God Is

On the journey ask for HELP!!!

It is hard to believe that it us up to us to “save” ourselves.  What??? HELP!!! I want someone else to do it.  To fix me, love me, tell me I’m loveable, accepted, cared for, protected from all harm, and who can make me feel secure in the knowledge that all….IS WELL. 

Yes, ask for HELP from professionals, and they can and will guide, but they still can’t do it for us…….we do it! We are responsible. You are responsible.

We are unaware most of the time that we have a split mind.  But if you are suffering it is probably because of your thinking!  Thoughts of judgment, worry, concerns, stress fear, tell you that you are listening to the wrong mind, i.e. the ego.  It is your holy mind within that you need to access and listen to that says All Is WELL. 

Ask for HELP to think the quite thoughts.  The holy part of your mind is the Holy Spirit. It won’t attack with….”you should know better.”  That is the false, ego mind. The memory of love aka God comes to the quiet mind.  On a scale from 1 to 10%, with 10% being the greatest….how much attention do you give to quieting your mind?  Maybe 2% or 5% or none?

This is why we are our saviors.  We save ourselves when we access our right holy mind, the Holy Spirit and turn our daily tasks and thoughts over.  The book “A Course In Miracles” says “ask the Holy Spirit” for help.  The Holy Spirit is a gift from God or the door to our right mind.  That is where peace and comfort can be accessed.  It is not in the world, going to the movies, shopping, etc.

For example, I recently had to do something I was dreading.  When I noticed the ego thoughts running in my mind, I made the decision to change my mind.  I called upon the “Holy Spirit” and said I want to see this differently.  What came to me was: “take love with you and carry it like a “hostess gift and choose to see everyone and all circumstances through the eyes of non-judgment and peace.”  It was an easy afternoon using the gift. You have it too.

If you are not familiar with the Course the idea of a “Holy Spirit” may seem strange but….watch your mind and if you see the dualistic split between, good/bad, love/hate, friend/foe, misery/peace then you are noticing the split.  Just watch how you are feeling, what’s going on in your mind.  Do you like it?  You are a “Decision Maker” i.e. the boss!   It is up to you to lead the way and not follow the ego’s thoughts that lead to nowhere!

But you have to watch your thoughts.  You must be vigilant for those little thoughts of unease and if you follow them, they will become bigger.  Important: don’t judge them or make it a big deal but just tell yourself you are choosing another way.   

In A Course In Miracles, Chapter 27.  Section VIII, The Hero of the Dream, paragraph 10. (Text page 587) “The secret of salvation is but this: That you are doing this unto yourself.” 

All judgment makes us miserable.  Watch the parade of thoughts, wave, and let them go and ask for another way to see everything!  Ask for HELP!

You are Loved, Loveable and Loving!

Watercolor painting “Help” is available: posters, cards & prints at http://www.sally-mckirgan.pixels.com

A Course In Miracles websites:

http://www.acim.org

http://www.fip.org

http://www.miraclecenter.org

The Open Door beneath your Mind

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During this Covid 19 pandemic it seems everyone is pretty miserable. How are you feeling?   I go in and out of worry and depression but I am always grateful for those who are on the front lines dealing with it.  The only way to side step misery is to be aware of  how you perceive the situation.  Perhaps a change of mind is in order.   What you think and the judgments you make will either make you happy or sad.  The mind is a beautiful thing to change.  It is up to you to change it.  Do you dwell in fear or love.

You are 100% responsible for how you think (judge) understand and perceive.  We have a choice in “how” we judge things and situations.  If we see something as an attack then the ego is in charge.  Are you happy when the ego is in charge?  If we can view what goes on around us with an iota of lenience – just a little- we begin to open the mind to the idea of tolerance.  Tolerance and mercy hold open the door, to your peace.

I’m thinking of wearing masks as I write this but it could be anything that disturbs your peace.  I think everyone should wear a mask.  I don’t like them because they restrict air and I need air but I wear one anyway.  I can understand why someone would choose not to, but I want peace.  So I have to change my mind, on the spot, adding a dash of tolerance and mercy to my thoughts.  Just because I disagree I do not have to allow hatred or anger.  I can see either love or the call for love.  And the call for love is to me, my mind and its need for peace as well as theirs.   The ego does not have to run and ruin my life.  I choose to sideline the dominant ego’s thought system and choose charity and mercy.

When we give mercy and respect to others, we have mercy and respect for ourselves.  We don’t realize how much needless unconscious guilt we pile on our psyche with righteous judgments and opinions feeling certain we are right.  Do I want to be right or happy?  Letting go of my conviction that I know what’s right when in fact I don’t always know, opens the door to beneath my mind.

We like to think that we know it all.  But we don’t know what our soul needs to experience or lessons we have come to learn, until they arrive at our doorstep.  We have all experienced being misunderstood or accused of something we did not intend or been unfairly treated.  When knowing how it feels to be unfairly treated, we refuse to mistreat anyone.  One thing we can always do is offer love and acceptance with our thoughts.  In doing so, we open the door in our mind, leading to understanding, and turn from the ego’s decree of punishment, fire and brimstone.

“Then let them (your judgmental thoughts) go and sink below them to the holy place where they can enter not.  There is a door beneath them in your mind, which you could not completely lock to hide what lies beyond.  Seek for that door and find it.  You cannot fail today.  There walks with you the Spirit Heaven sent you, that you might approach this door some day and through his aid slip effortlessly past it, to the light.”    A Course In Miracles Workbook Lesson 131.   No one can fail who seeks to reach the truth.

In A Course In Miracles, Chapter 21. Section II. The Responsibility for Sight, pg. 448

I am responsible for what I see.

I choose the feelings I experience, and I decide

Upon the goal I would achieve.

And everything that seems to happen to me

I ask for, and receive as I have asked.

We are responsible for “how we see things.”  What interpretation do we lay on the world.  It is the mercy within that will allow a new perception to come when asking the Holy Spirit to help us.  Look through His eyes and you will have peace.  Me too!

God Is – You are LOVED and you are INNOCENT.

www.miraclecenter.org

www.acim.org

www.facim.org

You Are Pure Consciousness

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“The mind of an enlightened human being is flexible and adaptable. The mind of an ignorant person is conditioned and fixed.”  Ajhan Sumedho, ‘Don’t take your life seriously’, Buddhist Publishing Group

As a student of non-duality, a friend recently loaned me the above book. Ajahn Sumedho. Ajahn, (“teacher” in Pali) was born Robert Karr Jackman, July 27, 1934, in Seattle. He is the senior Western representative of the Thai forest tradition of Theravada Buddhism. A bhikkhu since 1967, Sumedho is considered a seminal figure in the transmission of the Buddha’s teachings to the West.  During the Korean War he served for four years from the age of 18 as a United States navy medic. He graduated in 1963 with an MA in South Asian studies from the University of California, Berkeley. Per Wikepedia

A Course In Miracles has many similarities with Buddhism and the one that stands out from all others is our judgment of ourselves and others. I don’t know about you but I’ve been fixated on politics, our nation and world conditions since the January changes in government. Chaos and change happens in our lives and that creates nervousness and anxiety, the opposing poles of inner peace.   Ajahn says the world is: “just the way it is!” Accept! We are not at peace when we judge anyone; feel superior or inferior to others.”As Babies we were not born with a self-view. That is developed over our lifetime. We therefore become a “created concept” and we suffer and seek answers to the suffering.

Whatever our self-concepts are we are not that!  When we choose, we can acknowledge innate pure consciousness to receive wisdom. Wisdom operates through the marriage of awareness joining with consciousness. Suffering is the theme in The Four Noble truths. Judgment is suffering. As we become aware of pure consciousness, judgments shift and soften: “so it is” or “like this” to pure subjectivity. The ego personality says: “I like this or I don’t like that.” It is my choice then, should I get caught up in the annoyance, suppress it or try to change it? I know I want my way but can I be assured that will bring me peace? Until I can accept the world is just ‘like it is’ and ‘what is just – is’, I am the one choosing to suffer. Buddha called it Dukkha.

When you say: “I AM pure consciousness uncreated” your mind is at rest. Say it slowly with eyes closed. Say it slowly with eyes open. Pure consciousness does not have a sex, nationality or a world view. It means, I AM – not a permanent body; rather I am eternal, consciousness. Consciousness is behind awareness and when melded spark an awakening experience, like the Buddha, or Christ .

Contrast this with the impermanent, unsatisfactory “not self” that we think we are. The idea of “me and mine” created out of ignorance and separation from pure consciousness. The personality and life circumstances always change. You don’t stay the same person as the ego personality is reactive.   Old age is another seeming failure but pure consciousness does not age. Awareness transcends the conditioned ego state. If we continue to give our allegiance and beliefs to the ego rather than to our natural pure awareness, we will suffer – until we tire of it.  We can see seek refuge in awareness and pure consciousness.

As we look at national and world conditions, be aware and say: ‘so it is.’  The Course calls it our script.  It just is and we can view it through the ego i.e. suffering or Awareness i.e the Holy Spirit.  Consciousness is stainless, it cannot be contaminated. I am reminded of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, working for peace yet staying in pure consciousness throughout the tumult of his life and Jesus who assures us we are “As God Created Us” and not the thing or ego we created.

Perhaps we will become enlightened as insanity propels us to approach pure consciousness; non-attachment vs pure hell.  The Holy Spirit within that is the alternative voice to the ego.

As the months and years unfold, our mindful practice, whether with Buddhism or A Couse In Miracles workbook lessons, will guide us to the wisdom and peace available at the center of our One luminous being.

See A Course In Miracles Workbook Lesson 45. God is the Mind with which I think

http://www.facim.org

http://www.acim.org

http://www.miraclecenter.org

 

How is Peace Possible in your world?

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“Peace now belongs here, because a Thought of God has entered.  What else but a Thought of God turns hell to Heaven merely by being what it is?”  M. 11.How is Peace Possible in this World? P.4.8 & 9.

The above quote from the Manual of A Course In Miracles can relax our tortured mind if we remember that Peace is the Thought of God.  The memory of God is in our mind and we, mankind, have denied it but it is impossible to destroy that memory. Mankind has forgotten who we are.  We are of God, we are all His children.  We are therefore related because we came from the same “Father” who loves us equally.  We are One.

This is how peace is possible in this world:  Thinking of God, remembering God IS and that you are LOVED, we are ALL LOVED EQUALLY.  We are ONE.  Your mind is a judgment FREE ZONE!!

We are related beyond the color of skin; culture; religion, country of origin; language or sex.  We are One.

Since God is mysterious compassionate all encompassing eternal LOVE and we are His offspring, then we inherited the same attributes of compassionate eternal love.  This means we will never really die – our bodies will, but our true SPIRIT SELF is eternal like God.

No one can exist or has ever lived that is not of God.  Our task is to remember who we are and we do that by ceasing all judgment.

“Ask yourself whether your judgment or the Word of God is more likely to be true. For they say different things about the world and things so opposite that it is pointless to try to reconcile them.  God offers the world salvation; your judgment would condemn it.  God says there is no death; your judgment sees but death as the inevitable end of life.  God’s Word assures you that He loves the world; your judgment says it is unlovable.  Who is right?  For one of you is wrong.” M. 11. 4. 2.8.

“Peace is impossible to those who desire war.  Peace is inevitable to those who offer peace.  How easily, then, is your judgment of the world escaped!  It is not the world that makes peace seem impossible.  It is the world you see (through the eyes of the ego) that is impossible. Yet has God’s Judgment on this distorted world redeemed it and made it fit to welcome peace. 

Peace now belongs here because a Thought of God has entered.” M. 11.4.1-8

http://www.facim.org

http://www.acim.org (The Course In Miracles is now in several languages.)