What Is a Miracle?

Our special theme says, “Each lily of forgiveness offers all the world the silent miracle of love. And each is laid before the Word of God, upon the universal altar to Creator and creation in the light of perfect purity and endless joy.”

This reminds me of the opening of the Book of John in the Bible. It says:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. …

Once I looked up the word “word” in the dictionary to try to get some clarity on this passage from John. As I read the definitions of “word,” they seemed not to apply until I came across this definition:

an utterance

I looked up “utterance,” and found it to be the expression of an idea.

With that, I looked back at the opening paragraph of the Book of John and saw this:

In the beginning was an utterance—an idea expressed—and the utterance was with God, which is life, and the utterance was inseparable from life. It was with life in the beginning. Through utterance combined with life all things were made manifest; without utterance nothing was made that has been made. In the utterance was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. …

From that understanding of this scripture, I came up with this formula:

Life + Utterance = Manifestation

To make this simple, let me express it this way:

When we give expression to an idea by believing it and giving attention to it, it becomes infused with the life of our awareness, and it becomes manifest in some way. This is universal, divine law. It is the Third Principle of God, the creative principle.

With this little bit of clarity, let’s look back at today’s selection from our special theme:

Each lily of forgiveness offers all the world the silent miracle of love. And each is laid before the Word of God, upon the universal altar to Creator and creation in the light of perfect purity and endless joy.

We’ve already seen that the “lily of forgiveness” is our choice to abide as unaffectedness, which is also the Loving All Method. Each time we abide as unaffected—each time we practice or live the Loving All Method—the expression of that choice becomes a silent utterance fed into the creative principle (the Word of God, the universal altar to Creator and creation) and results in a perfectly pure and joyous manifestation. These manifestations are often called Grace.

Grace shows up in the world in innumerable ways, in any way that is helpful in the moment. Grace is usually seen as a miracle, but Grace is actually the effect of the miracle.

The miracle is the shift in perception from seeing one’s self as affected to seeing one’s self as unaffected. This miracle, the lily of forgiveness, fed into the creative principle, creates its likeness in manifestation, because all ideas manifested through the creative principle manifest in the likeness of themselves.

Today the peace of God envelops me, And I forget all things except His Love.

Today’s workbook lesson says, “Father, I wake today with miracles correcting my perception of all things. … I do not seek the things of time, and so I will not look upon them. What I seek today transcends all laws of time and things perceived in time. I would forget all things except Your Love. I would abide in You, and know no laws except Your law of love.”

In other words, today we do not seek to fix, change, get or avoid things or circumstances in the world, because we know that judgment, as well as thought and action based on judgment, goes into the creative principle and creates like itself—more to fix, change, get or avoid.

Instead, we awake today with the realization of how divine law works. We understand that our safety and the world’s safety lies in our unaffectedness. It lies in living the Loving All Method, because when the safety of the Loving All Method is fed into the creative principle, it manifests like itself, thereby manifesting true safety as Grace.

Our way of being is a more important choice than most humans ever begin to imagine. The miracle today is that we accept this as true, and because we accept this as true, we put more effort into being the Loving All Method.

Be Loving All.
See yourself as that,
instead of as a person.

Being Loving All is forgetting “all things except God’s Love.”

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What is a miracle?

Our special theme says, “Each lily of forgiveness offers all the world the silent miracle of love.”

Others may not notice our miracles—that is, others may not notice our individual shifts in perception. That’s because each one sees through the filter of his/her mind. If we tell them about our shifts, they may not believe us or they may quickly forget. And that is as it is.

That’s why our special theme refers to the “silent miracle of love.” It is a miracle that is free to go unnoticed by everyone except the one who is the medium of the miracle. The one who abides as the unaffected Self to the point that a shift occurs is aware of the miracle. He/she is also aware of the universality of the miracle, although the miracle may have effects the he/she will never be aware of.

This means that we cannot look outside ourselves for evidence of a miracle or for understanding of what has occurred. The miracle is ours to behold as it has been revealed to us, while also knowing a miracle could never belong to us alone.

I offer only miracles today, For I would have them returned to me.

When we offer miracles, we do not offer corrections for the problems we see in the world. We offer miracles by living the Loving All Method. It is as simple as that. If something is to change in form as an effect of our miracles—well, we leave that to the unpredictability of the creative principle. Outward effects are not our concern. Forgiveness is our only function.

In the Bible, Jesus said, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” (Matthew 7:1, 2)

He also said, “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” (Luke 6:38)

These two scriptures point to the same universal law—we receive whatever we give. As today’s workbook lesson says:

Father, a miracle reflects Your gifts to me, Your Son. And every one I give returns to me, reminding me the law of love is universal.

As we live from the unaffected Self, we become unaffected. In this way, we transcend (or overcome) the world. This can be reflected in how we see a situation, and it can be reflected in the situation itself. A situation can change as a result of our way of being. However, it is never for us to decide that a situation must change, because by deciding that is so, we have also decided that we are affected by that situation. By that very decision, we have judged instead of abiding as unaffected.

The subtlety of this teaching is confusing to the mind. When this teaching is explained, people ask questions like, “So, if my husband is beating me, I just continue to let him do that?” Or, “If someone is abusing an animal, do we just stand by and watch?”

As Chapter 12 of The Direct Means to Eternal Bliss explains:

The Loving All Method refers only to your emotions. No changes in your external behavior are required.

For example: if a vase falls and you would normally try and catch it, you will also try and catch the vase while you are practicing the Loving All Method. You do not allow the vase to fall because you are loving the falling.

If someone were to try to punch you in the face and if you would normally duck, you will also duck while practicing the Loving All Method. The fact that you are loving the fact that someone is trying to punch you does not mean you will not duck. You also love the fact that you are ducking to avoid being punched.

The Loving All Method is about emotional acceptance. The Loving All Method is not about changing your actions.

Interestingly, when people ask about the abusive husband or the abused animal, they are usually not in those situations, they are only thinking about them. Thinking is trying to confuse a teaching that can be quite simple. If you forget about hypothetical examples and simply live in the moment, the simplicity of the teaching reveals itself. You will know what to do in each moment, and you will do it.

Today, as you live the Loving All Method, let doing remain in the moment instead of in thinking. Let the day unfold naturally, including your doing, as you concentrate on loving, accepting or allowing, whichever is your highest possibility in the moment.

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What is a miracle?

Our special theme says, “Forgiveness is the home of miracles.”

I find myself wanting to sit quietly with this sentence. For me, this sentence is like animated glitter, sparkling with aliveness. It is the key—the answer. We abide as our unaffected Self, both during meditation and while living in the world, and this simple abidance ushers in a whole new world.

This brilliant clarity is so obvious to me that I just want to be as silent as silent can be and then whisper, “Do you see it? Do you see how simple it is? Do you see how we can do this all the time until the doing is done?”

If I could give a gift to every single person on the planet, it would be the gift of seeing the simplicity of this statement:

Abiding as your unaffected Self is The Way.

No one, no thing, nor any circumstance can prevent you from making this choice. It is a choice that is always available to you. As NTI Revelation, Chapter 7, says:

You choose the purpose for everything you see,
and the purpose you choose is the one that is given to it.

The purpose of everything can be to get better and better at abiding as the unaffected Self.

How do we abide as unaffected under all circumstances?

The Loving All Method explains the way.

Today I learn the law of love; that what I give my brother is my gift to me.

Two interpretations of today’s lesson immediately come to mind.

1. As I accept the atonement for myself by abiding as the unaffected Self, the service I render is for everyone.
2. As I teach my brother that what he has done has not hurt me, I grow more and more aware of the truth of my unaffectedness.

Today I feel to focus on the second interpretation of this lesson. It’s an extremely practical interpretation, and one that is very good for each of us to practice.

I LOVE to teach others that no matter what they do to me, it’s okay. I am not hurt, and my love for them is totally unaffected. I have practiced this under what some may say are extreme circumstances. For example, one friend became jealous of me and went on an internet tirade spreading lies about me. This tirade lasted about 6 months. During this time, I stayed out of it. I did not respond to her posts or defend myself in any way. When this tirade ended, a few years passed. She did not contact me, and I allowed her to have no contact with me. I did not initiate contact with her, because she did not want contact, not because of a grievance on my part. I allowed her to have her perception and her feelings about it. And then one day something difficult happened in her life, and she called me for help. I responded as if nothing had happened in-between our last friendly conversation and this one. The moment she wanted me to be her close friend, I was her close friend again.

That’s just one example of how I teach that I am not hurt, and you did not hurt me. I am unaffected, and you are innocent. These are two of the most beautiful lessons that can be taught.

Now, there is a difference between teaching this lesson and enabling unwholesome behavior. It’s very difficult to explain the difference with words, because the guidance that explains the difference is a feeling within.

However, as an example, the Awakening Together Sanctuary is a place that has been set-aside as a sanctuary, a place free of disrespect and attack. So, if my friend were to come in there and begin telling lies about me, we would need to follow our etiquette guidelines and remove her from the Sanctuary. At one point, if she were to return and follow our guidelines, all would be forgotten, but for as long as she persisted, she would continue to be banned.

At the same time, my heart would remain open and loving toward my friend, even as the behavior is not being condoned.

Another example was the time I had a stalker. He called and emailed me several times each day. His ideas about our relationship were ideas from a mentally ill mind. The guidance was to ignore him, because whenever I responded to him in any way, I encouraged him deeper into his mental illness. Although I was slow to learn this lesson, I finally learned to ignore him with an open heart. I loved him and had compassion for his illness, but I did not pick up the phone or return his emails.

In other words, you can love an alcoholic without buying him a drink.

Of course, this fine line between enabling and loving is one each person needs to find for himself/herself.

If there is a situation with someone in your life that is confusing for you, please ask a question of inner wisdom, and then begin to write in order to receive more clarity and personal guidance. As you write, remember that you are not guilty and the other person is not guilty. If anything comes into your writing that indicates that either one of you is guilty, realize ego has gotten into the writing. Take a break, get in touch with your desire for truth and healing, and then try writing again.

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What is a miracle?

Our special theme says, “A miracle is a correction. … It undoes error, but does not attempt to go beyond perception, nor exceed the function of forgiveness. Thus it stays within time’s limits. Yet it paves the way for the return of timelessness and love’s awakening, for fear must slip away under the gentle remedy it brings.”

Once again, we see the theme of a gentle awakening from ego consciousness to consciousness, and finally to truth. Forgiveness and its effect, a shift in seeing or knowing, is the medium that prepares us for the final awakening, but the shift that is the miracle is not the final awakening. Many shifts or miracles may occur before the final awakening dawns. (Sometimes these shifts are referred to as awakenings.)

While reading Bernadette Roberts’ book, The Experience of No Self, I noticed she went through a number of shifts. I also noticed that with each shift, she thought she had arrived at the final seeing, and yet months or years later, another shift would occur. Bernadette was not attempting to fool herself, yet each shift in seeing was so dramatically different than the one before it—and she had no idea about what was yet to come—that she perceived each shift as the final shift until the next one came, and the next, and then the next.

She made this observation in retrospect:

One way to look at this journey is to see it as a process of acclimating to an unselfconscious mind, or as a transition from a relative to a non-relative way of knowing.

Ego consciousness is a fully self-conscious and relative mind, meaning that it is always thinking of itself in relationship or comparison to everything that is not it. Truth has no sense of self, so it is fully “unselfconscious.” Also, it only knows its Self, so there isn’t one in relation to or compared to another. Each miracle, or shift in perception, carries us further from the fully self-conscious and relative mind that is ego to the unselfconscious, non-relativeness that is truth.

As our special theme goes on to say, “[The miracle] illustrates the law of truth the world does not obey, because [the world] fails entirely to understand its ways. The miracle inverts perception, which was upside down before, and thus it ends the strange distortions that were manifest. Now is perception open to the truth.“

The miracle moves us, one shift at a time, from the sense of self relative to something else, including relative to God, to the edge of unselfconscious or no sense of self. At this edge, which we gradually acclimate to one shift at a time, we are ready for the final movement beyond any sense of self or other. As our special theme says, “Now is forgiveness seen as justified.”

I’d like to look at that last sentence for a moment before we move to today’s workbook lesson. It says that when we are at that edge, which is sometimes referred to as the edge of a cliff—also referred to as the edge of the bridge in previous tips—“forgiveness is seen as justified.” If we need to get all the way to that edge before we see forgiveness as justified, then prior to that final perception we will sometimes (or often) think forgiveness is not justified. We will think we have a right to feel affected, offended, afraid, hurt, angry, controlling, etcetera. However, if we believe we are fully right about our right to be affected, we refuse the miracle.

That is the purpose of faith. Before we arrive at the edge of perception and see clearly that all forgiveness is justified, we need to have faith that forgiveness is justified. Even if we cannot understand how it is justified, we need the faith to forgive anyway. This faith, followed by a conscious choice, is how we open up to the miracles that usher us gently to the threshold of truth.

I am not asked to make a sacrifice to find the mercy and the peace of God.

As already seen, at times along the way we may feel that we are making a sacrifice by choosing forgiveness over some other option, like fear, anger or control. The ego may even jump up and down screaming, “This isn’t fair; something valuable is being taken away!!”

That isn’t true. That is only the ego’s perspective as it tries to stay in control of you. By practicing the Loving All Method or Rest, Accept and Trust with this idea of sacrifice, you make way for a miracle, which will take you one step closer to truth, eternal awareness-love-bliss.

Today, pay close attention to the mind. Be open to seeing something the mind does not want you to forgive, let go, accept, allow or love. When you find it, you also find the opportunity to take another bite out of the ego by practicing the teachings instead of practicing the ego.

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What is a miracle?

Our special theme says, “A miracle is a correction. … It merely looks on devastation, and reminds the mind that what it sees is false.”

I had a dream a few nights ago. In the dream, my daughter, my boyfriend and I were traveling to Yellowstone National Park in a station wagon very much like the one my parents had when I was a child. Jasmine, Ron and I rode in the front seat. In the backseat, there was an unattractive woman and her mindless daughter. The woman was Ron’s new girlfriend, which he added to our family. I was being nice and accepting of our situation; I welcomed her and her daughter into our family.

We stopped at a Route 66-like truck stop. Ron and Jasmine got our dog out of the very back of the station wagon and took the dog for a walk. I opened the backdoor to let Ron’s new girlfriend and her daughter out of the backseat, intending fully to be polite—even believing that I liked them—when all of the sudden, my anger burst out unexpectedly.

I couldn’t believe how rude I was to this woman. My intention was to be nice! So, I tried to apologize, but again anger and hatred poured out of me.

I ran away from the car, horrified by my own behavior, and ran into the truck stop restaurant to hide. There, inside the restaurant, I met Dolly Parton. She showed up as a fairy godmother type of character. She was there to help me look at my feelings and to discover what was true for me. Since I had been lying to myself about how I felt, this was important and helpful.

That’s the end of the dream. However, when I woke up, I saw where all of the components of the dream came from.

1. Recently a friend told me how her partner of many years has invited another female partner to be part of the family. My friend appears very happy with this arrangement, but I thought she wasn’t being honest with herself about her feelings.
2. Another friend was recently divorced. Her ex-husband has a new girlfriend. This friend is very angry about the new girlfriend. She has openly shared her anger about this with me, including telling me repeatedly how ugly this new girlfriend is.
3. The friend who was recently divorced has told me many times how mindless her teenage daughter is. She gets very angry at what she perceives as her daughter’s refusal to think.
4. On our last family vacation, Ron, Jasmine and I traveled on Route 66 in Arizona. Our next planned vacation is Yellowstone National Park.
5. Every day in my household, we take a break from whatever we are doing to walk our dog. It’s a necessary part of our life right now.
6. Whitney Houston played the fairy godmother in one version of Cinderella. Whitney Houston also sang, “I Will Always Love You,” which was written by Dolly Parton.
7. My parents had the station wagon that was in the dream when I was 11 years old. That is also the year my parents divorced.

If you look at these seven details, all of which are stored in my subconscious mind, you can see that the subconscious pulled these details together in a new way to create the dream. The dream was simply old memories and impressions woven together to create a new temporary tapestry.

I am sharing this with you, because this is how our world is made too. All of the old ideas—old thoughts, perceptions, impressions and beliefs from the collective subconscious—are woven together to create what appears to be a new present, but it is actually just a regurgitation of old thoughts, perceptions, impressions and beliefs. And the miracle sees it as meaningless regurgitation.

Some people may give my dream meaning by analyzing it and saying, “This means that, and that means this,” but that misses the point entirely. The point is that the dream (and the world) is meaningless. When we give it no new meaning, we accept the correction. If we give the dream meaning, the subconscious is rebuilt, and the regurgitation continues.

It’s true that I can look at my dream and see what is in my subconscious. The seven elements above show that. But seeing that enables me to look at the dream and realize, “Oh, the dream was just made up from a random reordering of the subconscious.” In other words, what I see in the dream is merely false.

And that is true of the world we see also.

I let forgiveness rest upon all things, For thus forgiveness will be given me.

Today’s lesson says, “I thank You, Father, for Your plan to save me from the hell I made. It is not real. And you have given me the means to prove its unreality to me. The key is in my hand,…”

The “means to prove its unreality to me”—the key—is forgiveness, which is abiding as the unaffected Self. Abiding unaffected is giving no new meaning to the regurgitation that is the world.

The Loving All Method is a gentle way of abiding as the unaffected Self. Therefore, living the Loving All Method is forgiveness. It is the key.

Let’s review the Loving All Method today. Although you have read this more than once before, it is always possible a sentence or word that did not stand out to you before will now shine with new, previously unseen clarity. Therefore, although the mind may want to skip reading this, because the mind thinks it knows it already, let’s bypass the mind’s opinion and read Chapter 12 of The Most Direct Means to Eternal Bliss again today.

Note: I would like to point out an error in my mind, and how error manifests into suffering. If you look back at the seven elements from my subconscious, which created the dream, you will notice that element #1 included a judgment I made about another. That judgment, left uncorrected, is what led to the suffering of the Regina-character in the dream. Without that judgment, the dream could have been completely benign, like the real world. Loving everything exactly as it is (the Loving All Method) corrects all errors.

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What is a miracle?

Our new special theme says, “A miracle is a correction. It does not create, nor really change at all.”

Recently, we played a game based on the teaching in Rupert Spira’s book, The Transparency of Things. We used a book or some other piece of paper with words on it as a prop. First we read the words on the page, and we noticed what they said, and then we shifted our focus to notice the paper on which the words were written. We became aware of the paper that was already present, even though we weren’t consciously aware of it when our attention was focused on the words.

A miracle is similar to that shift in focus.

When we shifted our attention from the words to the paper, we did not create the paper. We merely became aware of it. In fact, nothing changed at all. The words already appeared on paper. There was no material change. The only change, if we call it a change, was that we became more aware of the paper.

A miracle is like that. It shifts our awareness from the specific focus of the ego to another focus that is not of the ego.

I can attack but my own sinlessness, And it is only that which keeps me safe.

We can use this sentence from our workbook lesson to notice how a miracle works.

If I read the sentence with emphasis on “attack”, I may see the sentence in this way:

I can attack but my own sinlnessness,
and it is only that (attack) which keeps me safe.

The sentence may look a little crazy written that way, but the ego’s perception is crazy. And in fact, the ego perceives exactly as that sentence is written above.

When thinking with the ego thought system, don’t you think attack keeps you safe?

Pause and look at this for a moment. Remember some subtle ways that you have attacked, because you thought that was the way to be safe.

Now, if we shift the focus in the sentence, we will see the sentence differently. Let’s put the emphasis on “sinlessness”:

I can attack but my own sinlessness,
and it is only that (sinlessness) which keeps me safe.

Now the meaning of the sentence has changed completely, although the actual sentence itself remains the same. The only “change” is a shift in focus, but the shift in focus changes everything.

With this shift in focus, we move outside the ego’s way of thinking entirely. Now attack is the opposite of safety, because if I attack anything, I attack my awareness of my sinlessness, and only my sinlessness keeps me safe.

A person who reads the sentence with the emphasis on attack, and believes that emphasis, is going to understand, think and act much differently than one who reads the sentence with the emphasis on sinlessness and believes (or puts faith in) that meaning.

This shift in perception from seeing attack as my safety to seeing non-attack as my safety is a miracle.

In order to help initiate this miracle in you, please contemplate the following today:

1. Remember a time that you used attack for perceived protection or safety. How did you feel in that moment? Write those feelings down as honestly as you can.
2. Are those feelings synonymous with “safety”? To help you answer this objectively, open a thesaurus and look at the synonyms for safety. Can you find the feelings that you have already written down in that list of synonyms?
3. Next, contemplate what your sinlessness is. In order to get a real sense of your sinlessness, which is present right now, don’t contemplate sinlessnes as an idea or concept. The mind defines some ideas as sinless and some ideas as sin. If you contemplate this by thinking, you will only define a part of you as sinless, or you will only define yourself as sinless sometimes. We are looking for sinlessness that is whole, perfect and always present. So without thinking, look at yourself now. Can you find whole, perfect and always present sinlessness? Don’t give up until you do.
4. Once you have realized whole, perfect and always present sinlessness, read this sentence again with emphasis on what you have found:I can attack but my own sinlessness, and it is only that which keeps me safe.
5. What is that? What does the sentence mean with emphasis on that? Write what it means as you see it now, with the shift in perspective that occurred through following these steps. As you write, additional insight may come. Continue to write with insight until it comes to a quiet end. This will help initiate the miracle in you.

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What is the ego?

The ego is almost everything we know and consider to be real. It is:

• Me, including everything good and bad about me
• My thoughts, beliefs and mental images
• My personal will, intentions and desires
• My ideas of God, morality, reality and truth
• All emotions
• All perceptions
• The known world and universe of objects
• My relationships with others
• Birth and death and nearly everything in-between

It seems that life without all of this is no life at all. Or at best, it is life in a meaningless void. These words—no life at all, and meaningless void—are a perfect description of the ego’s idea of what exists beyond itself.

It is true that what most humans seek as God, truth, Heaven, Nirvana, etcetera does not exist, but that is because we are currently limited to the ego’s point of view. In order to discover what truth really is, we need to let go of:

• Me, including everything good and bad about me
• My thoughts, beliefs and mental images
• My personal will, intentions and desires
• My ideas of God, morality, reality and truth
• All emotions
• All perceptions
• The known world and universe of objects
• My relationships with others
• Birth and death and everything in-between

Where do we start?

Most of us start with what causes our own suffering. It’s the easiest place to start. When we feel a twinge or stab of pain, we can look at our own ideas in the moment and find a piece of ego waiting to be let go. But eventually we will learn that in order to transcend the self and realize ultimate truth, we must let go of more than our suffering. We need to let go of anything that isn’t true—anything and everything that comes and goes—in order to realize the one eternal reality, which is the only actual truth.

This is well stated in A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 189, paragraph 7:

Simply do this: Be still, and lay aside all thoughts of what you are and what God is; all concepts you have learned about the world; all images you hold about yourself. Empty your mind of everything it thinks is either true or false, or good or bad, of every thought it judges worthy, and all the ideas of which it is ashamed. Hold onto nothing. Do not bring with you one thought the past has taught, nor one belief you ever learned before from anything. Forget this world, forget this course, and come with wholly empty hands unto your God.

I can be free of suffering today

“Be glad today! Be glad!” Gladness is the best way to walk this path. It is also possible to drag one’s feet and cling to the unreal as if it is a prized possession, but that will not change the fact that you are on the journey to truth now. It will only make the journey longer and harder.

Be glad! Choose the easy path of joyously letting go of anything that you recognize as ego. In the words of Peace Pilgrim, make it a “quick relinquishment.”

The faster you let go of something, the easier awakening is. The longer you hold onto something, the more it hurts. In that way, awakening is like a great big game of Hot Potato.

Interestingly, even though awakening can be fairly easy, most people choose to make it hard. That is simply because of the value we put on that which has no value at all.

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What is the Ego?

Our special theme says:

The Son of God is egoless. What can he know of madness and the death of God … of sorrow and of suffering … of fear and punishment, of sin and guilt, of hatred and attack… the ego and its thoughts, its works, its acts, its laws, and its beliefs, its dreams, its hopes, its plans for its salvation, and the cost belief in it entails… crucifixion of the Son of God is offered daily at its darkened shrine, and blood must flow before the altar where its sickly followers prepare to die.

Yet will one lily of forgiveness change the darkness into light; the altar to illusions to the shrine of Life Itself. And peace will be restored forever…

The path of awakening is a passage through all that is not true in order to arrive at the destination of truth. As Sister Bernadette so eloquently put it:

I had learned long ago that the essence of life’s movement was not contentment or security; rather it was growth, change, and challenge, wherein the external circumstances of life merely reflected the needs of each moment in the thrust of life’s flow. … We never know the time or place where our destiny will catch up with us…”

In other words, we have to face the darkness if we want to reach the light, but we are not in charge of when, where or how our opportunities to face the darkness will come.

A lot of false believing has occurred, and a lot of it is much darker than our imagination would like to believe. We will face harsh hatred that is directed both outward and inward, deep—seemingly bottomless—guilt, stark terror, and even what feels like the edge of insanity. We will face everything imagined so we may see that it was only imagination and never, ever, anything more than that. All of this imagination is part of the ego.

The way to face the darkness when it comes is to keep one eye on unaffected presence. It would be good if one could keep both eyes on that presence, and maybe some have been successful in doing so, but I have always experienced some split in eyesight when going through extreme darkness. Part of me is watching the passing darkness and part of me is aware of the silent, present unaffected Self.

One thing that is interesting about the unaffected Self during great trials of darkness is that it isn’t doing anything. It isn’t like the hero in the movies who dives in at the last moment with a shiny sword to battle the darkness and win the fight. The unaffected Self does nothing. It stays out of the fight. It doesn’t participate. It’s simply present, being itself, as it always is.

This may not seem like much of a hero from the ego’s point of view, but this uninvolved, silent presence that is way in the back of our awareness is our savior, and all we have to do to let it save us is keep one eye, or at least a portion of an eye, on it as the darkness comes and passes through.

We may experience some of our purification in meditation. Maybe if we were like Buddha and we did nothing but meditate, we would experience all of our purification through meditation. However, since most of us are not destined to 12 hours of meditation per day for years on end, some of our darkness will arise in the throes of everyday life, which means we need to learn to keep an eye on the unaffected Self in the midst of moving about in what at times may seem to be a very dark world.

Keeping one eye, or at least a portion of one eye, on the unaffected Self is the “one lily of forgiveness” that changes “the darkness into light; the altar to illusions to the shrine of Life Itself.”

I will receive whatever I request.

We think we want joy, but what we don’t always see is that we want a shortcut to joy, which is false joy. If we don’t walk through the darkness, we don’t get to the light.

This is why we need to investigate deeply to discover what we really want. Do we want true and everlasting joy, and are we willing to walk the journey that one must walk to that final reward, or do we prefer to piddle around in a pale comparison and call it joy, because we are afraid of the journey?

“Everyone will receive what he requests.”

What do I truly want?

Am I ready and trusting?

We are ready to the degree that we trust. If we need more time to build more trust, it will be given naturally. We do not have to hold back in fear. We can move forward with whatever little trust we have. The process knows how to lead us forward; it knows what we need and it will give that.

Here are two quotes to contemplate today:

The purpose of these verses is to again assure you that there is nothing to fear. The four angels who are holding back the winds represent the holding back of the end of perception. The end of perception is held back…it does not come to you to be looked at and let go…until you are ready and call it forth in your mind. ~ NTI Revelation, Chapter 7

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! ~ Jesus at Matthew 7:7-11

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What is the Ego?

Our special theme says, “To know reality is not to see the ego and it thoughts, its works, its acts, its laws and its beliefs, its dreams, its hopes, its plans for its salvation, and the cost belief in them entails.”

Yesterday I wrote, “People often wonder how enlightened masters, who claim to see no world, appear to us as everyday people with everyday lives.” Next, I shared a story about Nisargadatta when a questioner accused him of seeing a world and having a body by saying, “I see you smoking!”

Today, I would like to share a little more about how it’s possible for us to see a master in a body when the master is not aware of having a body.

On this topic, Bernadette Roberts wrote:

…permanent ecstasy appears incompatible with continued earthly existence. … But if the senses could remain perfectly functional or awake during ecstasy, the world of ordinary life could go on as usual, only without self or consciousness. So perfect ecstasy is the ability of the senses to remain awake and perfectly functional in the absence of consciousness. …

Thus one of the imperceptible changes that takes place between the beginning and the end of the unitive state [the real world] is the increasing ability of the senses to stand alone and not be affected by any change in consciousness or any change in the self-experience. … “pure sensory perception” becomes increasingly important and trustworthy; also, ecstasy or the suspension of consciousness becomes increasingly more perfect, more natural and everyday—though not permanent. So the path that lies ahead once we come to the unitive state will ultimately bring about the separation of these two different systems—namely, consciousness and the senses. The purpose of this separation is to enable the senses to remain awake and functional once the system of consciousness has fallen away. …

In other words, part of the transition period that we call the real world is learning to abide in reality without being attached to the body, which enables the body to continue being moved without an ‘I’ to move it!

As Michael Langford explains in his book, Manonasa:

When the illusory body called Nisargadatta Maharaj says, “I am not aware of the body or the world,” he is referring to the Self. … Nisargadatta did not say that the body is not aware of the world. Nisargadatta did not say that the body now talking is not aware of the world. He said, “I am not aware of the body and the world.”

Or as Nisargadatta said:

Do not be misled by my eating and smoking, reading and talking. My mind is not here, my life is not here. Your world, of desires and their fulfilments, of fears and their escapes, is definitely not my world. I do not even perceive it, except through what you tell me about it. It is your private dream world and my only reaction to it is to ask you to stop dreaming.

I am affected only by my thoughts.

The prayer in today’s lesson says:

Your plan is sure, my Father,—only Yours. All other plans will fail. And I will have thoughts that will frighten me, until I learn that You have given me the only Thought that leads me to salvation. Mine alone will fail, and lead me nowhere. But the Thought You gave me promises to lead me home, because it holds Your promise to Your Son.

In the tip for Lesson 327, I wrote:

The God that we call on for guidance is not some distant deity, knowledge or awareness. We are the one that took the outward journey from truth to our present attachment to manifestation, and every step of that journey is recorded in our divine unconscious. Therefore, the reverse of each step is known in our own divine unconscious. Our own unconscious knows the way! The communication that comes from this unconscious knowing is what I call spiritual intuition.

We can see how true this statement is when we look at Bernadette’s explanation about how the senses learn to stay awake without consciousness. Our divine unconsciousness remembers how we detached from ecstasy and the knowledge of our Self in order to attach to a body as what we are. Therefore, it knows we need to reverse that action by learning to abide in ecstasy again. Every step of our way home will be laid out for us. We simply need to trust and take the step that we need to take right now!

Please use today to contemplate how perfectly we are led. Use today as an opportunity to increase trust in guidance that comes from your own spiritual intuition. Realize it will move you to the next step only when you are ready for that next step. In fact, when writing about the stage of learning to detach from the body and abide in ecstasy, Bernadette wrote:

Until preparation is right, ecstasy keeps returning to the self or consciousness. … The gauge is an increasing ability to ‘bear the vision’ as it were, without the senses going down or without everyday life and its normal behavior coming to a standstill.

So God takes its last step to awaken us beyond consciousness when we are ready for that step, after an effective transition period, which the Course calls “the real world.” What a loving process!

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What is the Ego?

Our special theme says, “To know reality is not to see the ego and it thoughts, its works, its acts, its laws and its beliefs, its dreams, its hopes, its plans for its salvation, and the cost belief in them entails.”

In short, to know reality is not to see the ego or its effects. They do not exist in reality.

Here is how Michael Langford describes reality:

Describing the final Reality as Infinite-Eternal-Awareness-Love-Bliss is the closest one can come in words. In the final Reality, which is the only Reality, there are no humans, no animals, no planets, no stars and no earth.

The final reality is infinite-awareness aware only of infinite awareness. In all of eternity the final Reality has never been aware of anything other than infinite-awareness-love-bliss. Awareness-love-bliss is not three, it is one. In all of eternity the final Reality, which is the true Self, has never been aware of a human, or a world or suffering of any kind. Humans, animals, earth, planets stars and other realms, entities, places, time, dimensions, and that which almost every word in the dictionary point towards is part of the ego dream. When the ego comes to its final end, the dream ends and almost everything that the words in the dictionary point towards disappears.

When the ego comes to its final end, what remains is Infinite-Eternal-Awareness-Love-Bliss and nothing ever reappears. The planets, the stars, and almost everything that the words in a dictionary point towards never reappear. They were all part of the dream. Upon awakening, the dream disappears.

That’s what our special theme teaches too.

People often wonder how enlightened masters, who claim to see no world, appear to us as everyday people with everyday lives. This is one of my favorite stories about that question:

Questioner: You said the body defines the outer self. Since you have a body, do you have also an outer self?

Nisargdatta: I would, were I attached to the body and take it to be myself.

Questioner: But you are aware of it and attend to its needs.

Nisargdatta: The contrary is nearer to truth — the body knows me and is aware of my needs. But neither is really so. This body appears in your mind; in my mind nothing is.

Questioner: Do you mean to say you are quite unconscious of having a body?

Nisargdatta: On the contrary, I am conscious of not having a body.

Questioner: I see you smoking!

Nisargdatta: Exactly so. You see me smoking. Find out for yourself how did you come to see me smoking, and you will easily realise that it is your ‘I-am-the-body’ state of mind that is responsible for this ‘I- see-you-smoking’ idea.

Questioner: There is the body and there is myself. I know the body. Apart from it, what am l?

Nisargdatta: There is no ‘I’ apart from the body, nor the world. The three appear and disappear together. At the root is the sense ‘I am’. Go beyond it. The idea: ‘I-am-not-the-body’ is merely an antidote to the idea ‘I-am-the-body,’ which is false. What is that ‘I am’? Unless you know yourself, what else can you know?

Questioner: From what you say I conclude that without the body there can be no liberation. If the idea: ‘I-am-not-the-body’ leads to liberation, the presence of the body is essential.

Nisargdatta: Quite right. Without the body, how can the idea: ‘I-am-not-the-body’ come into being? The idea ‘I-am-free’ is as false as the idea ‘I-am-in-bondage’. Find out the ‘I am’ common to both and go beyond.

Nisargadatta’s instructions are clear. Find the ‘I am’ and go beyond. That is how we come to not “see the ego and it thoughts, its works, its acts,” and etcetera.

My sinlessness protects me from all harm.

In today’s workbook lesson, our “sinlessness” is our true eternal nature. The lesson says, “My sinlessness ensures me perfect peace, eternal safety, everlasting love, freedom forever,… And only happiness can be my state, for only happiness is given me. What must I do to know all this is mine? I must accept the atonement for myself and nothing more.”

Today is a good opportunity to review the tip from Lesson 139, I will accept the atonement for myself. As you review that tip, keep Nisargadatta’s instructions in mind: Find the ‘I am’ and go beyond. Eternal life, which is infinite awareness, is beyond the sense of ‘I am.

Lesson 139

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