My very dear friends,
Thank every one for your love, light, and wonderful sharing. I am truly joyous and grateful. Would like to share what I have learned on the 17/1/10.
Part 1
Lesson 16 I have no neutral thoughts
- Everything you see is the result of your thoughts. There is no exception to this fact. Thoughts are not big or little; powerful or weak. They are merely true or false.
- Every thought you have contributes to truth or to illusion; either it extends the truth or it multiplies illusions. You can indeed multiply nothing, but you will not extend it by doing so.
- Besides your recognizing that thoughts are never idle, salvation requires that you also recognize that every thought you have brings either peace or war; either love or fear.
- There is such a temptation to dismiss fear thoughts as unimportant, trivial and not worth bothering about that it is essential you recognize them all as equally destructive, but equally unreal.
Note:
i. There is no such thing as idle thoughts. All thoughts create forms at some level.
ii. So long as our perception is based on the ego, all illusions seem real.
iii. Let go of this self/ego, without this point of reference, time, space and forms do not exist. All illusions disappear. What is left is perfect love/perfect oneness/Spirit/God/Self.
iv. All thoughts have effects. I am not alone in experiencing the effect of my thoughts.
v. There are no private thoughts since all minds are joined.
vi. Be aware of our thoughts. We have the freedom to choose our thoughts; either thoughts of fear or thoughts of love. Ideas leave not their source, for cause and effect cannot be separated. An idea cannot leave the mind that thought it.
vii. The world is a mirror reflecting what is in our mind. The external world is merely the outward picture of inward conditions.
viii. We are urged not to seek to change the world (effect), but to change our mind (cause) about the world. This is not to deny that the ego can make or affect the physical world. However, as the physical world is inherently illusory, a projection from the split mind, ACIM emphasis is on correcting these miscreative thoughts, which are always the true source of any problem. This correction then allows the Holy Spirit to direct us.
ix. ACIM does not aim to having us learn what is positive, but rather at unlearning the confusing thought system the ego has taught us in order to conceal and obscure the truth.
x. The Course also does not aim at the teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught, it does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence which is our natural inheritance.
xi. In our drama/story, only right or wrong, the story keep going… never end. Its purpose is to make sin, guilt and fear real. There is no need to justify, merely be aware that we are the dreamer of our dreams. Simply choose once again as in ACIM text page 666:
Temptation has one lesson it would teach, in all its form, wherever it occurs. It would persuade the holy Son of God he is a body, born in what must die, unable to escape its frailty, and bound by what it orders him to feel. It sets the limits on what he can do; its power is the only strength he has; his grasp cannot exceed its tiny reach. Would you be this, if Christ appeared to you in all His glory, asking you but this:
Choose once again if you would take your place among the saviors of the world or would remain in hell, and hold your brother there.
For He has come, and He is asking this.
How do you make the choice? How easily is this explained! You always choose between your weakness and the strength of Christ in you. And what you choose is what you think is real.
Learn, then, the happy habit of response to all temptation to perceive yourself as weak and miserable with these words:
I am as God created me. His Son can suffer nothing. And I am His Son.
Part 2
The Undivided Will of the Sonship (ACIM text, page146)
- The undivided will of the Sonship is the perfect creator, being wholly in the likeness of God, Whose Will it is.
- There is no separation of God and His creation. The recognition of God is the recognition of yourself.
- God’s Oneness and ours are not separate, because His Oneness encompasses ours. To join with me (Holy Spirit) is to restore His power to you because we are sharing it. I offer you only the recognition of His power in you, but in that lies all truth. As we unite, we unite with Him. Glory be to the union of God and His holy Sons! All glory lies in Them because They are united. The miracles we do bear witness to the Will of the Father for His Son, and to our joy in uniting with His Will for us.
- When you unite with me (Holy Spirit) you are uniting without ego, because I have renounced the ego in myself and therefore cannot unite with yours. Our union is therefore the way to renounce the ego in you. The truth in both of us is beyond the ego. Our success in transcending the ego is guaranteed by God, and I share this confidence for both of us and all of us. I bring God’s peace back to all His children because I received it of Him for us all. Nothing can prevail against our united wills because nothing can prevail against God’s.
- Would you know the Will of God for you? Ask it of me who know it for you and you will find it. I will deny you nothing, as God denies me nothing. Ours is simply the journey back to God Who is our home. Whenever fear intrudes anywhere along the road to peace, it is because the ego has attempted to join the journey with us and cannot do so. Sensing defeat and angered by it, the ego regards itself as rejected and become retaliative. On this journey you have chosen me as your companion instead of the ego. Do not attempt to hold on to both, or you will try to go in different directions and will lose the way.
Note:
i. God has only one Son. We can not be separated from God and still be at peace.
ii. Renounce ego and let Thy Will be done.
iii. A simple yet powerful exercise to experience Oneness:
1. Close your eyes.
2. Ask yourself, “What is my next thought?”
For that holy second, you are aware of heaven, no beginning, no end, timeless.
iv. Another beautiful way to experience Self.
1. Observe clear night sky.
2. How you feel when you focus on stars, moon? (limited, tiny, separated,..)
3. How you feel when you see the vast space of night sky?
The sky is empty, but it is the empty sky that holds all, the whole existence, the moon, the stars, the planets. The vast space just allows without limit, without conditions.
Our inner being is very much like the night sky. Things come and go, and the sky remains the same. Enjoy life, just remember, whatsoever we see, we are not it. We are not our thoughts, not our feelings, not our dreams, not our desires, not memories…
v. Are you seeing with eyes or the vision of Christ which reflects strength, unity and love?
vi. When I was, God was not. When God is, I am not. For an instant, lay aside ego, stop all thoughts, be Spirit/God/Oneness.
Part 3 The End of Sickness (ACIM text, page 187)
- All magic is an attempt at reconciling the irreconcilable. Sickness and perfection are irreconcilable. If God created you perfect, you are perfect. If you believe you can be sick, you have placed other gods before Him. God is not at war with the god of sickness you made, but you are. He is the symbol of deciding against God, and you are afraid of him because he cannot be reconciled with God’s Will. If you attack him, you will make him real to you. But if you refuse to worship him in whatever form he may appear to you, and wherever you think you see him, he will disappear into the nothingness out of which he was made.
- Reality can dawn only on an unclouded mind. It is always there to be accepted, but its acceptance depends on your willingness to have it. To know reality must involve the willingness to judge unreality for what it is. To overlook nothingness is merely to judge it correctly, and because of your ability to evaluate it truly, to let it go. Knowledge cannot dawn on a mind full of illusions, because truth and illusions are irreconcilable. Truth is whole, and cannot be known by part of a mind.
- If the Sonship is one, it is one in all respects. Oneness cannot be divided. If you perceive other gods your mind is split, and you will not be able to limit the split, because it is the sign that you have removed part of your mind from God’s Will. This means it is out of control. To be out of control is to be out of reason, and then the mind does become uncontrollable.
- When you have experienced the protection of God, the making of idols becomes inconceivable. There are no strange images in the Mind of God, and what is not in His Mind cannot be in yours, because you are of one mind and that mind belongs to Him.
- The miracle is the act of a Son of God who has laid aside all false gods, and calls on his brothers to do likewise. It is an act of faith, because it is the recognition that his brother can do it. It is a call to the Holy Spirit in his mind, a call that is strengthened by joining. Because the miracle worker has heard God’s Voice, he strengthens It in a sick brother by weakening his belief in sickness, which he does not share. The power of one mind can shine into another, because all the lamps of God were lit by the same spark. It is everywhere and it is eternal.
Note:
i. Truth and illusion are irreconcilable.
ii. Truth is whole and cannot be known by part of a mind or split mind. How can perfect oneness or perfect love be divided? Only insane mind believe in the impossible. Yet ego is insane.
iii. You are Spirit/Self, created perfect. Spirit/Self cannot be sick. Sickness is only in the mind when we believe we are ego/body.
iv. Ego/body is the illusory self/false identity when we renounce God. Ego/body is nothing.
v. When we realize illusions/ego/body is nothing, it is easy to lay aside illusions/ego/body and we can know Self/Spirit. Spirit/Self is all encompassing. Who we really are is very powerful. God is our strength, vision is His gift.
vi. God created you and you do not create God.
vii. Have full faith in God, accept God’s Word and His definition of His Son.
Part 4 The Invitation to the Holy Spirit (ACIM text, page 73)
- Healing is a thought by which two minds perceive their oneness and become glad. This gladness calls to every part of the Sonship to rejoice with them, and lets God go out into them and through them.
- Spirit knows no difference between having and being. The higher mind thinks according to the laws spirit obeys, and therefore honors only the laws of God. To spirit getting is meaningless and giving is all. Having everything, spirit holds everything by giving it, and thus creates as the Father created.
- If you can accept the concept that the world is one of ideas, the whole belief in the false association the ego makes between giving and losing is gone.
Thoughts increase by being given away.
The more who believe in them the stronger they become.
Everything is an idea.
How, then, can giving and losing be associated.
- The Holy Spirit, the shared Inspiration of all the Sonship, induces a kind of perception in which many elements are like those in the Kingdom of Heaven itself:
First, its universality is perfectly clear, and no one who attains it could believe for one instant that sharing it involves anything but gain.
Second, it is incapable of attack and is therefore truly open. This means that although it does not engender knowledge, it does not obstruct it in any way.
Finally, it points the way beyond the healing that it brings, and leads the mind beyond its own integration towards the paths of creations. It is at this point that sufficient quantitative change occurs to produce a real qualitative shift.
Note:
i. As Spirit, you are everything, being everything. Spirit does not need anything. Your main function is to extend God’s love, keep giving.
ii. The essence of every form is an idea. Ideas increase by sharing.
Part 5 What is Forgiveness? (workbook page 401)
- Forgiveness recognizes what you thought your brother did to you has not occurred. It does not pardon sins and make them real. It sees there was no sin. And in that view are all your sins forgiven. What is sin, except a false idea about God’s Son? Forgiveness merely sees its falsity, and therefore lets it go. What then is free to take its place is now the Will of God.
- An unforgiving thought is one which makes a judgment that it will not raise to doubt, although it is not true. The mind is closed, and will not be released. The thought protects projection, tightening its chains, so that distortions are more veiled and more obscure; less easily assessable to doubt, and further kept from reason. What can come between a fixed projection and the aim that it has chosen as its wanted goal?
- An unforgiving thought does many things. In frantic action it pursues its goal, twisting and overturning what it sees as interfering with its chosen path. Distortion is its purpose, and the means by which it would accomplish it as well. It sets about its furious attempts to smash reality, without concern for anything that would appear to pose a contradiction to its point of view.
- Forgiveness on the other hand, is still, and quietly does nothing. It offends no aspect of reality, nor seeks to twist it to appearances it likes. It merely looks, and waits, and judges not. He who would not forgive must judge, for he must justify his failure to forgive. But he who would forgive himself must learn to welcome truth exactly as it is.
- Do nothing, then let forgiveness show you what to do, through Him Who is your Guide, your Savior and Protector, strong in hope, and certain of your ultimate success. He has forgiven you already, for such is His function, given Him by God. Now must you share His function, and forgive whom He has saved, whose sinlessness He sees, and whom He honors as the Son of God.
Note:
i. Lay aside all past; every instant is a holy instant. Recreate yourself anew.
ii. Look at the pay off if you keep holding on to the past. Ask yourself “Is being right more important that the peace of God?”
iii. 20 reminder lessons from lesson 201-220: I am not a body, I am free. For I am still as God created me.
iv. Holding on to grievances is energy sucking. It is not an issue of right or wrong, but whether is serves us or not.
v. Begin each day anew with:
1. Lay aside yesterdays. Apply true forgiveness.
2. Choose vision. Look past all appearances and see only truth/love.
3. Extend God’s love. Create with love, unity and strength.
Thank you. I love you.
Mei
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
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