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A new moment has arrived in all its splendor here at The Finca De-Milagro. Together as teachers from everywhere around this dream we experienced a bright shift of our own self-awareness.
A deepening and joy that all ideas of A Course in Miracles are fulfilled again, and now a new momentum is awaiting our recognition and acceptance.
A calmness and peace that is so filled with a quit certainty of the lesson 50 " I Am Sustained by the Love of God"
The weather has turned from icy to balmy, the sun is back, powerfully and warm, the birds are busy making nests and the fields of grass are filled with an abundance with yellow flowers. And we are so grateful.
Forgiveness is the central theme that runs throughout salvation, holding all its parts in meaningful relationships, the course it runs directed and its outcome sure. And now we ask for grace, the final gift salvation can bestow. Experience that grace provides will end in time, for grace foreshadows Heaven, yet does not replace the thought of time but for a little while.
The interval suffices. It is here that miracles are laid; to be returned by you from holy instants you receive, through grace in your experience, to all who see the light that lingers in your face. What is the face of Christ but his who went a moment into timelessness, and brought a clear reflection of the unity he felt an instant back to bless the world? How could you finally attain to it forever, while a part of you remains outside, unknowing, unawakened, and in need of you as witness to the truth?
Be grateful to return, as you were glad to go an instant, and accept the gifts that grace provided you. You carry them back to yourself. And revelation stands not far behind. Its coming is ensured. We ask for grace, and for experience that comes from grace. We welcome the release it offers everyone. We do not ask for the unaskable. We do not look beyond what grace can give. For this we can give in the grace that has been given us.
The philospher Schopenhauer concludes in his book “The World as Will and Representation” that we create the violent state of nature, for he maintains that the individuation that we impose upon things, imposed upon a blind striving energy that, once it becomes individuated and objectified turns against itself, consumes itself, and does violence to itself.
His paradigm image is of the bulldog-ant of Australia, which when cut in half, struggles in a battle to the death between its head and tail.
Our very quest for scientific and practical knowledge creates a world that feasts upon itself. This marks the origin of Schopenhauer's renowned pessimism: he claims that as individuals, we are the unfortunate products of our own epistemological making, and that within the world of appearances that we structure, we are fated to fight with other individuals, and to want more than we can ever have.
( A Course in Miracles)
There is no substitute for the Will of God. In simple statement, it is to this fact that the teacher of God devotes his day.
Each substitute he may accept as real can but deceive him. But he is safe from all deception if he so decides.
Perhaps he needs to remember, "God is with me. I cannot be deceived." Perhaps he prefers other words, or only one, or none at all.
Yet each temptation to accept magic as true must be abandoned through his recognition,not that it is fearful, not that it is sinful, not that it is dangerous, but merely that it is meaningless.
Rooted in sacrifice and separation, two aspects of one error and no more, he merely chooses to give up all that he never had.
And for this "sacrifice" is Heaven restored to his awareness
I have already briefly spoken about readiness, but some additional points might be helpful here.
Readiness is only the prerequisite for accomplishment. The two should not be confused. As soon as a state of readiness occurs, there is usually some degree of desire to accomplish, but it is by no means necessarily undivided.
The state does not imply more than a potential for a change of mind. Confidence cannot develop fully until mastery has been accomplished.
We have already attempted to correct the fundamental error that fear can be mastered, and have emphasized that the only real mastery is through love. Readiness is only the beginning of confidence.
You may think this implies that an enormous amount of time is necessary between readiness and mastery, but let me remind you that time and space are under my control.
I who am host to God am worthy of Him.
He Who established His dwelling place in
me created it as He would have it be.
It is not needful that I make it ready for Him,
but only that I do not interfere with His
plan to restore to me my own awareness of my
readiness, which is eternal.
I need add nothing to His plan.
But to receive it, I must be willing not to
substitute my own in place of it.
And that is all. Add more, and you will merely take away the little that is asked.
Commitment in space and time is to adhere to a value system that is asleep. All action from that ignorance is a mechanical action, acted out in an unawareness of cause and effect.
It is a state of mind that has absorbed a collection of data over a lenght of time and now reaches a point of collapse, as there is no time and space left to re-arrange any more the appearances called this world.
All those concepts, begin to bring a pressure about to let them go, release me is the cry, set me free as these old ideas are beginning to render a black hole in which you can depart to another world.
Nothing has occured but that you have accomplished a journey that is now reached a point of departure to a a state of Mind that is ready to receive you.
What is a commitment but the declaration:" I am ready. Here I Am" to see lessons 70-71-72 as bridges of light in crossing over.
"Miracles as true perception"
I have stated that the basic concepts referred to in this course are not matters of degree. Certain fundamental concepts cannot be understood in terms of opposites.
It is impossible to conceive of light and darkness or everything and nothing as joint possibilities. They are all true or all false.
It is essential that you realize your thinking will be erratic until a firm commitment to one or the other is made.
A firm commitment to darkness or nothingness, however, is impossible.
No one has ever lived who has not experienced some light and some thing. No one, therefore, is able to deny truth totally, even if he thinks he can.
As an indviduals I am a store house of information, I have in time and space assembled data, ideas of bits and pieces, fragments of opinions, like a collection that finally had to collapse on itself.
I have measured endlessly space and time and found it wanting. I measured all appearances and forgot that I am an appearance as well, and so could not ever find relieve from this dance of insanity.
Knowledge is ever ready to come into my awareness, but when my storehouse is full there is no room for the Christ to be born.
The immense degree of energy to hold my capacity as the past together is now seen as finally what it is. That madness is no longer my choice.
The extent of the teacher of God's faithfulness is the measure of his advancement in the curriculum. Does he still select some aspects of his life to bring to his learning, while keeping others apart?
If so, his advancement is limited, and his trust not yet firmly established. Faithfulness is the teacher of God's trust in the Word of God to set all things right; not some, but all.
Generally, his faithfulness begins by resting on just some problems, remaining carefully limited for a time. To give up all problems to one Answer is to reverse the thinking of the world entirely.
And that alone is faithfulness. Nothing but that really deserves the name. Yet each degree, however small, is worth achieving. Readiness, as the text notes, is not mastery.
True faithfulness, however, does not deviate. Being consistent, it is wholly honest. Being unswerving, it is full of trust.
Being based on fearlessness, it is gentle. Being certain, it is joyous. And being confident, it is tolerant. Faithfulness, then, combines in itself the other attributes of God's teachers. It implies acceptance of the Word of God and His definition of His Son.
It is to Them that faithfulness in the true sense is always directed. Toward Them it looks, seeking until it finds.
Defenselessness attends it naturally, and joy is its condition. And having found, it rests in quiet certainty on That alone to Which all faithfulness is due.
As harmony, wholeness, completeness, perfection, dominion, power, joy, and peace. Like walking in sunshine, we walk in this environment of the gifts of God, they come with us wherever we go.
Denial makes no difference, these gifts are there, no just for the asking but to give thanks for their presence.
To give thanks for their presence is what giving and receiving is, and to extend the Kingdom.
To be asleep in their presence will not harm these gifts of God, these vibrations, these rays are ever awaiting their recognition as the only action of my mind worthy of it.
Yet in his lonely, senseless wanderings, God's gifts go with him, all unknown to him. He cannot lose them.
But he will not look at what is given him. He wanders on, aware of the futility he sees about him everywhere, perceiving how his little lot but dwindles, as he goes ahead to nowhere.
Still he wanders on in misery and poverty, alone though God is with him, and a treasure his so great that everything the world contains is valueless before its magnitude.
The Holy Spirit is the motivation for miracle-mindedness; the decision to heal the separation by letting it go.
Your will is still in you because God placed it in your mind, and although you can keep it asleep you cannot obliterate it.
God Himself keeps your will alive by transmitting it from His Mind to yours as long as there is time.
The miracle itself is a reflection of this union of will between Father and Son.
The seeming cost of accepting today's idea is this: It means that nothing outside yourself can save you; nothing outside yourself can give you peace.
But it also means that nothing outside yourself can hurt you, or disturb your peace or upset you in any way.
Today's idea places you in charge of the universe, where you belong because of what you are. This is not a role that can be partially accepted.
And you must surely begin to see that accepting it is salvation.
Everything that occurs is not only usable and workable but is actually the journey itself. I can use everything that happens to me as the means for waking up, not the form but the content is the same. in any conflicting emotion and thoughts or seemingly outer situation to show me where Iam in denial and waking without reservation.
in that awkward, ambigious moment is my wisdom mind as God created me. right there in the uncertainty of everyday's seeming chaos is the knowledge He is Love.
Carlos Castaneda
“To be a warrior is not a simple matter of wishing to be one. It is rather an endless struggle that will go on to the very last moment of our lives. Nobody is born a warrior, in exactly the same way that nobody is born an average man. We make ourselves into one or the other.””
“Only as a warrior can one withstand the path of knowledge. A warrior cannot complain or regret anything. His life is an endless challenge, and challenges cannot possibly be good or bad. Challenges are simply challenges.””
