4/12/2009 I share God’s Will for happiness for me.

Wow! Has it really been two months since I last posted? (It’s funny that I just miss typed month as moth and it brought to mind the whole moth thing that appeared last year, maybe just around this time.)

Why have I decided to post? I really don’t know. Why have I not written? I could say that it has been because I have been to busy but then this post, which centers on things outside of myself that cause a reaction, would be a contradiction.

The second job is winding down and, after all, this is a holiday. Opps, I just stopped to make coffee and I spilled coffee grounds on the floor so now I can’t possibly write anything because I’m distracted. Chuckle! The distractions are all around me!

Have you ever noticed how the ending of a period of arduous labor brings a peaceful feeling? Even the thought of a holiday brings a feeling of peace. We don’t have to deal with all of that shit “out there!” Even if it is happy shit. The feeling of change brings peace. How about a vacation?

But I digress. I am talking about peace but this post is supposed to be about happiness. That is the theme that we have been working with the last few days. But then peace and happiness are really the same thing. So is joy and love but we use them as if they are different facets of a new world that we seek. It intrigues me that we even take separation down to these little words. They really mean the same thing but we look for differences. We expect differences.

But, once again, I digress. I am here to talk about this new job thing that I have. Out of the blue it was offered to me a few months ago and I took it. Why? Because I have never been there before although I know it is no different then anything else. You figure that one out!

My boss asked me, “Are you happy with the job?” On the surface it sounds like a simple question. But, wow, how do I answer that? If I answer yes then I am lying. But that is the answer he is looking for. If I answer no then, in effect, I am telling him that the job doesn’t make me happy. He will think that I dislike the job. He will feel bad for offering it to me. He may even start to look for a replacement thinking that I will quit soon. Can I qualify the answer of no for him? I really don’t believe so. But, once again, that is my issue.

I realize that I have been put into this situation a countless number of times. Call it the feeling of the need to conform despite having a knowing that it should be different. How many of those times have I reacted to that feeling by “conforming!” How many of those times has that reaction fueled the illusion of separation in myself and others if there is indeed any others?

The real answer to that question is, “Why can’t I just be happy?” Why does something have to happen outside of myself to trigger, add to, subtract from that happiness that I just have? That’s all that I can have. That’s all that I can be. I get it! Why doesn’t he? Hmmmmm. I’ll let you answer that for yourself because I can’t answer for you.

See, if I were to answer “yes” to that question, not only would I be lying, but that one little word would perpetuate the belief that something could happen or should happen to contribute to or take from my feeling of happiness.

How many times have I done that? I recall something that I have said many times, always in jest, and only because I find anger to be a funny reaction to a situation. When I have noticed someone reacting to a situation with anger I have always said, “Doesn’t that just piss you off?” Hmmm?

How many times have I said, “I am happy for you!” Or, “I hope you have a good day.” I hope something good happens to contribute to you happiness today? Why can’t you just be happy?

What have I been teaching?

Happy Easter! Chuckle.

February 10, 2009 God goes with me wherever I go.

It’s been a while. Why? I really don’t know. I could guess, but what would that prove? That I could guess. I read this mornings lesson and I immediately remembered what I wrote last year.

“I took God to the gym with me today. I didn’t mention it to anyone for obvious reasons. They would have taken him into a little room and tried to sign him up for a year. They would have wanted to attach his bank account like we haven’t tried to take enough from him as it is.”

Something like that?

I have been doing a lot of remembering lately. Carlos Castaneda wrote of recapitulation. He was taught that he had to remember. Remember past events and review. I assumed that he was speaking about changing his views of bad experiences that he had that had affected his life and I suppose that that is true, sort of. Kind of like psychoanalysis. But now I see it differently. I have been remembering times when I have experienced a “holy instant” only to describe the experience as something else. The something else would be a way to explain a feeling of oneness as experienced by a seemingly separate individual.

I spoke to a woman after the last ACIM group thing that I attended and she mentioned an experience of body levitation that she had recently experienced. She had been lying in bed when her whole body seemed to levitate off of the bed. She explained the experience and mentioned that she has tried to recreate that experience to no avail. I told her not to try and when it happened again to not try to explain it. Just experience it.

What else could I say?

So I have been remembering and rethinking these experiences that I have had of a glimpse of the truth. It is funny because I just over heard someone on TV saying that she had a time when she had to look at herself face to face. That’s it! Coming face to face with who or what you really are. It necessitates explaining is as something else. The need to feel separate and individual counters the vision of one.

So, in the case of this woman, she sees her oneness with everything and the reaction is to explain it as something that can only be explained in the world. It must be……this. We cannot possibly be everywhere and everything therefore the only explanation for this feeling must be……. I cannot be everywhere and everything. I have to be someone being somewhere seeing something. Therefore it manifests or projects as such.

I’ve been remembering all of these experiences that I have had and the explanations that I had given them to explain away the phenomenon of oneness. It is becoming clear that every experience is just a reaction to the vision of oneness. Only the perspective changes. Only the state of mind changes. So I can explain the vision of oneness as being sick. That must have been it. Right?

So there was only one “holy instant.” I keep reliving that one “holy instant” explaining it as something else because it can’t possibly be what it seemed to be. That is everything I experience. Simply a reaction to the truth. Which seems impossible only because I don’t want it to be true. So I react with anger at being called an asshole or I have an out of body experience. Same thing. You bet!

January 25, 2009 I do not know what anything is for.

“Purpose is meaning. Today’s idea explains why nothing you see means anything. You do not know what it is for. Therefore, it is meaningless to you. Everything is for your own best interests. That is what it is for; that is its purpose; that is what it means. It is in recognizing this that your goals become unified. It is in recognizing this that what you see is given meaning.

You perceive the world and everything in it as meaningful in terms of ego goals. These goals have nothing to do with your own best interests, because the ego is not you. This false identification makes you incapable of understanding what anything is for. As a result, you are bound to misuse it. When you believe this, you will try to withdraw the goals you have assigned to the world, instead of attempting to reinforce them.

Another way of describing the goals you now perceive is to say that they are all concerned with “personal” interests. Since you have no personal interests, your goals are really concerned with nothing. In cherishing them, therefore, you have no goals at all. And thus you do not know what anything is for.

Before you can make any sense out of the exercises for today, one more thought is necessary. At the most superficial levels, you do recognize purpose. Yet purpose cannot be understood at these levels. For example, you do understand that a telephone is for the purpose of talking to someone who is not physically in your immediate vicinity. What you do not understand is what you want to reach him for. And it is this that makes your contact with him meaningful or not.

It is crucial to your learning to be willing to give up the goals you have established for everything. The recognition that they are meaningless, rather than “good” or “bad,” is the only way to accomplish this. The idea for today is a step in this direction.”

January 24, 2009 I do not perceive my own best interests.

“In no situation that arises do you realize the outcome that would make you happy. Therefore, you have no guide to appropriate action, and no way of judging the result. What you do is determined by your perception of the situation, and that perception is wrong. It is inevitable, then, that you will not serve your own best interests. Yet they are your only goal in any situation which is correctly perceived. Otherwise, you will not recognize what they are.”

These lessons are great. In addition to practicing these lessons it is necessary to read, read and read again. Read them a hundred times. Then read them again slowly. Practice and read.

January 21, 2009 I am determined to see things differently.

I was just hanging out the other day and I noticed something. There was this “little” doubt thought just kind of lingering around. Now, I know that you are wondering what the doubt thought was about. I felt the temptation to define it and label it, also. Then I discarded that temptation. Why do I feel the need to do that? Label and categorize these things. There is only one doubt thought and I can choose to give it any meaning that I want, so why bother? But, I guess because this is my little game, I decided to look at it. I wanted to know what it was doing there and this was right after I had written about a need to quantify an understanding. Kind of cool, right?

As I was examining it, it consumed me. It felt as though I had been hit by a freight train. It just ate me right up. I felt a panic to alleviate this feeling. But I just sat there and felt it. Man, the feeling was so intense. It radiated throughout me. I can’t describe it. An intense craving, maybe? I don’t know. But I just sat there and allowed it to consume me. It became interesting because I noticed that, in that state of panic, I was searching for solutions outside of myself that may resolve this panic state. I thought of going out and surrounding myself with other people. I needed reassurance. That would do it! When I discounted that idea I thought, well maybe I can just call someone on the phone. Maybe just speaking with that person I would feel reassured. Then I scrapped that idea. Then I thought that maybe I should do something. Like run around cleaning the house. If I got rapped up in doing a project it would help get rid of this feeling. I could run from it. It seemed like a great idea but I just sat there noticing this feeling and my response to it. Then I remembered that I was not the one feeling this. I was the one noticing the feeling of a feeling. I was noticing the thought of panic. I was noticing the phenomenon. Then it kind of dissipated. But it took a while. Or did it?

I noticed something yesterday. I was walking up an escalator. I thought, “Check you out. Isn’t the escalator moving fast enough for you?” I just had to get somewhere faster than I was going? I mean, this is the guy who has been sitting here for a year writing about just allowing. Allowing things to happen without trying to tweak them, change them, hasten them or trying to control an outcome and here I am walking on an escalator! Shouldn’t I know better? All I can do is just notice. Does it really have to make sense?

January 19, 2009 I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my thoughts.

I Googled, “Quantify an understanding” and I got:

How We Measure Learning:

Our web-based system for evaluating and analyzing learning has the capabilities you need to thoroughly examine the impact of your educational programs and determine your return on learning investment.

That thought surfaced this morning as I was doing the lesson. So naturally I had to quantify it. I’m thinking that you must have felt it, too. Right?

I have to say that it has been an interesting week. How could it not be? I’ve explained my foray into what I described as another world. I’ve noticed the fear associated with this apparent change. Yes, it all is fear regardless of how it seems to manifest. The feeling that I have to control. The feeling that I have to change to survive in this “new world.” The fact that I perceive differences and feel a need to control or adapt to those differences is a manifestation of fear. Feeling a need to explain how I feel is a manifestation of fear, regardless of feeling that I can or not.

I feel a need to understand something. I feel a need to understand why or how. I can ramble on about the underlying metaphysics of this feeling, but why?

This is a weekend of celebration. It is a weekend in which I am involved in celebrations of a society that seemingly has come to terms with certain differences with an acknowledgement that there is much more work to do. Indeed there is. As long as those differences are apparent there is much work to do. There is also a need to quantify progress. We celebrate the acknowledgement of a change in perception, collectively.

I have found myself directly involved in celebrations that I hadn’t planned to be involved in. I noticed many things, not about history, not about the will of a society to overcome differences, not about celebration of an achievement in world consciousness but changes that I noticed in my thoughts or perceptions. I sit here grappling with this thought because it represents a change or, in this case I am viewing it as an improvement in the way I see. And I am sitting here attempting to quantify these apparent changes. Haven’t I mentioned the futility of attempting to do this in this blog many times?

The only difference was that I spent the weekend noticing what I was thinking rather then trying to figure out what everyone else was thinking. More precisely trying to understand what, why and how.

So I experienced an impromptu weekend. I write about it as if it was different then any other weekend. Only in that I accepted it to be as such. During two events I was asked to speak to a large number of people in the audience. At the first event I was given notice as I entered that I was expected to speak. 100 people, more or less. At the second I was just called up to the podium. How impromptu is that! So what did I do? I spoke. What else would I do? If differences are apparent then, at both events, I was different. Was there fear. Actually there was an understanding that I can’t quantify.

What did I say? I really don’t know. What I didn’t say was that I could understand. How could I possibly understand how, why or what anyone feels? I knew that I could only understand without trying to quantify that understanding. So I said what I said. I was amazed at how strong that feeling of understanding was. At the second I did remark that whatever situation I found myself in, no matter how different it seemed that all I could do was to proceed with the understanding that it was the perfect situation for me at that moment. How can it not be?

I have been asked what it felt like to be “put on the spot?” I have been asked what I “got” out of the experience. All I have been able to say was that I learned a lot. But I can’t really say that there was learning involved. I saw clearly the futility in trying to understand what, how or why someone else thought or felt. I saw clearly the futility in trying to understand what, how or why I thought or felt. It was clear to me that all I could do was to understand and in that understanding I was doing everything. Now I notice that I want to quantify that statement and I can’t.

Can you hear me? I’m betting that you can.

January 15, 2009 My thoughts are images that I have made.

Wow. I haven’t written anything for 3 days. Why? I don’t know. It seems kind of meaningless to put a reason to it. Things are as they are. To say that they could have been or should have been different if…….? Means about as much as everything else.

This job thing is a great experience. I know. Humor me here. It’s not the job. I have been enjoying watching myself do the job. The thing that I have noticed is that I haven’t changed a bit. Did I expect to have changed? Yes and no. This is where it gets really good.

The lessons have all been about thoughts and meaning. I don’t really do the lessons everyday like before. I read them in the morning and take the idea with me all day. I notice that Al is behaving exactly as I have come to expect Al to behave. Al is still exactly as he has been.

When I have a responsibility it takes precedence over anything else including things that others deem important. I watch and see myself taking control. I watch and see myself placing a huge value on this responsibility. If this responsibility carries with it a deadline then watch out! Get out of my way! I notice and I am tempted to say, “Look at how you are behaving. You should know better.” Really?

I should know that it has no meaning. Really? Then why do I keep attaching meaning to it? I get all self-important over nothing. Why?

I know that I can’t change. Then I realize that I, kind of, expected this Al thing to change. It hasn’t. It still has the same old neurotic tendencies that it always had. That is when the temptation to say “I should know better” comes. I understand the futility of trying to change things around me. They don’t exist. By trying to change them I only make them seem real. But, I find my self expecting this Al thing to change. Same thing? You bet! Al is a habit.

So I am on the commuter train that is packed with people. It is not moving fast enough for me. I have things to do. Important things. Then I think, “I can dress Al up but I can’t take him anywhere.” Then I notice that all of these people are in the hot tub with me. But I digress. Maybe there will be more on that later. Chuckle.

I went back to that ACIM group. They were shocked to see that I had returned. I have to travel over 2 hours to get there. Then travel an hour to get home. I wasn’t shocked. I just found myself there. Asking why would only confuse the issue. So we sat around the table. (By the way, they are all in the hot tub too.) We read and analyze the material. They give their interpretation and I give mine. Are the interpretations different. Of course they are. Why wouldn’t they be? Do I attempt to make them “see” my interpretation? Now that would be really futile, wouldn’t it? Then why did I go back? Don’t know? Am I looking for something? Don’t know? Will I go back again? We will see when I get there or not.

January 11, 2009 My meaningless thoughts are showing me a meaningless world.

It’s snowing and my dog won’t go out in the snow. I would say that he doesn’t like getting his paws wet but how would I know that? But he has to go out. He can’t go in. So I trick him. I yell, “Squirrel!” Then I open the door and he bounds out barking as if there is no snow on the ground. He doesn’t even hesitate for a second. He is so fixated on getting that squirrel, which only exists in his mind, that he “ignores” everything else around him. Then when he doesn’t find the squirrel he does his business and comes back in. It works every time! It’s tempting to call him stupid but if you do it only means you have work to do.

When you begin to watch your thoughts with some regularity you will notice yourself doing exactly the same thing. One thought will loom enormous and you can’t help but fixate on that one thought, oblivious to all of the other thoughts that persist. Anger is the most obvious but any thought carries with it that power. Let me rephrase that. The thought has no power. We give it that power.

You will be intent on watching your thoughts and then one will take you into oblivion. Then minutes, hours or days later you will wake up to the fact that you haven’t been watching as you had planned. You gave one thought the power to take you away.

When I first did this lesson I did it from the perspective that I had to see the thoughts and analyze them to prove that they were indeed meaningless. Now I see the futility in doing that. The process of analysis gives the thought power. It may not be the power that will remove you from the exercise but none the less, through analysis, you give that thought a reality that it doesn’t have. The exercise is only to show you how you give meaning to the thought. Without the meaning the thought is nothing. If the thought has no meaning then the world it creates has no meaning, also.

January 10, 2009 My thoughts do not mean anything.

Can I have an intellectual view of this lesson? Can I write about my thoughts on my thoughts meaning nothing? I may have, last year, now that I think about it! I’m laughing!

I recall being so attracted to those thoughts that seem to exist around me. I wanted to grab them and hold them. My thoughts are cool! Have you ever tired to grab smoke? Don’t lie.

So now I have this job thing. It is like I have entered an alien world. I’ve known that this world existed but I never went to it. Now I find myself “immersed” in it. I get this feeing that I cannot exist in this world doing things the way I have been. Really? I can actually feel the need to join in. I’ve been on “auto pilot” for a long time. I feel the need to take control. I am flooded with new thoughts, all around me. Alien thoughts. I feel the need to take control of them. I feel the need to organize them. I want them to make sense. Hmmm.

Someone asked me how I was doing. I said, “Can you catch attention deficit disorder?” I feel awash in thoughts that I don’t understand. It is really funny to look at. I can feel the feeling of disorder and confusion.

I’ve always viewed this new world as a world filled with self-importance. Can I survive in this world without it? It’s almost like a magnetic attraction drawing me in. I feel the pull. I also notice that there only seems to be two alternatives. I can immerse myself in this alien world with all of the experience and cunning that I have assumed existed in me or I can resist the attraction with the strength of what I used to view as my will.

I notice that I can’t decide which to choose. Actually, I notice that I keep fluctuating between the two. Is it possible to choose one over the other or can I only fluctuate between the two? I notice myself wondering which will result in peace. It seems like neither will. Fluctuating between the two will only make it worse. Right? I feel trapped. I have to choose. How did I allow myself to get drawn into this alien world? Shouldn’t I know better? Have I created, yet, another prison for myself?

I notice the feelings. I notice how strong they seem. Then I remember who is noticing.

January 8, 2009 My mind is preoccupied with past thoughts.

Interesting lesson. I started a job. I am tempted to call it a “new job’ but that doesn’t seem to fit. I’ve never done this job before. People are asking me, “How is it?” “How can I possibly know?” The only other answer that I could give would involve assumptions based on past experience. Fruitless? You bet.

These lessons are perfect because I am searching my mind for preconceived notions about what I expect the job to be. Have you ever noticed that when someone starts a new job they burst into it with enthusiasm and at the beginning they tell you that it is great! “I am so happy! It couldn’t be better?” Think about that! We go into it with the expectation that it will be great. How can it not be? But we also add other expectations based on our past experiences. We actually create a vision of what this job will “look like.” We create a vision of things that will happen that will make this job fun. We define what good will look like in advance?????? We anticipate “happy” but we add conditions to it. How can I possibly know in advance? When the job doesn’t meet all of those expectations that I put on it in begins to suck. “It is not what I thought it would be!” Right?

It’s the same thing with relationships. I meet a woman. She seems perfect. So I envision her to have these qualities that I have come to expect perfection to be based on my past experiences. Then I actually expect her to possess all of these qualities. When she doesn’t “measure up” I get disappointed. Then I think that I can change her and make her into that perfect being that I came to expect. Then she starts throwing stuff at me because she sees me as a control freak.

True for everything? Of course. I define the future based on the past. Then I actually expect it to appear exactly as I envisioned it. When it doesn’t I can’t understand why it didn’t. Now, I could say, “Well, I used to be that way but I know better now.” But that statement just shows that I don’t. Did I merely create a vision of what knowing better would be?

See, I just notice it now.

I attended an ACIM group the other night. No shit! It was the first time that I ever met other people who were students of the Course. They actually look like regular people! I stumbled upon it on line. It was like an hour from my house but I knew immediately that I would attend. I just had to.

What do you think I noticed during the drive? My mind kept “slipping” into expectations of what I would experience when I got there. So I laughed all the way there. How could I possibly know? Had I allowed my mind to produce those expectations would I have had the great experience that I did have. Of course not! I would have, most likely, been disappointed.

They are a brand new group. I told them that I may not be able to continue going because of the distance and my new job situation. But, secretly, I figured I wouldn’t be able to help it. I would just have to go back. See, I am doing it again? Expecting something by trying not to expect anything. All I can really do is to notice it. Try it. Just the noticing part.

January 5, 2009 I am never upset for the reason I think.

I watched football yesterday. I enjoy the game of football. I played it and I enjoy the battle and the strategy. I have a team. My team. No, I don’t own it. I don’t have any interest in the team per se I just picked it to be my team. So I do have some interest in the team because I chose to. My team was chosen on a regional basis. I grew up in the area and the team that represented that area just became my team. I know others that chose their teams for various reasons. It could have been because of past success. It could have been for past failure. Rooting for the underdog. (A view of yourself?) Maybe their was a certain player years ago that you identified with and you just started rooting for that team and never stopped. I know one person who chose their team because of the colors of the uniforms. Another because they liked the animal that the team chose as its mascot.

Some people become so attached to the team they chose, they refer to the team and themselves as we. Now that is really attachment!

My team didn’t play this weekend. So I watched other people’s teams play. I may tell you that it really doesn’t matter who wins because my team isn’t playing but if I really search hard I can find tell tale signs that I prefer one over the other. There are any number of reasons that I choose a particular team. It even could be because I dislike the other team for some reason. Maybe they beat my team and I would like them to take a beating in return. “There you go, take that! You deserved it!” It’s not my team playing so the outcome doesn’t really doesn’t trigger a huge emotional response. If the team I am rooting for wins I don’t run around slapping high fives with strangers nor do I get angry if the team I am rooting for looses. I may just have a mild feeling of disappointment.

So I just sit and watch and notice this feeling of disappointment or satisfaction as the game progresses. The score changes and my feelings change along with it. Up/ down, happy/ sad. I think, “Why do I feel this way?” I know that I have absolutely to control over the outcome. I could root harder. I could get on my knees in front of the TV cheering and yelling but is that going to change the outcome of a play? No. I have absolutely no control over the outcome. But I am still feeling these emotional changes all through the game. If my team is losing bad enough I may want to shut off the TV because it becomes too hard to bear. Or if my team is winning by a large margin I get the “kick them while they are down’ feeling.

Then I realize that the outcome of this game will not affect my life at all. I still have to get up the next morning and do what I do, regardless. Unless I bet on the game I have no financial interest in the outcome. Why would I bet on something that I have no control over? I don’t get it?

So I want to know why I am feeling this way? If I have no control over the outcome. If the outcome can’t possibly affect my life as I know it. Why do I feel this way?

“I am never upset for the reason I think.” That is all I have to know, now.

Eventually I will understand that this applies to everything. But why rush it? So I begin noticing the obvious and allow it to work from there. This is only lesson 5, after all.

September 17, 2008 God is my refuge and security.

Yes I know that I missed another lesson. “Let me remember God created me.” I was busy and it is the same anyway so let’s move on.

The theme of this group of lessons is: “What Is the Body?” There isn’t one. There, that was easy. Wasn’t it?

I’m still laughing from my last post. I was busy and I couldn’t expound on it but I caught myself doing something and I was “struck” with this feeling of total absurdity. It is not even necessary for me to repeat my entire statement just that it began with, “There was a time when I would….”

When was that? Well I’m not really sure but I know that it happened before. I also know that I have used that before. I don’t know how many times but I could go back and read all of my posts and tell you how many times I have done this. That would be absurd also.

I was comparing myself before and after like a hair club for men commercial. I was spiritually ugly but now I am spiritually handsome! Can you see the absurd nature of a comment of that type? I am lucky that I stumbled onto this spiritual stuff because it has really transformed my life! I am getting so much better at it. Let me explain to you how. I’m cracking myself up. I also feel as though I should explain it to you further but that would be absurd also so let’s move on.

My friend seemed to have won the election. I’m not talking from an illusion point of view. He won by thirteen votes so there will be a recount. Can I assume what the final result will be? That would be absurd, also. Right? How should I know? How can I possibly know? Would it matter if I did? Would it change anything?

When the polls closed yesterday someone commented to me, “How do you think he will do?” I said, “I think it will be close!” Did I know something in advance? No, what else could I say? He said, “Now is when the nerves really take over!” Hmm. Really? Must be that waiting thing?

But he must know? You see, he has done this thing many times before. This is my first foray on the campaign trail. But I know differently. I can tell that he is just bringing the past into the future and feeling what he has been conditioned to feel. I know differently. Right? I am on this path that gives me vision. I can see the error of his ways. Right?

Being a nice guy I want to help him see. Right? Why should he have to suffer needlessly? What did I say? Nothing. I just smiled. What could I possibly say?

“If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck then it must be a duck. Right?”

“Right!”

“Wrong. There actually is no duck.”

“There has to be!”

“You just think there is a duck.”

“Come on!”

“No, really. We don’t have a millennium so I can’t explain the metaphysics behind this. You’ll just have to trust me. You see, I know! All these years you thought that there was a duck there but there is not. It’s an illusion. There, don’t you feel better?”

At the same time I am doing the lesson of the day/ yesterday:

Lesson 260:

[Father, I did not make myself, although in my insanity I thought I did. Yet, as Your Thought, I have not left my Source, remaining part of Who created me. Your Son, my Father, calls on You today. Let me remember You created me. Let me remember my Identity. And let my sinlessness arise again before Christ's vision, through which I would look upon my brothers and myself today.]

Now, I know that it is absurd to think that I can change him.

But:

Am I experiencing a transformation?

Can I change, me?

Can I make him a better person because I am?

What is it that I am experiencing?

Can I experiencing anything?

What outcome?

Lesson 261:

[Let me not seek for idols. I would come, my Father, home to You today. I choose to be as You created me, and find the Son whom You created as my Self.]

What if my friend actually does win? This was only the primary.

“Carry on,

Love is coming,

Love is coming to us all.”

- – Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.

September 18, 2008 Let me perceive no differences today.

I went over to Natoli’s place yesterday. Gorgeous for God. Yes, it is her place. It is more than just a blog. She has posts. She has audio and video.  It’s more than just a simple little blog like here. I felt the need to leave a comment. I didn’t want to. I felt I had to. Why? How, in hell, should I know? I really don’t want to do anything anymore. But I tried anyway. I typed and deleted and typed and deleted a few times more then I finally typed and I figured that that must be what I wanted to say because I wasn’t going to type anymore and just as I hit the “submit comment” box my internet connection crashed. The browser screen just was white. There was nothing there. There wasn’t even an error thingy.

I shut my computer off and that was the end of that. It would have been futile to keep trying to do something that I didn’t feel like doing anyway. Done trying.

Whatever it was that I typed it always began with, “I hear you. Loud and clear!” I just should have left it at that but I kept trying to explain. That is where the futility came in.

The last thing I left on my post yesterday was, “What outcome?”

We seem to think that we can gain happiness in doing something but in doing anything we are really looking for happiness in the outcome of whatever it is that we seem to be doing. If the outcome becomes meaningless which it always is anyway then what does that do to the doing part?

I have mentioned the campaigning thing that I have been involved in. I also mentioned that I have no attachment to the outcome of the election. I feel that I don’t but then I could be in denial of having an attachment because I believe, intellectually, that I shouldn’t have an attachment to it. Or I could have an attachment to some other outcome such as helping my friend be happy by doing something for him which substantiates the doing. It may not be “controlled folly” after all.

As I began to write this post the thought of “the needle in the haystack theory” drifted through my mind. Thoughts do that now. They drift in as if they are just following some flowing current. They don’t rush in and gobble up all of my attention anymore. That “anymore” implies that I am doing that before after thing again. See? I can’t help it! I just keep perceiving differences.

We seem to agree that “the needle in the haystack” thing is the hardest possible thing in the world to do. Why don’t I just get naked and lie in that pile of hay and let that needle find me? It will! I could roll around a little. Just one little prick and I’ve got it. It could happen now or it may take an eternity but what else do I have?

September 20, 2008 I am surrounded by the Love of God.

Did I make a commitment to post everyday? It would matter if I had. Wouldn’t it?

Lesson 264:

[Father, You stand before me and behind, beside me, in the place I see myself, and everywhere I go.  You are in all the things I look upon, the sounds I hear, and every hand that reaches for my own.  In You time disappears, and place becomes a meaningless belief.  For what surrounds Your Son and keeps him safe is Love itself.  There is no source but this, and nothing is that does not share its holiness; that stands beyond Your one creation, or without the Love which holds all things within itself.  Father, Your Son is like Yourself.  We come to You in Your Own Name today, to be at peace within Your everlasting Love.]

This is definitely the best lesson. Isn’t it? The instant I read it the song, “Looking for love in all the wrong places” came zipping into my mind. We have learned that there are no places. Right?

I’m wondering if it is possible to look and “eventually(?)” find God by looking where he is but he is not. Can we back into this expectation of an explosion of understanding?

This is a great lesson in noticing. Just noticing where and how we look. We have spent 263 lessons learning to look within. Where is within? How do I get there?

[You are in all the things I look upon, the sounds I hear, and every hand that reaches for my own.] That is the absolute truth but will you find God by looking at or into these things and who is “You” anyway?

We could envision ourselves submerged in a pool filled with water and think, “God’s love is in this water that is surrounding me.” There is no water surrounding anything. Can we gain this understanding by seeking it in what is not there? Gain?

God is in that rock. God is in that tree. God is in the air that I breathe. Notice how we look. We have the intellectual knowledge that there is nothing really out there but we keep looking towards it for the understanding of God. “I can’t help it!”

Notice how you look? Notice where you look? I have been learning how to look for eons. Can I possibly stop looking as I have learned how to? Is it necessary to look myself into futility until I can stop looking?

Can I stop looking? Can I write something without it being a question? Chuckle.

Can I do nothing? It’s impossible for me to “do” anything. How can I understand that? Can I type something that makes sense? I hear my mother shouting, “Stop this nonsense right now!” Did she know something?

[My brothers, join with me in this today. This is salvation's prayer. Must we not join in what will save the world, along with us?]

Why do I find it difficult to use the word “brother” to address another? To me the word suggests “someone else” who happens to have the same father. How can that be?

Notice the looking?

September 22, 2008 My holy Self abides in you, God’s Son.

I’ve been sitting wondering about what and how I was going to write. I just watched a video that Lisa, gorgeous for God, had linked on her blog. The video explained energy associations with others and how we can use these associations to create positive or negative life experiences. The spokeswoman then said, “The world is your oyster.”

I attended an oyster festival on the beach this weekend. I walked amid hundreds of people standing and milling about. Naturally I was joined by the lesson of the day. It joins with me and goes wherever I go, “I am surrounded by the love of God.” It was a bit intriguing that I found myself literally surrounded by people. A vast ocean lay at my periphery. Zillions of grains of sand lie beneath my feet. A cloudless sky above my head extended into the heavens. The sounds of a loud rock band mingled with the clatter of hundreds of conversations and laughter to fill the air that surrounded me with noise.

I found myself surrounded by a universe of motion and life. I realized how easy it would be to feel insignificant. Just a small speck in an endless stream of energy and motion, or not. I’m laughing because it would be easy for me to describe to you the feeling of smallness. I could write pages upon pages of experiencing wonder of the vastness and beauty of the universe. You would understand it without a doubt. While I was aware of the possibility of this feeling I was actually feeling the “or not.” That which I can’t even begin to explain.

An oyster lay in my hand at my lips. My world, or not?

Lesson 266:

[Father, You gave me all Your Sons, to be my saviors and my counselors in sight; the bearers of Your holy Voice to me.  In them are You reflected, and in them does Christ look back upon me from my Self.  Let not Your Son forget Your holy Name.  Let not Your Son forget his holy Source.  Let not Your Son forget his Name is Yours.]

September 23, 2008 My heart is beating in the peace of God.

I got up this morning. I read the lesson and I thought, “Ok, enough with the poetry, already!” How many times can we dance around the truth? I picture a little kid (big people do it also) with his hands over his ears making sounds so he doesn’t have to hear the truth. He knows but he thinks that if he doesn’t listen he doesn’t have to really believe he knows.

Now I’m starting to do that, “I used to be, shit.” You can’t used to be, Ok! You either are or you’re not. Mr. compassion, I am not.  I’m laughing as I am thinking, “What has gotten into me today?” Where? Who?

Do you know what really gets me? People who watch a movie and get all teary eyed over it. You know it’s not real. Right? Why get all emotional over it? You must like to get emotional. Right? You must want to live the fear and the pain otherwise you wouldn’t get that way. Right? Or we remember ever line in the movie. We get obsessed with knowing the actors and the story behind the actors and on and on. Talk, talk, talk, as though it really happened. It’s a moment of entertainment only. Shut it off!

Or then we have the nightmare. I can understand getting all worked up over it but once you wake up you know it was not real. Why continue with the emotion? Why talk about it all day long as if it really happened? Why “relive” the pain. You must enjoy it. Right? Otherwise you wouldn’t do it. What are my words of compassion to you? “Get over it!”

In “A few Good Men” Jack Nicholson screamed, “You want the truth! You can’t handle the truth!”

So let’s pretty it up a bit for you. Let’s package it nicely and put a cute little bow around it and call it a gift. Here. Take it. This is the gift of truth. This is the gift of understanding. You may not want to open it right away. It will really freak you out if you do so just keep it until you’re ready. You can look at the pretty package and know that you have understanding right at your finger tips should you want to take the next step. It may even make you feel better just knowing that it is there whenever you may feel the need to access it.

If the dream is nice you can just keep the truth in its package. If the dream is not nice you can wait until it gets nice. You’re convinced that it will. Right? If the dream turns into a terrible nightmare and you just can’t take it anymore, take the plunge. Open the gift.

Or, for those of you with fortitude, those that just have to know regardless of the consequences. Go for it now. What have you got to lose? A life, maybe? You may find out that it’s not all that it’s cracked up to be, anyway?
“I turn on the tube and what do I see
A whole lotta people cryin’ ‘don’t blame me’
They point their crooked little fingers at everybody else
Spend all their time feelin’ sorry for themselves
Victim of this, victim of that
Your momma’s too thin; your daddy’s too fat”

“Get over it
Get over it
All this whinin’ and cryin’ and pitchin’ a fit
Get over it, get over it”

-Eagles – Get Over It

You see? We know, we just pretend that we don’t!

September 24, 2008 Let all things be exactly as they are.

I went off on quite a rant yesterday! Did I scare anyone away? No one comes here anyway. Or do they?

Do you waken to soft music or do you have an alarm? Mine sounds like a Claxton.  Go figure!

Did the song inspire the rant or did the rant precede the memory of the song?

Does birth precede death or is it the other way around? Sounds easy, doesn’t it?

How can all things not be exactly as they are?

Can you change now? And how?

If things were not exactly as they are, how would they be?

When I told a friend that I rarely had my TV on he exclaimed, “How do you get the news?” Hmmm?

The news is how things were? How long before news becomes history? The news is what’s not anymore?

People tell me that things always come in threes. Good and/or bad. We group what’s not anymore in little packages of three and we become astonished by that? Why not little packages of five? Who decided on three?

Can you change the news? And how? We try. Don’t we?

I just woke my mother who thought she had over slept. She wondered how that could have been. Hmm. “That’s news to me.” Can I under sleep? I should have woken up later? Whew?

“No news is good news!” What are we thinking?

We have emotional responses to what’s not anymore. All of them except for fear. We fear what’s not anymore, yet.

Do you get it now? You can’t! You can only get it later after which it won’t be anymore, now, then. But we keep trying. Don’t we?

See?

September 25, 2008 My sight goes forth to look upon Christ’s face.

“You should never try to change me
I can be nobody else
Believe me, you’ll be looking for trouble if you hurt me
I can promise you, you’ll be looking for trouble
Believe me, yeah yeah yeah yeah

What you see is what you get
This is me, hey you
If you want me, don’t forget
You should take me as I am
‘Cause I can promise you
Baby, what you see is what you get”

—Britney Spears? No shit!

{WYSIWYG, is an acronym for What You See Is What You Get, used in computing to describe a system in which content displayed during editing appears very similar to the final output,^[3] which might be a printed document, web page, slide presentation or even the lighting for a theatrical event. [A person maybe?]

WYSIWYG implies a user interface that allows the user to view something very similar to the end result while the document is being created. In general WYSIWYG implies the ability to directly manipulate the layout of a document without having to type or remember names of layout commands. The actual meaning depends on the user’s perspective, e.g. Hmmmm?}

–From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I could go on and on using these analogies but the end result is what you see, not what I see, and you will see whatever you want whether I indulge myself or not so I withhold my commentary.

You get what you choose to see and what you are getting is what you’re choosing to see. Simple, isn’t it?

Lesson 269:

[I ask Your blessing on my sight today.  It is the means which You have chosen to become the way to show me my mistakes, and look beyond them.  It is given me to find a new perception through the Guide You gave to me, and through His lessons to surpass perception and return to truth.  I ask for the illusion which transcends all those I made. Today I choose to see a world forgiven, in which everyone shows me the face of Christ, and teaches me that what I look upon belongs to me; that nothing is, except Your holy Son.]

[Today our sight is blessed indeed. We share one vision, as we look upon the face of Him Whose Self is ours. We are one because of Him Who is the Son of God; of Him Who is our own Identity.]

Can you see the body as simply a user interface that allows the user (you) to view something similar to the end result while the document (thought) is being created? If you don’t like what you see then edit it. Or better yet send it to the Editor.

I know that I said I wasn’t going to comment but I just had to!  WYSIWYG!

September 26, 2008 I will not use the body’s eyes today.

Acuity

Visual acuity is often measured in cycles per degree (CPD), which measures an angular resolution, or how much an eye can differentiate one object from another in terms of visual angles. Resolution in CPD can be measured by bar charts of different numbers of white – black stripe cycles. For example, if each pattern is 1.75 cm wide and is placed at 1 m distance from the eye, it will subtend an angle of 1 degree, so the number of white – black bar pairs on the pattern will be a measure of the cycles per degree of that pattern. The highest such number that the eye can resolve as stripes, or distinguish from a gray block, is then the measurement of visual acuity of the eye.

For a human eye with excellent acuity, the maximum theoretical resolution would be 50 CPD^[12] (1.2 arcminute per line pair, or a 0.35 mm line pair, at 1 m). A rat can resolve only about 1 to 2 CPD. A horse has higher acuity through most of the visual field of its eyes than a human has, but does not match the high acuity of the human eye’s central fovea region.

Spherical aberration limits the resolution of a 7 mm pupil to about 3 arcminutes per line pair. At a pupil diameter of 3 mm, the spherical aberration is greatly reduced, resulting in an improved resolution of approximately 1.7 arcminutes per line pair.^[14] A resolution of 2 arcminutes per line pair, equivalent to a 1 arcminute gap in an optotype, corresponds to 20/20 (normal vision) in humans.

Have you ever wondered why the world appears so messed up? There you go!

If we can’t name it, measure it, categorize it and intellectualize it then it doesn’t exist. Right? The more significance we can place on anything the better we can hold onto it as a thing or concept. We call that significance love. (notice the small L)

T-1.I.22.                Miracles are associated with fear only because of the belief that darkness can hide. 2 You believe that what your physical eyes cannot see does not exist. 3 This leads to a denial of spiritual sight.

T-20.II.1. Look upon all the trinkets made to hang upon the body, or to cover it or for its use. 2 See all the useless things made for its eyes to see. 3 Think on the many offerings made for its pleasure, and remember all these were made to make seem lovely what you hate. 4 Would you employ this hated thing to draw your brother to you, and to attract his body’s eyes? 5 Learn you but offer him a crown of thorns, not recognizing it for what it is, and trying to justify your own interpretation of its value by his acceptance. 6 Yet still the gift proclaims his worthlessness to you, as his acceptance and delight acknowledges the lack of value he places on himself.

T-22.I.2 Yet we have heard a very similar description earlier, but it was not of you. 2 But still this strange idea which it does accurately describe, you [think] is you. 3 Reason would tell you that the world you see through eyes that are not yours must make no sense to you. 4 To whom would seeing such as this send back its messages? 5 Surely not you, whose sight is wholly independent of the eyes that look upon the world. 6 If this is not your vision, what can it show to you? 7 The brain cannot interpret what your vision sees. 8 This [you] would understand. 9 The brain interprets to the body, of which it is a part. 10 But what it says you cannot understand. 11 Yet you have listened to it. 12 And long and hard you tried to understand its messages.

T-22.I.3.                You have not realized it is impossible to understand what fails entirely to reach you. 2 You have received no messages at all you understand. 3 For you have listened to what can never communicate at all. 4 Think, then, what happens. 5 Denying what you are, and firm in faith that you are something else, this “something else” that you have made to be yourself becomes your sight. 6 Yet it must be the “something else” that sees, and as [not] you, explains its sight [to] you. p468 7 Your vision would, of course, render this quite unnecessary. 8 Yet if your eyes are closed and you have called upon this thing to lead you, asking it to explain to you the world it sees, you have no reason not to listen, nor to suspect that what it tells you is not true. 9 Reason would tell you it cannot be true [because] you do not understand it. 10 God has no secrets. 11 He does not lead you through a world of misery, waiting to tell you, at the journey’s end, why He did this to you.

September 28, 2008 How can illusions satisfy God’s Son?

Another climb. Another mountain. More clouds and more rain.  Most complained about our luck being bad? Should I add another hundred question marks to that one statement? No view once again.

The view was still there. The view from the mountain top is always there. The view is always everywhere.

Lisa, gorgeous for God, reminded me of the song that played as I descended:

“I can see clearly now, the rain is gone,

I can see all obstacles in my way

Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind

It’s gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)

Sun-Shiny day.

I think I can make it now, the pain is gone

All of the bad feelings have disappeared

Here is the rainbow I’ve been prayin?for

It’s gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)

Sun-Shiny day.

Look all around, there’s nothin?but blue skies

Look straight ahead, nothin?but blue skies

I can see clearly now, the rain is gone,

I can see all obstacles in my way

Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind

It’s gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)

Sun-Shiny day.”

–Johnny Nash – I Can See Clearly Now

“Today we pass illusions by.  And if we hear temptation call to us to stay and linger in a dream, we turn aside and ask ourselves if we, the Sons of God, could be content with dreams, when Heaven can be chosen just as easily as hell, and love will happily replace all fear.”

Why do I continue to climb mountains? Because they are not there!

The view is never hidden. It is always there. The view can’t be found it has to find you. All you have to do is stop looking. Don’t stop doing. Stop expecting to find something in the doing.

September 29, 2008 The stillness of the peace of God is mine.

“Are you reeling in the years

Stowing away the time?”

–Steely Dan

Reeling: To go round and round in a whirling motion.

I had a dream last night that I was taking a class. I don’t know what it was but the professor had graded all of my posts. He gave each of them grades and commented in red in the margins. I was going through them all quickly looking for the “bad” grades and comments. The class was ending and the grades would be posted and I felt a desperation to defend my position for each “bad” grade. I had this pile of papers on my desk and I was rifling through them scanning the comments quickly. I just kept going through them over and over. I knew that I was dreaming but I didn’t want to wake up until I had solved the problem. Then I realized that it would be simpler just to wake up. So I did.

I’ve done that a lot. I’ll be having a nightmare. I’ll wake up and I have to go back to sleep until I can solve the nightmare. I’ve gone back to sleep many times during a nightmare trying to change it.

Blind man running

through the light

of the night

With an answer in his hand,

Come on down

to the river of sight

And you can really understand,

Red lights flashing

through the window

in the rain,

Can you hear the sirens moan?

White cane lying

in a gutter in the lane,

If you’re walking home alone.

Don’t let it bring you down

It’s only castles burning,

Just find someone who’s turning

And you will come around.

–Neil Young

The dream is real as real can be. Or is. Or is not. Can changing the dream make it any less real? Or not?

Stop reeling for a moment. Understand that you cannot change what is not there. That is stillness. Only in that stillness will you find peace.

September 30, 2008 Today belongs to love. Let me not fear.

“It’s the end of the world as we know it.

It’s the end of the world as we know it.

It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.”

–REM

The lesson gives this day to love and I begin this post with a song relating to the end of the world. Is this a contradiction? There are no contradictions.

Contradiction: Direct opposition between things compared; inconsistency. If there are opposing things then neither is correct. Right? Actually opposing things cancel each other out so they are really not. (Yes, I had to just end that sentence right there otherwise it would not make sense.)

What’s up with these songs? I just don’t know. They just appear out of the blue? This one was the trailer to a movie that I watched last night. Someone sent me an e-mail directing me to Michael Moore’s new movie so I watched it. I’m wondering if that name association will bring me visitors from homeland security. A guy talking about the end of the world, using Moore’s name, from some mountain! Whew!

What did I think of the movie? Does it matter? I’ve also been monitoring the “bail out” debate. Does it matter? Same thing? Opposites? Do they cancel each other out? It depends on how you view it. How is that? It only matters to you. How should I know?

I have always been amazed by this contradictory parody that we call life. It scared me for a long time. It doesn’t anymore. Why? Because I think I know why but I can’t possibly know why because why is part of the problem if there is, in fact, a problem, which there can’t be. See?

We just keep reeling, don’t we? I’ll say it again, “The truth is universal. The notion of a plural to the word truth is absurd. If I’m right and you’re wrong then it follows that I’m wrong also.” Would the world end, as we know it, if we all thought that way? Of course! Actually the word “truth” would make no sense because we would have no opposites to compare it to. Did I just refer to the truth as nonsense? I guess I did? The whole notion of “we all” would disappear also. Would we need the world then?

My mother asked me to take her to dinner. She said that she had a coupon. I looked at the coupon and saw that it had expired. She didn’t believe me. She had to check it for herself. Why? Because my nephew told her that it was good for the entire month. She said, “I should have known better than to believe him. He can’t read.” Now, tell me, is it only me or what?

I was in line at the store. The cashier was trying to answer the telephone. She was obviously frustrated as she pushed buttons and said hello to no-one. She kept looking at me saying, “I hate telephones!” When I got to the counter she told me how much she missed her last job because she didn’t have to answer the telephone. I asked her who answered the phone at home. She said, “I don’t have one. I hate them! Then the bill collectors can’t call me.” Isn’t that denial? Now, tell me, is it only me or what? Why do we make this so difficult?

Ok, back to the “we all” thing. Does the possible disappearance of the concept “we all” scare you? Of course it does! But you see, that is love.

“We always have a choice,

At least I we think we do,

We can always use our voice,

I thought this to be true.

We can live in fear.

Extend ourselves to love,

We can fall below, or lift ourselves above.

Fear can stop you loving,

Love can stop your fear.

Fear can stop you loving,

But it’s not always that clear.

–Enigma

And I feel fine.

October 1, 2008 God’s healing Voice protects all things today.

“When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

The Declaration of Independence or is it one declaration that has repeated itself a zillion times since the big bang? We just happen to have a paper trail on this one but it happens every instant over and over and over again.

One people? Ahhhhhhhhhhh!!! Are we connected by political bands? Can we join together by putting some kind of quantum elastic around us? Separate and equal?

Self-evident: evident in itself without proof or demonstration; axiomatic, obvious.

I searched dictionary.com for truths and I was directed to target.com. I can buy truths?

How many times do we have to declare our independence? We believe that it is our right to have a separate individual self. Even when we intellectually understand that this is incorrect we still do it trying to correct the error by using the error.

We attempt to “join together” in causes. Be it political, spiritual, etc. But the idea of joining implies separate parts. Can we undo a belief in a separate self by trying to join with another separate self? Isn’t this like trying to put a puzzle together that is already complete? Can we expect to un-believe in separation by connecting all of the dots? Can you see my dilemma here? Either you see a completed puzzle or you see a bunch of pieces. There is nothing to do but to change what you are seeing.

If we connect all of the truths together will we come to realize the one truth? Then we can say that the one truth is self-evident which brings us back to the separate self conundrum. Will it ever end? I know that it has but humor me here. Will we ever see that it has ended?

Can I undo a state of mass confusion that really doesn’t exist by applying more confusion to it? It’s non-sense. See?

Lesson 275:

Let us today attend the Voice for God, which speaks an ancient lesson, no more true today than any other day.  Yet has this day been chosen as the time when we will seek and hear and learn and understand.  Join me in hearing.  For the Voice for God tells us of things we cannot understand alone, nor learn apart.  It is in this that all things are protected.  And in this the healing of the Voice for God is found.

October 2, 2008 The Word of God is given me to speak.

Wow, yesterday I went off on a rant. Why? Just because! Or why not? Why anything?

On the day that I am asked to speak I have nothing to say. At least not here and not in words.

What is the Word of God?  ”My Son is pure and holy as Myself.” That just can’t be put in words, here, now, can it? It’s an understanding, pure and simple.

October 3, 2008 Let me not bind Your Son with laws I made.

Lesson 277:

[Your Son is free, my Father. Let me not imagine I have bound him with the laws I made to rule the body.  He is not subject to any laws I made by which I try to make the body more secure. 4 He is not changed by what is changeable. He is not slave to any laws of time. He is as You created him, because he knows no law except the law of love.]

“Let us not worship idols, nor believe in any law idolatry would make to hide the freedom of the Son of God. He is not bound except by his beliefs. Yet what he is, is far beyond his faith in slavery or freedom. He is free because he is his Father’s Son. And he cannot be bound unless God’s truth can lie, and God can will that He deceive Himself.”

What a perfect lesson to follow the Vice Presidential debate! Who won the, I’m right and your wrong, two hour, binding session? Me! I get something to rant about once again.

“Let’s agree to disagree?” Whew! That is how it all began and that is how it keeps repeating. That is a strong statement of separation. That brings degrees into the equation. “Ok, I’ll give you your position but I am still more right then you.” How about the whole idea of bi-partisan politics? Your wrong but we have to do something so if you change it so your idea is a little less wrong then I’ll accept it. I won’t really agree with you but it is better then doing nothing. Hmm.

All truths are self-evident. That says it all. Can you see it? I went to Target.com and they don’t sell truths there.

The concept of fighting for freedom came up once again. I won’t go there!

I’ll say it one more time, “If I’m right and you’re wrong then it follows that I must be wrong also.”

Why do I continue to comment on incongruities in space time events that only appear to be happening despite evidence to the contrary? What else can I do? I seem to be stuck in this dream. I have to do something! Besides, it’s fun. I could change it! But then what would I write about? How pretty everything is? You don’t want to hear that! Do you?

October 4, 2008 If I am bound, my Father is not free.

Lesson 278:

If I accept that I am prisoner within a body, in a world in which all things that seem to live appear to die, then is my Father prisoner with me.  And this do I believe, when I maintain the laws the world obeys must I obey; the frailties and the sins which I perceive are real, and cannot be escaped.  If I am bound in any way, I do not know my Father nor my Self.  And I am lost to all reality.  For truth is free, and what is bound is not a part of truth.

If I am bound in any way I am lost to reality.

If I am bound in any way I am lost to reality.

I almost repeated that statement a hundred times because I felt that it said it all but even that is binding.

For better or worse, in sickness and in health until death do us part?

Can you make nothing better than it isn’t?

For truth is free, and what is bound is not a part of truth.

October 5, 2008 Creation’s freedom promises my own.

Lesson 278:

[The end of dreams is promised me, because God's Son is not abandoned by His Love.  Only in dreams is there a time when he appears to be in prison, and awaits a future freedom, if it be at all.  Yet in reality his dreams are gone, with truth established in their place.  And now is freedom his already.  Should I wait in chains which have been severed for release, when God is offering me freedom now?]

“Should I wait in chains which have been severed for release?” I keep my dog’s collar ridiculously loose. I can slip it off his head at any time. He could get it off anytime he wanted, if he only knew that he could and how he could do it. When on the leash he pulls forward trying to free himself which pulls the collar tight against his front shoulders. No freedom is possible using this approach. All he has to do is back up against the leash and his collar will slip right over his head giving him his freedom. He can’t see this so he keeps attempting to free himself in the only way he thinks will work. Futile, but he keeps trying.  Hmmmm? Read that once again!

Is it possible to dream that you are awake?

I’ll just leave that one for a while. I do have an example but it has to wait for another day. When? How should I know?

Yesterday I traveled to my old home town. I visited with many friends and had a great time. They all told me how much they missed having me around and wanted to hear how much I missed being there. They all asked how my mother was feeling because that is, kind of, the reason I left. I had such a good time I stayed until really late. I felt that I had to leave and my friends, knowing that I had over a hundred miles to drive, implored me to stay the night. They can’t see driving so far especially that late at night. I enjoy it but that is not why I left. I left because I felt I had to leave.

I took the exit to get onto the highway and this great analogy involving time and space appeared in my mind. I thought about what great blogging material that it would be. I will post it, I think, some day. The idea appeared in an instant but right after I saw an exit sign approaching. I thought that it was impossible for that first exit to have come up so quickly because I had just got onto the highway. I looked at the sign again and it wasn’t the next exit it was my exit! I had travelled 80 miles! Whew.

Can you see how I could have thought that that was the reason that I chose to leave? The insight and the experience could have been the catalyst for the decision to leave and yes, I did think it.

As I waited for the ambulance to arrive in the middle of the night to transport my mother to the hospital I thought that maybe that was the reason that I chose to leave last night. Then I thought that maybe this incidence justified the move that I had recently made and discussed at length the previous night. Maybe I missed my old town and needed this to justify my leaving? Maybe I needed to have it justified to me?

We really can become obsessed with discovering the reasons why things happen as they do.  We write these incidences off to good luck, bad luck, divine intervention, manifestation, a lesson, a gift, a prophesy or any other things that really amount to thoughts that we have about thoughts that we have without regard to any understanding.

“You can’t always get what you want. But if your try, sometimes. You just might find. You get what you need.”

–The Rolling Stones

Actually, you always get exactly what you want whether you really believe you want it or not. If it’s happening you wanted it to happen. What we are doing here is realizing that you must take full responsibility for everything that seems to be happening to you. Then once we come to the understanding that we cause it we can change it as we see fit.

It’s a dream, after all. Once we learn to control it we can make it anything we want it to be. Logical, right? Or we can assume that whatever happens that that is how we wanted it to be or that that is how someone wanted it to be for us. Right?

Next question:

Can we find freedom in a dream?

Whatever we find within the dream is still a dream. Whatever we create within the dream is still a dream. So yes, we can dream freedom but it being in a dream is it really freedom?

“If I am bound in any way I am lost to reality.”

“Only in dreams is there a time when he appears to be in prison, and awaits a future freedom, if it be at all.”

Back out of the collar.

October 6, 2008 What limits can I lay upon God’s Son?

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October 7, 2008 I can be hurt by nothing but my thoughts.

Thank you Lisa! I just read a great quote at gorgeous for God.

“When that which is god – or that which is that which man wants to call “God” – is being understood by man, man has to translate it into the format he understands. But this Energy – this Source that man is giving the label of “God”, cannot be quantified in anything that man understands. And as man attempts to do it, the distortions are enormous.”
- Abraham

That is perfect for now. I’ve been having difficulty translating inspiration to words. I type a post relating to some inspiration and it never sounds right. I twist words and syntax in an attempt to explain and it still seems amiss. Yesterday my attempts to define limitless were all for not. I kept searching for the words but everything came out pointing towards form. Form cannot be limitless! Form has boundaries. I’m not writing only about things but thoughts, words, ideas, feelings and anything else I can conjure up have boundaries and cannot be limitless.  So how do I explain it? Can’t!

Even my attempts to leave a blank page were all for not so I had to leave a sentence to let you know it was suppose to be a blank page! Even when I attempt to do nothing I still have to explain it. What’s up with that?

Isn’t it cool how I just slid that word “conjure” into this? It’s almost like I meant to do it!

Conjure: to effect, produce, bring, etc., by or as by magic: to conjure a miracle. Hmmm?

Thoughts conjure.

Everything is a thought.

Thoughts conjure thoughts which conjure thoughts.

What came first, the thought or the thought of that thought?

Have you ever thought about not thinking? We call that meditation. We attempt to conjure up a meditative state by thinking of not thinking? Thoughts are illusions which produce illusions so a meditative state must be an illusion. It can be whatever you want it to be.

Can I go beyond thought? Any attempt to go beyond an illusion has to result in an illusion. How can you go beyond something that is not there?

I give up! Am I on to something here?

October 8, 2008 I will not be afraid of love today.

“Well I’m guilty, yeah I’m guilty,

I’ll be guilty for the rest of my life

How come I never do,

what I’m supposed to do

How come nothing that I try to do ever turns out right

Well you know how it is with me baby,

you know I just can’t stand myself

It takes a whole lot of medicine,

for me to pretend to be somebody else.”

–Bonnie Raitt

Does this song “ring a bell” for you?

Guilt is the binding agent. It’s the glue that sticks us to the thought of a world. How do you take your medicine? Our mind will seek the context of the word medicine in this case and will invariably lead to drugs and/or alcohol but any thought that you can’t “live” without is the medicine that you use to pretend to be someone else.

Let freedom “ring.” Simply stop pretending.

I watched the debate last night and really had the strong feeling that I am just an observer. I just watched and listened as if the outcome had no relevance. Not just this outcome, any outcome. This song came to mind and bear in mind that I have never heard it before, I don’t think.

“I’m standing on the outside

Finally on the outside looking in

I’m tearing out the page

breathing for a change

and it feels so good

to feel myself comming back to life

I’m finally on the outside

I’m finally on the outside

and I feel my world comming back to life

and my eyes are finally open again

and now I see it all in a different light

and I’m standing on the outside

finally on the outside

looking in”

Nick Lachey

I sit here thinking, “This is not right because there is no outside to look in from. There is no finally. There is no coming back.” Words, once again?

I attended a campaign meeting the other night. Yes, it is still going strong. The primary is over but now we are making the push to the election in November. People keep asking me what I expect to get out of this seemingly selfless act of helping. We can’t think of doing something without expecting something in return, can we? Even if it is merely “feeling good” about the doing it still is something. If I told you that I was not looking for anything I would be lying. I’m looking for the thing that I am always looking for, insight. That seems to be something after all.

The campaign manager asked me, “Why do people get so stressed doing this? It is just a game!” Bang!

Those were my words, exactly, for many years. It is only a game! Everything! I have played it so well. “Life is a carnival. Believe it or not?” -The Band. It’s one of my favorites.

When we play a game we are attempting to manipulate “things” in order to produce a favorable outcome.

I’m merely an observer. I am not a participant. In everything.

Did you notice that I did that I was, now I am thing again? I just can’t help myself. I don’t feel guilty. That medicine has a shitty after taste. We call it “life.”

Don’t you just love this stuff!

October 9, 2008 My true Identity abides in You.

That thing, albeit handsome as hell, in the mirror is not me.

That thing, albeit astute and brilliant, that sees that thing in the mirror is not me.

That thing, albeit awake with gratitude, that observes that thing seeing that thing in the mirror is not me.

The I in “I am” is not me.

We are one but you is not me and neither are we.

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) -

a·bide <!–

1.	to remain; continue; stay: Abide with me.

2.	to have one’s abode; dwell; reside: to abide in a small Scottish village.

3.	to continue in a particular condition, attitude, relationship, etc.; last.

See how crazy words are? We are one, abiding in a small Scottish village?

When we try to see everything together we envision everything intertwined some how. So I am one with God but it is still me being one with you and God which cannot be.

“We dwell in the house of the Lord.” We need a new language?

“The unity of the holy trinity.” There is only one but there is three of them and then there is us together with them for eternity. No clocks?

You just have to lose the identity. It’s wicked simple!

If you are not practicing the course then I urge you to begin. It has been described as a course in mind training and it is exactly that. When you physically train your muscles get bigger. When you study your brain gets bigger. With the course you are training the mind to lose it eventually. Not in the conventional sense where you become insane but you lose the mind to become sane. But you can’t become anything. You can’t lose the mind either because it is not there to begin with. Where would there be? How should I know?

If someone screamed at you, “You’re nothing!” Would that piss you off? You kind of like thinking that you are something. Don’t you? It’s that damned identity thing. It gets you all of the time!

Don’t you just love this stuff!

October 13, 2008 You are my goal, my Father. Only You.

It promised to be a gorgeous weekend. The hike into the wilderness was relatively easy and my pack was laden with the necessities for a weekend traversing mountains and a first night celebration of beer and steak. If you are going to do it and I have done it many times then you take advantage of an easy first day to “do it up.”

Somewhere along the way I developed the dreaded blisters on one of my feet. I don’t know how. I don’t need to know how. Five blisters reared their ugliness and the lesson had begun. It would be easy to think that the lesson was, “Don’t carry beer and steak on a three day jaunt into mountainous terrain.” Think again. I’d do it again. The lesson sat well beyond that and I will, given the chance, do it again. There is a certain mystique about sitting in the woods, miles from what we term civilization, eating steak and drinking beer after beginning a three day hike.

I woke up Saturday morning. It was still dark and I ignored the silence and stillness of the forest around me as I lay in my sleeping bag feeling the throbbing blisters on my foot. I would have to make the necessary repairs and move along. I decided that my hiking would have to be methodical. I would have to take care in watching my footfalls. I would have to be aware of where and how I was going in order to make sure that the condition didn’t worsen. I would have to tough it out. Now, I know that I should know better but shouldn’t we all? I was being drawn in but I allowed it to happen. Why? We all do it almost every day. That’s why!

I packed my backpack and I relished in the fact that it was about fifteen pounds lighter. That was until I put it on. It felt fifty pounds heavier! Go figure? I began my trek stepping gingerly, watching where I stepped, planning my route around rocks and roots to try to minimize the impact on my foot. After my first break I began to put on my pack and felt a tear in my shoulder. It wasn’t the pain that bothered me. I was dreading the immediate future. This was going to be a long day.

To top it off my friends were in rare form. They all have watches, they carry maps, and have altimeters so they can stop every so often and figure out how far we have come, where they supposed we were, how far we had to go to get to the next step that they envisioned was there. They don’t get it do they? I commented, one time, that it was the adult version of being with a bunch of kids constantly asking, “Are we there yet” as we traveled in a car. Have you done that? Isn’t it annoying? I also mentioned to one of them that by deciding we had 30 minutes left to get to nowhere they were only leaving us open to frustration if it took longer then that. They were leaving me open to frustration. See?

On top of that they like to refer to us as grumpy old men. They believe they are overcoming the limitations that they feel that age places on us. They feel that they have to make this a challenge. They can be so annoying. They were just making me feel worse! Why were they doing this? I’m laughing now. Then?

When we finally reached the first peak there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The view was spectacular. I have mentioned about my recent climbs where there were only clouds but the view was still there for me. This time it was me who was lost in the clouds. The view was not there for me. I stood next to a cliff just peering out at nothing. I felt physically drained. I felt as though I could not even continue. Someone asked how I was doing. I told him that I was trying to decide if I should throw the damn pack over the cliff or myself. I’ve written about giving up. That is not it. He asked if I was sick? Chuckle. Sick in the head, yes! Actually sick in the mind is more accurate an explanation or not.

I have mentioned about my predisposition to create obstacles in my mind and then overcoming them. I did what I have always done so well. I mustered up the determination to over come all of these obstacles that appeared before me. I knew exactly what I was doing but I remember feeling that it my only way out. I used the mind to beat the mind. Twice as bad? Of course! But I felt that it was all that I could do. With grit and determination I forged ahead to beat the rest of the day. I succeeded but I didn’t feel the pride of accomplishment that I had in the past. I know better now? There I go again!

I woke really early on Sunday morning. It must have been about two hours before sunrise, no watch. I lay in the warmth of my sleeping bag. It was freezing outside. The pain in my foot and shoulder was there, I think. I was lost in the silence and stillness that surrounded me. How peaceful it all felt. The clouds broke and the view returned with brilliance! I use the word “returned” but it never really left, did it? I had turned away from it.

I just watched as I threw on my pack. It was funny how it didn’t feel heavy. It didn’t even feel as though I had it on. I flew along effortlessly. I was watching in amazement as my feet traversed the rocks without thought. I didn’t anticipate each step. Each step just happened. Each movement just happened. There was a knowing that each step would be perfect, regardless. There was nothing to do except to watch. I found myself (Interesting terminology?) stopping frequently to allow my companions to catch up to me and then off I went again. I was completely caught up in a flow. I was watching as if I was watching a video of this body hiking with a fluidity that had been lost or not. There was nothing that I could do to change anything. It would have been ridiculous to even try. Just watch as this body stepped from rock to rock going up or down, around or through, peacefully. I was so “lost” in this little movie that I continued over a mile past the lot that the car was parked in. When I stopped I began speaking to a couple who were getting into their car after their own hike. They offered me a ride back. Imagine the surprise of my friends as I got out of a car!

The lesson? Wrong mind, right mind? It’s always the same. It always appears in a form that we can understand or not. It is only just a choice.

Sorry Lisa, this body I am not. I’m not the observer either but as long as I think I am then I can only sit back and enjoy the show!

Welcome back my friends

to the show that never ends

We’re so glad could attend,

come inside, come inside

There behind a glass

stands a real blade of grass

Be careful as you pass,

move along, move along

Come inside,

the show’s about to start

Guaranteed

to blow your head apart

Rest assured

you’ll get your money’s worth

The greatest show

in Heaven, Hell or Earth

You’ve got to see the show,

it’s a dynamo!

–Emerson, Lake and Palmer

October 14, 2008 Let me forget my brother’s past today.

“By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if

you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.”

– Socrates

That explains me!

“Pay him no mind.”

Interesting saying, don’t you think?

“What we think, we become.”

–Buddah

The power of thought is all consuming.

–Me, I think.

Yesterdays little odyssey into my weekend hike was a nice simple example of the power of thought. A few blisters turned a beautiful day into hell. Just one little thought was all it took. It wasn’t as though I was unaware that it was happening. I was fully aware of it but getting into it is a lot easier then getting out. I have been taught (read “past” into that) that one of the things I must avoid, as a hiker, are blisters. Bringing past learning into the present it is very difficult to avoid. I could ramble on about how the blisters weren’t really there. I could tell you that they were just an illusion of the mind and that would be correct. But the thought of them was there in all its glory. It was not the thought of them that ruined my day. It was the thought that the thought of them would ruin my day that catapulted me into an energy draining funk. That thought morphed into other damaging thoughts. Hell!

A change of mind changed everything. The blisters were actually worse on Sunday but they never entered into the equation because the thought was not there. You could say that I took full responsibility for the thought that they could hurt me in any way. Once I took responsibility for the thought it was gone. In writing about the blisters I realized that they are still there but I had forgotten about them. So were they gone and back or is only the thought back? The blisters are/were irrelevant.

I don’t know if I am making any sense at all?

How does this fit into today’s lesson? How should I know?

“I ain’t got no body

And no body cares for me.”

–Various artists

Two Wolves

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, ‘My son, the battle is between two ‘wolves’ inside us all.

One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.’

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: ‘Which wolf wins?’

The old Cherokee simply replied, ‘The one you feed.’

October 15, 2008 The past is over. It can touch me not.

A friend was preparing a birthday present for a mutual friend. She asked me to prepare something 6 months ago. Ooops! Late again! I do it all of the time. Guilty? No, just my karmic predicament. Anytime I am asked for an RSVP I have to be called at the last minute because I hadn’t responded. It is what I do it is not what I am, after all!

The news is a chronicle of past events. I wonder how long things have to be news before they become history. Is there a certain amount of time that has to pass before the conversion? If you really notice it is always the same stuff. Bad stuff that has happened. Yet we are shocked when they have happened because we really didn’t expect them to happen even though they have happened over and over again. Insanity? We kind of expect the future to be different even though when it becomes the past it is always the same although we don’t admit it.

All day news is another anomaly. They always have a developing story. A story is past. It has to be. How can it be developing? We are creating the past later? The past will be happening over the next hour? I will tell you about it when it has happened? I don’t get it.

I talk a lot about the present moment. The present moment is not what seems to be happening in the present moment because we only see what seems to be happening as a past event. Think about it!

We cannot see the present because there is nothing happening in the present moment. Stop looking for something that is happening because you will only find what you believe has happened.

Lesson 289

“Unless the past is over in my mind, the real world must escape my sight. For I am really looking nowhere; seeing but what is not there. How can I then perceive the world forgiveness offers? This the past was made to hide, for this the world that can be looked on only now. It has no past. For what can be forgiven but the past, and if it is forgiven it is gone.”

I knew a lot. Now I know nothing!

October 16, 2008 My present happiness is all I see.

Suppose that there was someone whom I had the utmost respect for. A person whom I trusted implicitly. This person told me that there was a destination, a place, where I could find unprecedented happiness and a peace that passes all understanding. This person could not explain to me what these things were because they were beyond my ability to comprehend. I would have to experience this place for myself.

This person then told me that I was to get into my car and travel on a specific road, not veering off or stopping, and I would eventually reach this destination. This person told me that he couldn’t tell me how long it would take nor could he tell me how far I would have to travel but I would have to have the trust and faith to continue on until I reached this destination. He told me that he could not explain what it was that I was to look for but I would know, without a doubt, when I had reached this place.

The road is perfectly straight. There are no hills or curves. There are no signs or markers on the road. The landscape around me is all the same. My car does not have a clock, speedometer or odometer. The sun is always in the same position in the sky. I find that I have no need for food, water or a rest stop. The fuel gauge in my car never moves from full. There is no way for me to judge distance or elapsed time. The sense that I am moving on to my destination comes only from my past experience that tells me if the car is running and I am in gear and pushing down on the gas pedal that I must be moving toward something. That something is the goal that my teacher has set for me.

I have a CB radio in my car and I speak to you over it. During our conversation I find out that the same person has sent you on the same journey. Your experience is exactly the same as mine. There is no possible way that I can determine if you are ahead of me or behind me in this journey. It’s exactly the same for you.

There is no possible way for either of us to determine if we have progressed towards the goal. We cannot honestly say that we are “almost” there. We can only be there or not.

We laugh and joke about how crazy it is to go on a journey of an unknown magnitude to an unknown destination. We express periods of doubt that we should continue on this journey. We work together to maintain a perfect trust that is necessary to continue on.

The past blends so seamlessly into the future there is no way to determine between the two. I give up trying to make that determination. I accept that the present is exactly the same as what I once regarded as past and future. I see no difference. I realize that there is no eventually. I realize that there is no destination. I realize that I have reached a there that isn’t but has always been there.

I tell you that I “see” it but I can’t explain it. I can tell that you don’t “see” it because you believe you are still on a journey. You believe that I have reached a goal that you are heading towards. It may give you more determination but I can’t help because I know that you are already there or not with me who is not not there.

Lesson 290

“Unless I look upon what is not there, my present happiness is all I see.  Eyes that begin to open see at last.  And I would have Christ’s vision come to me this very day.  What I perceive without God’s Own Correction for the sight I made is frightening and painful to behold. Yet I would not allow my mind to be deceived by the belief the dream I made is real an instant longer. This the day I seek my present happiness, and look on nothing else except the thing I seek.”

October 17, 2008 This is a day of stillness and of peace.

I read the lesson and I got all excited because I love these stillness ones. Like it matters? Like they are not all the same anyway!

I happened to turn on a TV show last night. I don’t know the name. Why do we have to identify everything with a name? In TV and movies we not only identify the character with a name but we also feel we must identify the actor behind the character with a name and an identity. It’s entertainment, who cares? I know it is all entertainment anyway, but you know what I mean? Sports figures should just be numbers. They are being paid to entertain also. Why should we be involved in what they do when their not doing what they are being paid to do? Do we need the name? Do we really need to identify with the individual that appears there?

I wore a suit last night. The people I was with have been accustomed to seeing me in shorts and a T-shirt. Everyone commented about the distinction, the difference. Like I was not being me. I told them that appearances could be deceiving. I told one that I was like a chameleon. I could appear however I wanted to appear. Or, more importantly, I could appear however she wanted me to appear.

I notice that when I am wearing a suit everyone calls me sir. It is as though I deserve more respect when I am wearing a suit. Is that them or me? I’ll let that one sit for a while.

Back to the TV show. I didn’t watch it all but I got the drift that it was about some guy who found himself back in the past. Is there a back in the past? No. We covered that yesterday. But how else can I explain this TV show? This character wanted to find out why this had happened and he kept thinking that maybe he was just making it all up or dreaming or something like that. Hmmmm? It may be something that I may like to watch?

The guy said to someone, “You’re some bottom feeding scum that flew out from the recesses of my mind!” No shit! I love that statement. I’d love to use it but I don’t know any bottom feeding scum. I wonder if I dressed up like a bottom feeding scum, would you see me that way? Or would I have to do something that bottom feeding scum do? I could dress up like a bottom feeding scum for Halloween! Does a bottom feeding scum have a name? I didn’t watch long enough to find out.

But knowing that this bottom feeding scum is a product of my mind is a beginning. I know there is no beginning and there is no “my mind” either. I’m tempted to use “our mind” to be more correct but that is not right either. Humor me here. I’m trying to communicate although I don’t understand why?

I think the point I am trying to make here is that if you can see a bottom feeding scum then you are capable of seeing anything you want. You see a bottom feeding scum because you want to see a bottom feeding scum. Take responsibility for seeing a bottom feeding scum. Then see something else. Now, see? I started with a beginning and now I am adding steps as if there is a process. I know it is totally irrational to do this. Am I perpetuating the myth by stressing the irrationality of the myth? It is not suppose to make sense and of course I am!

See good instead of a bottom feeding scum even though there is no difference. You can. That statement implies that this is a start, which there is not. See? But I suppose that once you realize that you can change what you really don’t see then you could easily progress (sigh?) to seeing what is really not there. Right? How should I know?

Yesterday I wrote that I can’t help you. That’s true. I can only help me and man do I need help, or not.

Lesson 291

“Christ’s vision looks through me today. His sight shows me all things forgiven and at peace, and offers this same vision to the world. And I accept this vision in its name, both for myself and for the world as well. What loveliness we look upon today! What holiness we see surrounding us! And it is given us to recognize it is a holiness in which we share; it is the Holiness of God Himself.”

October 20, 2008 My body is a wholly neutral thing.

Friday night I was tired and cold. I went to bed at about 8 and I woke up now. Well I had intermittent ups during that period but nothing lasting more than a few minutes. People asked what was wrong, like they needed a diagnosis. I was asked for symptoms, like they were going to make a diagnosis. They wanted to help, like I needed help. How could I explain that this was exactly what I needed?

I could say that this weekend was a blessing in disguise but that is true of everything that appears to happen so I would be telling you nothing, right?

For some time now I have been noticing a certain pattern developing in my actions. I’ve been watching each day, each hour becoming more repetitive. I’ve been doing the same things at the same times as if everything depended on me doing these things then. Even this blog becomes repetitive. Even thinking that I have to post everyday is repetitive. My hiking trips have been every other weekend. Do you see a pattern here? Then there is what I haven’t been doing because it would interfere with what I felt I had to be doing had I been doing it.

I dumped my personal history a few months ago and I moved. Gradually I began to re-pattern the guise of life around me into repetitive behavior. We do take comfort in what we term to be the smaller things in life that we can count on to happen. It provides a nice warm space to hide amid the apparent turmoil that seems to occur around us. If you look carefully enough that too repeats itself.

When we have big changes in the life that appear to us, we do one of two things. We rally out of fear to redefine our moments or we bask in a momentary deceptive feeling of freedom before we reconstruct our nice warm space. The operative words being, “deceptive” and “feeling of.” There is no freedom here. We keep thinking that we can find it though. Don’t we?

So for all intense and purposes we are willing to fight to keep my right to drink nice hot coffee at 7:00 AM while blogging, before shaving, taking a shower, brushing my teeth and getting dressed for whatever each day has become to me. Right?

I watch. I’ve been watching myself go through Tuesday like Tuesday has become. My dilemma has been whether or not to change my behaviors because I see this repetition developing? Wow. Talk about being drawn in by not wanting to be drawn in! If I see a pattern that I think needs to be changed then I am freaking out over a pattern that I think is there that I think should not be. If I do nothing and just watch I am watching something that I think is happening that I am doing nothing about. Same thing? Yes!

Time for a wake up call? Stop the world!

I could view this as being a lesson in appreciating how good I have things. I could relish in the idea that I had a bad weekend and now I am back to “normal.” Or I could do nothing because nothing can be done about nothing.

So yes. I’ve had a great weekend. My body is a neutral thing but man it can send a message!

October 21, 2008 The Holy Spirit looks through me today.

This has been and continues to be an interesting few days. Real is as real can be. As it is for you and as it is for me. Real requires correction. For you and for me. Real may require a real solution until a correction can be made. Is it a correction or the correction? Are there steps? Are there degrees? No?

Principal 1: “There is no order of difficulty in miracles. One is not “harder” or “bigger” than another. They are all the same. All expressions of love are maximal.”

Can you see real as not real? No, because if you are seeing real it has to be real. If you look at real and say it is not real that is denial because you are seeing real. So real can’t be not real. It can only be real. It can only be not real if it is not there. So there is no real, really!

I must be losing my mind? Thank God for that!

How do I tell the doctor that it is all in my mind but could he give me something, for the time being, until a correction can be made? Looney bin? In a second! Or yet another doctor will fire me as a patient. I’m laughing like crazy, I can’t help it.

Actually I am feeling much better but things appear to be getting worse. I’m talking that it would freak many people out. Am I better? Can’t be. Can I be crazier? You answer that one.

Can better get worse or worse get better? Only if you see it can it change. If you see it, it will always change, because nothing can’t stay the same. It has to keep changing otherwise how would you know it was there which it isn’t. So things just keep changing back and forth like the stock market although there is no distinctive back and forth or bad or worse there just seems to be. If the stock market never changed would it be the stock market? Would it grab your attention? Hmmmm?

Detachment to any outcome is the only solution that doesn’t exist, either. It may sound like a simple solution. Suppose you had loads of money in the stock market. Could you detach yourself from the outcome? Any outcome? Never happen! Same with everything else. You would like to think you can but thinking is a problem in itself. You have to give up trying. You have to admit that you can’t. You can’t give it up here and now because you will always buy into it because you see it happening and something will always suck you in. Only by surrendering completely can you allow a “higher power,” which has no connection to make a correction with you. (Sorry, that does not sound right but it is the closest that I can get.)

I have a new doctor! As we speak! I know, so what?

Now this will be a tough one. Imagine how many things “out there” (Humor me!) don’t you see because you don’t notice a distinction? Has someone ever told you of something he sees and you say, “Gee, I never even noticed that?” There you go, the correction was already made and this other guy ruined it for you because from now on you’ll be noticing it changing! I’m cracking myself up!

Lesson 295:

“Christ asks that He may use my eyes today, and thus redeem the world. He asks this gift that He may offer peace of mind to me, and take away all terror and all pain. And as they are removed from me, the dreams that seemed to settle on the world are gone. Redemption must be one. As I am saved, the world is saved with me. For all of us must be redeemed together. Fear appears in many different forms, but love is one.”

October 22, 2008 The Holy Spirit speaks through me today.

Well, I told you this was going to be interesting. Wait until you hear this!

Now I have two doctors. A regular doctor (yesterday) and a specialist (today).

Here is what they think. A “living organism” which normally resides “out there?” has “invaded” “my” “body” making it “sick?” I’m a victim of something that exists separately from me that has attacked me? Who made this stuff up, anyway? Is this what they call science fiction?

Lesson 296

“We teach today what we would learn, and that alone. And so our learning goal becomes an unconflicted one, and possible of easy reach and quick accomplishment. How gladly does the Holy Spirit come to rescue us from hell, when we allow His teaching to persuade the world, through us, to seek and find the easy path to God.”

October 23, 2008 Forgiveness is the only gift I give.

NI = Needs Improvement.

I have to get off of this sick thing even though yesterday’s connotation was really cute. Let’s get down to business now! Chuckle!

In order to write this I feel the need go back to the “used to be” format even though I have deemed it as ridiculous. I can’t realize any other means. I also have to make references to outside forces controlling us. Humor me here. I use the terms I and me because how can I possibly explain you although I, me, you and we are all the same and they are interchangeable only as a reference using something that is not there to explain a phenomenon that is as equally not there. See? Seems insane, doesn’t it? There ya’ go!

My mother once told me that she and my father had taken great pains to ensure that I didn’t develop an overbearing swagger in life. I suppose their goal in my upbringing was that I not end up as an overconfident, pompous boob. I could view this as a positive. They had helped me become a nice guy or I could view this as a negative. I could see this as a limitation that hindered my ability to succeed by limiting my self-confidence.

“Needs improvement” is something that has been a relentless driving force in my life or self. Same thing? Of course. I have seen it and I have used it to describe myself or others in such things as school grades, employee evaluations. Etc. A good interviewer will ask questions about strengths and weaknesses and while most will boast, sometimes to the point of nausea, about their strengths the emphasis is on apparent weaknesses with a “game plan” to overcome or reduce these weaknesses.

As a professional manager of people I defined my most admirable strength to be my ability to identify weaknesses in my employees and to develop action plans to help them reduce or eliminate these apparent weaknesses. Don’t get me wrong. I gave credit all of the time but I saw that my role as a teacher/trainer was to identify areas for improvement. I felt that I would be letting these people down if I neglected what I felt was in their best interests to be successful in their jobs or in life in general. While this sounds very noble, can you also see that there is a certain deceptive arrogance in this thought process? “I know better, I can see that you don’t, so I am going to go out of my way to help you get better just like me!”

We know, or do we, that a good indication of how we view or treat ourselves is in how we view or treat others. I viewed that a strength of mine was that I was very critical of myself and that I identified well the areas that I needed improvement in. I felt that I could identify my weaknesses which implied that I could take the necessary steps to overcome them. My accomplishments were in the past. What was I planning to do to make myself a better person in the future? That is what mattered most. Go figure?

“Needs improvement” is also another really great term to show the phenomenon of “improving on” (future) something that we identified as “needing improvement” (past) without regard to the present. See? Cool, right?

I wrote the other day about our need to see change. I wrote a while back about how change is necessary in our need to see the way we see. I was stuck on that whole “contrast” thing then. Needs improvement= NI is a worse to better phenomenon that is the basis of an illusion which is an illusion in itself.

So, here we are on a [spiritual] [journey] or [path] doing what we can or are told to do to [awaken].

The words awaken, path and journey imply-NI. I don’t even know what the word spiritual implies.

Even the notion that we need to do something implies-NI.

I’ve tried really hard to hear the still small voice, voice for God, voice of the Holy spirit, voice of Jesus but I can’t, why? NI

I can’t see “the light.” NI

What do I need to do? NI

In order to teach you I would have to see, in you, a need for improvement. Can you see how self-defeating (That’s funny. It really should read self-inflating.) that would be?

If you see no need for improvement or no necessity for change, that would be forgiveness. Actually, if you see no need for improvement or change you are seeing nothing. After all, to forgive is to see no need for forgiveness.

Lesson 297:

“Forgiveness is the only gift I give, because it is the only gift I want. And everything I give I give myself. This is salvation’s simple formula. And I, who would be saved, would make it mine, to be the way I live within a world that needs salvation, and that will be saved as I accept Atonement for myself.”

October 24, 2008 I love You, Father, and I love Your Son.

Lesson 298:

“My gratitude permits my love to be accepted without fear. And thus am I restored to my reality at last. All that intruded on my holy sight forgiveness takes away. And I draw near the end of senseless journeys, mad careers and artificial values. I accept instead what God establishes as mine, sure that in that alone I will be saved; sure that I go through fear to meet my Love.”

[Father, I come to You today, because I would not follow any way but Yours. You are beside me. Certain is Your way. And I am grateful for Your holy gifts of certain sanctuary, and escape from everything that would obscure my love for God my Father and His holy Son.]

This is an awesome lesson! I feel uncomfortable using the word “awesome” as an adjective to describe the lesson because I have come to believe that the word “awesome” should only be used to describe God. But it is just a word. The uncomfortable feeling that the word produces, as a thought in my mind, is the basis of the lesson for me.

“And I draw near the end of senseless journeys, mad careers and artificial values.” How can you draw near the end of a senseless journey? There is no end and there is no beginning so there can’t be a journey. Isn’t it senseless to even think of it that way? Does that make sense? I recall someone, I don’t recall whom, saying to me, more than once, “You’re trying to make sense out of nothing.” Did he know something or was that a message to myself?

“Artificial Values!” I’m loving that phrase!

What, in hell, is a mad career? Immediately, “at the risk of offending someone”, I think of life insurance? First of all it should be called death insurance at this level because that is what it is meant to be. At another level (I know there are no levels but humor me please?) why should I insure something (life) against loss when you can’t possibly lose it to begin with? I bet I won’t die but if I do I am covered? But that is not the point I am trying to make, it is the “at the risk of offending someone” part that I am concerned with because that is another thought that abruptly enters the mind because I have been “taught” to not offend anyone. That is bad. I guess it could even be referred to as a sin. Right? I get the feeling that I will return to this theme sometime today. Do you actually think I compose these things?

I’ve written a lot about differences, contrasts, and the, “If I’m right and your wrong……..thing.” I’m not sure if I have included the “think differently” thing? We think differently. If we all thought the same we would all see, feel, taste, hear, and experience the same stuff. We would have absolutely nothing to argue about. What fun would that be? Chuckle? It is important to stress the “think differently” part. We are not different. “Appearances aside!” (See, we know, we just pretend that we don’t.) We merely think differently. Don’t come back at me with the, “There is nobody here but you!” thing. I mean, I could sit here with my eyes closed, with my hands over my ears making noises to distort sounds coming at me, thinking, “They are not really there!” (”It’s only a movie!”) over and over but where would that get me. “I see you.” We learn to do this early and we reinforce it by playing things such as “peek a boo.” I see you and I see you thinking differently.

The solution is simple. I have to learn to stop trying to change your thinking so that you are thinking like me. I have to understand that my responsibility is my thinking. I can only change my thinking and I don’t mean to change my thinking into what I think you are thinking. My thinking has to go. What I am doing here is learning to identify how and what I think and realize how ridiculous it is to think like I think. Without offending you in the process! I’m cracking myself up, here!

Not thinking but being politically correct in the process. Gut busting!

This whole “offensive” thing came about this morning because I read the lesson, I pondered (I really don’t know what that is?) and I thought, “You can’t write that! You may piss someone off!” Which really amounts to having a thought in my own unique way of thinking, wanting to communicate that thought, but becoming disturbed by yet another thought which is the thought of what I think you may think, I think. So that is way more then just one thought that has to go.

“Artificial Values!” I’m loving that phrase!

Further more. My “training” also included always taking any thought of God or the Son of God seriously. The eternal “fear factor.” If you are indeed studying the course then you will understand the metaphysical implications of that statement. If not, then maybe not.

Then there is another concern. I had the thought and that is bad enough but I am here in my body thinking it and if I keep it to myself then “they” won’t know about it. I’m thinking about putting it out over the internet! Ah! Even if “they” don’t know about that blasphemous thought I may piss you off to the point that you may tell on me! I’m screwed either way!

So here goes. I read the lesson and the first thought I had was (Did you know that you can think in a condescending tone?), “I’m sure that Hallmark must have a line of cards for this lesson!” I’m hiding under my desk!

You see, “Pretty woman walking down the street” aside, I don’t do pretty. It gags me. Hallmark makes pretty therefore the blasphemous association and now I am done for. Right?

“Artificial Values!” I’m loving that phrase!

“Mad career?” My career is not to make pretty it is to make right. How am I doing? I ask that knowing that you can only answer with what I want to hear.

October 25, 2008 Eternal holiness abides in me.

Is it possible to think as one?

I’ve read some speaking of a voice. Others speak of a feeling. Some relate experiences of awe or just, simply, an understanding. I get questions! I get up in the morning and I am immediately presented with a question like this. It is interesting to notice that I immediately begin to try to quantify an answer. I take steps to create a logical understanding of the question, a flow chart if you will, which I feel will provide a template to base my answer on. Sigh? Why can’t it simply be, “What do I want for breakfast?”

I asked my mother how she was feeling this morning and she said, “Yesterday I got up and felt good. Today I got up and didn’t feel so good. I don’t understand why?” Why can’t I get something like that? Maybe because I don’t need something like that? You know? How could you possibly know? You know as much as I know which is nothing. (It is interesting to note that Word suggests that I use “nothing is” in that sentence in place of “is nothing.” Isn’t that way cool?)

My first thought was to change the question. “Is it possible for us to think as one?” Can “us” be one? Thinking as one, “us” is out of the question!

So, you know as much as I know which nothing is. One knows everything. One knows nothing is. Can you and I be one? You + I = One? You and I are variables. We know that one cannot be a variable. Can’t argue with that one. Can you? One is constant. Right? So: Y + I = 1. So, the only way that this equation makes sense is if Y = 0 and I = 1 or if Y = 1 and I = 0. But I think that I am so, sorry, poof, you can’t be reading this because you are nothing. But then you would think the same from your perspective……..

This blogging thing really plays havoc with space/time because I stopped to go. I had this campaign thing to do. As I was going my mother queried that the newspaper hadn’t come yet. She said that it always came by 6:00 AM on a Saturday. I said, “If it’s not Saturday then where am I going?” She said, “It is Saturday.” I said, “It can’t be?” as I was going. Then after I had gone, for a while, I had to go so I came back to go. After I had gone I was going and my mother said, “You’re going? You just came back!” I said, “I came back to go. Now that I have gone I have to get back so I am going back.” Isn’t she lucky to have me here caring for her?

Now, to try to get back to where I was going with this?

From your perspective Y = I. So, in general, the equation becomes: I + I = 1. Impossible!

Now, back to our original question. Is it possible to think as one? I think + you think = I think + I think = (1) Think. See? Impossible.

As long as I think I am I and you think you are you, or in your case I, then we cannot think as if we are one. Can you see how thinking can really screw (us?) up?

Now, we know that one is holy. No argument there? Can holiness abide in me? Not as long as I think there is a me. Right? Same with you. Same with we.

Confusing? Why wouldn’t it be?

Can you see the importance of trust, faith and surrender? Give up and ask for understanding.

Lesson 299

My holiness is far beyond my own ability to understand or know. Yet God, my Father, Who created it, acknowledges my holiness as His. Our Will, together, understands it. And Our Will, together, knows that it is so.

[Father, my holiness is not of me. It is not mine to be destroyed by sin. It is not mine to suffer from attack.  Illusions can obscure it, but can not put out its radiance, nor dim its light. It stands forever perfect and untouched. In it are all things healed, for they remain as You created them. And I can know my holiness. For Holiness Itself created me, and I can know my Source because it is Your Will that You be known.]

October 26, 2008 Only an instant does this world endure.

I need your help. Can I have an instant of your time? That’s all I need. It may seem that I am asking for a lot but it is only an instant. You may feel that what I am asking of you will take a lifetime. But it is only an instant that I need. But that is all that you have so I am asking you for a lot. Can I have all the time that you have?

No, there will be no mathematics like yesterday when I tried to prove that I don’t exist using math. (Word is telling me that to use exist like am is resulting in a verb confusion. It doesn’t tell me about the pronoun confusion in using I.) Humor me here!

Suppose that you only had an instant left. You better get doing.

Is there such a thing as a fraction of an instant? Like 1/60^th of an instant? That would be quick, now wouldn’t it?

Can an instant go on for ever? I’ve attended some events which have led me to believe that is true. Have you ever spoken to someone who rambled on forever, repeating themselves over and over, and all you can think about is ending this torture now? There you go! What are you waiting for? The world as it is or seems to be!

I’ve also done some things that I wish had lasted forever that seemed to be over in an instant. Ahhh. I just may have opened questions regarding my masculine prowess to the world. That was not what I meant. Get your mind out of the gutter, this instant!

My mother always said that, “You stop that, this instant!” I wish I had listened I would have saved a lot of time! (I don’t like using that LOL thing so just take the implication that I am.)

Assuming the world really endures, what does this lesson mean? What is not happening is happening in an instant even though it seems that it is not happening forever. That is a lot to grasp, isn’t it?

This opens up an infinite amount of cool possibilities. I am doing, sorry, I am viewing one of an infinite number of possible (I can’t find a word to use here) that seem to be occurring. I almost said have occurred or can occur but there is no past or future. Right?

Have you ever rented a DVD of a movie and they have a number of different endings that you can view if you wish? I never do. Why would you want to? Because that is what we do.

Suppose my life is a movie that I am viewing. Suppose that, I can, not only change the ending, but I can change, with a click of my mouse, any decision that I have ever made or ever will make. So I rewind to a time when I was ten and instead of turning left I turn right. That would change everything, right? It only changes what I am seeing because my perspective, or frame of reference, changes with each click. There are an infinite amount of decisions that I have made so there are an infinite amount of possibilities that I can view. There is only one instant, remember. So everything that has happened, is happening or will happen occurs (lousy word) in that one instant. All that I need to do is to change my perspective, just a click of the mouse, to change the movie that I am viewing. Can you see how, when you made a change, you could want to watch the movie to the end to see what happened following that change. And so on, and so on, and so on. So by clicking my mouse I repeat that same instant over and over for my viewing pleasure always seeing it differently. If I don’t like what is happening after I make a change, click, I can change it again. That is assuming that I can remember it is only a movie. I could become emotionally captivated by it and really believe it was happening. Then when the movie ended I could go back and start it again. Let’s see what would happen if I changed parents. Would I be viewing it as you? Hmmmm? Do you see how addicting that could be? “Ok, I know I have watched it a zillion times but just one more time. I want to see what would happen if…….. Oh no, not that! I should have gone the other way! Click!”

My father could be standing there yelling, “It’s family time! Just turn that damn thing off!” but I have become so consumed by this stupid movie that I block him out.

A lot can really happen in an instant, can’t it!

I want to be me. Why?

Wow! Lesson 300 already! It seems as though I just started!

Lesson 300

“This is a thought which can be used to say that death and sorrow are the certain lot of all who come here, for their joys are gone before they are possessed, or even grasped. Yet this is also the idea that lets no false perception keep us in its hold, nor represent more than a passing cloud upon a sky eternally serene. And it is this serenity we seek, unclouded, obvious and sure, today.”

[We seek Your holy world today. For we, Your loving Sons, have lost our way a while. But we have listened to Your Voice, and learned exactly what to do to be restored to Heaven and our true Identity. And we give thanks today the world endures but for an instant. We would go beyond that tiny instant to eternity.]

October 27, 2008 And God Himself shall wipe away all tears.

This lesson is way too poetic for my taste! See?

I got up this morning and read a comment and I must admit I am completely disillusioned. Lisa Natoli, gorgeous for God, is a Jets fan! Well, I am not completely sure but it appears as though she watched the game and was excited by the result and then, she did live in New York, didn’t she? Why didn’t I see it before? Sigh. Man, she had me conned! All this time I was thinking that she actually knew what she was talking about!  Doesn’t that just go to show you that you can never really be sure of anyone?

I was reading the news this morning and I saw this headline. Sounds like something I would write. It makes no sense.

“Why you can’t remember what you forgot?”

It’s tantamount to saying, “I must have missed something?” No shit! You missed everything or damn close to it! The Jets stink and if God is truly just, they will keep on stinkin’!

Then I saw this headline:

Beer lovers: What would Jesus brew?

“Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”

–Benjamin Franklin

“As you drain a glass of beer, look at the yeast at the bottom and be reminded that God is good, because that’s the way it feels,”

–Charlie Papazian, author of “The Complete Joy of Homebrewing,”

I love beer. I love the dark, heavy, trickle down your throat like molasses beer. I’ve even made my own beer at home. I’ve heard that Jesus made wine but I didn’t know that he was a home brewer. Does god like to knock down a pint of Guinness every now and then or is this just a slick marketing tool? What if he drinks a few on Sunday while watching the Jets play? That sends shivers through me like you wouldn’t believe!

I got up this morning thinking that my post would be on perception but now I am so shook up I don’t know how to begin. Sigh?

Suppose you and I flew across the country to the west coast. (Now, see? In trying to introduce a change of perception I am assuming that you don’t already live on the west coast. I am already making assumptions and judgments.)  Humor me here!

We go to the beach to watch the sunset. On the east coast you go there to watch the sunrise. That is assuming you didn’t drink too much beer the night before. We are standing facing each other. My right shoulder is toward the ocean and your left shoulder is to the ocean. The sun is setting beautifully. We are trying to describe what we are seeing to each other. Can you see how there would be differences? I know that they are very subtle but that was what I had in mind. All differences are subtle. We just blow them out of proportion only to make them not so subtle, if only because we like our little differences.

That would be a different physical frame of reference. We are viewing the same event with a different perspective. That is what our bodies are. Different little physical frames of references. No matter how close we get we can never really see from the same perspective. I know I could say, “Quick! Turn around. Stand here.” But by the time you did the sun would be lower in the sky so you would still see different things.

Now, also suppose that, years ago, you and I were on the beach at night. (Don’t even ask! It would have to have been on the east coast because we just now went to the west coast for the first time if only to describe a change in perception.) Suppose that we had a fire and were drinking beer. I had a great time. You drank too much beer and spent the night puking on the sand. As the sun set we would be experiencing different feelings. Mine would be triggered by a memory of a fun night in the past and yours by a memory of puking your guts out. Would that effect our descriptions of the sunset? You bet? (I had to work that one in for Lisa.)

Imagine how much our perception is skewed by our physical reference point combined with an eternity of memoric influences? (I just invented a new word!) Now I will have to define it! Ha, Ha!

How can I ever think that I am right? I mean, think about it. Or better yet, don’t think! It seems insane, doesn’t it?

If we all accepted the fact that we can’t possibly be right under any circumstances as long as we believe we are travelling about in these little different frames of references apparently experiencing different things that are dependant on what we have always believed to be true, would we fight over the right to be wrong? You bet!

I walked the beached years ago noticing how much I judged things around me. (Imagine if it was a nude beach! Actually don’t. Then I wouldn’t have been noticing my judging. I would have been noticing other things, all judgment aside.) I also noticed that I couldn’t stop judging no matter how hard I tried.

Give up. Stop trying. Surrender. That’s the ticket. To a Jets game? Wanna’ bet?

Lesson 301:

[Father, unless I judge I cannot weep. Nor can I suffer pain, or feel I am abandoned or unneeded in the world. This is my home because I judge it not, and therefore is it only what You will. Let me today behold it uncondemned, through happy eyes forgiveness has released from all distortion. Let me see Your world instead of mine. And all the tears I shed will be forgotten, for their source is gone. Father, I will not judge Your world today.]

God’s world is happy. Those who look on it can only add their joy to it, and bless it as a cause of further joy in them. We wept because we did not understand. But we have learned the world we saw was false, and we will look upon God’s world today.

October 28, 2008 Where darkness was I look upon the light.

“Hello darkness, my old friend,

I’ve come to talk with you again,

Because a vision softly creeping,

Left its seeds while I was sleeping,

And the vision that was planted in my brain

Still remains

Within the sound of silence.”

–Simon and Garfunkel

I went over to Lisa’s, gorgeous for the Jets. Ooops! Low and behold she was asking what next year will bring. Is it any wonder that I was thinking the same thing, myself, Sunday. I began this blog, at Lisa’s suggestion, to chronicle my daily virtual journey through the workbook of “A Course in Miracles.” It is coming to a close. Now what?

A couple of weeks ago I typed “What’s next?” in the body of a post with no lead in and no follow up. It was just meant to be there without explanation. Now I will add a bit of context to it. It is a contracted form of “What is next?” The question is not seeking an answer depicting a future event. It is asking for meaning. Please explain “next” to me?

In his special theory of relativity, Einstein, proved that the speed of light is constant regardless of your frame of reference. I wrote about judgment and frames of reference yesterday. Speed is a calculation of movement versus time, What happens at no time?

I was out early this morning. I guess that you could call it at sunrise. There was no sun rising. The sky was filled with dark clouds. We term them threatening? I thought, “It’s gloomy.” Sunrise today was reduced to a reduction of gloom. It became less gloomy? I don’t really know? Sunrise was implied by a gradual decrease in gloom. When we speak of darkness to light in terms of awakening we kind of get the impression that awakening to the light would be proceeded by a reduction of gloom or a gradual reduction of darkness. Don’t we? We always feel as if we are moving toward it, somehow progressing?

It is a fall morning here. A gloomy fall morning. Cold has settled. The trees are half filled with dead leaves and the feeling of death, the death of a year, permeates with the cold grip of time passing.

Have you ever really noticed how adept we have become in measuring things that appear to happen in this world that appears to happen? All of our measurements are relative to time. We term a body which appears to be extremely fast at assimilating knowledge of the visible universe to be brilliant. Hmm? That body becomes a standard and other bodies are positioned at various levels below this standard. (Why are there levels and why are they always below?) Does this mean that bodies become gloomier as we progress downward? Slow in relation to some measurement in time is gloomy? What’s up with that?

If light is a constant in all frames of reference doesn’t this imply that every frame of reference must be brilliant? Maybe our form of measurement is wrong? Could it be that we have spent eons developing laws and guidelines, measuring and calculating, observing experimental relationships designed to reinforce those laws and guidelines based on an initial postulate that was wrong to begin with. That would kind of cloud things over. Right? Are we merely defining brilliance as less gloomy in relation to what we see based on what we think we should be seeing? Can we change an incorrect thought process while we remain entrenched within that incorrect thought process? Can I change my mind while perpetuating the fallacy that I reside in a mind that remains unchanged?

“Is there really any good that can come out of this?” “This?” “Yes, this this.”

“Hello darkness, my old friend,

I’ve come to talk with you again,

Because a vision softly creeping,

Left its seeds while I was sleeping,

And the vision that was planted in my brain

Still remains

Within the sound of silence.”

–Simon and Garfunkel

We try to define the vision that we seek using the tools that obscured the vision to begin with. Can we dig up that which was never buried?

It doesn’t get any better than this. And you will be free! See? It’s brilliant!

October 29, 2008 The holy Christ is born in me today.

“What’s next?”

If next follows what is not, what does it precede? Word suggests that I use proceed in place of precede. That would mean that it goes and keeps going nowhere behind what is not, also.

That brings to mind a drunken conga line!

I’m next!

Perception is an interesting phenomenon. We create a concept or idea. It is irrelevant whether or not we give it form, so to speak, because the thought is all that really matters. Within that concept or idea we can also manipulate it at will as we see fit. Or we can manipulate it apparently not at will as fits what we believe to be true, expect to be true, want to be true. How many versions of un-truth can we create? Infinite?

The concept of birth represents a start or a beginning. Born again represents a new start. Born again is a start of a new idea or concept in place of an old idea or concept that has apparently been replaced. The old idea or concept has, for all intents and purposes, died. The whole birth/death conceptual cycle can manifest in the physical reality that we refer to as life. A body apparently is born “into” the world and then dies and “leaves” the world. Because it is concrete it seems real. Born again while experiencing a body is a more conceptual cycle. The concept of the body does not change but the concepts and ideas which carry the body through its day to day “life” change. One idea or concept dies and another is born to replace it. Changes in values change ideas and concepts.

Doesn’t it seem as though a concept or idea must be “born” before and old concept or idea can “die”? In which case the birth of a new concept would precede the death of an old concept. Which means that born again would precede death. The idea, thought, concept of the new year precedes the end of the old year. So there is really no start or end to anything. We do look at the start to be a definite beginning and the end to be a definite ending……… but?

I told someone, a long time ago, that I could identify periods of change in myself which I referred to as living multiple life times within this lifetime. Sub-lifetimes. It brings to mind sub-set theory in math. These changes were trigger by value changes. So the value changed and brought a new value structure before the death of the old and it felt like a rebirth that I didn’t notice until after the fact or maybe after another value change had effected the previous change resulting in my ability to see the previous one because it was before.

Sounds like this whole thing could result in a scary cyclical phenomenon, say every instant.

If this is so, then what is this? Real or not?

October 30, 2008 Let not my world obscure the sight of Christ.

“Make the world go away

Get it off my shoulder”

–Various Artists

Do you carry the weight of the world on your shoulder? It uses up quite a bit of energy carrying that load.

Lesson 304

“I can obscure my holy sight, if I intrude my world upon it. Nor can I behold the holy sights Christ looks upon, unless it is His vision that I use. Perception is a mirror, not a fact. And what I look on is my state of mind, reflected outward. I would bless the world by looking on it through the eyes of Christ. And I will look upon the certain signs that all my sins have been forgiven me.”

[You lead me from the darkness to the light; from sin to holiness. Let me forgive, and thus receive salvation for the world. It is Your gift, my Father, given me to offer to Your holy Son, that he may find again the memory of You, and of Your Son as You created him.]

“Perception is a mirror, not a fact. And what I look on is my state of mind, reflected outward.”

As you change your state of mind you change the reflection. So it is a simple “transformation” to go from “bad” to “good,” from “ugly” to “pretty.” There is no world. The world you see is just a reflection of the world you think. Think what you would like to think. Simple?

“I can obscure my holy sight, if I intrude my world upon it.” Does the vision of a world of splendor obscure your view of the truth any less then a world of pain? Does the vision of any world obscure your ability to see? Is it the vision or the acceptance of the reality of the vision? Is there a difference between a good dream and a nightmare? Is it easier to accept a good dream over a nightmare?

Einstein developed a reference to the proportionality of energy and mass. E = M C². E = Energy. M = Mass. C = The speed of light = a constant. This is a direct relationship of energy to mass and a formula for conversion of mass to energy. What happens when Mass = 0?

“He ain’t heavy. He’s my brother.” Or not.

October 31, 2008 There is a peace that Christ bestows on us.

Confusing? Kind of. I read that and it sounds like this peace is something that someone else can give me. That is what we think anyway. Someone or something can leave you feeling what you have come to consider as peace by doing or saying something to comfort you or, in the case of something, generating what you believe to be a positive outcome. Or someone or something can take away your peace by messing with your shit. If my use of the word shit here offends you in any way then that is a great example of what I am saying. See, I’m just messing with your shit.

I read this lesson and it appears that something that is within me, but as yet separate, because I haven’t realized it yet, will bestow, or give, me peace. So I am looking for peace, using the same method, somewhere else. The peace we are talking about cannot be given to you and it cannot be found anywhere. You either understand you have it or you don’t. There is no close. If you feel you want it you can’t have it. If you feel you have to find it then you won’t. If you feel you can lose it then you haven’t felt it to begin with.

Lesson 305

“Who uses but Christ’s vision finds a peace so deep and quiet, undisturbable and wholly changeless, that the world contains no counterpart. Comparisons are still before this peace. And all the world departs in silence as this peace envelops it, and gently carries it to truth, no more to be the home of fear. For love has come, and healed the world by giving it Christ’s peace.”

“The world contains no counterpart.” You can’t find it in the world no matter what and no matter how deceiving it seems. Pretty can be very deceiving. “Comparisons are still before this peace.” Comparisons may still be seen but they do not make a difference. “The world departs in silence as this peace develops it.” The world may still seem to be there but there is no attachment to any outcome. The world just plays before you as a movie. I hesitate to use the word “dream” because you still feel a part of it. You still feel as though you have control over it. You still feel as if any outcome can have an effect on you.

Chapter 20 of the text:

T-20.III.1. The belief in sin is an adjustment. 2 And an adjustment is a change; a shift in perception, or a belief that what was so before has been made different. 3 Every adjustment is therefore a distortion, and calls upon defenses to uphold it against reality. 4 Knowledge requires no adjustments and, in fact, is lost if any shift or change is undertaken. 5 For this reduces it at once to mere perception; a way of looking in which certainty is lost and doubt has entered. 6 To this impaired condition [are] adjustments necessary, because it is not true. 7 Who need adjust to truth, which calls on only what he is, to understand?

I sat next to my mother, who laid in a bed, in a hospital emergency room for eight hours early this morning. I saw many with pained looks on their faces as they comforted a sick loved one. I saw the look on some faces change from pain to relief as the diagnosis suggested their worst fears were unfounded. Do we equate the feeling of a momentary relief from pain with peace? The hospital emergency room is the last place any seeker would go to and expect to find peace. There is no place. You either have it or you don’t.

“Every adjustment is therefore a distortion.”

“Who need adjust to truth, which calls on only what he is to understand?”

November 1, 2008 The gift of Christ is all I seek today.

I can’t ramble on again today. I just keep saying the same thing over and over in a different way. Which is what we call life, anyway. The same thing over and over in a different way.

“What but Christ’s vision would I use today, when it can offer me a day in which I see a world so like to Heaven that an ancient memory returns to me? 2 Today I can forget the world I made. 3 Today I can go past all fear, and be restored to love and holiness and peace. 4 Today I am redeemed, and born anew into a world of mercy and of care; of loving kindness and the peace of God.”

November 2, 2008 Conflicting wishes cannot be my will.

“I want to live, not merely survive

And I won’t give up this dream

Of life that keeps me alive

I gotta be me, I gotta be me

The dream that I see makes me what I am”

–Sammy Davis Jr.

“I’ve got to be me!”

“Few grammatical mistakes leave a poor impression as much as mixing up “I” and “me.” More than confusing “who” and “whom,” “effect” and “affect,” or “home” and “hone” – all of which can be forgiven by most people – referring to yourself as “me” when you mean “I” and vice versa signals to readers (and listeners) a misunderstanding of one of the cardinal rules of grammar.”

“One way to think about it is this: I am the subject of the sentence, but the object of the sentence is me.”

–http://wordwise.typepad.com/blog/

“Our existence is held together by nothing more than our belief that we exist.” That was a line on a TV show that I watched last night. No kidding! Is there any wonder that we sometimes get the feeling that we are being led or fed information that will ultimately lead to a transformation. That transformation would result in a different me. A better me? Can you really grasp a concept of no me? Not as long as you want to believe there has to be a me. That is the same thing as thinking that I or me has to do something to be no me. As we view what we call a “path” we see I or me proceeding toward a point in time when I or me will cease to exist.

We view the “end result” as I or me noticing that there is no I or me.

We view the “end result” as I or me noticing that there is no I or me.

We view the “end result” as I or me noticing that there is no I or me.

We view the “end result” as I or me noticing that there is no I or me.

We view the “end result” as I or me noticing that there is no I or me.

Do you see a conflict here?

I can’t get there. I can only be there by being nowhere else. But I can’t be there either. Me too! Be where?

Beware!

Can I “will” this understanding? I can’t. Me either. I can’t see that there is no I. Can no I see an I? Yes, but it is not me. You think. Nothing don’t.

Can I awaken to a no I?

“Conflicting wishes cannot be my will.”

November 3, 2008 This instant is the only time there is.

I’m cracking up because I have been just sitting defining myself for myself. I’ve been writing vigorously for days about there being no me and here I find myself trying to find myself who is not. Actually, it is a very interesting doing. In some ways it seems quite strange because I know that I can be anything that I want. Why have I chosen this now? Is it only because I feel some necessity to be this? Have I changed? How is that possible? It feels like molding a piece of silly putty. You make something then you squish it and make something else but it is always just a silly piece of silly putty.

I keep getting questions about my mother’s recent situation. Everyone wants details and they want details of how I reacted. It’s funny how we need to know these things? Have you ever done that? You listen to someone’s reaction and then try to figure out how you would have reacted given the same situation. What is this, practice? We all do it though.

I found my mother lying on the bathroom floor at 4:00 AM. I picked her up and put her in bed, checked her blood sugar, her temperature, asked her questions to determine lucidity (whatever that means) and called the ambulance. Everyone exclaims, “You must have freaked out!” I don’t answer because I didn’t. If I said no they would have wanted to know why? I must admit that there is a “voice?” telling me that I should freak out because if I don’t it means that I don’t care. So I can’t tell people that because they will think that I don’t care. I’ll be weird. I can’t mold that piece of silly putty in a weird asymmetrical shape. I have to mold it into something pretty and acceptable. I’m better off saying nothing.

Then I sat for eight hours with her in the emergency room because that was what I did. And, no I didn’t feel bad about having to do that and, no, I really wasn’t all that concerned. It was what it was. I did notice others who were in there with loved ones and their faces all showed a certain gravity and concern and, yes, a freaking out. That “voice?” told me that I should look like that also. I should really be feeling that way. The fact that I didn’t meant that I was, somehow, letting my mother down. Do we feel a certain way only because we feel that we should or are suppose to feel that way? Do we naturally grieve or are we taught to respond that way because we feel that is what we are suppose to do?

The doctor asked me how she ended up on the floor. I said, “Gravity?”

After sitting there for eight hours I left to grab something to eat, I posted a piece on peace and went back for another five hours. So here I was at peace but I was also telling myself that I shouldn’t be peaceful at all. I was trying to talk myself into freaking out but that part was also distant and aloof. I noticed but it didn’t have the power to draw me in. I don’t like that freaking out feeling. I don’t like angry. I don’t like sad. Do I just choose not to feel that way? Kind of?

So I was sitting this morning thinking how I feel more like an observer than a participant in this thing we call life. Words such as, detached (not involved or concerned; aloof. uninvolved, neutral, evenhanded, dispassionate, unprejudiced.) and dispassionate (free from or unaffected by passion; devoid of personal feeling or bias; impartial; calm) came to mind. Devoid of personal feeling. That one makes me feel weird. Like there is something wrong. Maybe I should seek professional help to get that personal feeling back. Something must be wrong with me because I don’t freak out like I am suppose to! Freaking out too much is a cause for concern also. Do we have a certain measurement to determine if we are freaking out just right?

Does it take time to determine that we are freaking out over something that has happened? We get all emotional over something that we have absolutely no control over because it has passed. Can we change the past? No! Why do we freak out over it? Is it only an expectation of a future response to a past event? What we believe we should feel about something that has happened?

We talk about the present. We talk about being in the now. Notice what you see as happening. Really notice it. When you really notice it you will realize that what you see as happening has already happened. We see what has happened. We don’t see happening. When you really see everything as happened you will really grasp, “It is what it is. How could it not be?” Or, it is what it was. Why freak out? It changes nothing.

I wrote, on one post, that I felt very present because I was noticing things as I hadn’t before. I equated noticing with being present. I was wrong. Noticing is watching or observing how I have reacted (Notice the past tense) to seeing what has happened. We see what has happened. We don’t see happening. In the present nothing is happening.

Lesson 308:

[I have conceived of time in such a way that I defeat my aim. If I elect to reach past time to timelessness, I must change my perception of what time is for. Time's purpose cannot be to keep the past and future one. The only interval in which I can be saved from time is now. For in this instant has forgiveness come to set me free. The birth of Christ is now, without a past or future. He has come to give His present blessing to the world, restoring it to timelessness and love. And love is ever-present, here and now.]

Sounds confusing, doesn’t it? “Give it time!” Or, better yet, don’t.

November 4, 2008 I will not fear to look within today.

Election day! The turnout is huge! Busy, busy.

Are there signs pointing to this within place? If so where would they be? Or maybe a map showing us where to look? Can someone take you there? Can someone show you where to look?

Is the fear a result of feeling that you will lose something that you never really had?

Gotta go!

November 5, 2008 In fearlessness and love I spend today.

Is this the same as spending the day in that within place? Of course. It’s funny how we talk of “spending” time like there is a cost. If I “spend” today within it costs me a day. Weird? To an observer, yes.

I asked the other day how long something has to be news before it became history. Yesterday, I’m told, we made history. I watched history in the making. The news was the history. Weird? To an observer, yes.

Yesterday differences were accentuated. I’ve written about our predisposition to seeing difference. Is it really the differences that matter or is it the “spin” that our perception places on them. When a perceived difference seems to carry a negative outcome we consider it bad. The perception of a difference is considered a problem. But when the outcome appears positive then we accentuate the appearance. The perception of a difference is, not only acceptable, but we highlight it. Is it the difference or the direction of “spin” or both? Weird? To an observer, yes.

I spent the day at the polls. Record numbers flocked to vote. At times there was a forty five minute wait to exercise the right that democracy bestows on us. There were a huge number of voter registrations during the last month of the registration period. I know because I worked with the data and the names. And I watched. Part of me (I know. Humor me.) watched in admiration that finally people seemed to really grasp their roles in this society to cast their vote for change. The theme of this election was change. Our country seems to be in deep shit. Change is necessary and people were out doing their individual part to initiate that change. Read the news. There was change. The people have spoken. Some are happy. Others are sad but the apparent magnitude of change implies a move toward a better life or not.

It cost me a day but it was well spent. I’m cracking up! I watched and listened and talked when it seemed necessary. As the night wound to a close I was speaking with a guy. He was kind enough to inform me that he was intelligent and well schooled so I assumed that he really had a grasp of this change stuff. He detailed his view, now that change had been initiated, how further change, carried out by the initial change, would change our world. For the better? Hmmm.

This guy asked me what I thought? He wanted to know how I thought things should change to make the world better. I told him that I watched people all day determined to change things. They were all out determined to change political ideologies and the people who controlled those ideologies who would then use those changed ideologies to change the country and the world around us.

I told him that the one common thing in trying to initiate these changes is that each one of us believe the answer is to change what we see outside of us. It doesn’t matter how we see ourselves. As an individual, a town, a state or a country we identify the cause as being something outside of that entity which needs to change. I added that until we identified the cause as being ourselves and initiated a change in ourselves, at whatever level, that there was no change possible. (ACIM 101). (That is a really diluted form (Aha!) of it but I couldn’t just say that there is nothing to change, right?) He quoted some historical reference to that being said before. History repeating itself? Always! Simple? To an observer, yes.

So I label myself as an observer. An observer trying to explain observations that can’t be explained using the tools that I have been given? It feels as though I am writing from different levels but I know that can’t be because there are no levels and for that matter I can’t be an observer because there really is nothing to observe, yet I do. Weird? You bet!

I spend a morning relating how I spent a day. If I keep spending will I run out of whatever it is I am spending? Can I earn more? Can I save it?

The lesson of the day was “I will not fear to look within today.” The feeling was that I was not afraid of being outside looking in because I was inside looking out. That cannot be but it was for now, then?

As an observer I watched people trying to initiate change backwards. The cause and effect relationship is confused, twisted, whatever, where the only possible result can be further chaos. As an observer can I initiate change correctly? Can an observer initiate anything? Think about it!

As, strictly an observer, I have no attachment to any outcome. Can I see any change as being relevant or necessary?

But then I am not an observer really. I am telling you that only to explain something from the point of view of an observer. Do I have to carry a label in order to express a thought? How else could I? How should I know?

“Now think of all the years you tried to

Find someone to satisfy you

I might be as crazy as you say

If I’m crazy then it’s true

That it’s all because of you

And you wouldn’t want me any other way

You may be right, I may be crazy

But it just may be a lunatic you’re looking for

It’s to late to fight, it’s to late to change me

You may be wrong for all I know, but you may be right.”

—Billy Joel

Lesson 310

[We spend this day together, you and I. And all the world joins with us in our song of thankfulness and joy to Him Who gave salvation to us, and Who set us free. We are restored to peace and holiness. There is no room in us for fear today, for we have welcomed love into our hearts.]

That tries to explain it but it proves to me that it can’t be explained. I can’t put it in words and, for that matter, I can’t see it, either. I can only be it. But that is not correct, also. Then again, you may be right?

November 6, 2008 I judge all things as I would have them be.

Lesson 311:

[Judgment was made to be a weapon used against the truth. It separates what it is being used against, and sets it off as if it were a thing apart. And then it makes of it what you would have it be. It judges what it cannot understand, because it cannot see totality and therefore judges falsely. Let us not use it today, but make a gift of it to Him Who has a different use for it. He will relieve us of the agony of all the judgments we have made against ourselves, and re-establish peace of mind by giving us God's Judgment of His Son.]

I read the following yesterday although I can’t remember where, sorry.

“Things move so fast these days, sometimes it’s easy to forget to look back.”

I won’t judge it. If you wish, you may.

November 7, 2008 I see all things as I would have them be.

Let’s take a light look at this today. Enough about illusions and the your not really here and neither am I and there is no me to be anywhere. Suppose that everything, you, me and all forms are really here. I know it sounds silly but humor me. Things are really there and stuff is really happening and it is not a dream. Isn’t that a scary thought?

My mother came up with a really good one this morning. She always does that although she never realizes that she is doing it.

I was driving her to the doctor. She feels the necessity to talk. She can’t just sit there. She feels that she has to say something. She said, “They say it’s going to be another horrible day today.” I said, “Who told you that?” She said, “The weatherman said it last night.” I said, “The weatherman actually said that it was going to be a horrible day?” She said, “No, he didn’t actually say it but he said that it was going to rain all day and that is horrible.” I said, “Couldn’t it just be anything you wanted it to be?” She said, “A rainy day is a horrible day.” I said, “Is the fact that it is raining going to disrupt your routine for the day?” She said, “No I wasn’t planning on doing anything today except for this doctor’s appointment.” I said, “Then I don’t understand the connection between good or bad.” She said, “Someone might have had some plans that they had to cancel because it is raining.” I said, “A random assumption makes you feel bad?” She said, “A rainy day is not a good day. If the sun was shining it would be nice.” I said, “Why is that?” She said, “Because it is.”

It is not easy being her having me as her son. Do you need a ride anywhere?

Then she said, “It is in the fifties and it should be warm but it is raw.” She has always used that raw word but I can’t define it. She can’t either. I felt the temptation to play with this one again but I didn’t. I had said enough.

Obama got 53% of the popular vote to McCain’s 46%. Obama wins, McCain loses. Obama’s supporters win and McCain supporters lose. 65 million people win and 57 million people lose. Thomas Jefferson said, “Democracy is nothing more than mob rule. Where 51% of the people take away the rights of the other 49%.” That is true if you believe that you can gain or lose something. For 65 million people the future seems bright. For 57 million people life as they have come to know it just got flushed down the toilet. The ironic thing is that we don’t see anything wrong with this thinking. Remember that all truths are self-evident. That is assuming that there is more than one truth or more than one self. I know that there is no self. Humor me here!

I found a web site offering analysis of the election result promising that the opinions are without bias. How can this be possible?

I read an article about a guy who has the post election blues. Even though he voted for Obama he is bummed out because he doesn’t have anything to follow in the news. It’s kind of like the week after the super bowl. We have gotten over the win or lose thing and now we are trying to come to grips with the absence of football in our lives.

As long as we see good or bad what we see seems to matter. There is an emotional involvement to the outcome. If we strive to see only good it still implies that there is a possibility of bad. So we can never really find good. If we are looking for happy it has to be as opposed to sad. Can you see how we can never really find it? Happy, that is, because happy implies not sad.

If there was no positive or negative outcome available, can you see how it wouldn’t matter if there was anything really there or not? The whole illusion thing (or dream connotation) is only a method of backing into this because if it is not really there then it shouldn’t matter one way or the other. Does it matter how you look at it? It only matters that you look at it at all. Can you look on real or illusion and not be effected by it? Not without help! So stop trying and ask.

Lesson 312:

“Perception follows judgment. Having judged, we therefore see what we would look upon. For sight can merely serve to offer us what we would have. It is impossible to overlook what we would see, and fail to see what we have chosen to behold. How surely, therefore, must the real world come to greet the holy sight of anyone who takes the Holy Spirit’s purpose as his goal for seeing. And he cannot fail to look upon what Christ would have him see, and share Christ’s Love for what he looks upon.”

[I have no purpose for today except to look upon a liberated world, set free from all the judgments I have made. Father, this is Your Will for me today, and therefore it must be my goal as well.]

Does it seem as though I have written this same post 247 times? Not if you look at the differences. I reflect how I see it over and over. Can you see how that doesn’t matter, either? Not if it does.

November 8, 2008 Now let a new perception come to me.

“The more specific and detailed you are about the dream you want to create there’s a direct relationship between that and your ability to realize that dream.”

–Target commercial. Really?

Marketing is amazing! I wrote yesterday about changing a thought to create a different world for yourself and then I see this commercial which implies that we can add specificity to the world we wish to create by purchasing props to aid in the realization of that world and we can find them at Target! Why are we wasting time here? Grab the credit card. Let’s go to Target!

I wrote yesterday about manipulating the world you see by simply changing a thought or two. I am not implying that we begin to create, now, because we do it every instant. The world that you and I see is what we want to see. If it is a horrible and painful world riddled with addiction and sickness, rest assured, that is exactly what you want it to be. Even the sensation of movement is just a change of perception. Once you accept that, can you change it? It can be whatever you want it to be. It is what you want it to be. Can you tell me exactly why the world appears as it does to you? I really doubt it.

I remember my ex-wife to be a radiant beauty. Everything she did was perfect. The world was a wonderful place. Then, over time, she somehow turned into an ogre. Why did she change? Can she change? The first important thing to realize is that she can’t change. I can only change. But, really, I can’t change. My perception of the world can change. So, in effect, I began to see her in a different light. (I couldn’t resist that!) My perception of her changed. Why? I guess I must have wanted it to. Why? I don’t have a clue. Which is why it is difficult, if not impossible, to make a world that will continue to be wonderful. See?

Could I have sought professional help to change my perception of myself thereby changing my perception of the world or, more specifically, my perception of my ex-wife? Yes? But that would amount to trying to change my self, which can’t change, to change my perception which creates the world that I see.

We have a saying, “Be careful of what you ask for because you just might receive it.” We don’t understand the power that we have to create what we perceive nor do we understand why we create what we create so trying to create differently is insane.

Can we train our mind to become more adept and precise in our creating? No doubt. Carlos Castaneda detailed years and years of training to do just that. His training began with dream (actual sleeping dreams?) manipulation. Then it progressed to manipulating, what he termed, the energy body to “travel” to other worlds. Travel in this case being creating other worlds to seem to exist in. With increased expertise he was able to create other worlds with increasing clarity. There are an infinite amount of worlds that he could create and “travel” to. There is a temptation to spend eternity creating other worlds. Sounds like fun? A world a day, forever! Then there was the possibility that he could become so enamored with another world that he would become as trapped in that world as he was in this world. Why not make another world that is more to your liking? Ultimately if he avoided these temptations he would realize that there was no need for any world at which time he could “move on.”

We do that every instant anyway. Right? “Our world” changes every instant whether we notice the subtle changes or not. We don’t always accept responsibility for those changes. We attribute them to something changing outside of us. Ponder the whole “movement” phenomenon.

Lesson 313: You are correct Jeff. This is a great one!

[Father, there is a vision which beholds all things as sinless, so that fear has gone, and where it was is love invited in. And love will come wherever it is asked. This vision is Your gift. The eyes of Christ look on a world forgiven. In His sight are all its sins forgiven, for He sees no sin in anything He looks upon. Now let His true perception come to me, that I may waken from the dream of sin and look within upon my sinlessness, which You have kept completely undefiled upon the altar to Your holy Son, the Self with which I would identify.]

“Let us today behold each other in the sight of Christ. How beautiful we are! How holy and how loving! Brother, come and join with me today. We save the world when we have joined. For in our vision it becomes as holy as the light in us.”

Attribute “sin” to the acceptance of the temptation to see things as separate. “The eyes of Christ look on a world forgiven.” Notice it says “a world” not “the world.” This use of “world” confuses this. It does for me. The “eyes of Christ” cannot see separation. “This vision is Your gift.” This is confusing, also. It sounds as tough the gift of seeing no separation is something that can be given to me by someone else? Weird? You bet.

The vision of “one” is love. So saying, “I love you.” is a miss-creation because if I see separate then I can’t experience love.

What can I do? Nothing. I can stop trying to change my perception of the world by the self that I have come to believe I am. But then what do I know? That is a start!

November 9, 2008 I seek a future different from the past.

“Round, like a circle in a spiral

Like a wheel within a wheel.

Never ending or beginning,

On an ever spinning wheel

Like a snowball down a mountain

Or a carnival balloon

Like a carousel that’s turning

Running rings around the moon

Like a clock whose hands are sweeping

Past the minutes on it’s face

And the world is like an apple

Whirling silently in space

Like the circles that you find

In the windmills of your mind”

—Various artists

Never ending or beginning like the windmills of your mind. It’s déjà-vu all over again. Have you ever felt as though you have experienced something before? Have you ever known that something would happen before it happened? Have you ever wished that you could do something over again?

My dog runs around in circles chasing his tail. Do you find that to be strange behavior?

Lesson 314:

“From new perception of the world there comes a future very different from the past. The future now is recognized as but extension of the present. Past mistakes can cast no shadows on it, so that fear has lost its idols and its images, and being formless, it has no effects. Death will not claim the future now, for life is now its goal, and all the needed means are happily provided. Who can grieve or suffer when the present has been freed, extending its security and peace into a quiet future filled with joy?”

[Father, we were mistaken in the past, and choose to use the present to be free. Now do we leave the future in Your Hands, leaving behind our past mistakes, and sure that You will keep Your present promises, and guide the future in their holy light.]

“I seek a future different than the past.” Really?

Or are you trying to find the present in the future like an endless spinning wheel?

November 10, 2008 All gifts my brothers give belong to me.

I used a WYSIWYG reference in a post a while ago. “What you see is what you get.” How about, “What you get is what you see?”

Can you give me grief? Only if it is grief that I want from you. Can you drive me crazy? Crazy can be a good thing or a bad thing. Right? It only depends on what I happen to want from you. Can you hurt me? It would naturally follow that you can but only if I want you to hurt me.

My sister is always running around like crazy because people seem to demand so much of her. She complains about it but………………….. See? That is what she obviously wants.

Have you ever returned a gift to the store expecting a hassle? Most people do.

My exercise for the day? Everyone gives me exactly the same thing. I provide the perception of difference. What is it that everyone gives me? If I just accept the fact that what everyone gives me is constant and it is my “twisted” mind that turns it into a variable then it doesn’t really matter what it is, now does it? It sounds like a simple lesson but there is a temptation to exclude some things. If I exclude one thing then it won’t work. Right? Because there is only one thing that I can possibly receive.

Lesson 315:

“Each day a thousand treasures come to me with every passing moment. I am blessed with gifts throughout the day, in value far beyond all things of which I can conceive. A brother smiles upon another, and my heart is gladdened. Someone speaks a word of gratitude or mercy, and my mind receives this gift and takes it as its own. And everyone who finds the way to God becomes my savior, pointing out the way to me, and giving me his certainty that what he learned is surely mine as well.”

[I thank You, Father, for the many gifts that come to me today and every day from every Son of God. My brothers are unlimited in all their gifts to me. Now may I offer them my thankfulness, that gratitude to them may lead me on to my Creator and His memory.]

Can the perception of many become the understanding of one?

November 11, 2008 All gifts I give my brothers are my own.

I feel as though I am bouncing around with no particular aim, goal or reason. Have you ever been in one of those “houses of mirrors” at the fair? I used to love them as a kid. It was a place where “real” and reflection were mixed into a world that was a combination of both. The objective was to identify one from the other. Without the objective what would the experience have been? I also liked to take two mirrors and put them facing each other and allow my mind to travel through the reflections into the infinite. I seem to be doing that still in “real time.” Is this merely a reflection of illusion intermixed with a feeling of real that reflects on itself providing a sensation of time passing toward some infinite point? How can infinity have a point? Is there a reference point in eternity? We seem to need one or many, don’t we? Do I attempt to define myself by creating points of reference thereby giving eternity continuity? What, in hell, am I saying?

Now I am, once again, thinking of writing something and it appears as though I am beginning to define something as one level to the next. It’s as if I am carrying that reflection to the nth level. “So, lets take a virtual trip to the 15^th stage in that endless reflection and I will attempt to explain what I observe there.” Remember, you can’t actually go there. This is a mind thing. Hmmmm? The reflection is always the same at any level that we try to define but we just have to see it differently?

So where did I begin? This is really weird, isn’t it? Oh, I was giving you gifts! I’m a nice guy. I give nice. I watched myself, yesterday, giving nice. You know something? I get nice right back! Your nice is like a reflection of my nice. Are you nice or is it merely my reflection of my nice? It could be anything. I could give you mean and I would get mean right back. So if you seem to be giving me mean that could only mean that I am gave you mean to begin with and that means that I am just seeing the reflection of my mean in what you have come to mean to me. Do you see what I mean? And so on……………..

Have I always given nice? I used to give all kinds of different things. I won’t name them all here because that would be irrelevant because you know what I mean because I expect you to know. I realized that all I wanted was nice so in order to get only nice I had to give only nice. It was tough to begin with because I kept noticing myself giving other things. “Ooops, there I go giving grief!” And right back to nice. Is it possible to give anything without expecting anything in return? I give nice because I expect that to bring me nice.

In trying to manipulate an outcome I am really manipulating myself.

Yesterday: “Have you ever returned a gift to the store expecting a hassle? Most people do.”

I have first hand knowledge that this is true. I spent many years on the receiving end of this. Chuckle! I managed people who were responsible for taking returns. People would come in with returns expecting a hassle. I have even seen people getting themselves psyched up to come in and fight. I made it our goal to nice the fight right out of them. I said, in training sessions, “People come in expecting a fight. I want them to leave feeling as though they just had sex!” I’m laughing because I actually said that many times.

Did I do this because I wanted to be a nice guy? No, I wanted their business. If they had an orgasmic experience they were more likely to come back. Right? Is that manipulative? You bet! But, man, did it ever work.

Now, I see it differently, maybe? I’m thinking, “How can I see it differently?” I can’t, but for the sake of argument I will. If I can stop laughing long enough. I can view this as only my expectation that these people would come in looking for a fight giving my people a problem to overcome using a solution that I had provided. The fact that it worked was really only my expectation that it would work. So wouldn’t it have been much simpler to expect no fight? Maybe I didn’t know any better or maybe it was just more fun that way. We relate doing something with our ability to manipulate an outcome over an apparent problem that we create to give us the opportunity to do what we feel the need to do. And so on………….

I am writing this as if I am intending to teach you something. It’s not intentional. I just realized that I am doing just that. That would require me to believe that you are reading this and have the need to be taught something. Can you see how that would be my need? Can I see that? Am I attempting to manipulate an outcome to an apparent problem that I have constructed to give me the feeling as though I am actually doing something? You bet! And so on…………

Can I give you anything that you need or is it only what I want to think you need because I feel that I have to give something? Do I have anything to give?

Lesson 316:

[Father, I would accept Your gifts today. I do not recognize them. Yet I trust that You Who gave them will provide the means by which I can behold them, see their worth, and cherish only them as what I want.]

I have something to give, if I could only recognize what that is and I can only do that if I stop trying to see it by creating what I think that it may be. And so on…………

November 12, 2008 I follow in the way appointed me.

The newspaper lady frustrates my mother. She has an erratic nature in her delivery which requires my mother to actively look for the paper each day. It’s been a source of daily irritation for her. I think she secretly enjoys the arrangement or maybe it just exists for my entertainment or for my enlightenment. (I just had to stick that word in there. But it is only a word)

So I was talking to my mother yesterday after I posted for the day. She was telling me that she and my sister were going shopping. The dog started barking. I noticed the newspaper lady’s car in the driveway. I said, “He is barking at the newspaper lady.” She said, “You go out there and give her hell!” I was stunned at the magnificence of that statement. Any attempt that I made to alter, change, fix the newspaper lady to correct a perceived limitation that I see in her would do just that. It is not the action but just the thought of it that would damn her to hell. It sounds so cruel and ominous but we do that constantly, don’t we? It is not about the newspaper lady. It is about me. It is not in the thinking it is in the seeing. It is the seeing of myself as different, it doesn’t have to be better or worse, that is damning. To whom? That is the point. There is no whom. “Damned if I see a whom?”

Did I tell all of this to my mother? Why would I do that? She already thinks I am “whacked out” enough. I am on the “wacked out” path. I follow the “wacked out’ path because that is the way that has been appointed to me. Actually, that is exactly how I think it should be. I want to believe I am on the “wacked out” path. I can believe anything that I want. I have the freedom to choose any path that I want. Any path that I choose is the right path. Is that freedom? As long as I think that there is a path there is no freedom because I must proceed on that path that has been given me, I think.

So I have been on this marketing thing. This whole freedom of choice thing. My mother and sister were going to buy some dishes that my mother saw in an ad. She has this dish thing. I asked if she needed new dishes? She said no. I asked if she would be buying them if she hadn’t seen the picture of them in the ad? She said, “I wouldn’t have known that they were there, so no.” She wouldn’t have known that they existed so she wouldn’t have needed them. Is that freedom of choice? Can she choose what she can’t see?

Bear with me because I don’t know where this is heading? Do I ever?

A friend of mine has had a product in the stores for years. I have seen recent ads that a heavily marketed competitor was making their product available in stores for the first time. I saw the product on the shelves priced at 50% more than my friend’s for the same quantity. I e-mailed him of my discovery.

Me: “Can brand identity be worth almost 50% more?”

Friend: “Only if you’re a fool!”

Me: “Can the litmus test of a successful free market society be in the number of fools that inhabit it? Just a thought.”

We call it freedom of choice. Can we ever really be sure that we have the freedom to choose, here?

A salesperson fills a need. An accomplished salesperson is adept at creating a need that his product can fill. Can you see the illusory nature of a need? Is there freedom of choice, here?

Lesson 317:

[I have a special place to fill; a role for me alone. Salvation waits until I take this part as what I choose to do. Until I make this choice, I am the slave of time and human destiny. But when I willingly and gladly go the way my Father's plan appointed me to go, then will I recognize salvation is already here, already given all my brothers and already mine as well.]

I choose a path that has been chosen for me because I am being led. Can I choose not to be the me that is choosing or can I only be that?

November 13, 2008 In me salvation’s means and end are one.

It’s kind of funny how much people and things have to teach me. People say things and it’s like, that’s exactly right. I hear a song that I have heard a thousand times and suddenly there is a profound message embedded in there. Movies, TV, ads, commercials, the clouds, same thing. It just keeps getting more and more frequent. I use to flip out over it but now it is just commonplace. Everyone is giving me a message. In place of pain, hardship, sickness and health, good or bad, I am seeing pointers to truth.

I saw an ad last night that defined “compelling” as something that demands your attention.

Have you ever noticed that the I in salvation is silent? There is no I in atonement. There is no I in truth. There is no I in one.

When you think about what it would be like to understand or feel the oneness of everything that we talk about, (I know that you do because you can’t do this and not think about what it would be like.) the context of the thought is always, I experiencing oneness. How can that be? One cannot be a combination of numerous I. (Have you ever noticed that I cannot be plural?) In oneness, I is silent. The voice that we give it is the illusion. (is was intentional.)

Salvation is the (any word I try to plug in here is not right. End? Beginning? Realization?) understanding(?) that separation does not exist. So if there were a path toward some understanding of the truth you would not be able to take I there with you. There is no I allowed there if there were a there. I cannot experience truth. Can truth be compelling?

As long as I am on a journey I will be on a journey. There is no journey when there is no I to journey. If there be understanding there cannot be an I to experience understanding. Is there anything compelling about a vanishing I that never was?

We create the experience of a path or a journey because the alternative is unthinkable. I gotta’ go! The ultimate sacrifice, right?

Can we handle the illusion of I? The illusion of world is easy. I is a mind creating the illusion of world. We can have a lot of fun with that one, can’t we? I is a mind is illusion. Is that fun? How can it be and how can it not be?

I is compelling. I commands attention.

Lesson 318:

[In me, God's holy Son, are reconciled all parts of Heaven's plan to save the world. What could conflict, when all the parts have but one purpose and one aim? How could there be a single part that stands alone, or one of more or less importance than the rest? I am the means by which God's Son is saved, because salvation's purpose is to find the sinlessness that God has placed in me. I was created as the thing I seek. I am the goal the world is searching for. I am God's Son, His one eternal Love. I am salvation's means and end as well.]

“How could there be a single part that stands alone, or one of more or less importance than the rest?”

“I was created as the thing I seek.” Can I experience that?

November 14, 2008 I came for the salvation of the world.

That was my second thought when I read today’s lesson. Actually it wasn’t the picture it was the memory of the resounding, “Here I come to save the day!” I felt that exciting chill run through me just like it did when I was a young kid as Mighty Mouse appeared to save the world. I loved it! As a kid I would have loved to be Mighty Mouse zipping about intent on saving people from themselves. I had a certain fondness for Mighty Mouse but any super hero would have done. I would have accepted being like Underdog, if I had to, or superman. I have to assume that all other kids had this same feeling when I view the popularity of these shows at the time. We weren’t especially afraid of sharing these ideas because we were kids and it is all right for kids to fantasize. Was it really a fantasy?

Imagine if I told someone now that I wanted to be like Mighty Mouse. Looney bin! When you are on the “wacked out” path you have to be careful what you say. Yet here I am putting it out to the world. Is that arrogance? To think that I have the power to change everything?

Then I begin to focus on the marketing aspect. I know that the goal of this type of entertainment is to capitalize on a need that we feel as an advertising tool. I wonder how many things I made my parents buy because of commercials that I saw while fantasizing about having super powers which would enable me to go out there and save the world from itself. There is also an imbedded lesson in this. I was trained (I truly believe it to be with “good” intentions) that the world was filled with bad and needed to be saved. I was taught that it was my duty to fight for truth and justice and, more importantly, fighting for that truth and justice was the only way of obtaining it. As we grow up we feel we lose the opportunity to discuss these things but I notice the comfort I feel in being a part of a country which has seen the need to arm it self to the teeth to fight for truth and justice. We even consider ourselves a super power. We consider it our mission to fight for what we believe is right. It is things like this that make me go, hmmmmm? “Actions speak louder than words.” But the thought is the same.

I have come a long way, Lesson 319, wow! At this point (sigh?) the world is indeed an illusion. I take comfort in that knowledge. How can an illusion hurt me?

“I’ve got a peaceful, easy feeling

And I know you won’t let me down

‘Cause I’m already standing on the ground.”

–Unknown

I know that the world I see is a projection of a thought in my mind. What I see is a reflection of my thoughts so I can use that knowledge to change my thoughts thereby changing the world as I see it. “I’m not a body I am free!” (Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, here.) “Here I come to save the day!” I’m only a thought so I can be Mighty Mouse, also! Finally! As MM, as only a thought in a mind, and knowing that I share thoughts with you, I can become really aware of my thoughts so that I only share good thoughts with you. I know that it is working because you treat me so nice. I give nice thoughts and I get nice thoughts in return. I can still see not so nice thoughts “out there” but I realize that they are only “in here” and that they will change eventually because that is the plan. (I just this instant received an e-mail titled, “Too good not to share.” A sign? Why would it be? Are things ever as they seem to be?)

[I had to bring my mother to the doctor. I left her at the door, parked and went in. She had already gone to the office so I wandered around the building looking for her. A woman asked me if I needed help. I told her that I felt really lost. She said that it must be the weather. I said that I couldn’t blame something else for feeling lost and that it must be me. She said that I couldn’t blame myself for being lost. Really? See how it always seems to happen?]

Now I come back confused about where this was going. I went and it was gone. But I never knew where it was going anyway. Can I just start from where it ended at let it continue on its own to where? Actually, it wasn’t gone because I went but now that I’m back I am trying to think of where it was going, which was irrelevant to the whole thing anyway. I’m confusing myself. Maybe I should go back to the doctor’s office?

So we share thoughts. That’s it! No, we don’t actually share thoughts because I would know what you are thinking. My thoughts cause a ripple effect in the mind that we share. Yours too, I guess? I’m thinking, “No wonder things are screwed up. All of these thoughts rippling around our mind cancelling each other out or just confusing things. It looks to me like a storm’s a brewin’.” Maybe if we got together and got a lot of us thinking the same thought we could cause a really big ripple in the mind making it a better place to be? That would be an admirable cause. Right? Can we actually change it by doing that? I’m thinking not really, but it may be a good place to start. It couldn’t hurt, could it?

Would we just be changing the venue of the illusion? Can we change it by continuing it as something different? Or is it the impression that we can change it enough to continue its sense of reality, whatever that may be? But then it is only me. You’re not here. I speak to you only to understand it for myself. I am the catalyst for salvation. That strikes me as being a bit arrogant. Don’t you think? Only if it is I thinking it. Only if it is I thinking I has to change my thinking about I. But then it is always about I anyway.

“I’m not a body, I am free.” I’m a thought that is not can I be free?

How can (I) know?

Lesson 319:

[Here is a thought from which all arrogance has been removed, and only truth remains. For arrogance opposes truth. But when there is no arrogance the truth will come immediately, and fill up the space the ego left unoccupied by lies. Only the ego can be limited, and therefore it must seek for aims which are curtailed and limiting. The ego thinks that what one gains, totality must lose. And yet it is the Will of God I learn that what one gains is given unto all.]

Is it arrogant to think that there is a me that matters? What is there to think?

So that was the second thought. The first? I read the lesson and I thought, “I don’t get this one at all.” Then came Mighty Mouse.

November 15, 2008 My Father gives all power unto me.

My first thought this morning even before I read the lesson was, “Lighten up!” All this talk about the eradication of the self or I can be depressing. Even when the fear of death hovers over us the thought that the conscious self will somehow continue on seems to be a necessary component of what we call sanity. Read “The Denial of Death” by Ernest Becker. A Pulitzer Prize winning beauty on mankind’s dilemma.

My second thought after I read the lesson was “harmony.” Then I began a “search” for an analogy. I feel that I should find a way to explain what happens when the ultimate power of one is fragmented. I think of a symphony orchestra without a conductor and where the musicians are unable to hear what others are playing. Imagine for an instant the sound produced. Screech! Then I thought of an eight cylinder automobile with precise timing that has enormous power but should just one cylinder be off just by a minute amount the car sputters and the potential power is reduced drastically. If all the cylinders are firing on their own without any regard to the others then the car just backfires and makes noise but doesn’t operate at all. The potential power is not realized because there is no harmony.

There is a frustration in trying to find analogies consistent with our belief in separation that can explain the experience of one. While it is intriguing to believe that all power has been given to me it has been given to the one of which me believes it is only a part of. Me believes that you is a part of it also. Can their be an instant of harmony between the many me and you that appear to exist to realize this ultimate power? Apart this power becomes chaotic. Can we pull these parts together into a one that can realize this power in harmony?

That is the teaching here, isn’t it? We have a conductor, right? Few are able to acknowledge that the conductor is there. Or we can say that few can see the conductor. We can’t hear what the others are playing. In a band or orchestra the drummer provides the timing for the musicians. We have a saying, “Staggering to the beat of our own drummer” which I am only adding because it seems so cool. I am looking at this thinking, man, that is exactly the way I see it! But if you truly believe that seeing is believing then you haven’t been practicing the course correctly. Start with lesson 1. There is only one instant when seeing is believing and when that happens all doubt “goes out the window.”

So the teaching is clear. Help others to see the conductor. Then get everyone on the “same page,” in harmony, playing to the same drummer. Then we can all be one, right? We can make beautiful music together?

Now here is my dilemma. That plan still brings with it the sense of separation. That is the problem to begin with. Does the whole together thing cure that? Then we have the “problem” of getting everyone playing to the same drummer. Whose drummer would that be? We’ve been trying that forever. If they don’t follow our drummer we drop bombs on them until they see “the light” assuming that when the bombs are dropping they will come around. Can it be any different if we wage “love” on them? I know that we are right, but……..? I’m laughing! There is only one truth. If I’m right and you’re wrong then it follows that I must be wrong, right?

So my feeling that separation has to go naturally leads me to that one instant when seeing is believing at which point (sigh) …………I promised to “lighten up” and not discuss that today. But then the whole necessity of doing this goes away. The really great thing is it has already happened! Remember that seeing is not always believing.

Now my disclaimer. This blog in no way is meant to encourage or discourage anything. It is just meant to relate my view from a mountain top. What, in hell, do I know! I’m not asking you to join me. We are joined but not in the way that we can understand it without understanding it. Practice “A Course in Miracles” with vigor. By all means wage “love” instead of “war.” It can only result in a better (?) until there is not. Above all, don’t take it all so seriously. Any path is only a path and is not an end in itself. It is only an instant away.

How is that for “light?”

Lesson 320:

[The Son of God is limitless. There are no limits on his strength, his peace, his joy, nor any attributes his Father gave in his creation. What he wills with his Creator and Redeemer must be done. His holy will can never be denied, because his Father shines upon his mind, and lays before it all the strength and love in earth and Heaven. I am he to whom all this is given. I am he in whom the power of my Father's Will abides.]

Can you hear the music?

November 16, 2008 Father, my freedom is in You alone.

Yesterday: “Any path is only a path and is not an end in itself.”

John Newton, the author of the lyrics to Amazing Grace, was born in 1725 in Wapping, England.[1] Despite the powerful message of “Amazing Grace,” Newton’s religious beliefs initially lacked conviction; his youth was marked by religious confusion and a lack of moral self-control and discipline.[1]

After a brief time in the Royal Navy, Newton began his career in slave trading. The turning point in Newton’s spiritual life was a violent storm that occurred one night while at sea. Moments after he left the deck, the crewman who had taken his place was swept overboard. Although he manned the vessel for the remainder of the tempest, he later commented that, throughout the tumult, he realized his helplessness and concluded that only the grace of God could save him.

—Wikipedia

Slave trading as a path? Of course!

A path is only a path and is not an end in itself. Is there such a thing as the right path? You can justify a path by saying that there is no “right” path but this is the right path for me. Can you see how we can become trapped (obsessively involved) in our perception of what our path should be. We can become trapped by the very thing that we are trying to use to give us freedom. Lighten up!

“I’d like to teach the world to sing. In perfect harmony”

–The New Seekers

That is noble. Is it realistic?

Have you ever noticed that when we do anything we always do it with the idea that we know what a good result could or should or would be as a result of the doing? How does that effect our perception of any outcome? Are we trying to force an outcome based on what we believe it should be? Can we manipulate the doing so that it appears to produce an outcome that is merely a preconceived notion of what that outcome should be? You bet.

My mother just said to me, “You can have anything your heart desires.” No shit!

Is there any wonder that we always find what we are looking for? Yes, even if you find horrible, you have to accept the fact that you were looking for it.

Is that freedom?

You can’t get there from here. You can only be there not here. What does that mean? I only type this stuff. How should I know?

Lesson 321

[I did not understand what made me free, nor what my freedom is, nor where to look to find it. Father, I have searched in vain until I heard Your Voice directing me. Now I would guide myself no more. For I have neither made nor understood the way to find my freedom. But I trust in You. You Who endowed me with my freedom as Your holy Son will not be lost to me. Your Voice directs me, and the way to You is opening and clear to me at last. Father, my freedom is in You alone. Father, it is my will that I return.]

November 17, 2008 I can give up but what was never real.

This seems like the perfect lesson for me to run off into a no I rant. Right? The perception of a sacrifice because I have to give up the thought of me is there.

I, most likely, would have but I answered a comment yesterday and the spin off of that was another direction. Not really? There is only one direction and the only constant in that direction is one. I answered the comment by saying that everything comes from me and through me to me. Basically? How can I say that after ranting for a week about there being no I or me? The perspective of the comment could only come from me so I had to create a me to carry the message to me of which there can be or cannot be. Chuckle.

I have to begin with the concept of one. If you have been practicing then you know that everything is one. Well, not everything because everything suggests multiple things. One cannot be factored. There are no parts of one that can be combined to make one. One is one. One cannot be two. One cannot be three. One is one is one.

It is easy to say that all there is, is one. But easy to say is not easy to really understand. I’m not sure if you can realize it without first seeing it but there is no first to begin with. So when I say, “All that is, is one” and if that is really me saying that then there is no one to be telling that to and the message has to be coming from me. Because the message suggests that there can’t be two. See?

The confusion comes from our incessant need to add parts to one and then label them for reference. The need to provide labels and stories defining those labels creates a separate thing. Separate from the me that I believe I am. There is no unity because there is nothing to unite. There is one.

Then we have the level dilemma. There is only one “here” but “there” there is a couple until we get “there” when it all becomes one. There is no unity because there is nothing to unite. More confusion? You bet!

There is one. I can call one anything that I want. Confusion arises when I give one more than one label. When I give one more than one label it suggests that these labels have to unite to become that one that it only can be. But the truth is there is nothing to unite.

We have many labels to describe one. If one is “love” (remember, it can’t be anything else) then “love” is all there is. In which case there is no me. You doesn’t even come into play because either you were never here to begin with or you are me in which case you are as not as me is not. We do label one “love” because that word carries such a nice feeling. It is only a word. The feeling that it carries with it is an illusion and just confuses things. Drop the warm feeling.

Or, I can say one is me. Then all there is, is me. Right?

Or I can say one is you. Then all there is, is you. Not a multiple you but a singular you. I’m laughing because I am thinking about a game of tag. “You’re it!” But we all can’t take turns being one because there is only one. Right?

Remember that they are only words. Drop the definition and all the words mean the same thing. Why do we need so many of them if they all mean the same thing? We need so many of them because they carry a different importance to us. Some seem to be more important than others like “me.”

It is not really the words. We can use whatever word we want to label one as long as the understanding is that there can only be one. One is whatever is true if only that is true.

So truth is one. Love is one. I am one. You are one. These are all true as long as the understanding is that they all can’t be true together because then one would be four.

Lesson 322:

“I sacrifice illusions; nothing more. And as illusions go I find the gifts illusions tried to hide, awaiting me in shining welcome, and in readiness to give God’s ancient messages to me. His memory abides in every gift that I receive of Him. And every dream serves only to conceal the Self which is God’s only Son, the likeness of Himself, the Holy One Who still abides in Him forever, as He still abides in me.”

[Father, to You all sacrifice remains forever inconceivable. And so I cannot sacrifice except in dreams. As You created me, I can give up nothing You gave me. What You did not give has no reality. What loss can I anticipate except the loss of fear, and the return of love into my mind?]

The only possible sacrifice that there can be is sacrificing confusion. But then there is no confusion. Right?

November 18, 2008 I gladly make the “sacrifice” of fear.

A funny thing happened to me yesterday. No it was a bunch of funny things. I had a whole bunch of things come across my desk, at once, and I got immersed in all of them. Multi tasking! I haven’t done that in quite a while, not the multi tasking, the immersion thing. On top of that I loved it! It all seemed so real. Is that what this is? Then I saw an ad last night that said, “Life is about the small things.” Life is about being immersed in the small things.

“I can give up but what was never real.” I forgot that for a while yesterday in my immersion. A lesson?

Lisa, gorgeous for God, talked about having to give up her cat to live in her new house. It’s always a lesson, now isn’t it? In my own detached manner I commented about life being a series of choices. Small things? I said that it always becomes a choice of the “lesser of two evils.” I never thought of it like that before. A lesson? I spent a long time bonding with my dog last night. Ten years! Could I give him up over a lesser evil? Is this a small thing? They all are but they grow as we become immersed in them. Is it the small thing or the immersion? I’ll go with the immersion.

I was in a store yesterday and the Christmas music was playing. I had a warm feeling. Tidings of comfort and joy. I love Christmas, well not really the materialistic part. I did capitalize (Hmmm. Capitalism?) on that for many years. I made lots of money doing it. But that warm feeling that the season brings was there, for me. Then I thought of the ones who don’t experience that warm feeling. Some approach the season with dread. The thought of depression, loneliness, stress and anxiety permeate the season. Then I saw a sign. Come on, there is always a sign. The sign was a picture of a child opening a present. The caption asked what kind of memories are you going to create? Ah, a perfect example, as am I, of the past becoming the future, over and over. So the sign beckons us to create loving, warm memories in the people we love by giving cherished things. That implies that those cherished things can be purchased right there in that store. It also implies happiness if you do and guilt if you don’t. Sigh.

We all have so much to give. We just keep trying to give something else. Something we don’t really have. Why is that?

“I will gladly make the “sacrifice” of fear.” No kidding? You would have to be pretty “whacked out” to not want to give up fear. But what does it take for us to realize that all of those small things that make up our lives are fearful? An act of God? I’m sure that he would if he knew. I guess it is left up to us?

Lesson 323

“And as we pay the debt we owe to truth,–a debt that merely is the letting go of self-deceptions and of images we worshipped falsely–truth returns to us in wholeness and in joy. We are deceived no longer. Love has now returned to our awareness. And we are at peace again, for fear has gone and only love remains.”

Truth is one.

How’s that for “light.?”

November 19, 2008 I merely follow, for I would not lead.

A funny thing happened to be yesterday. No, it was a bunch of funny things. I had a whole bunch of things happen to me yesterday and I got immersed in all of them. The first thing I think is, “So what? Big freaking deal!” Isn’t that what happened yesterday and the day before and the day before that? I can write about progress. At one time I got immersed in the things that appeared to be happening. Now the things that appear to be happening are lessons. Now I see a lesson in these things which apparently will guide me to “the promised goal.” The goal is heaven as opposed to this hell that I find myself speaking from. The question becomes, “Can I become as immersed in the lesson as I was in the thing that the lesson was before I began to perceive it as a lesson?” Of course! I can shift my perception at will. Is that really a change?

This whole conundrum that we find ourselves involved (Great word! Thank you. Immersion= involvement) in is a direct result of identity confusion. Right? It is a direct result of my need to feel as though I am a unique, special, independent, separate, autonomous self experiencing separate individual feelings and having separate individual experiences. Don’t come back at me with the “your not a body” thing because it doesn’t matter if I think I am a body or if I think I am a mind projecting a body. The separate, individual, autonomous phenomenon is still present. The illusion of that can reside and does reside in whatever setting I choose. I can change the venue at will. Is the path that we speak of a journey of incremental changes in perception until we lose the need for these changes and are able to see things as they really are in truth. What, in hell, does that mean? Is the whole idea of a path as trapping as the idea that we convince ourselves we are escaping from on that path?

I can feel great about feeling that I have gone from that self experiencing, what I have come to term, negative emotions. People are no longer attacking me. People are treating me nice. I have come to expect only good to happen to me in this mind that I reside in. I reside happy in the fact that I can view “bad” things as “it is what it is” and not take them personally. I feel at peace with whatever seems to be happening around me and I have come to expect everything that seems to happen to me to be good. I am fortunate to have reached a “point” where I can hear, feel, experience a guiding force leading me “home.” I’ve worked hard to train my mind to see and feel and hear this guiding presence. Has anything changed?

At one time I was a body standing on the ground. I had a limited view of things so I changed the physical location of that body to a mountain top. The change in perception, the view, always left me breathless What a change! It was so wondrous that I have difficulty finding the superlatives to explain it. All I did was change my perspective of a world that seemed limited and seemingly expanded it. Did what I was looking at really change? Now I can do that by simply changing my mind about how I see things. I can expand my perspective at a level of mind to see a wonder that I could not see before. Has anything changed? Am I making progress? Is progress possible?

“Cause I’m a wanderer. Yeah a wanderer, I roam around, around, around………………………..

—Dion

Lesson 324:

[Father, You are the One Who gave the plan for my salvation to me. You have set the way I am to go, the role to take, and every step in my appointed path. I cannot lose the way. I can but choose to wander off a while, and then return. Your loving Voice will always call me back, and guide my feet aright. My brothers all can follow in the way I lead them. Yet I merely follow in the way to You, as You direct me and would have me go.]

“So let us follow One Who knows the way. We need not tarry, and we cannot stray except an instant from His loving Hand. We walk together, for we follow Him. And it is He Who makes the ending sure, and guarantees a safe returning home.”

Truth is love is One. Can it be otherwise?

November 20, 2008 All things I think I see reflect ideas.

Lesson 325:

[This is salvation's keynote: What I see reflects a process in my mind, which starts with my idea of what I want. From there, the mind makes up an image of the thing the mind desires, judges valuable, and therefore seeks to find. These images are then projected outward, looked upon, esteemed as real and guarded as one's own. 4 From insane wishes comes an insane world. From judgment comes a world condemned. And from forgiving thoughts a gentle world comes forth, with mercy for the holy Son of God, to offer him a kindly home where he can rest a while before he journeys on, and help his brothers walk ahead with him, and find the way to Heaven and to God.]

[Our Father, Your ideas reflect the truth, and mine apart from Yours but make up dreams. 2 Let me behold what only Yours reflect, for Yours and Yours alone establish truth.]

I think therefore I see. Think differently, see differently. Think not, see not.

I just went on and on in an e-mail about potential. Is there a potential? We feel the need to change something or do something differently to achieve what we believe to be better than what we perceive it to be, now.

I’ll just sit on that for a bit.

Potential:

-Possible as opposed to actual..

-Capable of being or becoming.

-A latent excellence or ability that may or may not be developed.

That is an idea. How is it reflected?

November 21, 2008 I am forever an Effect of God.

I made a huge error yesterday. I edited it below. I’m thinking that maybe I should edit before posting but that would imply that I understood then what I understand now. The thought of potential cannot be in the present (now).

{I just went on and on in an e-mail about potential. Is there a potential? We feel the need to change something or do something differently to achieve what we believe to be better than what we perceive(d) it to be, now (before).}

I sat with that thought yesterday and it amazed me at how just the thought drags me into a thought of a future driven by a thought made up of the past. Just the thought of potential creates a time line of incremental change toward some goal. Going forward? Can I create a future of no limitation from a past perception of limitation? Can I expect a change to occur carrying that thought? That one thought that I can do something to realize a potential that just is, is………….?

Nothing doing.

How long is forever?

November 21, 2008 Hokey Pokey?

[And all Your attributes abide in me, because it is Your Will to have a Son so like his Cause that Cause and Its Effect are indistinguishable.] = Truth = One = Love.

So I Google, “Things that make me go, Hmm. Because that’s what I do lately. No wows, no whews, no ahhas, no whammos, just Hmms. I find a site with 50 of them. The best one?

“What if the Hokey Pokey Is what it’s all about?”

That produced a WAMMO! No wonder it feels like hell!

A little while later I heard my mother talking. I asked, “What was that?” She said, “I am just thinking out loud.” Immediately I think, “Wow, she thinks out loud and gets words mumbling out of her mouth. I think out loud and I get a whole universe! A whole universe of forms each doing their own version of the Hokey Pokey over and over thinking that if I can get all of the forms to dance in unison it would be better.”

I bet you would love me to stop doing that? Or this? Hmmm.

November 22, 2008 I need but call and You will answer me.

I guess that some may get a voice. I get the Hokey Pokey! That is the last place that I would have looked had I looked and I don’t recall asking for it. I’ve written before that it is everywhere and it isn’t a matter of calling for it. It is just a matter of opening up to it. If you think you know how the answer will come you will be looking for it and you won’t get it so stop trying. How it is for me is not how it is or will be for you. If you expect it to be the same for you as it is for me you won’t see it. That whole Hokey Pokey analogy says it All for me but you may see nothing in it. Which is why I can’t give it to you. You can only get it for yourself. Who am I talking to? Me, of course! There is really nothing that I can tell you but by trying I can understand.

“And I would give anything I own

Give up my life, my heart, my home

And I would give anything I own

Just to have you back again.”

–Ken Boothe?

I can see reference in that but it doesn’t do it for me. It may do it for you. I hear that and I say, “Oh please. Give me a break already.” Yet I can view the whole universe being one big Hokey Pokey and say, “Yes, that is exactly how it is.” You may like to see warm and feel good. I see absurd better. All I can do is relate what I see but it may not make any sense to you.

I heard something yesterday or maybe I read it, “Is that how you feel or is that how you think you should feel?” How would that be any different? Then I recall thinking that understanding should come with some sensation. I’d walk around expecting a rush or something like that to accompany insight. Now I think, “Why would it and wouldn’t the expectation of something block it?” We think we know. Stop knowing.

Lesson 327:

“I am not asked to take salvation on the basis of an unsupported faith. For God has promised He will hear my call, and answer me Himself. Let me but learn from my experience that this is true, and faith in Him must surely come to me. This is the faith that will endure, and take me farther and still farther on the road that leads to Him. For thus I will be sure that He has not abandoned me and loves me still, awaiting but my call to give me all the help I need to come to Him.”

[Father, I thank You that Your promises will never fail in my experience, if I but test them out. Let me attempt therefore to try them, and to judge them not. Your Word is one with You. You give the means whereby conviction comes, and surety of Your abiding Love is gained at last.]

November 23, 2008 I choose the second place to gain the first.

I just read an e-mail and I am wondering how something can be too funny?

“Somebody help me

Somebody help me now

Somebody help me now

I`m looking for a love

I`m looking for a love

I`m looking here and there

I`m searching everywhere

I`m looking for a love

To call my own”

—J. Geils Band

That just about sums up the importance of today’s lesson. Looking for help to find many to satiate the innate need to be one and actually expecting to find it. Can you see how this approach will never bring us to that apparent goal? Put your left foot in and put your left foot out then turn it all about over and over.

Lesson 328:

What seems to be the second place is first, for all things we perceive are upside down until we listen to the Voice for God. It seems that we will gain autonomy but by our striving to be separate, and that our independence from the rest of God’s creation is the way in which salvation is obtained. Yet all we find is sickness, suffering and loss and death. This is not what our Father wills for us, nor is there any second to His Will. To join with His is but to find our own. And since our will is His, it is to Him that we must go to recognize our will.

[There is no will but Yours. And I am glad that nothing I imagine contradicts what You would have me be. It is Your Will that I be wholly safe, eternally at peace. And happily I share that Will which You, my Father, gave as part of me.]

Or I can just simply look differently. Truth = One = Love.

November 24, 2008 I have already chosen what You will.

“Viewer discretion is advised.” I don’t get it? I have to be warned that I could flip out over something that is obviously not real? I don’t get it? Maybe a sign should be posted in the maternity room?

Last night I either slept or I didn’t. I don’t know which? It could have been that I dreamt that I didn’t sleep. Actually I was doing a lesson all night. I didn’t know, distinctly, which one I was just was caught up in the whole choice/decision thing all night and was it really all night? I can’t choose to be One. I can’t choose what is. I can’t choose truth. If I believe I am choosing truth over (is there anything else?) then I can’t be right. Right? Is choosing the (anything else that isn’t) really a choice? If there is nothing to choose how can I be choosing it?

Then I get up this morning, I read the lesson and I think, “Is there any wonder?” There can’t be any wonder either? Does the lesson seem different or am I different? How can I be different? There is no choice, really. I am what I am and nothing else can I be in truth. And there is that (I) thing again. “Already?” How can I have chosen already?

Lesson 329:

[Father, I thought I wandered from Your Will, defied it, broke its laws, and interposed a second will more powerful than Yours. Yet what I am in truth is but Your Will, extended and extending. This am I, and this will never change. As You are One, so am I one with You. And this I chose in my creation, where my will became forever one with Yours. That choice was made for all eternity. It cannot change, and be in opposition to itself. Father, my will is Yours. And I am safe, untroubled and serene, in endless joy, because it is Your Will that it be so.]

Today we will accept our union with each other and our Source. We have no will apart from His, and all of us are one because His Will is shared by all of us. Through it we recognize that we are one. Through it we find our way at last to God.

If it is merely an acceptance then there can be no choice and nothing can be different. Right?

November 25, 2008 I will not hurt myself again today.

I practiced the lesson this morning as I laid on a hospital bed observing this body succumb to anesthesia. I bet you expect me to talk about some wonderful experience doing this? Nah. I just never have done that before.

On Sunday I watched a fight erupt between two players on the field during a football game. I listened to a sports talk show on Monday. One of the players said publically that he had overreacted. He, most likely, will receive a suspension for the incident thereby possibly costing his team a win. The consensus of the talk show participants was that if someone “trash talks” either yourself or your family you just have to smack him around. It’s a matter of principal. I don’t get it?

LESSON 330:

Let us this day accept forgiveness as our only function. Why should we attack our minds, and give them images of pain? Why should we teach them they are powerless, when God holds out His power and His Love, and bids them take what is already theirs? The mind that is made willing to accept God’s gifts has been restored to spirit, and extends its freedom and its joy, as is the Will of God united with its own. The Self which God created cannot sin, and therefore cannot suffer. Let us choose today that He be our Identity, and thus escape forever from all things the dream of fear appears to offer us.

[Father, Your Son can not be hurt. And if we think we suffer, we but fail to know our one Identity we share with You. We would return to It today, to be made free forever from all our mistakes, and to be saved from what we thought we were.]

“If we think we suffer, we but fail to know our one identity we share with You.”

“Let us choose today that He (the one Self) be our Identity, and thus escape forever from all things the dream of fear appears to offer us.”

Separation can only seem to exist if I choose it to.

Truth = One = Love.

November 26, 2008 There is no conflict, for my will is Yours.

Conflict:

-a mental struggle arising from opposing demands or impulses.

-discord of action, feeling, or effect; antagonism or opposition, as of interests or principles: a conflict of ideas.

It is clear in the metaphysics of “A Course in Miracles” that this is the phenomenon. A struggle at the level of mind is projected outward as a conflict of forms. Look around at what you see and there is conflict everywhere. It doesn’t matter whether it is an all out war or an agreement to disagree. A conflict is a conflict is a conflict. There are no degrees. If you were able to “shut off the projector” the conflict would still exist at the level of mind. As long as the conflict continues at the level of mind you can’t “shut off the projector.” I can manipulate what is being projected but the conflict will still exist at the level of mind. Now, I type this paragraph knowing that there are no levels and that the idea of a separate mind is as illusory as the idea of physical form. Then why do I type it? Because I would not be able to type anything else. So let’s try to move on.

This lesson comes at an opportune time. Yesterday I was intrigued with the conflict of ideas that permeate individuals regarding the course. I don’t know why I was so intrigued because I know that it all will be conflict no matter what I try to see. As it is with everything else, everyone has their own ideas of the concepts that they practice and learn. Is that wrong? How can it be?

I typed a comment, “There is only one truth. If I am right and you are wrong then it follows that I must be wrong.” I’ve typed that many times. The response that I got was, “There is no wrong.” That’s right. The point that I try to make with that statement is if I feel I must try to show you my “opinion” that is a conflict. As a matter of fact this paragraph is a conflict. I can preface it by saying that this blog is only for me to work through my shit but it is still a conflict. If there is a perceived conflict in me it is in everything because there is no separate mind to conflict. There has to be a conflict. The whole idea of any perception of separation at any conceivable level has to include conflict.

The whole concept of forgiveness is to accept the fact that you see conflict due to conflict do to conflict. There is nothing wrong with seeing conflict. In understanding the effect you can correct the cause by realizing the cause itself is transparent. I think. Chuckle. Understand that you only see conflict because there is conflict in the mind that you think that you are.

There is conflict in the mind that I think I am only because I’m afraid not to be the mind that I think I am. I cannot realize the Self if I am afraid of not being the self. There appears to be multiple self but there is only one Self.

But this is my shit. Go work on your own shit. Shit is shit. I can’t help you. We can only succeed by realizing that all of the shit is exactly the same. No shit!

Lesson 331:

[How foolish, Father, to believe Your Son could cause himself to suffer! Could he make a plan for his damnation, and be left without a certain way to his release? You love me, Father. You could never leave me desolate, to die within a world of pain and cruelty. How could I think that Love has left Itself? There is no will except the Will of Love. Fear is a dream, and has no will that can conflict with Yours. Conflict is sleep, and peace awakening. Death is illusion; life, eternal truth. There is no opposition to Your Will. There is no conflict, for my will is Yours.]

“Forgiveness shows us that God’s Will is One, and that we share it. Let us look upon the holy sights forgiveness shows today, that we may find the peace of God. Amen.”

Truth = Love = Peace = One.

November 27, 2008 Fear binds the world. Forgiveness sets it free.

What am I thankful for? That’s a tough one! My answer can be binding or not. Fear does not always appear as we expect it to. That perception thing.

I heard a song yesterday and noticed the chorus playing over and over throughout the day except that the words had changed to, “The conflict I see is merely the conflict in me.” All day! No kidding. Then I noticed late last night that the words had become, “The comfort I see is merely the comfort in me.” I hadn’t noticed the change. Don’t try to figure it out. That’s part of the problem that doesn’t exist.

I was out and about last night meeting friends and influencing people. It’s funny how that sentence just came out that way! I was talking to a lot of people and had the thought that I wasn’t merely conversing but I felt as though I was engaged in conversation. That word (engaged) did float into my thoughts as I spoke giving me the impression that my conversations were more manipulative then just small talk. I’m not one who talks just for the sake of talking. I normally listen way more then I talk. When people ask me why I don’t speak more I tell them it is because I learn nothing when I am speaking.

See, I can’t just go out and have a good time. There has to be a lesson in everything. You think it’s easy being me? Way too easy, I think. So I spent the night wondering how much of what I say is meant to influence the world I see? Interesting isn’t it? That thought turned into a feeling of power. I can talk about how simple it is to influence the world that I see but it is way different to actually feel it. It was sometime within this thought process that the word conflict changed to comfort. I had found comfort in the idea of conflict. Or more precisely I had found comfort in knowing that I could manipulate the conflict to my advantage. I realized how deceptive this whole thing can be. The conflict doesn’t go away it just becomes more acceptable.

I know that the whole idea of conflict is really a manifestation of fear. So the fear just becomes more comfortable to live with the more I feel I have control over it. It is really easy to get the feeling that the fear is going away and that I am accomplishing something here. Can it become more binding? It does seem that way doesn’t it? But it is really the same as being uncomfortable with the fear or with the conflict. There are no degrees, after all. Right?

So the question becomes, “Is it possible for me to escape from fear?” Never if I think that I can do it by controlling or manipulating the conflict within me. Remember that the world that I see is really the manifestation of the conflict in me. Isn’t this stuff deceptively beautiful?

Forgiveness is the understanding that there is nothing to control. There is nothing to change and any attempt to manipulate that nothing thinking that it can be changed leaves me trapped.

So, on this holiday, “What do I have to be thankful for?”

Truth = Love = Peace = One

Happy Thanksgiving!

November 28, 2008 Forgiveness ends the dream of conflict here.

I left the house yesterday and as usual my dog was disappointed that he couldn’t come with me. I had forgotten something and went back for it. My dog was standing in the middle of the living room just standing there with his tail between his legs, staring. I thought, “Separation Anxiety.” Hmm?

I heard a great quote yesterday, “All victims are equal. None are more equal than others.” I thought how fitting that was. We are all victims and we are all equal. We are all victims but we sometimes fail to realize that we are only victims of our own thoughts. Thinking that we are all equal compounds this. Equal suggests the same as. Equality sounds pretty but it still infers that there are two or many things that are the same. Does that only serve to intensify the separation anxiety that is present in us?

Then I read an article about the search for extraterrestrial life. It was titled, “We are not alone.” It cracked me up. Is that separation anxiety or what? Is this a great example of how we try to lessen that separation anxiety by looking without? In this case, way out there. What do we expect to find?

So all of our efforts to reduce the feeling of separation anxiety only exacerbate it. I wonder where all of the sense of conflict comes from? Chuckle!

I Googled “conflict resolution.” Wow. There is all kinds of stuff. We have turned this into a science. There are studies and studies of studies of studies in how to resolve conflict. They have even done studies of how to resolve conflicts in animals. Negotiation, mediation, arbitration, dispute resolution, alternative dispute resolution. Conflict management is a great one. Isn’t it funny how our “intellect” turns the simple into a complex maze. The design can only lead to more feelings of conflict. I wonder how finding the existence of extraterrestrial life will help us?

I just edited that last paragraph because I noticed that I used the plural of conflict. There is only one. I know it is not real but humor me here!

I visited some friends who have a dog. The dog was on my lap for the whole visit begging for my attention. It was a nice dog so I gave it attention. When I got home my dog ran to me, obviously smelled the dog on me, then he ran under the table and laid down. He stared at me from a distance for the rest of the night. I called to him but he wouldn’t come. I thought of how funny it was that we think of ourselves as somehow better then animals. Really? We don’t even try to use that equal thing here, do we?

Another quote I heard, “The only way to make things matter is to live as long and as well as you possible can.” It sounds backwards to me.

Lesson 333:

“Conflict must be resolved. It cannot be evaded, set aside, denied, disguised, seen somewhere else, called by another name, or hidden by deceit of any kind, if it would be escaped. It must be seen exactly as it is, where it is thought to be, in the reality which has been given it, and with the purpose that the mind accorded it. For only then are its defenses lifted, and the truth can shine upon it as it disappears.”

[Father, forgiveness is the light You chose to shine away all conflict and all doubt, and light the way for our return to You. No light but this can end our evil dream. No light but this can save the world. For this alone will never fail in anything, being Your gift to Your beloved Son.]

This lesson is really cool, “It must be seen exactly as it is, where it is thought to be, in the reality which has been given it, and with the purpose that the mind accorded it.” The resolution is not in finding a way around it but seeing it for what it really is, nothing.

The end of separation anxiety comes only in the understanding of one. What conflict?

Truth = Love = Peace = One.

November 29, 2008 Today I claim the gifts forgiveness gives.

It’s funny that when I think of a gift I immediately think of something tangible. I can’t help it even though I know better. That’s called conditioning and it really shows the limitations that we place on communication. If you really have been practicing the course you know that the world, whether in form or in thought, has been carefully constructed to keep us from seeing the truth. The limitations on communication are an intentional barrier to keep us in the dark. Forgiveness gives the gift of not needing anything or any gifts. It merely develops the innate ability to see beyond the barrier to the truth. (Develop is not the right word but it is all that I have at this moment.)

My mother was riddling me with questions. My answers were short and quick with little content because what do I really know anyway? So many little things seem to matter to her. I don’t share that with her. I share something else that words can’t explain. (Share is not right either. It brings to mind that separation anxiety thing again.) Then I remember my comment that I listen because I don’t learn anything when I speak. Am I being selfish by not giving words and food for thought? Am I only taking and not giving in return? See how trapping the world can be? Conditioning makes me want to feel that way but I know that I have nothing worth while to give her in the context of what she thinks she is looking for. Is it me? Of course! How could it not be?

I used the term, “God knows where I will end up” yesterday in a comment because it can mean so many different things. How many can you think of? Homework? By simply fluctuating my voice, I can make it mean different things. I can’t fluctuate the tone of words here. If you are reading this it means what it means to you. Low and behold I was with friends last night and the “God” word came up. I’m tempted to say that that never happens but it did so never doesn’t work here. Very rarely? Well, the word is used a lot as I used it in that quote above but it very rarely is brought up as a concept. Did it produce a long involved conversation? No, people tend to cover up their concept of that word? What was discussed during the short time that this word was “alive” in the conversation? That is completely irrelevant. I noticed that the “comfort” level of the conversation changed. I was amazed at how the separation between us seemed to increase by this word or concept and I gave it a HMM! The conversation quickly changed to more “small talk.” Whew! Thank God! Chuckle.

By me, for me? How could it not have been? “Illusions are all vain.” It’s normal to read that as “in vain.” Big difference? You bet!

The thought of gifts comes up the day after Black Friday. I just read of a guy that was trampled to death by 2,000 crazed shoppers. 2,000 crazed shoppers all intent on giving gifts. The bigger the better. Right?

I worked in retail for many years and, yes, I capitalized on this need to give but I never understood why people felt the need to give presents. It seemed to me like an unquenchable thirst. It is indeed unquenchable when we refuse to see what it is that we really have to give. We keep trying and failing but never the less we try again and again and again.

Lesson 334:

“I will not wait another day to find the treasures that my Father offers me. Illusions are all vain, and dreams are gone even while they are woven out of thoughts that rest on false perceptions. Let me not accept such meager gifts again today. God’s Voice is offering the peace of God to all who hear and choose to follow Him. This is my choice today. And so I go to find the treasures God has given me.”

[I seek but the eternal. For Your Son can be content with nothing less than this. What, then, can be his solace but what You are offering to his bewildered mind and frightened heart, to give him certainty and bring him peace? Today I would behold my brother sinless. This Your Will for me, for so will I behold my sinlessness.]

Truth = Love = Peace = One. Can you wrap that for me? How about a bow?

November 30, 2008 I choose to see my brother’s sinlessness.

“The road is long

With many a winding turn

That leads us to who knows where

Who knows when

But I’m strong

Strong enough to carry him

He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother.”

–The Hollies

Lesson 335:

“Forgiveness is a choice. I never see my brother as he is, for that is far beyond perception. What I see in him is merely what I wish to see, because it stands for what I want to be the truth. It is to this alone that I respond, however much I seem to be impelled by outside happenings. I choose to see what I would look upon, and this I see, and only this. My brother’s sinlessness shows me that I would look upon my own. And I will see it, having chosen to behold my brother in its holy light.”

[What could restore Your memory to me, except to see my brother's sinlessness? His holiness reminds me that he was created one with me, and like myself. In him I find my Self, and in Your Son I find the memory of You as well.]

This promises to be a great day. Why? Because I feel a sense of confusion. I’m wondering how I project confusion? Does it rain? I’m laughing. Confusion is a good thing. If I think that I know, how can I possibly learn? This blog is meant to identify that confusion for me. So that is a good thing, right? I must always be confused otherwise why would I be posting? Why do I notice it today?

I made mention of traveling in a raft with no paddles in a comment the other day. I feel as though I have my hands in the water trying to direct my travel. Confusion?

I read the lesson and that song immediately leapt into my imagination. He can present any amount of burden that I want. But it is beyond that. He does and I am always wanting of something because my brother is always representing something to me that I must want otherwise he wouldn’t be. Can I really change what I am wanting? That’s the paddling part. Or can I just accept the want for what it is without attempting to change it? Not Paddling. By saying, “He ain’t heavy” I am acknowledging that he is indeed heavy but I am not accepting that feeling of heaviness. Is that denial?

In addition, two words are floating about beside the raft. Inclusive and exclusive. Big (S) Self is inclusive. Little (s) self is exclusive. Big (Y) Your Son is inclusive. Little (y) your son is the me I think I am and is exclusive. But, here is the level confusion, Big (Y) Your Son can also be exclusive. Big (Y) You and small (y) you suggests something else so it has to be exclusive. Exclusive cannot be. Hence the confusion.

This is going to be a great day!

Quote of the day:

“Being a teacher is not in having all the answers but watching others find them for themselves.”

Or is that watching myself find the answers in others?

You know the day destroys the night

Night divides the day

Tried to run

Tried to hide

Break on through to the other side

Break on through to the other side

Break on through to the other side

Chased our pleasure here

Dug our treasure there

Still recall

Time we cried

Break on through to the other side

Break on through to the other side

Break on through, yeah!

–The Doors

Beats me!

December 1, 2008 Forgiveness lets me know that minds are joined.

Truth cannot be interpreted.

Truth can only be seen or understood.

I’m in my raft and I guess that you could say that I’m:

“Up the creek without a paddle.”

-In a difficult situation with no means of rectifying it.

—Wiktionary

So I sit here continually trying to interpret truth using words that can never even come close. Why do I do this?

The first thing that I do when I realize that I am “Up the creek without a paddle,” is panic. Then I realize that there is nothing that I can do. Is this surrender? No, because I keep noticing my hands go into the water trying to control things even though I realize the futility of doing this. I pull them out and try to surrender but they keep going back into the water. I can’t help it!

Truth cannot be interpreted. But I keep trying to explain it by explaining what it is not. Can you reach an understanding of truth by eliminating what it can’t be? What truth can’t be is an infinite array of mazes all leading no where. Sigh.

Lesson 336:

“Forgiveness is the means appointed for perception’s ending. Knowledge is restored after perception first is changed, and then gives way entirely to what remains forever past its highest reach. For sights and sounds, at best, can serve but to recall the memory that lies beyond them all. Forgiveness sweeps away distortions, and opens the hidden altar to the truth. Its lilies shine into the mind, and call it to return and look within, to find what it has vainly sought without. For here, and only here, is peace of mind restored, for this the dwelling place of God Himself.”

[In quiet may forgiveness wipe away my dreams of separation and of sin. Then let me, Father, look within, and find Your promise of my sinlessness is kept; Your Word remains unchanged within my mind, Your Love is still abiding in my heart.]

Then there is the fear factor. Suppose I keep stumbling along and just by chance I hit on that one sentence that triggers the end of the dream of separation. I hit keys randomly and finally find the delete key. Then there won’t be a me to say, I told you so!” That is scary, isn’t it?

Do I keep paddling with my hands in futility because I am afraid of what will happen if I stop? You bet!

Now I will spend the days trying to find out what lilies have to do with all of this?

December 2, 2008 My sinlessness protects me from all harm.

Quote of the day: (Wherever I get them they are not mine.)

“Inspiration is the momentary cessation of stupidity.”

C.in.1.1 “This is not a course in philosophical speculation, nor is it concerned with precise terminology. It is concerned only with Atonement, or the correction of perception. The means of the Atonement is forgiveness.”

T-2.ll.4.5 “It was only after the separation that the Atonement and the conditions necessary for its fulfillment were planned.”

T-20.Vll.4.1 “It [is] impossible to see your brother as sinless and yet to look upon him as a body.”

T-20.Vlll.1.1 “Vision will come to you at first in glimpses, but they will be enough to show you what is given you who see your brother sinless.”

Lesson 36: “Today’s idea extends the idea for yesterday from the perceiver to the perceived. You are holy because your mind is part of God’s. And because you are holy, your sight must be holy as well. “Sinless” means without sin. You cannot be without sin a little. You are sinless or not. If your mind is part of God’s you must be sinless, or a part of His Mind would be sinful. Your sight is related to His Holiness, not to your ego, and therefore not to your body.”

Lesson 337:

“My sinlessness ensures me perfect peace, eternal safety, everlasting love, freedom forever from all thought of loss; complete deliverance from suffering. And only happiness can be my state, for only happiness is given me. What must I do to know all this is mine? I must accept Atonement for myself, and nothing more. God has already done all things that need be done. And I must learn I need do nothing of myself, for I need but accept my Self, my sinlessness, created for me, now already mine, to feel God’s Love protecting me from harm, to understand my Father loves His Son; to know I am the Son my Father loves.”

[You Who created me in sinlessness are not mistaken about what I am. I was mistaken when I thought I sinned, but I accept Atonement for myself. Father, my dream is ended now. Amen.]

“And I must learn I need do nothing of myself, for I need but accept my Self,”

Big (S) inclusive.

Is protection necessary? What is harm if there is nothing harmful?

December 3, 2008 I am affected only by my thoughts.

Quote of the day:

“In every opportunity, I endeavor to be the best possible version of myself.”

I wonder what version I am? Is it like software? Like version 36,220,156.5? Am I working out all of the bugs? My thoughts are always changing so how can I be sure that one version is better than another. A change of perception can and does work both ways.

I was looking at my dog wondering, “Can he change his mind?” Or is it, “Does he ever change his mind?” Can he see opportunity? He has no need to. He just does what he does. Everything he does is what he should be doing at that moment. He doesn’t question it. He doesn’t wonder if he could have done it better. He doesn’t wonder if his life could be better.

I noticed that I feel enveloped in a shroud of melancholy. How’s that for poetic? I would call it a sadness but that suggests pain. Have you ever left a job for what you believed, at the time, would be a better job, leaving behind friends and responsibilities? There is a certain sadness that goes along with that as that movement of thought mingles with the happiness to be moving on to better things. Something like that?

As I sat with that feeling the term, “evaporation of necessity,” came to mind. We seem to feel, because we have come to believe that there is a certain necessity to feeling a certain way facing a given situation. It is like anger. We become angry because we feel that in a certain situation, anger is warranted. I don’t. Someone will ask, “Doesn’t that piss you off?” because we have been conditioned to believe that it should. I can’t understand why it should. I don’t get it. When I see someone get angry, I really can’t understand why, anymore. The necessity to be angry didn’t just go away in an instant. My perception is that the necessity just gradually diminished, hence the evaporation process.

It has become that way with many things, for me. I just don’t get why anymore. I am just thought. As the necessity of having those thoughts evaporate, any version of myself becomes irrelevant. It is the evaporation of the necessity to be myself. (Notice the small (s) self.) There is a certain melancholy in that apparent movement. It is as if I am leaving something behind, not for loss, but for gain. I feel as though I am leaving behind an old friend, gradually. I understand that there really is no movement. There can be no change but my perception suggests that there is as much as my perception suggests that I am moving about in a world.

Then I was listening to a song filled with harmony and the thought, “harmonic balance” drifted by. Is there a greater sense of harmony available to me? If it wasn’t for that melancholy I would never question. I just don’t get it, nor should I.

Lesson 338:

“It needs but this to let salvation come to all the world. For in this single thought is everyone released at last from fear. Now has he learned that no one frightens him, and nothing can endanger him. He has no enemies, and he is safe from all external things. His thoughts can frighten him, but since these thoughts belong to him alone, he has the power to change them and exchange each fear thought for a happy thought of love. He crucified himself. Yet God has planned that His beloved Son will be redeemed.”

[Your plan is sure, my Father,–only Yours. All other plans will fail. And I will have thoughts that will frighten me, until I learn that You have given me the only Thought that leads me to salvation. Mine alone will fail, and lead me nowhere. But the Thought You gave me promises to lead me home, because it holds Your promise to Your Son.]

December 4, 2008 I will receive whatever I request.

“I have THE worst luck!” “Why doesn’t anything ever work out right for me?” “I know that I will screw this up!” “I really want this but I know that they won’t like me.” “I try really hard but I can never seem to succeeded.” “I am no good at math.” “I just can’t seem to find someone to have a relationship with.” “If I try that I know I will get hurt or worse.” “Why is everybody always picking on me?” “Damn right I got the blues!” “I just can’t seem to get ahead.” “I’ve never been any good at handling money.” “That really pisses me off!” “You know I hate that. Why do you keep doing it?” “I would like to quit but I can’t.” “I use to love my job. Then something changed.” “I just can’t take it anymore.” “This is so hard I don’t think that I will ever get it.” “Why me?” “Today is going to really suck!” “Why does it always rain when I have something to do?” “I really loved her but she turned into such a bitch.” “I think that my boss hates me.” “He really screwed me over.” “I would have finished it if it wasn’t for all of the problems that came up.” “I am not that good at dealing with people.” “My life is so difficult I just want to sit down and cry.” “She said that she would call but I knew she wouldn’t.” “Everything seems to be breaking.” “Just when it seems that I am getting my head a little above water something goes wrong.” “I need a drink!” “I don’t have the time.” “I swear that I didn’t mean to do that.” “My life has always been really difficult.” “This is going to be the toughest thing I have ever done!” “Why shouldn’t I feel this way?” “My life sucks.” “This course is really tough, I can’t get it.” “I seem to be blessed. I get anything I want!” (Same thing?)

“I will receive whatever I request.”

“Everything is exactly as I expect it to be.” That is easy to believe when things appear to be good. When things appear to be bad, why would it be any different?

“Appearances are deceiving.” “Forgive me father. I know not what I do.” “Can someone please help me!” You bet!

Lesson 339:

“No one desires pain. But he can think that pain is pleasure. No one would avoid his happiness. But he can think that joy is painful, threatening and dangerous. Everyone will receive what he requests. But he can be confused indeed about the things he wants; the state he would attain. What can he then request that he would want when he receives it? He has asked for what will frighten him, and bring him suffering. Let us resolve today to ask for what we really want, and only this, that we may spend this day in fearlessness, without confusing pain with joy, or fear with love.”

[Father, this is Your day. It is a day in which I would do nothing by myself, but hear Your Voice in everything I do; requesting only what You offer me, accepting only Thoughts You share with me.]

December 5, 2008 I can be free of suffering today.

Quote of the day: “You can only wake up once from a dream.” That is a cute little snippet that I picked up somewhere. Like a tick. I don’t realize I have it until I find it.

I had many quotes yesterday. I have picked up a lot over the years and, I guess, I have used a lot of them. Each one suggests a lack of control. When I hear one said my immediate reaction is to think, “Is there any wonder?” That implies that I see a perception of a lack of control. It also implies that I believe that all I or you have to do is to think different and the situation will be reversed but that perception is also skewed. Change what? Comes to mind immediately. But that merely is a denial. You see it and you react to it and once you realize that you actually do have control you can change what you are experiencing. Does changing the way I react make it any different? All I have to do is to see it differently and everything will be “hunky dory.”

I read the lesson today and thought, “Suffering?” Then I thought, “Suffering is an involuntary reflex.” Then I immediately think, “Well it is not involuntary because I know that I can change the reflex.” Then I think, “Does changing the reflex make it any less involuntary?” Does changing the reflex make it any different? Of course not. Any reflex that seems to be caused by an event that we see is suffering. All appearances aside.

I got some news about someone yesterday. The news can be termed distressing. How did I react? What was my reflex? There wasn’t one. I said the words but there wasn’t an emotional reflex. I then forgot the news. There wasn’t a period of contemplation where I attempted to come to terms with the news and think, “It is what it is.” There was nothing. I didn’t even realize that there was no reaction at the time. This is all past tense. This is what is happening to me now. Is that acceptance? Now I am thinking that is was more of a “cold” acceptance. It’s funny how I feel the need to add “cold” to that. Do I lack empathy?

I remembered the news this morning and I told my mother. There was immediate suffering. Suffering for. We are very adept at suffering for others. Have you watched the news lately? I watched as she attempted to come to terms with the news. She is still suffering for. “I knew something must be wrong.” She is questioning. Questions that have no answers.

The fact that I am relating this event is suffering. Only my reactions or reflexes have changed. I am suffering because I didn’t suffer in the way that I have been conditioned to suffer when presented with news of this kind. Why else would I be writing about it? A delayed reaction? Guilt? You bet. A different level of suffering? I’m laughing uncontrollably at that thought. Suffering at a higher level of consciousness? That cracks me up!

Is it possible to be free of suffering as long as there is a reflex to some event that appears to be happening regardless of its appearance? I think not.

The thought, “That doesn’t bother me,” is denial.

Lesson 340:

“Father, I thank You for today, and for the freedom I am certain it will bring. This day is holy, for today Your Son will be redeemed. His suffering is done. For he will hear Your Voice directing him to find Christ’s vision through forgiveness, and be free forever from all suffering. Thanks for today, my Father. I was born into this world but to achieve this day, and what it holds in joy and freedom for Your holy Son and for the world he made, which is released along with him today.]

Be glad today! Be glad! There is no room for anything but joy and thanks today. Our Father has redeemed His Son this day. Not one of us but will be saved today. Not one who will remain in fear, and none the Father will not gather to Himself, awake in Heaven in the Heart of Love.”

December 6, 2008 I can attack but my own sinlessness, And it is only that which keeps me safe.

Word tells me that sinlessness is not a word. That’s understandable because why would you need a word to describe the absence of sin since there wouldn’t there wouldn’t be the thing (sin) to begin with.

Lisa, gorgeous for God, asked a simple question. “Are you free from suffering?” I thought, “As long as I react to anything that is a manifestation of a belief in separation then I must be suffering whether I notice it or not. The noticing is not an end in itself but it is the miracle which leads to understanding, eventually.” It makes no sense to me. I’ve got to get over this time thing.

Yesterday I did something that I haven’t done in a while. I took control. Or more precisely, I attempted to take control. I can seize the reins when the chips seem down and manipulate an outcome that I deem to be satisfactory. Am I really doing anything? The feeling that I could was evident. The power that I felt was also evident. When someone has to make a stand and take control of a chaotic situation, that has always been me. I hesitate to say that because I hesitate to define me. But it was there, alive and well, so there you go. It is not in the doing it is in the feeling that I am actually doing something meaningful. The rush of excitement was evident. “I can make this right!” Then the thought, “You’ve got to be shitting me! Stop paddling!” I must admit that it felt good. If I didn’t know better I would tell you that I wasn’t suffering at all.

Lesson 341:

[Father, Your Son is holy. I am he on whom You smile in love and tenderness so dear and deep and still the universe smiles back on You, and shares Your Holiness. How pure, how safe, how holy, then, are we, abiding in Your Smile, with all Your Love bestowed upon us, living one with You, in brotherhood and Fatherhood complete; in sinlessness so perfect that the Lord of Sinlessness conceives us as His Son, a universe of Thought completing Him.]

“Let us not, then, attack our sinlessness, for it contains the Word of God to us. And in its kind reflection we are saved.”

December 7, 2008 I let forgiveness rest upon all things, For thus forgiveness will be given me.

I received a comment the other day. It was a great comment for two reasons. 1. It was complimentary, “Just some input. This piece is excellent. You have a talent to write concisely and clearly.” I’m thinking, thank you as I bask, in the warmth of that. And 2. It was informative, “On further thought I would add there is a need for clear, concise and Accurate writing about the course. You could do this if you choose. Your writing is Accurate but not understandable.” I’m thinking that that part is more awesome than the first part.

I’m now thinking that this post is going to be thirty pages long!

I have (That is worse than saying “I am”, by the way. That is the thought that perpetuates the “I am.”) always been amazed by perception. I’ve stood in amazement listening to many people recall the same event differently and I’ve stood in frustration trying to explain my own view of that same event. I’ve always wondered, “Why am I different?” “Why do I see differently?”

Almost one year ago, to the day, I took my study and practice of the course to the internet because I had so many questions. I was totally confused. I was looking for a clear, concise and accurate writing of “A Course in Miracles” to help me to understand. I became more confused. I’m talking scary confused. I realize now that it was just the “fear factor” inherent in these studies. I even had a panic attack in the middle of the night. My dog and I ended up laughing about it shortly thereafter.

Lisa, gorgeous for God, suggested that I start a blog. I am forever indebted to her for that suggestion. I started this immediately after she suggested it. If I hadn’t started this I would still be looking for a clear, concise, accurate writing of the Course. You could say that I was beating myself up looking for understanding from something outside of my self but the blog forced me to look within. Kind of cool, right?

I began by depicting myself as a dream like body walking down the street grasping at nothing. If you want to view that as my depiction of life, grasping for nothing, or my experience grasping for an understanding that can’t be understood in the way we have learned to understand, each is correct. We are all just grasping for an understanding whether we realize it as that or not. The end is not in giving up the “I am” but in giving up the thought that I can understand a not “I am.” Then I can understand.

I am not saying that I have stumbled onto a clear, concise, understanding of the principles but I have stumbled on the basis for my confusion and it has to be confusing. I can’t know. I keep depicting, every day, my inability to know. Or is it an inability to explain what I can’t know? All that is merely my perception of whatever it is I am doing. (I don’t think I intentionally write in a chaotic fashion. I sit and write and it comes out that way which only suggests what my perception is of all of this is. Whatever it is? I either “get it’ or I view it as a “work in progress,” for me.)

I also read a lot about other people’s perceptions of the course. I do that, all the while knowing, that I can’t possibly expect to see their point of view. There is a futility in trying to. The fact that I see differences is the cause of separation. If I didn’t see differences we wouldn’t be having this conversation. The confusion escalates when I start believing that I could be right and someone else can be wrong. There is no right or wrong. My understanding can only come from within me. Your understanding can only come from within you. We <think> we see differently. If something I happen to write does it for you then great, but I really can’t do anything for you. If I thought I could I would be wrong.

David Carse writes in “Perfect, Brilliant, Stillness: “Trying to explain What Is, within what is not (which is to say, trying to explain or describe Truth with terms and concepts provided by illusion) is doomed from the start to be particularly fruitless. All there is, is seeing, Understanding, in What Is, in thoughtless, wordless stillness. It is simply impossible to communicate.” I get that and I do that knowing that my “getting” is different than his “getting.” I can’t possibly expect you to or then again you may but I can’t make you. See? You can’t make you get it either. Trying will make it worse. Move on.

Carse goes on explaining a path to awakening: “Once a master has used a ladder to climb to the top of the wall, the ladder is thrown away forever and never used again. Find your own damn ladder. Better yet, know that it will find you; that it already has; that your feet are already on the rungs!”

My father always taught me of the dangers in having two people on the same ladder. I think that wars start that way!

There is a reason why there are 365 lessons in the Course. Each one potentially leads to the same truth. I could say that you need them all or that you need none but how can I possibly know which is right for you if any are. I can put thoughts in your mind but it is up to you to get rid of them. I can’t take them from you.

Understanding that the differences I seem to see are not real is forgiveness.

Lesson 342:

[I thank You, Father, for Your plan to save me from the hell I made. It is not real. And You have given me the means to prove its unreality to me. The key is in my hand, and I have reached the door beyond which lies the end of dreams. I stand before the gate of Heaven, wondering if I should enter in and be at home. Let me not wait again today. Let me forgive all things, and let creation be as You would have it be and as it is. Let me remember that I am Your Son, and opening the door at last, forget illusions in the blazing light of truth, as memory of You returns to me.]

“Brother, forgive me now. I come to you to take you home with me. And as we go, the world goes with us on our way to God.”

Now, see, from my perspective, there can’t possibly be a plan. You may want to see that there is a plan. If so, great! Whatever floats your boat? Just stop paddling.

The end of suffering can not be loss. The gift of everything can be but gain.

Quote of the day: “Everything costs money.” –My mother.

The perception is that everything comes with a price. We even feel we have to sacrifice our time to earn money to pay for everything else. I could make an argument that love is free but the love that we associate with in this prison does indeed carry a price tag. I think of the people I know who feel that they sacrificed freedom for love. We joke about it all the time. If someone asks to help us the reaction is to immediately think of what it will end up costing us. We feel that we can’t get something for nothing. We feel that everything will end up in sacrifice.

Then there are the selfless sacrifices. Think of how many people have sacrificed their lives for their country, their ideals or their God. How many people have sacrificed the feeling of a sense of comfort to help others whom they feel to be underprivileged? Do we admire these people for their acts of kindness or is it merely that we are astonished by their courage to pay the high price that comes with the sacrifice? Many of religion’s clergy are asked to give up or sacrifice a quality of life in order to serve their God.

On this level it is clear that nothing comes without a price of some sort. In some instances we are willing to make the sacrifices, in others we are not. Many times the choice becomes the lesser of two sacrifices.

I am on lesson 343 so by now I am not a body. All of that stuff is an illusion. I am a mind thinking all of that stuff up. I’m tempted to say, “Same thing? You bet!” but I won’t. Oops I just did.

So I am just a mind, suffering. A suffering mind am I. (Maybe I should write a children’s book! Or better yet, no.) Yes and no. I think I am so therefore I am. So all I have to do is to not think I am. Simple? Imagine me sitting at my desk thinking, “Here I sit thinking that the I that is sitting here thinking is really not.” Tough? You bet!

Then there is the suffering part. All of the great masters have said that there is grace in suffering. This implies that the greater the suffering the greater the grace. It is easy to sacrifice suffering. It is easier to sacrifice great suffering. At least that’s the impression and that is what we are doing here, eliminating impression. What if I don’t feel as though I am suffering? The sacrifice appears to get bigger? If I am Donald Trump it is huge!

Ok, my suffering is only a thought in the mind that I think I am. We know that. Right? All I have to do is change the thought to not suffering and I am not suffering anymore. Simple? Way too simple!

It is clear in the metaphysics of the course that suffering is due to a feeling that we are somehow separate from the source of it all. So, as long as I feel separate I am suffering regardless of how I make it appear to be. “I make it appear to be.” If I make it all happy and cheerful then I give it the appearance that I will be sacrificing more in pursuit of that elusive not suffering.

I love this stuff. I love contemplating all of this and I love writing about my contemplating. It is way cool. But it follows that I must be suffering. To not suffer I have to give this all up. Right? Sacrifice? You bet! It sure feels that way. I can’t help but to get that impression. Hmmm.

Lesson 343:

[The end of suffering can not be loss. The gift of everything can be but gain. You only give. You never take away. And You created me to be like You, so sacrifice becomes impossible for me as well as You. I, too, must give. And so all things are given unto me forever and forever. As I was created I remain. Your Son can make no sacrifice, for he must be complete, having the function of completing You. I am complete because I am Your Son. I cannot lose, for I can only give, and everything is mine eternally.]

“The mercy and the peace of God are free. Salvation has no cost. It is a gift that must be freely given and received. And it is this that we would learn today.

“The end of suffering can not be loss. The gift of everything can be but gain.”

As I, I can do nothing. I will always confuse “the gift” with something that I can have or with something that I can be. No one ever said that this was simple. That’s my ladder. Have you found yours yet?

December 9, 2008 Today I learn the law of love; that what I give my brother is my gift to me.

If I strive to be better at being me does that bring me closer or further from realizing that there is no me? Is there really any end to suffering? It is in that last sentence if you can find it.

Quote of the day: “A disease that will rob him of himself.” Regarding Alzheimer’s. I watched for many years as my father was robbed of himself. He just faded slowly away until he was only a shell.

The concept of love has always intrigued me. It baffled me to think that I could meet another individual and feel so close to her. The fleetingness of the union was also a wonder. The need for that closeness has kept me searching, looking for that right individual who would complete me. I could go on and on about the search and loss and evaluate the reasons and symptoms behind it. I could make it as complex as quantum physics but it has already been done by countless others. Or I can make it simple. I have been searching for one (in this case an individual) to give me something which can really only be found in One (in this case All.) My experiences were merely a taste. They kept me searching all the while looking in the wrong place.

I’ve heard it described as seeing yourself in everything. The Beatles said it: “I am you, as you are me, as you are he and we are all together. Coo, Coo, Coo, Ka, Choo.”

That is it. But it really depends on who I think I am. If I really think (i) am then how can I possibly see me in you? I’m not even sure that I want you to be me. I want to be me! Get your own me! See?

Something funny is happening to me right now. I’m trying to think this through to make it clearer and I keep losing it. Hmm? Can I bring a different perspective to my writing? Yes, but if I do it won’t mean anything to me! It will only mean what I think you want it to mean and how would I really know that? I would be guessing. I guess? I would be trying to be what I think you want me to be.

The proper practice of forgiveness will lead me to not seeing you as an individual with an “identity of me” in this case you. I will see you as One with the (I) that I must realize (I) am first. The only gift that I have to give is that “vision” of Oneness. If I give it to You how can I not be giving it to me. I can’t just see it in you exclusively. I must see it in You inclusively. Everything. That whole One thing that can’t be explained it can only be understood.

If I am giving correctly the point of saying, “I love you,” is moot. How could it be anything else? Why do we need a law to define it?

Lesson 344:

[This is Your law, my Father, not my own. I have not understood what giving means, and thought to save what I desired for myself alone. And as I looked upon the treasure that I thought I had, I found an empty place where nothing ever was or is or will be. Who can share a dream? And what can an illusion offer me? Yet he whom I forgive will give me gifts beyond the worth of anything on earth. Let my forgiven brothers fill my store with Heaven's treasures, which alone are real. Thus is the law of love fulfilled. And thus Your Son arises and returns to You.]

“How near we are to one another, as we go to God. How near is He to us. How close the ending of the dream of sin, and the redemption of the Son of God.”

December 10, 2008 I offer only miracles today, For I would have them be returned to me.

Quotes of the day:

“I give the gift of vision only in my vision of You.”

—Me

That came to me yesterday and I thought it sounded cool. Damned if I know what it means!

“The full understanding of Christianity is going to take a full life of studying.”

–George W. Bush

Am I getting closer to understanding? How can I get closer to understanding?

As a student I was captivated by the concept of infinity. We did calculations based on time approaching infinity but you can never really get there. We can only approximate it. What would happen half way to infinity? If (i) can’t get there can (I) be there?

Chapter 1.

THE MEANING OF MIRACLES

I. Principles of Miracles

T-1.I.1.There is no order of difficulty in miracles. One is not “harder” or “bigger” than another. They are all the same. All expressions of love are maximal.

T-1.I.2. Miracles as such do not matter. The only thing that matters is their Source, which is far beyond evaluation.

T-1.I.3. Miracles occur naturally as expressions of love. The real miracle is the love that inspires them. In this sense everything that comes from love is a miracle.

T-1.I.4. All miracles mean life, and God is the Giver of life. His Voice will direct you very specifically. You will be told all you need to know.

T-1.I.5. Miracles are habits, and should be involuntary. They should not be under conscious control. Consciously selected miracles can be misguided.

T-1.I.6. Miracles are natural. When they do not occur something has gone wrong.

T-1.I.7. Miracles are everyone’s right, but purification is necessary first.

T-1.I.8. Miracles are healing because they supply a lack; they are performed by those who temporarily have more for those who temporarily have less.

T-1.I.9. Miracles are a kind of exchange. Like all expressions of love, which are always miraculous in the true sense, the exchange reverses the physical laws. They bring more love both to the giver [and] the receiver.

T-1.I.10. The use of miracles as spectacles to induce belief is a misunderstanding of their purpose.

Lesson 345:

[Father, a miracle reflects Your gifts to me, Your Son. And every one I give returns to me, reminding me the law of love is universal. Even here, it takes a form which can be recognized and seen to work. The miracles I give are given back in just the form I need to help me with the problems I perceive. Father, in Heaven it is different, for there, there are no needs. But here on earth, the miracle is closer to Your gifts than any other gift that I can give. Then let me give this gift alone today, which, born of true forgiveness, lights the way that I must travel to remember You.]

“Peace to all seeking hearts today. The light has come to offer miracles to bless the tired world. It will find rest today, for we will offer what we have received.”

December 11, 2008 Today the peace of God envelops me, And I forget all things except His Love.

Quote of the day: “It’s the differences that make us stronger.” Isn’t that how it continues?

Another “tick?” My second thought was, “Lame post yesterday! You’ve gotta’ do better today! That copy/paste stuff means nothing.” Third thought, “Why do I feel I have to do better?”

I was busy yesterday. I had a lot of doing to do. Deadlines pending. I had a ton of things thrust on me. That’s how it feels. It feels as though this huge weight of significance just came out of no where and fell right on me and it also felt as though it needed immediate action. Not only that, everything/everyone around me made it more difficult to take action. Instead of helping me everyone created more obstacles for me and things that I needed broke!

Why me!? Chuckle. Because that’s how me works. That me thing just loves a challenge. Why else would I spend a life time laboring up mountains searching for “a momentary lapse of stupidity?” It’s not the laboring thing it is the searching part. It suggests that it needs to be found by working hard for it. It is only laborious because I expect it to be. I desperately want it to be. The struggle makes that me thing feel worthy of life. And what is up with this looking thing, again? If I can just complete this I can find the peace that I desperately want.

It’s amazing how one little wisp of thought can be magnified to the point where it feels as though it carries all of the weight of the universe with it. Isn’t it? Can I just dismiss the thought so it doesn’t really involve me totally? Then it would become that “dreaded thought” that I must avoid. I’m ducking! But it flutters about like a butterfly or a moth and can only “harm” me if I want to believe it can. The law of language should require that the word believe should always be proceeded by “I want to.” Don’t you think?

So, hopefully I have ruled out the temptation to seek out peace. I’m tempted to say that I will just stop looking and allow it to find me or to settle down over me like a warm blanket. That has a nice poetic sort of peaceful connotation. It feels good doesn’t it? I can be very comfortable with the thought that I need to do nothing. Ahhhhhhhhh. Just wait? That rules out the truth that I already have it because I can’t possibly have or be anything else. Why is that so difficult to see?

LESSON 346:

[Father, I wake today with miracles correcting my perception of all things. And so begins the day I share with You as I will share eternity, for time has stepped aside today. I do not seek the things of time, and so I will not look upon them. What I seek today transcends all laws of time and things perceived in time. I would forget all things except Your Love. I would abide in You, and know no laws except Your law of love. And I would find the peace which You created for Your Son, forgetting all the foolish toys I made as I behold Your glory and my own.]

“And when the evening comes today, we will remember nothing but the peace of God. For we will learn today what peace is ours, when we forget all things except God’s Love.”

December 12, 2008 Anger must come from judgment. Judgment is the weapon I would use against myself, to keep the miracle away from me.

This is a great lesson. What am I saying? They all are. If I see differences I can’t possibly see One. What is anger?

I was driving down the highway yesterday off on a day trip. It was raining like a deluge. I settled into the seat just allowing peace to envelop me. Not because I was scared of driving in the rain. That was the lesson. I was just cruising along listening to the rain falling all around me, the windshield wipers were banging and repetitive on high speed. I thought about turning on the radio but why ruin it? It felt wonderful just to experience all of this. Peace.

People had told me that I was crazy to be making the trip because it was going to rain buckets all day and there would be ice for the return trip. I don’t buy into those things. I don’t even know why they say them to me? I stopped trying to figure it out long ago. If I had, bought in, it would have only turned this trip into a fearful experience. Why would I want it to be like that? At peace there are wonders around every bend.

As I was driving this thought kind of materialized in my mind. It just appeared peacefully. It wasn’t “thrust” on me like that thought I wrote about yesterday. “I’ve been reading and practicing the course for almost five years now. I’ve read many other books and stuff on the subject. I could say that, all along, it has been my dream to experience that infinite peace, love, etc. that I have read about and I just wondered when I was going to be able to just really live that dream.” Man, what a beautiful thought! That thought had this beautiful deceptive quality about it. I had to grab it. Why? Because I know that if I don’t pay attention to a thought it will just go away. I didn’t want to lose this one so I held tightly to it. I could see many layers of deception in it. I wanted to analyze it. I wanted to dissect it. I remember thinking how great it would be to expose all of the levels of deception this one thought carried in a post. I had the feeling that it had been “given to me” as a learning tool and I would use it to its fullest.

But I realized that just because it felt as though it was “given to me” and it seemed really beautiful that didn’t make it any different then that “fear” thought that was thrust upon me the other day. I also remembered writing, back in February or March, about the thought of a beautiful butterfly that fluttered around. I remembered how I tried, in vain, to catch it. I was convinced that if I could just hold it I would instantly know the truth. Then after a few days of trying to catch it I realized that it was just a moth. So, like that moth thought, I just let that thought go. It vanished. Actually it must have become like one of those quotation ticks because I found it this morning.

When I let the thought go and it vanished it was replaced by: “If I am not a mind experiencing the sensations of a body driving in a car on a rainy day then who am I?” Oh boy! Now we were getting somewhere. I latched onto that, “Who am I? part. (Why do I do that?) Who am I? kept repeating. I felt as though I was on to something. I thought it with conviction as though I really wanted to be told and at the same time feeling that I already knew. So why ask the question if I already knew? I envisioned a child with its hands over its ears making noises so it didn’t have to hear the truth, seemingly avoiding the answer. I started laughing as I thought, “We actually believe we stop doing that when we think we grow up?” The question was not a question the question was a method of avoiding the answer. I let it go. I thought, “Who am I? – carries with it the notion that it can be something other than what it can only be.” That’s it.

I got to where I was heading and I shook a friend’s hand. He said, “You look so peaceful!” I told him that I couldn’t understand why although I thought, “Duh, that’s the lesson of the day.”

Lesson 347:

[Father, I want what goes against my will, and do not want what is my will to have. Straighten my mind, my Father. It is sick. But You have offered freedom, and I choose to claim Your gift today. And so I give all judgment to the One You gave to me to judge for me. He sees what I behold, and yet He knows the truth. He looks on pain, and yet He understands it is not real, and in His understanding it is healed. He gives the miracles my dreams would hide from my awareness. Let Him judge today. I do not know my will, but He is sure it is Your Own.  And He will speak for me, and call Your miracles to come to me.]

“Listen today. Be very still, and hear the gentle Voice for God assuring you that He has judged you as the Son He loves.”

December 13, 2008 I have no cause for anger or for fear, for You surround me. And in every need that I perceive, Your grace suffices me.

Synonyms: acrimony, animosity, annoyance, antagonism, blow up*, cat fit, chagrin, choler, conniption, dander*, disapprobation, displeasure, distemper, enmity, exasperation, fury, gall, hatred, hissy fit, huff, ill humor, ill temper, impatience, indignation, infuriation, irascibility, ire, irritability, irritation, mad, miff, outrage, passion, peevishness, petulance, pique, rage, rankling, resentment, slow burn, soreness, stew, storm, tantrum, temper, tiff, umbrage, vexation, violence

Antonyms: agreeability, calmness, contentment, enjoyment, good nature, happiness, joy, peace, pleasantness

–Dictionary.com

We have so many words to describe anger and so few to describe the opposite. I could add many to the former but I can’t think of many to add to the latter. It is an accepted necessity in society and we are judged not by our anger but by our ability to manage it or control it. If I express anger as outrage then I get empathy if I express it as rage I get arrested. That is, unless that rage is warranted as defined by law. I am supposed to feel it (something is wrong with me if I don’t) and I am told to let it out because it would be bad for me if I didn’t but I should let it out slowly. Is it any wonder that we have to train for so long to be human? We are trained to be angry then we are given drugs to control it. Go figure? It must be the damn pharmaceutical companies! It’s a conspiracy! I’m laughing like crazy. Not because I’m pretending anger but at the whole idea of a conspiracy to be individual. Is that what this is? Can I be a victim of a conspiracy and the conspirator at the same time? I’m sticking out my tongue as I think, “I can be anything I want, so there!”

When studying “A Course in Miracles” I am told that anger is a manifestation of the fear that is inherent in the belief in separation. The mind almost automatically looks at fear as a “bad” thing. It is normal to try to deny it or to try to avoid situations where it may become manifest. I even recall looking at fearful (that’s every situation, now. In order for it to be a situation it has to feel as if it is a separate thing. Right?) situations as a necessary part of my development. I even sought them out for that purpose. Now I’m thinking how (I wanted to type “stupid” here but I noticed that I was looking for another way to say it because I figured someone may read this and think that I was calling them stupid. That’s fear! Cool!) ridiculous that was because I felt that I had to find something “out there” that I was going to create “in here” anyway. Why go through all the trouble of looking? In here is lame, I know. Humor me!

Fear is just a thought. It doesn’t matter if its appearance felt “thrust upon me” or if it appeared nice and gently. The butterfly and the moth are thoughts. I could sit here and try to prove that they are the same thought but then I will start building a complex maze of confusion out of one little thought. It is normal to want to catch it and clutch it and take ownership of it. It is normal to want to examine it and dissect it and try to figure out why it came and what it is doing “here.” It takes a present willingness to allow it to be until it is not. It will vanish. It will simply fly away if you “pay it no mind.” That payment is steep. Isn’t it?

I read the lesson this morning and I laughed. That almost feels blasphemous. Fear? You bet! But I laughed because I remembered the first time I read it. I spent the day trying to feel “You” surrounding me. It was me and everything else. I remembering thinking of “You” as the air surrounding me. Then I even envisioned “You” as water and me being submerged in all of that “You.” I wondered why it didn’t seem as peaceful as I would have expected. I guess that you can say that I was trying to live my dream of what I expected it to be. I used to love the term, “Make it happen!”

I mentioned yesterday about driving and it was raining “buckets” all around me. Then it wasn’t. Raining “around” me that is. The thought of anything being “around” me seemed silly.

I’m really cracking up now! I typed that last sentence and I used the word “seems.” Then I changed it to “seemed.” Because I can’t possibly be seeing it that way now! Fear? You betcha!

Lesson 348:

[Father, let me remember You are here, and I am not alone. Surrounding me is everlasting Love. I have no cause for anything except the perfect peace and joy I share with You. What need have I for anger or for fear? Surrounding me is perfect safety. Can I be afraid, when Your eternal promise goes with me? Surrounding me is perfect sinlessness. What can I fear, when You created me in holiness as perfect as Your Own?]

God’s grace suffices us in everything that He would have us do. And only that we choose to be our will as well as His.

December 14, 2008 Today I let Christ’s vision look upon all things for me and judge them not, but give each one a miracle of love instead.

I just read the lesson and my first thought was, “Symbolic reference.” That’s poetry, right? For you, maybe, but not for me. Poetry for me suggests something that needs analysis to get to the point. I learned in school that you have to examine the history of the author to really get what he was trying to convey. Then you have to find out what he was doing and where he was at the time of the writing to see the perspective that he was painting. We do that with paintings too. We analyze the shit out of them. Then we ask the painter what great message he was trying to send and he says, “I felt like painting a chair.” Duh.

This is my fourth time reading this lesson on a given day of a year. The lesson tells me to suspend my judgment of all things and the first thing I do is to judge that sentence. I’m laughing. I analyze the shit out of it. I’m tempted to say, “I did” as if something has changed. I’ve “seen” four different meanings in that sentence. Is it any wonder that I see “signs” of progress? Remember that I am conditioned to look for changes and differences. That’s my M. O. I look for changes and differences and I analyze the shit out of them.

I could just say, “Don’t try to grab for the meaning in that sentence. Ask the author.” That is absolutely true but the temptation is there to analyze that also.

I’ve read and heard Eckhart Tolle talk about this extensively. He speaks of using nature as the key to “awakening.” Whatever that is? He says to spend time being present with trees, plants, flowers or animals and I would see the freedom that is inherent in me in them. Man have I tried. I’ve sat with a flower for hours expecting to see it transform thereby bestowing me with a rush of freedom and knowledge. Now, it seems as though I was sitting there waiting for “goose bumps” or something and I am laughing like crazy. That need to see change and difference keeps appearing, doesn’t it. The funny thing is, is that I can see how that “process” would work. If I just really stopped and let it.

Eckhart also kept asking, “Who is looking.” I asked that a thousand times as I stared at that flower waiting for my freedom. I never gave up. I kept trying. I even thought that I was on to something when I “progressed” from looking with the me that I think I am to that other me. That me that is beyond the world and this life. The me that is one with everything. I somehow “understood” that I had to learn to look with that me. Yesterday I described that me as being surrounded by a sea of God.

It’s kind of cool to notice that there is always a me doing. It can be a sad me. It can be a happy me. It can be a peaceful me. It can be a big or a small me. It can be a profound me writing a blog about being a better me. Can there be an awake me or an enlightened me? No.

Lesson 349: Wow! We are nearing the end. Can you feel it?

[So would I liberate all things I see, and give to them the freedom that I seek. For thus do I obey the law of love, and give what I would find and make my own. It will be given me, because I have chosen it as the gift I want to give. Father, Your gifts are mine. Each one that I accept gives me a miracle to give. And giving as I would receive, I learn Your healing miracles belong to me.]

“Our Father knows our needs. He gives us grace to meet them all. And so we trust in Him to send us miracles to bless the world, and heal our minds as we return to Him.”

December 15, 2008 Miracles mirror God’s eternal Love. To offer them is to remember Him, And through His memory to save the world.

I happened to glimpse a TV commercial last night that showed people clicking their heels together, three times, ala Dorothy. The caption read, “Home is calling.” Wow! That one little three word sentence should be enough to do it. All of this reading, studying and practicing all comes down to one little sentence. That also just about sums up my feeling of “A Course in Miracles.” “Home is calling” brings a nice warm fuzzy feeling, doesn’t it?

But, see, I am a rugged mountain guy. What the hell do I want with warm and fuzzy? The Course paints such a rosy, comfortable path. I have a forgiving God beckoning me to go home. I have kind and understanding guides in Jesus and the Holy Spirit to lead me gently there. It’s so pretty. It is poetic. I’m thinking, what do I want with pretty? Handsome and rugged is cool! Why am I involved in such a pretty path? The Course promises to gently wash away all of my problems. I like problems. They are challenging. Why would I want some nice caring figure helping me? Leave me alone. I’ve got it. That’s me!

I’ve heard many others talk about starting the Course and retreating in fear. I picked it up and I have never put it down. I want to know why?

Actually, I lied in trying to make a point. I really don’t give a shit as to why. I have always resisted pretty and poetic and it is funny that I have stayed so long with this. But, it really doesn’t matter anymore.

I had to go off on a rant in order to introduce the word and concept of resistance. To think that I don’t know the truth is ridiculous, now. To think that I have to learn something is ridiculous, now. I can say that I want to know. I can say it with desperation. I can scream for help! Please tell me! The bottom line is that if I think I don’t know it is only because I don’t want to believe I know. Resistance. Everything that I do, EVERYTHING! Is designed to nourish that feeling of stupidity. Even practicing the Course, as long as the perception remains that I have to do something to get something that I already have. I don’t want to know the truth! Jack Nicolson? No me. (I sit here watching the cursor blink at the end of that two word sentence wondering if I should put a comma between no and me but it seems perfect as it is!)

Remember the kid with its hands over its ears, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na. It knows. It just pretends that it doesn’t. (I began that last sentence with I, see?)

I know. I just pretend that I don’t because I really don’t want to accept the truth. Start from there and this becomes exceedingly simple.

Lesson 350:

[What we forgive becomes a part of us, as we perceive ourselves. The Son of God incorporates all things within himself as You created him. Your memory depends on his forgiveness. What he is, is unaffected by his thoughts. But what he looks upon is their direct result. Therefore, my Father, I would turn to You. Only Your memory will set me free. And only my forgiveness teaches me to let Your memory return to me, and give it to the world in thankfulness.]

“And as we gather miracles from Him, we will indeed be grateful. For as we remember Him, His Son will be restored to us in the reality of Love.”

“What we forgive becomes a part of us, as we perceive ourselves. The Son of God incorporates all things within himself as You created him.” I see differences. I can’t help it. It’s a magic trick. All things aren’t within me, they ARE me but then there is no me.

“Your memory depends on his forgiveness.” To “see” One is to accept nothing else as real. No me.

“What he is, is unaffected by his thoughts. But what he looks upon is their direct result.” One does not see the things my thoughts create. Only me does.

“Therefore, my Father, I would turn to You. Only Your memory will set me free.” Only by “seeing” One will I realize One. It is not something that I have to expect in the future. There is nothing to do to get there nor is there anywhere to get to. I already see One. I must accept the fact that there is nothing else to really “see” even though I seem to. The only obstacle is that I want to believe that what I see is real.

“And only my forgiveness teaches me to let Your memory return to me, and give it to the world in thankfulness.” By not accepting the differences that I think and see I can see the Truth.

Only then is there no me to do anything. I could say that the Truth is brutal but it is only because I want to believe something else. It is actually quite beautiful. All I have to do is accept it.

December 16, 2008 My sinless brother is my guide to peace. My sinful brother is my guide to pain. And which I choose to see I will behold.

The little kid with its hands over its ears. It has to know the answer. It just doesn’t want to accept it. If it didn’t already know the answer there would be nothing to hide from.

4. What Is Sin?

W-pII.4.1. [Sin is insanity. 2 It is the means by which the mind is driven mad, and seeks to let illusions take the place of truth. 3 And being mad, it sees illusions where the truth should be, and where it really is. 4 Sin gave the body eyes, for what is there the sinless would behold? 5 What need have they of sights or sounds or touch? 6 What would they hear or reach to grasp? 7 What would they sense at all? 8 To sense is not to know. 9 And truth can be but filled with knowledge, and with nothing else.]

14. What Am I?

W-pII.14.1. [I am God's Son, complete and healed and whole, shining in the reflection of His Love. 2 In me is His creation sanctified and guaranteed eternal life. 3 In me is love perfected, fear impossible, and joy established without opposite. 4 I am the holy home of God Himself. 5 I am the Heaven where His Love resides. 6 I am His holy Sinlessness Itself, for in my purity abides His Own.]

“Who are you?

Who, who, who, who?

Who are you?

Who, who, who, who?

Who are you?

Who, who, who, who?

Who are you?

Who, who, who, who?”

—The Who

Now I make the transition from, “Who am I?” to “What am I?” In that comes the understanding.

“I am the holy home of God Himself.  I am the Heaven where His Love resides.”

Lesson 351:

[Who is my brother but Your holy Son? And if I see him sinful I proclaim myself a sinner, not a Son of God; alone and friendless in a fearful world. Yet this perception is a choice I make, and can relinquish. I can also see my brother sinless, as Your holy Son. And with this choice I see my sinlessness, my everlasting Comforter and Friend beside me, and my way secure and clear. Choose, then, for me, my Father, through Your Voice. For He alone gives judgment in Your Name.]

December 17, 2008 Judgment and love are opposites. From one come all the sorrows of the world. But from the other comes the peace of God Himself.

Lesson 352:

[Forgiveness looks on sinlessness alone, and judges not. Through this I come to You. Judgment will bind my eyes and make me blind. Yet love, reflected in forgiveness here, reminds me You have given me a way to find Your peace again. I am redeemed when I elect to follow in this way. You have not left me comfortless. I have within me both the memory of You, and One Who leads me to it. Father, I would hear Your Voice and find Your peace today. For I would love my own Identity, and find in It the memory of You.]

“You can’t solve a problem with the same mind that created It.” –Albert Einstein.

I’m having a problem. I have nothing to write. Other than a cartoon, I have no quotation or no story to relate. I’m wondering if I missed something yesterday that would trigger an inspiring thought? I’m wondering whether I was too rapped up in the world to notice anything. Then again, maybe I was so unconnected to the world that I had no need to create anything. Maybe I had no need to feel inspired.

So I drifted on over to Lisa’s, gorgeous for God, and low and behold she is talking about problems. Then I skimmed through my archived things on my computer and found a three page thing on problems that I had written about ten years ago in response to an e-mail. It began with that quotation and went on to prove in a burst of psychobabble that a problem cannot possibly exist except as an illusion of mind. I won’t bore you with it. I’m laughing.

As I have been writing this I’ve received seven phone calls from a friend, who is experiencing a problem that he is desperately trying to solve, looking for my help. I’m thinking that this guy could be becoming a problem! Chuckle. He could be if I wanted him to. I could tell him to just leave me alone because I am writing a piece on problems and he is distracting me. I’m laughing as I am thinking I could just prove to him that his problem is just an illusion. Or I could just help him with it. I could help him solve it. But then would I just be enabling? Isn’t that just like giving booze to an alcoholic? By helping him solve it am I just justifying his problem? Then again am I making how I handle this situation a problem for me? Can I see a problem that is not mine?

I don’t know what to do?!!!

“Judgment will bind my eyes and make me blind. Yet love, reflected in forgiveness here, reminds me You have given me a way to find Your peace again.”

“I have within me both the memory of You, and One Who leads me to it. Father, I would hear Your Voice and find Your peace today. For I would love my own Identity, and find in It the memory of You.”

Controlled Folly: Doing what you do impeccably, as if it really means something, although you know it means absolutely nothing.

I’ve got to go and help my friend.