A Bird in the Hand, and the Peace of God

This afternoon, just after a soft rain, I went out to fill my birdfeeder, suspended from a branch, hanging about five feet off the ground, face high. As I was walking towards it, a bird came hopping headfirst down the tree trunk, and reaching the bottom, it suddenly flew to the feeder. It was a white-breasted Nuthatch, slate gray with a white face and belly, a black cap and nape, with a long, thin bill, slightly upturned.

I stopped about five feet from him and became very still, watching him peck at the seeds. After a few minutes, I took one step, totally focused on the busy bird. A few minutes later, another step. Then, later, another. He eyed me from time to time, as if to say hello.

My mind was totally still, focused like a laser. I reached ever so slowly into a bag I was carrying and took out a handful of black sunflower seeds. I extended my hand until it was right next to the feeder, palm up, my thumb touching the bottom rim. The Nuthatch, one inch from my hand, looked at the seeds, cocked his head at me, and leaned down, pecking at them. Then, he gently stepped into my palm, pecking and eating, his pecks ever so soft.

He became still, his eyes blinking less and less, satiated, appearing almost to drift off to sleep.

My mind was so still, no thoughts, no sounds, no world, an overwhelming sense of well being, vibrating in the frequency of the peace of God.

I slowly moved my thumb next to his breast, feeling his heartbeating through his downy feathers.

The hush of Heaven holds my heart today. (Title, Lesson 286)

I drew my hand away from the feeder and closer to my chest, still palming the nesting bird.

While I am experiencing the peace of God, the Nuthatch is a bright reflection of my still, heavenly mind.

In you is all of Heaven. Every leaf
that falls is given life in you. Each bird
that ever sang will sing again in you.
And every flower that ever bloomed has saved
its perfume and its loveliness for you.
What aim can supersede the Will of God
and of His Son,
that Heaven be restored to him for whom
it was created as his only home?
Nothing before and nothing after it.
No other place; no other state nor time.
Nothing beyond nor nearer. Nothing else.
In any form. This can you bring to all
the world, and all the thoughts that entered it
and were mistaken for a little while.
How better could your own mistakes be brought
to truth than by your willingness to bring
the light of Heaven with you, as you walk
beyond the world of darkness into light? (T-25.1V.5)

And then, he gently lifted off, flying to a nearby branch.

Peace be to you, my brother.

In Anticipation of Shiners: Bright Reflections of the Peace of God

I came across this statement a long time ago, and every once in a while, it comes to mind again. "Whether you are looking into a microscope, or into a telescope, you are always seeing only what is inside the back of your head." I like that. It is a reminder that whether you are looking at little things, or big things, you are always only looking into a mirror, and what you see can only be a reflection of your state of mind.

The truth is that there is only one state of mind, the peace of God. As Jesus' Course in Miracles teaches, you are as God created you. But sometimes there appears to be another, an ego state of mind, projecting hell, sin, grievances, and darkness.

Your picture of the world can only mirror what is within. The source of neither light nor darkness can be found without. Grievances darken your mind, and you look out on a darkened world. Forgiveness lifts the darkness, reasserts your will, and lets you look upon a world of light. W-p1.73.5:1-4

But in this moment we are asking for help to experience the only time there is, now.

The holy instant is this instant and every instant. The one you want it to be it is. The one you would not have it be is lost to you. You must decide when it is. Delay it not. For beyond the past and future, where you will not find it, it stands in shimmering readiness for your acceptance. T-15.1V.1:8


When we are accepting, we become a spotless mirror.

In this world you can become a spotless mirror, in which the holiness of your Creator shines forth from you to all around you. You can reflect Heaven here. Yet no reflections of the images of other gods must dim the mirror that would hold God's reflection in it. Earth can reflect Heaven or hell; God or the ego. You need but leave the mirror clean and clear of all the images of hidden darkness you have drawn upon it. God will shine upon it of himself. Only the clear reflection of himself can be perceived upon it. T-14.1X.5

I experienced a powerful metaphor for God's shining when I was in high school in Three Rivers, Michigan. Every morning I walked the twelve blocks to school, and about half-way there, I crossed a rather high bridge over the Rocky, one of the three rivers that gave our small town its name. On a sunny day I would stop and stare into the dark, murky river, looking for silvery flashes of light. Every once in a while a shiner, a bottom-feeding fish, would turn on its side, producing a silver flash as it caught the sun's reflection.

A metaphor serves to carry (phor) beyond (meta) the meaning of a specific occurrence. We are always looking into a mirror, and just as the sun is reflected in the shiner's silvery side, so is our state of mind of the peace of God reflected in what we look upon.

The great peace of the Kingdom shines in your mind forever, but it must shine outward to make you aware of it. T-6.12:12 Then let the Holy One shine on you in peace, knowing that this and only this must be. His mind shone on you in your creation and brought your mind into being. His mind still shines on you and must shine through you. T-4.1V.9

And now these many years later, coming across shining passages in poetry is like spotting shiners in the dark water. Robert Browning (1812-1889) must have looked out from a peaceful state to see these bright reflections.

The year's at the spring
And day's at the morn;
Morning's at seven;
The hill-side's dew-pearled
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn;
God's in his Heaven -
All's right with the world!
Pippa Passes (1841)


For a moment, in this forgiving state of mind, Browning saw these shinings.

Forgiveness turns the world of sin into
a world of glory, wonderful to see.
Each flower shines in light, and every bud
sings of the joy of Heaven. T-26.1V.2:1,2

Here's a first line from William Wordsworth (1770-1850).

My heart leaps up when I behold
a rainbow in the sky. from The Rainbow

And from Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889).

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil. from God's Grandeur

To feel the Love of God
within you is to see the world anew,
shining in innocence, alive with hope,
and blessed with perfect charity and love. W-p1.189.1:7
It offers you its flowers and its snow,
in thankfulness for your benevolence. 2:6

Now here are some flowers from Wordsworth.

Daffodils

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed - and gazed - but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.


In his heightened state of awareness, experiencing the peace of God, Wordsworth imagines himself out of his body, floating through the sky, wandering like a cloud. He is doubly blessed because he sees the daffodils first in nature, and then, later, in his mind.

Finally, look at the state of mind John Keats was in, despite the fact that he lay dying of tuberculosis in Rome at the age of twenty-six. (1795-1821)

Keats

When Keats, at last beyond the curtain
of love’s distraction, lay dying in his room
on the Piazza di Spagna, the melody of the Bernini
Fountain “filling him like flowers,”
he held his breath like a coin, looked out
into the moonlight and thought he saw snow.
He did not suppose it was fever or the body’s
weakness turning the mind. He thought, “England!”
and there he was, secretly, for the rest
of his improvidently short life: up to his neck
in sleigh bells and the impossibly English cries
of street vendors, perfect
and affectionate as his soul.
For days the snow and statuary sang him so far
beyond regret that if now you walk rancorless
and alone there, in the piazza, the white shadow
of his last words to Severn, “Don’t be frightened,”
may enter you.
Christopher Howell


Keats knew full well that There is no death. The Son of God is free. (Title, Lesson 163)
That is why he saw such bright reflections. You can hear him saying this prayer.

Our Father, bless our eyes today. We are
Your messengers, and we would look upon
the glorious reflection of Your Love
which shines in everything. We live and move
in You alone. We are not separate
from Your eternal life. There is no death,
for death is not Your Will. And we abide
where You have placed us, in the life we share
with You and with all living things, to be
like You and part of You forever. We
accept Your Thoughts as ours, and our will
is one with Yours eternally. Amen. W-p1.163. 9

Amen.

Seeing what is not there, and learning to see what is there.

It is hard to get around the fact that we are inveterate storytellers, narrating our lives. We constantly look out at the world and make up stories about what we perceive. Here's an example. Look at this picture and pay close attention to the thoughts going through your mind.

I am so grateful for a friend of mine, Lucy, who told me the elaborate story that went through her mind when she first saw the janitor, actually "Janitor," (1973) a hyper-realistic figure made of polyester and cast fiberglass by Duane Hanson.

Here is her story.

Last week I visited the Milwaukee Art Museum at the recommendation of a friend. There was one particular painting he suggested I see and on the way to the exhibit I passed a man who was evidently a janitor as he had keys hanging from his belt and wearing a workman's hat. What struck me about him was that he looked so very forlorn and depressed. He was leaning against the wall and in that one cursory glance, I just knew he needed help badly. Maybe he was even suicidal.

Ah well, I think and proceed to see the picture my friend had recommended, but my mind was crowded with thoughts about the janitor. I thought if I bumped into him again I would try to cheer him up. He was probably an alcoholic - it takes one to know one, and I can spot an alchy a mile away - no doubt he was at his bottom and I remember when someone reached out a helping hand to me - I'll be forever grateful for him taking me to an AA Meeting. On the other hand, maybe he lost a loved one, I know how I felt when my Dad died, or could be he just have gotten fired, I sure know how that feels - Naw, you wouldn't be that depressed over a maintenance job. Prostate problems? That could do it... Ah well, forget it, I said to myself...or maybe he had a mental breakdown and was bottoming out. Forget it!

After touring the next floor up, the man was gone from my mind. That is, until I looked over the balcony and saw him standing right where I left him 15 minutes ago. Oh God, if ever there was a call for help...my savior genes kicked in, and I knew I had a mission - I was about to turn around to take the elevator and go down and speak with him. If ever there was a call for help...

As I was turning around I saw the floor guard and said to him, "That guy down there really looks like he could use some help, he's been leaning against that wall for a long time." The guard said with an obvious grin, "Read the sign". At the end of the wall was a sign, "Do not touch the artwork".

My red face would have made a good exhibit. It didn't ease the embarrassment when he told me, "You're not the first person who got fooled, we had to put up that sign."

Wow. Some story. You can probably relate to Lucy's story by recalling the thoughts that went through your mind when you looked at the picture. I know that you, too, began to tell a story because that is how the perceptual mind works. You can become aware of how it works only by slowing it way down. If you were to look at your perceptions in slow motion, you would see that it is always a case of put and take. You first put it out there by projection, from the Latin, projectum, meaning "to throw," and, secondly, you perceive it, from the Latin, percipere, meaning "to take." You are always perceiving outside what is first inside.

This is in accord with perception's fundamental law: You see (take) what you believe is there, and you believe it there because you want (put) it there.
T-25.111.1:3

This gives whole new meaning to the word "mistake." A mistake is simply a wrong take; you have mistaken illusion for truth.

Lucy's story and this explanation of how our minds work provide a context for this paragraph from Jesus' Course in Miracles, an unworldly masterpiece solely devoted to teaching you how to undo your perceptual thought system.

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-21.Intro.

It's obvious that Lucy's perceptions were colored primarily by her experiences as a recovering alcoholic, the outside picture of an inward condition. Remembering the help she gratefully received, she was more than willing to extend help to this forlorn and depressed man, maybe he was bottoming out; maybe a loved one died; perhaps he was fired, could be prostate.
As a man thinketh...

We have to slow down the making up of stories because we are up against a process so challenging. Here is a list of 25 words that characterize the perceptual process of putting and taking:

automatic, habitual, regular, natural, casual, normal, familiar, comfortable, customary, ordinary, universal, persistent, consistent, unconscious, rapid, repetitious, addictive, chronic, patterned, programmed, inveterate, arbitrary, hypnotic, subjective

And one of my favorites is a play on "taken for granted," "taken for granite," thinking that what we take for real is solid as a rock.

You can see what we are up against. This is the human condition. You can't very well nudge another human and expect him to get you out of here because he is doing the same thing you are. It's normal, regular, universal. . . He'd probably nudge you back, saying, "Don't rock the boat."

But if you really want a way out, Jesus will more than nudge you, actually, if you pick up His Course in Miracles, He will forcefully tell you right at the beginning of His Workbook to say to yourself:

Lesson 1, Nothing I see means anything.

This is so because I am projecting first and seeing second.

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

Lucy's personal history is projected onto the "Janitor."

Lesson 3, I do not understand anything I see.

I am seeing only through the lens of my narrow frame of reference, the body's eyes.

And there are 362 lessons to go as the days follow the nights for one year. That's why it is a required Course. We are required to undo the natural, regular way of seeing through the body's yes, so that we can learn to see through the eyes of Christ, learning to see with vision.

I will not use the body's eyes today.

Father, Christ's vision is Your gift to me,
and it has power to translate all that
the body's eyes behold into the sight
of a forgiven world. How glorious
and gracious is this world! Yet how much more
will I perceive in it than sight can give.
The world forgiven signifies Your Son
acknowledges his Father, lets his dreams
be brought to truth, and waits expectantly
the one remaining instant more of time
which ends forever, as Your memory
returns to him. And now his will is one
with Yours. His function now is but Your Own,
and every thought except Your Own is gone.

The quiet of today will bless our hearts,
and through them peace will come to everyone.
Christ is our eyes today. And through His sight
we offer healing to the world through Him,
the holy Son whom God created whole;
the holy Son whom God created One.
W-p11.270

My projections are truly dreams, and these dreams can be replaced by truth through my forgiveness of that which is so automatic, habitual, and so forth. It just takes practice.

Nothing I see means anything.

It is just a matter of letting go, and this is the heart of Jesus' Course, forgiveness.

An unforgiving thought does many things.
In frantic action it pursues its goal,
twisting and overturning what it sees
as interfering with its chosen path.
Distortion is its purpose, and the means
by which it would accomplish it as well.
It sets about its furious attempts
to smash reality, without concern
for anything that would appear to pose
a contradiction to its point of view.

"Janitor" becomes a forlorn and depressed janitor.

Forgiveness, on the other hand, is still,
and quietly does nothing. It offends
no aspect of reality, nor seeks
to twist it to appearances it likes.
It merely looks, and waits, and judges not.
He who would not forgive must judge, for he
must justify his failure to forgive.
But he who would forgive himself must learn
to welcome truth exactly as it is.

Do nothing, then, and let forgiveness show
you what to do, through Him Who is your Guide,
your Savior and Protector, strong in hope,
and certain of your ultimate success.
He has forgiven you already, for
such is His function, given Him by God.
Now must you share His function, and forgive
whom He has saved, whose sinlessness He sees,
and whom He honors as the Son of God.
W-p11. What is forgiveness? 3-5

Jesus guides us from projecting through the body's eyes to seeing with the eyes of Christ, from being chained to being free. All we need to do is practice.

Today we practice letting go all thought
of values we have given to the world.
We leave it free of purposes we gave
its aspects and its phases and its dreams.
We hold it purposeless within our minds,
and loosen it from all we wish it were.
Thus do we lift the chains that bar the
door to freedom from the world, and go beyond
all little values and diminished goals.

Pause and be still a little while, and see
how far you rise above the world, when you
release your mind from chains and let it seek
the level where it finds itself at home.
It will be grateful to be free a while.
It knows where it belongs. But free its wings,
and it will fly in sureness and in joy
to join its holy purpose. Let it rest
in its Creator, there to be restored
to sanity, to freedom and to love.
W-p1.128:5,6

When Lucy asked for help to forgive her perceptual thoughts, she immediately saw the janitor as "Janitor," and in that moment the janitor was her Savior. For that moment, she was saved from her story. In that recognition, she could let it all go and realize again, because she is well-trained, having immersed herself in the Course for many years, that she is as God created her, she is the holy child of God, and in this state of mind she can look out at the world with the eyes of Christ, looking through the mirror of her mind, seeing with vision, brightly.

For a similar take on listening to your narrative voice, please read an article I wrote some time ago, entitled "In the beginning was the word: Dispelleing Once upon a time," by clicking on the link below:

http://www.throughamirrorbrightly.com/inthebeginning.htm

"Being Deep Stillness," a poem in blank verse.

While an evening in early fall slowly
descends, I sit here, quietly, falling
into a deep abyss of peace, stillness.
No words. No thoughts. Only the slow motion
descent into the peacefulness of God.

From time to time, I am roused from falling
through timelessness by sounds: the soft roaring
of freeway traffic; three notes from wind chimes;
a Cardinal’s steely tsit, announcing
his nightly visit to the birdfeeder.
Each time a naming thought bringing a sound
into existence. From the unity
of timelessness, a distinct world emerged.

You live by symbols. You have made up names
for everything you see. Each one becomes
a separate entity, identified
by its own name. By this you carve it out
of unity. Lesson 184.1:1-4

I open my eyes and watch a crisp, brown
leaf break away from a branch, twirling to
the ground, now bejeweled with white splotches
of light from the fading sun at twilight.
It’s like watching a play, staged by my script.
Here’s Prospero from Shakespeare’s The Tempest:

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air;
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve;
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep. 1V.1:146-158

A madman's dreams are frightening, and sin
appears indeed to terrify. And yet
what sin perceives is but a childish game.
The Son of God may play he has become
a body, prey to evil and to guilt,
with but a little life that ends in death.
But all the while his Father shines on him,
and loves him with an everlasting Love
which his pretenses cannot change at all. What is sin? 4

Closing my eyes, I continue my descent
into the peace of God; for a long time,
nothing registers, no thoughts and no sounds,
and then a Word, as In the beginning
was the Word, creative action, “Read this:
Into His Presence would I enter now.” Title, Lesson 157

This is a day of silence and of trust.
It is a special time of promise in
your calendar of days. It is a time
Heaven has set apart to shine upon,
and cast a timeless light upon this day,
when echoes of eternity are heard.
This day is holy, for it ushers in
a new experience; a different kind
of feeling and awareness. You have spent
long days and nights in celebrating death.
Today you learn to feel the joy of life. Lesson 157.1

As I read this passage, I experience
the meaning of metaphor—to carry
beyond. The direct experience of peace
is carried in the words, the joy of life,
a touch of heaven, eternity, truth.

Today it will be given you to feel
the touch of Heaven. 3:1

. . . and walk into eternity a while. 3:2


. . .and having joined your will with His this day,
what you are asking must be given you.
Nothing is needed but today's idea
to light your mind, and let it rest in still
anticipation and in quiet joy,
wherein you quickly leave the world behind. 4:2-3

For your experience today
will so transform your mind that it becomes
the touchstone for the holy Thoughts of God. 5:3

. . .the world is quietly forgot,
and Heaven is remembered for a while. 6:2

Into Christ's Presence will we enter now,
serenely unaware of everything
except His shining face and perfect Love.
The vision of His face will stay with you,
but there will be an instant which transcends
all vision, even this, the holiest.
This you will never teach, for you attained
it not through learning. Yet the vision speaks
of your rememberance of what you knew
that instant, and will surely know again. 9


And now will I stride into the world, my
world, a play scripted by my vision, in
deep stillness, gratitude and certainty.

Shelley's Ozymandias: Remembering What's Real

Percy Bysshe Shelley, the Romantic poet (1792-1822) was inspired to write the sonnet, Ozymandias, after seeing the broken colossus of Ramesses 11, an ancient Pharaoh of Egypt (1099-1069,BC).

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
(Shelley, 1817)

In this sonnet, the obvious irony is that at the time Ozymandias commissioned the sculptor to create his statue, the king's vast empire was visible everywhere, a great kingdom filled with treasures; yet, now the trunkless legs of stone/stand surrounded by nothing but desert.

This sonnet, almost 200 years old, retains its power because it reminds us that nothing in earthly form will endure.

Jesus tells us this in a lyrical passage in Matthew.

Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and
rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:

But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth
nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:

For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
(Matthew 6:19-21)


And then, just in case we didn't get it the first time, He tells us this again in His Introduction to his unworldly masterpiece, A Course in Miracles.

Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.

Herein lies the peace of God.

What is real is formless--Love, Joy, Truth, Peace, Serenity, Tranquility, Grace, Heaven.

What is unreal takes earthly form, that which we can see, hear, smell, taste, and touch.

It is not that we can escape form, being constantly immersed in it, making it up as we go along with thought-images that have no source in what is Real. It is simply a question of where your treasure is, a question of what you value. Ozymandias obviously valued the wrong things, all "things" being thought-images in form.

Jesus has us declare in the title to Lesson 133, I will not value what is valueless.
In one particular paragraph in this lesson, Jesus helps us evaluate what to choose.

If you choose a thing that will not last
forever, what you chose is valueless.
A temporary value is without
all value. Time can never take away
a value that is real. What fades and dies
was never there, and makes no offering
to him who chooses it. He is deceived
by nothing in a form he thinks he likes.
(W-p1.133.6)

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth.

The question persists: In the midst of form, how do we learn to value the formless? Jesus gives us a practice at the end of Lesson 133.

I will not value what is valueless,
and only what has value do I seek,
for only that do I desire to find.
(W-p1.133.13.4)

And then receive what waits for everyone
who reaches, unencumbered, to the gate
of Heaven, which swings open as he comes.
(W-p1.133.14:1)

Jesus even tells us how to be receptive.

Heaven itself is reached with empty hands
and open minds, which come with nothing to
find everything and claim it as their own.
(W-p1.133.13:1)

We stand with empty hands and open minds so that we can breathe in the breath of God. We ask to be inspired. "Inspire" comes from the Latin inspirare, "to breathe in." We receive the Holy "Spirit," from the Latin spiritus, meaning "to breathe, to blow." We breathe in the "animating vital principle that gives life." Say aloud right now, "Holy Spirit." This is to remind you that your voice is carried on your breath. "Holy Spirit." Voice is breath. The Holy Spirit is the Voice for God.

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. 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. 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)

We stand still to be inspired, to breathe in the Voice for God. That is why I wrote in the first sentence that Shelley was "inspired" to write this sonnet, just as the sculptor was inspired to sculpt the statue, his heart was fed by inspiration, the meaning of the phrase in the sonnet, the heart that fed, just as I was inspired to write this article. I value only the formless.

I want to be infomed in form only by the formless.

Nothing real can be threatened.

But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.

I ask for help in every moment not to forget my treasure. I ask for help to remember not to value what is valueless. I want to stay vigilant so that I do not mistake the ephemeral for the eternal, nothing for everything, the temporal for eternity.

I live for inspiration, breathing in the words carried on the breath of the Holy Spirit, experiencing Heaven on earth.

I am certain that's what St. Francis means in the first line of his great Prayer:

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace.

To read Lesson 133, click on the link below.

http://acim.home.att.net/workbook133.html

The Gospel of Judas: A Gift for Easter, 2006

Last Thursday, just before Palm Sunday, the New York Times reported the release of a remarkable document, Gospel of Judas. This early Christian manuscript surfaced after 1700 years, discovered in the desert of Egypt. The script was written on 13 sheets of papyrus, both front and back. The manuscript was a mess of more than 1,000 brittle fragments. Beginning in 2001, four scholars undertook the herculean task of assembling and arranging the papyrus fragments. A consensus English translation appears in the book, The Gospel of Judas (National Geographic, 2006).

I found that reading the Gospel is demanding and rewarding. It is demanding because words, lines, and portions of the text are missing. In the 26 pages of the text, there are 150 footnotes. Jesus speaks to his disciples using metaphors grounded in Gnosticism and ancient Jewish wisdom unfamiliar to me.

And yet, reading it is rewarding because listening to Jesus speak in the script, I can hear the same tender, loving Voice that I hear every day while reading his unworldly masterpiece, A Course In Miracles. Although in time, it appears that the two manuscripts are separated by almost 2000 years, in truth Jesus' Voice is eternal.

As I listened to his Voice in the Gospel, I simply allowed the words to wash over me, and I found that I connected in three places in particular.

The first time Jesus appears before his disciples, he "laughed." Now that got my attention.

One day he was with his disciples in Judea, and he found them gathered together and seated in pious observance. When he approached his disciples, gathered together and seated and offering a prayer of thanksgiving over the bread, he laughed. (Gospel, pp. 20-21)

Jesus knew that they were following their will, not God's, although they piously, or dutifully, appeared to be doing God's will. In the Introduction to the book, an editor, Marvin Meyer, comments.

In the Gospel of Judas, unlike the New Testament gospels, Jesus laughs a great deal. He laughs at the foibles of the disciples and the absurdities in human life. (p. 4)

The second connection occurs while Jesus talking to Judas laughs and says to him, "You thirteenth spirit." (p.31)

By this Jesus means that Judas was excluded from the circle of the twelve because his true identity is spiritual. Judas' will and God's will are one. Not mine but Thine.

Finally, Jesus says to Judas, "But you will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me." (p.43) Judas is instructed by Jesus to help him by sacrificing the fleshly body, "the man" that bears the true spiritual self of Jesus. The editor comments:

Judas finally betrays Jesus in the Gospel of Judas, but he does so knowingly, and at the sincere request of Jesus. Jesus is a savior not because of the mortal flesh that he wears but because he can reveal the soul or spiritual person who is within, and the true home of Jesus is not this imperfect world below but the divine world of light and life. For Jesus in the Gospel of Judas, death is not tragedy, nor is it a necessary evil to bring about the forgiveness of sins. Death, as the exit from this absurd physical existence, is not to be feared or dreaded. Far from being an occasion of sadness, death is the means by which Jesus is liberated from the flesh in order that he might return to his heavenly home, and by betraying Jesus, Judas helps his friend discard his body and free his inner self, the divine self. (pp. 4-5)

And from His heavenly home, Jesus now speaks to us today.

I could not have said, "Betrayest thou the Son of Man with a kiss?" unless I believed in betrayal. The whole message of the crucifixion was simply that I did not. The "punishment" I was said to have called forth upon Judas was a similar mistake. Judas was my brother and a Son of God, as much a part of the Sonship as myself. Was it likely that I would condemn him when I was ready to demonstrate that condemnation is impossible? T-6.1.15:5-9

Finally, In Absence from Felicity: The Story of Helen Schucman and Her Scribing of A Course in Miracles (1991), Kenneth Wapnick reports that on October 2, 1976, Helen asked Jesus this question, "Was there a physical resurrection?"

This is His answer.

My body disappeared because I had no illusion about it. The last one had gone. It was laid in the tomb, but there was nothing left to bury. It did not disintegrate because the unreal cannot die. It merely became what it always was. And that is what "rolling the stone away " means. The body disappears, and no longer hides what lies beyond. It merely ceases to interfere with vision. To roll the stone away is to see beyond the tomb, beyond death, and to understand the body's nothingness. What is understood as nothing must disappear.

I did assume a human form with human attributes afterwards, to speak to those who were to prove the body's worthlessness to the world. This has been much misunderstood. I came to tell them that death is illusion, and the mind that made the body can make another since form itself is an illusion. They did not understand. But now I talk to you and give you the same message. The death of an illusion means nothing. It disappears when you awaken and decide to dream no more. And you still do have the power to make this decision as I did.

God holds out His hand to His Son to help him rise and return to Him. I can help because the world is illusion, and I have overcome the world. Look past the tomb, the body, the illusion. Have faith in nothing but the spirit and the guidance God gives you. He could not have created the body because it is a limit. He must have created the spirit because it is immortal. Can those who are created like Him be limited? The body is the symbol of the world. Leave it behind. It canot enter Heaven. But I can take you there any time you choose. Together we can watch the world disappear and its symbol vanish as it does so. And then and then--I cannot speak of that.

A body cannot stay without illusion, and the last one to be overcome is death. This is the message of the crucifixion. There is no order of difficulty in miracles. This is the message of the resurrection. Illusions are illusions. Truth is true. Illusions vanish. Only truth remains.

These lessons needed to be taught but once, for when the stone of death is rolled away, what can be seen except an empty tomb? And that is what you see who follow me into the sunlight and away from death, past all illusions, on to Heaven's gate, where God will come Himself to take you home. (Absence from Felicity, pp. 398-399)

He is risen. He is risen, indeed.

Happy Easter.

To read a copy of the Gospel, please click below:

http://www9.nationalgeographic.com/lostgospel/_pdf/GospelofJudas.pdf

(In respect to laughter, I invite you to take a look at my previous blog post, "Remembering to laugh").
Time Magazine Article: Kiss of Judas

Remembering to laugh.

The great Spanish painter, Goya (1746-1828), with a sense of humor and inventive practicality, placed candles in his hat band, so that he could see to paint long into the night. In the early 1790's, he painted his self-portrait, wearing the candle hat, looking out at us with an irrepressible grin. Recently, Billy Collins, the American Poet Laureate for 2001-2003, wrote a poem inspired by this painting.


Candle Hat

In most self-portraits it is the face that dominates:






Cezanne is a pair of eyes swimming in brushstrokes,








Van Gogh stares out of a halo of swirling darkness,







Rembrandt looks relieved as if he were taking a
breather from painting The Blinding of Sampson.


But in this one Goya stands well back from
the mirror and is seen posed in the clutter
of his studio addressing a canvas tilted
back on a tall easel.

He appears to be smiling out at us as if he
knew we would be amused by the
extraordinary hat on his head which is
fitted around the brim with candle
holders, a device that allowed him to work into the night.

You can only wonder what it would
be like to be wearing such a
chandelier on your head as if you
were a walking dining room or concert hall.

But once you see this hat there is
no need to read any biography of Goya or to memorize his dates.

To understand Goya you only have to imagine him
lighting the candles one by one, then placing
the hat on his head, ready for a night of work.

Imagine him surprising his wife with his new invention,
the laughing like a birthday cake when she saw the glow.

Imagine him flickering through the rooms of his house
with all the shadows flying across the walls.

Imagine a lost traveler knocking on his door
one dark night in the hill country of Spain.
"Come in, " he would say, "I was just painting myself,"
as he stood in the doorway holding up the wand of a brush,
illuminated in the blaze of his famous candle hat.


In his poem, Collins emphasizes that Goya knew we would be amused by his silly image. He could only know this because he understood himself the absurdity of the human condition. As one critic observes, "Goya bears the light of this understanding." He goes on to say: "Beneath a dandy's hat, Goya wears an expression that his contemporaries considered satirical. His unmistakable mug with his snub nose, and smiling mischievously from beneath the brim of a curious hat, candles clipped to the hatband, he presents himself as, literally, a bearer of light--an ilustrado."

Indeed he is. His irrepressible image comes to us from over 200 years ago, reminding us to remember to laugh at the absurdity of the world that we have invented. "Absurd" comes from the Latin, surdus, meaning "stupid."

In His Course in Miracles, Jesus says it this way.

Into eternity, where all is one, there crept a tiny, mad idea, at which the Son of God remembered not to laugh. In his forgetting did the thought become a serious idea, and possible of both accomplishment and real effects. Together, we can laugh them both away, and understand that ltime cannot intrude upon eternity. It is a joke lto think that time can come to circumvent eternity, which means there is no time. T-27.V111.6:2-5

We take too seriously our tiny, mad idea that we could possibly separate from God. We can undo this seriousness by laughing. Laughter provides a moment of recognition of the absurdity of the mess we have gotten ourselves into by inventing this world. In that moment of recognition of this invention, our minds stop, allowing something else to enter in, a hint of the eternal.

The joke is on us, and we need always to be reminded of this. I am so grateful to those classic comedians whose trademark shtick still makes us laugh. They are truly light-bearers, demonstrating simply that this is not so, it is a joke too ridiculous, and in that recognition we have the opportunity realize the alternative, that we are as God created us, that we are not darkness, but light. We can exit laughing.

These are the images that come to mind of these great ilustrados.

Jack Benny gazes into the camera, deadpan, the palm of his right hand cupping his face, conveying far more than words could ever express.

Groucho Marx leers at the camera, his eyes laughing, a mischievous grin under his painted-on black moustache, exaggeratingly flicking ashes off of his cigar.

Dean Martin, handsome and suave, plays off of Jerry Lewis's screaming, petulant, mugging, pratfalling child.

Lou Costello explodes with pent up frustration, yelling "Ab. . .bott!" while Bud Abbott stands next to him, calmly.

Ricky Ricardo says sternly to Lucy, big-eyed, trying to look innocent, nervously playing with the bottom of her sweater, "Lucy, you cannot do the show."

Imagine a lost traveler knocking on his door
one dark night in the hill country of Spain.
"Come in," he would say, "I was just painting myself,"
as he stood in the doorway holding up the wand of a brush,
illuminated in the blaze of his famous candle hat.

Laughing gives us an opportunity to recognize that what we take to be reality may not be so real after all. It's like recognizing a glitch in the matrix. In the movie, walking up the steps in a building with Morpheus, Trinity and others, Neo sees a black cat walking. He glances away, then looks back and sees the cat again, walking just as he did before, and Neo says, "Deja vu." Everybody stops. After some conversation, Trinity says, "Deja vu is usually a glitch in the matrix. It happens when they change something."

The only real change happens in your mind, and laughing can create an opportunity for that transformation to occur as you experience the absurdity, the stupidity, of what you have habitually taken to be real. Seeing the glitch makes you laugh.

It is most appropriate that this is actually being posted on April Fool's Day.

It is a joke to think that time can come to circumvent eternity.

To listen to Billy Collins read "Candle Hat," please click on the link below:

http://www.contemporarypoetry.com/dialect/poetry/collinscandlehat.html

"Christ Before the High Priest," a 17th Century Dutch painting by Matthias Stom

The Milwaukee Art Museum sits on the shore of Lake Michigan, having graced the shoreline for over 100 years. Recently, it was crowned with an architectural marvel designed by Santiago Calatrava. His Burke Brise Soleil is a moveable wing-like sunscreen that rests on top of the museum's 90-foot ceiling reception hall. It looks like a giant white bird nesting on top of the roof.
The great bird's wings consist of 72 white steel fins, ranging in size from 26-105 feet, spreading to 217 feet at its widest point, wider than a Boeing 747 jet. The wings "flap" to close and open each day at noon. In a museum guidebook, these wings are described as "a visual symbol of transformation."

When my wife, Christine, and I visited the museum on Valentine's Day, we first saw the "flapping" wings and figured that would be the highlight of the day's visit. However, moving through the exhibitions of paintings and sculptures from Ancient Asian and African Art to Contemporary Art, walking on white marble floors quarried from Italy, and looking through corridors bound by curved windows overlooking the lake, we came across the true highlight of the day, the light illuminating the painting by the 17th Century Dutch painter, Matthias Stom (1600-1652) entitled, "Christ Before the High Priest."

This is the commentary on the painting from the guidebook:

This painting depicts the moment when the high priest Caiaphas accuses Christ of blasphemy because of his refusal to deny that he was the Son of God. Stom has captured beautifully the psychological drama of this decisive moment in Christ's Passion by contrasting an emphatic, gesticulating Caiaphas with a strangely serene and saddened Christ, whose countenance betrays his knowledge of future events. His quiet beauty contrasts with the gleeful snickers of the two false witnesses who lurk behind him. Intense candlelight casts an eerie, pale hue over the figures and further heightens the psychological tension of the confrontation. The three- quarter-length figures and their placement close to the picture plane transform the painting into a powerful and moving image that was meant to engage the viewer and inspire religious devotion.

Here is the passage from Matthew depicted in the painting:

And the high priest arose, and said unto him, Answerest thou
nothing? what is it which these witness against thee?

But Jesus held his peace, And the high priest answered and said
unto him, I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether
thou be the Christ, the Son of God.

Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said; nevertheless I say unto
you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand
of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.

Then the high priest rent his clothes, saying, He hath spoken
blasphemy; what further need have we of witnesses? behold, now ye
have heard his blasphemy.
Matthew 26: 62-65

Because Jesus did not deny that he is the Son of God, the high priest considers that he committed blasphemy, "the act of insulting, or showing contempt, or lack of reverence for God." In the painting, the high priest is looking directly at Jesus; but he is unable to see the Christ. He is incapable of seeing the reality of the Son of God because he is seeing only his own reflection as a Son of man. Although the high priest's face is shown in light, he is not experiencing light because he is seeing only the darkness of his own projection. What you see outside is simply a reflection of what is seen inside, first. This brings us to Jesus' Course in Miracles, a modern-day masterpiece in which he teaches us to undo the projections of our minds so that we can learn to see with vision.

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. T-21.Intro.1:1-5

The real witnesses are not those mockingly, derisively, holding Jesus, the real witness is the projection of Jesus as a blasphemer. This image witnesses to the high priest's state of mind. He is thinking with a part of his mind that has no source in reality.

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 means anything. And where there is no meaning, there is chaos. T-21.Intro.1:6-12

Stom has captured beautifully the psychological drama of this decisive moment in Christ's Passion by contrasting an emphatic, gesticulating Caiaphas with a strangely serene and saddened Christ, whose countenance betrays his knowledge of future events. (Guidebook)

Caiaphas is gesticulating emphatically because he is damning himself first, and then quickly projecting it onto the world that seems to be outside.

Damnation is your judgment on yourself, and this you will project upon the world. See it as damned, and all you see is what you did to hurt the Son of God.
T-21.Intro.2:1,2

You, too, Caiaphas are the Holy Son of God.

If you behold disaster and catastrophe, you tried to crucify him. If you see holiness and hope, you joined the Will of God to set him free. There is no choice that lies between these two decisions. And you will see the witness to the choice you made, and learn from this to recognize which one you chose. The world you see but shows you how much joy you have allowed yourself to see in you, and to accept as yours. And, if this is its meaning, then the power to give it joy must lie within you. T-21.Intro.2:3-8

In the painting, Jesus is not looking a Caiaphas; he is gazing at the candle, completely at peace. He is in a state of mind of peace, the Christ mind, and what he sees in the world is the reflection of that state of mind. The light of the candle suffusing the painting is analogous to the light of the world.

In His Course in Miracles, Jesus teaches that you, too, Dear Reader, are the Christ. When you do the lessons and learn to forgive your projected thoughts, you can experience, My holiness envelops everything I see.

From my holiness does the perception of the real world come. Having forgiven, I no longer see myself as guilty. I can accept the innocence that is the truth about me. Seen through understanding eyes, the holiness of the world is all I see, for I can picture only the thoughts I hold about myself. W-p1.58.1

Caiaphas is also the Son of God, but he is limiting himself to be the Son of man, attacking the Son of God. Jesus, of course, sees with vision, and he is defenseless against the charges.

But Jesus held his peace.

His quiet beauty contrasts with the gleeful snickers of the two false witnesses who lurk behind him. Intense candlelight casts an eerie, pale hue over the figures and further heightens the psychological tension of the confrontation. (Guidebook)

And the high priest arose, and said unto him, Answerest thou nothing?

If Stom were to paint the next moment, he would have Jesus look up, make eye contact with the high priest and answer knowingly: Thou hast said.

He would be telling Caiaphas that what you see in me is a projection of an image that starts in your mind. That image will not change until your mind changes by asking for help to forgive thoughts that have no source in reality. It does not matter in your condition, now, what I say. You will hear what you want to hear. Therefore, the only answer could possibly be a reminder that you are projecting: Thou hast said.

Jesus demonstrates to Caiaphas that his defensive attack is preventing him from experiencing that there is a plan.

What could you not accept, if you but knew
that everything that happens, all events,
past, present and to come, are gently planned
by One Whose only purpose is your good?
Perhaps you have misunderstood His plan,
for He would never offer pain to you.
But your defenses did not let you see
His loving blessing shine in every step
you ever took. While you made plans for death,
He led you gently to eternal life.

Your present trust in Him is the defense
that promises a future undisturbed,
without a trace of sorrow, and with joy
that constantly increases, as this life
becomes a holy instant, set in time,
but heeding only immortality.
Let no defenses but your present trust
direct the future, and this life becomes
a meaningful encounter with the truth
that only your defenses would conceal.

Without defenses, you become a light
which Heaven gratefully acknowledges
to be its own. And it will lead you on
in ways appointed for your happiness
according to the ancient plan, begun
when time was born. Your followers will join
their light with yours, and it will be increased
until the world is lighted up with joy.
And gladly will our brothers lay aside
their cumbersome defenses, which availed
them nothing and could only terrify.
W-p1.135:18-20

The three-quarter-length figures and their placement close to the picture plane transform the painting into a powerful and moving image that was meant to engage the viewer and inspire religious devotion. (Guidebook)

I am not convinced that Stom wanted to "inspire religious devotion." I think, rather, he wanted to inspire the recognition that we are, indeed, the Christ. After all, he did name his painting, "Christ Before the High Priest," not "Jesus before the High Priest."

To look at this drama in the context of Mel Gibson's movie, please read my article entitled, "It is Accomplished!" The Passion of the Christ. Click on the link below.

http://www.throughamirrorbrightly.com/A-it_is_accomplished.htm

"Yes, Linn, you really are dreaming."

Philip Chard, a psychotherapist, author, and trainer, writes a regular column for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, entitled Out of My Mind. In a recent column, "Row, row, row your imaginary boat. . ." he talks about working with a client who is asking if life is but a dream.

"Do you ever fell like life is a dream?" Linn asked.

"Sure, but why do you ask?" I replied.

"Sometimes I get a distinct sense that all this is just an illusion, that I'm just dreaming it," she explained.

Before taking a look at Chard's answer, I am going to step in and answer her question from my point of reference. Having awakened from the dream through the mind training of Jesus' Course in Miracles, I recognize the state of mind in which I am dreaming a false dream, and the state of mind that is real, where I experience, for a moment, the end of the illusion, and the peace of God.

I would say, Linn, trust your "distinct sense that all this is just an illusion." Just stop right now, be still an instant and trust. In your stopping you allow something else to enter in. In being still you can catch a glimpse of reality. In fact, your "distinct sense" is really a call, a memory of your real Home, a reminder that you are not what you dream you are.

It is necessary to establish that 1) this waking dream is unreal, and 2) reality is an experience that is available when you stop your dreaming projection for just a moment. The best way to clarify these ideas is to compare sleeping dreams and waking dreams. First, let's look at five characteristics of a sleeping dream.

1. You are the center of your dream. All the events going on around you are seen through your eyes. It is as if you were a movie projector.

2. You are the narrator of your dream, describing events as they unfold.

3. What you see in your dream are images as if projected on a screen.

4. You are entirely responsible for your dream. Everything you see is coming from your mind, based on your past experiences.

5. When you awaken from your dream, the images disappear.

When you are dreaming, you cannot know you are dreaming because you have no point of reference outside of your dream. That is why I appreciate my wife, Christine, for being a point of reference outside of my dream. When I am having a nightmare, she gently nudges me, saying softly, "Wake up, you are dreaming."

Right now, Linn, I am your point of reference outside of your waking dream, nudging you softly, saying, "Wake up, you are dreaming."

Here's the nudge. I invite you to sit quietly and slowly look around you. Every once in a while, look again at the characteristics, above, of the sleeping dream, one at a time, and apply them to your waking dream.

Thank you.

You can see now that sleeping dreams and wking drams have precisely the same structure. You see that you are the center of your waking dream. You are narrating it. You see only images. These images are simply thoughts you have made. You are entirely responsible for what you are making up. Someone else sitting next to you would be having a different dream. The moment you wake up, all this will disappear.

Just sit there for a moment and entertain the idea that you are dreaming, and be still so that something else can enter in. You just need practice training your mind to see in a new way. That is why Jesus nudges you gently in His lessons, one for each day of the year. Just look at the titles of His first ten lessons:

1. Nothing I see means anything.
2. I have given everything I see all the meaning that 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.
8. My mind is preoccupied with past thoughts.
9. I see nothing as it is now.
10. My thoughts do not mean anything.

Each lesson is a gentle reminder that your waking dream is what you make it, and it is not so.
You are not at home here in your dream, and your real Home awaits you as you begin to recognize that you are dreaming. You already have a "distinct sense" that this is so, or you would not have asked the question. A memory of where you truly belong is in your mind, and it is beginning to haunt you. Listen to Jesus tell you this in the first paragraph of Lesson 182, I will be still an instant and go home.

This world you seem to live in is not home
to you. And somewhere in your mind you know
that this is true. A memory of home
keeps haunting you, as if there were a place
that called you to return, although you do
not recognize the voice, nor what it is
the voice reminds you of. Yet still you feel
an alien here, from somewhere all unknown.
Nothing so definite that you could say
with certainty you are an exile here.
Just a persistent feeling, sometimes not
more than a tiny throb, at other times
hardly remembered, actively dismissed,
but surely to return to mind again.
W-p1.182.1

Chard ends his column with this quotation from Einstein: "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." I would say, "Unreality is merely an illusion. . ."

Chard recognizes that we are looking through "lenses that distort and obscure."

What few realize is that we perceive the world by using cognitive representations created by our brains, like looking through lenses that distort and obscure., and not in a direct and factually accurate manner. So when we experience life as a dream, we may be removing these lenses and glimpsing the enigma that constitutues existence.

I would say that the waking dream is seeing through lenses of false eyes, and by removing these lenses through mind training, we learn to see with vision, no longer distorting what is real.

"You don't think I'm losing it, do you?" Linn asked, concerned.

I would say, yes, you are losing it, and that's good, because what you are losing is your firm grip on the dream, you are loosing the world as you know it, allowing for the experience of your Home.

We speak today for everyone who walks
this world, for he is not at home. He goes
uncertainly about in endless search,
seeking in darkness what he cannot find;
not recognizing what it is he seeks.
A thousand homes he makes, yet none contents
his restless mind. He does not understand
he builds in vain. The home he seeks can not
be made by him. There is no substitute
for Heaven. All he ever made was hell.
W-p1.182.3

Linn, the Christ Child is being born in you now.

When you are still an instant, when the world
recedes from you, when valueless ideas
cease to have value in your restless mind,
then will you hear His Voice. So poignantly
He calls to you that you will not resist
Him longer. In that instant He will take
you to His home, and you will stay with Him
in perfect stillness, silent and at peace,
beyond all words, untouched by fear and doubt,
sublimely certain that you are at home.
W-p1.182.8

Jesus is saying, "Wake up, you are dreaming. I am your reference point outside of the dream."

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Life is but a dream.

I invite you to read Jesus' Lesson 182, I will be still an instant and go home, in its entirety by clicking on the link below.


http://acim.home.att.net/workbook182.html


Please click on the link below to read Philip Chard's column in its entirety.

http://www.jsonline.com/lifestyle/advice/jan06/388600.asp

A vivid account of an awakening experience

A few days ago, reading The New Yorker, I came across a short story that took my breath away because it described the narrator undergoing an awakening experience, and the experience was being rendered in language similar to that of A Course in Miracles, using words, such as, miracle, forgiveness, earthly thoughts, and the word. Yet, the story was published in Russian in 1923 by Vladimir Nabokov, over fifty years before the publication of A Course in Miracles.

The story begins with the narrator in a heavenly state of mind, yet soon drawn out of it by a single earthly-thought. But he anticipates a miracle as he is surrounded by angels. And then a miracle occurs as an angel approaches him. The narrator pleads his earthly cause to the angel, and he asks for forgiveness. The angel answers with the word, like pouring heavenly warmth over my heart. Although he forgets the word the next morning, he is forever transformed.

I urge you now to read the short story (13 paragraphs) in its entirety.

Read Now

And now I will simply, and profoundly, juxtapose passages from the story and passages from A Course in Miracles without commentary.

Swept out of the valley night by an inspired oneiric (dreamy) wind, I stood at the edge of a road, under a clear pure-gold sky, in an extraordinary mountainous land. Without looking, I sensed the lustre, the angles, and the facets of immense mosaic cliffs, dazzling precipices, and the mirrorlike glint of multitudinous lakes lying somewhere below, behind me. My soul was seized by a sense of heavenly iridescence, freedom, and loftiness: I knew that I was in Paradise.

What is the holy instant but God's appeal to you to recognize what he has given you? Here is the great appeal to reason; the awareness of what is always there to see, the happiness that could be always yours. Here is the constant peace you could experience forever. Here is what denial has denied revealed to you. For here the final question is already answered, and what you ask for given. Here is the future now, for time is powerless because of your desire for what will never change. For you have asked that nothing stand between the holiness of your relationship and your awareness of its holiness. T-21.V111.5

Yet, within this earthly soul, a single earthly thought rose like a piercing flame—and how jealously, how grimly I guarded it from the aura of gigantic beauty that surrounded me. This thought, this naked flame of suffering, was the thought of my earthly homeland.

You have been told to bring the darkness to the light, and guilt to holiness. And you have also been told that error must be corrected at its source. Therefore, it is the tiny part of yourself, the little thought that seems split off and separate, the Holy Spirit needs. The rest is fully in God's keeping, and needs no guide. Yet this wild and delusional thought needs help because, in its delusions, it thinks it is the Son of God, whole and omnipotent, sole ruler of the kingdom it set apart to tyrannize by madness into obedience and slavery. This is the little part you think you stole from Heaven. Give it back to Heaven. Heaven has not lost it, but you have lost sight of Heaven. Let the Holy Spirit remove it from the withered kingdom in which you set it off, surrounded by darkness, guarded by attack and reinforced by hate. Within its barricades is still a tiny segment of the Son of God, complete and holy, serene and unaware of what you think surrounds it.

Be you not separate, for the One Who does surround it has brought union to you, returning your little offering of darkness to the eternal light. How is this done? It is extremely simple, being based on what this little kingdom really is. The barren sands, the darkness and the lifelessness, are seen only through the body's eyes. Its bleak sight is distorted, and the messages it transmits to you who made it to limit your awareness are little and limited, and so fragmented they are meaningless.
T-18.1X.1,2

Barefoot and penniless, at the edge of a mountain road, I awaited the kind, luminous denizens of Heaven, while a wind, like the foretaste of a miracle, played in my hair, filled the gorges with a crystal hum, and ruffled the fabled silks of the trees that blossomed amid the cliffs lining the road. Tall grasses lapped at the tree trunks like tongues of fire; large flowers broke smoothly from the glittering branches and, like airborne goblets brimming with sunlight, glided through the air, puffing out their translucent convex petals. Their sweet, damp aroma reminded me of all the finest things I had experienced in my life.

Suddenly, the road on which I stood, breathless from the shimmer, was filled with a tempest of wings. Swarming out of the blinding depths came the angels I awaited, their folded wings pointing sharply upward. Their tread was ethereal; they were like colored clouds in motion, and their transparent visages were motionless except for the rapturous tremor of their radiant lashes. Among them, turquoise birds flew with peals of happy girlish laughter, and lithe orange animals loped, fantastically speckled with black. The creatures coiled through the air, silently thrusting out their satin paws to catch the airborne flowers as they circled and soared, pressing past me with flashing eyes.

Your newborn purpose is nursed by angels, cherished by the Holy Spirit and protected by God himself. It needs not your protection; it is yours. For it is deathless, and within it lies the end of death.T-19.C.i.9:4-6

Wings, wings, wings! How can I describe their convolutions and their tints? They were all-powerful and soft—tawny, purple, deep blue, velvety black, with fiery dust on the rounded tips of their bowed feathers. Like precipitous clouds they stood, imperiously poised above the angels’ luminous shoulders; now and then an angel, in a kind of marvellous transport, as if unable to restrain his bliss, suddenly, for a single instant, unfurled his winged beauty, and it was like a burst of sunlight, like the sparkling of millions of eyes.

Around you angels hover lovingly, to keep away all darkened thoughts of sin, and keep the light where it has entered in. Your footprints lighten up the world, for where you walk forgiveness gladly goes with you. No one on earth but offers thanks to one who has restored his home, and sheltered him from bitter winter and the freezing cold. And shall the Lord of Heaven and His Son give less in gratitude for so much more? T-26.1X.7

They passed in throngs, glancing heavenward. Their eyes were like jubilant chasms, and in those eyes I saw the syncope of flight. They came with gliding step, showered with flowers. The flowers spilled their humid sheen in flight; the sleek, bright beasts played, whirling and climbing; the birds chimed with bliss, soaring and dipping. I, a blinded, quaking beggar, stood at the edge of the road, and within my beggar’s soul the selfsame thought kept prattling: Cry out to them, tell them—oh, tell them that on the most splendid of God’s stars there is a land—my land—that is dying in agonizing darkness. I had the sense that, if I could grasp with my hand but one quivering shimmer, I would bring to my country such joy that human souls would instantly be illumined, and would circle beneath the plash and crackle of resurrected springtime, to the golden thunder of reawakened temples.

Put out your hand, and see how easily the door swings open with your one intent to go beyond it. Angels light the way, so that all darkness vanishes, and you are standing in a light so bright and clear that you can understand all things you see. A tiny moment of surprise, perhaps, will make you pause before you realize the world you see before you in the light reflects the truth you knew, and did not quite forget in wandering away in dreams.W-p1.131.13

Reaching out with trembling hands, striving to bar the angels’ path, I began clutching at the hems of their bright chasubles (hooded garments), at the undulating, torrid fringes of their curved wings, which slipped through my fingers like downy flowers. I moaned, I dashed about, I deliriously beseeched their indulgence, but the angels trod ever forward, oblivious of me, their chiselled faces turned upward. They streamed in hosts to a heavenly feast, into an unendurably resplendent glade, where roiled and breathed a divinity about which I dared not think. I saw fiery cobwebs, splashes, designs on gigantic crimson, russet, violet wings, and, above me, a downy rustling passed in waves. The rainbow-crowned turquoise birds pecked, the flowers floated off from shiny boughs. “Wait, hear me out!” I cried, trying to embrace an angel’s vaporous legs, but the feet, impalpable, unstoppable, slipped through my extended hands, and the borders of the broad wings only scorched my lips as they swept past. In the distance, a golden clearing between lush, vivid cliffs was filling with the surging storm; the angels were receding; the birds ceased their high-pitched agitated laughter; the flowers no longer flew from the trees; I grew feeble, I fell mute. . . .

Then a miracle occurred. One of the last angels lingered, turned, and quietly approached me. I caught sight of his cavernous, staring, diamond eyes under the imposing arches of his brows. On the ribs of his outspread wings glistened what seemed like frost. The wings themselves were gray, an ineffable tint of gray, and each feather ended in a silvery sickle. His visage, the faintly smiling outline of his lips, and his straight clear forehead reminded me of features I had seen on earth. The curves, the gleaming, the charm of all the faces I had ever loved—the features of people who had long since departed from me—seemed to merge into one wondrous countenance. All the familiar sounds that came separately into contact with my hearing now seemed to blend into a single, perfect melody.

He came up to me. He smiled. I could not look at him. But, glancing at his legs, I noticed a network of azure veins on his feet and one pale birthmark. From these veins, from that little spot, I understood that he had not yet totally abandoned earth, that he might understand my prayer.

The Holy Spirit mediates between illusions and the truth. Since He must bridge the gap between reality and dreams, perception leads to knowledge through the grace that God has given Him, to be His gift to everyone who turns to Him for truth. Across the bridge that He provides are dreams all carried to the truth, to be dispelled before the light of knowledge. There are sights and sounds forever laid aside. And where they were perceived before, forgiveness has made possible perception's tranquil end.

The goal the Holy Spirit's teaching sets is just this end of dreams. For sights and sounds must be translated from the witnesses of fear to those of love. And when this is entirely accomplished, learning has achieved the only goal it has in truth. For learning, as the Holy Spirit guides it to the outcome He perceives for it, becomes the means to go beyond itself, to be replaced by the eternal truth.
W-p11.7. What is the Holy Spirit? 1,2

Then, bending my head, pressing my singed palms, smeared with bright clay, to my half-blinded eyes, I began recounting my sorrows. I wanted to explain how wondrous my land was, and how horrid its black syncope, but I did not find the words I needed. Hurrying, repeating myself, I babbled about trifles, about some burned-down house where once the sunny sheen of parquet had been reflected in an inclined mirror. I prattled of old books and old lindens, of knickknacks, of my first poems in a cobalt schoolboy notebook, of some gray boulder, overgrown with wild raspberries, in the middle of a field filled with scabiosa (plants) and daisies—but the most important thing I simply could not express. I grew confused, I stopped short, I began anew, and again, in my helpless, rapid speech, I spoke of rooms in a cool and resonant country house, of lindens, of my first love, of bumblebees sleeping on the scabiosa. It seemed to me that any minute—any minute!—I would get to what was most important, I would explain the whole sorrow of my homeland. But for some reason I could remember only minute, quite mundane things that were unable to speak or weep those corpulent, burning, terrible tears, about which I wanted to but could not tell. . . .
Recognition of meaninglessness arouses intense anxiety in all the separated ones. It represents a situation in which God and the ego "challenge" each other as to whose meaning is to be written in the empty space that meaninglessness provides. The ego rushes in frantically to establish its own ideas there, fearful that the void may otherwise be used to demonstrate its own impotence and unreality. And on this alone it is correct.

It is essential, therefore, that you learn to recognize the meaningless, and accept it without fear. If you are fearful, it is certain that you will endow the world with attributes that it does not possess, and crowd it with images that do not exist. To the ego illusions are safety devices, as they must also be to you who equate yourself with the ego. W-p1.13.2,3

I fell silent, raised my head. The angel smiled a quiet, attentive smile, gazed fixedly at me with his elongated diamond eyes. I felt he understood me.

“Forgive me,” I exclaimed, meekly kissing the birthmark on his light-hued foot. “Forgive that I am capable of speaking only about the ephemeral, the trivial. You understand, though, my kindhearted, my gray angel. Answer me, help me, tell me, what can save my land?”

The idea for today (God did not create a meaningless world) is another step in learning to let go the thoughts that you have written on the world, and see the Word of God in their place. W-p1.14.3:1

Have faith in him who walks with you, so that your fearful concept of yourself may change. And look upon the good in him, that you may not be frightened by your "evil" thoughts because they do not cloud your view of him. And all this shift requires is that you be willing that this happy change occur. No more than this is asked. On its behalf, remember what the concept of yourself that now you hold has brought you in its wake, and welcome the glad contrast offered you. Hold out your hand, that you may have the gift of kind forgiveness which you offer one whose need for it is just the same as yours. And let the cruel concept of yourself be changed to one that brings the peace of God.
T-31.V11.5

Is it not wiser to be glad you hold the answer to your problems in your hand? Is it not more intelligent to thank the One Who gives salvation, and accept His gift with gratitude? And is it not a kindness to yourself to hear His Voice and learn the simple lessons He would teach, instead of trying to dismiss His words, and substitute your own in place of His?

His words will work. His words will save. His words contain all hope, all blessing and all joy that ever can be found upon this earth. His words are born in God, and come to you with Heaven's love upon them. Those who hear His words have heard the song of Heaven. For these are the words in which all merge as one at last. And as this one will fade away, the Word of God will come to take its place, for it will be remembered then and loved.W-p1.198.5,6

Embracing my shoulders for an instant with his dovelike wings, the angel pronounced a single word, and in his voice I recognized all those beloved, those silenced voices. The word he spoke was so marvellous that, with a sigh, I closed my eyes and bowed my head still lower. The fragrance and the melody of the word spread through my veins, rose like a sun within my brain; the countless cavities within my consciousness caught up and repeated its lustrous edenic song. I was filled with it. Like a taut knot, it beat within my temple, its dampness trembled upon my lashes, its sweet chill fanned through my hair, and it poured heavenly warmth over my heart.

If you could accept the world as meaningless and let the truth be written upon it for you, it would make you indescribably happy. But because it is meaningless, you are impelled to write upon it what you would have it be. It is this that is meaningless in truth. Beneath your words is written the Word of God. The truth upsets you now, but when your words have been erased, you will see His.
W-p1.12.5:3-8

"Heaven and earth shall pass away" means that they will not continue to exist as separate states. My word, which is the resurrection and the life, shall not pass away because life is eternal. You are the work of God, and his work is wholly lovable and wholly loving. This is how a man must think of himself in his heart, because this is what he is.T-1.111.2

I shouted it, I revelled in its every syllable, I violently cast up my eyes, which were filled with the radiant rainbows of joyous tears. . . .

And when the memory of God has come to you in the holy place of forgiveness you will remember nothing else, and memory will be as useless as learning, for your only purpose will be creating. Yet this you cannot know until every perception has been cleansed and purified, and finally removed forever. Forgiveness removes only the untrue, lifting the shadows from the world and carrying it, safe and sure within its gentleness, to the bright world of new and clean perception. There is your purpose now. And it is there that peace awaits you. T-18.1X.14

Oh, Lord—the winter dawn glows greenish in the window, and I remember not what word it was that I shouted.

Although he cannot remember the word, he has been forever transformed by experiencing for a moment his real home, so that the feeble call of his earthly home will slowly recede, becoming increasingly meaningless.

Come home. You have not found your happiness in foreign places and in alien forms that have no meaning to you, though you sought to make them meaningful. This world is not where you belong. You are a stranger here. But it is given you to find the means whereby the world no longer seems to be a prison house or jail for anyone. W-p1.200.4

We trust our ways to Him and say "Amen." In peace we will continue in His way, and trust all things to Him. In confidence we wait His answers, as we ask His Will in everything we do. He loves God's Son as we would love him. And He teaches us how to behold him through His eyes, and love him as He does. You do not walk alone. God's angels hover near and all about. His Love surrounds you, and of this be sure; that I will never leave you comfortless. W-p11.Epilogue.6


(Translated, from the Russian, by Dmitri Nabokov)

Seeing with the savior's vision

This morning in session, Master Teacher spoke one particular sentence that struck me deeply. It resonated throughout the rest of the day until I finally expressed its resonance in a poem, “Seeing Truly.”

But first, who is Master Teacher, and what is a session?

It is roughly 8:30 in the morning, and Master Teacher is descending the stairway leading into the lobby of a former resort center, built in the late 30’s, located at the edge of a town in Wisconsin called Wisconsin Dells. This worn-down resort center serves as the heart of Endeavor Academy. Founded by Master Teacher in 1993, the Academy is dedicated to the awakening of the individual from his dream to the experience of his True Self.


Master Teacher lightly descends, wearing a white jersey pullover, blue pants, and dark socks, cradling in the crook of his left arm a battered copy of A Course In Miracles, one of the original copies, printed in 1975. Forty or fifty students are gathered in the lobby, anticipating with great joy his descent.

He pauses at the bottom of the stairs, beaming, looking surprised at seeing such joy, and says, “We meet again at last.” This is met with great cheer and much laughter. He walks among the students who have come from all parts of the globe with the single purpose of waking up. Looking deeply into the eyes of each one, he walks among us. Actually, it is much more than that. He is gazing through the appearance into the eyes of Christ in each individual. It is true namaste, the Indian greeting, “The Christ in me meets the Christ in you.” This is an incredible moment. You meet this gaze either with total certainty of your Christhood, or with total fear. If you meet it with fear, you are interposing your false self between the Christ in you and the Christ in him. It is either/or, there is no compromise.

When he says, “There is no world,” he means that your world, the world you have made up with your perceptual mind, trusting your senses, the world of seeing, smelling, hearing, tasting, and touching is not Real. It seems Real, yes, but it is not the Real World of the Peace of God. The world you have made is a dream. You are now in every moment, dreaming a dream. And he is telling you in every moment, “It is not so. There is no world.”

Since his illumination twenty years ago, he has become a uniquely joyous instrument, voicing with great lucidity the words of Jesus. In his talks, pamphlets, audiotapes, and videotapes, he is always offering personal illumination by simply, profoundly, standing in this moment, reflecting for you and for me the Truth of who we are. We see in him the mirroring of the Christ in us. There is no idolization in this. It is always, simply and profoundly, “I stand here in this moment, reflecting back to you your True Self.”

Master Teacher moves through the lobby and down the corridor into the Session Room where some two hundred students are gathered, anticipating with great joy his entrance. He moves among them, talking constantly in his deep, sonorous voice, speaking the Truth with complete lucidity. At some point, he sits in his chair, surrounded by students sitting in a semi-circle, and holds forth with great joy. Each sentence makes you pause and shake your head, then the next one comes along.

Now, here is my poem, inspired by just one such sentence.

SEEING TRULY

Master Teacher said in session early
this morning, “I see you when you see me.”

I see Dear One when I am looking through
the eyes of Christ, seeing with Christ’s vision.
Dear One only stands there for me to see
my sure reflection in his bright mirror.

Since my mind is now clear, unclouded by
thoughts having no source in reality,
no dream images to be pursued still,
no egoic goals to be realized,
he can now look through my eyes, seeing me,
saying softly, “I’ve been looking for you.”

This is all that is required, and it is everything. I stand still in the state of mind of the peace of God, and ask, “Thy will be done.” This is seeing with the savior’s vision. Here is Jesus expressing it in His unworldly masterpiece, A Course in Miracles.

Behold your role within the universe!
To every part of true creation has
the Lord of Love and life entrusted all
salvation from the misery of hell.
And to each one has He allowed the grace
to be a savior to the holy ones
especially entrusted to his care.
And this he learns when first he looks upon
one brother as he looks upon himself,
and sees the mirror of himself in him.
Thus is the concept of himself laid by,
for nothing stands between his sight and what
he looks upon, to judge what he beholds.
And in this single vision does he see
the face of Christ, and understands he looks
on everyone as he beholds this one.
For there is light where darkness was before,
and now the veil is lifted from his sight.
T-31.V11.8

This is the savior's vision; that he see
his innocence in all he looks upon,
and see his own salvation everywhere.
He holds no concept of himself between
his calm and open eyes and what he sees.
He brings the light to what he looks upon,
that he may see it as it really is.
T-31.V11.11:5-7

I now urge you to read "The Savior's Vision" in Chapter 31 in its entirety.

http://acim.home.att.net/text-31-07.html