Right or Happy
Do you prefer that you be right or happy?
Posted by Andy on March 9th, 2010
While lack does not exist in the creation of God, it is very apparent in what you have made. It is, in fact, the essential difference between them. Lack implies that you would be better off in a state somehow different from the one you are in. Until the "separation," which is the meaning of the "fall," nothing was lacking. There were no needs at all. Needs arise only when you deprive yourself. You act according to the particular order of needs you establish. This, in turn, depends on your perception of what you are. A sense of separation from God is the only lack you really need correct. T-1.VI
"Self-esteem" in ego terms means nothing more than that the ego has deluded itself into accepting its reality. Appetites are "getting" mechanisms, representing the ego's need to confirm itself. The ego tries to satisfy itself through the body. T-4.II The body seeks in many ways to prove it is autonomous and real. It works to get paper strips, doing senseless things, and tosses them away for senseless things it does not need and does not even want. The "hero" of this dream will never change, nor will its purpose. T-27.VIII Power, fame, money, physical pleasure; who is the "hero" to whom all these things belong? Could they mean anything except to a body? By seeking after such things the mind associates itself with the body, obscuring its Identity and losing sight of what it really is. M-13
When you let your mind be drawn to bodily concerns, to things you buy, to eminence as valued by the world, you ask for sorrow, not for happiness. There is no in between. Each choice you make brings everything to you or nothing. Choose a thing that will last forever. Heaven itself is reached with empty hands and open minds. W-133
You have made of your reality an idol. T-29.VII Idols are but substitutes for your reality. In some way, you believe they will complete your little self. An idol is a false impression, or a false belief; some form of anti-Christ, that constitutes a gap between the Christ and what you see. Its purpose is to separate your brother from yourself. Each worshipper of idols harbors hope his special deities will give him more than other men possess. It must be more. An idol is a means for getting more. And it is this that is against God's Will. Every living thing is a part of you, as of Himself. God has not many Sons, but only One. Who can have more, and who be given less? T-29.VIII The slave of idols is a willing slave. Seek not to retain the toys of children. Put them all away. T-29.IX
Idols are quite specific. Idols are limits. They are the belief that there are forms that will bring happiness, and that, by limiting, is all attained. Decide for idols and you ask for loss. To seek a special person or a thing to add to you to make yourself complete, can only mean that you believe some form is missing. For sin is the idea you are alone and separated off from what is whole. And thus it would be necessary for the search for wholeness to be made beyond the boundaries of limits on yourself. T-30.III
Seek not outside yourself. All your pain comes simply from a futile search for what you want. Do you prefer that you be right or happy? Whenever you attempt to reach a goal in which the body's betterment is cast as major beneficiary, you try to bring about your death. All idols of this world were made to keep the truth within from being known to you, and to maintain allegiance to the dream that you must find what is outside yourself to be complete and happy. To change all this you need but to decide you do not know the purpose of the world. T-29.VII
You will attack what does not satisfy, and thus you will not see you made it up. Attack has power to make illusions real. Idols were made that the truth might be forgotten. Decide one very simple thing; you do not want whatever you believe an idol gives. Seek no longer for the things you do not want. Seek no more to substitute the strength of idle wishes for the Will of God. T-30.IV
The purpose of the world is idolatry. Idols bring only guilt. Guilt is the sole cause of pain in any form. Idols are nothing and nowhere, and are purposeless. Guilt and sin are meaningless. T-30.V
The ego wants to have things for salvation, for possession is its law. Everything the ego tells you that you need will hurt you. For what you think you need will merely serve to tighten up your world against the light. T-13.VII
Asking-out-of-need always involves feelings of weakness and inadequacy, and could never be made by a Son of God who knows Who he is, his Identity. S-1.II The secret of true prayer is to forget the things you think you need. S-1.I.4
The world you see holds nothing that you need to offer you; nothing that you can use in any way, nor anything at all that serves to give you joy. Each thing you value here is but a chain that binds you to the world. The only purpose worthy of your mind this world contains is that you pass it by, without delaying to perceive some hope where there is none. Let nothing that relates to body thoughts delay your progress to salvation. W-128
The different kinds of "laws" we have believed we must obey would include, for example, the "laws" of nutrition, of immunization, of medication, and of the body's protection in innumerable ways. Think further; you believe in the "laws" of friendship, of "good" relationships and reciprocity. There are no laws but God's. Dismiss all foolish magical beliefs today. W-76
You have spent your life in bringing truth to illusion, in complete insanity. T-18.III Bringing illusion to truth, or the ego to God, is the Holy Spirit's only function. T-14.IX.1.4 [forgiveness] Only the Holy Spirit knows what you need. Leave, then, your needs to Him. T-13.VII The Holy Spirit bids you bring each terrible effect to Him that you may look together on its foolish cause and laugh. T-27.VIII
Your mission is very simple. You are asked to live so as to demonstrate that you are not an ego. T-4.VI If you recognize you need do nothing, you have withdrawn the body's value from your mind. T-18.VII
You cannot be faithful to two masters who ask conflicting things of you. T-17.I.2 A mind and body cannot both exist. Make no attempt to reconcile the two, for one denies the other can be real. W-96 You will not make decisions by yourself whatever you decide. For they are made with idols or with God. And you ask help of anti-Christ or Christ, and which you choose will join with you and tell you what to do. T-30.I
Your faith is placed in the most trivial and insane symbols; pills, money, "protective" clothing, influence, prestige, being liked, knowing the "right" people, and an endless list of forms of nothingness that you endow with magical powers. All these things are your replacements for the Love of God. All these things are cherished to ensure a body identification. They are songs of praise to the ego. Do not put your faith in the worthless. It will not sustain you. Only the Love of God will protect you in all circumstances. I am sustained by the Love of God. Here is the answer to every problem that will confront you, today and tomorrow and throughout time. W-50
Tags: Ego, Forgiveness, Guilt, Judgment
Healing Songs
Posted by Andy on March 8th, 2010
Here are four songs I downloaded from the Awakening Mind website.
Real Love Donna Marie Cary
There’s a love not of this world
The only real love
You’ll not find it wherever you search
It’s only in the waking up
Wake up to what you really are
Wake up. You are the very thing you’ve been searching for
The very thing you thought you needed more of
Guiltless, sinless, Child of God
Love is all you are
Search only for what is false
Let it go
Give up the cost of holding on to what you think you know
Listen to the Voice of Love
It’s calling you telling you
Wake to the only true reality of you
You are a love not of this world
The only real love
This world offers you nothing that you need
You are the extension of all that is and ever will be
When will you believe?
When will you come home to Me?
Wake up
Wake up and see a love not of this world
Wake up to all you’ve ever been
Let Me Remember Oman & Shanti
Into His Presence would I enter now
For I am surrounded by the Love of God
Let me be still and listen to the truth
Let every voice but God’s be still in me
Let me remember I am one with God
Peace to my brother who is one with me
Let me remember what my purpose is
Let all the world be blessed with peace through me
There is one light and that I share with Him
I am sustained by the Love of God
All that I give is given to myself
I thank my Father for his gifts to me
Let me remember there is no will but God’s
His peace is with me Forever. I am safe
Let me remember there is no love but God’s
I will step back and let him lead the way.
I Am Always with You Susan McCullen
I am always with you
Am always loving you
Together we are free
And you are always with me
Are always loving me
Together we are free
Trust in my guidance
Give me your hand
If you stop thinking, you’ll understand
Walk in my shadow
You walk in the sun
For you are me there’s only one
And I am always with you
God is your heart’s desire
God is your heart’s desire
Who’s that Voice that’s calling you?
God is there, just as you always knew
And He is always with you
Is always loving you
Together we are free
And you are always with Him
Are always loving Him
Love is all there is
No matter it seems
Truth stands forever, the rest is but a dream
Who’s that Voice that calling you
God and his angels, as you always knew
And He is always with you
And I am always with you
The truth is we are free
Your love has made me free
Together we are free
You Can Relax Now Susan McCullen
You can relax now, Come on and open your eyes,
Breathe deeply now, I am with you.
Oh my sweet, sweet child, Who do you think you are?
You are the Child of God, And that will never change.
You had a dream, You misunderstood. You thought we were separate,
But now you hear my Voice
And You can relax now.
C’mon and open your eyes,
And breathe deeply now,
I am with you.
You are the love of my life. You are my one creation,
You are eternity, And that will never change.
You had a dream, You misunderstood, You thought we were separate,
But now please hear my Voice and, You can relax now.
C'mon and open your eyes, And breathe deeply now, I am with you.
Oh my sweet, sweet child, Who do you think you are?
You are the Child of God, That will never change.
You are what you are. You are eternity. You are divinity.
That can never change. That has never changed.
Just a dream…open your eyes and breathe.
You are eternity. You are divinity.
You can relax now.
Projection and Perception
What the Course says
Posted by Andy on March 2nd, 2010
Instruction in perception is your great need, for you understand nothing. T-11.VIII.3
The Ego and Guilt
The ego is the sign of a limited and separated self, born in a body, doomed to suffer and to end its life in death. W-pII.12.1
The ego made its world on sin. T-19.II.6 The attraction of guilt is found in sin. T-19.III.1
While you believe that your reality or your brother’s is bounded by a body, you will believe in sin. T-19.III.7
The sick attraction of guilt must be recognized for what it is. T-15.VII.3
It is guilt that has driven you insane. T-13.In.1
The world you see is the delusional system of those made mad by guilt. T-13.In.2
The guilty always condemn. T-13.IX.1 To make guilty is direct attack. T-15.VII.6
Projection
The separation was and is dissociation, and projection is its main defense, the device that keeps it going. T-6.II.1
The ultimate purpose of projection is always to get rid of guilt. T-13.II.1
What you project you disown, and therefore do not believe is yours. You are excluding yourself by the very judgment that you are different from the one on whom you project. Since you have also judged against what you project, you continue to attack it because you continue to keep it separated. By doing this unconsciously, you try to keep the fact that you attacked yourself out of awareness, and thus imagine that you have made yourself safe. T-6.II.2
Yet projection will always hurt you. It reinforces your belief in your own split mind, and its only purpose is to keep the separation going. It is solely a device of the ego to make you feel different from your brothers and separated from them. The ego justifies this on the grounds that it makes you seem "better" than they are, thus obscuring your equality with them still further. Projection and attack are inevitably related, because projection is always a means of justifying attack. Anger without projection is impossible. The ego uses projection only to destroy your perception of both yourself and your brothers. The process begins by excluding something that exists in you but which you do not want, and leads directly to excluding you from your brothers. T-6.II.3
Defenses seem to be unconscious because of the rapidity with which you choose to use them. In that second, even less, in which the choice is made, you recognize exactly what you would attempt to do. W-136.3
Afterwards, your plan requires that you must forget you made it, so it seems to be external to your own intent; a happening beyond your state of mind, an outcome with a real effect on you, instead of one effected by yourself. W-136.4
It is this quick forgetting of the part you play in making your "reality" that makes defenses seem to be beyond your own control. W-136.5
Projection makes perception, and you cannot see beyond it. Again and again you have attacked your brother because you saw in him a shadow figure in your private world. And thus it is that you must attack yourself first, for what you attack is not in others. Its only reality is in your own mind. T-13.V.3
What is projected out, and seems to be external to the mind, is not outside at all, but an effect of what is in, and has not left its source. T-26.VII.4
What you project you believe. T-7.II.3
Projection makes perception. The world you see is the witness to your state of mind, the outside picture of an inward condition. T-21.In.1
Perception
Belief determines perception. T-11.VI.3 What you desire you will see. T-21.II.9
Perception rests on choosing. T-25.III.3 Your perception is the result of your invitation. T-12.VII.5
The world is false perception. Eyes deceive. W-pII.3 There is no world! W-132.6
Everything you perceive is a witness to the thought system you want to be true. T-11.V.18
You perceive from your mind and project your perceptions outward. T-6.II.9
Perception’s fundamental law: You see what you believe is there, and you believe it is there because you want it there. T-25.III.1
I am responsible for what I see. Everything that seems to happen to me I ask for. T- 21.II.2
No one but yourself affects you. W-190.5:4 There is no opponent. T-8.I.3
All the attack you perceive is in your own mind and nowhere else. T-12.III.10
You chose to deceive yourself. T-14.I.5
The secret of salvation is but this: that you are doing this unto yourself. T-27.VIII.10
You have withdrawn into insanity; you are as isolated from reality as if you were alone in all the universe; you see only your own split mind everywhere you look. T-13.V.6
You cannot evaluate an insane belief system from within it. T-9.VII.6
Perception is a choice of what you want yourself to be. T-25.I.3
Everyone sees only what he thinks he is. T-22.I.5
It is as needful that you recognize you made the world you see, as that you recognize that you did not create yourself. They are the same mistake. T-21.II.11
Know thyself. T-8.III.5
Big Picture
Posted by Andy on February 21st, 2010
God is One Mind. God is Love.
God is all Life, everything that is real.
God’s Will is the only will there is.
There is nothing real outside of God. Nothing unreal exists.
God created One Son, Christ.
I am Christ, created by God in His likeness, the extension of God’s Love.
God’s Will for His Son is Perfect Happiness.
All is One, is whole, is holy.
A separate mind is impossible, does not, and cannot, exist in reality.
It is not possible for anything to separate from the Unity of God.
A separate mind, any separation, would be an unreal illusion, an insane idea, a dream, a total fantasy capable of no real effect.
If the Son of God entertained an insane idea to separate, it could not happen in reality.
To make an illusion of reality, the Son of God would have to:
- fall into a stupor, a dream, a fantasy
- make a false consciousness that was not the Oneness of Love, a wrong mind
- forget his Identity and block off his right mind
- make an illusory world of separation in his wrong mind
- learn and maintain a false identity in his wrong mind
None of this is possible in reality nor could it have any effect on reality whatsoever.
There is no world. There is no Life on Earth.
Form, matter, time and space do not exist.
I am not a body. I am not a person. There are no people.
I am not a separate mind.
There is nothing of value in the world. There is no way to make it a better place. There is nothing that needs to be done.
I remain asleep as long as I prefer the dream to reality. I show this preference whenever I:
- judge my brother or an object
- want anything in the dream
Whenever I think those thoughts I feel guilty, that somehow I have sinned.
The only answer to the dream is for me to look inside and see it through the Answer provided by God, the Holy Spirit, my Right Mind.
God’s Plan for salvation is forgiveness, seeing that everything in the world is false, is nothing. Sin does not exist. And the world will be gone without a trace.
God, My Father, loves His Son, and I love My Father.
The peace of God is forever here and now.
Tags: Awakening, Ego, Forgiveness, Love
I Want My Father
The house on the rock
Posted by Andy on February 20th, 2010
Twenty years ago my life absolutely sucked. I finally hit bottom and started working a spiritual program. I have stuck with spirit since then and made slow but steady progress.
Today, by most measures, my life is pretty good. I have good health and a great relationship with my (second) wife. I retired early from the workforce and live in a comfortable house. Now I have time to watch, think and meditate.
And I see that my life is still a sham. Even though it’s no longer possible to drive a truck through the hole in my soul, my heart is filled with longing. I find no real satisfaction in the world, just fleeting scraps. Trying to build friendships based on reciprocity no longer holds any attraction for me.
I thought of an analogy this morning that describes the futility of it. It’s like living in a house that I have to keep painting, because if I don’t get back to a section before the paint dries, the wall hardens, crumbles and falls away. I’m tired of the paint fumes, the radio and the constant mess to clean up. I maintain a smaller and smaller space. When I stop painting it’ll all be gone. That’s OK, because I know what I want instead: the house on the rock.
I want the Love of my Father.
I was pursuing it this morning, focusing on loving memories like being picked up by my father when I was two, the song “Fly With Me,” the passion of Rumi’s poems, and the birth of my son. And then, by surprise, I filled up with joyful reddish light. It was warm, full, happy, comforting, and bright. I was filled with joy and gratitude, just glowing, and I stayed there softly saying “yes, yes, yes” to myself. Then I heard Elizabeth coming down the stairs, opened my eyes, and caught a very warm smile from her. Afterwards I noticed I was tingling. It was similar to falling in love. I want that all the time.
Father, today I am Your Son again. W-234
God is the only goal I have today. W-256
Today the peace of God envelops me,
And I forget all things except His Love. W-346
Tags: Love
