Please show me the innocence in this person and myself, that I might be at peace. Amen
Prayer changes us on the level of cause. Effects of that change
automatically follow . Every thought is either love or fear. All negative thought is an expression of
fear. There is really only one problem (fear), and there is really only one
Answer (love). Love is our natural state, yet we’re thrown off our natural state as a
result of simply living in this world. That is the spiritual meaning of Adam
and Eve exiting the garden. All of us, including the person who treated you
unkindly , has been wounded by the world. Whereas the love of God is
meant to flow into us and extend through us, our woundedness forms an
obstruction to our ability to allow  that. Ego is when the wires get crossed in
our brains: in any moment, for whatever reason, we can’t see how to
express our love and still get our needs met. We become stuck in that
moment and fall asleep to who we are. That is what happened inside the person who hurt you. They fell asleep
to who they are; and in that state, they fell asleep to who you are too. Yet
the bigger problem is what happens now. Someone else having fallen asleep
to who they are, and to who you are, the temptation is for you to fall asleep
too. Your mission—and your miracle—is to remain awake. You can extend your perception beyond the realm of someone’ s
mistaken, lovele ss behavior , and choose instead to see their innocence. You
can be willing to remember what in your heart you know: that they are an
innocent child of God, just like you, and their behavior doesn’ t have to be
perceived as an attack. It is mere ly a bad dream, and you don’t have to enter
into it. Their behavior can be seen differently; what is not love can be seen
as a call for love.That does not mean the other person isn’t to be held accoun table. It
doesn’ t mean there isn’t a conversation to be had. It doesn’ t mean you’re to
surrender to unhealthy patterns of behavior related to them. Forgiveness
simply means you are lifted to a higher mental vibration, from which—and
only from which —you will be able to express your yes, and express your
no, from  a place that is nonreactive and responsible. And, by remaining
awake, you will help awaken the other person too. We are heir to the laws of the world with which we identify . If I choose
to perce ive your guilt as real, then the effects of it will be real for me. Forgiveness frees us from those effects. If I’m willing to see past your guilt
to the innocence beyond, I am freed from the effects of it. In freeing
someone else, we free ourselves. Recognizing that in an ultimat e sense only
love is real, only love then has an ef fect on us. Forgiveness then resets the trajectory of a relationship. It pierces the veil
and delivers us to oneness. It is the miracle that sets us free. It’s at this point that people might start telling you you’re in denial . “No,” they’ll say, “it did happen! And you have every right to be
angry!”
Of course you have a right to be angry; you have a right to feel
whatever you feel. But no, you don’t need  to be angry . What you need to be
is aware. Following the mystic Jesus doesn’ t make you any less psychologically
astute. Nothing could be more psychologically sophisticated than to
recognize how to navigate the deepest regions of the mind. And that’s what
spirit is: the deepest region of the mind. Choosing to extend your perception beyond someone’ s guilt isn’t
negative denial; it’s positive  denial. You’re not denying that something
happened, you’r e simply denying its power over you. You’re not looking
away from something; you’re looking through it, and past it. You’re
extending your perception into the light that will dissolve the effects of
darkness. Many people these days are aware of the concept of the “spiritual
bypass,” the idea that we’re pouring pink paint over an issue and simply
pretending it doesn’ t exist. That means we skip the important step of
owning our pain. That would indeed be negative denial.But that’s not what we’re talking about here. In fact, if anythin g we’re
talking about becoming even more attuned to our feelings—feelings such as
anger , shame, humiliation, embarrassment, rejection, and self-hatred. We’re
just not kidding ourselves that by analyzing them we’ll necessarily dissolve
the feelings, or that we have the power to simply tell those things to go
away . Rather , we bring them up in order to surrender them. Spiritual detox
works much like a physical detox; things must come up in order to be
released. Jesus cannot take from  us what we won’ t release to him. We say,
“This is how I’m feeling, but I am willing to see this differentl y.” That’ s a
more powerful way of shifting our emotions than simply telling them to go
away . And it’s when the miracle happe ns: not just when we “let go,” but when
we release something into the hands of God. We’re willing to see the love
that lies beyond the pain, whether it was love we weren’ t show n or simply
love we didn’ t know how to receive. The altar to God is in our minds, and
to put something on the altar means to put our thoughts about it on the altar. What we put on the altar is then altered. We’re willing to see something
differently . We’re willing for our thoughts to be lifted. And when they are,
we at last find peace. OceanofPDF .comThe Destination of Enlightenment
Imagine if, from the moment you were born, everyone who had ever met
you and everything that had ever happened to you had been ten on a scale
of one to ten in terms of compassion, mercy , and love. Think who you
would be today if that had been your experience. Now think who you are inste ad. Think of the places where your
emotional reacti ons are constricted by fear, where you lack trust or self-
confidence or a positive outlook . These are places not where you’re bad, but
where you’re wounded. Yet our wounds do not necessarily look like
wounds to other people; they’re more likely to appear as character defects
that only set us up for further pain. All of us have character defects, of course. But salvation lies in our
willingness to change the way we are, not in the endless analysis about why
we are the way we are. At a certain point, you don’t keep trying to
understand why you’re needy , negative, controlling, or manipulative. You
simply realize you are, admit you are, and ask God to change you. Dear God,
I know I am harsh wher e I would be gentle, weak wher e I should be str ong, judgmental wher e
I should be mer ciful. I am willing to change. Please show me how . Amen
Scan your perso nality as though you are looking at yourself from above. See how you manifest to the world, and ask yourself honestly how you
come across to others. Reflect on the fact that the life you’re  living is a
result of the person you’ve become. Who we are in the world is based on moment-by-moment decisions. Every moment we decide, consciously or unconsciously , whether to face
life with an open or closed heart. Whether to embrace the innocence inothers and express lovingly , or to constrict in defensiveness, judgment, and
unprocessed pain. Fake it till you make it means practice till it’s real. And
what we find when we do something like that is that doing something
makes  it real. I have a friend named Kathy who comes from Geor gia, and she has a
way of addressin g almost all her friends as “My love.” One day I decided to
do that too, and it was amazing the changes I felt as I did. Coming from
Texas, I was already big on calling people “Darling”—sort of longish for
the “Darlin’” I had grown up around—but “My love” took things to another
place. I don’t know if I’ve kept it up, but I know I felt a shift when I did it. It’s hard to snap at someone when you’re calling them “My love.”
Words are not just an expressio n of thought; they also create thought. And every thought we think takes us, and those around us, straight to
heaven or straight to hell. Accor ding to A Course in Miracles , heaven isn’t a
condition or a place, but an awareness of our oneness. And hell is the state
of anxiety that results when we feel separate from others. Neither happen
after we die; they happen in any moment. Every thought takes us in some
way closer to the awareness of our oneness or to the anxiety of feeling
separate and alone. Again, this isn’t about what we get from others. We only
get what we choose to give away . Deciding who we choose to be in any moment is more import ant than
any other decision, because it determines all others and influences all
others. If I think of myself as a victim, I will behave as a victim and come
across as a victim. If I think of myself as less than, I will behave in ways
that are less than and I will appear that way to others. If I judge others, I
will behave in ways that of fend them and thus keep love at bay . Yet all these deadly games begin to grow old after a while, not only to
us but to those around us. I can think of few more cringe-filled experiences
than looking around and realizing that people find you pathetic—or worse. This might be the moment when you realize that your way isn’t
working. When you grow sick and tired of being sick and tired. That’ s often
when people fall to their knees , looking for an escape from their habitual
patterns of self-sabotage and pain. Such a moment,  of course, is not a eureka experience that autom atically
changes everything. Simply knowing that we need to change doesn’ t
necessarily mean we know how to. Often our emotional muscles have
congealed around mental habits that formed so long ago we can’t evenremember their source. They then burrowed into our subconscious mind
and continue to dictate our thoughts and behavior . When I was growing up, the entrances into many areas of power were
still closed to women that are not closed now. It felt as though we had to
grow claws on our fingernails in order to make our way into rooms that
were much easier for men to enter . What I found—a nd I think this is true of many women around my age—
is that even when the doors had been opened and I no longer needed my
claws, it was as though they’d  become cemented into my fingernails. A
certain harshnes s in my personality had become a mental habit, like an
emotional muscle that seemed permanently cramped. I imagined opponents
who weren’t even there, then suffered the consequences of treating people
as though they were. For where we don’t extend love, we project fear. We
are subconsciou sly setting people up to become who we’ve already decided
they were. The ego doesn’ t deny your suffering. It simply says other peop le are to
blame for it—which then maintains the separation, as people keep
appearing in your life to consta ntly disappoint you. What the ego doesn’ t
want you to see are all the subco nscious and brilliant ways you set them up
to do that. Spiritual rebirth  is not an easy process; like physical birth, it can be
messy and difficult. It takes brutal self-honesty to recognize the parts of us
that need to die. First we come to see that a pattern is ego, that it’s dysfunctio nal and
doesn’ t serve us. But that doesn’ t mean it necessarily goes away , that it
immediately stops. If anything, the pattern sometimes seems to become
more prevalent, more obvious, as though the Holy Spirit puts a magnifying
glass onto that aspect of our personality so we have no choice but to attend
to it. This is why it often feels as though once you get serious about the
spiritual path, things can seem  to get worse before they get better . Your
character defects  were operative before, but you were sort of anesthetized to
them, able to get by with pretending they weren’ t much of an issue. But
once we do admit we have them , the work begins. You still might behave in
a dysfunctional way, but you can no longer pretend to yourself that you’re
not doing so.The fact that we’re admitting our issues is a good thing, but the ego is
very sly here. The ego loves to talk about itself and thoroughly  enjoys this
part of the proce ss. It doesn’ t mind you owning your shadow , so long as you
blame someone else for why you are the way you are. Contrary to the psychotherapeut ic trend, it doesn’ t really matter how our
neurotic patterns  got started. Some say they started with Mommy or Daddy ,
or with social or ancestral patterns, and all that might be true. But
metaphysically it all started millions of years ago with the first thought of
separation. All that’s happened since then is that we keep repeating it. What
matters is not where the fear came from, but that it’s lodged in your brain. And analyzing the darkness doesn’ t necessarily turn on the light. At a certain point it doesn’ t really matter where you got your issues. They’re yours now. And no matter who your parents were, you can be
reparented by God. Your parents birthed your mortal self; God Himself
birthed the real you. We don’t heal our lives in the past but in the present. We’re not held
back by the love we didn’ t receive in the past but by the love we’re refusing
to give right now. In this moment, we can make a better choice . But that’s
not alwa ys easy, and sometimes it takes more than simply positive thinking. Sometimes it’s not enough to just tell ourselves to act differently . Sometimes we need God’ s help. And lo and behold, He is always there. OceanofPDF .comPositively You
The ego is simply a false belief, but beliefs—particularly unrecognized
beliefs—are very powerful. The ego is the power of your mind turned
against you, in opposition to who you truly are. The ego will use any scrap of evidence with which to prosecute its case
against you: you’re too average, too poor, too boring, too uneducated, too
unpopular , too young, too old, or whatever else might prove your
unworthiness. If you’re  skirtin g failure, it will appear as a fear of failure. It will tell
you what a loser you are and make you too afraid to keep trying. If you’re skirting success, it will appear as a fear of success. It will set
you up for a fall by telling you that you know more than you actually do. If you’re in a relationship, it will appear as a fear of intimacy . It will tell
you it’ s unsafe to be vulnerable and will create barriers to deep relationship. If you’re not in a relationship, it will make you cynical. It will tell you
that you’ll never find someone and there aren’ t any good people out there
anyway . The ego will use anything—from your past or your present—to
convince you that the world is a dangerous place and that everyone,
including you, just isn’ t good enough. Thinking such things, we shrivel. We become defensive rather than
openhearted, critical rather than forgiving, always seeing a reason to blame
rather than bless, inventing sometimes the cleverest ways to cast others
from our heart. The anxiety and depression that result from all this don’t mean that
something is wrong with you. This is soul pain. Soul pain is a functional
response to living a life so deeply at odds with who we are and why we
were born. Just as the brain registers pain if the body is wounded, the
psyche registers pain when the soul is wounded. And just as you can’t treatbodily pain by simply numbing  it, you can’t treat psychic pain by simply
numbing it either . For far too many , the human condition is a mental nightmare. And like
any nightmare, it feels very real while we’re in it. Yet the only way to
escape is to awaken. The enlightened masters of the world are called the
Awakened Ones  for that reason: they’ve awakened from the illusions that
dominate the world. The purpose of our lives is to heal from the wounds of living  in this
world, and to help heal others as well. Jesus is in your mind to remind you
who you are, to remind you you’re more than good enough, to remind you
he is with you, and to remind you that miracles are your natural inheritance. You are no better and no worse than anyone else. All the children of
God are special, and none of the children of God is special* (T-12; T-313). You are as God created you. Remembering this is liberation from all
manner of psychic pain. Your mistakes have no power to uncreate what God created. The ego is
both that which sets us up to do the wrong thing and that which  punishes us
savagely for having done so. God is not that which sends us to hell, but that
which delivers us from it. He desires to correct our mistakes, not punish us
for them. The Atonement is an expression of God’ s infinite mercy, a way to
realign with our innocence no matter how far we have strayed from it. Another way to live means another way to be. Another way to be means
another way to think. Another way to think becomes a different way to act. And a dif ferent way of acting then creates a dif ferent life. One of my favorite quotes is said to be from author Geor ge Eliot: “It is
never too late to be what you might have been.” I rememb er how that
sentence struck me when I first saw it, and it still feels so true to me every
time I read it. We can give birth to a better version of ourselves. We are heale d of the
wounds that belong to a self with which we no longer identify . Again, is this denial? Yes. It is positive  denial . It is denying the effects
of a lie and af firming the power of a no longer deniable truth. Who you are is an unalterable, eternal creation of God. Your true self is
an undeletable file. The fact that it’s unchosen doesn’ t mean it’s been
deleted from the computer . Something in you does know how to live life succe ssfully; you’re
programmed by God to do so. But the problem is that your inner computergot hack ed. Learned powerlessness is a common ploy of the ego mind,
convincing you you’re fundam entally broken in order to ensure that you
always will be. The voice that tells you that you cannot change is not the
voice of love. Allow the voice of Jesus to drown it out. As with everything else, practice does make perfect. There’ s no more important effort in life than becoming who we are
capable of being. Yet the ego loves to ingratiate itself into the process. It
gives us endless excuses for bad behavior while we’re “working on
ourselves.” Yes, we need to own our shadow , but we also need to own our
light. In the separation lies your weakness, and in your oneness with God
lies your strength. Jesus is a way of remembering that such strength is there. Spirit is the loving use of your mind; salvation therefo re is a
psychological process. The fundamental shift is from a constant and almost
pathological obsession with analyzing the darkness, to a creative and
proactive determination to receive, to own, and to embody the light. Remembering Jesus, you remember who you’re capable of being. I remem ber years ago a woman at one of my lectures asking me what to
do to get past a pattern she had of acting like a scolding mother  toward her
husband. The audience looked eagerly in my direction to see whether I had
some insight that might help her unravel this dysfunctional  behavioral
pattern. My response was based on years of experience with myself and others. “Yes, I do,” I said slowly . “Don’ t do it anymore.”
She got it. I saw it from the look on her face. And the room did too. There’ s more power in practi cing being who we want to be than in
constantly analyzing why we’re  not already . The ego simply doesn’ t want
us to realize we can choose another way . There’ s no more powerful praye r than this: “Dear God, I know I act this
way, but I am willing not to. I am willing to change. Please show me how. Amen.”
It doesn ’t mean that from this day forward we’re going to be all better ,
problem handled , personality changed. But it does mean we’re on our way;
we’ve begun the process of fundamental change. Facing our defects is one of the ways we address our wounds , not by
blaming others but by holding ourselves accountable. And as we do, the
universe supports us. In the places where we got it wrong before, we’re
even better once we learn to do things right. For we have becom e humbler .We’ve been taken down a notch , perhaps, but sometimes that isn’t bad news
—it’s good news. Years ago, I knew a woman who was quite a character , fun and relatable
but also grandiose and boisterou s and over the top. She was entertaining for
sure, but most people would have put her in the category of a bit too much. A couple of years after I met her, I was watching a popular new comedy
show on televis ion. It featured a character who must have been based on
her. Same town, same professio n, same mannerisms. Hilarious , yes, but at
the same time I thought to myself how humiliating this would have to be for
her. Literally millions of people were now laughing at her as much as with
her. When I saw her again about a year later, she had clearly change d. There
was a calm and a humility and even an elegance to her that I would never
have expected. I didn’ t want to embarrass her by bringing up the show , but I
did say something about how she seemed quite dif ferent. She looked to me as if to say, Okay , we can cut the bullshit, Marianne . She simply said, “How could I not have? It was that, or I would have died.”
Good for her. She went through  a fire and came out more beau tiful on
the other side. She learned through pain, but she learned. OceanofPDF .comMore Powerful than All the Powers of the World
There really is no world outside us, since everything we see is a projection
of our thoughts. Since all minds are joined, as I heal my own life I am
contributing to the healing of the world. I can’t pretend to be part of a global evolutionary change if I’m
unwilling to try to change myself. Everything we do is imprinted with the
consciousness with which we do it; therefore our thoughts as well as our
actions influence the world around us. Pregnancy , whether of a person or of
a new civilizatio n, begins with an internal conception, gestates within, and
is then brought forth into the world. The Second Coming is both an individual and collective experience of
remembrance, or rebirth. As our relationship to God becomes more real, as
we deep en our practice and take spiritual principles more seriously , we
begin to attract those whose desires to heal the world are similar to ours. They may or may not share a conscious spiritual perspective, but they are
distinguished by their willingness to dedicate their lives to making the
world a better place. It’s a law of nature that we attract into our experience that which
resonates with our consciousne ss. The more we uplift our thoughts above
the narrow confines of the ego mind, the more we will attract into our
experience those  whose thoughts are similarly uplifted. And there is a plan
to that. The Atonement works  not just on the individual level but also
collectively . There is not only an individual curriculum for all of us, but
also a plan for the salvation of the world that includes the matrix of our
relationships. The more you progress spiritually , the more you’re joined on
your path by “mighty companions”* (MT-11) who, like you, are about their
Father ’s busines s. That language may or may not mean anything to them,
but everyone is on a spiritual path, whether they know it or not. Anyone
who is serving love is serving the God of the universe. Not only individualsbut relationships are imbued with the potential to become more expansive
than the mortal mind can imagine. Just as the cells of the body are led through a natural intellig ence to
collaborate with other cells to serve the healthy function of the organ or
organism of which they are part, we ourselves are imbued with a natural
intelligence leading us to collabo rate with others for a greater good. Love is
the greater good. As the oak tree is contained within the acorn, your enlightened self is
contained within  you. As every bud is programmed to become a blossom,
you and I are programmed to become the highest actualization of our
potential. Free will, however , means that we can say no to the process. We can
obstruct the process of our highest becoming, closing our hearts to God and
to each other. The ego is unbelie vably sly in its efforts to make sure we do. We are constant ly tempted to close our hearts, and by so doing to sabotage
our lives. The Holy Spirit is like spiritual radar , which will always override the
dictates of the ego. Yet in the absence of a spiritual practice, we fail to
develop the mental habit of listening to and following its guidance. Its
signals are always there, but we often don’t attend to them. The world is
very loud, and the Voice for God is very soft. The ego speaks first, and the
ego speaks loudest* (T-100). We learn to quiet the mind so we can hear
what God is saying. Every circumsta nce, every encounter , every relationship is programmed
with divine potential. Every circumstance provides us with the opportunity
to be the best that we can be, as well as the challenge not to retreat into ego
patterns brought over from the past. The ego’s opposition to following that programming is intense. Since
soul connection  dissolves the ego, its defenses are ever on guard. The
primary weapon s in its arsenal are attack thoughts, subtle or overt, toward
others or even toward ourselves. We judge more easily than we forgive. The
ego doesn’ t love other people; it exploits other people. As long as our minds
do the ego’s bidding, we will continue to destroy our relationships, we will
continue to suf fer, and the world will continue to decline. God loves all of us as one. Our task is to align our thinking so we can
think as God thinks and love as God loves. God’ s Will means Loving
Thought. Every attack thought toward ourselves or others is like a nail inthe body of Christ. They are the primary tools by which the ego keeps us
stuck within the prison of limited awareness. From global poverty to war among empires to nuclear bombs, the
collective state of humanity is a feast of lovelessness. Our behavioral
patterns reflect a deadly state of consciousness, from which we have
manifested a dangerous world. Jesus is a name on the door that delivers us
to a world beyond that one. It is the same world we see now, transformed by
love. It is miracu lously saved through a change in our sense of purpose and
a change in our sense of ourselves. The question is how to open the door, how to allow for our escape and
seek refuge from the madness that plagues us. The answer is not a broad
stroke; it is a willingness on all our parts to see every moment as an
opportunity to love. In every such instant, a holy instant, our spiritual birth
canal expands by even just a bit as the holy child is brought forth into the
world. Upon the birth of Jesus in the manger , as well as upon his rebirth in
your heart, the angels sing. The thoughts of Love flow forth to all the world. This child is tiny, innocent, and vulnerable. It might seem like just a tiny
thing, a softer and more authentic moment. Yet that child is not your
weakness; it’s your power—in fact, more powerful than all the powers of
the world. OceanofPDF .comThe Small Still Voice Within
Imagine the universe as the pluperfect creation of a divine architect. That
creation is a hologram, with each piece of it carrying within it the same
perfect architectural plans. Those plans exist for each of us and are
available, should we care to download them. Most of us, however , don’t
even know that they exist. Our consciousness is like a computer , and these plans exist in an
undeletable file. We go about our lives thinking our job is to bring up a
blank document and create our own architectural plans. We think we need
to create a life for ourselves, when in fact God has already created a path to
an ever-greater life for us. He carries in His Mind the image of our perfect
life. God’ s plan for the salvation of the world involves divine knowing of all
beings past, present, and future. Each of us has an equally important part to
play in bringing it forth, but the plan itself is beyond the scope of what our
mortal minds can yet comprehend. We discover our part by devoting our
lives to Him, praying to be the people He would have us be so we can do
what He would have us do. We do much better in life when  instead of revealing our plans to God,
we ask Him to reveal His plans for us. This is not the abdication  of personal
responsibility but the assumption  of spiritual power . When we stop trying to
tell life what it means, life then tells us what it means. Self-will is not self-
love, but rather a way of compe nsating for what we fear is a void in which
there is no love or plan for us. In fact, all good emer ges from that void, the
holy emptiness that only God can fill. God’ s plan for our salvation will
work; ours, so often rooted in fear , will not. The plan for the healing of the world is much bigger than we are, and as
individuals we can’t know what part we would best play in carrying it out. The Holy Spirit is like a cosmic  central intelligence, knowing exactly howour efforts would be most helpful, where, and in relationship with whom. Learning to listen to the Voice for God, opening our minds and hearts to
guidance and illumination that lie beyond the power of logic alone, we
become mystics. The mystical  path is the path to sustainability in the
twenty-first century . It is the partnership of brain and heart, reason and
intuition, that is the essence of the enlightened mind. Jesus is a path to
achieving it. Surrender to God means surrend er to love, not as a broad stroke but to
the best of our ability in any given instant. God’ s creation is not only
perfect; it also responds fully, automatically , and immediately to any mis-
creation, or disruption in the field. Like a GPS, it recalculates our path
when we have deviated from love. Not only is the universe primed to
follow every moment of harmo ny with another moment of harmony , it is
also prim ed to follow any mom ent of disharmony with divine correction. The universe is both self-or ganiz ing and self-correcting. Perfect  love knows
how to perfectly repair whatever deviates from perfection. The world is in a state of deviation from love right now, like a body that
is sick. Our purpose on earth is to help heal the world, and every encounter ,
every ef fort, either lar ge or small, can be part of that healing. We are all called to be healers, and God’ s call goes out to us constantly . It’s the call to be better , do bette r, stop thinking only about ourselves, show
up to contribute, forgive, and love. We’re assigned by the Holy Spirit to any
situation providing maximal opportunity for the healing of the world. It’s up to us, however , whether we choose to take the assignm ent. The
problem is that we often turn down the assignment without realizing it. At
no time when I’ve closed my heart did I wake up that morning intending to
be a jerk that day . The ego’s kingdom is the low road of negativity and anger , limitation
and fear. It sends us twisting and turning through bad relatio nships and
failed hopes and dreams. But there is a high road, already constructed by
the Holy Spirit, which is the path to greater peace and creativity . We don’t
need to create the high road; we need merely to follow it. One way or the other , we will be following a path in life. We will either
be direc ted by the cacophonous , angry , fear-based voice of the ego, or by
the small still voice within. The ego is like a malignant cell that has lost connection with its natural
intelligence and its collaborativ e function. The Holy Spirit is our immunesystem, the medicine, the heali ng. It is there to direct us, to heal us, but
without our conscious coopera tion we are often seduced into the ego’s
madness. In both Judaism and Christianity  there is reference to a “small still voice
for God.” There is within us a quiet voice that can and will direct us every
moment of each day. It is a universal theme that we need to quiet our minds
if we wish to hear it. That voice, one expression of which is the mystic
Jesus, will speak to us; but it’ s our responsibility to listen. Many times people have said to me, “I don’t know what God is telling
me,” and I’ve responded based on my own experience: “Oh, yes, you do. You just don’t like what God is telling you.” We think we know better . We
get an intuitive hit, or a sense  we’ve received an answer when we pray
about something , but it might seem to make no logical sense. After all, the
Holy Spirit know s what’ s going to happen tomorrow , and we don’t. So we
say, “I’ll ask Him again tomorrow , when He has more data.”
When we make the quieting of our minds a fundamental lifestyle
decision, we do begin to experience love’ s intuitive presence. Its voice was
always there; we just didn’ t know to take it seriously . Many times in my
past, I absolutely  had the sense of an answer to my prayer for guidance; yet
because it went against “expert opinions,” I ignored it, only later to realize
what a mistake I had made. Other times, I simply didn’ t take the time to
ask, to pray, to deeply reflect on a question, only later to realize my lack of
wisdom. Yet the voice was always there. The Voice for God is that which guides us toward love, forgiveness,
right living, and faith. It’s a part of our mind that can see the whole picture
in a way we can’t, that knows what’ s going to happen tomorro w and how
our part best fits into a lar ger plan. “He speaks from nearer than your heart to you. His Voice is closer than
your hand”* (WB-226). As it says in the Course , all of us live with a consiste nt stream of
thoughts in the background of our minds. Such thoughts fit basically into
one of two categories: either a cacophonous background noise filled with
fear-based perce ptions, or a peaceful symphony of positivity and love. Prayer and meditation dissolve the former and increase the latter . Thoughts of random negativity  emer ge fully formed from the cave of
the ego mind. They are the inevitable results of a fear-based view of the
world. They arise from fear, and they perpetuate fear. Efforts to suppressthem only make them more dangerous. Telling yourself to “stop thinking
like that” is a losing battle, because you’re simply pitting you against you. The Voice for God is the exact opposite of the voice of the ego. It is the
voice that reminds us we were created innocent, and so we are. It reminds
us our mistakes do not eradicate our innocence, that we can atone for them
and we can chan ge. It reminds us that this is also true of everyone else; that
people make mistakes, yes, but we can extend our perception beyond their
errors to see the truth of who they are. It is the voice reminding us we can
always be more gentle, less judgmental, kinder , less arrogant, less negative,
more responsible, more ethical, and less quick to blame others for faults of
our own. It reminds us that those kinds of qualities, being expressions of
love, are magnets for miracles. Listening to the Voice for God is a habit we cultivate, the mental
musculature of grace. Who among us hasn’ t decided something we came
later to regret, remembering that at the time we’d had a gut feeling it just
wasn’ t right? But we’d gone with some worldly voice that said differently ,
allowing it to override our internal knowing. Walking through  life taking
seriously the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the mystic Jesus, the Voice for
God, we know that the voices of the world should always be listened to, but
they should never ever have the final say . OceanofPDF .comPrayer
The highe st level of prayer is not an entreaty of any kind. It’s a gentle
communion with that which is bigger than ourselves. Our communion with
God is the ultim ate experience of ourselves. God speaks to us, and in prayer
we speak to Him. Prayer is the way we invoke and activate the power of God in our lives,
drawing down the intercession ary power of love to change our lives by
changing us. Sometimes someone will tell me they have a problem in their life, and
I’ll ask if they’ve prayed about it. I’ll often get the answer , “Oh, I know it’ s in God’ s hands.”
“But that’s not what I asked you,” I’ll say. “I asked if you prayed about
it.”
For the two are very different things. To know something is in God’ s
hands is very different from actually putting it there. To know something is
in God’ s hands means you know that ultimately love will prevail. To
actually put someth ing in God’ s hands means that of your own free will
you’re putting yourself in service to the goal. At the very least, that will
speed things up. Putting somethi ng in the hands of God means we’re willing to think
about it differen tly. No matter what has happened, it’s the space  we inhabit
within an experience—the thoug hts and behavior with which we respond to
it—that will ultimately determine its ef fect. The highest level of prayer is for another way to think about something. Thought is the level of cause, and the direct relationship between cause and
effect is inviolable. Jesus works  with us on the causal level. He cannot and
will not take away the effects of our thinking, but if we ask him to, he will
help us change our thoughts. The choice for love is a choice for peace, for
healing, and for miracles. For miracles are natural wherever there is love.We can’t say, “Dear God, I’m holding on to my negativity , but please
change the effects that all those negative thoughts have caused in my life,
okay?”
Not gonna happen. What we can do, however , is to pray that God take away our negativity . Putting a relationship in the hands of God, for instance, means asking for
help in seeing someone else’s innocence and in showing ours to them. Even
one person—“whoever is saner at the time”* (T-384)—can change the
trajectory of a conflicted relationship. The prayer is that our thoughts be
shifted from a focus on blame to a focus on innocence. We can pray:
Dear God,
I am willing not to be cold,
I am willing not to be harsh,
I am willing not to be judgmental. Please enter the deepest r egions of my mind,
show me my err ors, and change my thoughts. Free me fr om my self-sabotaging ways. Change me in my deepest heart
that I might have a miracle. Amen
Jesus cannot do our work for us, but he will do our work with us. He
will not and cannot take away the effects of our thinking, but he is always
there to help us think more wisely . Prayer is a tool in our toolbox too often set aside in favor of far lesser
powers. I find it amusing when people say, “All we can do now is pray,” as
though all the really powerful things have already been tried. It’s often  said that there are no atheists in foxholes, but we don’t have to
wait until a crisis arrives to create a better life for ourselves. You come to
the point where you don’t just pray when things are going poorly; you pray
so they’ll go well. Prayer is like preventive medicine for the soul. We are
responsible for how we direct our thoughts, and as we direct our mind to
embrace the light, darkness has a much harder time getting in. Mental
energy that is consciously placed in the service of love is unava ilable to the
ego’s purposes. The Lord’s Prayer is an example  of a powerful invocation for a miracle-
minded existence.Our Father— Our true sour ce
Who art in heaven— In the awar eness of our oneness
Hallowed be thy name— May the meaningless stimulus of the world
fall away that I might r ealize the sacr ed
Thy kingdom come— May the ener gies of love pr evail
Thy Will be done— May loving thought, not ego, be manifest
On earth as it is in heaven— Not just abstractly on the level of
thought, but in my practical experience
Give us this day our daily bread— May our minds be open to receive
the infinite abundance of life
And forgive us our trespasses— Corr ect our thinking, return us to the
state of our innocence
As we forgive those who trespass against us— Help us see the
innocence in others, that we might see it in ourselves
Leave us not in temptation— Guar d our minds so we won’ t wander
into thoughts of ego and fear
But deliver us from evil— Guide us away from sick and loveless
thoughts
For Thine is the kingdom, and Thine is the power , and Thine is the
glory— Love is the kingdom, love is the power , love is the glory
Forever and ever— Every moment of the day
Amen— May it be so
“The world you see must be denied, for sight of it is costing you a
different kind of vision. You cannot see both worlds, for each of them
involves a different kind of seeing, and depends on what you cherish”* (T-
254). Looking at the world throu gh the eyes of love, we do not see fear. But
looking at the world through the eyes of fear , we cannot see love. By acknowledgi ng that God’ s kingdom is the kingdom with which we
choose to identify , we are empowering ourselves. We are determining
which universe we choose to inhabit. When we choose love, fear cannot
choose us. Prayer is a migh ty power . But not only does the ego resist praying; it
also resists giving God any credit when the prayer works! It’s remarkablehow many times I’ve seen people express despair and hopelessn ess about a
situation, have it change dramatically after they’ve prayed about it, then
react almost casually when things turn around for the better . God certainly doesn’ t care; He has no ego with which to be offended by
our lack of acknowledgment. But saying “Thank you, God” is a far more
powerful use of the mind than saying “Yeah, it turned out better than I
expected after all.” It’s a way of reminding your mind of all the power that
it holds. OceanofPDF .comYour Holiness
Our vulnerability and mildness are spiritual strengths, although the ego
views them as weaknesses. The three kings bowed before the Christ child;
the Christ child didn’ t bow before them. There is no power in the world
that’s greater than the power of love. The mystic Jesus is a reminder of this. His name is a signal to the
subconscious mind that you are more than the world has told you that you
are. To say you were made in the image of God means you are an idea in
His mind, and ideas do not leave their source. Your bond is inseparable. Every problem we have in life stems from just that fact: we have forgotten
who we are. Forgetting who we are, we forget where we came from. Forgetting who we are, we forget we are one with each other . Forgetting
who we are, we for get why we are here. Jesus helps us remember . In remembering who we are, we remember
that our love, not our fear, is our true identity . Our love is not our weakness;
it is the strength of God within us. A more compassio nate, more
regenerative, more nurturing consciousness is in fact the only way to a
survivable future for the human race. The Christ is a facet of your psyche, the melding of your heart and
mind. It is holy because it is whole. There is no power that can stand against
it. There is nothing your holiness cannot do. This section from A Course in Miracles  describes the power of our
holiness:
Your holiness reverses all the laws of the world. It is beyond every restriction of time, space,
distance, and limits of any kind. Your holiness is totally unlimited in its power because it
establishes you as a Son of God, at one with the Mind of his Cr eator . Through your holiness the power of God is made manifest. Through your holiness the power
of God is made available. And there is nothing the power of God cannot do. Your holiness, then,
can remove all pain, can end all sorrow, and can solve all problems. It can do so in connectionwith yourself and with anyone else. It is equal in its power to help anyone because it is equal in
its power to save anyone. If you are holy, so is everything God created. You are holy because all things He created are
holy. And all things He cr eated ar e holy because you ar e.* (WB-58)
The thinking of God is 180 degrees away from the thinking of the
world. One of the places where our thinking is particularly upside-down is
regarding arrogance and humility . It isn’t arrogant to say the power of God
is within you; what would be arrogant is to think it’s not. Wouldn’ t that
mean you were a creation of something other than Him? You are powerful
because of a power that is in you, but not of you. To claim that power , and
seek to use it well, is not arrogant but humble. The mystic Jesus puts our perce ptions in right alignment. Surrendering
our thoughts to him, our perceptions are illuminated, lifted  above the
limitations of our routine thought patterns. If we identify with our
weakness, the vicissitudes of weakness will be the reality we experience. If
we identify with Christ, we will be lifted to a higher realization that (1) love
is who we are, (2) miracles occur naturally as expressions of love, and (3)
we were  not created to be at the effect of lovelessness in ourselves or in
others. Disciplin ing our minds to remember those things, whatever our
spiritual practice, is the assumption of the power of Christ. As your thoughts are lifted above the illusions of the world, you
automatically help lift others—for all minds are joined. Thinking with love,
we don’t simply experience miracles for ourselves. We become miracle
workers in the lives of others. It’s not only our own lives that we are here to
heal; in healing ourselves we help to heal the world. The real you is not at the effect of limitations imposed by the ego mind. Which world you identify with is your choice. If you identify only with the
mortal world, then the mortal world has power over you. If you identify
with the spiritual world, you have power to transform the mortal. Identifying with our separate needs, separate desires, and separate self, we
are limited to the laws that prevail within the ego’s domain. But identifying
with our holiness, we are under no laws but God’ s* (WB-134). None of this means, of course, that I can walk off the roof of a high-rise
building and not fall to the ground. It does mean, however , that I need not
be boun d by the shackles of false beliefs. The universe of God is literally
limitless. To the extent that I align my thinking with the thoughts of God, so
am I.We are born into this world as physical beings, but spiritually we can be
twice born. We can choose to be reparented by God and receive the
unlimited spiritual riches that are our natural inheritance. Spiritual maturit y is an aspect of personal maturity . There doesn ’t come
a day when you “get there”; you just evolve over time into a more
sophisticated person. Miracle-mindedness simply becomes the rule rather
than the exception in how we live our lives. As it is written in A Course in
Miracles , “miracles are everyone’ s right, but purification is necessary
first”* (T-3). We must purify the mind of darkness before we can see the
light. Only when our minds are purified of judgment, attack, self-reference,
and unfor giveness can we experience the miracle of a life that works. We can see every situation as an opportunity to purify ourselves of the
mental plaque that has accumulated since yesterday . We can say about any
circumstance, “The last time something like this happened, how did I play
it? Was I openhearted, or closed? Kind or uncaring? How can I do better
now? Which aspect of myself do I choose to express? My wounded self, or
my holy self?” Every situation is both an invitation to express our holiness
and a temptation to display our wound. Remembering the mystic Jesus, I remember who I am. And as I
remember that I am not my wounds, my wounds begin to heal. OceanofPDF .comCinderella
Everything in life is a projection of what we’ve already decided to see. We
see in life what we expect to see. Expecting to see miracles is simply a
change in focus, from thoughts of limitation to thoughts of infinite
possibility . Waking up each morning and casting your love before you is the most
powerful way to plan your day. It directs the subconscious mind to notice
those things that are good and generative, consciously disregarding
elements of fear that are always lurking on the periphery of our minds. The words “disciple” and “disc ipline” come from the same root, after
all. Enlightenment is a mind training, in which we consciously take
responsibility for the nature of our thoughts. We needn’ t surrender our
thoughts to fear; instead, we can surrender them to love. The discipline of
spiritual practice  is everything. If you don’t turn on the light in a room, it’s
ridiculous to curse the darkness. Turning on that light—dedicating ourselves to love—we begin to
discern patterns of goodness and opportunity that are otherwise obscured. We come to see how much good is always available to us. Everything we
need is either right in front of us or is on the way, because that’s how God’ s
universe operate s. Living with that realization is a powerful rearrangement
of our assumptions, expectations, and mental filters. Sometimes we miss out on a miracle for the simple reason that it
seemed too easy. We can’t imagine that the universe could be designed so
perfectly that whatever will support our growth is always right in front of
us. But it is. We’re trained to think in a very limited way; therefore limits
are pretty much all we see. In my past, there were two gigantic professional opportunities that I
turned down. I realize that the reason I turned them down was because I
failed to recognize their importa nce at the time. The fact that they both justlanded in front of me like feathers falling into my lap made me
underestimate their importance. I couldn’ t imagine that something that easy
could be that important. To the ego, struggle is the generator of
significance. To the spirit, effortless accomplishment is simply a by-product
of right living. It took me a while to notice that flowers don’t struggle to
blossom. I had been taught by the world not to expect miracles; therefore I didn’ t
see them even though they were right in front of me. I had not yet realized
that “out of the blue” means out of the field of quantum possibility . Once when my daughter was a little girl, we were watching a video of
Cinder ella. In the scene where the wicke d stepmother (the ego) and her
awful daughters (the committee  of ugly thoughts in your head that tell you
how awful you are all the time) have left Cinderella (your  innocence)
behind to go to the ball, Cinderella falls to the ground weeping. Then the Fairy Godmother (the Holy Spirit) appears! So guess what
happens then? In the video we were watching, Cinderella said to the Fairy
Godmother , “Oh, Fairy Godmot her, I thought you’d never get here!”—and
the Fairy Godmother responded, “Oh that’s not true, dear, or I couldn’ t have
come! !”
Read that one again. So if Cinderella hadn’ t conside red the possibility that she existed, the
Fairy Godmothe r would still have been there, but Cinder ella would not
have seen her. We must at least be open  to the possibility of infinite
possibility , or no matter how many miracles occur the ego will be
successful at nullifying their existence. That’ s why faith means faith in that
which is yet unseen. Given that Cind erella had no dress to wear , no carriage to take her, and
no horse s to draw the carriage,  there was obviously no way that girl was
going to the ball. The Fairy Godmother could not have arrived had Cinderella been a
different kind of girl. In order for the mean-spirited will of the wicked
stepmother to be countermanded—in order for another way to be paved by
which Cinderell a could get to the ball—it was necessary for Cinderella’ s
consciousness to be receptive to miracles. If she had starting screaming
about her stepmother and stepsisters, “I hate those f—— bitches!” then the
Fairy Godmother could not have come. Her appearance was predicated on
two things: (1) Cinderella’ s faith that it was possible, and (2) Cinderella’ sinnocent heart, which allowed her to feel her grief but not projec t it outward
as an attack on those she perceived as having caused it. Continuing with the story , it’s instructive to see what happened next. The Fairy Godmother , like Merl in and other magicians, has a wand just
as Moses had a rod. The wand and rod symbolize straight and disciplined
mental adherence to spiritual truth. They symbolize the conviction from
which miracles arise. The Fairy Godm other didn’ t call for an Uber to take Cinderella to the
ball, nor did she call Neiman Marcus for the perfect dress. She didn’ t change Cinderella’ s circumstances; she transformed the ones
that already existed. Her wand touched a pumpkin and surroun ded it with
light; that turned  it into a coach. Her wand touched the mice and surrounded
them with light; that turned them  into coachmen. She touched Cinderella’ s
rags and surrounded them with light; that turned them into a ball gown. The
Fairy Godmother is that which reinterprets everything, and everything
miraculously transforms. Throwing her wand in the direction of something,
she simply “saw it in a new light.”
The Fairy Godmother retreats into the ethers when unneeded. But the
ethers are within your mind and when you need her , she is there. Cinderella is who you really are, and when you’re clear about that, the
wicked stepmother loses her power over you. She can keep  that stupid
house she lives in; it’s not your real home anyway . You’re moving into the
castle with the prince, and you know who that is. The world as we know it will teach our children things they’re going to
have to spend years learning how to forget. Fairy tales are preparatory
learning of a different kind. They are a way to both teach our children and
help them retain an understand ing of the miraculous world. A pumpkin
turns into a coach, then water turns into wine, then loaves and fishes
multiply . It’s all the same thing. OceanofPDF .comThe Meaning of Now
Time is a learnin g device. It’s a screen onto which we see our thoughts
projected. It’s actually an illusion of consciousness, real within the three-
dimensional world but not within the ultimate reality of spirit. In the words
of Albert Einstein, “Time and space are illusions of consciousness, albeit
persistent ones.”
While there are three categories of time—past, present, and future—
only one is ever really happeni ng at all. Past and future exist only in the
mind. The only place where God’ s time—that is, eternity—intersects linear
time is in the present. The present moment is our point of power . It is the link with eternal
reality , from which new beginni ngs are always possible. That is the miracle,
and the meaning, and the power of now . A presen t moment untarnished by loveless memories from the past is
called in the Course  the Holy Instan t. We are born again in any moment
when we don’t bring the past with us. The reason the image of the Christ is
a newborn child is because he has no past. A traditional model of psychotherapy is obsessed with exploring the
past. A spiritual model of psychotherapy sees no point in doing so. For the
past exists only in our minds, and in a very real way didn’ t even happen the
way we think it did. The brain picks and chooses from a myriad of
memories the way the eye picks and chooses from a myriad of visual
stimuli. The ego’s propensity for obsession with both past and future is a
characteristically sly way of obstructing our vision. The most powerful
thing we can do with the past is to put it in the hands of God. The role of the
Holy Spirit, the gift of the mystic Jesus, is that he will change our mind
about it for us. Is looking at the past a part of our healing? Sometimes, yes. But only so we can atone for our mistakes and for give others for theirs.The ego is like a set of blinders: looking at guilt, focusing on past or
future, it shields us from a visio n of the miraculous. We do it all the time. Constantly looki ng at the past, dwelling on where we or others got it wrong,
is not the way to heal. We don’t get rid of darkness by hitting it with a
baseball bat, but by turning on the light. We don’t spiritually transform by
destroying our demons; we transform by giving birth to the angel that we
are. In the presence of light, darkness disappears. This isn’t a spiritual
bypass; it’ s spiritual alchemy . The Holy Spirit  dwells in a realm of timelessness but operates in time. He is that which mediates between your spiritual and your material selves,
building a bridge between the two. He sees who you really are, and He also
sees who you are within the world. It is His job to help the two become one,
as they are in Jesus. Jesus is the mind in which only love is real. All that was real in the past
was the love you gave and the love you received; everything else was mere
illusion of consciousness. There is no need to bring anythi ng into the
present from the past except that love. All else is our proverbial “baggage.”
In giving your past to Jesus, you’re asking that he change your mind
about it for you. You’re asking that he dissolve any memories that make
lovelessness real in your perceptions today , thus freeing you from their
effects. In forgiving both yourself and others from the sins—that is,
mistakes—of the past, you are free to begin again. The universe is always
ready to start over when you are. If my mind is obsessed with the past while in the present, I block future
opportunities. They’re there, but I won’ t see them. Dragging the past into
the present, we bring shadow figures that cloud our eyes, obstructing the
arrival of relationships and circumstances that could create a new
beginning. Bringing the past into the present, I’m programming the future to be just
like the past. Then the ego gets to say, “See, I told you. Nothing ever
changes.”
The Holy Instant interrupts linear time, giving us in any moment the
miraculous opportunity for new beginnings. It is a kind of cosmic reset in
which any effects from the past except love are nullified, since only love
exists. In that moment, releasing our attachment to the past and
surrendering the future into the hands of God, we heal both. In an instant
we can release all thoughts except love. That’ s how the universe correctsitself, but only if we’re aligned with that intention. The present can’t free us
if we’re insistent on living in the past. When I was a child my sister and I had what were called “add-a-pearl”
necklaces. Every  holiday we would receive another little pearl to put on a
chain, the idea being that one day we would have a full neckl ace. I don’t
remember that either one of us ever did, but I’ve always thought of the Holy
Instant—that moment when all obsession with past and future and guilt and
shame have fallen away—as a pearl we’re adding to a collectio n of perfect
moments. It’s the idea that you could collect these miraculous moments,
which might then turn into a minute, which might then turn into an hour,
which might then turn into a day, and ultimately transform your life. “Happily ever after” means a state of mind in which we live fully in the
present moment , our minds untarnished either by painful memories from
the past or obsession about the future. One of my personal challenges is that sometimes I have difficulty
letting the past go. I’ll obsess about something that happened  in the past
rather than allowing for a miracle in the present. “But you said . . . !” “But
then why did you do that . . . ?” The past never has a chance to heal if we
ourselves insist on dwelling there. The only thing real about the past was
the love we were given and the love we received; the present is
programmed to correct all lovelessness that occurred there, as long as we
are willing to let it go. In the Holy Instant we are radically open to the only thing that’s real,
casting out what isn’t real and allowing the universe to begin again. But we
can’t be open to “the universe” unless we are willing to be open to people. We cann ot forgive someone, yet at the same time hold them to their past. Whether it’s reminding ourselves of what we did wrong in the past, or
reminding others of how they did us wrong in the past, at a certain point
even going there is just a way of reopening the wound. Obviously , at times we need to process things from the past; but there’ s
a difference between processing  and spewing. There is a difference between
honoring our pain and indulging it. Spirit might need to process, but the ego
wants to hold on too long. There ’s a discipline to knowing when enough has
been said. Of course we shouldn’ t ignore our suffering. We should always honor
the season of our pain. But the ego tempts us to stay on the cross longer
than we need to at times, whic h is just as dysfunctional as ignoring oursuffering altogether . The ego would turn past pain into our personal calling
card, a sly trick of the ego to keep us mired in its suffering. Learn from it,
grow from it, forgive it, and use it to help others. But if I overi dentify with
the pain in my past, I cannot transcend it. What I haven’ t yet transcended, I
can’t help you transcend either . The ultimate question regarding  past pain is
this: How have the lessons I learned from that experience made me a wiser
and better person now? In the Holy Instant we have a chance to both heal the past and
reprogram the future. Jesus is the right alignment of past and future because
his mind is the right alignment of everything. We place our past in his hands
so he can help us reinterpret it. A past that is forgiven is a past that can no
longer touch you, and a future surrendered into the hands of God is a future
that will be aligned with divine intelligence. The Holy Spirit delivers us beyond the limitations of linear time to a
realization of timelessness. He keeps us focused on the present because that
is the only time that ultimately exists. In Him, both past and future dissolve
in the blinding light of what really is, right now. The past is purified of
painful memorie s that do not serve, and the future is programmed to be its
most wonderful best. The most power ful way to plan the future is not by obsessing about it,
but by living fully in the presen t. Miracles occur naturally when we allow
them to. The ego doesn’ t want us to experience the fullness of the present
because that’s where miracles  happen. The ego wants us constantly
obsessing about  past or future  so that our lives will never truly move
forward but remain stuck on a never -ending wheel of chronic anxiety and
pain. Only the enlightened master has made every moment a Holy Instant, but
all of us, with practice, can build the musculature of the Holy Instant. Only
love is real, only the present is real, and nothing else exists. It’s amazing
how many sentences you delete before pushing the “send” butto n, once you
realize how many things really don’ t need to be said again. Miracles collapse time* (T-8), which means we can make a loving
decision in any moment, saving time and jumping ahead to a peaceful
outcome in any situation. “Only infinite patience produces immediate
effects* (T-88). Or we can fill the present with attack or defense, over and
over for however long it takes , experiencing the pain of having chosen
wrongly as many times as we choose until we are willing to choose again.We can choose fear and drag this thing out, or choose love and make an
immediate ascent. Dear God,
Please save me
from the endless torment of attachment
to past or futur e.
Send Y our spirit to heal my mind
of the temptation to enter
the nothingness of time. Keep me firmly in the pr esent
that I might know that I am blessed. Amen
OceanofPDF .comChapter Three
The Temples of Relationship
My holy brother , I would enter into all your relationships and step between you and your
fantasies. Let my relationship to you be real to you, and let me bring reality to your perception
of your brothers. They were not created to enable you to hurt yourself through them. They were
created to create with you. This is the truth that I would interpose between you and your goal of
madness. Be not separate from me, and let not the holy purpose of Atonement be lost to you in
dreams of vengeance. Relationships in which such dreams are cherished have excluded me. Let
me enter in the Name of God and bring you peace, that you may offer peace to me. * (T -357)
DRIVING UP TO a fashionable spiritual center , I saw a large sign near the
entrance. It said, “Love Yourself.”
That’ s become a trendy thing to say these days, but I thought about what
Jesus would have said. He didn’t say, “Love yourself.” He said, “Love one
another .”
Not that loving ourselves is bad. It’s both the foundation and the result
of our ability to love others. Judging ourselves is no less blasph emous than
judging others. But the current glorification of self—the “love yourself” culture—has
helped create an atomized society of isolated beings, struggling to relate to
one another and grieving the loss of love. Looking in the mirror to say “I
love you” all the time doesn’ t quite cut it long term. It’s not even that we’re
looking for love in all the wrong places. It’s that we’re not really looking
for love at all. We’re looking for sales, we’re looking for clicks, we’re looking for
prestige, we’re looking for power , we’re looking for things, we’re looking
to hook up. But that’s not the same as looking for love. Perhaps  we’ve even
given up on that.Love is hard to find out there because it isn’t out there. It’s in here. On
the material plane, what we give away we no longer have. On the spiritual
plane, we only get to keep what we give away . The only way to find love is
to give it.
_OceanofPDF.com_The_Mystic_Jesus_The_Mind_of_Love_-_Marianne_Williamson.txt
Summarize the following text section accurately and concisely. Maintain specific details and numerical information, and use anti-repetition mechanisms:

        Please show me the innocence in this person and myself, that I might be at peace. Amen
Prayer changes us on the level of cause. Effects of that change
automatically follow. Every thought is either love or fear. All negative thought is an expression of
fear. There is really only one problem (fear), and there is really only one
Answer (love). Love is our natural state, yet we’re thrown off our natural state as a
result of simply living in this world. That is the spiritual meaning of Adam
and Eve exiting the garden. All of us, including the person who treated you
unkindly, has been wounded by the world. Whereas the love of God is
meant to flow into us and extend through us, our woundedness forms an
obstruction to our ability to allow  that. Ego is when the wires get crossed in
our brains: in any moment, for whatever reason, we can’t see how to
express our love and still get our needs met. We become stuck in that
moment and fall asleep to who we are. That is what happened inside the person who hurt you. They fell asleep
to who they are; and in that state, they fell asleep to who you are too. Yet
the bigger problem is what happens now. Someone else having fallen asleep
to who they are, and to who you are, the temptation is for you to fall asleep
too. Your mission—and your miracle—is to remain awake. You can extend your perception beyond the realm of someone’ s
mistaken, lovele ss behavior, and choose instead to see their innocence. You
can be willing to remember what in your heart you know: that they are an
innocent child of God, just like you, and their behavior doesn’ t have to be
perceived as an attack. It is mere ly a bad dream, and you don’t have to enter
into it. Their behavior can be seen differently; what is not love can be seen
as a call for love. That does not mean the other person isn’t to be held accoun table. It
doesn’ t mean there isn’t a conversation to be had. It doesn’ t mean you’re to
surrender to unhealthy patterns of behavior related to them. Forgiveness
simply means you are lifted to a higher mental vibration, from which—and
only from which —you will be able to express your yes, and express your
no, from  a place that is nonreactive and responsible. And, by remaining
awake, you will help awaken the other person too. We are heir to the laws of the world with which we identify. If I choose
to perce ive your guilt as real, then the effects of it will be real for me. Forgiveness frees us from those effects. If I’m willing to see past your guilt
to the innocence beyond, I am freed from the effects of it. In freeing
someone else, we free ourselves. Recognizing that in an ultimat e sense only
love is real, only love then has an ef fect on us. Forgiveness then resets the trajectory of a relationship. It pierces the veil
and delivers us to oneness. It is the miracle that sets us free. It’s at this point that people might start telling you you’re in denial. “No,” they’ll say, “it did happen. And you have every right to be
angry. ”
Of course you have a right to be angry; you have a right to feel
whatever you feel. But no, you don’t need  to be angry. What you need to be
is aware. Following the mystic Jesus doesn’ t make you any less psychologically
astute. Nothing could be more psychologically sophisticated than to
recognize how to navigate the deepest regions of the mind. And that’s what
spirit is: the deepest region of the mind. Choosing to extend your perception beyond someone’ s guilt isn’t
negative denial; it’s positive  denial. You’re not denying that something
happened, you’r e simply denying its power over you. You’re not looking
away from something; you’re looking through it, and past it. You’re
extending your perception into the light that will dissolve the effects of
darkness. Many people these days are aware of the concept of the “spiritual
bypass,” the idea that we’re pouring pink paint over an issue and simply
pretending it doesn’ t exist. That means we skip the important step of
owning our pain. That would indeed be negative denial. But that’s not what we’re talking about here. In fact, if anythin g we’re
talking about becoming even more attuned to our feelings—feelings such as
anger, shame, humiliation, embarrassment, rejection, and self-hatred. We’re
just not kidding ourselves that by analyzing them we’ll necessarily dissolve
the feelings, or that we have the power to simply tell those things to go
away. Rather, we bring them up in order to surrender them. Spiritual detox
works much like a physical detox; things must come up in order to be
released. Jesus cannot take from  us what we won’ t release to him. We say,
“This is how I’m feeling, but I am willing to see this differentl y. ” That’ s a
more powerful way of shifting our emotions than simply telling them to go
away. And it’s when the miracle happe ns: not just when we “let go,” but when
we release something into the hands of God. We’re willing to see the love
that lies beyond the pain, whether it was love we weren’ t show n or simply
love we didn’ t know how to receive. The altar to God is in our minds, and
to put something on the altar means to put our thoughts about it on the altar. What we put on the altar is then altered. We’re willing to see something
differently. We’re willing for our thoughts to be lifted. And when they are,
we at last find peace. OceanofPDF. comThe Destination of Enlightenment
Imagine if, from the moment you were born, everyone who had ever met
you and everything that had ever happened to you had been ten on a scale
of one to ten in terms of compassion, mercy, and love. Think who you
would be today if that had been your experience. Now think who you are inste ad. Think of the places where your
emotional reacti ons are constricted by fear, where you lack trust or self-
confidence or a positive outlook. These are places not where you’re bad, but
where you’re wounded. Yet our wounds do not necessarily look like
wounds to other people; they’re more likely to appear as character defects
that only set us up for further pain. All of us have character defects, of course. But salvation lies in our
willingness to change the way we are, not in the endless analysis about why
we are the way we are. At a certain point, you don’t keep trying to
understand why you’re needy, negative, controlling, or manipulative. You
simply realize you are, admit you are, and ask God to change you. Dear God,
I know I am harsh wher e I would be gentle, weak wher e I should be str ong, judgmental wher e
I should be mer ciful. I am willing to change. Please show me how. Amen
Scan your perso nality as though you are looking at yourself from above. See how you manifest to the world, and ask yourself honestly how you
come across to others. Reflect on the fact that the life you’re  living is a
result of the person you’ve become. Who we are in the world is based on moment-by-moment decisions. Every moment we decide, consciously or unconsciously, whether to face
life with an open or closed heart. Whether to embrace the innocence inothers and express lovingly, or to constrict in defensiveness, judgment, and
unprocessed pain. Fake it till you make it means practice till it’s real. And
what we find when we do something like that is that doing something
makes  it real. I have a friend named Kathy who comes from Geor gia, and she has a
way of addressin g almost all her friends as “My love. ” One day I decided to
do that too, and it was amazing the changes I felt as I did. Coming from
Texas, I was already big on calling people “Darling”—sort of longish for
the “Darlin’” I had grown up around—but “My love” took things to another
place. I don’t know if I’ve kept it up, but I know I felt a shift when I did it. It’s hard to snap at someone when you’re calling them “My love. ”
Words are not just an expressio n of thought; they also create thought. And every thought we think takes us, and those around us, straight to
heaven or straight to hell. Accor ding to A Course in Miracles, heaven isn’t a
condition or a place, but an awareness of our oneness. And hell is the state
of anxiety that results when we feel separate from others. Neither happen
after we die; they happen in any moment. Every thought takes us in some
way closer to the awareness of our oneness or to the anxiety of feeling
separate and alone. Again, this isn’t about what we get from others. We only
get what we choose to give away. Deciding who we choose to be in any moment is more import ant than
any other decision, because it determines all others and influences all
others. If I think of myself as a victim, I will behave as a victim and come
across as a victim. If I think of myself as less than, I will behave in ways
that are less than and I will appear that way to others. If I judge others, I
will behave in ways that of fend them and thus keep love at bay. Yet all these deadly games begin to grow old after a while, not only to
us but to those around us. I can think of few more cringe-filled experiences
than looking around and realizing that people find you pathetic—or worse. This might be the moment when you realize that your way isn’t
working. When you grow sick and tired of being sick and tired. That’ s often
when people fall to their knees, looking for an escape from their habitual
patterns of self-sabotage and pain. Such a moment,  of course, is not a eureka experience that autom atically
changes everything. Simply knowing that we need to change doesn’ t
necessarily mean we know how to. Often our emotional muscles have
congealed around mental habits that formed so long ago we can’t evenremember their source. They then burrowed into our subconscious mind
and continue to dictate our thoughts and behavior. When I was growing up, the entrances into many areas of power were
still closed to women that are not closed now. It felt as though we had to
grow claws on our fingernails in order to make our way into rooms that
were much easier for men to enter. What I found—a nd I think this is true of many women around my age—
is that even when the doors had been opened and I no longer needed my
claws, it was as though they’d  become cemented into my fingernails. A
certain harshnes s in my personality had become a mental habit, like an
emotional muscle that seemed permanently cramped. I imagined opponents
who weren’t even there, then suffered the consequences of treating people
as though they were. For where we don’t extend love, we project fear. We
are subconsciou sly setting people up to become who we’ve already decided
they were. The ego doesn’ t deny your suffering. It simply says other peop le are to
blame for it—which then maintains the separation, as people keep
appearing in your life to consta ntly disappoint you. What the ego doesn’ t
want you to see are all the subco nscious and brilliant ways you set them up
to do that. Spiritual rebirth  is not an easy process; like physical birth, it can be
messy and difficult. It takes brutal self-honesty to recognize the parts of us
that need to die. First we come to see that a pattern is ego, that it’s dysfunctio nal and
doesn’ t serve us. But that doesn’ t mean it necessarily goes away, that it
immediately stops. If anything, the pattern sometimes seems to become
more prevalent, more obvious, as though the Holy Spirit puts a magnifying
glass onto that aspect of our personality so we have no choice but to attend
to it. This is why it often feels as though once you get serious about the
spiritual path, things can seem  to get worse before they get better. Your
character defects  were operative before, but you were sort of anesthetized to
them, able to get by with pretending they weren’ t much of an issue. But
once we do admit we have them, the work begins. You still might behave in
a dysfunctional way, but you can no longer pretend to yourself that you’re
not doing so. The fact that we’re admitting our issues is a good thing, but the ego is
very sly here. The ego loves to talk about itself and thoroughly  enjoys this
part of the proce ss. It doesn’ t mind you owning your shadow, so long as you
blame someone else for why you are the way you are. Contrary to the psychotherapeut ic trend, it doesn’ t really matter how our
neurotic patterns  got started. Some say they started with Mommy or Daddy,
or with social or ancestral patterns, and all that might be true. But
metaphysically it all started millions of years ago with the first thought of
separation. All that’s happened since then is that we keep repeating it. What
matters is not where the fear came from, but that it’s lodged in your brain. And analyzing the darkness doesn’ t necessarily turn on the light. At a certain point it doesn’ t really matter where you got your issues. They’re yours now. And no matter who your parents were, you can be
reparented by God. Your parents birthed your mortal self; God Himself
birthed the real you. We don’t heal our lives in the past but in the present. We’re not held
back by the love we didn’ t receive in the past but by the love we’re refusing
to give right now. In this moment, we can make a better choice. But that’s
not alwa ys easy, and sometimes it takes more than simply positive thinking. Sometimes it’s not enough to just tell ourselves to act differently. Sometimes we need God’ s help. And lo and behold, He is always there.
Fear
What is the primary problem that needs to be addressed in order to find peace?
To guide us towards love and help us correct our thoughts
What is the purpose of the Holy Spirit?
Remembering who we are and choosing to see the innocence in ourselves and others
What is the key to spiritual growth and transformation?
The ego is a false belief that separates us from our true selves and keeps us stuck in negativity and pain
What is the role of the ego in our lives?
Recognizing that love is the only real power and choosing to see the innocence in ourselves and others, and to forgive and release our attachment to the past
What is the key to healing and forgiveness?