Matter Doesn't Matter; What's Real Matters

In spite of the fact that I have been at this for some time, i.e., the transformation of my mind through A Course in Miracles I still find myself in a bit of a funk lately. I mean, without going into specifics, I find that certain individuals around me are really pissing me off.

You see, I know better.

There is no one outside of me.
I am not a victim of the world I see.
There is only my mind.
I am never upset of the reason I think.

Still. . .

So, this morning I woke up early, grabbed a cup of coffee, and sat down to find some solace in reading the Course, specifically this morning I found myself reading, randomly, Chapter 14, Teaching for Truth, Section Vlll, The Holy Meeting Place.

Let your mind wander not through darkened corridors, away from light's centre.

OK. I took a sip of coffee, closed my eyes, and experienced a moment of peace, light, not hearing my narrative voice tempting me to wander.

You and your brother may choose to lead yourselves astray, but you can be brought together only by the Guide appointed for you.

I brought to mind a particular person pissing me off and realized that I didn’t have to play the “If only game,” i.e., if only she wouldn’t do this or say that, I’d be OK. We cannot join at the level of time and space, but I can be guided to experience peace and light, no matter what she does or says. The “If only game” places me squarely in the duality; if she only did this instead of that. This is like waking up from a sleeping dream and saying, “I’m going to try to go back to sleep and hope for that to happen instead of this.” I would be trying to make better a dream of my own making.

He will surely lead you to where God and His Son await your recognition.

We can never recognize each other in time and space, but only join when I recognize that my being pissed off is occurring in the dream only; it’s of my own making, and it can be undone. I can choose to wake up.

They are joined in giving you the gift of oneness, before which all separation vanishes.

They, of course, refers to God and his Son, and in the experience of their oneness, I let go of separating thoughts, seeing only light. It does not matter what I thought she did to me.

Unite with what you are. You cannot join with anything except reality.

I had forgotten for a moment that in time and space there is no possibility for joining; it’s a dream. Wake up and be what you are, real.

God's glory and His Son's belong to you in truth. They have no opposite, and nothing else can you bestow upon yourself. 3

Prior to this recognition of reality, I had tried in my mind to make the dream real by fixing it and suffering the consequences.

There is no substitute for truth. And truth will make this plain to you as you are brought into the place where you must meet with truth.

By being preoccupied with substituting my thoughts for truth, I was depriving myself of the peace of God.

And there you must be led, through gentle understanding which can lead you nowhere else.

Indeed, I was grateful to gently understand these passages, finding solace after wandering along in a funk.

Where God is, there are you. Such is the truth. Nothing can change the knowledge, given you by God, into unknowingness.

Here it is again. This is the Word of God. My separating thoughts, and they are only my thoughts, cannot undo our Godly connection.

Everything God created knows its Creator. For this is how creation is accomplished by the Creator and by His creations. In the holy meeting place are joined the Father and His creations, and the creations of His Son with Them together. There is one link that joins them all together, holding them in the oneness out of which creation happens. 4

And now I can create because in this state of mind of the peace and oneness of God, I look out and see the reflection of my own peace of mind. I am seeing with the vision of Christ; I am creating.

So, I took another sip of coffee, looked up with soft eyes, seeing the loveliness of God’s Creation.

It’s so simple.

Just then, Christine, my wife walks into the room and says, “I stand here, and I am connected, and I stand there, and I’m disconnected.” And I thought, my God, what a metaphor for what I am writing at this moment. I allow my thoughts to disconnect me from peace when a particular individual says or does something, and in a moment, I can ask for help and reconnect.

I know Christine can read my mind; in fact, I often feel that my forehead is really a window for her to look into, but I say to her, “What are you talking about?”

She says, “My Bluetooth in my ear and sometimes I’m connected with the source, and then with the slightest shift of my head, I’m disconnected.”

And I think, Thank you very much for the metaphor because that is what I am trying to express right this moment, the utter simplicity of this conversion in my mind, shifting from funk to peace; it’s as simple as a slight movement of my head, connecting, or disconnecting with Source.

And once again, the phrase comes to mind, “It makes a difference, and it doesn’t matter.” What happens in space and time seems to make a difference, yet it does not matter in eternity. For example, just after writing this, I ran into a woman who generally pisses me off, and sure enough, she said something completely out of line, and I went into reaction, but this time only for a moment, because I caught myself, took a breath, and peacefully walked on by. What she said seems to make a difference in the dream, it matters not in eternity. She can say the same thing the next time, and what will it have to do with me, my Self, and I, joined with God? She doesn’t have to change; no "If onlys" here; I just need to shift out of the duality.

I just remembered that a long time ago, I was walking in a mall, and two women passed by, and I heard one say to the other, "It's a case of mind over matter; if you don't mind, it doesn't matter." That is, if I am in my right mind, the peace of God, it does not matter.

Nevertheless, navigating in the dream can sometimes seem quite difficult, and we are not alone. We are, indeed, in the world, and not of it. So the last point I want to make is that when I am experiencing peace, I am in a receptive state of mind, disregarding my narrative voice, receptive to hearing the Voice for God speaking to me all through the day, and in hearing His Voice, I know what to do next.

Right at this point, as Christine was reading the draft of this essay, she looked up and said, "That's like what happened once when I was riding my horse."

After she told me the story, I said, of course, "Write it up."

And she said, "I knew you'd say that."

The thought of God’s Voice speaking to me all through the day is reassuring. What is it like to hear God speaking to me all day, all the time? This reminds me of something that happened to me a long time ago. This is the story:

I was riding bareback on my all black appaloosa named Aphrodite, nicknamed Aphro, through the woods on a beautiful summer day. Then, I decided to leave the woods and ride through the brush, down a small incline to the road. Suddenly, Aphro was thrashing and trying to back up, her eyes wild with fear. I slid off to discover she was tangled up in an old fallen, wire fence, covered with brush and leaves. I realized that if she didn’t calm down, I would not be able to get near enough to her to untangle the fence from her legs without injuring myself and her. I began whispering to her in a soothing voice, petting her, becoming calm in my own mind. I kept talking to her, telling her everything will be okay in a soft, reassuring voice. She began to settle down, to stop struggling. I was able to untangle the fence, still talking with a calm voice. She stopped struggling as I removed the fence from her legs and walked her down the embankment to the road still whispering to her, reassuring her, petting her on her neck, the side of her face and the bridge of her nose. She started nuzzling into me, and I knew she felt safe.

When I am walking along in the dream and become entangled and fearful, I can remember to be still and ask to hear the Voice for God softly speaking, and I can become untangled and continue walking, trusting and smiling.