What is Creation?

Our special theme says, “Our Father calls to us. We hear His Voice, and we forgive creation in the Name of its Creator, Holiness Itself…”

What does that mean, “forgive creation”?

What is God’s only true creation?

What is forgiveness?

Please contemplate these questions with inner spiritual wisdom until an answer that you know is true comes to you. It may be helpful to use writing to achieve that end. It is best to complete this contemplation on your own before reading the tip under today’s lesson.

Here is the music I am listening to as I contemplate this. Some of you might enjoy it too. Others will prefer silence.

Gregorian Chant

I have already chosen what You will.

If there is any challenge forgiving yourself for having wandered from God’s genuine reality, today’s lesson may help with that challenge. It says, “Father, I thought I wandered from Your Will… Yet what I am in truth is but Your Will, extended and extending. This am I, and this will never change.”

Let’s not forget that our special theme over these last several days has been, “What is Creation?” And the answer is, “We are creation.”

In other words, in spite of this dream of consciousness, humanness and world, what we really are has continued unabated. That’s what awakening is all about. It’s awakening from what isn’t true to what is true.

Are you ready?

Please read today’s workbook lesson in full.
Thank you.

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What is Creation?

Our special theme says, “God’s memory is in our holy minds, which know their oneness and their unity with their Creator. Let our function be only to let this memory return, only to let God’s Will be done on earth, only to be restored to sanity, and to be but as God created us.”

That says it all. As we wind up the first year of Gentle Healing and prepare to begin the second year, we are asked to look at our commitment to truth, and to make our commitment whole.

We have looked at Choice A and Choice B in Chapter 5 of The Most Direct Means to Eternal Bliss a number of times now. Today, I’d like to share these same choices with you from the perspective of an awakened Carmelite Nun, Bernadette Roberts:

In contrast to the divine, the human condition is so terrible and devastating that even the worst of descriptions could never do it justice. I am not referring here to sin, evil or suffering, but rather to bare human existence itself—and the whole natural world included. What we usually think is so beautiful in this world is actually monstrous and unbearable to look at, but only in contrast to the divine. …

Those who believe man can have both heaven and this world at the same time are very much mistaken; such a notion is a total underestimation of God’s utter transcendence, … Compared to the divine estate there is no beauty or happiness in this world; thus man cannot afford to have a glimpse or taste of the final estate and still expect to find this world acceptable. The ultimate estate is not of this world; it is not even compatible with it… For this reason it is good that man does not see the reality of the divine beyond consciousness, for if he did he could not endure this world. What man does not know, he does not miss, and what he does not know is how utterly transcendent the divine really is.

That is her description of Choice B, living in the world as a self.

Here is her description of Choice A, which is Manonasa, awakening to the First Principle of God, Nirvana:

About all that can be said is that if we put together man’s loftiest experiences of ecstasy, bliss, love and all things ineffable, they fall as short of the divine condition as the size of an ant falls short of that of an elephant. Consciousness’ most lofty heavenly experiences of the divine are but the palest shadow of the ultimate divine condition or “heaven.”

It makes you wonder what we are choosing by not fully applying ourselves to awakening, doesn’t it?

I choose the second place to gain the first.

Our workbook lesson begins by saying, “What seems to be the second place is first, for all things we perceive are upside down until we listen to the Voice for God.”

I think Sister Bernadette made that perfectly clear with statements like, “What we usually think is so beautiful in this world is actually monstrous and unbearable to look at, but only in contrast to the divine.”

We put off seeking awakening with our whole heart, our whole soul, our whole mind and all of our strength, because of the things we value in this world. They get our time instead.

Could our sense of priorities be very, very wrong?

Is it time for a change?

Please read today’s workbook lesson in full, and contemplate it along with Bernadette’s description of the human condition compared to realization of the divine.

Also, reconsider your spiritual aspiration. Is it sufficient to give you the motivation you need to give even more to this spiritual path, or is there another spiritual aspiration that is more motivating for you? It may help to ask this question and write until the answer is realized. I did.

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What is Creation?

Our special theme says, “We are creation; … We seem to be discrete, and unaware of our eternal unity with Him. Yet back of all our doubts, past all our fears, there still is certainty. … God’s memory is in our holy minds…”

This is a very important clue. Truth is unimaginable, but it is reachable. And we reach it through a journey within our self.

This could be called returning in the way we came. We began at Home, in the First Principle of God as our Self. In this Self, however, there is no sense of self. There is awareness, but not awareness of. There is Truth without a subject to be aware of Truth.

From this state of Truth “in crept a tiny mad idea.” It could also be called a desire, a desire for something that did not exist. It was the desire to “Know thy Self,” which could be called a desire for a sense of self.

And so, a container that could have an experience of self arose. This container was a subject, something that could feel or know. It was awareness with the additional ability to be aware of. I call it consciousness in order to distinguish it from the awareness that it came from. This is the birth of the Second Principle of God.

Once consciousness arose, which is the ability to be aware of, there needed to be something to be aware of. Consciousness is like a living mirror that wanted something reflected in it, something to watch, know and feel. Of course, consciousness could have simply looked back in the direction it came from, and it would have experienced the reflection of Truth in itself. But consciousness was on an outward-bound journey, so it looked outward in its desire to know something as its self.

Out of this desire, divine law—the creative principle—arose, which is the Third Principle of God.

Through divine law, all of manifestation was born, which is the Fourth Principle of God.

As consciousness watched the images that appeared in it’s self, consciousness became engrossed with them. It began to identify with the images. Each of us, as consciousness, experiences an aspect of that identification. We feel identified with our thoughts, feelings, life experiences, etcetera, because we are the consciousness that has become identified with the images reflected in it.

So now, we begin the journey back in the way we came. It is an undoing. It is the return of a boomerang idea, going back inwardly by reversing the steps we took in the outward-bound direction.

First, there is the undoing of the distinct sense of self, typically called the ego. This is undoing of identification with the image as me. It is this sense of self that creates suffering. Therefore, this undoing is significant, but it is only part of the return journey.

When we awaken to our self as consciousness (the mirror), we experience a more correct sense of self. Whereas the idea that “I am the image” is a delusion for consciousness, the idea “I am consciousness” is more correct or truer. Yet, it is not ultimate truth, because the original true Self has no sense of self.

A sense of self is a type of existence. You could say, “I exist as the sense of what I am.” Since a sense of self is a type of existence, the end of the sense of self is a type of death. It is the death of what we have come to know as existence. The death of consciousness as self is manonasa. What lies beyond this death is Nirvana.

Note: Since consciousness is like a mirror, we can get a sense of Nirvana once we reawaken to consciousness. This sense comes from Truth’s reflection in the mirror of our self as consciousness. However, this sense is still only a sense received from a reflection. In order to know Truth directly, we must awaken fully to it and be it, which is to awaken beyond consciousness.

I need but call and You will answer me.

The reason for telling the story above is to help influence us to “constantly direct [mind-consciousness] toward liberation, through self-effort.” We made the outward journey through a kind of self-effort—idea, desire, curiosity, will, focus—and now we make the return journey through the same kind of self-effort.

But how? Where do we begin today?

Today’s workbook lesson says, “I am not asked to take salvation on the basis of an unsupported faith. For God has promised He will hear my call, and answer me Himself.”

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 literally have everything we need, except for maybe one thing. It’s possible that we haven’t actually made the decision to begin the return journey yet. It’s possible that we are still interested in lingering here a little longer.

Please read and contemplate today’s workbook lesson in full. As you do, also contemplate the power of your own decision or lack thereof. (In truth, there’s no such thing as a lack of decision. Not deciding for one option is deciding for the other.)

Here are a couple of short video clips to help you contemplate today’s teaching in a fun way. You’ll find the meditation links under the video clips.

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