Saturday, February 29, 2020

Not of the Body

Yet sickness is not of the body, but of the mind.  All forms of sickness are signs the mind is split, and does not accept a unified purpose.
ACIM-T-8:IX:8:6-7

What the heck does that mean?


We may ask that question upon reading those words. How could this belly ache, this stroke, this cancer or this cold be of the mind when it is so obviously that our body is feeling these things? It is in the body, is it not? 

Yes and no.  Your so called disease, cellular change  or physical symptom is manifesting in the body but it is not of the body.  The mind created it.  More accurately, the split mind created it.

Say what crazy lady?

A course teaches that The body exists in a world that seems to have two voices fighting for its possession. (ACIM-T-8:VIII:2:1) The Spiritual part of our minds , the only part actually, sees the body as here to serve a function as assigned by Love.  It knows the body cannot be sick, it is invulnerable,  because of this divine purpose. 

The ego which is fear, however, has a "profound investment" in sickness.  It is convinced that we are vulnerable and  at the mercy of attack. It will do whatever it can to convince us of that so we do not listen to the truer part of our Self. It uses sickness to prove this point. Sickness is a way of demonstrating that you can be hurt. (8:VIII:6:1)

So when we see both health and illness as being possible we are believing there are two wills .  We have God's Will for us and the body and we have ego's.  We have Love and we have fear. Our mind will go back and forth between the two.  When it does this, it is split and illness can show up in our bodies.

 God's Will for us is perfect health, Love, joy.  Ego's will for us is pain, illness, suffering and death. When we ascribe to the latter, as most of us do, we will have the potential to  get sick

This is how Anita Moorjani describes how she got cancer. She invested in ego's doctrine of fear and self loathing rather than in God's doctrine of Love.  It took dying to realize that she could never be a part from God's will. If she followed God's vision for her healing she could heal.  She did.

There is a lesson in that.

All is well.

ACIM

Anita Moorjani (2014) Dying to Be Me. Hay House.

Friday, February 28, 2020

On Creativity and Staying Open

Obey the impulse....Stay open...Be the vehicle ready for the process to flow into....knowing that it isn't yours...let the energy flow through you, let it out. 
Eckhart Tolle...paraphrased from a collection of words he shared in the below videos.

I started this entry yesterday and I was all keen to write about creativity and the thrill of being divinely inspired before I got my head space into something that was tugging  at me a bit more. What led me to that inspiration was watching a movie about  a young boy who reported he went to heaven

  In that movie a young artist  named Akiane was mentioned who also supposedly had a connection with the divine through dreams and images.  She even reports that she went to Heaven one day and thus was divinely inspired to create the most amazing art. I looked her up on You tube...was blown away by her artistic ability, even at the age of four, and throughout her life.  It is "beyond human".  There is obviously Something greater than her behind those brush strokes.

 I thought of other geniuses like Mozart, Einstein, Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Milton to name a few.  I  became convinced of divine inspiration.

So my inspiration came from a movie and this very interesting topic of NDE...(which by the way led me to begin reading Proof of Heaven by Eben Alexander III and Dying to Be Me by Anita Moorjani.)


The Poem

I had written the poem below, the day before,  in a fifteen minute rush of something from within.  I am not saying it was channelled or inspired. I am not saying it was spirit rather than ego that brought me to the page and made me pour out my outer and inner world experience .  I am not saying the poem is good or bad, something to be proud of or something to be ashamed of. 

It simply is what is... born of something or Something  I quite don't understand.  I questioned:  Is this ego or divine?

The Human in Creativity

Of course, the subject matter wreaks of ego...fear ...and  I wonder why would creativity, something greater than ego, reduce itself to an expression of  such an experience.

Hmmm?

Maybe because it is a human experience, something we all can relate to, therefore connecting rather than separating? It is honest, as embarrassing as it is to be that honest.  That is how I feel when the phone rings when I know the call  has something to do with getting me closer to an answer.   I still find myself stuck in fear whether it is rational or irrational to be so. The poem shows how "not quite evolved" I am.  It also shows how aware I am...how connected I am to this experience of being human, how vivid each moment is for me.

Divinely Inspired?

I was just sitting on the couch, hours after the phone call, remembering how afraid I was to pick up that phone  and the thought popped into my mind, "Poem".  I got up, walked to the computer, sat down and began to write about that emotional experience I had.  It did not come out rhyming so I automatically thought this is "little me" doing something uninspired...but the more the images took form with little effort from me...the more I thought "Wow! Maybe this is divinely inspired! Something is helping me here." I obeyed the impulse and I let it happen.

Regardless of how that poem got on the page, why it did or how awful it may sound to someone else...it was meant to be.  It was an energy I needed to let in and then let out.

Letting The Energy Flow Through

When we don't let this energy in, allow it to flow though us and eventually let it  out ...we suffer. It stays on the outside of us pounding on our flesh until we let it in or it gets stuck inside of us when we refuse to let it out, damaging our outer and inner walls.

I believe that is why the body "gets sick". ( or we perceive the body to get sick) .  Maybe I have resisted creativity too many times when it came knocking at my door with a message it wanted me to share...or maybe when I did let it in, I refused to let it out. It was ego mind that refused to open the door in fear of the stranger, revealing  our association to a judging world if I let it out. I did not honor the nature of this flow. I closed the windows to it and on it.

Like a breeze, creativity needs a way in and a way out.  We need to keep our windows open.

We also have to know it is not ours.  I cannot call the breeze that blows through my house "mine".  It is just an energy belonging to Something Greater than me.  I let it in and I let it out...in that way it flows through me not against me.

Stay open!

All is well.



Eckhart Tolle ( Aug, 2018) How to Be Creative.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-whVSGbDeAA

Eckhart Tolle ( Oct, 2019) Do I own my idea? The nature of creative manifestation? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-whVSGbDeAA

The Answer?


The Answer?

Maybe the end
 
to my waiting

hides  in the tiny
 
spaces of silence,

 trapped in the
 
awkward breaks

of persistent  buzzing

that wakes me
 
from my restless dreams?

The pointed end
 
of mystery's arrow

 could be lurking
 
behind the flimsy veil
 
of No caller ID,

 making a noisy target
 
of my pounding chest.

I can feel the hum
 
of its unravelling 
 
dancing off the cool glass,

tickling my fingertips
 
with its coveted revelation,

urging me to put an end
 
to the prickliness
 
of  not knowing

by picking up the vehicle
 
it is locked within.

I hesitate.

I swallow hard.

I slide my trembling thumb
 
across the screen

to offer my meek and pitiful ,
 
“Hello…this is she…”

to the hollow ears
 
on the other end.

And I wait….breathless

As slow moving lips

I cannot see

whisper back

the secrets
 
I will never
 
be ready to hear .
 
Dale-Lyn, February 2020

Only Perception Can Be Sick

Only perception can be sick, because only perception can be wrong.  ACIM-T-8:IX:1:7

I came here this morning with the intention to write about divinely inspired creativity.  ACIM was open to these pages on my desk and it was like the words just popped out and grabbed me, pulling me into some knowing I can barely explain. I felt immediately compelled to put these words here because they spoke to me so loudly at this moment in my life.  If they spoke to me they will speak to all.

I needed /need  them in my mind/ the joined mind right now for whatever reason, maybe as a gentle reminder to re-establish meaning and right perception, to  replace fear with love.  These words  want to be heard/read exactly as they are so I put them here as I feel so very compelled to do.

If you are sick you are withdrawing from me.  Yet you cannot withdraw from me alone.  You can only withdraw from yourself and me. ACIM-T-8:IX:7:5-6

Yet sickness is not of the body, but of the mind.  All forms of sickness are signs that the mind is split, and does not accept a unified purpose. ACIM-T-8:IX:8:6-7

Wholeness heals because it is of the mind. ACIM-T-8:IX:3:1

All forms of sickness, even unto death, are physical expressions of the fear of awakening.  ACIM-T-8:IX:3:2

When the ego tempts you to sickness do not ask the Holy spirit to heal the body, for this would merely be to accept the ego's belief that the body is the proper aim of healing. Ask rather, that the Holy Spirit teach you the right perception of the body, for perception only can be distorted.  ACIM-T-8:IX:1:5-6

"Rest in peace" is a blessing for the living, not the dead, because rest comes from waking, not from sleeping.  Sleep is withdrawing: waking is joining.
ACIM-T-8:IX:3:5-6

The re-establishing of meaning in a chaotic thought system is the way to heal it. ACIM-T-8:IX:9:3

Healing is release from fear of waking and the substitution of the decision to wake. The decision to wake is the reflection of the will to love, since all healing involves replacing fear with love. ACIM-T-8: IX:5:1-2


All is well!



Thursday, February 27, 2020

Asking the Wrong Teacher

Sickness is merely another example of your insistence on asking guidance of a teacher who does not know the answer.  The ego is incapable of knowing how you feel...
ACIM-T-8:VIII:7:4-5


I got a call today for another appointment, another test.  When the phone rang with a "No Caller ID" I was too frightened to pick it up.  I waited for the individual on the other end to leave a message.  I was needing a few minutes to process before I called back. And when I did, I discovered it was just for another appointment, for another test...one I already had done twice before. 

My mind automatically went into "Why? Why repeat this same test?  Was the MRI inconclusive?  Or was it so conclusive it showed absolutely nothing of concern and this is simply the test that I was told was going to be done in four months time,  almost four months ago...one final investigation before a file is closed?" 

That explanation felt right to the intuitive part of me and gave me both a sense of relief as well as a little concern.  I want this to mark the end of this particular health seeking journey, I do, I just do not want to be left with, "We do not know what it is but it doesn't seem to be serious." Though that would fit beautifully into the life story of my health seeking, it will not give me peace.

I ask the question, "What is going on in my body?" But who am I asking it too?

A Need to Know and Asking the Wrong Teacher

I want to know what is causing the pain and the visible changes.  I do not want  another inexplicable and invalidated physical disruption to add to my list of many.  Just like I feel the pelvic pain, the chest pain ...I feel this pain and I want to be told what is causing it on the physical level.  I don't want it dismissed like the others were for so very long.    I focus on the body and feel I need to hear what is creating this perception of illness on this level.  My mind tells me that is what I want and what I have a right to. Yet, I also somehow know that if it is health I seek... I am in the wrong classroom and asking the wrong teacher that question.

Health is the beginning of the proper perspective on life under the guidance of the one Teacher who knows what life is, being the Voice for Life itself.
ACIM-T-8:VIII:9:10 

 I realize that as long as I am assuming or fearing illness in my body, my mind is not yet healed and am I not seeing clearly. I am following and listening to a teacher who does not have the answer and  who will never know (or care)  how I feel. That teacher is ego.

As long as I seek the guidance of ego through this body focus I am not  able to hear the answers from the only Teacher Who truly knows. What is going on in my body is not nearly as important as what is going on in my mind.  I should put my questions and my healing focus there.

Once your mind is healed, it radiates health, and thereby teaches healing. ACIM-T-6:V:C:9:7

All is well.

ACIM

Wednesday, February 26, 2020

External Searching or Inner Peace

Peace is an attribute in you.  You cannot find it outside.  Illness is some form of external searching.  Health is inner peace.  It enables you to remain unshaken by lack of love from without and capable, through your acceptance of miracles, of correcting the conditions proceeding from lack of love in others. ACIM-T-2:I:8-12

A Familiar Part of the Scenery

Hmmm!  I do real good...so I think...at steering myself away from focusing on  the health seeking boulder on my path.  I can get around it many times to deal with life events and issues  on the other side of it.  When I can't do that, I distract from it and find some pseudo contentment on this side of it.  Every now and again, however, it becomes the focus of my attention.  I will stare at it and  allow my mind to build story around it, label it as a "major obstacle" to my  moving forward in  happiness and I may even get frustrated enough to fruitlessly try to push it out of the way...which I cannot do. Sigh.

Most of the time, however, I just accept that it is there and it becomes a forgettable part of my day to day scenery.

It is what it is!

After 109 days , over 15 weeks of waiting...I still do not know what this is that is going on in my body.  I can almost "forget" about it until I experience the symptoms. The pain, though definitely more than bearable, is still present, changing in its radiation a bit everyday.  It is not there "constantly".  I experience it   at night and several times during the day and it is honestly quite annoying mostly  because of what my mind does with it when I notice that it may me going to another location or changing , however slightly, in intensity.

My mind takes that physical pain and builds up story around it, a not very pleasant one at that. On top of that I have been experiencing headaches and dizziness over the last two weeks.  My rational mind chucks it up to nothing more than air quality issues affecting my sinuses .  My ego mind, however, drags it right into the previous story line as symptoms occurring in a secondary site. Imagine!

No News is Good News?

I want to just fall right back into the comforting old adage, "No news is good news" which I intended to do from the beginning: allow the system to take charge as I quietly and patiently  waited.  I, however, lost my trust of that system after the delays and the lectures and the realization of another's agenda. So though it is over the 14 days I was told to wait for the MRI report, I cannot settle in peaceful acceptance that everything must be okay because I have yet to hear back. I am not experiencing "peace".

It is very likely as I assumed it was from the beginning: just ductal ectasia leading to a small cyst formation, some subsequent scar tissue which may be causing the pain and the retraction. Maybe the appearance of the new lump, which seems to be a fibroadenoma...came to be because of that scar tissue. No big deal!  I just wish my mind would accept that without question as the cause of my bodily changes.  But every time I feel the pain, and on top of that that feeling in my head, I am carried away into this terrible story of "what if".

Missing What Is

On the other side of that is this realization that it has become such a big part of my life over the last four months, I wonder what life will be like without it.  If...when...I hear back that it is nothing but a minor benign change, what will I feel like?  Relief for sure...but I believe there will also be a bit of grief. 

Greif????

That sounds so strange, I know, but part of me will miss it??? This boulder, as hideous as it appears, was actually a distraction from the other life issues that seem to be constantly pulling at me. It was something "heavy enough" for me to say..."Okay!  This is in your way. You cannot move forward right now.  Just sit here and relax a bit until it is moved. This is a good time to rest your weary mind and body.  This boulder gives you an excuse to take care of you." 

It was like I could say ( without saying anything out loud to anyone because I have yet to share this) to all the hands reaching out to me, "I can't get to you right now.  I have a good reason for that. I will get to you when I can."


External Searching

That takes me back to the above passage from ACIM Illness is some form of external searching. This illness scare was me searching for a worthy excuse to rest, focus on my healing, and to settle in the peace I so long to settle into.  I see myself as unworthy of these things unless I do the penance of intense suffering through an actual serious illness or the looming threat of one.

I still don't quite get it that peace is my birthright, it is a gift I have already been given and it is within me now. So I have been searching out there for it but feeling "guilty" I unconsciously sought suffering to cleanse me and make me worthy enough for this peace. Thus the illness/illness scare.

Inner Peace

There would be no need for illness in any of us if we realized that peace was already in us.  That peace would be constant and unwavering no matter what others did or didn't do, no matter what Life did or didn't do. All the many conditions that seem to stem from a loveless state can simply be corrected with this awareness.

Peace is an attribute in all of us.

All is well!

Tuesday, February 25, 2020

Lessons 101-110

Joy is just, and pain is but the sign you have misunderstood yourself.
ACIM-W-101:6:2

The next ten lessons of ACIM continue to speak to this idea of sin , guilt and atonement we have addressed in other entries. They begin with a big broad statement that will likely be hard for most of to digest but here it goes: There is no sin.

Say What crazy lady???

There is no sin!

I even find that  hard to write because it goes against everything I was taught to believe in my religious foundation.  It is, according to that doctrine, blasphemy to assume that sin isn't real. Sin and guilt are like two givens for existence, how can we question let alone deny their reality and necessity?  Yet, that is what we are told in Lesson 101.

Let me ask you a few questions: Do you believe that we deserve to be endlessly punished until our deaths?  Do you believe that happiness, peace and joy are nothing but illusions? Do you believe that salvation is painful and something to escape at all costs? Do you believe that God wants us running from Him in fear and avoiding Him ?

If you say yes to any of these questions than you must believe that sin is real. If you hesitate and say no to any of these than maybe you are ready to see how sin cannot be real. Maybe the following practice statement will finally sink in as the truth:

God's Will for me is perfect happiness.
There is no sin; it has no consequences.
This is the truth, because there is no sin.
 
God's Will for Us is Happiness Not Suffering
 
Suffering serves no purpose though part of us may question that suffering will offer some form of penance for us.  Lesson 102 assures us that it doesn't. ...pain is purposeless, without a cause and with no power accomplish anything. 102-2:1  God's Will for us is happiness not suffering and we share that Will, therefore our only function here is happiness.
 
How do we know God wants us to be happy?  Well if we believe that God is Love, we also see that God is joy.  Love and happiness/joy go together.  If we see ourselves as guilty sinners however, even just some of the times,   we will see God as fear-inducing more so than loving. We will fear God rather than accept His gift of joy. We will misunderstand the unlimited nature of His  love and of joy. We will expect and accept suffering.

We need to remind ourselves hourly that God, being Love, is also happiness.  To fear Him is to be afraid of joy. (Lesson-103)
 
Accepting God's Gifts of Joy and Peace
 
God, being Love, gifts us with joy and peace and we have a right to them. Too often we are not ready to receive these gifts because we are too busy receiving mind made gifts that bring suffering instead. We need to put down our puny self made gifts that bring nothing but suffering and accept God's gifts for us.  Gifts we do want. ( Lesson 104)
 
The truly given gift entails no loss. It is impossible that one can gain because another loses. 105:1:6 

 That is hard for many of us to believe .  We think that when we give we lose and we when we receive someone else loses. We become afraid of giving and receiving.  ACIM teaches that the more we receive God's gift of peace and joy, the more peace and joy God extends to the world through us. We need to recognize that God's peace and joy are ours and by being ours they are for everyone.  God wants us to receive these gifts so all can have these gifts!! ( Lesson 105)
 
Listening for God's Voice
 
Lesson 106 guides us to get beyond the noisy chatter of the ego to the quiet stillness of the Self so we can hear God's wisdom, the Truth of Salvation. We can ask what it means to give and receive. We can offer to give what we do receive.
 
If you will lay aside the ego's voice, however loudly it may seem to call; if you will not accept its petty gifts that give you nothing that you really want; if you listen with an open mind, that has not told you what salvation is; then you will hear the mighty Voice of truth, quiet in power, strong in stillness, and completely certain in Its messages. ACIM-W-106:1:1
 
This truth we hear when we listen will be our salvation. It will correct all errors in our mind. Without illusion there will be no fear, no doubt and no attack.  When truth has come all pain is over for there is no room for transitory thoughts and dead ideas to longer in your mind. 107:3:2-3.  It will end pain and set us free from guilt.  It will give us peace. (Lesson-107)
 
The True Light
 
The true light that allows us to see clearly through our mind's errors and its creation of suffering is not like the light our eyes use to see. It is a state of mind. Light is tranquility, and in that peace is vision given us and we can see. (108-7:5) It is a state of mind that does not prefer or reject...it doesn't say something is good and should be sought or clung to.  It doesn't say something is "bad" and should be resisted or pushed away. It doesn't judge or discriminate. All opposites are reconciled into One thought when Light is present  and this brings peace. Therefore giving and receiving are the same thing; they are One in truth. Our practice is to receive what we are giving and to give what we receive.  We seek quietness, peace of mind and stillness and we offer that to everyone. (Lesson 108)
 
 
Resting in God
 
In Lesson 109, we ask to rest in God.  We ask for quietness, stability, safety, peace, happiness and stillness.  We use the simple thought I rest in God to guide us from all other thoughts that do not serve us. It will give us peace. We rest in God's peace together.
 
And the time when rest will be the only thing there is comes closer to all worn and tired minds, too weary now to go their own way alone.  And they will hear the bird begin to sing and see the spring begin to flow again, with hope reborn and energy restored to walk with lightened steps along the road that suddenly seems easy as they go. 109:7:2-3
 
Seeking the Self Beyond the Ego
 
In the final Lesson for today, we are reminded I am as God created me. (Lesson 110)

When we accept this identity over the one ego wants us to reinforce we are indeed saved.  Ego's puny little self that needs fear, evil, misery and death to keep itself strong is just an appearance.  It is  not who we truly are.  Once we realize and accept who we really are, ego  images cannot survive and we heal forever.
 
The Self  is the birth place of all miracles  If you remain as God created you, appearances cannot replace the truth, health cannot turn to sickness, nor can death be substituted for life, or fear for love. ...then there has been no separation of your mind from His, no split between your mind and other minds, and only unity within your own. 110:3: 4. 
 
We are asked then to seek this Self that we really are and to honor it.
 
 
All is well!
 
ACIM-Workbook: Lessons 101-110 

Nothing to Forgive?

Teach him that, whatever he may try to do to you, your perfect freedom from the belief that you can be harmed shows him that he is guiltless.  He can do nothing that can hurt you, and by refusing to allow him to think he can, you teach him the Atonement, which you have accepted for yourself, is also his. There is nothing to Forgive.
ACIM-T-14:III:7:3-5


There is nothing to forgive?

That is a hard line for many of us to swallow especially if we grew  up believing we were "eternal sinners," always at the mercy of attack and condemnation, not only from each other but from God Himself. We are "supposed" to be guilty and because of that we are supposed to make guilt in others so we can be the "better person" and forgive them,  right? 

People do "bad" things.  They (other people) attack us with their words or bodies; they steal and covet; they lie and cheat; and they  stab us in the back in a myriad of ways. They break many of the ten commandments throughout the day and it is our job as fellow community members ( whether that community be a family, a work place, a neighborhood, a religion or  society at large) to be watchful of these infractions and judge, condemn and punish accordingly.  We need to determine guilt in others , make them do some form of penance so we can forgive. That is the traditional way we deal with any form of injury inflicted upon us by another. And we do it in the name of God.  That is what we know and that is how we live.
  
ACIM offers another take on this idea of "forgiveness" beyond the traditionally held beliefs of Atonement/Penance. Atonement, according to ACIM ( and other doctrines)  doesn't require 100 Hail Mary's or a stent of community service.  It involves a healing that occurs when we see that we cannot be harmed.  If we cannot be harmed...no injury occurred and therefore there is nothing to forgive.

Huh?

If there is nothing to forgive the whole world, as we know it, basically falls a part, doesn't it? What are we going to do with the pain we feel when our lover runs off with another?  When our best friend says bad things to us? Or if someone attacks us on the street and steals our purse?  These things "hurt", don't they?  They are "wrong", "evil", "bad" and the person perpetuating them is "guilty", aren't they?  Punishment is called for.

The Need For Guilt

If they are guilty, we have something to forgive and forgiveness will distract us from our pain to some degree. It will become our "higher purpose".  So we seek to forgive (on ego's terms)  but only after the individual does enough to show that they are   accepting of their  own guilt and is genuinely  remorseful. We still need revenge.  We need them to pay for what they did to us with a certain amount of guilt, don't we?   Guilt itself is the punishment.

When we ascribe to this belief system...what are our day to day experiences like?  We may feel a certain "specialness"  and a stronger ego identity when we become the better person forgiving the sins of another but is this peace? We are also usually very fearful when guilt is our focus...watching and waiting for an attack on our person from the millions of "guilty" people out there, doing what we can to defend against it.  We may become the attackers..."Attack before attacked!" .  We are hyper-vigilant and fearful, walking around on what seems to be a very dark and dangerous planet waiting for the "guilty" to pop out in front of us and do something nasty.

More importantly,  if others are guilty we must accept that we are too.  We have to watch ourselves, defend and attack ourselves.  We need to punish ourselves. So we live with that heavy burden of guilt that weighs on us like a ten ton brick greatly obscuring the peace that is our natural birthright. 

The more guilty we feel, the worse we feel. To relieve some of that weight we project the guilt outward onto others.  We make the world even "guiltier" than it already is to our mixed up minds, perpetuating a big cycle of guilt and so called forgiveness that never seems to end.

Where is the peace?  Where is the Love?  Where is the joy in this mode of seeing and making guilty? Is this actually forgiveness? Healing? Is this what God intended?

Many great spiritual platforms, including ACIM, teach that forgiveness is the greatest form of healing but that it doesn't come from seeking to  make wrong.  It comes from seeing that there is no wrong.

Real Forgiveness

Real Forgiveness begins with seeing clearly...not through eyes of judgement and condemnation; not through a need to defend and attack and not through a mind that identifies itself with ego.  Forgiveness begins with seeing who we truly are beneath the form identity.  That is the first step in atonement. 

When we do this we realize that, Only form can be injured. (Eckhart Tolle) ...that is a very important truth to master.  When someone says a mean thing to us, the psychological form is injured...not who we are beneath that form.  When someone slaps us across the face, only the physical form is injured, not who we truly are.

Who we truly are...this essence, this "Spirit", this piece of God, this consciousness, this higher Self, this vast spaciousness; this Purusa...whatever you wish to call it...can not be harmed.  It is eternal, formless, infinite, changeless etc etc.  It is real.  Everything else is just not that real.  Once we realize this we see that no injury can take place upon our being...therefore there really is nothing to forgive.

The individual who attempts to harm our form identity is the same essence we are, hidden behind an ego that is unconscious...not yet aware of It Self. That ego veil may be so heavy and dense they do not see clearly who they are and therefore do not see clearly who they are dealing with in us.  They buy into this belief system that there is a need for guilt and forgiveness, defense and attack and live according to that.  They are simply "blinded by fear" and striking out in their own created darkness.  Can you blame someone who hurts you when they are unconscious; when they know not what they do?

And what part of you are they hurting...only the ego and the ego means nothing.  What stings is the ego.  What reacts is the ego.  What looks to guilt is the ego. The body can get bruised up by another. We do not need to stand there to take a beating  from an unconscious individual...by all means run for help  or defend yourself...  but we need to realize that who we truly are is not harmed by this. The form identity may get hurt...but is that such a bad thing?

Sticks and stones
may break my bones;
but names will never
hurt me.


We need to separate the deed from the doer and the deed from  our ego's need to judge if we want the peace of true forgiveness.  The injury we may perceive  with a slap across the face, is really not an injury until the mind makes it one.  It is simply an incident...a slap across the face causing some physical pain and an activation of the fight or flight response.

It is what our mind does with it that feeds the ego's need for "wrong", guilt, attack and defense.  We build story around it, label it, judge it  and the other person as "evil". We cling to it and throw it in the big pile of other grievances we collected against this person and people at large. Remove the story, the judgments etc and we remove the sense of "insult" and the need to make guilty. We are really not being harmed.

When we look to the other person who supposedly injured us or has does something the ego judges as wrong we can simply learn to say, as we tap into that deeper part of us, " You can do nothing that can hurt me. You are guiltless. "  By doing that we put down what isn't real and are freed by what is.

But I tell you, do not resist an evil person.
If anyone slaps you on the right cheek,
turn to them the other cheek also.
And if anyone wants to sue you or take your shirt,
hand over your coat as well .
Matthew 5:38-40


True forgiveness comes from the higher Self and it is simply a recognition that:

Nothing real can be threatened
Nothing unreal exists
Herein ,lies the peace of God.
ACIM Introduction
 
 
 
All is well in my world.
 
Inspired by:
 
ACIM ( 2007) A Course in Miracles: Combined Volume. Foundation For Inner Peace.

Eckhart Tolle (December 2019) The Nature of Forgiveness/Is It different From Compassion. Eckhart Tolle Now  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9XHKqn22HY


Monday, February 24, 2020

Collecting Sign Posts

See through the mind's tenacious grappling for unanswerable questions. You are a feeling that must be felt, not thought. You cannot locate yourself inside any philosophy, mystical endeavour or spiritual experience, for you are the aware presence of emptiness in which all such activity arises.
http://www.zenthinking.net/blog/tag/transcending+the+ego





I listened to Eckhart Tolle this morning in an address he gave in Winnipeg a couple of years ago and I allowed certain words he shared  to become stuck in my head.  I did exactly what he encouraged the audience not to do in that first hour of his address: Don't give excessive attention to words.  Don't collect sign posts confusing them with the destination. (Tolle 2018...loosely paraphrased) .

A Note Taker

You see,  I am one of those people who sits there and takes notes instead of just allowing what is said to sink in.  I am a bit of a word addict.  I suppose I have to be if I want to call myself a writer but I do take it a step further. 

I am an eternal student trained in the "standardized learning" method.  I have already spent too many years jotting down the words of professors, lecturers and authors in both my formal and informal learning that it has become a habit, I suppose, to seek out and jot down the words of others.  I collect those that I think I can use in my own life and share in my writing.  I became a very good note taker even though I can barely make out my own handwriting anymore. :)

A Hoarder of Sign Posts

I pay too much attention to words and I collect sign posts! In fact, I am a bit of a hoarder in that department.  My desk is covered in books, scriptures from different religious sectors, philosophies, poetry, sticky notes, quotes written on scraps of paper, note books full of the messages I collected from the people I listened to or read recently. It is a mess really but it all seems so important to me.  D. often suggest I throw this or that out and I resist mightily.  Someday I may need these words, these sign posts, I argue.

Why? 

Well, yes I am a writer and writers need words to do what they do.  I am a learner so I feel I need the lessons and wisdom shared by others jotted down somewhere I can retrieve it later just in case I forget. I am also a conceptualizer. 

I have this habitual need to understand things with my mind so I can explain them to others with my words.  In order to articulate, I need to read, listen, think,  analyze, interpret, translate, understand, and transform. So much has to go on in my mind, it seems, before it comes down on the paper. And I seem to need it on the paper before I can learn.

A Deeper Knowing

At the same time I know that I am learning at a deeper level beneath the words, the mess on my desk and the notes I am taking.  I am feeling and experiencing something that I cannot describe here. I am not really learning something new...I am...it seems...remembering what I already knew.  And I can't explain that in any depth that will make sense with words. Thee is deeper reality that exists beneath each word, label or name we use.

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.  The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
(Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching as translated by Gia Fu-Feng; https://ttc.tasuki.org/display:Code:gff,sm,jhmd,jc,rh)

I do agree with Tolle and most of the spiritual masters I have read or listened to....there is a knowing in us that is not conceptual...that goes beyond thinking and the mind.  There is something which is really no-thing within us that can not be reduced to a label or a name.  All the word does, the name does, the verbal teaching does...is point us in the direction we need to go, in order  to truly know who we are. The words are not the "wisdom" we seek...they simply point to it, like guide posts on a side of the road we are travelling down on.  They simply show us the way. They are not the way...they just point to it.

Recognizing Shunyata

I will still use words to teach and to learn  but I will constantly try to remind myself that they do not give me what I need. They just point me inward to where what I need is and always has been.

I like how Tolle explains that:  around the word and between each word is the essence of everything. The word, name, label comes from and onto this background of infinite spaciousness...what the Buddhists call Shunyata.

Maybe we can use words in a different way. Maybe we can learn to listen to them or write them down without seeing them as the destination...just pointers to something Greater that really cannot be explained or defined with words. Becoming more mindful, as we do,  of that spaciousness that is beneath them .

All is well!

Eckhart Tolle ( 2018) 2018 Winnipeg. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTFt13dPHKc

Saturday, February 22, 2020

Lessons 91-100

Failure to perceive light is to perceive darkness. The light is useless to you even though it is still there.
ACIM-W-91:2:5-7

Truth and Light

There is no darkness...just a belief in the absence of light. So if there is no darkness, all there is, is  light.  If we experience darkness it is because we are not seeing the light that is  always there. Our body's eyes can not see light, only the absence of it. We look out about us in darkness.

A miracle is the ability to see truth.  Truth can only be seen in light and with the vision of the True Self. This True Self is much deeper than the body and our identity of "little me". 

Our body/little me identification keeps us from seeing our True Self. It keeps us limited and stuck in darkness. Lesson 91 asks that we question who we are if we are not a body or the limitations a body offers us.  We state what we aren't but erroneously believe we are, and then affirm what we really are.  For example we may say, "I am not weak, but strong." This lesson teaches that all sense of weakness we experience is related to the belief that we are merely a body.  We will never see or experience miracles as long as continue to think we are body and therefore continually look about us in darkness.

Not a Body

In Lesson 92 we are asked to accept the fact that we are not a body...to see that a body's eyes cannot truly see nor can a body's brain think.   When we look out as body's and little I's we are weak and see only through darkness a world that is terrifying.  We in perceive  through these separate little forms a world worthy of condemnation and judgment...a world to fear.  We hate ourselves. There is no miracles in this body version of a dark world.

The Light of Strength Within

There is, however, a light of strength in us that doesn't flicker or go out. There is something much Greater and stronger within us that sees and thinks through us denying the body's limited version of sight and thought. It sees past appearances  to what is real. It will shows us the way if we put away our body's sight for IT.

Not What We Have Made

Our belief in ourselves as sinners not worthy of forgiveness are fixed in our minds and we spend our lives fruitlessly seeking salvation from this suffering the belief leaves us with.   We cannot see that we are not who we think we are.  True salvation comes when we accept: you are as God created you, not what you yourself have made.  That means that light and joy and peace abide in us. ( Lesson 93).  Knowing we are as God created us brings complete salvation and freedom from suffering. ( Lesson 94)

One Self

Lesson 95 encourages us  to take part in a committed practice of affirming and reflecting on this truth that I am one Self  for five minutes at the beginning of every waking hour. There will be times that we may forget to practice this and we are instructed to gently correct ourselves when we do.  It assures us that each time we do remember, someone hears the voice of hope, the stirring of truth within his mind, the gentle rustling of the wings of peace.

A lot of our inner conflict comes from experiences ourselves in duality.  We see ourselves as two...both good and evil, loving and hating, mind and body. But The self you made can never be your Self, nor can your Self be split in two. We too often mistakenly believe we are bodies and deny our spirit. Spirit makes use of mind as means to find Self expression.  And the mind which serves the spirit is at peace and filled with joy.  Its power comes from spirit, and it is fulfilling happily its function here.  Yet mind can also see itself divorced from spirit and perceive itself within a body it confuses with itself. 96:4:1-4 (Lesson 96)

Spirit Am I

This sums up Lesson 97 beautifully : Spirit am I, a holy Son of God, free of all limits, safe, and healed and whole, free to forgive, and free to save the world.

A Part In Salvation

The next lesson attempts to remove our guilt and therefore our fear by asking us to accept our part in God's plan for salvation. All we have to do is be willing to set aside our illusions and accept the truth. We allow God to do teh rest. (Lesson 98) 

What is this salvation that we accept being a part of? 

Salvation is simply forgiveness and forgiveness is simply an awareness that we and our brothers were/are not seeing clearly. We recognize that we have mistakenly willed something different than that which  God Wills for us.  This split in Will, however, cannot be so because we are a part of God.  God thinks and sees through us. Any thought that conflicts with the truth that we are already whole, complete peaceful and of Love is not of God.  We simply need to recognize the error of those thoughts, and correct them.  This is forgiveness. This is salvation. This is our only function here. (Lesson 99)

Joy is Our Function Here

In Lesson 100 we are assured that God's Will for us is perfect happiness. Sadness [or anything other than joy] is the sign that you would play another part, instead of what has been assigned to you by God. We must realize that joy is our function here. It is our joy that will help save the world.

All is well!


ACIM (2007) A Course in Miracles: Combine Volume. Workbook: Lessons 91-100. Foundations For Inner Peace.

Need Understand Nothing

You are still convinced that your understanding is a powerful contribution to the truth, and makes it what it is.  Yet we have emphasized that you need understand nothing.
ACIM-T-18:IV:7:5-6


No Need to Understand; No Need to Do

Why do I keep coming to this page?  I struggle to find an answer as to why.  Then I struggle as to discover if I am "doing enough" while I am here.

As human beings we have this tendency to "do" whatever we can to make the world a safer more peaceful place for us to inhabit. We also have this need to "understand" everything in a conceptual way. We would like a nice clearly outlined "purpose" for our existence here so we can conceptually make sense of it and work our way to fulfilling it.

If we are asked "What is Life for?" ...We would likely  struggle to come with an answer using words, ideas, images...wouldn't we?  We would feel discontent and some form of suffering until we could explain it. And in that definition, if we were able to come up with one,  we would probably refer to some action we need to do in order for Life to be what it is.

Like The Tao

The great teachings, however, tell us that there is nothing we need to do. Life will be Life with or without our doing.  And the truth of our existence will always be the truth whether we understand it or not. Like the Tao...we need do nothing.

The Tao never does anything, yet through it all things are done. (Tao Te Ching-Chapter 37, Stephen Mitchell's translation...http://taoteching.org.uk/chapter37.html)

Why Make It difficult

We make our experiences more stressful and difficult with this false notion "I should know that!  I should understand that!"  And," I should do that!"

You make it difficult, because you insist there must be more that you need to do. You find it difficult to accept the idea that you need give so little, to receive so much. ACIM-T-18: IV:1-2

Life Is Always Life

We need to do little and we need to understand little.  Our Life...Life in general.... is not something we can understand with our limited minds anyway.  We do not need to understand it.  Without our ability to name it, label it, define it, judge it ... Life will still be Life.  We do not need to strive, reach, succeed, attain and achieve, either, to experience Life.  Life just is.  It flows through us and we are it. 

Three Things We Can Do

If we really feel the need to "do" just to quiet our conceptual addictions we can do the following as proposed by poet Mary Oliver(https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/62038-instructions-for-living-a-life-pay-attention-be-astonished-tell)
 
Instructions for living a life.
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
 
When I think of my reason for being here on this page, as well as in  Life, I like to believe I am following these wise instructions. I am paying attention to what is happening around me and most importantly in my mind.  I am absolutely astonished by it and I come here to tell about it.  Maybe I am living a life?
 
We do not need to try so hard to understand or do that which we falsely believe will ''get us there." We just  need to have a little faith and trust in Life while  we pay attention to what It is doing; feel amazed by what  It is showing us  and share our experience of It as it flows through.  So simple.
 
All is well. 



Friday, February 21, 2020

The Only Problem


…Man enters into life naked, and naked he departs. The only thing, the single important thing that concerns his existence on earth, is the discovery of his soul. For man is not body alone. No human being can bear to live who regards himself as only a freak occurrence in a freak circumstance. Man is spirit, clearly and without dispute. Man is the essence of the mighty intelligence that guides and controls the universe. Man lives in this intelligence; he is a part of it and the whole of it.
-Uell S. Anderson (Three Magic Words: Forward)
The Only Problem; The Only Purpose
As I contemplate the "only problem," I serendipitously come across another author who echoes what I am reviewing in ACIM.  Anderson ( above) tells us that all our attempts to control the world around us while we are here so we feel safe, powerful and peaceful are absolutely fruitless.  We cannot control these things and that is not what we are here to do. 
 
The only real purpose we have here, the only thing we really need to focus on... is getting in touch with who we really are.  Rediscovering and reconnecting with this true Self, or soul, or purusa, or higher consciousness, or essence or Tao ( whatever you wish to label that which cannot be named) is the answer to all our so called "problems" because the only real problems is the disconnect most of us have with it.

The Disconnection is the Problem; the Reconnection is the Solution
With this disconnection we feel separate, alone,  and fearful.   We perceive ourselves as "freak occurrences"  in "freak circumstances" as we encounter one "problem" on our list after another.  They never seem to end .  As soon as we "believe" we have solved one crisis, another one comes along.  We never seem to be able to cope with them; never seem to be able to get "enough", have enough, be enough and we suffer. Why? 
We do not suffer because of the human circumstances we encounter.  We suffer because of our mind's inability to see and accept the truth. We have yet to see who we are and what that means for us and the world at large. We have failed to accept the truth that we  are not just the bodies we assume ourselves to be.  We are so much more. We are spirit and the essence of the mighty intelligence that guides and controls the universe. We are not only part of that intelligence... we are it.
How could there be "problems" if we knew who we were?
How could we be jotting down problems on a problem list if we truly recognized that?  How could we be entering problem competitions with one another if we knew that? How could we be collecting grievances, resisting and struggling against what is? How could we be so petty, so selfish, so troubled? How could we be afraid if we knew what we were?  And how could we put so much of our energy into defending  and attacking, grasping and clinging, violating and  hurting each other and the planet in the way we do if we owned that truth?  
Is it Blasphemous to Accept Peace?
Yet, for the sake of not being blasphemous and offending the belief structures (be they cultural, religious, familial or personal) that surround us and falsely protect us...we push away that truth...even if it would serve us, each other and the world better to own it.  We push away Truth when we do this; we push away God and we push away peace.

All this complexity is but a desperate attempt not to recognize the problem, and therefore not to let it be resolved. If you could recognize that your only problem is separation, no matter what form it takes, you could accept the answer because you would see its relevance. ACIM-W-79: 6: 1
 
Accept the Answer
We need to accept that the solution to our suffering can not be found by manipulating our outside worlds or by hiding in fear from it.  The solution comes with seeing that our problem lies in our minds and it is there we must go.  It is in our minds we falsely perceive separation, leading to endless suffering, and it is in our minds where we can find the truth that can set us free.  We can never be separated from our Source...no matter what ego tries to get us to believe. We are a part of it.  We are it.
Let us be determined not to collect grievances today.  let us be determined to be free of problems that do not exist.  The means is simple honesty.  Do not deceive yourself about what the problem is, and you must recognize it has been solved. ACIM-W-80:7:1-4
All is well!
 
ACIM(2007) A Course in Miracles: Combined Volume. Workbook: Lessons 71-80. Foundations For Inner Peace.
Andersen, Uell S.. Three Magic Words . BN Publishing. Kindle Edition.
 
 
OOPS!

 I am experiences some challenges deleting this massive space that follows...but it is not a problem!!! lol
Think of it as the shunyata...the empty and vast spaciousness on which the thoughts and words emerge.  :)  The more space we are aware of the more awake we become. Aha!

My attempts to eliminate this space are fruitless...What does that say about the background of our experiences ?