The Conversation Between Teacher and Student Continues

After a few minutes watching the birds circle above and enjoying the soft summer breeze blowing the cherry blossoms to the ground in a most spectacular array of color, the teacher smiled to Sue and said, “Remember always the Child’s equation of giving and receiving.  The glimpses and glimmers that are breaking through are your Original Identity, The Child of God making Itself known.  These glimpses will grow and grow as you offer them to your “others”.  We offer them not only in words but also with the acknowledgment of your heart, that the guiltlessness you are finding for yourself is true of Everyone.  It is in “seeing” the Child of God in others that our glimpses come much more regularly.  Do you remember the fun practice that I spoke of in the past of looking for good in everyone and everything?  We continue this looking for the good/God qualities and attributes in others.  This looking for good in spite of the ego’s protestations to the contrary, will grow and grow.  Make it a game, have fun.  Even with the person who seems to be always angry or impatient, we can find something good.  “How so?” asked Sue.   The teacher smiled and said, “Ah, so, even this image we have called angry and impatient is consistently so.  Consistency is the good we can see.  This practice is the beginning of finding yourself the Self we spoke of earlier.  It is to forgive our projections and selfhood images.  This practice of looking for good and what we spoke about in our earlier conversation will awaken you to the Divine Spark within your mind and you will find yourself the Self in The Meadow.  This “new seeing”  will be the natural and spontaneous way of Being.  It is the Way of The Child.”  Sue, sensing that the conversation was over, bid the teacher farewell, and asked, “May I come and visit another day?”  “Of course you can”, said the teacher, “I look forward to our next visit.”

Sue left and returned a month later, the blossoms had all scattered now replaced with the fruit of a new day.  “It is good to visit with you again,” said the teacher.    “The Meadow and I have been expecting you.  What have you learned from your practice of forgiveness and looking for the good in all things?” 

Sue smiled at her Friend and her Friend smiled back.  “I know I am in The Meadow, The Happy Dream.   With joy and enthusiasm in her voice, Sue said.   “By God, I see, I see, There is nothing outside The Mind and Its Self-awareness I am.”  The Friends smiled, clapped their hands, got up and starting skipping through The Meadow.  It would be only a short time before the ripening fruit would come to Seed.  

Conversation about the Ease and Effortlessness of the Practice of Forgiveness

The student was strolling near the river’s edge when he saw the teacher sitting in the meadow under the blossoming cherry tree.  The student approached the teacher with a question on his mind and was received with a warm smile.  The teacher asked, “It appears that you have a question.  How can I help?”  The student replied, “When will I experience the effortlessness and simplicity of my practice of forgiveness?”  The teacher paused, understanding the depth of the question and said:

“It really becomes quite easy.  Once we make it a habit of not defending our guilt and fear and we are willing to hide them no longer, bringing them to “our” Sacred Spirit for the new interpretation, the always present peace and joy is easily Felt almost instantaneously, and we smile and clap at the simplicity of it all.  It is only the hiding which is the defending of the guilt that we have believed about ourselves that makes it seem so difficult.  Behind the guilt is the sense of unworthiness that is the very ego belief.  When you make it a habit of not projecting your inner guilt and shame and take responsibility for your original decision to separate, your practice will become easier and easier.  This projecting of unworthiness onto yourself and your world is the ego’s defense against the truth of Innocence.  Once we know that there is nothing that can change this truth of guiltlessness about ourselves, we will not hide from anything, and the simplicity and effortlessness will be self-evidenced.  Along the way, we have ever-growing glimpses of the light and truth of Self and the fiction of the ego self is understood with certainty.  There will be an experience of equanimity from instant to instant.  As we live with this equanimity and continue to acknowledge the presence of God and “our” Holy Spirit, we find that there is nothing other than This Self that is Real.  In the ongoingness of healing our mind from the belief of guilt, and understanding that there is nothing to forgive, we will have the experience of illumination.  And as we contemplate and abide as this re-discovered Self, we will know that we know.  Then there will be the complete transfiguring and transformation into and As the Very Self of God.  We live this knowledge right here in the illusory mind and world of perception.  This is the Gift offered Everyone.  This is the Gift we learn to give to Everyone and Everything, this is the good news and glad tidings that we share.”

The teacher could see on the student’s face that the glimpse shared was received.  “May I sit here in The Meadow with you, under this blossoming tree?” asked the student.  The teacher smiled and said, “Of course.  The Meadow is always here but for the seeing.  In The Meadow there are no teachers, there are no students.  There is only the Self we be.”

The Balance Between Heaven and The Dream

With outstretched arms, God’s Love invites the prodigal son home

Home is so close, just beyond the wall of intellect and reason

It is right here, every reflection beginning to shine as this present love

My mind is joined, it is one with all, there is not two, no subject no object.

Oh, join my hand, my brothers, my sisters, thy holy Child of God

Love yourself, love each other, there is none but Oneself

Self of me and Self of thee, no thee, no thine, but only Love supreme

Love is the Answer, Forgiveness is the means, undoing the dream of a separate me.

Divine Innocence is the truth of the one you want to blame

How long will you delay, the promised Gift that is right at hand

Peace you seek, happiness sought, and yet you would withhold from another

You cannot have what you are unwilling to share; the Gift received is in the giving.

Oh gentle and loving one, what you seek for is but You

You know this, no need for struggle, let it go, you Holy Child of God

Let go the fear as best you can, a little here, a little there or all at once

Give up your demons to the Holy One, the Holy Voice within.

Find your freedom by letting go of the fear of looking at your dream

A dream of doubt, limitation, abandonment, not good enough

Look the shadows in the eye, do not defend, do not justify

Acknowledge the Real within and She will bring you home.

Beyond gender is the sacred heart of Thee

Beyond good and bad is the sacred heart of thee

Beyond yesterday and tomorrow is the sacred heart of thee

The Child Heart, our Sacred Spirit, is the balance between Heaven and the dream.

This bridge to Heaven is the Holy One you are

It is the real of you, the real of me, and the real of all that is perceived

Go within and find for yourself, your reality of love and life

Awareness of the Truth is hiding in plain sight.

The veil of ego illusion seems to cover the truth

With trust and willingness, to look at all you believe

You will come upon the secret, the mystery of the Divine

Then there will be a great laugh, and you will know who you are.

A Glimpse of Balance and Beyond

The Divine Child is our real Identity.  The Child is the Balance between this world of imagining and Deity Itself.  This sacred Child is the means by which we uncover our authentic Identity.   We are the Child of God but it seems to take time to awaken to this truth.   With confidence and trust that The Child is our guide and comforter, our new (not new at all) interpreter, we forgive or undo our mistaken perceptions and see them in the Light of Wisdom.   The images may change or not, this is of no importance.  What is important is that with this new interpretation, a sense of well-being grows into an equanimity and sense of freedom beyond what mere words can only point.   We start to understand what the meaning of this world really is and what to do about it, if we do anything at all.  We start to identify more and more with this inner Child.  Our beliefs about everything we thought were true are exchanged for the Child’s thought system of guiltlessness and ever-present peace and thanksgiving.   

The Child tells us of the divine equation of giving and receiving and receiving and giving and we receive the blessings that follow in time from the living of this equation.   The Child brings to us the subjective truth that ideas leave not their source.   Giving and receiving now understood as one action reflecting God’s love for His Son.

The subjective truth allows us to take responsibility for the interpretations that we make.   As ACIM states:

“This is the only thing that you need do for vision, happiness, release from pain and the complete escape from sin, all to be given you.  Say only this, but mean it with no reservations, for here the power of salvation lies:

I am responsible for what I see,

I choose the feelings I experience, and I decide

  Upon the goal I would achieve.

And everything that seems to happen to me

   I ask for, and receive as I have asked. 

Deceive yourself no longer that you are helpless in the face of what is done to you.  Acknowledge but that you have been mistaken, and all effects of your mistakes will disappear.”

For me, this last statement, echoed throughout the course material, is a concept most important; to finally understand that what we have believed about ourselves has never really occurred.  We are always innocent and the desire and imagining of being the possessor of life instead of God’s Life (Extention) is only a hypothetical impossibility.  With a child’s trust, we return to the Child of God we are.  We learn to let go the illusion of self-hate, which is imbedded in this illusory dream.  Also imbedded or divinely imprinted is the Sacred Truth of Identity.  This Truth will set us free.    

The Manual for Teachers:  “The terrible mistake about yourself the miracle corrects as gently as a loving mother sings her child to rest.  Is not a song like this what you would hear?”  “How lovely does the world become in just that single instant when you see the truth about yourself reflected there.  Now you are sinless and behold your sinlessness.  Now you are holy and perceive it so.  And now the mind returns to its Creator; the joining of the Father and the Son, the Unity of unities that stands behind all joining but beyond them all.  God is not seen but only understood.  His Son is not attacked but recognized.”

This final Understanding is that God, Self, Child and Holy Spirit are One.  Only God Is.

Glimpse from The Meadow

The mind has superimposed upon itself a fiction, a pseudo-identity that claims to be something that it is not.  Beyond mind’s mis-perception, beyond this fiction, lies The Meadow, a state of mind where tranquility resides and the Children sing the Heart’s sacred song.  In The Meadow, love is ever-present; her arms are forever outstretched welcoming everyone home.  She invites all to drink of her eternal waters, soothing waters of youthfulness in spite of the world’s images brought by time and change.  This Meadow is just beyond the mind’s reason and logic, just beyond the misperception of separation and “otherness”.  Here in this miraculous place of timeless being, this Holy Instant, one finds the balance of “not yielding and not contending”.  This state of mind is right here closer than breathing, but only The Child Heart of us can see (perceive) it and only the Child Heart lives and stays Here.  It is Here where we clap, shout, sing and live joyously and ecstatically. 

Our True Identity

It is often said that “the holy spirit is speaking through me”.  This very me is the pseudo-identity.  What is true for me and will be true for every Child of God is this recognition.  The holy spirit does not speak through a “me”.  Indeed this is how it seems to be as we begin and work our practice.  But as we continue and dismantle all mis-perception we start to realize that we are not a vehicle, we are not a channel, we are not a body nor are we the mind that thinks the Holy spirit is separate and speaks through us.  What is true Top Down, standing at the top rung of the ladder is this: The Holy Spirit I (We) is our True Identity.  Our Sacred Self comes through this body and is associated with this body, but we are not the body/mind.  The sacred Child of God uses this body to communicate the “good news”.  The kingdom of God is at hand, already our reality and Condition.  We will be victorious in time because time is just the sequential unfolding of our imagined separation and then we make the imaginary Return to our Original and Native State.  It is already Finished the instant it seemingly began.  We are the guiltless Child/Children of God and our Innocence is our Salvation.  Let us Celebrate.  The prodigal son we have imagined ourselves to be is returning home.  We are doing it.  By God, we are undoing (forgiving) our illusion of the ego, possessor of life, to exchange this illusory mind and its thought system for the Real and Only Mind that is God Itself.  We are not a personality or body trying to get somewhere.  We acknowledge our Reality while climbing the illusory ladder of return and then the Event occurs.  We are the Very Spirit, the Very Voice in the Wilderness proclaiming the “good news”.  We are the Children of the New Covenant written upon our hearts.

The Reversal of Cause and Effect

Our minds are conditioned to look at the world and see the evidence that we live in a world of pain and suffering.  Every day, we can read the headlines about this war or that one.  We see our friends and/or family growing older, getting sick and some coming to the end of their days, what we call death.  There are economic challenges, political bickering, religious disorder and just more of the same, day in and day out. 

Many of us are walking around trying to make ends meet or we are suffering from one dilemma or another.  We are struggling with our relationships, our jobs, our health, our spiritual journey, etc. trying to stay in control either defending our positions or attacking the positions of others.  All in the name of what is “right and justified”.  

That is how it seems to the mind that is stuck at the plateau on the mountain of understanding; the plateau that says this world is real and I am no more than a body, born in time and will die in time.  

The “great necessity” remains ever the same; it calls for a change of mind, a new interpretation, a willingness to let go of the old beliefs that we must struggle in search for the happiness that we all so earnestly desire.  It is all grist for the mill, the opportunity to learn the lessons we are here to learn.

The anger is building, no one can deny that.  What hasn’t been realized is the insanity and our mis-interpretation of what this world is really all about.  What is our true purpose, why are we here?  This is the question that we must come to understand if we are to find the happiness that lies within.  I know these words will be ignored by many, just as I did in years gone by.  I also know if I write them well enough, perhaps there will be a few who will pause and say, perhaps there is a better way. 

In the end, we will all wake up to the truth that we are not at the effect of others.  Cause and effect must be reversed so we can learn the simplicity of non-judging.  We will find this reversal of cause and effect and the miracles it brings difficult in the beginning because we have been conditioned by others and ourselves to stay invested and attached to our positions of being right, in being in control, and being the authority.  We can live this discipline and find ourselves victorious.  It   can be done; I know this to be true because I have found a measure of the peace and joy that such a discipline uncovers.  This change of mind is done layer upon layer as we dismantle the old beliefs that are so firmly entrenched.  

The reversing of cause and effect is simply this:  we take ownership for the way that we feel and stop playing the victim.  We take the first steps on faith and with a child’s simple trust.  We become willing to stop believing that we feel the way we do because of what is happening to us by outside events, even our own body that we have mis-identified with.  We are much more than the body.  We will never uncover and re-discover our “authentic Identity” if we continue looking at the world and the people in it as separate from ourselves. 

This reversal speaks to us taking this new position; that my world appears the way it does because of what I am believing and thinking.  Our actions always out-picture our unconscious beliefs. 

Much of what we believe is veiled; covering the darkness that we have come to believe is real.  I look out the window and it is a cloudy day. The sun is there and once the clouds are vaporized, the sun is seen as it is.  As we undo our egoic strategy of judgment and guilt, whether they are for others or for ourselves, we will feel a shift in our consciousness.  Our minds will become quieter and in that space where ego’s chatter (If only it was this way or that, if only he or she would act differently, and all the myriad ways the story of blame and shame is projected and acted out) was once non-stop, we will find the stillness that is always present. 

I call this Place the Sacred Heart, the holy of holies, The Child.  You may call it whatever you wish.  Some speak of it as the Higher Power, God.  The names do not matter.  What is important is that we shift our attention from seeking love and tranquility outside ourselves to finding it on the inside.  The love we see, the happiness we long for is always within.  Your journey and the living of this discipline will unfold in ways you cannot even imagine.  Once we find the love within then we will be amazed, it will be a wonder, because we will witness that very love and happiness on the outside, and no longer will we judge by appearances. 

We are eternal Being(s) having a human experience.  Our purpose, as it has been shown to me, is to complete the transaction and then to share the glimpse with our world.  We make the divine exchange, which is the letting go of the ego identification, reborn, so to speak, into the new Recognition, the Divine Being we always are.  First, we Find The Sacred Spirit, The Child, and then we identify As that more and more.  Return to that holy space continually as often as can be remembered.  This is the Real Sanctuary and Altar of God.  Herein lies the Peace that is sought.