I'm feeling called to share with you many of the lessons i've learned practicing Jesus' teachings in ACIM for over the past 35+ years. Some of my experiences may resonate with you and others may not. But the way i see it is that if anything I share is helpful to anyone and speeds up our journey to Peace and awakening, it is worth sharing. If one brother is helped, we are all helped. So as you read what I share, embrace or dismiss as you are guided to do. I'm not looking for agreement or disagreement and I have nothing to defend. Everything I offer is extended with Love and for the purpose of being helpful. For there is one thing i know for sure and that is that we are here to be helpful to one another as we journey home together. This particular sharing is rather long so if you decide to read it, get comfortable. Grab a cup of coffee or a cold beer and relax into it. As always, do what brings you peace.
In our journey of awakening, it seems we go full circle in our return to God and to Heaven. We began as pure and perfect Creations of God, as One with God. It was a total and complete joining and collaboration. Through the Creation of the Son, God becomes a Father and the singular Father/Son Relationship is established. This relationship is eternally true. It will never change nor has there ever been a moment it has not been true.
In our slumber as seemingly fragmented pieces of the Whole, our journey becomes one of healing and forgiveness. This facilitates an experience of all relationships with right-minded perception which is a loving reflection of their original True and holy state. At firsts glance it seems like we have three relationships...One with God, One with ourselves and One with our Brothers. And at first glance it appears like a lot of healing is needed. Yet in truth there is only One relationship and that is the relationship we share with God through Holy Spirit. This relationship once healed, encompasses all perceived relationships since our Oneness is a shared experience and existence.
I've shared often my experience of right-minded perception where with a healed mind, everyone and everything shows up lovely and loving. With a healed mind, ALL is a reflection of Love. It is impossible for it to show up otherwise. You just bask in the Light and Love of it all. If we perceive, or i should say misperceive, a brother as being less then perfect, we must ask ourselves...Who is in need of healing? For a fragmented, personal nature does not exist in the Mind of God. We are One...One for ALL and ALL for One. The Sonship of God is inclusive and all Souls are a part of its Wholeness. No one is left out or special. Or you could say that we are ALL equally Loved in the Sight of the Father.
The Father/Son Relationship is BIG BANG powerful and when we fell asleep we dreamed of fragmenting, exploding out and projecting a Universe in which to reside outside the Mind of God. Of course it never happened, and for many of us we are now having a kind of lucid dream...being aware we are dreaming but still stuck within the dream. God has reached out to us through Holy Spirit. It is a call to awaken and to realize we are safe and at home and nothing happened. So here we are in the process of returning to a home we have never actually left and to a Father that still holds us safely in Its Holy Mind.
The healing of our relationship with the Father (God) brings all of the seeming Son fragments back to its original Oneness and the KNOWING of its Perfection. Since we see each other perceptually as fragments, we seek most of the time to heal individual relationships. We lose sight of our Wholeness and the One Source of all Creation. It "appears" certain relationships are more vital and important than other relationships. Certain relationships may appear more difficult than other relationships, etc. We have a kind of Spiritual Amnesia and we have forgotten our Source and our Identity as ONE Created Being. It is challenging to see that this singular, "Atomic" relationship of Father/Son consists of the sum of its parts or the sum of its Souls. It seems paradoxical which is usually the case with non-dual Truth. This is because one cannot reconcile Truth and Illusion. They are experienced as two distinct dimensions of Reality or Unreality. We function at one level or the other but never a combination of both.
Our mind cannot grasp this because it is blinded by the false identity we made up as an ego. We become confused between our True identity as a Son and our imaginary identity as an ego and discerning which one is real. In Truth we are The Body of Christ and the Christ mind remembers exactly who we are as The Son of God. So the initial goal is to get real clear about who we truly are and then function from that identity. That identity, our true identity is a shared identity and is inclusive of our Creator and ALL of our brothers. We belong to one another and are a part of each other. There is not one thought that is not shared by the whole. This is how we need to relate to one another. It makes the value of the Golden Rule blazingly obvious. And it is also why we are never healed alone.
The only way for us to remember who we are is to bring all of our "seeming" relationships back to their Singular Truth and this is accomplished by giving ALL relationships to God and by healing our mind of erroneous perceptions through forgiveness. Jesus gives us many clues and tips on the easiest way for this to be accomplished.
One clue that was for me a real portal opening to understanding was Jesus' teaching that "the insignificance of the body must become an acceptable idea." Let that swish around in the mind a bit. It was like a trigger for me, and a guidepost for taking the next step. I had to look at my relationship to my body since it is the home of the ego, the false me i made up and did not exist, yet i had held it in such esteem. Perceptually, it is like an egoic Catch 22. In other words, because we perceive ourselves in a body, we believe it is real and because we believe it is real, we perceive ourselves in a body. It was purposefully set up by the ego in this circular fashion so there appears to be no way out of our misperception. The body like anything else within the dream can be used by Holy Spirit for the purposes of the Atonement or used by the ego as a block to the awareness of our Truth. Who am I if not a body? That is a question that can only be answered thru a healed relationship with God and a healed mind. When we get clear on our True Spiritual Identity and its holistic nature, we can begin to function in the world but not be OF the world. We become a passerby and everything is handled "FOR" us instead of "BY" us. We are no longer the architect of a personalized dream but rather a collaborative spiritual entity that is eternal with no attachment to an imaginary body. We live out of this Truth, and initially it does seem like play-acting. But eventually, we have experiences that validate its Truth and we gain conviction and certainty about who we Truly are as the Son of God. Only then does "the insignificance of the body become an acceptable idea" for i am no longer fully associated with and attached to that identity. It is no longer a fixed idea or a firm believe. There now appears a space in the mind for Holy Spirit to deliver the Truth to me in a way i can understand and accept. As we start placing our faith in our Real Identify instead of our made up identity, the curtain parts and we actually experience being that which we are...One with our Brothers and with God. Only then will we really experience the words Jesus has given us in ACIM..."I am not a body, I am free. For I am as God Created me." No longer an abstract idea or affirmation, it transforms into a living, light-filled Truth in our everyday life.
We practice by putting aside the personal "i" and embracing the eternal "I" which is whole, complete and ONE with all of our brothers and God. We practice by turning over ALL relationships to God for every relationship is a part of who I am. We practice by recognizing that there is but ONE solution to any and all perceived problems and that is returning the mind to God. We practice by asking for guidance from Holy Spirit and/or Jesus in every situation. We practice by making every encounter with a brother a holy encounter that recognizes our brothers as our Saviors. I can assure you that at some point you will notice that "practice" transforms into a "devotion" and a labor of Love in which everyone benefits but as a singular entity within God and each other. We belong to each other. That is the way we were created and that is what we will awaken to...a sense of belonging where all Truthful wishes are fulfilled in the extension of the Love that we are. Creation has not skipped a beat in our slumber but can you imagine the experience of being a conscious part of it all. How amazing we are together as ONE shared Creation of God. "Live in the Light of God's Love" was one of the very first messages I received from Holy Spirit and now i'm so grateful it is an experience integrated into everyday life...my true Life with my brothers in God. Everything is a collaboration, a collaboration of LOVE. There are no private thoughts, there are no single thoughts. Everything is shared, EVERYTHING. How would you live if you KNEW this was the Truth? Well, it is.
