Tag: identity

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Experience the Mystery of God

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“The most beautiful and profound emotion we can experience is the mystical. It is the source of all true art and science. He whom this emotion is a stranger who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead, can’t know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive form, this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religion.” Albert Einstein

The time has come to liberate ourselves from the ego and experience God!  God is Love the opposite of the ego.

How many of us blame things on God? For example we say that something that happened must have been God’s Will or God’s Plan? Even the Insurance Industries describe disasters as “An Act of God”!  Is an earthquake, a forest fire or a hurricane an act of God?  We could blame an earthquake on the shifting of tectonic plates or forest fires and hurricane’s on Global Warming BUT that would mean pointing the finger at ourselves.

Some people don’t like to mention God these days because that mystery, whatever it is, now seems to be out of favor like an old computer or girdles.   Only the people who are politically on the far right or are religious fundamentalists get to believe in God.   But, I’m a liberal, I’m on the left and I believe in God!  I know other liberals who believe in God aka a Creator, Yahweh, a Supreme Being, or the Great Mystery.  Atheists don’t think there is such a thing and they may be right but I bet when push comes to shove and they are in trouble they say “Please God Help.”

In The Course In Miracles,  Manual for Teachers,  20. (pg. 51) What is the Peace of God, states: “It has been said that there is a kind of peace that is not of this world.  How is it recognized?  God’s peace is recognized at first by just one thing: in every way it is totally unlike all previous experiences.  It calls to mind nothing that went before.  It is a new thing entirely.”   The past just slips away and in its place is everlasting quiet.  Only that.”

Our busy ego mind does not like quiet.  Are you aware that your mind is always running on some life theme, a problem or fear of the future?  The Manual goes on to say “God’s peace can never come where anger is, for anger must deny that peace exists.  Who see’s anger as justified in any way proclaims that peace is meaningless and must believe it cannot exist. Therefore, forgiveness is the necessary condition for finding the peace of God.”

This is probably why people don’t think God exists.   We enjoy our anger too much to forgive.  If we enjoy the anger we won’t forgive so our minds are busy hating and never quiet enough to allow the experience of God, which the ego mind does not want you to have .  So it keeps the anger going and the idea of forgiveness never enters and so our chances of experiencing the quiet which allows the peace of God is hijacked!  We don’t think God exists.  We do not have to allow or give the ego thoughts that kind of power.  When the thought comes just say “that is not what I choose to think.”  ” I no longer want to hate and be angry.”

We can give up anger if we want to.   We can have the experience of the peace of God if we are willing to do that.  When we give up anger we are forgiving, letting go and choosing peace.  We give up attacking, judging or condemning  and we experience the quiet mind and the peace of God.  Replace attack and judgment with love.

We can *silence the ego and the Course indictes that we can  because it states:  “How is the peace of God retained once it is found?  Returning anger in any form will drop the heavy curtain once again and the belief that peace cannot exist will certainly return.”  So this indicates that we can and will experience God, as we work on giving up anger, and sure enough when anger returns we will feel that heavy curtain again.

“Stop for a moment now and think of this: Is conflict what you want, or is God’s peace the better choice which gives you more? A tranquil mind is not a little gift. “The memory of God comes to the quiet mind.” 

We need to decide to forgive everyone and everything including the world!  “Forgive the world and you will understand that everything that God created cannot have an end, and nothing He did not create is real.”  God created you and you are as real and as eternal as He!  Yes, bodies die but never the eternal spirit that you share with God, as his Son.   God did not create the ego, the false self, He created His Son as Spirit like Himself.

His Will is without opposite.  His Will is yours.  “The mighty Will of God Himself is His gift to you.  He does not seek to keep it for himself.  This is your heritage.  God’s peace is the condition for His Will.  Attain His peace, (let go of anger and forgive) and you remember Him.”  And you will experience the “radiant beauty” Einstein suggested in the above quote.

A Course in Miracles – Manual for Teachers,  #20. What is the Peace of God. Page 51.

YOU ARE LOVED!!

*One way to silence and understand the ego part of your mind is to do the Workbook Lessons, one a day for a year’s study.  They start you on the path back to the mind you share with God.

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Rest in Love, Rest in Truth

On By SallyIn A Course In MiraclesLeave a comment

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You are loved!  Most of us do not allow ourselves to feel it.  Why?  Don’t we believe we are lovable?  You ARE loved, warts, gifts and all!  Give yourself the gift of feeling it.  Really feel it.   Go to a silent place within, close your eyes and feel yourself being held, as if you were a small child again.  Feel yourself being rocked gently and a soft hand stroking your cheek and telling you that you are loved.  Feel the care and sweetness in your heart.  That is how God loves you.  Your spirit is love and as bright, as soft and innocent like this blossom.

I invite you to go to the A Course In Miracles website and listen to Lesson 109, I rest in God, being read to you as you close your eyes.

Here is the link to past in your browser:   https://acim.org/workbook/lesson-109/

The Course offers 365 lessons, one for each day of the year.  We being at lesson number 1 and  read a lesson per day and on the 109th day of the year we learn we can and DO rest in Love, in God and can be at Peace.   We just need to accept it.  At the end of the 365 lessons you will never be lonely again or feel unloved…….when you remember your true identity – God’s Holy Precious Son.

Happy New Year!

 

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In the fox holes of life!

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In the fox holes of life: ‘I Am There.’

Easter and Passover join hands this year!  Passover and Good Friday on March 30 and Easter April 1. Jesus always takes center stage for Easter. For years I had problems with the concept of Jesus until I started studying the spiritual psychological non- dual metaphysical book, ‘A Course In Miracles.’  Maybe since he was proclaimed the CHOOSEN one i.e. the favorite son of God, it made me wonder about the rest of us. Did he (God) care about me or anyone else for that matter? I decided probably not. But Jesus in the Course tells the scribe, Helen Schucman, that yes, he is a Son of God but so are you and I. He is not special. We are equals and all equally loved!

“The miracle is a sign of love among equals. Equals should not be in awe of one another because awe implies inequality. It is therefore an inappropriate reaction to me. An elder brother is entitled to respect for his greater experience, and obedience for his greater wisdom. There is nothing about me that you cannot attain.   I have nothing that does not come from God. The difference between us now is that I have nothing else. This leaves me in a state which is only potential in you.” T.1.II.3.4-12.

He also says that we do need help and He and the Holy Spirit are here for us.

“I go before you because I am beyond the ego. Reach, therefore, for my hand because you want to transcend the ego. My strength will never be wanting, and if you choose to share it you will do so.” T. 8.V.6 7-9.

Hold out your hand i.e. your mind and he is there. Yes, He is the Christ but so are you and I and everyone, whether we accept it or not.

Another wonderful thing about the Course is that since Jesus’s Mind joined with Helen’s we know he is not dead!  He tells us throughout the Course that there is no death.  He did not die on the cross!  His body did but HE did NOT!

I have come to believe that Jesus is really REAL!  Not in the bodily sense but within the fox holes of life where faith holds our hand and trust, the light. God does not need us but we need to know, that HIS love and grace are always here with us – Within.

Recently I learned about the mystical poem ‘I am There’ by James Dillet Freeman. He is sometimes known as “the poet laureate of the moon” because two of his poems are on the moon. ‘I Am There’ was taken by Astronaut, James B. Irwin in 1971 and ‘Prayer for Protection’ by Lunar Commander ‘Buzz’ Aldrin in July 1969. Here are the poems of assurance and a blessed Passover and Easter to all.

I am There

Do you need Me?

I am there.

You cannot see Me, yet I am the light you see by.

You cannot hear Me, yet I speak through your voice.

You cannot feel Me, yet I am the power at work in your hands.

I am at work, though you do not understand My ways.

I am at work, though you do not recognize My works.

I am not strange visions. I am not mysteries.

Only in absolute stillness, beyond self, can you know Me as I am, and then but as a feeling and a faith.

Yet I am there. Yet I hear. Yet I answer.

When you need Me, I am there.

Even if you deny Me, I am there.

Even when you feel most alone, I am there.

Even in your fears, I am there.

Even in your pain, I am there.

I am there when you pray and when you do not pray.

I am in you, and you are in Me.

Only in your mind can you feel separate from Me, for only in your mind are the mists of “yours” and “mine.”

Yet only with your mind can you know Me and experience Me.

Empty your heart of empty fears.

When you get yourself out of the way, I am there.

You can of yourself do nothing, but I can do all.

And I am in all.

Though you may not see the good, good is there, for I am there.

I am there because I have to be, because I am.

Only in Me does the world have meaning; only out of Me does the world take form; only because of Me does the world go forward.

I am the law on which the movement of the stars and the growth of living cells are founded.

I am the love that is the law’s fulfilling. I am assurance. I am peace. I am oneness. I am the law that you can live by. I am the love that you can cling to. I am your assurance. I am your peace. I am one with you. I am.

Though you fail to find Me, I do not fail you.

Though your faith in Me is unsure, My faith in you never wavers, because I know you, because I love you.

Beloved, I am there.

 

The Prayer of Protection

The light of God surrounds us;

The love of God enfolds us;

The power of God protects us;

The presence of God watches over us;

Wherever we are, God is!

Learn more about the history and mystery of ‘I am There’ by James Dillet Freeman at http://www.unity.com.

 

 

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January Peace of Mind

On By SallyIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Mt. Shasta's Heart

OK – So it is mid January!  You may have made some resolutions about things you want to happen or do this year.  How you doing?  The only part of your mind that would care or “seem to mind” is the ego.  The ego is the part of your mind that carries the judge’s gavel and seems to run you around like the cartoon road runner.

But what if you set your goal at the beginning of each day so that no matter what happened that day you would have peace?

A Couse In Miracles Lesson 34.  I could see peace instead of this.

“Peace of mind is clearly an internal matter.  It must begin with your own thoughts and then extend outward.  It is from your peace of mind that a peaceful perception of the world arises.”

Go to http://www.acim.org – click on lessons and then scroll to lesson 34.  You can even close your eyes and have it read aloud to you.

So – each morning, before you get out of bed lie there for a few restful minutes and ask yourself:  “What kind of a day do I want?  What do I want to have happen today? Run through all the events and circumstances that you think the day will hold.

Then looking at them all say:

“But above all, today I choose peace.  No matter what happens I want the peace of God.”

Then it won’t matter if you get the job interview; the check you’ve been expecting; the date or meeting you’ve been waiting for or the diagnosis you’re hoping for.  No matter what happens since your goal is PEACE, you will have it regardless of the outcome of any of the circumstances in your life.

On my white board in the kitchen I’ve written:  Today I want the Peace of God.   You can put it on a note card you carry in your pocket.

In Chapter 17. of the Course, Section VI. Setting the Goal, p.4. (pg. 366)

The value of deciding in advance what you want to happen is simply that you will perceive the situation as means to make it happen.”

If we decide in advance what we want, then we will perceive it and even if we don’t, we will be upset and then remember “Oh, I could see peace instead of this.”

Even if you get what you want, how long will it make you happy?

No matter what happens in our crazy mixed up world, you can have peace!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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See Love or the Call for Love

On By SallyIn A Course In Miracles, UncategorizedLeave a comment

See either Love or a Call for Love

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The United Nation’s International Day of Peace is Saturday, September 21. Imagine all the people in all Nations of the World stopping for 24 hours to think about Peace! Peace with other countries, counties, family and neighbors!   The above symbol is love in Arabic.

We don’t have to hate. Do we? Do we have to judge or condemn? If a trusted adult tells us that others are offensive we may tend to believe them especially when we are young. We are taught and most of us believe and accept but we certainly don’t have to. For example my mother was prejudiced against a certain race. I had played with some of these kids at school and liked them so I did not accept her belief but I did obey her and not go to their house. As it turned out my sister married a man of that race and low and behold, she changed her mind. A mind is a beautiful thing to change. Mom was a lovely person but she accepted her conditioning and passed it on. It reminds me of the Roger’s and Hammerstein South Pacific song, “You have to be taught.” But we do not have to accept society’s teaching. Hate is a choice.

Could it be that a part of our mind enjoys hate? Think about how you feel when you are in the “hate” emotion. Doesn’t it make you feel strong and powerful and above all right! Years ago I worked in an office with a young man who was mentally impaired. He was from a rich family and he annoyed me and I disliked him. Looking back after years of spiritual work I wondered what that was about. I think I hated him because he reminded me of my own mental impairment. I always thought I was stupid! We project onto others that which we have inside yet do not want to see or admit. It is projected out and seen elsewhere but heaven not in me! When I think of him now, I send love to him wherever he is and I believe his soul receives it. I know mine does.

Hate and anger are harmful to the hater in many ways.  Have you ever tried to be nice when you didn’t want to? What does that type of mental activity do to the brain/body? Check out the Every Day Health website, https://www.everydayhealth.com/news/ways-anger-ruining-your-health/ this site document from various studies, the side effects of hate and negative emotions on the heart and brain, creating stress hormones causing depression and even inflammation.   The ego is the “Master Judge” in our mind that runs our lives until we understand we are in fact miserable and see through the fog and decide to change our thoughts and choose peace. The ego very wisely uses projection and hate as a road block to love. We choose the ego until we decide not to. We however have a choice because we are a decider!

Hate is offensive.  When we see angry people it is very ugly and distasteful. We feel a churning inside. TV and movies offer a heavy diet of violence and hate an onslaught to the nervous systems.   To be honest we need to admit the hate we see reflected in the world outside, is also within. If we can admit that then we are no longer in conflict and it dissipates. Instead of pulling the “wool” over our eyes we just look honestly and in looking, it dissolves. If we don’t fight it or put up obstacles we avoid a pile of buried guilt being placed deep within the psyche to emerge unexpectedly, which it will. Look squarely at the angry person and see either love or a call for love. Try it. You will access a place of peace. You do not need to say aloud “I love you” merely think it. The mind is choosing love instead of the ego’s automatic response of disgust or hate.   Their anger is their momentarily condition but not their reality. In giving love, you receive it. You don’t know if or what you will “do or say” as the situation will depend on wisdom from the higher Self. But you can always think love.

This quote is attributed to Abraham Lincoln: “To defeat an enemy, make him a friend.” You could also say “To defeat an angry person, recognize it is also within and see either love or a call for love.”

If I exclude love from others; I am excluding love from myself. With compassion we no longer condemn.

We are the same, we all people and nations need peace. The Spark of the Divine is within everyone, so I challenge myself to look for it.

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Am I a Body or Spirit?

On By SallyIn Uncategorized1 Comment

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As students of A Course In Miracles we are asked to consider our True Identity.

We are born into a body, in a particular family of certain circumstances but seeking the answer to the age old question:  Who am I?  We learn (gradually) we are NOT who we THINK we are!

The Course tells us we are Spirit and little by little we come to understand that YES, that is true, our (eternal) spirit does reside in our body for now but the time will come when we will leave the body, thank it for its service and move on.  We are really caretakers (or not) of our soul that is currently inhabiting this body!

The more and more we REMEMBER we are in fact SPIRIT, the more peace we will have.  When the body has a problem, which it will, it is a chance to say:  NOPE – NOT ME!

Of course we take care and “fix” the body and do whatever we can to stay in the world and learn lessons that are sure to come.   A elderly friend became sick recently and the sickness was such that she decided NOT to “fix” her body!  That was courageous but I know the time will come when I will make that same decision.  I will know what’s right when that time comes and I will leave knowing I did the right thing.

Workbook lesson 199. I am not a body. I am free, is a wonderful lesson to explore the feelings of not being the body.  You can go to http://www.acim.org and click on lessons and then close your eyes and listen quietly to let it sink in.

Remember, you are a decision making Mind!  You have the power to choose!  You have two choices:  Love or Fear.  You can listen to the ego’s fear or listen to the Holy Spirit’s grace and faith.

Isn’t it great to know you have a CHOICE!  That is why you are not a victim.

http://www.facim.org – Lesson 199:  “I am not a body.  I am free.  I hear the Voice That God has given me, and it is only This my mind obeys.”

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You Are a Decision Making Mind

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You are a decision making mind!  Right?!

However, you are a decision making mind that has decided it is NOT a decision making mind!  At least not all the time and here is why.

IN our world of illusion we have a split mind: the ego and the right mind which the Course calls the part of the mind we use to access the Holy Spirit, Jesus, the Love within.  Observe your mind when it is on automatic.  There are thoughts of worry, envy, judgments, fear, and also thoughts of appreciation, a friend, a loved one, clouds or spring flowers, raspberries, chocolate, or coffee.  Understand that there are various categories of ideas, thoughts running helter skelter, hither and yon and where are you?  If you are following your ego lock, stock and barrel you are not using the right mind.  You are off course!  The Course in Miracles, tells us our egoic thoughts are not out real thoughts.  Our real thoughts are the thoughts we share with God, with love.  It also says the memory of God comes to the quiet mind.

The Course In Miracles has a workbook of 365 lessons, one per day, that trains us to see through the veil and reclaim our decision making mind.  That process helps us learns to make the choice between the ego and the right mind.  It is a journey without distance.  You don’t need to travel to see a guru or take a workshop but you will be led by a quiet voice of love within.  The journey is inner, it is between your Self and the Love within that will hold your hand the entire time and for all time.  Take the journey with the intention and determination that you are doing something very Holy.  It is truly a mind training and life changing journey and you will succeed.

Take the journey to your real home.  Start at lesson number 1 and read one every day no matter if you understand it or not.  Keep going!

When you get to lesson 35 you will read: “My mind is part of God’s I am very Holy.”

Keep going – your decision making mind is in charge!  You are on your way HOME to the true Self!

www.acim.org – look at the lessons and the text

www.miraclecenter.org – find a study group in your area.

www.facim.org – lots of wonderful books by Dr. Ken Wapnick

 

New Years Promise

On By SallyIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

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January 3, 2017!!

What a trickster time is!

“For what is time without a past and future?  It has taken time to misguide you so completely, but

it takes no time at all to be what you are. Begin to practice the Holy Spirit’s use of time as a

teaching aid to happiness and peace.  Take this very instant, now, and think of it as all there is of

time.  Nothing can reach you here out of the past, and it is here that you are completely absolved,

completely free and wholly without condemnation.  From this holy instant wherein holiness was

born again you will go forth in time without fear and with no sense of change with time.” 

The above quote is from A Course In Miracles, Chapter 15. The Holy Instant, Section I. The Two Uses of Time, p.9. 2-7.

The ego uses time to age us (we think we are bodies); heap regret and guilt; plant the seeds of self doubt and or grandiosity; keep us in fear of the future by reminding us of the dreaded past and we are suffocated by grievances we have promised never to overlook or forgive.

But, when we choose to use the Holy Spirit’s practice of accepting the holy instant as soon as we become upset and remember “God Is” present at this very moment – our mind is free.  Sometimes when I am aggravated, beyond words I repeat “God Is” quickly, about 10 to 20 times!  It shifts me from the ego to the Holy Spirit, from Hell to Heaven.  Does it last – no!  But gradually, little by little, I have Faith that I am ascending the ladder and One Day, One Fine Day,  I will reach True Perception and the Real World.

My New Year’s Resolution….. To use the Holy Instant and remember when upset, to STOP and take that very instant and think of it as being “Out of Time”- no past, no future, just God Is, God Is, God Is!  This is what the Course calls the Atonement: Remembering that the “seeming” separation from God is an illusion!  Not True!

Bless you in 2017 and for that matter – for eternity!

For more information about the Course check the following websites:

http://www.facim.org

http://www.acim.org

http://www.miraclecenter.org

http://www.circleofa.org

 

 

 

 

 

There is no death – You will never die

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Your True Identity – You are Love

“Nothing real can be threatened,
nothing unreal exists.
Therein lies the peace of God.”
A Course In Miracles, Introduction

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What keeps inner peace from being realized is not knowing who/what you are. You are a work of God. You are not your body or the millions of ego thoughts that try to convince you that you are a body, with a certain DNA, subject to germs, illnesses or the particular identity given you at the birth of your body.

Yes, we all have a body but it is not who/what we are. What happens when the body dies? It is gently laid down and your real identity as Spirit continues. The Son of God can never die or be threatened or suffer since as God’s son we inherit all His attributes, being ONE with Him.

A good friend of mine died recently. She had gone through a year of cancer treatment. When she first became sick and the terrible word “cancer” was mentioned by her Doctor, and since we were on similar spiritual paths, I gently reminded her of her true identity and that she was not her body. “I know that!” she said emphatically!

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Everyone who knew her from Doctors, radiologists to friends and family were shown by her actions via her great Internal Spirit, that she was indeed not her body. Yes her body was losing its hair and weight and yes it was not very hungry but she did not identify with it as being her self. Her true Self, was Spirit and it was her source of Love.

Love was who she was, no matter if the body was sick or well. Love moved through her and out via her voice and the songs she loved to sing. Loved moved through her to the verbal blessings she gave not just to those whom she knew but it extended to people (strangers) she met in stores or restaurants. She never met a stranger! Her favorite saying was “God Bless your heart”? That was her. She never excluded anyone from her Love, and if she met you, she loved you. just like God!

About a month of two before she left her body, she had to wear a oxygen tube in her nose but did that stop her? Nope! She went everywhere dragging her metal oxygen canister along behind her. Many probably thought “Why doesn’t she just stay home and take it easy?” but she was proving to all that she was not going to let a little thing like a metal canister or cancer stop her from expressing her joy and Love!

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She was proving to those who were lucky enough to know her, that she was indeed a great spirit. She left her body with grace and a peace that is not of this world. And sure enough, she proved she was not her body because she left it lying on the bed like a shell and off she flew with her REAL spirit Self to her next lesson or maybe even HOME with God.

The spiritual book A Course In Miracles tells us that we are not our bodies, we are a Spirit Self that will never die because it is invulnerable. The body is useful and we care for it because it is a means of communication, but it is neutral and it is not the teacher….our Spirit Self that resides within us is our teacher and guide.

My friend’s Spirit that inhabited her body taught us all what she and We truly are. She did not slink away to hide the body’s dying process. She shared that it was not who she was…and neither are you.

You are Loved and you are not your Body. You are Spirit, complete and healed and whole. You will never die.

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Click here to sign the National Inner Peace Day petition
http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/a-national-inner-peace?source=s.icn.em.mt&r_by=1650952

Harvard Nuerusurgeon Eben Alexander’s NDE Radically Changes His Beliefs (Videos & Text)

Dr. Eben Alexander – NDE