Making Explicit the Meaning of Forgiveness: My Facebook Statuses for May, 2012

My Facebook Statuses enable me to express myself, daily, regarding the meaning of forgiveness, and spread the word about the incredible Event coming up in the fall, International Forgiveness Week and Weekend of Perfect Peace, September 14-23, 2012, at the Healing Center of Endeavor Academy, Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin.

http://www.forgivenessweek.org/writing.php



5/1
The clock on the wall is slicing the day into seconds and minutes and hours,

tick-tock, tick-tock.

It is not so.

I am as God created me before time was, now walking in this world, and after my time on earth is over. 

Yet, time does have a purpose; it can be used to help us escape time.  What seems to happen here can be utilized to transform our minds to timelessness.

Here is Jesus expressing this in Lesson 110, I am as God created me.

It is enough to let time be the means for all the world to learn escape from time, and every change that time appears to bring in passing by.  2

Letting go of time is an act of forgiveness.



5/2
Whether, or not, I truly forgive is tricky.  Sometimes I may just magnanimously let someone off the hook.  But then I am the one hooked by my misunderstanding of forgiveness.

It is always a matter of forgetting and remembering.  When I remember that I am as God created me, then I can forget what never occurred.

Since you are as God created you, then there has been no separation of your mind from His, no split between your min and other minds, and only unity within your own.  Lesson 110.  4.

Forgetting is forgiving.


5/3
When we realize through forgiveness that we are “in” the world, and not “of” the world, we are living an allegory.  An allegory is a representation of seeing spiritual meaning in concrete, or material, form.

Through the mind training of A Course in Miracles, we live, allegorically, knowing that while we are in the world of hell projected through the body’s eyes, we can remember that we are as God created us, complete, and healed and whole, and seeing with the eyes of Christ.  We can become aware moment to moment of spiritual reflections in the material form.

Open your eyes today and look upon a happy world of safety and of peace.  Forgiveness is the means by which it comes to take the place of hell.  In quietness it rises up to greet your open eyes, and fill your heart with deep tranquility as ancient truths, forever newly born, arise in your awareness. Lesson 122.8


5/4
Yesterday, a friend called and asked me to help her look at something really bothering her.  After we talked for awhile, she said, “Thank you,” and we hung up.

The content of the conversation doesn’t matter; it is always a matter of experiencing peace, or conflict, either/or, and, of course, the conflict is of our own making, and the sooner we recognize that, the sooner we can let it go.

In fact, she called me back fifteen minutes later, and she said, “You can forget that we ever had that conversation.”

I cracked up, and said, “Now, THAT is forgiveness!”  By forgetting what never occurred, we leave a place for something else to enter in, remembering the truth of what we are, the holy sons of God.

Be grateful God has saved you from the self you thought you made to take the place of Him and His creation.  Lesson 123.2


5/5
I cannot believe that both things happened on the same day.  Yesterday, I suffered two huge disappointments that involved money.  Again, the content does not matter, but for awhile I went into a spiral.  I felt it in the pit of my stomach; my mind chatter started racing.

I asked for help.

And sometime later these two thoughts came to me, “What does ‘this’ have to do with the fact that I am as God created me?” 

“Why should I let ‘this’ take me out of my peace?”

‘This’ is of my own making and has no source in reality.

Now, I take the next step, and do what I am guided to do, and I will ask for help to step, insouciantly, (with light-hearted unconcern), knowing that these worldly occurrences are ephemeral, meaning “lasting for a day,” while I am eternal.

At one with God and with the universe we go our way rejoicing, with the thought that God Himself goes everywhere with us.  Lesson 124.1




5/6
Yesterday morning, I woke up, looked at my clock, 6:50, and realized that the alarm would go off in 10 minutes.  I sat up for a moment, noticed how utterly dark it was; there was no traffic, and no birds were singing.

Still, the clock said 6:52.

Christine rolled over and said, “What are you doing?”

I said, “It’s time to get up.”

She said, “That’s crazy, my clock says 4:00.”

Then I remembered that I had re-set the clock last night…wrongly.

So, these are the elements for a big, fat analogy.

My clock represents my false self trusting the body’s eyes, no matter what.

Christine’s clock represents my true Self, no matter what else is going on in my physical world, it is unfailingly trustworthy.

Now, this is a heavy burden to bear, Christine, but your voice represents God’s Voice speaking to me all through the day, bridging the gap between my body’s eyes and the vision of Christ.  (OK, now let the analogy go, Christine, particularly the next time we have a disagreement.)

It is quite possible to listen to God's Voice all through the day without interrupting your regular activities in any way. The part of your mind in which truth abides (true Self) is in constant communication with God, whether you are aware of it or not. It is the other part of your mind (false self) that functions in the world and obeys the world's laws. It is this part that is constantly distracted, disorganized and highly uncertain.  Lesson 49.1


5/7
I came across this quotation the other day while leafing through a book entitled, “Moments Bright and Shining,” a collection of quotations published in 1979 that I found in Goodwill.

Be sure to keep a mirror always nigh,
In some convenient, handy sort of place,
And now and then look squarely in thine eye,
And with thy Self keep ever face to face.

John K. Bangs

This is a helpful reminder that we are always only looking into a mirror, and the reflection we see is our choice, and obviously, it is good to remember to choose brightly.

After reading this poem, I came across this passage in A Course in Miracles, Lesson 124, Let me remember I am one with God, echoing it perfectly.

We feel Him in our hearts. Our minds contain His Thoughts; our eyes behold His loveliness in all we look upon.  All this we see because we saw it first within ourselves.  You will see Christ’s face upon it, in reflection of your own.  Lesson 124.4

5/8
This paragraph in the Workbook of A Course in Miracles sums it all up for me, Lesson 125, In quiet I receive God’s Word today, paragraph 2.

This world will change through you.
(The world is a projection of my false self, or a reflection of my true Self.)

No other means can save it, for God's plan is simply this: The Son of God is free to save himself,
(To be saved means letting go of, i.e., forgiving, thoughts from the false self that have no source in reality.)

given the Word of God to be his Guide,
(The Word is that I AM God’s perfect son.)

forever in his mind and at his side to lead him surely to his Father's house.
(My Home is the state of mind of the peace of God.)


by his own will, forever free as God's.
(My will and God’s are the same.)


He is not led by force, but only love.
(There are only two emotions, love and fear, and fear does not exist.)

He is not judged, but only sanctified.
(To judge means to stand in fearful duality and choose this over that; to sanctify means to make holy by standing with Christ in the peace of God.)


5/9
This has always been one of my favorite poems, and now, coming across it again this morning, I particularly love the I Am, indicating that the narrator is in full awareness that he is God’s Son, shining in the reflection of His Love.

Limited

I AM riding on a limited express, one of the crack trains of the nation.

Hurtling across the prairie into blue haze and dark air go fifteen all-steel coaches holding a thousand people.

(All the coaches shall be scrap and rust and all the men and women laughing in the diners and sleepers shall pass to ashes.)

I ask a man in the smoker where he is going and he answers: "Omaha."

Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)


As my friend, Maureen, would say, “The poem turns on irony.”  The poem turns on the contrast between the false self, believing in the reality of Omaha, and the true Self, I AM, knowing full well his immortality.

5/10
More than ever, Lesson 49 of A Course in Miracles is so important to me, God’s Voice speaks to me all through the day.  I find that listening to hear the Voice of the Holy Spirit is, particularly, brought into practice when I sit down to write, as is occurring right now.  (The word, occur, comes from the Latin, cur, meaning “run to meet.”)  I am running towards His Voice.

The thing is, I don’t actually hear a Voice, as much as I experience thoughts/ideas coming into my mind.  I remember years ago in graduate school, reading an essay about Jean Piaget (1896-1980), the Swiss psychologist/epistemologist.  It was entitled, “The Having of Wonderful Ideas.”  That captures my experience.

And yesterday I came across this passage in a book by Echo Bodine, a Medium, entitled, “Echoes of the Soul.”  This is my experience.  Please remember, she is referring to “guides,” and I am referring to the Holy Spirit.

The first time I heard my guides, I was washing dishes.  A very soft voice, rather like a thought, said, “My name is Theodore—but you can call me Teddy.”  Then a female thought came:  “my name is Anna.”  These “voices” didn’t sound very different from my thoughts.  From that point on I kept the radio off in the house and in my car just in case they wanted to talk to me.

Lesson 125, In quiet I receive God’s Word today.


5/11
I have been sailing along rather well for some time, and in the past ten days, I experienced three jolts that, temporarily, brought me to a stop.  It does not matter the content, but in each case I felt it in the pit of my stomach, and I felt sad, disappointed, angry, and so forth.

In each case, though, I was pulled out of a funk by receiving this thought, this idea, “Why would I allow “this” to prevent me from experiencing the peace of God?”  “This” occurred in time and space, yet I AM God’s Son, timeless. 

And in remembering this truth of what I AM, I found myself standing in a place of peace.  This image just came to my mind.  It is like standing on a  bridge  over a highway, watching the cars speed by, going in opposite directions.  The cars represent the illusion of time and space, while the bridge represents reality, timelessness.  It is all a matter of remembering.

And soon after, I came across this passage in A Course in Miracles.

What better way to close the little gap between illusions and reality than to allow the memory of God to flow across it, making it a bridge an instant will suffice to reach beyond?  Chapter 28.1.15



5/12
Frequently, you will hear someone say, “I forgive so-and so for such-and such.”  This is most often experienced as an act of charity; “I can afford to give this gift to him, or her, and I am a good guy.”

That would be like waking up from a sleeping dream, and saying, “I forgive the guy who did such-and-such to me.”

Our “waking” dream is no different from our sleeping dream, SINCE we are looking through the body’s eyes and seeing projections, false beliefs, of our brain having no sourced in reality.  The real alternative is to see with vision, the eyes of Christ.

Forgiveness is recognizing that “it” never occurred at all, and that I AM safe at home in Heaven as God created me.

In silence, close your eyes upon the world that does not understand forgiveness, and seek sanctuary in the quiet place where thoughts are changed and false beliefs laid by.  Lesson 126.10


5/13
The metaphor of “voice” is most useful throughout A Course in Miracles.  Right now, as you are reading this sentence, a voice in your head is narrating it.  No problem.  That’s just what we do, as we move through the day.  It is always a question of which “voice,” that of the ego, or that of the Holy Spirit?

That is why it is helpful to look at words that contain the Latin root, dicere, meaning "to speak:"  dictate, predict, contradict, edict, dictionary, addict.

For example, sometimes when I experience a contradiction, I am hearing the ego’s voice speaking against the truth.  And sometimes it’s simply the ego voice contradicting itself.

Accept no opposites and no exceptions, for to do so is to contradict the truth entirely. Lesson 152.2

An addict declares this is what I want no matter what.

Meanwhile, I am so grateful that God’s Voice is speaks to me all through the day.  Title, Lesson 49.

He who would still preserve the ego’s goals and serve them as his own makes no mistakes, according to the dictates of his guide.  Lesson 133.10


5/14
Sunday morning I was working my usual shift, cooking at the incredible Cheese Factory Restaurant in the Wisconsin Dells.  This restaurant is incredible, not only because of the food and the atmosphere, but also because it offers a great opportunity to learn to forgive your brother as we all work together toward the single purpose of offering everything to our customers. 

You can imagine what is involved in making the restaurant work.  It requires the orchestration of the cooks and expeditors and servers and bussers and hosts and preppers and dishwashers and soda jerks and silverware rollers.

The amazing thing at the Cheese is to see the perfect orchestration during our busiest times.  Obviously, it can be trying at times, and at one point yesterday, after several cooking mix ups, I heard someone say, “This is really starting to be a problem!”  When I turned to look at her, she was pointing at her nose, her right index finger touching the tip, thereby taking full responsibility for her upset.

Now, THAT’S true forgiveness.


5/15
Reading today’s Lesson 135, If I defend myself I am attacked, I came across this passage and found myself smiling because of a memory, actually laughing.

And herein lies the folly of defense; it gives illusions full reality, and then attempts to handle them as real. 1

I am remembering years ago when I was a senior in college.  I was the right defensive end on our undefeated football team.  During the week in our practice scrimmages, I would irritate the hell out of the opposing quarterback.  When he came towards my end on a quarterback option play, I would penetrate a couple of yards, square off, fully balanced, and simply  wait for his next move.

Now, I was supposed to move one way or the other, and that movement would determine whether he would run inside, lateral to a back running outside, or pass.  Since I was simply holding my ground, ironically defenseless, he did not know what to do.

I was a walking oxymoron, or as he said after one practice, a “moron,” because I was a defenseless defensive end.

To finish this unusual analogy, my safety, indeed depends on my defensiveness, and my safety routinely rushed in and tackled the quarterback.



5/16
Less than three weeks ago, Christine and I became involved in a business opportunity.  We anticipate that our investment will yield a substantial return in a short period of time.  In fact, we think that by Labor Day, ironically, with very little labor, and a lot of fun, we will see significant results.

This morning upon awakening, this sentence came in:

YOU CAN STILL GO TO GOD HAVING MONEY IN YOUR POCKET; IT ALWAYS DEPENDS ON WHERE YOUR INVESTMENT IS.

The first part of the sentence suggests dualistic thinking, having money or not having money, keeping you in the world, but the second part moves you beyond duality to being depending on God, anchored in God, the only true investment, our only treasure.

And here is Jesus echoing this, exactly, in the Text of His Course:


I once asked you to sell all you have and give to the poor and follow me.  This is what I meant:  If you have no investment in anything in this world, you can teach the poor where their treasure is.  The poor are merely those who have invested wrongly, and they are poor indeed!  Chapter 12.111.1

In this context, “poor” has nothing to do with money; it has everything to do with investing wrongly in the body’s eyes and brain.  The right investment is in God.


5/17
I have always loved hearing Jesus say this in His Course in Miracles.


If it helps you, think of me holding your hand and leading you.  Lesson 70.9

Yesterday, a friend told me of a time when Jesus stepped in and did a lot more than hold his hand.

He said that he had become sober, attending AA Meetings, and he was reading the Course.

Upon awakening one morning, all of a sudden he heard Jesus yelling in his ear:

“PRE POST TEROUS!  PRE POST TEROUS!”

He realized that Jesus was making clear the meaning of his preposterous life, telling him that real Life is before, PRE, and after, POST, this earthly, illusory existence on this land, TEROUS, and during it, “if” you are in the right state of mind; and if you are not, you are utterly, painfully ridiculous.

And now his healing began.


Healing but removes illusions that have not occurred.  Just as the real world will arise to take the place of what has never been at all, healing but offers restitution for imagined states and false ideas, which dreams embroider into pictures of the truth.  Lesson 137.5

5/18
While reading a book entitled, “Angel Voices “ by Karen Goldman, I came across several passages that brought to mind Jesus summarizing His Introduction to His Course in Miracles, enabling the reader to begin reading His Course, experiencing the heart of it.


Nothing real can be threatened;
Nothing unreal exists;
Herein lies the peace of God.

I found myself juxtaposing passages from the angel book with His summary.


Nothing real can be threatened.


We are creatures of love, and this is our birthright and our calling.  We can learn to exist beyond the trap of our mortality.  We are meant to transcend  our skin and feel the fires of Heaven glowing within us; to know the  healing waters of joy and compassion that flow simultaneously through everything known and unknown, cleansing everything.  We witness miracles of creation and dissolution, exploding in every atom of space all around us. . .to produce miracles of sanity and hold jewels of freedom in our hands.  We can know intimately that which was never born and will never die as the foundation of all things known.

Nothing unreal exists.


As mortals, we have forgotten which part is the dream being dreamed and which is us.  We have temporarily given ourselves into the hands of this dreaming and have forgotten tow wake up.


The materialist has forgotten he is Spirit, and sees only the obvious—the outer shells of things.  He uses only his physical eyes, living identified with the physical.


Herein lies the peace of God.


In Spirit are all the expansive feelings—love, happiness, joy, ecstasy.  To go toward Heaven is to expand.  Not to limit, but to become Free.


5/19
While reading a newspaper this morning, I was struck by seeing this title: 


Paralyzed woman uses her mind to control her robotic arm.

The article goes on to say:

 “Using only her thoughts, a Massachusetts woman paralyzed for 15 years directed a robotic arm to pick up a bottle of coffee and bring it to her lips with the help of a tiny sensor implanted in her brain.  The sensor, about the size of a baby aspirin, eavesdropped on the electrical activity of a few dozen brain cells as she imagined moving her arm.  The chip then sent signals to a computer, which translated them into commands to the robotic arm.”

From a physical point of view, this is a tremendous achievement and gives hope to paralytics. It also reinforces the commonly mistaken idea that the body’s eyes can see, and the brain can think. 

This presents the paradox of walking through the world in a body.  What we can see, hear, smell, taste, and touch is “not” real; what we cannot perceive with our senses “is” real—love, peace, joy, union, truth, freedom, truth, serenity.  We remain as God created us, in spite of physical evidence to the contrary.

Fortunately, it is as simple matter of forgiving what is “not” real, and melting into the experience of what “is” real.

As Jesus says in His Course:


Today accept the truth about yourself, and go your way, rejoicing in the endless Love of God.  Lesson 139.9

5/20
As we walk through this world, well aware that we are not of this world, we keep running across the universal assumption that what the body’s eyes see is real. 


This is the depth of madness.   Yet it is the universal assumption of the world.  What does this mean except the world is mad? Why share its madness in the sad belief that what is universal here is true?  Lesson 139.6

One way to see through this madness is to note how many words are used that are synonymous with “universal.”  Here are a few:

automatic, habitual, regular, natural, normal, familiar, comfortable, customary, ordinary, persistent, consistent, unconscious, repetitious, addictive, chronic, patterned, programmed, inveterate, hypnotic, taken for granted, obsessed

For several minutes let your mind be cleared of all the foolish cobwebs which the world would weave around the holy Son of God.  Lesson 139.12

If you can come up with another synonym, Dear Reader, please send it along.

5/21
Not only is Jesus a master in expressing the truth in words whose content is enough to wake us up, but he also arranges His words on the page in sheer poetic form.  Here, for example, are ten lines of blank verse from Lesson 140, Only salvation can be said to cure.  Blank verse means 5 sets of iambs, slack STRESS, marching stately across the page.

The HAP py DREAMS the HO ly SPIR it BRINGS
are DIFF erent FROM the DREAM ing OF the WORLD,
where ONE can MERE ly DREAM he IS a WAKE.
The DREAMS for GIVE ness LETS the MIND per CEIVE
do NOT in DUCE a NOTH er FORM of SLEEP,
so THAT the DREAM er DREAMS a NOTH er DREAM.
His HAP py DREAMS are HER alds OF the DAWN
of TRUTH up ON the MIND. They LEAD from SLEEP
to GEN tle WAK ing, SO that DREAMS are GONE.
And THUS they CURE for ALL e TERN i TY.

And thus Jesus postures our voice to speak His words, the medium being the message.

To see the full extent of blank verse in His Course, in both the Text and the Workbook, please click on this link:

www.throughamirrorbrightly.com

then click on “The Rhythm and Reason of Reality.”

5/22

While reading Review 1V, in A Course in Miracles, a memory came to mind when I read this passage.


So do we start each practice period in this review with readying our minds to understand the lessons that we read, and see the meaning that they offer us.  4

Over fifty years ago, while I was teaching English in a junior high school in Westport, Ct., I met a man, Jack Davis, who was a Special Education teacher in a nearby district.  We became best friends, and he would often say, “I stay ready, then I don’t have to get ready.”  I always found this to be particularly profound.

Now, that was twenty years before I came across the Course, and he wasn’t trying to be “spiritual,” rather, as a black man in white America, he was simply, profoundly, being “street smart,” staying ready for anything that might occur while walking down the street.

For me, now, I want to stay ready to be receptive only to the thoughts that my mind holds with God and not be deceived by thoughts having no source in reality.


Your self-deceptions cannot take the place of truth. No more than can a child who throws a stick into the ocean change the coming and the going of the tides, the warming of the water by the sun, the silver of the moon on it by night. So do we start each practice period in this review with readying our minds to understand the lessons that we read, and see the meaning that they offer us. Review 1V.4

Thank you, Jack.

5/23
Not long ago, my friend, Maureen, was helping me navigate my Facebook page, and all of a sudden, she said, “What’s your favorite work of art? I would like for you to have a graphic for a background for your Facebook page.”

I sat there stunned for a moment, unable to think of anything, when, suddenly, I thought of Michelangelo’s David, and soon it became my graphic.

In 1501, at the age of 21, Michelangelo began carving from a huge lock of marble his 17-foot statue.  He captures David, the young shepherd boy, in the moments just before his battle with Goliath, against whom he appears to have little chance.  Yet, his David is poised, his weight on his back leg,   perfectly balanced, calm, peaceful, and well, “staying ready,” gazing, steadfastly, over his left shoulder at Goliath.

Here is a description by Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574).

Nor has there ever been seen a pose so easy, or any grace to equal that in this work, or feet, hands and head so well in accord, one member with another, in harmony, design, and excellence of artistry.

I first became aware of David at Kalamazoo College in an Introduction to Art class, during my freshman year, and he helped me learn to be calm and ready just before all of those football games and all the times I ran the 120 yard high hurdles and 220 yard low hurdles, and the quarter mile. At 5-9, 165 pounds, I, too, was going against all odds.

5/24
At the heart of A Course in Miracles, of course, is forgiveness.  And it is a bit tricky to understand its true meaning.  Paying attention to common phrases helps me; e.g., “What’s it for?  It’s for giving away.”  The key is the referent for “it.”  “It” is anything unreal, a fantasy, a dream, an illusion,  anything  believed to be real in reference to the body’s eyes and brain.

When I am in a state of mind of peace, it is possible to recognize the difference between what is real and what is unreal, because in that moment I am  seeing a true reflection, seeing through “it” with vision, not with my body’s eyes. I am experiencing salvation.

All this came to mind when I read this passage in the Text.

When you become disturbed and lose your peace of mind because another is attempting to solve his problems through fantasy, you are refusing to forgive yourself for just this same attempt. And you are holding both of you away from truth and from salvation. As you forgive him, you restore to truth what was denied by both of you. And you will see forgiveness where you have given it. Chapter 17.1.6

5/25
The NBA semifinal games are now being played.  Reading USA Today’s Sport’s Section, I came across this passage about Kevin Grant, 23:

The Oklahoma City Thunder’s 6-9, 235-pounder offers everything you’d want in an NBA superstar:  ball handling and shooting skills, playmaking ability and defense, unselfishness and teamwork.
He also brings the intangibles, the mental toughness…

And this is what caught my attention:

. . .the elusive feel for what needs to be done at any given moment.

I remember having this “elusive feel” playing football in college.  The play would begin, and then it was over.  I couldn’t remember what happened in between, but usually it was the right thing.  I was “in the zone.”  The point is that it was done without thinking.

In the context of A Course in Miracles, this reminds me of the holy instant.

The holy instant is this instant and every instant.  Delay it not.  For beyond the past and future, where you will not find it, it stands in shimmering readiness for your acceptance.  The holy instant is a time in which you receive and give perfect communication.  Chapter 15.1V.1

Play a sport.  Dance.  Sing.  Write.  Draw.  Play an instrument.  Be free of thought.  Receive.

5/26
While reading a passage in the Text of A Course in Miracles, I experienced this great image coming to mind. 
I imagined a person standing in my yard during the evening, his back to the west, and his long shadow falling in front of him.  I realized that if I were to see only the shadow, it would be like seeing my own projections through the body’s eyes; however, if I remembered to see a reflection of my Self, I would be seeing with the person with vision.

The shadow figure enters more and more, and the one in whom it seems to be decreases in importance.  Chapter 17.111.3

Forgiveness is a selective remembering, based not on your selection.  For the shadow figures would make immortal are “enemies” of reality.”  Be willing to forgive the Son of God for what he did not do.  Chapter 17.111.1

It also took me back to my Jungian days:

If you imagine someone who is brave enough to withdraw all his projections, then you get an individual who is conscious of a pretty thick shadow. Such a man knows that whatever is wrong in the world is in himself, and if he only learns to deal with his own shadow he has done something real for the world. He has succeeded in shouldering at least an infinitesimal part of the gigantic, unsolved social problems of our day. Carl Jung, Psychology and Religion, 1938.


5/27
Newspaper editors are pretty clever wordsmiths when it comes to article titles.  Here’s one;

“Fear of spiders?  You can escape that web. 
‘Exposure therapy’ trains the brain.”

And it goes on to say:  People undone by arachnophobia holding a huge hairy tarantula in their bare hands?  No worries, not after a single brief “exposure therapy’ session changes the brain’s fear response.  “Exposure therapy’ gets its name from exposing a patient to what he fears.  Immediately after, an MRI scan showed the b rain regions associated with fear decrease in activity when people saw spider photos.

After reading this, I thought, hmmm, all we need is a class designed to expose people to their fears. Since there are only two emotions, fear and love, they will turn to love.  Simple.

But the article goes on to say: Immediately after, an MRI scan showed the brain regions associated with fear decreased in activity.

So, there’s the problem; it’s not so simple after all.  ‘Exposure therapy” simply exposes the contradiction in duality, within the realm of the ego, and the brain registers less fear, as opposed to more fear.  The alternative is to step out of the duality completely.

Bringing the ego to God is but to bring error to truth, where it stands corrected because it is the opposite of what it meets. It is undone because the contradiction can no longer stand. How long can contradiction stand when its impossible nature is clearly revealed? What disappears in light is not attacked. It merely vanishes because it is not true. Chapter 14.1X.2

5/28

When I say to myself, she did “this” to me, but I am going to take a deep breath and forgive her, I am engaging in “eccentric folly” as Jesus says.  My  false self is making up what “she did,” simply with thoughts having no source in reality, making “it” totally illusory; “it” never really occurred.

That is why I just love this passage from Lesson 134, Let me perceive forgiveness as it is. 


Forgiveness does not countenance illusions, but collects them lightly, with a little laugh, and gently lays them at the feet of truth.  And there they disappear entirely.  6


5/29
Jesus designed His Course for our mind training, so that we can reverse our thinking from seeing with the body’s eyes to seeing with vision.

In His Introduction to Review lll, He makes it clear that this reversal will not be achieved by “ritual,” but only by our “willingness.”


Learn to distinguish situations that are poorly suited to your practicing from those that you establish to uphold a camouflage for your unwillingness.  Review 111.3

Our willingness leads to forgiveness.


5/30
A Course in Miracles offers an incredible curriculum that leads to salvation.  “Curriculum” comes from the Latin word, currere, meaning to run a course.

We can learn by running this course how to be saved from our thoughts that have no source in reality, and by letting go of these thoughts, we leave open a space for something else to enter in, the truth.

To train for the 400 meter race, you run a course, a 400 meter track.  Training our minds, like training our bodies, requires exercise, practice, discipline.


These practice periods are planned to help you form the habit of applying what you learn each day to everything you do.  Review 111.10

Forgiveness requires rigorous practice.


5/31

A friend was really happy because of something that occurred earlier in the day, and she said to me, “I didn’t do it; it just got done.”

I love to hear a basic principle of A Course in Miracles expressed in the vernacular.  For example, here is this great passage from the Course.


What would You have me do? 
Where would You have me go? 
What would You have me say, and to whom? Lesson 71.9

This is in the spirit of asking for help, and in this receptive state of mind, we experience not doing it, it just gets done, trusting, Thy Will be done, Thine not mine.

Vision of a Ho-Chunk Healer

 

It is inevitable that this Ho-Chunk medicine man, this healer, is finally sitting here on this riverbank by the still waters listening to the Big Voice.  Ho-Chunk means “People of the Big Voice,” or “People of the Sacred Language.”  Simply adorned in the garb of his people, an eagle feather secured in his otter skin headband, his long gray-white hair in a single braid falling over his right shoulder, clothed in a soft shirt, he is peacefully smoking his pipe, experiencing the peace of God.

    It is inevitable that it comes to this because, finally, there is only the Great Voice speaking to us.  That is the only thing that is real.  It was there at the beginning, present during the long descent through time, and is speaking to us here and now.  This peaceful healer demonstrates that it is possible to use time, even the great length of time represented by the sandstone cliffs carved by glacier-fed streams, to discover the Great Voice speaking to us right now all through the day.  Even through the great Diaspora of his people, meaning their breaking up and scattering, it is possible to use time to discover the presence of the Great Voice, closer than the sound of a heartbeat.

    This healer is silhouetted by the sandstone cliffs formed millions of years ago during a period of glacial melting that took place not far from here, an area now known as Portage.  Trillions of gallons of water trapped behind a huge ice dam forced its collapse and plummeted through this region, carving out these magnificent cliffs.

    Subsequently, for thousands of years the Ho-Chunks naturally gathered here to live near these healing waters.  They enjoyed abundant hunting, gathering and farming.  Then, starting in the early 1800’s, the great Diaspora began as the U. S. Government forced them to relocate in Iowa, then Minnesota, then along the Mississippi, then to South Dakota.  Throughout eleven removals the Ho-Chunks continued to return to Wisconsin.  Finally, when it was apparent that the Nation was determined to be in Wisconsin, they were able to purchase 40-acre homestead lots and farm and assimilate.  Their longing to return home made their return certain, just as our longing to return Home to God makes the outcome certain.

    And now we return to the peaceful healer sitting on the riverbank, representing the inevitability of the Great Voice speaking to us all through the day no matter what appears to be going on in time.  This inevitability is expressed differently in different traditions, and the healer, listening to  David’s 23rd Psalm would nod and smile in complete recognition of the Sacred Voice.  The medicine man in the green pastures of his quiet mind is sitting by the still waters. 

    He would also smile in recognition, hearing Jesus say these words in His unworldly masterpiece, A Course in Miracles.

Let us come daily to this holy place, and spend a while together. Here we share our final dream. It is a dream in which there is no sorrow, for it holds a hint of all the glory given us by God. The grass is pushing through the soil, the trees are budding now, and birds have come to live within their branches. Earth is being born again in new perspective. Night has gone, and we have come together in the light.


The darkness of the great Diaspora is gone, and we have come together in the light, listening to the Voice for God.  Experiencing the light, his mind is healed, and what he sees outside is a reflection of the light within.  His peacefulness comes from knowing that he is always only looking into a mirror.  What he sees is mirroring his peaceful mind, and that is rendered in the painting so beautifully by the thirteen flowers pushing through the soil by the still waters, framed by the sandstone cliffs and trees and blue sky and white clouds. 

    Arty Senger painted this panorama from the same quiet place, hearing the still, small Voice for God, just like the healer.  She conceived of this painting from the same quiet place the healer is experiencing because their minds are joined in the Oneness of God’s mind, listening to the Voice of the Holy Spirit.  The painting is a pictorial demonstration that what is seen outside is a manifestation of what is within.  When we look at the painting we are looking into the mirror of her mind.  It is her gift to be able to illustrate, particularly, the images in her mind as these thirteen flowers:

Harebell, Common Blue Violet, Hoary Puccoon, Pink Lady’s Slipper, Giant Blue Hyssop, Blue Flag Iris, Wild Geranium, Columbine, Canada Anemone, Whorled Milkweed, Large-Flowered Trillium, Black-Eyed Susan, and Common Dandelion.  During her long painting career, it has always been her gift and her joy to paint flowers.

    And then we have the magnificent ivory-billed woodpecker.  News of his sighting broke while she was painting this mural.  It is perfect that he is now in the painting because it is such a testament to God’s Love that this bird, not having been spotted for over 60 years and assumed extinct, should appear again now.  It has a 30-inch wingspan and a jackhammer beak.  Audubon called it the “great chieftain of the woodpecker tribe,” and others called it the “Lord God bird” because when people saw it, they said, “Lord God!”

    As we gaze into Arty’s painting we are given the opportunity to still our minds and come to hear the Great Voice telling us that Truth is true and nothing else is true.

    It is inevitable that this painting is being displayed, for a moment, in this Chapel in the Wisconsin Dells, resting on this hillside, overlooking the splendid sandstone cliffs and the healing waters, now opens the doors of the RiverView Room to offer a peaceful place to still your mind and see the reflection of God’s Love.

    And now, it is most appropriate to stop and listen to Jesus speaking to us His Course in Miracles,  two passages from Lesson 125, In quiet I receive God’s word today.


Let this day be a day of stillness and of quiet listening. Your Father wills you hear His Word today. He calls to you from deep within your mind where He abides. Hear Him today. No peace is possible until His Word is heard around the world; until your mind, in quiet listening, accepts the message that the world must hear to usher in the quiet time of peace.

Today He speaks to you. His Voice awaits your silence, for His Word can not be heard until your mind is quiet for a while, and meaningless desires have been stilled. Await His Word in quiet. There is peace within you to be called upon today, to help make ready your most holy mind to hear the Voice for its Creator speak.

Thank you, Father.

Making Explicit the True Meaning of Forgiveness

Two, or three, years ago, I set up a Facebook account, but I never really did much with it, until Sunday 8 April, Easter Sunday, auspiciously, when it occurred to me that I could post a Status statement on Facebook, daily.  This would enable me to express myself regarding the meaning of forgiveness, and spread the word about the incredible event coming up in the fall, International Forgiveness Week and Weekend of Perfect Peace, September 14-23, 2012, at the Healing Center of Endeavor Academy, Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin.

It was clear to me that each day I could make explicit the meaning of forgiveness in a pithy statement, and at the same time, encourage readers to send in their statements expressing their forgiveness experiences.

We will collect these statements and make them available during the Event, as well as possibly publish them in a book.

It was also clear to me that on the first of each month, I would post a blog containing the statements from the preceding month.

These are the postings from Monday 9 April through Monday 30 April, 2012.







4/9
You cannot forgive a person, place, or thing.  You can forgive only a thought, based on your individual belief system that made the person, place, or thing in the first place.

Forgive what you have made and you are saved.  Forgive yourself the thought He wanted this for you.  Forgive all thoughts which would oppose the truth of your completion, unity and peace.  ACIM, Lesson 99


4/10
In a body in time and space, I tend to make decisions between this and that, hot or cold, peace or conflict, good or bad.

When I choose one over the other in this duality, I am actually bargaining, although I find that when I choose the positive over the negative, I call it Forgiveness.

Bargaining is not Forgiveness.  When I stand in a place in my mind, a state of mind of the peace of God, the body and time and space slip away and my dream is replaced by the experience of true Forgiveness, letting go of what never was, resting in God.


4/11
In A Course in Miracles, Jesus refers to often to “God’s plan.”  This is not some plan, like World Peace; rather, God’s plan is for each of us to learn to forgive our worldly thoughts.

Salvation (Forgiveness) must reverse the mad belief in separate thoughts and separate bodies, which lead separate lives and go their separate ways.  It is your function that you find it here, and that you find it now.  Lesson 100

4/12
Obviously, our biggest obstacle to Forgiveness is our identification with our bodies and our thought/images projected from our tiny brains.  Jesus tells us, repeatedly, in His Course in Miracles:
 I am not a body.  I am free.  For I am still as God created me.

Garfield pretty much sums it up in this cartoon:

http://www.garfield.com/comics/vault.html?yr=2012&addr=120405


4/13
We grow up thinking that our eyes can see and our brains can think.  As Jesus makes so clear in His Course in Miracles, this is ludicrous.  We make the mistake of investing in this illusion.

And the words “ludicrous” and “illusion” come from the same Latin root, ludere, meaning to play a game.  The dream is ludicrous because it’s absurd, and to invest in it is a misleading impression of reality.  It’s a deadly game.  We  can learn to put our toys away.

Forgiveness means to give up the illusion, seeing through it with vision.

Every man takes the limits of his own field of seeing for the limits of the world.  Arthur Schopenhauer.



4/14
I walk into a darkened movie theater, sit down, and face a blank screen.  The projector comes on, and I enter into the drama of the images on the screen, forgetting where I am, following the images cavorting across the screen, entering fully into the story.

At the end, the lights come on, the credits roll, the screen goes blank.  The projector goes off.  I stand up and walk out.  This is a moment analogous to Forgiveness, letting it all go.

Projection makes perception.  The world you see is what you gave it, nothing more than that.  Therefore, seek not to change the world, but choose to change your mind about the world.  ACIM, T-21.Intro.

That change, that shift, is forgiveness.

4/15
In this world we are encouraged by advertisers to trade stamps for merchandise, to redeem pieces of paper for worldly treasures.

This is a helpful analogy for our redemption.  We can redeem our attachment to ego thoughts, and in this act of Forgiveness is our redemption.

There will be great joy in Heaven on your homecoming, and the joy will be yours.  For the redeemed son of man is the guiltless Son of God, and to recognize him is your redemption.  ACIM.Chapter13.ll.9

4/16
Michael Jordan led the Chicago Bulls to a Three-Peat, winning NBA Titles in ’91, ’92, and ’93.  Then he abruptly retired to play professional baseball for two years.  When he returned in ’95, he had a difficult time regaining his former top-level playing style, until, one day he said to himself, “I’m going to let the game come to me.”  He then led the Bulls to another Three-Peat in ’96, ’97, and ’98.

A friend of mine expressed Jordan's insight this way:  “I‘m going to participate fully, remembering that I need do nothing.”  In other words, once I, my ego-personality, gets out of the way, I can be guided to do the next thing. 

Getting out of the way is an act of forgiveness.

This is one way it is expressed in A Course in Miracles, I will step back and let Him lead the way.  Title, Lesson 155.

4/17
In his poem, Revelation, Robert Frost (1874-1963) begins:

We make ourselves a place apart
Behind light words that tease and flout,

Our ego personality constructs, or makes, an identity, apart from the awareness of God’s presence, and we defend it with our meaningless thoughts.

In His Course in Miracles, Jesus expresses it this way:

You have built your whole insane belief system because you think you would be helpless in God’s Presence, and you would save yourself from His Love because you think it would crush you into nothingness. Chapter 13.Section 111.4

Frost finishes the first stanza with these two lines:

But oh, the agitated heart
Till someone find us really out.

And from the Course:

For He will heal every little thought you have kept to hurt you and cleanse it of its littleness, restoring it to the magnitude of God. 7

And when we allow this cleansing to occur, it is an act of forgiveness, and we experience our restoration, our resurrection.


4/18
We tend to believe that our eyes can see and our brains can think.  This cherished belief imprisons us. 

Samuel T. Coleridge (1777-1834) coined a wonderful phrase that describes being lifted out of this belief:

. . .a willing suspension of disbelief.

While we believe in the reality of the body’s eyes, we disbelieve in the Reality of God.  For us, it is always either/or.  Coleridge, the Romantic, trusted that poetry could free us, having the power to “awaken the mind’s attention from the lethargy of custom.”

Our willingness to suspend our disbelief in God is an act of forgiveness.

4/19
We are such creatures of habit, always tending to believe in the world we project through our body’s eyes.  This habit seems ordinary, customary, normal, automatic, "autonomic," natural, universal, and my favorite, taken for “granite,” whoops, taken for granted.

These habits prevent us from receiving God’s gifts of joy and peace, our natural inheritance.

They come to you from God, Who cannot fail to give you what He wills.  Yet must there be a place made ready to receive His gifts.  They are not welcomed gladly by a mind that has instead received the gifts it made where His belongs, as substitutes for them.  ACIM, Lesson 104.1 

Forgiveness is letting go of these substitutes, making ready a place in our minds to receive God’s gifts.


4/20
Since the ego always speaks first, we tend to judge a brother, automatically, seeing him as an “enemy.” 

Recognizing this, Ho’oponopono, a great Hawaiian healer, practiced forgiveness, using these four simple statements, and these correspond perfectly with passages in A Course in Miracles, Lesson 105, God’s peace and joy are mine.

“I’m sorry.”

Think of your “enemies” a little while, and tell each one, as he occurs to you: My brother, peace and joy I offer you.

“Please forgive me.”

Thus you prepare yourself to recognize God’s gifts to you, and let your mind be free of all that would prevent success today.

“I love you.”

My brother, peace and joy I offer you, that I may have God’s peace and joy as mine.

“Thank you.”

Then bless your brother, thankfully.

In this manner, Ho’oponopono cured a complete ward of criminally insane patients--without ever seeing any of them. He simply studied an inmate's chart and engaged in this process, over and over.



4/21
A little film clip on forgiveness has gone “viral” on the internet.  Shawne Duperon, a six-time Emmy Award Winner, produced this clip, featuring a man, Gary Weinstein, who lost his wife and two sons in an auto accident caused by a drunk driver.  This clip shows, movingly, Gary’s True Forgiveness, echoing this passage from Lesson110, I am as God created me, in A Course in Miracles.

If you remain as God created you, appearances cannot replace the truth, health cannot turn to sickness, nor can death be substitute for life, or fear for love. All this has not occurred, if you remain as God created you. You need no thought but just this one, to let redemption come to light the world and free it from the past. 3

As Gary, remaining as God created him in his mind, experiencing his true Self, recognizes on the clip, he is truly “the boldest man on the planet.”

To view a trailer for the film and donate to Project Forgive, visit http://www.projectforgive.com.


4/22
In one of his early Lessons in His Course in Miracles, Jesus characterizes the ego’s voice as a raucous shriek.  His intent in His Course is to slow us down, so that we can learn to reverse our thinking.  The title of Lessons 201-220 is I am not a body.  I am free.  For I am still as God created me.

. . .”still.”  Hmmmm.  Stop a moment.  Does that mean, I continue to be as God crated me, or does it mean I am the “stillness” of God’s creation?

The answer is “yes,” and I stopped for a moment. 

And in this recognition, all is forgiven.

4/23
Very often in His Course in Miracles, Jesus uses contrast to help us learn to reverse our thinking.  For example, the body’s eyes see only their projections, darkness, while seeing with vision enables us to see our peaceful state of mind, light.

The light that makes true vision possible is not the light the body’s eyes behold.  It is a state of mind that has become so unified that darkness cannot be  perceived at all.  Lesson 108.2

And seeing with light is an act of forgiveness.

4/24
I woke up this morning, trying to remember a dream.  It seemed that it was painful, but I just couldn’t find it.  While reading Lesson 107, Truth will correct all errors in my mind, I came across this sentence:

And so errors disappear to nothingness, returning whence they came.  From dust to dust they come and go, for only truth remains.

And I realized that not finding the dream provides me with a perfect analogy.  The dream was to my waking up as my errors, my illusions, are to my awakening mind. . .for only truth remains.

This is an act of forgiveness.


4/25
Often, sitting quietly, thoughts will come to mind, and I know that I am  being receptive to God’s Voice, the Holy spirit.

When I grab a notebook and write down these thoughts, I am amazed at the fluidity of receptivity finding expression.

If you will listen with an open mind, then you will hear the mighty voice of truth, quiet in power, strong in stillness, and completely certain in Its messages.  Lesson 106.2

These messages are a result of forgiveness, making a place in my mind receptive to the Holy Spirit’s Voice.



4/26
The ego’s voice is very loud.  In fact, Jesus in His Course in Miracles, uses the metaphor of thunder.

Listen and hear your Father speak to you through His appointed Voice, Which silences the thunder of the meaningless.  Lesson 106.2

The noisy mind chatter is thunderous.

And Joel Goldsmith (1892-1964) wrote a book entitled, The Thunder of Silence (1961).  In this case, thunder refers to the wonder of the silence. 

The metaphor of thunder in both cases is apt when I remember that the word “astonish” comes from the Latin, tonare, meaning “to thunder.”

Silence is astonishing in reference to noise, and noise is astonishing in reference to silence, and in both cases, experiencing silence is an act of forgiveness.


4/27
At lunch today, I overheard this curious sentence:  “If you are climbing a ladder and let go, you will spring into Heaven.”

What?  It was only later that I got it when I realized it was an analogy, after all, literally, I saw myself crashing to the ground.

The ladder is analogous to our logical, step-by-step, conceptual mind that perpetuates our world made by our thought/images projected from a part of our mind that has no source in reality.  So, when I let go of these thoughts, I do spring into Heaven, the only part of my mind that is real.

The transition into Divine sonship brings about that change from faith in the visible to faith in the Infinite Invisible, in that which can never be seen, hear, tasted, touched, smelled.  Joel Goldsmith, The Thunder of Silence, p. 21.
Letting go of the ladder is forgiveness.
 



4/28
I am sitting here on my couch, early in the morning, reading Joel Goldsmith, and I marvel that I am experiencing the peace of God because of Grace.  This passage inspired that thought:

Our spiritual adoption comes through a conscious activity within our own consciousness and at a time when we are prepared for that transition, because the transition from humanhood to spiritual sonship is made only by Grace.  The Thunder of Silence, p. 19

By Grace, my wife, Christine, and I came across A Course in Miracles in the fall of 1985, and we crossed the threshold of Endeavor Academy on August 7, 1997.

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That Saved a wretch like me./
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now, I see.

By the grace of God, we learned to forgive.



4/29
When I sit down at the computer and place my hands on the keyboard, my index fingers, automatically, rest on the home row, largely because of the raised dots on the “f” key and the “j” key, and now the entire keyboards is available to me simply by touch.

This is a helpful reminder that we can sit down, take a breath, and go home,  resting in the peace of God, and now all His bounty is available to me in my stillness.

I will be still an instant and go home.  Title, Lesson 182.

In this moment of stillness, all is forgiven, all that never was.

4/30
In His Course in Miracles, not only does Jesus use impeccable prose to direct our personal transformation, he also writes sheer poetry.  For example, here is a passage from Lesson 109, I rest in God.  Please read it slowly, savoring the “s” sounds.

You rest today.  And as you close your eyes, sink into stillness.  Let these periods of rest and respite reassure your mind that all its frantic fantasies were  but the dreams of fever that has passed away. 5

Here Jesus uses a poetic device called consonance, the repetition of consonant sounds.  The medium is the message.  We are being hushed to rest in God, reassured, shhhh, echoing the song,

Hush little baby, don’t your cry/Momma’s goin’ to sing you a lullaby.

In our resting is forgiveness.

Please write about your experience of forgiving thoughts in 600 words, or less, and Submit Your Essay, using this link:

http://www.forgivenessweek.org/writing.php

Striding Through the World with Light-hearted Unconcern

I am amazed at how yesterday unfolded. I began the day reading Lesson 92 in A Course in Miracles, Miracles are seen in light, and light and strength are one. I love being reminded that we think we see with our eyes and think with our brains; as the Course says, we think we think. Duh.

Your ideas of what seeing means is tied in with the body and its eyes and the brain.
You also believe the body's brain can think. If you but understood the nature of thought, you could but laugh at this insane idea. It is as if you thought you held the match that lights the sun and gives it all its warmth; or that you held the world within your hand, securely bound until you let it go. Yet this is no more foolish than to believe the body's eyes can see; the brain can think. W-p1.92. 1:3,5, 2

Later in the morning, I was leafing through a magazine, The Sun, and I came across this passage by Lewis Thomas(1913-1993 ), the biologist who wrote Lives of a Cell.

We are perhaps uniquely among the earth’s creatures, the worrying animal. We worry away our lives, fearing the future, discontent with the present, unable to take in the idea of dying, unable to sit still.

His phrase, worrying animal reminded me of this wonderful poem by Denise Levertov (1923-1997), Come Into Animal Presence.

Come into animal presence.
No man is so guileless as
the serpent. The lonely white rabbit on the roof is a star
twitching its ears at the rain.
The llama intricately
folding its hind legs to be seated
not disdains but mildly
disregards human approval.
What joy when the insouciant
armadillo glances at us and doesn't
quicken his trotting
across the track into the palm brush.
What is this joy? That no animal
falters, but knows what it must do?
That the snake has no blemish,
That the rabbit inspects his strange surroundings
in white star-silence? The llama
rests in dignity, the armadillo
has some intention to pursue in the palm-forest.
Those who were sacred have remained so,
holiness does not dissolve, it is a presence
of bronze, only the sight that saw it
faltered and turned from it.
An old joy returns in holy presence.

In this poem, we are invited into animal presence, a state of mind unconcerned with our body’s eyes and brain, striding lightly through the world, as demonstrated by the armadillo, trotting along his way, insouciantly, meaning with light-hearted unconcern, echoing the French phrase, sans souci, without a care.

Seeing like an animal, coming into animal presence, is an excellent analogy for our capacity to let go of our small body self seeing dark shadows, and embracing our Self as we were created by God, seeing only Its light reflection as we walk through the world, and in this state of mind, we are insouciant.

The strength in you will offer you the light, and guide your seeing so you do not dwell on idle shadows that the body's eyes provide for self-deception. Strength and light unite in you, and where they meet, your Self stands ready to embrace you as Its Own. Such is the meeting place we try today to find and rest in, for the peace of God is where your Self, His Son, is waiting now to meet Itself again, and be as One. W-p1.92.9

Ancient Egyptians believed that when a person died, the gods immediately placed his or her heart in one pan of a set of scales. In the other pan was a feather. If there was imbalance, if the heart of the deceased weighed more than the feather, he or she was denied admittance to the after world. Only the lighthearted were deemed advanced enough to merit immortality.

We know, of course, that we are immortal beings, God's Creations, having never left Heaven; we only think we did; however, the analogy of a light heart weighing no more than a feather is a powerful image.

And most importantly, as my unfolding day demonstrates, when I am in this feathery state of mind, I am receptive, receptive to the Holy Spirit, God's Voice speaking to me all through the day. Lesson 49

An Upset Can be a Set Up for the Action of Forgiveness

Yesterday morning, a person said something to me that made me so angry, so upset.

I was livid. Seething. Pissed off. Grievous. My buttons were pushed.

I wanted to take him out, and I don’t mean, join him in peace and go Home; I mean I had fantasies of kicking his ass.

For a moment, years of mind training went out the window.

And the day went on. I played it over in my mind. I focused on my breathing. I asked for help.

This morning, I woke up and with great gratitude read the perfect Lesson in A Course in Miracles for my recovery from my insanity, Lesson 78, Let miracles replace all grievances.

Perhaps it is not yet quite clear to you that each decision that you make is one between a grievance and a miracle. Each grievance stands like a dark shield of hate before the miracle it would conceal. And as you raise it up before your eyes, you will not see the miracle beyond. Yet all the while it waits for you in light, but you behold your grievances instead. W-p1.78.1

I began to breathe easier.

We will select one person you have used as target for your grievances, and lay the grievances aside and look at him. 4:4

You know the one to choose; his name has crossed your mind already. 5:1

That was easy.

And then, earnestly, I said to myself:

Let me behold my savior in this one You have appointed as the one for me to ask to lead me to the holy light in which he stands, that I may join with him. 7:3

Ah, yes, it is working, a dark cloud of bitterness is passing away.

The Holy Spirit leans from him to you, seeing no separation in God's Son. And what you see through Him will free you both. Be very quiet now, and look upon your shining savior. No dark grievances obscure the sight of him. 8:4-7

And it becomes increasingly clear to me that in every moment, I decide to be aware of either my conflicts or my peace. It is always my choice. Why would I allow “this” to replace the peace of God. “This” is of my own making, and I can choose to let it go.

Duh. Why would I ever choose not to be peaceful?

Now, I realize that not only does the Holy Spirit answer our prayers with just the right thought at just the right time, the Holy Spirit also sets up apparently “negative” situations that can provide an opportunity for forgiveness and growth.

You have allowed the Holy Spirit to express through him the role God gave Him that you might be saved. 8:8

This is how I experience this quotation from the Lesson:

As I earnestly asked for help and did the Lesson, I allowed the Holy Spirit to give “him” the perfect role, just as the Holy Spirit fulfilled the role given Him by God, so that I might be saved from my thoughts that have no source in Reality, and experience the peace of God.

This afternoon, I saw “him” at a distance, and I was amazed that I felt no twinge of a grievance. It was over. He is, indeed, my savior.

Me, My Self, and I: Learning to be in the Right Part of my Mind

Little did I know, those many years ago, walking around the playground at my one-room schoolhouse, a little boy, chanting, “Me, my Self , and I,” that I was laying out the typography of my tripartite mind. It took me much too long to come to understand that I had spent a good part of my life knowing full well only one part of my mind, “Me,” the ego, thereby blocking my awareness of my “Self,” not realizing that “I,” the decision-maker, was automatically, habitually, in alliance with “Me,” rather than in union with my “Self.”

Thank God all that changed when I came across A Course in Miracles, and began to undergo the mind training so superbly set out by Jesus.

This all came to mind a few days ago when I did one of my favorite Lessons, God’s Voice speaks to me all through the day. This Lesson, like all the Lessons and the Text, is a reminder for me to pay very close attention to pronoun references. For example, look at the beginning of the Lesson.

It is quite possible to listen to God's Voice all through the day without interrupting your regular activities in any way. The part of your mind in which truth abides is in constant communication with God, whether you are aware of it or not.

There… whether you are aware of it or not. The pronoun reference for you is the mechanism of decision. Jesus is addressing “I,” the decision maker with the pronoun “you.”


This “You” is always deciding between allying with the “Me,” the ego, or uniting with the “Self,” I am one Self, united with my Creator. (Lesson 95, Title) Now I know that full well, but for far too long I did not realize that “I” had a choice.

The decision to unite must be unequivocal, or the mind itself is divided and not whole. Your mind is the means by which you determine your own condition, because mind is the mechanism of decision. It is the power by which you separate or join, and experience pain or joy accordingly. T-8-1V.5:5-8

And now, Dear Reader, look at how Jesus characterizes “Me,” my egotistic state of mind.

It is the other part of your mind that functions in the world and obeys the world's laws. It is this part that is constantly distracted, disorganized and highly uncertain.

By contrast, here is a description of my “Self.”

The part that is listening to the Voice for God is calm, always at rest and wholly certain. It is really the only part there is.

The great value of looking very closely at the pronoun references is to slow down my mind, so that I am receptive to hear the Voice for God, speaking to me all through the day. And now, let us proceed slowly.

“Me,” the egoistic state of mind.

The other part is a wild illusion, frantic and distraught, but without reality of any kind.

In the following passage, “I,” the mechanism of decision, is referred to as “you,” the implied you, as Jesus uses the Imperative form of the verb, i.e., do this, do that.

Try today not to listen to it. Try to identify with the part of your mind where stillness and peace reign forever. Try to hear God's Voice call to you lovingly, reminding you that your Creator has not forgotten His Son.

Finally, in reference to pronouns, Jesus is with us, right here, right now, helping us to hear God’s Voice, using the pronoun “We.”

We will need at least four five-minute practice periods today, and more if possible. We will try actually to hear God's Voice reminding you of Him and of your Self. We will approach this happiest and holiest of thoughts with confidence, knowing that in doing so we are joining our will with the Will of God. He wants you to hear His Voice. He gave It to you to be heard.

Jesus is addressing our mechanism of decision, "I," holding our hands, leading us to God, lovingly directing us with the Imperative, the implied "You."

Listen in deep silence. Be very still and open your mind. Go past all the raucous shrieks and sick imaginings that cover your real thoughts and obscure your eternal link with God. Sink deep into the peace that waits for you beyond the frantic, riotous thoughts and sights and sounds of this insane world. You do not live here. We are trying to reach your real home. We are trying to reach the place where you are truly welcome. We are trying to reach God.

While these ideas were going through my mind in preparation for writing this essay, I came across this passage echoing these ideas from I AM THAT by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.

The world you can perceive is a very small world indeed. And it is entirely private, Take it to be a dream and be done with it. Your world is mind-made, subjective, enclosed within the mind, fragmentary, temporary, personal, hanging on the thread of memory.

I live in a world of realities, while yours is of imaginings. Your world is personal, private, unshareable, intimately your own. Nobody can enter it, see as you see, hear as you hear, feel your emotions and think your thoughts. In your world you are truly alone, enclosed in your ever-changing dream, which you take for life. My world is an open world, common to all, accessible to all. In my world there is community insight, love, real quality; the individual is the total, the totality—in the individual. All are one and the One is all. (Sri Maharaj, I AM THAT, The Acorn Press: Durham, North Carolina, 1973, p. 17)

I wrote this draft yesterday, and today I heard this song, It’s Only a Paper Moon, and took it as an inspiration to include it in this essay. Here is the first stanza.

It's only a paper moon
sailing over a cardboard sea,
But it wouldn't be make believe
If you believed in me.

Listening to this lyric, I automatically began to play with the pronoun references. What if believing in me referred to Jesus? In that moment “I” am uniting with my Self, the Christ within, and I am experiencing the peace of God. Now, when I look out at the world, I see a reflection of the peace of God, seeing through paper moons and cardboard seas, just as Sri Maharaj expresses it,

In my world there is community insight, love, real quality; the individual is the total, the totality—in the individual. All are one and the One is all.

And now let us continue reading the lyrics.

It's only a canvas sky
hanging over a muslin tree,
But it wouldn't be make believe
If you believed in me.


Without your love,
It's a honky-tonk parade.
Without your love,
It's a melody played in a penny arcade.

Without experiencing the love and peace of God, we see only our own projections, throwing out thought/images from "Me," not experiencing the reflection of our Self.

It's a Barnum and Bailey world,
Just as phony as it can be,
But it wouldn't be make believe
If you believed in me.


Without experiencing the love of God, we live in a circus.

The world I see holds my fearful self-image in place, and guarantees its continuance. While I see the world as I see it now, truth cannot enter my awareness. I would let the door behind this world be opened for me, that I may look past it to the world that reflects the Love of God.
W-p1. 53.4

And looking at this reflection is the meaning of forgiveness.

And now, I invite you to enjoy the song sung by Frank Sinatra.

Please click here.

Setting the Grounding Line is an Act of Forgiveness

Since I am totally grounded in A Course in Miracles, I am always fascinated to come across writing that expresses the principles of the Course, using a different set of metaphors. Lately, I have been totally immersed the work of Jim Self. In his book, The Shift, he demonstrates how we are shifting from the third-dimension into the fourth and fifth dimensions.

The transformation that is occurring within us is shifting our thoughts and beliefs, and changing the ways in which we experience the world around us. Until now, most of us have measured ourselves by the outside world. Our beliefs about how we look, what is acceptable, what we think, and how we act have all been influenced and established by the third-dimensional world outside ourselves.

Our thoughts create our beliefs, our beliefs create our habits and our habits create our lives. Our beliefs then connect the thoughts that run through our experiences, forming our conclusions. However, many of the thoughts that we think and the beliefs that we hold are actually not our own thoughts or beliefs; they were given to us by mom, dad, teacher, minister and the third-dimensional reality outside of our-selves. It’s not that mom and dad or anyone else around us set out deliberately to mislead us; they were simply passing on what their parents and their parent’s parents (along with most of the rest of society) had taught them to accept as the “truth.” Jim Self, The Shift, (Mastering Alchemy, 2009), pp. 13-14.

In common parlance, "Your father was a liar from the beginning."

Projection makes perception. The world you see is what you gave it, nothing more than that. But though it is no more than that, it is not less. Therefore, to you it is important. It is the witness to your state of mind, the outside picture of an inward condition. As a man thinketh, so does he perceive. Therefore, seek not to change the world, but choose to change your mind about the world. Perception is a result and not a cause. And that is why order of difficulty in miracles is meaningless. Everything looked upon with vision is healed and holy. Nothing perceived without it means anything. And where there is no meaning, there is chaos. T-In.21.1

Our mind, healed and holy, is our inner guidance system.

There are three main characteristics of the third dimension. The first is the Law of Attraction.

If you believe something is or you believe some-thing is not, the Law of Attraction will respond accordingly. If you amplify your thoughts or beliefs with a charge of emotion, the Law of Attraction will provide you with more of the same in a quicker, fuller manner. What you put your attention on with a charged emotion is what you will receive. Absolutely guaranteed.

The sick attraction of guilt must be recognised for what it is. For having been made real to you, it is essential to look at it clearly, and by withdrawing your investment in it, to learn to let it go. No one would choose to let go what he believes has value. T-15.Vll.3:1-3

The second characteristics is time.

Most of humanity has been taught and believes that time is fixed and linear - past, present, future, and then you die. Although this is the generally accepted belief, it is incorrect. In the third-dimension time operates as a loop. It consists of a flow of thoughts and experiences that we label positive or negative. Either we embrace these experiences and hope they happen again or we resist them and hope they do not. To keep it simple, we take our past experiences and project them into our future and then step into that experience in a future-present-time moment to feel it all over again in a different size, shape or color.

I see only the past. Lesson 7, Title.

And the third is duality.

As we began to experience third-dimensional consciousness, we added into duality the concepts of right and wrong, good and bad, and should and should not. We learned “us and them” and we learned to resist “them.” These concepts of judgment, separation, good and bad, right and wrong and should/should not created a rigid, unforgiving structure that does not allow for flexibility or choice. This third-dimensional belief system bound our thoughts and emotions, creating extreme beliefs in “never” and “always”; rigid thought forms with very little opportunity for change, ease or well-being. In this rigid belief system of heavy thought-form, fear and pain were anchored. (The Shift, pp. 18-22)

In His Course, Jesus begins His Lessons by helping us learn to undo these conditioned, habitual thought patterns. Just look at the titles of His first 7 Lessons.

1. Nothing I see means anything.

2. I have given everything I see all the meaning it has for me.

3. I do not understand anything I see.

4. These thoughts do not mean anything.

5. I am never upset for the reason I think.

6. I am upset because I see something that is not there.

7. I see only the past.

Jesus teaches that the only way out of this habit of thinking is forgiveness.

Similarly, in their follow up book, Spirit Matters, Down to Earth Tools for a Spirited Life, Jim Self and Roxane Burnett, introduce 16 Energy Tools to facilitate this shift, this action of forgiveness, and the one I find most useful in experiencing forgiveness is the Grounding Line.

Grounding is not a thought; it is an action, a tool to dissipate noisy thoughts, anxiety and undesirable emotions that run through our bodies. From my perspective, this tool is the most valuable.

And Dear Reader, I urge you to practice it, now.

Energy Tool #1

Grounding Line

1. Recognize when your mind is being bombarded with uncomfortable thoughts. This may sound like an obvious first step, but most people do not pay attention to what is going in their heads and continue to be affected by the chatter. There is a one-to-one relationship between mind and body, balance and imbalance. When the mind is noisy or uncertain, the body is tight and anxious.

2. Find a quiet, undisturbed place to sit down for a few moments.

3. Breathe. A simple, deep breath will begin to effortlessly change direction of your thoughts. Your body will begin to quiet. Intrusive thoughts will begin to lose their grip on you.

4. Bring your attention to the lowest tip of your spine (your coccyx bone). Now is the time to pretend, imagine or make-believe as you did when you were a child. Imagine a line connecting the lower tip of your spine to the center of the earth (it’s not that far away). This
line could be a beam of light, a tree trunk, a chain, a rope or any image that you find amusing.

5. Strongly secure the Grounding Line at both ends. You may visualize welding it, stapling it, tying it or any other method of attaching.

6. Now be aware of your feet on the ground. Create a sensation that your feet are cemented to the earth. Feel connected to the earth through your feet and the Grounding Line. Take a couple of breaths. Notice if you have a sense of feeling solid, or taller, or more certain about yourself. Notice if your awareness has become more defined.

7. Pretend to widen your Grounding Line to a diameter of six to nine inches. You are creating a pathway through which the noise will soon be leaving.

8. Give the instruction to this Grounding Line to become magnetic. You also might pretend there is a switch or handle near the lower tip of your spine that when flipped, will activate the line. When activated, the Grounding Line will automatically begin to magnetically attract the unpleasant thoughts, physical sensations and emotions and draw them down, out of your space, into the earth. This step works best when you don’t try to make it happen. Rather, just allow it to do its job.

9. As you notice specific people, thoughts and concerns passing through your mind, simply grab them with your imaginary hand and toss them down your Grounding Line. These don’t belong to you and they will be much happier in their own heads. Jim Self, Roxane Burnett, Spirit Matters: Down to Earth Tools for a Spiritual Life, (Tree of Life Press, 2008), pp. 21-22.

And now you can see why I gave this essay this title:

Setting the Grounding Line is an Act of Forgiveness; this action is the heart of the Course.

Forgiveness is only experienced now, in a still mind.

Let us be still an instant, and forget all things we ever learned, all thoughts we had, and every preconception that we hold of what things mean and what their purpose is. Let us remember not our own ideas of what the world is for. We do not know. Let every image held of everyone be loosened from our minds and swept away. T-p1.31.12

It is your forgiveness that will bring the world of darkness to the light. It is your forgiveness that lets you recognize the light in which you see. Forgiveness is the demonstration that you are the light of the world. Through your forgiveness does the truth about yourself return to your memory. Therefore, in your forgiveness lies your salvation. W-62.1

By setting the Grounding Line, we let go of all thoughts of attack arising and falling in our brains, allowing these thoughts to be replaced, enabling us to come into the awareness of the peace and love of God.

Remember that in every attack you call upon your own weakness, while each time you forgive you call upon the strength of Christ in you. Do you not then begin to understand what forgiveness will do for you? It will remove all sense of weakness, strain and fatigue from your mind. It will take away all fear and guilt and pain. It will restore the invulnerability and power God gave His Son to your awareness. W-62.3

As often as I can remember, I simply set my Grounding Line as my day unfolds, and my days are becoming increasingly peaceful, no matter what seems to be going on.

I became totally immersed in these books, and only at the end of the second book, did I come across the source of Jim Self’s knowledge.

Since childhood, Jim has retained a conscious awareness and ability to recall his experiences within the sleep state. Over the last ten years, this awareness has expanded into relationships
with the Archangels, Ascended Masters and Teachers of Light. (Spirit Matters, p. 163)

And finally, here is Jesus encouraging us to set the Grounding Line.

Simply do this: Be still, and lay aside
all thoughts of what you are and what God is;
all concepts you have learned about the world;
all images you hold about yourself.
Empty your mind of everything it thinks
is either true or false, or good or bad,
of every thought it judges worthy, and
all the ideas of which it is ashamed.
Hold onto nothing. Do not bring with you
one thought the past has taught, nor one belief
you ever learned before from anything.
Forget this world, forget this course, and come
with wholly empty hands unto your God. W-189.7

What I Have Come to Know: A Distillation

A couple of days before Thanksgiving, I was sitting on the couch in our Sun Room early in the morning, reading the day’s Lesson 325, All things I think I see reflect ideas, enjoying the warmth of the wood-burning stove and watching the birds at our feeders, and the thought came in, “What does it all boil down to, after all these years of reading A Course in Miracles, learning from Master Teacher at Endeavor Academy, reading the New Testament, and going to Sessions almost daily at the Academy? What, exactly, is the distillate from the heat of this transformative process?

And then these words and sentences came into my mind, and I grabbed my notebook and scribbled them down.

* * *

Awareness

I am seeing either through the body’s eyes, or through the eyes of Christ.

The Holy Spirit is the bridge.

Forgiveness

Receptivity

God’s Voice speaks to me all through the day. Lesson 49

Since I am in the world, and not of the world, how do I conduct myself while I am walking in the world?

Help

Intention

Gratitude

* * *

Then it came to me that Lesson 325 provided a perfect context for expressing this transformative distillation.

The question is always, just where is my awareness. This Lesson makes it clear right away, that my salvation is my awareness of the source of my ideas.

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.

I am seeing either through the body’s eyes. . .and now the Lesson makes it clear the process I engage in when I am seeing through the body’s eyes and brain.

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.
From insane wishes comes an insane world.
From judgment comes a world condemned.

What I am seeing through the body’s eyes is a projection of what is in my mind, first; I am, literally, “throwing” out of my mind images, and then I “catch” them, thinking they are in the world, first. Not only are they second, but I initially judged the image, choosing this one over that one. Not recognizing the source of the image in my mind is insanity.

. . .or through the eyes of Christ.

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.

When I am aware that I am seeing my insane projections, I ask for help, asking the Holy Spirit to bridge the gap between my world and the Real world.

With His strength, I am able to forgive, to relinquish, my insane thoughts that have no source in reality, and my dream vanishes, to be replaced by seeing through the eyes of Christ. This is a reflection of the peace of mind I am now experiencing.

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

And now in this peaceful state, I am receptive to the Holy Spirit, the Voice for God, speaking to me all through the day.

For me, this is absolute key. When I manage to remember to ask for help to step back and be aware of God’s Voice, I trust that I will receive His Thoughts.

Since I am in the world, and not of the world, how do I conduct myself while I am walking in the world?

The root meaning of conduct is crucial here. It comes from the Latin con, “with” and ducere, “to lead.” I am being led through the world by listening to the Voice of the Holy Spirit.

And now I know what my intention is. Intention comes from the Latin intendere, meaning “ to stretch towards.” I ask for help in a peaceful, receptive state of mind, stretching upwards to receive guidance coming down from the Holy Spirit.

And now I experience gratitude, a warmth in my chest, and I am exceedingly receptive to the Holy Spirit's intention.

And that is exactly what happened a little while ago when I began receiving thoughts about this distillate and grabbed my notebook and began scribbling down these thoughts coming into my mind.

And now that my intention is realized and honored, taking this particular form, I can stop writing, right now.

We Do Not Forgive People "Out There;" We Forgive Thoughts In Our Minds

Recently, my friend, Pat Connor, came across a web site calling for papers for a Conference on this subject: Forgiveness, Probing the Boundaries. The Conference will be held at Mansfield College, Oxford, England, July 11-13, 2012.

The Conference organizers are calling for papers on Forgiveness. The abstracts for the papers are to be limited to 300 words, and they must be submitted by Friday, January 13, 2012. If an abstract is accepted for the Conference, a full draft of the paper must be submitted by Friday, May 11.

I am not sure that I want to prepare a paper to present at the Conference in England, but I like the challenge of capturing in 300 words, or less, what forgiveness means to me. Here is my writing exercise, weighing in at 281 words.

* * *

Forgiveness is an idea terribly misunderstood in this world. It usually takes the form of an individual saying to himself, “She wronged me, but I forgive her.” And in his "forgiveness," he feels superior. This is more like bargaining than forgiving; the wrong may be overlooked this time, but you owe me.

Forgiveness has nothing to do with another person "out there." Forgiveness is letting go of a thought in here, in the mind. Forgiveness is letting go of a thought/image projected outward. These thoughts are based on our individual judgments, stemming from our personal, past memories. A person standing next to you would see the situation differently. Forgiveness is liberation from these thoughts, these personal judgments.

That is why in The Lord’s Prayer, Jesus links trespassing to forgiveness. When I project my thought/images onto another, who is, in fact, the Christ, it is as if I am encroaching on His property, His Christhood.

Forgiveness is a shift from seeing thought/images through the eyes of the ego to seeing the reflection of an inner peace, seeing through the eyes of Christ. It is a shift from a state of mind of conflict, to a state of peace, a shift from seeing projected thought/images, to seeing a bright reflection of the Truth of what we are, the Christ.

Forgiveness is looking at your brother and saying to yourself, “Namaste, the Christ in me greets the Christ in you.”

And now I will walk into the world, inspired by this sentence from today’s Lesson in A Course in Miracles.

I have no purpose for today except
to look upon a liberated world,
set free from all the judgments I have made.
Lesson 312

* * *

To visit the web site, please click here.

A Sleeping Dream's Affirmative Message for my Waking Dream

A couple of nights ago, I had this dream:

I am dressed up in a black sport coat, button-down collar, blue shirt, no tie, and gray slacks. I am about to go on stage as a main character, but I realize I have not memorized any lines. I am familiar with the play, but I don't know my lines. I think that, perhaps, I could carry the script on stage, but that doesn't seem right.

I have been puzzled by this dream ever since, and when I mentioned it today, my wife, Christine, over lunch, she immediately said, "That's good. It means that now you are in the waking dream, and you don't have a script. You are open and receptive to be guided." That's it! She cut right to it. I realized that lately I have been walking around, saying to myself, "Just be present, ask for help, breathe, let go of thoughts about what to do, resist the temptation to plan, trusting that I will be guided."

And, of course, the Holy Spirit is always offering guidance, whispering to us, and it is just a matter of making a space in our minds to hear His Voice, and letting go of our script is the way to make that space.

Your healing Voice protects all things today,
and so I leave all things to You. I need
be anxious over nothing. For Your Voice
will tell me what to do and where to go;
to whom to speak and what to say to him,
what thoughts to think, what words to give the world.
W-p.ll.275.2:1-4

When I look back at my sleeping dream, I see now why I was not the least bit upset about not knowing my lines. I was surprised, curious, but not concerned about what would happen. That mirrors my state of mind, now. I am trusting that all is well, and that all will be well, as long as I let my script go.

What do your scripts reflect except your plans
for what the day should be? And thus you judge
disaster and success, advance, retreat,
and gain and loss. These judgements all are made
according to the roles the script assigns.
The fact they have no meaning in themselves
is demonstrated by the ease with which
these labels change with other judgements, made
on different aspects of experience.
T-30.Vlll.2:1-4

I remember that not long ago, I was sitting on the couch, looking out the window at the falling leaves, sinking into deep peace, and I said to myself as I was coming out of it, "This is all I have to do, be present, let it all go; that is my only function, remembering that I am in the world, and not of the world. " What a relief.

In my sleeping dream, the play is a good analogy for the illusory world. Being without a script in a play is analogous to not following the dictates of my ego voice in the illusion. This creates a space in my mind for receiving the Voice for God, letting go of the temptation to follow the voice of the ego.

It is most appropriate to end with excerpts from Lesson 49, God's Voice speaks to me all through the day.

It is quite possible to listen to God's Voice all through the day without interrupting your regular activities in any way. The part of your mind in which truth abides is in constant communication with God, whether you are aware of it or not.

Here is whee my script comes in:

It is the other part of your mind that functions in the world and obeys the world's laws. It is this part that is constantly distracted, disorganized and highly uncertain.

Help me hear the next part:

The part that is listening to the Voice for God is calm, always at rest and wholly certain. It is really the only part there is.

Script:

The other part is a wild illusion, frantic and distraught, but without reality of any kind. Try today not to listen to it.

The Holy Spirit:

Try to identify with the part of your mind where stillness and peace reign forever. Try to hear God's Voice call to you lovingly, reminding you that your Creator has not forgotten His Son.
W-p1.49.1,2

Now, listen up!