Stinking Thinking, Politics and The New Professionalism

Most of us consider ourselves professionals.  But we’re old professionals, not in age, but in how we think about things. We rely on rationality, science and our left brains to the exclusion of intuition, spirit and our right brains. To relate to our work, families, communities and even ourselves more effectively we need to be new professionals, using both science and spirit, left brain and right, head and heart.

          Such a new professionalism would offer a way beyond using only the cold technique and icy expertise of old traditional professionalism, to enable us to include the enthusiasm, joy and compassion of our spiritual power, what Ralph Waldo Emerson called the energy of the “divine circuits.” 

          We don’t have to put that energy into things, Emerson tells us, it’s there already.  To reach it in ourselves and others, to have our personal and professional lives filled with that glow, we have to get the blocks, what Emerson called, our “bloated nothingness,” out of the way. 

          Ring true?  Emerson’s saying we’ve had it backwards all this time.  Spirit -- enthusiasm, warmth, creativity and trust -- is the rule, not the exception.  If we can get our bloated nothingness – our worry, fear, and solitary dependence on science and rationality, out of the way, spirit is what’s left. 

Three steps do that.  First, realize you have a bloated nothingness and it operates through your conceptual frameworks (conframes), the invisible patterns connecting thoughts, feelings and actions.  Second, be mindful of which of the four conframes you’re using.  Third, consciously shift to the one for the new professionalism, the one that interferes least with the divine circuits.

 

Shape Shifting Consciously

The shapes below represent the thoughts, feelings and experiences produced by the four basic conframes.  Since shifts between them are usually unconscious, if you become more mindful, you’ll know which conframe you’re using (Step 2) and which to shift to (Step 3).  Only one conframe shape represents the new professionalism and connects scientific expertise with inner wisdom and spiritual power to provide the skill, enthusiasm, warmth and creativity we want in our lives.  Before going on, consider the shapes and see if you can identify which that is.

 

blob                dichotomy                     pyramid                         continuum 

         

When using the Blob, you’ll have blah experiences.  Everything will seem the same, without meaning or significance.  Nothing will matter very much and no thing will be all that different from any other thing.  Key word: one dimensional. 

           With the Dichotomy, things are experienced as two dimensional.  As in: “you’re either for me or against me,” and, “things are either good or bad.”  Key word: either/or.  With the Dichotomy there’s no middle ground. 

          Key words for the Pyramid are hierarchy and scarcity.  Judgments and rankings are instantaneous and automatic.  Best is at the top, worst at the bottom.  The moment we experience something, we judge it. 

          The Continuum connects.  Its keyword is both/and.  By virtue of its shape alone, the Continuum communicates a sense of wholeness and completeness; without barriers, levels or other forms of separation.  Striving and proving are replaced by flow and intuition.  It is the shape of the new professionalism, a relationship with customers and others emphasizing trust and cooperation instead of the strife and struggle represented by the Dichotomy and Pyramid. 

Next time you reach the limits of your expertise or feel you’re losing it with yourself or others, shift to the Continuum.  And remember, shifting begins in the easiest and hardest places -- your own heart and mind. 

Easy because believe it or not, in spite of what your parents, teachers or society did to you, your heart and mind are, and always have been, 100% your own.  And hard, because being 100% your own, you have to face yourself and accept responsibility for what goes on there.  The most difficult journey is the eighteen inches between head and heart.

 

Let the Continuum Work for You

          Though the Continuum’s best, it’s not the most popular.  Just as people thought the world was flat in 1492, so now most people think professional relationships and life in general, are best understood as a Pyramid or Dichotomy -- the conframes of the old professionalism -- the bloated nothingness that blocks the divine circuits.

          You have to consciously choose the Continuum.  It will not operate automatically as our bloated nothingness, the Dichotomy and Pyramid, do.  Here are a few examples that show both how to use the Continuum, and it’s superiority.

          Put water on a continuum of hot and cold.  Ice at one end, steam at the other, liquid in the center.  You can differentiate between them and simultaneously understand that they’re different forms of the same thing, water.  The Blob couldn’t do that. 

          With the Blob, you’d perceive only water and wouldn’t be able to make the very useful distinctions between its solid form, ice, and its gaseous form, steam.  The Dichotomy would reduce the three -- ice, liquid and steam -- to two.  And the Pyramid would arrange them into a hierarchy with one at the top.

          Here’s another.  Put the skin color of human beings on a continuum with one end being white, the other, black.  Each color is visible but we can clearly see the larger truth, all are part of the same thing -- humanity.  The Blob wouldn’t detect differences at all.  The Dichotomy would focus only on differences, missing the connections.  While the Pyramid would include them all, but suggest some differences, those at the top, are better than others.

          Do emotions.  With the Blob we’d have nothing but emotions.  The Dichotomy makes emotions either good or bad.  While the Pyramid says some emotions are better than others, perhaps love at the top and hate at the bottom. 

Except during a war, when it would be reversed.  The Continuum shows all emotions have a place.

          The Continuum connects you, your client, and learners instead of separating them.  By adding warmth, creativity and enthusiasm to expertise and technique it creates a new professionalism, one that is more effective and life-affirming than the tired, over-worked old professionalism we’re used to. 

          Become a new professional.  Use the three steps.  First, realize you have a bloated nothingness and it operates through your conceptual frameworks.  Second, be mindful of which of the four conframes you’re using.  Third, shift to the Continuum.  Put your thoughts, feelings and experiences on it and let the Continuum’s level flow become the pattern for your life.

         

The Real Problem is Our Thinking, Not Our Politics

Most of the time, believing as we do, that we are separate individual personalities living in bodies, we feel we have an obligation and duty to take care of ourselves and not be a burden to other separate individual personalities living in bodies. We therefore seek to create social systems of economics, politics and other things such as health care, based on that idea and maximizing the role of the individual, individual freedom and responsibility, and minimizing the role of community, interdependence and cooperation.

Metaphysics aside, how realistic is this dualistic, either/or thinking of the individual vs community model?

 

Do people really ‘make it’ and ‘succeed (whatever that means)’ as individuals? To some extent, yes. But what about all the things already in place that contribute to making that success possible, the things put there by other people working as a community: the schools, hospitals, roads and bridges, police and fire (which Republican aggressiveness and Democratic cowardice are allowing to be gutted)?

 

Clearly, these other things, built and sustained by community make individual success possible. So really, the ‘issue’ isn’t either individual vs community, but how can we release such dualistic, either/or thinking and work together to have both individual success and community.

 

And how about men vs women (or protecting men from women); no abortion under any circumstances vs abortion in cases of ‘authentic’ rape; or the heroic hard working white middle class vs the free-loading racial inferiors; or the innocent victimized Christians who are only trying to save the world vs the godless commies and false religions?  Is there no middle ground, no balance?  Clearly the problem is not the various positions, and which position is ‘right’.

 

The problem is the dualistic, either/or thinking itself.

Miracles and Politics

The way things are now in American politics, it feels like it would take a miracle for people to realize their connection to one another, no matter their politics, and see their common hopes, aspirations and concerns as Americans first, despite the political rhetoric.

 

In our everyday thinking, a miracle seems to be a rare, magical, supernatural event that hardly ever occurs and if it does occur, happens to someone else, never ourselves. In this way of thinking, miracles are special, God induced suspensions of natural laws that have to be earned.  Miracles are only dispensed to the ‘good,’ ‘righteous’ and ‘deserving’.  This, of course, is the ego’s way of thinking, the thinking or our self.

 

In the spiritual thinking of the Course in Miracles--the thinking of our Self, miracles are not a suspension of ‘natural’ laws, but a return to them; are free--do not have to ‘earned’ and are available to everyone, all the time. In this way of thinking, because the decision maker in our minds mistakenly chose to identify with the ego instead of with our reality as spirit, the miracle is nothing but a correction—the sudden awareness of the truth about ourselves and the world. The miracle happens inside us, not outside us.

 

Suddenly, the scales drop from our eyes, we wake up and realize things need not be as they are, that almost anything is possible. The miracle feels supernatural because our spiritual reality is supernatural compared to our ego reality. The miracle corrects our self concept, exchanging it for a Self concept.

 

The miracle reveals our At-one-ment; shows us that we are all human beings, no matter our incomes, skin color, politics or religion. The miracle replaces our desire to be special and unique and judge others. The miracle shows us that nothing has changed God; nothing, no matter what we have done, has changed our Self. A dream is a dream is a dream and can have no effect on our reality.

 

So, yes, the way things are now in American politics, it would take a miracle for us to realize our connection to one another, no matter our politics, and see our common hopes, aspirations and concerns as Americans first, despite the political rhetoric, but not the kind of ‘miracle’ our self believes in, but rather the kind our Self believes in.

Creative Problem Solving

One of the best ways to creatively and sustainably solve seemingly intractable problems, such as Republicans and Democrats realizing and accepting that we are all Americans first, is to just play, play without keeping score.

 

“Playing to win is just another name for work” – Roy Williams.

We're Always Teaching Something

My last post was about the ‘love of God….’  What ‘love’ is, exactly, and ‘God’ is, exactly, is a mystery; the great cosmic mystery. There are many formal, structured, dogmatic religions that claim to know, exactly. But in truth, no matter how beautiful the ritual or compelling the dogma, no one knows for sure.

However, we can experience ‘the love of God--It loving us, and we loving It,’ and feel It animate and vibrate through us.  It’s just that it’s difficult to define It from ego—while we believe we are bodies. Actually, it’s impossible to do so. We of ourselves—our ego selves, are not capable of doing it. What we are capable of doing and what the Course is trying to help us do, is undo the interferences to the remembrance of ourSelves.  We don’t have to put the ‘love of God’—the peace, compassion and inclusiveness into things, we only have to remove the blocks within us to Its expression thru us.

The ego is such a block. The ego speaks first and is always wrong. We want to learn to use the ego’s symbols within its framework but for a totally different purpose. That purpose is to teach the truth of the at-one-ment and our reality as spirit, not by preaching or explaining, but by accepting Its principles and living them, by allowing the ‘love of God’ to extend thru us. “Teach not that I died in vain,” the Course quotes Jesus as saying. “Teach rather that I did not die by demonstrating that I live in you.”

Our lives are always demonstrating and ‘teaching’ something. “The question is not whether you will teach,” Ken Wapnick says, “for in that there is no choice.” The question is who are you teaching with—ego or spirit, and what do you want to learn, because we always teach what we want to learn.

It’s our choice. Monitor your experience. If you’re feeling fear, worry, pain, blame, guilt and hate, you’re teaching with ego. Watch what you’re doing and shift. No blame, no guilt, just, ‘oh, there I go again, teaching with ego,’ and shift. This monitoring and shifting is a constant process, so don’t feel ‘bad’ if you find yourself doing a lot of catching and shifting.  In fact, doing a lot of catching and shifting is ‘good’ ‘cause it means you’re making progress!

Learning We Are Not Here

Our true reality, our Identity as spiritual beings, our Self, is not changed by what we think with the ego. The fierce, horrible, frightening things we think with the ego are not the truth about us, nor are they even the truth about the world.  The world is neutral, like a movie screen, and reflects back at us what we project onto it. If we project the ego’s nightmare, the world is a nightmare.  If we project our true Identity, then the world is a blessed, joyous place.

To transform the world, we have to transform ourselves first. We must see what we are doing—projecting the ego’s nightmare, take responsibility for our projections, and choose to project from our true Identity. That is why “our only purpose here is learning we are not here.” The more we blame others: Republicans, bankers, Adelson and the Kochs, the more we invest in fixing the world of the ego and forgetting our only purpose.

Isn’t it comforting to know who you really are?  Who your Self is, and what you’re true Identity is? 

It sure is for me!  I take a deep breath and relax into it.  I affirm: “Today, I let spirit, mySelf, look upon all things for me and judge them not. But give each one the miracle of love instead.” I, as an ego, am not capable of this. But with the love of God upholding me—It loving me, and me loving It, the work can be done thru me.

Peace Envelopes Me

“Today the peace of God envelops me, and I forget all things except His (Its) Love,” the Course in Miracles

This does not mean that you do not watch the news, read a paper, work and demonstrate against current Republican brand abuses, or listen to someone’s sad story. But rather that you do so with spirit. Forgetting all things except “His (Its) Love,” means my ego needs recede to the background while “His (Its) Love,” moves to the foreground. It means I realize the purpose is not to satisfy myself’s needs, but to satisfy mySelf’s need to give and receive forgiveness—accept my own and everyone’s at-one-ment, everyone’s reality as spiritual beings, even those supporting the current Republican brand.

It means I will experience daily events and relationships differently, especially political events. Not as challenges to myself’s sovereignty, but as opportunities to practice my changed purpose. I will not deny that I live in a world of time and space and Republicans, but I let that world recede into the background, and allow the real world of love, compassion, joy, creativity, cooperation and community to glide into the foreground.

As I reverse figure—ego, and ground, spirit, I can experience the perceptual world of time and space and Republicans as the myself’s creation—my story, my script, and I can look at it another way, with the love of God upholding me, with mySelf, upholding myself. As the peace of God envelops me, and I forget all things except “His (Its) Love, I understand that “our only purpose here is learning we are not here.”

Choosing Again

“The law of love,” Ken Wapnick of the Course says, “is universal, holding for everyone; (and) the at-one-ment principle (letting go of the ego’s separation and claiming our reality as spirit) is universal, holding for everyone;” even for those who reject it, like those who support the current Republican brand. “Yet the specific ways in which we practice the at-one-ment will differ for each of us.”

“Since we wrote the scripts of our special (ego) relationships,” Ken Wapnick of the Course says, “and these differ from the scripts of others, our experiences of undoing the ego (forgiving, accepting the miracle and our reality as spirit first—seeking first the Kingdom of Heaven then working in the world) will also differ. We will experience the correction (the miracle) in the forms we need,” in the forms unique to us as the individuals we think we are.  “The underlying principle is always the same (for everyone) however—the mind has dreamt the dream, and therefore it is the mind alone that can change it.

“Our only need here (in the world, the ego’s nightmare reality) is forgiveness or the miracle.” The miracle reminds me that as the decision maker in my mind chose the ego’s nothing, now in light of the miracle’s reflection of the Everything, I can chose anew. “In the end, making the right choice is inevitable (for) ‘Who with the Love of God upholding him could find the choice of miracles or murder hard to make?’”

Do Unto Others

“No one will love you more than you love yourself,” says Bob Lukin in the Science of Mind Daily Readings for August. “If anyone were to do so, you would not be able to accept it. Love starts and ends with you.”

Yes, but which “you”—your self, or your Self? Your Self never stops loving your self. Your Self loves unconditionally. No matter how you judge your self and your so-called ‘sins,’ your Self know who you really are, your true identity as spirit, and loves, supports, embraces and enfolds your self. So, yes, within the ego nightmare, “no one will love you more than you love yourself,” but if you allow it, your Self will love your self unconditionally and in turn you can return that love to Source by loving your self and other selves the same way.

“Only from the heart,” Rumi said, “can you touch the sky.”

We're # 120!!

According to the 7/30 issue of the Christian Science Monitor Weekly, which is as close to an objective source of news and info one can find now-a-days, only one third of Americans can name all three branches of government, and another third cannot name any!  Wow!  Also, only 28% of 12^th graders scored proficient or advanced on the National Assessment for Educational Progress civics exam. Additionally, the ‘we’re # 1’ ‘exceptional’ USA ranks 120^th out of 169 democracies in voter turnout; and these trends are accelerating.

Does this bode well for ‘government of the people and by the people?’

Who tends to benefit from this ignorance and deterioration of American civic competence and culture? Who’s trying to suppress the vote in the name of preventing non-existent voter fraud? Need I say it?  The current Republican brand.

An exaggeration? Possibly. But no matter who may benefit from these trends in the short run, we all lose in the long run if these trends continue.  So what are we, gonna do about it?  What are ‘we’, collectively and individually going to do to reverse these trends?  Think about it, and whatever you can do, please do it before it’s too late. Even if you only think about things differently, about yourself, your prejudices and the role of government, and think more often with spirit than with ego, that will matter, that will make a difference…that will matter a great deal.

Clinging to Separation, 4

Spirituality—a non-dogmatic belief in a benign, universal power inherent in all human beings, is the thing itself, religion, its various brands. Appeals to fundamentalist, traditional, judeo-christian religious beliefs seem to be working for the current Republican brand. But the fact is that the demographic trends of those who carry those beliefs are against that brand. Hopefully, we are seeing the last hurrah of that kind of thinking.

Meanwhile, people of all demographics, even those favoring the Republicans, hunger for spiritual connection and succor.  The kind of spirituality I've been posting about is politically Progressive spirituality, connecting Science and Spirit, heart and mind. It is cutting edge spirituality, not religion; compassionate, non-dogmatic, inclusive, non-ideological, pragmatic, and emphasizes love over fear. By learning about this kind of spirituality and practicing it, Progressives claim the future.

In the separated experience of living in the ego’s nightmare, if I want something, I have to give something. Nothing is for nothing; it’s dog-eat-dog, the bedrock of the current Republican brand. But according to the Course in Miracles: “God thinks otherwise. (Of course, the spiritual version of ‘God’ doesn’t ‘think;’ thinking is a human activity used here to anthropomorphosize God – to make God more comprehensible to us by making God in our image, instead of vice versa.) Sacrifice is a notion totally unknown to God. It arises solely from fear, and frightened people can be vicious. Sacrifice in any way is a violation of (spirit’s) injunction that you be merciful (and forgiving) even as your Father in Heaven is merciful (and forgiving).”

So the ego’s thought system of punishment, vengeance and sacrifice, that we so strongly identify with, is quietly undone through forgiveness, which restores to our awareness our reality as spiritual beings having earthly experiences. “The mercy and the peace of God are free. (They) and salvation have no cost. (They) are a gift that must be freely given and received. Heaven’s love is not diminished by our belief in the hell of judgment.”

Clinging to Separation, 3

As is evident from the success of the current Republican brand, the separation of religion and politics does not work. Appeals to fundamentalist, traditional, judeo-christian religious beliefs is working for them. But the fact is that the demographics of those who carry those beliefs are against them. Hopefully, we are seeing the last hurrah of that kind of thinking.

Meanwhile, people of all demographics, even those favoring the Republicans, hunger for spiritual connection and succor.  The kind of spirituality I've been posting about is politically Progressive spirituality, connecting Science and Spirit, heart and mind. It is cutting edge spirituality, not religion. By learning about this kind of spirituality and practicing it, Progressives claim the future.

And actually when we release our ego identity and accept our reality as spirit we don’t just go ‘poof!’ and disappear, we experience a miracle, a healing, a gradual shift from living lives of fear, disappointment, anger and blame to lives of hope, optimism, generosity and compassion. The miracle and forgiveness are similar aspects of healing the ego’s nightmare illusion of separation. The miracle is not about external changes but solely about a change of mind from ego to spirit.

“The miracle is taken first on faith, because to ask for it implies the mind has been made ready to conceive of what it cannot see and does not understand.”

Gradually, as we go within and shift from the ego’s guidance to spirit’s, we feel more peaceful because we realize we that we, not anyone or anything else, are the ones that give things all the meaning they have for us. We thus are choosing differently and interpreting differently and feel less victimized by what goes on around us. Faith in the constant presence of spirit’s love and support and our oneness with it--the inside-out approach, shows that our happiness does not rest upon external happenings: whether someone has a good or bad day, does or does not smile, the weather is nice or nasty, or whatever we believe secures our happiness and peace. 

“Faith will bring its witnesses to show that what it rested on is really there. And thus the miracle will justify your faith in it, and show it rested on a world more real than what you saw before; a world redeemed from what you thought was there.”

This happens, not because something magical occurred, but because we practice our faith. We bring the ‘problem’ to its source in the mind, shift from ego to spirit and that changes how we interpret and feel.  As we increasingly experience release from the ego’s nightmares of judgment and pain, we recognize the joy in learning we are not figures in this dream, but the dreamers of the dream.  As our faith bears wonderful fruit, we realize the illusory dream has never left its source in the illusory mind, that we have been wrong about everything here, and acting on our faith in our reality as spirit brings us what we truly want.

“Miracles fall like drops of healing rain from Heaven on a dry and dusty world, where starved and thirsty creatures come to die. Now they have water. Now the world is green. And everywhere the signs of life spring up.”

Clinging to Separation, 2

Babies will cry when the scissors they are playing with are taken from them. To the caring adult this source of ‘enjoyment’ is a dangerous potential source of harm. The still small voice of spirit is the caring adult within us, trying to get us to stop playing with our dangerous ego toys, except the still small voice does not have the same power over us that the adult has over the child. It—spirit, the still small voice, must whisper, nudge and wait patiently until we return to our minds and change them. Our Self is trying to shift focus from our self’s dangerous toys—the ego’s specialness, gently, not by force, not by force, but by showing us it does not make us happy.

Because the self thinks separation, not at-one-ment with its Self will make it happy, and because the Law always gives us what we want most—separation, “let us resolve today to ask for what we really want, and only this (at-one-ment with ourSelves), that we may spend this day in fearlessness without confusing pain with joy, or fear with love.”  We need a new definition of happiness which comes only when we step outside ourselves, the ego dream—outside our personal identity, and allow our Self to teach us what alone will give us what we want: the perceptual shift of relationships that forgiveness brings.

Each situation, experience and feeling whether positive or negative from the ego’s perspective is an opportunity to awaken and claim the gifts of peace and oneness that forgiveness brings. Seeing our lives as classrooms in which we constantly practice returning to our minds and perceiving our mistakes and seizing our opportunities without guilt, judgment and blame works best. No one and no-thing can ever take our Self’s love, compassion, peace and joy from us except our self’s fear of loosing its illusory identity.

Clinging to Separation

“No one desires pain,” The Course says, “but he can think that pain is pleasure. No one would avoid his happiness. But he can think that (happiness and) joy is painful, threatening and dangerous.” This confusion happens because we mistake the ego’s gifts for spirit’s gifts, and our self for our Self.  The self, the ego, perceives itself as separate from spirit, its true Self. The self’s very existence depends on the denial of spirit, on being separate and keeping the Self away. 

If the self is part of the Self, which it is, then the self has no individual identity, no separate existence and would cease to exist as a separated self. This is very threatening and frightening to the ego self.  It will do anything: hurt itself, suffer, attack, fear and blame to keep itself busy in the illusion of the world and thus maintain its separate individual identity. Only by being willing to relinquish our separate identity and awake from the ego’s nightmare version of the world of separation, can true sustainable and lasting joy and happiness (and the cessation of pain, fear and anger) come.

Thinking we are bodies, instead of accepting our at-one-ment with our Source, our Self; believing more in our physical external identities than our inner spiritual identities, confuses us and we really do not understand the difference between pleasure and pain. If we believe the body can give one, we believe it can also give the other. Joy is giving up the ego self, our individuality and self importance, what Emerson called “our bloated nothingness,” and choosing our spiritual Self.  As egos, we are like the drop of seawater thrown into the air by the crashing waves, thinking it is separate from its Source the sea, rejoicing in its ‘freedom’ and fearing its inevitable fall back into the ocean from which it came and of which it is a part.

Self and self

Yesterday’s post said, “each time”—each time we feel the fear, feel separated from our Source, we need do nothing but release the ego and embrace our inner power. Each time—we are never done, it is never over, it is a process--we are always needing to be mindful, self aware and Self aware. 

The Self is our Source, the power within that knows the truth, knows our true identity as spiritual beings having earthly experiences. The self is the ego self, the identity we identify with most of the time, the self we think we are that perceives, thinks and understands incorrectly.  The process of living well involves monitoring ourselves, to be mindful and aware of which self/Self we’re identifying with, and if it’s the self, we want to ask the Self for help shifting to It from the self.

When we’re with our Self we’re not projecting, and when we’re not projecting, we’re not creating any illusions to be afraid of or worry about. So, knowing what we perceive outside us is a projection, an illusory experience that we give meaning to, we want to acknowledge our perceptions; after all we can’t go and play in the traffic. But then, as yesterday’s post said, we want to “live so as to demonstrate (we) are not egos.” To demonstrate we are spiritual beings having earthly experiences and to deal with our perceptions from that place: the centered, inner place of compassion, peace, joy, creativity and inclusion. Then, from there, make our own unique contributions to a world that works for everyone and everything.

At-one-ment and the Current Republican Brand

The Atonement and forgiveness help me see things differently and know that there is nothing to fear, because there is no projection of guilt that demands attack and defense. The Atonement and forgiveness remind me of the innocence and oneness, the sinlessness, we all share as spiritual beings.

I find peace, safety, love, and happiness, not through the world changing or my manipulating others to meet my special, ego needs, but rather by changing my mind’s thought system and teacher, shifting from the ego’s endless nightmare to spirit’s eternal bliss. This means that all I have to do each time I become aware of the fear, anger and pain is accept the Atonement for myself. In other words, when the harsh, evil, horrifying movie of the world gets to me, goes out of focus, instead of going up to the screen to change the focus—trying to make the world better, I go to the projection booth in my mind and ask to see things differently.

“All I need do is undo what my ego has taught me.  I need do nothing of myself, for I need but accept my Self, my sinlessness, created for me, now already mine.” The sinless innocents that we truly are, are safe because they live from their spiritual reality and project nothing. “Nothing they see (such as the current Republican brand) is harmful, for their awareness of the truth releases everything (such as the current Republican brand) from the illusion of (sin) and harmfulness. And what seemed harmful (such as the current Republican brand) now stands shining in (its) innocence, released from sin and fear and happily returned to love.”

We “are asked to live so as to demonstrate (we) are not egos;” to realize we did not sin but merely made a mistake. “Though we perceive, think, and understand incorrectly, there is (a power) within that knows the truth.” We need do nothing but release the ego and embrace this power each time we feel the fear...and vote Democratic!

Minds Are Joined

“Forgiveness let’s me know that minds are joined,” the Course says—minds, not bodies! This is so cool—minds, not bodies! The metaphysics here is beautiful and empowering—minds, not bodies! Metaphysics—the higher order abstraction, the Laws governing the energy everything is made of. The Course’s metaphysics holds that only the mind is real, only the ephemeral invisible energy we all share is real, and that what we think and feel with that mind is what manifests in the world.

Only the one mind is real and the world, as real as it seems, is an illusory creation of our individual ego use of that one mind. The world is a consensus reality, a reality created by the agreement and consent of all the individual egos using the one mind.

Forgiveness, asking spirit for help in shifting our perception of the world from ego to spirit, returns us to the real world—the experience of peace, joy, and compassion. From the place of forgiveness, letting go of sin, guilt, fear, and blame, we are able to see that the so-called ‘sinners’, guilty and fearful ones, and those worthy of blame and punishment, are human beings—spiritual beings have earthly experiences, same as we are, sharing the need let go of the ego nightmare and return home to spirit as we all do.

Forgiveness let’s me know that minds are joined. By first accepting the Atonement—at-one-ment, for myself, by forgiving the ego illusions of sin, guilt, fear and blame—all designed to keep me busy in the world and distracted from my reality as spirit, I return to the mind that originated and projected the ego. I can then look within at the mind’s wrong-minded decision for the ego, recognize my mistaken choice and choose correctly, returning home to the love, peace, joy and compassion already in our hearts, to our shared reality as spirit. I can end the ego nightmare right now, by asking to see things differently, with spirit, and choosing again – each time the pain arises. Minds are joined; forgiveness let’s me know that.