I See You

I stumbled across this section in my reading of The Way of Mastery this morning:

"All minds are joined, and I see not a stranger before me, but one who walks as I walk, who feels as I feel, who longs as I long, who is humbled as I am humbled, who prays for peace as I have prayed.  

Therefore I will give them what they seek.  And in that giving, I receive it."  Way of Mastery p. 122

This is how forgiveness begins.  It occurs in the moment when we see others as being the same as ourselves.

All minds are joined and therefore, in many ways, they are, actually, us.

I found myself contemplating the line from the quote above, "therefore I will give them what they seek".  Just what do they seek?  Well, just as I do, everyone ultimately seeks love.  Everyone longs to be loved, to feel love and to give love in return.  It's our basic nature.  Love is what we are and we all seek to return to it.

What makes us feel loved?  Being loved is being recognized.  We feel loved when others acknowledge our existence, our worth, our truth.  When others accept and acknowledge us, we feel valued.  We all simply want to be seen.

In the movie Avatar, I love the way they say hello to each other. They stop and face each other and look directly into one another's eyes, "I see you."

I see you, is what it's all about.  Seeing and accepting the existence of another human being is the act of extending love.  Forgiveness happens in this moment. The miracle happens in this moment.  When we shift our thinking from fear to love, from confusion and opposition to acknowledgement, forgiveness happens.

We are simply knowing the truth, that ultimately we are all the same, despite the crazy things we all do here, despite the crazy dreams we follow in this insane 3D world we call earth.  At our core, in our joined minds, we are all, each and every one of us, simply love.

"Forgiveness is an act through which you learn what Love is, that carries you into a transcendence of the world.  Sharing only loving thoughts, supportive thoughts -- as you look gently upon the Christ in another is a way that takes you into the transcendence of the world.  Looking upon all things of this world and seeing their perfect harmlessness, their lack of ability to constrain you or harm you or imprison you, is a way that takes you beyond the world." --Way of Mastery p. 127-8

The Past is Over

These days, Robert Holden is my favorite author.  In December I read "Loveability". I was so impressed with it that I immediately bought a stack of copies and gave it to everyone I know for Christmas gifts.  My friends and family are just as impressed as I was.  

The day I turned the last page, I closed the book, set it aside for a month, opened it back up and started reading and studying it all over again.  I am now reading "Shift Happens!:  How to Live an Inspired Life" and I love it, too.  Robert Holden has been A Course in Miracles student and teacher for many years, but his explanations and point of view are very easy to understand and he relates so well to anyone's everyday experiences.  

Here's a little bit from a short section in Shift Happens about forgiving the past:

Forgiveness releases you from the past.  When you meditate on forgiveness, you learn that, in fact, there is no past in the MIND of God.  In other words, your past is never held against you unless you make it so.  Guilt is a choice and so is forgiveness.  When you choose guilt, you bury your gifts, you live in fear, and everyone misses what you could offer.  When you choose forgiveness, everyone can win.  

How do you know if you are holding on to your past?  You are unhappy!  When you are struggling, ask yourself, What am I holding on to from the past?  What old thought, old block, or old fear are you still clinging to?   

Holden encourages us to ask ourselves these important questions:

I am afraid of _______because in the past I _____________.

I have given up on ___________because in the past I ____________.

I am depressed now because in the past I ______________.

What are some of the areas in your life where you feel unhappy or unproductive, stymied, thwarted, victimized or stuck in lack?   Spend some time pondering those areas with these questions in mind.  Watch what comes up.  Then let it go.  It's the past.  It has nothing to do with the you of today.  It's holding you back in unhappiness.  It's nothing you need.  Guilt is nothing you need.  Rejection is nothing you need.  Lack is nothing you need.  Let it go.   Know it, feel it, love it and gently let it go.

One way to let these things go is to imagine that the Holy Spirit (your soul, your higher self) has given you a beautiful white light altar and it is right in front of you. This gorgeous marble light altar transforms everything upon it into pure love.  It's the love altar.

When these memories and emotions from the past come up, spend a few moments with them, intensify them and experiencing them all over again.  Then gently and lovingly ask them to place themselves on the altar.  Let them be released, transformed and swept away out of your life forever.  Let go.  Forgiving is the act of letting love replace fear.  It is that point when the miracle appears.

Holden suggests that we can then affirm "The past is over" and "Now is new".  He says, "The moment you let go of your past, you stop projecting it on to the present.

His final paragraph in the section is this:

To let go of your past, do these three things.  First, be willing to forgive yourself for every mistake you think you ever made.  Affirm "The past is over," and let forgiveness wipe away all tears.  Second, if you want to be free of your past mistakes, free everyone from theirs.  In other words, forgive everyone.  Third, pray, "Dear God, I'm back!"  Now let yourself be innocent again, free again, and ready again to say "Yes" to new healing, new happiness and a new futures.

 

 

 

We all want the same thing...

Recognize all whom you see as brothers, because only equals are at peace. --A Course in Miracles

Power struggles happen because we think we are both separate and different from each other.  We forget that we are both made of the same love and that we both share the same basic interest, which is to love and to be loved.  --Robert Holden



We are both made of the same love.

Every one of comes from the same source.

We are all made in the same image.

Love is what we are.

And we all want the same thing here on earth.  We want to know that love.  We want to experience the truth of ourselves.  It's sometimes hard to remember that truth here.  There are so many blocks to it.  And, of course, we've created them all ourselves.

But all we really want is know love, be love, receive love and give love.  Every action we take, every thought we think, it all boils down to one basic desire, and that is to know love again.

When you see someone behaving badly, just know that he is blocked from understanding and seeing his truth.  His motivation comes from the desire to be loved.  He is simply confused about how to actually achieve that.  He can't see it.

Give him the love he needs in the form of your forgiveness.


   

Judging Other People's "Conditions"

Don Miguel Ruiz Jr spoke at my church this morning.  He was excellent, deep and a fascinating speaker.  Much of what he said resonated with me.  I loved this on judging, especially.  He said that when we judge someone we are evaluating them for conditions that they never agreed to. 

What that means is that, we have created "opinions" and "beliefs" in our mind which are the conditions.  Our conditions are not necessarily someone elses conditions.   And yet, we look at others and judge them by our conditions.

We all have free will.  We are free to decide which experiences we want to have and which ones we don't want.

If we look at our lives here like a trip to Disneyland we can see that not everyone wants to ride on Space Mountain.  It's too fast for some people.  Some people just want to do the River Boat Cruise. They like slow.  They want to take their time and enjoy the sunshine.  It's dark in Space Mountain and the lights flash by in a jarring way.  On the River Boat Cruise you can listen to the sounds of birds in the trees.  You can watch the patterns the boat makes in the water as it passes through.

Who's right?  Is it the guy that likes fast, dark and scary Space Mountain or is it the one who prefers sunny, slow and peaceful River boating?

Of course, there's no right and wrong here.  We all get to choose our own adventure.  That's why we're here.  We choose an adventure and we learn some things along the way.  Our pathway and our learning is our pathway alone and no one elses.  We're all heading toward the same ultimate place, but how we get there is determined by each of us individually with our own free will.

Let's not judge anyone else's choices.  If they want to be the loud one, or the hairy one or the stubborn one, or the beautiful one or the deep thinking one, just let them be.  They never agreed to be a part of the group that thinks that beauty is important.  They never agreed to be a part of the group that loves to fight, or the group that likes living in the desert, or the group that wants to save the rain forest, or the group that thinks tattoos are cool.  Those aren't the conditions they adhere to.

They are learning just as we are.  Let's not judge what they choose to learn or how, where and when they do it.

What can we possibly know about why someone else chooses what they choose?  

It is when we begin to see that underneath, in mind, we're all the same anyway.  Strip away the loud, the hairy, the beauty and all that's left is mind.  Or we're all just alive, as Don Miguel Ruiz Jr liked to call it.  In essence we are only that life, that energy, that thought, that creator and nothing more.

We are not our bodies, our stuff, our professions, our skin color or any of our preferences.  We are all merely spirit, love, Divine.  Just the Divine having a little adventure here on earth.

What's Behind the Costume?

Even though I am a student of A Course in Miracles, I regularly attend a Science of Mind church.  My minister there, Rev. Liz Luoma, loves to refer to us all as adorable little packages of God.  We're all in different adorable packages, but underneath, we're really all just the same thing.

Last month when everyone was thinking about Halloween and costumes, she likened these packages to costumes.  When we come here to live on earth, we take on a costume (or a role or character), and we develop it and refine it throughout our lives.  In fact, our entire lives become about creating every little facet, characteristic, preference and circumstance for that very character.

Which costume have you chosen?

The Course likes to call these costumes the "ego".  The ego is our creation, not God's.  

Take away the costume, the role, the character, the ego and what is left underneath?  Why God stuff, of course.  That's all we really are.

We are really only playing a game of Charades. We fool ourselves into believing that our costumes are who we really are, but underneath the costume is actually our Truth.  Underneath the costume is the part of us that God created.  That part is timeless, endless, unlimited and perfect.  It is all that is and it is One with God.   And everyone of us shares in this.  We are all together, exactly the same, and One in God.

It all boils down to this...underneath our costumes, we are each actually only Love.

But...we get so busy living in our costumes, playing our roles, being that character, that we forget who we really are.  We are so good at it, in fact, that we've convinced ourselves that we actually really are our costumes.

Think of it like going to the movies.  The lights go out and if the movie is good, it becomes our world.  We are utterly lost in it.  It is everything to us for that brief ninety minutes or so.  We are completely consumed and we know nothing else.

Our lives here on earth are just like that.  We get caught up in the fantasy and we forget who we really are.

Drop the costumes to forgive--   Forgiving requires that we simply drop those costumes for a moment.  There is a larger part of us and it is not here in this silly playground of costumes.  We must back up for a moment and see both ourselves and our trespasser in our true states.  We must know that both of us are really only Love.  We are exactly the same and we are always One in God.

Forgiveness is the act of accepting that people come here to this 3D earth and put on a costume and do silly things.  They are deluded, they have simply forgotten who they really are.  When we forgive, we remember for them, who they really are.

We raise them up in our minds.  We know that they are really always with God, in God, One with God.  We see that truth.

Words for forgiveness:

You are Spirit,

Whole and Innocent,

I forgive you.

I release you.

I bless you with Love.  

I often start my forgiveness process with the words above.  But then I go deeper.  I have developed a set of words that walks me mentally through the process of seeing the higher truth for someone whom I am forgiving.  It takes me about five minutes to do this and when I am finished I am able to see anyone for who they really are.

And I really do mean anyone.  No matter how personally harmful or globally destructive their actions may seem, it is possible to shift your feelings about a trespasser from egoic fear feelings to those of Love.  

The words I use are in my book, Forgiveness is the Key to Happiness.  There is an entire chapter on this process.  If you'd like to be able to change your thinking, see through the costumes of this temporary world and focus on the bigger picture and the higher truth, I encourage you to get a copy of the book and practice this process for yourself.  You have only your happiness to gain. 

The Light Beyond the Body

In A Course in Miracles, the "Christ" Mind refers to that part in all of us that knows that it is the Son of God and chooses to think with love, rather than fear.

We are so much more than only bodies.  We are Mind.  We are connected through this mind.  We are Love.  We are Oneness, with each other and with our Creator.

Christ's vision has one law.  It does not look upon a body, and mistake it for the Son whom God created. It beholds a light beyond the body; an idea beyond what can be touched, a purity undimmed by errors, pitiful mistakes, and fearful thought of guilt from dreams of sin.  It sees no separation.  And it looks on everyone, on every circumstance, all happenings and all events, without the slightest fading of the light it sees.  --A Course in Miracles, Lesson 158

In this passage from the Course, we are told to look beyond bodies.  God's real creation is our Minds, the Love we all share.  Every one of us was created in this Love.   It's telling us that bodies and earthly events are unimportant.  What's important is the Light of God that is a part of every one of us.

Thus are his sins forgiven him, for Christ has vision that has power to overlook them all.  In His forgiveness are they gone.  Unseen by One they merely disappear, because a vision of the Holiness that lies beyond them comes to take their place.  It matters not what form they took, nor how enormous they appeared to be, nor who seemed to be hurt by them.  They are no more.  And all effects they seemed to have are gone with them, undone and never to be done.  --A Course in Miracles, Lesson 158

When we look past bodies, we can forgive anything, because we see that the real truth is what is happening in the Mind, not here in this earthly 3D dream world.  And the truth of the real Mind is Love.

We're all here on earth having some adventures and learning some lessons, but where we really are, with God, none of this matters.  And in that real place, we love everyone and in fact, are joined with everyone.  

When you give unto another that which alone is true, because all minds are joined, you have offered unto them the only gift that holds value.  When you give another the truth--perhaps even without saying a word--because all minds are joined they recognize what has been offered and say to themselves, "The one before me knows the truth of me and is looking right through every one of my attempts to be less than who I am.  Therefore I see that it's safe to choose again."  That is when miracles occur.  --The Way of Mastery p. 86

When you look past the body and see only the light, you know the truth of even the worst villains.  Remember that this all happens on the level of the Mind, where thoughts are joined.  Knowing this truth, holds the place for them, in your mind.  And this gives them the chance to know your forgiveness.  You are giving them your love which is a chance for them to choose love for themselves.

Whether they do or not, is not your concern.  You get what you give.  Your forgiveness of others creates your own acceptance of yourself.  Self love.  It happens over time as you forgive others and the world around you.

Self love creates peace.  Peace leads to happiness.  This is how forgiveness is the key to happiness.

Our Job is to Clean Up Our Minds

Removing the blocks to the awareness of love's presence"  --A Course in Miracles (Intro 1: 6,7) 

This is the goal A Course in Miracles defines for us in its introduction.  It is one of the very first statements in a book of over 1300 pages.  What does it mean?  What are these blocks to love?

Blocks are created through our unforgiveness.  They are the things we judge, what we are unable to accept.

"Your work is not to seek and find love.  It is merely to turn within to discover every obstacle that you have created to its presence, and to offer that obstacle to the great dissolver of dreams, the grace of the Holy Spirit."--Way of Mastery p. 72

So much of what we have filled our minds with is not love. Our memories, our subconscious mind and our current thinking is filled with hurt, pain, anger, judgment, upset, guilt and every form of negative thinking.  

Until we remove this negative thinking, these blockages, these obstacles, we are unable to allow ourselves to accept the love that God is always offering to us, in every moment, in every place.  We do not allow ourselves to see the truth of God's love...

We actually believe in sin and punishment.  Even though we know that God created us in his own image and that therefore we are perfect.

We actually believe in our own lack of worth.  Even though we know that God loves us infinitely.

We actually believe in anger, victimhood, revenge and hate.  Even though we know that God created every single one of us in love and that we are all one with him and with each other.

Our job is to clean up our minds.  We have to sort out all this wrong, emotional, fear based thinking.  We have to search out the blockages, the obstacles, and turn them over to Spirit.

How do we do this?  With forgiveness, of course.  It's a process and it doesn't happen overnight  We have to deliberately seek out every part of our mind where we are blocking love.  And that means digging around in our pasts, in our subconscious and really and truly examining the way we think in the present.

It's important not to get overwhelmed by the task ahead and to keep our eyes on the prize.  And the prize for doing this work is huge.  Actually, it's everything.  It's everything you have always wanted and not known how to get.  It's why you're here.  It's what you seek.

Once we have done this work of removing blockages, we will be able to receive love.

What's my assignment?

A Course in Miracles talks a lot about our function.

Our function is our purpose, it's why we're here, it's our assignment.

Are we here to get rich?  To raise beautiful children?  To see the world?  To enjoy our lives?  To be nice to other people?

Although there's nothing wrong with any of these activities, they have nothing to do with our true function, our true purpose, our true assignment.  We're here for so much more than all this.

"Forgiveness is my function as the Light of the World".   --Workbook Lesson 63

What does it mean to choose forgiveness as our true function?

It's not just forgiving the guy that stole your parking place.  It's more than forgiving the person who deeply and truly broke your heart.  It's more than forgiving your parents for the overall permeating sense of rejection they created in your life.  It's more than forgiving what's going on right now in the Middle East.  It's so much more than any part of this alone.

Our true function is to forgive ALL of this.  We are here to forgive the WORLD.  All of it!  Yes, every single bit of pain, hurt, difficulty, frustration, lack, murder, sin, guilt, upset and fear.  The whole enchilada is what we're here for.

"Feel what you have created as a substitute for the truth.  Own it, look upon it, and then let it go.  Learn that regardless of what choice you may have made in the past, once you have embraced it, once you have felt it, you remain perfectly innocent and imbued with the power to choose again, to feel, to learn once again to feel the glorious warmth that permeates the Kingdom of Heaven."  --Way of Mastery p. 81      

We are here to accept every single bit of fear we see in the world around us.  Every bit.  We must see it, feel it, forgive it, accept it and release all judgment of it.  And as we do so, we transmute our feelings about what we see into love.  With acceptance comes love.  And with love comes peace.

"There will not be a molecule of beingness within you that will feel any resentment, any longing, any anger, or any remorse for anything.  All of your experience will have become wholly acceptable to you.  For it was by such experience that you were finally driven to want only the Truth." --Way of Mastery p. 81   

That's why we're here folks.  Nothing more and nothing less.  To forgive, accept and embrace with love all that exists.

The Moment When Life Begins

A Course in Miracles tells us that in all moments we are making a choice between love and fear.  It is very simple, really.  All we have to do is choose love now.  And in the next moment, choose love now.

"When you look upon all things without judgment through the eyes of forgiveness, when you decide to embody only the reality of Love no matter what anybody else is doing, that is when life begins."  --The Way of Mastery p.79

Only we can be the master of our thought.  No one else can get inside our head. We must be the one to cease the endless fear thoughts the ego stirs up.   At times, this may seem difficult to do, however, this is only the fearful thinking of the ego, trying to convince us it can't be done.  It can be done. It must be done.

And what is our reward for this effort?  Why, it's peace, of course.  It's love. Happiness. Joy.

It's a chance to leave this "hell on earth" we create in our very own minds and enter into Heaven right here in our own daily lives.  Right here. Right now.

In most moments, most days, it's just a matter of noticing our thoughts.  When fear creeps in, when judgment takes over, we can make another choice.  "Choose again", as A Course in Miracles says. We can make that choice to flip the switch from fear to love.

Choose again.

But...some days it's harder to flip the switch.

Occasionally the darkness descends and won't be transcended easily.  When this happens, ask the Holy Spirit to help.  Give all your fearful thoughts over to the Holy Spirit.  If it helps, visualize yourself actually handing them over.  Or create a huge white light altar and place your fear upon it.  Spirit will take it from you and cleanse your mind. Sometimes this cleansing happens instantly.  Sometimes this process can take hours.  Vow to sit right where you are until your thinking clears.  Wait it out.  Every time a fear thought comes, turn it over.  Do it again and again if you have to. Here's an affirmation you can use:

"I accept the love of God."

Repeat this over and over.  Then spend some time just quietly listening with no expectations of hearing anything.  If there is anyone you can forgive for anything, do it.  Work at this process diligently, and I promise you, the fear will pass.  Love thinking will return.

Does this seem difficult?  Uncomfortable?  Insane?  Actually, it's insanity to live in torment, when a choice for peace exists.  It's insanity to live in fear when a choice for love exists.  There are people all over this planet choosing love, right now.  Join us.

This is when life begins.  

I See Only the Radiance

"For when I look upon you, I see not the very momentary dreams that you seem to think are lasting so long.  I see only the radiance of that which the Father has extended out of Love.  I see only that which has neither beginning nor ending.  I see only that which knows neither birth nor death.  I see only that which has no limitations.  I see only that--the light of which is already extended throughout all dimensions and all universes."--The Way of Mastery p. 70

When we are forgiving this must be our thought process.  We must look beyond this dream world where people behave badly and hurt one another.  We look to our higher truth.  We go into our minds and know the radiance of one another.  We know the loving intentions of our Father, the creator who created each one of us in his own image.  We are simply and truly only Love.  That is our truth and that is the truth of our trespasser.  What you see here now in front of you in this 3D illusory world is only a moment in time.  It's not the higher truth.  Look up.  Look beyond.  See only the radiance.  That is the place of forgiveness.

Turn it Over to the Holy Spirit

If it's judgmental, critical, unaccepting, unkind.....

Turn it over to the Holy Spirit

If it's upsetting anxiety-making, creating a knot in your stomach, jaw grinding...

Turn it over to the Holy Spirit

If it's sad, grief-ridden, loss-induced, melancholy...

Turn it over to the Holy Spirit

If it's painful, searing, humiliating, mortifying...

Turn it over to the Holy Spirit

If it's frightening, unsafe, makes you feel untethered, all alone and unsupported...

Turn it over to the Holy Spirit 

If it's rejection, unworthiness, self-criticism, or feelings of being unloved and under-valued...

Turn it over to the Holy Spirit

If it's lack, meager, not enough, little, reducing, insignificant, paltry...

Turn it over to the Holy Spirit 

If it's devastating, earth-shattering, bone-breaking...

Turn it over to the Holy Spirit

And when it comes back into your mind, as it most likely will...

Turn it over to the Holy Spirit, again and again, as often as needed. 

You were intended to be happy and joyful.  The Divine wants you to live with peace in your mind. You were created for so much more.  You are magnificence.  You were made from God-stuff.  You are in God's Mind.  You are fully, wholly, completely, perfectly...Love.

It's the Holy Spirit's job to keep you safe, supported, abundant and happy.  But he can't do his work if you fill your mind with fear.  Turn it over to him and let him help you accept and forgive the world. Accept the happiness you were always intended to have.  Be the Love you really are.

It's Simple...We're all the Same

I woke up thinking about the Middle East this morning.  I'd just love to throw a big blanket over Syria and Iraq.  "Sleep, everyone, just sleep", I'd whisper into the blanket.  "Calm down, sleep and find some quiet."  

When everyone is finally sleeping peacefully, I'd continue my whispering.  This is what I'd say:

We're all the same.  

The Divine created each and every one of us in exactly the same way.

He made us all out of the same substance.

He made us all exactly in his own image.  We are just like him.  Every single one of us.

We are love.  That is what he is.  That is what we are.

He love us infinitely.  Yes, each and every one of us is loved infinitely by the Divine himself.

And the Divine gave us each a function.  That function is love.   

We have a job to do, an assignment, a purpose.  Love is why we exist.  

Exercise that love.  Put it into action.  Fulfill your purpose.  

Be who you were created to be.

Forgive.  Accept.  Love. 

It really is all just this simple.  We're all the same. 

Live in peace.  Nothing is more important than this.  Nothing.  

It's OK That We're Not OK

In a recent blog posting, Colin Tipping said:

"I love that line: I’m not OK, you’re not OK; but that’s OK! It captures the truth about who we are and the fact that we were never meant to be perfect. If we were, there would be no one to create opportunities for us to experience forgiveness. Our perfection lies in our imperfection.

I also love the following definition of Radical Forgiveness, which is along the same lines: It is the unconditional acceptance of what is, as is, because that’s how it is meant to be."

We're all together here in this world.  But we're also all together on the pathway home.  That's because, in truth, we're all part of the one universal mind.  We are one and collectively, we are learning and growing together. We grow through forgiveness and acceptance, which are, ultimately, only love.

Colin Tipping believes that we all cooperate with each other, creating situations that allow us to each receive our forgiveness lessons.  Of course, this cooperation occurs subconsciously, on the level of the greater mind.

At certain times in each of our lives, we are providing others with forgiveness opportunities.
Just as we are each sometimes annoyed, upset or hurt by others, we all occasionally annoy, upset or hurt someone else, too.  Every one of us is given the opportunity to forgive and grow many times in this lifetime.  And the more we overlook those opportunities, the more "in-our-faces" they get.  If we fail to forgive the first time, no worries, we'll always get another chance  But the next time it will be bigger and more painful.

The next time someone hurts your feelings, try to flop the situation around in your mind.  Are they at some level actually offering you a gift?

Have they volunteered to help you grow by giving you the chance to forgive?  Are these "devils" actually "angels" in disguise?  Can it be that their hurtful behavior is actually an act of love?

Forgiveness is much easier if you allow yourself to think in this way.

Mary Morrissey on Forgiveness

"Forgiveness removes in the mind a block in me of my awareness of God's presence." --Mary Morrissey

We Don't Know What Anything is For

Sometimes life just ups and knocks us to the ground.  Most of us have this happen to at least once or twice in life.  One minute we're rocking along, moving forward and the next minute we have lost something or everything that is very dear to us.

I call this the "stripping away" because in it we lose much of what we thought we needed to be okay.  This can be a very painful experience to go through.  Ultimately, however, it becomes a growing experience.  It is through these stripping away times in our lives that we get to see who we really are.  They show us that we are so much more than the things we think we need.

"The seeming mysteries of life with their attendant experiences are, when rightly understood, blessings in disguise, for any experience that causes us to turn more firmly to the One Active Presence, "I AM," God in Action, has served us a wonderful purpose and blessing."--The "I AM" Discourses

A Course in Miracles tells us that we "don't know what anything is for".   When we are faced with circumstances that seem as if they are the annihilation of the self we have worked so hard to create, we must learn to forgive and accept what is happening to us.  We must trust and know that everything we are creating in our lives is for our greater good.  As the Course tells us, these events are not being done TO us, but they are FOR us.

Sometimes a "stripping away" of the old is necessary for the new to create itself.  Disease, divorce, debt, great disappointment and loss all serve a purpose.  Of course, when these things are happening to us, and we are in the midst of the gut-wrenching pain, it is hard to see the silver lining in these clouds.   But it is there and if we forgive and accept, we will ultimately come to know it.

Forgiveness opportunities come in both small and large packages.  The small are so much easier.  Like you, I vastly prefer the small.  However, as I look back on my life, I know that the large forgiveness opportunities are the ones which have led me to become the searcher I am today.  Life is often gently moving me forward in a better direction.  But sometimes I get lost and place too much importance on the wrong things.  This is when the "stripping away" comes in to show me what I have been unwilling to see.  I guess sometimes I just need that swift kick in the pants, the one that knocks me to the ground, writhing and gasping.  I know now that when I ultimately stand again, I will be standing taller and with the greater strength of Spirit coursing within me.

The fastest way to the other side of a "stripping away" is through forgiveness.  Sometimes it can take a great deal of time to recover, perhaps years, but it is always a choice to recover right now, through a total and complete act of forgiveness and acceptance.  For those of us who are unable yet to forgive in full, for whom forgiveness still feels like a bitter spoonful of medicine, we must do what we can and chip away at forgiveness, taking it sip by sip until eventually, we have accomplished it.  For there will be no recovery without it.

Sometimes we are given the task to learn that we can survive the things we think we can't.  If we apply acceptance to these moments in our lives, we can bounce back and not only survive, but thrive.  It is a choice we are given, we can elect to be "stripped away" permanently and become bitter and small, or we can forgive and grow into something even better than we were before this experience.  Happiness is attainable, but not without forgiveness.


By the way, I wrote about my most recent "stripping away" experience in my book, "Forgiveness is the Key to Happiness".  It was a doozy.  If you want to learn what happened to me and how I grew through it, the story starts on page 83 in the chapter titled, "Life Sometimes Tears Us Down".

Available at:

amazon.com

barnesandnoble.com

Bedtime Forgiveness Habit

Yet another reason to practice forgiveness each night before sleep...

"The student or individual who wants to leap ahead in the progress of the Light should never enter sleep until he has consciously sent Love to every individual whom he feels has harmed him at any time.  This thought of Love will go straight as an arrow into the consciousness of the other individual because it cannot be stopped--there generating its Quality and Power which will as surely come back to you as you send it out."--The "I AM" Discourses

 

You get what you give.  It's a universal law.  When you give forgiveness and love to others, it comes back to you amplified.  It will show up in your life somewhere, someplace, sometime.  It may not relate to the actual person you have forgiven.  That relationship may or may not be salvageable.   It doesn't matter. If the love does not come to you through that relationship, it will find another way to express in your life.

You do not Know the Forces Playing on Another

More on judging, from the "'I AM' Discourses":

"I tell you frankly, Beloved Students and individuals, there is not the slightest hope for you in heaven or earth so long as you persist in holding within your consciousness thoughts and feelings of criticism, condemnation, or hate of any description, and that includes mild dislike.

This leads us to the very vital point that you are concerned only with your own activity and your world.  It is not your province to judge another, for you do not know the forces playing upon another or conditions. You know only the angle that you see of it, and I tell you that if an individual should be entirely innocent of any intent to wrong another, the individuals who send criticism, condemnation or hate to such an one are doing worse than committing physical murder.  Why is this so?  Because thought and feeling are the only Creative Power, and while such thoughts and feelings may not touch or harm their objective, they must return and bring with them the conditions sent out by the individual who sent them forth--and always with accumulated energy.  

So after all, the one who holds vicious thoughts to another is in reality but destroying himself, his business and his affairs.  There is no possible way of averting it, except for the individual to awaken and consciously reverse the currents."  

Judging is the opposite of forgiveness.  When we forgive we "flip the switch" from fear (anger, upset, annoyance, hurt) to love.   This moment when we forgive and flip that switch is what is called the "holy instant" in A Course in Miracles.  It is the moment when the miracle occurs.

On the other hand, when we judge, we are flipping the switch back in the opposite direction.  We are switching back to fear.  We judge because we are filled with fears.  We feel threatened by our world in some way, and so we judge.  In many cases, we don't even know why we feel fear.  Often, it is coming from our sub-conscious minds.

We have two kinds of work to do if we want to stop the habit of judging.  First, we must be vigilant always in guarding and protecting our minds from any vicious and judgmental fear thoughts.   As A Course of Miracles says, "choose again".  It is always within our power to choose again when we find our minds filling with fear and judgment.  When we see that we are starting to judge, we can make another choice, the choice for love.  

Our second work is that we must ask ourselves important examining questions when we find ourselves judging. What is this fear I feel in this moment?  Where is it coming from?  Why do I feel so threatened by this person?  What in my past is causing this moment to flare up so large in my mind?  If we are judging it is because we are feeling "little".  Why?  What about this person and this event is so threatening to our own sense of safety?  As we examine our fears, we can forgive and release them.

Again, as it says in the "I AM" Discourses, "the one who holds vicious thoughts to another is in reality destroying himself".  This is why as we learn to stop the ugly, destructive habit of judging others and we begin to give out love instead, the world around us changes.  It becomes a place of peace, first in our minds, and then that peace begins to out-picture in our worlds.  And when peace comes, we begin to find our happiness.

St. Germain--the source of the "I AM" Discourses

  

"Forgive the World" -- What Does it Mean?

Forgiving the world...it seems like a daunting task.  There's a lot of pain out there.  In fact, there's a lot of suffering close-by.  Where do we even start?

When it comes to forgiving the world, we need to look at how forgiving plays out in both our immediate world and the greater world at large.

Forgiving in Our Own Backyard   In our immediate world, we can forgive the things that come up on an every day basis.  Whenever we feel frustrated, angry or hurt by the people or events that surround us, we need to do a little forgiveness work.  This can be done right on the spot, or it can be saved for a quiet moment later.  I like to review my day each night in bed and forgive anything disturbing that happened.

Global Forgiveness   Forgiving the world at large is a different kind of forgiveness.  It means releasing attachment.  It means that we watch what is happening in Israel, in the Ukraine, in Syria or wherever, from arms length, yet with an understanding that suffering  is occurring.  As we observe, we do not allow our thoughts to mentally sink down with fear and angst for the events that we see.

Just as we forgive the bullies in our immediate world, we also need to forgive the bullies of the world at large. And this we can add to our nightly forgiveness work.

Mind Work   However, when we think about the victims, we must not become upset and focused on the unfairness of it all.  Thoughts are creative and this kind of thinking holds the victims down.  If we want their lives to improve, we need to see them in their strength and truth.  We must hold the mental high ground with images of their higher source and true potential.  (Of course, this doesn't mean that we refrain from providing the help needed.  If there is something we can do, whatever it is, we can feel free to contribute.)

Remember that forgiveness happens on the mental plane.   We must hold a vision that helps the victims and sufferers to rise up.  It is our job to find the vision for peace.  It is our job to forgive and to see love as a real possibility.

World Peace Starts at Home, Inside   Of course, our biggest contribution to the healing of the world is the work we do on our very own minds.  We must release our habits of judging others.  If we want to heal the world, we must heal our own thinking first.  When our minds become a place of peace, the world will reflect that.  When we stop the attack thoughts that frequent our minds, when our minds become gentle, the world will too.

Remember that all minds are joined.  We can lift others up.  By filling our minds with love, we are showing others the pathway to peace.   And loving thoughts have so much more power than fearful thoughts.  It starts right here, right now, with us.  Each of us has the opportunity to contribute to the forgiving and healing of the world.

Do you wish people well when they walk through the streets of your mind?

Or is your mind a mind field?

When you think of others, do you think with attack or love?

Is your mind a dangerous place for others?  If so, it is also a dangerous place for you.

What you give out, you get back.
If your mental habit is to attack and judge others, then...
you will be attacked and judged by others.

What are you offering to the world?
When your mind is a dangerous place, you are creating a world of fear.

When your mind holds love, you are creating a world of love.

Your thought is under your own dominion.
You choose your thoughts.
Don't let them choose you.
When attack thoughts come...
Choose again.  Make a choice for love.

Again and again.  Make another choice.
Create the habit of choosing love.  Always.
Let love and a better world be your legacy.

This is how you create happiness.
Happiness in the world around you.
And happiness in your own mind.

Look Up

Look to the higher place.
Whenever you meet someone, be sure to cast your eyes upward.

Upward to the place where the soul dwells, that higher self.
See only the beauty, the love, the truth in everyone you encounter.

Don't ever look down.

No matter what happens.
No matter what they do.
No matter what you do.


It's all only a dreamscape anyway.

But where you cast your gaze is how you shall dream...
Look down and you will dream of suffering.

But look upward and you will live the happy dream.
When you look for the beauty, the love and the truth in others,
you will live in that very same truth yourself.