and getting it out of the way of the divine circuits.

Friday, November 11, 2011

Oops! 3

If we give our bodies over to spirit, returning to the decision maker in our minds, we will gradually, slowly – too slow and too gradual for me, most of the time – allow our bodies will serve a different purpose - to show ourselves and the other selves we associate with our true Self. Giving over the pain, fear and guilt and understanding that I, and you, simply made a mistake [easier said than done!], we can return to our minds and choose again. That’s what the ‘Oops!’ does.

This is gradual slow process, but you will notice an attitudinal shift, identifying less with your body and ego and more with compassion, forgiveness and gratitude. Do the ‘oops’ thing and watch for your experience to change. Rather than feeling imprisoned in a body, you will begin to see your experiences as opportunities to learn, shift, say ‘oops!’, and give over to spirit – letting go and letting God.

When I do this, I am not changed and shifted alone. As I am freed from the thought system of separation and the guilt, fear and hatred that goes with it, everyone must be freed as well, because we are all one. Again, this experience of oneness is difficult to understand from our fragmented perspective here. Yet, if you think about it, you’ll realize everyone has had moments of total peace and acceptance which are the reflection of the reality of our oneness with spirit. The way to truly heal the world, is to heal myself by accepting mySelf. I can do that now, no waiting, nothing to prove, no dying. I am doing it but it’s gradual and slow. But each ‘oops’ brings me a little closer.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Students riot as Joe Paterno gets fired.

Oops, here I go again, taking things too seriously and ranting about them.

Some students at Penn State, and I hope it’s only some, are rioting because Joe Paterno was fired. They’re not rioting because for many years, I’ve heard as many as nine, young children - young male children, were raped and sodomized by a predator in Paterno’s employ, and the rioters have compassion for those poor innocent victims and want justice for them. No, they’re not rioting for that. They’re not rioting because current arrangements, sometimes known as the ‘system’, are shackling them with huge life-long debt for an ‘education’ of questionable value. No, they’re not rioting for that.

They’re not rioting because they won’t have decent jobs and will have to live at home [if it hasn’t been foreclosed] with their parents. No, they’re not rioting for that. They’re not rioting because of global climate change and the wholesale destruction of dolphins, other species and the potential destruction of the planet itself. No, they’re not rioting for that. They’re rioting because the great god of football, America’s religion, has been fired.

I heard a couple of them on TV a few minutes ago, talking about how the nasty school administration ‘over-reacted’ by firing their god. Soon, some alumni will withhold their donations and stop supporting the school.

When I first heard that the Board of Trustees fired both Paterno and the University president, I couldn’t believe it! I couldn’t believe that in this day and age of amazing, unbelievable public hypocrisy, sham objectivity and hyper attention to the ‘bottom line’ – money and winning, that a group of people would actually risk the wrath of the no-nothing bottom liners, and do the right thing. But they did and instead of some students and some alumni appreciating their courage, they’re rioting and withholding donations.

The veils of rhetoric that have masked our hypocrisy as individuals and as a nation are falling away. Now we see that a winning football team is much more important and valuable than the lives and health of a bunch of male children. Now we see who and what counts in America, and sadly, what has always counted. Sports, right wing politics and military preparedness are what count, not a silly, idealistic and unrealistic, compassionate, fair and just society. Winning, winning, winning – as another football god, the great Lombardi said, “winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing!”

But the students rioting saddens and depresses me most. They are the future. I like to kid myself that the young people understand what’s important and are learning from our mistakes and will bring on a better future. Apparently not. At least for some of them, sports and winning trump morality and justice. Too bad, not just for them, but for us, as football, the modern equivalent of the ancient Roman bread and circuses, leads America laughing, high and drunk down the same path the Romans took to decline, third rate status and obliteration.

But the fact that Paterno was fired and that only some students and some alumni are assholes means there might be hope.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Oops! 2

“There is no need to further clarify what no one in the world can understand,” the Course says, speaking of the either/or nature of the ‘relationship’ between spirit and ego. Spirit knows nothing of the ego. Spirit is real and eternal, the ego is unreal, an illusion. The ego, aware of spirit, fears it, knowing if we were ever to waken to our reality as spirit, the ego would disappear.

There is no way a separated mind could comprehend the reality of eternity, timelessness and the illusion of time. Our whole existence is based on time; everything here is governed by the clock. As long as we identify with the body, how could we ever understand time’s non-linear and illusory nature?

“Yet, we need not fully understand the true nature of time and the Course’s metaphysics in order to understand how to forgive and the power of forgiveness to reflect spirit’s qualities here. All that is required is a willingness to be taught; to choose spirit as our teacher instead of the ego.

“Eternity is always present, and totally unaffected by the dream of time – a few minutes or a few billion years makes no difference to an illusion. What never happened [the separation from spirit] never happened. Oneness cannot be compromised or lost. The journey home [the awakening to our reality as spirit] is a journey without distance to a goal that has never changed. Despite the pained discomfort of our lives, they are still part of a dream.

The separation only seemed to occur. Choosing to remember oneness must be illusory, since we never left it. Spirit does not demand we accept this now, for it knows we ultimately will, and have already done so. So, if we experience spirit pressuring us to accept our oneness, it must be the ego. The urgency we feel comes from our pain and discomfort – the ego’s need to make the illusion real. Oops, there I go again!

Monday, November 7, 2011

Oops, there I go again!

“Oops, there I go again, taking myself too seriously.”

“Our faith,” the Course says, “lies in the Giver [our Self], not our [selves]. We acknowledge our mistakes, but He to Whom all error is unknown is yet the One Who answers our mistakes by giving us the means to lay them down, and rise to Him in gratitude and love.” To me, this means we do not deny our identification with the ego’s world illusion. We think we are here, so we are here – cogito ergo sum. We need not feel guilty about it nor fight it, we simply need to have faith in the Giver and know we can choose to receive our birthright from It and awaken to our Selves anytime we turn from the world, return to our minds and allow the decision maker to choose anew.

When we catch ourselves taking things here too seriously, all we need do is say, “Oops, there I go again!” and let go and let God. This is a constant, second to second thing, a never ending process, as long as we think we are egos in bodies in the world.

We experience the reflection of spirit’s love and peace in this dream world by preparing for it, by admitting – gladly and gratefully – that we have been wrong about our identity. We experience only the reflection of spirit’s love and peace, because spirit is not in the world, because the world is an illusion and spirit knows nothing of illusions but only Its reality as all inclusive love and peace. There is no way for us to understand spirit’s reality here, in the world, the Course says; only the reflection of that reality. We cannot speak, nor write, nor even think of this at all because of our investment in the ego, duality and knowing through contrast and opposition.

So because we can not know, we accept spirit’s reflection here and take as our goal awakening from the dream; the undoing of the illusion, not its solidifying. We ease off taking ourselves too seriously and making our lives in the illusion happier or more peaceful. Instead, we use our experiences here as a means to be mindful, awaken from the dream, and return to the decision maker in our minds so we can choose again.

Just saying, “Oops, there I go again!” when we catch ourselves taking things too seriously is a great way to do begin to undo the illusion, be mindful, awaken and choose again.

Friday, November 4, 2011

Form and Content

The Course in Miracles says we have a simple, either/or choice to make – do we identify with our egos or with spirit? The more we identify with the body and the world, the more we choose the ego instead of spirit. Both the ego and spirit are in our minds, which transcend, our brains. It is the decision maker within our minds that chooses. Fearful of the decision maker's ability to choose against it, the ego has developed a strategy of mindlessness, wherein we identify almost completely with it and our bodies (form) and not the decision maker in our minds and the choice it is making (content).

The ego tells us if we are to remain secure in our individual and special identities, that we avoid the mind and root our awareness totally in the external world, the ego's projected dream of separation. To further the aim of self-preservation as opposed to Self-awareness, we are attracted to anything in the world as a means of entrenching us there, reinforcing the amnesia, and avoiding the mind and decision maker that can choose heaven or hell at any instant.

The miracle the Course speaks of, does not awaken us from the ego's dream of a world separate from spirit, but merely shows us who the dreamer is. It teaches there is a choice of dreams while we still sleep, that the content of the dream, not its form, is where the choice lies. And, that being there is a choice and that the decision maker in our minds must make it, we need to look past the dream/illusion of the world (the form) and return to our transcendent minds and choose again (the content).

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

More Humor

Paraprosdokian: Figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected; frequently used in a humorous situation.

"Where there's a will, I want to be in it," is a type of paraprosdokian.

~ I thought I wanted a career. Turns out I just wanted paychecks.

~ Whenever I fill out an application, in the part that says, 'In case of emergency, notify:' I put 'DOCTOR.'

~ I didn't say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you.

~ Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down the street with a bald head and a beer gut, and still think they are sexy.

~ Behind every successful man is his woman. Behind the fall of a successful man is usually another woman.

~ A clear conscience is the sign of a fuzzy memory.

~ You do not need a parachute to skydive. You only need a parachute to skydive twice.

~ Money can't buy happiness, but it sure makes misery easier to live with.

~ I used to be indecisive. Now I'm not so sure.

~ You're never too old to learn something stupid.

~ To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target.

~ Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

~ Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.

~ Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.

~ A diplomat is someone who tells you to go to hell in such a way that you look forward to the trip.

~ Hospitality is making your guests feel at home even when you wish they were.

~ I always take life with a grain of salt. Plus a slice of lemon and a shot of tequila.

~ When tempted to fight fire with fire, remember that the Fire Department usually uses water.

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Humor

Paraprosdokian: Figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected; frequently used in a humorous situation.

"Where there's a will, I want to be in it," is a type of paraprosdokian.

~ I asked God for a bike, but I know God doesn't work that way. So I stole a bike and asked for forgiveness.

~ Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.

~ The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it's still on my list.

~ Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

~ If I agreed with you, we'd both be wrong.

~ We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public.

~ War does not determine who is right - only who is left.

~ Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.

~ Evening news is where they begin with 'Good Evening,' and then proceed to tell you why it isn't.

~ To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research.

~ A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station.

Monday, October 31, 2011

There is a God-power at the Center

Paraphrasing Ernest Holmes in the October SOM Magazine:

“There is a God-power at the center of [everyone and everything.] A Presence that knows neither lack, limitation, or fear, nor sickness, disquiet, or imperfection.” Oh, boy, do I want to believe this! I love the idea! It’s what I practice to know in my day-to-day.

“But because everyone is an individual, [they] can build a wall of negative thought between [themselves] and this perfection.” What Emerson called our “bloated nothingness” advising us to get it “out of the way of the divine circuits.”

“The wall which keeps [me] from the greater good [not just for myself, but for everyone and everything] is built of mental blocks, cemented together by fear and unbelief, mixed in the mortar of negative experience.” Isn’t this true? Haven’t you felt it in your own experience? I have.

Spiritual practice in the form of gratitude, forgiveness, compassion, cooperation, open-mindedness, mindfulness, acceptance of personal responsibility and the cessation of victimhood, blaming and demonizing are the way I, and you, tear down this wall, one brick at a time. It’s a never ending process requiring willingness, faith, courage and discipline. But, as we remove the mental blocks, we are rewarded and reinforced with glimpses of what the wall hid – the love, joy, peace and gladness, that was always, always there waiting to be revealed.

We realize the sun never really stopped shining and the river of life flows within us naturally, unimpeded, forever. We come to understand that each person’s experience is an attempt to merge their own being with this eternal river, not to the loss of their identity, but to the discovery of that Self which has never wholly left its heaven.

Friday, October 28, 2011

The Moral Framework for the Occupy Wall Street Movement by George Lakoff, 4

Nature
We are part of nature. Nature makes us, and all that we love, possible. Yet we are destroying Nature through global warming and other forms of ecological destruction, like fracking and deep-water drilling.
At a global scale, nature is systemic: its effects are neither local nor linear. Global warming is causing the ferocity of the monster storms, tornados, floods, blizzards, heat waves, and fires that have devastated huge areas of our country. The hotter the atmosphere, the more evaporated water and the more energy going into storms, tornados, and blizzards. Global warming cannot be shown to cause any particular storm, but when a storm system forms, global warming will ramp up the power of the storm and the amount of water it carries. In winter, evaporated water from the overly heated Pacific will go into the atmosphere, blow northeast over the arctic, and fall as record snows.
We depend on nature - on clean air, water, food, and a livable climate. And we find beauty and grandeur in nature, and a sense of awe that makes life worth living. A love of country requires a love of nature. And a fair and thriving economy requires the preservation of nature as we have known it.

Summary
OWS is a moral and patriotic movement. It sees Democracy as flowing from citizens caring about one another as well as themselves, and acting with both personal and social responsibility. Democratic governance is about The Public, and the liberty that The Public provides for a thriving Private Sphere. From such a democracy flows fairness, which is incompatible with a hugely disproportionate distribution of wealth. And from the sense of care implicit in such a democracy flows a commitment to the preservation of nature.
From what I have seen of most members of OWS, your individual concerns all flow from one moral focus.

Elections
The Tea Party solidified the power of the conservative worldview via elections. OWS will have no long-term effect unless it too brings its moral focus to the 2012 elections. Insist on supporting candidates that have your overall moral views, no matter what the local issues are.

A Warning
This movement could be destroyed by negativity, by calls for revenge, by chaos, or by having nothing positive to say. Be positive about all things and state the moral basis of all suggestions. Positive and moral in calling for debt relief. Positive and moral in upholding laws, as they apply to finances. Positive and moral in calling for fairness in acquiring needed revenue. Positive and moral in calling for clean elections. To be effective, your movement must be seen by all of the 99% as positive and moral. To get positive press, you must stress the positive and the moral.
Remember: The Tea Party sees itself as stressing only individual responsibility. The Occupation Movement is stressing both individual and social responsibility.
I believe, and I think you believe, that most Americans care about their fellow citizens as well as themselves. Let's find out! Shout your moral and patriotic views out loud, regularly. Put them on your signs. Repeat them to the media. Tweet them. And tell everyone you know to do the same. You have to use your own language with your own framing and you have to repeat it over and over for the ideas to sink in.
Occupy elections: voter registration drives, town hall meetings, talk radio airtime, party organizations, nomination campaigns, election campaigns, and voting booths.
Above all: Frame yourselves before others frame you.

George Lakoff is the author of "Moral Politics, Don't Think of an Elephant!," "Whose Freedom?," and "Thinking Points" (with the Rockridge Institute staff). He is Richard and Rhoda Goldman Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley, and a founding senior fellow at the Rockridge Institute.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

The Moral Framework for the Occupy Wall Street Movement by George Lakoff, 3

I think it is a good thing that the occupation movement is not making specific policy demands. If it did, the movement would become about those demands. If the demands were not met, the movement would be seen as having failed.

It seems to me that the OWS movement is moral in nature, that occupiers want the country to change its moral focus. It is easy to find useful policies; hundreds have been suggested. It is harder to find a moral focus and stick to it. If the movement is to frame itself, it should be on the basis of its moral focus, not a particular agenda or list of policy demands. If the moral focus of America changes, new people will be elected and the policies will follow. Without a change of moral focus, the conservative worldview that has brought us to the present disastrous and dangerous moment will continue to prevail.

We Love America. We're Here to Fix It
I see OWS as a patriotic movement, based on a deep and abiding love of country - a patriotism that it is not just about the self-interests of individuals, but about what the country is and is to be. Do Americans care about other citizens, or mainly just about themselves? That's what love of America is about. I therefore think it is important to be positive, to be clear about loving America, seeing it in need of fixing, and not just being willing to fix it, but being willing to take to the streets to fix it. A populist movement starts with the people seeing that they are all in the same boat and being ready to come together to fix the leaks.
Publicize the Public

Tell the truth about The Public, that nobody makes it purely on their own without The Public, that is, without public infrastructure, the justice system, health, education, scientific research, protections of all sorts, public lands, transportation, resources, art and culture, trade policies, safety nets, … That is a truth to be told day after day. It is an idea that must take hold in public discourse. It must go beyond what I and others have written about it and beyond what Elizabeth Warren has said in her famous video. The Public is not opposed to The Private. The Public is what makes The Private possible. And it is what makes freedom possible. Wall Street exists only through public support. It has a moral obligation to direct itself to public needs.
All OWS approaches to policy follow from such a moral focus. Here are a handful examples.

Democracy should be about the 99%
Money directs our politics. In a democracy, that must end. We need publicly supported elections, however that is to be arranged.
Strong Wages Make a Strong America
Middle-class wages have not gone up significantly in 30 years, and there is conservative pressure to lower them. But when most people get more money, they spend it and spur the economy, making the economy and the country stronger, as well as making their individual lives better. This truth needs to be central to public economic discourse.

Global Citizenship
America has been a moral beacon to the world. It can function as such only if it sets an example of what a nation should be.
Do we have to spend more on the military that all other nations combined? Do we really need hundreds of military bases abroad?

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

The Moral Framework for the Occupy Wallstreet Movement by George Lakoff

Two Moral Framing Systems in Politics
Conservatives have figured out their moral basis and you see it on Wall Street: It includes: The primacy of self-interest. Individual responsibility, but not social responsibility. Hierarchical authority based on wealth or other forms of power. A moral hierarchy of who is "deserving," defined by success. And the highest principle is the primacy of this moral system itself, which goes beyond Wall Street and the economy to other arenas: family life, social life, religion, foreign policy, and especially government. Conservative "democracy" is seen as a system of governance and elections that fits this model.
Though OWS concerns go well beyond financial issues, your target is right: the application of these principles in Wall Street is central, since that is where the money comes from for elections, for media, and for right-wing policy-making institutions of all sorts on all issues.
The alternative view of democracy is progressive: Democracy starts with citizens caring about one another and acting responsibly on that sense of care, taking responsibility both for oneself and for one's family, community, country, people in general, and the planet. The role of government is to protect and empower all citizens equally via The Public: public infrastructure, laws and enforcement, health, education, scientific research, protection, public lands, transportation, resources, art and culture, trade policies, safety nets, and on and on. Nobody makes it one their own. If you got wealthy, you depended on The Public, and you have a responsibility to contribute significantly to The Public so that others can benefit in the future. Moreover, the wealthy depend on those who work, and who deserve a fair return for their contribution to our national life. Corporations exist to make life better for most people. Their reason for existing is as public as it is private.
A disproportionate distribution of wealth robs most citizens of access to the resources controlled by the wealthy. Immense wealth is a thief. It takes resources from the rest of the population - the best places to live, the best food, the best educations, the best health facilities, access to the best in nature and culture, the best professionals, and on and on. Resources are limited, and great wealth greatly limits access to resources for most people.
It appears to me that OWS has a progressive moral vision and view of democracy, and that what it is protesting is the disastrous effects that have come from operating with a conservative moral, economic, and political worldview. I see OWS as primarily a moral movement, seeking economic and political changes to carry out that moral movement - whatever those particular changes might be.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Wake up! No more politics as usual! 3

Wake up, America! Seize the day!

Could our many different problems - unemployment and underemployment, housing foreclosures, high health care costs and the lack of coverage, the concentration of wealth, gridlock in DC and the over-concentration of Federal power, energy – be addressed by a shift in the way we think, feel and behave?

Aren’t all our problems really interconnected and interdependent anyhow?

Remember what Pogo said? “We have met the enemy and they is us.”

Could more cooperation, compassion, and less conflict, hate and blame begin to move us forward?

What wonders could we accomplish if we came together as Americans first, and partisan party members, second?

Wake up, America! Seize the day!

Stop business as usual!

Stop conflict, hate, and blame.

Shift from that negative stuff to the positive stuff of cooperation and compassion.

The competitive, adversarial way we're doing things prevents our getting a clear unified vision, prevents our coming from the necessary cooperative compassionate perspective that will produce the solutions we need.

Let’s come together, and from that new and different place, gain the perspective that will enable us, not only how to see how to solve our problems, but how to turn them into opportunities.

Wake up, America! Seize the day!

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Projection Makes Percepton

Since all thinking produces form at some level, what we think within will be projected and perceived without: projection makes perception. What our eyes see is the fulfillment of what our minds wish them to see. Perception seems to teach you what you see. Yet it but witnesses to what you taught. Perception is the outward picture of a wish; an image that you wanted to be true.

The world is nothing in itself. My mind must give it all the meaning it has for me. What I behold upon it are my wishes acted out so I can look at them and think them real.

Under the ego’s influence, no matter whether I experience pain or pleasure, as I identify with ego and not mySelf, my wishes are to prove, one, that the separation is true and that my individual identity truly exists; and, two, that I am an innocent victim of what the world has done to me, beginning with my creation at birth. This allows me to have the ego’s two fold wish, the cake of separation and to eat it, too, because I am innocent and someone or something else is guilty.

The film in the projector determines, the movie I will see. If I load a horror story, I see that; a love story, I see that. But because of the ego’s illusion, I, we, forget we’ve chosen the film and loaded the projector and instead think what we’re seeing on the screen just happened and had nothing to do with what we’ve done.

The forms of this illusory world do not matter. It is only the mind’s decision for the content of guilt or forgiveness that is important, reflecting our decision maker’s hidden wish for ego or spirit. If we are mindful, we learn not to trust our perceptions and see them for what they are: a means to direct our attention from what matters within, to what doesn’t matter without. Perception’s purpose is to obscure the decision making mind that alone can chose the thoughts that constitute our perceived reality.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Wake up! No more politics as usual! 2

Wake up! No more politics as usual!
It’s just not working!
Haven’t we had enough gridlock, hate, fear and blaming?

We’re bleeding to death.
We’ve got to stop the hemorrhaging of jobs, infrastructure, education, ideals and the American Dream.

Would cooperation, love and compassion work better?
We’ve done the hate, fear and blaming and it’s brought us to where we are.

No more politics as usual!
Could cooperation, love and compassion get us to where we want to go,
stop the hemorrhaging of jobs, infrastructure, education, ideals and the American Dream?

What if we worked together as Americans first, and party members second?

What if we moved on, past all the bullshit to what really matters, healing our wounds and doing the great things we are still capable of?

Our so-called ‘problems’ are not insoluble, they can be resolved, but not the way we’ve been approaching them, not the way we’ve been thinking about them, and behaving. We’ve got to try something different. If we always do what we always did, we’ll always get what we always got. Haven’t we had enough, hate, fear and blaming? Can’t we try love, compassion and cooperation?

Monday, October 17, 2011

Wake up! No more politics as usual!

Wake up!
Follow the money!
Who’s winning and who’s loosing?
Are you, your community and the nation better off?
Who’s winning and who’s losing?
There are more millionaires in Congress than ever before.
Corporations are making greater profits than ever before.
Who’s winning and who’s losing?
The prices of everything are up – health care, insurance, food.
Who’s winning and who’s losing?

How do we get more of what we want and less of what we don’t want?
It’s not about ideology.
It’s not about party partisan politics.
It’s about fairness.
Fairness for the great majority of us.
Fairness that…..

How do we get more of what we want and less of what we don’t want?
First, we stop doing what we’ve been doing and try something different.
The hate, fear and blaming have gotten us where we are.
Should we do more of that?
Haven’t we had enough hate, fear and blaming?
What if we tried love, compassion and cooperation?
What if we worked together as Americans first, and party members second?

It’s like a boomerang. What we put out is what comes back to us.
Put out hate, fear and blaming and we get back hate, fear and blaming.
So why not try love, compassion and cooperation? Isn’t that what we all really want?

Our so-called ‘problems’ are not insoluble, they can be resolved, but not the way we’ve been approaching them, not the way we’ve been thinking about them, and behaving. We’ve got to try something different. If we always do what we always did, we’ll always get what we always got. Haven’t we had enough, hate, fear and blaming? Can’t we try love, compassion and cooperation?

Of course we can! Unfortunately the ‘winners’ of today, those benefiting from the slow, agonizing decline of everything from our retirement benefits and bank accounts to our ideals, want things to continue as they are. In spite of what ‘they’ say, they benefit from the hate, fear and blaming and want it to continue. Look around you. Perhaps, even look in the mirror. Ask yourself, ‘haven’t I had enough of all the hate, fear and blaming? Am I ready to give love, compassion and cooperation a chance?’

One of the best definitions of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. How insane have we as a nation and as individuals become? How much crazier will we get? How’s it working for you? How well will it work for your children and your children’s children?

Our so-called ‘problems’ are not insoluble, they can be resolved, but not the way we’ve been approaching them, not the way we’ve been thinking about them, and behaving. Einstein said, ‘you can’t solve the problem at the level of thinking that created it in the first place.’ Let’s try a higher level of thinking – love, compassion and cooperation, instead of hate, fear and blame.

Let’s do it in spite of our so-called leaders and elected officials. Let’s do it because they won’t; and if we don’t do it, nobody will. Let’s do it because it’s right and feels good, and will work.

Wake up!
Follow the money!
Who’s winning and who’s loosing?
We can get more of what we want and less of what we don’t want if we do things differently and use love, compassion and cooperation, instead of hate, fear and blame.

Friday, October 14, 2011

Forgiving, 3

Forgiveness works both ways, too. When I forgive, I am forgiven. All of us share the exact same need for what forgiveness brings: freedom from the ego and the realization of our reality as spiritual beings having earthly experiences. Of course, the forgiveness we’re talking about is not the, ‘bring the guilty bastard in so I can forgive him’ kind. It’s the realization of our common needs and our desire to serve them. It’s the realization that what I am seeing now – the guilt, hate, anger and fear, conceal my soul mate from me, the very person or thing that can bring the benefits of true forgiveness to me.

With this kind of forgiveness, I don’t do anything different with my eyes, and don’t deny what they see. I do something different with my mind. I now have the willingness to say I’ve been mistaken in how I’ve been seeing and relating – the blame, grudges and anger, and I now want to see things differently, without all that negative baggage; to learn from mySelf, from spirit, not from myself, the ego.

It’s not the other person’s body that has the power to forgive; another’s body has no more power than mine. It’s the Self we share, the one mind, that has the power and when I forgive truly, I acknowledge that whom and what I forgive are not what they seem or the only reality there is, but share a greater reality, a single Self, beyond the puny individual selves the ego allows us to perceive.

When I forgive truly, I understand that our bodies are like costumes, seeking to hide the reality of spirit that is within everyone and everything. I realize that we all do the same things for the same reasons, and really want love, peace, acceptance, inclusion and joy above all else. Forgiveness is our safe escape from anger, fear and all that we don’t want, and our gateway to love, joy and all that we do want. Be mindful, and the moment you are tempted to judge, hold a grudge, hate, exclude, punish and be angry, forgive both yourself and the other.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Forgiving, 2

Of course, it’s difficult to make a choice if you don’t know another choice is available. If I think the ego’s illusory world is all there is - is the ‘real’ world, as in ‘get real’ and quit all this airy fairy metaphysical stuff, then I don’t have a choice, because I’m already dealing with all the reality there is.

But, if on the other hand, you sense you are part of something greater than yourself…. So in order to choose spirit instead of ego, first, I’ve got to believe spirit is a real choice. Second, I’ve got to believe spirit is the best choice. And third, I’ve got to believe I can actually choose spirit, that it’s possible to get there from here, that I don’t have to sacrifice anything or become a nun, monk, or weirdo to do it.

That’s where forgiveness comes in. When someone makes a mistake, you forgive them, right? Thinking the ego’s illusory world is all the reality there is, and that we have separated from God, is a mistake to be forgiven, not a sin. Identifying with the ego instead of spirit is a choice that our decision maker has made, in our minds. It is a mistaken choice. Spirit is still there, where it’s always been, in our minds, waiting for us to choose It.

Being mindful as I go thru my day and paying attention to how I perceive myself, others and the world, provides an opportunity for forgiveness - to correct my mistake, choose again, and tells me which teacher I’ve chosen, ego or spirit. If I find myself becoming bored, depressed or critical of others, it is because I’ve identified with ego, and chose to see myself at hateful and selfish, first. I see the world as I see myself. Instead of feeling guilty about this, which is ‘normal’ in the ego illusion, I need to forgive myself.

But I don’t. Rather than forgiving myself and accepting responsibility for that choice, I project it out and see the hate in someone or something else. I need not continue to do that. I can choose a different teacher, spirit, and choose to perceive myself, others, and the world differently.

Being mindful and understanding that I see the world as I see myself, alerts me to the fact that my ego reactions can be reminders that I made the wrong choice. Perceiving the pain, anger, fear, or even the fun and excitement this way, allows me to return to my mind where my decision maker made the mistake, forgive myself, because it was only a mistake, not a sin, and choose again. Thus, no matter what, it is never the other person or thing I forgive, but myself for making the wrong choice.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Forgiving

The metaphysics I’ve been working with and sharing with you, say that only the non-specific, formless love that comes from identifying with our own formless love, the oneness we share with spirit, is real. Everything else is illusion.
Identifying with our own formless love, and the oneness we share with spirit means we don’t deny our bodies or experience, tho they are form and are specific, but realize instead, that everyone and everything tho appearing to be part of the ego’s illusion, is actually neutral, and can be used by spirit or the ego. It’s our choice.

Used by spirit, everyone and everything can reveal and reflect the reality of the formless, non-specific love and oneness we share with spirit. Used by ego, everyone and everything serves to make our separation from spirit and our sense of form and specifics real(er). It’s our choice.

Spirit is formless, the space between the thoughts, because thoughts, being specific tho ethereal in form, not only deny our formless, non-specific reality, they add to it. “All thinking produces form on some level.”

Again, no sense feeling guilty about thinking, form and specifics, it’s reality in the ego world. What we can do however instead of feeling guilty is to forgive everyone and everything. After all, knowing that the world is an illusion, how can we justify making meaningful distinctions here? In truth, everyone and everything is part of the one life, as am I. Forgiving everyone and everything, no matter what [which is extremely hard to do from the ego perspective], says, nothing else is true but the one life everyone and everything shares. Forgiving looks beyond form to the essence that everyone and everything shares.

Forgiving is a choice. What possible difference can there possibly be in seeing differences between what is equally unreal? Our attitude, forgiving or not, toward the forms we perceive, toward everyone and everything, hastens or retards our awakening, our journey home to the life that is our source. Chose to forgive and moveon, don’t forgive and remain in the illusion.

Friday, October 7, 2011

Lucid Dreaming, 2

A lucid dream is a dream in which one is aware that one is dreaming. The term was coined by the Dutch psychiatrist and writer Frederik (Willem) van Eeden (1860–1932).[1] In a lucid dream, the dreamer can actively participate in and manipulate imaginary experiences in the dream environment.[2] Lucid dreams can seem real and vivid.[3] Lucid dreaming has been researched scientifically, and its existence is well established.

The Course in Miracles, suggests that what we take to be real life, is in truth a lucid dream; that in reality we are at home with God, dreaming we are here. The miracle the Course teaches does not awaken us, but merely shows who the dreamer is. If it’s a ‘bad’ dream filled with terror, guilt, blame, and horror, focusing on specifics and our reality as bodies, we dream with the ego. If it’s a ‘good’ dream filled with peace, harmony, cooperation, and love, focusing on timeless transcendance, we dream with spirit.

The Course’s purpose is to move us towards awakening and show we have a choice of dreams while we still sleep. It is our choice. Who are we dreaming with and what is the dream’s purpose? Is the purpose love, inclusion, oneness and wholeness, or exclusion, hate, fear, blame, punishment and judgment? It’s our choice. For mySelf, I want to know that the reality of spirit surrounds me with love and friendship. I let it radite in my envioronment, bless everything I touch, make whole that which is weak, turn fear into faith, and accomplish the miracle of healing through love.

I am welcoming the opportunity to love fully, completely and joyfully inherent in every seeming ‘bad’ feeling, situation, or person. [This brings to mind the injunction to be careful for what I ask for.] I am believing in mySelf, because I believe in the reality of spirit and my oneness with It. I chose to dream a lucid dream with spirit, not ego, accepting life fully, completely, and without reservation, holding to the conviction that good is the eternal reality and that God is the everlasting, everpresent, and enfolding presence that guides and sustains me. What dream will you choose; what purpose will it serve and who will you dream it with?