Messages of
Encouragement 2008-2009
This is the archive of
MoE postings 2008 and 2009. To see current/recent postings please
click here.
Please note that the earliest postings start at the top and proceed in
chronological order to the end of 2009 at the bottom.
May
you be helped and inspired by the postings below.
Brian
Longhurst
Please scroll to the bottom to see the
most recent posting
January 2nd 2008
Dear
Friends,
On Monday
this week, as I took my walk in the hills, I said to the Master Jesus, “Why
did you take the route of incarnating through an earthly mother, the
illusory, ego-made mechanism for manifesting in ego’s illusory realm,
when you could have simply created the appearance of a body, just as
Arten and Pursah did for their appearances to Gary Renard?”
He
immediately spoke in response, with the obvious answer (aren’t answers
always so obvious once we have them, even though they are invisible until
then?):
So I could overcome from within egoland, and could demonstrate to my brethren still under its
yoke that it is possible.
He
continued speaking but I asked if we could wait until I had returned to my
desk, so that I could write the rest of his reply. Being the perfect
gentleman, he of course agreed, and an hour or so later he carried on:
Overcoming appears to be hard, and most in the dream world perceive it as
impossible for them; that it is possible only for ‘exalted,’
‘special,’ ‘highly favoured’ beings, without wondering how such perceived
beings attained to this ‘status’. This is, of course, not so, for if
one
can overcome, all can overcome, since we who appear in the dream as
many are, as you well now know, in Truth, One.
All appearances to the contrary are misperception, which I am empowered
to correct for all my beloveds, so that we may be restored to oneness in
Papa, as each becomes ready and willing to freely receive the At-One-ment
(
See
Message of Encouragement dated December 20th
2006).
This empowerment is available to all because it is the birthright of all.
And all who are willing to receive it shall receive it, even though
they may have mistakenly believed they disinherited themselves. It takes
commitment; one-pointed commitment to the truth about themselves, to the
exclusion of the lies of guilt and sin and fear. Such commitment comes from
perceiving at first what may be but a tiny fragment of truth, and holding
fast to it with the certainty that comes only from one’s own within.
You, my beloved, came into the world with such a level of commitment,
engendered by events chosen by you in a former time, though awareness of
such was withheld from you until the moment was right, when you drew into
your presence your beloved mentor
(Olga Park); the keeper for you of the door that opens
unto the Light of Eternity; she who patiently awaited your presence, so that
she could instruct you in the Way of inner quietness and attunement. It is
this one-pointed commitment that has brought you to this place in your
remembrance, your awakening, by your faithful following of my leading. And
it has been my joy to lead you. You have sought first the Kingdom of Heaven
and all else has indeed been given you.
All are free to choose such one-pointed commitment to getting Home with
minimal delay, though only few will so choose immediately. It matters not;
have no concern over this, for all are well within my care. Nevertheless,
my faithful friend, I have chosen you to sow a seed, a kernel of truth, that
it may lie dormant within their hearts, until it germinates and grows at the
season of their readiness. All will come to this according to the hour
appointed aforetime for them, just as it came to me. Then comes the moment
of Self-assessment (for Papa tests no man) for the chosen task ahead, each
according to the path thus far travelled. As with all, my path was of my
own choosing,
for in Heaven there is no
compulsion.
(This
clearly tells us that he was not sent by God to be His once and for all
blood sacrifice for the 'sins of the world'.)
I so longed to save my beloved brethren that I had to come and experience
their condition and overcome it from the desire of my own within. This is
why I went alone into the wilderness, for my final confrontation with the
'enemy' – ego – that I might be sure of my readiness to choose the Way of
Eternity and not the path of expediency. Ego knew very well how great was
my desire for the Kingdom to be restored to the awareness of the little ones
of Earth-mind misperception.
I was faced with the choice of establishing an Earthly kingdom of peace
and righteousness there and then (so great was my desire to hasten the
Kingdom for my beloveds, for so great was their distress). But I had seen,
and knew, that this could not last, from the example of my brothers, David
and Solomon, because it was not free choice for all, so had to run its
course and come to the end of its time and place cycle, ending in further
separation. The same would have inevitably happened again, regardless of
the mechanisms that could have been set in place in attempting to counter
such backsliding. I knew then, as you know now, that the Kingdom of Heaven
is within, and that is the only place from which it can truly,
lastingly, eternally come to the awareness of all; until we are, once more,
One.
Whilst from within the illusion of time and place it was the greatest
Self-assessment available to me (because of my earnest desire for my
brethren), but because I had remembered my Identity as One with Papa, it
was, in reality, no test at all; yet I had to be certain with all the
certainty of experiencing the opportunity to transform adversity into
fulfilment, because I had come to overcome, so that I could be the
Way-shower for all in overcoming. So has it been for you, that the
Self-assessment has been no test at all, because under my leadership you
were lovingly and gently prepared – made ready – for it, and the timing was
perfect, just as it must, and shall, always be for all.
Love is the only way there is; total, unconditional love, and knowledge
of its certainty, regardless of any temporal appearances to the contrary.
So, my beloved, take heart; take strength from the certainty that all is
well, all fulfilment is assured. Because I have overcome, all shall
overcome and all truth and righteousness is already accomplished.
Ego has
those of us who toil under its spell convinced that by making our life a
one-pointed commitment to the Kingdom of Heaven we are giving up something,
and in a realm where apparent scarcity already causes more than enough fear,
anguish and mayhem, to voluntarily give up something more (whatever little
we may appear to have in time and place) has us thinking it seems like a bad
idea. Jesus reminds us in ACIM as follows, which can help to set us back on
the path of right thinking:
The ego is trying to teach you how to gain the whole world and lose your own
soul. The Holy Spirit teaches that you cannot lose your soul and there is no
gain in the world, for of itself it profits nothing. To invest without
profit is surely to impoverish yourself, and the overhead is high. Not only
is there no profit in the investment, but the cost to you is enormous. For
this investment costs you the world’s reality by denying yours, and gives
you nothing in return. You cannot sell your soul, but you can sell your
awareness of it. You cannot perceive your soul, but you will not know it
while you perceive something else as more valuable.
The Holy Spirit is your strength because He knows nothing but the spirit as
you. He is perfectly aware that you do not know yourself, and perfectly
aware of how to teach you to remember what you are. Because He loves you, He
will gladly teach you what He loves, for He wills to share it. Remembering
you always, He cannot let you forget your worth. For the Father never ceases
to remind Him of His Son, and He never ceases to remind His Son of the
Father. God is in your memory because of Him. You chose to forget your
Father but you do not really want to do so, and therefore you can decide
otherwise. As it was my decision, so is it yours.
(T-12
VI. 1-2. My emboldening, for emphasis).
The Great
Rescue Programme (GRP) continues to unfold unceasingly and bring our moment of
Awakening ever closer. Every occasion or event on which we choose to
co-operate with this Process (such as in practising true forgiveness,
expressing Love, understanding and compassion), thereby helping the Holy
Spirit (which is one and the same as our own higher, big, true, Christ Self) to collapse
time, we thus bring that moment forward. And we are positively, actively
contributing to ever greater joy, peace, love and happiness for ourself and
our fellows while we wait.
Here’s to a
truly happy New Year!
Brian
Longhurst
January 9th 2008
Dear
Friends,
At the
beginning of the last
Vignette in SFGS (entitled
“The
Master in bedrock hell fastening the escape ladder to the floor”) it
says:
1This
wondrous experience/event can best be described by copying the record of it
from two successive Communion services in early 1997:
Holy Communion February 16, 1997
2At
the beginning I saw a ladder/stairway stretching from highest Heaven to
darkest, deepest ‘hell.’ It disappeared out of vision into the light above
and the darkness below. Our Communion Sanctuary was like a ‘staging post’
about halfway up the ladder. I felt as if the words concerning the Lord’s
eternalness and His great God-mission for all mankind were being broadcast
down to all levels and, as if we were an amplifying/relaying station, via
what we do and our commitment, into the depths below.
3Later
I saw the Master, at ‘bedrock’ of Hades (after his death on the Cross and
descent into hell). He had his right knee on the ground and the other knee
up by his shoulder, in the absolute darkness of this place. I could see him
and what he was doing because he was radiating light from his own within.
He looked just as he would have looked as the Galilean carpenter in the long
ago. There was no indication of any effects from the brutal torture and
execution he had just experienced. He was securely fixing the base of the
stairway to a solid, black-as-coal rock floor with large nuts threaded on to
sturdy studs set into the floor. It was clear that this fastening was
intended to stay and would be immovable by an enemy once he had
completed his task. It was also clear that this man knew exactly what he
was doing and was working with the ease and accomplishment of great
experience in his trade.
4He
looked up at me standing close by watching him in amazement, smiled
quizzically as if to say, ‘Why are you looking puzzled to see me doing
this?’ and then actually said, “I was a carpenter!”
5Master,
I love you and I rejoice at this revelation.
The third
and fourth sentences of paragraph two (above) say:
Our Communion Sanctuary was like a ‘staging
post’ about halfway up the ladder. I felt as if the words concerning the
Lord’s eternalness and His great God-mission for all mankind were being
broadcast down to all levels and, as if we were an amplifying/relaying
station, via what we do and our commitment, into the depths below.
Then, later
on, in paragraph 15 it says:
Our sanctuary of Mystical Communion with Christ was placed on a circular
platform through which the ladder passed on its way up to Heaven. The
Angels I saw were not descending and ascending using the ladder (as in the
Jacob’s ladder narrative) but were flying around the ladder, guarding or
watching over the souls who were, in response to our broadcast invitation
(in the Lord’s name) from the staging post, beginning the long ascent from
the bottom of the ladder. It was one-way traffic only: up!
Every
detail of a vision such as this is for a purpose; to tell the person
experiencing the vision (and others) something particular. For over 10
years I have pondered the meaning of the communion sanctuary being about
half way between Heaven and hell, and why the escape ladder passed through
it on its way up to Heaven. Now I have the answer. Here goes.
As we all
now know, we are eternal, indestructible spirit, created with all the
attributes of the Creator. However, we are at free will to believe whatever
we choose and in the illusion known as the separation, everything is
perceived as upside-down; the exact opposite of our true nature and our true
Home. So, we perceive ourselves as limited, separated into billions of
individuals, stuck in a body that is destined to die. We have believed this
since the beginning of time, otherwise known as the beginning of the
separation, so for us, deluded by the misperceptions of ego-dominated mind
it has the appearance of truth, so it is ‘truth’ for us – until we
awaken and see it for the illusion that it really is. Jesus told us this 2k
years ago but we have still not fully ‘got’ it; but that is all according to
plan – the GRP – and during the third measure of meal we will be gradually
getting it, so that by the end of the Aquarian age we will have all
got it and returned to the Oneness of the Sonship in Eternity with Papa,
having remembered the truth that we do not die (because we are not a body
any more than a chrysalis is a butterfly).
Meanwhile,
we still believe we are a body and that, assuredly, ‘dies.’ Then the false
beliefs most of us (who have - either now or in previous acts - come under
the sway of the so-called Christian church) have held about our soul say
that we will go to hell if we have fallen short of the mark (sinned) in the
sight of the vengeful god of religion and not accepted in our heart and
spoken with our mouth that Jesus died as the propitiation for our sins
(regardless of whether we have ever even heard of Jesus!) Hell, in our
perception, can be anywhere from a place of burning brimstone, with fire
consuming and tormenting us eternally, or a place of ‘outer darkness,’ or
some dark and dismal, barren wasteland, depending on our individual
imagination. All have in common one property: hopelessness.
Those who
do not accept such fear-engendering prospects, because they have rejected
them and the religious/cultural mythology that promulgated them, or perhaps
have never heard such myths but still have no knowledge of, commitment to,
or enlightenment about Eternity/Heaven, are likely to enter a somewhat more
pleasant state of awareness in the etheric realms that are the counterpart
of the Earth ‘physical.’ Some people refer to this as ‘The Summerland’
because it is comfortable, there is no duress and the sun shines warm and
bright.
But there
is no opportunity for progress from anywhere between the Summerland and the
hottest or darkest hell, and because of unconscious guilt – actually caused
by the belief that we are separated from God but taking the symbolic form of
unresolved karma, all such souls eventually have an irresistible compulsion
to reincarnate, to create conditions for the healing of relationships broken
throughout repeated incarnations. This is not understood by almost all of
humanity, but the process of repeating the opportunities, albeit in differing
circumstances, is automatic and inescapable, until we finally become fully
enlightened, remember the Truth of Eternity and break the cycle of birth and
death, returning to our true Home forever.
Now, the
rescue of humanity – the Sonship – from any of the unenlightened places as
described above can only happen in stages or degrees because the Truth of
Eternity is too big a step to take all at once from a place of deep
sleepfulness.
The stages
will depend upon how deeply asleep, or how far down into ‘bedrock hell’ each
individual believes he has slid. All this is well within the care, ability,
understanding and empowerment of Jesus/Holy Spirit, Who are freely available
to each of us for protection, guidance and enlightenment, at any moment we
choose to ask for that help.
In order
for all ego-ensnared souls to undo that snare and find their way (or, more
accurately, be shown the way) out of the wilderness of forgetfulness
they need some relief from the distress, fear and bewilderment of time and
place (even if they have left their Earth body behind but not their Earth –
ego-dominated – mind). This, one could describe as ‘stage one’ rescue work,
such as that in which Steve, Theresa and I were engaged during the late
1980s and early 1990s (as described in SFGS). This level of rescue gives
some relief to the rescuee from the immediate distress and of equal
importance, enables them to become trusting that help is available, rather
than betrayal, lies, fear. It does not get them all the way Home; rather,
to a ‘half-way house,’ a respite from ‘the pit of hell’ from where they can
be helped to see more clearly how to progress toward Home in Eternity.
The clue
about the Communion Sanctuary being like a staging post half-way up the
ladder actually lies in the next sentence:
I felt as if the words
concerning the Lord’s eternalness and His great God-mission for all mankind
were being broadcast down to all levels and, as if we were an
amplifying/relaying station, via what we do and our commitment, into the
depths below.
In the same
way as the imminent arrival of a major event or person calls for a
harbinger, or herald (such as John the Baptist to announce the first arrival
of the Christ-Mind in the form of Jesus), so a herald is serviceable to the
commencement of the second and final return to full Christ-Mindedness – in
all of us - rather like traditional town criers
who for many centuries have been employed by town councils to make public
announcements in the streets.
With this in mind, then, in paragraph 15 (above) it says that
the souls
who were in the places far from the Light of Eternity were, in response
to our broadcast invitation (in the Lord’s name) from the staging post,
beginning the long ascent from the bottom of the ladder.
Jesus
speaks often in ACIM about collapsing time, or foreshortening the time taken
to get Home, by true forgiveness and, broadly speaking, by other Kingdomly
acts such as blessing, loving, caring, compassionate endeavours toward our
brethren in the Sonship. This vignette gives a graphic demonstration that
this really works:
I saw those on
the ladder make a sudden and rapid move upward, as on an escalator, as my
heart filled with love and blessing for them at the offering of the wine of
Christ Love.
It also
says that the angels were flying around the ladder guarding or watching over
(ministering to) the souls on it. Although most of us have no conscious
awareness of such, this is actually happening to us all right now, as we
make our ascent on the ladder so lovingly provided by Jesus, who, as so
amply demonstrated by the allegory in this vignette, truly is our saviour,
so that we in turn, can also be, with him, saviours.
The
Communion Sanctuary staging post is (only) ‘half-way up the ladder’ because
it is not at our final destination: Home. But it is strategically
placed to be a message-relaying mechanism, to those who participate and to
all who respond to the invitation, ‘All who truly seek after God,
and earnestly desire the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven upon
Earth, draw near, and let us commune together upon the Bread and Wine of
Eternal Life and Truth revealed in Jesus, our Lord.’
The central
message of ACIM is that whatever we say, do, think about/to our fellows, we
do to ourself. If we judge them we are in reality judging ourself; if we
forgive them we are actually forgiving ourself; if we invite them to join
with us to commune together upon the bread and wine of eternal life and
truth, we are assuring our own place at that same banquet table.
We are all
freely invited to that banquet table, not at some indeterminate, ‘future’
time; right now. I look forward eagerly to meeting you there.
With love
and blessings, always,
Brian
Longhurst
Evil can't get close to you,
harm can't get through the door.
He ordered His angels
to guard you wherever you go.
If you stumble, they'll catch you;
their job is to keep you from falling.
(Psalm 91:11-12 - The Message)
January 16th 2008
Dear
Friends,
When we
forget something, we are usually grateful for a friendly reminder. That,
then, should be no less the case, surely, when we have forgotten everything!? That is what has happened to us in this multi-act dream
realm we call the world. We have forgotten everything. That is
demonstrated by us all as we emerge from the womb. Yet it is not actually true, because our true, Big Self, has not forgotten anything.
Due to this
unconscious belief that we have sinned against our Creator and are on the
run from Him because He is out to exact retribution, we believe we are
separated from Him. Because the Creator is, by definition, everything,
if we believe we have separated from Him, we must believe we are separate
from everything. This manifests as billions of separate beings, separate
from each other and from all the rest of the creation we see with our
Earthly sight and other sensory perceptors.
But Big
Self, Who is always closer to us than our own breath, and is, indeed the Holy Breath that is our life, our very Being, knows this is not true.
Yet the separated, split-off part of our mind that believes it is allowed
to believe it because we are endowed with freedom to believe illusions
(otherwise known as lies!) if we so choose, even though Big Self does not believe
anything; Big Self knows the truth, which, also by
definition, is everything and when we (truly) know something,
belief does not come into it either. I call that spiritual knowing, rather
than intellectual ‘knowing,’ which is actually assuming rather than
true knowing.
Many might
ask, well, if we know the truth with our Higher Mind, why doesn’t It put us
straight, down here in our little self mind, scrabbling for survival in the
mire of despond, where lies, disinformation and misperceptions are endemic?
The answer to that is, in the big (or complete) picture, It is
putting us straight. The difficulty, as perceived by us in our little-self,
upside-down, separated mind, is that we are incapable of seeing the
Big Picture; because we have elected not to believe it, so we don’t see it;
so, being upside-down, it says, ‘I don’t see it, so I don’t believe it.’
Sounds like ego, doesn’t it? Two guesses at that are one more than we
need.
The little picture that we see (and then, in line with ego’s disinformation
service, wrongly believe is the big picture because we have
telescopes and microscopes, and archaeologists and historians, and
scientists and researchers, and prognosticators) tells us that we live in a
chaos universe, where everything is a chance event, and it is impossible to
foretell the final outcome, because there are too many variables. Yet Big
Self, which is who we really are, knows what is the final – and inevitable,
unstoppable – outcome. That is because it has already happened!
Yet, little self does not see that because it is focussed in the wrong
direction: time and place. And believes time and place is all there is.
But that is entirely the reverse of reality (see how upside-down everything
is ‘here’?) Even ‘here’ doesn’t exist because that implies there is also a
‘there’ – in other words, separation; and of course, there is no
separation.
We could
continue indefinitely with this round of postulations based on
misperceptions, and that is exactly what ego wants us to do. The only way
to break that endless loop is to take a leap of faith, to reverse the
attitude that says, ‘Show me, then I will believe,’ and substitute it for ‘I
choose to believe, so that I may then have my true vision restored to
me; the vision of Eternity and Who and where I really am.’ That is
how we can re-establish contact with our true, Big Self. Then we will begin
to recover our memory, see past the illusions and get Home. Of course, here
is another big – the biggest – misperception, because we are already
Home, have always been, have never left, and all contraindications are a
dream, illusion, fantasy that never was reality, and was over the moment it
started.
Nevertheless, because we
believe the illusions are real, they are, or
have the appearance of being - for little-self us - real, and it is this
illusory perception from which Big Self is awakening us. Those
misperceptions are so deeply embedded in the upside-down, separated part of
our mind that it is taking what appears to be ‘time’ for this awakening
process to take place and be completed.
For those
who continue to demand ‘proof,’ there will be some more circuits of the
carousel, and that is fine, because it is, after all, only a dream. As
Jesus says in ACIM,
‘…those who seek controversy will find it. Yet those who seek clarification
will find it as well. They must, however, be willing to overlook
controversy, recognising that it is a defence against truth in the form of a
delaying manoeuvre.’
(C-In.2:1-3). Yet, as Big Self, otherwise known as the Spirit of Truth, or
the Holy Spirit, or the Voice for God, continues to whisper His loving,
gentle, tender, all-knowing reminders into our slumbering mind, with His
infinite patience (because He knows the end from the beginning, and thus has
no concern about the outcome), so are we gradually emerging from the depths
of sleep, to be restored to the fullness of wakefulness and remembrance of
who we really are.
Those who
are ready to awaken are awakening and becoming empowered with the birthright
that is and has always been with us (as demonstrated in so many ways by
Jesus of Galilee). This awakening process is in only its relatively nascent
stage of manifesting at the Earth-life level of awareness, so it can still
be denied as happening by the ego-dominated, slumbering establishment, who
control the money, the media and the misadministration of egoland.
But, with
every sincere act of forgiveness, blessing, thanksgiving, loving,
remembering - by every person who appears to be here - time is collapsing.
For us all. Because we are one; so if it collapses for one, it collapses
for all. This means that what would have taken more millions of years than
anyone would wish to count - or even imagine, without the help of Big Self -
will be reduced to just one more, final, measure of meal. Two measly
millennia. A snap of a finger. A blink of an eye.
As each
generation comes and goes, each nothing more than a shadow in a dream world,
so there is becoming - the more so since the dawning, in the last few
decades, of the age of Aquarius, or the final phase of the GRP – an
exponential increase in the number/percentage of awakening souls, bringing
ever more reminders and manifestations of that Sonship empowerment. So,
with each passing generation - already becoming ever more clearly
detectable, even now in 2008 - the ground for clinging to the old order by
the establishment and the sceptics is shrinking.
So, a
sceptic in this generation, who will inevitably have to return to egoland in
a ‘future’ generation, will find it harder in each successive act to remain
as dyed-in-the-wool an unbeliever (slumberer) as was possible in former
acts. And so it will continue with every next act, until he is ready for
Big Self to make Himself known, within the heart and mind of the gradually
awakening slumberer. And when that happens, whenever it happens, he will
receive help, because he, along with us all, is deeply, totally,
unconditionally, passionately loved, and cared for.
Of course
there is only one of us, so that one will become – is becoming – with each
generation, more like the Way-shower, Who is already fully awake and
restored to Big Self-ness. Until that is Who we will all, once more
and forever, have become; and little self will have ceased to appear to be,
and all his little-world dreams will have been shone away by the Light of
Eternal Truth.
Come;
collapse a little time with me!
Brian
Longhurst
January 23rd 2008
Dear
Friends,
Those of us
who are not fully restored to remembrance of who we really are – in other
words, awake, or enlightened – because we have not undone all the guilt and
fear in our unconscious by the mechanism of true forgiveness (and that, of
course, at this stage in the GRP still means the vast majority of us) - will
have to re-incarnate, at least once more, perhaps numerous further times,
depending on where we are, or how far we have progressed on our ages-long
journey back Home to Papa. This is to provide ourselves with further
opportunities in time and place to heal our broken relationships, undo, or
dispel, ego from the upside-down, split part of our mind, restore our
wrong-mindedness to right-mindedness and in the process heal our split mind
back to normal, unified functionality.
Depending
on how close to awakening we are at the time of our laying aside the body we
have been with, the arrangements for re-incarnating will vary, but with one
constant feature always in operation: there is never any external
compulsion.
Those who
are still deeply asleep (spiritually) at the time of their passing, and have
perhaps arrived at some of the lower ‘mansions’ of the etheric realms, where
there is little or no light and little or no discernment of eternal
realities, will be functioning on autopilot in terms of the processes of
re-incarnating, motivated by their basic, ego-driven instincts, with no
conscious understanding that re-incarnating is for the purpose of going
forward, providing opportunities for the Good Husbandman to grow us
spiritually.
They will
gravitate toward prospective new parents according to their desires for
re-experiencing that with which they are familiar from previous acts,
because ego does not like change, and keeps those within its thrall going
round in circles. Hence the observation that history repeats itself. The
reason for this is that those who tend to make the news, and therefore
history, are still deeply engaged with the illusion of time and place.
Without the assistance/input/contribution of far more enlightened souls –
here and in spirit - truly the world would be on a downward and backward
spiral into darkness.
Many
observe that this is happening anyway and from an Earth-mind perspective it
does appear to be the case. But this is the chaos time, the changeover
phase between two epochs, when leaven from the second measure of meal is
being taken to mix into the third measure, until the whole is leavened.
Although it appears to be chaos to our Earthly senses, it is inevitable and
is firmly within the GRP and entirely under the control of its Chief
Executive Officer.
Those who
have laid aside their body and returned to the place which resonates with
their state of greater spiritual discernment, but are not yet fully
Self-realised, awake, enlightened - and thus will still need one or more
further acts in which to undo all remnants of unconscious guilt, fear,
ego-mindedness, and heal all brokenness in their relationships – are
sufficiently aware of what is happening to be able to plan their next (and
if they have the one-pointed desire for and commitment to, the Kingdom of
Heaven, their final) act.
They are
also sufficiently aware that they need help for this, to ensure they get the
details right, such as parents, cultural setting and environment, that are
the most serviceable to the objectives of the upcoming act. Fortunately,
there is plenty of help and guidance freely available in all the Halls of
Heaven, and whosoever asks always receives. That help, of course, is also
always freely available – and given – to all of us who perceive ourselves as
being here with a body. If only we can ask, believing, we can
receive that help; for ego would have us believe, falsely, that not
receiving means it has not been given.
Now being
the time of the beginning of the fulfilment of the GRP, the help and
guidance for planning our acts is of inestimable benefit in the collapsing
of time, so we can all be restored to oneness in the Sonship with Papa by
the completion of the leavening of the third measure of meal.
That guided
planning, of course, takes place in the etheric counterpart of Earth, after
we have laid aside our body from the previous act, and have had a chance to
review the events and progress of that previous act and how we can move
forward from that place in the next act. This provides the continuity of
progress from one act to the next, and ensures that we are able to provide
ourself with the opportunities (so often perceived as adversities) that can
facilitate their transformation to fulfilment. That is, in this context,
the healing of relationships that have been broken over perhaps many
previous acts, as a result of ego ensnarement.
Those who
have voluntarily placed themselves within the guided planning
process, under the tutelage of an enlightened being (Jesus is fully
qualified and freely available to all comers for this undertaking!) then
proceed to take a body once more, through the parents selected for the
purpose. There will often be a ‘history’ of previous familial relationship
with those parents. Of course the process of reincarnating entails moving
through a phase of forgetfulness, although that is becoming less the case as
we progress through the GRP and more and more souls who are remembering more
of who they are - Indigo and Crystal (Christ-all) children - are
incarnating.
Such souls
are capable of remembering more of the realities of Eternity, quicker, than
has historically been the case. Further, with each passing generation there
is becoming more material/evidence/information about Eternity (Heaven)
available here in the Earth, for all who so choose to remember
quicker why we are here and begin the At-onement process earlier in their
sojourn in time. This speeding-up will now make an exponential rate of
increase with the aid of ACIM.
Having to
go through the amnesia phase can seem rather wasteful of time and also
rather scary if we think about it from only an Earth-mind perspective.
However, time is an illusion, so it makes no difference to the outcome of
the objectives of the new act. As for scary, well, we are totally
loved, totally cared for and we are eternal, indestructible spirit, so any
appearances to the contrary are also illusions. Fearful-appearing
events/circumstances are called into our own presence, and will often
(hopefully, preferably) achieve their objective of getting us to place
ourselves (once more) within the care of a Higher Power than our little self
is initially aware of with its sensory perceptors. It hardly needs to be
said that that Higher Power is the Holy Spirit.
Ego, which
does not want change, does all it can to stop us from venturing beyond its
domain of control (time and place) so would have us believe the ‘unseen’
reality that is Eternity/Heaven is to be eschewed as fearful, dangerous, a
place where ‘monsters and dragons’ roam, ready to devour us if we dare to
set foot there. For the comfort and reassurance of those who are fearful,
at the prospect of staying here or seeking eternal truth, Jesus
reassures us in ACIM:
You are part of reality, which stands unchanged beyond the reach of your ego
but within easy reach of spirit. When you are afraid, be still and know
that God is real, and you are His beloved Son in whom He is well pleased.
Do not let your ego dispute this because the ego cannot know what is far
beyond its reach as you are.
(T-4.I.8:5-7)
He also
says:
Of your ego you can do nothing to save yourself or others, but of your
spirit you can do everything for the salvation of both. Humility is a lesson
for the ego, not for the spirit. Spirit is beyond humility, because it
recognizes its radiance and gladly sheds its light everywhere. The meek
shall inherit the earth because their egos are humble, and this gives them
truer perception…
I will substitute for your ego if you wish, but never for your spirit. A
father can safely leave a child with an elder brother who has shown himself
responsible, but this involves no confusion about the child’s origin. The
brother can protect the child’s body and his ego, but he does not confuse
himself with the father because he does this. I can be entrusted with your
body and your ego only because this enables you not to be concerned with
them, and lets me teach you their unimportance. I could not understand their
importance to you if I had not once been tempted to believe in them myself.
Let us undertake to learn this lesson together so we can be free of them
together. I need devoted teachers who share my aim of healing the mind.
Spirit is far beyond the need of your protection or mine. Remember this:
In this world you need not have
tribulation because I have overcome the world. That is why you should be of
good cheer.
(T-4.I.12,13)
He has said
to me many, many times over the decades, in response to any expression of
doubt, uncertainty, trepidation, ‘Have no fear, for I am able.’
Assuredly, we are in safe hands, and we are as near to the Kingdom as we choose to be.
Peace be
with us all,
Brian
Longhurst
January 30th 2008
Dear
Friends,
If we were
in a building that is about to collapse, or going up in flames, we are not
likely to argue or procrastinate when the security man says, ‘Follow me, I
know how to get you out of here.’ Unless someone else says, ‘Don’t worry,
the building is quite safe; it’s not going to collapse and the fire is under
control. Look, I’m staying, and if there was any cause for concern I would
be leaving, wouldn’t I?’
Well, that
is a fair assessment and analogy of what is happening. The ‘building’ seems
to be okay; yes, it has been around a long time and it creaks and leaks, and
shudders in the wind and bits fall off, and there seems to be a lot of
squabbling about which bit belongs to whom. That squabbling turns into
fisticuffs from time to time and sometimes a lot of us get hurt. But, hey!
It’s all we’ve got, so let’s look after it a bit better, and be nicer to
each other, fix it up a bit and keep it going.
Yet the
security man, who is there for our wellbeing and protection, is saying he
has actually prepared a better place for us; one that bears no
comparison with this one. It is shining, comfortable, Architect designed
for all our needs, is free for ever, with no ground rent or utility bills,
peaceable and we will never want for anything; the Landlord is a
philanthropist whose abundance awaits us, no strings attached. All we have
to do is be willing to trust him and follow his lead and he will take us
there. How reliable is he?
Some say he
knows what he is talking about, but the janitor, whose job is to stoke the
furnace, who has been around since the building first came up to let,
pooh-poohs all that, saying everything is fine and dandy just where we are,
so ignore any crackpot, Utopian ideas of a rent-free, idyllic place to chill
out; there’s no such thing as a free lunch. That janitor has a smooth,
persuasive line of patter, but things don’t always work out as he says. So,
who to trust? There’s merit, some say, in the maxim ‘better the devil you
know than the One you don’t know.’
But now,
the security man has created a manual to show us once and for all that what
he says is true. All we have to do is follow what he says in the manual and
we will begin to see for ourselves that the janitor has been joshing
us; hoodwinking us; prestidigitating us. This old building is not just
about to fall down around us but is actually nothing more than a smoke and
mirrors exercise, sleight of hand, and he can help us to see right through
it for the confidence trick that it really is. And once we have seen through
it, it will actually disappear, because in actuality it was never really
there in the first place. That ole janitor has had us mesmerised and we
fell for it, hook, line and sinker.
The problem
is, this manual, so carefully, incisively, comprehensively, expertly and
lovingly put together, seems, to our inexpert eyes, highly technical; and
even though it uses words we think we understand, it is very long, in three
sections and so many bits of it just go right over our heads, especially if
we lose concentration. And that pesky janitor is hurtling around making a
hullabaloo and hugger-mugger, distracting us from what the security man is
telling us.
Nevertheless, the security man is truly our friend and has no intention of
just dumping the manual with us and leaving us to try to make sense out of
it on our own. He knows, all too well, how good we are at misreading and
misinterpreting meanings (largely with the interference of that ubiquitous
janitor) and then going off in totally the wrong direction, ending up down a
blind alley and getting in an even worse fix. So he has sent his
Assistant to explain it to us carefully, one bit at a time, so we can
understand it more completely. It may seem to take a bit longer but at
least we can be sure of getting there safe and sound in the end. And,
since he tells us time is an illusion, it really doesn't matter.
Furthermore, that Assistant has also instructed more assistants, and
is instructing ever more assistants, to spread out amongst us and take us,
one step at a time, toward clarity.
The manual
is in three parts and has two objectives. One is to help us to learn how to
ignore the janitor; to tune him out, so that all his clamour and clatter and
spurious promises have no effect on our focus on the prospectus for our new
and shining Home. The other objective is to tell us so expertly and
comprehensively about our new Home that we will fall in love with it before
we have even seen it, and get so excited about it that we cannot wait to get
there. The security man knew it would have that effect on us so he has
included into the route he has marked out for us a short-cut that will
actually collapse the time it would otherwise have taken us to get there if
we didn’t use his guide-manual. That will massively more than make up for
the extra time we think it may take us studying the manual.
The great
thing about the manual is that even though there are bits that seem very
hard to understand, there are plenty of bits that are really
straightforward and easy for even manual-o-phobes to understand. So instead
of getting dis-spirited at the bits we don’t initially understand, we can
get inspired by the bits we do understand and that lift our spirits,
so we will then be eager to read some more.
And when we
ask the Assistant to help us understand bits that we didn’t understand at
the first, or previous reading, astonishingly, we find that our grasp of the
message increases each time. And, even more astonishing, we begin to
actually see through the smoke and mirrors and have real, visionary glimpses
of our new Home. And even more
astonishing, we begin to remember that it isn’t actually new at all, but has
always been our true Home, but we had somehow, foolishly, forgotten
about it.
And then,
lo and behold, we begin to glimpse the Landlord that the security man has
been telling us about; and we recognise, once our vision has cleared some
more, that He is our beloved Dad, and has been waiting with infinite
patience to welcome us back.
In fact, He
is so overjoyed at our return that He has prepared a humongous banquet feast
for us all, the likes of which the world has never seen. What have we been
waiting for!? It turned out that the security man knew about this all along
and had come to the rickety old structure we thought was ours to bring us
the good news of our real Home that we had abandoned back in the mists of
time.
Needless to
say, when we realised that, he became the hero of the hour. But he simply
said someone had to do it; he couldn’t just leave us in our state of
bewilderment. Nevertheless, as far as we were concerned, his Way-showing
was seen as some heroic deed and we loved, honoured and thanked him
profoundly for it.
The
interesting thing was that once we were back on track toward our new Home,
guided and led by the security man, it all started to take on a feeling of
familiarity, so that by the time we got there we realised it really was, and
always had been, our true and only Home, just as our visionary glimpses had
indicated. Truly, a glorious affirmation that the security man was entirely
trustworthy. And as for that janitor; well, he just disappeared with
the rickety old structure and was never given another thought.
Meanwhile,
here is an extract from the security man’s manual; the guide for getting us
Home. It’s easy to see just from this short piece, in which he casts his
light of clarity for us, how the janitor’s stories had us bamboozled and
tied up in knots:
My mind will always
be like yours, because we were created as equals. It was only my decision
that gave me all power in Heaven and earth. My only gift to you is to help
you make the same decision. This decision is the choice to share it, because
the decision itself is
the decision to share. It is made by giving, and is therefore the one choice
that resembles true creation. I am your model for decision. By deciding for
God I showed you that this decision can be made, and that you can make it.
I have assured you
that the Mind that decided for me is also in you, and that you can let it
change you just as it changed me. This Mind is unequivocal, because it hears
only one voice and answers in only one way. You are the light of the world
with me. Rest does not come from sleeping but from waking. The Holy Spirit
is the call to awaken and be glad. The world is very tired, because it is
the idea of weariness. Our task is the joyous one of waking it to the Call
for God. Everyone will answer the Call of the Holy Spirit, or the Sonship
cannot be as one. What better vocation could there be for any part of the
Kingdom than to restore it to the perfect integration that can make it
whole? Hear only this through the Holy Spirit within you, and teach your
brothers to listen as I am teaching you.
When you are tempted
by the wrong voice, call on me to remind you how to heal by sharing my
decision and making it stronger. As we share this goal, we increase its
power to attract the whole Sonship, and to bring it back into the oneness in
which it was created. Remember that “yoke” means “join together”, and
“burden” means “message”. Let us restate “My yoke is easy and my burden
light” in this way; “Let us join together, for my message is Light”.
I
have enjoined you to behave as I behaved, but we must respond to the same
Mind to do this. This Mind is the Holy Spirit, Whose Will is for God always.
He teaches you how to keep me as the model for your thought, and to behave
like me as a result. The power of our joint motivation is beyond belief, but
not beyond accomplishment. What we can accomplish together has no limits,
because the Call for God is the Call to the unlimited. Child of God, my
message is for you, to hear and give away as you answer the Holy Spirit
within you
T-5
II.9-12.
Love, as
always,
Brian
Longhurst
February 6th 2008
Dear
Friends,
As I sat
quietly at the keyboard, attuning with the Holy Spirit, I became aware of
Him, the Voice for God, speaking silently inside my mind. It seemed
to be in the form of a letter, so I began typing what I heard. This is what
emerged:
Dear
Brian,
It is
that time again, for you to share of the joy of the Kingdom with your
friends, and encourage them with reminders of it being the one, true home of
all. Is there any aspect of that that you feel moved, drawn, inspired, to
share, and encourage them with?
Dear Holy
Spirit,
My journey
in time and place has been so greatly blessed with wondrous leading,
guiding, counsel, inspiration, encouragement, and so many more of the
realities of Eternity that have been revealed to me, and I long to share
them all, because they are such joyous and uplifting
blessing. You know me; ‘Lord, grant me patience - but hurry’ is such
an apposite maxim.
Hang in
there just a moment; you had to start your journey –
this
act, I’m speaking of – knowing (or remembering, strictly speaking) nothing,
and it has taken decades for you to arrive at this place. And the journey
has been, for your own benefit, very much a one step at a time event. Now,
all of a sudden, you want everyone else to be presented with a mountainous
heap of information, all in one lump. You know this would not – could not -
have worked for you because it is only possible to assimilate small amounts
of ‘new’ data into an upside-down mind at a time without feeling as if you
are being turned on your head.
I look back
on the last 40 years and marvel at how infinitely patient the Master has
been with me. Not just patient, but loving, gentle, caring, solicitous,
fun, unthreatening…
…And
that won your confidence, your trust, your relaxation, your peace and
tranquillity, didn’t it?
I was very
trepidatious in the early years; nervous of how to be in his presence, even
though I was sure he was capable only of beneficence. Nevertheless, I felt
I surely must have to ‘mind my Ps and Qs’ in his presence…
Even
though he never said or did anything to cause you to feel threatened?
Quite the
contrary; he always put me at ease. He was never ‘high and mighty;’ always
so, well… as I said, unthreatening, easement making. Even when he first
manifested to me in that basement room in 1967. It was as if he was
standing in the midst of the sun, but this Light was his own radiance from
his own within; I knew that instantly. His knowledge and wisdom and
overriding, all pervading Love were so powerful the way they radiated out
from that sphere of Light and even though I was totally overwhelmed, a
quivering jelly, it was not from fear, but from Love; from being loved
totally, personally, intimately, universally, in every way, that is utterly
beyond comprehension in Earth-mind terms or experience. The impact it had
on me was so intense, yet so peaceful, and has remained with me, alive and
real. Whatever else happens, that will always be with me as the certainty
of his reality and his personal Love and caring for me.
And you
know that that is how he feels for all his brethren, without exception.
I know the
very idea of any exception is laughable; absurd; meaningless; well, sad,
really. That kind of Love is the only real Love, and anything less is only
a pale shadow of Love, which is all most of us know about or experience in
dreamland here. It is as nothing compared with it. It is my consuming
desire to share the experience of the real, living Jesus with anyone who is
prepared to listen.
Why?
Because he
won my Love, because he won my trust – dispelled the anticipation, the
misperception I had, along with so many others, about the ‘Lord of all
mankind’ being someone of whom to be fearful – with his unassuming,
‘normalness,’ his humour, his obvious delight in surprising me. I was
nervous at first, but he always put me at ease, and after a while I was totally at ease. He is my
friend, and friends – real friends –
are easy to be with. And amazing to me, in the early days, was that
he so clearly wanted me to be his friend. He really, really did want that.
Well, most of us in this life believe that such an idea is beyond the pale.
Why would Jesus, the mighty Lord, want us to be his friend? A
ludicrous, arrogant presumption. It’s all that that I want to help everyone
else to be able to accept, understand, know, experience. We have to
dispel the fear from people’s minds. Most of us are afraid of our own
shadow, though very few would be willing to admit it, because it might make
them appear weak.
Anything
else?
The obvious
extension of that is that Papa is the same. For countless ages people have
had the idea drummed into them that we must be ‘God fearing.’
Bunkum. Piffle. Poppycock. Balderdash. God is LOVE. Jesus is
like
Papa, so we can be sure – certain, actually – this is true. How could the
emissary from God – who has come to lead us back to Him – be love,
gentleness, humility (true humility, that is), if that was in any way
different from Him who sent him? And vice-versa?
You’ve
convinced me. But then, you know, I don’t need much convincing
J
So, where do we go from here?
Funny. You
know very well, ‘cos You are the central part of the Plan.
Humour
me.
Well, it
was always a Plan, from day one, though of course I didn’t know it at first.
The same
is true, dear friend, for each and every living soul, without exception.
Yes, I know
that now and am busting a gut to help others to see that, know that for
themselves, with all the certainty that I now know it.
Don’t
bust a gut for it; that would be most unserviceable. Yes, yes, I know; it’s
just a figure of speech. Tell me about the Plan.
I can only
tell You – or anyone – about the plan from my perspective.
Of
course. Good answer. Let’s go with that. We can move it out from there.
Well, it
all started with me in a previous incarnation, back in the 1600s, when I had
what seemed like a pretty ‘heavy’ experience that woke me up to the fact
that the church and religion is definitely not the Path back to oneness with
our Creator. I am aware of those events because Theresa and I had a series
of visits to the Akashic records; just enough to help us understand why we
are here this time round. Religion is about fear and control and…
Don’t
bang that drum too loud, or too long; we’re trying to keep positive here.
Okay, I
know; thanks. The point was, it woke me up to the fact that there had to be
a better way. So, I said to the Lord then that when I had finished that
act, when I got back to the etheric realms and could have a clear,
unadulterated, undistorted line to him, I wanted to have a long discussion
with him, about how I could help to set the record straight. I actually
wrote some detailed journals during those last few years back then, setting
out these new understandings about who we are and our relationship to our
Creator, Eternity, and how utterly distorted and wrong the religious
perceptions were. But they had to be kept pretty secret, and shared only
with those very few I knew were entirely trustworthy. Those were very
dangerous times; people were burnt at the stake, beheaded, hanged, drawn and
quartered for heresy, blasphemy, dissension…
I hear
the sound of a distant drum - again. Can we stick to the Plan please?
Thanks for
reminding me. So, I (I was ‘Paul’ then, not Brian, of course) asked the
Master what I could do to have another shot at setting the record straight.
Thanks to his wisdom and counsel, a Plan was set in place.
Go on;
this is starting to get interesting
J
You know
only too well that when we reincarnate, we forget what has happened between
incarnations; in fact we forget everything before that.
That’s
not entirely true, not for everyone, anyway. You had some interesting links
to your Source when you were a boy on the farm on Ashdown Forest. In fact,
you were known and closely watched over every moment, and there were some
useful reminders at various stages during your childhood and adolescent
years. All just to keep the pot simmering, of course, ‘Lest we forget.’
Thank You.
Your closeness and inspiration well me up.
Don’t
get all blubbery on me now, Dear One. Let’s lighten up and enjoy this.
This is supposed to be a message of encouragement, not a wake.
Right; back
to the thread, before I lose it. I met up with Olga and she and I had been
around the block together a few times (so I only very recently realised,
thanks to our dear, mutual friend the Rector). She and I clicked from day
one and she fired up - re-kindled - my love for Jesus. When he came to me
that night in ’67, that was it. I was totally and irreversibly hooked and
committed to following him. He told me many times over the years, ‘I lead;
do thou follow.’ There followed the years of checking, giving me the
opportunity to demonstrate to myself, that I was willing to follow;
that I had one-pointed commitment to him and his GRP (though I was pretty
vague on just what the GRP was. In recent time that has become much clearer
and shows he withholds nothing from us if we are willing to stay the
course).
What do
you mean by stay the course?
His parable
about the sower says it all. Some are interested until the going gets
tough, then they fall by the wayside and bear no fruit for the Kingdom. In
modern parlance, they get easily distracted by the glister and/or the
troubles of this world. Those who see past the meaninglessness of glister
but rather, have a deep and unwavering commitment to the Kingdom of Heaven,
will stay the course.
Throughout
those years he gave me so much encouragement and imparted such a sense of
the reality of Heaven to me, but he also told me many times that all that
was simply preparation for what lay ahead. He said that that with which I
was engaged was an operation of hiddenness, in which he was preparing me for
when it would become an operation of openness.
We’re
getting right up to recent time now, yes?
As well you
know. All this time he knew exactly what was the Plan. He’s very, very
good at multi-tasking! He has a ‘big GRP,’ for us all, and in amongst that
he has a kind of ‘mini-plan’ for each of us individually. When we respond
to his knocking at our door, he commences the implementation of that mini
plan and he runs it in parallel with his big Plan. Of course, with him
having been a carpenter, the big Plan and all the mini plans dovetail
perfectly. Seamlessly in fact. The big Plan has been well-rehearsed here -
in previous pages - and is covered by the three measures of meal parable, as
described in
chapter 10 of SFGS, so we don’t need to go into that again
now.
Slight
correction there, Brian. The mini plan is implemented from the moment it is
agreed, before reincarnating. When anyone responds to his knocking and
invites him into their life, they begin to become aware of the first
stirrings that there is a mini plan for them.
Okay;
we’re cutting to the chase now, are we?
I see you
keep well up with modern parlance. I wouldn’t want to lose you along the
way.
As if.
Well, after
years of preparation, the operation of hiddenness was suddenly switched to
an operation of openness by the Caterpillars and the Butterfly allegory…
Which I
suppose you know he gave you.
I didn’t
need two guesses for that.
Go on;
go on!
A few
months after the switch was pulled and the curtain went up (if you will
allow me to mix a metaphor or two)…
What,
and change the habit of a lifetime?
I was
introduced to A Course in Miracles via Gary Renard’s mind-blowing
book, The Disappearance of the Universe…
Why was
DU mind-blowing? Surely you were well prepared for it by all the years of
journeying with Jesus?
My, you
don’t give a chap a chance to finish a sentence, do you? It was
mind-blowing because it took about 30 seconds to know that the Author of
ACIM is he who had been leading me since the ‘60s. I could tell that from
the things Arten and Pursah said to Gary and also – especially – from the
quotes in DU taken from ACIM. And once I started reading ACIM it all just
fell into place.
I’m not
sure that explains why it blew your mind (not literally, I am glad to
observe).
There were
two things about it that staggered, astonished, delighted me. First, it
stood out a mile that the Author of ACIM was, incontrovertibly, one and the
same person who had led me on a 40-year journey of remembrance, and that
leads to the other amazing thing – at least from where I am sitting – which
is that it was such a massive affirmation…
You love
that word, massive.
Not so much
love as find just about adequate. I may not be the most lexically gifted
chap on the block, but the English language, devised to cover
3-dimensionality, is fairly limiting for covering subjects beyond that
realm. So, I ‘make do and mend;’ it’s a hangover from being a baby boomer.
So, to continue, it was an affirmation that he, Jesus, really is in
charge, not just of my mini plan, but the GRP, and that was really starting
to take hold, BIG TIME, in the world out there. You have to remember
that for 40 years I had been in an operation of hiddenness, so I had no
real window to his other mini plans with all those other harbingers and
messengers with whom he was working. I had always hoped – earnestly
hoped, actually – that there would be plenty of others, because I didn’t
fancy being on my Tod as his harbinger, which he told me very early on was
who, or what, I was. It was pretty daunting stuff.
Tod?
Tod Sloan;
own. It’s cockney rhyming slang. I know You know that.
Of
course, but we have to think of our friends in the New World and elsewhere,
who know nothing of these quaint British ways.
All of a
sudden, out there, it is all happening elsewhere, also. The GRP and
all the myriad mini plans are really all one and the same because that’s the
way it is in the Kingdom. It’s called inclusiveness. But then, You know
that, too. In fact, thank goodness, You know everything.
Reading
ACIM, it immediately became clear to me that ACIM is the definitive
article about the GRP. Bits of the jigsaw fell into place and it was all so
resonant – so utterly resonant - with all that had been my own experience
over decades. Of course, he knew that, ‘cos, just like You, he knows
everything too. At first, I wondered why he hadn’t got me onto ACIM years
ago, but I quickly recognised…
So, you
do know about quick then?
Yes,
occasionally I have been known to be quick. But then I quickly settle back
down into the slow lane again.
It’s
safer there.
I have
learned that. I quickly recognised that this was all pre-arranged – ‘afore
time’ – and that he knows multi-tasking and me are not that well acquainted,
me being a bloke; so he led me on the pre-arranged, 40-year, operation of
hiddenness, mini plan journey, telling me as we went along that this was
simply preparation for what lay ahead. Now the bits of the jigsaw are all
coming together – not just for me but for untold numbers of others whose
mini plans are also now perfectly dovetailing into the GRP - it is a very
clear indicator that the GRP is moving up a gear as we get observably into
the 3rd measure of meal and its rapidly activating leavening
process.
So now
you are going to tell me where all this is leading, right?
You’re
ahead of me; but that’s not surprising, considering Your vantage point.
Where it’s leading is where it was always going to lead, right from day one,
at the beginning of the 1st measure of meal, with Abraham; back
to oneness in the Sonship and Home to Papa in Eternity, or Heaven. I always
think Heaven has a more comfortable ring about it than Eternity, don’t you?
Well, in
Heaven we are concerned only with your comfort.
‘Eternity’
seems a bit too abstract for most of us sojourners in time. ‘Heaven’ has a
sense of something we can get acclimatised to. But I digress. This is all
leading back to the beginning, where we remember that we never actually left
Home, and are being lovingly awakened to that truth; but the point is, ACIM
is the drawstring that is pulling it all together. That in itself is
adequate demonstration that we are now entering the fulfilment stage; the
final phase of the 3-phase GRP. Arten and Pursah tell Gary that in the next
few generations it will be widely recognised/accepted that a) it is
Jesus who is the Author of ACIM and b) that he is the one in charge of the
whole project, or GRP as I call it. I also found it interesting that Jesus
started dictating ACIM to Helen in 1965, the same year that I was brought
into contact with Olga.
Of course,
orthodox Christians believe Jesus has a great plan, even if they don’t have
much real idea of the practicalities of it, and they seem to think they must
leave it all to him and he’ll sort it for them without any involvement on
their own part. Then there are those who have rejected religion’s version
of Jesus because there was too much baggage with it, let alone all the
squabbling and inability of religionists to agree, so they keep splitting
into disparate groups. 20,000 of them at the last count, according to
Pursah. Sounds like ego is right in there, dividing and dividing,
endlessly; until You get in there and shine the Light of Eternal Truth into
the mix.
Now
that’s where I need your help.
Great; You
have it, every step of the way, or I should say Way. But two things:
Go on.
As Jesus
said, Of myself, I can do nothing. So, You may need my help, but I
need Your help too, because this ole carcase is all I have down here, and it
isn’t in the first flush of youth and vigour any more.
Youth
and vigour, like everything else, is all in the mind. I think you know you
have My help, and have had it all along. All that 40 years’ preparation was
only the beginning; you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. What’s the other thing?
I am not
Your only help down here. Thank goodness! And the best material
help any of us working for the Kingdom down here has is ACIM, because it is
going to enable people to understand the real message for this, the home
straight stage of the GRP, direct from its CEO (via Helen, bless her
mightily; and bless all those involved in getting it out to the world) – he
who has all power in Heaven and Earth – in unequivocal, no nonsense
language.
And how
do you think that will help his brethren to awaken into the At-onement?
As it
states, this is a self study course, that does not need, neither can
it be set up to form, another religion to mislead us.
Incidentally, it has been very clear to me that it has this in common with
the Mystical Christ
Communion given to Olga. As he said in the long ago, enter into our
closet and shut the door, and there we can be heard and answered by
Papa, because therein we are able to shut out the distracting clamour of
this world. By following the Course, with help from You, which I know You
always give in response to being asked, it is possible for us all to
awaken, because it is designed by the Master Wakener to do just that.
Look,
Beloved, I could do this all day, but this is already very long and if our
friends are being asked to read it and some Diary entries too, we must bring
this to a close; at least for now. I feel it is apposite to do so with a
short quote from Gary’s book, DU. This is Pursah, speaking to Gary:
Ultimately, each one will learn what you will learn: The Voice for God is
your voice; it’s your real voice, because you are Christ.
There’s no difference between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit in
reality – but you don’t live in reality. You live here. Or at least that’s
your experience. Until your mind has been healed by the Holy Spirit, you’ll
need the help that the symbols of the Course can give you.
Good
choice, Brian, even though you have now blown my cover
J.
You’re doing pretty well for ‘Johnny come lately’ to the Course.
Maybe so,
but look at all the preparation I have had ahead of time. And You can’t
fool me; I know how much help You are giving me, bringing the right
bits of the Course, or Gary’s writing – which is so ma…whoops, I nearly said
that word again… hugely helpful to understanding the Course – or some
other pertinent quote to me at just the right moment.
What a
team. Stick around Kid; there’s more, much more, to come. ¡Hasta la vista!
Thanks be
to You and to all our friends,
Brian
Longhurst
February 13th 2008
Dear
Friends,
In The
Disappearance of the Universe (DU), Gary Renard writes:
…Having made room for the Holy Spirit, the student would attain a state of
mind wherein he or she would be much more likely to hear reliable guidance
about what kind of action to take in any given situation.
Then one morning I awakened with an unusually clear mind. That was when I
heard the Voice – from deep within me and all through me – say something
with such perfectly clear authority that the Source of it was beyond any
possible questioning. This is what I heard:
Renounce the world and the ways of the world. Make them meaningless
to you.
Although visions of sacrifice danced in my head, I was still completely
blown away. I intuitively said, “I’ll do it. I don’t know how, but I’ll do
it.” The Voice answered with this reassurance:
I will show you how.
The world
is not real; it is a projection from our own divided, split-off ego-mind,
like a film from a projector onto a screen. It is a trick, to confuse us
into thinking that we can be separate from our Creator, with and in Whom we
are indivisibly one. We have allowed ourself to be duped into believing
that ‘out there’ peace, happiness, fulfilment, joy, riches, safety, love are
to be found. But we all know, in our heart of hearts, that the only place
that it is possible to find these, the Treasures of Heaven, is in our
oneness in Papa. It is worth keeping in mind that in Heaven, we are one,
not many. And Heaven is now. It is an ego-deception that has us
believing it is in the future, because there is only now, the eternal
always.
Jesus
reminds us in ACIM that Papa has only one Son and we are that Son, but we
appear to have divided – a symptom or effect of the apparent separation –
into many individuals with a separate body and a separate mind. When two or
more of us agree on something we are said to be ‘of one mind.’ That is a
much truer statement than most of us realise, because that is who, or more
accurately, what, we really are: of one Mind. And that One Mind is Papa’s.
We are a Thought of God.
Ego wants
us to believe individuality is good, a desirable quality, and the thought of
us losing our individuality is perceived as a frightening prospect; rather
like dying. But as stated in chapter 11 of SFGS, becoming one again, in
Papa, is not about becoming less; it is about becoming more. More than our
split mind can begin to comprehend. As Arten says to Gary in DU,
…no matter how attractive you may think individuality is, it is nothing but
separation…
When Jesus
said
‘I and my Father are one’
he was denoting that he was beyond individuality; that he had left
individuality behind. He also said,
‘…the prince of this world
(i.e. ego)
cometh, and hath nothing in me.’
This means
he was, although still with a body in the illusion of the Earth life with
his disciples, completely free of ego-split mind, and his Mind fully
restored to oneness. He could see, and knew of a certainty that we also
are, in the reality of our higher Self, of one mind, with him in the
Sonship, in the eternity of Heaven.
If that is
what it takes to be restored to our true Home, with all its treasures, and I
venture to suggest that most of us are prepared to acknowledge that Jesus
knows more about this than we do, then it seems worthwhile taking on trust
that the ‘security man’ is a safer bet to follow than the ‘janitor.’
Trusting someone gives us a sense of security, and that engenders an inner
peace. Trusting someone whom we know, of a certainty, is absolutely,
totally trustworthy, gives us absolute security and unassailable
inner peace.
Trust.
There is a paucity of it in egoland, and not without reason, because this is
a house divided against itself. But this world is not real, other than any
reality we ascribe to it. All we have to do is ‘unsubscribe’ and
choose to see through the agenda of distraction (which, remember,
will make us distraught), always seeking to keep us in the
consciousness of fear, with its clamour about terror, about scarcity, about
division, and choose instead to give our reality to the only
reality, which requires nothing other than a commitment to changing our mind
about what appears to be happening.
This change
cannot happen all at once because our divided mind needs retraining back to
right mindedness from its wrong-minded indoctrination. But if we
choose against making a start, making that commitment, where will we be when
our allotted time here is up? Just where we started, without progress on
the journey Home. Is that a sound policy?
Confucius’
famous saying states that a journey of a thousand miles starts with the
first step. Most who may read this will assuredly have at least taken that
first step, but many will also still believe in their unworthiness, at least
to some degree; after all, it comes with the territory, and this may be
causing delay, doubt, hesitation to prevent us taking the next, and the
next, and the next steps. But we are being shown how to regain our memory
of Self and its absolute worth, and leave this alien, fearful, uncertain
realm behind us as we move back toward the Light and freedom.
It is worth
remembering that our true Home is Heaven. It is where we are from, so it is
actually familiar Territory, so there is no cause for trepidation, but every
cause for celebration. The escape route that will take us back there is true
forgiveness, so that by forgiving our fellows for what they have not
done, we may receive the forgiveness that is rightfully ours, and
vice-versa. This is because there is only one of us.
By the same
token, if we receive light, illumination, enlightenment from a brother ahead
of us on the Path, and make progress on the journey by that help, the
light-shiner is also helped forward because there is only one of us. As
ACIM reminds us, we learn by teaching. This then means that we can shine
that light on the Path for our brothers who are behind us on the Path, and
by so doing receive help to go forward from where we are on the
Path. This is a PLF and is immutable.
Jesus
reminds us that it is not just he who is the light of the world, but we
also. Doubt, fear and lack of self worth keep us from shining our light
much of the time but these misperceptions are the ‘lies of satan’ (ego) and
now is the time to shrug off that uncomfortable, treacherous yoke, be of
good cheer, full of confidence because of our Way-shower, and let our light
so shine for our fellow travellers, so that we may be enlightened by that
same Light, which comes from the Mind of Papa because we, also, come from
the Mind of Papa.
Love and
Light,
Brian
Longhurst
February 20th 2008
Dear
Friends,
A few days
ago I was sent the following e-mail, which I found affirmative and
informative:
Why
did Jesus fold the napkin?
Why did Jesus fold the linen burial cloth after His resurrection? The Gospel
of John (20:7) tells us that the napkin, which was placed over the face of
Jesus, was not just thrown aside like the grave clothes.
The Bible takes an entire verse to tell us that the napkin was neatly folded
and was placed at the head of that stony coffin.
Early Sunday morning, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the
tomb and found that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance.
She ran and found Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus
loved. She said, 'They have taken the Lord's body out of the tomb, and I
don't know where they have put him!'
Peter and the other disciple ran to the tomb to see. The other disciple
outran Peter and got there first. He stooped and looked in and saw the linen
cloth lying there, but he didn't go in. Then Simon Peter arrived and went
inside.
He also noticed the linen wrappings lying there, while the cloth that had
covered Jesus' head was folded up and lying to the side.
Is that important? Absolutely! Is it really significant? Yes! In order to
understand the significance of the folded napkin, you have to understand a
little bit about Hebrew tradition of that day.
The folded napkin had to do with the Master and Servant, and every Jewish
boy knew this tradition. When the servant set the dinner table for the
master, he made sure that it was exactly the way the master wanted it. The
table was furnished perfectly, and then the servant would wait, just out of
sight, until the master had finished eating, and the servant would not dare
touch that table until the master was finished.
Now if the master was done eating, he would rise from the table, wipe his
fingers and mouth with that napkin and toss it on to the table. The servant
would then know to clear the table. For in those days, the wadded napkin
meant, 'I'm done.' But
if the master got up from the table, and folded his napkin, and laid it
beside his plate, the servant knew that the folded napkin meant, 'I'm not
finished yet.'
The folded napkin meant, 'I'm coming back!'
After all,
Jesus knew (because he had planned it) this was a 3-course meal and there
were 2 more courses before the whole would be leavened. Okay, so I am
making a word play on the word ‘meal,’ but cut me some slack here, because
in this instance it ties together the cultural tradition, which, as the
story above recounts, would assuredly have been fully understood as a
significant symbol, and his parable of the 3 measures of meal. 2000 years
ago Jesus knew he had unfinished business; there were 2 more measures of
meal to be leavened.
He told the
disciples that he had to return to Papa so that he could prepare a place for
us, so that he could come back to receive us into that place, Heaven. So, to
our ego-mind perception, he did ‘leave.’ But he also told the disciples
that he had asked for another comforter to take his place during his
apparent absence: the Spirit of Truth, or Holy Spirit, or Holy Breath. We
are now reminded that Jesus is fully identified with the Holy Spirit, the
Voice for God, so in that sense he has never left us, even though our little
self perceives it otherwise.
Whichever
way we look at it, assuredly he is now (back) here with us all, as evinced
by his giving to us, through Helen Schucman, ACIM; by his manifesting to and
speaking/commun(icat)ing with Olga Park and with Murdo Macdonald-Bayne in
the first half of the 20th century, with me since 1967, and with
untold numbers of others. In truth, of course, he is manifesting to and
speaking/commun(icat)ing with us all, all the time, because we are
all one, with him, in the Sonship, so it could not be otherwise.
The absence
of awareness by any of us of that reality does not make it not so, any more
than the reality of countless radio and other waves filling the atmosphere
all around us and passing right through us is not so just because we are
unaware of them so doing. We can have awareness of them if we equip
ourselves with the correct receiving device and attune to the appropriate
wavelength, and this is true with the speaking/commun(icat)ing with us by
Jesus and/or the Holy Spirit. I know this of a certainty because I have
experienced it for over 40 years, enabled by the attuning and receiving
device called Mystical
Communion with Christ.
Here is an
extract from chapter 8, section III of ACIM about holy encounters:
III. The Holy Encounter
Glory to God in the
highest, and to you because He has so willed it. Ask and it shall be given
you, because it has already
been given. Ask for
light and learn that you are light. If you want understanding and enlightenment you will
learn it, because your decision to learn it is the decision to listen to the
Teacher Who knows of light, and can therefore teach it to you. There is no
limit on your learning because there is no limit on your mind
(unless we
choose to believe otherwise, and therefore appear to self-impose
whilst under ego-mind domination; and we are always free to deny and
choose again with the Holy Spirit).
There is no
limit on His teaching because He was created to teach. Understanding His
function perfectly He fulfils it perfectly, because that is His joy and
yours.
When you meet
anyone, remember it is a holy encounter. As you see him you will see
yourself. As you treat him you will treat yourself. As you think of him you
will think of yourself. Never forget this, for in him you will find yourself
or lose yourself
(because we
are all one).
Whenever two Sons of God meet, they are given another chance at salvation.
Do not leave anyone without giving salvation to him and receiving it
yourself
(by
practising - silently, within your mind; salvation has nothing to do with
proselytising! - true forgiveness and blessing/releasing them into the care
of Holy Spirit).
For I am always
there with you, in remembrance of
you.
Everyone is looking
for himself and for the power and glory he thinks he has lost. Whenever you
are with anyone, you have another opportunity to find them. Your power and
glory are in him because they are yours. The ego tries to find them in
yourself alone, because it does not know where to look. The Holy Spirit
teaches you that if you look only at your(little)self
you cannot find your(Big)self,
because that is not what you are. Whenever you are with a brother, you are
learning what you are because you are teaching what you are. He will respond
either with pain or with joy, depending on which teacher
(ego or
Holy Spirit)
you are following. He will be imprisoned or released according to your
decision, and so will you. Never forget your responsibility to him, because
it is your responsibility to yourself. Give him his place in the Kingdom and
you will have yours.
(As we remind ourself that there is only one of us, this gradually becomes
first nature to us and we don’t even need to stop and think about it
because our Holy Spirit Mind is taking over our thought processes, thus
dispelling the hold over us that ego has had for so long. Hard to think of
better news!)
God’s power and
glory are everywhere, and you cannot be excluded from them. The ego teaches
that your strength is in you alone. The Holy Spirit teaches that all
strength is in God and therefore in you. Through His power and glory all your wrong
decisions are undone completely, releasing you and your brother from every
imprisoning thought any part of the Sonship holds
(because we
are all one). Wrong decisions have no power, because they are not true.
The imprisonment they seem to produce is no more true than they are.
Power and glory
belong to God alone. So do you. God gives whatever belongs to Him because He
gives of Himself, and everything belongs to Him. Giving of yourself is the
function He gave you
(as
demonstrated by Jesus, who is our Way-shower). Fulfilling it
perfectly will let you remember what you
have of Him, and by
this you will remember also what you
are in Him. You
cannot be powerless to do this, because this is your power. Glory is God’s
gift to you, because that is what He is. See this glory everywhere to
remember what you are.
Because we
have the perfect example of all this in Jesus of Galilee, we know that all
this is achievable by/for all of us, because we are like him (however much
to the contrary things may appear to our upside-down, ego-dominated mind) so
that we may all be re-unified – made one again - with him in the
Sonship.
As we all
know, ego will do everything it can to cause us to resist choosing with
Jesus/Holy Spirit and thus be shown how to break the cycle of birth and
death. For those of us who have chosen to eschew everything to do with
Jesus and the Holy Spirit because we associate Them too closely with
religion, and we abandoned orthodox, institutionalised religion because of
its un-Jesus-like ways, we will think this is our own, rational,
right-minded thinking. Let us see what Arten says to Gary in The
Disappearance of the Universe:
Most people,
especially nice, spiritual people, don’t know about the murderous thought
system that runs this universe, or the hatred that’s underneath the surface
of their mind. Nor do most of them want to know. Most people just want
everything to be hunky-dory. You can’t blame them for wanting peace, but
real peace is found by undoing the ego, not by covering it over.
Fortunately, we have a trustworthy, fully empowered, unconditionally loving,
rationally-thinking, Holy Spirit-minded, no nonsense guide to lead us, at our pace, in finding the Way out from this otherwise endless nightmare,
and who can collapse the ‘time’ it would otherwise take us to do it.
Love and
blessings,
Brian
Longhurst
February 27th 2008
Dear
Friends,
True
forgiveness, healing of broken relationships and Mind-to-Mind communing are
all subjects we have discussed separately before, but they are so closely
linked as to be aspects of the same process in our endeavour Homeward. The
fact they have been mentioned before does not mean further consideration may
not be helpful, for the whole question of eternal reality and how to get
back to it is of such all-consuming importance, and so alien to the
upside-down thinking by which we are encumbered in our sensory dream-world,
that we need constant reminders of what is right-minded thinking in order to
get our minds re-trained for resonance with our true Self.
True
forgiveness has the objective of healing broken relationships because all
the while Papa’s one Son believes himself to be broken, or divided, or
separated into ever-increasing numbers of individual pieces, he cannot
experience the wholeness that is his true reality; and Mind-to-Mind
communing is the mechanism by which the process of true forgiveness takes
place.
Let us
establish some definitions here, for clarity. When the word ‘Mind’ is used
with a capital M, it is to indicate Big-Self, or Christ Mind. When it is
shown in all lower case, it means anything less than Christ Mind, and that,
by definition, can only be the part of our mind that appears to have been
split off, and is upside-down, seeing everything that is the true reality of
Eternity as its opposite, which includes time and place; past, present and
future as linear unfoldment; everything being outside ourself; fear, death,
judgement etc.
When I
first began practising the Mystical Communion with Christ, back in 1967, my
conscious mind was definitely ‘lower case.’ But he with whom I earnestly
aspired and desired to commune was definitely a capital M! So, that was
mind-to-Mind communing. Jesus’ objective is to restore our minds
to a re-unified state of one-Mindedness with his, because he loves us
unconditionally, sees past our apparent errors, and he knows that this is
our true, magnificent, unlimited, all-empowered, pure, innocent
nature. The word ‘innocent’ is used here because it is the false belief in
sin and guilt - which engenders fear – that keeps us, one could say, ‘small
minded.’
Papa’s one
Son – that’s all of us, re-unified – is innocent, and it is restoration to
fullness of remembrance of that truth that will transform us from
small-mindedness back to Big-Mindedness. All the while we believe we are
guilty, sinners, fearful of punishment from a vengeful god, we will be stuck
on the carousel of small mindedness; seeing everything upside down and
inevitably bewildered about the true reality of Eternity and our
relationship to It and Its Creator.
As soon as we are ready to accept that
we are – already, and always have been - the same as Jesus so ably
demonstrated (and still does) himself to be, we begin the metamorphosis of
mind to Mind process, because then Holy Spirit – which is our real Self,
with Whom we are indivisibly one - has our authorisation to begin the
process on our behalf. There are transitional steps from small mind to Big
Mind, and these are accessed by allowing Jesus/Holy Spirit to correct
our thinking from upside-down to right-side up, or right mindedness,
which will lead us back to Christ Mindedness. It is that willingness that is so all important to the commencement of the process
and our progress within the process.
That
willingness was something that I was more than, well… willing, to allow,
because I trusted Jesus from day one. I had a major advantage from the
example of seeing how implicitly Olga trusted him and how, as a result, he
had been able to lead, counsel, inspire, illumine her mind with spiritual
enlightenment. She told me her job was to get me ‘hooked up’ with Jesus,
and if I am able to assist any of my fellow travellers to become so
‘hooked,’ then perhaps I shall become a ‘fisher of men.’
So,
although we start out in our communing with Jesus and/or the Holy Spirit as
mind-to-Mind communing, Their job is the transformation of our mind, which
is asleep but appears to be awake, to our Big Mind, that seems to be
asleep but is awake, by right thinking. That transformation process always
begins at/from the place where we perceive ourself as being, at a pace with
which we are comfortable, with no pressure, because, unlike most Earth-life
tutors, They are infinitely patient and unconditionally loving, not to
mention all-knowing and wise!
They see
through all our time and place illusions and see – know – who we
really are, because illusions are nothing, and truth cannot see nothing
because it does not exist. We believe they exist, but like all
dreams, when we wake up, the dreams are gone.
Because
with our ego-dominated ‘Earth mind’ we see everything as upside-down, or the
opposite of the true, eternal reality, when we first encounter the true
reality, it seems upside-down to the ego-conditioned part of our
mind. It is therefore a great temptation to dismiss truth of Eternity as
nonsense, meaningless psycho-babble, just as ego earnestly wants us to do.
For example, the fundamental truth that Papa has but one Son, seems a very
hard concept to get our head around when wherever we look there appear to be
others, all with bodies, brains, minds, separate from us.
This is
where mind-to-Mind communing will set us back on the path to right
thinking and right perceiving, because it will lead us to the fact
that we are able to experience commun(icat)ing with our brother Jesus
mind-to-Mind. This, or rather, he, will gradually help us to see things
more and more right-side up. It has to be a one step at a time process
because if we have been standing on our metaphorical head all our lives,
inevitably we will have become accustomed to it, and getting right-side up
all in one go would be disorientating, to say the least. But one step at a
time, according to our pace of readiness, he will safely, caringly,
lovingly lead us back to sanity and clarity of vision.
And when we
have experienced mind-to-Mind communing with Jesus we will realise we are
equally able to commune Mind-to-Mind with any brother, including and
especially those with whom we have a broken relationship, with the Kingdomly
objective of healing that broken relationship. This is possible because,
with Holy Spirit help, we bypass the mind of the healee and reach the Mind,
our relationship with which is already healed. Then, by our BLASER
blessing them, Holy Spirit permeates the ‘shell’ of their ego-mind with our
true forgiveness/blessings and this strengthens the inner Being, weakening
the apparent ego-hold connection, thus enabling/assisting the healee (which,
don’t forget, is also ourself) to ‘hatch’ out of the shell.
The example
of apparent separation into many individuals causes us to see blame, guilt,
fear, error, attack as coming from someone else – ‘out there,’ or ‘over
there.’ But because this is an error of perception with our ego-mind-made
body senses, when we see a fault as somebody else’s, we are seeing
incorrectly, and this will lead us to judge/blame others for our
misfortunes. It is errors/judging based on incorrect perceiving that
Jesus/Holy Spirit will correct for us, if we are willing to allow Them to do
it for us, for assuredly, we cannot accomplish this of ourself.
Actually,
it is not easy to accomplish much whilst standing on one’s head!! The only
thing we will accomplish is to see an upside-down projection of ourself in
the form of others around us, so if we see another behaving in a way that
appears to us to be insane, we are seeing only ourself and judging ourself
accordingly, which I feel most of us would agree is in itself an act of
insanity. Better to say, this is a misperception, therefore, that fellow,
who is a projection of my own misperceived self, is as innocent (or,
if we still choose to see with ego eyes, as guilty) as myself.
Here is
what Jesus reminds us about these matters in ACIM:
If you point
out the errors of your brother’s ego you must be seeing
(those
errors)
through
yours, because the Holy Spirit does not perceive his errors. This
must be true, since
there is no communication between the ego and the Holy Spirit. The ego makes
no sense, and the Holy Spirit does not attempt to understand anything that
arises from it. Since He does not understand it, He does not judge it,
knowing that nothing the ego makes means anything.
(As we start to see things right-side up, this
truth becomes more and more apparent until we are eventually seeing
everything with the true-vision of Christ Mind and the things of this world
we valued/believed were important gradually become meaningless to us. This
is correction of error of perception).
When you
react at all to errors, you are not listening to the Holy Spirit. He has
merely disregarded them, and if you attend to them you are not hearing Him.
If you do not hear Him, you are listening to your ego and making as little
sense as the brother whose errors you perceive.
This cannot be correction. Yet it is more than merely a lack of
correction for him. It is the giving up of correction in yourself.
When a
brother behaves insanely, you can heal him only by
(being
resolute, one-pointed in our commitment to)
perceiving
the sanity in him. If you perceive his errors and accept them, you are
accepting yours. If you want to give yours over to the Holy Spirit, you
must do this with his. Unless this becomes the one way in which
you handle all errors, you cannot understand how all errors are undone.
How is this different from telling you that what you teach you learn? Your brother is as right as you are, and if you think he is wrong you are
condemning yourself.
You
cannot correct yourself. Is it possible, then, for you to correct another?
Yet you can
(are able, if we so choose, to)
see him
truly, because it is possible for you to see yourself truly. It is not up to
you to change your brother, but merely to accept him as he
(actually, not apparently)
is.
His errors do not come from the truth that is in him, and only
this truth is yours. His errors cannot change this, and can have no
effect at all on the truth in you. To perceive errors in anyone, and to
react to them as if they were real, is to make them real to you. You
will not escape paying the price for this, not because you are being
punished for it, but because you are following the wrong guide and will
therefore lose your way.
(This makes
it easy to see how our upside-down thinking led us to mistakenly believe a
vengeful god was out to punish us).
Your
brother’s errors are not of him, any more than yours are of you. Accept his
errors as real, and you have attacked yourself. If you would find your way
and keep it, see only truth beside you
(because truth is what Jesus is, and we are
all, in truth, like him)
for you walk
together. The Holy Spirit in you forgives all things in you and in your
brother. His errors are forgiven with yours.
The Holy
Spirit forgives everything because God created everything. Do not undertake
His function, or you will forget yours... You do not understand how to use
it. He will teach you how to see yourself without condemnation, by learning
how to look on everything without it. Condemnation will then not be real to
you, and all your errors
(of perception, of judgement, of condemnation)
will
be forgiven.
(Extracted from T-9.III; my emboldening and
underlining, for emphasis).
And then we
will see, reflected in our brother, our Self, for whom and what we really
are: pure and innocent; Christ, the one Son of our Father Creator.
To true
vision,
Brian
Longhurst
March 5th 2008
Dear
Friends,
Time and eternity are both in your mind, and will conflict until you
perceive time solely as a means to regain eternity. You cannot do this as
long as you believe that anything happening to you is caused by factors
outside yourself.
This is
from ACIM, Text, page 181. Jesus is not renowned for beating about the
bush, or equivocating, in stark contrast to our split off, ego mind, whose
motto could be, ‘Once I was indecisive, but now I am not so sure.’
If we
believe we are here in an illusory realm, and that things happen to
us, it is time to wake up to the actuality that this is the opposite of our
true Self and Dwelling Place, because this dream is hell and our true Home
is Heaven.
Many of us
may feel, ‘Well, if this hell, it isn’t as bad as all that, so what’s the
big deal? I am content to hang around a while longer and live out my time,
and then we’ll see what’s so brilliant about this much-vaunted
Heaven.’ There are two observations to make in response to that. First is
that it is an illusion that we are separate from each other (not to speak of
God, for the moment); we are one, so if our brother is hurting (we
could try Darfur for size, but there are dozens of wars, genocides, plus
religious, social, emotional, economic oppression and deprivation, murder,
mayhem, political and commercial intrigue and malfeasance happening in every
country) then we are hurting. It may not appear that way in the time
and place misperception of things, but time is illusory in that it appears
to be happening one event after another, in a linear progression. So in any
linear ‘time slot’ all may appear rosy for many of us, even though just
round the corner awfulness is taking place.
However, in
the reality of Eternity, in which there is no time (or place), everything
that has ever appeared to happen, or appears to be happening, or will appear
to happen, has already happened, all at once, because there is only
the eternal ‘always.’ If we ignore the apparent hurting in others, thinking
that they are separate from us, and we are not hurting, so we are all right,
we are missing the fundamental truth that there is only one of us, therefore
all the while anyone is hurting, we are all hurting. Hence
Jesus’ admonition to treat others as we wish to be treated.
The second
observation is that any one incarnation, or ‘act,’ is but a tiny fragment of
a much longer (illusorily speaking) drama, playing out over countless acts.
What is being enacted in what we perceive as our ‘present’ act is a
continuance from a ‘previous’ act or acts. Of course, most of us have no
conscious awareness of ‘previous’ acts, but it is a certainty that we are
what we appear to be now because of previous acts’ decisions/choices,
and we bring the karma from those decisions with us in a ‘seed memory,’ or
dormant form, to the present, and subsequent acts.
That seed
memory begins to germinate and unfold within us, usually as we reach
adolescence, affecting our present choices, preferences, decisions, and
bringing us to unconsciously call into our presence the circumstances of
unresolved karma from previous acts, so that we have another opportunity to
outwork them and heal broken relationships. If we do not take advantage of
that renewed opportunity, then assuredly we will have to call another
opportunity, and another and another, until finally, inevitably, we realise
what we are doing and choose the path that will heal the relationship.
Until that
happens, which it eventually will, ego keeps us going round and round
on the carousel, thus ensuring its continued existence in our separated,
little minds, in the only realm it can appear to have any existence – time
and place (including the etheric counterpart of Earth, so laying aside a
body at the end of an act does not mean we are free of ego). Ego does not
want us to discern this truth because it is the beginning of its undoing,
and it is full of subterfuges, for which we fall countless times without
realising it.
Because
time and place is a dualistic state of mind, in which there is good and bad,
rich and poor, male and female etc., in some acts of our carousel drama we
may appear to be comfortable, safe, happy (relatively speaking, because no
‘happiness’ under ego domination can be real happiness, since that is
only ours in the Eternity of Heaven and is immeasurably greater than
anything resembling happiness to our little mind). But duality is
constantly changing, so a swing toward positive will inevitably swing back
to the negative in one form or another, in one act or another.
Some will
ask, ‘But surely, if we have swung toward the positive, it must be because
that is where past decisions have taken us, so we must be on the way Home?’
Assuredly, we are all on the way Home; some are nearer than others, but the
‘fact’ that we appear to be here in an illusion is proof that we still have
unresolved issues, and being here is, definitively, an opportunity to
take strides Homeward. By taking those strides in the company of One who
knows how to get Home, we get there safer and immeasurably quicker,
collapsing time as we progress.
All this
activity of calling into our presence opportunities for healing
relationships, so we can be restored to our true state of oneness in the
Sonship, is the leavening process, causing outstanding karmic issues
to rise up to the surface of our consciousness, by the activity of the
‘yeast’ (which is the Holy Spirit), so they can be resolved. The leavening
process/activity is misperceived as the ‘chaos time’ when all around us
appears to be going more and more insane. This is a definitive indicator
that the leavening of the third measure of meal is getting seriously under
way, bringing untold numbers of forgiveness opportunities to us all, so that
time can begin to be brought to an ever-faster rate of collapse.
This means
that rather than taking millions more years of ‘Earth time’ before the
apparently material universe will disappear from our awareness as we awaken
to Heaven’s reality, it will be by the end of the Aquarian age, in
approximately 2,000 years. That rate of progress is not arithmetic, but
logarithmic, so what may seem slow in 2008 (even though the pace in 2008 is
many times faster than a generation ago) is actually accelerating at an
ever-increasing pace.
Of course,
at the present time, ego is still predominant in the consciousness of most
of humanity, so all this leavening activity (forgiveness opportunities) is
perceived as insanity, causing those of us who don’t know about the
GRP to react with dismay, outrage, frustration, hopelessness. That is just
how ego wants it, and for the majority, it will continue that way for a
while. However, that majority is gradually being chipped away, as the
Spirit of Truth permeates the shell of ego-mind and reaches the real Self
within, bringing an awakening. This process is assisted at an exponential
level by each one of us who recognises what is actually happening –
i.e. leavening – and PCBs (prays for, commits and blesses) our fellows for
their awakening to the truth of who we really are.
Jesus tells
us that when all around us is turmoil and despair and collapse, to then rejoice, for it is a sign of the certainty that the Kingdom is at hand,
even at the doors. We have, as always, two choices in this matter: to go
with Jesus and rejoice, (if he is rejoicing, could it be he knows something
we don’t?), and at the same time, engage in a little time collapsing, or
head right on back to that mire of despond, for a spot more wallowing. The
latter is ego’s choice for us, even if we think we have taken a temporary
detour via the amusement park, and ego has had it all its own way for too
long. The old definition of insanity is to keep repeating a behaviour
pattern and expect a different result. Time to try something different,
don’t you think?
Love and
blessings,
Brian
Longhurst
March 12th 2008
Dear
Friends,
I have
often thought that humans are like computers, in that most of us who are
working with computers are doing so just at the outer, superficial level;
writing letters, sending e-mails, surfing the internet, playing games,
running accounts (domestic and/or commercial). All things that are to do
with what’s ‘out there.’ Yet almost all of what is going on with a computer
is at a level with which most of us have little understanding, with
operating systems and software programmes that are immeasurably more
detailed and complex than meets the eye of the average user. And all are
hidden away in the inner, esoteric workings of the computer, largely
inaccessible and completely mysterious to ‘ordinary mortals.’
And, if the
computer is incorrectly programmed, (not to speak of incorrectly used
by those of us who are not very computer-literate) the output we can achieve
from it is going to be garbled, inaccurate, fraught with errors. Not a lot
of use for what we are hoping to achieve with a computer. And since we are
using an analogy here, neither is our body, incorrectly programmed and
operated under split-off, ego-mind dominated control, going to accomplish so
many of the things that we could accomplish if programmed and operated
according to right-minded user application. Yet so many of us believe we
know just what we are doing and need no support from the I.T. experts,
blithely continuing along the course that is assuredly going to end up with
a crash, heedless of the benefits and protection that can be provided by
some sensibly applied anti-virus software and oblivious to the fact that the
ego virus took over the running of our system on day one, causing countless
errors, most of which we don't even notice.
Such an
analogy may be less than perfect but it does lead to the suggestion that
such determination to continue blindly down a path to nowhere, which
humanity has been doing since the beginning of time, smacks not just of
foolishness but also of arrogance. Spiritually speaking, here is some
powerful logic from Jesus on arrogance and the alternative:
Arrogance is the denial of love, because love shares and arrogance
withholds. As long as both appear to you to be desirable the concept of
choice, which is not of God, will remain with you. While this is not true in
eternity it is
true in time, so that while time lasts in your mind there will be choices.
Time itself is your choice. If you would remember eternity, you must look
only on the eternal. If you allow yourself to become preoccupied with the
temporal, you are living in time. As always, your choice is determined by
what you value. Time and eternity cannot both be real, because they
contradict each other. If you will accept only what is timeless as real, you
will begin to understand eternity and make it yours.
(ACIM,
T.192)
Here, in
time and place, we are faced with myriad choices every day and most of us
think (believe) it is wise to use judgement in making our choices. Yet
Jesus counsels us that this is error; that Wisdom is not judgement; it is
the relinquishment of judgement. And he makes a very logical,
compelling, powerful case for it:
Judgement, like other devices by which the world of illusions is maintained,
is totally misunderstood by the world. It is actually confused with wisdom,
and substitutes for truth. As the world uses the term, an individual is
capable of “good” and “bad” judgement, and his education aims at
strengthening the former and minimising the latter. There is, however,
considerable confusion about what these categories mean. What is “good”
judgement to one is “bad” judgement to another. Further, even the same
person classifies the same action as showing “good” judgement at one time
and “bad” judgement at another time. Nor can any consistent criteria for
determining what these categories are be really taught. At any time the
student may disagree with what his would-be teacher says about them, and the
teacher himself may well be inconsistent in what he believes. “Good”
judgement, in these terms, does not mean anything. No more does “bad.”
It is necessary for the teacher of God to realise, not that he should not
judge, but that he cannot. In giving up judgement, he is merely giving up
what he did not have. He gives up an illusion; or better, he has an illusion
of giving up. He has actually merely become more honest. Recognising that
judgement was always impossible for him, he no longer attempts it. This is
no sacrifice. On the contrary, he puts himself in a position where judgement
through him
rather than by
him can occur. And this judgement is neither “good” nor “bad.” It is the
only judgement there is, and it is only one: “God’s Son is guiltless, and
sin does not exist.”
The aim of our curriculum, unlike the goal of the world’s learning, is the
recognition that judgement in the usual sense is impossible. This is not an
opinion but a fact. In order to judge anything rightly, one would have to be
fully aware of an inconceivably wide range of things; past, present and to
come. One would have to recognise in advance all the effects of his
judgements on everyone and everything involved in them in any way. And one
would have to be certain there is no distortion in his perception, so that
his judgement would be wholly fair to everyone on whom it rests now and in
the future. Who is in a position to do this? Who except in grandiose
fantasies would claim this for himself?
Remember how many times you thought you knew all the “facts” you needed for
judgement, and how wrong you were? Is there anyone who has not had this
experience? Would you know how many times you merely thought you were right,
without ever realising you were wrong? Why would you choose such an
arbitrary basis for decision-making? Wisdom is not judgement; it is the
relinquishment of judgement. Make then but one more judgement. It is this:
There is Someone with you Whose judgement is perfect. He does know all the
facts; past, present and to come. He does know all the effects of His
judgement on everyone and everything involved in any way. And He is wholly
fair to everyone, for there is no distortion in His perception.
Therefore lay judgement down, not with regret but with a sigh of gratitude.
Now are you free of a burden so great that you could merely stagger and fall
down beneath it. And it was all illusion. Nothing more. Now can the teacher
of God rise up unburdened, and walk lightly on. Yet it is not only this that
is his benefit. His sense of care is gone, for he has none. He has given it
away, along with judgement. He gave himself to Him Whose judgement he has
chosen now to trust, instead of his own. Now he makes no mistakes. His Guide
is sure. And where he came to judge, he comes to bless. Where now he laughs,
he used to come to weep.
It is not difficult to relinquish judgement. But it is difficult indeed to
try to keep it. The teacher of God lays it down happily the instant he
recognises its cost. All of the ugliness he sees about him is its outcome.
All of the pain he looks upon is its result. All of the loneliness and sense
of loss; of passing time and growing hopelessness; of sickening despair and
fear of death; all these have come of it. And now he knows that these things
need not be. Not one is true. For he has given up their cause, and they,
which never were but the effects of his mistaken choice, have fallen from
him. Teacher of God, this step will bring you peace. Can it be difficult to
want but this?
(M-10)
Effectively, Jesus is speaking to us here about
acceptance.
Acceptance that we cannot judge meaningfully, so the only recourse is to
commit true judgement into the care of our Big Self, which is Holy Spirit,
who knows everything, which our little self certainly does not (it only thinks it does
J)
We can only
move into peace, true peace, the peace of God, which passeth all
understanding, which is inner peace, through acceptance. Ego always
wants to change everything, but Spirit – God – is perfect and therefore,
unchangeable. We, with our incomplete understanding, do well not to change
anything, but simply allow Holy Spirit to change but one thing: our perspective, or awareness of what is reality. We are seeing, i.e.
perceiving, unreality and believe it is real. If we allow Holy Spirit to
open our eyes – vision – to what is real, the unreality disappears.
It is about
inner awareness, inner recognition, inner remembrance. Inner is the key
because there is no without; only within. Inner is always. Always with us,
unchanging and unchangeable. There is nothing to do; only to be, what we
are, have always been and always will be. What we are already has
everything. Only by the mistaken belief that we are separate and are
lacking, could we possibly think we have to do anything, in order to get
what we believe we are lacking.
By
adopting, choosing an attitude of willingness to be accepting that there is
but one judgement we should make and that we are unable to make any other,
we will be on the Path back to freedom, back to our true Home in Eternity.
That one judgement is that God’s Son is innocent. Period. No ifs,
ands or buts. Those words belong to ego and have no place in the Kingdom.
Only when
we are able to unerringly see that God’s Son is innocent will we be able to
see the face of Christ in all our brethren, without exception. And that
face will be a reflection of our own face. Then we will be free of the
heavy, burdensome yoke of judgement and will know the truth. And that truth
will have set us free.
Love, peace
and joy be with us all,
Brian
Longhurst
March 19th 2008
Dear
Friends,
We are
reminded in ACIM that everyone is either expressing love or calling
for it. There are no alternatives. In our true Home there is
no call for love because all we are is love, and cannot but express,
or extend it. Here, in the unreal world of time and place, we have allowed
ourselves to forget this reality and believe instead that love (i.e. the
unconditional love of Papa, our Father Creator) is missing from our life,
causing us to feel lost, lonely, hurting, fearful, deprived.
As the Jets
say to Officer Krupke in West Side Story, ‘We’re depraved on account of
we’re deprived.’ When we have all those negative feelings/perceptions we
are inclined to see people and events as adding to them, so we feel
threatened. A wounded animal will often attack if one tries to help it,
believing attack is the best form of defence and being fearful that even one
who is trying to help is a threat to its already endangered condition. This
is how most of us behave some, or even much of the time and we are rapidly
creating a culture that endorses and engenders it, with common courtesies —
outward signs of goodwill and harmlessness — becoming perceived as ‘old
fashioned’ and therefore outdated.
It is
therefore not hard to see such a response as ‘biting the hand that feeds
it,’ or an ungrateful response to a well-intentioned gesture. Ego wants
us to react in like manner, thus furthering the apparent separation from
each other and from Home. This has been going on since the beginning of
time. Now, as we turn the corner onto the home straight of the journey
Home, the count-down to the end of time, with infinite help, love,
guidance, patience from the Marshal of the Journey and his helpers, more and
more of us begin to awaken to the truth of Eternity and are able to dispel
this ‘lie of satan,’ by responding to the call for love — even, and
particularly, when it is expressed as attack — with love.
Nobody ever
said this Kingdomly response is easy, at least, or especially, to start
with; but it is achievable, with practise, with commitment and with
remembering. Ego wants us to forget and keep on in the same old rut,
ensuring further circuits on the carousel. The Holy Spirit knows that
remembering will benefit us and our brethren, get us out of that rut and off
that carousel. Permanently. This is as good as it gets because that
carousel is not such a merry-go-round as we have thought, and an
immeasurably more magnificent, eternally joyful experience awaits us. This
has nothing to do with ‘dying’ before we can ‘get there’ because the Kingdom
of Heaven is right here, right now.
Jesus
reminds us that we do not (with our ego-dominated mind) respond to anything
directly, but to our interpretation of it, and that thus, we
perceive our response as justified by our interpretation. He says that we
react to our interpretations — such as a call for love being attack — as if
they were correct, yet there is (and can only be) one interpretation of
motivation that makes any sense. This is the Holy Spirit’s judgement, and
this requires no effort at all on our part. That judgement is that our
brother is innocent, as are we, and that all perceptions/interpretations to
the contrary are keeping us unwittingly trapped, imprisoned in time and
place. Not just for the duration of our present act, but the next, and the
next, and the next — indefinitely — until we change our mind.
Jesus goes
on to say (Text, 215), that every loving thought is true, and that
everything else is an appeal for help and healing, regardless of the form
that appeal takes (e.g. an attack). Can anyone, he asks, be
justified in responding with anger to a brother’s plea for help? No
response, he says, can be appropriate except the willingness to give
loving help to him, for this, and only this, is what he is asking for…
…Offer him anything else, and you are assuming the right to
attack his reality by interpreting it as you see fit. Perhaps the danger of
this to your own mind is not yet fully apparent. If you believe that an
appeal for help is something else you will react to something else. Your
response will therefore be inappropriate to reality as it is, but not to
your perception of it.
(So, we are confusing reality, or truth, with our upside-down, ego-muddled
interpretation of it. Another point on the scorecard for ego, each time we
allow it).
There is nothing to prevent you from recognizing all calls for
help as exactly what they are except your own imagined need to
attack. It is only this that makes you willing to engage in endless
“battles” with reality, in which you deny the reality of the need for
healing by making it unreal. You would not do this except for your
unwillingness to accept reality as it is, and which you therefore
withhold from yourself.
It is surely good advice to tell you not to judge what you do
not understand.
(Of course
we think we do understand, hence the attacking response. Yet, had we
attuned to our right — or Holy Spirit — mind, we would have seen
through the apparent attack and realised that what we interpreted as
attack was in truth a call for help). …If you are
unwilling to perceive an appeal for help as what it is, it is because you
are unwilling to give help and to receive it.
(Such a
posture cannot be of God’s Son but can only be of ego. This will assuredly
help us to distinguish whether we are listening to the Holy Spirit part of
our mind or the ego-dominated part, thus enabling us to choose again).
To fail to recognize
a call for help is to refuse
(to receive)
help. Would
you maintain that you do not need it? Yet this is what you are maintaining
when you refuse to recognize a brother’s appeal, for only by answering his
appeal can you
be helped. Deny him your help and you will not recognize God’s Answer to you. The Holy Spirit does not need your help in interpreting motivation,
but you do need His.
Only appreciation is
an appropriate response to your brother. Gratitude is due him for both his
loving thoughts and his appeals for help, for both are capable of
bringing love into your awareness if you perceive them truly. And all
your sense of strain comes from your attempts not to do just this.
How simple, then, is God’s plan for salvation. There is but one response to
reality, for reality evokes no conflict at all. There is but one Teacher of
reality, Who understands what it is. He does not change His Mind about
reality because reality does not change. Although your interpretations of
reality are meaningless in your divided state, His remain consistently true.
He gives them to you because they are
for you. Do not
attempt to “help” a brother in your
(ego-mind)
way, for you cannot help yourself.
But hear his call for the Help of God,
and you will recognize your own need for the Father.
Your interpretations of your brother’s needs are your
interpretation of yours. By giving help you are asking for it,
and if you perceive but one need in yourself you will be healed.
(What
better motivation can there be for giving help in response to an appeal for
help, even if that appeal is disguised as an attack?)
…Every appeal you answer in the Name of Christ brings the remembrance of
your Father closer to your awareness. For the sake of your need, then, hear
every call for help as what it is, so God can answer
you.
(Is there one amongst us who can be insensitive to such compelling logic?)
By applying the Holy
Spirit’s interpretation of the reactions of others more and more
consistently, you will gain an increasing awareness that His criteria are
equally applicable to you. For to
recognize fear is not enough to escape from it, although the recognition is
necessary to demonstrate the need for escape. The Holy Spirit must
still translate the fear into truth. If you were left with the fear, once
you had recognized it, you would have taken a step away from reality,
not towards it. Yet we have repeatedly emphasised the need to recognize
fear and face it without disguise as a crucial step in the undoing of the
ego. Consider how well the Holy Spirit’s interpretation of the motives
of others will serve you then. Having taught you to accept only
loving thoughts in others and to regard everything else as an appeal for
help, He has taught you that fear itself is an appeal for help…
Fear is a symptom of your own deep sense of loss. If when you
perceive it in others you learn to supply the loss, the basic cause of fear
is removed. Thereby you teach yourself that fear does not exist in
you.
(Could
there be a better motivation for choosing to see a brother’s attack as a
call for help, and responding lovingly to that call?)
The means for removing it
(fear)
is in yourself, and you have demonstrated this by giving it
(a loving
response).
Fear and love are the only emotions of which you are capable. One is false,
for it was made out of denial; and denial depends on the belief in what is
denied for its own existence. …Defences that do not work at all are
automatically discarded. If you raise what fear conceals
(love)
to clear-cut unequivocal predominance, fear becomes
meaningless. You have denied its power to conceal love, which was its only
purpose. The veil
(of fear)
that you have drawn
across the face of love has disappeared.
If you would look upon love, which
is the world’s
reality, how could you do better than to recognize, in every defence against
it (love),
the underlying appeal for
it? And how could you better learn of its reality than by answering the
appeal for it by giving it? …Thus does the Holy Spirit replace fear
with love and translate error into truth. And thus will you learn of Him how
to replace your dream of separation with the fact of unity.
For the separation is only the denial of union, and correctly
interpreted, attests to your eternal knowledge that union is
true.
(Emboldening and some italics are mine, for emphasis).
Here’s to
the Resurrection of all our minds back into oneness in the Sonship,
for a truly glorious, never-ending celebration of our ascension back to
Papa.
Many
blessings for a happy and peaceful Easter,
Brian
Longhurst
March 26th 2008
Dear
Friends,
Looking at
Easter through the vision of Jesus and the Holy Spirit it is seen as being
about the Resurrection. Looking at Easter through the perception of ego, it
is about a conditionally-loving god requiring a blood sacrifice,
crucifixion, death. Jesus knew there had to be demonstrated to his
followers, and the wider world — using a mechanism (sacrifice), with which
the Israel people were well familiar, from Moses’ time and before — a transformation of the way the people of Earth ‘see’ God, by taking,
using, blood sacrifice (himself) to show how it is, in fact, meaningless.
It is
meaningless, Jesus knew, because we are eternal, indestructible, innocent,
and therefore sacrifice is totally unnecessary and inappropriate (except to
the upside-down, insane ‘logic’ of ego) — and the Bible says so (Hos. 6:6;
Mt. 12:7). The Resurrection is of not just Jesus, 2,000 years ago — though
that historical event was/is a symbol, a precursor, a prophecy, a herald —
but of the Sonship of Papa. The entire Sonship; you and me; all of
us who mistakenly perceive ourselves as separate, little, guilty,
destructible, weak, limited, imprisoned within a perishable body.
Assuredly,
Jesus did resurrect his Earthly body — so that he could demonstrate
resurrection and therefore eternal, indestructible life, in a way and at a
level which was discernible to those who experienced his resurrected
presence afterwards. He was functioning from the reality of Eternity, in
which time is neither real nor meaningful, even though he knew that at that time (and until the 3rd measure of meal began the
leavening process), this would not be understood by his sleeping, dreaming
brethren. But he also knew that this did not matter because the
understanding of the meaning of the Resurrection will be the result, the
culmination, the effect of the GRP, not its cause.
That
meaning is that it is the Mind, not the body of the entire Sonship
that is being resurrected, by and through the GRP — which ACIM refers to as
the Atonement (At-onement; see
Message of Encouragement dated December 20th 2006 for
explanation of this) — the fulcrum of which is true forgiveness. For as it
says in The Disappearance of the Universe:
True forgiveness is the
real purpose of life
(here, on Earth)
but
you’ve got to choose it in order to make it yours. Remember, practising
real forgiveness can’t help but lead you home.
Sacrifice
is perceived by ego mind as a necessary propitiation for guilt. Without
guilt even ego could not make a case for sacrifice! Well, that’s good,
because there is no guilt in reality; only imagined, falsely
believed. How can we — anyone — be guilty of something we believe
occurred, when it only appears to have occurred in a dream? On the other
hand, innocence is worthy of celebration and the At-onement, the
restoration, the Resurrection of the Sonship culminates in just such a
cosmic, eternal celebration.
But the
great thing about Eternity is that we don’t have to wait; It is available to
us now, because Eternity is always, not some ‘future’ ‘time.’
So, as the cosmic celebration is already happening in Heaven (because Heaven
is Eternity and the At-onement has already happened in the eternal always)
and Heaven is a state of awareness, not a place from which we are barred
until some future, indeterminate ‘time,’ we can celebrate, right along with
Heaven, of which we are indivisibly part, now.
Celebration
is about universal, unconditional love, happiness, freedom, joy, inner,
inextinguishable, inexhaustible peace. It is hard — nay, impossible — to
enter into that state from the ego-dominated part of our wrong-thinking,
misperceiving mind, but it is a doddle from our right-thinking, Holy
Spirit-inspired, true-vision restoring Mind. In fact, it is so easy that we
don’t even have to think about it because it is an automatic,
uplifting response; we simply find ourself there, in the ‘banquet chamber’
(Heaven/Eternity) wherein is ‘the banquet for all the senses.’ In order to
awaken to the experience of that reality all that is required of us is a
willingness to believe, to accept and to receive it. The Holy Spirit will
then accomplish the Process of our restoration to that reality for us,
effortlessly, collapsing time for us as we proceed with Him.
Here is how
Jesus reminds us of guiltlessness and invulnerability (the reasons for inner
peace, joy, celebration) in ACIM:
…the Holy Spirit shares the goal of all good teachers, whose
ultimate aim is to make themselves unnecessary by teaching their pupils all they know. The Holy Spirit wants only this, for sharing the Father’s
Love for His Son, He seeks to remove all guilt from his mind that he may
remember his Father in peace
(This peace
is inner peace; the peace of Heaven. It is immeasurably more than
simply a cessation of hostilities, and until one has experienced its
life-transforming, uplifting-to-the-heights-of-Heaven vibration, one can
have no concept of its total and absolute desirability, value and benefits,
because nothing in this world comes within a country mile of it).
Peace and guilt are
antithetical, and the Father can be remembered only in peace. Love and guilt
cannot coexist, and to accept one is to deny the other. Guilt hides Christ
(That includes our very Self, even)
from your
(own)
sight, for it is the denial of the blamelessness of God’s Son.
In the strange world that you have made the Son of God
has sinned. How
could you see him, then? By making him invisible, the world of retribution
rose in the black cloud of guilt that you accepted, and you hold it dear.
For the
(actual)
blamelessness of Christ is the proof that the ego never was, and can never
be. Without guilt the ego has no life, and God’s Son
is without guilt.
As you look upon your(little)self and judge what you do honestly, you may be tempted to
wonder how you can be guiltless. Yet consider this: You are not guiltless in
time, but in eternity. You have “sinned” in the past, but there is
no past. Always has no direction. The Father is not cruel, and His Son
cannot hurt himself. The retaliation that he fears and that he sees will
never touch him, for although he believes in it the Holy Spirit knows
it is not true. The Holy Spirit stands at the end of time, where
(in
reality)
you
must be because He is with you. He has already undone
everything unworthy of the Son of God, for such was His mission, given Him
by God. And what God gives has always been.
…the Son of God is guiltless. He has always sought his
guiltlessness, and he has found it. For everyone is seeking to escape from
the prison he has made, and the way to find release is not denied him. Being
in him, he has found it.
When he finds it is
only a matter of time, and time is but an illusion. For the Son of God is
guiltless now, and the brightness of his purity shines untouched forever in
God’s Mind. God’s Son will always be as he was created. Deny your world
and judge him not, for his eternal guiltlessness is in the Mind of his
Father, and protects him forever.
...Let the holiness of God’s Son shine away the cloud of guilt
that darkens your mind, and by accepting his purity as yours, learn of him
that it is
yours.
You are invulnerable
because you are guiltless. You can hold on to the past only through guilt.
For guilt establishes that you will be punished for what you have done, and
thus depends on one-dimensional
(linear)
time, proceeding from past to future. No one who believes this
can understand what “always” means, and therefore guilt must deprive you of
the appreciation of eternity. You are immortal because you are eternal, and
“always” must be now. Guilt, then, is a way of holding past and future in
your mind to ensure the ego’s continuity. For if what has been will be
punished, the ego’s continuity is guaranteed. Yet the guarantee of your continuity is God’s, not the ego’s.
…God has never condemned His Son, and being guiltless he is
eternal.
You cannot dispel guilt by making it real, and then atoning
for it. This is the ego’s plan, which it offers instead of dispelling
it.
In the ego’s teaching, then, there is no escape from guilt.
For attack makes guilt real, and if it is real there
is no way to
overcome it. The Holy Spirit dispels it simply through the calm recognition
that it has never been. You, then, are saved because God’s Son is
guiltless. And being wholly pure, you are invulnerable.
(Extract
from Ch.13-I; my emboldening and some italics, for emphasis)
It may seem
there is an excessive degree of repetition in this. We are reminded in ACIM
and elsewhere that repetition is essential in order to get the message —
truth — lodged in our upside-down mind, in order to get it right-side up
again and re-unified with our Christ Mind. The fact that we, ‘humanity,’
have only just begun to get the first glimmerings of the message, 2,000
years after Jesus brought it to us (and has now given us his newly revised,
updated and unexpurgated manual, courtesy of Helen Schucman) is, surely,
sufficient to indicate how difficult it is to get that message lodged in our
minds.J
Peace and
joy be with us all,
Brian
Longhurst
April 2nd 2008
Dear
Friends,
In this
illusory realm we never stop calling into our awareness new opportunities to
waken, or remember more and more of who we really are, until we finally,
inevitably awaken fully to the certainty, beyond doubt, that we are, just as
Jesus demonstrated 2,000 years ago, the Son of God. That process unfolds
one step at a time, as we allow it.
That
process has been very much part of my life, and continues to unfold, a step
at a time, as one day follows another. This is in two forms: experience,
and understanding. During my incarnation as Brian I have been
blessed with many amazing experiences. Some of these have been clear
immediately as to their meaning. Others have taken longer to understand,
and that understanding, as for us all, continues to grow long after the
experience in question has occurred.
In writing
Synchronicity, for Goodness’ Sake (SFGS), I offered explanation(s) of
some of those experiences as I understood them at the time of writing. For
many of them my original understanding has remained unchanged, but for
others, the process of understanding has continued to unfold, and there have
been several occasions in the last 3 years when an update of SFGS has
expanded on the meaning, thus helping to bring greater clarity of
understanding of some of the events recorded. This is the great thing about
the internet; it enables such updating to take place as and when
appropriate.
Once we
have invited the Holy Spirit to take over from ego as our Teacher,
enlightenment of our mind continues and its restoration to right thinking
ends only when it is fully returned to Christ Mind thinking. So I have been
drawn to undertake another update of
SFGS.
The
objective of SFGS, as ever, is to help all who will to have a greater
awareness of the real, living Jesus and be less fearful, more able to accept
and trust, of his mystical reality, help, love, protection, guidance,
enlightenment — personally, one-on-one — in our lives. I sincerely hope
this latest version will be of benefit in all these respects, so that we may
all journey together, in Kingdomly fellowship, into remembrance of who we
are.
We are all
Christ, the eternal, radiant, innocent (as distinct from guilty)
one Son of the Father Creator. We have always been Christ, have
never been and will never be anything else. All appearances to the contrary
are self-delusional.
Either that
statement is true or it is not. If it is not true, then we are no worse off
sticking to who we have believed we are: little, separated — from each other
and God, stuck in 3 dimensions, destined to return to dust after a twinkling
of an eye, experiencing scarcity, fear — well, you have the picture.
However, if
it is true, we are missing out on something and making do with
immeasurably less — the opposite, in fact, of what we would be experiencing
if we were to accept it as true. And we don’t have to accept
anything less than our eternal heritage, right now, because it is already —
as it has always been — ours, freely and lovingly, irreversibly given by our
Creator, Papa.
From the
first time I picked up ACIM, a little over 2 years ago, I have been in no
doubt whatsoever that the Author is he whom we know as Jesus of Galilee, and
that his message by it is absolutely and completely true (would a message
from Jesus of Galilee be anything less?) That certainty is based on the
overwhelming similarities between ACIM’s message and my own intimate and
extensive experience of his living reality, personal, loving guidance,
character, direction of the journey on which he has led me over more than 40
years.
But there
is much more to my certainty than these words can convey, because it is the
uplift of mind and spirit into a dimension, a state of rapture, joyful
ecstasy, exaltation, inner peace, tranquillity, knowingness that is
only of Spirit — all of which are unobtainable from anything that
3-dimensional perception or experience can bring us — that awareness of his
loving proximity brings. Those uplifted, exalted states of being from my
own experiences with him are identical to those engendered by the
enlightenment that ACIM can bring to all who truly seek and earnestly desire
to know and experience spiritual reality, eternal truth. That establishes a
certainty of knowing that is nothing to do with intellect, reasoning,
reckoning — the domain of our split-off ego-dominated mind.
That
ego-dominated, split-off part of our mind will go to extraordinary,
ludicrous, absurd, floundering lengths to explain away such experiences as
unreal, delusional. Yet what ego cannot explain away is the inner peace,
the release from fear, the spontaneous restoration of bodily health (which
the world refers to as miracles, and of which it has no understanding), the
agapé, unconditionally loving feelings we find for our fellows, where
previously there were no such feelings. All these, and much more, are
mystical, and ego has absolutely no knowledge or awareness of mystical
reality because it is of Eternity, of the Creator Spirit, and ego is only of
time and place.
For those
of us over whom ego-mind appears to have a substantial degree of control,
such possibilities seem to be unreal, unattainable while we believe we are
stuck in 3 dimensions, so if it is attainable at all, it must be possible
only after we have ‘died.’ Very convenient for ego, if we buy into it,
which at present, most of humanity does. Yet ego actually only has any
power over us that we ascribe to it. Once we choose to remember that all
power is of God, and that what is not of Him has no power to do anything, we
can choose with the Voice for God — the Spirit of Truth — who will bring us
(along with our illusions) to the truth. And that truth will disenfranchise
ego-mind’s apparent hold over us and set us free.
Because we
are, and always have unalterably been, of One Mind — Christ Mind — we can
commun(icat)e with all of that Mind, even the parts that believe themselves
to be divided into ever greater numbers of bodies, and that they are little,
finite, filled with darkness, despair, fear, greed, smugness,
superciliousness, hubris, arrogance (or whatever other covers for fear any
of us choose to adopt). Remembering that how we see our fellows is how we
believe ourselves to be, we can allow ourselves to believe any ego-qualities
in another — especially where broken relationships are involved — or we can
choose to see only the face of Christ in our fellows; each and every one,
including those with whom we believe we are experiencing a broken
relationship.
Mind-to-Mind communing of true forgiveness helps us to see, and reach, past
the outer, ego-shell of others to the true, inner — Christ — being that we
and all our fellows are. The way to do this is first to desire to do it.
If we don’t desire it, truly and earnestly, we are wasting our time because
we are not yet ready, and without the sincerity of desire, nothing will
happen. That is because the Holy Spirit knows our heart and mind and is not
fooled by outer displays that lack inner substance.
If we
desire it, we can simply have a conversation with our fellow traveller, with
whom there appears outwardly to be a broken or damaged relationship, as if
we were communicating with their true, real, Self — which, of course is
exactly what we are doing — Mind to Mind. This would not work voice
to voice, eyeball to eyeball if that other person is, outwardly, not ready.
But that does not matter because the Holy Spirit acts as the silent,
invisible intermediary, conveying the intent of our words to the other party
and placing them in their heart and mind in a way we are unable to do
without His help. In a mystical way, the Holy Spirit becomes the
interlocutor on our behalf. It is worth remembering that we are, in our
true, higher Self, the Holy Spirit.
As it says
in The Disappearance of the Universe:
By
(truly)
forgiving your brothers and sisters, you are
rejoining with what you really are. You’re telling the world and the bodily
images you see that their behaviour can’t have any effect on you, and if
they can’t have any effect on you, they don’t really exist separately from
you. Thus there is no separation of any kind in reality…
The peace of the Holy Spirit will be given to
you if you do your job
(truly
forgive).
He will heal the larger, unconscious mind
that is hidden from you, and give you His peace at the same time. This
peace may not always come right away, and sometimes it will. Sometimes it
may surprise you in the form of something happening that would normally
upset you
—
except this time it doesn’t. All this will lead you to the Kingdom of
Heaven, for along with the Holy Spirit you are doing the work that leads to
the condition of peace — which is the Kingdom of Heaven.
Forgiveness is actually preparing you to
re-enter the Kingdom of Heaven!
It may look like people aren’t accepting your
forgiveness
(at their
ego-shell, outer level of appearance).
That doesn’t matter
(because with Mind to Mind communing, we are bypassing ego and reaching
their true, Big Self, via the Holy Spirit).
The Holy Spirit will hold your forgiveness in their minds until they are
ready to accept it. It doesn’t even matter if the person is still “alive”
in the body or not. The Holy Spirit will bridge the gap that seems to be in
between the different aspects of your mind and make you whole
(holy)
again. For as the course says about you and
your forgivee:
The Holy Spirit is in both your minds, and He is One because there is no gap
that separates His Oneness from Itself. The gap between your bodies matters
not, for what is joined in Him is always one.
As Papa
said to me in August 1999:
The mystical path you
have chosen is right for you, because you are comfortable upon it. How can
this be wrong? You have chosen the direct route, VIA Jesus, My anointed
messenger. How can you want for more, how can you imagine there is better?
The
countdown to the Kingdom has, assuredly, begun. The third measure of meal
is leavening in readiness for the banquet feast. As ever, we can all join
in and experience its wonders, or we can be party-poopers.
☺
Peace and
joy be with us all,
Brian
Longhurst
April 9th 2008
Dear
Friends,
We move
toward inner peace through acceptance. Inner peace is the only
real peace. Anything else is a cardboard cut-out, counterfeit of real
peace. Without inner peace we are, in mind and in body, sick. That
sickness may take years, or even decades, to show up in our body, or in our
mind. The most susceptible bodily areas are our digestive tract, arterial
system, joints, but none is immune to the ravages of fear. There may be a
hundred different symptoms, which the medics will treat with pills and drugs
and potions, that may palliate or suppress the multifarious conditions, but
the only real cure — and indeed, prevention — is inner peace. If we
suppress an outer symptom with a drug or potion, the untreated cause
(distress of heart and mind — i.e. the absence of inner peace) will still be
there, and of a certainty will manifest in some other form or condition,
equally or more severe, to our distress, because such symptoms are our inner
Being calling to our attention that there are some areas of our life that
are out of tune with It.
Ego always
wants to keep changing everything, but Spirit — God — is perfect and
therefore unchangeable. We do not change anything, but if we choose Jesus
or the Holy Spirit to be our Guide and Teacher, They will change but one
thing for us — our perspective, or awareness, or understanding, of
what is reality. In our 3-dimensional, self-imprisoned state, we are
‘seeing,’ perceiving, unreality and allowing ourselves to believe it is
real. It is only that (mistaken) belief that gives it a semblance of
reality. Once we have decided to allow the Holy Spirit to change, or
correct, our perspective we will start to see — that is, have true,
spiritual discernment, or vision of — the actual, eternal reality,
and that is something we can then begin, once more, to first believe and
then experience, and ultimately, know, is real.
As our
spirit vision, our real sight, gradually opens, under the control of
the Holy Spirit, so does this dream world gradually lose its hold on our
senses, or disappear from our sight. It is our inner awareness, inner
recognition, inner remembrance that is being restored to us. Ego wants us
to believe that this process, or anything else, can only happen by our own doing, and wants us to keep looking for answers in the without. All
the while we allow the outer clamour to distract us from seeking within, our
vision remains double, so we cannot truly see with our single, inner eye.
The light of the body is the eye: if
therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But
if thine eye be evil
(or myopic, or ‘double’), thy whole
body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be
darkness, how great is that darkness!
(Mt. 6:22-23)
But how can
we do it for ourself if we cannot see the reality, do not understand
it, have disempowered ourselves by belief in separation? Just how ego wants
it; we believe we have to do it but we don’t know how, so we remain
stuck, looking for answers in the without, imprisoned in egoland, destined
to keep on riding the carousel, indefinitely. Such misperception Jesus
refers to as arrogance. Here is what he says about it in ACIM:
Arrogance is the denial of love, because love shares and arrogance
withholds. As long as both appear to you to be desirable the concept of
choice, which is not of God, will remain with you. While this is not true in
eternity it is
true in time, so that while time lasts in your mind there will be
choices. Time itself is your choice. If you would remember eternity, you
must look only on the eternal. If you allow yourself to become
preoccupied with the temporal, you are living in time. As always, your
choice is determined by what you value. Time and eternity cannot both be
real, because they contradict each other. If you will accept only what is
timeless as real, you will begin to understand eternity and make it yours.
(T-10.V.14.
My emboldening, for emphasis.)
To most of
us, apparently ‘stuck’ here in time, accepting only what is timeless as
real, seems insurmountably hard because ego keeps distracting us with
‘stuff’ that belongs exclusively to time (and therefore, definitely not to
Eternity). Yet the Holy Spirit will, if we are willing to accept that
he can and will accomplish this for us (because we are God’s beloved
Son, dearly, totally, unconditionally loved, and truly innocent),
accomplish our At-onement, restoration to fullness of remembrance of who we
really are — pure, guiltless Christ — for us, on our behalf, because we are,
in reality, one with the Holy Spirit, Whose dwelling place is our own
within. ‘Inner’ is the key because there is no without; only within.
Inner is always; always with us, unchanging and unchangeable. There
is nothing to do that will get us Home; only to be; what we are, have
always been and always will be.
So, we can
give thanks that by virtue of the Great Rescue Programme we are, even now,
moving into the restoration, the resurrection, of our mind and vision to
Truth and Light, now, and forever.
We are all,
already, in Eternity, Heaven, and have always been. It is our true and only
Home, which we have never left. That is the truth, the actuality, and is
unalterable, other than in fantasy, which can never alter the truth. Ego,
which has no existence other than imagined in a tiny, split-off part of our
mind, has been pulling our strings, manipulating us since the separation
that never happened. The illusion, the lie, the prestidigitation, has now
been revealed, exposed, explained, and we can wake up from ego’s spell, in
whose thrall we have been held, hypnotised, for so long. This is what the
GRP is all about, and is much bigger — all encompassing — than our imagined,
separated, contrary mind can grasp. And it certainly cannot prevent the GRP
from fulfilling its objective of waking us, however much we wish to delay
participating in it by choosing relentlessly to follow ego’s script of time
and place ‘reality.’
In spring
and autumn we move the clocks forward or backward an hour. This means we
all agree to believe that where previously it was noon when the sun reached
a certain point in the sky, suddenly, it reaches that point at 1 pm, or
vice-versa. A self-deluding trick which we all agree we will go along with,
simply because it holds some convenience for us. This is our free-will
choice, but it does indicate that ‘time’ is not an unalterable, cosmic,
eternal reality. We have made it up. Time, along with everything else we
choose to believe or perceive, all depends on how we choose to see it.
That, and that alone, is all that gives any sense of reality to what we
choose to believe, and therefore make our reality.
If we
choose to recognise the so-called attributes of ‘time and place’ as
illusions — that it is not all ‘out there,’ but in our mind — then we
can begin to realise that we are at free choice to experience the reality of
Eternity, simply by changing our mind and switching our focus to another
dimension; the dimension of Eternity, or Heaven. This does not seem easy,
because ego is cunning and will use every trick in the book to distract us
and thus keep us focussed on the illusory ‘out there,’ but it is
achievable. How can we be so sure? Because we have the example of our
loving brother Jesus, who will show us, guide us, lead us, teach us, if only
we are willing to believe and to trust what with our ego-dominated mind we
cannot yet believe and trust, even though we truly desire so to do. For
those of us who are still held in the perception that Jesus is ‘exalted, up
there’ and we are forever ‘lowly, down here,’ he says:
Awe
should be reserved for revelation, to which it is perfectly and correctly
applicable. It is not appropriate for miracles because a state of awe is
worshipful, implying that one of a lesser order stands before his Creator.
You are a perfect creation, and should experience awe only in the presence
of the Creator of perfection. The miracle is therefore a sign of love among
equals. Equals should not be in awe of one another because awe implies
inequality. It is therefore an inappropriate reaction to me. An elder
brother is entitled to respect for his greater experience, and obedience for
his greater wisdom. He is also entitled to love because he is a brother, and
to devotion if he is devoted. It is only my devotion that entitles me to
yours. There is nothing about me that you cannot attain. I have
nothing that does not come from God. The difference between us now is that I
have nothing else. This leaves me in a state which is only potential in
you.
(T-1.II.3.
My emboldening, for emphasis.)
We can
never find true inner peace in egoland. Only by acceptance that we cannot do
this (wake up to the fact that we are Home) by ourself, but that with the
loving guidance and correcting of our misperceptions by our true Teacher,
can we achieve that state of being known as inner peace, because inner peace
is the state of Heaven.
Love, peace
and light,
Brian
Longhurst
Behold the Son of God
(that’s all of
us),
and look upon his purity
and be still. In quiet look upon his holiness, and
offer thanks
unto his Father that no guilt has ever touched him.
(T-13.X.11:10)
April 16th 2008
Dear
Friends,
As stated
on previous occasions, ego (the ‘prince of time and place’) wants to
complicate everything. If ego had a motto, it might be ‘complicate,
complicate.’ Have we not all observed that in today’s culture, which has a
perception that if a thing is not complex/complicated, surely it cannot be
any good? How misleading and misrepresentative of the truth of Eternity is
that!?
We can take
it as a given that since time and place is an illusory attempt at being the
opposite of Eternity (in a vain effort at hiding from God, like a small
child putting his hands over his eyes and saying to his dad, ‘You can’t see
me’) in absolute contrast, we can know of a certainty beyond doubt that the
Holy Spirit’s motto would be ‘Simplify, simplify’ — a breath of fresh air
and a ray of glorious light in a lunatic, stifling, dark and stultifying
world.
Ego wants
to keep us in spiritual darkness; Holy Spirit wants, earnestly, to
enlighten us. Most of us here in dreamland are oscillating between our true,
natural inclination to seek/return to the light and our ego-indoctrinated
mind, causing us, out of fear, to be taking refuge in the dark. It is
hardly surprising, then, that mankind reels to and fro:
They mount up to the heaven, they go
down again to the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble.
They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits’
end.
(Ps.
107:26-27).
Of course
ego doesn’t want us to remember our true Home; how else could it keep us
fearful of God and Eternity? 2,000 years ago Jesus said the Kingdom has
come amongst us. Yet how can we experience It if we are shutting ourselves
off from experiencing the reality, proximity and availability of Heaven and
all our loved ones (especially since we do it out of fear) in the Realms of
Light, who so dearly long to share with us the Joy of Heaven.
We have
allowed ourself to be misled into believing that Eternity is something we
can experience only after we ‘die,’ and since ego has also persuaded us God
is vengeful, jealous, angry, etc., we remain fearful of ‘death’ because it
is ‘unknown,’ and could/will bring us face to face with that wrath and its
punishment for all our ‘sins.’ Most of humanity has become inured into
thinking that ‘that is simply the way it is;’ the truth is that ‘this is the
way it isn’t.’
Jesus
tells us that we do not, ever, die (because we are eternal, perfect
spirit, not a body), and that the Kingdom of Heaven, or Eternity, is at
hand, all around us and within us; that we can — as he did when he appeared
to be ‘with a body’ 2,000 years ago — experience, and manifest the Kingdom
here and now, while we appear to be with a body. All we have to do is
believe and co-operate with the Holy Spirit by allowing Him to accomplish
our experiencing of the Kingdom for us.
To those
who incredulously and sardonically say, ‘Oh, fine, no problem then; job
done,’ let us remind ourselves that there is no gap, no line of demarcation,
no separation between us — all of us — and the Holy Spirit; because just as
Jesus fully identifies himself with the Holy Spirit (because he has not
denied himself the truth), so are we, his brethren in the Sonship, one with
him in the Holy Spirit.
This is the
last thing ego wants us to remember because it will be — is — ego’s
undoing. Time is ego’s domain, its principality, where we, labouring under
ego’s yoke of judgement are, illusorily speaking, separate, hiding from that
condemnatory god, who has no knowledge of our whereabouts, so we can —
albeit temporarily — escape his wrath. So the prospect of dying and thus
coming before him for that aweful judgement is terrifying. Time is
literally running out, to the advantage/benefit of God’s Holy Son and His
re-awakening to the light from his momentary dream of darkness, and to the
dispelling of ego, which exists only in that dream.
Here are
some words of clarification, enlightenment and encouragement from Jesus in
ACIM, ch. 14 section VI. My emboldening and italics, for emphasis:
The journey that we undertake
together is the exchange of dark for light, of ignorance for understanding.
Nothing you understand is fearful. It is only in darkness and in
ignorance that you perceive the frightening
(it is the
light of truth that only an upside-down, fragmented mind could perceive
as hidden and therefore fearful),
and shrink away
from it to further darkness. And yet it is only the hidden that can terrify,
not for what it is, but for its hidden-ness. The obscure is
frightening because you do not understand its meaning. If you did, it would
be clear and you would be no longer in the dark. Nothing has hidden value,
for what is hidden cannot be shared, and so its value is unknown. The hidden
is kept apart, but value always lies in joint appreciation. What is
concealed cannot be loved, and so it must be feared.
The quiet light in which the Holy Spirit dwells within you is merely perfect
openness, in which nothing is hidden and therefore nothing is fearful.
Attack will always yield to love if it is brought to love, not hidden from
it. There is no darkness that the light of love will not dispel, unless it
is concealed from love’s beneficence
(we,
therefore, can take heart, take courage, and shrug off our fear in absolute confidence that the light of Eternity is only benign, loving,
blessing, and that only by continuing to allow it to be perceived as
fearful can it be fearful).
What is kept
apart from love cannot share its healing power, because
it has been separated off and kept in darkness. The sentinels of darkness
watch over it carefully, and you who made these guardians of illusion out of
nothing are now afraid of them
(How unserviceable to our wellbeing is that!?).
Would you continue to give
imagined power to these strange ideas of safety? They are neither safe nor
unsafe. They do not protect; neither do they attack. They do nothing at
all, being nothing at all. As guardians of darkness and of ignorance look to them only
for fear, for what they keep obscure
is
fearful. But let them go, and what was fearful will be so no longer
(this is so; it works, if only we can summon the courage to let go; having
done so, we will experience how easy it was, how peaceful it is, and wonder
why we delayed so long).
Without protection of obscurity only the light of love
remains, for only this has meaning and can live in light
(this surely demonstrates that, as indicated above, the job of Eternity is
to simplify, simplify, and it is by shining light into the imagined
darkness that this happens. How brilliant is that?).
Everything else must disappear.
Death yields to life simply because destruction is not true. The light of
guiltlessness shines guilt away because, when they are brought together, the
truth of one must make the falsity of its opposite perfectly clear. Keep not
guilt and guiltlessness apart, for your belief that you can have them both
is meaningless
(so, good
news; we can stop oscillating☺).
All you have done by keeping them apart is lose their meaning
by confusing them with each other. And so you do not realize that only one
means anything. The other is wholly without sense of any kind.
You have regarded the separation as a means for breaking your communication
with your Father. The Holy Spirit reinterprets it as a means of
re-establishing what was not broken, but
has been made
obscure. All things you made have use to Him, for His most holy purpose.
He knows you are not separate from God, but He perceives much in your mind
that lets you think you are. All this and nothing else would He separate
from you. The power of decision, which you made in place of the power of
creation, He would teach you how to use on your behalf. You who made it to
crucify yourself must learn of Him how to apply it to the holy cause of
restoration
(and thus
turn the tables on, and dispel, ego).
You who speak in dark and devious symbols do not understand the language you
have made
(ego’s job is to spread confusion, bewilderment, misunderstanding, anger,
rage attack, by having its slaves say what they do not mean and hear what
has not been said. We see this endemically in the time and place illusion).
It has no meaning, for its purpose is not communication, but
rather the disruption of communication
(disinformation). If the purpose of
language is communication, how can this tongue mean anything? Yet even this
strange and twisted effort to communicate through not communicating
(we
see this in institutions such as governments — e.g. as Beijing regarding
Tibet, corporate giants, the media and others)
holds enough of
love to make it meaningful
if its interpreter is not its maker
(i.e. the Holy Spirit).
You who made it are but expressing conflict, from which the
Holy Spirit would release you. Leave what you would communicate to Him.
He will interpret it to you with perfect clarity, for He knows with Whom you
are in perfect communication.
You know not what you say, and so you know not what is said to you. Yet your
Interpreter perceives the meaning in your alien language. He will not
attempt to communicate the meaningless. But He will separate out all that
has meaning, dropping off the rest and offering your true communication to
those who would communicate, as truly with you. You speak two languages at
once, and this must lead to unintelligibility. Yet if one means nothing and
the other everything, only that one is possible for purposes of
communication. The other but interferes with it.
The Holy Spirit’s function is entirely
(real,
proper, unequivocal, unmistakeable)
communication. He therefore must remove
whatever interferes with
communication in order to restore it. Therefore, keep no source of
interference from His sight, for He will not attack your sentinels. But
bring them to Him and let His gentleness teach you that, in the light, they
are not fearful, and cannot serve to guard the dark doors behind which
nothing at all is carefully concealed. We must open all doors and let the
light come streaming through. There are no hidden chambers in God’s temple.
Its gates are open wide to greet His Son. No one can fail to come where
God has called him, if he close not the door himself upon his Father’s
welcome
(none of us actually wants to close the door on Papa, yet we are allowing
ego to do it for us without even being aware of it. A clear case of date
rape).
Courage,
mes amis, le diable est mort!
Love and
light,
Brian
Longhurst
April 23rd 2008
Dear
Friends,
Ever since
I began to become aware of the reality of Eternity, the Kingdom of Heaven
and the Great Rescue Programme of the living Jesus for us all, it has been
uppermost in my mind that if I did not give priority attention to that
reality, and progress as far as I possibly could in this act, rather than
allowing myself to become sidetracked by matters of temporal consideration,
that when I came toward the end of my sojourn here, there would be one
overriding shadow clouding and consuming my thoughts: regret. Regret that I
had opportunity to accomplish much more forward progress toward my — our —
Destination, and wasted too much of that opportunity on matters that, in the
final analysis — Eternity — are meaningless.
This does
not imply that one should abandon all time-and-place activity or endeavour
and become reclusive or ascetic. It does imply that getting our priorities
into an order that will be serviceable to our true, eternal Self will be
highly beneficial to our optimal progress toward Home. How can we optimise
our progress toward our eternal Destiny while we are still functioning
within the antithesis of Heaven — this illusory world of time and place?
First, we
can remember, and keep reminding ourself each time ego sneaks up on us (as
ego is wont to do) and sidetracks us with issues of its own making, such as
fear about the mortgage, divisions manifesting as terrorism (have you
noticed how the media is in a feeding frenzy on that, keeping the fires
stoked?), illness, hubris, ‘empire building,’ greed, scarcity and 1001 other
examples, all of which stem from one cause: the mistaken belief in
separation from God, Who is our All-Sufficiency. That means that we can
choose to see every encounter, every day — in the workplace and in any
social and domestic setting — as an opportunity to be and to radiate who we
really are: Love, Peace, Truth, Light; God’s eternal Son.
How easy
that sounds, and how hard it can be in practise all the while ego has any
say in the matter. This is why FTOC is such an invaluable tool in attuning
with the Holy Spirit for help undoing ego-scripted wrong-mindedness and
moving toward right-mindedness. As Jesus says,
…You are much too tolerant of
mind wandering, and are passively condoning your
(ego-dominated)
mind’s miscreations.
(ACIM, T.29). Those opportunities will, assuredly, keep turning up every
day, heavily disguised as adversity — the boss being against us, the
children driving us crazy, that lunatic driver cutting us up in the traffic
— and this is where the linchpin of true forgiveness comes into such
powerful service. Without it, we are, according to ACIM, stuck on the
carousel indefinitely.
My dear,
beloved mother used to complain to me that her life was filled with
adversity and I would say to her, ‘Ma, if you can see those adversities as
opportunities they will be helpful for your spiritual growth,’ and she would
reply, ‘I wish the Lord would stop sending me so many opportunities!’ She
was, sadly, missing the point that she was calling into her own presence
those opportunities, as we all are, until we recognise them for what they
are, forgive them (and ourself) and thereby provide the right conditions for
the Holy Spirit to transform them into fulfilment on our behalf (because we
have disempowered ourself, so cannot do it alone).
Each
opportunity fulfilled is another forward step on the way Home. Each
opportunity taken shortens the journey; each opportunity missed prolongs the
journey and has to be faced again (and again, and again, if need be, until
we finally forgive it and release it and ourself) at some future moment.
My mother
has been taking intensive Guidance since she laid aside her body in 1994 and
I have become aware during the last few months that she is now well advanced
in the planning of her next act, which will begin, so I believe, in the next
15 or 20 years. She has even selected the mother (always by mutual
agreement) through whom she will make her next entry into time, and is
resolute in her commitment to using that act for making optimal progress
toward Home. Whether it will be her final act is not, of course, known to
me, but I have no doubt that if it is not, it will be used to take
the best advantage possible of as many opportunities to transform adversity
into fulfilment as she chooses to call into her presence.
My parents
have both made it known to me since their passing that my blessings for and
sharing with them of the unfolding awareness of eternal reality which has
been my life’s path have helped them immeasurably. We all can be of such
blessing and help to our loved ones, whether they are still with a body or
have left it behind, by sharing through Mind-to-Mind communing, BLASERing
and forgiving. Such endeavour is not an act of proselytising but a
commitment to loving and forgiving. And by helping others in this, or any
other way, we benefit ourself, simply because… you guessed it; there is only
one of us.
One-pointed, steadfast commitment to practising true forgiveness pays untold
dividends. As it says in The Disappearance of the Universe,
…Once your mind has learned all its forgiveness lessons, then it awakens to
spirit, or soul, and everything else is gone except Heaven.
True
forgiveness, then, is the mechanism by which we are released from
imprisonment in time and slavery to ego-mind, and restored to At-onement
with Papa in the Sonship. It means the end of fear, guilt and doubt, and
their substitution with our true estate: inner peace. Inner peace means we
are restored to truth, love, joy — eternally. Here is what Jesus has to say
about this in ACIM, chapter 15, section II:
The End of Doubt
The Atonement is
in time, but not
for time. Being
in you, it is eternal. What holds remembrance of God cannot be bound by
time. No more are you. For unless God is bound, you cannot be. An
instant offered to the Holy Spirit is offered to God on your behalf, and in
that instant you will awaken gently in Him
(This is referred to throughout ACIM as the ‘holy instant’). In the blessed
instant you will let go all your past
(ego)
learning, and the Holy Spirit will quickly offer you the whole lesson of
peace
(a lesson
of which we are bereft in time and place). What can take time, when all the obstacles to learning it
have been removed? Truth is so far beyond time that all of it happens at
once. For as it was created one, so its oneness depends not on time at all.
Do not be concerned with time, and fear not the instant of
holiness that will remove all fear. For the instant of peace is eternal
because it is
without fear. It will come, being the lesson God gives you, through the
Teacher He has appointed to translate time into eternity
(it is
worth pausing a moment, to take in the enormity, the blessing, the
magnificence, the certainty of this statement)
. Blessed is God’s Teacher, Whose joy it is to teach God’s
holy Son his holiness. His joy is not contained in time
(why would
we cling so tenaciously to the illusion of time if it is not ego pulling our
strings?).
His teaching is for you because His joy is yours. Through Him you stand
before God’s altar, where He gently translates hell into Heaven. For it is
only in Heaven that God would have you be
(is there
one of us who would not prefer to be there with Him? And only fear — an illusion — prevents it.)
How long can it take to be where God would have you? For you
are where you have forever been and will forever be. All that you have, you
have forever. The blessed instant reaches out to encompass time, as God
extends Himself to encompass you
(and all we
have to do is respond to His encompassing embrace). You who have spent days, hours and even years in chaining
your brothers to your ego in an attempt to support it and uphold its
weakness, do not perceive the Source of strength. In this holy instant you
will unchain all your brothers, and refuse to support either their weakness
or your own.
(It is this
holy instant when the switch from ego-mind domination to Holy Spirit Mind
awareness begins to take over our perception and enlighten us. By asking
the Holy Spirit to take charge over our thinking we authorise Him
thusly, so He is able to begin helping us, and the process is
exponentially speeded up, collapsing time in the process. Then the journey
immediately becomes less hazardous, less obstacle-strewn, markedly more
straightforward. This, of course, only happens when we mean it with all
sincerity, and that will be when we are truly ready.)
You do not realize
how much you have misused your brothers by seeing them as sources of ego
support.
As a result, they witness to the ego in your perception, and seem to provide
reasons for not letting it go. Yet they are far stronger and much more
compelling witnesses for the Holy Spirit. And they support His strength.
It is, therefore, your choice whether they support the ego or the
Holy Spirit in you. And you will recognize which you have chosen by
their reactions. A
Son of God
(that’s us) who has been released through the Holy Spirit in a brother
(by our true forgiveness of that brother)
is always recognized
(by that
brother). He
(that Son
of God)
cannot be denied. If
you remain uncertain, it is only because you have not given complete
release. And because of this, you have not given a single instant completely to the Holy Spirit. For when you have, you will be
sure
you have. You will be sure because the witness to Him will speak so clearly
of Him that you will hear and understand. You will doubt until you hear one
witness whom you have wholly released through the Holy Spirit. And then you
will doubt no more
(is this
not a truly desirable objective?).
The holy instant has not yet happened to you. Yet it will,
and you will recognize it with perfect certainty. No gift of God is
recognized in any other way.
You can practice the mechanics of the holy instant, and will learn much
from doing so. Yet its shining and glittering brilliance, which will
literally blind you to this world by its own vision, you cannot supply. And here it is, all in this instant, complete, accomplished and
given
wholly.
Start now to practice your little part in separating out the
holy instant. You will receive very specific instructions as you go along
(as
we ask for Guidance from the Holy Spirit, on every significant decision we
face). To learn to
separate out this single second, and to experience it as timeless, is to
begin to experience yourself as not separate
(heralding
the end of ego-mind domination). Fear not that
you will not be given help in this. God’s Teacher and His lesson will
support your strength. It is only your weakness that will depart from you in
this practice, for it is the practice of the power of God in you. Use it
but for one instant, and you will never deny it again. Who can deny the
Presence of what the universe bows to, in appreciation and gladness? Before
the recognition of the universe that witnesses to It, your doubts must
disappear.
(Emboldening, underlining and some italics are mine, for emphasis).
When our
doubts disappear, which they assuredly do when we place ourself under the
guidance of the Holy Spirit, then we are really experiencing the power of
God in us, just as Jesus did and we are destined to do. We don’t have to
wait, for Eternity is now.
Love,
always,
Brian
Longhurst
April 30th 2008
Dear
Friends,
Although
‘Satan’ and ego are one and the same, there are some subtle, yet crucial
differences, albeit, only in perception. With Satan, we tend to think ‘he’
is ‘out there’ – lurking around trying to ensnare us in all his murderous
wiles and skulduggery – and this can lull us into thinking he is not who we are; he is, somehow, separate from us, and so as long as we are
‘good’ we will be safe from him and his lair – hopefully! This can cause us
to believe that, at least in this instance, separation is a good
thing.
Of course
Satan is but the anthropomorphising of ego, by ego, to throw us off
the scent, so we won’t realise it is closer than we thought. Ego is not
‘out there’ but ‘in here,’ right inside part of our mind, surreptitiously
causing us to see things upside down, back to front, the wrong way round,
and yet believe them as correct, the way it is. This is so clandestine that
most of us are unable to distinguish between our real self and ego
pretending to be us.
But now the
truth about all this is out — thanks to Jesus and his manual for getting us
Home — we can start to seriously work on the one true, good and right
separation: us from ego. Ego is a part of our mind (not brain) that became
split-off as a result of the ‘tiny, mad idea’ of separation, and wants us to
be alone, fearful, guilty. It is the opposite of all that is of God and
Heaven, and our true Self, which is God’s pure, innocent Son, all-empowered
by God with all the attributes of our Father-Creator. It is not our real,
true, all-knowing Mind because that is in the Mind of God, safe, eternally
at peace.
This
actually makes ego very easy to recognise when it is influencing our
thoughts. If we are functioning from our true, right-thinking, Christ Mind
we will be in a state of inner peace, and will be extending — radiating —
love, joy and wholeness. If we are functioning from the split-off,
upside-down ego-indoctrinated part of our mind we will be experiencing and
projecting fear, doubt, guilt, uncertainty, judgemental and attacking
thoughts, comparison, lack of self-worth; in fact, anything other
than inner peace means ego is in charge.
That gives
us an indicator of the scale of the problem, though we cannot see the
complete magnitude of it because the full awfulness is hidden deep in an
unconscious part of that split-off mind, as it is too much for us to bear.
And all the while it is left there, un-dispelled, fragments of it will keep
rising to the surface and manifesting as more guilt, fear and hate.
Tickets for more rides on the carousel.
And now we
can understand the vital need for mind re-training, to being dominated by
the thinking of the Holy Spirit (which is our true Self, so it is not
a case of being brainwashed by some alien intelligence!) instead of ego,
which could be said to be an alien, insane form of intelligence! By
increasing our attunement to the Voice for God — the Holy Spirit — we move
closer to the Holy Instant and weaken ego’s hold on our mind and our life.
We are
urged in ACIM and in The Disappearance of the Universe to attune with
Papa first thing in the morning and last thing at night. This can be a very
difficult thing to do at each end of the day because our minds can be a bit
foggy upon waking from a night’s sleep (or from lack of the same) and tired
at the end of a busy day. Further, this is the last thing ego wants us to
do, so will cause as many distractions and as much fog to cloud our thoughts
as possible. One of the best ways around that is to have a pre-prepared
script written or typed out, so we can read directly from it, to start and
end each day with an attunement aide-memoire.
I asked the
Holy Spirit to inspire me with an example of what might serve this function
and here is what came through:
Beloved Heavenly Papa: thank You, thank
You, thank You for Your constant, unfailing love and blessing, and for the
remembrance that I am Your beloved Son, whole, pure, innocent and empowered
in all things by Your Spirit.
I choose to greet every encounter today
with the love and joy of Heaven that You freely give to me every moment; to
remember that those who are not expressing love are calling for it, thus
providing me with a glorious opportunity to extend to them the Heavenly
love, joy and peace that is rightfully theirs, and to forgive myself and
them in our momentary forgetfulness for all that in reality we have
never done, that all may be forgiven, and all my brethren and I may be
restored to the oneness of the Sonship in You.
Thank You for giving Your Voice, the
Holy Spirit, to be with me every moment, to help and inspire me to stay
alert to all opportunities, to remain focussed on and be vigilant and
disciplined for the Kingdom of Heaven that You have placed in me.
This is
also posted on the Forum page, in response to Hayley’s request for help.
Having something like this to read — obviously speaking the words to Papa
with complete sincerity, otherwise nothing happens — takes away the angst or
frustration that can lead us to give up on the idea because of lack of
success, which can be the case without a help such as this. This shuts ego
out of the process and improves our confidence over time that we can
commun(icat)e with God. Please feel free to use this in any form or with
any alterations you may find serviceable for your attuning activity, at
either end of your day, or at any other time.
Here is
some of the most inspiring and uplifting exhortation from ACIM within the
context of the foregoing. It is hard to imagine anyone not being encouraged
by these words from chapter 15:
IV. Practising the Holy Instant
This
course is not beyond immediate learning, unless you believe that what
God wills takes time. And this means only that you would rather delay
the recognition that His Will is so. The holy instant is this instant
and every instant. The one you want it to be it is. The one you would
not have it be is lost to you. You must decide when it is. Delay it
not. For beyond the past and future, where you will not find it, it
stands in shimmering readiness for your acceptance
(right
now)
.
Yet you
cannot bring it into glad awareness while you do not want it, for it
holds the whole release from littleness.
(If one were to be asked, ‘Would you like to be released from littleness
and awakened to the true magnitude of who you really are?’ is
there one of us who would say ‘No’ in response?)
Your
practice must therefore rest upon your willingness to let all littleness
go.
The instant in which magnitude dawns upon you is but as far
away as your desire for it. As long as you desire it not and cherish
littleness instead, by so much is it far from you. By so much as you
want it will you bring it nearer. Think not that you can find
salvation in your own way and have it.
(We
have been trying that literally since the dawn of time, and ego has made
and will continue to make it unachievable, until we choose with the Holy
Spirit instead).
Give
over every plan you have made for your salvation in exchange for God’s.
His will content you, and nothing else can bring you peace. For peace is
of God, and no one beside Him.
Be
humble before Him, and yet great
in Him. And
value no plan of the ego before the plan of God.
(All ego’s plans are
designed to fail us).
For you
leave empty your place in His plan, which you must fill if you would
join with me, by your decision to join in any plan but His. I call you
to fulfil your holy part in the plan that He has given to the world for
its release from littleness.
(This
plan, the GRP, is real, is in full operation as we read these words, and
is infallible and unstoppable).
God
would have His host
(that’s us)
abide in
perfect freedom. Every allegiance to a plan of salvation apart from Him
diminishes the value of His Will for you in your own mind
(just
what ego wants!)
And yet it is your mind that is the host to Him
(by co-operating with the Holy Spirit in the re-training of our mind we
can actually experience being host to Him; a joy beyond
description).
Would
you learn how perfect and immaculate is the holy altar on which your
Father has placed Himself? This you will recognize in the holy
instant, in which you willingly and gladly give over every plan but His.
For there lies peace, perfectly clear because you have been willing to
meet its conditions. You can claim the holy instant any time and
anywhere you want it. In your practice, try to give over every plan
you have accepted for finding magnitude in littleness.
It is not there.
Use the holy instant only to recognize that you alone cannot know where
it is, and can only deceive yourself.
(This is clearly telling us we cannot get Home without help; only ego
wants us to believe we can, and ego lies).
I stand
within the holy instant, as clear as you would have me. And the
extent to which you learn to accept me is the measure of the time in
which the holy instant will be yours. I call to you to make the holy
instant yours at once, for the release from littleness in the mind of
the host of God depends on willingness, and not on time.
The
reason this course is simple is that truth is simple. Complexity is of
the ego, and is nothing more than the ego’s attempt to obscure the
obvious. You could live forever in the holy instant, beginning now
and reaching to eternity, but for a very simple reason. Do not
obscure the simplicity of this reason, for if you do, it will be only
because you prefer not to recognize it and not to let it go. The simple
reason, simply stated, is this: The holy instant is a time in which you
receive and give perfect communication. This means, however, that it is
a time in which your mind is open, both to receive and give. It is the
recognition that all minds are in communication. It therefore
seeks to change nothing, but merely to accept everything.
(If we are able to wholeheartedly accept the import of this paragraph
and receive its implication into our being and live by and for it, it
will, assuredly, collapse time for us by an exponential order of
magnitude).
How can
you do this when you would prefer to have private thoughts and keep
them? The only way you could do that would be to deny the perfect
communication that makes the holy instant what it is. You believe you
can harbour thoughts you would not share, and that salvation lies in
keeping thoughts to yourself alone.
(That is ego’s plan for us because it keeps us here in time
indefinitely).
For in
private thoughts, known only to yourself, you think you find a way to
keep what you would have alone, and share what
you would
share. And then you wonder why it is that you are not in full
communication with those around you, and with God Who surrounds all of
you together.
Every
thought you would keep hidden shuts communication off, because you
would have it so. It is impossible to recognize perfect
communication while breaking communication holds value to you. Ask
yourself honestly, “Would I want to have perfect communication, and am I
wholly willing to let everything that interferes with it go forever?” If
the answer is no, then the Holy Spirit’s readiness to give it to you is
not enough to make it yours, for you are not ready to share it with Him.
And it cannot come into a mind that has decided to oppose it. For the
holy instant is given and received with equal willingness, being the
acceptance of the single Will that governs all thought.
The
necessary condition for the holy instant does not require that you have
no thoughts that are not pure
(thank
goodness, or we’d all be in trouble!)
But
it does require that you have none that you would keep. Innocence
is not of your making. It is given you the instant you would have it.
Atonement would not be if there were no need for it. You will not be
able to accept perfect communication as long as you would hide it from
yourself
(There
was never a better moment for us to choose with the Holy Spirit to bring
to an end our tragic game of hide and seek).
For what you would hide
is hidden from
you. In your practice, then, try only to be vigilant against deception,
and seek not to protect the thoughts you would keep to yourself. Let the
Holy Spirit’s purity shine them away, and bring all your awareness to
the readiness for purity He offers you. Thus will He make you ready to
acknowledge that you are host to God, and hostage to no one and to
nothing.
(Alleluia!)
(My
emboldening and some italics, for emphasis).
Such words
are encouraging and empowering beyond all vain imagining. They can also
engender an unprecedented time of heart-searching. So let us join Jesus and
the Holy Spirit on the fast-track travelator Homeward to the eternal holy
instant.
Peace and
Joy be with us all,
Brian
Longhurst
May 7th 2008
Dear
Friends,
Most of us
think it is desirable to avoid adversity by any means we can. That simply
means delaying or prolonging the inevitable because whatever ‘turns up’ is
not chance, coincidence, happenstance or accident; it is opportunity,
and from our Higher Self we have called it into our presence so that we
might learn and grow spiritually by it. Sweeping it under the rug will not
do that, but it will mean we will have to face it again on another
occasion because these are opportunities to outwork unresolved issues, heal
broken relationships and assist in our restoration to the oneness that is
who and what we really are.
The great
thing about facing it when it shows up (which is always, actually, at the right moment, so ignoring it then is missing perfect timing) is not only
that it gets that particular lesson under our belt and gives us a sense of
accomplishment, relief and peace of mind, but it also collapses time and
saves us from the need to experience other such similar events, or
opportunities, because we have learned the lesson, so we can move on to
greater things sooner, bringing us meaningfully closer to our Destination.
The reason
most of us prefer to ‘delay the evil day’ is fear. Fear of the unknown,
fear of grief, pain, punishment, loss, scarcity or some other effect of
ego’s evil doing. But ego is not out there, having a go at us, and
we cannot hide from it any more than we can hide from Papa (although many of
us are trying to do both). We can only dispel ego from our mind (its only
habitat) by bringing our illusions to the truth (since ego is an illusion).
Ego is darkness; but there is no such thing as darkness, it does not exist.
Darkness is simply an absence of something that does exist: light.
‘That’s
all very well,’ many will say, ‘but when there is an absence of
light, darkness appears to prevail, and feels very real; and it is scary.’
Fear is as ubiquitous in this world as people, because wherever there are
people, there is fear. Even those of us who appear to be safe, experiencing
material abundance and health are fearful of many things; death, ill-health,
loss, loneliness — just like everyone else. We can know this to be so
because none of us would seem to be here — apparently separate from God — if
it was not for fear.
Jesus tells
us over and over in ACIM that he, and Papa, and the Holy Spirit trust us
implicitly, absolutely, completely, totally, unhesitatingly, unreservedly.
Yet most of us don’t trust ourself, let alone anyone else. This is hardly
surprising, considering we have been stuck in the Badlands, enemy territory,
where treachery, betrayal, duplicity, are everywhere and we have all
experienced these in one form or another and felt as if they were very real.
Yet all
this is an illusion, and the truth is we are all trustworthy because we are all Christ. It is time to see past the illusion now,
because we are on the Home straight of our journey back to Eternity with
Papa, in the oneness. Not being aware of that truth causes us doubt,
uncertainty, mistrust, of ourself and our fellows, unnecessary delay in
arriving at our Glorious Destination. Opening our eyes and receiving the
light to illumine our true vision once more dispels the doubts and the
mistrust. The light is there, constantly, unfailingly, yet we have obscured
it from our vision by believing in our own littleness.
But the
Holy Spirit is not blind to it at all, and He — Who is the real us,
just as He was, and is, the real Jesus — will be our seeing eyes, leading us
unfalteringly, and restoring true, singleness of vision to us… if we are
willing to trust Him. That is the big issue; trust. Without it we can
never get Home. Here are extracts from a couple of Diary entries that
indicate the benefits available to us from trusting:
Peace and joy be with you and all your household. My son, I rejoice with
you; by giving all these desires to me I am able to bring fulfilment in
more perfect ways than would otherwise be possible for you. Your
desire is intact, but because of the dense vibrations of the Earthly
life it is not possible for you to have the insight into where you are,
where you are going, who is ready for awakening. Therefore, you need to
trust in me and my ways, so that I may, by
your desire — that is, in response to your desire — lead you
forward, bring to you opportunities for service, self-assessment, going
forward. By this progress your own vibrations increase, your own energy
grows and your awareness brightens. This is the path of life upon which
it is my good pleasure to be your companion, that we may have together
the good fellowship of brotherly love, as children of our beloved Papa.
Let us share the banquet of rejoicing, for all is well and we go forward
unto the New Day.
***
Draw close to me
always. Have no concern — am I not the Lord of the tempest? I tell
you, there is no disturbance over which I am not the Lord and over which
I am not able to cast peace and restore equilibrium. Therefore,
let your focus be always upon
me and not upon the tempest, lest the boisterousness of the waves
disturb your trust in me and allow fear to enter into your heart.
Words of
counsel, guidance, reassurance from the Realms of Light are never
only for the person to whom they are first spoken, but to all who are
ready to receive them. If we read words such as these with the double vision
of our ego mind they will seem idealistic, symbolic, valueless in what ego
wants us to believe is the ‘real world;’ trite platitudes, to keep us
subdued and ever vainly hopeful in a world where hopes are dashed all too
frequently.
How many
will be saying to themselves, ‘If only we could get onto the wavelength
of that reality, we would be okay’? Yet, if we read them desiring truly
and earnestly to trust them, believe them as reality it can and will become OUR reality because it IS our reality. That is where faith
comes in handy. Faith and trust always bring us our heart’s desire if we
are committed to staying the course come what may, because we know of an
inner certainty that it is the only course that will get us out of the
wilderness, off the carousel and Home.
Of course
we must use common sense and go with our feelings, our instinct, which is
the Spirit of Truth; this enables us to relinquish our own, ego-dominated
(and thus, flawed) judgement. Jesus counsels us to be as wise as a serpent
and as harmless as a dove in our dealings in this world. Placing ourself in
the care of the Spirit of Truth provides us with guidance and protection
that we cannot — at least, to begin with — see, though we will become
increasingly aware of it if we are willing to give Him the chance,
believing.
This is not
about giving all our cash to a shifty-looking stranger. It is about seeing
past the shifty look and choosing to see in him only the face of Christ,
even though we discern that he has forgotten this truth about himself.
Instead of dismissing him because of outward appearances, we can silently
bless him and commit him into the care of the Holy Spirit. The
shifty-looking stranger may not be aware outwardly that we are loving and
blessing him, but it will be a powerful armament for the Holy Spirit to
bring about a change for the better, the beginning of a transformation in
the life of that brother; a gentle call to awakening. Never mind if we do
not see it; our role is to bless, forgive and leave the rest to Him Who
knows all things and can, with our co-operation, effect our release
through us releasing our brother. Because the only way to see ourself
as the Christ that we really are, is to see only Christ in everyone
else, including the shifty-looking stranger.
The
following extract from ACIM was scribed by Helen Schucman in the
pre-Christmas period, but its relevance is, of course, not limited to any
time or season.
The sign of
Christmas is a star, a light in darkness. See it not outside yourself,
but shining in the Heaven within, and accept it as the sign the time of
Christ has come. He comes demanding nothing. No sacrifice of any kind,
of anyone, is asked by Him. In His Presence the whole idea of sacrifice
loses all meaning.
…give the
Holy Spirit everything that would hurt you. Let yourself be healed
completely that you may join with Him in healing, and let us celebrate our
release together by releasing everyone with us. Leave
nothing behind, for release is total, and when you have accepted it with me
you will give it with me. All pain and sacrifice and littleness will
disappear in our relationship, which is as innocent as our relationship with
our Father, and as powerful. Pain will be brought to us and disappear in our
presence, and without pain there can be no sacrifice. And without sacrifice
there love must
be.
Guilt is the
condition of sacrifice, as peace is the condition for the awareness of your
relationship with God. Through guilt you exclude your Father and your
brothers from yourself. Through peace you invite them back, realizing that
they are where your invitation bids them be. What you exclude from
yourself seems fearful, for you endow it with fear and try to cast it out,
though it is part of you. Who can perceive part of himself as loathsome, and
live within himself in peace?
As long as
you perceive the body as your reality, so long will you perceive yourself as
lonely and deprived. And so long will you also perceive yourself as a victim
of sacrifice, justified in sacrificing others. For who could thrust Heaven
and its Creator aside without a sense of sacrifice and loss? And who could
suffer sacrifice and loss without attempting to restore himself? Yet how
could you accomplish this yourself, when the basis of your attempts is the
belief in the reality of the deprivation?
In the holy
instant the condition of love is met, for minds are joined without the
body’s interference, and where there is communication there is peace.
The Prince of Peace was born to re-establish the condition of love by
teaching that communication remains unbroken even if the body is destroyed,
provided that you see not the body as the necessary means of communication.
And if you understand this lesson, you will realize that to sacrifice the
body is to sacrifice nothing, and communication, which must be of the
mind, cannot be sacrificed. Where, then,
is sacrifice? The
lesson I was born to teach, and still would teach to all my brothers, is
that sacrifice is nowhere and love is everywhere. For communication
embraces everything, and in the peace it re-establishes, love comes of
itself.
(This is
the Mind-to-Mind commun(icat)ing of which I have been writing in the last
few months).
What can
be more joyous than to perceive we are deprived of nothing?
Such is the message of the time of Christ, which I give you that you may
give it and return it to the Father, Who gave it to me
(full
circle; the circle of At-onement, as described in T-14.V).
For in the
time of Christ
(which is
right NOW, and for all the rest of time, as the final phase of the GRP
gathers momentum, not just for Christmas!)
communication is restored, and He joins us in the celebration of His Son’s
creation.
Those who
receive the Father are one with Him, being host to Him Who created them.
And by allowing Him to enter, the remembrance of the Father enters with Him,
and with Him they remember the only relationship they ever had, and ever
want to have.
(This describes Jesus as he was 2k years ago, and now us as we are restored,
with him, back into the oneness of the Sonship in Papa).
I have
perfect faith in you to do all that you would accomplish.
Nothing will be lacking, and you will make complete and not destroy. Say,
then, to your brother:
I give you to the Holy Spirit as part of myself.
I know that you will be released, unless I want to use you
to imprison myself.
In the name of my freedom I choose your release, because
I recognize that we will be released together.
There is
much to do, and we have been long delayed. Accept the holy instant and take
your place, so long left unfulfilled, in the Great Awakening. And let all
your relationships be made holy for you.
(Extracted
from ACIM, chapter 15 section XI; my emboldening and some italics, for
emphasis).
Only when
we can truly have faith in ourself can we truly have faith in our brothers,
and then we will truly be free of ego’s yoke; then we will truly be Home.
With the unequivocal help of the Holy Spirit this is possible but it is up
to us to make a start by first desiring, then asking, then trusting.
Love and
many blessings for our common growth in trust,
Brian
Longhurst
May 14th 2008
Dear
Friends,
Almost all
of us here have some fear, at least some of the time. This is a symptom of
unconscious guilt, and even when that fear is subliminal, it is still with
us, floating just below the surface, waiting to emerge and engulf us in its
waves of anxiety, distress, dismay, turbulence, panic, terror or however it
may manifest on any random occasion.
That state
of fear is ‘normal’ in time and place, or egoland, because egoland is the
opposite of Heaven, where inner peace — an absolute absence of fear,
scarcity, loneliness, separation, guilt — is truly normal.
Time is
already over but those of us who have made it real by continuing to
believe it are keeping it in our Earth-mind, or ego-mind, consciousness.
All the while we continue to believe it is our reality, it will be
our reality, just as all the while we are within a dream, the dream appears
to be our reality until we awaken from that dream; then we see how that is
all it was. But we are at free choice, every moment, to awaken from the
egoland dream and its attendant fear.
That fear
is caused by unconscious guilt engendered by the belief that we have
separated ourself from our unconditionally loving Creator Spirit, Papa, even
though it is actually not so. We have never left Home and are only
perpetuating a totally unnecessary nightmare that we have journeyed into a
far country, away from our oneness in Him.
But we need
not prolong this unhappy state, and will do so only as long as we choose
to do so. It is the perverse nature of the ego-infected part of our mind
that causes us, through fear, to resist letting go, instead of what Jesus
described to me as surrendering the leasehold on our life, rather than
obstinately holding onto all that is undesirable from the true perspective
of where we actually, already are, in Eternity. It is like the
battered wife syndrome, where the wife remains in the relationship against
all sound reason, in some fear-driven hope that things will change, and that
the alternative could be immeasurably worse, so better the devil you know
than the one you don’t know. Everyone exhorts her to leave because they can
see how unbearable it really is, but paralysing fear keeps her obdurately
stuck in her torturous misery and despair.
This is how
it is with those of us who stay stubbornly ‘breaking rocks’ – see Vignette
20 in SFGS – when we could be ‘breaking bread’ in peace, joy, love and the abundance
that is eternal, spiritual reality.
It is
because ego has convinced us that we are alone and without help that we have
convinced ourself we have to get out of this pickle by our own devices.
Nothing
could be further from the truth. We can and will never get out — break the
cycle of birth and death — by our own devices since egoland is
designed to keep us taking wrong turns in the maze. This is because
everything we perceive to be true here is actually the reverse of true,
eternal reality (such as, we are a body and are going to die; that we are
divided into male and female; separated from God; are sinners, guilty,
unworthy; that there is linear time and space, divided into past, present
and future, etc).
There is
endless, all-powerful, all-knowing Help, as close as our own heartbeat —
closer in fact — and It is unconditionally loving; It is, of course, our
real, true, higher, Big Self, otherwise known as the Spirit of Truth, or the
Holy Breath, or the Holy Spirit. This Self is all of us; you, me,
Jesus, those the world has judged righteous and those the world has judged
unrighteous (because the world judges according to the upside-down, illusory
dream of time and place, which has never happened in reality, and that
judgement is designed by ego to prolong the dream indefinitely). Big Self,
which we all, already are — and will inevitably re-awaken to that
realisation — sees past our dream of littleness and knows we are God’s
beloved Son, in Whom He is well pleased, and will help us to awaken and
remember, if we are willing to surrender our ego-mind leasehold on
nothingness and allow the true Occupant to regain entry, and our true,
Christ Mind to resume its benign, all-empowered control over our life.
As Arten &
Pursah say, speaking in one voice as the Holy Spirit, at the end of The
Disappearance of the Universe:
I love you, my brothers and sisters, who are
really Me but do not yet fully know it. Be grateful for the opportunities
to forgive each other and thus yourselves. Replace your grievances with
love. Let your minds be led to the peace of God, and the truth that is
within you shall come to your awareness.
In October
2006 Sharon asked me if Jesus still speaks with me as in the Diary records
that have been posted on the HTG website. This was my reply to her
question:
Quick question, why did you
stop posting the diary in 1999? Just wondering. Sharon
Around that time some significant
changes began to take place in the mechanism of communication between the
Master (and Papa and all in the Realms of Light) and me. It has now become
like cable broadband, where one is online all the time and no dial-up is
required. I believe the objectives have been accomplished in the records
between 1967 and the early 2000s. You can read more about this at the
beginning of chapter 11 of SFGS.
Jesus tells
us in ACIM that we are too tolerant of our undisciplined thinking. In fact,
as time and place — and the prince of time and place — moves into its last
phase before disappearing completely and forever, ego is desperately
bombarding our seemingly lost, split-off part of the Christ Mind that is who
we really are, with ever-more clamour, insane thoughts, confusion. Those of
us who truly seek and earnestly desire to awaken to the peace, truth and
tranquillity of Eternity with the minimum of delay are eager for whatever
help is available to us from the GRP to get — and keep — our mind focussed
on and attuned to the Kingdom, so that the awakening will be seamless and
without distress.
This
attunement is a mind-to-Mind communing activity between us and Jesus and/or
the Holy Spirit. The objective is to re-train our mind to right thinking,
dispelling ego, Earth-mind, upside-down thinking. There are those who would
say this is impossible because our synapses are hard-wired to countless
generations of Earth-mind thinking and we cannot re-wire those synapses.
This is
absolutely not true — though ego would have us believe it is — but it can
only be achieved with faith, trust, commitment and the will, or
motivation, for it to be accomplished for us by the Holy Spirit, with our
own self-disciplined, one-pointed commitment to co-operate.
This will
take time, a device that can be transformed to serve the Holy
Spirit’s purposes of rescuing us, if we are willing to co-operate, or used
by ego to keep us here, in forgetfulness, until we are willing.
Whatever attunement mechanisms work for us, to aid our growth in
self-discipline, and help us get and keep focussed on the Kingdom of Heaven,
to the exclusion of ego thoughts, will be invaluable. For Theresa and me,
the hour-long (approximately) Service of Mystical Communion with Christ (SMCC)
has been, literally, a God-send.
It has been
a decades-long process for us, and for most people that seems like a very,
very long time. But as we all now know, time is an illusion, and SMCC has
served magnificently to get us onto the wavelength of the living Jesus and
his GRP for us all. A few decades seems like very good value because I am
now aware that this will save us scores, if not hundreds of further
incarnations before we waken to eternal reality fully and finally. Who
wants that!? — especially since it can so easily and safely be avoided.
Further,
coming under Jesus’ guidance for those decades has meant that by the time we
were brought to ACIM about 30 months ago, we were able to understand almost
all of it at the first reading/study — which took something more than a year
because we didn’t want to just ‘read’ it, but spend time with it, attuning
with the inspiration from the Holy Spirit that such commitment brings to our
study times. We spend usually an hour, and more at weekends, with ACIM
first thing most mornings, and are getting more depth of understanding with
subsequent readings. The way we see it is, if we want to break the cycle of
birth and death, it is worth the absolute commitment, to avoid returning for
more circuits of the carousel than are really necessary.
Now most
people yoked to ego believe Eternity, God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the
Realms of Light, are to be feared. Wrong! This is an ego device to keep us
here and stop us going There. Love, tenderness, gentleness, peace, joy,
understanding, all the words I have used so many times, are the actual
experiences that spontaneously arise from surrendering our leasehold.
The Holy Spirit will gladly, lovingly, seamlessly, painlessly substitute it
for freehold occupancy, for all Eternity. And we have to give up nothing in
exchange for everything.
Love and
many blessings,
Brian
Longhurst
May 21st 2008
Dear
Friends,
Any words
endeavouring to describe the beauty, joy, peace, love, oneness,
magnificence, effulgence, wholeness of the Kingdom of Heaven will be seen as
entirely inadequate symbols to those who have experienced even the merest
glimpse of that state of awareness; yet to ego-dominated, time-and-place
focused minds, such words are dismissed as flowery, exaggerated, flummery,
hyperbole, impossible to know, so how can they be meaningful?. This is just
one more indicator of how far short of our true Home this world actually
is. Or, well may it be so, but meanwhile, we are stuck down here and there
is nothing we can do about it, so we might as well make the best of a bad
job and get on with it.
Of course
this is ego’s way of getting us to see things, but it is not the right way,
Jesus’ way, the Holy Spirit’s way; and bearing in mind that the real us
is the Spirit of Truth, nor, then, can it actually be our way
either. So, how do we get free of, dispel and transcend the mindset that
sees things through the eyes of our illusory littleness, and start to see
and experience reality with our true vision?
A Course
in Miracles
is a training manual for just that, and its pivotal emphasis is that true
forgiveness is the mechanism for achieving it. This helps us to focus on
the fact that nothing here — including the billions of bodies — is real, it
is but a momentary dream that ended the instant it began, so we are not
little, guilty, weak, disempowered; we only believe we are.
Therefore, true forgiveness focuses on the fact that we — all of us — have
done nothing worthy of judgement and condemnation.
This is a
mind-re-training exercise, to unlearn the misperceptions that have been
inculcated into our mind since time began, and get us back on track with
right thinking. This is the only way to break the cycle of birth and death
and get us Home, permanently, to the true grandeur of our oneness in the
Sonship. Here is what Jesus says about this in ACIM, Text, chapter 17,
section II:
II. The Forgiven World
Can you
imagine how beautiful those you forgive will look to you?
(as, by our
true forgiveness, we are able to see in them only the face of Christ)
In no
fantasy have you ever seen anything so lovely. Nothing you see here,
sleeping or waking, comes near to such loveliness. And nothing will you
value like unto this, nor hold so dear. Nothing that you remember that made
your heart sing with joy has ever brought you even a little part of the
happiness this sight will bring you. For you will see the Son of God. You
will behold the beauty the Holy Spirit loves to look upon, and for which He
thanks the Father. He was created to see this for you, until you learned to
see it for yourself. And all His teaching leads to seeing it and giving
thanks with Him.
This
loveliness is not a fantasy. It is the real world, bright and clean and new,
with everything sparkling under the open sun.
Nothing is hidden here, for everything has been forgiven and there are no
fantasies to hide the truth.
(With such
words of inspiration, uplift and encouragement it is easy to see how and why
time is literally running out for ego)
The bridge
between that world and this is so little and so easy to cross, that you
could not believe it is the meeting place of worlds so different. Yet this
little bridge is the strongest thing that touches on this world at all. This
little step, so small it has escaped your notice, is a stride through
time into eternity, beyond all ugliness into beauty that will enchant you,
and will never cease to cause you wonderment at its perfection.
(Some who read this may need a reminder that this is Jesus, the
pragmatist, speaking, not some children’s fairy story.)
This step, the smallest ever
taken, is still the greatest accomplishment of all in God’s plan of
Atonement. All else is learned, but this is given, complete and wholly
perfect. No one but Him Who planned salvation could complete it thus. The
real world, in its loveliness, you learn to reach. Fantasies are all
undone, and no one and nothing remain still bound by them, and by your
own forgiveness you are free to see. Yet what you see is only what you
made
(the
‘physical’ universe),
with the blessing of your forgiveness on it. And with this final
blessing of God’s Son upon himself, the real perception, born of the new
perspective he has learned, has served its purpose.
(These previous two sentences are clearly speaking of the Kingdom of Heaven
on Earth [KOHOE]. Here is an extract of what I wrote in
response to Joel’s question about the KOHOE, posted on the HTG
Forum on February 18th 2008):
By the time we have renounced ego, the world
and all its unKingdomly illusions, healed all our broken relationships and
finally dispelled ego and all its associated, unconscious guilt, shame and
fear, we will have the KOHOE. This will be the last stage of the
journey before Papa reaches down and takes that final, tiny step for us,
where we move from true perception to true Vision. That will be the moment
at which the universe will disappear because we will have finished with it,
with time and place, with all illusion, and be fully restored to oneness —
from the division into ever more fragmented parts — back to our real Self as
Papa's only Son.
So, the KOHOE is a stepping
stone to the KOH (in Eternity, or Heaven), but it is an essential
one, because we have to be prepared, made ready, for the transition.
It is like a caterpillar-to-butterfly analogy. A caterpillar cannot become
a butterfly without going through the transitional stage of being a
chrysalis. The chrysalis is the transitional, or transformational, stage.
The KOHOE will be here, fully established in our minds, by the end of
the 3rd measure of meal, which is the end of the Aquarian Age, in
2000 years. It will be, in Eternity terms, a fleeting moment, which is what
all time is, because it is an illusion, a dream, and is already
over…
The transformational stage we must first
complete is dispelling ego — which makes us wrong-minded
— from
our mind, so that we can be corrected in our thinking back to
right-mindedness, or Holy Spirit thinking. That is not possible without
help. Where would we start? How would we proceed? Where/when would we
finish? Of course, we, in our Earth-mind (ego/split-off mind), cannot
answer these questions, but the Voice for God, the Holy Spirit can, and He
will, if we ask Him to…
The most important, pivotal, of these steps is
True Forgiveness, which is foundational to all the other steps. Without true
forgiveness, we can never reach the other steps because until we have truly
forgiven our neighbour (everyone) and ourself, the world and all the
illusory projections, we will still be harbouring unconscious guilt, fear,
shame, and be projecting them as our brethren and onto our
brethren in the form of attack, judgement, condemnation and the array of ego
misperceptions with which we are burdened and imprisoned here in time and
place.
The stars
will disappear in light, and the sun that opened up the world to beauty will
vanish. Perception will be meaningless when it has been perfected, for
everything that has been used for learning will have no function. Nothing
will ever change; no shifts nor shadings, no differences, no variations that
made perception possible will still occur. The perception of the real world
will be so short that you will barely have time to thank God for it. For
God will take the last step swiftly, when you have reached the real world
and have been made ready for Him.
The real
world is attained simply by the complete forgiveness of the old, the world
you see without forgiveness.
The Great Transformer of perception will undertake with you the careful
searching of the mind that made this world, and uncover to you the seeming
reasons for your making it. In the light of the real reason that He brings,
as you follow Him, He will show you that there is no reason here at
all. Each spot His reason touches grows alive with beauty, and what seemed
ugly in the darkness of your lack of reason is suddenly released to
loveliness. Not even what the Son of God made in insanity could be without a
hidden spark of beauty that gentleness could release
(This
implies the KOHOE, which is the final stage of our
transformation to readiness for the final step, in which Papa lifts us back
up to Heaven, out of time and place and once more permanently back into
Eternity).
All this
beauty will rise to bless your sight as you look upon the world with
forgiving eyes. For forgiveness literally transforms vision, and
lets you see the real world reaching quietly and gently across chaos,
removing all illusions that had twisted your perception and fixed it on the
past. The smallest leaf becomes a thing of wonder, and a blade of grass a
sign of God’s perfection.
From the
forgiven world the Son of God is lifted easily into his home. And there he
knows that he has always rested there in peace. Even salvation will
become a dream, and vanish from his mind. For salvation is the end of
dreams, and with the closing of the dream will have no meaning. Who, awake
in Heaven, could dream that there could ever be need of salvation?
How much do you want
salvation? It will
give you the real world, trembling with readiness to be given you. The
eagerness of the Holy Spirit to give you this is so intense He would not
wait, although He waits in patience. Meet His patience with your impatience
at delay in meeting Him. Go out in gladness to meet with your
Redeemer, and walk with Him in trust out of this world, and into the real
world of beauty and forgiveness.
(my
emboldening and some italics, for emphasis).
It is hard
to imagine words more beautiful, and full of promise — guarantee,
even — than these.
I leave you
with this quote from Gary Renard’s book ‘Your immortal Reality’:
…when you awaken from the dream of time and
space, there is no more time and space, which means that you don’t
have to hang around for a million years waiting for everyone to wake up.
There is nobody else to wake up. There was nobody out there but
you, the one ego, appearing as many. And the ones you thought
were out there are already with you in Heaven, not as bodies, but as what
they really are, which is spirit. Nobody can be left out in oneness,
and nothing can be lacking in wholeness. So everyone you ever loved or
cared about, including animals, are there in your awareness. Once again,
not as anything that was ever separate, but as something that can never
be separate. Nothing can be missing in perfection. It’s all perfectly
one, and it’s constant, which is an attribute that doesn’t exist in the
universe of time and space. However, it can be experienced by you,
even though you may appear to be in a body.
Onwards and
upwards!!
Brian
Longhurst
Today I let
Christ’s vision look upon
All things
for me, and judge them not, but give
Each one a
miracle of love instead.
W-pII. 349h
May 28th 2008
Dear
Friends,
There is
but one true purpose and objective for our being here and that is to get out
of here; to get back where we really belong: Home. To the Eternity of
Heaven.
We cannot
get Home without help or on our own, i.e. leaving our fellows behind
to stew in their own juice, because we are all one in the place where we
belong, and where we are headed; and separation into ever-increasing numbers
of bodies, divided into two opposite genders (just to make things more
‘interesting’ – or complicated, depending on one’s experiences!) is a trick,
an illusion, to keep us pre-occupied with what’s ‘out there’ instead of
what’s in here.
Everything
here in time and place is the exact opposite of Eternity; upside down and
back to front. Even our bodily eye-sight is upside down, and we have to
transpose it to the right way up in our brain, after light images have
passed through the lens of our eye and hit the retina at the back of the eye
the wrong way up.
So it is
with what we believe, wrongly, is going on out there. We appear to see
someone else doing something and we react to it and judge that person
‘wrong.’ The reason why we react to it is that we see our own, unconscious
guilt and fear in what the other person is doing and we project that guilt
and fear outwards, to get it ‘over there’ instead of ‘in here,’ where we
mistakenly, unconsciously, believe it is. Then we try to absolve ourself of
that guilt by separating ourself from it. We are mistaken because it is
nowhere; the Son of God is innocent and sin does not exist where we
really are, in the only ‘place’ that is real — Eternity; we merely dreamt,
for an instant, that we were separate from God, and that instant is over.
We simply keep reviewing it, like a replay of a moment in a sporting event,
projecting it onto a screen (the ‘physical’ universe). We believe the
action is on the screen but it is not, any more than what we see on a screen
at the cinema is where the action is.
Trying to
change what we don’t like on the screen is futile because that is not where
it is coming from. It is coming from the projector, which is our
unconscious mind. That is where we have to correct what is keeping us here,
in order to get us out of here. ‘How can we possibly correct what is in our
unconscious mind if we are not conscious of it?’ I hear you ask.
Well, the answer is, we, or ‘little self,’ cannot. But the Holy Spirit,
which is our true, ‘Big Self’ can, for us. All He asks is our
co-operation. Read on to find out how.
When we
judge another as ‘wrong’ we are in fact judging ourself, but the projection
causes us to believe it is someone else, ‘out there.’ There is no-one
else! When Jesus said, ‘Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with
what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete,
it shall be measured to you again’
(Mt.7:1-2) he was telling us that we judge ourself when we believe we
are judging another. There is no other. This statement by Jesus has been
misunderstood as God judging us because we have judged another, and
that is His job! We now know that God does not judge, if for
no other reason than that we are innocent, and have done nothing worthy of
judgement.
All
appearances to the contrary are the dream of separation, and dreams are not
real. Anything real, God, assuredly knows about it, having created all
things that are real. But in the same way as a parent does not know what a
child is dreaming (because it isn’t real), neither does God know what ‘we’
are dreaming — namely, separation from Him — because it is not real either.
So, we
cannot escape from here ‘alone, and never mind our fellows,’ as they are
only our fellows because we have projected them out there as a result
of our misperceptions about ourself as being little and fearful, due to our
unconscious belief that we are guilty of an act of treachery against God.
We have to correct these misperceptions to the point where we are no longer
projecting our unconscious, imagined guilt out there onto imagined ‘others’
perceived as bodies. This may seem incomprehensively convoluted and
complicated; enough to tie us in knots of mental contortion. Just what ego
wants, so we will not even try to ‘go there,’ in case we rumble the
prestidigitation and see past it to the simple truth. This is curtains for
ego.
Assuredly,
it will, and does, take much thought, much pondering, and above all, much
commitment, and we will do immeasurably better in seeing past the tangle to
the straight reality if we ask the Holy Spirit to be with us, inspire and
illuminate our mind as we contemplate all this. ACIM sets out the truth of
all this completely comprehensively, and Gary Renard’s books help massively
in understanding ACIM.
In Eternity
there is only one of us — God’s only Son, Christ — and we appear here in the
dream as many, separated. That separation is what we have to see past, and
because it is projected as an attempt to get the unconscious guilt
and fear away from ourself and onto something, somebody out there, we
see others as guilty. But no-one is actually guilty and we have to
re-train our mind to the true perception that we are (all) Christ. We can
only do that by clarifying in our mind that although ‘they’ appear to be
guilty, in the reality of Eternity they have done nothing – and can only
have done nothing because they, along with us, are not ‘out there.’
This seems
so convoluted as to be nonsense only because we are seeing everything from
an upside-down, back to front perspective. With our right-thinking, Holy
Spirit, or Christ Mind, it is actually very simple; and as we, one step at a
time, with FTOC, begin to undergo the transformation to that right-mind
perspective, so does it gradually begin to straighten out and make absolute
sense, to the point where it becomes ego-mind that can then correctly be
seen as insanely complicated.
Because
others seem to be out there and to be doing things that we are prone
to judge (and the closer we examine our own thoughts, the more we find we
are judging, almost every moment, mostly without even being aware that we
are doing so) we now actively choose to remember they have actually not
done anything at all, by bringing into operation the practice of true
forgiveness, in which we forgive what in truth they have never done
(even though to our ego perception it appears they have). This true
forgiveness is a mind re-training exercise, to get us back into right-side
up thinking, so that our misperceptions can be transformed into true
vision. Here is a suggested exercise that we have put together from ACIM,
DU and our own, Holy Spirit-inspired thoughts on the matter. Part of this
was included in the August 27th message last year, but has now
been augmented to make it more comprehensive:
An exercise example for practising true forgiveness:
Dear Blank I choose gladly to forgive you for all the things you have
never done,
that I may freely receive the forgiveness that is rightfully mine.
And I ask your forgiveness of me for all the things I also have never
done,
that you may freely receive the forgiveness that is rightfully yours.
I give you this gift of forgiveness, via the Holy Spirit, so that, by His
wisdom and timing
He may keep it safe in you, and reveal it to you when He sees that you are
ready/able to receive it,
and that I, also, may receive it.
And now we are released into innocence, and join with the Holy Spirit in the
Peace and joyous Oneness of the Sonship, with our beloved brother Jesus, in
Papa.
I bless you, bless you, bless you for restoration to fullness of your
remembrance of who you really are. You are Christ, pure and innocent.
Papa’s Son is guiltless and sin does not exist.
Now are we forgiven, and free to see in each other only the face of Christ.
NB: This exercise should not be spoken face to face
with the forgivee, unless you are fully confident that they will respond (at
the Earth-mind level) positively.
True
forgiveness heals broken relationships and this brings us inner peace, a
certain sign of the undoing and releasing of unconscious guilt and fear, the
dispelling of ego from our mind and are prerequisite to our full spiritual
awakening and enlightenment. This is our true and permanent, eternal state
of being, along with Jesus and all our brethren who appear to be here in
egoland. It is because we are projecting our unconscious guilt and fear, in
the form of judgement, and are therefore unforgiving, that our
fellows appear to be here. It is, therefore, we, ourself, who are keeping
those images here, along with ourself. This means that unless and until we
truly forgive — our fellows, ourself and the illusory world at large — we
cannot be released from the dream of time and place and be restored to full
wakefulness in the Kingdom.
As already
mentioned, this all seems, to our confused ego-mind, impossibly complex and
unachievable. This is where the news just gets a whole lot better: we don’t
have to undo ego ourself — like a prison break from the inside, while
chained and under armed guard (ego). All we have to do is desire the
only true freedom that is eternal truth, and ask the Holy Spirit to do this
for us. Ego immediately steps in here, and says, ‘Oh, yeah! Cop
out. Something for nothing? Since when? There is no such thing as a free
lunch, no such thing as something for nothing. Don’t believe it; it’s a
con. Why would this so-called Holy Spirit want to do that for you? …you’re
a miserable, unworthy sinner; a loser.’ Etc., etc. Wrong. We are the
Holy Spirit and He wants to do this because we are one. His job is to
remind us and awaken us to fullness of remembrance of that reality.
Meanwhile,
back at the ranch (or the galley-slave warship), ever more new individuals
are being born. In my lifetime the population of Earth has gone from less
than 2.5 billion to well over 6 billion, and is still rising; a sure sign of
division — ego’s favourite pastime — continuing. We all rejoice at the safe
delivery of a newborn baby into this world and rightly so, because it is
an opportunity to transform adversity into fulfilment; time back into
Eternity, through true forgiveness. But unless and until we choose,
actively, determinedly, one-pointedly, resolutely, positively, committedly,
to return to right-mindedness, we are passively allowing ego’s stranglehold
on us to remain.
We are
faced now, as never before since time began, with the biggest opportunity
ever: to learn for ourselves and teach our newly-incarnating brethren why
they are really here, so that they can grow up in the truth and really begin
to break the cycle of birth and death for the whole new generation. This
has been a long time coming and now, thanks to Jesus and his GRP it is
within our grasp. Who amongst us, with this awareness, will choose to
return to breaking rocks when he could be breaking bread, in Kingdomly
fellowship? (see:
http://www.honest2goodness.org.uk/Part_2_Vignettes.htm#16._From_breaking_rocks_to_breaking_bread
)
Here’s to
the journey Home! Together.
Love and
light, Holy Spirit style,
Brian
Longhurst
June 4th 2008
Dear
Friends,
Last week
brief mention was made of newly incarnating souls being an opportunity for
us to extend to them the Truth of who they really are, and thus to begin to
create a new culture, a new generation, a new society, a new world of peace,
Love and Lght, centred on true forgiveness, so that they can grow in and
with that right-minded perception of life, and will then in turn, extend
that Kingdom Age awareness to their offspring. This will benefit
‘past’ as well as ‘future’ generations, because ‘past’ is actually
simultaneous with ‘present’ and ‘future.’ It only looks otherwise in time
and place, which appears to unfold in a linear fashion.
Once we
awaken to the point of remembrance that we have had ‘past incarnations,’ and
that events ‘then’ are impacting upon events ‘now’ — often negatively
because karma in a dream world of duality, or separation consciousness under
ego domination, is scripted that way— we can extend
BLASER blessing and true forgiveness to our ‘past lives’ and those with
whom we interacted then. The Holy Spirit takes those power-blessings and
forgiveness exercises (because we have freely given them to Him) and uses
them according to His wisdom to benefit the ‘former identities,’ or
‘personas’ of ourself and those with whom we interacted.
Former
personas benefit by receiving that help in ways of which they will most
likely not have been consciously aware, but will nevertheless have been of
practical and palpable benefit (how could it be otherwise where the Holy
Spirit is at work?). Lack of conscious awareness of such help does not
nullify it, because we are speaking of unconscious mind realms, not of
bodily, sensory awareness. Those ‘former selves’ will thus have been helped
further forward on the Path Home to Eternity than would otherwise have been
the case. So, by the ‘time’ we come to reincarnate into the ‘present’ act,
with a new persona, we are starting out further ahead than we would
otherwise have been. It is a win-win situation, and contributes to,
enables, incalculable strides to be made in the collapsing of time.
So, how do
we do this, since most of us have no remembrance of ‘former’ acts or who we
were in them?
This does
not matter because the Holy Spirit knows everything and the Holy
Spirit represents our Higher, all-knowing, Big Self; one with Papa, empowered by
Papa in all things. We can leave all things with Him. All we have to do is
be willing to co-operate with Him in the outworking, the
accomplishing of all things for the Kingdom. That willingness will engender
a state of mind that is universally caring, compassionate, loving, blessing,
forgiving, and the Holy Spirit will take that ‘little willingness,’
join His Big Willingness to it, and direct it accordingly, for the
benefit of all. He said to me last night:
“Attune
with Me; we are one. It is only ego in you preventing us from being One —
your being aware of, one with, Me — always. It is a simple choice — your
choice — always. I will never coerce you, because I Love you and you are
always free. Free to weigh in the balance which is better for you and for
all: ego or Me.
The fact is, you have already made
that choice, and the mad instant is over. You — Me
— we —
us — we are back where we have never left; the Holy Instant, the Oneness,
the joy, the peace, the unspeakable Love. Fear not for the perfect
outworking, restoration, at-One-ment; the process is already
complete. Join, once again, in that completeness with Me. You have
experienced its reality – the Most Holy Place, with, in Papa. Only
desire it and I will perfect it for you. Join with Me in desire for
the Kingdom; I am with you every step of the Way.”
Amongst the
most stark, yet moving, progressing by steps to be amongst the most
beautiful, encouraging, inspiring, enlightening, helpful words in all of
ACIM are the following, from chapter 18 of the Text:
III. Light in the Dream
You who have
spent your life in bringing truth to illusion
(i.e.
bending truth to fit the distortions of illusion),
reality to fantasy, have walked the way of dreams. For you have gone from
waking to sleeping, and on and on to a yet deeper sleep. Each dream has led
to other dreams, and every fantasy that seemed to bring a light into the
darkness but made the darkness deeper
(and
thus, even further from the truth of Eternity, which is just where
ego-led, somnambulist humanity seems to be headed).
Your goal
was darkness, in which no ray of light could enter. And you sought a
blackness so complete that you could hide from truth forever, in complete
insanity. What you forgot was simply that God cannot destroy Himself. The
light is in
you. Darkness can cover it, but cannot put it out.
As the light
comes nearer
(which it
unstoppably is, thanks to Jesus’
GRP, and ego is powerless to prevent it)
you will
rush to darkness, shrinking from the truth, sometimes retreating to the
lesser forms of fear, and sometimes to stark terror
(how
plainly does this point up that the media are puppets of ego, the separator,
the divider, the destroyer, the accuser, the doubt and fear promulgator).
But
you will advance, because your goal is the advance from fear to truth. The
goal you accepted is the goal of knowledge, for which you signified your
willingness. Fear seems to live in darkness, and when you are afraid you
have stepped back. Let us then join quickly in an instant of light, and
it will be enough to remind you that your goal is light.
Truth has
rushed to meet you since you called upon it
(to our
ego-mind such language may be seen as fanciful, but to our right-minded
thinking, this is a glorious, uplifting encouragement for us to keep on in
FTOC).
If you knew
Who walks beside you on the way that you have chosen, fear would be
impossible.
(I can attest to this because I experienced Jesus walking beside me;
as described in SFGS,
ch. 10).
You do not
know because the journey into darkness has been long and cruel, and you have
gone deep into it
(over
countless incarnations).
A little
flicker of your eyelids, closed so long, has not yet been sufficient to give
you confidence in yourself, so long despised. You go toward love still
hating it, and terribly afraid of its judgement upon you. And you do not
realize that you are not afraid of love, but only of what you have
made of it. You are advancing to love’s
(true)
meaning, and away from all illusions in which you have surrounded it.
When you retreat to the illusion your fear increases, for there is little
doubt that what you think it means
is fearful. Yet
what is that to us who travel surely and very swiftly away from fear?
You who hold
your brother’s hand also hold mine, for when you joined each other you were
not alone. Do you believe that I would leave you in the darkness that you
agreed to leave with me?
(again, I
can attest that the answer is a definite No; never!)
In your
relationship is this world’s light. And fear must disappear before you now.
Be not tempted to snatch away the gift of faith you offered to your brother.
You will succeed only in frightening yourself. The gift is given forever,
for God Himself received it. You cannot take it back. You have accepted God.
The holiness of your relationship is established in Heaven. You do not
understand what you accepted, but remember that your understanding is not
necessary. All that was necessary was merely the
wish to understand.
That wish was the desire to be holy. The Will of God is granted you.
For you desire the only thing you ever had, or ever were.
Each
instant that we spend together will teach you that this goal is possible,
and will strengthen your desire to reach it.
And in your desire lies its accomplishment. Your desire is now in
complete accord with all the power of the Holy Spirit’s Will. No little,
faltering footsteps that you may take can separate your desire from His Will
and from His strength. I hold your hand as surely as you agreed to take
your brother’s. You will not separate, for I stand with you and walk with
you in your advance to truth. And where we go we carry God with us.
In your
relationship you have joined with me in bringing Heaven to the Son of God,
who hid in darkness. You have been willing to bring the darkness to light,
and this willingness has given strength to everyone who would remain in
darkness. Those who would see
will
see. And they will join with me in carrying their light into the
darkness, when the darkness in them is offered to the light, and is removed
forever. My need for you, joined with me in the holy light of your
relationship, is your need for salvation. Would I not give you what you gave
to me? For when you joined your brother, you answered me.
You who
are now the bringer of salvation have the function of bringing light to
darkness.
The darkness in you has been brought to light. Carry it back to darkness,
from the holy instant to which you brought it. We are made whole in our
desire to make whole. Let not time worry you, for all the fear
that you and your brother experience is really past. Time has been
readjusted to help us do, together, what your separate pasts would hinder
(We, who
appear to be stuck in a fixed and unalterable process called time, can
take heart from this; that Jesus truly is empowered to shrink, collapse,
eliminate time, release us from it, so that we can see its meaninglessness
from the perspective of Eternity, in which we, even now, have our
being, our only reality).
You
have gone past fear, for no two minds can join in the desire for love
without love’s joining them.
Not one
light in Heaven but goes with you. Not one ray that shines forever in the
Mind of God but shines on you. Heaven is joined with you in your advance
to Heaven. When such great lights have joined with you to give the
little spark of your desire the power of God Himself, can you remain in
darkness?
(It is, needless to say, impossible).
You
and your brother are coming home together, after a long and meaningless
journey that you undertook apart, and that led nowhere. You have found your
brother, and you will light each other’s way. And from this light will the
Great Rays extend back into darkness and forward unto God, to shine away the
past and so make room for His eternal Presence, in which everything is
radiant in the light.
(These last 3 sentences describe the events recorded in Vignette 27 in SFGS.)
(My
emboldening, underlining and some italics, for emphasis)
Of course
we are still (in linear terms) only at the beginning of the 3rd
measure of meal and the vast majority of apparently-separated fragments of
the Sonship are not yet ready to begin to awaken to the Truth of Eternity
and rejoin as one in the Sonship. However, for those of us who are, and are
perhaps struggling with understanding parts of ACIM, I say:
Don’t give
up on it just because you don’t understand parts of it. Keep on, and be
encouraged, because there are parts of it that you do
understand. Rejoice in them, and be enheartened by them to read
more. Give each bit you don’t understand to the Holy Spirit, asking
Him to shine in your mind the Light of understanding, so that when you come
to them at the next reading, they will be added to the parts you already
understand, until the whole becomes one and the one becomes whole.
Peace,
Brian
Longhurst
I who am host to God am worthy of Him.
He Who established His dwelling place in me created it as
He would have it be.
It is not needful that I make it ready for Him, but only
that I do not interfere with His plan to restore to me my
own awareness of my readiness, which is eternal.
I need add nothing to His plan.
But to receive it, I must be willing not to substitute my
own in place of it.
(ACIM, ch.18:IV)
June 11th 2008
Dear
Friends,
The word
clamour has been used a number of times in previous
MoEs. The dictionary describes it as: a loud and confused noise; a
vehement protest or demand, and cites as synonyms: din, hubbub,
racket, uproar, outcry, etc.
Peace is
not to be found in clamour. Ever. Most of us, if asked, would claim to want
peace, yet still, most of us passively allow clamour in our lives, and many
of us actively seek it, perhaps believing that if they make enough
clamour they will eventually find peace. That is like going into darkness
in search of light. Peace is within, regardless of what ego is doing
‘out there.’
Ego is
about outer distraction or clamour; anything to keep our attention diverted
from the objectives of the Holy Spirit, Jesus and his
GRP: Peace, Inner peace; The truth about who we really are —
God’s Son. Is there one amongst us who believes God’s Son seeks peace in
clamour? We are reminded in ACIM that faith brings peace, and
faithlessness brings fear.
The place
we are now at on the cosmic clock is chaos time (though you hardly need me
to tell you that; every time CNN, or Fox News, or BBC News 24 is tuned in,
they remind us of it, loud and clear). Jesus tells us that when we see
disarray and chaos all around, that then it is truly the time to rejoice
(rather than join the queue, along with all who are under ego-domination, to
hit the panic button) because that is a certain sign that the Kingdom is at
hand, even at the doors. It takes faith to be able to hold fast to a
statement like that, but if we can, it pays palpable dividends in terms of
inner peace and release from fear.
How
difficult it seems to not be distracted by what’s going on out there. And
so many of us find that out there may appear to be happening right in our
own family! That is so close it can seem hard to tell where ‘out there’ and
‘in here’ begin and end. Then, it really takes faith to remain
focussed on the within, the only place that peace is to be found.
I see from
the internet that Oprah Winfrey, who appears to be an advocate of what some
people call the New Reality, including ACIM, is coming under vicious and
sustained attack from the ‘Old Reality,’ which is the second, or even the
first measure of meal consciousness. This is in the form of conservative,
orthodox and fundamentalist religionists, who see God as a jealous and
vengeful god, and Jesus as coming to judge the world (even though, in
scriptures they claim to follow, he said, ‘I came not to judge the world,
but to save the world.’ Jn. 12:47). Such behaviour is clearly
fear-founded (ego) rather than love-inspired (Holy Spirit).
Attacks
like these will inevitably come when we venture out into the wilderness
seeking to press our good gifts on those who are neither ready nor willing
to receive them. As the Teacher said to Olga many decades ago:
‘Your
heart outruns your head. You may stand at the cross-roads of life, and
offer your good things to them that inquire but run not down every alley
pressing them upon the halt, the maimed and the blind; for think you
that your treasures will, as if by some magic, create in them a new set
of values? You know within yourself that it is not possible, for it is
contrary to spiritual law. As the Master taught, so we know — to him
that hath shall be added.’
Oprah is,
no doubt, serving a great spiritual cause, in accordance with her birth
vision, agreed ‘afore time’ with her spiritual counsellors, and this will,
assuredly, enable a great going forward of the
GRP, but it places her very much in the firing line from those who are
committed to not going forward, instead preferring to stay put in old order
perceptions. She is one courageous lady.
In contrast
to that, the Master Jesus has spoken to me on a number of occasions about
not going out into the wilderness, but instead, remaining close to the
source of our spiritual sustenance; what he called the ‘Inner Sanctuary,’
the ‘Holy Sanctuary’ and also ‘the Hill of the Lord.’ Here are some
examples:
October 16th
1994:
Although the enemy is ever
close, you are, by your commitment, within the aura of my protection. The
enemy has no part in me and you are protected absolutely by your oneness
with me. Remember this as each opportunity to go forward arises, my son.
You have entered in to the Inner Sanctuary and from therein shall your
service be rendered. Go not out, for the invitation is to all to
enter in and those who would do so shall receive of you the living word
(symbol of eternal truth)
at the entranceway.
Let the holy chalice
(symbol of Christ love)
also be offered, for you have seen how the wanderers in the wilderness crave
its restoring liquid.
April 16th
1995:
Brian, faithful follower and server; it is my joy to wait
upon you and to bring the feast of my banquet table to you; for you have
watched and waited, knowing not the hour of my return from the wedding
(see Lk. 12:36-37). Now comes the time when I shall bring to you diverse seekers after the
mysteries. Remain and go not out, for they shall come to you. It is
necessary that they be brought to you, that the focus of my holy sanctuary
be clear in your sight and that the many ways of the sojourner distract you
not from my purpose in you.
August 17th 1997 (not yet posted):
My son, now do you see why it has been essential that you
remain steadfastly in this place and go not out into the wilderness,
the surrounding hills and plains and valleys. It has been necessary for
your own purposes as well as that of your fellows, that you ascend unto the
Hill of the Lord. The Hill of the Lord is one place only; it is set fast in
the place ordained of God, for His purposes.
It has been necessary that you remain
(in the holy place), ascending one step at a time, that you might enter in to
His presence and be lifted up, purified by the living flame, and thus become
a beacon of that light. Only in this way can the beacon be seen from near
and afar off and draw many who seek to know the message that I have put into
your heart and will speak from your mouth.
Have no fear, no doubt, no trepidation; I, your Lord and your
brother, have performed it and will perform it. That which I
bring is not of the Earth; therefore do not measure the prospect according
to your Earthly perception.
These words
are, as ever, not for me alone, but for all who will receive them unto
themselves, for their own benefit, upliftment, protection, and then for all
unto whom they desire/choose to extend them, in Christ love. Eternal truth
is for everyone because we are all one. Truly, we are not
many minds and many bodies, but the one Son of Papa, of one mind only, who
only appear to be many, fragmented, separated, vainly hiding from and
fearful of Him, Who awaits our return with open, loving arms, with the
banquet feast already prepared for His beloved Son, who mistakenly believes
himself to be errant.
All the
while we allow ego sovereignty over our thoughts, so will our misperceptions
and false beliefs remain. But once we grant that sovereignty to our true,
right-minded Self, Holy Spirit, we will begin the journey Home together.
For we belong together; there is but one of us. Truly, going not out, but
rather, entering in, is the way toward peace, and away from clamour.
Jesus
reminds us in ACIM that in our present state of wrong-mindedness we can
learn the truth best by comparison with illusion. He does this aplenty in
ACIM. Here are some extracts from chapter 19 of the Text, section II (which
the requirement for brevity here does not permit full inclusion, though we
are all, of course, at liberty at any time to study fully):
We said
before that when a situation has been dedicated wholly to truth, peace is
inevitable. Its attainment is the criterion by which the wholeness of the
dedication can be safely assumed
(in
other words, without complete commitment, complete peace
cannot be achieved).
Yet
we also said that peace without faith will never be attained, for
what is dedicated to truth as its only goal is brought to truth
by faith. This
faith encompasses everyone involved, for only thus the situation is
perceived as meaningful and as a whole. And everyone must be involved in it;
or else your faith is limited and your dedication incomplete
(‘everyone’ means, particularly, those with whom we are experiencing
unresolved issues, broken relationships. As we practise true forgiveness
with them — and our self — so will we subsequently be able to extend that
unreservedly to all the world; everyone).
Every
situation, properly perceived, becomes an opportunity to heal the Son of
God. And he is healed
because you offered faith to him, giving him to the Holy
Spirit and releasing him from every demand your ego would make of him.
Thus do you see him free, and in this vision does the Holy Spirit
share. And since He shares it He has given it, and so He heals through you.
It is this joining Him in a united purpose that makes this purpose real,
because you make it whole. And this
is healing.
The body
cannot heal, because it cannot make itself sick. It
needs no healing.
Its health or sickness depends entirely on how the mind perceives it, and
the purpose that the mind would use it for. It is obvious that a segment of
the mind can see itself as separated from the Universal Purpose. When this
occurs the body becomes its weapon, used against this Purpose, to
demonstrate the “fact” that separation has occurred. The body thus becomes
the instrument of illusion, acting accordingly; seeing what is not there,
hearing what truth has never said and behaving insanely, being imprisoned
by insanity.
Do not
overlook our earlier statement that faithlessness leads straight to
illusions. For faithlessness is the perception of a brother as a body,
and the body cannot be used for purposes of union. …faithlessness has thus
opposed the Holy Spirit’s purpose, and brought illusions, centered on the
body, to stand between you. And the body will seem to be sick, for
you have made of it an “enemy” of healing and the opposite of truth.
Faithlessness would always limit and attack; faith would remove all
limitations and make whole. Faithlessness would destroy and separate; faith
would unite and heal. Faithlessness would interpose illusions between the
Son of God and his Creator; faith would remove all obstacles that seem to
rise between them. Faithlessness is wholly dedicated to illusions; faith
wholly to truth. Partial dedication is impossible. Truth is the absence
of illusion; illusion the absence of truth. Both cannot be together, nor
perceived in the same place.
To have
faith is to heal. It is the sign that you have accepted the Atonement
(it
is worth keeping in mind here that the word ‘Atonement’ can have two very
distinct meanings: to orthodox religion, pronounced a-tonement, it
means reconciliation of man with God for sins committed — and thus, made
real — by the crucifixion of Jesus. In the context that it is used here,
Jesus means the Anglo-Saxon word, pronounced at-one-ment, meaning
‘making one,’ ‘restoration to one-ness’)
for
yourself, and would therefore share it. By faith, you offer the gift of
freedom from the past, which you received. You do not use anything
your brother has done before to condemn him now. You freely choose to
overlook his errors, looking past all barriers between yourself and him, and
seeing them as one. And in that one you see your faith is fully
justified.
Faith is the
opposite of fear, as much a part of love as fear is of attack. Faith is the
acknowledgement of union. It is the gracious acknowledgement of everyone as
a Son of your most loving Father, loved by Him like you …It is His Love that
joins you and your brother… Each one appears just as he is perceived in the
holy instant, united in your purpose to be released from guilt. You see the
Christ in him, and he is healed…
(and
by the healing of our brother are we healed).
Faith is the
gift of God, through Him
(the
Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, the Holy Breath, the Comforter, Big Self)
Whom
God has given you. Faithlessness looks upon the Son of God, and judges him
unworthy of forgiveness. But through the eyes of faith, the Son of God is
seen already forgiven, free of all the guilt he laid upon himself.
Faith sees him only
now
because it looks not to the past to judge him, but would see in him only
what it would see in you.
Faith is as
easily exchanged for knowledge as is the real world. For faith arises from
the Holy Spirit’s perception, and is the sign you share it with Him. Faith
is a gift you offer to the Son of God through Him, and wholly acceptable to
his Father as to Him. And therefore offered you. Your holy relationship,
with its new purpose, offers you faith to give unto your brother.
Grace is not
given to a body, but to a mind. And the mind that receives it looks
instantly beyond the body, and sees the holy place where it was healed.
There is the altar where the grace was given, in which it stands. Do you,
then, offer grace and blessing to your brother, for you stand at the same
altar where grace was laid for both of you
(our
brother in this context is, at least initially, all with whom we are
experiencing a broken or damaged relationship).
In the holy
instant, you and your brother stand before the altar God has raised unto
Himself and both of you. Lay faithlessness aside, and come to it together.
There will you see the miracle of your relationship as it was made again
through faith. And there it is that you will realize that there is
nothing faith cannot forgive.
As
faithlessness will keep your little kingdoms barren and separate, so will
faith help the Holy Spirit prepare the ground for the most holy garden that
He would make of it. For faith brings peace, and so it calls on truth
to enter and make lovely what has already been prepared for loveliness.
Let,
then, your dedication be to the eternal, and learn how not to interfere with
it and make it slave to time.
For what you
think you do to the eternal you do to
you. Whom God
created as His Son is slave to nothing, being lord of all, along with his
Creator
(any
absence of awareness of such is to do with our flawed attunement, not Papa’s
‘transmitting,’ or extending to us).
(My
emboldening, underlining and some italics, for emphasis).
Big Me, or
pygmy? It’s always our free choice, every moment.
Love,
blessings and true forgiveness, always,
Brian
Longhurst
June 18th 2008
Dear
Friends,
Last week I
was prompted to end the
MoE with the words: ‘Big
Me, or pygmy? It’s always our free choice, every moment.’
Our
relationship to the Holy Spirit has been discussed on various occasions, and
Jesus reminds us in ACIM that there is no difference, no gap, no
separation between us and the Holy Spirit. Here, in upside-down land,
we have allowed ourselves to believe that there is a gap. That is
because here, we are attempting to hide from God, even while (some of us
are) pretending, or believing (a self-deception) that we are seeking after
Him through the ego-construct known as the institutionalised church.
Amongst the
self-deception ploys are the percept that we must congregate for religious
fellowship and to support each other. But congregating in the midst of
wrong-mindedness is only perpetuating the misperceptions of guilt, fear,
separation and littleness that have caused such lack of self-worth and so
much misery, degradation and destruction for so many centuries. Better for
us to go alone into our closet and shut the door (on the illusory,
upside-down world out there), and then commune with
Papa, Who hears us in secret and rewards us openly. And Whose Voice will
correct our misperceptions and get us back on track for right-minded
thinking.
Our Big
Self, which is our right-minded Self, free of ego misperceptions, is one
with the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit is right-Minded.
There can only be one right Mind, and we enter into oneness with that
one Mind by attuning with Its right-Minded thinking. When we can accept
unto ourselves the truth of this, we will have greatly progressed in undoing
ego and in seeing ourself as not a body but eternal, innocent, pure spirit,
imbued with the Mind of God.
The Holy
Spirit’s job is to help us get back to right-Mindedness and He will do this
if/when we truly desire it and ask Him. Then we will begin to become
of one Mind with Holy Spirit, and will start to undergo the mind re-training
without which we will remain stuck indefinitely in the never-never land of
separation. If we think of Holy Spirit as ‘Big Me,’ then we are thinking of
oneness with Holy Spirit, and that is a good mantra, or mnemonic in this
process of getting attuned (“at-One’d”) with Him. ‘Big Me’ brings
sharply into focus in our mind that the Holy Spirit is ‘One with me,’ rather
than the only alternative, old order thinking, as some external, separate,
exalted, being unreachable because we are (old thinking) ‘little me’
(pygmy).
A couple of
weeks ago, as I was communing with the Holy Spirit — trying to get into the
Oneness way of perceiving Him, and trying to de-formalise the nomenclature,
in order to feel more comfortable, more at ease with Him — addressing Him, I
said, ‘Okay, Big Guy…’ and before I could add another word of my thought
toward Him, He instantly cut in and said, ‘Don’t forget, you’re Big
Guy too.’ This brought me up short because I knew instantly, intuitively,
He was right; the only alternative is little guy; back to littleness
thinking; a sure-fire recipe for more turns on the
carousel.
However,
‘Big Guy’ is, for me, a bit too slangy for the holy intent of the idea, so I
pondered how to rephrase it to maintain the intent, keep the informality,
yet channel it into a more acceptable, comfortable, apposite turn of
phrase. What was the nub of this thought? That I am not different from
(nor — because I am, along with Jesus and everyone else, Papa’s Son —
inferior to) Him, but on the same wavelength (when engaging right-minded
thinking) as He. This means I am freely accessing all that He is;
all knowledge, all power, all wisdom; remembering who I really am; that I,
along with all my fragmented brethren, am not a body, destined to
wither and die, but the holy, pure, innocent, eternal, one Son of the
Father Creator.
I realised
that the essence of the objective is to re-train my mind to think as being
one with, the same as, the Holy Spirit. Obviously, then the answer is to
think of myself and the Holy Spirit as ‘Big Me.’ It is the
perfect reminder of who I really am and at the same time, the very word
‘Big’ brings to mind that I am thinking of my oneness with Him.
Entirely serviceable for use by one and all who truly seek and earnestly
desire to break the cycle of birth and death, and return, forthwith, to
our rightful and only Home and inheritance; the Kingdom of Heaven.
The
December 13th 2006
MoE sets out the message from Jesus to Olga Park in 1976 about his
calling the Holy Spirit down into the Earth. Here is an extract of that
message, paraphrasing the words he spoke to the disciples in the long ago,
but also speaks again now, for us all:
It is important for you that I go
away because if I stay here you will never learn to communicate with that
realm
(the
realm, or mansion, to which he returned, to be with Papa),
and at the end of your life
here you will not
(be
able to)
come to be with me
(there).
Meanwhile, you will need a Teacher
to be with you here, to give you what I am saying that you are not able to
hear. The Teacher is here with you now but he is not speaking with you –
while you are still listening to me with your Earthly hearing
(and all
the while we are fearful of Him and keep plugging that i-pod into our ears
to block out His speaking, we will not be able to hear Him now, either).
In the mansion to which I am going I
shall be with my Father and I shall ask Him to arrange for the
Teacher to be with you and speak with you from within you.
There is much that you need to know
about the Great Purpose of God for men and of His Kingdom of Heaven, that I
have not been able to tell you because you were not ready; neither are
you ready now!
But the Teacher will be with you
always. He will not be going away, and there will be time for
him to bring you to more complete understanding
(but
only if we truly seek and earnestly desire, and ask — because asking is a
positive act of attunement, and — because He never intrudes).
He will speak only that which
he hears me saying to you. He is the Spirit of Truth, who speaks the Word
of the Father to me while I am in this life. In that other mansion to which
I am going I shall not need his speaking because I will be with the
Father.
He will speak that which is new
to you but which in reality is very old… from Eternity to Eternity, ever the
same.
All things that I have said to you
are of this Eternal Truth and the Teacher will bring it into your mind as
you have need of it…
In the
Introduction to the Clarification of Terms, at the end of ACIM, Jesus says
to us:
This is not
a course in philosophical speculation, nor is it concerned with precise
terminology. It is concerned only with Atonement*, or the correction of
perception. The means of the Atonement is
(true)
forgiveness.
All terms
are potentially controversial, and those who seek controversy will find it.
Yet those who seek clarification will find it as well. They must, however,
be willing to overlook controversy, recognising that it is a defence against
truth in the form of a delaying maneuver.
*
Pronounced At-One-ment.
That is
enough to spike the guns of ego’s army of baulkers and fault-finders and
nit-pickers. ☺
Then — at
the end of this same section — he tells us definitively about the Holy
Spirit and his relationship to Him:
6. THE HOLY SPIRIT
Jesus is the
manifestation of the Holy
Spirit,
(if
Jesus is the manifestation of the Holy Spirit and we are one with Jesus in
the Sonship — the only difference being that we have forgotten this reality
and he has remembered it — then we are also the manifestation of the
Holy Spirit, and will become aware of that and experience it when we
allow Him to bring it about for us)
Whom he
called down upon the earth after he ascended into Heaven, or became
completely identified with the Christ, the Son of God as He created him. He
was “called down upon the earth” in the sense that it was now possible to
accept Him and to hear His Voice
(as a
result of Jesus establishing the precedent of that facility for ‘the
children of Earth’ during his time appearing to be with a body, and this was
moved to its next phase, manifesting in his followers, at Pentecost).
His
is the Voice for God, and has therefore taken form
(first in Jesus, and now in all who truly seek and earnestly desire to
become like Jesus; then, eventually, by the end of the 3rd
measure of meal, in all the fragments of the Sonship, until we are
re-united in wholeness — holiness — as one).
This
form is not His reality, which God alone knows along with Christ, His real
Son, Who is part of Him.
The Holy
Spirit is described throughout the course as giving us the answer to the
separation
(surely that is worthy of at least one ‘alleluia’!)
and bringing
the plan of the Atonement to us, establishing our particular part in it and
showing us exactly what it is
(this is known as having it given to us, freely, on a plate; possible only
because we are seen, by He Who knows, as worthy).
He has
established Jesus as the leader in carrying out His plan since he was the
first to complete his own part perfectly. All power in Heaven and earth
is therefore given him and he will share it with you when you have
completed yours. The Atonement principle was given to the Holy Spirit
long before Jesus set it in motion
(at the
commencement of the 3 measures of meal
GRP).
The Holy
Spirit is described as the remaining Communication Link between God and His
separated Sons.
In order to fulfil this special function the Holy Spirit has assumed a dual
function. He knows because He is part of God; He perceives
because He was sent to save humanity. He is the great correction
principle; the bringer of true perception, the inherent power of the vision
of Christ. He is the light in which the forgiven world is perceived;
in which the face of Christ alone is seen. He never forgets the Creator
or His creation. He never forgets the Son of God. He never forgets you. And
He brings the Love of your Father to you in an eternal shining that will
never be obliterated because God has put it there
(if
that isn’t telling us something rapturously magnificent, then nothing is).
The Holy
Spirit abides in the part of your mind that is part of the Christ Mind.
He represents your Self and your Creator, Who are one. He
speaks for God and also for you, being joined with both. And therefore it is
He Who proves them one. He seems to be a Voice, for in that form He
speaks God’s Word to you. He seems to be a Guide through a far country,
for you need that form of help. He seems to be whatever meets the
needs you think you have. But He is not deceived when you perceive your self
entrapped in needs you do not have. It is from these He would deliver you.
It is from these that He would make you safe.
You are
His manifestation in this world.
Your brother calls to you to be His Voice along with him. Alone he
(not just our
brother Jesus, but each and every one of our brothers in the Sonship)
cannot be
the Helper of God’s Son for he alone is functionless. But joined with you
he is the shining Saviour of the world, Whose part in its redemption
you have made complete. He offers thanks to you as well as him for you
arose with him when he began to save the world. And you will be with him
when time is over and no trace remains of dreams of spite in which you dance
to death’s thin melody. For in its place the hymn to God is heard a little
while. And then the Voice is gone, no longer to take form but to return to
the eternal formlessness of God.
(My
emboldening, underlining and some italics, for emphasis).
Here we
have, in ACIM, for the first time in human history, a magnificent,
definitive, comprehensive statement of Who is the Holy Spirit and our
relationship to Him. Ego did not want us to know this, and now that
we have it, does not want us to understand it, because it is one
giant step toward its undoing.
This will, for most of us, require much meaningful contemplation; a perfect
opportunity for us to practise asking ‘Big Me’ for help, which will always
be gladly given. That is when practising listening will be
invaluable, and will pay dividends that are out of this world.
Love and
blessings,
Brian
Longhurst
June 25th 2008
Dear
Friends,
We are now
in the early decades of the 3rd, and final, measure of meal in
the Great Rescue Programme. I may be — due to eagerness, excitement,
enthusiasm — a little premature in suggesting that we could therefore be on
the Home straight, but there are plenty of hints within the pages of ACIM
(dictated in the 1960s) that Jesus is also eager, excited and enthusiastic
as the Goal of our long and fraught journey looms into view. And it is not
just from the pages of ACIM that he is radiating those anticipatory vibes.
And why not? He has been, I hardly need say, in on this wondrous plan from
the beginning. It is his baby. From a linear perspective, it has been a
long, tortuous — and torturous — road, for all the fragmented brethren in
the Sonship. In that regard, there is much to be said for forgetfulness.
Who wants to be consciously aware of ‘past’ acts in which we may have been
eviscerated; or eviscerated a brother; or died a slow and agonising death in
childbirth, or whatever?
So, as we
begin to move more deeply into the final measure, by the end of which all
three will have been leavened and the At-onement completed, what can we
expect to begin to see in the way of changes to the way of the events,
perceptions, awarenesses that will begin to unfold, both at the level of
form and of content?
Well the
first thing to say is that, obviously, all form (effect) manifests from
content (cause). That means that what is in the without has its origins in
the within. Or, put another way, what is in the mind (the within) manifests
— in the illusion of time and place — in the without, or form. This was
true with Jesus and it is true with us all. Jesus would not, could not have
taught as he did, perform the signs and wonders that he did, unless his mind
(content/cause) was at the place of full God awareness.
So, he knew
Papa totally, knew why he was here (to commence the leavening of the second,
‘Jesus measure’ of meal and ensure it was all in accordance, linking
seamlessly, with the first and third measures, so all would leaven).
Of course, the GRP was all known and planned, by he who incarnated as Jesus,
a long ‘time’ before Abraham incarnated, and it was inevitable that it would
be infallible and unstoppable. That’s the way it is with Christ Mind (only
to wrong-minded thinking can things go wrong, because wrong mind perceives
effects from ego’s handiwork, which is always to divide, separate, foul up,
destroy).
That is the
way it is with us also, because we are Christ, and as more and more of us
‘fragments’ of the Sonship remember more and more that that is who we
are — which is the storyline for the 3rd measure — so will what
becomes increasingly clear in our minds become increasingly manifest. From
the within into the without; from content/cause into form/effect; from Mind
into matter, until matter is harmonised with the reality of Eternity and we
have the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. Then, at the end of the Aquarian age,
time (and place) will come to an end because we simply won’t need it any
more; we will have awakened — all of us fragments of the Sonship — to the
Reality of eternal oneness in Papa, and the dream of separation will have
ended.
Of course,
during this epoch, ego mind will continue to be actively involved in worldly
events and activities, so there will continue to be unconscious guilt and
fear, engendering upside-down perceptions that lead to hatred, murder, the
lunatics running the asylum, greed, famine and earthquakes, fires and
floods. That is the bad news; inevitable in a dream world of duality.
However, the good news is that more and more of us are moving actively
toward spiritual, eternal wakefulness. This means that more and more of us
are becoming Kingdom-motivated, released from guilt and fear through the
process of true forgiveness, so more and more events, activities, signs and
wonders will become — are already becoming — visible at the level of form.
For we have to be made ready for the Kingdom here on Earth before we can be
received, uplifted by Papa back into the eternal Kingdom without form and
without end.
The power
of good, what the bible calls righteousness, will continue to increase as we
continue to awaken to the fact that ego only has as much power over us as we
ascribe to it. That power over us applies only to the wrong thinking, wrong
perceiving part of our mind. That part, which has been dominant over us
during the dream of time and place, is beginning to diminish as time, under
Christ/Holy Spirit directing and correcting, continues to collapse until
there is no more time and the clock stops for lack of anyone left to wind
it; and because we will have remembered that we no longer ‘need’ a clock.
It is
thanks to the catalyst of ACIM, Jesus’ ‘trump card’ in the GRP, that more
and more of us fragments of the Sonship are regaining the power of our own
will within the oneness of the Sonship. This will, exercised in just one
Self-realised soul, is so much greater than all ‘littleness power’ put
together that no Earth-mind thought processes (which are ego-mind thought
processes) can begin to comprehend the tiniest fraction of its magnitude and
grandeur. Jesus truly was not exaggerating when he said:
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works
that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do;
because I go unto my Father.
(Jn 14:12)
This will,
the true, unified, right-minded will of the Son, is one with the Will of the
Father. That will is all-empowered for good, for love, for blessing, for
healing. It is not bodies that need healing, but the split, fractured,
upside-down, misperceiving mind of us who wander, fearful and lonely
in the wilderness, believing ourselves to be separate from God. Only a
healed, whole, restored mind can effect a healed body. In truth, a healed
mind has no concern about the body, whereas most of us pay little heed to
mind health and direct endless attention toward the body. (This is not to
indicate that we should neglect the body. Balance in all things is sound
sense. We are with a body for a purpose, so providing sensibly for it,
without turning it into an idol, is reasonable).
This is
upside-down thinking; entirely indicative of ego-control, without our even
being aware of it. A healed mind is a forgiving and forgiven mind, in which
no more illusions of unconscious guilt can engender the fear that is so
preventative of our true and natural state of inner peace, and therefore of
health, of mind (content) and body (form). Remember, form manifests from
content and there is nothing like content-ment (inner peace) for health of
form. Form follows content, so taking care first of content (mind) will
lead to wellbeing of form without worrying.
So, as we
move further into the 3rd measure of meal — the fulfilment
measure — and more and more people progress through the awakening process
toward Self awareness (healing of mind to full wholeness/holiness through
true forgiveness), so more and more miracles of healing of bodies can only,
inevitably, follow. This means that the world will become ‘awash’ with
Christ-Mind enacted miracles of healing — self-healing and healing of
fellow-sojourners, brothers one and all in the Sonship. An inevitable
effect of this will be ever-increasing re-unifying of broken relationships,
until we are all restored to oneness.
This
‘outbreak of miraculous healings’ will be — during the coming years and
decades immediately ahead — so great that even the establishments of
governments and allopathic medical practice will be unable any longer to
ignore it. This will bring about further giant strides toward the
restoration of the Sonship to oneness, as institutionalised arrogance
gradually gives way to humility, ego-mind to Holy Spirit Mind.
The Holy
Spirit’s job is to correct our wrong-minded thinking. This He does by
responding to our asking, seeking, knocking with illumination of our minds
with right thinking. Remembering that if we are not expressing love
we are asking, seeking, calling for love — and that in this
upside-down world such a call is almost always in the form of denial,
projection of guilt, and will manifest as attack, judgement, accusation,
criticism, rebellion, anti-social behaviour; all of which are asking that
someone help us in our unconscious guilt and fear — it becomes clear that
old order ‘correction’ (actually, projection) by accusation,
condemnation, judgement, incarceration, are ego-devised; the opposite of
Holy Spirit correction.
This will
gradually be seen for its ineffectiveness and unserviceableness, and
replaced by love, understanding, forgiveness and practical help; in other
words, Kingdomly motivated thinking, acting, correcting. This
transformation will be empowered by the healing, restorative light shone
into the darkness of this world by the ever-greater numbers of minds being
restored to wholeness by their choosing Jesus and/or the Holy Spirit as
their guide to Eternity.
Truly, the
Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.
Love and
blessings for true, inner peace and joy of life,
Brian
Longhurst
July 2nd 2008
Dear
Friends,
Here are a
few short quotes from various parts of ACIM that can help us to remember who
we are and be restored to our true Self; God-empowered, Christ-Minded,
eternal, pure, innocent spirit, unencumbered by the littleness perception
that has held sway over us since we, God’s beloved Son, submitted to ego
wrong thinking at the illusory separation. Emboldening, underlining and
some italics are mine, for emphasis:
The Holy
Spirit teaches one lesson, and applies it to all individuals in all
situations. Being conflict-free, He maximises all efforts and all results.
By teaching the power of the Kingdom of God Himself, He teaches you that
all power is yours. (Text, page
116)
When I said
“I am with you always,” I meant it literally. I am not absent to anyone in
any situation. Because I am always with you,
you
(also)
are the way,
the truth and the life.
You did not make this power, any more than I did. It was created to be
shared, and therefore cannot be meaningfully perceived as belonging to
anyone at the expense of another.
(Text, page
116)
Life has no
opposite, for it is God. Life and death seem to be opposites because
you have decided death ends life. Forgive the world, and you will
understand that every thing that God created cannot have an end, and nothing
He did not create is real. In this one sentence is our course explained.
In this one sentence is our practicing given its one direction. And in this
one sentence is the Holy Spirit’s whole curriculum specified exactly as it
is.
(Manual,
page 52)
You are
as God created you.
All else but this one thing is folly to believe. In this one thought
is everyone set free. In this one truth are all illusions gone. In
this one fact is sinlessness proclaimed to be forever part of everything,
the central core of its existence and its guarantee of immortality.
(Workbook,
Lesson 191)
Of course,
the entire work is aimed at re-empowering us, leading us back to God,
because that is the Great Rescue Programme (GRP) of Jesus; to awaken us from a mad
dream of separation from Him. How could we be separate from Him? All who
allow themselves any freedom of access to right-minded thinking will be able
to see that the very idea is preposterous, and the GRP, now becoming visible
to us right within the dream, is demonstrating the preposterousness of it on
the one hand, and the wondrousness of the truth of our unchangeable oneness
in the Sonship in Eternity with Papa on the other.
The GRP is comprised of myriad MRPs – Mini Rescue Programmes –
billions of individual rescue opportunities. Each of us with broken
or damaged relationships can use Mind to Mind True Forgiveness Communing
(MTMTFC) to heal them, rescue our brethren from the wilderness of aloneness,
judgement, grievance, fear, guilt… restore them – and in so doing, restore
ourself – to wholeness and oneness.
The GRP cannot, therefore, be fulfilled, completed and the Sonship restored
to Its true estate of oneness until all the MRPs have been completed. When
a broken relationship between two people has been healed and restored to
wholeness through the true forgiveness process, those two become as one,
spiritually. When that has happened with all the fragments of the
Sonship, then all the MRPs will have become seamlessly re-unified within the
GRP, making it complete; mission accomplished. Alleluia!
J
Bearing in
mind that it is by our judgement that we are judged, and,
alternatively, by our forgiveness are we forgiven, it is worth
letting go those grievances that ego so depends on our holding onto for its
very existence. Here are some helpful reminders of the importance and
benefits of letting go of grievances — to shine a light on our path and keep
us focussed on the truth of Eternity — from lesson 69 of the Workbook:
You who were
created by Love like Itself can hold no grievances and know your Self. To
hold a grievance is to forget who you are. To hold a grievance
is to see yourself as a body
(i.e. as
littleness).
To hold a grievance is to let the ego rule your mind and to condemn the body
to death.
Perhaps you do not yet fully realize just what holding grievances does to
your mind. It seems to split you off from your Source and make you unlike
Him. It makes you believe that He is like what you think you have become,
for no one can conceive of his Creator as unlike himself.
Shut off
from your
(Big)
Self, Which
remains aware of Its likeness to Its Creator, your Self seems to sleep,
while the part of your mind that weaves illusions in its sleep appears to be
awake. Can all this arise from holding grievances? Oh, yes! For he who
holds grievances denies he was created by Love, and his Creator has
become fearful to him in his dream of hate. Who can dream of hatred and not
fear God?
It is as
sure that those who hold grievances will redefine God in their own image, as
it is certain that God created them like Himself, and defined them as part
of Him. It is as sure that those who hold grievances will suffer guilt,
as it is certain that those who forgive will find peace. It is
as sure that those who hold grievances will forget who they are, as it is
certain that those who forgive will remember.
Love holds no grievances. When I let all my grievances go I will know I am
perfectly safe.
Love holds no grievances. Let me not betray my Self.
Love holds no grievances. I would wake to my Self by laying all my
grievances aside and wakening in Him.
Since none
of what we have believed to be the ‘real world’ since time began is
actually reality, we can choose in our mind, at any and every moment,
to see past it to the one, true reality of Eternity. Alternatively, we can
continue making the illusion of time and place our reality. This will
ensure ego’s continuing existence in our mind and the attendant guilt, fear,
and forgetfulness of who we are, rendering continuing sojourns into
birth-and-death land inescapable.
However, if
we choose, steadfastly, to see past the illusion to the true reality, Holy
Spirit (Big Self) will enable it gradually to become our reality.
Simultaneously, the illusion becomes less and less apparent until it fades
away and ceases to have any reality or meaningfulness for us. That is how
it was for Jesus, so for him crucifixion was not a hard choice because his
reality was Elsewhere, and his message for us all was/is the resurrection;
not of one man’s body but of the little, fragmented mind of the Son of God
to its wholeness and oneness in the glory of the Kingdom of Heaven.
That is our
destiny and it is unavoidable because we are already there. All we have to
do is ask Big Me to lovingly awaken us. He is already doing this for
all who ask (and are willing to co-operate!), and He eagerly awaits the
willingness of the rest of our fear-filled brethren to ask, so that He can
instantly commence giving them His help.
Here’s to a
loving, peaceful, joyous reunion in the Eternity of NOW,
Brian
Longhurst
‘Spare me the theology; just
give me the story.’
Tim Winton
July 9th 2008
Dear
Friends,
It is your world salvation will
undo, and let you see
another world your eyes could
never find.
This quote
is from ACIM, T-31.VI.3:4, headed
Recognizing
the Spirit.
Ego and its
construct, the institutionalised church, would have us believe ‘salvation’
comes from believing in our heart and saying with our mouth that Jesus died
for our ‘sins’ and then, when we ‘die,’ we will go to Heaven, saved from the
eternal damnation of God’s judgement by being ‘washed in the blood of
Jesus.’
This is not
the ‘salvation’ that Jesus is speaking of in ACIM. Here, he tells us
plainly that salvation is simply waking up to the truth of Eternity, of
who we really are, by undoing the false hold of ego over us that keeps
us in the birth/death, time and place cycle of illusion. This awakening is
enabled by retraining our wrong-thinking mind to right-thinking and by the
process of true forgiveness, neither of which we can accomplish on our own,
but only by calling upon the help of Jesus himself or the Holy Spirit.
Jesus tells
us in ACIM that he has become fully and completely identified with the Holy
Spirit, so there is no difference in effect between the ‘two,’ because They
— and ultimately all of us, once our restoration to fullness of remembrance
has taken place — are one in God.
The
scriptures revered by that same church quote Jesus as saying that if we live
and believe in him we will never die, yet still humanity carries on,
on the one hand professing belief and faith in he who spoke those words, and
on the other, remaining passively accepting within the consciousness of fear
of death, seeing it as inevitable.
All the
while we choose to see illusion as reality, so will it be — for us —
reality. However, once we choose to allow the Holy Spirit to help us, lead
us in this awakening process, we will start to see with the single vision of
our eternal Self; and the double vision of our time and place, bodily,
illusory, little self will become less and less important to us, our
awareness, our perspective, our believing, our perception, until it has
become completely meaningless, and disappears forever.
With our
ego-dominated, wrong-thinking, separated mind we respond with the perception
that all around us, in the very midst of life, we are surrounded by death;
that people get old, or ill, and die; that we are a mere, fleeting shadow,
so what can we do but accept this as our reality? Well, Jesus has some very
good news for us from this same section of ACIM:
Salvation does not ask that you
behold the spirit and perceive the body not.
It merely asks that this
should be your choice.
That is all
that is asked of us; that we choose for it to be so. The Spirit of
Truth — which is our Big Self, of Whom I have recently been inspired to
think as ‘Big Me’ because that is the truth of our eternal being — will then
be able to become active (because, by asking/choosing, we give Him that
power and authority over our life, without which He cannot act on our behalf
and for our benefit), and take the lead in our awakening process.
Unless and
until we choose to allow Big Me to take charge of the retraining, the
spiritual awakening, of our mind, we are denying Big Me (and thus, also,
ourself, because the two are indivisibly one) the opportunity to begin — and
complete — the awakening/remembering for us. In his no-nonsense
speaking, calling a spade a spade — which ego is hell-bent on us not
doing, hence political correctness — he tells us this is condemning
ourself to death. In this same section of ACIM Jesus reminds us:
You see the
flesh or recognize the spirit. There is no compromise between the two. If
one is real the other must be false, for what is real denies its opposite
(who
amongst us can argue with that!).
There is no
choice in
(spiritual)
vision
(as
distinct from ocular sight)
(i.e.
spiritual, or true, vision),
that you may
see the world of flesh no more but this one. What you decide in this
determines all you see and think is real and hold as true. On this one
choice does all your world depend, for here have you established what
you are, as flesh or spirit in your own belief. If you choose flesh, you
never will escape the body as your own reality, for you have chosen that you
want it so. But choose the spirit, and all Heaven bends to touch your
eyes and bless your holy sight except to heal and comfort and to bless.
Salvation is
undoing. If you choose to see the body, you behold a world of separation,
unrelated things, and happenings that make no sense at all
(such observations — that the world makes no sense — are no longer
restricted to barbers and taxi drivers [I jest], for as the process
accelerates, so the insanity of this world is becoming plain to all
with eyes to see and ears to hear).
This one
appears and disappears in death; that one is doomed to suffering and loss.
And no one is exactly as he was an instant previous, nor will he be the same
as he is now an instant hence. Who could have trust where so much change is
seen, for who is worthy if he be but dust? Salvation is undoing of
all this. For constancy arises in the sight of those whose eyes
salvation has released from looking at the cost of keeping guilt, because
they chose to let it go instead.
This
becomes ever more so as we begin, and move forward into and through the
awakening process, and our double, flawed, sight becomes replaced by
singleness of vision, showing us the meaninglessness of this world and its
endeavours. This realisation, until now, has only come to most of us
after we have completed a sojourn in time. Now, we no longer have to
wait for an act to end, and can benefit by going forward on the Path that
will lead us Home much earlier and much quicker — while we still appear to
be with a body. This will drastically reduce the number of further acts
needed to get us to an awakened state of mind.
…You do not
understand how what you see arose to meet your sight. For if you did, it
would be gone.
(This
is why we must ask Big Me to accomplish our awakening for us, because
ego works very hard to keep us, in our littleness, from remembering this,
and without Big Me’s help it is impossible).
The veil of
ignorance is drawn across the evil and the good, and must be passed that
both may disappear, so that
(mis)perception
finds no hiding place. How is this done? It is not done at all. What could
there be within the universe that God created that must still be done?
Only in
arrogance could you conceive that you
(i.e.
little self, acting out ego’s script)
must make
the way to Heaven plain. The means are given you
(if
only we will ask and be willing to receive)
by which to
see the world that will replace the one you made.
You who
believe that you can choose to see the Son of God as you would have him
be, forget not that no concept of yourself will stand against the
truth of what you are. Undoing truth would be impossible. But
concepts are not difficult to change. One vision, clearly seen, that does
not fit the picture as it was perceived before will change the world for
eyes that learn to see, because the concept of the self has changed.
Are you
invulnerable? Then the world is harmless in your sight. Do you forgive? Then
is the world forgiving, for you have forgiven it its trespasses, and so it
looks on you with eyes that see as yours. Are you a body? So is all the
world perceived as treacherous, and out to kill. Are you a spirit,
deathless, and without the promise of corruption and the stain of sin upon
you? So the world is seen as stable, fully worthy of your trust; a happy
place to rest in for a while, where nothing need be feared, but only
loved.
Emboldening, underlining and some italics are mine, for emphasis.
We can
choose to commence this salvation/at-onement/awakening/remembering process
now — saving untold further circuits on the
carousel, for ourself and our fellows — and become immediate
recipients of its beneficence and wonders (now, on the cosmic clock, is,
assuredly, the most propitious moment); or we can choose to remain on our
chosen path of forgetfulness, led by uncertainty, doubt, unconscious guilt
and its constantly attendant fear of death that is but a dream, a lie, a
sleight. Only if we choose with Big Me will we begin to see past the
sleight to the truth of our eternalness and the endless inner peace that
accompanies it.
Not too
hard a choice, then!☺
Love and
blessings, always,
Brian
Longhurst
July 16th 2008
Dear
Friends,
We have
spoken much in recent weeks and months of the process dubbed here ‘Mind to
mind true forgiveness communing’ (‘MTMTFCing’), a procedure in which we
practise true forgiveness of a ‘brother’ (who could, of course, be a spouse,
an offspring, a parent, a colleague, a stranger, someone who has already
laid aside their body, whoever). We do this not by confronting them bodily
— which could set the whole process back immeasurably if they are not ready
to hear the words spoken face to face — but by envisioning them, directing
our thoughts and speaking such words of true forgiveness to them silently in
our mind. We then give the words/sentiments to the Holy Spirit (of Whom we
can think as ‘Big Me’ because He, ultimately, it is with Whom we are all
one, along with Jesus), to give to the forgivee on our behalf.
I can
attest that this procedure works — if we truly desire the healing of such
broken relationships, and ask Big Me to be in charge of the process (because
we, in our illusory, little self mind/understanding do not have the first
clue how to do it) — to glorious, magnificent effect. This is unlikely to
work in ‘five minutes,’ least of all when we begin practising it upon
the most significant broken relationship we first select for the exercise,
but this is where
FTOC, focus, one-pointed ‘stick-at-it-iveness’ come into their own. If
we are half-hearted, we can expect a half-hearted result, which will serve
only ego. We have, unwittingly, been doing that for too long; now, the
time, the moment, is here for us to begin serving our Self, to the undoing,
the dispelling of ego.
Each broken
relationship restored to loving, peaceful, wholeness (a holy relationship),
is a hologram, or microcosm of the restoration to At-onement of the entire
Sonship. This may seem hard for a mind that has lived, since the dawn of
time, under the misperceptions of the separation from our Creator — the
fragmentation of the oneness of Self into ever greater numbers of
‘individuals’ with apparently separate bodies and minds — to comprehend and
accept as truth. But in this, as in all the upside-down thinking we have
been duped into believing is right-side up, we have the CEO of the
GRP, Jesus, to help us straighten out our thinking. He uses the analogy
of the animals entering ‘the ark of peace two by two,’ to describe
this, reminding us that we are each our brother’s saviour; that without him
(our brother with whom we are experiencing a broken relationship) we
cannot enter, and without us, he cannot enter:
…
Think not that your forgiveness of your brother serves but you two alone.
For the whole new world rests in the hands of every two who enter
here to rest.
(ACIM
T-20.IV.7:2-3)
He
continues his explanation thusly:
…
And as they rest, the face of Christ shines on them and they remember the
laws of God, forgetting all the rest
(ego’s insane laws)
and yearning
only to have His laws perfectly fulfilled in them and all their brothers.
Think you when this has been achieved that you will rest without them?
You could no more leave one of them outside than I could leave you, and
forget part of myself.
(That clears up that question, then, since we know beyond doubt that that is
impossible, or he would not be Jesus Christ, but ‘plain, ordinary old
Jesus of Nazareth,’ and I further attest that he definitely is not
just that!)
He leads us
up to that explanation, in characteristic manner, with a comprehensive
scene-setting:
Nothing can hurt you unless you
give it the power to do so… It is not up to you to give power at all
(yet we
have done so, illusorily speaking, to ego, and most of us have even given it
a name — Satan — to make it yet more objectively ‘real’ to our misperceiving
minds).
Power is of God, given by Him and reawakened
(in our
minds)
by the Holy Spirit… He gives
no power to sin, and therefore it has none; nor to its results as this
world sees them — sickness and death and misery and pain. These things have
not occurred because the Holy Spirit sees them not, and gives no power to
their seeming source
(here is an
unequivocal statement that we have made-up all those unrealities; the only
reality they have is what we have given them, and as we begin to see
past that illusion, so do they begin to lose that ‘reality’ for us).
Thus would He keep you free of them…
(if, or
rather, when, we are ready to relinquish them to Him; for assuredly,
He cannot wrest them from us because we have chosen them.)
Sin has no
place in Heaven
(if
it has no place in Heaven, the only true reality, and our true, eternal
Home, then assuredly it has no reality at all!),
where
its results are alien and can no more enter than can their source
(ego).
And therein lies your need to see your brother sinless. In him
is Heaven. See sin
in him instead, and Heaven is lost to you
(but not, ever, permanently; only until we awaken enough to choose to
see brother — and thus also, ourself, because we are one — sinless).
But see him as he is, and what is yours shines from him to you
(this illuminating thread of awareness runs consistently through ACIM; it
will therefore serve us well to adopt it firmly into our own thinking and
understanding, since it is true vision, as distinct from
judgement-constructed imagery).
Your savior
gives you only love, but what you would receive of him is up to you.
(He is, of course, speaking here of the forgivee — our brother with whom we
are experiencing, and seeking to heal, a broken relationship — as our
saviour, because until we relinquish judgement of our brother, that
judgement is keeping us in the hell of time and place.)
It
lies in him to overlook all your mistakes, and therein lies his own
salvation. And so it is with yours. Salvation is a lesson in giving, as
the Holy Spirit interprets it
(i.e., by giving, so do we receive, simultaneously, because there is only
one of us, so we are giving to our Self).
It is
the reawakening of the laws of God in minds that have established other laws
(upside-down, insane, destructive, disempowering, disenfranchising laws;
laws of time and place),
and
given them power to enforce what God created not.
Your insane
laws were made to guarantee that you would make mistakes, and give them
power over you by accepting their results as your just due. What could
this be but madness? And is it this that you would see within your
saviour from insanity? He is as free from this as you are, and in the
freedom that you see in him
(which Big Me will do for us, commensurately with our willingness for it to
be so)
you see your
own
(because this is the Law of eternal reality, created by an
unconditionally-loving Father Creator).
For
this you share. What God has given follows His laws, and His alone. Nor
is it possible for those who follow them to suffer the results of any other
source.
Those who
choose freedom will experience only its results.
Their power is of God, and they will give it only to what God has given, to
share with them... It is of them who learned of freedom that you should ask
what freedom is. Ask not the sparrow how the eagle soars, for those with
little wings have not accepted for themselves the power to share with you
(that power is freely offered to us all, at every moment, yet few are yet
ready to accept it rightfully as their own, as Jesus did. It will continue
to be freely offered until finally we all, finally, accept it, regardless of
how many
acts it takes. Then are we one).
The sinless
give as they received. See, then, the power of sinlessness within your
brother, and share with him the power of the release from sin you offered
him. To each who walks this earth in seeming solitude is a saviour given,
whose special function here is to release him, and so to free himself. In
the world of separation each is appointed separately, though they are all
the same. Yet those who know that they are all the same need not
salvation. And each one finds his saviour when he is ready to look upon the
face of Christ, and see Him sinless.
(‘MTMTFCing’ can enable Big Me to accomplish this for us).
The plan
is not of you, nor need you be concerned with anything except the part that
has been given you to learn.
For He Who knows the rest will see to it without your help. But think
not that He does not need your part to help Him with the rest. For in your
part lies all of it, without which is no part complete, nor is the whole
completed without your part
(because it is a hologram, which means that the whole is in all the parts).
The
ark of peace is entered two by two, yet the beginning of another world goes
with them
(a world —
the real World — of wholeness, of holiness, which is Heaven, or
Eternity).
Each
holy relationship must enter here, to learn its special function in the Holy
Spirit’s plan, now that it shares His purpose. And as this purpose is
fulfilled, a new world
(the
Kingdom of Heaven on Earth)
rises in which sin can enter not, and where the Son of God can enter without
fear and where he rests a while, to forget imprisonment and to remember
freedom. How can he enter, to rest and to remember, without you? Except you
be there, he is not complete. And it is his completion that he remembers
there.
(This
clearly indicates the essential need for true forgiveness, without
which we cannot see only the face of Christ in each other and its reflection
of our true Self).
You may
wonder how you can be at peace when, while you are in time, there is so much
that must be done before the way to peace is open. Perhaps this seems
impossible to you. But ask yourself if it is possible that God would have
a plan for your salvation that does not work. Once you accept His
plan as the one function that you would fulfil, there will be nothing else
the Holy Spirit will not arrange for you without your effort.
(This
is one of the key realities of the GRP that ego wrestles hardest to prevent
us from believing because it will be such a quantum shift in our awakening,
and therefore, in ego’s undoing.)
He will go
before you making straight your path, and leaving in your way no stones to
trip on, and no obstacles to bar your way. Nothing you need will be denied
you. Not one seeming difficulty but will melt away before you reach it. You
need take thought for nothing, careless of everything except the only
purpose that you would fulfil
(our
only purpose is, namely, to co-operate with Big Me by being
willing to allow Him to awaken us to our At-onement with each other,
including Jesus, in the Sonship of our Father, Papa).
As
that was given you, so will its fulfilment be. God’s guarantee will hold
against all obstacles, for it rests on certainty and not contingency. It
rests on you.
And what can be more certain than a Son of God?
(My
emboldening, underlining and some italics, for emphasis)
There is an
example of ‘MTMTFCing’ given, with some explanatory notes, in the August 22nd
2007 MoE.
We go
forward!
Love and
blessings, endlessly,
Brian
Longhurst
July 23rd 2008
Dear
Friends,
One of the
wonders — to those of us who have been living within the consciousness of
‘little self,’ perceiving ourself as a body, separate from all those other
bodies around us and around the world — of the awakening process is that we
begin to see life, creation, ourself and our fellows from a totally
different perspective. This new, different, true perspective comes about as
a result of our willingness to allow the Holy Spirit, our Higher,
real Self — ‘Big Me’ — to correct our wrong, upside-down,
back-to-front, time and place, ego-dominated thinking, so that we can
re-commence having awareness of true, eternal reality. Time and place
perceptions are then able to be seen for what they are: untrue; misleading;
designed to enthral us and keep us imprisoned by belief in the illusions of
guilt and fear and ‘sin’ on the not so merry-go-round of birth and death.
The
beginning of the awakening process, in which we start to see past the
illusions by the faculty of the true vision of Big Me, is a marvellous
experience in the true sense of the word. We begin to marvel at the fact
that here, while still appearing to be with a body, we are awakening to the
experience that we are now on the path home — toward God and Heaven,
of course — but that that reality is not ‘out there’ or ‘up there’
but within us, right now. We marvel because with it comes the
realisation that it has always been there, and we find ourself
saying, ‘How did I never see it, experience it, know it, become aware of
it before? Now it all seems so logical, makes so much more sense, falls
into place, is so effortless, liberating, synchronistic, inspiring,
uplifting, joyful.’
This new,
emerging awareness, Self-realisation, although just in its nascent, early
stages, simply falls into place and brings with it an increasing, palpable
inner peace. This peace is unlike anything a worldly experience can bring.
It is a spiritual, mystical awareness of who we really are; God’s eternal,
un-harmable by anything of time and place, pure, innocent, safe,
all-empowered-by-His-love Son. This awareness comes to us from our own
within, where we have our connection to our eternal Self, Who is one with
the Creator. It is nothing to do with what we have come to believe are
normal, intellectual thought processes based on the body’s sensory
perceptions.
The more
the ‘new’ (not really new, because we are speaking of that which has always
been; we have simply placed a shroud over our vision that has prevented our
seeing with the light of spiritual truth) Big Me, right-minded thinking
becomes part of our awareness, the greater the understanding, remembering,
knowing who we are becomes, and we start to see more clearly how the
illusory perceptions really are illusions, even though we believed
them to be unquestionable, incontrovertible truth/reality for untold
incarnations.
This
manifests as a clear, astonishing realisation — enabled by our newly
beginning-to-be-restored vision — that all around us ego’s script for
keeping us imprisoned in time and place is play-acting itself out over and
over again. This script that ego has us playing out, portrays us in a
hundred roles, but all are as littleness: contrary; un-co-operative;
negative thinking; anti-social; judgemental and unforgiving towards our
fellows; lying and fabricating stories that have no foundation in truth;
seeking to gain advantage over our fellows to their disadvantage. And the
really sneaky thing about ego is that, even if we perceive our self
as not playing any of those roles (well, not too often, anyway!) if
we see those characteristics in our fellows (instead of only the face of
Christ), then we are projecting those characteristics from our own within
‘out there,’ onto other illusory role-players in this tragic drama; so what
we see in others is really a projection of our own unconscious guilt and
fear.
The only
way out of this endless loop is by remembering who we really are and that
all our fellows are one with us in our eternal Sonship, that none of us
has actually done any of the things the role-playing has been telling us (up
‘til now) that we have done, so we can easily, truly forgive them and our
self, because it was never anything but a dream. This, we cannot do alone,
but Big Me can and will do it for us if we are willing to
allow Him. This is greatly facilitated by reminding ourself, multiple
times day and night, who we really are and that there is, in truth, no line
of demarcation between us (as we have perceived ourself as being — little)
and Big Me.
Then,
suddenly, catching us almost unawares, there arises a holy instant, a
serendipitous moment (though this is by no means a chance event, as
that word suggests) in which we find that we have been thinking,
experiencing ourself, as Big Me. The realisation that it has happened, for
the first time, hits us a moment after it has happened, and we say, out loud
even, ‘Hey! That was me, and I was thinking as Big Me, for the very first
time, and it happened spontaneously. This means I am beginning to
really, truly identify with and as being Big Me, rather than simply
thinking that Big Me is a very close companion who occasionally slips a word
or an idea or train of thought into my mind. This can only mean the
beginning of the end of littleness for me.’
It seems,
in retrospect, that such a moment, a revelation, should have had a drum
roll, a fanfare, a 100-voice choir singing the Alleluia chorus from Handel’s
Messiah. Maybe all those things occurred in the heights of Heaven, but
here, in our own inner self, we realise that no such accolade is necessary;
it was a quiet recognition of the truth about our own reality; an
affirmation of what all along we knew was so. It leaves us with an intense
inner feeling of uplift, comfort, assurance that all is well and that we are
truly on the Path, are loved, blessed and cared for.
We are
grown into remembrance of the fact that we are Big Me by the Voice for the
Good Husbandman once we are willing to allow that process to commence.
Assuming does not come into it, because it is a gift, given freely and
gladly. Our only part in this process is our willingness to receive the
gift — something the ego-dominated, split-off part of our mind will resist
with all the wiles it can muster because this will be the beginning of the
end of ego’s vise-like grip on us.
This holy
instant moment is fleeting, and is past before we realise it has happened;
yet it is so powerfully real as to cause us to earnestly desire its
recurrence. Inwardly, we know that, having once been ours, its return is as
assured as is our desire for it. Yet, intuitively we also know that we can
exercise no conscious control over how or when it will be; only a living
certainty that it will come again and again (each time unannounced, when we
are not expecting it) until, just like it was with Jesus, it will be ours
for the eternal holy instant. Then will we be fully awake and
that will herald our oneness with All That Is.
We also
have an inner knowing that although we cannot attain unto that moment again
at will, yet is it closer to us (not necessarily, or exclusively within the
illusory context of time, because this is of Eternity) after that first
occurrence than it was before, and it will be ever more so after each
subsequent recurrence. And, when we give heartfelt thanks to the Still
Small Voice Within, It instantly says, ‘It is yours, for there is
no separateness.’ In chapter 11 of Murdo MacDonald-Bayne’s book
‘Divine Healing of Mind & Body’ Jesus, overshadowing Murdo before an
invited audience, says:
…As the seed is sown in the kindly
darkness of the earth, the Life in the seed unites with the Life in the
earth, waiting to reproduce it; the Life in the seed grows out of the
darkness to express Itself in the image and likeness of the seed sown. So
does the Spirit of God: the Christ is the seed that is in you, and shall
grow out of the darkness that surrounds you. The beauty of the Christ shall
manifest in you as the image and likeness of the Father.
This is, of
a certainty, how it was, constantly, with Jesus, in the long ago, and it is,
indubitably, the goal of us all, here in the time and place dream realm.
This state of Mind, our true state of Mind, is the precursor to the Kingdom
of Heaven on Earth, and a prerequisite, preparation for our
upliftment by Papa from there into the Eternity of Heaven, at which point
the finite realm of time and place, the ‘physical’ universe, the Earth, our
separated selves will all cease to have any perceived value, meaning or
benefit, and will cease to appear to have any existence, along with any
perceived need we have had for it.
We will
have been completely restored to full remembrance of our true nature,
destiny and heritage: God’s only Son, the Christ, which we have always been
and will always be. When Jesus said, ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the
Life, no man comes to the Father except by me,’ he was speaking not as
Jesus the body, but as a manifestation of the One, true, fully restored
Christ. That is who we all are, and as such, we also truly are the
Way, the Truth and the Life, and it is completely impossible that any of us
fragments of the Sonship could come (back) to the Father except by being
restored to that state of being that is who and what we really are.
To make an
exclusivist religious doctrine out of such an eternal reality is entirely
out of accord with Jesus’ intent by the statement, and entirely
unserviceable to the furtherance of the GRP.
Jesus puts
it thusly in his speaking through Murdo, in that same chapter:
As a baby lies in the arms of its
mother, feel also that you are in the arms of the Ever-Eternal Father, and
allow Him to do what He pleases with you. Then there shall be no struggle,
and the Power of God will be in your mind and heart; your hand will be
strong, your mind will be alert. This is the Power of the Christ that is
with you always.
Then He will embrace you with His
love, and you will eat at His table; and serving you with His own hands He
will give you the key to His treasure.
(See Lk. 12:37 and SFGS chapter 9.)
He will converse and delight Himself with you incessantly in thousands of
ways and He will treat you as His favourite.
(Not hard,
since there is but one of us!)
In this way you will consider
yourselves at all times in His Holy Presence; of this I know so well.
It is the living Power of God that
dwells in you, and you can have this Living Power now. Recognise it
and adore it, and dwell in the Holy Presence of the Father, recognising His
Greatness, His Love, His Power; because all is His, and what is His is yours
also.
Can there
be anything more to say, other than Alleluia?!
Love,
eternally,
Brian
Longhurst
July 30th 2008
Dear
Friends,
Most of us
become so engaged with matters of time and place while we appear to be here
that they occupy nearly all of our thoughts, leaving little opportunity for
consideration of Eternity. Then, when time is running out for us at the end
of a sojourn here, we realise that we have missed a priceless opportunity to
progress spiritually. Finally, after we have actually laid aside our body,
we are rapidly faced with the realisation that ultimately, nothing of ‘form’
– i.e. material considerations - that we may have valued so highly whilst
here, is of any value to us in this ‘new’ place we then find ourself.
In fact,
the things we may have valued highly here can then be seen to have been to
our detriment when we have left them behind because they distracted us so
much from what really matters, and why we are really here. The only
thing that really matters here is relationships. We may believe that the
‘good’ relationships are what count, and it is of course true that they are
invaluable, a wondrous blessing and joy. But the relationships that are of
greatest significance to our spiritual, eternal wellbeing are the bad ones,
the broken ones. It is for them that we are here; to heal them. No broken
relationship is a chance thing. It has its origin in some causative factor,
and the more broken it is, the deeper are its roots in some former events,
and therefore, the more important it is that we address it, because it is an
opportunity for healing, so that we can be released from the burden
of its brokenness.
It is
broken relationships, and our dogged determination to allow them to remain
broken (by projecting our judgements onto them instead of truly forgiving
them) that keeps us bound to time and place. Time and place does not come
to an end for us when we lay aside our body at the end of an act. That
simply affords us an opportunity to reflect upon how we handled the
opportunities we called into our presence whilst with a body. It is said
that this is a life review; a self assessment time. We are not — ever —
judged and condemned by our Creator, but because of our allegiance to false
thinking and seeing, due to ego’s dominance of our mind, we are adept at
judging and condemning our self.
Here, we
judge ourself as a failure because we believe we are inadequate in our
business, or social, or sporting, or cultural, or financial, or professional
endeavours. When we find ourself in the etheric counterpart of Earth after
a sojourn here we realise — too late — that it is human relationships that
we would have been wise to address more fully. Healing broken relationships
enables the Sonship to be restored to wholeness, oneness, and thus to awaken
to our eternal Home in Heaven, permanently dispelling time and place.
Jesus
reminds us in ACIM that there is no sin; that it is ego that would have us
believe we are sinners, but that in reality, we are simply mistaken in our
perceptions and that these simple errors can be easily corrected. Why would
a benign, loving Creator punish His beloved Son for being mistaken?
It is for
the correction of errors, mistakes, misperceptions that we return again and
again to a body in time and place, so that we can awaken from them to the
truth about our eternal, unconditionally-loving Self (of which Jesus is our
exemplar), and that this truth will then set us free from the chains of time
and place. Everything about time and place is designed to mislead us,
divert us from awakening to eternal truth, and thus being freed.
For
example, in chapter 22, section III of ACIM, he explains that time and
place, being an illusion, is therefore nothing, but our bodily senses
are made to cause us to appear to have experience of that nothing, and
mislead us into believing that it is real. This includes, of course, our
eyes, which see only what is in the without, or the outer; yet the outer is
only an illusion, so does not exist in the only true reality, which is… yes,
you got it, Eternity! Seeing only the outer distracts us from seeing the
inner reality.
Yet the
outer all seems so solid, so real. So, how can we get past seeing the
illusory outer and start engaging reality with our true, spiritual vision,
which has nothing whatsoever to do with our sensory perceptions? The answer
is, Think like Big Me. Jesus tells us that he identified with the
Holy Spirit, which is the Spirit of Truth, or the Holy Breath, or Big Me, by
thinking like Him, until he became so completely aligned with His thinking
that they became identical. Big Me’s thinking is right-Minded, or
Christ-Minded thinking, which is the opposite of ego-mind thinking (which is
based on observations made with our sensory perceptions). But those sensory
perceptions are misperceptions, so, from the perspective of Eternity
(the only true perspective), our thinking from within the context of time
and place (an illusion) can only be wrong-minded thinking.
‘Okay,’
I hear someone at the back say, ‘I hear what you say, but it is easier
said than done. We are deeply habituated in sensory-perception-led
thinking; the whole world around us is completely inured in it, and anyone
who says, thinks or does differently is looked upon like a freak. How can
anyone survive in the asylum unless he ‘thinks’ like a lunatic?’
The answer
is quite simple, easy and painless: We don’t have to ‘do’ this ourself.
All that is asked of us is that we desire for it to be so and Big Me
does it for us. Oh yes, it helps — well, actually, it is prerequisite, for
nothing happens without faith — if we can believe this!! That is
not so easy because ego will jump through hoops to prevent us from
believing something so easy can be possible, and the way wrong-minded
thinking works, it is easy to believe no-one will do us a favour for
nothing, and very hard indeed to believe anyone will. This is often the
case in this opposite-of-all-that-is-of-God dream, but it is not the case in
the real world of Papa’s Kingdom, which is our true Home.
Jesus is
recorded as saying to those he healed, ‘Your faith has made you whole.’
In those instances he was saying it was their faith in him (because, like
today, most people did not have faith in themselves, though they were able
to have faith in him because they saw the miracles he performed). But the
GRP moves forward, and we are now in the place of progress of the GRP
where the Good Husbandman is growing us, awakening us to the fact that we
can have faith in our Self (Big Me), just as Jesus had faith in his
Self, because he had remembered who he really is, and we are ready to begin
remembering who we really are; God’s only begotten Son. There is no
difference between Jesus and the rest of us except that we have forgotten
this truth, and most of us are still allowing ego to cause us to continue in
this forgetfulness, or wrong thinking.
Here is a
suggestion for helping us to remember who we really are, because only by
keep reminding ourselves, over and over, will the light get through the fog
we have placed around ourselves to blind ourself from the truth:
“I am
Big Me now.”
This is
already a fact, and always has been, for us all, and has no dependence on
our being aware of it in order to make it so. But reminding ourself of this
fact will help us greatly in attuning with Big Me’s inspiration, guidance,
enlightenment, protection, synchronistic activity in our lives; a win-win
situation.
Commitment
to the beliefs that arose during the first measure of meal became outdated,
redundant, and replaced by a new level of commitment and understanding when
the second measure of meal commenced leavening. The ideas and understanding
of the second measure similarly became outdated, outgrown, and are being
superseded by the third measure of meal understanding, which has already
commenced leavening. If a measure of meal is 2000 years and the third
measure began leavening in 1965, or thereabouts, that means we are
approximately 2.15% of the way through the final measure.
Some of us
will sit on the sidelines, equivocating, havering, uncertain, fearful of
being seen as an apostate or a heretic, or even a blasphemer, assuredly
destined for some fearful judgement of Papa. That is just how it was at
commencement of the second measure, leavened by Jesus 2000 years ago. The
orthodox (first measure) believers looked upon Jesus and his followers as
renegades, and did all they could to stop this new understanding, this new
leaven, from spreading.
In time and
place consciousness, history is now repeating itself. ACIM, along with
other, complementary, Kingdom-Age emerging awareness, is reviled by
second-measure thinkers, who feel threatened by it instead of enlightened,
and hunker down in the old-order rote system of belief that, rather than
going forward, is actually going backwards. Soon, the Doppler Effect will
set in as the Kingdom Age continues to move forward and gathers pace (as it
unstoppably will) and the ‘orthodox’ second-measure order (typified by the
church of Laodicea) continues to rip itself asunder and subside into the
mire of despond.
In
contrast, the small nucleus of those who are ready for the Kingdom Age will
grow as more and more see through the emptiness of the Laodicean order and
emigrate to Philadelphia (see SFGS,
vignette number 10).
Assuredly,
there have always been two options available to ‘the children of Earth’:
Onwards and upwards (into the Light), or downwards and backwards (further
into the dark).
Love and
Light,
Brian
Longhurst
August 6th 2008
Dear
Friends,
Any event
that seems to take place in time can be seen in one of two ways: either that
it happened, and we are thus affected by it (to a greater or lesser extent,
according to how personal or otherwise it is to our self, or our attitude
towards it, such as politics), or, we can choose to see that
because time and place are an illusion (even quantum physicists are now
coming to the realisation that this is true), we are not — cannot be —
really ‘here,’ but are safe at Home in Eternity, or Heaven.
Clearly,
that means that the apparent event couldn’t have actually
happened and could not, therefore, have been anything other than a dream, an
unreality. Thus, it would be entirely reasonable to adopt the position of
not being affected by any and every such apparent event.
It is
apposite to observe at this point that joy — a wonderful, uplifting,
positive, inner peace-evoking feeling — is of God, our real Self, Heaven, so
meeting any apparent event here with joy is our real Self. Conversely, if
we respond to any apparent event with fear, guilt, doubt, confusion, anger,
despair, this is of ego mind; our false, unreal, upside-down, little
self. Interestingly, the same apparent event can be met by the former
response in one person and the latter response in another. That clearly
indicates that it is not the event that is either of Heaven or of hell, but
the state of mind (or Mind!) of the observer.
For
example, person A seeks after spiritual truth, and welcomes it with joy at
every mystical encounter, or contact from the Realms of Light. Person B is
full of fear of the ‘invisible’ realms and is convinced that contact with
them is against the Will of God; that those who engage in such activity are
sinners, destined for ‘outer darkness,’ or hell fire and damnation for all
eternity, consigned there by a vengeful God.
Person A
eagerly desires to share, to extend the joy and enlightenment they
experience from such spiritual, metaphysical encounters, but B is deeply
against discussing such matters and believes that even contact with A is
placing B in mortal danger of judgement from God (based on Deuteronomy
18:10-12), so severs the relationship with A, believing not just A to be in
mortal danger, but placing others with whom he associates in equal danger,
because A is trafficking with Satan, who has him ensnared.
Person A is
filled with joy by awareness of, and contact with, those from spirit who
come to bring the truth of Eternity in a loving, benign and profoundly
uplifting and enlightening way, and desires earnestly to extend such joyous
experiences to his brother, B, in the Sonship. But B is deeply fearful,
intent on continuing to hide his self-perceived sinful existence here in
time and place as long as possible from the wrathful God he has imagined
and, in his own mind, made real.
As an
aside, it is interesting to note that many people with the perceptions of
person B in this example, claiming the Bible to be the literal and
infallible word of God, choose to embrace homosexuality as acceptable in
today’s society, even though those same scriptures state (in much stronger
terms) that homosexuality is an abomination and those who practice it ‘shall
surely be put to death’ (Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13). This very issue
continues — relentlessly, so it appears — to rend the Anglican and Episcopal
Communions (and, assuredly, other institutionalised religious groups) into
yet another, irreconcilable schism. If ego is capable of anything remotely
resembling joy, this situation will assuredly be evoking it.
One could
apply the principle involved here at any ‘level’ or to any situation and it
would be true. The principle is that it is not the ‘event’ that is either
good or bad, but how we choose to view it. It could neither be good nor bad
because it is unreal, an illusion.
If we take
just about as ‘bad’ an event as humanity has inflicted upon itself — the
holocaust — as another example, few would disagree that it was a terrible
demonstration of the depths of depravity to which we are capable of
permitting ego to drag us. Yet, from the perspective of Eternity, rather
than allowing our separated mind to see it as humanity’s true, evil nature,
we can choose to remember that we are actually created in the image and
likeness of the unconditionally loving and accepting Creator.
This is the
perspective which enabled Jesus to accept the cross, because he knew death
is impossible. It was not death, but the resurrection (of us all,
from belief in the illusion of death to remembrance that eternal life is,
and has always been, Papa’s free gift to us) that was his message for us.
Can we envision Jesus as being depressed or desolate at the awfulness of the
holocaust?
Ego would
have us believe that to allow ourself to remain unflinchingly at peace
within and joyful in the face of such an event would be highly
inappropriate, callous, uncaring, unfeeling. To maintain our inner focus on
the truth and reality of Eternity and its endless joy, peace and love,
irrespective of outward events that appear to be catastrophic — wars,
genocides, earthquakes, tornadoes, tsunamis, economic downturns, epidemics,
whatever — in no way indicates a lack of caring, compassion, love, for those
caught up in them.
Matthew
14:14 says And Jesus went
forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them,
and he healed their sick.
The Gospels refer to his compassion for the people on a number of occasions,
and compassion is, of course, an integral aspect of unconditional love.
Assuredly, if he had allowed himself to become dragged down by what appeared
to be going on around him, his own inner being — his Mind and Spirit — would
have been dimmed by it and he would have been unable to manifest the
wonderworking of his Heavenly Father that he had come to demonstrate as
normal (and that, if we could only believe, the works that he performed, and
greater works, would also be performed, as normal, by us), as a key part of
the leavening process of the second measure of meal, and thus, of the entire
GRP.
The truth
is, Jesus remained centred, focussed, attuned at all times to the awareness
of who he was and why he was here; nothing distracted him from that, with
one short-lived exception: his ‘passion’ in Gethsemane, during which fear —
terror — overtook him. But he prayed, remained steadfastly committed to his
mission, and within a short time was restored to his full, inner strength
and one-pointedness. Who could blame him for that moment of unspeakable
agony and angst?
Of course,
most of us are some way from the experience of being where Jesus was
on the path to remembrance of who we are and why we are here, but we can
choose to accept as our belief principle the general awareness of who we are
and why we are here: Papa’s only begotten, deeply, totally, unconditionally
loved Son, here by mistaken belief that we are separated from our Father
Creator, and now in the process of being rescued from our mistake, and
awakened to the one true reality; Eternity, Heaven.
We are here
to remember that, allow Big Me to restore to us control over our own Mind by
undoing ego’s control over it through true forgiveness of our self, our
brethren, the world, for what we have never done (if it is all an illusion,
in which it is impossible for anything that appears to be real to
actually be real, how could we have done anything ‘wrong’?)
When we
look upon what is in the without with our bodily senses it seems hard — many
would say, impossible — to get, and stay, focussed on the inward reality.
That is why Jesus counsels us to enter our ‘closet’, shut the door (on the
clamour of this insane world around us, invading our inward being with all
its ego-driven might), and then to pray, attune with the Father and
His Kingdom within us. Jesus and Big Me know that (‘little’) we are barely
nascent in this, and accept that we are beginners, so success will only be
partial, sporadic at first (even when we don’t, and beat ourself up —
just as ego wants — because we haven’t got all the way to our Destination at
the first attempt).
Ego scores
its victories over us time and time again when we give up because it didn’t
happen, to our outward perception, in ‘five minutes.’ What we are
missing (because our outward perception is completely flawed and upside
down) is that the very instant that we choose to go within, sincerely
desire to know the truth that will set us free, the Rescue Process is set in
motion. It is our own desire that enables it to be set in motion. Without
that, Big Me remains waiting, with infinite patience, but eager desire and
willingness, to begin our awakening; to bring to us the all-empowered help
that not only makes it possible, but makes it inevitable.
If we had,
at that moment, the vision that is promised — guaranteed — us, that is, and
has always been, ours, we would be aware of the great shout of joy that goes
up in Heaven for us, and the limitless resources that are instantly
activated from there for our upliftment. Then would we never look back on
what has kept us in its thrall for so long, because we would instantly be
aware that it is completely without meaning, value or reality.
Then would
we be content to accept that, because we have believed ourselves to be
little for so long, we seem only to be making little steps, one at a
time. We would be content because we would realise that each step is seen,
in the reality of Heaven, as a giant step; that all Heaven is
rejoicing mightily over each and every one we take. It would become
apparent to us that the words of Isaiah 35: 5-6 are being fulfilled in us:
Then the eyes of the blind
shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall
the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing.
The ‘then’
spoken of is NOW, the third measure of meal; the fulfilment measure.
As the outer continues to fall into disarray, so does the Kingdom within
gather strength. Who, with all the power and love of Papa and Heaven to
uphold them, could find the choice between miracles-and-Eternity and
disarray-and-death hard to make?
☺
Endless
blessings,
Brian
Longhurst
August 13th 2008
Dear
Friends,
First,
Theresa and I will be travelling a fair bit for a few weeks starting next
week, in part as celebration of 40 years of togetherness, so there may be
few opportunities for sending the weekly
MoEs and Diary entries. Thank you for your patience. As Arnie would say,
‘I’ll be back!’
In the 12th
chapter of John’s Gospel, Jesus says:
The hour is come, that the Son of
man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of
wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it
bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he
that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.
Now most of
us who know those words of his have been led to believe they refer,
analogously speaking, to Jesus alone, and that he is speaking of his
imminent crucifixion and subsequent resurrection, followed by an admonition
to us all about having too much commitment to this temporal realm at the
expense of Eternity. A closer look will reveal that although that initial
interpretation is, of course, correct, he is taking that example of what was
shortly to occur to speak in principle about life here in the dream
world of separation and its outworking to completion.
Throughout
ACIM he refers to those of us who accept our apparent ‘littleness’ and see
relationships as ‘special’ as being alone and lonely, separate from Papa,
from our brethren (even though we appear to be surrounded by them, but we
are separated from their — and our — true reality by our
misperceptions, and are thus alone and lonely) and from our true, limitless,
eternal Self.
This quote
from John’s Gospel is reminding us that here, in our sleeping (like a
dormant wheat seed) state, we abide alone, even in the midst of all our
brethren, spiritually. But if we are ready and willing to surrender
our attachment to time and place, and the mechanism for kidding ourself that
we are an individual — our body — we will immediately begin to bring forth
‘much fruit.’ The analogy does not imply that we have to be crucified, or
depart from our body by any other means, but simply amend our perceptions
about its value to us.
The fruit
we will bring forth has nothing whatsoever to do with empire building,
material success. That may well be a spin-off, or fringe benefit, but we
will find that our attachment to time and place and material ‘stuff’ fades.
Something of immeasurably greater value to us — a pearl of great price —
takes their place. That pearl is our spiritual vision; our awakening
awareness of the eternal Kingdom of Heaven, right here, right now, while
still appearing to be with a body. That body will cease to be perceived as
who we are and instead will be seen as simply a communication mechanism for
Big Me to extend His good news about who we all are to His brethren who
still believe in – or are deceived by – littleness, and thus help them to
awaken to the truth at a pace with which each is comfortable.
It is
difficult to envision what those intangible valuables, that much fruit,
could be until we begin to experience them; and meanwhile, fear of losing
what we already believe we have — however tenuous our hold on our idols may
be — keeps our hands literally or metaphorically clasping onto what we have
long-believed was ours. Yet our hands must be open in order to
receive. And as the material world and its treasures become, in these
dangerous and treacherous, fear-filled times, more and more uncertain, even
to those who are deeply slumbering, so does fear of losing the little we
appear to have increase; and lying, cheating, stealing become relentlessly
endemic. Yet Jesus says in Luke 16:11-12:
If therefore ye have not been
faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true
riches? And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man’s,
who shall give you that which is your own?
This is
clearly telling us that if we are unable to be trustworthy, how can we
receive the free gift of the Kingdom, (which is our own because Papa has
given it to us) and is awaiting us if we can only be willing to trust the
Giver enough to receive it?
The gifts
that we begin to receive immediately — the fruit that we begin to bring
forth — and that continue to grow and become ever more blessing to us and
our fellows are:
Inner
peace. That, as an alternative to fear, is truly a pearl of great price; a
price that this world and its richest, most powerful people can neither buy
nor give. Inner peace has nothing to do with what is happening around us.
The best example of that is Jesus being inwardly at peace as he was being
nailed to the cross. How far are we from that place? It may seem a
very, very long way, but that is a misperception which ego wants us to
believe is true. All the while we believe it, it will be our reality
because we are making it so; it is not God Who is withholding that inner
peace. How can we be sure he was at peace at that moment? Because he knew
he was not a body and that all appearances to the contrary are a dream, and
he was awake from that dream. How can one fear a dream when one is
awake? Only when we are in the dream can it be fearful to us.
Being more
realistic and pragmatic, which Jesus and Big Me most certainly are, it is
unlikely that that elusive inner peace will become fully, comprehensively
ours in a trice. That is not because it is being withheld from us but
because we are not, yet, sufficiently grown in faith and trust. We have
been conscious in the midst of fear and mistrust far too long to be able to
trust more than our self-perceived littleness will ‘sensibly’ permit, based
on our experiences of this deceiving, lying, stealing, murdering, insane
world.
But Jesus
and Big Me are totally trustworthy. This is not something most of us
are willing to proclaim from the centre of a bustling shopping centre or
railway station. Fortunately, we are not required so to do (though
evangelical churches may disagree with that). But it is a major help if we
are willing to do it in the privacy of our own within. Actually, it is a
great deal more than a major help. It is totally requisite. It is as
requisite as those Jesus healed having faith that he could heal them.
Without their faith he could not have healed them, and he told them so. He
said, ‘Your faith has made you whole.’ Without our faith They cannot rescue
us from egoland.
If we are
willing to ‘surrender our leasehold on our life’ into the care of Jesus
and/or Big Me, then that inner peace, or the first stirrings of it, will be
with us; and it will grow in direct proportion to our
FTOC. That is sufficient to encourage those who are seeking inner peace
to practise surrendering multiple times every day. We are in charge of our
own inner peace; no-one else. Not even God. How can God give us something
we are unwilling to receive? If we are a little willing, we can receive a
little inner peace. That will encourage us and grow us to be more, and
more, and more willing to receive, until finally we are totally willing,
just as Jesus was totally willing (‘Of myself I can do nothing.’)
Then the flood gates are fully open and we will be Home, awake, at peace;
the dream will be behind us, and we will know, truly know, that there
is not, and never was, anything to fear.
You may be
wondering what other fruits or benefits are available. If you are, you are
undervaluing inner peace. Inner peace may not sound, to a world where the
latest model Winnebago is a big deal, like anything much to write home
about. But inner peace is the state of being in which we find our Self.
There are no words missing from that sentence. Our true (Big) Self is who
we really are; eternal, innocent, totally joyful, totally loving, totally
blessing, totally accepting, totally grateful.
At
commencement of the 2nd measure of meal it was the time for
Jesus, the ‘firstfruits’ of the Son of man, or Sonship, to be glorified.
Now, at the commencement of the 3rd, or fulfilment measure, it is
the time for the rest of the Son of man, or Sonship (that’s us; all of us)
to be glorified. All the while we hang on to our leasehold, we remain
alone, lonely, dormant (i.e. asleep); can bear no (spiritual) fruit, cannot
experience the glory of who we really are in our oneness with Papa.
Jesus is
not implying that we have to undergo being nailed to a cross, or endure any
other manner of untimely end to our being with a body in order to be
glorified. The inference to be drawn from this quote from Luke chapter 12 is
that by withdrawing our commitment to time and place and placing it in
Eternity, then will we bring forth much fruit. Many of us may feel
it is unlikely Jesus would have used the word ‘hate’ in reference to our
leasehold. The Bible in Basic English rephrases the KJV (and most
other) translation of the last part of that quote from Luke in which the
word hate is used thusly:
And he who has no
care for his life in this world…
That seems
to me more like the way Jesus would actually have stated it.
Finally,
inner peace spontaneously evokes total, unconditional love, joy, blessing,
acceptance and gratitude. He who radiates those qualities, those
attributes, brings mighty gifts indeed to all who encounter him,
transforming their lives, literally, forever; abundant fruit indeed.
Peace,
inwardly and eternally,
Brian
Longhurst
Theresa and I
were
travelling in North America from August 20th to September 24th, so there
were few opportunities for new postings between those dates.
We are now back from
our travels and normal activity on this page has recommenced as of
October 1st 2008
October 1st 2008
Dear
Friends,
Theresa and
I are now back from our travels, albeit two days later than originally
planned, due to the demise of the airline that carried us on our outward
journey, necessitating a delayed return via another carrier. This is a
symptom of the events currently unfolding around us in this illusory world.
These
events are effects of the illusory separation consciousness, and come as no
surprise to those whose vision is steadfastly focussed on the reality of
Eternity;
that we
are not a body, but the perfect, eternal, indestructible, innocent
one Son of the Father Creator;
that we
have come to believe we are separate from Him and from each other and
are living in a self-induced sense of fear, guilt and scarcity;
that
this has caused us to perceive everything from a wrong-minded,
upside-down perspective;
that
all this is being corrected for us from the only real place — Eternity,
or Heaven, which is our true home — by the Voice for God, which Jesus
speaks of as the Holy Spirit, and which is our real, higher Self;
that
this Great Rescue Programme, of which Jesus is the Chief Executive
Officer, is in the process, right now, of awakening us to the
right-minded thinking and knowing that is our true, Christ reality and
this is, even now, restoring us to our true estate of the oneness of the
Sonship;
that
this restoration will have been completed by the end of the Aquarian
age, or third measure of meal, upon which the illusory ‘physical’
universe — which is a mirage-like construct of the upside-down,
split-off-from-truth part of our mind — will cease to have any existence
in our mind (because our mind will have been healed) and will thus
disappear from our awareness and we will have re-awakened at home with
Papa in Heaven.
In February
1998, in a dream experience, I was in the presence of loved ones in spirit,
who were sending out into the ether the question for those in the Earth life
who were focussed only at the time and place consciousness (and thus
oblivious to the reality of who we all really are) “Where is your life
going without the Lord Jesus?” The intent of this question was/is to
act as a jolt, to bring those who are ready to a place of greater
wakefulness to the meaninglessness of life in time and place unless it has a
focus upon the reality of spiritual truth and our true nature as God’s Son,
and that our only purpose in being here is to get back to our home in Him.
At the
Communion following that dream I recorded the following exchange with Jesus:
Beloved Lord, I pray that the experience of
passing along the message of departed loved ones, “Where is your life
going without the Lord Jesus?” may be born of your wisdom, guiding,
power and love, so that it may be thus empowered for success in winning the
souls of many hard-hearted, stiff-necked, faithless and perverse souls of
this generation, and that if it is not by your power and authority but
instead, of my own self-will or worse, the devices of the enemy, that it may
very quickly fade away from my memory.
My son, I do reassure you that there are many, many blueprints in the
Kingdom portmanteau and that this experience is but one.
Nevertheless, the stiff-necked need a jolt to loosen
up their breadth of vision and understanding, and such a device is just so
designed. As with all plans, principles and mechanisms, let it
operate only within the encompassment of Love. Let the Love of the Holy One
for His little ones, however close yet however far they might feel from Him,
be in your heart. There, but for His Grace, His power, His redeeming of
your life, go you.
Only within the scope of such absolute commitment to His love
in your heart and in all your motivation, can any such device be eternally
serviceable to His eternal purposes. Outwith such commitment it becomes a
tool of subversion and distortion of Truth in the hands of the prince of
time and place.
Hold fast to the goal of
your vision so that perspectives in-between do not lead you astray. I will
never leave you nor forsake you. My programme goes forward apace. Do thou
remain steadfast in thy one-pointedness, that double-vision does not
intervene. All is well; peace and joy of eternity be with you now and
always.
Many years
ago, the young son of a family with whom I was (and still am) in a close and
loving relationship showed me his little sister, who had fallen asleep on
her bed one afternoon. He told me that she slept so soundly that shouting
in her ear would not even cause her to stir. He demonstrated this, to my
astonishment, by blowing his trumpet (which he played in a school band) as
loudly as he could, just inches from her ear, and which produced not so much
as a flicker from his sister. He told me that only a prolonged and vigorous
shaking, or jolting, would cause her to arouse, so deep were her slumbers.
Truly, the
world at large is so deeply slumbering in its dream of separation and
forgetfulness of its true nature and heritage as God’s perfect Son that it
needs a jolt to waken it from its slumbers and dreams of littleness, fear
and scarcity that cause selfishness and greed to dominate its behaviour.
Such a jolt (otherwise known as consequences, or, as you sow, so shall you
reap) is what the world is now experiencing. This is the nature of an ego
fabricated world, and so will it continue to experience such jolts, in one
form or another, until we, the Sonship, remember and acknowledge our true
spiritual nature; until we finally awaken and abandon our prodigal ways, to
return home to our Father’s house.
Events in
the without, under control of the prince of time and place, otherwise known
as ego, are designed to keep us in the dynamic of fear and hope, or carrot
and stick. They are, fortunately, illusory, even though they appear very
real to those whose house has been repossessed and whose job has just
evaporated.
In May 1997
Jesus said to me:
All is according to your desire. Psychic conditions of the
moment have no impact upon the desire of your heart for it is forged in the
eternal realms of *fire, unquenchable.
Let your heart and mind focus on your desire; let your desire
be as my desire — for love, blessing and the freedom of eternal life for all
my little ones — for in this is peace, strength, power, upliftment,
wholeness, and renewal for you as well as all the beneficiaries of your
blessings. This is Papa's way, that all should benefit. It is eternal
reality. It is livingness; dynamic, joyous, mystical, empowering. It is of
the life force and shall uprate the lives of all who partake of it…
And the meek and the humble shall be given all things of the
Great Storehouse of eternity, so that all shall know the livingness of my
Word. And many shall come to me and drink of the fountain of living water
springing up from me, that they might be refreshed eternally.
I say to you all, be of great good cheer, for all is
accomplished and the fulfilment of prophecy is assured. This is the power
of desire. Let your light so shine among your fellows, in the Earthly life
and for those who have left their bodies behind but not the Earth. All is
well. Peace and joy be with you always.
*Fire is the symbol of the realm of Eternal,
Spiritual reality.
It takes
one-pointed commitment to remain focussed on the reality of Heaven and the
love and tender care in which we are all — each and every one of us — so
deeply, fully and completely held. This is a haven of peace in a world of
chaos and turmoil that appears to be going on all around us.
True
forgiveness of those we perceive as having wronged us is the way to that
haven. May that peace infill us all and create a fortress of
tranquillity that will enable and empower one-pointed focus upon, and
commitment to the reality of our oneness in the Sonship of God.
Brian
Longhurst
October 8th 2008
Dear
Friends,
As
mentioned on previous occasions, Jesus teaches us, in ACIM, how we can, in
full co-operation with the Holy Spirit, undo ego’s ‘script’ of guilt and
fear and adopt in its place the Holy Spirit’s script of healing broken
relationships through true forgiveness, which will release us into love,
freedom and the restoration to oneness, or At-onement. He does this by
comparing them, because, he says that first we must understand what ego is,
and what the Holy Spirit is, how each works, each’s objectives and
the effects of each on our lives, so we know what we are dealing with, and
are thus able to make an informed choice for one or the other at each
opportunity. I say ‘opportunity’ because every event we face is simply
that; an opportunity to heal broken relationships, to grow spiritually and
awaken from the dream, see past the illusion of time to the reality of
Eternity, which Jesus calls the Kingdom of Heaven. That term resonates
strongly with me, but whatever term any of us prefer to describe our one,
true home, that is what it is: our one, true home. For ever.
Ego would
have us believe we are a body and that all things perceivable by our bodily
senses are the reality of creation. Jesus, conversely, (and the Holy
Spirit, or ‘Big Me’ with Whom Jesus tells us he is fully identified) tells
us that everything we thusly perceive is unreal because only what is
created by God is real, indestructible and eternal. So the ‘physical’
universe and all that appears to be in it is not God’s creation, but
made by ego — the split-off, upside-down part of our mind — as a
distraction, to enable us to ‘hide from God’ because, so we are led to
believe, we ‘have sinned against Heaven and before God’ (Lk. 15:18) so He is
out to punish us. But we are now at the place described in the parable of
the prodigal son where we are ‘coming to ourself.’ This means we are
beginning to regain our right mind, whereby we can see the folly, the
error, the illusion of believing ourself as separate from each other and
from our Creator, and are in the process of ‘arising and going to our
father.’ This is possible because one of the fragments of the Sonship,
namely Jesus…
‘…who was a man but saw the
face of Christ in all his brothers and remembered God. So he became
identified with Christ, a man no longer, but at one with God. The man was
an illusion, for he seemed to be a separate being, walking by himself,
within a body that appeared to hold his self from Self, as all
illusions do. Yet who can save unless he sees illusions and then
identifies them as what they are? Jesus remains a Savior because he saw
the false without accepting it as true. And Christ needed his form that He
might appear to men and save them from their own illusions.
This saving
is happening right now, and can be speeded up immeasurably for all who are
willing to accept the reality of this process into their own lives and then
co-operate with it.
For those
who are not yet willing, the process is still happening, regardless of their
unawareness of it, or their ego-driven unwillingness to co-operate, or their
fear; but for them it will take longer, in linear terms, or a greater number
of circuits on the carousel (re-incarnations). Nevertheless, as successive
incarnations take place for such broken fragments of the Sonship, so will
their true nature as part of God’s perfect, unconditionally-loved Son draw
them ever closer and closer to spiritual wakefulness, helped by the love,
blessing, true forgiveness and example of their brethren in the Sonship, so
that the At-onement will have become complete and all fragments
restored to oneness by the end of the 3rd measure of meal, or
Aquarian Age.
In his complete identification with the Christ – the perfect Son of God, His
one creation and His happiness, forever like Himself and One with Him –
Jesus became what all of you must be
(this is,
as his words imply, inevitable, and in truth has always been, because
this dream of separation from the Sonship of God has never happened, and the
‘mad, momentary thought of it’ was over the instant it began).
He led the way for you to follow him. He leads you back to God
because he saw the road before him, and he followed it
(and he has
now given us the Map, so that we can also see the road and follow it,
walking in joyful, loving, peaceful fellowship with him and all our fellows
— including those with whom we have been experiencing damaged or broken
relationships).
He made a clear distinction, still obscure to you, between the false and
true
(but now we
are, with the help that has always been freely and is now plainly
available to us, able to begin to so distinguish).
He offered you a final
demonstration that it is impossible to kill God's Son; nor can his life in
any way be changed by sin and evil, malice, fear or death
(that’s
us - all of us - he speaks of, and becomes our reality when we
are able to believe it rather than ego’s script; that is all that
stands between us and that reality).
And therefore all your sins have been forgiven because they carried no
effects at all
(errors;
mistakes, not ‘sins,’ because God’s Son is innocent!).
And so they were but dreams. Arise with him who showed you this because you
owe him this who shared your dreams that they might be dispelled. And
shares them still, to be at one with you.
Is he the Christ? O yes,
along with you
(could it
be plainer than that, Who we really are? How long will we continue to
deceive ourselves and shut ourself off from the joy of Heaven?).
His little life on earth was not enough to teach the mighty lesson that he
learned for all of you. He will remain with you to lead you from the hell
you made to God
(that’s love).
And when you join your will with his, your sight will be his vision,
for the eyes of Christ are shared
(it just
gets better and better).
Walking with him is just as natural as walking with a brother whom you knew
since you were born, for such indeed he is
(I attest to the reality of this statement, as described in SFGS,
chapter 11).
Some bitter idols have been
made of him who would be only brother to the world. Forgive him your
illusions, and behold how dear a brother he would be to you
(he
already is that dear brother; it is only ego-dominated minds that
obscure the ability to see and experience that reality).
For he will set your mind at rest at last
(a mind at
rest? How much of a miraculous change will that be for almost all of
humanity? For, even those of us who never have to worry about where the
next meal will come from, there is always the fear of ‘death’, of cancer, of
accident, of terrorism, of apocalyptic disaster, of decrepitude inexorably
approaching)
and carry it with you unto your
God.
Is he God's only Helper? No, indeed. For Christ takes many forms with
different names until their oneness can be recognized. But Jesus is for you
the bearer of Christ's single message of the Love of God. You need no other.
It is possible to read his words and benefit from them without accepting him
into your life.
Yet he would help you yet a little more
(immeasurably
more, actually)
if you will share your pains and joys with
him, and leave them both to find the
peace of God. Yet still it is his lesson most of all that he would have you
learn, and it is this:
There is no death because
the Son of God is like his Father. Nothing you can do can change Eternal
Love. Forget your dreams of sin and guilt, and come with me instead to
share the resurrection of God's Son. And bring with you all those whom
He has sent to you to care for as I care for you.
(From
ACIM Clarification of Terms 5. Jesus – Christ. My emboldening and some
italics, for emphasis.)
Here, then,
is another choice; an opportunity to align our peace-seeking heart and our
head. The great thing about this is there is nothing to lose. And of one
thing can we be certain: any little voice in our head that says ‘O, yes
there is’ is the voice of ego, not the Voice for God, the Spirit of
Truth, our own Higher Self, ‘Big Me.’
Love and
blessings for the journey,
Brian
Longhurst
October 15th 2008
Dear
Friends,
The word
‘obedience,’ as in FTOC (Faith, Trust, Obedience and Commitment)
means obedience to our Higher Self, or Big Me, or the Holy Spirit. It does
not mean subservience to another, including God. When Paul wrote to the
Philippians
And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient
unto death, even the death of the cross.
(Phil. 2:8)
he was not
implying that God had demanded the blood sacrifice of Jesus and that Jesus
submissively complied. The obedience by Jesus was to his own
mission, of which he was in full awareness, that he had come to get our
attention by demonstrating that that which is eternal (God’s Son) is
eternal, indestructible. In section 6 of the ‘Clarification of Terms,’
at the back of ACIM, Jesus says of himself that he…
‘is the manifestation of the
Holy Spirit…’.
Yet he also
states, throughout ACIM, that we are his brothers, one with him in the
Sonship, but that we have simply forgotten this in our separated-mind state
of spiritual slumbering, and his/Holy Spirit’s job is to awaken us to
remembrance of the truth of our Identity. That is what the GRP is all
about.
This is
what Jesus incarnated to do and crucifixion (a pre-requisite to
resurrection) was an essential part of the process. He knew this, and told
the disciples this several times, though they were unable to comprehend what
he was telling them. But he knew it and was obedient to his own
Big Me, Higher Self objective; the objective he had chosen to undertake; the
objective (the waking of us, his brethren) he knew would be completed,
fulfilled, and which he also demonstrated he knew would take another 4,000
years of linear time, by telling the parable of the three measures of meal.
Ego, whose
objective is to spread dysinformation, confusion, doubt, fear, and thus keep
us in the illusion of time and place, wants us to believe that obedience to
another, Higher Being is not necessary in this world because here, in
dreamland, we are ‘king of our own, little-self-made castle.’ But,
as with Jesus, we are not speaking here of obedience to another, but
rather, to our own, true, Higher Self.
Our true
Self is all of us, re-unified by the At-onement process, or Great
Rescue Programme, to our eternal state of oneness in the Sonship of God.
Ego wants us to continue seeing ourselves as little, individual, separate,
mortal; all the things that are the opposite of our real Self.
That’s confusion! With that perception, it appears to our bodily
senses as if we (the Sonship) are broken into myriad fragments. Jesus, in
his fully identified state with Big Me/Holy Spirit, is effecting our
spiritual awakening from this misperception. This entails the essential
process of healing our fragmentation, or brokenness, through true
forgiveness. So all the while we perceive any of our relationships with our
brethren in the Sonship as broken, we cannot fully awaken to the true
remembrance of our oneness. This is why ACIM emphasises, over and over, that
the key to oneness is true forgiveness.
Here is
what Jesus says about this in ACIM, chapter 26, section IX, entitled ‘For
They Have Come’:
Think but
how holy you must be from whom the Voice for God calls lovingly unto your
brother, that you may awake in him the Voice that answers to your call!
(In plain
English, this is telling us that we are holy when we, as our true Self — The
Voice for God, or the Holy Spirit, or Big Me — call lovingly to our brother,
to waken in him the Big Me that he also really is.)
And
think how holy he must be when in him sleeps your own salvation, with his
freedom joined!
(This is telling us that the restoration of each of us to the reality of
Eternity is accomplished by our desire to see only the face of Christ in our
brothers.)
However much
you wish he be condemned, God is in him.
(That puts
a different — and true — complexion on our ego-driven resistance to true
forgiveness, does it not?)
And never
will you know He is in you as well while you attack His chosen home
(i.e. our
brother),
and battle with His host
(i.e. our
brother).
Regard him gently. Look with loving eyes on him who carries Christ within
him, that you may behold his glory and rejoice that Heaven is not separate
from you.
(Yet, we can make It appear to be separate from us by continuing to
believe ego’s insane script.)
Is it too
much to ask a little trust for him
(i.e. our brother)
who carries
Christ to you, that you may be forgiven all your sins, and left without a
single one you cherish still?
(Jesus is not telling us we are sinners, but that we mistakenly
believe we are; for he tells us over and over that what we call sins are
nothing more than errors, which he/Big Me will correct if/when we are
willing to receive Their loving correction.)
Forget
not that a shadow held between your brother and yourself obscures the face
of Christ and memory of God. And would you trade Them for an ancient
hate? The ground whereon you stand is holy ground because of Them Who,
standing there with you, have blessed it with Their innocence and peace.
(How glorious is that!?)
The blood of
hatred fades to let the grass grow green again, and let the flowers be all
white and sparkling in the summer sun. What was a place of death has now
become a living temple in a world of light. Because of Them.
(A
quick reminder: ‘Them’ means [our willingness to have restored to us the
vision of] the face of Christ and our remembering of God, by our desire to
truly forgive our brothers, so that our relationships with them can be
restored to wholeness/holiness.)
It is Their
Presence which has lifted holiness again to take its ancient
(eternal)
place upon
an ancient
(eternal)
throne.
Because of Them have miracles sprung up as grass and flowers on the barren
ground that hate had scorched and rendered desolate. What hate has wrought
have They undone
(an
alleluia or two would hardly go amiss here).
And now you
stand on ground so holy Heaven leans to join with it, and make it like
Itself. The shadow of an ancient hate has gone, and all the blight and
withering have passed forever from the land where They
(the face
of Christ and memory of God)
have come.
What is a
hundred or a thousand years to Them, or tens of thousands? When They come,
time’s purpose is fulfilled
(and
this will be so at the end of the Aquarian Age, or third measure of meal).
What
never was
(the
separation)
passes to nothingness when They have come
(but
remember, we don’t have to wait until we lay aside our body of dust, or the
end of the Aquarian Age; we can begin to attune with Them right now,
just by so desiring, and Big Me will accomplish our transformation back to
oneness for us. How could it be otherwise, since little we haven’t the
foggiest idea how to do it for ourselves?).
What
hatred claimed is given up to love, and freedom lights up every living thing
and lifts it into Heaven, where the lights grow ever brighter as each one
comes home. The incomplete is made complete again; and Heaven’s joy has been
increased because what is Its own has been restored to It. The bloodied
earth is cleansed, and the insane have shed their garments of insanity to
join Them on the ground whereon you stand.
(This is not a ‘future’ event, because it is of Eternity, and has already
happened in the eternal moment. All we do to be one with that is to
desire it and desire to attune with it. Big Me accomplishes it for
little me by dispelling the belief in littleness, so that Bigness simply is
remembered, recognised as who we are, so that Big Me is all there is left of
us.)
Heaven is
grateful for this gift of what has been withheld so long. For They have come
to gather in Their Own
(that’s
us!).
What has
been locked is opened; what was held apart from light is given up, that
light may shine on it and leave no space nor distance lingering between the
light of Heaven and the world.
The
holiest of all the spots on earth is where an ancient hatred has become a
present love.
(Alleluia!)
And
They come quickly to the living temple,
(that’s
us!)
where a home for Them has been set up. There is no place in Heaven holier.
And They have come to dwell within the temple offered Them, to be Their
resting place as well as yours
(with
Them, so imagine the joy, the love, the peace, the ecstasy).
What
hatred has released to love becomes the brightest light in Heaven’s radiance.
And all the lights in Heaven brighter grow, in gratitude for what has been
restored.
(Glory be!)
Around you
angels hover lovingly, to keep away all darkened thoughts of sin, and keep
the light where it has entered in. Your footprints lighten up the world, for
where you walk forgiveness gladly goes with you. No one on earth but offers
thanks to one who has restored his home, and sheltered him from bitter
winter and the freezing cold. And shall the Lord of Heaven and His Son give
less in gratitude for so much more?
(Let us not forget that we are thinking with our ego-indoctrinated
‘littleness mind’ if we think we couldn’t possibly have so much to offer the
Mighty Lord and all our brethren.)
Now is the
temple of the living God rebuilt
(that’s us,
restored to our true, Big Self!)
as host
again to Him by Whom it was created. Where He dwells, His Son dwells with
Him, never separate. And They give thanks that They are welcome made
at last. Where stood a cross stands now the risen Christ,
(that’s
us, in our restored oneness, with Jesus, in the Sonship!)
and
ancient scars are healed within His sight. An ancient miracle has come to
bless and to replace an ancient enmity that came to kill. In gentle
gratitude do God the Father and the Son
(that’s us!)
return to
what is Theirs, and will forever be. Now is the Holy Spirit’s purpose done.
For They have come! For They have come at last!
(My
emboldening and some italics, for emphasis)
Some may
say to themselves, “This is just too cutesy; this cannot be for real. I
am not falling for that schmaltzy line of ‘cloud cuckoo-land’
sentimentality.”
To this,
the clear response is: 1) This is just what ego wants; one of its prime
pitfalls, into which so many of us fall all too quickly. 2) Try reading
some of what Jesus has to say about ego and see if schmaltz is detectable.
3) Jesus does not mince his words; he says it as it is and certainly is no
milksop, so if he says this is the way it is, we can take his word that he
is not putting a spin on it. 4) Is the above not what we would choose our
eternal state to be like, rather than what we appear to have now?
If we are
able to rejoice at the sheer magnificence of these, Jesus’ words of
encouragement and uplift, then assuredly, we are not far from the Kingdom.
Joy be with
us all,
Brian
Longhurst
October 22nd 2008
Dear
Friends,
The Holy
Instant comes to us spontaneously. It is not, and cannot be, induced
by our little-self willing but it is in response to our
desire. If we have no desire, then there is nothing for the Holy Spirit
to respond to in bringing us to a holy instant. But what does this mean?
What is a — or the — Holy Instant?
A holy
instant is — or can be — this instant, and every instant. It is
rendered holy when we give it to the Holy Spirit, surrendering our
ego-leasehold on our ‘little life,’ thus enabling its transformation from
pygmy to Big Me by Big Me.
There is in
the primary sense, but one Holy Instant, and that is our oneness with
God in Eternity, but here, in what appears to be linear time, we can
access the one Holy Instant, which is always there, at any — and of course,
every — moment of our choosing/desiring. It is an attunement; a focus on
who we really are; a choosing of right mindedness and an eschewing, or
deliberate switching away from, wrong, or ego mindedness to Big Me-inspired
right thinking. Right thinking, I hardly need say, is always to the benefit
of all, and never to the benefit of one at the cost to another.
Ego
dominated, wrong thinking spawns problems at one level or another
endlessly. We can see this in the world around us at the interpersonal,
local, national and international levels. It is that way because it is the
antithesis of the Creator Spirit’s Mind. It is typified by the
misperception that problems, disagreements, opposing energies — all of which
have the same cause: wrong thinking — can be resolved by force of
little-self will, which will always have one party (a broken fragment of
Papa’s beloved Son) seeming to gain their objective, but to the detriment of
another broken fragment of Papa’s beloved Son. However, this is not
actually so, and can never be, from the only true perspective, which is
Christ Vision. Hence the life-correcting mantra, that can be so serviceable
for daily use (from ACIM Workbook lesson 349):
Today I let Christ’s vision
look upon
All things for me and judge them not, but give
Each one a miracle of love instead.
It is worth
noting that it says ‘All things,’ not just those things we choose
from our own, partial perspective.
Outside the
holy instant we, Papa’s beloved Son, are spiritually unfulfilled. We sense
this unfulfilment at an unconscious level, and because we have forgotten Who
and Where we really are, we seek fulfilment in an alien, upside-down,
illusory, transient realm by trying to fill the void with all things
material. Things ‘that moth and rust doth corrupt, and thieves break in
and steal.’ This is all too frequently at great cost to ourself (in
stress-related mental and physical health issues), our fellows and the
world, and never restores us to inner peace, our true and only real estate.
Although
the Holy Instant is of Eternity, it is accessible by us from within time at
any and every moment, by the agency of Big Me, our guide to Eternity.
Jesus
counsels us in chapter 27 of the Text:
Attempt to
solve no problems but within the holy instant’s surety. For there the
problem will be
answered and resolved
(this is
because outside the holy instant is ego territory and ego’s objective is
making problems. Done quite a job, hasn’t it!).
Outside
there will be no solution, for there is no answer there that could be found.
The only
Source of true, healing, restoring answers is the Voice for God, the Spirit
of Truth, Big Me. This is not ‘out there’ but within us, as we have
all now heard many times, but find so hard to remember, to apply, to
reap the unlimited rewards of its beneficence, so conditioned are we by
ego-mind wrong thinking. Within is the Source of the Holy Instant, where
miracles of healing at every level, of body and mind are to be found (spirit
is eternal, perfect, whole, so needs no healing).
Further on
in chapter 27 he says:
The only way
to heal is to be healed. The miracle extends without your help, but you
are needed that it can begin.
(Without us
— that’s ‘little’ us
—
there is no need for healing because we are the broken fragments of the one
Son.)
Accept the miracle of healing,
(here,
‘accept’ is the key word, because broken, littleness is fearful of wholeness
[holiness], since it means the end of ego mind)
and it will
go forth
(or extend)
because of what it is. It is its nature to extend itself the instant it is
born. And it is born the instant it is offered and received.
(Remember,
in the real world of Eternity/Heaven, giving and receiving are one and the
same thing; this is inevitable, because there is only one of us.)
No one can
ask another to be healed. But he can let
himself be healed,
and thus offer the other what he has received.
(Once we
have received healing, we are driven, impelled, motivated by the spirit of
Wholeness within us to share it with
— extend it to
—
our fellows. Just as our brother Jesus is doing.)
Who can
bestow upon another what he does not have? And who can share what he denies
himself? The Holy Spirit speaks to
you. He does not
speak to someone else. Yet by your listening His Voice extends,
(through
us, by our desire, our willingness for it to be so)
because you
have accepted what He says.
If you wish
only to be healed, you heal. But if you are afraid of healing, then it
cannot come through you. The only thing that is required for a healing is a
lack of fear.
(Fear is a
self-imposed barrier to receiving that which is our birthright because fear
is the antithesis of it.)
The
fearful are not healed, and cannot heal. This does not mean the conflict
must be gone forever from your mind to heal. For if it were, there were no
need for healing then. But it does mean, if only for an instant,
you love without attack.
(That
instant is, by our heartfelt desiring, a holy instant.)
An instant
is sufficient.
Miracles wait not on time.
The holy
instant is the miracle’s abiding place
(from where
healing comes; assuredly, a desirable instant, and achievable if we
are willing to be still a moment and allow it to enter in).
From there,
each one is born into this world as witness to a state of mind that has
transcended conflict, and has reached to peace. It carries comfort from the
place of peace
(Eternity/Heaven)
into
the battleground,
(otherwise known as time and place)
and
demonstrates that war has no effects. For all the hurt that war has sought
to bring, the broken bodies and the shattered limbs, the screaming dying and
the silent dead, are gently lifted up and comforted.
(‘War’ is
not just with guns and bombs in some far off country, but in the office, the
home, inter-personal relationships, the split-off mind.)
There is no
sadness where a miracle has come to heal. And nothing more than just one
instant of your love without attack is necessary that all this occur. In
that one instant you are healed, and in that single instant is all healing
done. What stands apart from you, when you accept the blessing that the holy
instant brings?
(Nothing.
For in that holy instant we are, all is, one.)
Be not
afraid of blessing, for the One Who blesses you loves all the world, and
leaves nothing within the world that could be feared.
(However far we may feel we are from that state of being, Jesus demonstrated
that it is achievable, by overcoming his moment of fear and accepting
the cross; assuredly as fearful an illusion as any, until we, by Big Me
enabling, can see all fearful things for the illusions that they are.)
But if you
shrink from blessing, will the world indeed seem fearful, for you have
withheld its peace and comfort, leaving it to die.
(Not a bad
reason to welcome blessing!)
Come
to the holy instant and be healed, for nothing that is there received is
left behind on your returning to the world. And being blessed you
will bring blessing. Life is given you to give the dying world. And
suffering eyes no longer will accuse, but shine in thanks to you who
blessing gave. The holy instant’s radiance will light your eyes, and give
them sight to see
(Christ
Vision)
beyond all
suffering and see Christ’s face instead. Healing replaces suffering. Who
looks on one cannot perceive the other, for they cannot both be there. And
what you see the world will witness, and will witness to.
(And as we
allow Big Me to bring us this holy instant, in which all fear is dispelled,
all healing is accomplished, so will that healing be extended from one to
another, until all is fulfilled and the GRP completed.)
Thus is your
healing everything the world requires, that it may be healed. It needs one
lesson that has perfectly been learned.
(That one
lesson, perfectly learned, is, of course, Jesus; and he is now extending it
to us, his brethren, until all are healed, made whole, one with him in
Papa.)
And
then, when you forget it,
(which
ego’s thrall has us do, until it is dispelled from our mind and we are, once
more, whole and free)
will
the world remind you gently of what you have taught…
The
world of accusation
(time and
place)
is
replaced by one
(Heaven/Eternity, which is not a place but a state of remembrance)
in which all
eyes look lovingly upon the Friend who brought them their release. And
happily your brother will perceive the many friends he thought were enemies.
(This
clearly indicates our interdependence, being one, and that the healing of
our brother is possible only by our healing, and vice-versa.)
Your healing
will extend, and will be brought to problems that you thought were not your
own. And it will also be apparent that your many different problems will be
solved as any one of them has been escaped… Fear you not the way that
you perceive them. You
(little we)
are wrong,
but there is One within you Who is right
(Big Me,
our real Self).
Leave,
then, the transfer of your learning to the One Who really understands its
laws, and Who will guarantee that they remain unviolated and unlimited.
Your part is merely to apply what He has taught you to yourself, and He
will do the rest...
Peace be to you to whom is healing offered
(‘without money and without price’).
And you will learn that peace is given you when you accept the healing
for yourself… What occurred within the
(holy)
instant that
love entered in without attack will stay with you forever. Your healing will
be one of its effects, as will your brother’s
(alleluia!).
Everywhere you go, will you behold its multiplied effects…
(This will
begin to happen because Christ Vision will have begun taking over from our
ego-made sensory perceptions.)
God
thanks you for your healing, for He knows it is a gift of love unto His Son,
and therefore is it given unto Him.
(Truly, a full circle of at-onement.)
(Extract
from chapter 27, section V. My emboldening and some italics, for emphasis.)
Gradually,
a meaningful, graspable picture of the GRP
emerges onto the plate of our befuddled consciousness, bringing light,
reason, order, hope, truth, uplift, revitalisation, joy, peace and further,
empowering steps toward our release into oneness.
A toast to
oneness!
Brian
Longhurst
October 29th 2008
Dear
Friends,
God, the
Creator Spirit, our Heavenly Father, has never hidden Himself from us
— any of us. He has never cut Himself off from us, or us from Him.
How could He? He is the very Life that we are; that all that has
life is.
Why would
He countenance such ideas? He loves us unconditionally. To be separated
from one whom we love makes us feel unhappy, unfulfilled. Since we are
created in His likeness, it follows that He also would be unhappy,
unfulfilled if He were cut off, separated from us, His beloved. Why would
He choose to arbitrarily do that, since — assuredly if He is omnipotent and
omniscient, and therefore able to ensure that such an event would not take
place, let alone be the cause of it — it would be an entirely illogical and
unnecessary act?
If we were
cut off, separated from Him, the Source of all, we would not be; we
could have no existence. ‘I think, therefore I am’ is a true
observation and indicates that we do have existence (even though, under
ego-domination, our thinking is upside down!).
It is we
who have hidden from Him. Or believe we have. That belief is incorrect.
It is the opposite of eternal truth. We believe we are (hiding from
God) in time and place, and so that is how it appears to us. It is
incorrect. It is upside down thinking. All our thinking and perceptions
that are outside Eternity are upside down because it is separation
thinking. That does not mean that because we appear to be in a body and in
time and place with billions of other bodies, and have, ourselves, placed
illusory barriers between us and
Papa, that it is impossible to think from the perspective of
Eternity.
Jesus did,
and so can we. He came to show us how, and that objective of his is now
moving into its final phase of fulfilment. That is what he meant when he
said
‘If ye
continue in my word… ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make
you free.’
(Jn. 8:31-32.) The fulfilment of that statement is now with us — in the
midst — and moves infallibly, unstoppably and inexorably toward completion,
manifestation, for us all. For some it will appear to be sooner than for
others, for there are those amongst us who are, or will become, fully
awakened during this
act, and others who will choose multiple further
acts, right up to the end of the Aquarian Age, before enlightenment is
visited upon them. But that is also illusory because time itself does not
exist, and the
GRP is already completed.
Ultimately,
within the context of the illusion, we cannot be restored to oneness in Papa
without us all being included within that estate, simply because we
are, indivisibly, one. Fragmentation, brokenness into billions of
little parts, is a misperception, an error, a mistake that is now being
corrected by Big Me, in spite of any determination by pygmy (ego controlled
little me) to ignore it, pretend it is not so, vigorously deny it, render it
not so. Earlier this week, in a communing moment, I said to Papa, ‘My great
desire is to be fully restored to oneness in You.’ Instantly, He replied,
‘But you must bring your fellows with you.’ This, of course, applies
equally to us all.
This is why
true forgiveness is so vital. We delude ourselves if we believe we can put
that on the back burner. ‘Okay,’ some may say, ‘I can forgive
some of my fellows their minor transgressions against me; after all, they
are no big deal. But that big issue that so-and-so perpetrated against me,
that really hurt, and there is no way I am ready to forgive him for that.’
It is that perception that keeps us chained to the
carousel. We can stay there as long as we choose, but sooner or later
we will remember that unforgiveness is damaging to our mental and bodily
health, whereas true forgiveness releases us and restores our wholeness
(holiness).
No-one who
appears to be outside ourself has done anything to us, however much it may,
superficially, appear otherwise, because we are one in the Sonship,
innocent, at Home with Papa in the Eternity of Heaven. That, ego would have
us believe, is a fanciful daydream; cloud cuckoo land stuff. Yet it is the
dream of separation that is the fanciful stuff; a nightmare rather than a
daydream, because it seems so real, and has us believing it, when it is
our own prestidigitation.
True
forgiveness is like miracles; none is either easier or more difficult than
another. It only appears that way to us when we are beset by doubt and
fear, which block our vision of love and of our own God-empowerment. Here is
what Jesus says about miracles:
The miracle
does nothing. All it does is to undo.
(This is one more exposure of how time and place thinking is upside-down
thinking.)
And
thus it cancels out the interference to what has been done.
(This is saying we are interfering with, blinding ourselves to, the reality
of all that is already accomplished — and has never been
otherwise — in Eternity, by placing the cloud of time and place between our
perception and Reality.)
It
does not add, but merely takes away
(the fog of
wrong thinking that causes our misperception that we are in time and place,
and all that that entails).
And what it
takes away is long since gone, but being kept in memory appears to
have immediate
(present moment)
effects.
This world was over long ago. The thoughts that made it are no longer in
the mind that thought of them and loved them for a little while.
(It
is our mind, the mind of the Son of God, of which he speaks.) The
miracle but shows the past is gone, and
(that)
what has truly gone has no effects.
Remembering a cause can but produce illusions of its presence, not
effects.
All the
effects of guilt are here no more. For guilt is over.
(All
that is required is for us to believe it, not to do anything.
Welllll… we can rejoice, and we can give thanks! Yippeeeee!)
In
its passing went its consequences, left without a cause. Why would you cling
to it in memory if you did not desire its effects?
(Only
upside-down little we appear still to desire its effects. The real
we — Big Me/the Holy Spirit — is awakening little us to true remembrance,
that we are Papa’s beloved, innocent Son, Who does not desire such ill
effects.)
Remembering
(ego’s
version thereof)
is as
selective as perception, being its past tense. It is perception of the past
as if it were occurring now, and still were there to see.
(This is
what the illusion of time and place tricks us into believing.)
Memory,
like perception, is a skill made up by you to take the place of what God
gave in your creation. And like all the things you made, it can be used
to serve another purpose,
(a
Kingdomly purpose)
and to be
the means for something else. It can be used to heal and not to hurt,
if you so wish it be.
Nothing
employed for healing represents an effort to do anything at all. It is a
recognition that you have no needs which mean that something must be done.
(Another indication of our misperceptions caused by upside-down ego
thinking, which would have us believe we must all the while be doing
something.)
It is
an unselective memory, that is not used to interfere with truth. All
things the Holy Spirit can employ for healing have been given Him
(by Papa)
…
The Holy
Spirit can indeed make use of memory, for God Himself is there
(within our memory).
Yet this is not a memory of past events, but only of a present state.
You are so long accustomed to believe that memory holds only what is past,
that it is hard for you to realize it is a skill that can remember
now
(the
eternal, ever-present moment).
The
limitations on remembering that the world imposes on it are as vast as those
that you let the world impose on you. There is no link of memory to the
past. If you would have it there, then there it is
(but only
apparently so, in our perception; not in reality).
But only
your desire made the link, and only you have held it to a part of time
(the past)
where guilt appears to linger still.
The Holy
Spirit’s use of memory is quite apart from time. He does not seek to use it
as a means to keep the past, but rather as a way to let it go
(here is
another exposure of how upside-down thinking dominates our split-off mind,
and thus causes us to misperceive and be stuck in a state of confusion about
reality). Memory
holds the message it receives, and does what it is given it to do
(whether by
Holy Spirit Mind or little-self mind). It
does not write the message, nor appoint what it is for. Like to the body, it
(memory)
is
purposeless within itself.
And if it
seems to serve to cherish ancient hate, and gives you pictures of
injustices and hurts that you were saving, this is what you asked its
message be, and that it is
(unless and until we choose to embrace Holy Spirit’s Kingdomly message).
Committed to
its vaults, the history of all the body’s past is hidden there. All of the
strange associations made to keep the past alive, the present
(i.e. the
eternal present of Heaven)
dead,
are stored within it, waiting your command that they be brought to you, and
lived again. And thus do their effects appear to be increased by time, which
took away their cause
(all this
convoluted lunacy can be dispelled from our bewildered mind by choosing for
Big Me to be handed the reins of our life).
Yet time is
but another phase of what does nothing. It works hand in hand with all the
other attributes with which you seek to keep concealed the truth about
yourself… Remember nothing that you taught yourself, for you were badly
taught. And who would keep a senseless lesson in his mind, when he can learn
and can preserve a better one
(under the tutelage of Big Me)?
When ancient memories of hate appear, remember that their cause is gone
(and
actually, never was)…
Be glad that
it is gone, for this is what you would be pardoned from. And see, instead,
the new effects of cause accepted
now, with
consequences
here
(i.e. the
transformation of our misperceptions to true vision by Big Me).
They will
surprise you with their loveliness... This is the Cause the Holy Spirit has
remembered for you, when you would forget… Yet was It never absent from
your mind, for it was not your Father’s Will that He be unremembered by His
Son.
(Extracted
from ACIM, ch. 28-I. My emboldening and some italics, for emphasis.)
Of course
this is but a taster of the banquet he sets before us: the truth revealed of
our magnificent reality as the Son of the Father, created with all the
attributes of the Creator. The rending of the veil (symbol of our illusory
separation from God) in Herod’s temple in Jerusalem at the departure of
Jesus’ spirit from his body on the cross, after he said ‘It is finished,’
(Jn. 19:30) truly was a prophesy of that which is now with us. For in the
only true reality — Eternity — Jesus’
GRP is finished, completed, with the third measure of meal.
A banquet
to which all are invited, freely. Now.
Brian
Longhurst
November 5th 2008
Dear
Friends,
Fear is the
driving energy of this time and place world of illusory separation. Love is
the power of Eternity. Only love, the power of Eternity, ceaselessly
outpouring upon us from the Source of All —
Papa — in unimaginable, limitless amounts, and some of it
filtering through the barriers we have made against truth, prevents
complete mayhem, hate, attack, destruction, from overwhelming everything
we perceive as our reality.
It is
hardly surprising, then, that fear is prevalent in the minds of those of us
who believe we are little, in a body, even if most of the time most of that
fear is at an unconscious level. It is unconscious because it is so great
that we have denied ourselves its presence, as a delusory survival measure.
Denial of the truth of Eternity is our favourite preoccupation in time
because we fear it.
But for
most of us fear breaks the surface into our conscious awareness in one form
or another, daily. This can be panic attacks; fear of change; fear of
losing our job; eviction from our home; harassment from one or more of our
fellows, whether a parent, a boss, a spouse, a neighbour; fear of love even,
because in an upside-down world we perceive ourself as unworthy of the love
of God. And in all too many parts of the world, fear of famine, slavery,
genocide, torture, mutilation, warfare, displacement — it goes on and on.
The form varies endlessly, but the content (or cause) remains the same:
belief that we are separate from our Creator.
The good
news is that only love is real — unconditional love, with no strings
attached — and it is our true nature because we are like our
Creator. Fear is not real; it feels real because we believe
it is so and the power of belief is very real. How easy it is for us to
believe what is unreal, and how hard it is to believe what is actually
real! Is that not one more demonstration that we are upside down in our
thinking?
We all have
access, at every moment, to the destructive energy of fear and to the
constructive, creative empowerment of love, but we cannot have both — even
though most of us, in bewilderment and confusion, oscillate between both —
because they are mutually exclusive. No person or thing has power — of fear
or love — over us that we do not ascribe, or surrender, to that
person or thing. We are free to choose which is our preference. We can
decide to remember that God and Jesus and the Spirit of Truth are for
us and will uphold us always, never letting us down, if we are willing to
place ourself in Their tender care; or we can surrender to fear, an
illusion of our own making.
Jesus
described the people of his time, 2,000 years ago, as a faithless and
perverse generation (Mt.17:17), and little has outwardly changed in that
respect. But this is describing only our unreal, illusory, ‘littleness’
self. Our real Self, occupying the right-side up part of our mind,
knows only truth, reality, our oneness in the Sonship of the Father.
Better, surely, to entrust our wellbeing, our journey home, to Big Me (the
Holy Spirit, or the Spirit of Truth).
Whether we
welcome it or fear it, the Great Rescue Programme of Jesus for us, his
brothers, is well on its way to fulfilment, and signs of its outworking in
the lives, the minds, of increasing numbers are becoming ever more apparent,
even in a fearful, resisting world. This fearful world is ego, so
entrenched in the minds of those of us who cling to the old world order of
separation, confrontation, might is right. Of course, when a fundamental
change of understanding is taking place there is an outward appearance of
chaos. Jesus counsels us not to be alarmed at such, but rather to rejoice
when we see it, for it is a certain sign that the Kingdom is at hand, even
at the doors! With wars going on around the world, threats of terrorism and
a global financial meltdown filling the media, it is sound, positive,
practical and reassuring advice!
What should
we do, then, when uncertainty, doubt and fear are all around — and inside —
us? Hold fast inwardly, and remember that little me is unreal and
Big Me is our true Self, always as close to us as our own heartbeat,
and call upon His help, reassurance, inner peace. Ego would have us believe
God, Jesus and Big Me don’t hear us when we desire to commune with Them.
This is not true. Ego would have us also believe that They do not
respond to our endeavours at communing with Them. That is not true either.
They always respond, freely, lovingly and immediately. It is our
doubt in our ability to receive Their responses that causes us to
perceive that They have not responded.
FTOC can — and will — change that misperception, one sure step at a
time.
It is Big
Me’s job to restore us to Christ-minded thinking, not little me’s. Little
me has to be willing to place our restoration to oneness, salvation,
wholeness into His care. Here are some extracts from chapter 28 of ACIM to
encourage us in these matters:
What waits
in perfect certainty beyond salvation is not our concern
(it is Papa’s).
For
you have barely started to allow your first, uncertain steps to be directed
up the ladder
(that)
separation led you down. The miracle alone is your concern at present.
(Remember, the miracle
does nothing, but rather undoes, and thus it cancels out our little
self/ego reversal of what Papa has created.)
Here
is where we must begin. And having started, will the way be made serene and
simple in the rising up to waking and the ending of the dream.
(Is there one
among us who can think of better news?) When
you accept a miracle
(of undoing),
you
do not add your dream of fear to one that is already being dreamed. Without
support, the dream will fade away without effects. For it is your support
(by believing in
it)
that strengthens it.
No mind is
sick until another mind agrees that they are separate. And thus it is their
joint decision to be sick.
(This is reminding us
that if we refuse to acknowledge separation as real between ourself
and a brother, choosing instead to see only the face of Christ in that
brother, then that positive, Kingdomly stance counteracts the negative,
separation-perception held by our brother, rendering the separation and its
attendant sickness [of mind, since we are not a body, and sickness is
actually of mind, only appearing to be of body] of none effect.
Clearly this is how Jesus healed his brethren of their ailments in the long
ago, by seeing that they were not separate from him, but one with him in
wholeness, in the Sonship. Only we are withholding that reality from
ourselves; but we can change that self-deception in a moment, if we so
choose.)
If you
withhold agreement
(that we are separate
from our brother), the
other mind cannot project its guilt without your aid in letting it perceive
itself as separate and apart from you
(and thus, sick).
Thus is the
body not perceived as sick by both your minds from separate points of
view.
(This is clearly telling us that sickness is only possible when both
parties agree that sickness is present. When we waken to the place of
recognising this truth, to the point where it is certainty of knowing
— our reality — as it was with Jesus in the long ago, then we, like him,
will spontaneously radiate wholeness to our brethren, without even having to
think about it.)
Uniting
with a brother’s mind prevents the cause of sickness and
(its)
perceived effects.
Healing is the effect of minds that join, as sickness comes from minds
that separate.
The miracle
does nothing just because
(in the reality
of Eternity, which is here, now, as and when we choose to
remember and believe that this is so)
the
minds are joined, and cannot separate. Yet in the dreaming has
this been reversed
(in upside-down, back to
front, ego-dominated thinking),
and separate
minds are seen as bodies, which are separated and which cannot join
(therefore, it
will serve us well to steadfastly choose not to be deceived by bodies
appearing to be who we — or our brethren — are. This will take great,
one-pointed commitment, and accepting all of Big Me’s help in so doing,
because we are so conditioned by ego into perceiving our brothers and our
self as bodies).
Do not allow
your brother to be sick
(by misperceiving
him as separate),
for if he
is, have you abandoned him to his own dream
(of separation)
by sharing
it with him. He has not seen the cause of sickness where it is
(in his
apparently separated, ego-driven mind),
and
you have overlooked the gap
(of separation)
between you,
where the sickness has been bred. Thus are you joined in sickness, to
preserve the little gap unhealed, where sickness is kept carefully
protected, cherished, and upheld by firm belief, lest God should come to
bridge the little gap that leads to Him.
(This, ego will
strenuously resist because it is its undoing.)
Fight
not His coming with illusions, for it is His coming that you want above all
things that seem to glisten in the dream
(amen to that!!).
The end
of dreaming is the end of fear, and love was never in the world of dreams.
The gap is
little. Yet it holds the seeds of pestilence and every form of ill,
because it is a wish to keep apart and not to join… The purpose of the
gap is all the cause that sickness has. For it was made to keep you
separated, in a body which you see as if it were the cause of pain. (This is
the working of ego-mind. We are at free choice to follow its script or that
of the Holy Spirit/Big Me, Who will dispel the dream because He is
fully empowered, loves us unconditionally, and will lead us home, if we
will allow Him.)
The cause
of pain is separation, not the body, which is only its effect.
Yet separation is but empty space, enclosing nothing, doing nothing, and
as insubstantial as the empty place between the ripples that a ship has made
in passing by… Where are the grounds for sickness when the minds
have joined to close the little gap between them, where the seeds of
sickness seemed to grow?
God builds
the bridge, but only in the space left clean and vacant by the miracle.
The seeds of sickness and the shame of guilt He cannot bridge, for He can
not destroy the alien will that He created not. Let its effects be gone
and clutch them not with eager hands, to keep them for yourself.
(He
urges us to let go the belief in separation and its effects because he knows
by so doing we will be free, whole, restored back to At-onement.)
The
miracle will brush them all aside
(Alleluia!!),
and
thus make room for Him Who wills to come and bridge His Son’s returning to
Himself…
What is the
world except a little gap perceived to tear eternity apart, and break it
into days and months and years? And what are you who live within the
world except a picture of the Son of God in broken pieces, each concealed
within a separate and uncertain bit of clay?
(This is saying
it as it is, not as we have been perceiving it since the dawn of time.)
Be not
afraid, my child,
but let your world be gently lit by miracles.
(Remember, this is not
something we have to do, but rather, simply be willing for Big Me to
undo.)
And
where the little gap was seen to stand between you and your brother, join
him there. And so sickness will now be seen without a cause.
The dream of healing in forgiveness lies, and gently shows you that you
never sinned. The door is open, that all those may come who would no
longer starve, and would enjoy the feast of plenty set before them there...
This is a
feast unlike indeed to those the dreaming of the world has shown. For here,
the more that anyone receives, the more is left for all the rest to share…
Here is a feast the Father lays before His Son, and shares it equally with
him… For Love has set its table in the space that seemed to keep your Guests
(our brothers in
the Sonship)
apart
from you.
(Extracted
from ACIM, ch. 28-III. My emboldening and some italics, for emphasis.)
The news
from Jesus just keeps getting better. The BBC, CNN, Fox and all the rest
would do well to tune in to his station. Now wouldn’t that make a
pleasant, inspiring and uplifting change!
Love and
blessings, always,
Brian
Longhurst
November 12th 2008
Dear
Friends,
The world
at large — and particularly orthodox Christian doctrine — sees Jesus of
Nazareth as the Christ, the saviour of us all from damnation to hell by a
wrathful, vengeful God because we are believed to be ‘sinners,’ falling
short of a mark (or standard of behaviour) set by God.
Not only is
Jesus seen as the saviour, but as the one and only saviour.
This is
completely different — opposite, in fact — from how Jesus himself explains
it in ACIM.
Firstly, as
has previously been extensively discussed, Jesus reminds us that we are
not sinners; that rather, we are mistaken in our perceptions, our
understanding, of who we really are. He says that it is because we —
wrongly — believe we have separated ourself from God that we
therefore believe we have sinned against Him. But, he explains, this is not
the case: we have never left God; have never separated from Him or
from our one, true Self, Papa’s Son, and fragmented into billions of
separate bodies. All that is a momentary dream, over the instant it began,
but being strung out in linear time (part of the unreality) and relived in
endless forms, to keep us believing it is real. But enough of that now,
because it has been covered before.
Secondly,
not before covered here in any particular detail, Jesus tells us that he is
not our only saviour, but that in fact we are all each other’s
saviours; that this is an inter-dependency, without which we can never
escape the
carousel; that we are our brother’s saviour, and he is ours, even though
neither of us realises this while we are misperceiving reality. This is
because our thinking is upside down and we mistakenly see ourselves as
separate bodies, separate beings with separate minds, rather than the
Christ, the Son of God that in eternal reality we are, just as he is,
because we are all one in the Sonship.
His job is
to correct these misperceptions so that we can all see ourselves and each
other as we really are, and our importance to each other in the
process of awakening and being restored to oneness in Eternity. He says
that we can only see ourselves and each other as who we really are through
the process of what he calls true forgiveness. This is how he
explains it, with his unfailingly penetrating insight — which sees past all
the illusions that so successfully sidetrack most of us — bringing clarity
to our misperceptions:
Condemn your saviour not because he thinks he is a body. (Our
saviour is our brother with whom we appear to have a broken relationship,
causing us to mistakenly see him as our enemy; a ploy of ego, to keep us on
the carousel of separateness.)
For beyond his dreams is his reality. But he must learn
he is a saviour first, before he can remember what he is.
And he must save who would be saved
(we must
accept our role as saviour of our brother, by true forgiveness, in order to
release him from the chains with which we have shackled him, so that he
may then be free to save us).
On saving you depends his happiness.
(All
the while we are unable to see ourself as our brother’s saviour, we
cannot be his saviour because we see ourself as not having
that quality to impart to him. Nor do we see in him, due to time and place
astigmatism, that he also is our saviour and already has — and always
has had — that saviour quality.)
For who is saviour but the one who gives salvation?
Thus he learns it must be his to give. Unless he
gives he will not know he has, for giving is the proof of having.
(No
arguments there!)
Only those who think that God is lessened by their strength
could fail to understand this must be so. For who could give unless he has,
and who could lose by giving what must be increased thereby?
(Unlike this ego-world, which has us perceiving that if we give something to
another we will no longer have it, in Heaven, our true Home right now,
we are enriched, increased in wealth by giving, not impoverished by
it.)
Think you the Father lost
(something
of)
Himself when He created you? Was He made weak because He
shared His Love? Was He made incomplete by your perfection? Or are you the
proof that He is perfect and complete?
(Assuredly,
these 4 questions are incontrovertibly rhetorical.)
Deny Him not His witness in the dream His Son prefers
(temporarily)
to his reality.
(Clearly,
we are His witness to the truth, though we have been living in
denial, by dreaming the dream of littleness.)
He
(that’s us,
the witness)
must be saviour from the dream he made, that he be free of
it. He must see someone else as not a body, one with him without the
wall the world has built to keep apart all living things who know not that
they live.
(Jesus does not consider our illusory existence in time and place as being
alive, and this is certainly true compared with the Heaven of Eternity.
Hence his statement, ‘ Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.’
Mt. 8:22.)
Within the dream of bodies and of death is yet one theme of
truth; no more, perhaps, than just a tiny spark, a space of light created in
the dark, where God still shines
(as
the Spirit of Truth; the Voice for God; Big Me).
You cannot wake yourself. Yet you can let yourself be
wakened. You can overlook your brother’s dreams.
(Once we
have arrived at the place of waking where we are able to truly believe that
they are nothing more than dreams, overlooking them is immeasurably easier.
It is this that we cannot do ourselves, but if we ask Big Me to do it for
us, He will wake us.)
So perfectly can you forgive him
(our
brother)
his illusions
(that)
he
becomes your saviour from your dreams.
(It
is all, suddenly, starting to make sense now, is it not?)
And as you see him shining
(as
he now does, because we have seen past his illusions and recognised the real
Christ, the saviour, that he truly is)
in the space of light where God abides within the darkness,
you will see that God Himself is where his body is.
(Alleluia!!)
Before this light the body disappears, as heavy shadows must
give way to light.
The darkness cannot choose that it remain. The coming of the light means it
is gone. In glory will you see your brother then
(because
that is what he really is, as are we all, and this will mean that we are
regaining our true, single vision, as distinct from our earthly sight; a
faculty for distracting us from reality),
and understand what really fills the gap so long
perceived as keeping you apart. There, in its place, God’s witness
(us)
has set forth the gentle way of kindness to God’s Son.
Whom you forgive is
(thereby)
given power to forgive you your illusions.
By your gift of freedom is it given unto you.
Make way for love, which you did not create, but which you
can extend. On earth this means forgive your brother, that the
darkness may be lifted from your mind. When light has come to him
through your forgiveness, he will not forget his saviour
(you, the
forgiver),
leaving him unsaved. For it was in your face he saw the
light that he would keep beside him, as he walks through darkness to the
everlasting Light.
How holy are you, that the Son of God can be your saviour in
the midst of dreams of desolation and disaster. See how eagerly he comes,
and steps aside from heavy shadows that have hidden him, and shines on you
in gratitude and love.
(Beautiful, exquisite as these words are, they are not just flowery,
poetical hyperbole — though ego would have us believe they are — but
reality; our reality, if only we can believe, steadfastly,
unwaveringly.)
He is himself, but not himself alone. And as his Father lost
not part of him in your creation, so the light in him is brighter still
because you gave your light to him, to save him from the dark. And now the
light in you must be as bright as shines in him. This is the spark that
shines within the dream; that you can help him waken, and be sure his waking
eyes will rest on you. And in his glad salvation you are saved.
(ACIM, ch.
29 section III. My emboldening and some italics, for emphasis.)
No doubt we
may all feel justified in having grievances of one sort or another; broken
or damaged relationships to one degree or another. And no doubt, most of us
will feel, Well, it wasn’t my fault; I didn’t do anything wrong, so why
should I be the first to stretch out the hand of friendship? Why should I
forgive him until he asks forgiveness? And why should I ask his forgiveness
when I haven’t done anything wrong? Let him come and ask, and then I will
— maybe —
forgive.
As Jesus asks, ‘Would we rather be right, or be happy?’
Taking that
first step can be very hard but it can help immeasurably if we ask ourself,
‘Is the prolonging of this benefiting me? Will I feel better in myself if I
do what, in my heart of hearts I know is right within the truth of Eternity,
and forgive?’ Once the first step has been taken, it is the beginning
of the end of ego. Ego sits on our shoulder, urging us to feel aggrieved,
trying to convince us this is right. Yet, once that first small step is
taken, that gnawing, nagging lack of inner peace begins to abate.
And, with
FTOC, it will continue to abate, until we realise it has been replaced
by fullness of inner peace, which signifies our oneness with Heaven.
And,
greatest of all, we have Help in taking not just that first step, but all
those steps that follow as we set out on the journey, now accompanied by the
Light of spiritual truth. And that Light, we now begin to be aware, is not
just with us, but within us. And ultimately we then remember that that light
is us.
Here’s to
illumination!
Brian
Longhurst
November 19th 2008
Dear
Friends,
What sort
of person is Jesus, really? This is an often pondered question. Someone
wrote to the Readers’ Digest a few years ago, asking if Jesus had a
sense of humour. The RD enquired into this with appropriate Church channels
and the considered answer that came back was a definite ‘No,’ that he had so
much on his mind, and the situation with humanity was so serious, his
mission so great and important, that he could not have had a sense of
humour.
That is a
definite ‘Wrong!’ He has demonstrated to me on numerous occasions that this
is so, a number of them recorded in
SFGS. This is not to imply he is a stand-up comedian, but simply that
his way of presenting, demonstrating a truth, an enlightening awareness, or
catching – and holding – our attention, so frequently employs a
light-hearted, even puckish ploy. The situation only appears serious
to those of us who do not understand (or believe) the
GRP and how simple it is to execute to fulfilment when empowered with
all power in Heaven and Earth! To those thus empowered it is, in no way
intending flippancy, a cakewalk.
The Bible
tells us we are created in the likeness of God. We (well, most of us,
anyway!) have a sense of humour. Jesus is like us, but has shed the
baggage, so is ‘clear.’ Assuredly, a sense of humour is not baggage by any
stretch.
Jesus is a
‘regular guy,’ but just more so. Many years ago he said to Olga Park:
Do you think it was only to men of old that I have shown
myself?... Have I not said that if any man open to me I will come in and sup
with him, and he with me? Let no man confuse you saying, “He is high and
lifted up and cannot manifest to the children of men.”… for I also am of
your brethren of Earth, and it is the will of the Father that all shall
know me, from the least unto the greatest.
The
language he used to author ACIM through Helen Schucman is good English, much
of it after the Elizabethan English style, often using Shakespearean, iambic
pentameter. It is evident that this is to cause us to focus carefully on
his words. Imagine how much criticism would have been levelled had he used
today’s so-called ‘street talk;’ and how much less definitive and meaningful
it would have been. He has serious subjects to cover comprehensively, and
so serious language-use was called for. But above all, to persuade us of
the truth he tells, he has to win the trust of his brothers in the
Sonship; that’s you and me, all of us. Most of us are aware that
this world is a place in which using the greatest care is wise when it comes
to trusting, or believing, anyone we do not know extremely well.
He
therefore has a very delicate task, because from our upside-down,
ego-perspective of Eternity, what he is trying to ‘sell’ us appears
upside down! Great sensitivity is needed to persuade us that what we have
believed all our lives, and for many generations, is not true! And that
revolutionary ideas, never heard before, the exact opposite of long-held
perceptions, are true. Scepticism is one of ego’s first lines of
defence against truth.
Jesus won
my trust very quickly, thanks to his manifestation in 1967 (see
SFGS, ch. 2, for details), and I was also under the
close mentorship of Olga Park, whose trust he had won many years earlier.
Then, through decades of communing with him, he led me, one step at a
time to the place where I was completely ready to accept the ‘new’
concepts of ACIM, because I already knew he was totally trustworthy.
Further, it was completely beyond doubt that the author of ACIM and he who
had been guiding me in my spiritual journey since the 1960s was one and the
same person. If there is one word that sums him up, it is ‘approachable.’
There is nothing to fear; only to love and trust, and be at joyous peace
with.
My present
communing with him and with Papa is very much on an informal basis, where
‘everyday’ language and conversational style is used, yet some very loving,
uplifting, inspiring and revelatory awarenesses come to light. I share some
recent exchanges with you, here:
Jesus, my beloved brother in Christ…
Well
spotted, Brian; for that is what we are, you and I: brothers in
Christ.
Well,
I wanted to tell you how much I love and honour you for all that you are. I
have longed to commune with you — in some less formal, yet still sincere and
meaningful manner — over the years.
That’s
good, because I have longed to commune with you in like manner. You now
realise that this is possible without any of the outward symbols or
trappings…
Yes,
but they were/are very important, helpful as symbols, and to help newcomers
with achieving focus and discipline, which I am not very good at.
Of
course this is so, and the formal structure served you very well, and will
serve others equally well. Yet your strength is your commitment,
and you have shown this, demonstrated it over the years of our walk
together.
We
have been doing that for over 40 years now…
Actually,
much longer than that. We have been together, you and I, for many of your
acts and mine.
You’re
suggesting…
Yes,
we have been together, as dear friends, since before I appeared as Jesus;
before Abraham. But that is of no import, other than its serviceability
in preparing you for all that matters, which is NOW.
This
really is destiny, isn’t it?
You
were destined to be Brian, yes, with all that that entails.
It
is my desire to commune in the silence, in the peace, in the love and joy
that our fellowship brings, every day. I feel now is a moment for this to
proceed.
Go
with your innermost, uppermost feelings; they will guide you well. The
important thing, as well you now know, is not to get sidetracked,
distracted, from your birth vision. I confirm our past, long association
because you are ready, and because it strengthens our bonds of loving
brotherhood.
It may seem the GRP is
my operation, but it is co-operation. I am the
leader, because I am the first of the fragments to fully remember the truth,
but I have many loved ones, brothers, who work with me in oneness with the
Breath
(the
Holy Breath, or Holy Spirit, or Spirit of Truth),
for the collapse of time, the awakening, the at-onement. It is of no
concern for ‘Brian’ to know of them all, for Big Me knows them all.
Brian’s focus must be on forgiveness, for this brings remembrance,
peace, freedom, enlightenment… We are one in the Sonship, which is Christ.
Thank
you for everything; you bring peace, comfort, assurance. I love you
totally…
Your
love and devotion are everything to me, for without them our joint efforts
could not bear fruit. Our time together like this is joy in our
heart – for we are not just of one mind, but of one heart.
***
Good morning Papa. I greet You with my
Love.
And
I greet you with My Love, My son. Enter in, enter in; attune with Me with
rejoicing, as you wake to the fullness of your glory and your oneness in
Me. You are in Me and I am within you; there is mutuality in our love,
which we extend to each other continually. In that extending is the ecstasy
of My creation, which is you. Only in you
(He is
speaking of His beloved Son, which is all of us)
is My ecstasy,
My joy, My fulfilment, My completion. When you deny your Self, you deny
Me. This is your only blasphemy.
Wow!
Papa. This is some revelation. It changes my perception, brings me
up short.
I
know you
(all of us)
desire to return
wholly to Me above all things. To do this you must return wholly unto your
Self, or ‘Big Me,’ as you have rightly observed. Jesus was wholly in Me
because he was wholly Self – I AM. You are ‘I AM’ also. All the
fragments of My Son also are, indivisibly, ‘I AM.’ They say to themselves
‘I am Brian,’ or ‘I am Theresa,’ or ‘I am John,’ or ‘I am Mary.’ Each time
they make such pronouncement, there is one word too many. For ‘I AM’ is Who
they are. The rest is made up, illusion. Do you wish to be made up?
No,
I don’t, Papa; I wish to be real.
Keep
on, then, reminding yourself, ‘Big Me’ is good, because it focuses entirely
on your ‘otherness,’ your ‘realness,’ your ‘I AM-ness.’ There is no other
you than ‘Big Me.’ You have no other name, no other being, no other
identity. To perceive such is a distraction, a diversion away from the
truth of Who you ARE.
But
while I seem to be in, or with, a body, my brothers will see me as
Brian…
Let
that serve its purpose then, that you may use that illusion to bring
your brothers to the truth of Who you are, that they may be re-minded of who
they all are. This illusory self can be restored to oneness, and
thus disappear back into Me, whole and holy, forever. It has a purpose only
in time, never in Eternity.
Welcome Home, My
beloved. The banquet awaits.
Thank
you, beloved Papa. You know how much I enjoy a feast!
When Papa
says denying our Self is our only blasphemy, He is reminding us that denying
our own truth, our own reality, our own Identity, as He created us, pure,
innocent, without limitation, immortal, eternal, fully empowered, in His
likeness, is the only blasphemy there is. There is no other blasphemy
possible because denying our true Self — His beloved Son, or Christ — is
denying Him. Can this be anything other than a real incentive for us to
accept the truth about who we are, and thus dispel ego, release each other,
and thus, ourselves, from guilt, fear, littleness? Not because He will
punish us for ‘attacking’ Him if we don’t, but because we are blinding
ourselves to our true, wondrous reality.
This is
possible here, now, in this dream world, by true forgiveness. Those of us
who have tried, practised this, will know that this mechanism works
(coming from Jesus, who could doubt it!?). When we find something that
works and produces effects that are literally out of this world, we are
inclined to continue, on the principle that ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix
it.’ Then in due course we will find that all the relationships that
appeared to be broken, suddenly, are fixed, and we are one, again, Home.
This is the GRP. It’s that simple.
As it says
in The Disappearance of the Universe, ‘Nobody said it will be easy,
but it is simple.’ It is not easy at the start; taking the first
step is the hardest part because ego has the brake on, and uses fear, doubt,
guilt, cynicism, judgement as devices to stop us. But the good news is that
it gets easier as each step is taken, until it becomes very easy; one
might say addictive, even.
Love,
always,
Brian
Longhurst
November 26th 2008
Dear
Friends,
Most of us
with a body are seeking wholeness, or health, of body, yet it is wholeness
of mind we will serve ourself well to be seeking first. This is
because we are not a body. The body is simply a mechanism that is at the
disposal of our mind while we appear to be with it. But when we come to the
end of our sojourn here, and lay aside our body, it becomes immediately
apparent then that we are not a body!
However, we
do not have to wait until we lay it aside to accept that reality as our
reality. We can do it now without any deleterious effects on our life. In
fact, it will prove to have some remarkably beneficial effects upon
our lives. One effect of that acceptance that will be highly beneficial is
that it will undermine and dispel a major aspect of ego’s hold over us,
which is causing us to believe we are a body, and are therefore
destined to die.
Dispelling
that misperception will provide access to much greater peace of mind because
we then become actively aware that, as Jesus reminded us two thousand years
ago (and we still haven’t got the message), if we live and believe in him,
we will never die (Jn. 11:26). This is not a religious platitude,
but an incontrovertible truth of Eternity, from which we have been hiding
ourselves since the dawn of the illusion we made called time.
And the
first bit, about living and believing in him is not a matter of religious
dogma either. It is simply that Jesus is the first among the separated
fragments of the Sonship to remember who he (and all of us) is, so he
sought, and received, the command (i.e. authority) from Papa to restore us
to fullness of remembrance of who we are, which is just like him, with all
his attributes for loving and healing.
If we are
not a body, it may help to clarify what, by contrast, we are.
Essentially we are eternal, indestructible, perfect, pure, innocent (i.e.
guiltless, or ‘sinless’) Spirit (because we are created like our creator,
the Creator Spirit, so how could it be otherwise?). However, demonstrably,
we are also mind. Here, it may be helpful if we see what Jesus says
about Mind and Spirit, as stated in section 1 of Clarification of Terms, in
ACIM:
1. MIND -
SPIRIT
The term
mind is used to
represent the activating agent of spirit, supplying its creative energy.
When the term is capitalised it refers to God or Christ (i.e., the Mind of
God or the Mind of Christ).
Spirit is the
Thought of God which He created like Himself. The unified spirit is God’s
one Son, or Christ.
In this
world, because the mind is split, the Sons of God appear to be
separate. Nor do their minds seem to be joined. In this illusory state, the
concept of an “individual mind” seems to be meaningful. It is
therefore described in the course as if it has two parts: spirit
(Mind)
and
ego
(mind).
Spirit is
the part that is still in contact with God through the Holy Spirit, Who
abides in this part
(the
Spirit, or Christ Mind part)
but sees the
other part
(ego mind)
as well. The
term “soul” is not used except in direct biblical quotations because of its
highly controversial nature. It would, however, be an equivalent of
“spirit,” with the understanding that, being of God, it is eternal and was
never born.
The other
part of the mind
(ego)
is
entirely illusory and makes only illusions. Spirit retains the potential for
creating, but its Will, which is God’s, seems to be imprisoned while
the mind is not unified. Creation continues unabated because that is the
Will of God
(but is
beyond our ego-mind awareness).
This
Will is always unified and therefore has no meaning in this
(ego)
world. It
has no opposite and no degrees.
The mind can
be right or wrong, depending on the voice to which it listens.
Right-mindedness
listens to the Holy Spirit, forgives the world, and through Christ’s vision
sees the real world in its place. This is the final vision, the last
perception, the condition in which God takes the final step Himself. Here
time and illusions end together.
(The
‘real’ world of which he speaks here is the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth,
when all the separated fragments of the Sonship have overlooked, or
forgiven, the illusions of guilt, fear, attack, separation, and remembered
who we are. From that state of right mindedness, or true perception, it is
a small step to Christ Mindedness, or true knowing, the end of all
illusions, and as he says, which step Papa takes for us, because He loves us
so much and is so eager for our completion and restoration of our oneness,
as Papa’s Son, in Him.)
Wrong-mindedness
listens to the ego and makes illusions; perceiving sin and justifying anger,
and seeing guilt, disease and death as real. Both this world and the real
world are illusions because right-mindedness merely overlooks, or forgives,
what never happened.
(‘This’
world being the illusory world in which we still perceive — due to ego-mind
domination of our thinking — sin, anger, guilt, disease and death as being
real; this is, even now, being transformed into the real world, as an
essential step of the
GRP.)
Therefore
it is not the
One-mindedness of the Christ Mind, Whose Will is one with God’s…
Being
restored to sound mind, or Christ Mind, then, is what wholeness, or
holiness, actually means. This is how Jesus was able to reappear in a body
after the crucifixion; he was of sound, or whole (holy) Mind, and knew that
bodies are but projections of mind. If we are projecting a body from an
unsound, or split (ego controlled) mind, it follows that unsoundness of
body will eventuate. Seeking to fix the projection rather than the source
is simply applying sticking plasters to the projection. Of course, eating
healthily is a decision of mind that will contribute to a healthier body,
though it will not enable the body to become eternal, simply because it is
an illusion that belongs only to time and place and has no role to play in
Eternity.
Jesus
counsels us to seek first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness,
and all our temporal needs will be provided (Mt. 6:33). This will
inevitably include bodily health, because seeking first the Kingdom will
bring us first to right mindedness, and ultimately, to One-Mindedness, which
is Christ-Mindedness.
It is a
characteristic of wrong (ego) thinking that we have these things the wrong
way round (this is the nature of the beast — to keep us confused about the
nature of our reality). The world’s leaders are seeking to solve the
outward problems of the world by outward means, perceiving that if that can
be achieved, utopia (or the Kingdom of Heaven) can be ours. But, as we have
seen throughout history, wrong-thinking minds simply keep projecting further
outward problems, because they are fear driven, rather than love
motivated and empowered.
However, as
we move more and more into right mindedness, as is now beginning to be
observed to happen — if we look in the right way, namely, with our true,
Christ vision — so will the healing of our minds back toward one-mindedness
bring about a dispelling of all the world’s ego-made problems. This will
have happened completely by the end of the third measure of meal, when the
real world, or Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, will be fully established,
ego fully dispelled.
Finally,
the physical universe will cease to exist in our
restored-to-the-oneness-of-Christ-Mind-knowing and we are received by Papa
into the Eternity of Heaven. It will cease to exist because the only place
it has ever had any apparent reality is in the split-off, ego part of our
mind, and that will have been completely re-unified into Christ Mind.
How, in the
meantime then, can we apply this right-mindedness to the issues of bodily
and indeed, worldly, wellbeing? The answer is already given, by Jesus, two
thousand years ago: Seek first the Kingdom. Does the Kingdom include
greed, or fear, or guilt, or selfishness, or hate, or attack, or
separation? Do we want any of those hellish qualities? Only we can
choose which is our desire.
The Kingdom
is love, peace, forgiveness, goodwill, refusing to see our brothers as our
enemies, so that we can begin to see in them only the face of Christ
— which is their true reality — and a reflection of our own true reality.
Ego wants us to believe that is a fantasy, cloud-cuckoo-land thinking, a
pipe dream for religious nuts, not for the real ‘shakers and movers’ of this
world. But this is — you guessed it — a misperception, of split-off,
ego-controlled wrong mindedness.
Ever-increasing numbers are starting to see that, for example, the wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq cannot be won by military force, just as the war in
Vietnam was unwinnable by military force. So now it is being seen that the
only meaningful way toward peace is to engage sympathetically, forgivingly,
and with genuine, heartfelt good will and good intent, with the minds of
those who think, see, believe differently, and have been perceived as ‘the
enemy.’
This can
only work with goodwill (a Kingdomly quality); with a decision of the (right
thinking) mind to see them not as the enemy any longer, but simply as our
brothers, who happen to have a different perception of the issues over which
such hatred and blood-letting has been occurring for so long (since ‘Cain
and Abel’).
As has been
mentioned before, our real, higher, true Self can be thought of as ‘Big
Me’. Big Me is who we really are, and is referred to by Jesus as the Holy
Spirit, or the Spirit of Truth, with Whom Jesus is wholly, knowingly,
one. We are wholly one with the Spirit of Truth also, because we are like
Jesus, and one with him in the Sonship. This is true now, and has always
been, not at some indeterminate future time. This is available to us all,
now, here in time and place, if we desire it.
There is an
historical precedent for this, which we know as Pentecost, when the Holy
Spirit was visited upon the followers of Jesus, called down upon them by
Jesus 10 days after he had returned to Papa, so that they were able to speak
with the inspiration, wisdom, knowledge, empowerment of the Spirit and
perform miraculous healings.
That was a
prophesy-in-action of what we are now entering into once more, and for
evermore. If we are earnest in our desire to begin to think like Big Me,
He will be with us and inspire us, until what has been perceived as a gap
between Big Me and what we have believed our self to be — little — is no
more. Just as was the case, temporarily, after Pentecost.
Then we
will begin to see that true wisdom is not judgement but the
relinquishment of judgement; that inner peace is possible only by true
forgiveness, loving and blessing our brothers, even those who appear
to be our enemies (just as Jesus said 2k years ago; how slow are we!!?); we
will begin to have more awareness that Heaven is our home, not ego-made time
and place.
But being
anxious, striving for inner peace drives it away, just as being
anxious for that butterfly to land on our hand drives it away. Eagerness,
one-pointedness, commitment, desire are states of being, not of doing.
Being is Christ-Minded, Kingdomly stuff; doing, out of
impatience, anxiety, striving, is ego stuff. By committing ourself to Big Me
thinking, all that is for us to do here in time that is for our restoration
to right thinking (and therefore, being) will be brought to us by Big Me
(we do not have to go out looking for it), if we simply allow the
Process to happen, by Holy Spirit empowerment. Striving is okay if we have
time and place (illusory) objectives, because time is finite, and is always
running out.
If,
however, we have Kingdomly objectives, then there is no deadline, for all is
already accomplished — as Jesus said on the cross, ‘It is
finished’ (Jn. 19:30) — and all that is required is simply to attune
with that reality, instead of remaining mesmerised by ego’s
‘prestiDIGITating’ finger.
Love and
blessings,
Brian
Longhurst
December 3rd 2008
Dear
Friends,
In our time
and place consciousness we doubt and fear the very existence of
Big Me, but it is little me (pygmy) that does not exist. Another
example of our upside-down thinking. Thanks be for the Thought-Corrector!
If we
accept the existence of spirit, especially Holy Spirit, it casts
doubt on the ego-mind perception that corporeal existence is real; a
terminal threat to its endeavour to escape from God.
Jesus, for
many, is less of a ‘problem’ to accept because at least he appeared to be
here, with a body that others could see and hear and experience. Yet Jesus
reminds us in ACIM that he, like the rest of us, is not a body, but
like our Creator, is pure spirit; like Father, like Son. This is what he
says about the Holy Spirit in ACIM C-6.1:1:
Jesus is the manifestation of
the Holy Spirit, Whom he called down upon the earth after he
ascended into Heaven…
This
indicates that when Jesus said to Philip
‘…he that hath seen me hath seen the Father…’
(Jn. 14:9)
he
could have included the words ‘and the Holy Spirit’ and it would also have
been true.
It is clear
that this manifestation of the Spirit of Truth — Jesus — was essential to
the
GRP, because without him, we, the fragments of the Sonship, perceiving
our reality as being in a dream of bodies, would have been unable to
receive, or have, awareness of the reality of our true nature as pure
spirit. Jesus is very much, in that sense, our saviour, as well as our
beloved, trustworthy, all-knowing brother; but there is more to his GRP than
that, and this is being revealed, as he always intended, one step at a
time, especially as we move further into the fulfilment phase of the
three measures of meal. This is because we are so confused about our true
Identity — by the false identities of littleness in which we have been
hiding for so long — that we can only progress from spiritual darkness to
the light one step at a time, until our vision becomes gradually re-adjusted
to the true Light of Day.
The dream
of time and place is all about separation, or what some refer to as ‘duality
consciousness.’ In this wrong-thinking state of mind we see ourselves as
many, divided; each fragment of the whole Son believing there is ‘me,’
here, and other people and objects ‘over there,’ or outside
ourself. We have become so accustomed to this misperception that form
(i.e. bodies, objects, ‘physical’ stuff) has caused us to lose sight of the
only reality, which is content, or spirit, thought, mind. Form is
concrete but content (spirit) is unbounded by form, so is perceived as
abstract.
This is
very difficult for a mind inculcated in form to understand, so Jesus, the
manifestation of Holy Spirit, incarnated so we had a form to focus upon
who could re-introduce us (back) to the reality of (spiritual) content.
Hence his words to the woman of Samaria:
…the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the
Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.
God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in
truth.
(Jn.
4:23-24)
Throughout
the first two measures, or phases, of the GRP, content has needed (a) form
to re-present it because we could not grasp ultimate reality and truth of
God and of us, His Son, without it. Jesus, our brother in form — as well,
obviously, in content/spirit — walks with us on our journey back to oneness
to comfort, reassure, protect, guide, enlighten, instruct us in
metaphysical, mystical, spiritual reality (content).
But when he
has brought us to a place of awakening where we are able to better
understand the truth of our Self for ourself, he encourages us
to turn within
(But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut
thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret;
Mt. 6:6),
to become aware that Papa, God, represented for us in time and place by the
Holy Spirit ‘the Voice for God’ — Big Me — is our own within, our
true Self
(I and my Father are one.
Jn.
10:30).
Since Jesus and we are all one in the Sonship, ergo are we all I
AM; one with the Father Creator.
This, as
our reality, is still ahead for most of us, but shrinking away from the
truth (after all, these are the words of Jesus in the Bible, for those who
revere the Bible as a source of spiritual truth) will not serve us well for
our progress on the path Home. It will slow down, or delay, our
journey. Accepting it, embracing it unto ourself, will hasten the
journey’s end, collapse time and bring us into attunement (at-onement) with
the Spirit of Truth (Big Me) in our own within — the only place He is to be
found, because that is the only place that has any existence in the reality
of Eternity, or Heaven.
None of
this is said to alarm any of us into thinking we are way behind the
curriculum, so will never graduate. Where we are (each of us) is where we
belong for the moment, or we would not be there. It is said to
present an overview, to provide a glance at the map, to see where we are
headed and where we have got to on the journey. Be assured, Jesus is still
with us and will be until we arrive at our destination. We can still
commune with him whenever we desire. In a recent communing with him the
exchange went as follows:
…I would like – LOVE – to commune with you and Papa like this every morning
and evening, because it is a worthwhile discipline for my mind retraining,
and writing is more conducive to focussing than just thinking in
trying to order, marshal my thoughts. I know Big Me is close to me,
inspiring new awareness each week
(for
writing the
MoEs and responding to incoming messages from visitors to the HTG
website).
…of course disciplining the mind, the
thought processes, is very important, but ask yourself why you feel
the need to have these morning and evening sessions with Papa and me.
Is this for your benefit, or are you trying to prove something for your
brothers? Big Me is the Voice for God, as you know. He will remind you of
all you need to know and to remember, just as well as Papa and I can do.
Big Me is who you really are. You can write to Big Me – it is a type of
‘Dear Diary’ process — but with no pressure on you to prove anything. The
inspiration can, and will, kick in at any and every opportune moment,
seamlessly.
What he is
gently, lovingly (as is his wont) saying here is, his job is to lead us back
to God, via our Self. He has led me over half a lifetime (and will
lead any and all who ask to be led by him, but it is worth keeping in mind
that Jesus and the church are not one and the same thing) and has brought me
to the place where he was able to say the above and I was ready and able to
receive it, understand it and accept it.
We tend to
think in terms of Big Me being our ‘higher’ Self, but that is only because
we are still perceiving a lower self, or little me. Little me, though, does
not exist other than in time and place, so Big Me is not actually our
Higher Self, but simply our only true Self.
It is worth
repeating that Jesus will never abandon us and leave us to our own devices,
to muddle through, floundering around trying to get this communing with Self
(Big Me) idea into our head, and into a working practise. He is and will be
there for us for as long as we need, desire, value, benefit from his loving,
infinitely patient help, because that is the kind of being he is; that is
what love is, and he, assuredly, is love.
Here’s to
stick-at-it-iveness!
Brian
Longhurst
December 10th 2008
Dear
Friends,
Ego is
always seeking to devise a smokescreen against truth, so even when it cannot
always completely hide the truth, it can distort our understanding
of it by putting its slant on it, which can so easily deceive us because we
have forgotten who we are. The ego slant is nowhere better demonstrated
than with Jesus.
Since
blotting him out of history completely would be difficult (well, impossible
actually, because the GRP required, and
therefore saw to it, that he be remembered, at least throughout the second,
or ‘Jesus,’* measure of meal, by calling down the Holy Spirit upon his
followers at Pentecost), ego uses a simpler ploy: it allows us to
perceive Jesus as the spiritual Lord; even to see him as the Son of God, but
then bends the story to accommodate the ego party line by stating that he is
the one and only Son, thus enabling the lie that the rest of us are
not; that rather, we are sinners, unworthy of God’s love.
Having
established the misperception, based on it being partly true (i.e.
that there was an historical man named Jesus, who performed miracles and
rose from the dead, as he had predicted) ego then further distorts the
picture by stating that Jesus will return to judge us for our sins, even
though he is quoted in the scriptures as unequivocally stating that he has
not come to judge the world, but to save it (Jn. 12:47).
We have
difficulty separating the grains of eternal truth from the chaff of ego’s
distortions because, as indicated above, we have forgotten who we are. Who
we really are is the all-knowing, eternal, guiltless, one Son of God.
Instead, in this ego-dream world we have made, we have chosen to believe the
lie of littleness, mortality, guilt and fear. Hence Jesus’ words from
chapter 31 of the Text of ACIM:
There is no statement that
the world is more afraid to hear than this:
I do
not know the thing I am, and therefore do not know what I am doing,
where I am, or how to look upon the world or on myself.
Yet in this learning is
salvation born. And What you are will tell you of Itself
.
It could be
said that this is an unlearning, because most of us are fearful of
letting down our guard to our fellows with such a statement. Rather, ego
would have us present a mask of ourself to the world as knowing
who/what we are, what we are doing, where we are going, and that we have got
the world under our control; that it is our oyster and we are about to
retrieve from it a pearl of great price. The idea that others might see
through that mask to the cowering, quivering, lost, fearful wretch so many
of us see ourself as being, is anathema to us.
Though, as
he says, ‘
in
this learning is salvation born’
because, if
we are able to allow ourself the truth of such a statement, we are finally
surrendering our ego-leasehold on our life, thus opening the way for ‘What
we are to tell us of Itself’,
because
What we really are is, as one with Jesus, the all-knowing Christ, who has
perfected and completed the awakening process to rescue us from the dream of
separation and littleness, so we may be re-joined with him as one in the
Sonship.
He goes on
to say:
You see the flesh or recognize
the spirit. There is no compromise between the two. If one is real the other
must be false, for what is real denies its opposite.
(In a
self-deceiving world of so-called ‘political correctness’ where saying it as
it appears to be is increasingly verboten, Jesus has no such concerns about
telling it the way it is. What a breath of fresh air!)
There is no choice in vision
but this one. What you decide in this determines all you see and think is
real and hold as true. On this one choice does all your world depend, for
here have you established what you are, as flesh or spirit in your own
belief.
If you choose flesh, you never
will escape the body as your own reality, for you have chosen that you want
it so
(‘never’ is to be
understood within the context that we are always free to choose
anew. So, if we are not ready to choose spirit in this
act, we will
have another, and another, and yet more acts within which to change our
mind. This will inevitably happen eventually because that is our ultimate
reality, and as the Kingdom measure* unfolds in the coming generations and
centuries, so will more and more awakening continue, on an exponential
basis, thus making it more and more possible for all to choose spirit, as
the real world increasingly takes over from the ego world of
judgement, guilt and fear).
But choose the spirit, and all Heaven bends to touch your eyes and bless
your holy sight, that you may see the world of flesh no more except to heal
and comfort and to bless.
(This is the
‘real world’. For explanation of this, please see the November 26th
2008
MoE.)
Salvation is undoing. If you
choose to see the body, you behold a world of separation, unrelated things,
and happenings that make no sense at all. This one appears and disappears in
death; that one is doomed to suffering and loss. And no one is exactly as he
was an instant previous, nor will he be the same as he is now an instant
hence.
Who could have trust where so
much change is seen, for who is worthy if he be but dust? Salvation is
undoing of all this. For constancy arises in the sight of those whose
eyes salvation has released from looking at the cost of keeping guilt,
because they chose to
let it go instead
(it is worth
keeping in mind that it is guilt that keeps us in ‘littleness’. This is
demonstrably true because if we had no unconscious guilt we would be
innocent, which is what Jesus is and we all actually are, and would
see, if only we could believe).
Salvation does not ask that
you behold the spirit and perceive the body not
(this takes the
pressure off!).
It merely asks that this should be your choice. For you
can see the body without help, but do not understand how to behold a world
apart from it
(that is Big Me’s
job, which He takes on for us when we ask Him to help).
It is your
(ego)
world salvation will undo, and
let you see another world your eyes could never find
(the real world,
which will bring us to the
final step, which
Papa takes for us, Home).
Be not concerned how this could ever be. You do not understand how what you
see arose to meet your sight. For if you did, it would be gone
(and will
be gone as we awaken and remember the truth of Who we are).
The veil of ignorance is drawn
across the evil and the good, and must be passed that both may disappear, so
that perception finds no hiding place
(when perception
gives way to our true, spiritual vision we can see beyond the
veil and know the absolute truth of Eternity. Knowledge is
absolute, whereas good and evil are relative and can only
appear to exist in the relative world of time and place).
How is this done? It is not done at all. What could there be within the
universe that God created that must still be done?
(Who can argue
with that!?)
Only in arrogance could you
conceive that you must make the way to Heaven plain
(herein is a
classic case of ego turning the truth upside down, causing us to believe
that we have to ‘do’ things to bring the Kingdom into our reality. The
Kingdom is already our reality; all that is required of us is to be
accepting of this truth. We can only ‘be’ accepting; we cannot ‘do’
accepting).
The means are given you by which to see the world that will
replace the one you made
(the leap of faith we
must take to accept this as true will take us to the very gate of Heaven,
right here, right now, in time and place. This is a mystical experience of
our own within, not the without, though as we progress from there, under Big
Me guidance, we will begin to experience its manifesting from our within
into the without).
Your will be done! In Heaven as
on earth this is forever true. It matters not where you believe you are, nor
what you think the truth about yourself must really be. It makes no
difference what you look upon, nor what you choose to feel or think or wish.
For God Himself has said, “Your will be done.” And it is done to you
accordingly.
(This is telling
us that if we choose spirit, we awaken to the reality that we are Papa’s
Son, and our will is one with His, as was the case with Jesus; but if we
choose ‘flesh’, we have chosen littleness, which is guilt, which brings
fear, which cannot but engender dis-ease.)
You who believe that you can
choose to see the Son of God as you would have him be, forget not that no
concept of yourself
(i.e. littleness)
will stand against the truth of
what you are. Undoing truth would be impossible. But concepts are not
difficult to change. One vision, clearly seen, that does not fit the picture
as it was perceived before will change the world for eyes that learn to see,
because the concept of the self has changed
(from pygmy to Big Me,
from fear to love).
Are you invulnerable? Then the
world is harmless in your sight. Do you forgive? Then is the world
forgiving, for you have forgiven it its trespasses, and so it looks on you
with eyes that see as yours. Are you a body? So is all the world perceived
as treacherous, and out to kill. Are you a spirit, deathless, and without
the promise of corruption and the stain of sin upon you? So the world is
seen as stable, fully worthy of your trust; a happy place to rest in for
a while, where nothing need be feared, but only loved
(this is the
‘real world’, the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth).
Who is unwelcome to the kind in
heart? And what could hurt the truly innocent?
Your will be done, you holy
child of God. It does not matter if you think you are in earth or Heaven.
What your Father wills of you can never change. The truth in you remains as
radiant as a star, as pure as light, as innocent as love itself. And you
are worthy that your will be done!
(ACIM, ch.
31, part of section V and all of VI. My emboldening and some italics, for
emphasis.)
Assuredly,
if we can accept and receive these words into our understanding, into our
very being, we are within the Kingdom, and can begin to extend it, not just
radiate but laser its light out
into the darkness around us, dispelling that darkness, and thus, the world
of guilt, hate, fear, dis-ease, death and destruction, until once again we
are one.
A toast to
the real world!
Brian
Longhurst
* For an explanation of the three measures of meal, please see SFGS
chapter 10.
December 17th 2008
Dear
Friends,
As we move
more deeply into the fulfilment, or final, phase of the
three measures of meal, so will grow, at
an exponential rate, the increasing awareness, remembrance, realisation
amongst us that Big Me, or ‘Self,’ is who we are. It is a realisation that
we do not have to struggle, strive, fight for release from the limitations
of time and place, because freedom is already ours, with us, and
always has been. There is nothing to do but simply accept that
reality and allow it to enfold us, well up, be-come, unfold, outflow
from within us.
To remember
that, it is necessary to remind ourself of Self being who we are.
This is mind retraining. With resolute mind retraining comes
wholeness/holiness, the dispelling of ego/littleness; the emergence of I
am as our one and only Identity. Keep on keeping on, in sure and
certain knowing that this is who we are – not just wish or
desire to be. It is highly serviceable, if we truly and deeply desire this,
to constantly remind ourself, daily, hourly, with thoughts such as:
There are
no limitations, because all there is is already mine, because Papa has given
it to me at my creation. He has never taken it from me. I dreamt I threw
it away, but that was never more than a dream. And now, with the unfailing
help of my beloved brother Jesus, I am waking from the dream, walking with
him in joyous fellowship, back to Papa, knowing beyond all doubt that He is
our Home.
So I say to
You, beloved Papa, “I am Your beloved Son. All that is Yours, You have
given me, and it has always been, still now is, and always will be, my
rightful inheritance from You. All appearances to the contrary are simply
that – appearances; nothing. I choose now to accept and espouse
everything once more and rejoice in the fullness of Your true creation,
which has no end and is with me always. For all that, I give thanks
eternally and rest in You now.”
In recent
months I have come to realise that Big Me is, along with all the fragments
of the Sonship, completely my true Self, the only real me, and that
little me is nothing; a dream, an illusion. So in a sense, thinking in
terms of my true Self as Big Me, implies there must be a little me, and this
is, in a subtle way, perpetuating the mis-perception of the duality of
separation. I had thought that changing ‘Big Me’ to ‘Real Me’ would
correct this, but now realise that still allows for ‘unreal me.’ That is a
step in the right direction but not yet all the way to eliminating the sense
of the illusory me; the persona. In a recent communing (as included in the
November 19th
MoE) Papa counsels the use of that persona – Brian – to help others
awaken from the dream. Here is what was said:
I
know you
(all of us)
desire to return wholly
to Me above all things. To do this you must return wholly unto your Self,
or ‘Big Me,’ as you have rightly observed. Jesus was wholly in Me because
he was wholly Self – I AM. You are ‘I AM’ also. All the fragments
of My Son also are, indivisibly, ‘I AM.’ They say to themselves ‘I am
Brian,’ or ‘I am Theresa,’ or ‘I am John,’ or ‘I am Mary.’ Each time they
make such pronouncement, there is one word too many. For ‘I AM’ is Who they
are. The rest is made up, illusion. Do you wish to be made up?
No, I don’t, Papa; I wish to be real.
Keep on, then,
reminding yourself, ‘Big Me’ is good, because it focuses entirely on your
‘otherness,’ your ‘realness,’ your ‘I AM-ness.’ There is no other you than
‘Big Me.’ You have no other name, no other being, no other identity. To
perceive such is a distraction, a diversion away from the truth of Who you
ARE.
But while I seem to be in, or with, a
body, my brothers will see me as Brian…
Let that serve its
purpose then, that you may use that illusion to bring your brothers
to the truth of Who you are, that they may be re-minded of Who they
all are. This illusory self can be restored to oneness, and thus disappear
back into Me, whole and holy, forever. It has a purpose only in time, never
in Eternity.
Welcome Home, My
beloved. The banquet awaits.
Thank you, beloved Papa. You know how much I
enjoy a feast!
Jesus did
that, but his Jesus persona was completely at-one with Self. That,
then, is possible, and can become the objective for the rest of us.
Then, also like him, that ‘unified’ or ‘re-unified’ persona will have
Kingdom of Heaven awareness fully, all the time. Miracles are – and will
become for us - a natural, outflowing radiance of whole/holy being toward
all living beings as a result of wholeness/holiness, love,
BLASERing. Miracles undo misperceptions of littleness, and so they are
a state of creativeness in that they restore to the oneness of being –
wholeness/holiness – that is the true estate of all life; oneness in
resonance with Papa, the Universal Life Force; the Source of all Being.
Then, when
the Kingdomly objectives of our re-unified persona/being/Self have been
fulfilled in time and place, it will be subsumed back into the oneness of
the Sonship, back into Papa, and cease to have a manifest presence in time
and place, just as happened 2000 years ago with Jesus. At present the
persona is still perceiving itself as individual, separate, alone, with
others ‘out there.’ That is the illusion. But mind re-training, by
mind-to-Mind communing (mtMc) with Big Me, Real Self, gradually alters the
perspective and (little) self becomes ever more identified with Real Self,
Big Me; and little self becomes less and less the focal point of awareness,
until persona is seen simply as a tool - an instrument at the service of
Christ Mind, like Jesus the man - and not the real being.
To assist
in understanding this, one could use the analogy of the hour-glass. Imagine
we are in the form of an hour-glass, with the lower part being our little
self or persona and the upper part being Big Me or Self, and the sand is our
mind. Our mind is fully pre-occupied down in the lower part, engaged at the
Earth level of consciousness, under ego control, going nowhere. But Self is
right there ‘above’ us, yet inextricably, indivisibly connected to us. It
is but a matter of time before some thoughts of eternal reality filter down
and cause a new awareness of something ‘beyond’, so that little me begins to
ponder higher things from time to time.
We now have
to bring to the analogy that in time and place our thinking is upside down;
so with Self, functioning from Eternity, where gravity does not exist and
there is no downward pull, rising up is as easy as floating down. That means
that elevated thoughts will draw our mind upwards, and a few grains of sand
(part of our mind) actually rise into the upper part of the hour-glass, as
those higher thoughts filter through, to start to correct our thinking.
This is the beginning of the waking process.
Further
thoughts from our Higher Mind continue to filter down and if we are open to
them, will come to our awareness more readily. This is happening now
because we are now in the time prophesied by Joel 22 centuries ago:
And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon
all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men
shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions
(Joel
2:28).
That
outpouring is cosmic, universal, unavoidable, and even for those of us who
choose to ignore it, some of that spirit of truth is filtering down to the
denser layers of mind. And though to Earth awareness it seems imperceptible
- because such awareness is focussed horizontally, so misses the vertical
waveband activity at the much higher frequency - it still affects us because
it is a signal from the Home we dreamt we left, calling us softly, lovingly,
gently to return.
Without the
influence of gravity, each time the outpouring of spirit – which can
manifest from any source; a book, a friend, an article, musing, dreaming –
finds its way to the surface of our thinking, a few more grains of sand rise
up to (re)join with Self. The more grains that rise up, the more influence
of magnetic attraction they have on those still down below, and so they rise
also, until there are sufficient aspects to our thoughts functioning from
Self as to become the main focal point of our thoughts, desires,
aspirations.
That can
only lead to the inevitable: our entire mind functioning as, from, Self,
with no ego-mind, upside-down thoughts left to impede our journey Home.
This is how it was for Jesus when he said:
the prince of this world
(ego, in
the form of Judas and the temple guard, coming to arrest him)
cometh, and hath nothing in me
(Jn. 14:30). This also will be how it becomes for us, at the appointed time
for each fragment to rejoin the oneness, during this, the Aquarian age, the
third measure of meal. Then we will all be, once more, of one mind; fully
awake to the reality of our destiny and inheritance in the Kingdom. The
lower part of the hour-glass will have no further function and will cease to
exist. Its home to ego will be over and ego will have nothing in us.
Time and place, ego’s only refuge will be gone forever.
Peace, joy,
love,
Brian
Longhurst
December 24th 2008
Dear
Friends,
Now is the
moment when we, who have been seeing ourselves as many, are awakening to the
remembrance that we are the one Son of our creator; God, Papa, our Heavenly
Father. Any perceptions we may still harbour of being separate individuals,
make no difference. The Sonship has been perceiving itself as fragmented,
but the
GRP is a healing, restoring-to-one-ness process, in which all the
fragments are becoming re-unified in our true estate of oneness.
In Jesus’
parable of the prodigal son, after the son has taken himself off into a far
country and ended up in (spiritual) penury, Jesus says ‘
And
when he came to himself…’
he
decided to return to his father’s house. And Papa is waiting, with infinite
patience, yet eagerly, for our return to Him. He knows we have never
left Him, but we have forgotten, so it is a ‘journey of remembrance.’ This
is also sometimes referred to as a ‘journey without distance.’ It
definitively began 4000 years ago, at commencement of the first phase of the
GRP, and is now well under way in its fulfilment phase.
‘
…came
to himself’
should be, more accurately, as implied by the parable, ‘came
to himSelf.’
The implications of this are so much more meaningful. Truly, as we move
into the fulfilment phase, we are ‘coming to our Self,’ or Big Me, or Real
Self, or the Spirit of Truth. It is this understanding that gives the
journey its real meaning and purpose. When Jesus said
‘I
am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by
me’
(Jn. 14:6), he was speaking as Self, and the words are absolutely
true in that sense. Jesus was the manifestation of the Holy Spirit
(ACIM:C-6:1.1) — Self — wholly Identified with It/Him. To apply the words to
Jesus the man (keeping in mind that God’s Son is not a body) is a form of
idolatry, because it is attaching importance to an image, a form. But,
seeing past the form to the content, the real source of the words, we can
realise that the Source is Big Me — not big someone else, someone
outside ‘me,’ which would be perpetuating the ego theme of duality.
Such a
thought would be perceived as an apostasy, a heresy, from within ‘second
measure’ thinking, or orthodox Christianity, but Jesus’ Great Rescue
Programme for us, the fragments of the Sonship, is a progressive,
phase by phase, unfolding process of sequential thought pattern; a necessity
to bring us from completely upside-down thinking to right-side up thinking,
which deep-forgetfulness-man would have been unable to cope with in only one
phase, or measure of meal. The third measure revelation, or unfoldment,
moves forward from the second measure perception, toward the leavening of
the whole, as stated in his parable. Rather than dishonouring Jesus,
the Christ-man, it honours him absolutely as the messenger of the Holy One
for our restoration, redemption, healing, return to oneness, from duality.
Duality is
split, or double vision — our bodily sight — and comes about as a result of
believing, and therefore perceiving, images outside our Self. Of
true sight, or spiritual vision, or singleness of vision, (i.e. the true
vision of Self) Jesus says,
The light of the body is
the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of
light
(enlightenment)
(Mt. 6:22).
But of double, flawed, faulty, ‘evil’ sight, i.e. the split perception of
the bodily, or littleness sight, he says:
But if thine eye be evil,
thy whole body shall be full of darkness.
(Mt. 6:23).
He saw past
the form, or images, of his fellows; past the apparent frailties of
littleness, of ego-driven contrariness, grievances, judgementalism, to the
real Self within each fragment of the Sonship. He refused to judge those
appearances because he saw past them to the true Self within them all. He
knew Who they/we all really were/are: one, with him.
When we
choose to stop perceiving images outside our Self we will bring to an end
time and place, the illusion of the separation consciousness; the
consciousness of fear. Jesus did this 2000 years ago, and the things he
did, we will do also, and greater things, if only we can believe (Jn.
14:12), if only our vision can be switched from the flawed sight of our
bodily perception to the perfect, ’20-20’ vision of our true, real, eternal,
perfect, innocent (sinless), guiltless Self. As he says in chapter 31 of
ACIM:
Salvation does not
ask that you behold the spirit and perceive the body not. It merely asks
that this should be your choice.
Seeing
ourself as a body is like saying ‘the sun is rising.’ It is an ego-centric
misperception. We are looking at the situation from entirely the wrong
perspective; the perspective of time and place, instead of the true
perspective — Eternity. We are uncontainable, limitless, eternal.
Perceiving time and place — and therefore, perishable, frail bodies — is a
feeble, fundamentally flawed attempt to contain and limit the illimitable.
As soon as we realise that, the lid comes off the container; the stopper
comes off the genie bottle. We begin to become aware that there are no
limitations or constraints. This is because our eyes (true vision) begin to
open to the truth that linear time (and place) is actually not a constraint
upon us, just as they were not a constraint upon Jesus in the long ago.
There is a
much overlooked scripture reference to this in John, chapter 6. There, it
describes how the disciples were rowing across the Sea of Galilee toward
Capernaum in a strong, contrary wind, having left Jesus on the shore from
which they had departed some hours earlier. They had gone about three and a
half miles (5.5 kms) — somewhat less than half way, and it had already taken
them hours — when they saw Jesus walking toward them on the water. When
they realised it was him, they welcomed him into the boat. Verse 21 then
says:
and
immediately the ship was at the land whither they went.
This tells
us that what would have taken many more hours of much hard rowing, for those
who misperceived time and place — or distance — as a constraint, was
instantly past, thus demonstrating that the so-called laws of time and
place are illusory, and exercise only as much constraint over us as we
choose to ascribe to them. The record does not indicate the degree of
astonishment of the disciples, but one can be sure that it would have been
about as great as their astonishment at his calming of the tempest that
threatened to capsize the boat and drown them all.
So, when
our true vision is restored to us (by Self, in response to our willingness
for it to be ours once more), we can look down upon our corporeal, little
self from above and say, having remembered,
‘That is
not who I am. I am Papa’s beloved Son, just as He created me — like
HimSelf; free, limitless, eternal, guiltless. Would He have placed me
inside this constraining pile of illusory dust, to start out entirely in
forgetfulness, separate, to grow old, and feeble, and die? I am created
like Him, yet there is nothing like Him in that, so it is not possible that
He could have placed me here.
‘There can
be only one other who could have done that, and that is the illusory me. I
must have done this to myself in a moment of madness. However, if I did
this to me, I must be able to undo it. In order for that to happen,
I have to start seeing my Self as I truly am — again — and not from this
upside-down, back-to-front, littleness perspective. All the while I am
doing that it will appear as if that is who I am, when now, at last, I can
begin to glimpse that it is not so at all.
'
I
must simply start, and having started, continue, to adjust my perspective
and look upon my Self from my Self, with my own true vision, not with
a mind that misbelieves and therefore misperceives, what is really not
actually there at all!’
We have
been misbelieving, and therefore misperceiving for so long that we have
convinced ourself that we are something that we are not. Now it will take
us some time to adjust our vision back to our true perspective.
As we begin
to waken and move into the light of remembrance, so does it become easier
and yet easier to discern — and accept — the truth, the actuality, of our
real Self and of Papa’s creation. In the spiritual darkness of the Earth
consciousness, it is difficult to see clearly; easy to believe in
phantasms. In the gloom things appear complicated, convoluted, and we wander
about as if in a maze (and in amazement). But one was born into the
darkness to show us the light, to be the light, and to remind us that we
also are that light, but have been hiding it under a bushel.
Ye are the light of the world. A city that is
set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it
under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that
are in the house.
(Mt.
5:14-15). Now is the time to bring out and dust off those candlesticks,
that, together, we might lighten — illuminate — the world.
This Christmas give the Holy
Spirit
(the
gift of)
everything that would hurt you.
Let yourself be healed completely that you may join with Him in healing, and
let us celebrate our release together by releasing everyone with us. Leave
nothing behind, for release is total, and when you have accepted it with
me you will give it with me. All pain and sacrifice and
littleness will disappear in our relationship, which is as innocent as our
relationship with our Father, and as powerful. Pain will be brought to us
and disappear in our presence, and without pain there can be no sacrifice.
And without sacrifice there love
must be.
(ACIM
T-15:XI.3)
May this
Christmas be a moment of blessed, illusion-unencumbered wholeness (holiness)
and illumination for us all,
Brian
Longhurst
December 31st 2008
Dear
Friends,
In recent
weeks terms such as ‘Big Me’, ‘Real Me’, ‘Self’, and ‘I Am’ have been used
to describe our higher, eternal reality, and I feel prompted to offer
further clarification on use of these terms.
The real
issue here is duality versus non-duality. Duality is the separation
consciousness of ego mind, which perceives other than oneness — i.e. the
apparent fragmentation of the Sonship into littleness as mortal bodies —
and also opposites: good/evil, light/dark, male/female, etc. Another term
for duality, it could be said, is idolatry, because, according to ACIM,
bodies (and all else within the separation consciousness) are made by us
rather than created by the Creator. It hardly needs mentioning how bodies,
mountains, statues — and practically anything else within the separation —
are worshipped, or idolised.
Non-duality
is the truth, or Spiritual Knowing of the oneness of Eternity, as in the
Christ Mind (which is identical to the God Mind, because Papa gave His Son
everything when He created Him). This all-knowing engenders unconditional
love because all-knowledge is aware that love is all there is. Non-duality
knows there can be no opposite of all that is except nothing, and
this is why time and place (t&p) — the apparent opposite of Eternity
— does not, cannot, exist, other than as fantasy, which is not real.
In duality
consciousness there appears to be t&p, making it impossible because
it would be — if it were real — the antithesis of Eternity, or all that is.
T&p is therefore also absence of Spiritual Knowing, which is Light (as in
en-Light-enment); therefore t&p is also an absence of Light, which is
darkness. This is explained by Jesus in ACIM as why bodies have sensory
perception, or consciousness, which, including our bodily eyesight, is
distinct from true Vision, which is seeing the truth of Eternity and
therefore, knowing it. As he says in Workbook lesson 35:
You will believe that you are part of where you think you are. That is
because you surround yourself with the environment you want. And you want it
to protect the image of yourself that you have made. The image is part of
this environment. What you see while you believe you are in it is seen
through the eyes of the image
(body).
This is not vision. Images
cannot see
(i.e. have
true, spiritual vision).
Littleness,
or persona (Brian, Theresa, John, Mary etc.), or individuality, or
separation consciousness, or fragmentation, has believed t&p to be reality
since the beginning of the dream of separation. This makes going from that (mis)perception
to ultimate, eternal reality in one exercise a tall order, or big stretch.
So the Spirit of Truth, or Holy Spirit, corrects our thinking by stages;
one step at a time. We have thought of ourselves as ‘little me’ (limited,
finite, mortal etc.) for so long (in linear-time terms), that it will be
highly serviceable to our step-by-step awakening to be aware that we are
not actually ‘little me’, but instead, are ‘Big Me’.
That takes
us a very big step toward correcting our thinking from wrong to right. But
then we begin to realise that there is still duality implied in the term
‘Big Me’ because if we recognise that there is a Big Me, there must,
by implication, be a little me, otherwise Big could not be a
meaningful term, and ultimately, the objective is to dispel the
misperception of there being a little me. This also applies to Real
Me, implying acceptance that there is an ‘unreal me’, thus perpetuating
duality.
‘Self’,
with an initial capital, and ‘I Am’ do not imply alternatives, so are
non-dualistic, and are therefore terms applicable to our true nature as the
one Son of the Father Creator. However, ‘I Am’ will become dualistic if used
in conjunction with a term that is part of the illusion of t&p, such as ‘I
Am Brian,’ or ‘I Am depressed,’ or ‘I Am 64,’ or ‘I Am hungry,’ or ‘I Am
poor/ill/in debt/fat/thin/British/an accountant,’ etc.
Yet, used
in conjunction with terms connected to or implying a Kingdomly quality —
such as ‘I Am happy/the innocent, eternal Son of the Heavenly
Father/forgiven/blessed/choosing to see past the illusions of littleness and
truly forgive myself and my brethren in the Sonship for what in truth has
never happened, so that I can be restored to the reality of eternal oneness
in Papa,’ etc. — ‘I Am’ is then very much non-duality terminology.
However,
because we still appear to be in t&p, with unresolved issues, karma,
true forgiveness to outwork, and we are not yet fully awake to the truth of
Who we really are, we still are functioning, illusorily speaking, from
the little me perspective, at least part, or most, of the time. We have to
gradually become accustomed to perceiving — and ultimately seeing,
with true, single, spiritual vision — ourself as Self, I Am, the eternal,
living, innocent, whole/holy one Son of Papa, just as he was created, and
will forever, unchangeably, remain. That can only happen when we choose,
steadfastly, to look past the illusion of littleness in our brother, and see
in him only the face of Christ, a true reflection of the Christ in our Self.
But we can
only move to that place of seeing, thinking, being, one step at a time.
This means that, just as we think and speak of Jesus as a ‘separate’, yet
entirely trustworthy and fully God/Christ empowered being, who can and will
help us when we ask him — and because we are, for the moment, comfortable
with that — we can similarly become comfortable with the idea of a ‘Higher’,
or ‘Big’ Self, or Big Me, as a phase, or stepping stone, on our journey back
to full wakefulness.
During the
transition period of correction from wrong thinking to right thinking, there
will be moments in which, for example, we find it helpful to engage with
‘Big Me’ in a similar manner to that in which we engage with Jesus, and can,
in our apparent state of seeming littleness, ask Big Me for help and
guidance, and thank ‘Him’ for being always with us. At other moments, we
will feel that we are able to think from the perspective of ‘Self’,
‘I Am’, and that will serve as an indicator that we truly are moving into
the place of remembrance of Who we really are. In other words, addressing
one’s ‘Self’ instead of ‘Big Me’ is seeing from the true place of oneness,
or non-duality, instead of from the illusory place of ‘little me’
toward Big Me, which is a perpetuation of duality.
As Jesus
reminds us, as part of our mind re-training exercises, in Lesson 35 of the
ACIM Workbook for Students,
‘My mind is part of God’s. I am very holy.’
Such mind
re-training thoughts as this are massive steps in undoing ego’s hold over
our mind, and ego will fight very hard to keep us from engaging thusly.
Here, good old one-pointed, steadfast
FTOC comes in very useful. As Jesus says in the Epilogue, at the end of
ACIM:
Forget not
(that)
once this
journey is begun the end is certain. Doubt along the way will come and go
and go to come again
(we all
know that song, but it does not mean we should give up. If we do, we are
opting for another circuit on the
carousel).
Yet is the ending sure. No one can fail to do what God appointed him to
do. When you forget, remember that you walk with Him and with His Word upon
your heart
(being unaware of that does not make it untrue, and this is thoroughly
established through the pages of ACIM, the objective of which is to help us
remember).
Who
could despair when Hope like this is His?
(Who, indeed?)
Illusions of
despair may seem to come, but learn how not to be deceived by them.
Behind each one there is reality and there is God. Why would you wait
for this and trade it for illusions, when His Love is but an instant farther
on the road where all illusions end? The end
is sure and
guaranteed by God
(if
this is a statement of unalterable truth by Jesus, our unfailing Guide to
Eternity, can it be anything other than a form of madness to allow ourselves
to believe, or be persuaded, otherwise?).
Who
stands before a lifeless image when a step away the Holy of the Holies opens
up an ancient door that leads beyond the world?
(What are we waiting for?)
You
are a stranger here
(in
t&p).
But
you belong to Him Who loves you as He loves Himself
(yet
ego would have us believe we are unworthy of Papa’s unconditional love; that
we are guilty, and therefore, fearful of a wrathful God who is out to punish
us. It is time to dispel this lie that chains us to littleness and keeps us
from restoration to our inheritance).
Ask
but my help to roll the stone away, and it is done according to His Will. We
have begun the
journey. Long ago the end was written in the stars and set into the Heavens
with a shining Ray that held it safe within eternity and through all time as
well. And holds it still; unchanged, unchanging and unchangeable.
Be not
afraid. We only start again an ancient journey long ago begun that but seems
new. We have begun again upon a road we travelled on before and lost our way
a little while. And now we try again. Our new beginning has the certainty
the journey lacked till now
(but
now, with Jesus — empowered with all authority in Heaven and Earth — in
charge of the infallible Great Rescue Programme, our restoration to oneness
is unstoppable; certainty of success and its attendant freedom from ego-mind
littleness thinking is beyond doubt).
Look
up and see His Word among the stars, where He has set your name along with
His. Look up and find your certain destiny the world would hide but
God would have you see.
Let us wait
here in silence, and kneel down an instant in our gratitude to Him Who
called to us and helped us hear His Call. And then let us arise and go
in faith along the way to Him
(without faith our journey Home cannot be completed).
Now
we are sure we do not walk alone. For God is here, and with Him all our
brothers. Now we know that we will never lose the way again. The song
begins again which had been stopped only an instant, though it seems to be
unsung forever. What is here begun will grow in life and strength and hope,
until the world is still an instant and forgets all that the dream of sin
had made of it.
Let us go
out and meet the newborn world, knowing that Christ
(that is all of us, not just Jesus)
has been
reborn in it
(in
this, the last of the
three measures of meal),
and
that the holiness of this rebirth will last forever. We had lost our
way but He has found it for us. Let us go and bid Him welcome Who returns to
us to celebrate salvation
(restoration back to Eternity of oneness in Papa)
and the end
of all we thought we made
(finiteness).
The
morning star of this new day looks on a different world where God is
welcomed and His Son with Him
(the
Kingdom of Heaven on Earth).
We
who complete Him offer thanks to Him, as He gives thanks to us. The Son is
still, and in the quiet God has given him enters his home and is at peace at
last.
(My
emboldening and some italics, for emphasis.)
Amen! Such
beautiful, inspiring words lift us to the heights of Heaven. May we all be
encouraged by them to keep on, during 2009, in singleness of vision, until
we arrive Home once more, to the Heaven of Eternity.
Love,
always,
Brian
Longhurst
January 7th 2009
Dear
Friends,
What better
way to begin an illusory new year than by giving thanks to Papa, our Father
Creator, the Source of All? “Papa, the blessed awareness I have of You
brings me comfort, joy, uplift, inspiration, enlightenment, and the great
prize for us who have believed for so long that we are in the consciousness
of fear: release into inner peace. For these and all Your wondrous, endless
blessings and undying love, I give eternal thanks.”
That
awareness — of inner peace, the peace of God, which passeth all
understanding (Phil. 4:7) — is our true nature and is within our mind,
available to us ceaselessly, if we are willing to be still and attune with
it. In that part of our mind, Papa communes with us constantly. Here is
what Jesus says about this in Lesson 49 of the ACIM Workbook, headed
God's Voice speaks to me all
through the day:
The part of
your mind in which truth abides is in constant communication with God,
whether you are aware of it or not. It is the other part of your mind
(the
split-off, separated, upside-down part)
that
functions in the world and obeys the world's laws. It is this part that is
constantly distracted, disorganised and highly uncertain.
The part
that is listening to the Voice for God is calm, always at rest and wholly
certain. It is really the only part there is. The other part is a wild
illusion, frantic and distraught, but without reality of any kind. Try today
not to listen to it. Try to identify with the part of your mind where
stillness and peace reign forever. Try to hear God's Voice call to you
lovingly, reminding you that your Creator has not forgotten His Son.
(In today’s
lesson practice)
We will try
actually to hear God's Voice reminding you of Him and of your Self. We
will approach this happiest and holiest of thoughts with confidence,
knowing that in doing so we are joining our will with the Will of God. He
wants you to hear His Voice. He gave It to you to be heard.
Listen in
deep silence. Be very still and open your mind. Go past all the raucous
shrieks and sick imaginings
(ego)
that cover
your real thoughts and obscure your eternal link with God. Sink deep into
the peace that waits for you beyond the frantic, riotous thoughts and sights
and sounds of this insane world. You do not live here. We are
trying to reach your real home. We are trying to reach the place where you
are truly welcome. We are trying to reach God.
Do not
forget to repeat today’s idea very frequently. Do so with your eyes open
when necessary, but closed when possible. And be sure to sit quietly and
repeat the idea for today whenever you can, closing your eyes on the world,
and realizing that you are inviting God's Voice to speak to you.
(My
emboldening and some italics, for emphasis.)
We are now
at the place within the
GRP where we can begin to realise (i.e. make real) that we have
come to the brink, the beginning, of awareness and experiencing the
reality that we are not actually here at all. Jesus was (and is) the
forerunner of this and our example and guide in mastering this mind
correcting salvation. During his incarnation his mind was focused in the
Eternity of Heaven more than it was in
t&p. Heaven was, for him, the reality and t&p the dream. We have it the
other way round, or upside down. He was right in his vision; we have been
wrong in our perception but, glory be, that misperception is now being
lovingly, gently, tenderly corrected and our true vision of eternal reality
freely restored to us.
He allowed
himself to focus on the illusory ‘physicality’ of t&p — even though it was
not the apparently solid reality for him that it seems to be for most of the
rest of the Sonship — in order to be able to interact with his brethren
here, to establish amongst them their readiness to later receive (at
Pentecost) the Holy Spirit when he called It down upon them after his
ascension back to Papa.
The
mechanism he used in order to facilitate and ensure the Pentecost event is
described in John 20:22:
he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost.
Some 50 illusory days later they did receive It. Acts, ch.1 says:
And, being assembled together with them, (Jesus, appearing to the disciples
after his resurrection) commanded them that they should … wait for the
promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me. For John truly
baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many
days hence … ye shall receive power, after … the Holy Ghost is come upon you.
Chapter 2 of Acts tells of the amazing events that fulfilled that prophecy.
This was
the beginning of the restoration of all Jesus’ brothers in the
Sonship — us, without exception — to Self realisation, or oneness as Christ,
the Holy Son of (and in) His Holy Father. For those who might hear ego say,
‘What he did to/for the disciples does not necessarily apply to the rest of
us’, consider the
PLF quoted in Mt. 25:40:
Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye
have done it unto me.
What he did to/for the few, he has done for us all, and we can know this for
the certainty that it is, not just because it is a PLF but because we are
all one in the Sonship. Neither time nor place can alter that. John says it
this way:
Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we
shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for
we shall see him as he is.
1Jn. 3:2
Now is the
moment within the GRP when it ‘doth begin to appear’. Now is the moment
when we can become, and indeed are becoming, like him. We can
rejoicingly accept and embrace unto ourselves this reality or we can allow
ego to put the brakes on and hold us back in the consciousness of fear,
littleness, guilt, lack of self worth, forgetfulness, for a few more
circuits of the carousel. It may be worth keeping in mind what is operating
that carousel: ego; known to religionists as satan.
Either way,
the outcome is inevitable, but we do have the opportunity to foreshorten
this process for ourself by welcoming it unreservedly. This will enable not
only waking in fewer acts ourself, but also thereby helping our brethren who
are a step or two behind us on the path to waken sooner than might otherwise
be the case.
At any and
every opportunity during his sojourn in t&p— which never took him any time
or effort because he did not doubt who he was — Jesus re-attuned to the Home
wavelength. This is not just the discarnate realms, for Home is everywhere;
how could it be otherwise except in an insane fantasy? So he saw all his
friends — all the world — from the Home perspective, and his vision was at
one with that perspective.
So will
ours be as soon as we are willing to accept it and receive it unto ourself.
He saw — because he knew beyond doubt — Peter, and all of them, as Christ;
their real Self. He wanted to help them see as he saw, and that is still,
as it has always, unswervingly been, his objective for us all, right now.
Is there one amongst us who believes Jesus can fail in any of his
objectives?
He will
never give up on that objective because he knows who we really are,
that it is already accomplished, and is therefore inevitable. The
GRP is, in absolute contrast to the plans of littleness, infallible and
unstoppable. T&p is winding down, working through the process, will
culminate in its termination, and there is nothing the illusion called ego
can do to stop it, or even slow it. Eternity will become increasingly our
reality as t&p becomes decreasingly so.
We who
still function as if t&p is reality, are waking up to our true reality,
which is the same as Jesus’. We will see ourself increasingly fading in and
out of t&p consciousness, and our fellows similarly, as we switch focus from
illusion to reality; as the awakening progresses and our empowerment by our
true Self, the Holy Spirit, or the Holy Breath, becomes more re-established
in us, according and in response to our
FTOC. So will our remembrance that this mirage has no further hold on
or power over us become complete.
It is not
our self (ego) that will perform this. This will only be possible when we
believe it absolutely, and our faithlessness and perversity have been
dispelled, replaced by knowing beyond all doubt the truth of Eternity and
our oneness with it. For of our self we can do nothing; but Self, the Holy
Breath within us, will accomplish it for us, if — or, more accurately,
when — we are willing to relinquish the leasehold on our life back to
Him.
Here are a
few more very powerful and empowering quotes from the Workbook, to
meaningfully depict reality, help us become more willing to allow the
Breath to dispel illusion, encourage us to hold fast to the truth or
Eternity and let go of our upside-down misperceptions:
God is the Love in which I forgive.
God does not
forgive because He has never condemned. And there must be condemnation
before forgiveness is necessary. Forgiveness is the great need of this
world, but that is because it is a world of illusions. Those who forgive
are thus releasing themselves from illusions, while those who withhold
forgiveness are binding themselves to them. As you condemn only
yourself, so do you forgive only yourself.
Yet although
God does not forgive, His Love is nevertheless the basis of
forgiveness. Fear condemns and love forgives. Forgiveness thus undoes
what fear has produced, returning the mind to the awareness of God. For
this reason, forgiveness can truly be called salvation. It is the means
by which illusions disappear.
(From Lesson 46. My emboldening and italics for emphasis)
God is the strength in which I trust.
If you are
trusting in your own strength, you have every reason to be apprehensive,
anxious and fearful. What can you predict or control? What is there in you
that can be counted on? What would give you the ability to be aware of all
the facets of any problem, and to resolve them in such a way that only good
can come of it? What is there in you that gives you the recognition of the
right solution, and the guarantee that it will be accomplished?
Of yourself
you can do none of these things. To believe that you can is to put your
trust where trust is unwarranted, and to justify fear, anxiety, depression,
anger and sorrow
(a sorry
catalogue indeed, yet one with which pages most of us are all too familiar!).
Who can put his faith in weakness and feel safe? Yet who can put
his faith in strength and feel weak?
God is your safety in every circumstance. His Voice speaks
for Him in all situations and in every aspect of all situations, telling you
exactly what to do to call upon His strength and His protection.
There are no exceptions because God has no exceptions.
And the Voice which speaks for Him thinks as He does.
(From Lesson 47. My emboldening and italics for emphasis.)
There is nothing to fear.
The idea for today simply states a fact. It is not a fact to
those who believe in illusions, but illusions are not facts.
In truth
there is nothing to fear. It is very easy to recognize this.
But it is very difficult to recognize it for those who want
illusions to be true.
(From Lesson 48. My emboldening and italics for emphasis.)
The peace,
joy and love of the Christ within be with us all, always,
Brian
Longhurst
January 14th 2009
Dear
Friends,
One of
ego’s prime subjects for guilt-tripping us is the weakness of the body; our
susceptibility to succumb to temptation by the ‘sins of the flesh.’
Institutionalised religion — an instrument of ego — has played heavily on
this for many centuries, so we have a deeply impacted psyche. Anything that
gives us gratification of bodily desires is an ego tool for guilt and shame,
piling on the fear that we will be judged and condemned to hell. Quite a
device for distracting us from remembering Who we really are.
Of course,
once we lay aside our body at the end of each act it sooner or later becomes
inescapably clear that we are not a body! I say sooner or later
because large numbers of people lay aside their body and don’t realise it,
hanging around in the etheric counterpart of their physical body for — in
Earth linear time terms — years, decades, centuries and even millennia,
unable to accept the truth of their condition. But that is hardly
surprising because throughout history we have been indoctrinated in the
temporal falsehoods about who we are.
So, once we
have laid aside our body without remembering Who we are, ego has achieved
its objective of keeping us prisoner in
t&p. This is because, if we have not
awakened to the truth before leaving our body behind, we have to come
back for further acts, each of which means further descents into
forgetfulness, so we start again back at zero in the memory stakes over and
over again, adding to the karma of unresolved issues, brokenness, guilt and
fear with each further act. Ego 1, Son of God nothing; illusorily speaking.
The only
way out of that endless loop is to remember that we are not a body before
we lay it aside. That is the first step toward freedom from ego’s clutches
and breaking the cycle of forgetfulness about our true Identity.
The
GRP is all about remembrance, and the
trigger, the catalyst for remembrance is true forgiveness — of ourself and
our fellows — for what we have never done. We cannot remember Who we are
if we are mesmerised by illusions of who we are not. And until we
have remembered Who we are we will be unable to experience that ineffable
state that is inner peace. That is because t&p is the consciousness of
fear, the veil that covers our vision from inner peace. Seeing past the
illusion of t&p is seeing past that veil, enabling us to see, experience the
reality of our being as eternal, indestructible, all-empowered; the pure,
innocent Son of God.
Jesus tells
us that we are so inured to misperceptions because our thinking and
perceiving is upside down, and our minds need re-training. ACIM is our
re-training manual for Eternity and Jesus is our guide and trainer. Most of
us are so hung up in ego-mind guilt and fear (most of which is hidden deep
within our unconscious mind, because it stems from karma from ‘previous’
acts, making it impossible for us to deal with it without Empowered Help)
that letting go of backward-looking, ‘old-order’ (second measure of meal)
thinking is a massive block to our forward progress in the 3rd
measure to fulfilment of the parable of the
three measure of meal, meaning our waking to full remembrance of
Who we are.
However
hard ego wants us to perceive it is to see past that veil, Jesus has some
good news for us, at every single step. Such as:
Salvation does not ask that
you behold the spirit and perceive the body not.
It merely asks that this should be your choice.
(T-31.VI.)
The Holy Spirit, our true Self, does all the rest for us. That is the way
it is with unconditional love.
Peace goes
hand in glove with remembering. So it is a good incentive to be steadfast
in our commitment to desiring, choosing, to remember. When we have arrived
back at the place of remembering, and our true vision restored to us, we
will be able to see how Papa’s Son could never actually have been anything
other than at perfect peace. He has everything; he knows everything; he
loves everything. That, assuredly, can only engender peace. ACIM is full
of reminders to encourage and uplift our minds, to re-train them to
remembrance that we are Papa’s Son, just as the Bible tells us so many
times, but about which false doctrines have confused us for so long. Here
are some particularly empowering reminders in these extracts from the
Workbook for Students:
LESSON 61.
I am the light of the world.
Who is the light of the world
except God’s Son? This, then, is merely a statement of the truth about
yourself
(as he told us in Matthew 5:14).
It is the opposite of a statement of pride, of arrogance, or of
self-deception. It does not describe the self concept you have made
(little, mortal, guilty, fearful).
It does not refer to any of the characteristics with which you have endowed
your idols. It refers to you as you were created by God. It simply
states the truth.
To the ego, today’s idea is the
epitome of self-glorification. But the ego does not understand humility,
mistaking it for self-debasement. Humility consists of accepting your
role in salvation and in taking no other. It is not humility to insist
you cannot be the light of the world if that is the function God assigned to
you. It is only arrogance that would assert this function cannot be for
you, and arrogance is always of the ego.
True humility requires that you
accept today’s idea because it is God’s Voice Which tells you it is true.
This is a beginning step in accepting your real function on earth. It is a
giant stride toward taking your rightful place in salvation. It is a
positive assertion of your right to be saved, and an acknowledgment of the
power that is given you to save others.
Jesus then counsels us that
taking multiple moments during the day that we choose for the study of this
Workbook message will be highly beneficial, because…
It is the perfect answer to all
illusions, and therefore to all temptation. It brings all the images you
have made about yourself to the truth, and helps you depart in peace,
unburdened and certain of your purpose.
He says we should tell ourself:
I am the
light of the world. That is my only function. That is why I am here.
It is hard to see how any other function could be more beneficial to the
awakening of ourself and all our brothers.
LESSON 62.
Forgiveness is my
function as the light of the world.
It is your forgiveness that
will bring the world of darkness to the light.
It is your forgiveness that lets you recognize the light in which you
see. Forgiveness is the demonstration that you are the
light of the world. Through your forgiveness does the truth about
yourself return to your memory. Therefore, in your forgiveness lies
your salvation.
… all forgiveness is a gift
to yourself. Your goal is to find out who you are, having denied your
Identity by attacking creation and its Creator.
(It may not seem to most of us
that we are attacking creation and its Creator, but the fact that we believe
ourself to be in t&p is the indicator that we have chosen to separate
ourself from our true Home, Eternity, and at a deep level in our unconscious
mind believe this has effected the attack of which he speaks. This mistaken
belief is the hidden cause of our absence from peace, which is veiled by the
fear with which the apparent separation has caused us to be haunted.
Further evidence that Papa's Son is attacking creation and its Creator is to
be found if we look at the world events, such as Darfur, the Middle East,
and 100 other places.)
Now you are learning how to
remember the truth. For this attack must be replaced by forgiveness, so
that thoughts of life may replace thoughts of death.
Remember that in every attack
(such as a judgement upon a
brother) you call
upon your own weakness, while each time you forgive you call upon the
strength of Christ in you. Do you not then begin to understand what
forgiveness will do for you? It will remove all sense of weakness,
strain and fatigue from your mind. It will take away all fear and guilt and
pain. It will restore to your awareness the invulnerability and power God
gave His Son…
He counsels us to say to ourself as often
as we can throughout the day:
Forgiveness
is my function as the light of the world.
I would fulfil my function that I may be happy.
We cannot be happy if we are burdened
with unforgiveness, fear and guilt, veiling our sight from the truth about
our Self and the inner peace and joy that is our inheritance.
LESSON 63.
The light of the world brings peace to every mind through my
forgiveness.
How holy are you who have the
power to bring peace to every mind? How blessed are you who can learn to
recognize the means for letting this be done through you! What purpose could
you have that would bring you greater happiness?
(It tends to put building skyscrapers,
flying to Mars, building a business empire into a somewhat lesser
perspective.)
You are indeed the light of the
world with such a function. The Son of God looks to you for his
redemption. It is yours to give him, for it belongs to you.
Accept no trivial purpose or meaningless desire in its place, or you
will forget your function and leave the Son of God in hell.
(He is leaving us in no doubt
about what this world is that we have wrongly believed for so long is our
home.) This is
no idle request that is being asked of you. You are being asked to accept
salvation that it may be yours to give.
To help us re-train our minds, correct
our thinking, he counsels us to repeat
to ourselves throughout the day,
as often as we can:
The light
of the world brings peace to every mind
(including our own)
through my forgiveness. I am the means God has appointed for the salvation
of the world.
…Remember that God’s Son looks
to you for his salvation. And who but your Self must be His Son?
(My
emboldening and some italics, for emphasis)
Jesus is
reminding us through the pages of ACIM that it is not just he who is Papa’s
Son, the light of the world, but, as stated in the sermon on the mount (Mt.
5:14) we also are, because, as he knows of a certainty, we are one with him
in the Sonship. All statements and beliefs to the contrary cannot,
therefore, be other than illusion. Now is the time to see through illusions
to the truth of Eternity, which is incomplete without us, and bring our
light out from the bushel under which we have been hiding it, and place it
on a candlestick, to give light to all in the house (Mt. 5:15.)
Here’s to
completion — and inner peace!
Brian
Longhurst
January 21st 2009
Dear
Friends,
As has been
mentioned previously, the
GRP is referred to by Jesus in his ‘like unto’ parable as like unto
leaven, hidden in three measures of meal until the whole is leavened (Mt.
13:33). The first, or Abraham measure, was leavened and then superseded by
the Jesus measure 2000 years ago. That measure has run its course, served
its purpose, leavened, and now, the third, or Kingdom measure is superseding
it. This is, and always has been, the plan, and its unfolding, leavening
progress toward completion is inevitable and inexorable.
Once an
organic vehicle, or structure has served its purpose, like a flower that has
been pollinated, it withers and dies, because the life force is withdrawn
from it and enters into the next, and final, phase of its multi-phase
objective — the fruiting phase. So is the case with the second measure, as
the third measure gets up a head of steam in replacing it, bringing the
three measures to fulfilment, fruition.
The second
measure’s objective was to get vast numbers of people, over many scores of
generations to see Jesus as the spiritual Lord of mankind; the saviour (even
though their discernment of just how he was the saviour was askew).
Because the process has to proceed at a pace which we can assimilate, and
since we are blind, or have been, to the overall process, it has had to be
at that slow pace. But, as our awakening proceeds and begins to speed up,
so does the pace accelerate into and through the third measure.
The fact
that this second measure leavening was, of unavoidable necessity, taking
place within the ego-indoctrinated, unawakened minds of the
fragments, lacking in the light of
spiritual discernment, in no way de-railed the objectives of that measure
because it was not the fulfilment measure. It therefore made no difference
that the slumbering, ego-conditioned masses were (and mostly, still are) so
literal-minded, or that the scriptures based on the life of the man after
whom the second measure is named, would end up being so distorted — driven
by ego-motivated agendas — by those who placed themselves in charge of the
religion also founded in his name. The objective of getting the name known
and revered as saviour for that whole epoch was accomplished.
Now, during
the last few generations, the name is becoming devoid of meaning and the
institutionalised religion established in his name, in accordance with
second measure thinking, is in its death throes, just as Jesus himself
predicted (Rev. 3:15, 16). To those still espoused to that hollow
structure, almost completely operational only in the without, such words are
blasphemy and apostasy of the first magnitude; but to those whose spiritual
awakening begins to quicken, it is of little consequence because they start
to discern the emergence of the Kingdom measure, in which the fulfilment of
the entire three measures is accomplished. (For comprehensive details of
this, please see SFGS,
chapter 11.)
It is of no
concern to Jesus that things traditionally identified with Christianity are
being ‘de-commissioned’ — a process ego thinks is serving its purpose
— just as a fruit grower is far from concerned when the pollinated flowers
wither and die, since he knows — because he is in charge of the process —
that it means the fulfilment is at hand, even at the doors. Indeed, the
switch of emphasis, focus, from awareness of the second measure and all it
has stood for, to focus, emphasis upon the completion of our awakening that
the third measure is bringing us, is simply the sign that the process
continues to move forward to that completion.
Jesus knows
who he is and why he came. He is our brother within the Sonship; the first
to remember who he is; so, being unconditional love, he is leading us, his
brothers, back to Papa. When he has raised us up
—
which he can only do with our full willingness and co-operation
—
to the place of remembrance that he is at, we will be aware of our oneness
with him. A being is revered as avatar, spiritual Lord, by those who
perceive themselves as lower, less than the revered one. But it is the
purpose of the revered one to raise up to his level those who
misperceive themselves, have forgotten they are one with him in the
Sonship.
It is the
Self, the Spirit of Truth, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Breath within us that
is Who we are, just as it is with Jesus. We are that, with or
without a body, clearly demonstrating that our reality is not a body, and
that our body has nothing whatsoever to do with Who we are. Of course ego
does not want us to remember this because it means ego’s end, so will exert
all possible effort to distract us from that remembering.
The third
measure of meal, the Kingdom measure, is the phase in which we awaken to
that remembrance; the remembrance of Self as Who we are. During this final
phase it is essential, to us all, including, needless to say, Jesus, and the
completion of his GRP, that we waken and acknowledge this truth of our
eternal being — Self — one with Jesus in Papa, as, during the second
measure, we have been doing that of Jesus. Jesus is our example, to follow
and emulate, so loving and honouring him is entirely natural and
appropriate. Yet, the awareness arises from the within of us all — where it
has always been — as that awakening proceeds toward its conclusion, that not
only is Jesus the Christ, the one Son of God, but that we, his brothers, are
also one in the Sonship with him. He says it this way:
In his
(Jesus’)
complete identification with
the Christ - the perfect Son of God, His
(God’s)
one creation and His happiness,
forever like Himself and one with Him - Jesus became what all of you
must be. He led the way for you to follow him. He leads you back
to God because he saw the road before him, and he followed it.
(ACIM
C-5.3:1-3. My emboldening and underlining, for emphasis.)
All the
while we continue looking to and revering Jesus as God’s only son (a second
measure perception) it is a distraction from us seeing our true
Self. This is counter to Jesus’ number one priority, which assuredly must
be the completion of the GRP; our awakening to the remembrance that
we are one with him in the Sonship, and the completion of his mission is
dependent upon that. That is why the GRP is not just his operation, but
co-operation that will see its fulfilment.
To continue
maintaining the second measure, old-order perception that Jesus is, and
forever will be, the only butterfly, and we are still — and will always be —
caterpillars, is like trying to halt the tide; it is whistling Dixie. It is
not possible, but will delay our experience of inner peace, and
simply prolong conflict within our embattled minds. So it is in his and our
best interests that the GRP does go forward, and we with it, voluntarily and
gladly leaving behind the second measure, littleness-prolonging perceptions
of who we are.
Jesus tells
us over and over in ACIM that we do not, in the truth of our real,
undivided, Christ Mind, want to prolong these misperceptions because it is
not our true nature. Only ego does not want the eternal Kingdom, so if we
feel fearful about It, that is a definitive litmus test that we are still
under ego’s thrall. Yet there is, in truth, nothing to fear because Papa is
unconditional love, eternal blessing and the only Source of true and lasting
joy, peace and happiness.
Over the
decades, during the ‘Holy Silence’ in the Mystical Communion service, when
we listen for and to Jesus, and Papa, and the Christ Servers from the Realms
of Light speaking with us, for many years I had an anticipation that there
would be words of judgement, condemnation and impending punishment for the
sinfulness of the world. This clearly indicates the conditioning of ego
misperceptions that were still lingering in my mind.
But there
was never, ever, a single occasion when such attitudes were
expressed. Only words (and powerful feelings, vibes) of love, gentleness,
tenderness, empathy, understanding, encouragement, upliftment,
enlightenment, exhortation. Alleluia! Gradually (conditioning takes time
and commitment to dispel) it became clearer and clearer, over many years,
that there were — are — no such judgements, no such negative attitudes.
That inspired, led me to greater love for and commitment to Jesus, Papa and
the Kingdom.
Jesus’ job
is to lead us back to God. He can only persuade us to follow if we trust
him. That leading is forward, from where we believe we are, to where
we actually are, in accord with the unfolding GRP. We are now at the
place on that journey where we are able — with immeasurable help from him,
particularly in the form of ACIM — to remember that we are like him, as also
stated in 1Jn. 3:2:
Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we
shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him;
for we shall see him as he is.
That was 2000 years ago; it is now appearing, because the GRP goes
forward toward its completion.
We can also
know that his appearing is not in a body, since he is not a body. As he
says, in Lk. 17 20,21:
The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo
here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you,
so we can comfortably dismiss the idea of it being an external appearing.
Since all commun(icat)ing is of the mind, our awareness need only be Mind to
mind commun(icat)ing, until we are, finally, of one Mind, having
truly forgiven each other, ourselves, the world for what none of us has, in
the only reality — Eternity — ever done.
This, then,
will open the gates of Eternity, Heaven, to our awareness, at which moment
we will remember that there was never anything actually to forgive, and the
gates of Heaven were never closed. It is only while we believe there
is anything to forgive that true forgiveness is prerequisite to our release
from ego’s chains.
As our dear
friend the Teacher says, ‘We go forward!’
Love, as
always,
Brian
Longhurst
January 28th 2009
Dear
Friends,
In the ACIM
Workbook for students Jesus reminds us that we are the light of the world,
but that our grievances hide the light that is in us. Pretty powerful
stuff, when one absorbs the implications of that reminder. The implications
are that if we are willing to let the Holy Spirit — Which, it may be
recalled, is our real, higher Self, not some separate entity from ‘upon
high, so far from our reach that we will never achieve such exalted heights’
as ego would have us believe — relieve us of the baggage of those
grievances, through the exercise of true forgiveness, we will be like
Jesus.
Since that
is our unavoidable (it may be unavoidable, though by denying it we can
delay it, necessitating further
acts; but all the
fragments will have been restored to oneness by the end of the third
measure of meal, because it has already been accomplished in the eternal
reality) destiny anyway (Beloved,
now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but
we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we
shall see him as he is.1
Jn. 3:2), it does not seem like a bad idea to seek to ditch that baggage.
The actual
unloading of the grievous burden is not something we have to do, but merely
desire it. Of course, our desire has to be sincere because Self
knows our heart. Since our heart is also His heart — because we are
ultimately of one heart and one Mind with our true Self — that is not too
surprising.
In Workbook
lesson 70, entitled
“My
salvation comes from me”
he
says:
When you realize that all guilt
is solely an invention of your mind, you also realize that guilt and
salvation must be in the same place. In understanding this you are saved.
That salvation is from our own self judgement, resulting from our holding
onto grievances. Let us remember his words from Lesson 46:
God does not forgive because He
has never condemned. And there must be condemnation before forgiveness is
necessary.
That
clearly implies that God does not judge us. It is only we, in our
upside-down, split-off, ego mind, who judge — until we decide that is not
the route to Eternity — and jettison judgement.
Then,
Lesson 77 tells us:
I am entitled to miracles.
(Glory be!)
You are
entitled to miracles because of what you are
(the
pure, innocent Son of God, just as stated in 1 Jn. 3:2).
You will
receive miracles because of what God is. And you will offer
miracles because you are one with God. Again, how simple is salvation!
(Who, in his right mind, can argue with that!?)
It is merely
a statement of your true Identity. It is this that we will celebrate today.
(Is
there anything more worthy of celebration than this?)
Your claim
to miracles does not lie in your illusions about yourself. It does not
depend on any magical powers you have ascribed to yourself, nor on any of
the rituals you have devised. It is inherent in the truth of what you are.
It is implicit in what God your Father is. It was ensured in your creation,
and guaranteed by the laws of God.
(Is it not worth reading this paragraph again, so powerful and empowering a
reminder is it of our true Self, our relationship to Papa and our true place
in His heart?)
Today we
will claim the miracles which are your right, since they belong to you. You
have been promised full release from the world you made. You have been
assured that the Kingdom of God is within you, and can never be lost. We ask
no more than what belongs to us in truth. Today, however, we will also make
sure that we will not content ourselves with less.
(Will we rejoicingly receive these words unto ourself or will we continue to
allow old order, misperceived doctrines and dogmas to shield our vision from
the light of these words?)
Begin the
longer practice periods by telling yourself quite confidently that you
are entitled to miracles. Closing your eyes, remind yourself that you
are asking only for what is rightfully yours. Remind yourself also that
miracles are never taken from one and given to another, and that in asking
for your rights, you are upholding the rights of everyone.
Miracles do not obey the laws of this world
(but they are available, freely, to us here in this world, just as they were
available to Jesus, our brother in the Sonship).
They merely follow from the laws of God.
(When we abandon grievances and judgement, we are living the laws of God,
because all there is left is love, and Jesus counsels us to
love the Lord
thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
This is the first and great commandment
(or law).
And the second
is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two
commandments hang all the law…
Mt. 22:
37-40)
After this
brief introductory phase, wait quietly for the assurance that your request
is granted. You have asked for the salvation of the world, and for your own.
You have requested that you be given the means by which this is
accomplished. You cannot fail to be assured in this. You are but asking
that the Will of God be done.
In doing
this, you do not really ask for anything. You state a fact that cannot be
denied.
The Holy
Spirit cannot but assure you that your request is granted.
The fact that you accepted must be so. There is no room for doubt and
uncertainty today. We are asking a real question at last. The answer is
a simple statement of a simple fact. You will receive the assurance that you
seek
(it
has been given because we have asked for it, and Papa always responds
to our sincere requests. Only little self — ego — doubt stands between us
and our ability to receive what is, already, freely, ours).
…And
since you are not relying on yourself to find the miracle, you are fully
entitled to receive it whenever you ask.
Remember, too, not to be satisfied with less than the perfect answer. Be
quick to tell yourself, should you be tempted:
I will not trade miracles for grievances. I want only what belongs to me.
God has established miracles as my right.
(My
emboldening and some italics, for emphasis)
Communing
with Jesus after studying that Lesson, the following exchange took place:
Jesus, my beloved brother, guide
and friend, “I am entitled to miracles” (ACIM W-pI.77.h); the timeliness of
this lesson is
— surprise! — perfect. I feel I have arrived
at the place of readiness for this truth to become my truth. It
seems so obviously right, logical, natural, ‘ordinary’, even. I feel ready
to receive and assimilate this statement of my true Self unto myself and
become one with it, even as you were — and are — one with it.
Brian, my friend and brother, this act is the one in which you were — are —
ready to believe, to receive truth and accept it unto yourself. You have
instinctively, intuitively, recognised it when it has been presented to you
in the upside-down mind realm of this world, and it has grown you, one step
at a time, to this place of awakening.
There is no hurry; you and I have taken a leisurely stroll together through
the garden of remembrance during this act of yours. All was prepared and
laid out aforetime, in readiness for commencement of the fulfilment — or
‘Kingdom’ —measure of meal. As I have said to you before, all that was
preparation for what lay ahead. Now, ‘what lay ahead’ is with you. You
have been led lovingly, caringly, willingly, eagerly to this place of
readiness, so it all seems, feels perfectly right and comfortable.
What do we do with truth?
We share it; extend it.
To whom?
To all who will. All who will receive of it,
gladly.
How?
Freely, lovingly; enthusiastically!
Precisely. One more way: wisely.
Oh yes; of course.
Well, wisdom grows, unfolds from within you as you take each step into truth
and receive it unto yourself. It becomes part of you because Papa’s Son has
all the attributes of His Father. Wisdom is yours, and you are beginning to
temper your impetuous eagerness with wisdom. It makes the sharing so much
more rewarding, fulfilling and beneficial. Little ones, learners, sensing
the maturity, are more trusting.
I see the truth, the common sense in what you
say.
Would that sense were more common!
J.
Well, it is our inheritance from Papa, so it
must be innate within us.
Of course this is so, inherently; but, for a moment, forgotten.
Together, co-operatively —
because the
GRP is co-operation
— we can help to restore, awaken it within the
fragments.
That is the general idea.
Alleluia.
Alleluia, indeed, my friend. Do you find the prospect entertaining?
Entertaining? Exciting, fulfilling;
my heart’s desire as long as I can remember.
We are one in this, brother. Are you
not, now, glad that our walk together has been leisurely? After all, there
was no rush. The leavening had to take its time, run its course. To rush
it causes it to collapse. This was my temptation two thousand years ago,
but I also had been prepared well for the task, and knew it had to unfold
according to the
PLFs, and so was able to
stem the eagerness, knowing all would be perfect and eternal for the
waiting. I knew that infinite patience produces immediate results. You are
beginning to remember that. It is a highly serviceable truth to remember.
I instinctively knew that as soon as I read
it in ACIM. You certainly were well prepared. I had you. Who did you
have?
I think you know the answer to that.
Well, yes; now I think about it. Big Guy.
It had to be; there was no-one else.
Yes. Big Guy. Papa’s Voice. The still, small Voice within each fragment.
The Voice little guy does not want to hear all the while he is listening to
that other, raucous, clamorous voice. But clamour begins to pall
eventually, and it did for me, so I went within, and gradually awakened to
the remembrance of Who I Am.
Glory be!
Yes, indeed. Glory is; who we are, because that is how Papa created
His Son. And now, you, too, begin to remember that that glory is in you
because it is you, and you can amplify the ripple of remembrance as
it expands upon the waters of human consciousness, that our brothers may
begin to remember that they are glory also. But keep in mind, there is
nothing to prove; only to present, share, wisely, lovingly, gently,
caringly and freely.
You forgot enthusiastically.
I knew you could be relied on to remember.
I feel another Alleluia coming on!
Endlessly.
Alleluia!
Walking with you, talking with you, being
with you, living with you, breathing with you is so natural, spontaneous,
joyful, peaceful, wonderful, reassuring, comfortable. I love it.
Well, that’s the way it is with loving brothers who share all the same
desires, interests, objectives. That is also how it is with Papa, Brian.
After all, we are one, aren’t we!?
One step at
a time, slowly, carefully, lovingly, inexorably, are the broken fragments of
the Sonship being drawn back together by the Spirit of Truth, working
tirelessly, invisibly, from the within until we are all restored to our
original estate: full knowledge of Eternity, the Creator and our oneness
there in Him. Sounds good enough for one more alleluia.
Alleluia!
Brian
Longhurst
February 4th 2009
Dear
Friends,
We have
recently been reminded, from the ACIM Workbook for students, that we are the
light of the world (just as Jesus tells us in Matthew chapter 5) and that we
are entitled to miracles because we are Papa’s Son, created in His likeness,
with all His attributes.
The light
of which he speaks is, of course, spiritual light, the Source of
which is the Creator, Who has imbued us with His light. We could not be in
His likeness if that inner, spiritual light were not fundamental to our
created reality. That light is within us, as is Papa (see SFGS,
chapter 10) and as is the
Kingdom of Heaven. Apparent sources of light from the without, such as
sunlight, are not the light of which he speaks. This is not light perceived
with our bodily eyes. It is light discerned with our true vision, which is
of our eternal spirit (the part of us that is our real Self, just like Papa,
because He created us in His likeness – including, of course, the living
light!).
I saw that
light radiating from Jesus when he first manifested to me in 1967 (see SFGS
chapter 2) and again when I saw
him fastening the escape ladder to the floor of ‘bedrock hell,’ as described
in the last vignette at the end of part two
of SFGS.
Jesus
continues this theme by reminding us (because we have forgotten) that
miracles are seen in the light. That light is, of course, the light
within us, not without; the light that gives us true vision. Here is
what he says about this in Lesson 91 (my emboldening and some italics, for
emphasis):
It is
important to remember that miracles and vision necessarily go together. This
needs repeating, and frequent repeating. It is a central idea in your new
thought system
(new, as in right-minded), and the perception that it produces
(true
perception, the nearest thing to knowledge).
The miracle
is always there. Its presence is not caused by your vision; its
absence is not the result of your failure to see. It is only your
awareness of miracles that is affected. You will see them in the
light; you will not see them in the dark.
To you,
then, light is crucial. While you remain in
(spiritual)
darkness,
the miracle remains unseen. Thus you are convinced it is not there. This
follows from the premises from which the darkness comes. Denial of
(spiritual)
light
leads to failure to perceive it. Failure to perceive light is to perceive
darkness. The light is useless to you then, even though it is there. You
cannot use it because its presence is unknown to you. And the seeming
reality of the darkness
(as in,
absence of awareness of spiritual light)
makes the
idea of light meaningless.
To be told
that what you do not see is there sounds like insanity. It is very difficult
to become convinced that it is insanity not to see
(with our
God-given, innate spiritual vision)
what is
there, and to see
(with our
flawed, double, illusory body’s sight)
what
is not there instead. You do not doubt that the body’s eyes can see. You do
not doubt the images they show you are reality. Your faith
(therefore,)
lies in the darkness, not the light. How can this be reversed? For you it
is impossible, but you are not alone in this.
Your
efforts, however little they may be,
have strong support.
Did you but realize how great this strength, your doubts would vanish…
When you have felt the strength in you, which makes all miracles within
your easy reach, you will not doubt. The miracles your sense of weakness
hides will leap into awareness as you feel the strength in you.
He then
offers suggestions for helping us to remember the truth about ourself,
including:
Miracles are seen in light.
The body’s eyes do not perceive the light.
But I am not a body. What am I?
…What you
think you are is a belief to be undone. But what you really are must be
revealed to you. The belief you are a body calls for correction, being
a mistake. The truth of what you are calls on the strength in you
(the
strength of Self; the Spirit of Truth)
to bring to
your awareness what the mistake conceals.
If you are
not a body, what are you? You need to be aware of what the Holy Spirit uses
to replace the image of a body in your mind. You need to feel something
to put your faith in, as you lift it from the body. You need a real
experience of something else, something more solid and more sure; more
worthy of your faith, and really there.
If you are
not a body, what are you? Ask this in honesty, and then devote several
minutes to allowing your mistaken thoughts about your attributes to be
corrected, and their opposites to take their place. Say, for example:
I am not weak, but strong.
I am not helpless, but all powerful.
I am not limited, but unlimited.
I am not doubtful, but certain.
I am not an illusion, but a reality.
I cannot see in darkness, but in light.
(You may
find it very helpful and affirming to think carefully about these, and see
what further positive affirmations you can add, for yourself.)
It is these
positive, God-given attributes that go to the transforming of our
self-perception from littleness to Who we really are. How can we be
restored to Who we really are all the while we keep believing — including
subliminally — we are what ego has convinced us we are? Here is a clear
example of how the Course can correct our indoctrinated minds from
misperception to truth, from darkness to the true light of spiritual
discernment.
Having
reminded us that, in our spiritually enfeebled condition, we are given
strong help, he then reminds us, in Lesson 92, that not only are miracles
seen in the true light of spiritual discernment, but that that light and the
strength we are given are one. This is because, when we can truly
spiritually see, we truly spiritually know — the truth of
Eternity. This is an inner knowing and is nothing to do with what
one assimilates in seats of higher learning, or from the daily press.
They impart
information (some might say often flawed!), not knowledge. Knowledge comes
only from the All Knowing One, through our within. The Spirit of
Truth never imparts flawed information, only true, eternal, unchangeable
knowledge; correction for our upside-down thinking; the knowledge of truth
that will set us free from flawed, misconceived, misconveyed, misperceived,
misconstrued information; the chains of time and place, the ruler of which
is ego.
Jesus
further reminds us:
...It is God’s strength in you
that is the light in which you see, as it is His Mind with which you think.
His strength denies your weakness. It is your weakness that sees
through the body’s eyes, peering about in darkness
(i.e. the
absence of awareness of spiritual light)
to behold the likeness of
itself; the small, the weak, the sickly and the dying, those in need, the
helpless and afraid, the sad, the poor, the starving and the joyless
(stark images, but Jesus does not mince his words; a breath of fresh air in
an ego world of political correctness — a feeble device to convince us we
can fabricate peace on Earth through outer contrivances).
These are seen through eyes that cannot see
(because
our body’s eyes are not the mechanism of our true, spiritual vision)
and
cannot bless.
Strength overlooks these things
by seeing past appearances
(appearances that emanate from the without).
It
(Strength)
keeps its steady gaze upon the light that lies beyond them. It unites with
light, of which it is a part. It sees itself. It brings the light in
which your Self appears. In darkness you perceive a self that is not
there. Strength is the truth about you; weakness is an idol
falsely worshipped and adored that strength may be dispelled, and darkness
rule where God appointed that there should be light
(is there
one amongst us who can fault this emboldened, inspiring statement?).
Strength comes from truth,
and shines with light its Source has given it
;
weakness reflects the darkness of its maker. It is sick and looks on
sickness, which is like itself. Truth is a saviour and can only will for
happiness and peace for everyone. It gives its strength to everyone
who asks, in limitless supply. It sees that lack in anyone
would be a lack in all
(because in
truth, we are all one, and only appear as many — fragments — to our
misperceiving, illusory body’s eyes).
And so it gives its light that all may see and benefit as one
(and as we
see thusly, so shall we see truly, that we are one).
Its strength is shared
(as is
Papa’s, and His Son’s wont),
that it may bring to all the miracle in which they will unite in purpose and
forgiveness and in love.
Weakness
(born of ego),
which looks in darkness, cannot see a purpose in forgiveness and in love. It
sees all others different from itself, and nothing in the world that it
would share. It judges and condemns, but does not love... It separates
itself from what it sees, while light and strength see themselves as one.
The light of strength is not the light you see. It does not change and
flicker and go out. It does not shift from night to day, and back till the
morning comes again.
The light of strength is
constant, sure as love, forever glad to give itself away, because it cannot
give but to itself. No one can ask in vain to share its sight, and none
who enters its abode can leave without a miracle before his eyes, and
strength and light abiding in his heart.
The strength in you will offer
you the light, and guide your seeing so you do not dwell on idle shadows
that the body’s eyes provide for self-deception. Strength and light unite in
you, and where they meet, your Self stands ready to embrace you as Its Own.
Such is the meeting place we try today to find and rest in, for the peace of
God is where your Self, His Son, is waiting now to meet Itself again, and be
as one.
(This whole
paragraph is so magnificent I want to embolden it all, to illuminate it.
May our vision be opened to receive its radiance, so that our whole being is
filled with light.)
To
summarise, then: we are the light of the world, just as Jesus tells us;
miracles (to which we are entitled) are seen in the light, but
ego-conditioning of our minds causes us to be blind to that light and
perceive ourselves as weak; we are given strong help to see the true,
spiritual light; that strength and the light are one, so we are enabled to
see our true Self miracles as an expression of that Self.
Love and
blessings abundant,
Brian
Longhurst
February 11th 2009
Dear
Friends,
This week’s
MoE has a slightly different format from previous occasions. This week, I
am asking that we join together in an exercise in the all important matter
of healing and wholeness. I ask this because I know it benefits everyone,
including ourself; a compelling reason, I feel sure we can all agree.
I do not
doubt we are all interested in wholeness, a condition largely absent in the
world where we perceive ourselves as separate, the Sonship fragmented into
littleness, and experiencing fear, guilt and death. None of that is true in
the only reality — Eternity — so our making it appear true in time and place
can only be an illusion. To become whole again from a broken state requires
a healing procedure.
So, this
week’s message is about a joint exercise in healing, that we all may give,
and at the same time, receive (because in our true reality of Eternity,
giving and receiving are one and the same thing, and are simultaneous) of
wholeness. But a little background is helpful, so that we can all be aware
of the processes involved, so please bear with me as we proceed, one step at
a time, toward the objectives.
Jesus
reminds us in ACIM that it is our minds that need healing, and any apparent
dis-ease of body has its origin in our minds; it is from there that miracles
emanate. We have also been recently reminded that, as Papa’s Son, the
Christ, we are entitled to miracles, that Papa has established
miracles as our right. Today’s endeavour is an exercise in the miracle of
healing, and from which all can be palpably, meaningfully blessed, if only
we can believe. If we are not yet able to believe, we will still be
blessed, but because of our resistance to receiving the blessing, we will
experience it to a lesser degree.
Jesus also
reminds us that because we are one, what is done for one is done for us all;
what is possible for one is possible for us all; that what we do for one
of these, the least of our brethren, we have done for our self, because,
in truth, we are one.
Dis-ease is
the absence of peace, and dis-ease is, therefore, fear — a perceived barrier
to peace. There is but one cause of fear, even though there seem to be
myriad causes, and that is the false belief that we are separate from Papa
and from each other. That separation is actually in our minds, though
bodies seem to be further confirmation of apparent separateness.
Most of us
are attempting to deny, or cover, our fear, and are seeking happiness,
peace, fulfilment in the wrong place: the without. It is the wrong place
because it is only a distraction, and will not remove the cause of
our fear. The without is everything that appears to be outside our
mind, because we are projecting it from the split-off, ego-controlled part
of our mind, like a projector projects a film onto a screen, though in
reality it cannot be outside our mind any more than we can be outside Papa’s
mind. The within, the only ‘place,’ or state of being that has any reality,
is in our mind, and since our mind is in the Mind of Papa (because that is
where we actually are) that is the Source of everything.
Therefore,
it is in our mind, and only in our mind, that dis-ease can be
corrected to ease, or peace, or wholeness (which is the same as holiness but
has nothing to do with religious piety; rather, it is a joyful state of
awareness of our oneness with the Source of all); dysfunction of mind
corrected to functionality of our true, Christ Mind; fear released into
peace. Inner peace; peace of mind.
This
correcting can only happen by knowing the truth (the only knowing that is
possible), and that can only happen by believing it can happen; by
faith. We have to believe that the Holy Spirit can transform misperceiving
into spiritual knowing. Jesus remembered, and therefore knew (the truth of
Eternity), and one knowing is enough to begin, to enable all
to that knowing, because we are all one. All the while we believe we are
separate we cannot know; but we can have faith.
Faith, it
hardly needs be said, is a state of mind. Many people in Judea, Samaria and
Galilee during Jesus’ time on Earth had faith that he could heal them, and
that was enough to enable them to receive the healing of ailments of mind
and body that he willed to give them. Of great importance to our
co-operative exercise today is the further observation that even others,
believing on behalf of the dis-eased person was sufficient to
enable their healing by Jesus. Good examples of this are Jairus’ daughter
(Mk. 5:22 ff) and the Centurion’s servant (Mt. 8:5 ff). This clearly
indicates that faith is a prerequisite to healing, though it does not matter
whose faith it is. Let us keep this important point in mind.
We began,
at our creation, with full knowing, of all that our Creator knows, because
He created His Son in His own likeness. That became lost to our remembrance
when we chose to believe in separation (like the prodigal son, who left his
father’s house and went off on his own, into a ‘far country’). However, the
Holy Spirit, our true Self, still has that knowingness and is keeping it
safe for us, waiting with infinite patience to restore it to us as soon as
we are ready, believing, to receive it unto ourself again.
A person
may not have knowingness or faith (belief), through conditioning of
events or circumstances, but always it is our free choice whether to keep
faith, even in the face of adversity, or, by doubting, to move further from
the light of spiritual discernment. Faith of another, or many others, can,
then, be enough to enable the Holy Spirit to work His works for the healing
of such a person, who may have lost his faith through events conditioning
his mind to a deeper sense of separateness from Papa.
I would now
share with you the circumstances of such a person, a brother to us all — as
we all are to each other — within the Sonship. It is important for us to be
aware of the key circumstances that have brought this brother to his present
situation, so that we can understand the path by which it came about. I do
this within the context that oftentimes we can be dismissive of a person or
his circumstances because we do not know how he arrived at such a distressed
state of being. But to understand all is to forgive all, and
forgiveness is the path to the miracle of healing, of wholeness — for our
brothers and ourselves, and therefore for us all, because we are one.
I shall
refer to him as M.B. He is in his sixties. For many years he was married
to V.J. V.J. lost her dad to cancer when she was 13. This deeply
traumatised her, filling her with anger towards Papa, Who, she perceived at
such an impressionable age, had taken her dad from her. She developed an
intolerance of illness. If M.B., or anyone, had a headache, or the ‘flu,
she was unsympathetic. She said she had never had a headache, or any other
malady. Whether this was true is not known, for so great was her fear that
she was in denial about many things.
Then,
before she was 50, suddenly, she was struck down with breast cancer. This
spread to other parts of her body, causing terrible pain, but she refused to
acknowledge it until near the end. She did not wish to receive sympathy,
compassion, help, understanding, just as she was intolerant of others in
their ailments. M.B. was in an agony of anguish, desperate to be
supportive of her, knowing the seriousness of her condition as she faded
away before his eyes, but largely spurned in his endeavours. This caused him to
feel a failure, and guilty that he was useless to her in her hour of need.
A person in such a state can go either toward faith, or abandon faith. He
neither saw nor heard anything in these circumstances to encourage or
promote faith.
V.J.
departed from her ravaged body after a short time and M.B. eventually
married again, some years later. His fear and guilt over his perception
that he did not provide the support for V.J. that he should have done
(through no fault of his own) prevent him from speaking of all he has
experienced and enabling a release from that misplaced fear and guilt. He
is confused and fearful about God and Eternity, thus, like so many of us,
avoids thinking or talking about Them. It is our destiny to be like Jesus,
whose mission — and his joy — was to speak, share, extend, his knowledge and
love of Both, so here is an indicator of the degree of our perceived
separation from truth, Papa, peace.
Recently
M.B. has been diagnosed with cancer of the œsophagus. Ahead for him is the
prospect of weeks of chemotherapy followed by surgery that is likely to take
a whole day to complete, and a year to convalesce. If the cancer doesn’t
spread, and he recovers. Is this what any of us would wish upon a brother?
Ego would
have us believe that there is not much the rest of us can do, except feel
great empathy for such ‘victims;’ maybe pray for them, but what is prayer
anyway, and does it really work? It seems a pretty hit and miss affair, and
because we can’t see what is happening, the incentive seems fairly low. So,
let us wish the poor soul well and keep our own heads below parapet, for
fear of us being the next target for a capricious and vengeful god.
However, we
are not all at that place of negative misperception, and can adopt a more
realistic, enlightened stance, if we wish, as I hope will be the case for
those who see this message, to input our brotherly love and compassion for
M.B.
Let us now
consider some salient points within the context of M.B.’s circumstances.
I was
reminded by a loved one from the Realms of Light back in 1969 that
‘Prayer is an attunement, not a pleading.’
It is not
for us to know whether M.B. chose, aforetime, that this would be his
time and way to lay aside his body; that he has, perhaps, done what he came
here to accomplish. So, to pray for his recovery from cancer, followed by
further long life with a body, may be going against his higher-Self choice.
Therefore, rather than pleading for mercy upon him, to spare his bodily
life, we might ask that the divine will be done, remembering that the divine
will is the will of the Son as well as the Father.
In the
preface to ACIM, Jesus says:
...if given
to the Holy Spirit,
(our)
relationships can become the holiest things on earth — the miracles that
point the way to the return to Heaven... The Holy Spirit transforms them
(from brokenness)
into perfect
lessons in forgiveness and in awakening from the dream. Each one is an
opportunity to let perceptions be healed and errors corrected. Each one is
another chance to forgive oneself by forgiving the other...
... The body
appears to be largely self-motivated and independent, yet it actually
responds only to the intentions of the mind. If the mind wants to use it for
attack in any form, it becomes prey to sickness, age and decay
(here we can see how, deep within M.B.’s ego-indoctrinated unconscious,
fearful, guilty, hurting mind, he could be choosing to punish [attack]
himself so cruelly, even though with his higher, Christ Mind, he would have
no such ambition).
If the mind
accepts the Holy Spirit’s purpose for it
(the body)
instead, it becomes a useful way of communicating with others, invulnerable
as long as it is needed, and to be gently laid by when its use is over.
(We are
reminded in the ACIM Workbook that we are the light of the world; that our
only function here is to be the light of the world, through true
forgiveness; that love and light, peace and wholeness are one and the same.
If M.B. is in a place where he feels he cannot forgive himself — for what he
has, in truth, never done — then we, his brothers, can forgive him,
and this will assist his release, and our own, from ego-entrapped mind back
to his, and our, rightful, Christ Mind.)
The opposite of seeing through
the body’s eyes is the vision of Christ, which reflects strength rather than
weakness, unity rather than separation, and love rather than fear
(and, in the context of our joint objective for M.B., wholeness instead of
dis-ease).
The opposite of hearing through
the body’s ears is communication through the Voice for God, the Holy Spirit,
which abides in each of us.
(We
can commun(icat)e with M.B., mind-to-mind [please see the MoE dated February
27th 2008 for more detailed information on mind-to-mind
communing], through the Holy Spirit sending/giving him the love and light
that we are; forgive him for what he has never done — and at the same time
receive forgiveness that maybe we have been denying ourself for what we also
have never actually done, but perceive to be untold sins that are, in fact,
nothing more than mistakes, readily corrected by choosing with the Holy
Spirit instead of ego.)
His voice
seems distant and difficult to hear because the ego, which speaks for the
little, separated self, seems to be much louder. This is actually reversed.
The Holy Spirit speaks with unmistakable clarity and overwhelming appeal. No
one who does not choose to identify with the body could possibly be deaf to
His messages of release and hope
(for, in the present context, not just ourself, but for our brother, M.B.),
nor could he fail to accept joyously the vision of Christ in glad exchange
for his miserable picture of himself.
Christ’s
vision is the Holy Spirit’s gift, God’s alternative to the illusion of
separation and to the belief in the reality of sin, guilt and death. It is
the one correction for all errors of perception... Its kindly light shows
all things from another point of view, reflecting the thought system that
arises from knowledge and making return to God not only possible but
inevitable... Sin, sickness and attack are seen as misperceptions calling
for remedy through gentleness and love. Defences are laid down
(not just
against perceived threat of attack from ‘another’ but also from ourself,
as can be seen in our example of M.B.)
because
where there is no attack there is no need for them. Our bothers’ needs
become our own, because they are taking the journey with us as we go to God.
Without us they would lose their way. Without them we could never find our
own...
Acknowledging Christ in all our brothers
(including, today, M.B.; for Christ is at peace, whole, free from dis-ease),
we recognize His Presence in ourselves. Forgetting all our
misperceptions, and with nothing from the past to hold us back, we can
remember God...
Here, once
again is a reminder of the Christ service that is asked for today:
Verily
I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these
my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
(Mt.25:40) And, as we have done it unto one, or all, of our brethren, we
have done it unto our self.
Heartfelt
thanks for your contribution to our joint exercise today. Any comments or
questions are welcomed, and I will gladly provide an update, as appropriate.
In
brotherly love and in faith,
Brian
Longhurst.
Here is my
offering prayer for M.B. Please feel free to use it as your own offering,
adding to or amending it as the Spirit moves you:
Heavenly Papa, I give
thanks for the life of Your beloved son,
our brother M.B. I
lift him up in my heart and mind, irradiate him with light and love, and
bless him for release from the illusion of fear, dis-ease and brokenness,
and for restoration back into the peace, wholeness and oneness of the
Sonship with us all, in You.
February 18th 2009
Dear
Friends,
Our joint
‘global healing vigil’ for our brother M.B. has triggered an outpouring of
love, blessing, giving, gratitude from all who have contacted me about it,
and, I am in no doubt, an indeterminate number of others also, around the
world. The thread that was consistent amongst those who replied has been
that it was a privilege, a blessing for them, and they have been up-welled
with a deep sense of gratitude at the opportunity to participate in such an
event.
This has
been a combined, Kingdomly act of giving, and Jesus reminds us in ACIM that
there is no difference, or gap, between giving and receiving; that the giver
is enriched by the giving, even as is the recipient, who, having received,
has the gift to extend further amongst his brethren.
There have
been some postings on the Forum page that
indicate the joyous, blessed, light-filled experience it has been, and there
will be more postings to come. Truly, we are, as Jesus reminded us
two-thousand years ago, the Light of the world. Now is the appointed time
when we are beginning to bring that Light out from the ‘bushel’ under which
we have been hiding it, and place it on a lamp stand, so that it can give
its light to all that are in the house. (Mt. 5:15)
The
question now arises, where do we go from here? This is a question for which
I am unable to provide a definitive answer — nor need there be one at this
stage in the unfolding of the GRP —
though I can offer a general idea, based on how I believe we all feel about
last week’s event. That is, that it generated an enlargement, not of the
hole in the ozone layer (our communing with Heaven produces only benign
outcomes!), but of the ‘portal between Heaven and Earth’.
That, of
course, means that the communication link between the Realms of Light,
Eternity, Christ Mind (which includes love, compassion, caring, giving,
experiencing the love of Heaven right within our own hearts and minds) and
the time and place consciousness in which we perceive ourselves, has been
strengthened, increased, by some significant order of magnitude.
That, of
itself, is a great cause for rejoicing, for it assuredly means that the
‘marriage between Heaven and Earth’ is one significant step nearer
consummation, so we can be in no doubt that something well beyond an
isolated event for M.B.’s benefit will accrue, in myriad ways. Let us be on
the lookout, vigilant for them, lest some escape our slumbering attention
and we miss a blessing — and, indeed, an opportunity to bless. Their
outworking in Earth-life, practical terms begin to come to light, one step
at a time, in perfect accord with the PLFs.
These will
particularly include a growing glimmer of awareness that Self — our higher,
real being, the Spirit of Truth — is ‘winning;’ the still, small voice of
truth and right-minded reason is gaining more of our attention in
clamour-land; the raucous shrieks of ego begin to pall, to take a fall from
the forefront of our littleness focus, as its empty promises become seen
more and more for what they are: empty. As we progress, under gentle
guiding, nudging, drawing, loving of the Strong Help that is always with us,
we begin to find that occasions on which we are able to relinquish the ego
leasehold on our life become more frequent, spontaneous.
We remember
more often that forgiveness opens that portal — which is in our hearts —
further, and holding grievances, unforgiveness, closes it. We are reminded
that we are entitled to miracles because we are Papa’s beloved Son, and He
has established them as our right, just as we saw in our guide to Eternity,
Jesus; that they are freely available to us at every moment, and that Papa
is standing by to trade in our grievances for them, the very instant we
realise what a beneficial trade that is. We begin to realise that we
actually only want what belongs to us because it is good for us and
for all our brothers. The light begins to show us that grievances and
unforgiveness have been idols to us, and we now are awakening enough to
choose to have no such gods before Papa.
This
dawning awareness of progress begins to become detectable at odd moments,
and that is mightily encouraging; but it is not the end. It is not even the
beginning of the end. But it is the end of the beginning (with
apologies to Winston Churchill!). There is still a long road ahead of
us, so it is vital to be consistently vigilant for Papa and His
Kingdom and against ego, because ego is aware that its end is
signalled by our forward progress toward Home, and is very ‘subtil’, wily,
devious, with plenty of pitfalls set along the road. The most dangerous
enemy pitfall is complacency.
Rather than
letting fear of pitfalls drag us into a pit (of fear!) we can place ourself
in the care of the Strong Help, with absolute confidence, freeing us
significantly to focus on the positive, and this makes us eager for more
progress. Eagerness is not the same as impatience. Eagerness is a
Kingdomly quality; impatience is an ego characteristic. We can be eager
and infinitely patient at the same time. Jesus says infinite patience
brings immediate effects, and is the way in which time is exchanged for
eternity (T-5.VI.12:1,2). One can be eager and infinitely patient
simultaneously. That is vital because it is allowing Self to take the
lead. It is allowing that dispels ego, because allowing is
withdrawing confrontation, withdrawing from conflict.
Ego has its
existence in conflict, tension, anxiety, uncertainty because ego knows
absolutely nothing. It gathers information endlessly, but this does not
give it knowledge. Knowledge is, and can only be, of truth, and ego does
not know, nor can it ever understand, truth. Even with information, ego is
confrontational, doubtful, questioning, aggressive. Information does not
bring peace, but only the impatient scrabble, striving, searching for
more information, which never satisfies it.
Just as
Jesus knew that he already knew everything, had everything, including, of
course, wholeness/holiness — that is why he was able (and still is) to give
it away freely (and still does) to all who, believing, were/are willing, and
therefore able, to receive it — so our true Self also knows that we
already have everything, know everything. Since we are one, with Jesus, in
the Sonship, how could it be otherwise? So Self is at ease; peaceful;
happy; joyful; resides in stillness. Self understands clamour,
dis-ease, fear, but does not know them, because they are not real,
and Self knows only reality.
Self knows
also that the only way our littleness, persona self can move up into
awareness of that state of being is to relinquish contest, conflict. This
is because ego can only have existence in conflict, tension, antagonism.
The higher Self that we have found so elusive, so difficult to attune with,
is not, was not and never will be, above or beyond us, or in some
indeterminate future time, but is the truth of Who we are, right here and
right now. The link is permanent, un-severable, but the only access
we can ever have to Self is through willingness for it to be; faith;
willingness to relinquish our ego-leasehold on our life.
Ego is the
tension of the rope in a tug o’ war, in which two sides are pulling against
each other, expending a lot of contrary energy but going nowhere. When one
side stops pulling, and lets go of the rope, there is no more tension in
it. When that side stops pulling, it does not take the opposing side (ego)
long to realise there is no more contest. Then we know it cannot beat us,
because we have ceased to pull against it, thus removing its source of
energy, of conflict. We have ceased giving ego energy and have instead
become observers, observing, now, that the contest was never real, other
than the reality we were giving it by believing it. Once we have seen the
truth, the illusion of a contest, a conflict, disappears. As Jesus said to
me last week,
“You ‘win’
(the tug o’ war with ego)
only by not trying to win;
not trying to have control over. That is its ploy. That’s how ego snares
you. Inner peace is there for you. Be still, and allow it.”
There is no
conflict between ego and Self, because Self is unassailable, innocent,
indestructible, and no defence is required when there is no attack seen. It
is only our belief in separation that perceives attack, even though in
reality it is not there. As Jesus says,
‘Nothing real can be
threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God.’
(ACIM
Preface.) Like everything in time and place, conflict, stress, dis-ease, is
not real. We can release our hold on the rope at any moment of our choosing
and the conflict is over. This is not saying we should throw in our job (or
our spouse! or any other relationship) on a whim because our experience is
telling us it is stressful.
What it is
saying is, the stress is perceived, and we can change our perception, change
our perspective, change our mind and choose — with Strong Help, unfailing
help, from Self — Christ vision of our brothers and of our self. If we are
only a little willing to choose it, the Strong Help will accomplish it for
us. But He will not accomplish it for us until we choose it. Until
that moment He stands by, lovingly, eagerly waiting, with infinite patience,
not intervening, because we have made our choice for separation and fear,
and He honours that, even though he knows it is an insane choice.
But,
because One of the fragments of the Sonship saw through the illusion
and remembered Who he was, and had loving compassion upon the ‘sick and
fainting spirits’ of his brethren, he came back to help us, to heal us from
our insanity, help us to remember Who we are. How could he not? Thus, as
we move, aided by that Strong Help, more and more into attunement with Self,
with the Kingdom, less attuned to fear, so do we spontaneously become more
loving, compassionate, forgiving, aware that grievances are no longer part
of Who we are. Then, when we hear of inner-conflicted brothers, at dis-ease
with themselves, we will experience an inner up-welling of love, compassion,
blessing toward them, for their release from ego’s illusory but
oh-so-real-seeming clutches. This is happening, will happen more and more,
until we are all healed, whole/holy, one, once more, for ever.
Peace, joy
and love bless us all, for our continuing awakening,
Brian
Longhurst
February 25th 2009
Dear
Friends,
Over the
decades since the 1960s Jesus has said to me many times, ‘Espouse good;
eschew evil.’ That could be considered a judgement call,
describing something — anything — as good or evil, and Jesus counsels us in
ACIM not to be judgemental. This is where nuances come into play. So let
us define ‘evil,’ from a Kingdom of Heaven perspective.
One might
say that it is something discerned as not being in accord with the best
interests of all who might be connected to — or affected by — the thought,
word or deed, either directly or indirectly. If we all lived by such a
standard, there might be fewer newspapers to which we would be willing to
subscribe! (Purely an observation, you understand☺)
Of course, ‘good’ would simply have the opposite definition.
So within a
wider perspective, he could have said ‘Espouse light, or truth, or love, or
peace; eschew darkness, or illusion, or fear, or uncertainty.’
How hard it
is to not judge. How important is it to turn judgement into observation, or
discernment? Do we not judge 50 times a day? Is not ‘wise judgement’
highly desirable? Yet Jesus counsels us that it is the relinquishment
of judgement that is wise. He reminds us that judgement does not exist in
Eternity, but only in time and place — ego’s domain — so judgement belongs
solely to ego. Judgement is projecting our own unconscious fear and guilt
onto another.
And since,
in the eternal reality there is only one of us, we can only be judging our
self. This makes sense of his words:
Judge not, that ye be not
judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what
measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. (Mt. 7:1, 2.)
It is not God who does this judging, but we, ourselves. Who amongst us
would judge if we knew it was our self we were judging?
As with
miracles there is no order of size or scale to judgement. What we may deem
a small judgement is still a judgement and this is a litmus test of our
subjugation to ego. To observe that something is or is not in the
best interests of all is not being judgemental; it is simply being
discerning. To discern whether a thought, word or deed is serviceable or
unserviceable to our Kingdomly aspirations, and therefore, to espouse it or
eschew it, is entirely beneficial.
As never
before, humanity is facing a critical opportunity to choose how we will
proceed for our future. At present we are rapidly constructing a
compassion-free culture, where corporate and institutionalised greed,
self-serving, lying and indifference are blanking off our true, loving,
caring, compassionate nature as Papa’s Son. Our three-dimensional, illusory
realm is fabricated by our own, upside-down minds, making a consensus
‘reality’, with cause and effect being the governing principles. If we do
not consciously choose to eschew this ‘evil’ and live our lives espousing
‘good’ (light, love, peace, compassion; all things Kingdomly) then it is
inevitable that eventually we will experience the effects. Indeed, many of
those unKingdomly effects are what the world is reaping even now.
It is not,
of course, too late, but it will serve us all to be aware that we,
individually, can make an incalculable, invaluable contribution to the
GRP, from our own within, without
changing job, lifestyle, spouse (!) or anything else in the without. There
is but one thing we can beneficially change, which will collapse time for
our self and for all the fragments of the Sonship. It will cost none of us
one penny piece. That one thing is attitude. Ego would have us believe that
we can do nothing; that we are helpless as the world spirals downward into
oblivion, dragging us with it, so we might as well go with the flow; if you
can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Yet that is, unsurprisingly, knowing ego’s
agenda, entirely untrue.
A
fundamental change of attitude from fear, sense of helplessness, dismay,
resignation, can be effected by choosing steadfastly, one-pointedly,
committedly, resolutely, unwaveringly, to remember Who we really are. We
have the example of Who we all really are in Jesus. John reminds us:
Beloved, now are we
the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we
know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we
shall see him as he is. (1Jn. 3:2.)
He is here,
now, and indeed, has never not been:
I am with you alway, even unto
the end of the world. (Mt. 28:20.)
If it is
true that we are Papa’s innocent, all-empowered, beloved Son (do we need two
guesses on that?), we can change our perception of reality, and that of our
fellows, from our own within, starting immediately. There is only
now.
In Michael
Roads’ book ‘Into a Timeless Realm’ Jesus says to him:
“...within all this
(consensus
reality)
there are those who plumb the
depths of depravity and cruelty, victimising many of the weak and helpless.
Equally, there are others who rise far above all conflict and differences,
finding the deepest Love and compassion for all humanity. Inadvertently,
the expression of these two extremes of human consciousness creates whole
new frames of reality, for these people no longer fit even in the periphery
of consensus reality.”
What this
is telling us is that whoever we are, we create our own reality, and if
enough people of one mind gather together, a whole new consensus reality can
be fabricated. Of the former extreme, we have a classic example in the
Nazis. They tried to change the world by force. Ego has many more ‘subtil’
ways than that at its disposal.
Stealth is
much more subtle than force; and apathy, or complacency, lack of resolve and
one-pointed commitment to ‘espousing good’ (e.g. the Kingdom of Heaven on
Earth) is its greatest ally. Of the latter extreme, we are all at free
choice to join and become of one Mind with Jesus and the GRP. Since each of
us is a divine Being of Light and Love, the latter will be entirely resonant
with our inner reality, whereas the former is always, ultimately, found to
be entirely repugnant.
Today,
stealth is at work, eroding freedom of choice, stifling, or anæsthetising us
(or trying to) to compassion and brotherhood within the Sonship. So it may
seem a struggle, a lost cause even, to swim against the tide. But there are
two massively reassuring pieces of good news for us here. First, that to
which we aspire is within, the only true reality; unreachable by ego,
whose illusory power is only in the without, and all illusions, however real
they may seem to our earthly senses, come to an end because they are
only of time and place. Secondly, we have Strong Help.
That Help
is Self; our true reality, which is the Spirit of Truth and is with
us always, along with Jesus. If we were aware of that Presence for one
millisecond, we would never doubt again that our feelings of being
disenfranchised, weak, little, lonely, afraid, guilty or fearful are only an
illusion; we would know, as we shall know, if only we can believe,
that Self is our true and only reality, forever.
Then would
we be able to leave behind our perception of time and place as being a
struggle — just as it was not a struggle for Jesus, our brother, whom we are
like — by using our God-given free will to willingly surrender our
ego-leasehold on our life back to Self, to the Holy Spirit. No-one ever
said this is easy — and for most of us there will be the very real-seeming
appearance of conflict, fear, chaos — but it is possible,
achievable.
This is
where steadfast one-pointedness comes into its own. Keep choosing Love;
keep surrendering to Self. Much of the time this will seem
ineffective, and this is how ego wins so many battles. But steadfastness
will mean that we will have occasions when we can, and do make
contact with that Strong Help. Achieved but once, it becomes easier and our
resolve greatly strengthened.
Love is the
source of that Strong Help. Nothing is achieved through fear. Many are
committed to ‘saving planet Earth’ by campaigning for stopping
deforestation, recycling, 101 environmentally beneficial activities. But
first we must save our self, from fear. Anything we undertake motivated by
fear cannot succeed, however grandiose the activity may seem. Fear is
destructive and sets into operation conflict. Love, without conditions,
(there is no other love) wins hearts and minds, transforms contrariness and
antipathy into co-operation, willingness to join with us in Kingdomly
desires and activities, without us having to preach or pressurise.
However we
feel about all this, however downhearted at what we see around us, feel
within us, Jesus knows all of it, and it is all within the GRP. So much is
it so that he says, ‘When all around you is chaos and confusion, then
rejoice, for the Kingdom is at hand, even at the doors.’ What more evidence
could we ask of its imminence?
Regardless
of our choices for ‘good’ or ‘evil’ at this juncture, all will have been
brought lovingly into the fold of oneness by the end of the Aquarian Age,
and the three measures of meal fully leavened, thanks to Jesus and the
infallible and unstoppable GRP.
Here’s to
the brotherhood of mankind, and to steadfastness!
Brian
Longhurst
March 4th 2009
Dear
Friends,
I would
like to share with you some illumination I received during this past week
about our sense of vulnerability.
Time and
place (and all the aspects of it, like our belief in separation, that caused
the illusion of bodies, the physical universe, decay and death etc) — all of
which is the opposite of our true, eternal love, joy and
peace, oneness-reality in Papa — are brought into 'illusory reality' to our
sensory perception by our split-off, upside-down mind.
The
mistaken belief that we are in time and place — the antithesis of Eternity,
Which is safe, secure, unchanging and unchangeable, and Where we are forever
invulnerable — has imbued us with a subliminal, all-pervading sense of
vulnerability. This is because we innately feel (even though most of us are
trying hard to blank it off from our conscious awareness and thinking) that
we have 'left Home', left Papa, and have thus found ourself in a place, a
state, of uncertainty, un-knowingness, doubt, anxiety, fear. In our true
state as Self, Papa's one Son, we know
that we are invulnerable, so there is nothing that can cause us fear;
only peace, joy, love.
Our true
Self (also known as the Holy Spirit, or Spirit of Truth, or Holy Breath) is
always 'close by', which in actuality is closer than hands and feet, closer
than our next breath, closer than our next heartbeat — ‘within’; loving,
upholding, caring beyond imagining to our Earth-mind consciousness (the
consciousness of fear).
Ego can
only have existence while we feel vulnerable, fearful. In contrast, Self
knows It is/we are invulnerable, so has no fear. Thus was Jesus
able to say, in Gethsemane, moments before his arrest,
.
. .the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me
(Jn. 14:30).
Self (Who, to ego-self, little self, fearful self, illusory self, is
perceived as the enemy, along with Papa) wants us to remember, to
choose to accept
our vulnerability, allow it, rather than trying to
hide it, cover it up;
to stand naked and unashamed before Papa, acknowledging, exposing our sense
of vulnerability and giving it up, releasing it to Him.
In
exchange He will restore to our awareness our invulnerability, accompanied
by the attendant peace, joy and love.
The pivotal
point here is that it is our fear of acknowledging before Papa
(and of course, crucially, to our
self, in His presence), our sense, or perception, of
vulnerability that is keeping us
in that consciousness of fear. This causes us to, in effect, hold onto our
fear, keeping us in littleness, the opposite of Self, Who is exactly like
Papa: peace, joy and love.
Peace is unavailable to us until we can
release to Papa our fear and sense of vulnerability. This
is because the sense of vulnerability — whether subliminal or conscious, it
makes no difference — keeps us on the waveband of fear, which means we are
unable to commun(icat)e with Self, Who is on the waveband of peace,
invulnerability. It is like trying to communicate on a long-waveband
transmitter/receiver with someone on a short-waveband transmitter/receiver:
Impossible.
Ego has us
believing we must keep up the pretence, the illusion, the outward appearance
of self-sufficiency, being strong, 'invulnerable' (another reversal of truth
by ego to keep us in the illusion).
Yet it is a PLF that that which we fear most is what we draw unto ourself.
This
subliminal sense of vulnerability has so suffused our upside-down mind that
we cannot handle it consciously, and we try to cover it, hide it, disguise
it, with a ‘mask’ that we present to the world. For many of us this could be
in the form of bluster, arrogance, pride, braggadocio, bullying; or an array
of obsessive behaviours such as addiction to gambling, alcohol, drugs; or
any other attempt to divert us from acknowledging our sense of
vulnerability.
Many
youngsters seek an outer sense of invulnerability within gang culture, and
who can blame them when society is not helping them to remember their true
invulnerability? Society is unable to do this, having forgotten the truth
of its own invulnerability. The forgetfulness is ubiquitous because
separation causes us to believe we will become impecunious, frail, ill,
disabled, unloved, unemployed, unemployable, ridiculed, despised, mocked;
and even if none of those, we will inevitably grow old and ‘die.’
All this is
contrary to our true Self, Who knows
Its Self to be invulnerable. This is why we have little or no awareness of
Self. We are on the opposite waveband; the waveband of darkness, fear and
vulnerability. By acknowledging
our sense of vulnerability to Papa/Self (instead of trying to
pretend
we are not vulnerable), and
releasing that sense of vulnerability to Him, we will then be
able to accept, and have ‘room’ to receive from Him — and thus be restored
to — the state of invulnerability
that is rightfully ours.
This
puts us back on the same waveband as Self,
enabling the re-establishment of contact, and ultimately, oneness, with
Self, Who is our link to our oneness with/in Papa.
In summary,
then, it is the act of giving this sense of vulnerability to Papa that
releases us from it, enabling us to receive back from Him the peace and
freedom from fear that awareness of our invulnerability gives us, that is
legitimately ours, and thus enables the restoration of our true state of
being as Self, Papa’s pure, innocent and perfect, beloved Son. We can be
certain of this because of the extreme example of invulnerability that Jesus
demonstrated in the crucifixion and resurrection.
So, we
could say:
Papa, I give you my sense of
vulnerability. I place it upon Your altar, as a symbol of my desire, my
will, my commitment to You that I would have no other gods before You. In
deep gratitude I open my heart and mind to receive from You restoration to
the invulnerability that You gave me at my creation, and so is rightfully
mine, and which I mistakenly thought I had lost in my dream of separation
from You.
Here, in
ACIM’s Workbook Lesson 125, is how we can help ourself, by conscious
co-operation with Self, the Voice for God, to get back on the right
waveband:
In quiet I receive God’s Word today.
Let this day
be a day of stillness and of quiet listening. Your Father wills you hear His
Word
(the Voice
for God, the Holy Spirit, Self) today.
And so He calls from deep within your mind where He abides. Hear
Him today. No peace is possible until His Word is heard around the
world; until your mind, in quiet listening, accepts the message that the
world must hear to usher in the quiet time of peace.
This world
will change through you
(by
surrendering our ego-self sense of vulnerability, so that we may be awakened
to our true, invulnerable Self).
No other means can save it, for God’s plan is simply this: The Son of God is
free to save himself, given the Word of God
(Self)
to be
his Guide, forever in his mind and at his side to lead him surely to his
Father’s house by his own will, forever free as God’s. He is not led by
force, but only love. He is not judged, but only sanctified.
In stillness
we will hear God’s Voice
(Self)
today
without intrusion of our petty thoughts, without our personal desires,
and without all judgement of His holy Word. We will not judge ourselves
today, for what we are can not be judged. We stand apart from all the
judgements which the world has laid upon the Son of God. It knows him not.
Today we will not listen to the world, but wait in silence for the Word
of God.
Hear, holy
Son of God, your Father speak. His Voice would give to you His holy Word, to
spread across the world the tidings of salvation and the holy time of peace.
We gather at the throne of God today, the quiet place within the mind
where He abides forever, in the holiness that He created and will never
leave.
He has not
waited until you return your mind to Him to give His Word to you
(He gives
It here, now, in our broken, fragmented, separated state, to help us,
restore us to oneness in Him).
He has not
hid Himself from you, while you have wandered off a little while from Him
(Glory be!).
He does not
cherish the illusions which you hold about yourself. He knows His
Son, and wills that he remain as part of Him regardless of his dreams;
regardless of his madness that his will is not his own.
Today He
speaks to you. His Voice awaits your silence, for His Word can not be
heard until your mind is quiet for a while, and meaningless desires have
been stilled. Await His Word in quiet. There is peace within you
(that peace has always been there, for that is our true nature, as Self. It
is ours by right, our inheritance as Papa’s Son)
to be called
upon today, to help make ready your most holy mind to hear the Voice for its
Creator speak.
Three times
today, at times most suitable for silence, give ten minutes set apart from
listening to the world, and choose instead a gentle listening to the Word
of God. He speaks from nearer than your heart to you. His Voice is
closer than your hand. His Love is everything you are and that He is;
the same as you, and you the same as He
(let
us take these words and reverentially enfold them into our hearts, that they
become one with, part of, our being).
It is your
voice to which you listen as He speaks to you
(because we
are Self, the Holy Spirit, the Voice for God. By laying aside the voice for
clamour, the world of unreality, we cannot but hear the still, small Voice,
our own true Voice, within, speaking peace, joy, love to our heart and
mind).
It is
your Word He speaks. It is the Word of freedom and of peace, of unity of
will and purpose, with no separation nor division in the single Mind of
Father and of Son. In quiet listen to your Self today, and let Him tell
you God has never left His Son, and you have never left your Self.
Only be
quiet. You will need no rule but this, to let your practicing today lift you
above the thinking of the world, and free your vision from the body’s eyes.
Only be still and listen. You will hear the word in which the Will of
God the Son joins in his Father’s Will, at one with it, with no illusions
interposed between the wholly indivisible and true. As every hour passes by
today, be still a moment and remind yourself you have a special purpose for
this day; in quiet to receive the Word of God.
(My
emboldening and italics, for emphasis.)
Here is one
of 28 quotes from ACIM on invulnerable/invulnerability:
...recognition of your own invulnerability is so important to the
restoration of your sanity.
(T-12.V.2:1)
Here is one
of 27 quotes from ACIM on vulnerable/vulnerability; of not recognising our
errors, or misperceptions:
...Only the error is actually
vulnerable. You are free to establish your kingdom where you see fit, but
the right choice is inevitable if you remember this:
Spirit is in a state of
grace forever.
Your reality is only spirit.
Therefore you are in a state
of grace forever.
(T-1.III:5)
Peace, joy,
love,
Brian
Longhurst
March 11th 2009
Dear Friends,
It has been clear for some time that the collapse of the unKingdomly, old
order of money (what Jesus called ‘the mammon of unrighteousness’) control
over the lives of most of us, which has happened so quickly, is part of the
GRP. The GRP is an awakening from an
ego-mind-contrived un-reality designed to control, confuse, imprison us in
the time and place consciousness. Sometimes, those who are deeply asleep,
or reluctant to awaken, need a jolt to bring them to a state of wakefulness.
This event, this collapse, was always going to be inevitable, a question of
when rather than if, for in a three-dimensional consensus ‘reality’ cause
and effect rule events and their outworking. Fear is the controlling energy
of time and place — ‘egoland’. Fear begets self-ishness, begets greed,
caused by the misperception of scarcity, and the effect is conflict, in
which striving to get ‘enough’ of what is perceived as necessary for
‘survival’ — money, and the things money can buy, such as land, food,
possessions, people, amongst myriad other things that ‘moth and rust
corrupt, and thieves break in and steal,’ (Mt. 6:19) — sets people and
nations against each other in what can only be a downward spiral
because such thought-produced patterns are not of Eternity, are not
Kingdomly, are not Who or What we really are.
The end result takes us as far from the truth of our eternal, radiant,
Light-Being Self and the munificence of Papa and His all-blessing embrace as
it is possible to get — ‘outer darkness;’ places such as Darfur. But it is
not just places such as Darfur that outer darkness appears (or, more
accurately, the Light seems absent). It is in interpersonal relationships
and households all over the world.
The events such as those that are unravelling the global financial,
commercial and industrial system can be seen as cataclysmic — and in the
sense that few of us will escape its calamitous effects to one degree or
another, it is that — but if we can raise our vision to see past the
immediacy of that perception, we can see that it is, in a much larger sense,
an opportunity. Opportunity is very frequently perceived by our flawed,
‘double vision’ of ego-dominated mind as adversity, achieving ego’s
objective of keeping us in the thrall of fear. In the summer of 1999 Papa
said to me,
‘Do not fear adversity, for it is the very stuff of which opportunity is
made, and without adversity there can be no opportunity. Rather, welcome it
and give thanks for it. Each such encounter is an opportunity to transform
adversity into fulfilment
(OTAF)
and create some magnificent new structure to the glory of God and man
(or, His Son)
reunited in the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth...’
We have now presented ourselves (for we, humanity, have brought this to
ourselves; this is not, as some fear-filled souls may mistakenly believe, a
retribution exacted upon us by an angry god; and if we judge ‘others’ for
this turn of events, we judge ourself because — you got it — we are one)
with an enormous, magnificent opportunity (for the bigger the seeming
adversity, the greater the opportunity; if one wants to build a big
house, one needs a lot of materials) to pause, take stock of where we
have been heading, engage in a right-minded (some might say, for a change!)
rethink and decide how we wish to proceed now that the whirling of the
treadmill is taking somewhat of a breather.
Continuing in the vein of raised vision, in order to see beyond only the
immediacy of the negative impact upon so many of us, it can be observed that
with the reduction of industrial output, airline and other travel in
general, burning of fossil fuels, the environment is benefiting from
somewhat of a breather also. Many might agree that the world leaders, so
slow/reluctant to wake up to climate change, and now so hesitant to take the
draconian measures required to slow and reverse our headlong rush to
climatic (and thus, total) oblivion, have now had the decisions taken out of
their hands — at least for the time being — by the laws of cause and
effect. In our more elevated moments of lucidity, we could use such
perception as a valid reason to give thanks. For if we do not first ensure
we have a habitable Earth we cannot then have the Kingdom of Heaven
on Earth.
If we, humanity, do not use this opportunity to take that long, hard look at
where we wish to go from here, and base our decisions on sound, long-term
reasoning, rather than the usual, short term, expedient, muddled thinking,
assuredly we will have to face the consequences. The reasonable folk
amongst us can endeavour to have our insights included within the
decision-making process, so that the best outcome for all can be the intent,
rather than that of the perverse and stiff-necked, and those with hidden,
self-seeking agendas holding sway. Jesus, all-empowered in Heaven and in
Earth, is in charge of the leavening of the third measure of meal, so we can
either choose to co-operate with him — and contribute positively to the
leavening — or we can remain opposed to him and it. It will make no
difference to the final outcome, but it will beneficially affect the comfort
level of those who do co-operate during the process, at an earlier stage in
that process.
In February 1998 Jesus, in response to a scenario given to me in a dream for
a wake-up call to come to the fore in human endeavour, spoke of the need for
a jolt to initiate the awakening process:
My son, I do reassure you that there are many, many blueprints in the
Kingdom portmanteau, and that this experience is but one. Nevertheless, the
stiff-necked need a jolt to loosen up their breadth of vision and
understanding, and such a device is just so designed. As with all plans,
principles and mechanisms, let it operate only within the encompassment of
Love. Let the Love of the Holy One for His little ones, however close, yet
however far they might feel from Him, be in your heart. There, but for His
Grace, His power, His redeeming of your life, go you.
Only within the scope of such absolute commitment to His love in your heart
and in all your motivation, can any such device be eternally serviceable to
His eternal purposes. Outwith such commitment it becomes a tool of
subversion and distortion of Truth in the hands of the prince of time and
place.
Hold fast to the goal of your vision so that perspectives in-between do not
lead you astray. I will never leave you nor forsake you. My programme goes
forward apace. Do thou remain steadfast in thy one-pointedness, that
double-vision does not intervene. All is well; peace and joy of eternity be
with you now and always.
These words are as applicable to the present situation as any. For many
centuries, millennia even, ego-man, fear-driven man, has endeavoured to
control, dominate, overwhelm, destroy his natural environment. Through
pre-history until recent centuries there have been insufficient numbers of
humans to impact nature beyond its ability to recover. When Jesus walked
the Earth, a mere 730k days ago, there are estimated to have been fewer than
100m humans. Now, there are 70 times as many. Now, we are easily
sufficient to irreversibly damage the balance of nature, and are watching it
happen before our eyes while we haver.
But it takes something immeasurably greater than politicians and mammon to
reverse this. It takes our remembering Who we are — Beings of the Light —
and living, applying that Beingness. We who have some awareness of
the reality of Eternity and our oneness with it can help, can make a
positive contribution to the leavening of the third measure of meal —
indeed, it is we who are the leaven — by irradiating the world, human
consciousness, with the peace, joy, love, the transforming blessing of true
forgiveness and healing. In this way we join our minds, reverse the
illusion of separation back to the reality of our oneness of Mind — Christ
Mind — which is the all-empowered creative force for transmuting the
ego-world of fear, doubt, confusion, destruction, to the Kingdom-world of
peace, harmony, balance. That creative force is love. Its Source is the
Creator Spirit.
Here is (some of) what Jesus says about love, in this extract from Lesson
127 in ACIM:
There is no love but God’s.
Perhaps you think that different kinds of love are possible. Perhaps you
think there is a kind of love for this, a kind for that; a way of loving
one, another way of loving still another. Love is one. It has no
separate parts and no degrees; no kinds nor levels, no divergences and no
distinctions. It is like itself, unchanged throughout. It never alters with
a person or a circumstance. It is the Heart of God, and also of His
Son...
Love cannot judge.
As it is one itself, it looks on all as one. Its meaning lies in oneness...
There is no love but God’s, and all of love is His... Love is a law without
an opposite. Its wholeness is the power holding everything as one, the
link between the Father and the Son which holds them both forever as the
same...
...there can never be a difference in what you really are and what love is.
Love’s meaning is your own
(meaning),
and shared by God Himself. For what you are is what He is. There is no
love but His, and what He is, is everything there is. There is no limit
placed upon Himself, and so are you unlimited as well.
No law the world obeys can help you grasp love’s meaning.
What the world believes was made to hide love’s meaning, and to keep it
dark and secret...
Seek not within the world to find your Self.
Love is not found in darkness and in death. Yet it is perfectly apparent to
the eyes that see and ears that hear love’s Voice. Today we practice making
free your mind of all the laws you think you must obey; of all the
(self-imposed)
limits under which you live, and all the changes that you think are part of
human destiny. Today we take the largest single step this course requests in
your advance towards its established goal.
If
you achieve the faintest glimmering of what love means today, you have
advanced in distance without measure and in time beyond the count of years
to your release. Let us together, then, be glad to give some time to God
today, and understand there is no better use for time than this.
For
fifteen minutes twice today escape from every law in which you now believe.
Open your mind and rest. The world that seems to hold you prisoner can be
escaped by anyone who does not hold it dear. Withdraw all value you have
placed upon its meagre offerings and senseless gifts, and let the gift of
God replace them all.
Call
to your Father, certain that His Voice will answer. He Himself has promised
this. And He Himself will place a spark of truth within your mind
wherever you give up a false belief, a dark illusion of your own reality
and what love means. He will shine through your idle thoughts today, and
help you understand the truth of love. In loving gentleness He will
abide with you, as you allow His Voice to teach love’s meaning to your clean
and open mind. And He will bless the lesson with His Love.
Today the legion of the future years of waiting for salvation disappears
before the timelessness of what you learn. Let us give thanks today that we
are spared a future like the past. Today we leave the past behind us,
nevermore to be remembered. And we raise our eyes upon a different present,
where a future dawns unlike the past in every attribute.
The
world in infancy is newly born. And we will watch it grow in health and
strength, to shed its blessing upon all who come to learn to cast aside the
world they thought was made in hate to be love’s enemy. Now are they all
made free, along with us. Now are they all our brothers in God’s Love.
We
will remember them throughout the day, because we cannot leave a part of
us
(i.e. our brothers in the oneness of the
Sonship)
outside our love if we would know our Self.
At least three times an hour think of one who makes the journey with you,
and who came to learn what you must learn. And as he comes to mind, give him
this message from your Self:
I bless you, brother, with the Love of God, which I would share with you.
For I could learn the joyous lesson that there is no love but God’s and
yours and mine and everyone’s.
(My emboldening and some italics, for emphasis)
Love, all-embracingly,
Brian Longhurst
March 18th 2009
Dear Friends,
For many of us, it seems entirely reasonable to perceive the world of time
and place as not being so bad — well, not for all of us,
anyway; so, if only we can sort out the dark side of things here we will
have peace, harmony, joy, universal, unconditional love. Of course this
is possible, and is a crucial part of the GRP: the Kingdom of Heaven
on Earth.
It will not be possible all the while we remain in forgetfulness about the
truth of Who we really are, and allow ego-mind to hold sway over the affairs
of planet Earth, but it will be inevitable when we ‘come to our
Self’, remember Who we are and are restored to right-minded, Christ-Minded
thinking and knowing. Jesus came to re-Mind us.
This will be fulfilled, as the culmination of the leavening of the third
measure of meal, by the end of the Aquarian Age in approximately 2
millennia, and will, according to what Jesus tells us in A Course in
Miracles (do we know anyone who knows more about this than he?) bring us
so close to our awakened destiny of restoration to eternal oneness in Papa
that He will take that final step for us, bringing an end to the illusion of
time and place and our full remembrance of the reality of Heaven, or
Eternity. That final step will actually be a backward step. This is
described in chapter 10 of SFGS:
With
awe and curiosity I moved toward the Living Portal
(Jesus, transmogrified)
until I was standing within it, able to see inside. It appeared to be a
single room; all the walls were white, as on the outside. However, it was
not the structure that caught my attention but the occupant. It was Papa.
His appearance was just as I had seen Him when He told me the Keys to the
Kingdom lie not in answers but in faith, trust, obedience and commitment
(May 5th 1996). Since it is part of Western, Judæo-Christian
culture that God is our Heavenly Father, how else might one expect to see
Him but as a ‘Fatherly figure’? This is not to say that this is the only
way, or form or manner in which He is capable of presenting Himself for His
children to ‘see.’ He stood about half way across the room. His
countenance was filled with indescribable joy and His smile radiated that
joy and love toward me. His joy was so great that He could not speak.
Instead, with body movements He welcomed me, bade me enter, by a slight
bowing, a gesture of the arms and taking a small step backwards.
I felt that His joy was as the joy of the father in Jesus’ parable of the
prodigal son, who watched every day for his ‘prodigal’ son and when he saw
him returning ‘a great way off,’ ran to meet him and ‘fell on his neck and
kissed him…’
When we are in the state of forgetfulness of eternal reality it is not
possible to understand what that reality is. One could say we are in the
place of understanding (or lack thereof!) of eternal reality that the
disciples were, compared with Jesus. To them, Jesus was a mystery. His
ability to perform miraculous healings, walk on water, calm tempests, all
were normal, everyday stuff for him, yet to them they were unfathomable
works of wonder — as was he. So is it for most of us today. Yet he says:
There is no order of difficulty in miracles. One is not “harder” or “bigger”
than another. They are all the same. All expressions of love are maximal.
Miracles as such do not matter. The only thing that matters is their Source,
which is far beyond evaluation. Miracles occur naturally as expressions of
love. The real miracle is the love that inspires them. In this sense
everything that comes from love is a miracle.
All
miracles mean life, and God is the Giver of life. His Voice will direct you
very specifically. You will be told all you need to know. Miracles are
habits, and should be involuntary. They should not be under conscious
control. Consciously selected miracles can be misguided. Miracles
are natural. When they do not occur something has gone wrong. Miracles
are everyone’s right, but purification is necessary first.
(From ACIM chapter 1, section 1. My italics and emboldening, for emphasis)
All these words of Jesus are of so great an order of magnitude in value and
importance to us, his brethren in the Sonship, that I feel prompted to
embolden them all, but of course that would nullify the intent.
Ego does not want us to be ‘purified’ — cleansed of all the illusory dross
of time and place — because that is the end of ego, but it is unavoidable
and inevitable, even for those who are not ready in their ‘present’ act.
Such will call further opportunities into their presence in subsequent acts,
until they remember. To ego-mind purification is a process to be deeply
feared, but in truth is completely the opposite, just as the joy described
in paragraph 28, above.
Most of the fragments of the Sonship are of the perception that says, “Well,
yes, we are, like the disciples, little children in terms of our
understanding of the ‘wonder working’ of Jesus and the truth of Eternity,
but that’s the way it is; he is God’s Holy Messenger, but we are lowly,
unworthy sinners...” That is old order thinking. The leavening of the old
order is transforming the measure of meal, raising it up, and restoring us
to our true reality, which is just like Jesus, with all his attributes:
Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we
shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him;
for we shall see him as he is.
(1Jn. 3:2)
It is not our destiny to remain unaware of the truth of Eternity. Now
(there is only now) is the time for us to begin to become like Jesus,
when all that he says (above) about miracles being natural (not
‘supernatural’) begin to become our reality once more. But what of the
‘dreaded’ purification!? There is nothing to fear but fear itself (ego’s
department). With Papa all is love, tenderness, gentleness. Jesus
said to me years ago, ‘Papa’s job is to strengthen souls, not to
break them.’ It is not just miracles that are natural with Papa, but
everything. There is nothing in Reality that is not natural; that is how it
is within Papa’s creation. ‘Natural’ means we don’t have to ‘do’ it. All
that is required of us is to desire it, in FTOC.
When one is ready for the ‘something beyond’ all that this world can offer,
the awakening begins from our own within. That is ‘unknown’ to our ego-mind
awareness, and as we all know, the unknown engenders the spontaneous gut
reaction of fear. This is where faith and trust come magnificently to the
rescue. Hold fast to them; we are in good, gentle, loving, unfailing
hands.
A willingness to surrender the leasehold ego has had on our Life back into
the tender, all-empowered, all-knowing care of Self then, naturally, removes
persona self from the driving seat and we can safely hand over the reins to
the All-Knowing One. For those amongst us who find Self a little hard to
get a handle on, Jesus is equally serviceable to us for the job. There is
no difference except that Jesus will help us (if we ask him) to remember
that Self is Who we are, and re-establish communion with our true reality.
Ego will try every trick in the book to prevent us, dissuade us, distract us
from surrender, communing, attuning. Clamour is its main instrument for
this. When clamour abounds without, even with loved ones and family, going
within still is the only way to inner peace. The still, small Voice within
is only audible in the stillness. All around, broken fragments of the
Sonship are floundering, fearful, lost sheep.
The Shepherd is so close to each of us, yet are most still unaware, still
distracted by the wilderness without. Only absolute commitment to oneness
with the Shepherd, with Self, in Papa brings the purification that is our
true, unsullied nature. Jesus/Self accomplish this for us and it
requires no effort, striving, wrestling, sacrifice, money, penance; only
willingness.
We can co-operate consciously, and one sound help for this is to remind
ourself ‘I Am the Light.’ This, we already are and have always
been. All appearances to the contrary are misperceptions. There are
heights, depths, breadths, dimensions of joy, peace, love, power within us
that our focus in the horizontal plane, the three-dimensional plane, the
without, prevent us from knowing, experiencing. Truly it is said, ‘If we
cannot go within, we will go without.’ Most of us are unaware, act after
act, of our true reality, Self.
But now is the allotted time of the awakening of Papa’s slumbering Son. The
signs of its happening are appearing, filtering down from ‘above’ into the
confused, discombobulated, upside-down awareness of the fragments. There
have been amazing changes in consensus reality in recent decades, and the
pace at which ever-new remembrances of Who we are is emerging into our
awareness at an accelerating rate. What took centuries to change has
recently happened in decades, and will become years, then months... until
the change to wakefulness brings immediate results.
Of course there is chaos and confusion in the without, and this accelerates
also. It is an inevitable effect of the breakdown of the old order
consensus and the emergence of the New, Kingdom order. Ego stirs the pot,
clinging to the last vestiges of power over the fragments who are still
willing to ascribe, abdicate their rightful power to it.
Many hold fast, and will continue to hold fast to outmoded, dead belief
structures, some of which, in the name of a misperceived deity, promulgate
hatred and attack on those of belief systems at variance with their own.
All this is insanity. Ego wants this; it feeds the separation
consciousness. By standing back and taking an objective look we can respond
to all such fear, attack, cries for love — for that is what all attack is —
with love and forgiveness.
Once we gain but a single, momentary glimpse of the omni-dimensional,
indescribable joy, creative empowerment and limitlessness of Who we are,
(not will be; are, already), and the Realm that truly is our
Home, then will the cardboard cut-out, 3 dimensional realm of bodily
limitations and vainglorious imaginings be seen, longed for, no more, and
persona self will gladly seek to take the reins no longer. Such a glimpse
is there, available to us all, for the asking.
Some words from Lesson 131 in the ACIM Workbook, to lift us up and encourage
us Kingdomwards:
You
will find Heaven. Everything you seek but this will fall away. Yet not
because it has been taken from you. It will go because you do not want it.
You will reach the goal you really want as certainly as God created you in
sinlessness.
Why wait for Heaven? It
is here today.
Heaven remains your one alternative to this strange world you made and all
its ways; its shifting patterns and uncertain goals, its painful pleasures
and its tragic joys. God made no contradictions.
...today... we will ask to see the rising of the real world to replace the
foolish images that we hold dear...
...no one can fail who seeks to reach the truth. And it is this request you
make today. Put out your hand, and see how easily the door
(to the Kingdom)
swings open with your one intent to go beyond it. Angels light the way, so
that all darkness vanishes, and you are standing in a light so bright and
clear that you can understand all things you see. A tiny moment of surprise,
perhaps, will make you pause before you realize the world you see before you
in the light reflects the truth you knew, and did not quite forget in
wandering away in dreams.
There walks with you the Spirit Heaven sent you, that you might approach
this door some day, and through His aid slip effortlessly past it, to the
light. Today that day has come.
Remember often that today should be a time of special gladness, and refrain
from dismal thoughts and meaningless laments. Salvation’s time has come.
Today is set by Heaven itself to be a time of grace for you and for the
world.
Love and light,
Brian Longhurst
March 25th 2009
Dear Friends,
Most of us have some difficulty understanding our relationship to our
Creator. After all, it is quite a sizeable topic! Since the dawn of time
(literally) the time and place perception has been that we are separate from
God. Then, along comes a man of whom it is written:
Never man spake like this man (Jn. 7:46.)
He effortlessly performed signs and wonders that clearly demonstrated he
knew what we had forgotten, giving him authority that supported the validity
of the many things he said that were very different from the consensus
reality of the day (and today). Very few understood the meaning of many of
the things he said. This is because he was speaking of esoteric,
metaphysical, eternal, spiritual reality, and most people then, as now, were
attuned exclusively, or almost exclusively, to time and place, which
is the illusory opposite of the only reality — Eternity.
But that was only the start of his mission as Jesus, 2,000 years ago;
the changeover period between the first and second measures of meal, the
Arian and Piscean ages. It was not the end of his mission. Now, at
the changeover between the Piscean and Aquarian ages, the second and third
measures of meal, he is back. In truth, he never left us for a moment,
though that has been the perception of most of his followers during the
intervening time because he told them he had to go back to his Father’s
house, so that he could prepare a place for us there, and then return so
that he could receive us unto himself there (Jn. 14:2, 3).
This is not to suggest that he did not go back to the Father’s house to
prepare that place, but the record does not state there that when one is in
the fully Self-realised, all-empowered-by-Papa state, and truthfully able to
say,
‘I and my Father are one’ (Jn. 10:30),
one is everywhere, attuned to everyone, all the time.
Nevertheless, in Mt. 28:20 he does tell us
‘...I am with you alway, even unto the
end of the world’
which affirms the statement that he has never left us.
Still, although he knows all about Eternity, Heaven, Papa — and our state of
mind — we don’t. We find our relationship to Papa, Eternity, Jesus, each
other — just about everything physical and metaphysical — difficult,
impossible even, in our present, upside-down state of mind, to fathom. Homo
Sapiens is barely in the esoteric kindergarten, and hiding its head in the
sand.
Jesus knew this, and that is why he taught in parables, analogies,
allegories. It is easier for us to understand things at one level when they
are explained to us in a parallel manner at another, lower level that has a
graspable meaning for us. This is possible because creation functions
according to what Jesus described to me as Principles of Life of the
Father (PLFs). If we can understand the PLFs, we can grasp the
realities of Creation. The world is in a muddle because ego-dominated man is
constantly being sidetracked away from the PLFs by, and bogged-down in,
details. PLFs clarify, enlighten, illuminate; details
distract, confuse, mislead, if we allow them to sidetrack us and cause us to
lose sight of the PLFs.
So, here is an analogy to help us understand our true relationship to Papa,
and how we have been misperceiving ourselves as separate from Him
:
Let us envision Papa as an ocean. The Ocean. The essential nature of
the Ocean is ‘H2O.’ For the purposes of the analogy, H2O
is a symbol of eternal, living Spirit. It does not matter where any H2O
is, or believes itself to be; its essential nature is the same as,
indivisible from, the Ocean. There is no separation; no line of
demarcation. All is love and light; an Ocean of Love and Light.
Perfection; unchangeable. The ‘I Am.’ This is what the Creator Spirit/H2O
really is. The I Am is in all parts of the Ocean. It is the
Ocean. Every molecule of H2O, everywhere, is the same,
indivisibly-one Being.
Every molecule of water that comprises the Ocean is all that the
Ocean is — H2O — whole, complete, the Light, the Love, and it is
impossible for it to not be; even if it takes on a different form — vapour,
liquid or solid — it is still H2O. Every molecule of H2O
Knows, is indivisibly part of, one with the Ocean and every other part of
the Ocean. There is no separateness; only oneness. Quantum physicists now
know this is the truth of creation, even if they are having some difficulty
assimilating this into their thinking and reconciling it with their
elaborate theories.
The oneness and the all-Knowingness of all that is the Ocean is so, even if
drops of H2O are the dew on a blade of grass, droplets in a
cloud, moisture in the sap of a plant or the tissue of an animal, or a
snowflake crystal. This oneness and all-Knowingness is of the within,
wherein is all reality, all truth, all Eternity. It is imperceptible when
one’s focus is on the without.
We are like snowflake crystals. We see ourselves as separate from the
Ocean, separate from each other; unique, regardless of whether we are
together in a snowdrift or blowing in the wind, distant from each other. We
look upon ourselves and our fellows from the focal point of the without,
seeing and experiencing with bodily eyes and bodily perception; everyone is
thus perceived as unlike every other, a distinct, unique design. That is
how we perceive ourselves as who and what we are. Even if we can
acknowledge that we are ultimately part of the Ocean, right now, we
are not; we are separate, so our sensory perception tells us.
But the oneness of H2O is nothing to do with appearances, or
seeming distance from the Ocean, because the oneness is in the within
of us, our essential nature; it is the I Am of us and the
Ocean that irreversibly makes us One. It is a metaphysical, not a
physical oneness. It is a spiritual oneness that is fundamental to Its
nature. One could say, for the purposes of the analogy, that the oneness is
Its ‘H2O-ness.’ Whether in the Ocean or appearing to be
outside it, as a snowflake, It is all one in Its H2O-ness because
the oneness is within, which is not of time and place, but of Eternity,
which is always and everywhere.
We are deceiving ourselves by focussing on the appearance of
differences in the without, by perceiving the outward form of
snowflakes. The fundamental, unchangeable, eternal, inner nature of
our being is H2O-ness. The New Dawn is now breaking, and the
Light of the Eternal Day is starting to cast its loving wakening, quickening
warmth upon us. This begins the inevitable melting, thawing, transforming,
returning-to-oneness process.
The snowflake crystal dissolves back to its only true nature of eternal
Being: one in H2O-ness, losing forever its time and place,
individual, separate identity. To ego this prospect engenders fear because
ego only has existence in the illusion of time and place. Those of us who
labour under the mind-yoke of ego will experience that fear as fear of
‘death,’ and desperately strive to cling to our bodily, snowflake existence,
being unaware that we are — and always have been — H2O; eternal,
living, invulnerable, innocent Spirit; indivisibly one in the Creator
Spirit. ‘Death’ is perceived as a loss of persona self. But persona self is
an ego device; Self — ‘Big Self,’ Holy Spirit — is who we really
are.
The thawing, dispelling of the illusion of time and place, rather than being
a death, or loss, is an awakening, a remembering, a re-unifying with the
Source, the Ocean, Self, the true nature of Being. The melted
snowflake remains at all times and through all events during the process,
its essential, H2O nature within. No sullying from detritus in
the without can affect or change its pure H2O-ness within. As it
begins to remember its true Self and thaw, it becomes as a drop of water,
and joins with other drops of water — other melting snowflakes — until they
all become a river of H2O, heading inexorably back to the Source,
the Ocean.
As the remembrance proceeds, so does our crystalline, temporary,
separate-appearing snowflake identity increasingly lose its significance,
its clinging importance to us, and our re-emergence as Self, which is
entirely and eternally H2O, moves toward completion during the
leavening of the third measure of meal. We find ourselves being
synchronistically brought into contact with like-minded others, and that the
spiritual fellowship — joining — with them brings us a level, a dimension of
joy, inner peace and fulfilment that the snowflake was never able to
experience.
Things that seemed valuable, important, diminish in interest and
significance to us, and something of immeasurably greater value — our
Oneness — comes into focus. To intellectual, time and place, ego-controlled
mind, this cannot be experienced or evaluated for its true reality
because it is of another dimension, beyond worth in any and all earthly
terms. But the moment one glimpses it, experiences it, even for a fraction
of a second, it is Known, with the certainty of all-knowing Self, to be the
only real Treasure.
There are those of us who presently believe that re-unifying with the Ocean,
our Creator, our Self, Jesus, takes place only after we have laid aside our
vehicle of expression in time and place, our body, our snowflake; that such
a re-unifying cannot take place while we are stuck, frozen, as a snowflake.
But the snowflake only appears outwardly to be a fragile, vulnerable
form. Inwardly, its unchangeable reality is H2O. Jesus knew
this —
‘I and my Father are one’ (Jn. 10:30)
— and the GRP is designed to waken us — thaw us out — to the remembrance of
our inner H2O-ness with him in the Ocean, Papa.
The leavening — raising up — of the third measure of meal has to take place
within the dream, the illusion, otherwise we can never awaken from
the dream. We are in the dream whether we are with a body or have laid it
aside and returned only to the etheric counterpart of Earth, retaining the
persona identity that we adopted at incarnation, before, or until, we then
adopt a further persona — reincarnate — for calling into our presence yet
another opportunity to awaken fully from the dream by becoming fully
Self-realised. Fully Self-realised means remembering that we are not a
snowflake, but pure H2O, and that we therefore no longer need a
body.
We cannot arrive at that place of remembrance until all grievances are
dispelled through the process of true forgiveness, or realising that because
this world and our apparent presence here is a dream, nothing that seems
to have happened to cause us to feel attacked, aggrieved, hurt has
actually happened in reality. When we have truly arrived at that place
of understanding and are living it, loving all creation as our Self, such as
was Jesus, then will we have no further need for illusion and will have
arrived Home, to the Ocean, of which we are an indivisible part. This is
possible while with a body because it is our Mind that returns to
reality, having left illusions behind. The body/snowflake follows the Mind.
As part of the return journey Home, we will be purified from any
‘contamination’ we, H2O, may believe we have picked up during our
sojourn, our dream as snowflake. Such a prospect may seem fearful if we are
thinking with ego mind, and this is because we focus on the contamination
(‘We are sinners, unworthy,’ etc.) instead of our essential, true Being.
When the Light shines its warmth and love upon us, we are raised up from the
contaminants that we perceive as sullying us, making us unacceptable to the
Ocean, the Source of our Being. Our essential H2O nature is
uplifted, evaporated away from the dross; purified.
All this is accomplished for us, in response to our desire, our
readiness, our willingness. If we are unready or unwilling to give up our
snowflake outer appearance, it does not mean we are not H2O
in essence, or that we will somehow be cut off from the Ocean and the return
of our awareness to the reality that we are one in the Ocean now;
we are never not one in the Ocean except in our own deluded mind. And we
are free to change our mind at every moment.
Here’s to the assuaging power of H2O. Good health!
Brian Longhurst
April 1st 2009
Dear Friends,
Many decades ago Jesus said to Olga Park, ‘Because of the steep places, I
have veiled thy sight.’ I believe most of us know about ‘steep places’
on this sojourn in time and place, and if we thought about it, would be
grateful for having our sight veiled from the steepness, perilousness and
fearfulness of unfolding events. The veiling in this context is to shield,
or protect against the ungodly conditions of this world, not from the truth
of Eternity.
Having our sight thusly veiled indicates the totality with which we are
loved, tended, shielded from the horrors of this realm ‘outside’ our true
Home. Of course Jesus, or any from the Realms of Light acting under Christ
Authority and empowerment, can only veil our sight to a degree, according to
our willingness to surrender our ego-leasehold over our life unto that
Authority, in absolute FTOC. Further, everything that happens, it should be
remembered, does not happen ‘to’ us, from a source outside ourself, but is
called into our own presence from an unconscious level of our mind. That,
it could readily be said, and looking at the state of this insane world, is
good reason for effecting such a surrender, so that correction of that
insanity can commence without further delay.
For untold millions such veiling — from famine, slavery (in one form or
another), torture, warfare, drudgery, imprisonment, disease, addiction — is
not happening because ego-mind has caused us to forget Who we really are,
and thus causes us to be unaware of the Help freely, lovingly and
immediately given and available, from and through our inseparable link with
the Creator, our Guide to Eternity, and our true Self.
Yet it is not what is happening in the without, in the world of form, or
bodies but in the within, in our minds, that we will do well to focus upon,
because everything that happens in the without is caused by our minds. What
is happening in the without is a direct reflection of what is going on in
our minds. That, assuredly, is sufficient to give us all pause for
reflection!
In the present state of forgetfulness of most of the fragments, the focus is
on bodies, just as ego wants it. Yet that is not our inheritance, our
‘creation-right’ (as distinct from ‘birthright’), or our destiny. We
can know this of a certainty because we have the supreme example in Jesus.
Even while the body he took to bring his message from Papa calling us Home
was in the man-made hell that was the cross, he was in Heaven, because in
his Mind he knew Who he was and Where he was.
The words accorded to him in the synoptic gospels state that he cried out
from the cross,
‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?’ which is, being interpreted, ‘My God, my
God, why hast thou forsaken me?’,
which seem to indicate otherwise, are actually a direct quote from Psalm 22,
attributed to King David 1000 years earlier, who was clearly going through a
steep place at the time, with sight not veiled.
In John’s gospel this is not recorded, but instead, it says that he
indicated to John (‘the disciple Jesus loved’) to look after his mother as
if she were John’s own mother, and then said
‘It is finished,’
after which his spirit left his body. This tends to suggest that Jesus was
not in a state of despair, but simply making a final arrangement for the
care of his (generally believed widowed) mother and then stating that (this
part of) his mission was now completed, so he could depart.
What can help us to decide which of the two reports seems the more in
harmony with the reality is that in ACIM Jesus tells us many times that it
is not possible for innocence to experience pain, because bodies, pain,
everything in time and place, are a dream, an unreality, and Self awareness
reveals this truth to us. Jesus knew that bodies are an ego-contrivance to
enable us to attempt to ‘hide from God’ because of the misperception that we
are guilty and separated from God.
But he knew he was innocent (i.e. had no guilt), had no reason to hide from
Papa, but rather, had taken up a body as the means for bringing us the good
news. So we can justifiably accept as truth what he says in ACIM about
innocence not experiencing illusions such as pain, and that he would
therefore not have experienced the physical agony that those of us who
misbelieve we are separated from Papa would experience in such a situation.
Pain and illness, Jesus makes abundantly clear in ACIM, are illusions,
fabricated in our mind as a defence against the truth of Who we really are.
Assuredly, it could only be a sick mind that could perceive any sound
reasoning in such perverse logic. Here is what he says about it in this
extract from lesson 136, entitled
Sickness is a defence against the truth:
No
one can heal unless he understands what purpose sickness seems to serve
(elsewhere he explains that we are unable to give what we do not believe we
have; that only when we remember that we are whole can we consistently,
comprehensively, effortlessly, give healing).
For
then he understands as well
(that)
its
purpose has no meaning. Being causeless and without a meaningful intent of
any kind, it cannot be at all
(in other words, it is an illusion).
When this is seen, healing is automatic. It dispels this meaningless
illusion by the same approach that carries all of them to truth, and
merely leaves them there to disappear.
Sickness is not an accident. Like all defences, it is an insane device for
self-deception. And like all the rest, its purpose is to hide reality,
attack it, change it, render it inept, distort it, twist it, or reduce it to
a little pile of unassembled parts
(and being unassembled, their purpose is undetectable, just as is the
picture in an unassembled jigsaw puzzle; just like details, the unassembled
parts distract us from the big picture, the PLFs, leaving us in the dark,
confused, unenlightened).
The aim of all defences is to keep the truth from being whole. The parts
(or details)
are
seen as if each one were whole within itself.
Defences are not unintentional, nor are they made without awareness
(in some hidden recess of our ego-mind).
They
are secret, magic wands you wave when truth appears to threaten what you
would believe. They seem to be unconscious but
(or, simply)
because of the rapidity with which you choose to use them. In that second,
even less, in which the choice is made, you recognize exactly what you would
attempt to do, and then proceed to think
(believe)
that
it is done.
Who
but yourself evaluates a threat, decides escape is necessary, and sets up a
series of defences to reduce the threat that has been judged as real? All
this cannot be done unconsciously. But afterwards, your plan requires that
you must forget you made it, so
(that)
it
seems to be external to your own intent; a happening beyond your
state of mind, an outcome with a real effect on you, instead of one effected
by yourself
(and then, to project the blame outside ourself; hence the continual aim of
ego mind always to look for a scapegoat — some might say, ‘Oh, you mean,
like politicians and bankers?’
J).
...How do you think that sickness can succeed in shielding you from truth?
Because it proves the body is not separate from you, and so you must be
separate from the truth. You suffer pain because the body does, and in this
pain are you made one with it. Thus is your “true”
(i.e. illusory, persona,)
identity preserved, and the strange, haunting thought that you might be
something beyond this little pile of dust silenced and stilled. For see,
this dust can make you suffer, twist your limbs and stop your heart,
commanding you to die and cease to be.
Thus is the body stronger than the truth, which asks you live, but cannot
overcome your choice to die.
And so the body is more powerful than everlasting life
(so we believe),
Heaven more frail than hell, and God’s design for the salvation of His Son
opposed by a decision stronger than His Will. His Son is dust, the Father
incomplete, and chaos sits in triumph on His throne... Yet who believes
illusions but the one who made them up? Who else can see them and react to
them as if they were the truth?
...You can but choose to think you die, or suffer sickness or distort the
truth in any way. What is created is apart from all of this. Defences are
plans to defeat what cannot be attacked. What is unalterable cannot change.
And what is wholly sinless cannot sin
(and therefore cannot be guilty, cannot experience pain).
Such
is the simple truth. Truth merely wants to give you happiness, for such its
purpose is. Perhaps it sighs a little when you throw away its gifts, and yet
it knows, with perfect certainty, that what God wills for you must be
received
(it does not matter ‘when’ — this act or the next, or the next — for in
Eternity there is only NOW).
It
is this fact that demonstrates that time is an illusion. For time lets
you think what God has given you is not the truth right now, as it
must be. The Thoughts of God are quite apart from time
(and Papa’s Son is His Thought).
For
time is but another meaningless defence you made against the truth. Yet what
He wills is here, and you remain as He created you.
Truth has a power far beyond defence, for no illusions can remain where
truth has been allowed to enter. And it comes to any mind that would lay
down its arms, and cease to play with folly. It is found at any time;
today, if you will choose to practice giving welcome to the truth.
This
is our aim today. And we will give a quarter of an hour twice to ask the
truth to come to us and set us free. And truth will come, for it has
never been apart from us. It merely waits for just this invitation which
we give today. We introduce it with a healing prayer, to help us rise above
defensiveness, and let truth be as it has always been:
Sickness is a defence against the truth. I will accept the truth of what I
am, and let my mind be wholly healed today.
Healing will flash across your open mind, as peace and truth arise to
take the place of war and vain imaginings... Now is the body healed,
because the source of sickness has been opened to relief. And you will
recognize you practiced well by this: The body should not feel at all. If
you have been successful, there will be no sense of feeling ill or
feeling well, of pain or pleasure. No response at all is in the
(healed)
mind
to what the body does. Its usefulness remains and nothing more
(this is how it was for Jesus; his body was useful for accomplishing
his mission here, and was of no other value to him).
Perhaps you do not realize that this removes the limits you had placed upon
the body by the
(meaningless, illusory)
purposes you gave to it.
As these are laid aside, the strength the body has will always be enough to
serve all truly useful purposes. The body’s health is fully guaranteed,
because it is not limited by time, by weather or fatigue, by food and drink,
or any
(illusory, made-up, time and place)
laws
you made it serve before. You need do nothing now to make it well, for
sickness has become impossible.
Yet this protection needs to be preserved by careful watching.
If
you let your mind
(1)
harbour attack thoughts,
(2)
yield to judgement or
(3)
make plans against uncertainties to come,
(it is for those three things that we need to carefully watch, guard
against, because they are certain signs of ego being at the helm of our
mind)
you
have again misplaced yourself,
and made a bodily identity which will attack the body, for the mind is sick
(a healthy/whole/holy Mind can only manifest a healthy, whole body, and
contrariwise, a split off, damaged, separated, misperceiving, dysfunctional,
illusion-deceived mind can but — sooner or later — manifest a dysfunctional,
illusory body).
Give
instant remedy, should this occur, by not allowing your defensiveness to
hurt you longer. Do not be confused about what must be healed, but tell
yourself:
I have forgotten what I really am, for I mistook my body for myself.
Sickness is a defence against the truth. But I am not a body. And my mind
cannot attack. So I can not be sick.
(My emboldening and some italics, for emphasis.)
Jesus does not expect us to ‘magically’ arrive at that healed state of mind
— and therefore, body — instantaneously, because he knows we are functioning
from within a mindset that perceives linear time as reality. But to choose
this as our objective will enable our real Self, the Spirit of Truth, to
work more closely and effectively with us toward that goal. As Confucius is
renowned for saying, ‘Journey of a thousand miles starts with first
step.’
Love and healing Light be with us all, that we may all be healed together,
Brian Longhurst
April 8th 2009
Dear Friends,
However much it may appear to the contrary, ‘Self’ is our true, eternal,
unchanging reality, our true Being, our true awareness. We look out upon a
changing world from a changing body, with a changing perspective, and that
seems to be our reality. But we are deceived if that is our
perception.
I am of the generation known as the ‘baby boomers;’ born toward the latter
part of World War II, experiencing my teen years in the fifties and
so-called swinging sixties, and now the parent of offspring themselves
looking middle-age in the face. I look back on 7 decades of changing world
with wonder, incredulity, that I am now, suddenly, part of the older
generation, with many people I grew up with passed away.
I feel about 30, but when I catch a glimpse of my reflection in a shop
window the image appears to tell a very different story. The decades have
flashed by and I now see clearly that what we perceive as reality in time
and place is but a fleeting shadow. However much we may, in fear, not wish
to acknowledge this, that, simply, is the way it is.
But now, on the ‘cosmic calendar’ it is time for us all, who appear as
separate, mortal, ’guilty,’ vulnerable fragments, to awaken to Self, which
is wholeness, all-knowing, one with all the Sonship, unchanging, complete,
innocent, eternal, invulnerable, always and eternally in Papa. So, how do
we ‘do’ this? How do we effect the transformation, when most of us have no
awareness of the existence of Self?
This very day, during my walk in the hills, in response to my question about
what, if anything, ‘I’ (i.e. persona Brian, the fleeting shadow) can do, to
assist the emergence of ‘my’ awareness from ‘persona Brian’ to Self, to
full Self-realisation, Self immediately said, ‘I will lift you up. All
that is required is your willingness, your co-operation, your surrender into
My care and guiding.’
I then asked, ‘Why can we not speed up the process? I am willing, I am
co-operating, I am surrendering.’ Self’s reply was, ‘There is more of
ego to undo than you are aware. The pace of progress is good and entirely
satisfactory. Rejoice, give thanks, be glad, be patient. All is well.’
The bit about there being more to undo than I am aware, is indicative of the
iceberg analogy; only the tip of the iceberg is visible above water. Below
the surface of our waking consciousness is the vast proportion of ego’s dark
secrets. To bring them all out into our consciousness awareness in a rush,
before Self/Holy Spirit knows we are ready, would be deeply traumatic for
our mental and emotional equilibrium, and could damage us to the point of
being set back, rather than making the one step at a time forward
progress to wakefulness that is His objective/our destiny.
The only way it is possible to become Self-realised is to be completely
willing to surrender the illusory leasehold on Life (held by ego) into the
care of Self in fullest, absolute confidence and trust. Self, or the Spirit
of Truth, the Holy Spirit, the Voice for God, is all-empowered. That is so
contra to all our bodily senses and our ‘rational mind’ tell us that it
seems impossible. Yet we know it is true because Jesus, our older brother
and Guide to Eternity, like whom we are destined to become — once littleness
and misperception have been dispelled from our mind — has demonstrated
this.
Jesus (who assuredly knows!) tells us that by being willing to let go of
grievances and forgive what has appeared to happen only in the
three-dimensional shadow-land, but not in Eternity (and therefore, has not
happened at all, because Eternity is the only reality), we begin to see the
truth of Eternity, and it frees us from the misperceptions of our illusory
bodily senses. One might say that as the light comes on, so does the
darkness disappear. Logical stuff; it can be applied metaphysically as well
as physically.
During the second measure of meal many of the fragments of the Sonship came
to place their trust in Jesus. This second measure was part of the
Great Rescue Programme, and worked just as he intended, and that trust was
entirely justified, even though he was misunderstood and misrepresented much
of the time. This was because he was perceived with superstition and fear,
and he was expressing truth and love.
The two states of awareness are incompatible and irreconcilable. But the
second measure was only a stepping stone toward the fulfilment, the
leavening, or raising up of the whole. It was an essential step in the GRP,
that the fragments could begin to become aware that an
all-empowered-from-Eternity being — Jesus — was not only possible, but
actually happened, and was/is identifiable with, and by, us.
This all-empowered, all-knowing human — homo Dei Spiritui — is our
all-loving, caring, understanding, forgiving Lord, brother, friend, Guide to
Eternity, and it is our inescapable destiny to become like him in all his
Kingdomly attributes. It only appears we are not already like him
because we are misbelieving, misperceiving ourselves as littleness;
transient beings in a transitory realm.
This becoming like him is what the third measure is all about. It is the
Kingdom measure because it is the final, completion, fulfilment stage of the
restoration, awakening process. Jesus showed us our true nature, by
example, at commencement of, and for, during and through the Jesus
measure; in the Kingdom measure our leavening, raising up, or
metamorphosing takes place, in accordance with his example. We know what
that will be because of his example, so we have the guide, the
prototype, to follow, to emulate. The Kingdom measure goes forward
from the Jesus measure, in which we saw the example, to our becoming like
him.
This is difficult for most of us to see and believe because, under the yoke
of ego-mind we base anticipation (the future) on the past, causing us to not
believe, or have faith. Yet we have the example of Jesus from the past, and
still we remain a faithless and perverse generation, just like he said of
the people of that era.
We are at free choice whether to believe, have faith and trust, so that we
give Self a window of opportunity to give us the spiritual sight, vision,
light of discernment, so that we then will KNOW the truth and the truth
will set us free. All the while we choose instead to doubt, we are
chained to littleness, and Self will remain quiescent, because He responds
only to our willingness. It has to be ‘blind faith’ because we are
spiritually blind. But He is not.
So, what will being like Him, being — or to be more accurate, remembering
that we are — our true Self, be like? In Gethsemane Jesus said ‘The
prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me.’ It doesn’t take
two guesses to know that he was speaking of ego, which has been perceived as
a fallen angel rather than a split-off, un-illuminated part of our mind.
If we imagine ourself as being without grievances, seeing past the
masquerade of fleeting-shadow humanity to the guiltless, caring, loving,
reality within, and loving all as ourself, without fear, guilt, limitation,
feeling, experiencing being unceasingly orgasmic
–
but of our entire Being,
magnified, intensified beyond all bodily experience or capability, not just
localised parts of our body (see SFGS, chapter 2,
paragraph 19 for details)
–
we are some of the way there.
Not too hard really
J.
If we really desire it. And this is the direction in which humanity is now
beginning to move with increasing rapidity. So the difference, the gap,
between where Jesus was 2,000 years ago and toward where we are beginning to
move is starting to diminish, at an accelerating pace.
We had to have a reminder, a template, an example of Who we are because in
our dream state we had forgotten, misled by the prince of this world,
represented symbolically in the Eden allegory by a serpent. In chapter 2,
section I of ACIM Jesus says:
...the Bible says that
a deep sleep fell upon Adam, and nowhere is there reference to his waking
up. The world has not yet experienced any comprehensive reawakening
or rebirth. Such a rebirth is impossible as long as you continue to project
or miscreate. It still remains within you, however, to extend as God
extended His Spirit to you. In reality this is your only choice, because
your free will was given you for your joy in creating the perfect.
(My
italics)
Now, the objective of Jesus to effect that reawakening, to raise us up, to
our rightful place with him in terms of our true, inherent, innate nature,
potential, expression, is entering the beginning stages of its final phase.
The fire that he came to kindle in the Earth is being fanned into a flame
that will engulf — is engulfing — the world. It is not, neither will it be,
a religious flame, but a spiritual, mystical flame.
Those who say we are sinners, unworthy, we can never be like Jesus because
he alone is forever the one and only son of God, are sadly mistaken, as
stated unequivocally in the scriptures:
Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we
shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him;
for we shall see him as he is. 1Jn 3:2.
This reference has been cited numerous times recently, but we are so slow
to understand that repetition is beneficial in assisting that
understanding. For those who are already clear on this, please excuse this
repetition.
Without His help we could not arise to our true Self, Who is always
with us, waiting with infinite patience for us to go within and there, in
the silence, hear His speaking, reminding us Who we really are. Then we
begin to remember that we are like Jesus, our brother, and Jesus is like our
Self.
To limitlessness!
Brian Longhurst
April 15th 2009
Dear Friends,
On Easter Sunday morning I awoke to the sense of being in a place of
awareness, like a platform, providing an elevated view — about 30 feet (9
metres) above the surrounding ground — of the events taking place in the
world below me. This was not just a ‘bodily’ elevation but a perceptual
elevation; a higher place of understanding of, perspective on, the events of
which Easter is the anniversary of remembrance and celebration. I was in
the Self awareness, and was in the Company of a group of others — perhaps a
dozen, maybe more — from the Realms of Light, and also including Jesus
himself, all of us in the Higher, Self, Sonship awareness.
The vibration was entirely positive and peaceful; a peace that can come only
from all-knowing, of certainty beyond doubt that all was entirely well; of
knowing the end from the beginning; of knowing that we are eternal,
invulnerable, indestructible; that fear is an illusion, and therefore, along
with illusory events that engender it, does not exist in reality.
Jesus, with the rest of us, was observing the crucifixion of his body — and
the subsequent events, including, of course, the resurrection — down below
us, and there was free-flowing discussion amongst us, including Jesus, as if
we were watching the playing-out of a planned occurrence within the GRP;
this, of course, was exactly what it was. There was no emotion, no
distress, simply satisfaction that all was proceeding according to plan,
though all present knew that it certainly could not have been otherwise.
The exchanges between those in the gathering — few as they were, since all
present knew exactly what was happening and the reality behind it — were as
much telepathic (Mind-to-Mind communing) as spoken, though it made no
difference, and were of a rejoiceful and thanksgiving nature, as of a job
well done and a mission accomplished (
‘It
is finished’).
If there was any sense of wonder, astonishment, amazement, it came only from
the Earth-mind consciousness part of me, at the newness, for me, of such a
perspective, and the recognition that this was/is actually the only true
perspective: from the Kingdom of Heaven, the Sonship of Papa reality.
From that awe-struck state of mind I said to him, ‘Jesus my beloved brother;
this morning I celebrate, in wonderment, honouring you in this, your
magnificent feat, the blessed event of your resurrection, with all my inner
being. And I observe the difference in my perspective on it now, after this
experience, from previous years; how it has transformed my understanding of
it from an Earth-mind viewpoint to an Eternal, Heavenly perspective.
‘I now see, clearly, for the first time, that this, the whole Easter event,
was not “special” to you, as it has always been to your brothers from their
earthly perception of the event. I have always marvelled that you could
have gone through the Last Supper, sharing all that you shared, giving all
that you gave, without a hint of distraction, of fear; always focussed on
what you had to tell your friends. Now, this morning, I am experiencing it
all from a fully awakened state of awareness, where the crucifixion and the
process of resurrection is seen to be no more out of the ordinary than any
other event, whether a miracle or a mundane happening.’
He replied:
Brian, my beloved, faithful,
steadfast friend and brother; you remember I said “I did it to get your
attention.”
(See SYFK,
Vignette 11 for details.)
It worked, did it not?
You are right in your
observation that there was nothing special or difficult about it for one who
knows the Truth of Eternity, who knows Self, who is Self, and for
whom time and place are no thing, do not exist.
I knew my brothers would see
these events as the great miracle that to their perception it was. That
worked for the larger intent of holding their attention, their focus on me,
throughout the second measure, the Jesus Measure as you have been inspired
to call it. But now is the Kingdom Measure with us. This is the time, the
moment, for a higher, leavened, raised up awareness, an expanded
understanding of the progressive, unfolding nature of the GRP.
You observe rightly that the
sun goes forward but the moon goes backward; * that if one is not going
forward, one is going backward. What purpose could be served by the
continuance, indefinitely, of an incomplete, limited understanding of the
GRP, and of the significant events that form its structure? One
perspective, if incomplete, may be serviceable for a span — even the span of
a whole measure and its leavening — but the sun (Son) goes forward to the
leavening of the whole; until all are leavened, raised up to wakefulness,
equality of knowing, of being, of remembrance.
Now is the point of
changeover between limitedness of understanding and unlimitedness; where
nothing is hidden that shall not be revealed. Of course, as you know,
nothing has ever been hidden; all is out in the open for all to see, to
know, to understand, just as has always, uninterruptedly been so... until
the Son fell asleep a moment and dreamed a dream of forgetfulness.
Forgetfulness of Who He Is: One. One, eternally in Papa, our Father
Creator.
But it was always inevitable
that the Son would awaken, and that the dream of illusions, of forgetfulness
would be over. How could it not be, since in reality it never began, never
was, never could be real? The Son simply IS; knows; is all, like His
Father, with all the attributes of His Father, Who gave Him everything,
never withheld anything.
Now is the New Day dawning,
and will never set. Now is the moment of awakening. To the forgetful,
another 2,000 years seems endless. I would remind such, time is an
illusion; all is NOW. My brothers have — as they always have had — free
choice to awaken soon, or to remain stay-a-beds a little longer,
holding onto the dream of littleness and fear. Or they can arise early, and
venture forth into the glory of the beginning of the New Day, when the sun
(Son) starts to rise and cast His newly-remembered Light on all His
brothers, to help them stir from their slumbers.
I rejoice, beloved, to greet
you, to embrace you, to share with you our exultation together in the glory
of the Dawn. Let us pause a moment in the unspeakable ecstasy of the Light
of Truth arising once more in the mind of our brothers who begin to join
with us. Then, let us, together, lovingly, gently, tenderly, caringly,
softly, continue upon our task of calling to those who begin to rouse from
sleep. Let us always be careful, in this labour of love, not to shake them
too hard, for the place between sleep and wakefulness can be a confusing
state of mind.
Yet still, the Dawn Chorus
of ministering Angels calls to them deep in their unconscious minds,
ensuring that awaken they shall, and rejoice at their remembering all once
more. So comes the understanding that they, too, are not a body; that they, also,
are eternal, invulnerable, indestructible; that they, too, can manipulate
the stuff of dreams to their command — once they begin to remember who they
ARE — from dreams of fear and guilt and death, to dreams of happiness, of
Light, of waking to unlimitedness, from whence the transition to reality can
be gently made.
Resurrection can only be —
or appear to be — after there has been death. Yet have I not stated from
the beginning that there is no death, unless you are espoused to illusions,
to dreams of unreality? Whosoever lives and believes in the Son — that he IS
the Son — shall never, can never, die. Thus, ultimately, can there be no
resurrection, but only an awakening from the dream. Let our gentle call
therefore be, ‘Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the
LORD is risen within thee.’
Peace and joy be with all my
brothers.
Having seen Jesus, in early 1997, as he appeared shortly after the
crucifixion, completely unaffected by that event, it is now clear, from the
true, leavened perspective, how that was possible (see
SYFK,
Vignette 27 for details).
As always, we are at free choice to continue to think and believe in
littleness, thus limiting ourself to, imprisoning ourself within, such
thoughts and beliefs, or to raise our vision and accept the assistance,
freely offered, to escape forever from littleness, by he of whom it is
written:
The
Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the
gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach
deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at
liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
(Lk. 4:18, 19)
Here’s to the recovering of sight to the blind.
J
Brian Longhurst
*The sun is a symbol of Spirit-operated Mind and creativity; the moon is a
symbol of psychic consciousness, not under Christ-Mind or God-Mind control,
but rather, under ego-mind control.
April 22nd 2009
Dear Friends,
Our one and only true Home, for all Eternity, from where we have come and to
where, assuredly, unavoidably, we will be, and are, returning, and which is
Light, Love, Peace, Joy beyond description, is available to us right now
(especially since there is only now
J)
and has always been. The place where it is to be found, constantly and
unchangeably, is in our own within. Nowhere else. It is not
available to us in the without, as the very word denotes; nor will it ever
be. Politics, money, institutionalised religion, with its ongoing schisms
and false doctrines and dogmas, will not succeed in bringing It because the
without is an illusion, and our Home, within, is our only reality.
Yet we are fearful of, resistant to, the idea of entering in to our within.
Jesus says it this way:
But thou, when thou prayest
(praying is attuning, rejoicing, expressing loving gratitude,
not pleading, begging, supplicating, confessing the lie of our miserable
unworthiness to our Creator),
enter into thy closet
(our within),
and when thou hast shut thy door
(against the clamour of the without, whose sole objective is to distract us
from going within, Home),
pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret
shall reward thee openly. (Mt. 6:6)
Being fearful of Love, Light, Peace, Joy unending is a clear
indication that our minds are not functioning normally, to say the least.
Our ego-constructed, illusory persona-self will try any amount of
subterfuge, extreme reluctance and sidetracking to prevent us going within,
because ego can only appear to exist in time and place — the without. The
within is therefore a fearful place for ego-dominated mind. But not for
Christ Mind, our true Mind, which remains quiescent while we are focussed in
the consciousness of fear, and until we choose — because we are
endowed with free will — to attune with, get back on the frequency of,
Christ Mind.
Christ Mind is our true Self, the Spirit of Truth, and is the same as the
Mind of Papa. As Jesus said:
I and my Father are one (Jn. 10:30),
and:
the Father is in me, and I in him (Jn. 10:38).
As has been rehearsed many times, we are becoming like Jesus in the
fulfilment measure of meal because we are one with him in the Sonship; it is
our destiny to return to that estate. But fear and doubt (self-doubt) are
holding us up. Doubt is an ego-construct that tries to block the doorway
that is the opening into our within, wherein we find our true Self.
Over 40 years of practising going within has not yet fully dispelled that
doubt in me, but I see that it has helped far more than would
otherwise be the case. This is because that discipline has enabled me to get
through, or past, that doubt barrier, by the mechanism of one-pointed desire
and commitment to entering into the within, regardless of ego trying to
whittle away at certainty and replace it with doubt. Because of steadfast
commitment to singleness of vision, my certainty continues to grow and
become ever more impervious to doubt and fear.
That desire and commitment were well worth the ‘stick-at-it-iveness’ because
it had taught me at a level and in a way that is certainty, that once
past that ego barrier, inspiration and enlightenment, upliftment,
empowerment from Papa, Jesus and/or Self was, and is, freely available to
me. Unfailingly. Always. Just as they were and are freely available
to Jesus, and all the fragments of the Sonship, because even though we
appear to be fragments, due to seemingly separate bodies and apparently
separate (albeit, upside-down) minds, we are, in the true reality, one.
However absurd that might appear to be from the ‘horizontal,’ ego-mind
perspective, when two or more people are in agreement on a given issue, they
are said to be ‘of one mind.’ The moment is coming — returning —
when all the fragments will be restored to being of one Mind. Papa,
Jesus and Self are all One; One Mind, because His Son is a creation within
His Mind, and the Son remains forever within the freedom of All that IS His
Mind.
Ego may accept that the concept of ‘I and my Father are One’ (Mind and
Spirit) is conceded to Jesus, but does and will baulk at this as being truth
for all the rest of the Sonship fragments, and this will register as
resistance, reluctance, establishment of religious doctrines and creeds that
contradict bible scriptures, doubt about our ability, our worthiness to
enter into the Holy Presence.
Our ego-dominated mind-fragment contains the whole gamut of our illusory,
unfounded-in-reality fears, one or more of which will be waiting to pop up
in any circumstance. This has duped us into believing “Anything can happen
and probably will, if we enter into that unknown quantity called the
within.” So, it is a question of where we enter into, not if
that is the key to finding the light, the peace, the truth, the love, the
upliftment, the restoration to oneness.
Happily, we know someone who knows, is totally trustworthy, will never,
ever, let us down, and is empowered to guide and protect us, if we are
willing to place ourself within his care, trusting like a child in his
ability to direct us toward the light of eternal Truth. “Ah,” says ego,
pretending to be our friend, “how do you know you won’t unwittingly go
through the door secretly/invisibly marked ‘Fear, darkness, confusion,
terror’ instead of ‘Light, joy, peace, love, freedom’? It is a
ruse to trap you by a judgemental god. Stay in the without, the ‘real’
world of time and place, where you know what is what. Keep clear of all
that invisible, esoteric, mystical, metaphysical stuff. Better the devil
you know than the devil you don’t know.”
That is where most of us weaken and give up, allowing outer distraction to
divert us from continuing our attempts at mind-to-Mind communing. Fine, if
that is fulfilling, satisfying, comfortable, for the time being. But
unbeknown to our ego-dominated mind, our true Self — who is always,
actually, however much it may not be apparent, in control of our destiny,
however long it may appear to take, regardless of how many more turns on the
carousel it takes, because time is irrelevant to Eternal Self — is lovingly,
gently, imperceptibly nudging, guiding us to the inner realisation that time
and place is no longer fulfilling, comfortable, uninterruptibly peaceful or
capable of satisfying our inmost hungering and thirsting for reality, Truth,
Home.
Then comes the moment to begin consciously, actively, committedly
co-operating with the One Who knows His way around the inmost corridors
of our mind; the One Who is trustworthy, empowered with all power in Heaven
and Earth, Who will never let us down. This is where having a set-aside time
and/or place for this attuning can be of immeasurable help.
And for me, the Service of Mystical Communion with Christ (SMCC) has been so
serviceable to this aspiration because it takes us from wherever we happen
to be, mentally, emotionally, at commencement, through a series of
upward-raising levels of mental and spiritual attunement. The words at the
beginning of the procedure are a very powerful attunement mechanism, and
invoke the power and protection from ‘enemy’ danger:
All who truly seek after
God
and earnestly desire the
coming
of the Kingdom of Heaven upon
Earth,
Draw near! . . .
And:
Let us ascend unto the
Hill of the Lord,
and let us rise up
unto His Holy Place,
whose Truth is from Everlasting,
and his Grace manifest to every
generation.
The emboldened and underlined words above are the making of a conscious
commitment to arise from time and place consciousness, where we are
floundering about in the without, to the exalted place of Christ awareness
and attunement within. If we are sincere in our deliberations, it will
begin to uplift us to that place, where ‘enemy’ (ego) endeavours cannot
reach us. Of course there will always be moments when our mind is
distracted. . . noises in the street outside, mundane thoughts of trivial
nature, intruding into our reverential desire for attunement with our true
Mind, Christ Mind. All such trivial distractions can simply be ignored as
progress through the attunement mechanism continues.
By the time we arrive at the place in the service called ‘The Holy Silence’
- during which we sit with pad and pen, in receptive mode for hearing and
recording the Voice for God (Jesus, or our Higher, true Self, or Papa
Himself), or others from the Realms of Light under Christ authority,
bringing us guidance, uplift, enlightenment, encouragement — the
level-raising nature of the service will have uplifted us to the place where
we will be beyond ego’s reach, and eager for our Heavenly communing.
In a consensus-reality culture where the idea of self-discipline becomes
ever more eroded, this is discipline easy to achieve and with dividends
beyond measure.
Trust is all-important for the surrendering of ego-leasehold on our life,
and this is where the above-described procedure is so helpful; we place
ourself directly in the protection of Jesus, all-empowered in Heaven
and Earth, with no institutionalised dogmas and doctrines to confuse us.
Thus can we know, if our heart is sincere in its seeking after Spiritual
Truth, that we are on the right wavelength, with absolute protection.
Of course there are other mechanisms, aids to our attunement with our inner
Being, our unbreakable link to Eternity, Heaven, Papa, and it is whatever
works for the sincere seeker that is most important. Ultimately, we
need none of them, any more than we need a plane, a ship, a car, a train, or
even a Guide, once we have reached our destination.
Once we have arrived at the Holy of Holies the conveyances and the Guide
have fulfilled their purpose and we are then able to enter freely into the
Holy Presence, no longer dependent upon their services. Meanwhile,
spiritually, we are as little children, blind, self-imprisoned in
littleness, and we need all the help we can get. So it makes inestimable
sense to choose the best help available; at rates we can all afford!
Love, peace, joy, light unbounded,
Brian Longhurst
April 29th 2009
Dear Friends,
We are now all familiar with the concept that the ‘physical’ universe is an
illusion, and within the context of Eternity being the only reality, all
that we perceive with our ocular sight and other bodily senses does not
exist. Yet, to most (the overwhelming majority!) of us, it all seems to be
utterly solid, real, ‘in our face,’ to use modern vernacular. As previously
mentioned, this is no longer simply a cock-and-bull idea hatched up by
ancient Gnostics, philosophers (such as Plato) and now being re-visited by
the ‘lunatic fringe’ of New Age hippies and outcasts/exiles from the
mainstream consensus of humanity.
It now has a substantial and increasing support from quantum, or particle,
physicists (though I dare say most of them do not yet comprehend the
esoteric significance of this for the spiritual destiny of humanity). I am
no quantum physicist, but my limited understanding is that sub-atomic
particles appear (to quantum physicists and other observers) to spend part
of their existence in three-dimensional ‘reality’ and part in a dimension
beyond that detectable by we who are sensorily aware only of 3 dimensions.
Further, in which dimension they appear to be at any moment depends on
whether they are being observed, or thought about. Further still(!) they
respond instantly — no time lapse at all — to thought, observation and what
is happening to other sub-atomic particles anywhere else, irrespective of
apparent geographic distance, even across interstellar space of vast numbers
of light years’ separation.
The inference to be drawn from this is that apparently ‘physical’ matter is
affected by thought. Thought comes from mind. So, matter is affected by
mind. Taking that to another level, mind has control over matter. Einstein
posited that there is no such thing as matter; that what appears as matter
is in fact energy, vibrating at a different speed. And, if I am not now out
of date on this, no-one has yet proved him wrong. If there are any quantum
or particle physicists reading this, please excuse any imperfections here,
and bear with me a little longer as I endeavour to set the scene and move it
along.
It is all very well, many of us may say, to have these elaborate theories
about what is reality, what is solid, and what is not, but if I drive my car
into a brick wall, it will stop it, and make a considerable mess of the car
and very likely the driver also. That seems solid, and ‘real,’ enough for
most of us, and it is pretty hard to get that kind of ‘reality’ out of one’s
mind and replace it with a so-called reality that no-one with both feet on
the ground can see, hear, smell, touch or taste.
And even if we could, why would we want to get rid of, or tune out, our
present reality for something that seems all too ethereal, lacking in
substance, benefits? Oh yes, we all hear about the benefits in the
‘hereafter’, but we are in the ‘here and now,’ and will that insubstantial,
supposed reality we are being told is available ‘here and now’ pay the
mortgage?
Well, here come a couple of reasons to give it some deep and careful
consideration.
We perceive ourselves as little, in a big universe; that we are here for
just a blink of an eye; most of us appear to be poor, hungry, oppressed,
have little or no control over our decision-making, choices or lifestyle,
are fearful of scarcity, dis-ease, frailty, pain, dying. The world’s
secular and religious leaders are clearly seen as not able to provide
solutions to any of these conditions; as soon as one disease is suppressed,
another — such as swine ‘flu — emerges, to keep the fear factor on the boil,
thus continuing to sidetrack us from peace and Eternity — getting Home.
Some, most or all of these ungodly conditions are ‘reality’ at one time or
another for us all, yet somehow we have been convinced to believe the God of
love made this time and place estate. Not very loving. Even those amongst
us — the tiny minority — who can choose freely what to do each day, afford
the best diet, healthcare, shrink, transport, accommodation etc., lack
self-esteem, get ill, worried, fearful, frail, unfulfilled in most of their
inner aspirations, and die.
Then along comes Jesus and tells us, shows us, that all that is
upside-down — insane, because it is the opposite of Who we really are
— thinking; that we are the Light of the world; to love our Creator with all
our being and our neighbour as our Self; that walking on water, feeding
thousands with a picnic lunch is nothing, raising the dead — even his own
savagely tortured, murdered body — is no big deal; that all these
‘miraculous’ things and far, far more are our natural, free entitlement
also, if only we can believe (that is all it takes, yet who amongst
us can argue that it is not insanity to be unwilling to give it a try?).
Clearly, he knows something we don’t. He says we have thrown all that away
and chosen littleness, fear, decay and death instead; that we have thrown
away our rightful inheritance of everything in exchange for what, in the
twinkling of an eye (a few decades with a body; far less for many), is seen
to be nothing; but we can get back all that is actually ours, freely
‘without money and without price.’
He has even — now, in this time of switch-over between the second and third
measures of meal (some might see that as synchronicity, perfect timing, and
knowing Jesus, we should not be surprised at this; would he have come here 2
thousand years ago, done part of the job and not come back to
complete it, according to how the GRP was planned ‘before Abraham was’?)
— given us a comprehensive handbook, that can not be tampered with by
hidden-agenda merchants and institutionalised religion, on how to get out of
this fine mess we have got ourselves into.
So, what exactly is it we have thrown away? This is impossible to describe
fully using symbols we call words, because those symbols have only been
devised to describe three-dimensional events, experiences and things, and
what we have thrown away is more dimensions above three than can be grasped
with our upside-down, ‘littleness’ mind. But here, to give us a tiny
indicator, is a quote from The Disappearance of the Universe, in
which Gary Renard is telling Pursah that he doesn’t much like the idea of
Heaven having no male and female differentiation:
PURSAH:
There are no
differences in Heaven and no changes. Everything is constant. That’s the
only way it can be completely dependable instead of chaotic.
GARY:
Isn’t that kind of
boring?
PURSAH:
Let me ask you
something, Gary. Is sex boring?
GARY:
Not in my book.
PURSAH:
Well, imagine
the very peak of a perfect sexual orgasm, except this orgasm never stops.
It keeps on going forever with no decrease in its powerful and flawless
intensity.
GARY:
You have my attention.
PURSAH:
The physical act
of sex doesn’t even come close to the incredible bliss of Heaven.
It’s just a poor, made-up imitation of union with God. It’s a false idol
made to fix your attention on the body and the world, with just enough of a
payoff to keep you coming back for more. It’s very similar to a narcotic.
Heaven, on the other hand, is a perfect, indescribable ecstasy that never
ceases.
(My emboldening, for emphasis)
I can attest unequivocally that what Pursah says is true — except the ‘going
on forever’ bit (yet!) — because I have experienced that ecstasy, when Jesus
manifested to me in 1967, and it got me irreversibly hooked. That kind of
bliss is literally Heavenly, and is experienced not only throughout the
entire body, every cell, every fibre, but through one’s entire aura,
one’s entire being. It is so intensely exquisite that it is not possible to
experience it and remain with a body; one would pass out, lose
consciousness, because the experience is beyond what 3 dimensional bodies
can cope with, thus having only a much diluted version as a poor
substitute.
In my 1967 experience of this, when Jesus came within less than an arm’s
length of me, in his radiant, living, golden sunlight aura of glory, I was
overwhelmed to the extent that if he had not withdrawn the manifestation
after a few moments, I would have passed out. The encounter with him
was not an encounter that in any way involved or even hinted at sex, above
and beyond which this was multiple dimensions; it was, rather, an encounter
of agapé love, spiritual, cosmic, unconditional, brotherly love, but
equally, the love Papa has for His Son, and which Jesus was extending to
me. It was a ‘taster,’ a reminder of what we, the slumbering fragments,
have thrown away. (See SFGS, chapter 2 for the detailed description of this
experience.)
Well, I, for one, want it back
J.
And I know beyond all doubt that anyone who experiences it, even if but for
a moment, irrespective of where they appear to be regarding faith,
belief or understanding, will be instantly transformed into an irrevocably
committed believer in the reality of Heaven, unconditional love; that the
very idea of sin, guilt, fear, a God of wrath or judgement are absurd,
preposterous, laughable, pathetic, feeble, meaningless attempts to keep us
in littleness, forgetfulness, sleep. To borrow words from the famous Neil
Diamond song from the 1960s:
Now I’m a believer;
Not a trace of doubt in my mind
Such is what we are missing. It is more than a pearl of great price; it is
no contest between this Reality and any, all even, ‘treasures of
Earth.’ The tempter said to Jesus, If you will worship me I will give
you all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. That is somewhat
more than most of us would aspire to, but Jesus had remembered, and knew,
that his — and our — true Home is eternally, immeasurably, indescribably
beyond comparison with the tawdry best time and place can offer. Nothing
this world could throw at Jesus was the least temptation, challenge or
obstacle to him because he had seen through the illusion and forgiven it,
thus releasing him from its thrall. Now he is one-pointedly (thank
goodness) committed to helping us do the same, because Heaven and Papa are
incomplete without us.
If that is true
–
and it is hard to imagine Jesus lying to us about that
–
why then, one might readily ask, would our Creator be champing at the bit to
condemn us to burn in a pit of fire for all eternity? That sounds
suspiciously like an ego plan instead of that of an unconditionally loving
Father. Rather, the parable of the prodigal son is a more realistic
indication of the kind of welcome we can expect from Papa when we finally
‘come to ourself.’ I have experienced that welcome, and it is described in
detail in chapter 10 of SFGS. This enables me to also attest that Papa has
no wrath, judgement or condemnation.
If we are willing to trust, and surrender the ego-leasehold of life back
into the freehold of its rightful Owner
–
Self
–
unencumbered, we will be
lovingly led Home, free of the carousel, permanently. This is very hard for
us to do, so inured are we in mistrust, but it is not impossible for
those of us in whom the desire is awakening and growing stronger. Ego says,
‘Give me the answers to my questions, and if I am prepared to accept
them, then I might be willing to believe,’ though it will always find
another excuse for not actually believing.
Self (the Spirit of Truth) says, ‘If you are able to believe, have faith, I
will give you all the answers; but you (little, forgetful,
slumbering, fragmented self) cannot receive the answers if you are
full up with unbelief, so that there is no room for Truth. But, give Me
just a little willingness to believe (i.e. clear out a little space
by jettisoning some of that unbelief that is filling you up) and I will
begin to correct your false perceptions, so that you hunger and thirst for
more, and yet more, of what truly satisfies your craving for love, light,
peace, truth. Be thou willing to trust and be patient, for you are only
able to receive eternal Truth in small bites, one at a time, in order to
assimilate it unto your being and let it become part of you once more, until
It gradually becomes All of Who you are.’
It is my will to be withdrawn, by faith, from littleness, fear, guilt and
death, and to be restored to remembrance of Self, that I may freely extend
the gift of Truth and wholeness to all my fellows, for our return together
to oneness in You, Papa.
Agapé love,
Brian Longhurst
May 6th 2009
Dear Friends,
Because we appear to live in a three-dimensional realm, our perceptivity is
limited to three-dimensional symbols. Most of us have an idea that there
are more dimensions than three, but understanding what that means is
difficult when we appear to have restricted our mental faculties to be
capable of functioning only within a three-dimensional scope.
This restriction includes the primary mechanism of communicating: language.
In a 3-d realm, the language that we have fabricated to describe our
experience of it is substantially limited to 3-d perception. This makes
describing, expressing, communicating, sharing awareness of dimensions, or
reality, beyond three dimensions difficult to accomplish meaningfully.
Everyone is looking for meaning in their lives, but if we are looking for it
in a 3-d world we are looking in the wrong place because we are not a 3-d
creation; we are an omni-dimensional creation, having been created in the
likeness of our Creator, Who Is, of course, Omni Dimensional, or All That
Is. But the words — symbols — we have constructed to communicate, including
to express our inner awarenesses, to describe our esoteric, mystical,
metaphysical, spiritual experiences and understanding, have been developed
only for use within, and thus confining us to, a 3-d state of perception:
separation.
This particularly applies to personal pronouns: I/we (here), you — singular
and plural — and he/she/they (over there, or separate). Thus, it is
not easy to describe our true, undivided reality using unreal symbols. That
does not mean one should not make an attempt, so here goes
J.
The truth is, we have an “Otherness,” Which, or Who, Is so close to us that
we are not separate from It. It is our Real Self, our Higher, True Being,
our eternal, Sonship nature. If we are thinking, experiencing, sharing,
expressing from our 3-d perspective, or persona, our “little self,” there
are only 3-d word-symbols to describe the Otherness, Who is actually the
first person singular pronoun: ‘I,’ not a second- or third-person
pronoun.
This experience, awareness — of our inner reality, our eternal Self — can
develop and grow, when we are ready for the awakening, as a mind-
(little-self, or temporal, persona perspective) to-Mind (Self, our eternal,
all-knowing reality, referred to in ACIM as Holy Spirit, the Voice for God)
communing. It can only begin to happen when the upside-down, separated,
split-off, ego part of our mind, the part that keeps us stuck in time and
place, yoked to fear, becomes willing to surrender its leasehold on our
fragmented, separated life back to its true Incumbent. Until we —
‘persona-we’ — reach that state of readiness/willingness, Self remains
quiescent to our perception.
In truth Self is speaking His message of unconditional love, peace, joy,
healing, blessing from Papa to persona-self all the time, but persona-self
is fearful of hearing from a vengeful, judgemental God, so blocks it with
time and place distractions: detail, events, clamour, i-pods, fear; anything
to delay our inevitable return Home. Self is gentle and never, ever
impinges on persona uninvited.
During the second measure of meal — the Piscean age — we, the fragments,
have had Jesus to help us, to speak to us about and demonstrate, exemplify,
our true reality. But now that we are in the third measure, the Aquarian
age, it is time to move on to the next, final, fulfilment stage of the GRP.
This is when we begin to remember that we are like Jesus; one with
him in fact, in the Sonship. This means we begin to hear the Holy Spirit —
Self — speaking, communing with us, lifting us up, leavening, resurrecting
our mind from separation, littleness, fear, to remembrance, effulgence,
glory, Eternity, the Holy of Holies — Heaven; the return of the ‘prodigal
son’ to rapturous welcome at his Father’s house.
During the period from the 1960s to the end of the 1990s, I was blessed,
guided, enlightened, protected by a willingness to place myself within the
care and leading of Jesus, communing with him mind-to-Mind. He tells us in
ACIM that he will remain with us in the way we know him — as Jesus — even
though he also tells us he is no longer a man, a form, a persona, but
identified fully with Papa (‘I and my Father are one’), to help us, his
brethren, in our journey back to oneness, all the while we feel a need for
his help. That journey has now brought us to the beginning of the return to
Self-realisation, so we can all start to wake to the oneness of the Sonship
with Jesus, in Papa.
Since the turn of the millennium I have been experiencing a change of
communing beginning to emerge, and it is now becoming clear to me that
although Jesus is still ‘there’ for our reassurance and comfort, the words
he spoke to the disciples at the last supper are now, at the commencement of
the fulfilment measure of meal, beginning to come to fruition for all of us,
the rest of the fragments:
. . . I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that
he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth
(Self); whom the
world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye
know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. (Jn. 14:16, 17)
The Spirit of Truth shall be, and indeed, already is, in us all, because we
are one, and only appear to be separated, fragments. The fact that
most of the fragments are oblivious to this because of allowing the thrall
of ego to hold us back does not render that truth invalid, and never has.
This has been dawning (slowly!) on me during recent time, and I now feel
prompted to share some of this nascent, emerging mind-to-Mind communing in
hope that it will help others to feel confident that it is possible for
all.
Much of the time it is difficult to distinguish in my own awareness between
‘persona Brian,’ whose thoughts are emerging in my mind, and Self, Whose
thoughts are being placed there. I realise now that this is not important,
because persona Brian is not my true, eternal Being, and Self, the Spirit of
Truth is my (our, all the fragments’) only true Being. Where a distinction
is discernible to me in the following, I have used roman type for persona
Brian (‘B’) and italic type to represent Self, the other Comforter to
Whom Jesus refers (above):
Self — my true reality, my true Being: I begin, at last(!) to have a sense
of more palpable awareness within of ‘our’ connection. The 3-d words I am
forced to use try to perpetuate the myth of duality, but I am one-pointedly
focussed upon the Oneness that Self (‘You’, ‘Big Me’) and what
I have been experiencing as ‘I/me’ are indivisibly ONE. So, if it
helps to express in words how B is feeling, becoming aware, go ahead, use
them. At this stage in the unfoldment, the re-joining, it can be
serviceable, just as B’s dialogues with Jesus have been highly serviceable.
Okay; thanks for this reassurance. This is a growth process and B is in
the early stages of awareness of oneness with Higher Self. It is new for B,
so let him be comfortable, relaxed, inwardly peaceful. This is how Oneness
is; joyful, heavenly peace and comfort is all there is, because that is what
Love is, what Papa is, what Self is. Does B begin to see what persona,
separate self has been missing all these æons? Yes; it is all starting
to fall into place and become clear. Well, now is the beginning of the
end of duality, if B chooses it to be so for him.
B can begin to think, write, express as Self; switching the point of view,
of perspective, from littleness to Vision, to Allness. That opens the
floodgates to allow all awareness to enter in, to come into focus, into the
Presence. It is only littleness, persona, ‘B’ that withholds self from
Allness. There is nothing to fear, unless B is afraid of Love.
No, B is not afraid of Love; more, like most of the fragments, of the
‘unknown,’ of getting zapped by the power of Love in his
unpreparedness for It. But with Self, just as with Jesus, B knows he is
safe because the trust in Jesus, and thus, now, Self — which I am now fully
clear is the same as the Spirit of Truth, the Holy Breath, the Voice for
Papa — has been completely won.
B has no fear of Jesus or Papa; rather, he has only absolute love, trust,
gratitude, honouring. B also still has a fairly liberal sprinkling of awe
for Jesus, but knows he — as Big Me, Self — is like Jesus, and
destined to be restored to full remembrance of that truth, that reality. So
being in awe of one’s own likeness is, B now recognises, unserviceable.
But honouring one’s true Self is not unserviceable. In fact, to not
honour one’s true Self is highly unserviceable, and is what keeps
oneself trapped in persona littleness, over and over, indefinitely. Or
would, were it not for the Great Rescue Programme.
So, B appears, as far as he is consciously aware, to be ready and willing to
consciously embrace and identify with Self; to become freed, cleared, from
persona, if that is synonymous with littleness. It is. But that does not
mean abandoning persona B; for he is providing the opportunity
for the transforming, uplifting to Self-awareness to take place. This is an
embracing, accepting process, not an eschewing, excluding process. That has
been persona’s misperception since the dawn of time — believing itself to
have been excluded from Heaven.
B has been led from a place of unawareness to one of emerging awareness.
To abandon him now would be perceived as an act of betrayal, giving just
cause for fear. Love does not, ever, abandon, but always accepts, includes,
embraces, gives, extends freely and unconditionally. This enables persona B
to become and remain unconditionally trusting, responsive, eager for the
uplifting, refining, transforming, awakening process to proceed toward its
completion.
This process concludes in the joyous willingness for Self within to
gradually take over from the misperceiving little self, with no reticence or
fear. In Papa’s Eternity of Heaven there is no compulsion. This is why the
awakening is a gradual, gentle, one step at a time process. That way, all
who observe it from the persona, or littleness perspective, can truly have
nothing to fear, but actually come to the place of realisation that they
have, literally, Everything to gain and nothing to lose.
Alleluia!
Alleluia indeed. Here is an opportunity for sharing; sharing is learning
and learning is growing, or becoming. Becoming literally means ‘coming to
Be.’ Coming to Be Who you really Are. Who all the fragments are: One. For
there is only one; but one is All. And Papa is All. Full circle;
completeness. Again. This becoming is a restoration to remembrance of Who
you Are; a resurrection of mind to Mind; a metamorphosis from crawling
caterpillar to soaring butterfly. The end of the dream of separation.
This appears to be a dialogue, but since one cannot have a dialogue with
oneself, might it be better termed a monologue? Perhaps, since neither term
adequately describes its reality, it can best be described as simply
mind-to-Mind communing. It is our destiny to be restored to
Self-realisation; it therefore seems sense to make a beginning in becoming
re-acquainted with Self. Can there be a more serviceable way to do this
than to commune with Self? May this sharing serve to increase
understanding, provide reassurance and encourage illumination by such
communing.
T
he
Inner Peace of Christ be with us all,
Brian Longhurst
May 13th 2009
Dear Friends,
Most of us are aware of some degree of guilt and fear in our lives. There
is no shortage of apparent causes in this world, where lying and cheating
have become endemic in commerce, politics and just about every other sphere
of endeavour; and war, genocide, famine, torture, murder, cancer, rape,
aids, swine ‘flu, redundancy, repossession, a bullying
boss/spouse/parent/teacher — the list is endless — are all around us. And
the media feed on it all, regurgitating it to a hapless, gullible and easily
beguiled audience.
Yet Jesus tells us in ACIM that what we see around us, and feel rise up
within us from time to time, as road rage, judgement, sarcasm, derision,
(all projections away from ourself onto others) are but the tip of an
iceberg of unconscious guilt and fear, engendered by an unconscious
(because it is too terrifying to countenance consciously) belief that we
have separated from God and He is out to punish us. All this is imagined,
dreamt, but we have given it reality by believing it.
Most of this may be deep in our unconscious, upside-down mind, but there is
one legacy of our perceived separation from God and the attempt at throwing
away our inheritance that is consciously present in the everyday life of
most of us. That legacy is doubt. We doubt ourself, our future, our
prospects, our health, our worth, Heaven, miracles, that we will ever find
inner peace, joy, happiness, a soul-mate, win the lottery — another endless
list.
Amongst the greatest of doubts is that God or Jesus know about us, care
about us, talk to us, love us, help us. And then, when something
metaphysical/inspirational/spiritual/‘supernatural’ happens in our life (as
it does to immeasurably more of us than the world is ready to admit), we
doubt it has actually happened. And even if we know beyond doubt that it
has, we doubt anyone else will believe us, so we keep quiet about it, for
fear (that word, again!) that no-one will believe us, or will doubt
us, or deride us.
Today, perfectly timed for the early phases of the awakening-back-to-reality
measure of meal, we are profoundly blessed to have the unadulterated word of
Jesus in the form of ACIM, telling/reminding us how to break the cycle of
birth and death, dispel guilt, fear, hate, doubt, despair, ‘death,’ remember
our inheritance, reclaim it, get back to our true Home of Eternity in
Heaven. Yet, how many of us when offered all of this, freely, with no
catches, doubt it is Jesus, doubt it is true, doubt that while it may be
possible for others, it can ever be possible for ‘me’?
‘But,’ I hear someone say, ‘ACIM is so difficult to understand. I want
to believe it, but it takes so much effort, and half the time my mind ends
up going into tilt mode, so I have to give up trying, as I end up
more confused afterwards than before I started. Besides, the church isn’t
supporting it, and they won’t comment on it meaningfully, so how do I know
it is Jesus, if the church doesn’t get behind it? I can’t make up my
mind whether it’s salvation, straight from Jesus, or psychobabble.’
The difficulty illustrated here was described last week, with the
observation that we have concocted language — words, which are not reality,
but symbols — to describe 3-dimensional experience and understanding, and
this is all we have to convey meaning and understanding of eternal truth and
reality, which is omni-dimensional, thus placing comprehension at the limit,
or beyond, of 3-d faculties. This is exacerbated by the fact that in our
3-d world of perception, everything is upside-down, so comprehending
reality, which is the right-way up, is alien to us.
Nevertheless, our reality — Self — is within us, closer than hands
and feet, eagerly waiting to help us, if we are willing to go within, shut
the door on clamour, and truly seek and earnestly desire to
know, to remember the Truth of Eternity. We also have to be patient
(because ‘only infinite patience produces immediate effects’), and not
demand instant answers to all our ego-devised questions, and instead, be
willing to place ourself, trusting, in faith, in the caring help of Self,
the Spirit of Truth.
The sincere, beginning seeker will find parts of ACIM understandable and
parts beyond his wit. This is where faith and trust come in. Giving up
gets us nowhere, i.e. stuck in 3-d land. Keeping faith and carrying on —
acknowledging that there are going to be many parts beyond one’s
understanding, but asking Jesus, or Self to inspire and illumine one’s mind,
and being willing to engage that inner humility and accept the
understandable parts as the gift they are — leads to greater and greater
understanding over time. Breaking the cycle of birth and death,
forgetfulness, fear and guilt is a lifelong endeavour, not a five minute
job, and takes commitment, and brings real, palpable benefits beyond all a
dream can offer.
For those who still doubt whether Jesus is the author of ACIM, here is a
Lesson from the Workbook for Students that may help to convince them. This
lesson brings us a mystical message. It is not about 3-d
perceptions, but of reality far, far beyond. It will have no meaning for a
3-d focussed mind because it is esoteric; of the within. It speaks to our
inner Being, to help us to be still, withdraw from the distractions of an
illusory world and listen to our true Self within.
The purpose of lessons, as any schoolteacher will attest, is to stretch us;
to take us from kindergarten to the next level. The broken fragments of
humanity are in spiritual kindergarten. This lesson takes us outside the
'toy' box, requires us to think with our higher mind, takes us to a place beyond
where we believe we are, to a place of greater awareness. This lesson can
do that if we are ready for something to give us an expanded picture of
spiritual reality, and if we are willing to read it with humility, all the
way through.
LESSON 182
I will be still an instant and go home.
This world you
seem to live in is not home to you. And somewhere in your mind you know that this is true.
A memory of
(our eternal)
home keeps haunting you, as if there were a place that called you to return,
although you do not
(yet)
recognize the voice, nor what it is the voice reminds you of.
Yet still you feel an alien here, from somewhere all unknown. Nothing so
definite that you could say with certainty you are an exile here.
Just a persistent feeling, sometimes not more than a tiny throb, at other
times hardly remembered, actively dismissed
(by ego, whose number is up when we stop dismissing that feeling),
but surely to return to mind again.
No one but knows
(with his upside-down, 3-d mind)
whereof we speak. Yet some
try to put by their suffering in games they play to occupy their time, and
keep their sadness from them. Others will deny that they are sad, and do not
recognize their tears at all. Still others will maintain that what we speak
of is illusion, not to be considered more than but a dream. Yet who, in
simple honesty, without defensiveness and self-deception, would deny he
understands the words we speak?
We speak today
for everyone who walks this world, for he is not at home.
He goes uncertainly about in endless search, seeking in
(spiritual)
darkness what he cannot find; not recognizing what it is he
seeks
(because he seeks omni-dimensional Eternity with a time and place
orientated, 3-d mind).
A thousand homes he makes
(on sand), yet none contents his restless mind. He does not understand
he builds in vain. The home he seeks can not be made by him. There is no
substitute for Heaven. All he ever made was hell
(anything that is not eternal, of Heaven, can, by definition, only be hell).
Perhaps you think it is your childhood home that you would find again. The
childhood of your body, and its place of shelter, are a memory now so
distorted that you merely hold a picture of a past that never happened.
Yet there is a Child in you
(our true Self)
Who seeks His Father's house, and knows that He is alien here
(in dreamland). This
childhood is eternal, with an innocence that will endure forever. Where this
Child shall go is holy ground.
It is His holiness that lights up Heaven, and that brings to earth
the pure reflection of the light above, wherein are earth and Heaven joined
as one
(the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth).
It is this
Child in you your Father knows as His Own Son.
It is this Child Who knows His Father. He desires to go home so
deeply, so unceasingly, His voice cries unto you to let Him rest a while. He
does not ask for more than just a few instants of respite
(mind-to-Mind communing);
just an interval in which He can return to breathe again the holy air that
fills His Father's house. You are His home as well
(with His help we can eject the squatter who defiles it and restore it to
its rightful freeholder). He will return. But give Him just a little time to be
Himself, within the peace that is His home, resting in silence and in peace
and love.
This Child needs your protection. He is far from home. He is so little
(to our perception, at first)
that He seems so easily shut out, His tiny voice so readily
obscured, His call for help almost unheard amid the grating sounds and harsh
and rasping noises of the world. Yet does He know that in you still
abides His sure protection. You will fail Him not
(it is simply a question of when rather than if we will not
fail Him).
He will go home, and you along with Him.
This Child is your defenselessness; your strength. He trusts in you. He
came because He knew you would not fail
(we cannot fail because of Who we really Are).
He whispers of His home unceasingly to you. For He would bring you back with
Him, that He Himself might stay
(in Heaven), and not return again where He does not belong, and where He
lives an outcast in a world of alien thoughts. His patience has no
limits. He will wait until you hear His gentle Voice within you,
calling you to let Him go in peace, along with you, to where He is at
home and you with Him.
When you are
still an instant, when the world recedes from you, when valueless ideas
cease to have value in your restless mind, then will you hear His
Voice. So poignantly He calls to you that you will not resist Him
longer. In that instant He will take you to His home, and you will stay with
Him in perfect stillness, silent and at peace, beyond all words,
untouched by fear and doubt, sublimely certain that you are at home.
Rest with Him frequently today. For He was willing to become a little Child
that you might learn of Him how strong is he who comes without defenses,
offering only love's messages to those who think he is their enemy.
He holds the might of Heaven in His hand and calls them friend, and gives
His strength to them, that they may see He would be Friend to them. He
asks that they protect Him, for His home is far away, and He will not return
to it alone
(but only with us ALL).
Christ is reborn as but a little Child each time a wanderer would leave his
home. For he must learn that what he would protect is but this Child, Who
comes defenseless and Who is protected by defenselessness. Go home with
Him from time to time today. You are as much an alien here as He.
Take time today to lay aside your shield which profits nothing, and lay down
the spear and sword you raised against an enemy without existence. Christ
has called you friend and brother. He has even come to ask your help in
letting Him go home today, completed and completely
(by our re-joining with Him, permanently).
He has come as does a little child, who must beseech his father for
protection and for love. He rules the universe
(not the changing, illusory universe, but the changeless, eternal
omniverse of God’s creation),
and yet He asks unceasingly that you return with Him, and take illusions as
your gods no more.
You have not lost your innocence
(little, persona self believes it has, but Self knows He has
not).
It is for this you yearn. This is your heart's desire. This is the voice you
hear, and this the call which cannot be denied
(only, needlessly, delayed).
The holy Child remains with you. His home is yours. Today He gives
you His defenselessness, and you accept it in exchange for all the toys
of battle you have made. And now the way is open, and the journey has an
end in sight at last. Be still an instant and go home with Him, and
be at peace a while.
(My emboldening and italics, for emphasis.)
Here’s to FTOC!
Brian Longhurst
May 20th 2009
Dear Friends,
It is interesting, within the context of ACIM terminology describing the
apparently split-off, separated, upside-down part of our minds as ego,
that a person who might be perceived as self-centred is also described as
ego-centric. Such a state of mind is usually driven by fear, and tries to
cover up that sense of vulnerability by adopting a façade of boastfulness,
vanity, seeking to be the centre of attention, making exaggerated claims of
accomplishments. Yet all that focus is actually on a mistaken belief in a
little self, limited to time and place, to struggling against imagined
adversity. This is all according to ego’s ‘script,’ a plot to keep us
deceived about our reality.
But of course, there is a much better script, freely available for us to
follow; that of our true, eternal, invulnerable Being, Whom we can know and
identify with, just as Jesus did, and like whom we are destined to become,
once more. This Being is Self. Big Self. All-knowing,
all-empowered, all-loving, all-forgiving, all-trusting-and-trustworthy
Self. To attune with Self, to be focussed in Him in all our desires and
thoughts is also to be Self-centred, but with an outcome that is entirely
beneficial for all. It is to be Holy Spirit-centric; the opposite of
ego-centric.
As Jesus says in ACIM:
The difference between
the ego’s
projection and the Holy Spirit’s
extension is very simple. The ego projects
(guilt and fear)
to exclude, and
therefore to deceive
(because being within our true estate of oneness in Papa — any alternative
to which is impossible except in illusion — is to be included).
The Holy Spirit
(which is our true Being, or Self)
extends by recognizing
Himself in every mind, and thus perceives them
(the separated fragmented minds of humanity)
as one. Nothing
conflicts in this perception, because what the Holy Spirit perceives is all
the same. Wherever He looks He sees Himself, and because He is united
(He is united because He knows division, separation, brokenness is
impossible in reality)
He offers the whole
Kingdom always. This is the one message God gave to Him and for which He
must speak, because that is what He is. The peace of God lies in that
message, and so the peace of God lies in you. The great peace of the
Kingdom shines in your mind forever, but it must shine outward
(to our brothers, for the illumination and healing of their minds)
to make you aware
of it.
... The ego is legion
(illusorily speaking),
but the Holy Spirit is one. No darkness abides anywhere in the Kingdom, but
your part is only to allow no darkness to abide in your own mind.
This alignment with light is unlimited, because it is in alignment with the
light of the world. Each of us is the light of the world, and by
joining our minds in this light we proclaim the Kingdom of God together and
as one.
(Text, pages 98-99. My italics, emboldening and underlining, for emphasis.)
On page 59 of the Text, Jesus says:
Salvation
(restoration to remembrance of Who and Where we are)
is nothing more than "right-mindedness," which is not the One-mindedness of
the Holy Spirit, but which must be achieved before One-mindedness is
restored. Right-mindedness leads to the next step
(the One-mindedness of the Holy Spirit, our true Self)
automatically, because right perception is uniformly without attack
(or judgement),
and therefore wrong-mindedness is obliterated. The ego cannot survive
without judgment, and is laid aside accordingly. The mind then has only
one direction in which it can move
(toward the Light of eternal Truth. Even a phototropic plant can therefore
be observed to have more sense than ego
J).
Its direction is always automatic, because it cannot but be dictated by the
thought system to which it adheres.
Jesus tells us throughout ACIM that God — and Heaven — is incomplete without
His Son (us); that the salvation of the world (i.e. our waking from the
dream of time and place and restoration to oneness in Eternity) is dependent
upon each of us fragments co-operating with Self/the Voice for God by
allowing Him to release us from ego’s yoke.
This release is possible by true forgiveness — seeing past the illusion and
thus realising that forgiveness is simple because no-one can hold a
grievance against a dream world of time and place that is not here, since
only Eternity is real. And, having remembered this truth, to share it with,
or extend it to, our fragmented brothers, to assist their release, or
resurrection, or leavening.
Jesus is doing this for us; as we receive the Light of Truth from him, we
can only go forward to the Eternity of Heaven — not just the etheric
counterpart of Earth after we have laid aside the body we took for any one
particular act — by extending this Truth onwards to our brothers.
This may seem authoritarian, but just as is the case with Jesus, when we
awaken to the Truth there arises in us an unquenchable desire to share It
with our fellows, because we are one. It only seems authoritarian to ego,
because Truth is the undoing of ego and our release from its chains.
As previously stated, to hear the Voice for God, which is not ‘out there’
but is our very own inner, higher Self, we have to be willing to commune
with Him. I would like to share with you a recent communing, which followed
a metaphysical experience in which I, speaking as Self to a gathering of a
few score listeners, who were aware that the Voice for God, the Spirit of
Truth was simply utilising persona Brian as the mechanism of communicating.
This was not trance mediumship; ‘Brian’ was fully consciously participating
in the process, but his speaking was empowered by inspiration from the
One-mindedness of the Holy Spirit, or Self, within.
In accord with the PLF that by steadfastly remaining focussed on the truth
of oneness with Self in Papa and the rightful empowerment this brings to all
the fragments of the Sonship who so attune/commune, persona Brian
spontaneously levitated about 20 feet (6 metres) above the gathering, saying
that this was to demonstrate that the body is not, nor does it have to be —
just as Jesus tells us repeatedly in ACIM, and as it was not for him in his
walking on water — a burdensome limitation.
Jesus tells us that the works that he did we also would do, and greater
works than these, if only we could believe. Now is the time for these works
— ‘miracles’ — to begin in earnest. We can know this is correct because he
has now, in perfect co-ordination of timing, given us the handbook for them,
right at the beginning of the leavening of the third measure.
Here is the mind-to-Mind communing that followed, which I share for the
encouragement of all who are inspired by it:
Divine Papa, Divine Self: we are ONE. I Am not a body, but soaring,
eternal, limitless spirit. All is ours — the fragments of the Sonship —
now. Nothing can obscure this eternal reality, if only we can believe. I
believe now, Self; Papa has given me ALL. I Am ALL, just as Jesus is
ALL, because I, along with Jesus, Am His Son, and soaring — levitating — is
but a sign, a symbol of the truth that nothing (i.e. the illusion of time
and place) can not limit illimitless Self. Bodies are nothing; time
and place are nothing. Papa, Eternity, Heaven, Oneness are ALL. ALL is
mine, freely forever, because Papa has given it, freely, to His beloved Son.
Because of this, I must use the opportunity I have presented to Self by
taking a body, a vehicle of communicating within the illusion, to share,
extend, present this, the Truth of Eternity, to my beloved brothers, by
demonstrating this reality to them, that they might be exalted, re-minded,
uplifted; remember their oneness with Self, with Jesus, in the Sonship of
Papa. Self: this experience has exhorted me to greater eagerness for this
to proceed apace. How is it to proceed from here?
I thought you would never ask. Of course, you, dear B, already know this.
It is by turning within, recognising Self as Who You Are, even as this event
has shown you
being It. Doing is not the way forward, so you are moving into the right
circumstances.1 This is no accident, coincidence or
chance happenstance, of course, but the Path unfolding at your feet.
Meanwhile, ALL is within My care; let Brian leave it there, where I will
lead all matters into the outworking and fulfilment of the MRP2.
Let there be centredness, comfort, peace, certainty within. Let doubt be
left no room to enter in. Do you think Jesus let doubt enter in? Would you
be like him?
Yes!!! I feel — B feels — greatly inspired, encouraged, uplifted (in this
case, literally!) by this morning’s experience.
Flying, soaring, levitation, are, of themselves, nothing; not the objective,
but merely a sign, a demonstration that Papa’s Son, even in all the
seemingly fragmented forms as presented within the dream, is not/are not,
heavy, limiting bodies. It is a symbol of Our unlimitedness.
Self: I give thanks for our Oneness. I cleave unto You, this state of
Being.
It is not something to become, but to remember, for B is already This. All
the brethren are This, NOW. So, let them be re-minded, according to My
leading. I will bring about —
am bringing about — the events, the circumstances whereby this will be
enabled. Leave all to Self. Surrender the ego leasehold, that vacant
possession may be uptaken by, restored to, the Freeholder. Jesus is the
example for ‘B,’ as he was and is for all. One step at a time shall this be
fulfilled. No opportunity can be wasted and none shall be lost, by B’s
obedience to Self’s leading.
1
I retire from the world of commerce at the end of May.
2
For explanation of this please see MoE dated July 2nd 2008
None of this is unique, or exceptional, but freely ours, for the asking; our
Creation-right and inheritance. We have dreamed we threw it all away, but
now we are awakening and remembering reality. Home. That is the
Gospel — ‘Good news’ — that Jesus came to bring us. Compared with what we
have made here in time and place, that sounds like good news to me
J.
Love, unrelentingly,
Brian Longhurst
May 27th 2009
Dear Friends,
It has recently been observed that humanity is barely in the spiritual
kindergarten. But now is the time on the ‘cosmic clock’, or within the
unfolding Great Rescue Programme, of which Jesus is CEO, to begin hearing
the wakeup Call. Is there one amongst us who thinks Jesus has not been
occupied during the last 2,000 years, working, fully empowered, for the
upliftment, the resurrection, the leavening of his brethren? Far too long
have we been hearing — and believing — the call of fear, and been assured
that the wakeup call will be a call to judgement, condemnation, eternal
punishment by a fearful God.
The good news is that the wakeup Call — now sounding its gentle,
peace-inspiring, reassuring summons — is the Call of unconditional Love,
telling us that anything to the contrary is nothing but a dream, an
illusion, a self-made nightmare; who else would make it? That sounds like
good news to all rationally-thinking people, but the length and depth of
conditioning to believe the unbelievable has most of us bamboozled, so there
is a propensity to an attitude of mind that does us no justice as the
siblings of Jesus within the Sonship of our Father Creator. This is an
attitude of mistrust, unbelieving, doubt, hardness of heart, cynicism toward
news that sounds ‘too good to be true.’
So here is some more encouragement from ACIM to help us all change our mind
from time and place, upside-down, insane, ego-thinking to right-minded
thinking, discernment, awareness, accepting, knowing that the Creator
Spirit, our Heavenly Father, is invariably, unalterably loving, benign,
accepting of His Son; that all contra-indications are fabrications of
the split-off part of our mind, based in spiritual darkness, fear, guilt,
doubt, shame, hatred... all the qualities that are antithetical of eternal
reality and its Architect. This encouragement tells us that the benign,
loving reality of Eternity is freely available, NOW:
LESSON 188
The peace of God is shining in me now.
Why wait for Heaven? Those who seek the light are merely covering
their eyes. The light is in them now.
Enlightenment is but a recognition, not a change at all. Light is not
of the world, yet you who bear the light in you
(and, along with our brother Jesus, are the light, just as he tells
us in Mt. 5:14)
are
alien here as well. The light came with you from your native home, and
stayed with you because it is your own. It is the only thing you
bring with you from Him Who is your Source. It shines in you because it
lights your home, and leads you back to where it came from and you are at
home.
This light can not be lost.
Why wait to find it in the future, or believe it has been lost already,
or was never there? It can so easily be looked upon that arguments which
‘prove’ it is not there become ridiculous
(all that is required is that we be willing to believe it is there
first and then will it become discernible by us. This is not because
God and His creation is perverse but because we are, as it says above,
covering our eyes. It is the unbelief that covers our eyes.
Believing first is impossible if we are following ego’s script, which tells
us, wrongly, that we must first see and then — maybe — we will
believe. But if we choose the Holy Spirit’s script we find believing first
is easy — and comfortable).
Who
can deny the presence of what he beholds in him? It is not difficult to look
within, for there all vision starts
(spiritual vision; nothing to do with bodily sight, spiritual vision
becomes possible with a believing, trusting attitude of mind, aligned with,
attuned to Holy Spirit Mind)...
The peace of God is shining in you now, and from your heart extends around
the world
(we can choose not to see this or be aware of it, even deny it, but we
cannot prevent this from being so. Yet, if we choose to believe it,
we become aware of it and its magnificence, and so desire its reality and to
actively participate in extending it to, sharing it with, our fellows, that
it eventually becomes our own reality — again — just as it always originally
was, until we fell asleep and forgot for a moment).
It
pauses to caress each living thing, and leaves a blessing with it that
remains forever and forever
(I have seen, experienced this as reality; see SFGS,
ch. 8). What it
gives must be eternal
(as is everything from and within Papa’s creation).
It
removes all thoughts of the ephemeral and valueless
(which is what everything of time and place becomes to us once we have
glimpsed, re-experienced eternal reality).
It
brings renewal to all tired hearts, and lights all vision as it passes by
(I attest to the veracity of this statement).
All of its gifts are given everyone, and everyone unites in giving
thanks to you who give, and you who have received.
The
shining in your mind reminds the world of what it has forgotten
(this is why we are here, and the shining comes to our awareness through
true forgiveness, bringing us lasting peace and joy),
and
the world restores the memory to you as well. From you salvation radiates
with gifts beyond all measure, given and returned
(ego would have us ask how we can possibly be the source of
salvation, since Jesus is the ‘saviour’ and we are ‘worthless
sinners.’ The answer is, we do not do this of our littleness self
—even Jesus said that of himself he could do nothing — but we simply commit
to a willingness for Self, the Spirit of Truth, to accomplish this
in, through and for us, by our full co-operation with and following of His
lead).
To you, the giver of the gift, does God Himself give thanks. And in
(and by)
His
blessing does the light in you shine brighter, adding to the gifts you have
to offer
(and extend)
to
the world.
The peace of God can never be contained. Who recognizes it within himself
must give it.
And the means for giving it are in his understanding
(returned to our awareness by Self).
He
forgives because he recognized the truth in him
(having been restored to remembrance of the truth by Holy Spirit, the Voice
for God; Self, enabled by our willingness to allow it. Nothing more
is asked of us than that willingness).
The peace of God is shining in you now, and in all living things. In
quietness is it acknowledged
(which it never is out in the frenetic world of time and place distraction)
universally. For what your inward vision looks upon is your
(now, gradually becoming true)
perception of the universe.
Sit
quietly and close your eyes. The light within you is sufficient. It
alone has power to give the gift of
(spiritual)
sight to you. Exclude the outer world, and let your thoughts fly to the
peace within. They know the way. For honest thoughts, untainted
by the dream of worldly things outside yourself, become the holy
messengers of God Himself
(which we can receive here in time and place by help from and co-operation
with Self).
These thoughts you think with Him.
They
recognize their home
(again, with help from Self, which is always freely and lovingly given, and
if we choose with Him and not with ego, then we are in receptive mode for
the freely-given help).
And
they point surely to their Source, Where God the Father and the Son are one
(as we were until the dream of separation, and where we will be again when
we so choose).
God's peace is shining on them
(our Kingdomly thoughts),
but they must remain with you as well, for they were born within your
mind, as yours was born in God's. They lead you back to peace, from where
they came but to remind you how you must return.
They
heed your Father's Voice when
(ego-ensnared)
you
refuse to listen. And they urge you gently to accept His Word for what you
are, instead of fantasies and shadows. They
(our Kingdomly thoughts)
remind you that you are the co-creator of all things that live. For as
the peace of God is shining in you, it must shine on them.
We
practice coming nearer to the light in us today. We take our wandering
thoughts, and gently bring them back to where they fall in line with all the (Kingdomly)
thoughts we share with God. We will not let them stray. We let the light
within our minds direct them to come home. We
(ego-led)
have
betrayed them, ordering that they depart from us. But now we call them
back, and wash them clean of strange desires and disordered wishes. We
restore to them the holiness of their inheritance
(this, simply by allowing Self — our true, eternal Being, Papa’s Son
— to accomplish this for us, not by an act of little-self will trying to
force it; it is an act of surrender, in trust).
Thus
are our minds restored with them
(our Kingdomly thoughts),
and we acknowledge that the peace of God still shines in us, and
from us to all living things that share our life. We will forgive
them all, absolving all the world from what we thought it did to us.
For it is we who make the world as we would have it
(hell, if we choose with ego; Heaven, if we choose with Holy Spirit).
Now
we choose that it
(the world)
be
innocent, devoid of sin and open to salvation. And we lay our saving
blessing on it, as we say:
The peace of God is shining in me now.
Let all things shine upon me in that peace,
And let me bless them with the light in me.
(My emboldening, underlining and some italics, for emphasis.)
Alleluia! As it says in Isaiah 60:1
‘Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen
upon thee.’
Love and Light,
Brian Longhurst
June 3rd 2009
Dear Friends,
Several times over the last few months reference has been made to the
apparently fragmented Son of God — dreaming of separation, evoking fear,
guilt, worthlessness and all that is counter to our true Home and state of
Being — needing a jolt to waken us from this dream. Some of the jolts that
we receive are called into our presence by our ego-dominated, upside-down
mind, and involve fear, terror, genocide and all the ingredients to
demonstrate that what we have made here within the dream is hell.
That will cause some to say, We must learn and grow from this and ensure it
— war, famine, enforced celibacy in religious orders leading to pederasty,
brutalising, rape, traumatising of children in the ‘flock,’ such as is
tearing the Catholic church asunder before our eyes, while its leaders
continue in denial; or whatever form the particular unKingdomliness takes —
never happens again.
Such ‘negative jolts’ can cause great confusion, and fewer are likely to see
them as opportunity and calls to grow and awaken than if such jolts are
positive, loving, gentle, peace-inducing events. ACIM refers to these as
‘happy dreams.’ Here is what Jesus says about the need for happy dreams to
gently rouse us from the nightmare, so that we will be better, more
positively prepared for our awakening:
You
are the dreamer of the world of dreams. No other cause it has, nor ever
will. Nothing more fearful than an idle dream has terrified God’s
Son, and made him think that he has lost his innocence, denied his Father,
and made war upon himself. So fearful is the dream, so seeming real, he
could not waken to reality without the sweat of terror and a scream of
mortal fear, unless a gentler dream preceded his awaking, and allowed his
calmer mind to welcome, not to fear, the Voice That calls with love to waken
him; a gentler dream, in which his suffering was healed and where his
brother was his friend. God willed he waken gently and with joy, and
gave him means to waken without fear.
(T-27.VII.13)
Happy, gentle, fear-free dreams are loving, uplifting, encouraging, positive
reminders of Who and Where we really are: The Christ; the one eternal,
perfect, innocent Son of our eternal, perfect, loving Father Creator, safe,
in the Eternity of Heaven. These induce — sooner or later, depending on how
near to readiness for waking each fragment is — a readiness and willingness
to continue, one step at a time, through the awakening process. In chapter
8 — entitled ‘Enlightenment’ — of Gary Renard’s book The Disappearance of
the Universe (DU) we are led through a series of quotes from ACIM that
can help bring about such an enhanced state of readiness.
Gary observes that only by forgiving the images we see as our separated
brothers and sisters, but who are symbolic of ourself (as we see others, so
are we appearing to others; so by judging others we are judging ourself, by
forgiving others, we are forgiving ourself, because in truth, we are but
One, appearing as many fragments) can we escape from the seemingly
endless round of (self) judgement. He reminds us then of what ACIM asks:
Can you to whom God
says, “Release My Son!” be tempted not to listen, when you learn that it is
you for whom He asks release? And what but this is what this course would
teach? And what but this is there for you to learn?
(T-31.VII.15)
He goes on to say that if we attune (or commune, or join) with the Holy Spirit, or
Jesus, in what ACIM describes as holy instants, often enough, within
the happy dream of forgiveness, release from the cycle of birth and death is
inevitable. Arten then shares several quotes from section 28 of the ACIM
Teachers’ Manual about the resurrection of our minds (since we are not
bodies, and our essential nature, pure, perfect spirit, like our Creator,
needs no resurrecting, it is only our confused, upside down mind that needs
resurrecting).
This will lead to the disappearance of the universe that we see around us
because that has been made by the split-off part of our mind, and when our
mind is healed, restored to wholeness, there will be no more separated,
upside-down part of our mind to perceive the image of a false universe that
is not really there; that rather, we will become aware of the real
Universe: God’s Universe, Heaven:
28. WHAT IS THE RESURRECTION?
Very
simply, the resurrection is the overcoming or surmounting of death. It is a
re-awakening or a rebirth; a change of mind about the meaning of the
world...
The resurrection is the denial of death, being the assertion of life.
Thus is all the thinking of the world reversed entirely...
Alleluia!
And when we have completely awakened from the dream of death and attained
our resurrection:
...Christ’s face is seen in every living thing, and nothing is held in
darkness, apart
(separate)
from
the light of forgiveness. There is no sorrow still upon the earth. The joy
of Heaven has come upon it.
And, once we have awakened sufficiently to see the face of Christ, not just
in Jesus but in all our brothers and ourself:
Here
the curriculum ends. From here on, no directions are needed. Vision is
wholly corrected and all mistakes undone. Attack is meaningless and peace
has come. The goal of the curriculum has been achieved. Thoughts turn to
Heaven and away from hell. All longings are satisfied, for what remains
unanswered or incomplete? ...The whole reversal is accomplished. Nothing is
left to contradict the Word of God. There is no opposition to the truth.
And now the truth can come at last. How quickly will it come as it is
asked
(by us — who else?)
to
enter and envelop such a world!
Arten goes on to say:
The time will come when each seemingly separated mind has attained its
enlightenment or resurrection. When everyone – not everybody, mind
you – but every mind that has dreamed thousands of lifetimes has reached
this state of awakening from the dream, that is the Second Coming of
Christ. As the Course teaches:
Christ’s Second Coming, which is sure as God, is merely the correction of
mistakes, and the return of sanity. ...It is the invitation to God's
Word to take illusion’s place; the willingness to let forgiveness rest
upon all things without exception and without reserve.
It
is the all-inclusive nature of Christ’s Second Coming that permits it
to embrace the world and hold you safe within its gentle advent, which
encompasses all living things with you. There is no end to the release the
Second Coming brings, as God’s creation must be limitless. Forgiveness
lights the Second Coming’s way, because it shines on everything as one.
And thus is oneness recognized at last.
...The Second Coming is the one event in time which time itself can not
affect. For every one who ever came to die, or yet will come or who is
present now, is equally released from what he made. In this equality is
Christ restored as one Identity, in which the Sons of God acknowledge
that they all are one. And God the Father smiles upon His Son, His one
creation and His only joy.
(ACIM Workbook page 449)
Arten continues by reminding us that when the entire Sonship is ready, then
Papa will give His Last Judgement, which is described by Jesus on page 455
of the Workbook for Students:
This is God’s Final
Judgment: “You are still My holy Son, forever innocent, forever loving and
forever loved, as limitless as your Creator, and completely changeless and
forever pure. Therefore awaken and return to Me. I am Your Father and you
are My Son.”
Arten then reminds us that when everyone has completed his
forgiveness lessons, Papa will take the last step and welcome the collective
prodigal Son home into the oneness that in reality we have never actually
left:
When you perceive
yourself without deceit, you will accept the real world in place of the
false one you have made. And then your Father will lean down to you and take
the last step for you, by raising you unto Himself.
(T-11.VIII.15)
Pursah then reminds Gary that oneness cannot be perfect if there is anything
else — i.e. outside Heaven — to be aware of, with this quote:
There is nothing
outside you. That is what you must ultimately learn, for it is the
realization that the Kingdom of Heaven is restored to you.
For God created only this, and He did not depart from it nor leave it
separate from Himself. The Kingdom of Heaven is the dwelling place of
the Son of God, who left not his Father and dwells not apart from Him.
Heaven is not a place nor a condition. It is merely an awareness of perfect
Oneness, and the knowledge that there is nothing else; nothing outside this
Oneness, and nothing else within.
(T-18.VI.1)
She then invites Gary (and us) to consider these ideas from chapter 11,
section 1 in the Text, called ‘The Gifts of Fatherhood’:
...There are no beginnings and no endings in God, Whose universe is Himself.
...The universe of love does not stop because you do not see it,
nor have your closed eyes lost the ability to see.
...God has given you a place in His Mind that is yours forever. Yet you
can keep it only by giving it, as it was given you.
Arten rounds off this part of their discussions by reminding Gary what the
Course is leading us to by this quote:
...God is, and
in Him all created things must be eternal. Do you not see that otherwise He
has an opposite, and fear would be as real as love?
(M.67)
(Emboldening, underlining and some italics in ACIM quotes are mine, for
emphasis.)
The foregoing, assuredly, is an example of how ACIM is a jolt for slumbering
fragments, but a happy, gentle one, that inspires, uplifts, exhorts, fires
us up. And all that ACIM promises us is now in its final, fulfilment phase
of unfoldment; in the leavening of the third measure of meal, in which all
will be leavened, raised up, resurrected. It is party time, and all are
invited to actively party-cipate.
To oneness!
Brian Longhurst
June 10th 2009
Dear Friends,
The MoE dated February 11th 2009 spoke of healing and wholeness,
with a focus on a brother to us all in the Sonship, ‘M.B.’, who had been
recently diagnosed with œsophageal cancer. A prayer vigil was held for him
here, and many, from time zones around the planet, joined in attuning for
his healing and restoration to wholeness. Many have also continued
irradiating him with love and light, and I have given occasional updates on
his wellbeing.
M.B. went through a course of chemotherapy, and now is due to undergo
surgery tomorrow, Thursday June 11th. All the prayers and
heartfelt, loving blessing selflessly outpoured for him at that time and
subsequently have been of palpable, discernible uplift to him, giving him
strength and courage, helping him to recover from the chemo and face the
daunting prospect of a 7- to 10-hour surgical procedure with a level of
equanimity that otherwise would have been unlikely. On a visit to M.B. and
his wife a couple of weeks ago, she said to me as I entered their house,
‘The prayers are working; thank you.’ M.B. has been profoundly
grateful for such heartfelt outpouring, from which the givers as well as the
receiver benefit equally, since we are all one.
The February 11th MoE reminded us that in ACIM Jesus tells us
that all healing is of the mind, and has to be because it is misperceiving
mind that is the cause of dis-ease. It also said:
‘Prayer is an attunement, not a pleading.’
And:
It is not for us to know whether M.B. elected, aforetime, that this would be
his chosen time and way to lay aside his body; that he has, perhaps, done
what he came here to accomplish. So, to pray for his recovery from cancer,
followed by further long life with a body, may be going against his
higher-Self choice. Therefore, rather than pleading for mercy upon him,
to spare his bodily life, we might ask that the divine will be done,
remembering that the divine will is the will of the Son as well as the
Father.
The will of the Son is only the same as the will of the Father when the Son
is thinking right-mindedly, and not with the ego-distorted, fear-filled,
split-off, separated part of his mind.
This prayer came to me back in February, so it is repeated here in the event
that any who feel moved to send love and light once more for M.B. might find
it helpful:
Heavenly Papa, I give thanks for the life of Your beloved son, our
brother M.B. I lift him up in my heart and mind, irradiate him with light
and love,
and bless him for release from the illusion of fear, dis-ease and
brokenness,
and for restoration back into the peace, wholeness and oneness
of the Sonship with us all, in You.
On Good Friday (April 10th) this year Theresa and I met Michael
and Carolyn Roads. Michael has had a lifetime of amazing mystical,
metaphysical, spiritual experiences, and has written a number of books about
them, which we first read back in the 1990s. He and Carolyn tour many
countries each year, presenting what he calls ‘POWER OF LOVE Intensives’.
These are to help people to love themselves, so they can love others, all
with unconditional love, and thus be helped along the road to spiritual
wholeness, which is oneness. Oneness can only be complete in Papa.
Of course, unconditional love is a state of mind devoid of misperception,
free and clear of guilt, fear and judgement; completely at peace within.
That state of being cannot be contained, and extends, like ripples on a
pond, to all life, human and otherwise, in time and place and in Eternity.
That is oneness with Papa.
I recently received an email from Michael and Carolyn, some of which I would
like to share here, since it speaks of healing and wholeness, and some
interesting recent discoveries that suggest a remarkable way in which
unconditional love and wholeness become manifest in our bodily form. It is
worth noting that these changes are effects, and the cause is
the point upon which our focus should be fixed if we wish to experience
healing of our mind and the perfect inner peace that such healing
engenders.
Michael and Carolyn say:
...Through
our POWER OF LOVE Intensives we are watching people go through amazing
changes. We are witnessing hearts opening to Love, and we are seeing people
who are becoming emotionally more whole and balanced. To witness long-term
emotional problems coming to an end and being replaced with clarity and
trust is a wonderful experience.
Carolyn goes on to say:
As I was preparing to send this email, I received an interview with Drunvalo
Melchizedek, in which he talks about a new DNA that
UCLA has been watching worldwide through DNA testing. ...According to this
interview, a very specific state of consciousness produces a change in our
DNA. Michael and I are both certain that this ...is the result of
unconditional Love, and this interview, in essence, is what Michael is
focusing his events on this year . . . so . . . it’s exciting to see we’re
all on the same page! Read on . . .
“Science has stated that there are so
many people showing up with this new ... DNA that they now believe that a
new human race is being born on the earth today and apparently they can't
get sick.
... People's DNA is really changing. There have been many of us who have
talked about this - but none of this had been seen by science. Now it has
been seen and it has been documented. . . .
What is really incredible - they believe that it is a very specific
emotional, mental body response - a waveform coming off the body that is
causing the DNA to mutate in a certain way. I've sat with Gregg Braden who
was one of the first persons to write about this and what we believe is that
there are 3 parts to this phenomenon.
The first part is the mind that sees
Unity.
It sees everything interconnected in all ways. It doesn't see anything as
separate.
The second part is being centered in
the heart - to be Loving.
The third part is to step out of
polarity
-
to no longer judge the world. As long as we are judging the world as good or
bad, then we are inside polarity and remain in the fallen state. I believe
these people (with the new DNA) have somehow stepped out of judging and are
in a state where they see everything as one and are feeling Love. Whatever
they are doing within themselves is producing a waveform that when seen on
computer screens looks almost identical to the DNA molecule. So the
researchers think that by the very expression of their life these people are
mapping with the DNA - resonating it - and are changing these 4 codons
(codons are an aspect of DNA)
and in so doing become immune to the disease.”
Michael feels that dropping polarity is not just the dropping of right or
wrong or good or bad, but it is also dropping the polarity of emotions, such
as secure and insecure, doubt and doubtless, hope and hopeless, between
confusion and clarity, and on and on. There is a place between polarities
where the pendulum stops swinging, and we have balance. The swing between
opposites comes to an end. When we have that balance, what remains is far
more powerful than either end of the polarity. It’s the most powerful place
of all . . . it’s the place of peace and freedom.
(My emboldening
here, for emphasis)
Jesus tells us in ACIM that unconditional love, inner peace and freedom —
our true estate — is possible only by abandoning judgement (ego’s script)
and choosing in its place true forgiveness (Self/Holy Spirit’s script),
which ‘...
recognises that what you thought your brother did to you has not
occurred. It does not pardon sins and
(therefore) make
them real. It sees
(instead, that)
there was
no sin. And in that view are all your sins forgiven.
(My parentheses and italics). (ACIM Workbook, page 401).
The above references to changes in DNA and dropping of polarity, which could
be described as oscillating between perceptions and behaviour patterns of
‘right and wrong, good and bad’ — ego-led perceptions — could provide
incontrovertible evidence that unconditional love brings about a
transformation from dis-ease to wholeness that can be detected, measured,
demonstrated, and is therefore incontestable.
As stated above, unconditional love is only attainable by abandonment of
judgement and substituting it with true forgiveness. This is only possible
by choosing with Self to see past the illusion of time and place to the
reality of Eternity and our oneness within It.
Assuredly, as these findings about changes in DNA come more and more to the
fore, ego will be there with its pitfall of causing those without sufficient
light of spiritual discernment to perceive them (the findings) with flawed,
double, upside-down vision, so that the inference drawn will be that we (the
fragments of the Sonship) must genetically re-engineer our DNA and then our
bodies will be disease-free. Indeed, is not this where the fragments are
now at, with the mapping of the human genome, and genetic engineering? Yet
we are not a body, and until our mind is restored to Christ-thinking
and knowing, bodies will appear dis-eased because it is a sick mind
that causes sick, or dis-eased bodies.
Ego will use every deception in the book to avoid the truth, that love
(unconditional love; the only kind of love there really is, since all the
rest is counterfeit) is the true force of Creation and the Creator, and Love
is who and what we, the one Son of the Father Creator, Papa, really
already are. By re-establishing contact with that true Self, the
Spirit of Truth, the Holy Spirit, and being willing to be led back to that
state of our true Being, that Self-same Spirit undertakes our transformation
back from littleness, guilt, fear, judgement, to love, peace, wholeness,
oneness.
The changes in DNA and dropping of polarity, which are outward signs,
waymarkers or symbols of an inward, spiritual transformation, will then
automatically follow. Observing them simply as indicators of our inner
Being can be serviceable. Being deceived into worshipping them as gods,
which ego would contrive for us to do, will not be serviceable. DNA is
temporal; spirit is eternal. That is adequate to help us discern where to
fasten our focus.
Love and light,
Brian Longhurst
June 17th 2009
Dear Friends,
In ACIM Clarification of Terms, part 5
Jesus says:
The name of
Jesus is
the name of one who was a man but saw the face of Christ in all his
brothers and remembered God. So he became identified with
Christ, a
man no longer, but at one with God. The man was an illusion, for he seemed
to be a separate being, walking by himself, within a body that appeared to
hold his self from Self, as all illusions do. Yet who can save unless he
sees illusions and then identifies them as what they are? Jesus remains a
Savior because he saw the false without accepting it as true. And Christ
needed his form that He might appear to men and save them from their own
illusions.
In his complete identification with the Christ
— the perfect Son of God, His one creation and His happiness, forever like
Himself and one with Him — Jesus became what all of you must be. He
led the way for you to follow him. He leads you back to God because he saw
the road before him, and he followed it. He made a clear distinction, still
obscure to you, between the false and true.
Then, in part 6 he says:
Jesus is the manifestation of the
Holy Spirit, Whom he called down upon the earth after he
ascended into Heaven, or became completely identified with the Christ, the
Son of God as He created him. The Holy Spirit, being a creation of
the one Creator, creating with Him and in His likeness or spirit, is eternal
and has never changed. He was “called down upon the earth” in the sense that
it was now possible
(for us, all the seemingly separated
fragments of the Sonship, whoever so desires and steadfastly chooses)
to accept Him and to hear His Voice.
His is the Voice for God, and has therefore taken form
(as Jesus).
This form is not His reality,
which God alone knows along with Christ, His real Son, Who is part of Him.
It is the inevitable, unavoidable,
inescapable destiny of us all to become like him. As Paul says to the
Corinthians:
But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them
that slept. (1Cor 15:20)
Although these words have been interpreted as
meaning the bodily resurrection of Jesus — a characteristically
literal-minded, limited perception of ego-yoked mind — it is immeasurably
more serviceable to our awakening to the truth of eternal reality to realise
that, since Jesus himself tells us in ACIM that we are not a body, and it is
our mind that is being leavened/resurrected/raised up, so that we may
all rejoin him in the oneness of the Sonship, as Christ. It is noteworthy
that Paul speaks in the past tense of ‘them that slept’. Jesus also
reminds us in ACIM (quoted below) that the journey back to wakefulness is,
in reality, already over.
So, the rest of us fragments are to follow
Jesus in awakening, as Paul continues by saying:
But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward
they that are Christ’s at his coming. (1Cor 15:23)
That is where we are now, in the GRP.
Orthodox religionists have interpreted ‘at his coming’ as meaning in the
flesh, and that serves their agenda, but since Jesus places such heavy
emphasis on him and us not being bodies, we will serve our Self and the
Kingdom agenda well to look past the literal to the mystical, spiritual,
metaphysical reality that he is with us now and always has been, since he
and the Holy Spirit are one, as described above.
In Workbook Lesson 158 Jesus says:
...The revelation that the Father and the Son
are one will come in time to every mind. Yet is that time determined by the
mind itself, not taught.
The time is set already. It appears to
be quite arbitrary. Yet there is no step along the road that anyone takes
but by chance
(we all now know that there are no accidents
or coincidences, so this statement should come as no surprise).
It has already been taken by him
(that’s us; you, me, all of us, without
exception, because in reality, there is but one of us),
although he has not yet
(seemingly)
embarked on it. For time but seems to go in
one direction. (However,)
we but undertake a journey that
(in the reality of Eternity)
is over.
Yet it seems to have a future still unknown to us.
Time is a trick, a sleight of hand, a vast
illusion in which figures come and go as if by magic. Yet there is a plan
behind appearances that does not change.
The script is written. When experience will
come to end your doubting has been set
(by our Self; no-one else — there is
no-one else).
For we but see the journey from the point at which it ended, looking back on
it, imagining we make it once again
(in our persona, little,
forgetful-self mind);
reviewing mentally what has gone by.
(All emboldening and some italics are mine,
for emphasis, in all ACIM quotes.)
This is a PLF, so it also applied to Jesus,
though for him it happened, in linear terms, long ‘before Abraham was’; long
before he took the form of Jesus. And, having remembered Who he is
prior to his Jesus act, he had to come back, because that is what
unconditional love does, to lead us, his brethren back to the truth of our
oneness in Eternity that he had already remembered.
Although the time of our individual
awakening/remembrance is stated as being pre-determined, in our higher,
Christ Mind, we who are still slumbering do not have awareness of when that
will be for each of us. One thing of which we can be certain is that those
of us who are unwilling to co-operate with Jesus/Holy Spirit/Self in that
process will remain spiritually asleep (i.e. apparently stuck in the
illusory cycle of birth and death) until we become willing to
co-operate. That is a sacrosanct aspect of freewill.
Those who are ready will know because of
desire welling up from within to know the truth that Jesus tells us will set
us free. This truth is nothing to do with conditional sectarian dogma and
doctrine, but is the whole truth of Eternity, Heaven, God, and this
is, and always has been within us, ready, waiting with infinite
patience to be brought back to our remembrance by the Holy Spirit, Who is
our true Self, our eternal, all-knowing, all-loving Being.
We
are now in the third and final, fulfilment measure of meal, dubbed, under
inspiration ‘The Kingdom Measure’. The second measure, dubbed, under
inspiration ‘The Jesus Measure’ is now behind us. This is not a case of
giving the cold shoulder to Jesus, the leader of the three measures that
make up the 6,000-year long GRP.
Rather, it is a case of moving forward
from second-measure perception of the source of our
salvation/restoration/awakening as outside ourself, in the form of Jesus,
who tells us (above) that his bodily form was an illusion and that
...Christ needed his form that He might appear
to men and save them from their own illusions...
and that
...Jesus
is the manifestation of the
Holy Spirit...
to the awareness that the true reality —
Papa,
Christ, the Kingdom of Heaven — is within us. Such a realisation is
to the glory of Jesus, not spurning him; it is his objective for us
all, toward which he is actively working, in full God-empowerment.
Mind-to-Mind communing with Self enables us to
get in touch with the eternal truth of all these matters within us. For the
encouragement of all who truly seek and earnestly desire to make a start,
and progress, in coming to know the freedom of inner peace, ‘the peace of
God, which passeth all understanding’, I gladly share a recent communing
with Self, affirming the above:
Self, my true Being; I see how You are taking
over from Jesus as B’s inner Guide to Eternity.
Yes; this is inevitable progression from
duality to pure non-duality. B saw Jesus as outside himself. Jesus had to
allow that, knowing where B was — along with all his brethren. That was an
essential, unavoidable part of the journey, just as is this phase of
remembrance — that oneness within
Papa is Who/What/Where all truly are.
Of course, B now knows not only that this is
Who, What and Where Jesus is, but that there is no difference, no division,
no demarcation between himself and Jesus — or any who only
appear
to be separate fragments. I Am the Son, the inner Voice for Papa, calling
B, and all who appear to be out from Home, to awaken to the truth, the
eternal reality of oneness.
For Jesus to remain as Jesus, a
separate-seeming entity, indefinitely, would not be progressing the journey
toward its final goal of at-onement. For there is no separation, and all
the while anyone sees Jesus as a separate being, they separate themselves
from him, from Self and from Papa.
Jesus, it hardly needs saying, knows this, and
it is his objective to raise up, resurrect, all his fragmented brothers from
their own self-imposed separation from him, from Papa and each other to
remembrance of Self and oneness in Papa.
This is the ultimate destiny of all, and that
journey is one of many apparently small steps. So Jesus continues to appear
to his brothers as the spiritually empowered Lord Jesus, to provide
unconditional love, comfort, peace, reassurance, joy, uplift, encouragement,
light, leadership, protection for their journey, just as he has done for B
over the decades. But in truth, which is ultimate, unchangeable, eternal
reality, the light, the glory, the effulgence, the all-knowing is
within
all the fragments.
There is no difference other than appearances,
and appearances are devised — by the ego-fraction of a mind engaged for an
infinitely small moment — to deceive.
As is inevitable for all, B begins to
perceive, to remember, the truth. How has this been possible, in one
moment, one flicker of an instant which B has been believing to be a
lifetime, though there is no division between such an instant and all the
other apparent instants? It has been possible because the Christ, the
Spirit of Truth, the Voice for Papa took form as Jesus, and appeared, to
help B to remember, just as he would help all who will to remember. So that
form — which is actually one with the Father, Who Is pure spirit, and has no
form — serves a purpose in time and place, but has no purpose in Eternity,
because form has no place in Eternity.
So illusions of form can be used to serve a
Kingdomly purpose or a hellish purpose, keeping in mind that all that is not
of the Kingdom
is
hell. B realised this and took a deliberate choice to serve the Kingdomly
purpose of extending the call Home to his brothers in the fragmented,
multi-form illusion that in truth is the one Son, the Christ, of the Father
Creator.
All who desire to commence, or to continue the
Homeward journey can accelerate the pace effortlessly, comfortably,
blessedly, by a little willingness, a little acceptance and a little
sharing. Sharing does not mean proselytising, but simply by choosing the
truth of who we really are, in the quietness of our own within. The Spirit
of Truth within us does all the rest. Events then happen that seem like
synchronicity to our Earth perception but in reality are simply the
connectedness of all beginning to become functional in our time and place
circumstances.
Love and blessings, as always,
Brian Longhurst
June 24th 2009
Dear Friends,
First, a brief progress report on our brother M.B., who, you may remember
was due to go into surgery two weeks ago tomorrow, for an œsophagectomy.
This was a 7.5 hour operation, which took place on schedule. Blessedly, in
the last year or two the technique has now progressed to a keyhole
procedure, so there is far less trauma to the patient.
He came through the surgery without a hitch and has made such rapid progress
since that he was due to be discharged from hospital on Monday this week. I
saw him in the hospital on Sunday and was astonished at how remarkably well
he looked. The benefit of many prayers and irradiating with love and light
for his upholding in this fearful time for him has been immeasurably
helpful. As is so often the case with prolonged anæsthesia, he developed a
chest infection on Monday, so his release from hospital has been delayed for
close observation while he undergoes a course of antibiotic treatment.
We continue to uplift him with love and blessing for his going forward
toward wakefulness in the certain knowledge that such positive outpouring
contribute powerfully to the collapsing of time in the awakening to
oneness. This apparent affliction is, assuredly an opportunity to transform
adversity into fulfilment by foreshortening time for him by numerous
incarnations. It matters not at all if we do not see the inner working of
this time-collapsing process. Only belief in its reality enables it.
Heartfelt thanks from M.B., his wife and from Theresa and me to all who have
so lovingly and caringly blessed and upheld him during these last weeks and
months.
***
In this dream the Son of God seems to be having, he appears to be the
opposite of all that in reality he actually is, causing him to become so
confused about his true Identity and Home that he believes he is shut out of
Heaven, and the ‘gates’ closed tightly against him (us). Why would there
need to be gates to Heaven, where all are unconditionally welcomed? Any
gates there may seem to be can only be of our own illusory making,
causing us to falsely believe we are barred, by a wrathful God, for our
‘sins’. How could Heaven be Heaven if its entranceway had gates?
It does not seem reasonable to feel guilty about anything that takes place
during a dream, so we say to ourself in the morning, upon waking, ‘That was
only a dream, so it was not real’, and it is soon consigned to
insignificance. So can it be with the dream we appear to be having while we
seem to be awake. For clarity on this, let us remind ourselves what Jesus
tells us about this in Workbook Lesson 68 in ACIM:
Shut off from your Self
(our real, eternal Being),
which remains aware of
Its likeness to Its Creator, your Self seems to sleep, while the part
of your mind that weaves illusions in its sleep appears to be awake.
(My italics.)
Everything in this dream is the exact opposite, the antithesis, of our
actual, eternal reality. Good job none of it is true then
J
We believe we are in time and place, but there is only here and now, which
is all there is. Here is everywhere, and now is always,
because our Creator, Papa, is all there is, and He is here, which is
everywhere (how could there be anywhere real in which Papa is not!?),
and we are one in Him now, the eternal always.
We believe we are many forms (bodies), all different individuals, and have
even made for our little self different dental, fingerprint, retina and DNA
patterns, as if to ‘prove’ it. In eternal truth (the only real truth) we
are not form at all, but one, eternal, invulnerable, pure spirit, in the
likeness of our Creator.
We believe we are sinners, guilty, worthy of death and eternal punishment by
a vengeful god. Many may proclaim that they do not believe ‘all that
religious mumbo jumbo’, and that they have nothing to do with the church and
its teachings of sin, guilt, judgement, death and punishment. But —
illusorily speaking — western culture has been under the thrall of the
church for many centuries, and the sense of being guilty and fearful is
deeply embedded in the unconscious mind of even the most ardent atheists
(manifesting as denial of the church’s duality-god of unconditional love on
the one hand, and bizarrely, the god of wrath, judgement, vengeance,
punishment on the other).
In truth we are one Identity, the beloved, innocent Son of the one Father
Creator; forever in the eternal, ineffable rapture of Heaven, which the Son,
Christ, has never left, but had a momentary dream of separation, which ended
the instant it started.
These are but a few indicators of how we have believed the unreal and thus —
unbelievably! — made it real in our perception. We are, as always, free to
continue believing whatever we choose to believe. Believing the unreal —
and therefore, the untrue — has got us, and left us, in a muddle, to put it
mildly.
But now, we have the real, and therefore, the true — the eternally,
unchangeably true — reality to believe in, as presented by the one who knows
the truth and came to share it with us. He is the anointed messenger of
Eternal Truth, which is unconditional love, peace and joy beyond
3-dimensional imagining. This Truth sets us free — again — and restores us
to oneness.
Most of us are, as yet, beginners at mind-to-mind communing with the Realms
of Light and indeed, have been inculcated with fear at the idea of any form
of contact with Spirit, on the pretext that all such is ‘trafficking with
the devil’. But communing with the Mind of Jesus could not be considered,
even by the most fundamentalist of religious institutions, to be trafficking
with ‘the enemy’. But we can just as readily commune with another
Comforter, of Whom Jesus tells us:
And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he
may abide with you for ever; (Jn 14:16)
But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my
name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your
remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. (Jn 14:26)
But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father,
even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify
of me. (Jn 15:26)
Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away:
for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart,
I will send him unto you. (Jn 16:7)
This Comforter, the Holy Spirit, or Spirit of Truth, or Holy Breath, Who is
abiding with us forever, is so close to us that there is no demarcation
between our illusory, little self and our real Self, Who is this same
Comforter of Whom Jesus speaks. The only difference is that this Comforter,
or Self, knows the truth and we have forgotten it; thrown it away, in our
dream of littleness. But there is nothing to feel guilty about in a dream,
because, as we all know, dreams are not real. And, between Jesus, with his
invaluable gift to us of ACIM, and Self — the truest, most trustworthy
friends imaginable — we cannot, ultimately, fail to remember Who we are and
Where we belong.
Because most of us are as yet nascent communers — a matter fully known and
understood by Jesus — he has given us the truth in printed form, so we may
read it without fear and doubt, if we so choose. Here is an extract from
the ACIM Workbook, for the peace, uplift and comfort of us all. Under
prompting, I have made some slight amendments, to make these beautiful words
more intimate in our personal attuning and communing:
LESSON 221
Peace to my mind. Let all my thoughts be still.
Papa, I come to You today to seek the peace that You alone can give. I come
in silence. In the quiet of my heart, the deep recesses of my mind, I wait
and listen for Your Voice
(which is Self, the Spirit of Truth, the Holy Spirit).
My
Papa, thank you for speaking to me today. I come to hear Your Voice in
silence and in certainty and love, sure You will hear my call and answer me.
Now
do we wait in quiet. Papa is here, because we wait together. I am sure that
He will speak to you, and you will hear. Accept my confidence, for it is
yours. Our minds are joined. We wait with one intent; to hear Papa’s
answer to our call, to let our thoughts be still and find His peace, to hear
Him speak to us of what we are, and to reveal Himself unto His Son.
And but one more extract, to help us remember Who we are:
LESSON 223
God is my life. I have no life but His.
I
was mistaken when I thought I lived apart from You, Papa, a separate entity
that moved in isolation, unattached, and housed within a body. Now I know my
life is Yours, I have no other home, and I do not exist apart from You. You
have no Thoughts that are not part of me, and I have none but those which
are of You.
Our beloved Papa,
let us see the face of Christ instead of our mistakes. For we who are Your
holy Son are sinless. We would look upon our sinlessness, for
(the dream of)
guilt proclaims
that we are not Your Son. And we would not forget You longer. We are lonely
here; and long for Heaven, where we are at home. Today we would return. Our
Name
(‘I Am’)
is Yours, and we
acknowledge that we are Your Son.
With love and light abounding,
Brian Longhurst
Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice,
and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with
me. (Rev. 3:20)
July 1st 2009
Dear Friends,
A few weeks ago the supreme cleric of the Catholic Church in England
retired. This had never happened before because all his predecessors had
laid aside their bodies whilst still in office. He and his successor were
interviewed together on BBC television. There was some banter between them
about this and the words dying and death featured heavily in
these exchanges. It left no doubt in the viewers’ minds that both men
subscribe to and believe in the illusion of death as the normal, acceptable,
inescapable lot of humanity.
It is interesting that the head(s) of the body that claims to be the one
true faith and the sole representatives of Jesus Christ on Earth (or at
least, in England J)
are not actually representing him, nor staying true to the scriptural
record of his mission on Earth that they claim is the infallible Word of
God. Nor do they understand him on the single most important issue in the
fractured, ego minds of the slumbering Son of God: life and death. On this
matter, Jesus said in the long ago:
I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were
dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall
never die. Believest thou this? (Jn. 11:25-26).
What he is telling Martha, and all of us, is nothing to do with religious
doctrine but is entirely practical. The best way this can be explained is
to use an analogy: a university Professor has a high level of knowledge and
understanding of his sphere of learning and expertise. His job is to pass
along/extend that knowledge and understanding to his students, with the
ultimate objective of their becoming as knowledgeable and learned as he is.
It can therefore be said that he is the way, or the means by which they can
arrive at the knowledge and understanding he is at.
So is it with the knowledge of the only true reality: Heaven. Jesus knew
the whole truth about Papa, Heaven, eternal life, our heritage and destiny
as one with him in the Sonship of God, for all eternity in our true Home,
Heaven. His mission was/is to pass along/extend to us the remembrance of
all this, just as he had already remembered it, so that we could be
resurrected/raised-up/leavened to complete Christ-Mind awareness just as he
was/is.
This has nothing to do with bodies, since bodies are illusions and do not
exist in eternal truth and reality; it is our minds that are being raised
up. The grand drama of Jesus’ bodily death and resurrection was a
parable-in-action that he devised and played out for us, the rest of the
Sonship, in which he demonstrated for us at the level we believed (and most
of us still do) was/is our reality; namely, that we are mortal bodies, born
to die. Our limited understanding/belief (then and now) meant that was the
only — and the most dramatic and therefore, memorable — way he could
demonstrate the truth to us meaningfully. He knew that there would be a
false, ego-interpretation placed on this parable in action that would last
for the duration of the second measure of meal — the Jesus measure.
But he also knew that, at the beginning of the third and final, fulfilment
measure — the Kingdom measure — with the inestimable help provided by him in
the form of ACIM, his slumbering brethren in the Sonship would begin to be
able to receive and understand the true message portrayed by his dramatic
action parable. That emerging understanding — explained comprehensively and
unequivocally in ACIM — is that the cycle of birth and death (and by
implication, bodies also) is an illusion; that we, who along with our
brother Jesus comprise the Sonship, are indestructible, eternal spirit, just
as is Papa, our Father Creator. He knew that parables — action or otherwise
— are capable of being comprehended at different levels of understanding,
and even though the initial understanding would be incorrect, misleading, it
would capture and hold our attention for two millennia, until we were ready
to understand it at its higher, true meaning.
That shows that Jesus’ understanding and GRP entails a thousands of years
(6,000, in fact) long commitment — linearly speaking — and he is in it for
the duration, until it is complete and he can ‘hand the keys to the Kingdom
back to Papa’, symbolising his job is done. The keys, which have no
existence in reality (only in our ego-dominated split-off, upside-down mind,
which believes we are locked out of Heaven), are an illusion because Heaven
has no gates to lock. This is the ultimate case of bringing illusions to
the Truth.
Jesus makes it plain in ACIM that whatever we believe, that is — or becomes
— our reality, for it is by believing illusions (in contrast to the only
real truth, which is... you got it: Eternity) that they become our
reality within the dream of time and place. Claiming to believe in Jesus as
the mechanism for our salvation (waking up/resurrecting to our true Identity
as the Son of God, along with Jesus, just as it says in 1 Jn. 3:2) but not
living or teaching it does not make the claim authentic. Understanding —
which is now, at last, possible for us because of the help afforded us in
ACIM — the truth of Jesus’ parable in action enables us to decide, from a
position of greater understanding, that he is capable of leading us
and worthy of our following him as the fastest track back to Heaven (i.e.,
salvation from our dream of littleness and death).
Then we are able to decide to follow Jesus, and it will not be from fear of
going to hell if we don’t, but from understanding and free choice for truth,
love, joy and peace eternally. That choice will then be authentic, and will
open us to Help from One Who Knows and is better help than anything
this world can offer by a country mile.
Jesus, it will come as no surprise, has plenty to say about all this in ACIM
that brings clarity, for he knows perfectly well, being the pragmatist that
he is, that we, his beloved brethren, are unclear. On the one hand, every
day people all around us, and we in turn, lay aside their bodies, and that
seems very real; yet on the other, if we live and believe in him, so he
says, we shall never die. If, then, he speaks not about our body but our
immortal soul, or spirit, we are not, then — cannot be — a body. Why then,
one might ask, does institutionalised religion place such heavy emphasis on
us, at the last day, seeing him in his flesh and we in ours? The
following, straight from the shoulder, because Jesus does not compromise on
truth, gives us some straight answers and some pause for having a re-think:
Salvation does not ask
that you behold the spirit and perceive the body not. It merely asks that
this should be your choice
(Self takes care of everything else).
For you can see the body without help, but do not understand how to behold a
world
(the real world of Eternity, of course)
apart from it. It is your world
(of time and place)
salvation will undo,
and let you see another world your eyes could never find. Be not concerned
how this could ever be. You do not
(yet)
understand how what you see arose to meet your sight. For if you did, it
would be gone
(as it will be at the leavening of all three measures of meal).
(From ACIM, Text, ch. 31.VI)
The reason we need not be concerned how to see ‘another world’ is because,
simply making it our choice, our sincere, heartfelt, steadfast
desire to see it — instead of the dream world of form — is our
authorising of the Spirit of Truth, our true Being within us, to begin the
opening of our Christ-Mind awareness, or vision. This is not bodily sight
but Self-led correction of attitude of mind to right thinking, Kingdomly
thinking, rather than upside-down time and place thinking.
More from-the-shoulder words for clarity:
27. WHAT IS DEATH?
Death is the central dream from which all illusions stem. Is it not madness
to think of life as being born, aging, losing vitality, and dying in the
end?
(Especially when there is an immeasurably better, saner, happier alternative
freely available, ‘without money and without price’.)
We
have asked this question before, but now we need to consider it more
carefully. It is the one fixed, unchangeable belief of the world that all
things in it are born only to die. This is regarded as “the way of nature,”
not to be raised to question, but to be accepted as the “natural” law of
life. The cyclical, the changing and unsure; the undependable and the
unsteady, waxing and waning in a certain way upon a certain path,—all this
is taken as the Will of God. And no one asks if a benign Creator could will
this.
In
this perception of the universe as God created it, it would be impossible to
think of Him as loving. For who has decreed that all things pass away,
ending in dust and disappointment and despair, can but be feared. He holds
your little life in his hand but by a thread, ready to break it off without
regret or care, perhaps today. Or if he waits, yet is the ending certain.
Who loves such a god knows not of love, because he has denied that life is
real. Death has become life’s symbol. His world is now a battleground, where
contradiction reigns and opposites make endless war. Where there is death is
peace impossible.
Death is the symbol of the fear of God. His Love is blotted out in the idea,
which holds it from awareness like a shield held up to obscure the sun. The
grimness of the symbol is enough to show it cannot coexist with God. It
holds an image of the Son of God in which he is “laid to rest” in
devastation’s arms, where worms wait to greet him and to last a little while
by his destruction. Yet the worms as well are doomed to be destroyed as
certainly. And so do all things live because of death. Devouring is nature’s
“law of life.” God is insane, and fear alone is real.
The
curious belief that there is part of dying things that may go on apart from
what will die, does not proclaim a loving God nor re-establish any grounds
for trust. If death is real for anything, there is no life. Death
denies life. But if there is reality in life, death is denied.
No compromise in this is possible
(because in Eternity, and with Papa, there is no compromise, for why would
there be need for compromise with eternal, unchangeable perfection?).
There is either a god of fear or One of Love. The world attempts a thousand
compromises, and will attempt a thousand more. Not one can be acceptable to
God’s teachers
(that’s us, all of us who accept our only true function here),
because not one could be acceptable to God. He did not make death because
He did not make fear. Both are equally meaningless to Him.
The
“reality” of death is firmly rooted in the belief that God’s Son is a body.
And if God created bodies, death would indeed be real. But God
would not be loving. There is no point at which the contrast between the
perception of the real world and that of the world of illusions becomes more
sharply evident...
“And
the last to be overcome will be death.” Of course! Without the idea of
death there is no world. All dreams will end with this one. This
is salvation’s final goal; the end of all illusions
(and we don’t have to wait ‘til we ‘die’. Indeed, here, in the world of
illusions is the only place illusions can be undone, so here and now will be
most serviceable for us to choose to be willing to make a beginning. But
even if we delay, God will still not punish us. We attend to that;
after all, we are adept at it
J).
And
in death are all illusions born. What can be born of death and still have
life? But what is born of God and still can die? The inconsistencies, the
compromises and the rituals the world fosters in its vain attempts to cling
to death and yet to think love real are mindless magic, ineffectual and
meaningless. God is, and in Him all created things must be eternal.
Do you not see that otherwise He has an opposite, and fear would be as
real as love?
Teacher of God
(that is all of us when we are ready to assume our one true and only
meaningful function in time and place — because of its beneficial
consequences for us all),
your one assignment could be stated thus: Accept no compromise in which
death plays a part. Do not believe in cruelty, nor let attack conceal the
truth from you. What seems to die has but been misperceived and carried to
illusion. Now it becomes your task to let the illusion be carried to the
truth. Be steadfast but in this; be not deceived by the
“reality” of any changing form. Truth neither moves nor wavers nor
sinks down to death and dissolution. And what is the end of death?
Nothing but this; the realization that the Son of God is guiltless now
and forever.
Nothing but this. But do not let yourself forget it is not less than this.
(From ACIM Manual for Teachers. My emboldening, underlining and some
italics, for emphasis.)
This message of ‘encouragement’ may have been all about ‘death’ yet if it
helps but one amongst us to dispel the myth of death, then that is indeed
encouraging.
Love and blessings for our awakening to the reality, here, now, of
eternal life,
Brian Longhurst
July 8th 2009
Dear Friends,
In Chapter 1 section VII of ACIM Jesus says:
... I have said that
awe is inappropriate in connection with the Sons of God, because you should
not experience awe in the presence of your equals. However, it was also
emphasized that awe is proper in the Presence of your Creator. I have
been careful to clarify my role in the Atonement
(At-onement) without
either over- or understating it. I am also trying to do the same
with yours. I have stressed that awe is not an appropriate
reaction to me because of our inherent equality. Some of the later
steps in this course, however, involve a more direct approach to God
Himself. It would be unwise to start on these steps without careful
preparation, or awe will be confused with fear, and the experience
will be more traumatic than beatific. Healing is of God in the end. The
means are being carefully explained to you. Revelation may occasionally
reveal the end to you, but to reach it the means are needed.
(My emboldening, underlining and some italics, for emphasis.)
Orthodox Christians and many others are in awe of Jesus, perceiving him to
be ‘up high’, and themselves ‘down low’. Theresa and I were in awe of him
for many years, but his loving, disarming, straightforward constancy of
demeanour over the years demonstrated his desire for us to accept him as our
friend and confidant. It also demonstrated in an entirely practical and
believable manner that rather than coming to judge us, or anyone, (
And
if any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came
not to judge the world, but to save the world.
Jn. 12:47) he has come to befriend us all, win our trust and confidence and
lead us all back to the truth of our reality of oneness with him in the
Sonship, and thus, set us free from the yoke of ego mind. If the threat of
judgement by him was hanging over us, it would be impossible to love, trust
and accept him as our brother and our friend.
For about three years his disciples were with him and there are plenty of
indications in the Gospel accounts that they were in awe of him much of the
time. Yet, at the end he tells them they are his friends and he has
made known to them all that he heard of (from) his Father (and ours):
Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his
lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have
heard of my Father I have made known unto you.
(Jn. 15:15.)
That is Jesus’ mission, and he has promised to remain true to that mission
until the end of time. Well, we now know that the end of time is in
approximately another 2000 years, linearly speaking, at the end of the
Aquarian Age, or third measure of meal, when ‘the whole shall be leavened’,
thanks to the GRP . By that time, all
the Sons of God will have received of him all that he has heard of Papa.
That will have raised us up to the same level of eternal truth, spiritual
awareness, unconditional love, Kingdomly empowerment, wholeness (holiness)
that Jesus demonstrated during his time on Earth. That was not exceptional;
it was, and is, normal, for us all — once we have remembered, with his
unfailing help, who we are. All the seeming fragments will have been
restored to one-mindedness — Christ-Mindedness — and the dream of
separation will be over.
That was always, and will remain — until completed at the end of the fourth
millennium (6th millennium from Abraham, when the GRP started) —
his committed objective. He was seen as the mighty Lord, and indeed,
earlier in John’s Gospel (13:13) he is quoted as saying to the
disciples:
Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am.
Clearly this indicates that his mission goes forward, and although by
the night of the Last Supper they were not yet raised up to the level of
full spiritual attainment, he was preparing them to consider him as friend
rather than, as before, ‘Master and Lord’. Then, about 50 days later, they
were able to receive the Holy Spirit, subsequent to an event, just after the
resurrection, in which
...he breathed
on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost
(Jn. 20:22).
It
is tempting to be in awe of Jesus, when we perceive him from our apparent
perspective of littleness, but now is the time to move along with him in the
GRP and start taking him at his word and seeing him as our friend and
brother. The word Christ means anointed messenger, and the words he
speaks to us — in the Gospels, particularly Mt. chs. 5-7 and Jn. chs. 14-17
— and now especially in ACIM — being messages from He Who sent him, are
beautiful, inspiring, uplifting and above all, truthful (full of truth).
When a messenger comes to us with an awesome message, it is the Author
of the message Who is worthy of awe, rather than the conveyor of the
message. This is in no way disrespectful of Jesus, who is entirely worthy
of love, honour, respect — just as we all are of each other — as well as our
careful attention. And as we move further into wakefulness and begin to see
the face of Christ in our brethren, rather than unworthy, contemptible
sinners, failures, losers (as ego would have us do), so will our love,
honouring and respect for each other reflect who we all truly are. Then
will the false images of littleness, fear, guilt, hate, attack, judgement,
death fade from our perception.
There are those who will say Jesus is a worthy messenger and those who will
say the words of ACIM are not brought by Jesus. But if the message of ACIM
is beautiful and full of truth, will we allow controversy (an ego device) to
divert us from awakening to its truth and beauty, if we can accept that
truth and beauty are more serviceable to our awakening than doctrine and
dogma, or fear of beauty and truth? Here is what Jesus says about
controversy in the Introduction to Clarification of Terms at the back of
ACIM:
This is not a course in philosophical speculation, nor is it concerned with
precise terminology. It is concerned only with Atonement
,
or the correction of perception. The means of the Atonement is forgiveness.
The structure of “individual consciousness” is essentially irrelevant
because it is a concept representing the “original error” or the “original
sin.” To study the error itself does not lead to correction, if you are
indeed to succeed in overlooking the error. And it is just this process of
overlooking at which the course aims
(through true forgiveness).
All terms are
potentially controversial, and those who seek controversy will find
it. Yet those who seek clarification will find it as well.
They must, however, be willing to overlook controversy, recognizing
that it is a defense against truth in the form of a delaying maneuver.
Theological considerations as such are necessarily controversial, since they
depend on belief and can therefore be accepted or rejected. A universal
theology is impossible, but a universal experience is not only
possible but necessary. It is this experience toward which the
course is directed. Here alone consistency becomes possible because here
alone uncertainty ends.
(My emboldening, underlining and some italics, for emphasis.)
Until we are ready to surrender our ego leasehold on our life back into the
care of the All-Knowing One
—
the Spirit of Truth, Self, of Which Jesus was/is the manifestation
—
we each must decide for ourself what is, for us, truth and beauty, so here
are a few short lessons from part 2 of the Workbook for Students which may
help in the decision-making process of whether to remain hostage to ego or
choose instead, a route that will facilitate our becoming, once again, Host
to God:
LESSON 231
Father, I will but to remember You.
What can I seek for, Father, but Your Love? Perhaps I think I seek for
something else; a something I have called by many names. Yet is Your Love
the only thing I seek, or ever sought. For there is nothing else that I
could ever really want to find. Let me remember You. What else could I
desire but the truth about myself?
This is your will, my brother. And you share this will with me, and with the
One as well Who is our Father. To remember Him is Heaven. This we seek. And
only this is what it will be given us to find.
LESSON 233
I give my life to God to guide today.
Father, I give You all my thoughts today. I would have none of mine. In
place of them, give me Your Own. I give You all my acts as well, that I may
do Your Will instead of seeking goals which cannot be obtained, and wasting
time in vain imaginings. Today I come to You. I will step back and merely
follow You. Be You the Guide, and I the follower who questions not the
wisdom of the Infinite, nor Love whose tenderness I cannot comprehend, but
which is yet Your perfect gift to me.
Today we have one Guide to lead us on. And as we walk together, we will give
this day to Him with no reserve at all. This is His day. And so it is a day
of countless gifts and mercies unto us.
LESSON 234
Father, today I am Your Son again.
Today we will anticipate the time when dreams of sin and guilt are gone, and
we have reached the holy peace we never left. Merely a tiny instant has
elapsed between eternity and timelessness. So brief the interval there was
no lapse in continuity, nor break in thoughts which are forever unified as
one. Nothing has ever happened to disturb the peace of God the Father and
the Son. This we accept as wholly true today.
We thank You, Father, that we cannot lose the memory of You and of Your
Love. We recognize our safety, and give thanks for all the gifts You have
bestowed on us, for all the loving help we have received, for Your eternal
patience, and the Word which You have given us that we are saved.
If we are willing to read these slowly, carefully, sincerely, in a state of
mindfulness that we are a) in the presence of God and b) speaking, from our
heart, the (italicised) prayers directly to Him, assuredly we will be
within a Holy Instant. Eventually, at a moment (predetermined, outside of
time) of our own choosing, an unending Holy Instant will be all that
we, once again, will know.
Love and light, for eternal ecstasy,
Brian Longhurst
July 15th 2009
Dear Friends,
The illusory realm of time and place appears real because we believe
it is real and we are focussed upon what we believe is real. This is
so because it is in our mind (nowhere else, we are simply projecting it ‘out
there’ like a film onto a screen; the action seems to be on the screen, yet
it is not really there, but in the projector, and even then, the action is
already over and only being replayed), which has all the creative power of
the Son of God, because that is Who we are.
The only problem is that it is a split-off part of the mind of the Son of
God that has chosen to believe, for a mad moment out of Eternity, that he
has separated from God, Who Is his one true Home and only reality. Belief
in separation, or division, causes it to appear to function at every
level and in every way.
So, he appears to be splitting, or separating into ever greater
numbers of fragments, and instead of experiencing unity, love, peace and
life ever more abundantly (see Jn. 10:10), he finds himself experiencing
division, fear, guilt, attack, death, decay, dis-ease, destruction, and he
struggles for survival against all the agents and processes of division,
such as war (from global right down to family and interpersonal),
earthquakes, floods, famine, viruses, pathogenic microbes, parasites, greed,
scarcity, misperception, hate; all, and endlessly more, the enemies of
truth.
For the Son of God (us) exactly the same principle — believing what we
choose to be our reality and therefore, focussing upon it — applies (and we
can apply it just as easily, if we so choose) to the reality of Eternity in
God. Choosing to believe in that reality, rather than the illusion of
separation (which equates with hell), and focussing steadfastly upon it
(just like Jesus, alike whom we are destined to become because he was/is the
manifestation of our true Being) brings It into our reality. Or, to
put it another way, brings us into a state of at-onement with It.
We have, as always, two choices and they are, and always have been,
available to us right now. We can choose to continue believing the
unbelievable and it will remain our temporal, changeable, uncertain
‘reality’, or choose the unchangeable, perfect, peaceful, joyful reality of
Eternity, or Heaven. Heaven is, contrary to popular opinion, not reserved
for us — maybe — only after we ‘die’ (another misperception; the
greatest of them all, in fact, because death symbolises our apparent
separation from Papa).
By steadfast, resolute focussing upon Eternity (i.e. true forgiveness, which
clears the way for us to unconditional love, peace and joy unending) It
gradually comes into our awareness, here, while we still appear to be
with a body. This is not ‘seen’ with our bodily sight, because It Is an
attitude of mind, and becomes, one step at a time, more and more meaningful,
more palpable and utterly more desirable as we progress into It.
This attitude is right-mindedness and is the path along which the Holy
Spirit or Jesus will lead us to Christ-Mindedness, which is oneness in God
eternally. True forgiveness becomes first-nature because we are unshakeably
aware that there is nothing to forgive since illusions are unreal, and
therefore, nothing. In this state of awareness we have, at last, seen past
the illusions of sin and guilt, hate, attack, fear and doubt, to the
certainty of our perfect oneness in the Sonship, the Christ, the one Son of
our Father Creator that is our true Being.
One such living proof of this being achievable here in time and place is
David Hoffmeister, one of the world’s greatest exponents of ACIM and a
shining example of the living of its teaching. Below are some
extracts from what others have said about him, and his own writings. Ego
wants to distract us with idols that we can set up to hold in awe and then
knock down. What follows is not for that purpose, but rather, to inspire
and encourage those who truly seek and earnestly desire their restoration to
oneness of the Sonship in God, our eternal Father Creator.
From Raj Miles –Editor of
Elohim Magazine: “When you listen to David Hoffmeister you hear the Holy
Spirit. This is no ordinary man, not a teacher, not a font of wisdom, not
even a guru seeking a following. David is a Master and comes to us as a
conduit for the voice of Holy Spirit. He will not lecture us, he has nothing
to share and nothing to prove or have you believe. Yet what you hear, what
you witness will be what you have always wanted.......The purity of the
message leaves no doubt as to the Source. The two weeks I spent in David’s
company left me in a completely different state of consciousness. Imagine if
you can, being together with someone who has no judgments, makes no
comparison, has no preferences and no attachment to outcome. Totally
transformative. For to be with this energy eventually you have to align
with it and when you do all worldly perceptions drop away and the true
realization of the Kingdom is not only felt but seen in everything that you
see around you, touch and those you meet. Simply awesome.”
***
Kirsten Buxton: “When I first
met David I thought to myself, ‘Oh, he’s just like me!’ There was an
instant recognition of Love, of peace, of gentleness and happiness. What I
then came to realize over the following two years was that I recognized my
highest “qualities” in David – states that I enjoyed fleetingly – but that
he lived in them as a constant experience.
How can I express the gratitude
in my heart to one who has helped me to extract and release all that is
not Love from my mind and my heart, to one who has joined with me and
supported me over and over again to awaken to the Love of God, to eternal
life, to my true Self?
…His intention and motivation
is always for the highest good of all concerned. David’s purpose is sharing
and extending joy and happiness with a message of valuing only what is of
the highest value… The guidance that has come through David time and time
again has been the same, it is always beyond the personal perspective and
it is completely in alignment with the truth. Only the Holy Spirit
can be this uncompromising and consistent.
… It is from this total
devotion to God that David was able to become completely free of all
attachments and worldly concerns, making him a clear channel through which
the Holy Spirit shines.
***
From David:
The idea
of everything being one mind is the introduction of the idea of the forgiven
world, the happy dream of forgiveness. The Holy Spirit Asks that you accept
the idea of one mind wholeheartedly, for this is the Correction to the error
called ego... Forgiveness unifies and shows the world anew. Unified
perception is the gateway to the remembrance of God & Christ.
We must
together question all that has been believed to be true
(in the illusory realm of time and place)...
The
teaching I share is that enlightenment is available this very moment.
And anything in one’s mind that stands in the way of that recognition of
enlightenment right now must first be questioned, and then seen for what it
is – illusion...
Just say
and mean:
“I want peace! I want it more than anything else. I’m going to drop all my
masks. I see that in order to drop them, I’m going to have to look at them.
I want to see the masks for what they are. I want to discern the false from
the true – to be right-minded. What a precious opportunity this is!”
Can you
think of anything more important than looking at one’s own mind and
examining the obstacles to this recognition? Is there anything that even
comes close to that? This is a very precious opportunity!
...For
everyone the journey involves an undoing,
an unlearning, or an unravelling of beliefs and concepts and assumptions
about everything. As the mind is emptied of concepts it becomes obvious that
nothing of form and appearances can be assumed to be true, and yet trust
in a Wisdom not of this world grows stronger and stronger in awareness until
a State of Certainty of Identity emerges...
After two
years of immersing with A Course In Miracles, often for eight hours a day,
I began hearing the Voice of Jesus speaking clearly and specifically in
my mind, instructing me in the ways of mastering His teachings on
forgiveness. I received directions of where to go and what to say and
do, lessons in discerning right-minded thinking from wrong-minded thinking,
and I was told specifically what was most helpful in terms of the use of
time, resources, effort, and money. This opened the way for the next phase
of my mind training which was letting the Holy Spirit speak through me. It
was one thing to listen and follow the Voice for God. The next phase
required willingness to allow the Holy Spirit to speak using the voice of
David, and I was Given numerous assignments to practice this willingness.
...The
development of trust was essential for me in order to release my past
conditioning and beliefs about survival and safety and protection and
planning. I was learning to be God-dependent by placing my single
Purpose out in front and letting the Spirit guide and direct each
teaching-learning situation and every holy encounter along the path I
walked. In some respects it felt as if I was living out a dream or a
fairytale because each day there were so many synchronicities happening and
so many apparent ‘solutions’ appearing before any ‘problem’ could even be
defined or imagined...
...What I
am always teaching is that there are no private thoughts and no private
minds. So the experience that I have when we gather together is of our
sameness. We share the same Spirit. This is a feeling more than a
group of concepts. ...I like the sense of innocence that we experience
together...
I
extend what is Given to share and thus remain aware of the I AM THAT I
AM.
Giving all to all is what having means, and our Heavenly Father’s
Kingdom is what One Mind has and what One Mind is... There is but one
Dreamer of the dream, and in this Perspective all perception is already
Healed.
...The
Presence of God is always very apparent to a mind that is willing to receive
that which God has Given forever. ...The desire of the heart is all that is
really required.
The
Holy Spirit uses time and all the things of time to undo the belief in
linear time and the separate sense of self...
The
Communion of Silence dawns as Mind Awake. Love has no opposite. There
is no choice in Being. Mind reaches to Itself, It does not go out
(into the unreal world).
Within Itself It has Everything. Mind is Whole, Singular, Unified, One.
The horizontal “personal perspective” dissolves in the Vertical as darkness
vanishes in the Light. God is the only Cause, and nothing exists outside
the Mind of God. The world is causeless and therefore without real
effects... An experience that ends all doubting is the experience of
Silent Communion.
...As the
impossibility of fragmentation dawns, the Name of God safely replaces all
symbols
(of time and place).
Oneness
is Supreme Happiness, and as Silent Communion deepens, there is no need for
words or labels... The Communion of Silence Calls, and the mind emptied of
illusions and fantasies is made ready. When Jesus broke bread and drank wine
with the apostles in the upper room he reminded them: “Do this in
remembrance of me.” In every holy encounter and within the holy instant we
include our very Being in the Communion of God and Christ and Their Eternal
Dance...
In Love
and Gratitude,
David
(Emphases are mine.)
Thank you, David, for your life of sharing, extending the truth of
Eternity. We gladly join with you and the Spirit of Truth, in remembrance
of our one, true Self.
In furtherance of that joining in oneness, love, peace and joy embrace us
all,
Brian Longhurst
July 22nd 2009
Dear Beloved Self,
It seems apposite to take this opportunity to
address my fellows and brothers in the Sonship thusly, since this is the
true and only real Identity of us all, even if it appears otherwise.
To our conditioned ‘Earth mind’, thinking of
oneself as (Big) Self, Holy Spirit, The Spirit of Truth, the Holy Breath,
may seem presumptuous, blasphemy even, but the New Testament tells us that
we are to become like Jesus, who is acknowledged unflinchingly as the Son of
God, so being identified as one with the Holy Spirit should equally cause us
no discomfort, but rather, joy, uplift and encouragement.
In ACIM Jesus tells us that he was (in his
form as Jesus the man) the manifestation of the Holy Spirit, bringing his
message of the truth of Eternity and our Sonship with him in God, our Father
Creator. Jn. 20:22 says
... he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy
Ghost.
This means the Holy Spirit, or Self, must have been in him, and
assuredly he would not have breathed It on his brethren and spoken those
words if it were not intended that It would be extended to them (and by
implication, all of the fragments of the Sonship appearing as many in human
form, since Jesus also tells us that we are the light of the world (Mt.
5:14), and to love our neighbour as ourself, which he is because we are all
one).
As has been stated on previous occasions, the
GRP goes forward, step by step, stage by stage, measure by measure, toward
its completion, or ‘until the whole is leavened’. The second, or Jesus,
measure is now behind us (though Jesus himself, along with the Holy
Spirit is still ‘in front of us’, leading all who will follow him toward the
Light of our true Home) and we are now in the Kingdom, or fulfilment,
measure; the measure in which we will all be restored to fullness of
remembrance of Who we really are.
By its completion we will have been led by the
Spirit of Truth (our higher, and only real Self), to the place of
remembrance where we will have seen through the illusions of sin, guilt,
fear and death, along with time and place, and all that is impermanent will
cease to have any meaning or existence for us. We give reality to what we
believe, and since we will no longer believe in the impermanent it
will no longer appear to exist.
Duality terms, or symbols, are unavoidable
when endeavouring to describe eternal reality in the 3-dimensional dream of
time and place, but it does not mean we cannot start practising, rehearsing,
familiarising ourselves with that which is our destiny, even if we have to
employ 3-d symbols to do so. Such endeavours will help us to be better able
to co-operate with Self in His time-collapsing activities on our behalf.
For example, we speak of Jesus leading us
toward our destiny, using linear terms in an attempt to describe the process
because we are seeing it from an Earth-mind consciousness, linear
perspective. But from the true perspective of Eternity, we are not
actually progressing Heavenward because time and place, a momentary
dream, is already over and we never have left Heaven, because it is
impossible to be outside Heaven. Other than in illusion.
In the same way we describe the sun going
behind a cloud because that is the perspective from which we perceive it,
and everyone knows that is not the actuality, yet the term is meaningful for
us. So do we need to allow some license in our attempts to describe eternal
reality and the awakening process that appears to be taking place, even
though we have never actually been asleep. We simply appear to be
asleep and dreaming that we are awake, while the part of us that is awake —
Self — appears to be asleep. But Self never sleeps and is always vigilant
for opportunities to advance our waking.
In the duality of time and place, we
differentiate between Jesus and the Holy Spirit, between Jesus and our
persona-identity-self and between our persona-identity-self and all the
other apparent persona-identity fragments of Self, between Jesus and God
(even though he is on record as saying ‘I and my Father are one’; how absurd
is it to claim to be followers of Jesus and yet continue not actually
following — i.e., living — as if his teaching is truth?) and between
our persona-identity-self and God.
Many Christians and non-Christians are
self-demeaning, thinking of themselves as sinners, guilty, unworthy, because
that is the way ego has set it up. Yet Jesus tells us we are the light of
the world. Now is the right moment to start acting like it and forget sin,
guilt, fear and death and actually claim our creation-right as the light of
the world (and Eternity). We are now aware that we are free to choose for
the script of the Holy Spirit and His ‘Home delivery service’, and boot
ego’s script into touch. Permanently.
None of our time and place perceptions is
true, and if we stop and think (yes, actually think
J)
about it, we know they are not true; quantum physics is beginning to
demonstrate that separation is an illusion, yet still so many of us cling to
the old order ‘thinking’, just as ego wants us to do. The old order (1st
& 2nd measures of meal), a necessary part of, or stepping-stone
within, the progressive GRP, thankfully, is now behind us. We are at free
choice to leave it there and move along with the 3rd, final,
fulfilment, Kingdom measure. When we have completed the syllabus for junior
and middle school, it is entirely appropriate that we should move on into
senior school. The Kingdom measure is where we are, right now. Signs of it
are appearing all around us and in the midst of our daily lives. So we can
move on, into it, rejoicing.
Not only is the separation over, gone,
forgotten (literally) by Heaven, but it never happened. So now is a good
time to begin thinking in Heavenly terms: that we are the one Son of the
Father Creator, created in His likeness with all His love, knowing and
creative power. Thinking in Heavenly terms is aligning our thoughts with
Self. There is but one place that can lead, if we are willing to persevere,
and will not to allow ego clamour to distract us, and that is back to
oneness in and with Self.
Self already knows time and place is an
illusion and He unceasingly shares with us His vision. Our willingness to
receive that gift makes it ours also, so we in turn can share it
with, extend it to, our apparently fragmented brothers. That sharing, or
teaching, is Self’s mechanism by which we actually learn, or remember,
because that sharing activates our true, right-thinking processes.
What we give or share or extend to our fellows
we are giving to ourself, to complete the circle. So, if we project or make
judgements of another, we are making judgements upon ourself. If Jesus came
not to judge the world but to save it (Jn.12:47), then as his brothers, one
with him in the Sonship, so, equally is it our function, and this is
emphasised throughout ACIM. The start to this is to begin believing it of
ourself, for without belief it cannot become our reality.
In ch. 24 of the Text of ACIM, Jesus says:
What is in him
(our brother)
is changeless
(i.e. Christ),
and your changelessness is recognized
(by our brother and by ourself, because
we are one in the truth that we are all, along with Jesus, Christ)
in its acknowledgement
(by and to ourself).
The holiness in you belongs to him. And by your seeing it in him, returns
to you.
In that same chapter he also says:
You who believe
it easier to see your brother’s
body than his holiness, be sure you understand what made this judgment.
Is there one
amongst us who does not now understand that what made that judgement is
ego? Seeing bodies is easy because we have had æons to practise and we have
had the egging-on of ego. Seeing holiness (wholeness) in ourself and our
fellows also takes practise and we have the help of our real Self, Who knows
the truth.
The truth lies in
true forgiveness of ourself and our apparent fellows for what neither we nor
they have ever really done because this time and place realm is a dream, and
we are not — nor have we ever been — separate from God or each other. That
truth will set us free from ego’s yoke and restore us to our true Home.
Now. Because there is only now; eternally.
On December 31st 2007 (reported in
the MoE dated January 2nd 2008) Jesus said to me:
...All are free to choose such one-pointed commitment to getting Home with
minimal delay, though only few will so choose immediately. It matters not;
have no concern over this, for all are well within my care. Nevertheless,
my faithful friend, I have chosen you to sow a seed, a kernel of truth, that
it may lie dormant within their hearts, until it germinates and grows at the
season of their readiness. All will come to this according to the hour
appointed aforetime for them, just as it came to me...
It is obvious that these MoEs — inspired by
Self (and without Whom they would not be possible) — are the sowing of such
a seed, a kernel of truth, and even in those who are not yet able to
receive those seeds into the fructifying ‘soil’ of their open, seeking
minds, according to the above message, these re-minders and exhortations,
and those from countless other willing seed-sowers, will lie dormant,
awaiting cultivation by the Good Husbandman. Who can resist the Good
Husbandman indefinitely?
All that is asked of us, God’s children, is
willingness to co-operate with Self, the Spirit of Truth deep within us;
the Holy Breath. He does all the rest, and leads, guides, enlightens and
protects us on the journey.
Love and joy bless our awakening,
Brian Longhurst
Breathe on me, Breath of God,
Fill me with life anew,
That I may love what thou dost
love,
And do what thou wouldst do.
Breathe on me Breath of God,
Until my heart is pure;
Until my will is one with thine
To do and to endure.
Breathe on me Breath of God,
Till I am wholly thine;
Until this earthly part of me
Glows with thy fire divine.
Breathe on me Breath of God,
So shall I never die,
But live with thee the perfect life
Of thine eternity
Rev. Edwin Hatch, 1878.
July 29th 2009
Dear Friends,
In this self-deceiving apparition of time and place, where everything is the
reverse of eternal reality, the one we trust the least is ourself. How many
times have we said, or heard the words ‘Trust me to make a mess of
things’ with a tone of derision in the voice. This is symbolically
expressing the unconscious belief that we have made one massive mistake of
separating ourself from our Creator and made a mess of things by seeming to
transform ourself from innocent, eternal, all-knowing, perfect peace, joy
and love into mortal, fearful, guilty, unworthy, fallible — and therefore —
untrustworthy.
This self-inflicted state of misperception is projected onto our fellow
fragments much of the time, so we go through life perhaps trusting a mere
handful of our fellows out of thousands we are likely to meet during an act,
or incarnation. Yet, if we were able to trust ourself (and we must know
ourself — truly know ourself, our real Self — in order for that to happen
completely) we would find trusting our fellows would be immeasurably easier
because our fellows would instinctively, intuitively know — re-cognise — our
trustworthiness and not find a reason themselves to be untrustworthy in
their interaction with us.
ACIM tells us — emphasises — that Papa, Jesus and the Holy Spirit trust us
implicitly, absolutely, unconditionally, unequivocally, unreservedly,
unhesitatingly. That ought to be enough to tell us we have things upside
down, back to front, cockeyed. One might readily ask then, who is right; us
or God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit?
We perceive ourself as untrustworthy because we perceive ourself as alone,
uncertain, unknowing, lost in a fearful world, where in the past (an
illusion to which ego has us addicted) we have made mistakes, got it wrong;
so surely we are likely to foul up again, any time and with anything or
anyone? We have allowed ego to take leasehold over our mind (or at least,
part of it, the part that projects us as images of bodies in time and place)
and therefore, our semblance of life, and mistakenly believe it is our true,
real self.
If we are willing (and that free choice is available to us every moment) to
restore that residency to its true and rightful occupant (Who we have
consigned to the attic with no right to express His view), we gradually
begin to find our self-perception improving. That, quirky as it may seem to
Earth-mind, upside-down logic, begins to affect our perception of our
fellows similarly and we begin to see them with new vision. Suspending
judgement based on partial or distorted information works wonders for
clarity of our sight.
At first, that clarity comes a bit here and a bit there; however much we may
wish to rush things, the Spirit of Truth, or Self — the true and rightful,
all-knowing, all-loving freeholder of our life — knows we have to take
things one step at a time. And He is right.
Even most unbelievers would acknowledge that Jesus is trustworthy, and the
Holy Spirit, or Self, is equally so. The problem is, how do we tell when
Self is communicating or when it is ego, because both are in our mind and
seem so close we cannot, at first, distinguish one from the other. This is
why we need to be still. Our true Self is only audible, or at least,
discernible, in the silence, the stillness, and comes with inspiration, a
feel-good, gentle, selfless, generous-hearted, peaceful quality. Ego does
not like exposure to the light of truth, is self-serving, fearful, greedy,
secretive, duplicitous. Differentiation comes increasingly naturally to us
as we become more trusting of our own benevolently-motivated instincts and
self-commitment to eternal truth, even if we do not yet know what it is.
Self does not reveal the truth of Eternity to us all in one go, not because
He does not trust us, but because He knows we could not handle it all at
once, just as a 6-year old child cannot handle all the lessons of a dozen
years at school all at once. But as we progress committedly, so does He
reveal more and more of the realities of Eternity to us, because He, like
Jesus, is the perfect teacher. There is no difference between the teaching
qualities of Jesus and the Spirit of Truth, because they are one in the
Creator Spirit, Papa.
Gradually, an emerging, ever bigger picture begins to take shape in our mind
and we feel restored — even if not yet completely — to a state where things
start to make sense; that the whole of everything is seen for what it is:
holographic, rather than myriad unrelated fragments coming at us in random
fashion; that we are truly all one, here and now, and we have been seeing
things from a perspective that was designed to delude us.
We are now on the way Home, where all is complete, whole (holy), and there
will be nothing ego can throw at us that will deter us, though it may seem
to for a span. In the duality of time and place fluctuations are
inevitable, but once we have experienced even the most fleeting moment of
Eternity, revealed to us from our own within by Self, we will always be
drawn back for more.
This has been the case with persona Brian, who now is gradually coming more
and more into a state of desire for constancy of communion, or joining, with
Self, the Holy Breath, the Spirit of Truth. A few days ago the following
communing took place, which it is my joy to share, in the hope that it may
encourage others to set aside the resistance that ego puts in front of us to
communing with the Spirit of Truth:
B to Self.
Come in B.
Beloved Self; my heart surges with joy and
anticipation as I attune with You, setting aside a sacred time for oneness.
That is the key, setting aside time.
By setting aside time, you help Me to set aside
(collapse) time, for you and for all
the fragments of the Sonship. That is our job together, B with his part and
Me with Mine, until there is no more ‘you and Me’ but just the oneness that
is the true reality.
This takes time, so let us use
it for its one true purpose, which is to undo it until it has been
dispelled, and there is no more past or future; just the Eternal Moment of
Peace, Joy, Love. Brian, your awareness of this is, at present, limited,
though you have experienced glimpses, so that you know, of a certainty
beyond all doubt, of its reality. This helps to focus your mind upon its
objective, which is to return to that state of Being, the true and only
state of being for all, permanently.
You know that oneness with You, Self, is
the only objective, and it is my
objective. B desires, wills that it be so, and that the most direct, rapid
route to that is what I am seeking to follow, by and with Your leading.
You, B, have been following that lead, apart
from in multiple other acts, for all of this one as B. It matters not what
is the form that presents itself to you, in response to your own
request, to lead you, step by step toward the Light. Most recently that form
has been Jesus, Yeshua, the embodiment of light, love and truth. You have
known for many acts that this was the wisest choice you could have made. He
appeared to you forty plus years ago, so it seems; but that, too, is
illusory, for time does not exist, and the Spirit of Truth is within you and
has always been there.
Nevertheless, along with the other fragments,
B had forgotten, and was seeking without. The Spirit knew this about
all the self-separated ones, so lovingly obliged by manifesting one
(Jesus) into that illusory state of
being without, to help you
(along with all the fragments, of course)
redirect your thoughts, your mind, to the
within, wherein is all truth, life and Being, unchangeable, eternally.
This event, which as you have correctly observed, is, or appears to be, a
thousands of years long process, which has been meaningfully dubbed the
GRP – for that is what it is – and, of course, encompasses not just one
fleeting moment two thousand years ago, but three measures of meal, or
phases, over six thousand years.
Yet even that, helpful as it is
(though it seems impossibly long) to
the languishing fragments, is nothing out of Eternity, as you will
realise, along with all the Sonship, when you have fully awakened to the
Reality. So, perceived from time and place, your beloved brother came to
you, as you so earnestly and sincerely requested, to lead, guide, protect
and fellowship with you on your journey in time and place. And it has been
his joy as well as yours to journey with him awhile.
Rejoice and share with, extend the experience
to your brethren, as has been your desire far longer than a mere forty
years. This has been your inward commitment for many acts, and now the
facilities for extending that sharing have been placed at your disposal,
just as you have so long desired.
As you progress on this journey and the vista
expands before you, your guide gradually becomes one with you until he is no
more discernible as with you, but is, rather, within you;
indivisibly one with you.
Thank you, Self, for painting the broader
picture and helping me to assimilate the awareness and understanding, that
further sharing with all who will is enabled.
So, the journey continues until we come, at last (though in truth, the
journey is already over and we will realise that when we have arrived, once
more, at the vantage point where we can see the truth of that reality) to
our destination: wakefulness; remembrance of our true Self, our true Being,
Christ, the One Son of the Father Creator. This is how Jesus explains it in
ACIM, part II, section 6 of the Workbook for Students (emphases are mine):
6. What Is the Christ?
Christ is God’s Son as He created him. He is the Self we
share, uniting us with one another, and with God as well.
He is the Thought Which still abides within the Mind that is His Source. He
has not left His holy home, nor lost the innocence in which He was created.
He abides unchanged forever in the Mind of God.
Christ is the link that keeps you one with God,
and guarantees that separation is no more than an illusion of despair,
for hope forever will abide in Him. Your mind is part of His, and His of
yours. He is the part in which God’s Answer lies; where all decisions are
already made, and dreams are over. He remains untouched by anything the
body’s eyes perceive. For though in Him His Father placed the means for your
salvation, yet does He remain the Self Who, like His Father, knows no sin.
Home of the Holy Spirit, and at home in God alone, does Christ
remain at peace within the heaven of your holy mind. This is the only part
of you that has reality in truth.
The rest is dreams. Yet will these dreams be given unto Christ
(eventually, inevitably, freely and gladly, however determinedly ego in our
split-off mind may initially resist),
to fade before His glory and reveal your holy Self, the Christ, to you at
last.
The Holy Spirit reaches from the Christ in you to all your
dreams, and bids them come to Him, to be translated into truth.
He will exchange them for the final dream which God appointed as the end of
dreams. For when forgiveness rests upon the world and peace has come to
every Son of God, what could there be to keep things separate, for what
remains to see except Christ's face?
And how long will this holy face be seen, when it is but the symbol that the
time for learning now is over, and the goal of the Atonement* has been reached at last? So therefore let us seek to find
Christ’s face and look on nothing else. As we behold His glory, will we know
we have no need of learning or perception or of time, or anything except the
holy Self, the Christ Whom God created as His Son.
* This word, pronounced at-onement, means restoration to oneness in
God by the help/leadership of Jesus/Holy Spirit, through what came to
be referred to, during 4 decades of communing, or joining, with Jesus, as
‘the Great Rescue Programme’, or GRP, and is a correction by Jesus, in ACIM,
of the church-devised term of the same spelling — pronounced a-tonement
— denoting our salvation as accomplished through the life, suffering and
death of Jesus as a ‘once-and-for-all’ blood sacrifice, required of God.
This has been an error of the church for many centuries, and is in direct
contradiction to Hosea 6:
For I desired mercy, and not
sacrifice
(repeated by Jesus to the Pharisees in Mt. 9:13 and 12:7) and to Jeremiah
7:22,23: For I
spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought
them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices:
But this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your
God, and ye shall be my people: and walk ye in all the ways that I have
commanded you, that it may be well unto you.
If
Jesus had believed his crucifixion was intended to be a once-for-all blood
sacrifice, he assuredly would have taught to that effect, but he made no
such teaching.
So, beloveds, do we move forward, in ever-growing harmony (though to our
ego-senses it may not always seem that way!), toward this, our glorious
destiny of oneness, wholeness, holiness.
Peace and joy be with us all,
Brian Longhurst
August 5th 2009
Dear Friends,
In Gary Renard’s book The Disappearance of the Universe, it says
...everyone wants their
life to have meaning, but they’re looking for it in the wrong place — in the
world. People feel a deep emptiness somewhere, and then they try to fill in
the hole with some accomplishment or relationship on the level of form. Yet
all of these things, by definition, are transitory at best. Thus you need
to realize, as J
(Jesus)
counsels very early in the
Text
(of ACIM),
A sense of separation from God
is the only lack you really need correct
(T-1.VI.2)
The J of the Course is not the same as the
version of J in Christianity, and the two thought systems are not
compatible. For Christianity, their suffering image of J the body is extra
special. He is different than
(sic)
you in the sense that he alone
is God’s only begotten Son. But the J of the Course informs you that
because you and he are one, then you are equally God’s only begotten Son or
Christ – not any different than
(sic)
him – and furthermore you can
eventually experience this.
There is nothing about me that you cannot
attain. I have nothing that does not come from God. The difference between
us now
(to our perception, but not, of course, in reality)
is that I have nothing else.
(T-1.II.3)
The something else that we think we have is the perception that we are
‘here’, clothed in all our separate littleness and mortality. That
perception, as with all perception, the opposite of true vision, is like a
shield, or barrier, that we have placed between our ego-perception and our
true Self, separating us, preventing us from seeing the truth, that — as
Jesus says in the ‘sermon on the mount’ — we are the light of the world. But
the aim of ACIM is, as it states in the Introduction,
removing the blocks
to the awareness of Love’s presence, which is our natural inheritance.
The Introduction concludes:
This course can therefore be
summed up very simply in this way:
Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God.
Real
is anything that is unchangeable, invulnerable, indestructible, eternally.
Nothing in time and place fits that category. Unreal is anything
that is changeable, vulnerable, destructible. Everything in time and place
fits that category. That lets out everything we have believed from within
the illusion, including bodies. All bodies. That also means Jesus’ body.
It is not his body that was, or is, important, but the message he came to
bring us from the Source, and for which function a body of dust of the Earth
was prerequisite.
That message was not all delivered at the start of the Jesus measure of
meal, during his time with a body. It could not be, because we, the
recipients of his message, were not ready to receive it all. He knew that,
and says so in Jn. 16: 12, 13:
I have yet many things to say unto you, but
ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he
will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but
whatsoever he shall hear
(from Papa),
that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.
He knew the rescue of his beloved siblings in the Sonship would take another
4,000 years of one-dimensional time before it was complete. The three ages
it is taking — Abraham, Jesus and Kingdom — are successive,
progressive unfoldments of the reality of Eternity to our upside-down
perceptions, and we are not able to take it all in at once.
We are now facing some very big leaps in our understanding, to transform it
from ego’s deception to Holy Spirit’s correction. This would be impossible
without ACIM, which is a perfectly-timed, sacred handbook for restoration to
the oneness that is our reality. Otherwise, how could we
know/learn/remember that there is but one of us, appearing as many
because of the concept of separation; that all we have believed is real is
but a dream; that we have guilt and fear deeply hidden in our unconscious
mind and the only way it can be released — freeing us from the otherwise
endless loop of birth and death — is by total, unequivocal forgiveness of
ourself, our siblings in the Sonship and the world, because none of us is
here and we have done nothing.
This is a truly radical thought train to humanity at large, and will take
time to become accepted and assimilated. But we have the help of the Voice
for God, by Which all things are possible. On our own, with the closed mind
that has resulted from believing the unbelievable, this seems impossible
because ego wants us to believe such an idea is insane. Jesus was derided
as insane by a great many of his contemporaries, but in due course came to
be accepted as the Lord/Avatar/Ascended Master that he Is, and we are all
inescapably destined, once more, to join him in Being, as Papa’s only
begotten Son.
This derision caused him no disquiet because he knew the truth. As we come
to awaken to the truth, ridicule by those who doggedly remain asleep in
ego’s thrall equally becomes of no concern to us. Scorn and derision is
ego’s way of endeavouring to keep the truth hidden, and whenever anyone
comes out with what is seen as a new theory about anything, there is never
any shortage of peers willing to respond in a profoundly uncharitable
manner. Ask any scientist.
But as we grow in remembrance of Who we really Are, rather than responding
thusly, our heart goes out in tender, loving compassion, not derision, for
the blindness of our brothers to eternal truth. This is possible because we
are coming to think as the Spirit of Truth. This is inevitable because that
is Who we really Are.
The Spirit of Truth, Self, the Holy Spirit lives within the part of our mind
that is spiritually awake, though to the other part — the split-off,
upside-down, ego-controlled part, which could be described as our ‘waking
consciousness’ — seems to be asleep. Yet the Spirit of Truth is ever
awake, vigilant for opportunities to nudge us with new awarenesses of
reality, to bring loving, gentle thoughts of truth, understanding,
forgiveness, inner peace and joy; our true, natural, inherited estate.
This does not seem so to most of us because the ego always speaks first,
often raucously, judgementally, (try watching daytime TV and so-called
‘reality’ shows for ample evidence
J)
and to this most of us, as yet, are attuned, conditioned to hearing, and,
believing that it is the only voice speaking for us, we miss the still,
small Voice that speaks within us unless and until we truly desire to hear
It and listen steadfastly for It, choosing to ignore the shrill, clamorous
tones of ego. Here is what Jesus says about this in ACIM, T-5.VI.3. I
quote the whole paragraph here because it reminds us so well of so much:
Remember the Kingdom always,
and remember that you who are part of the Kingdom
(that’s all of us; no exceptions)
cannot be lost. The Mind
that was in me is in you, for God creates with perfect fairness.
Let the Holy Spirit remind you always of His fairness, and let me teach you
how to share it with your brothers. How else can the chance to claim it for
yourself be given you? The two voices speak for different interpretations
of the same thing simultaneously; or almost simultaneously, for the ego
always speaks first. Alternate interpretations were unnecessary until
the first one was made.
To choose to hear only the voice of shrillness when we can freely choose to
attune to the Voice of stillness is a choice without benefit indeed.
Here is more of what Jesus reminds us about the Holy Spirit, from ACIM
Workbook, part II, section 7 (my emphases):
7. What Is the Holy Spirit?
The Holy Spirit mediates between illusions and the truth. Since He must
bridge the gap between reality and dreams, perception leads to knowledge
through the grace that God has given Him, to be His gift to everyone who
turns to Him for truth. Across the bridge that He provides are dreams all
carried to the truth, to be dispelled before the light of
(true, spiritual)
knowledge.
There are sights and sounds
(of an unreal world)
forever laid aside
(does this not call for an Alleluia?J). And where they were perceived before, forgiveness has made
possible perception’s tranquil end.
The goal the Holy Spirit’s teaching sets is just this end of dreams. For
sights and sounds must be translated from
(being)
the
(false) witnesses of fear to
(being)
those of love. And when this is entirely accomplished,
learning has achieved the only goal it has in truth
(because when we have returned to all knowledge, the need for learning is
over).
For learning, as the Holy Spirit guides it to the outcome He perceives for
it, becomes the means to go beyond itself, to be replaced by the eternal
truth
(i.e. all-knowledge).
If you but knew how much your Father yearns to have you
recognize your sinlessness, you would not let His Voice appeal in vain,
nor turn away from His replacement for the fearful images and dreams you
made. The Holy Spirit understands the means you made, by which
you would attain what is forever unattainable
(disinheriting ourself from Papa).
And if you offer them to Him, He will employ the means you made for
exile to restore your mind to where it truly is at home.
From knowledge, where He has been placed by God, the Holy Spirit calls to
you
(from within our own mind; the part that is one with Him, our whole/holy,
free mind),
to let forgiveness rest upon your dreams, and be restored to sanity and
peace of mind. Without forgiveness will your dreams remain to terrify
you. And
(without forgiveness)
the memory of all your Father’s Love will not return to signify the end of
dreams has come.
Accept your Father’s gift.
It is a call from Love to Love, that It be but Itself. The Holy Spirit is
His gift, by which the quietness of Heaven is restored to God’s beloved Son.
Would you refuse to take the function of completing God, when all He
wills is that you be complete?
Love and light bless us all,
Brian Longhurst
The Voice of the Holy Spirit does not command,
because It is incapable of arrogance.
It does not demand, because It does not seek control.
It does not overcome, because It does not attack.
It merely reminds.
It is compelling only because of what It reminds you of.
(ACIM T-5.II.7)
August 12th 2009
Dear Friends,
The function of Jesus — who is the first of the separated fragments of the
Sonship to complete his part in remembering Who he really Is, and thus
returning to oneness in the Father Creator — is to extend that remembrance
to all his brethren who still remain in a state of slumbering forgetfulness
of their one, true Identity within the Sonship. He does this by sharing, or
extending, the truth from his restored, corrected Mind to our seemingly
separated minds; the truth of Eternity; the truth that he says will set us
free.
This may seem as if it is not happening if we are not consciously aware
of it happening. But the Spirit of Truth, Who, like Jesus, is with us
always, ‘even unto the end of the world’, keeps these gifts of remembrance
safe for us until we are ready to receive them, and then — and only then —
reveals them to us one step at a time.
By deciding to co-operate in this process and adopting an attitude of
receptiveness to and acceptance of the remembrance of eternal truth, the
process can be speeded up exponentially, thereby collapsing time for us,
saving untold numbers of further circuits of the dreamworld carousel of
birth and death. Let us not be coy about this: believing in death is
believing in a lie. We are now presented with the perfect opportunity to
dispel the lie and open our vision to the truth of eternal Life. This is
not a statement of religious doctrine or dogma but a simple fact. The
greatest fact there is for us sojourners in time.
This function of Jesus – extending the remembrance of truth, and therefore,
sanity, to his brethren (you and me) — is not his alone, but that of us
all. He says it this way in ACIM Workbook, pg. 449 (my emphasis):
Christ’s Second Coming, which is sure as God, is merely the correction of
mistakes, and the return of sanity. It is a part of the condition that
restores the never lost, and re-establishes what is forever and forever
true. It is the invitation to God’s Word to take illusion’s place; the
willingness to let forgiveness rest upon all things without exception and
without reserve...
...Pray that the Second Coming will be soon, but do not rest with that.
It needs your eyes and ears and hands and feet. It needs your voice. And
most of all it needs your willingness...
Most of us are not yet awake to, and therefore not ready for, accepting and
undertaking that function. But that is merely an illusory, linear-time
perspective. Linear time is like watching a film at the cinema, where the
action unfolds sequentially, moment after moment, projected onto a screen.
But all the action has, in reality, already taken place and is completed,
finished, over, wrapped up, in the can, done and dusted, forgotten. We
merely review it in linear sequence projected onto the screen.
We appear to be at the part where we have not yet remembered our function,
and perceive that we are little, weak, mortal, unworthy, guilty, fearful.
But, by the end of the film, we see that we have been rescued, or corrected,
from that mistaken belief and have, just like Jesus, remembered Who we
really Are.
That is the truth of Eternity and will forever be unchangeably so. Since
the action for the film, about an unreal dimension called time and place, is
already over (Jesus has spilled the beans to us about the plot, so we can
know the end before the film has run its linear course, and no longer need
to sit through another showing) we can share the plot — with its happy
ending — with our brethren and save them another showing. Then, they
can share the plot with more brethren, until time has been completely
collapsed for us all and we can get Home together much sooner. Not
only can we do this, but, once we waken to the place where we begin
to remember the truth, we will earnestly desire to adopt our
function, along with our brother Jesus.
In a recent communing, or joining, with the Spirit of Truth, Which is our
true Self, the following was the result:
Beloved Self: When I attune — join — with
You, I feel as if I am connecting with safety, wholeness, reality. It
immediately places me in a state of inner peace; a sense of wellbeing, that
I am protected, unerringly guided, led to the place where all is as it
should be: free of fear and guilt, doubt and anxiety. You, Self, are my
rock, my strength, my anchor, my safe haven, my certainty. When I am joined
with You, I am whole, complete.
All this is good, and as intended. Join, then, with Me often, until it
becomes at last for B, permanence. You know then that B will cease to have
a separate existence, a separate identity?
Yes. And not that long ago such a thought
caused me concern, fear even, that something real, important — vital
actually — was being lost; that I did not want that to happen; that this was
a sacrifice. I knew it was not a dying but a coming back to wholeness of
Life, but still to part of me it felt like it. But now I rejoice at
the prospect because I realise that I am identifying more and more with Self
and less and less with B. I now see that this means I am awakening
to remembrance of Who I really Am, am giving up, letting go, surrendering my
ego-persona identity/leasehold to its rightful freeholder. How magnificent
is that!?
Major progress indeed. And it has all been happening one step at a time,
imperceptibly, this 'persona-ectomy'. This is not surgery, but a withdrawal
of the focus of awareness from one perceived ‘reality’ to the truth of your
Being. So is it with the fear of death. It is a fear of losing something
that seems real but in truth never was.
And, once the dream is seen as a dream, then its ending holds no fear, but
only gladness that the awakening is now taking place. And as it progresses,
so does your awareness of your true reality as Self, Papa’s beloved Son,
take on ever greater meaning, joy, peace and love.
This was always the plan for B, wasn’t it? I
feel that, deep within.
Yes. Your feeling does not deceive you. B is, as Jesus told you in 1968, a
harbinger; a messenger with an important message to deliver. He is already
delivering that message; accepting his function of sharing, extending the
message of Jesus. It will continue. It required much preparation — over
‘half a lifetime’ just in this act — so that B could be brought, one step at
a time, to the place of readiness.
This required — and still requires — balance. Humility is easily flexed and
distorted in the hands of ego into a travesty of its reality. It also
required confidence that B was on the right path, the path aforetime agreed
with he you had elected to follow; with whom you had journeyed many times
before.
But entering into forgetfulness requires the tool of time to erode it away,
and for restoration to remembrance to be accomplished. In such
circumstances, balance is more easily maintained by the one step at a time
approach. It helps also to keep impatience and impetuousness manageable
J.
Be assured that having an important message to deliver, share, extend does
not make B ‘special’ or set apart; for all the fragments have that same
message to extend to their brethren within the Sonship. The only
apparent difference is timing. But time, you are remembering, is an
illusion from which B is recovering. B receives the message because he is
willing to receive it, shares, or extends it, and it is passed along
from one to the next throughout the Sonship until all have received it, and
by it have let go of separation, become rejoined in oneness of Mind.
Thus is the process, the Second Coming of Christ Mind to fragmented mind,
for its leavening, its resurrection, its restoration to wholeness — holiness
— and its return to the Kingdom completed. He who extends to you the
message received it from its Source. It loses nothing in the extending, but
rather, grows in strength, clarity, certainty, understanding as it moves
through the fragments, drawing them back together, restoring to Christ
power, strength, peace, knowing. Now is the moment of rejoining and thus,
rejoicing.
The New Song gains in popularity the more it is joyfully sung. Soon will it
be on the lips of all, for it is already deep within their hearts and minds.
Meanwhile, as it says in The Disappearance of the Universe of our
apparent condition in the separation:
Being
without the power of God, all your mind can do is seemingly divide and
subdivide and then attempt to glorify the result.
But these Lessons, below, from the ACIM Workbook are glorious, magnificent
encouragement to show us how the GRP is in full flood and Jesus’ sharing,
extending the truth from the Source to us, his beloved brethren, is now in
the fulfilment stage; the third measure of meal is leavening before our
eyes!
LESSON 302
Where darkness was I look upon the light.
Father, our eyes are opening at last. Your holy world
(the New Earth; see ACIM Workbook, pg. 443 and Rev. 21:1)
awaits us, as our sight is finally restored and we can see. We thought we
suffered. But we had forgot the Son whom You created. Now we see that
darkness is our own imagining, and light is there for us to look upon.
Christ’s vision changes darkness into light, for fear must disappear when
love has come. Let me forgive Your holy world today, that I may look upon
its holiness and understand it but reflects my own.
Our Love awaits us as we go to Him, and walks beside us showing us the way.
He fails in nothing. He the End we seek, and He the Means by which we go to
Him.
LESSON 303
The holy Christ is born in me today.
Watch with me, angels, watch with me today. Let all God's holy Thoughts
surround me, and be still with me while Heaven’s Son is born. Let earthly
sounds be quiet, and the sights to which I am accustomed disappear. Let
Christ be welcomed where He is at home. And let Him hear the sounds He
understands, and see but sights that show His Father’s Love. Let Him no
longer be a stranger here, for He is born again in me today.
Your Son is welcome, Father. He has come to save me from the evil self I
made. He is the Self that You have given me. He is but what I really am in
truth. He is the Son You love above all things. He is my Self as You created
me. It is not Christ that can be crucified. Safe in Your Arms let me receive
Your Son.
LESSON 304
Let not my world obscure the sight of Christ.
I
can obscure my holy sight, if I intrude my world upon it. Nor can I behold
the holy sights Christ looks upon, unless it is His vision that I use.
Perception is a mirror, not a fact. And what I look on is my state of mind,
reflected outward. I would bless the world by looking on it through the eyes
of Christ. And I will look upon the certain signs that all my sins have been
forgiven me.
You lead me from the darkness to the light; from sin to holiness. Let me
forgive, and thus receive salvation for the world. It is Your gift, my
Father, given me to offer to Your holy Son, that he may find again the
memory of You, and of Your Son as You created him.
To conclude this MoE here are words, inspired by Jesus, from page 119 of
Helen Schucman’s book of poetry The Gifts of God:
In my hands is everything you want and need and hoped
to find among the shabby toys of earth.
I take them from you and they are gone.
And shining in the place where once they stood
is a gateway to another world
through which we enter in the name of God.
To the ‘Real World’, the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, the New Earth, that our
uplifting by Papa to Eternity in Him may take place from there, without
delay!
Brian Longhurst
August 19th 2009
Dear Friends,
This week’s MoE is about spiritual, or miraculous healing, specifically
under Christ guidance and empowerment. This healing can be considered as
restoration to wholeness, or holiness, or at least — at this nascent stage
in the awakening of the fragmented Sonship to remembrance of our oneness in
our Creator — to some degree of restoration. Ultimately, all healing
is of the mind, and this will often, though not necessarily always,
manifest, or be reflected, in bodily wellbeing. We will only be fully
healed or restored to wholeness/holiness when we have fully awakened from
the dream of separation.
In the interim, since Jesus performed many miracles of healing, of mind —
described in some instances in the record as exorcising ‘unclean’ spirits
(see Mt. 12:43-45) — and body during his mission on Earth, and as his
handbook for getting Home is called A Course in Miracles, in which he
talks at length about healing, we can safely assume he supports our
endeavours in this arena.
Spiritual healing is, of course, a massive subject, and cannot be
comprehensively covered here, but this touching on the subject is prompted
by two events in recent weeks and months, and also, no doubt, because the
moment for it to crop up has now arrived. These events turned up in the
form of adversity, but like all apparent adversity, proved to be
opportunities to transform adversity into fulfilment (OTAFs) or to put it
another way, to transform ego’s script into Holy Spirit’s script.
The first was when our brother ‘M.B.’ was diagnosed with cancer of the
œsophagus. This is extensively covered in the MoE dated Feb. 11th
2009, and it may be helpful to re-visit that, for useful background for
healing is offered there. Meanwhile, an extract from that is pasted below
because it has a high level of pertinence here:
...If M.B. is in a place where he feels he cannot forgive himself — for what
he has, in truth, never done — then we, his brothers, can forgive
him, and this will assist his release, and our own, from
ego-entrapped mind back to his, and our, rightful, Christ Mind.
The opposite of seeing through the body’s eyes is the vision of Christ,
which reflects strength rather than weakness, unity rather than separation,
and love rather than fear
(and, in the context of our joint objective for M.B., wholeness instead of
dis-ease).
The opposite of hearing through the body’s ears is communication through the
Voice for God, the Holy Spirit, which abides in each of us...
That MoE included a general request for any who felt so moved to offer him
up for healing and blessing prayer. The response was wonderful, with people
from around the world saying not only were they praying for him then, but
would continue to do so, multiple times, and that they considered it a
blessing and a privilege to be given such an opportunity.
When we pray for healing — of body or mind — we are asking for a
miraculous healing. In the first chapter of the Text of ACIM Jesus lists
50 principles of miracles, and number 45 states:
A miracle is never
lost. It may touch many people you have not even met, and produce undreamed
of changes in situations of which you are not even aware.
This certainly was the case with M.B., who underwent a 9-week course of
chemotherapy, and was then assessed by the medical team on his case, to
determine his fitness for enduring the 8-hour operation. I only found our
recently that at that time they told him the condition was too far gone and
his general health was not considered sufficient to offer a reasonable
chance of surviving the surgery; that all they could offer him was
palliative chemotherapy.
Meanwhile, of course, people around the world had been praying for him, and
miraculous activity engendered by those prayers was about to engage! One
subsequent day, when the surgeon in charge of his case was in his office
mulling over various cases, he was ‘prompted, out of the blue’ to a rethink
of M.B.’s case. He pulled out the scans and x-rays, suddenly wondering if
there might be an alternative interpretation of them. This he then realised
was indeed the case. He took them to the team, talked them through his new
findings, and they unanimously agreed that, after all, M.B. was
operable. The operation went ahead and he is now making spectacular
progress with his convalescence.
The second event was an email from Sharon, in Newfoundland, Canada, on July
26th, asking for healing prayers for her cousin Corinne, who had
suffered a broken back, a broken neck and multiple other life-threatening
injuries in a motorbike accident. Her message was forwarded to all on the
mailing list and received a similar response to that resulting from the
prayer request for M.B.
The medics held little hope for Corinne’s survival, let alone her ever
walking again. But on August 11th — a mere 16 days later — the
following email came from Sharon:
Dear Brian
and Everyone,
I can not
thank you enough for your prayers for my cousin and her daughter Janice.
I would really like to be part of your prayer group and be called upon to
pray for others when needed. I can tell you that there is no way my cousin
could be standing where she is today without those prayers.
When one
hears broken neck and fractured spine, and that was just the beginning of
the injuries, well one thinks the worst and that is what I did. My heart was
broken and I felt so helpless to do anything, I did not realize I had the
power to do the most important thing, pray and ask others to do the same. I
had forgotten how important that was.
My cousin has her jaw wired shut, a neck brace and yet she is standing on
her feet, walking around. The Doctors (had earlier) said it would be a month
to six weeks and she could be air lifted home after her last trip to the OR.
But instead she is driving here next week with her daughter to finish this
(4,500-mile road) trip. She will not be on her bike but she will be here...
And not to get into too personal a thing, this disaster also mended some
badly broken fences in the family department because calls were made
when it seemed that she may not live with so much trauma. That is how
serious the Doctors felt her situation was, and yet she is now laughing at
our fears and is going to complete her journey.
So thank you all for your prayers, and should you ever need prayers know
that I am one person who saw a good example of the power of prayer that I
shall never forget. I am in your debt. God Bless you all ...Sharon
(My emboldening)
ACIM reminds us that learning the truth of Who we really Are is of no
consequence unless we apply what we learn in our everyday life, and
that it is the application that will transform us and awaken us to the truth
of Eternity. For example, learning about true forgiveness will not get us
Home, but applying it will.
The two events described above, with such palpably miraculous outcomes, have
prompted me to realise that multi-person prayer for healing is as practical
an application of Who we really Are as any, and is a perfect opportunity for
all to participate and benefit. This is so because a) multi-person
participation means joining as one for the one
—
Kingdomly —
purpose, and it is of no consequence if none of the participants knows the
‘prayee’ or any of the other prayers, because the joining is
of minds within the all-knowing, all-encompassing, all-loving,
all-empowered Mind of the Holy Spirit, and b) because by this endeavour we
are all healing ourself as well as the prayee — because we are one.
I am, therefore, now in the process of preparing a Prayers-for-healing
page for the HTG website with this as the motivation and objective. How I
(with much inspiration from Holy Spirit and numerous synchronicities
providing affirmation) envision this page is as follows:
Anyone who wishes to receive prayer for healing, whether for themselves or
someone else, can write in (brian@honest2goodness.org.uk)
providing pertinent details of the person (a first name will suffice, or a
pseudonym, or initials, or some other identifying symbol if confidentiality
is preferred), giving as much background detail of the condition as is
pertinent, to help others to get 'on the wavelength' (but keeping strictly
to the point, please; ego LOVES sidetracking us, and how ready so many of us
are to allow it☺).
The request would then be posted on the Prayers-for-healing page,
inviting any who see it to offer heartfelt prayer. If inspired by the Holy
Spirit, I or anyone else might include a prayer suggestion, to encourage as
many as possible to participate. Anyone who has any mystical experiences
pertinent to the case in hand could write in and that could then be posted.
And of course, if/when the prayer recipient experiences profound/miraculous
benefit/healing, they could — please — write in about it, so that it
could also be posted, for the encouragement of all for increased commitment
in this mutually benefiting endeavour.
I will be giving this Page my attention in the coming days, and will advise
further. Meanwhile, any who read this who might have any thoughts or
inspiration for this matter, please
email me. All such contributions will be gratefully received!
On the website dedicated to ACIM —
www.circleofa.org — I have come across this truly inspired, inspiring
and very practical help and guideline on how to pray for healing. I believe
all will find it to be of invaluable help in focussing the mind. Heartfelt
thanks to Robert Perry and his dedicated team at Circle of Atonement
for it:
A Simple Healing
Prayer
·
Invite Jesus or the Holy Spirit to be with you in your awareness.
·
Bring the person you are praying for to mind. Spend a moment reviewing the
way you usually see him, which includes bringing to mind any specific
sickness you think he has.
·
Realize that the Holy Spirit does not see your brother this way at all. He
sees him only as the perfect child of a perfect Father. Your role is to
let His perception replace yours, to whatever degree you can.
·
Take a minute or so to focus on your intention. You need to desire your
brother's healing, and you need to be as sincere as you can about letting
your mind be changed from the way you currently see him. You may want to
repeat a simple sentence such as, "Holy Spirit, I desire _______'s healing,
and I am willing to see him (or her) the way You do."
·
Now open your mind and let it be healed. You may want to try this
visualization from Workbook Lesson 121:
·
See him in your mind, and look at him a while…. Try to find some little
spark of brightness shining through the [sick] picture that you hold of him.
Look at this picture until you see a light somewhere within it, and then try
to let this light extend until it covers him, and makes the picture
beautiful and good.
(W-pI.121.11:1,3-4)
·
As you see the little spark of light expand to cover all of him, feel your
mind expanding to encompass the Holy Spirit's perception of your brother.
His body fades in importance; any temptation to perceive him as sick fades
away; you are even able to overlook his sick mind which made the choice to
experience a sick body. Instead, you just see him as the Holy Spirit does—a
perfect child of a perfect Father.
·
You realize that in truth, nothing separates the two of you. While you were
seeing your brother as sick, you sensed a gulf between you. Now that you are
seeing him with Christ's vision, all you see is the light of truth in him,
which you realize is exactly the same light as that within you.
·
Let the love which comes from your new perception fill your mind and heart,
flowing out towards your brother, and feel that love being returned from him
to you. You may want to repeat to yourself, "You stand with me in light,
[name]"
(W-pI.87.2:3).
There is so much more that could be said and will be said on the
Prayers-for-healing page but which the need for brevity here prevents.
So I close by saying that while most of us may be a long way from
understanding all the principles of miracles with our earth mind, this does
not matter to Jesus and the Holy Spirit, because a) They do
understand, and know where we appear to be on the path home to Eternity and
b) They know that in the only true reality of our oneness in the Christ
Mind, we do understand. All that matters in all our prayerful
endeavours for miracles of healing is our compassion, love, sincerity and
gratitude. The Holy Spirit, Who is our true, all-empowered Self, will do
all the rest.
Love and blessings,
Brian Longhurst
August 26th 2009
Dear Friends,
With development of the Prayers for Healing (PFH) page occupying my
thoughts, and with more and more material for potential inclusion coming to
my attention, the topic of mind discipline was part of a recent communing,
or joining, with Self, the Spirit of Truth:
There is so much on my mind at present, Self,
it is making attuning with inner peace difficult, and I am fully aware of
the essential importance of inner peace during an exercise such as this,
otherwise it will fall foul of ego’s snares.
Give it all to me then.
Aah — that’s the spirit — surrender. Why do
I forget when I need most to remember?
Yes, it is the Spirit. Surrender to Spirit is paramount to inner
peace, and is unachievable without it. Of course, B already knows that, but
because ego-mind is so devious, so insidious, its ensnaring tentacles are
multifarious, and sneak up from behind, with innumerable prestidigitating...
Hey, that’s my word
J!
Well, it’s a good one, so I am borrowing it
J.
As I was saying, ...prestidigitating distractions, so B doesn’t always
notice it until it has happened. This is why you are called upon to be
vigilant. This means always! You cannot be effectively vigilant
some of the time, otherwise you are wasting time. As you are
beginning to understand, or to remember, the only proper function of time is
to learn how to use time constructively.
Yes, I am now well aware that the only
constructive use of time is attuning, joining with You, Papa, Jesus, until I
am, like Jesus, fully Identified with Truth; and You are the Spirit of
Truth. And Truth will set me free — from bodies, time and place, all
illusions.
You see: progress! Seriously, though, Olga was right with her ‘Keep on
keeping on.’ And B is doing that, noticeably more as the dividends it
pays begin to show up more and more in his daily life. I know, because we
are one, that whatever appears to be going on outwardly, B has one desire
only: to be joined indivisibly with Me, Heaven, Christ Mind, Truth,
all-knowing, fullness of remembrance of his eternal Being.
That will serve B well, for whatever temporal distractions may come his way
— and they will
—
he will always be aware of the one, true purpose of time, and that will keep
him never far from that purpose and its application.
My desire is to bring my brothers with me in
this rejoining, as many as possible, so that we, the brotherhood of man, are
rejoined in full wakefulness, awareness, permanent, perpetual experience of
our oneness in the Sonship, as soon as possible. Delay, I am acutely aware,
is prolonging the agony when we can — and should — be re-acquainting
ourselves with the ecstasy.
This desire did not come from out of the blue, B, but has been in the
incubator for many acts.
I guess this is why impatience to be getting
on with it keeps dogging me.
There is a lesson there for you; one that this act is focussing upon for
you. I believe you know what that lesson is.
I don’t need two guesses. Patience.
Yes, but also trust. Trust is the mother of patience. Trust all
your aspirations for the Kingdom of Heaven into My care, and patience will
be yours. This means release from ego’s pitfall of impatience.
A truly worthy goal from where I’m looking.
Indeed so. Now go and make that pot of tea, beloved.
Since this exchange the sudden realisation came that it is not necessary to
include everything that is potentially helpful, least of all at the
outset, in the PFH page; the main thing is to launch it soon, rather than
delaying it in an effort to launch it comprehensively complete. Prayers for
healing require sincerity of desire and commitment, for without those
qualities there can be no beneficial results. With them there will be many
results, especially, it seems evident, with multi-person
participation.
But there will be more and more results as we come to understand and
thus be able to apply, as Jesus did, the principles of miracles and how they
work. This, therefore, will become increasingly an objective of the PFH
page, so that miracles of healing can increase accordingly. Or, as I am
prompted now to say, exponentially. Alleluia!
Remember, miracles are natural; when they do not work, something has gone
wrong. Workbook Lesson 77 states that we are entitled to miracles,
and counsels us not to trade them for grievances; that Papa has established
miracles as our right, and therefore we simply want what belongs to us. If
we allow ego to persuade us otherwise we deny Papa His right to His Son.
While I have been working on PFH, this, from ACIM chapter 8, section IV came
to my attention:
If
God’s Will for you is complete peace and joy, unless you experience only
this you must be refusing to acknowledge His Will. His Will does not
vacillate, being changeless forever. When you are not at peace it can only
be because you do not believe you are in Him. Yet He is All in all. His
peace is complete, and you must be included in it. His laws govern you
because they govern everything. You cannot exempt yourself from His laws,
although you can disobey them. Yet if you do, and only if you do, you will
feel lonely and helpless, because you are denying yourself everything.
(Only in this state of belief in separation is dis-ease possible.)
I
am come as a light into a world that does deny itself everything
(everything = Eternity, Heaven, God). It does this simply by dissociating itself from everything.
It is therefore an illusion of isolation, maintained by fear of the same
loneliness that is
its illusion. I said that I am with you always, even unto the end of the
world. That is why I am the light of the world. If I am with you in
the loneliness of the world, the loneliness is gone. You cannot maintain the
illusion of loneliness if you are not alone. My purpose, then, is still
to overcome the world. I do not attack it, but my light must dispel it
because of what it is. Light does not attack darkness, but it does shine
it away. If my light goes with you everywhere, you shine it away with
me. The light becomes ours, and you cannot abide in darkness any more than
darkness can abide wherever you go.
(This is what’s happening, right now. We can espouse it and be part of it —
and it of us — right now, or we can continue to ignore it. Ignoring it will
not make it not so; it will simply make it appear to be not so for
those of us whose choice is to ignore it, until we choose to stop ignoring
it. Ignoring it keeps us in ignorance.)
The
remembrance of me is the remembrance of yourself, and of Him Who sent me to
you.
You were in darkness until God’s Will was done completely by any part of the
Sonship. When this was done, it was perfectly accomplished by all
(this seems impossible, gibberish, to our separated, ego minds, but that is
the difference between upside-down misperception and right-minded vision of
eternal reality, where we are all one. So if it is accomplished in one —
Jesus — in the true reality of Eternity, it is done for us all; and to that
reality he has come to re-awaken us by shining away the darkness with the
light of truth that he brings).
How else could it be perfectly accomplished? My mission was
simply to unite the will of the Sonship with the Will of the Father by being
aware of the Father’s Will myself. This is the awareness I came to give you,
and your problem in accepting it is the problem of this world. Dispelling it
is salvation, and in this sense I
am the
salvation of the world... If you will accept the fact that I am with you,
you are denying the world and accepting God. My will is His, and your
decision to hear me is the decision to hear His Voice and abide in His Will.
As God sent me to you so will I send you to others. And I will go to them
with you, so we can teach them peace and union
(this is happening now, as never before, even when most of us are unaware of
his or the Holy Spirit’s presence with us, inspiring us with right-minded
thinking, gradually dispelling ego-minded thinking from our minds. This is
the leavening).
Do you not think the world needs peace as much as you do?
(But let us be clear, it is not absence of war he refers to here, but
inner peace, peace of mind, which comes not from signing pieces of paper
but from at-onement with our Source.) Do you not want to give it to the world as much as you want
to receive it? For unless you do, you will not receive it.
If you want to have it of me, you must give it. Healing does not come
from anyone else. You must accept guidance from within. The guidance
must be what you want, or it will be meaningless to you. That is why
healing is a collaborative venture. I can tell you what to do,
but you must collaborate by believing that I know what you should do.
Only then will your mind choose to follow me. Without this choice you
could not be healed because you would have decided against healing, and this
rejection of my decision for you makes healing impossible. (Jesus
is speaking not from arrogance; there is no ego in him. Refusing to accept
the truth about oneself is arrogance. He speaks from his complete union
with the Spirit of Truth, Which really is the Light of the world, the Light
of Life; that same Spirit which is our true reality, to which he is
restoring us, his brethren.)
Healing reflects our joint will. This is obvious when you
consider what healing is for. Healing is the way in which the separation is
overcome. Separation is overcome by union. It cannot be overcome by
separating. The decision to unite must be unequivocal, or the mind
itself is divided and not whole. Your mind is the means by which you
determine your own condition, because mind is the mechanism of decision. It
is the power by which you separate or join, and experience pain or joy
accordingly. My decision cannot overcome yours, because yours is as powerful
as mine. If it were not so the Sons of God would be unequal. All things are
possible through our joint decision, but mine alone cannot help you. Your
will is as free as mine, and God Himself would not go against it. I cannot
will what God does not will. I can offer my strength to make yours
invincible, but I cannot oppose your decision without competing with it and
thereby violating God's Will for you. (Does
not the profundity of insight, logic and value of this whole paragraph
render it worthy of commensurate consideration?)
Nothing God created can oppose your decision, as nothing God created can
oppose His Will. God gave your will its power, which I can only acknowledge
in honour of His. If you want to be like me I will help you, knowing that
we are alike. If you want to be different, I will wait until you change your
mind. I can teach you, but only you can choose to listen to my
teaching. How else can it be, if God’s Kingdom is freedom?
Freedom cannot be learned by tyranny of any kind, and the perfect equality
of all God’s Sons
(ego would have us believe that we are not all perfectly equal, yet who
amongst us would say we are not so in the sight of God?)
cannot be recognized through the dominion of one mind over another. God’s
Sons are equal in will, all being the Will of their Father. This is the only
lesson I came to teach.
(My emboldening and some italics, for emphasis)
A toast to healing!
Brian Longhurst
September 2nd 2009
Dear Friends,
At the Last Supper, Jesus said to his friends:
I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. (Jn.
16:6).
He went on to tell them that after his imminent return to the Father he
would send the Spirit of Truth to guide them into all truth. He knew his
time with them was insufficient to bring them to full waking awareness of
the Kingdom; that his time on Earth was simply to begin, or initiate,
the leavening of the second (‘Jesus’) measure of meal; that in linear time
it would be a further 4,000 years for all three measures to be fully
leavened and the Sonship to be fully healed and restored to wholeness — ‘the
Atonement’; that during that following 4,000 years
...the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my
name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your
remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. (Jn. 14:26.) That
is what is happening now, and will continue until the Atonement is completed
in 2,000 years and time ceases, because we will be one in Eternity again.
In the illusion of time and place it seems to us that ‘the clock is ticking’
so we must rush at all our endeavours before we run out of time and it is
too late. But Jesus knew there was no rush; that the Atonement, or GRP was
already completed from his true perspective of eternal reality, and
that all he had to do while with a body was to sow the seeds, or, more
accurately within the allegory of the leavening of meal (or flour), the
yeast spores, and they would complete the proving process. The
spores are souls who, during that 4,000 year period (from the beginning of
the Piscean to the end of the Aquarian ages) espouse their lives to Jesus
and the GRP, and work tirelessly toward the objective of the Kingdom of
Heaven on Earth.
That proving process continued (as with yeast, working within),
completed the leavening of the Jesus measure in recent decades, and spores
from that measure have been added to the third measure, whose leavening now
proceeds apace. That leavening is dispelling our wrong-, or
separation-mindedness, restoring us to right-mindedness, which
includes miracle-mindedness. Miracle-mindedness is a major stepping stone on
the path back to full, Christ-Mindedness; our true, eternal state of Being,
where all healing is accomplished and miracles are no longer needed.
Here are some snippets of what Jesus says about miracles at the beginning of
ACIM:
Miracles occur naturally as expressions of love...
When
they do not occur something has gone wrong...
(i.e. we have forgotten and refuse to accept the truth of Who we Are)
They bring more love both to the giver
and the
receiver...
Miracles are everyone’s
right, but purification is necessary first. (This
purification is achieved by committing to the dispelling of ego from our
mind. It is the Holy Spirit’s job to accomplish this, because we don’t know
what to do or how to do it. Our part in the purification process is to
surrender control of our life to Holy Spirit, our higher Self, and adopt —
and maintain — an attitude of mind that is willing to follow His lead.)
Each
day should be devoted to miracles...
They
simultaneously increase the strength of the giver and supply strength to the
receiver...
(Alleluia!)
Through miracles you accept God’s forgiveness by extending it to others...
Miracles enable you to heal the sick and raise the dead because you made
sickness and death yourself, and can therefore abolish both...
They
heal because they deny body-identification and affirm spirit-identification...
Miracles should inspire gratitude, not awe. You should thank God for what
you really are. The children of God are holy and the miracle honours their
holiness, which can be hidden but never lost...
(We have been hiding our holiness — from ourselves — but we are now in the
time of our restoration, to remembrance of our holiness. Another alleluia!)
Miracles honour you because you are loveable. They dispel illusions about
yourself and perceive the light in you...
Miracles are examples of right thinking, aligning your perceptions with
truth as God created it...
The
Holy Spirit is the mechanism of miracles...
The
miracle dissolves error because the Holy Spirit identifies error as false or
unreal. This is the same as saying that by perceiving light, darkness
automatically disappears...
The
miracle acknowledges everyone as your brother and mine. It is a way of
perceiving
(and espousing/receiving)
the
universal mark of God
(and eschewing/rejecting the mark of ego)...
Miracles arise from a miraculous state of mind, or a state of
miracle-readiness.
Miracles are of time and place only because when we are restored to Eternity
we will be whole, and miracles will, like all stepping stones, have served
their purpose and we will have moved on, having no further use for them.
Meanwhile, we are now at the beginning of miracles in the sense of their
beginning to become increasingly widespread as the awakening starts to take
effect and more and more people remember that we are entitled to miracles,
and commence claiming them as their God-given right.
There will be many who will say, ‘All this is pie in the sky; a pipe dream;
wishful thinking’. To this I would say, it all depends on which perspective
we believe is correct: that of Jesus or that of most of the rest of
somnambulist humanity. Clearly, he knew something we did not, and still do
not, so it may be beneficial for us to try his view, since the other is
taking us in ever-decreasing circles. And we all know where that leads!
Lesson 77 in the ACIM Workbook for students says:
You
are entitled to miracles because of what you are. You will receive
miracles because of what God is. And you will offer miracles because
you are one with God. Again, how simple is salvation! It is merely a
statement of your true Identity. It is this that we will celebrate today.
(In this sick, tired tawdry world, what better cause for celebration and
rejoicing?)
Your
claim to miracles does not lie in your illusions about yourself.
Indeed, our illusions about ourself are what prevent our recognition of, and
entitlement to, our reality.
It
does not depend on any magical powers you have ascribed to yourself, nor on
any of the rituals you have devised. It is inherent in the truth of what
you are. It is implicit in what God your Father is. It was ensured in
your creation, and guaranteed by the laws of God.
Today we
(that’s us, together with Jesus, for when we join with him, his power
is ours by extension, and because he is one with Papa it is His Will for us
also)
will
claim the miracles which are your right, since they belong to you.
You have been promised full release from the world you made. You have been
assured that
the
Kingdom of God is within you
(and all its attendant empowerment for miracles, just as demonstrated by
Jesus in the long ago),
and can never be lost.
We ask no more than what belongs to us in truth. Today, however, we
will also make sure that we will not content ourselves with less.
Begin the longer practice periods by telling yourself quite confidently
that you are entitled to miracles. Closing your eyes, remind yourself
that you are asking only for what is rightfully yours. Remind
yourself also that miracles are never taken from one and given to another,
and that in asking for your rights, you are upholding the rights of
everyone. Miracles do not obey the laws of this world. They merely
follow from the laws of God.
After this brief introductory phase, wait quietly for the assurance that
your request is granted
(it is granted. Now all that remains is our willingness to
receive it).
You
have asked for the salvation of the world, and for your own. You have
requested that you be given the means by which this is accomplished. You
cannot fail to be assured in this. You are but asking that the Will of God
be done
(and now is the time of our willingness to believe that it IS so).
In
doing this, you do not really ask for anything. You state a fact that cannot
be denied
(if we are thinking with the Holy Spirit, our right and true Self).
The Holy Spirit cannot but assure you that your request is granted. The fact
that you accepted must be so. There is no room for doubt and uncertainty
today. We are asking a real question at last. The answer is a simple
statement of a simple fact. You will receive the assurance that you seek.
Our
shorter practice periods will be frequent, and will also be devoted to a
reminder of a simple fact. Tell yourself often today:
I
am entitled to miracles.
Ask
for them whenever a situation arises in which they are called for. You will
recognize these situations. And since you are not relying on yourself
to find the miracle, you are fully entitled to receive it whenever you ask. (We
are relying on the Holy Spirit, Who is entirely reliable.)
Remember, too, not to be satisfied with less than the perfect answer. Be
quick to tell yourself, should you be tempted:
I
will not trade miracles for grievances. I want only what belongs to me. God
has established miracles as my right.
(Emphases are mine.)
In chapter 12, section VII, Jesus says:
...miracles violate
every law of reality as this world judges it. Every law
of time and space, of magnitude and mass
(all of which are illusions, and therefore, not real laws, so we can see
past them to the truth about ourself, and rise up to that truth, with the
help of Self; and we can begin right now, if only we can believe)
is transcended, for
what the Holy Spirit enables you to do is clearly beyond all of them.
Here’s to miracle-mindedness!
Brian Longhurst
September 9th 2009
Dear Friends,
The Prayers-for-Healing page is now uploaded to the HTG website. It can be
reached by this link:
http://www.honest2goodness.org.uk/Prayers_for_Healing.htm
I hope you will take a few minutes to check it out, and if you seek — for
yourself or for another — or choose to offer prayer for healing, now or at
any time, please do not hesitate to ask. How to do so is explained on the
page.
When I began to realise the Holy Spirit was gently nudging me in the
direction of establishing this facility, and I started considering how to go
about it (much inspiration and many synchronicities have helped immeasurably
in this, providing positive affirmations that this was the intention), I
found much material that seemed apposite for inclusion coming to my
attention from all directions. This started to become somewhat overwhelming
and I wondered how to ever incorporate it all meaningfully, and in a way
that anyone would find the time or interest to study, and therefore derive
any meaning or benefit from it. It also seemed that to try marshalling and
incorporating so much would take an indeterminate time, and bog me down in
detail; outcomes that would serve no-one.
I then realised this was not the intention of the Spirit of Truth, and that
to simply work with the basics and get them uploaded, knowing that getting
it active soon rather than delaying (a favourite ego activity) was the right
approach. I believe it is at least functional for its objectives.
Assuredly additions, deletions and amendments will become likely as time
progresses. So be it; we progress toward the Kingdom by correction of our
thoughts and additions to our understanding and awareness.
Any who see how the page might beneficially be amended are warmly invited to
contact me with such offerings, which will be gratefully received and
carefully considered for inclusion. Healing is at the forefront —
consciously or unconsciously — of our broken and hurting minds (and so often
the attendant broken and hurting bodies) and integral in the Atonement
process of the GRP.
Sometimes it may seem as if a prayer for healing has not worked or produced
the result that we so earnestly desired. But as Principle of Miracles (PoM)
number 45 states:
45
A miracle is never lost. It may touch many people you have not even
met, and produce undreamed of changes in situations of which you are not
even aware.
The prayee may, perhaps, not recover physically, and may even ‘die’. This
is where trust in our Partner in Healing — the Holy Spirit (or Jesus) — is
essential. We do not (yet) see with His all-knowing vision. The apparent
failure (to us) may in fact be the intended, chosen outcome of/for the
prayee, and our prayers may have helped release him into that outcome,
which, perhaps, he feared previously — and which fear was blocking release
for/into that outcome.
And if he ‘died’ after our prayers for healing, how do we know how much more
eased and blessed an experience his transition (and his subsequent progress
in awakening to eternal truth) was made by our blessing, healing prayers.
This is why we should always hold in our mind, during prayers and blessings
for healing, the awareness of/allowance for the Divine Will to be done, in
full remembrance that in the reality of our oneness in our Father Creator,
the Divine Will is also ours.
John’s Gospel describes Jesus’ turning of water into wine as the ‘beginning
of miracles’ (Jn. 2:11). We are now, at this early phase in the third,
final, fulfilment measure of meal leavening (raising up of the mind of God’s
holy Son from the dream of separation, littleness, guilt, fear and death),
at the general ‘beginning of miracles’. As quoted last week from
Jesus’ list of 50 PoMs:
Miracles arise from a miraculous state of mind, or a state of
miracle-readiness
(number 43).
Increasing numbers of the fragments of the Sonship are now, at this
pre-ordained moment in the leavening process, moving, or waking, into a
state of miracle readiness. This does not come by twiddling our thumbs, but
by actively, committedly, steadfastly, one-pointedly seeking, desiring,
willing, focussing our hearts and minds on the remembrance of Who we really
Are and Who all our brothers in the Sonship are, through the process of true
forgiveness. Forgiveness is integral with miracles and is mentioned several
times in the 50 PoMs.
That remembering is bringing us into a state of resonance with Jesus, with
the Spirit of Truth, and ultimately, with Papa. As John’s first epistle
reminds us,
when he
(Jesus)
shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is
(1Jn. 3:2).
That is our true and only real estate, and our present, apparent lack
of being like Jesus is a dream, an illusion, a deception by ego to keep us
trapped indefinitely in time and place, chained by the karma of the illusory
past. But that deception is now wearing thin and more and more are seeing
past the illusion to our true estate. The next verse in that epistle says:
And every man that hath this hope in him
(Jesus)
purifieth himself, even as he
(Jesus)
is pure.
This
purifying is Holy Spirit’s job, because we don’t know what to do or how to
do it. Our part in the purification process is to surrender control to Holy
Spirit, our higher Self. Surrender doesn’t mean giving up, but making a
steadfast commitment to placing control over our spiritual awakening where
it belongs and only from where it can succeed. The purification is of our
mind from ego. The Holy Spirit can do this for us (for Him it is a doddle,
however hard it may seem to our little self) but He cannot do it without our
co-operation. This means choosing to follow His script, and to
abandon ego’s script.
Many will say ‘Well, what is ego’s script, so I can know what to
abandon?’ Here is an example: If we think “This idea of miracle readiness
may be all right for some, a few ‘special, chosen ones’, perhaps; but how
can it apply for me? I am just an insignificant cog in the grand
scheme of things”. That is ego’s script, or part, characteristic, of it.
There are only two possibilities for who is influencing our perceptions and
our awareness; ego and Holy Spirit. Ego is negative, defeatist, accusatory,
fear-inducing, selfish, judgemental and is based on past experience, which
is only of time and place, and therefore, can only be an illusion. Holy
Spirit, Who is our true, eternal Self, is positive, inspiring, uplifting,
enlightening, encouraging, loving, peace-inducing, joyful,
generous-spirited, focussed in the eternal moment which is Now, knowing the
past, along with all time, is over, meaningless, irrelevant because of Who
and where we really Are: innocent, indestructible, invulnerable and
unassailable, eternally.
Many will say, “I am, or experience, both of those sets of characteristics;
one sometimes, the Other at other times, depending on what is happening in
my life at the moment”. This is why we, if we truly seek and
earnestly desire to escape the cycle of birth and death, will do well to
recognise what is going on in these oscillations between one and the Other.
If we can recognise one from the Other by asking ourself “Are these
thoughts, feelings, emotions beneficial; are they who I really choose to
be? Will they heal me or will they harm me? Is this ego’s script or is it
Holy Spirit’s script?” it will help us to remember to keep choosing Holy
Spirit’s script each time we find ourself, as a conditioned reflex, falling
into the old, time-worn pattern of ego thinking.
During a recent joining with the Holy Spirit in which I was focussing on
prayer for healing, I said to Him, with the idea in mind that if we turn
everything over to Him He will effect the healing, ‘You can do it,
Self’, He instantly corrected me (well, that's His job, after all):
‘We can do it! Correction must be at the level of error.
That’s why involvement of those who appear to be part of the condition (or
error) – the healee, or someone else on their behalf, such as those
seeking his healing – is essential. That involvement must include
desire, commitment, belief, faith, that healing – which is correction of the
error of perception – is possible by committed collaboration with Me. At
that level there must be an expression of faith. That expression should be
in the mind; it is not necessary for it to be spoken verbally, though it can
be if there is more than one person present.
Knowledge is not necessary initially because knowledge is without error, and
error – of perception – is the cause of the condition. If there was
knowledge there would be no misperception and therefore, no bodies. It is
rather to do with resonance, or empathy. Dissonance, or scepticism, or
antipathy, disables the miracle, or healing correction.
Unbelief is a commitment to remaining in error, and freewill ensures that
this is not counteracted, so the condition of dis-ease of mind or body will
remain. Yet love, faith, commitment to belief in the healing, or
correction, process – by the healee or another on his behalf – presents an
opening, or channel, through which the correction, which is love (which is
Life, which is wholeness/holiness, which is Light, and can therefore shine
away the blocks to awareness of Love’s presence), can enter.
Understanding this can facilitate the process, though in a duality
consciousness this is not always a decisive factor. Unconditional love
always is decisive because it is free of misperceptions, which are
impediments to clarity and the free flow, or extension, of wholeness or
holiness, which is oneness with the Source – Papa – Who Is perfect love,
perfect innocence, pure Life.
Bodies cannot be pure life because they arise from misperception; but mind
is able to achieve clarity, or purification, and thus be free of impediment
to wholeness/holiness. A pure, clear, innocent mind can be contributory to
bodily healing, but ultimately, complete clarity of mind will obviate
attachment to the illusion of bodies.
Clarity brings illumination, or light, which shines away the darkness.
Misperception, including bodies, arises out of darkness because singleness
of vision – Christ Vision – and misperception are mutually exclusive. This
is why Jesus said: The light of the body is the eye
(i.e. sight, or vision):
if therefore thine eye be single
(or clear, or without misperception),
thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye
(or sight, or vision, or perception)
be evil
(or flawed, spiritually),
thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in
thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!
(Mt. 6:22, 23.)
I will be away next week but there will, by the Grace of God, be an MoE the
week after that.
Love and healing blessings to all,
Brian Longhurst
September 23rd 2009
Dear Friends,
In ACIM Jesus (who could possibly know better than he?) tells us the truth
about the mythical separation (it’s a dream; yes, it’s a very realistic
dream, but when all is said and done, still nothing more than a dream) and
then tells us how we can awaken from the dream: stop listening to ego’s
script of fear, guilt, unworthiness, littleness and death and start
listening to the Holy Spirit, Who reminds us and restores us, through true
forgiveness, to What we really are. The Course is designed (by Jesus; he is
no slouch when it comes to being multi-talented) to take a year, though for
most of us it will usually take more than a year.
In fact, I feel sure most who have undertaken the Course will agree that
retraining our minds, even with his help, away from the dream (nightmare is
more accurate, which anyone who watches the news will readily agree) and
back to full awareness of Eternity’s reality is a full lifetime of committed
endeavour. I would go farther and say it will take — is taking — most of us
an indeterminate number of dream lifetimes (some, or many of which are
likely to be behind us, from a linear perspective). But if we consider the
only alternative, the commitment is inestimably worthwhile.
During the last two or three years much has been said here about what Jesus
reveals to us, his beloved brethren in the Sonship of our Father Creator —
Papa — in the Course. Assuredly, there is much more to be said, is being
and will continue to be said by many students and teachers of ACIM around
the world. The reason is simple: It speaks, and leads to the fulfilment,
of Jesus’ six-thousand-year long, infallible and unstoppable mission (could
anyone seriously think it could be otherwise with Jesus at the helm?)
for the salvation, or restoration of mankind to oneness in Christ, the
eternal, innocent, all-knowing, all-empowered Son of God.
Being of God, it will continue, in this time of the fulfilment measure of
meal, to grow, prosper and leaven, or raise us up into that state of
oneness, until its completion by the end of the Aquarian age in
approximately two-thousand years’ time.
Its fulfilment is inevitable because it is all operated by right-minded
thinking; a previously scarce commodity in time and place, as demonstrated
by the events — political and commercial — that appear to be unfolding (or
should I say collapsing?) around us. Right-minded thinking is based on the
eternal, immutable, always and all ways benign laws of the Creator.
Wrong-minded, or upside-down, thinking is based on short-term expediency,
motivated by fear, the belief in scarcity and separation; hardly a recipe
for a sustainably successful outcome.
But now, as the leavening of the fulfilment measure of meal gets underway,
right-minded thinking begins to rise up and transform the perception of the
fragmented Sonship toward the reality of eternal truth. Of course this is
not, yet, manifesting itself within the corridors of power, where ego still
appears to hold sway, but as stated in the Diary entry for August 25th
1991, the process of transformation is operated from within:
Little ones: In these times the confusion is greatest as the old order
crumbles and Earth-mind man reels to and fro. The energies are concentrated
at all levels and intensified as the programme
(GRP)
focuses upon the "final assault" on antiChrist. Fear not, it is not a "full
frontal" assault as in warfare of Earth, but an infiltration of energy as
cracks appear in the system — and believe me, there are plenty of
those. The energy shall thus gain entry and transform from within.
It is like cancer in reverse. The system shall not be aware of its defences
being "breached" and shall continue as traditionally. But changes will
begin to happen from within, and great surprise and wonderment shall come
upon the inhabitants of the citadel*.
New awareness shall be the order of the day. This is real, tangible,
transforming activity. Be aware of the new energy
— take no notice of the old; it
shall be astonishing but let not your equilibrium be disturbed by it.
Focus, we counsel you, upon this for your own benefit and upliftment.
All is well. We are closer to you all than you know, and the banner of
Christ Jesus is the cloak also by which we are all enfolded and protected.
We go forward to a certain victory. Praise be to Almighty God and His
blessed Son. Amen.
*This refers to the ‘citadel’ of ego-minded
thinking and its recalcitrant ways in the Earth.
Whatever I or anyone else says about all this, no-one says it better, more
inspiringly, more beautifully, more convincingly, than its author. He, whom
we know as Jesus of Nazareth, is the author of the GRP and its Manual,
otherwise known as ACIM. So without further ado, here is what he says
about us all, on page 479 of the Workbook for students of ACIM. What he
says is already true and accomplished in the only reality, Eternity; it
tells those of us still in the dream of time and place how it will become
for us as we, by his gentle, loving help and leading, awaken to Its reality:
14. What am I?
I am God's Son,
complete and healed and whole, shining in the reflection of His Love. In me
is His creation sanctified and guaranteed eternal life. In me is love
perfected, fear impossible, and joy established without opposite. I am the
holy home of God Himself. I am the Heaven where His Love resides. I am His
holy Sinlessness Itself, for in my purity abides His Own. (For
clarity, Jesus is speaking here not just about himself but about the entire
Sonship, of which we all, without exception, are part, and these words
describe the true, eternal reality of us all, even though they may so far
have been exemplified only by him. This will be our awareness as and when
we awaken from the dream of littleness and death.)
Our use for
words is almost over now. Yet in the final days of this one year we gave to
God together, you and I, we found a single purpose that we shared.
(For
those who have not yet embarked upon or completed this ‘year’, it matters
not; the ‘year’ can begin at any time of our choosing, according to
motivation for waking.)
And thus you joined
with me, so what I am are you as well
(however much
this may not seem reality as we commence, if we remain steadfast,
truly seeking and earnestly desiring, it becomes our reality as we
progress).
The truth of
what we are is not for words to speak of nor describe. Yet we can realize
our function here
(in the
illusion of time and place),
and words can
speak of this
and teach it, too, if
we exemplify the words in us
(as we begin
to experience the joy, inner peace and ecstasy of our eternal
reality, the desire to speak of, share and exemplify the light of spiritual
truth becomes irresistible).
We are the
bringers of salvation. We accept our part as saviors of the world; which
through our joint forgiveness is redeemed
(blasphemy,
apostasy and heresy this may seem to those who cling fearfully to the
illusions of littleness and separation, but this is straight from he who
assuredly knows, and it is inexorably destined to become truth for each of
us, sooner or later. We are free to decide and choose which).
And this, our
gift, is therefore given us. We look on everyone as brother, and perceive
all things as kindly and as good. We do not seek a function that is past
the gate of Heaven. Knowledge will return when we have done our part. We are
concerned only with giving welcome to the truth
(that doesn’t
sound too hard, does it?).
Ours are
the eyes through which Christ’s vision sees a world redeemed from every
thought of sin. Ours are the ears that hear the Voice for God proclaim the
world as sinless. Ours the minds that join together as we bless the world.
And from the oneness that we have attained we call to all our brothers,
asking them to share our peace and consummate our joy.
(Who
can sensibly decline to respond joyfully to such magnificent exhortation as
is this paragraph?)
We are the holy
messengers of God who speak for Him, and carrying His Word to everyone whom
He has sent to us, we learn that it is written on our hearts
(and we will
assuredly see it if we but care to diligently look there).
And thus our
minds are changed about the aim for which we came, and which we seek to
serve. We bring glad tidings to the Son of God, who thought he suffered. Now
is he redeemed. And as he sees the gate of Heaven stand open before him, he
will enter in and disappear into the Heart of God.
Thank You, Papa, for Jesus; thank you, Jesus, for these beautiful, blessed
words of wisdom, illumination and eternal truth. We love you, we rejoice in
you, we welcome you into our lives, always, to shine the light of eternal
truth upon our path back home to the Heart of God.
In a recent joining with Self, the subject of remembering Who we are and
sharing that remembrance with our brothers featured:
September 14 2009, the small hours.
Beloved Self, thank You for all the blessed
opportunities to grow, learn, remember, so that I may be enabled to help my
brothers to also remember the truth of Eternity and Who we really are.
Don’t let me miss a single opportunity!
I won’t if you won’t. I believe you know of a certainty that I won’t,
because I am with you always. But opportunities can get missed when you are
not with Me.
Yes, I see that; I hadn’t quite thought of it
like that, but now You say it, I can see it plainly. Thank You for bringing
it to my attention. You are in every way better than any p.a. could ever be
J.
That is because I am you and you are Me; we are one. I am your reminder so
that you can remember and leave forgetfulness behind.
I know I am impatient; I want it all right
now — full remembrance, that is — but I do understand the essential
importance of balance. And balanced growth or progress can only be possible
when we, the fragments, go forward one step at a time.
Don’t worry that it seems to take so long. It is an ego trick to cause you
frustration, irritation, prolong forgetfulness, rob you of inner peace one
more time. Every time you remember that and refuse to allow
frustration to enter, or take over, you are one step closer to Eternity.
Alleluia! That is one valuable piece of
encouragement. My confidence is wonderfully boosted by our joining like
this.
There is no moment in any day — or night
J
— when a joining like this is not possible. The choice is always yours
because I am with you always, as you perfectly well know.
Thank You, Self.
You are always welcome. I remind you that this is — or ‘I Am’ —
you. We are not separate, with Me coming to visit from time to time.
‘Self’ is your Self, your true inner being. Do not allow the term
‘Higher’ Self to mislead you into that old duality perception that ‘I
Am’, ‘Higher Self’, is separate from your own Being. This is your
own Being. It is any state of thinking, awareness, belief, perception other
than This that is the unreality, the misperception. Persona B
is merely finding contact at the true level of Being, and this can and will
continue — because of the innate desire and motivation — until oneness with
Self, the Holy Breath, the Spirit of Truth becomes the only
awareness, the true, eternal reality.
All the rest, the detail of form, gradually ceases to hold any value,
importance or reality for the apparently separate persona self, which of
course, is unreality. This metamorphosis is nothing to do with the illusory
event known as ‘death’, or the laying aside of bodies. That event changes
nothing because it is not real. How can that which is unreal change
anything that is real? It is the changing of minds that is the real
event; that changes everything for those whose minds are unillumined, by
shining the light of spiritual discernment into the darkness and dispelling
it.
Form is the illusion; mind — Christ Mind — is the substance, the content,
the reality for all the fragments, and is never lost; cannot ever be lost.
The lie, the false belief in loss is what causes awakening to appear fearful
to all who deeply slumber. All love, and all loving relationships cannot be
lost; they can only grow, extend, increase, until all are, once again, one,
in perfect reunion.
Let us give thanks for the priceless gift of illumination of our upside-down
minds by the Light of Eternal Truth that Jesus and the Holy Spirit are
shining for us. Like any plant responding to sunlight, may this Light grow
us until we also bear much fruit for the Kingdom of Heaven.
Love and blessings, always,
Brian Longhurst
September 30th 2009
Dear Friends,
As may not have escaped your attention, much has been written in this space
about ACIM and what it tells (actually, reminds) us. After four
decades of walking, communing, joining with, and following the real Jesus, I
feel confident in saying I am able to identify him. So when, four years
ago, I came to ACIM I can unequivocally say that I instantly recognised its
author as he with whom I have been journeying during those decades.
Since the objective of the HTG website is to share the reality of the real
Jesus and his mission, the GRP, with all
who will to know him, so they might experience the joy, peace and love that
he is (and we become as we grow to be like him), and since the message of
ACIM is the perfect expression of that mission, writing about what he says
in ACIM seems natural and even unavoidable!
However much is written about it can never substitute for what he teaches us
in it if we decide to read and study it for ourself. Then, those who are
ready for its message will become resonant with it and like Christians with
the Bible, it will become central to their lives. ACIM is significantly
more serviceable to our spiritual wellbeing and awakening because it has but
one author; has never been interfered with or had parts added or removed
from it to cause it to accord with the changing doctrines of an
institutionalised structure; and does not contradict itself.
It is not difficult to predict that ACIM will continue, in the coming
generations and centuries, to grow in acceptance as the latter day word of
spiritual counsel, guidance and enlightenment for our awakening to Eternity,
and of Jesus as its author. Here is what he says at the end of the
Workbook for Students. What he says predicts how and where we will be
when we have faithfully, trustingly followed him as he leads us through the
Course:
EPILOGUE
This
course is a beginning, not an end. Your Friend
(the Holy Spirit, the Voice for God, our true and inseparable Self)
goes
with you. You are not alone. No one who calls on Him can call in vain.
(Only fear keeps us from awareness of His response, yet even then, if our
call upon Him is sincere in seeking a response, He will respond in
ways that we may be consciously unaware of but which will be helpful in
growing our remembrance of Who we are, and eventually we will become
consciously aware of His speaking as our trust in Him grows. For He is
our trustworthy Friend and will never forsake us.)
Whatever troubles you, be certain that He has the answer, and will gladly
give it to you, if you simply turn to Him and ask it of Him.
He will not withhold all answers that you need for anything that seems to
trouble you. He knows the way to solve all problems, and resolve all
doubts. His certainty is yours. You need but ask it of Him, and it will
be given you.
Because statements like those in these last 5 sentences are alien to a time
and place, upside-down, illusory world, where trust is betrayed all around,
daily, it takes much faith to come to a place of acceptance that such a
Friend as this can exist. I am happy to attest their veracity. Jesus said
to me on May 4th 1997:
My son, it is to the act of Asking, Seeking, Knocking that your Heavenly
Father, Papa, responds freely, lovingly, immediately, with His giving. It
is not according to your faith but your desire that He responds. It
is according to your faith that you are able to receive His giving.
Your faith is something that Papa will grow in you as you ask. The
more you ask, believing — having faith — the more you will receive and you
will grow in your expectation of
(being capable
of)
receiving that which He is always giving. You expect the sun to rise
every day because it always does. That is faith. Easy.
As you ask more and more of Papa, believing He is giving it, so will your
faith in receiving grow until it is as your faith that the sun will
rise.
It is that faith — a certainty of knowing beyond all doubt — with which
Jesus functioned in the long ago, and that is our inescapable, unavoidable
destiny also.
You
are as certain of arriving home as is the pathway of the sun laid down
before it rises, after it has set, and in the half-lit hours in between.
Indeed, your pathway is more certain still. For it can not be possible to
change the course of those whom God has called to Him
(and not one of the fragments that make up the Sonship — however unworthy,
however guilty, however much a ‘sinner’ he perceives himself to be — can or
ever could be not so called).
Therefore obey your
(true)
will, and follow Him Whom you accepted as your voice, to speak of what you
really want and really need. His is the Voice for God and also yours.
And thus He speaks of freedom and of truth.
(How unserviceable is it to our wellbeing to allow ego to dissuade us from
claiming the benefit of this?)
No
more specific lessons are assigned
(when we have completed the Course studies),
for
there is no more need of them. Henceforth, hear but the Voice for God and
for your Self when you retire from the world, to seek reality instead
(which we can do, by our own free choice, at any moment, because the
retiring takes place in our mind, and is independent of anything our body is
momentarily engaged upon).
He
will direct your efforts, telling you exactly what to do, how to direct your
mind, and when to come to Him in silence, asking for His sure direction and
His certain Word. His is the Word that God has given you. His is the Word
you chose to be your own.
(How unserviceable is it to our wellbeing to allow ego to dissuade us from
claiming the inestimable benefit of this?)
And
now I place you in His hands, to be His faithful followers, with Him as
Guide through every difficulty and all pain that you may think is real
(and if we are willing to place ourself in His hands, that so-real-seeming
pain truly is diminished, until, as our trust in Him grows, it ceases
to have any impact upon, or reality for, us. Not because the apparent
source of the pain has necessarily gone away, but more important, because we
have been helped to change our mind about it).
Nor
will He give you pleasures that will pass away, for He gives only the
eternal and the good
(Who can resist such a promise from him who is entirely worthy of our trust,
when time and place — egoland — can offer none such?).
Let
Him prepare you further. He has earned your trust by speaking daily to you
of your Father and your brother and your Self
(let us be clear that inability — or unwillingness — to listen, or to hear,
does not belie this statement).
He
will continue. Now you walk with Him, as certain as is He of where you go;
as sure as He of how you should proceed; as confident as He is of the goal,
and of your safe arrival in the end.
(He can say this with certainty because he knows we are already there
and always have been. We simply keep reviewing what we dream has already
happened and is over, believing what we perceive is happening now. That is
the same as watching a film and believing the action is taking place before
our eyes, when it is done and finished, and was never more than an act, and
we are watching a replay.)
The
end is certain, and the means as well. To this we say “Amen”
(and “Alleluia!”).
You
will be told exactly what God wills for you each time there is a choice to
make
(shall we, therefore, not ask?).
And
He will speak for God and for your Self, thus making sure that hell will
claim you not, and that each choice you make brings Heaven nearer to your
reach
(another Alleluia!
J).
And
so we walk with Him from this time on, and turn to Him for guidance and for
peace and sure direction. Joy attends our way. For we go homeward to an open
door which God has held unclosed to welcome us.
(Who do we believe here; Jesus, or those who say we are expelled from Heaven
by God because we are sinners? Studying the Course can leave us in no
doubt.)
We
trust our ways to Him and say “Amen.” In peace we will continue in His way,
and trust all things to Him. In confidence we wait His answers, as we ask
His Will in everything we do. He loves God’s Son as we would love him.
And He teaches us how to behold him
(i.e. our brothers in the Sonship, each and every one)
through His eyes, and love him as He does.
You
do not walk alone. God’s angels hover near and all about. His Love surrounds
you, and of this be sure; that I will never leave you comfortless.
(Emboldening and some italics are mine, for emphasis)
May his living word bring us all profound comfort, encouragement, uplift,
enlightenment, inner peace, joy and unconditional love abounding.
Many blessings, always,
Brian Longhurst
October 7th 2009
Dear Friends,
If we want to find out Who (or What) we are and why we are here, one thing
is certain: we will never have the answer to those questions all the while
we seek them from the perspective of time and place, of personas, or bodies,
of believing and perceiving so-called physicality. Of course we all, now,
know the reason for that is because none of those things is real. Time and
place are tricks to keep us from focussing our minds on the reality of Who
we are and our true and only Home (God) in Eternity. So, if we want to know
the truth, going to Who knows it is a good start, because He Who
knows is the constant, unbreakable link between us and Home.
Sounds easy when said like that, but most of us don’t know how or where to
get in touch with Who Knows, even though He is closer to us than our own
heartbeat or breath. For those who might say, ‘How can any one or thing
be closer to us than that?’ the answer is, our heartbeat and breath
belong to illusory bodies, which are not Who we are; but right within
our own mind is where Who Knows, or the Holy Spirit, or our true Self
dwells. He is the All-Knowing One. He does not doubt, nor fear, nor
lie, nor attack, nor deceive; is trustworthy and knows only truth, which he
will tell us when we ask.
‘Oh, yes,’
I hear someone say, ‘we all know about voices in our heads telling us to
do things. The loony bins are full of such people. No way am I going
there.’ But there is an unfailing guarantee we can freely engage — that
will ensure the only voices we will hear speaking from within us are those
of Jesus, those from the Realms of Light acting under Christ Authority, or
the Holy Spirit — and that is to place ourself within Their protection and
guidance. When Jesus said to the disciples,
All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth (Mt. 28:18)
he was neither kidding nor exaggerating.
Of course, all power in Heaven and Earth is also given to you and me because
this is our creation-right, just as it is with Jesus. The only difference
between him and us is that he has claimed his power, accepted and
received it unto himself and we have not — as yet — but that changes as
soon as we remember that it is ours also, and claim it. Yes,
I hear the next question: How do we claim it? ACIM tells us
that, in fully comprehensive detail, authored by someone who knows
because he has successfully claimed it.
Meanwhile, with all this in mind, on Sunday evening I found myself engaged
in the following communing with Self:
Hello, Self; It dawns on me that it will be highly serviceable if I choose —
will — to see things from Your perspective, rather than
persona Brian’s (‘pB’). So, what would ‘I’, as Self, be seeking from
pB in using him as a communication mechanism, for furthering the Kingdom
Programme, or GRP, here on Earth?
I would be seeking to have pB “make himself available” as a receptor for
‘grounding’ spiritual vision, awareness, enlightenment, understanding;
first, within himself and then, as ripples on a pond, to extend to, share
with, teach — the terminology is unimportant — the rest of
‘Christ-mind-in-forgetfulness’ what pB is newly re-cognising.
That sounds rather like what is happening now.
It does rather, doesn’t it!
Yet I feel – perhaps it is just the impatience in me – as if pB could be
doing more.
Who said anything about doing?
Oh, right...
Yes, right! J
I said “make himself available”. That is not about ‘doing’, it is about...?
Being!
Correct. See? You have it. By making oneself available, one is able to
receive. Do you doubt My ability to give?
Well, when You put it like that, the answer can only be a resounding No.
What kind of a no?
Resounding.
Correct again. Let Me ask this: Do you believe there is a single moment
when I am not giving?
Again, there can only be a resounding No. You have a way of getting across
a point that had not properly lodged itself in my mind, even though it was,
I realise, floating around in there.
That’s My job. Your job is to make yourself available to receiving
what I am giving; to be receptive, in other words. That is all that
is required of you if you will to serve the Kingdom purpose.
Well, you probably know by now that that is my only objective.
Do I detect a smidgen of irony in that comment?
Well, I just wanted to clarify the point.
J
It’s clear; thank you. What I was coming to was, making pB receptive —
available — can include writing it down as well, so that in spite of having
a good recall ability, the incoming inspiration can be kept for posterity,
and also for sharing.
The sharing by conscious means is optional, not mandatory. It is activated
by desire within pB. So, if he thus desires, he can share, or extend. But,
more important than sharing is understanding. Understanding
enlightens, and when one is enlightened he cannot help radiating that Light
outwards from his own within. It just happens. That’s the Way of
things in Papa’s Creation; it just goes on creating. Light. Light begets
Light. And by the way, Light equals Life, equals Love, equals Joy, equals
Peace, equals Truth.
I knew that!
I know you did. Who do you think brought it to your awareness? So there is
really nothing to ‘do’, or to worry about. So finally, if you are at peace
— true, inner peace; the peace of God, that passeth understanding and is
completely still and unchanging; the unmoving mover — then you ARE all those
things, or qualities, or states of Being at the same moment. And that
moment is the eternal moment. This is Who, or What, you are. That is What
I Am, and the one who thinks he is pB is, along with all his brothers,
ultimately. One. There is only One.
The One can also be seen and experienced as the many, but the many are not
separate bodies and separate minds. They are Love and Peace and Joy and
Light and Life and Truth. All are One, indivisibly, eternally. If you have
one, when you have one, then you have and know all.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
I Am with you and will remain with you always, to make known to you all
things. But you must play your part: you must ask. I can respond
only to asking, seeking, knocking.
Here, now, is an extract from ACIM Text, chapter 4, section I that is
helpful in affirming Who we are, that is very empowering:
Change is always
fearful to the separated, because they cannot conceive of it as a move
towards healing the separation. They always perceive it as a move toward
further separation, because the
(dream of)
separation was their
first experience of change. You believe that if you allow no change to enter
into your ego you will find peace. This profound confusion is possible only
if you maintain that the same thought system can stand on two foundations.
Nothing can reach
spirit from the ego, and nothing can reach the ego from spirit. Spirit can
neither strengthen the ego nor reduce the conflict within it. The ego is
a contradiction. Your self and God's Self are in opposition. They are
opposed in source, in direction and in outcome. They are fundamentally
irreconcilable, because spirit cannot perceive and the ego cannot know. They
are therefore not in communication and can never be in communication
(this
means that unless — or until — we put our trust in the Holy Spirit, we
cannot escape the chains of time and place).
Nevertheless, the ego can learn, even though its maker
(the split-off, upside-down, wrong-thinking part of our mind)
can be misguided...
... My lesson was like yours, and because I learned it I can teach it. I
will never attack your ego, but I am trying to teach you
(and he will succeed if — when — we are willing to place ourself
under his tutelage)
how its thought system arose. When I remind you of your true creation, your
ego cannot but respond with fear
(because ego knows remembering Who we are means ego is dispelled).
...Refusing
to change your mind will not prove that the separation has not occurred...
If you are willing to renounce the role of guardian of your thought system
and open it to me, I will correct it very gently
(and lovingly)
and lead you back to
God...
......... ...I
will teach with you and live with you if you will think with me, but my
goal will always be to absolve you finally from the need for a teacher... I
am constantly being perceived as a teacher either to be exalted or rejected,
but I do not accept either perception for myself.
Your worth
is not established by teaching or learning. Your worth is established by
God. As long as you dispute this everything you do will be fearful,
particularly any situation that lends itself to the belief in superiority
and inferiority... Again, nothing you do or think or wish or make is
necessary to establish your worth...
You are part of
reality, which stands unchanged beyond the reach of your ego but within easy
reach of spirit. When you are afraid, be still and know that God is real,
and you are His beloved Son in whom He is well pleased. Do not let
your ego dispute this, because the ego cannot know what is as far beyond its
reach as you are.
God is not
the author of fear. You are. You have chosen to create unlike Him, and have
therefore made fear for yourself. You are not at peace because you are not
fulfilling your function. God gave you a very lofty function that you are
not meeting. Your ego has chosen to be afraid instead of meeting it... God
is inevitable, and you cannot avoid Him any more than He can avoid you.
The ego is afraid of
the spirit’s joy, because once you have experienced it you will withdraw all
protection from the ego, and become totally without investment in fear...
Listen only to God, Who is as incapable of deception as is the spirit He
created. Release yourself and release others. Do not present a
false and unworthy picture of yourself to others, and do not accept such a
picture of them yourself.
The ego has built a
shabby and unsheltering home for you, because it cannot build otherwise. Do
not try to make this impoverished house stand. Its weakness is your
strength. Only God could make a home that is worthy of His creations,
who have chosen to leave it empty by their own dispossession. Yet His home
will stand forever, and is ready for you when you choose to enter it.
Of this you can be wholly certain. God is as incapable of creating the
perishable as the ego is of making the eternal.
Of your ego you can
do nothing to save yourself or others, but of your spirit you can do
everything for the salvation of both.
Humility is a lesson for the ego, not for the spirit. Spirit is beyond
humility, because it recognizes its radiance and gladly sheds its light
everywhere... The Kingdom of Heaven is the spirit’s right, whose beauty and
dignity are far beyond doubt, beyond perception, and stand forever as the
mark of the Love of God for His creations, who are wholly worthy of Him and
only of Him...
I will substitute for your ego if you wish, but never for your spirit. A
father can safely leave a child with an elder brother who has shown himself
responsible, but this involves no confusion about the child’s origin... I
can be entrusted with your body and your ego only because this enables you
not to be concerned with them, and lets me teach you their unimportance. I
could not understand their
(seeming)
importance to you if I had not once been tempted to believe in them myself.
Let us undertake to learn this lesson together so we can be free of them
together... Remember this:
In this world you need not
have tribulation because I have overcome the world. That is why you should
be of good cheer.
(My emboldening and some italics, for emphasis)
Love and Light, Peace and Joy, be with us all,
Brian Longhurst
October 14th 2009
Dear Friends,
The focus at present is very much on healing and wholeness. Wholeness and
holiness have the same meaning because wholeness is the true, eternal
and unchangeable condition of the Son of God, and the Son of God is like his
Father. Who amongst us will say God is not holy? We are all, along with
Jesus, one in the Sonship. Any perceptions we may have to the contrary are
indicative of a delusion of brokenness under which we are labouring yet a
little while. Jesus’ job is to restore us, his beloved brethren in the
Sonship, to fullness of remembrance of our true estate of wholeness by
waking us from the dream of separation.
In the Introduction to chapter 5 of the Text of ACIM, entitled
Healing and Wholeness, Jesus says:
To heal is to make happy. I have told you to think how many opportunities
you have had to gladden yourself, and how many you have refused. This is the
same as telling you that you have refused to heal yourself. The light that
belongs to you is the light of joy.
(This light is, and has always been, within us because, like our Creator, we
are the Light, just as Jesus told us two-thousand years ago, and is
re-minding us again now, in ACIM. Choosing to think with the Holy Spirit
restores our awareness of that truth.)
Radiance is not associated with sorrow. Joy calls forth an integrated
willingness to share it, and promotes the mind’s natural impulse to
respond as one. Those who attempt to heal without being wholly joyous
themselves call forth different kinds of responses at the same time, and
thus deprive others of the joy of responding wholeheartedly.
To be wholehearted you must be
happy. If fear and love cannot coexist, and if it is impossible to be wholly
fearful and remain alive, the only possible whole state is that of love
(who can argue with this incisive logic?).
There is no difference between love and joy.
Therefore, the only possible whole state is the wholly joyous. To heal
or to make joyous is therefore the same as to integrate and to make one.
That is why it makes no difference to what part or by what part of the
Sonship the healing is offered. Every part benefits, and benefits equally.
(This may not yet appear to be the case but that is because, while we
choose to focus with our lower, split-off mind, in the illusory time and
place consciousness, we cannot have awareness of our eternal reality, where
it is entirely the case. Not being aware of the truth does not make
it untrue.)
You are being blessed by every beneficent thought of any of your brothers
anywhere.
(Think with the Holy Spirit enables us to share His awareness of that
reality.) You
should want to bless them in return, out of gratitude. You need not know
them individually, or they you. The light is so strong
(like a laser beam; strong enough to penetrate the darkest hell)
that it radiates throughout the Sonship and returns thanks to the Father for
radiating His joy upon it.
Only God’s holy children are worthy channels of His beautiful joy, because
only they are beautiful enough to hold it by sharing it.
(We are all His holy children and are all worthy; all doctrines to the
contrary are ego doctrines, are untrue, and now is the time for unlearning
them.)
It is impossible for a child of God to love his neighbour except as himself.
That is why the healer’s prayer is:
Let me know this brother as
I know myself.
He then continues in section I of that same chapter:
The Invitation to the Holy Spirit
Healing is a thought by which two minds perceive their oneness
and become glad. This gladness calls to every part of the Sonship to rejoice
with them, and lets God go out into them and through them. Only the healed
mind can experience revelation with lasting effect, because revelation is an
experience of pure joy. If you do not choose to be wholly joyous, your
mind cannot have what it does not choose to be.
(We will not become transformed from dis-spirited to joyous by asking for
this just once — or any number of times half-heartedly — and
expecting an immediate result; but we will become transformed if we
do not give up, and choose, by steadfast faith, believing, for it to be so.
Papa always responds immediately — before we ask, in fact — with His giving,
but if we are not yet at the place of faith that clears our channels, our
ability to receive is blocked, and can take time and commitment to become
unblocked.)
Remember that spirit knows no difference between
having and
being.
The
higher mind
(our true, all-knowing, one-in-the-Sonship mind)
thinks according to the laws spirit obeys, and therefore honours only the
laws of God.
To spirit getting is meaningless and giving is all. Having
everything, spirit holds everything by giving it, and thus creates as
the Father created.
While this kind of thinking is totally alien to
(ego’s concept of)
having things, even to the lower mind it is quite comprehensible in
connection with ideas. If you share a physical possession, you do divide
its ownership. If you share an idea, however, you do not lessen it. All of
it is still yours although all of it has been given away. Further, if the
one to whom you give it accepts it as his, he reinforces it in your mind and
thus increases it. If you can accept the concept that the world is one of
ideas, the whole belief in the false association the ego makes between
giving and losing is gone.
Let
us start our process of reawakening with just a few simple concepts:
Thoughts increase by being given away.
The more who believe in them the stronger they become.
Everything is an idea.
How, then, can giving and losing be associated?
This
is the invitation to the Holy Spirit. I have said already that I can reach
up and bring the Holy Spirit down to you, but I can bring Him to you only
at your own invitation. The Holy Spirit is in your right mind
(right now; no waiting or hoping is required, but only a committed
willingness to be aware of it, and no amount of denial will alter this
truth),
as
He was in mine.
The
Bible says, “May the mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus,”
(Phil. 2:5)
and
uses this as a blessing. It is the blessing of miracle-mindedness. It asks
that you may think as I thought, joining with me in Christ thinking.
(When we are all joined with him thusly, truly we will have the Kingdom of
Heaven on Earth. And as each one of us fragments asks the Holy Spirit to
help us so join with him, the whole Sonship moves nearer to that goal,
collapsing time as it does so.)
The
Holy Spirit is the only part of the Holy Trinity that has a symbolic
function. He is referred to as the Healer, the Comforter and the Guide. He
is also described as something “separate,” apart from the Father and from
the Son. I myself said, “If I go I will send you another Comforter and He
will abide with you.” His symbolic function makes the Holy Spirit
difficult to understand, because symbolism is open to different
interpretations.
As a
man and also one of God’s creations, my right thinking, which came from the
Holy Spirit or the Universal Inspiration, taught me first and foremost that
this Inspiration is for all. I could not have It myself without
knowing this
(and neither can we, because this truth is an immutable PLF).
The word “know” is proper in this context, because the Holy Spirit is so
close to knowledge that He calls it forth; or better, allows it to come. I
have spoken before of the higher or “true” perception, which is so near to
truth that God Himself can flow across the little gap. Knowledge is always
ready to flow everywhere, but it cannot oppose. Therefore you can obstruct
it
(and while under ego’s thrall, we do),
although you can never lose it.
The
Holy Spirit is the Christ Mind which is aware of the knowledge that lies
beyond perception. He came into being with
(at the same moment as)
the
separation as a protection, inspiring the Atonement principle at the same
time. Before that there was no need for healing, for no one was comfortless.
The Voice of the Holy Spirit is the Call to Atonement, or the restoration of
the integrity of the mind. When the Atonement is complete and the whole
Sonship is healed there will be no
(further need for a)
Call
to return. But what God creates is eternal. The Holy Spirit will remain with
the Sons of God, to bless their creations and keep them in the light of
joy.
God
honoured even the miscreations of His children because they had made them.
But He also blessed His children with a way of thinking that could raise
their perceptions so high they could reach almost back to Him
(and thus leave behind, forget, those miscreations, so that, once out of
mind — the only place they could have any apparent existence — they cease
to exist).
The Holy Spirit is the Mind of the Atonement. He represents a state of mind
close enough to One-mindedness that transfer to it is at last possible.
Perception is not knowledge, but it can be transferred to knowledge, or
cross over into it. It might even be more helpful here to use the literal
meaning of transferred or “carried over,” since the last step is taken by
God.
The
Holy Spirit, the shared Inspiration of all the Sonship, induces a kind of
perception in which many elements are like those in the Kingdom of Heaven
itself:
First, its universality is perfectly clear, and no one who attains it could
believe for one instant that sharing it involves anything but gain
(a sure indicator of having attuned one’s thinking to the Holy Spirit and
away from ego).
Second, it is incapable of attack and is therefore truly open. This means
that although it does not engender knowledge, it does not obstruct it in any
way
(so it can flow in freely in response to our asking, seeking,
knocking).
Finally, it points the way beyond the healing that it brings, and leads the
mind beyond its own integration
(back)
toward the paths of creation. It is at this point that sufficient
quantitative change occurs to produce a real qualitative shift.
(My emboldening and some italics, for emphasis.)
It is this qualitative shift that we begin to experience as a palpable
upwelling of joy, peace, love and blessing beyond all the fleeting, tawdry,
illusory ‘treasures and pleasures’ of Earth, when we choose, decide, commit,
will, to thinking with the Holy Spirit instead of ego.
Healing and wholeness are ours, freely given, our heritage as holy (whole)
children of a Holy Father Creator. All that is required of us is a
willingness to accept these gifts and receive them unto ourselves. This
is an attitude of mind, which we are at free choice at every moment to
change from littleness, fear, guilt and death.
Love, peace and joy bless us all,
Brian Longhurst
October 21st 2009
Dear Friends,
Understanding miraculous healing
To most of us in the time and place consciousness, spiritual or miraculous
healing seems to be highly esoteric and abstruse. Can we ever, then, fully
understand it or be able to call upon it with any degree of assurance, or
confidence, that it will accomplish our restoration from the endless array
of dis-ease that besets our illusorily mortal appearance?
In truth, miraculous healing, such as performed by Jesus in the long ago, is
entirely uncomplicated and requires no effort at all. And, as the
first Principle of Miracles states, in chapter one of ACIM:
There is no order of
difficulty in miracles. One is not “harder” or “bigger” than another. They
are all the same. All expressions of love are maximal.
All that is required is faith; indeed, miraculous healing is often called ‘faith
healing’. Jesus repeatedly said to those he healed, ‘Your faith has made you
whole’. But as we move from the second measure of meal phase of the GRP, or
At-onement, in which ‘blind’ faith was the order of things, into the third
measure, it is clear that this is the measure in which our sight – or
spiritual vision – is being opened, or restored. So we could say blind
faith is being replaced by ‘faith-with-understanding’.
Jesus tells us in ACIM that we have a ‘lower’ mind, under domination of ego,
and a higher mind, our true mind, in which the Spirit of Truth dwells. The
latter is our true Self, to which state the At-onement is restoring us. Of
these two parts, only one is real, and the two cannot be reconciled.
Ultimately, however long we choose to vacillate between the two (because ego
so strongly resists our choice for Eternal Truth), we have to decide which
voice to listen to: ego or our true, eternal Self.
Our true Self, the Holy Spirit, the Voice for God, speaks only truth, is
trustworthy beyond all doubt and will reveal to us all knowledge of eternal
reality. Not much of a choice really, is it!? One we will all make sooner
or later, as the options become clearer, in spite of ego’s efforts to
distract us.
In chapter 5 of ACIM Jesus says:
I
heard one Voice because I understood that I could not atone
(be restored to wholeness/oneness)
for
myself alone. Listening to one Voice implies the decision to share It
in order to hear It yourself. The Mind that was in me is still
irresistibly drawn to every mind created by God, because God's Wholeness is
the Wholeness of His Son...
Teaching is done in many ways, above all by example. Teaching should be
healing, because it is the sharing of ideas and the recognition that to
share ideas is to strengthen them. I cannot forget my need to teach
what I have learned, which arose in me
because I
learned it. I call upon you to teach what you have learned, because by
so doing you can depend on it. Make it dependable in my name because my
name is the Name of God’s Son. What I learned I give you freely, and the
Mind that was in me rejoices as you choose to hear it.
The Holy Spirit atones
(makes at-one)
in all of us by undoing
(wrong-, or littleness-, or ego-thinking),
and thus lifts the burden you have placed in your mind. By following Him you
are led back to God where you belong, and how can you find the way except
by taking your brother with you?
... The Atonement
gives you the power of a healed mind... Therefore, those who have been
forgiven
(we have all been forgiven, because the ‘sins’ we believe we
have committed are a dream, so are not real, so we have actually not
done anything wrong; the awakening can begin when we accept forgiveness as a
true idea and then share, extend, or give away that idea of true forgiveness
to our brothers)
must devote
themselves first to healing because, having received the idea of healing,
they must give it to hold it...
This last sentence quoted, above, is telling us that, along the same PLF
lines as ‘As we judge, so are we judged’ and ‘As we forgive, so are we
forgiven’, so is it with giving. To receive and retain, or hold, the gift
of healing, we must give it away. As Jesus says:
...it is the sharing
(or giving)
of ideas and the
recognition that to share ideas is to strengthen them.
In ultimate truth there is only one of us, so in essence giving and
receiving are one and the same. Only upside-down thinking tells us, falsely,
that to give is to lose.
‘Freely have you received, freely give’ tells us that the gifts of God,
Heaven, Eternity are beyond price, and to offer them in exchange for that
which
‘moth and rust doth corrupt, and thieves break through to steal’
downgrades the thought of the gift and therefore the gift itself, if
it is not freely given. As Jesus also says in ACIM chapter 5:
The Atonement must be
understood as a pure act of sharing. That is what I meant when I said it is
possible even in this world to listen to one Voice. If you are part of God
and the Sonship is one, you cannot be limited to the self the ego sees.
There is a conflict, then, between ego mind and Holy Spirit Mind, and the
two are irreconcilable. Clearly, if we truly desire miraculous healing, for
ourself or another, it will serve us well to make a conscious, unequivocal
commitment to attune (make at-one) our mind with the Holy Spirit.
Here are a few additional quotes from chapter 5 to support and encourage
this:
Nothing that is good
can be lost because it comes from the Holy Spirit, the Voice for creation.
In the presence of
those who hear the Holy Spirit’s Call to be as one, the ego fades away and
is undone.
Every loving thought
held in any part of the Sonship belongs to every part. It is
shared
because it is loving. Sharing is God's way of creating, and also
yours.
You can share only the
thoughts that are of God and that He keeps for you.
Miraculous healing can be explained, and understood, then as follows:
With sincerity and humility we ask Papa (or Jesus, or the Holy
Spirit) for healing, for ourself or another, it makes no difference. They
always, without exception, respond to sincere asking, though for healing it
is worth keeping in mind what he says in M-21:
...The
prayer of the heart does not really ask for concrete
(or specific)
things. It always
requests some kind of experience
(restoration to wholeness, or healing)...
The teacher of God
(that’s all who choose to listen only to the Voice for God, even if
their hearing is not yet perfect)
must, however, learn to use words in a new way. Gradually, he learns how to
let his words be chosen for him
(by the Spirit of Truth, Who dwells in our higher, true mind, and speaks to
us from there)
by ceasing to decide for himself what he will say... He does not
(allow ego to)
control the direction
of his speaking. He listens
(for the Spirit of Truth, the Voice for love, peace, gentleness and reason)
and hears and speaks.
We then open ourself to receive the healing that is freely, lovingly,
immediately given, and accept it unto ourself. It does not matter
that we may have asked for healing for another; there is only one of
us, and we have to be willing to receive healing for ourself, so that we
have it. We cannot give what we do not believe we have, and as stated
above, we must give away what we have in order to hold it.
It also does not matter if we have no conscious awareness of having
received the gift of healing we have asked for. After all, we are still
thinking, at least in part, with our lower mind, and so our awareness of
higher reality is incomplete. What matters is a committed attitude of
faith, trust, belief, commitment to the certainty; h
e
must use his reason to tell himself that he has given the problem to One Who
cannot fail
(M-7).
We now give the gift that we have freely received to the healee,
certain in our mind that we have it, so it is ours to give (just as Jesus,
like whom it is our destiny to become, was certain when he gave healing in
the long ago). Remember, we are not asking for specifics, which are ego’s
territory; we are asking for wholeness, which is abstract (Holy
Spirit’s territory). Jesus did not say, ‘There, now you are cured of
blindness/leprosy/palsy’, he simply told people that their faith had
restored them to wholeness.
Then, he says in M-6:
IS HEALING CERTAIN?
Healing is always certain. It is impossible to let illusions
(including dis-ease)
be
brought to truth and keep the illusions. Truth demonstrates illusions have
no value...
No teacher
of God should feel disappointed if he has offered healing and it does not
appear to have been received. It is not up to him to judge when his
gift should be accepted.
Let him be certain it has been received,
and trust that it will be accepted when it is recognized as a blessing...
It is not
the function of God’s teachers to evaluate the outcome of their gifts. It is
merely their function to give them. Once they have done that
they have
also given the outcome, for that is part of the gift
(this removes the pressure, the uncertainty).
No one can give if he is concerned with the result of giving. That is
a limitation on the giving itself, and neither the giver nor the receiver
would have the gift. Trust is an essential part of giving; in fact,
it is the part that makes sharing possible, the part that guarantees
the giver will not lose, but only gain. Who gives a gift and then remains
with it, to be sure it is used as the giver deems appropriate? Such is not
giving but imprisoning.
It is the
relinquishing of all concern about the gift that makes it truly given.
And it is trust that makes true giving possible. Healing is the
change of mind that the Holy Spirit in the patient’s mind is seeking for
him. And it is the Holy Spirit in the mind of the giver Who gives the
gift to him. How can it be lost? How can it be ineffectual? How can it
be wasted? ...What concern, then, can a teacher of God have about what
becomes of his gifts? Given by God to God, who in this holy exchange
can receive less than everything?
We should ask for, and give, the gift only once, in
each instance. To give a gift that is already given would have no meaning
or value to the Holy Spirit, and only implies doubt that it has been given.
Instead, giving thanks for the gift — received, accepted and given/extended
to the healee — can help affirm and strengthen the awareness of the reality
of wholeness, which helps also to weaken and dispel the illusion of dis-ease
as part of our thought system. Thanksgiving, along with blessing, can be
expressed as often as one is moved so to do, for as long as desired,
envisioning the healee and oneself as Beings of Light at the same time. As
Jesus says in M-7:
SHOULD HEALING BE REPEATED?
...Whenever a teacher of God has tried to be a channel for healing he has
succeeded. Should he be tempted to doubt this, he should not repeat his
previous effort. That was already maximal, because the Holy Spirit so
accepted it and so used it.
...This is what is really meant by the statement that the one responsibility
of the miracle worker is to accept the Atonement for himself. The teacher
of God is a miracle worker because he gives the gifts he has
received. Yet he must first accept them. He need do no more, nor
is there more that he could do. By accepting healing he can give it. If
he doubts this, let him remember Who gave the gift and Who received it.
Thus is his doubt corrected. He thought the gifts of God could
be withdrawn. That was a mistake, but hardly one to stay with. And so the
teacher of God can only recognize it
(the mistake)
for
what it is, and let it be corrected for him.
...The real basis for doubt about the outcome of any problem that has been
given to God’s Teacher for resolution is
(including, of course, healing)
always self-doubt...
It
is a failure to recognize him as part of the Self, and thus represents a
confusion in identity. Conflict about what you are has entered your mind,
and you have become deceived about yourself. And you are deceived about
yourself because you have denied the Source of your creation. If you are
offering only healing, you cannot doubt. Doubt is the result of
conflicting wishes. Be sure of what you want, and doubt becomes impossible.
(My emboldening, underlining and some italics, for emphasis.)
With steadfast commitment we can experience the reality that we are
at the place wherein blind faith is being replaced by
‘faith-with-understanding’. Understanding is knowledge. Knowledge is
truth.
Thank You, Papa, for shining the Light of Your Truth in the darkness of this
dream world, so we may awaken to our eternal oneness in You.
Brian Longhurst
October 28th 2009
Dear Friends,
Further understanding of miraculous healing
From the place of forgetfulness in which we have seemed to be since the
illusion of time began, remembering, or restoration to fullness of
remembrance is a gradual process; one in which we are led — once we
have asked the Holy Spirit to shine the light of eternal truth in our
‘lower’ (ego) mind — a step at a time. This has to be, however much we
might feel we want to progress faster due to eagerness for waking, as we
begin to realise all ‘this’ is a dream, and that we can awaken from it to an
entirely benign, loving, blissful reality.
We have become so inured in the upside down ego- or lower-mind thinking that
it seems normal. Becoming accustomed to higher-mind or right side up
thinking seems, especially at first, alien. That is how ego wants it,
because right minded thinking is terminal to ego. Ego resists our attempts
at right thinking, but it is natural for us, so it is inevitable that
we will persist, and this will give rise to conflicting thoughts in our
mind; lower thoughts from ego and higher thoughts from our true Self, the
Spirit of Truth, or Comforter. Jesus, having established, or anchored, Him
in the world by his incarnation two thousand years ago, was empowered to
call Him down upon the Earth after he had returned to Papa.
The Comforter, or Holy Spirit, has been here with us ever since, though few
have been aware of His presence because the clamorous, distracting voice of
ego has occupied the attention of most of us most of the time. But now, all
that has begun to change as the fulfilment of Joel’s prophecy of 22
centuries ago gathers momentum:
And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all
flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall
dream dreams, your young men shall see visions. (Joel 2:28.)
Here is what Jesus says about our perception, and the reality of our mind,
in ACIM ch. 6, section II:
Thoughts begin in the mind of the thinker, from which they reach outward.
This is as true of God’s Thinking as it is of yours. Because your mind is
split, you can perceive
(with our lower mind)
as well as think. Yet perception cannot escape the basic laws of mind. You
perceive from your mind and project your perceptions outward.
Although perception of any kind is unreal
(because perception is misunderstanding, and misunderstanding can only take
place in our split-off, lower mind, which itself is an illusion that only
seems to have reality because we believe it is real),
you made it and the Holy Spirit can therefore use it well. He can inspire
(i.e. shine the light of spiritual truth upon it, to help clarify it for us)
perception and lead it toward God. This convergence seems to be far in the
future only because your mind is not in perfect alignment with the idea, and
therefore does not want it now
(but that can change in an instant the moment we will for this convergence).
The Holy Spirit uses time
(because that is where we believe we are, and He has to work with us in the
state we believe is our reality, in order to lead us out from it to
our true reality, Eternity),
but does not believe in it. Coming from God He uses everything for good,
but He does not believe in what is not true. Since the Holy Spirit is
in your mind, your mind can also believe only what is true. The Holy
Spirit can speak only for this, because He speaks for God.
He tells you to return your
whole mind to God, because it has never left Him. If it has
never left Him, you need only perceive it as it is to be returned. The
full awareness of the Atonement, then, is the recognition that the
separation never occurred. The ego cannot prevail against this
because it is an explicit statement that the ego never occurred.
... the Holy Spirit tells you that even return is unnecessary, because what
never happened
(separation)
cannot be difficult. ...it is surely clear that the perfect
(that’s us)
need nothing, and you cannot experience perfection as a difficult
accomplishment, because that
(perfection, or wholeness)
is what you are.
This is the way in
which you must perceive God’s creations, bringing all of your perceptions
into the one line the Holy Spirit sees. This line is the direct line of
communication with God, and lets your mind converge with His. There is
no conflict anywhere in this perception, because it means that all
perception is guided by the Holy Spirit
(when we choose to think with Him),
Whose Mind is fixed on God. Only the Holy Spirit can resolve conflict,
because only the Holy Spirit is conflict-free. He perceives only what is
true in your mind, and extends outward only to what is true in other minds.
Only with our lower mind does it appear that we are not whole and perfect,
but the opposite; with our true, higher, mind we know Who and Where
we are. As Jesus says in that same section:
You cannot be anywhere God
did not put you
,
and God created you as part of Him. That is both where
you are and what you are. It is completely unalterable. It is
total inclusion. You cannot change it now or ever. It is forever true.
It is not a belief, but a Fact. Anything that God created is as
true as He is. Its truth lies only in its perfect inclusion in Him Who
alone is perfect
(and, therefore, whole).
To deny this is to deny yourself and Him, since it is impossible to accept
one without the other.
If we are prepared to accept this not just as truth, but our truth,
then we truly have opened the door, the channel of communion in our mind to
the Holy Spirit, and the truth about our wholeness in God can come flooding
in as fast (because the Holy Spirit is eager to enlighten us) as we
are able to receive, accept and assimilate it. It is important, however, to
bear in mind, always, not to try to go faster than He leads, because He
knows the rate at which we are actually able to grow and remain in a
balanced state.
We are like toddlers in a crowded thoroughfare, eager to rush ahead of our
parents, excited to explore the unknown. And we all know how easy it is for
toddlers to get into difficulty when unexpected hazards appear in their path
and cause them to lose balance, stumble and fall. Better to stay with He
Who knows the Path and by Whom any apparent hazards are easily removed,
making our journey Home safer and more comfortable.
This is where acceptance comes into its own. Acceptance that our
true reality, or Self, is the Holy Spirit, and by which acceptance we are
whole, and therefore, perfect; Papa’s glorious, all empowered creation, just
as Jesus was, and demonstrated in the long ago. It is certain that any
difficulty we may have accepting this about ourself is not from our higher
mind, not inspired by the Holy Spirit, but is a heavy, painful burden
foisted upon our lower mind by ego. This is the conflict mentioned earlier,
and we can do no better than to be resolute in our commitment and
determination to listen only to our true Self.
Any thoughts or ideas that come into our mind and are not for the common
good and wellbeing of all are not our true, whole Self, and are denying us
the wholeness to which we are entitled, and destined to return. Miraculous
healing, of bodily or mental dis-ease, is a symbol of our return to right,
or Kingdom, thinking, and as Principle of Miracles number 2, at the
beginning of ACIM, states:
Miracles as such do not
matter. The only thing that matters is their Source, Which is far beyond
evaluation.
And number 3 states:
Miracles occur naturally
(spontaneously),
as expressions of love. The real miracle is the love that inspires them.
In this sense, everything that comes from love is a miracle.
It is only our ‘lower’ mind that has any difficulty accepting that we both
have and are wholeness. But our lower mind isn’t real.
Therefore, we can give, or extend, the wholeness that is really ours
(because Papa created us whole, complete and perfect, and what He creates is
unalterably whole, perfect, eternal and indestructible) to our brothers in
the Sonship because that is truth, and therefore, real. We can do
this even if we have not yet completely dispelled the false idea in our
lower mind of fragmentation, brokenness, separation, unbelief. Practising
giving wholeness strengthens the idea as reality in our own mind, and thus
hastens the dispelling of the false idea.
In the school of hard knocks known as time and place we have been trained
not to believe in miracles (how easily we succumbed to that training), and
because we don’t believe in them (except for the chosen few, of whom Jesus
is the prime example ...but he is different from the rest of us sinners,
so states ego), we are not miracle-minded. But we can, with the help
of the Holy Spirit, retrain our minds to become miracle-minded. As we
steadfastly, resolutely, one-pointedly choose, commit to acceptance
of wholeness as our reality, we find that retraining our minds to believe
the truth is actually easier than believing the falsehood. And giving the
wholeness that is ours to our brothers is the best way to practise.
Practice makes perfect, but we only need to ask for wholeness once;
and we only need to give it once to each person who asks us for
healing (restoration to wholeness). Thereafter, as previously stated, we
can give thanks for the gift of wholeness that, assuredly, has been
given to us once we have asked for it as often as we feel moved so to do.
It will also serve us well to remind ourselves, frequently, that we have
been given wholeness, and are willing to receive and accept it unto ourself,
as we give thanks to Papa for it, our creation-right. This reinforces our
sense of awareness of its reality in us; all part of the mind retraining.
God doesn’t need our gratitude, but we do need to develop our weakened
ability to be grateful, or we cannot appreciate God. It is noticeable that
in today’s western culture, ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ are diminishing in
their frequency of application; a sure sign of primacy of ego’s influence.
Repetition of teaching/learning is reinforcing, so repeated here is an
extract from section 7 of the Manual for Teachers of ACIM:
. . .The teacher of
God is a miracle worker because he gives the gifts he has received.
Yet he
must first accept them.
He need do no more, nor is there more that he could do. By accepting
healing
(or wholeness)
he can give it. If
he doubts this, let him remember Who gave the gift and Who received it.
Thus is
his doubt corrected.
. .
(My emboldening, underlining and some italics, for emphasis.)
Jesus knew wholeness was his, and thus was able to give it, freely,
lovingly and immediately to his brethren because he knew it was theirs also,
and chose to see the wholeness, the perfection in them, that they were
unable to see. Thus he naturally, spontaneously brought into their reality
an expression of love, the inspiration of miraculous healing. That same
love is our true nature, and the Holy Spirit will re-awaken it within
us simply in response to our asking Him. Many would say that is a miracle.
In any event, it is a resurrection of our minds to wholeness in Christ.
Love, always,
Brian Longhurst
November 4th
2009
Dear Friends,
In a world of duality we experience some inspiring, positive, blessed things
and some dark, negative, fearful things. That is the nature of duality. One
of the dark aspects of duality, or separation, is broken relationships
within the Sonship. The Sonship is all of us; there cannot be any
exceptions because the Creator is All That Is, and we are all,
indivisibly, part of the All That Is, created in the likeness of our
Father Creator. That means He gave us, or extended to us, all His attributes
and creative empowerment. In this we are complete and whole. Appearances
to the contrary are a dream of separation, and are unreal.
Jesus had wakened from the dream and demonstrated, lived and extended
wholeness, which is perfect peace, joy and love. This was possible because
he knew the world of time and place was an illusion and he saw past
the illusion to the eternal reality, which is perfect peace, joy and
love — eternally. It is not possible to experience perfect peace, joy and
love all the while we believe the illusion is real and thus make it our
reality, though it is possible for us to waken from the dream while
still appearing to be in time and place — just as Jesus did — thus allowing
true reality to be, once more, our reality.
Indeed, it is essential so to do, because the illusion has to be
dispelled from the place where we are, or appear to be. Put another
way, we can only wake from a dream while we are dreaming. Laying aside our
body is not waking from the dream. Waking from the dream restores us to our
true likeness, with all the empowerment — and more — demonstrated by Jesus,
just as he promises us in Jn. 14:12:
... He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and
greater works than these shall he do...
That is the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, when we will have all
remembered that we are one in the Sonship, and places us in the state of
readiness for Papa to take the final step of lifting us (back) up to the
Kingdom of Heaven in Eternity. This is how Jesus explains it in
ACIM:
We
(all, along with our brother Jesus)
are the holy messengers
of God who speak for Him, and carrying His Word to everyone whom He has sent
to us, we learn that it is written on our hearts
(and always has been, we had simply forgotten in the dream of separation;
now is the time of remembering).
And thus our minds are changed about the aim for which we came, and which we
seek to serve. We bring glad tidings to the Son of God, who thought he
suffered. Now is he redeemed.
And as he
(we, the Son of God)
sees the gate of
Heaven stand open before him, he will enter in and disappear into the Heart
of God.
(W-pII.14)
Brokenness is, therefore, not our true state of Being. Wholeness is. It is
easy, then, to see that our only real reason for appearing to
be in a dream state of duality, or time and place consciousness is to
escape from it. Until we can see that, we simply keep coming back, over
and over, into the consciousness of ‘good and evil’, when all the while our
true state of Being is like Papa: perfect (unconditional) love, peace and
joy, eternally. We do not escape from time and place duality by ‘dying’
because ‘death’ is as much a part of the illusion as all that goes before
the laying aside of bodies. Indeed, it is the biggest part.
To be restored to our true estate in the oneness of the Sonship we have to
be willing for healing of broken relationships. This is only
achievable by the mechanism Jesus calls true forgiveness (for more
details on true forgiveness, see MoEs dated April 11, 2007 and August 22,
2007). Who wants to be, or can be, one with someone he hates, or
fears, or envies, or looks down upon, or judges in any way? Ego’s job
is separation, or division, and it works hard at it; Holy Spirit’s job is
reminding us of our wholeness, or oneness, and accomplishing it for us once
we are willing to hand the reins to Him, and keep on handing them back each
time ego deceives us into wresting them away from Him again.
Ego wants to steer us clear of restoration, so will try to keep a
broken relationship broken, and has all the usual tricks up its sleeve to
effect this. The main one is: ‘It wasn’t my fault; it was his
fault. Why should I apologise or forgive him when he did (whatever) to me.
It’s up to him.’ ACIM calls this ‘projection’. All the while we
respond to opportunity thusly we are guaranteeing ourselves another circuit
on the carousel.
But the Holy Spirit (our true Self) sees what we perceive to be adversity
as priceless opportunities for healing, and will help us, if we
ask, to use these opportunities to transform such ‘adversity’ into
fulfilment, until we are ultimately restored to wholeness. If we choose to
see with our true vision, helped by the Holy Spirit, it enables us to turn
the tables on ego and escape its clutches.
Many people observe and experience brokenness in familial relationships and
I am often asked why this is so. What better opportunity is there for
restoration to wholeness of our oneness in the Sonship than for those with
whom we have a broken relationship — perhaps going back several incarnations
— than to be part of the same family? These occurrences are not accidents
or coincidences, so avoiding dealing with brokenness, under whatever
pretext, is simply playing into ego’s hands.
However many more incarnations it may take is our choice. In the
end, wholeness is our true estate, and it is inevitable that Self will keep
presenting opportunities to transform (what appears to our upside-down,
ego-dominated Earth mind as) adversity into fulfilment of the GRP.
This is because we cannot pretend we are what we are not indefinitely.
Pretence is pretence; it is not reality.
It is inevitable also because the Holy Spirit (it may come as no surprise)
is not just good at His job; He is perfect, and works
ceaselessly on our behalf, for our benefit and for the common good of all.
Is there one amongst us who believes this is ego’s job description? Yet
still, the majority choose, without thinking, with ego. The ‘reasoning’ is
the same as why a battered spouse remains within the relationship: fear;
fear that any alternative might be worse; better to stick with the devil you
know than the ‘devil’ you don’t know. Yet still further, the word
inevitable means just that, and it is inevitable that all will
return Home sooner or later, because Home is where the heart is, and like
the prodigal son, we will return. Sooner is immeasurably less
painful than later.
Ego will try to deceive us by setting up conditions and structures (e.g. the
U.N.) that cause us to believe we can patch up our squabbles and eliminate
the ‘evil’ part of the ‘good and evil’ consciousness, then everything in the
(time and place) garden will be rosy again. It is a trick to keep us
distracted from turning our focus to the place we belong, where there is no
such thing as evil, and it never crosses our mind. Ignoring our Source will
not get us back to our Source.
Jesus said ‘Of myself I can do nothing’. This was not false
modesty. He knew that our only source of empowerment — for transforming
adversity, brokenness, separation, dis-ease, forgetfulness of Who we really
Are into fulfilment, oneness, wholeness, remembrance — is our Source, ably
represented to us — until we are able to remember for ourself — by Jesus and
our ‘other Comforter’ (Jn. 14:16), the Holy Spirit.
Jesus also said,
Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall
be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again
(Mt. 7:1-2). Yet every minute of every day we are judging because we are
focusing our mind in a false world where judgement is seen as necessary for
our survival. Yet Jesus also said,
I came not to judge the world, but to save the world
(Jn. 12:47). Does not this tell us that all the while we are judging we
cannot save either ourself or the world?
Institutionalised religion has a fundamental doctrine about God judging us,
saying that Jesus will come to judge the ‘quick and the dead’, but as stated
above, this does not accord with what is recorded of him in the scriptures.
Also in contrast with religious doctrine, here is what Jesus says in the
Workbook for Students about the Last Judgement:
15. IS EACH ONE TO
BE JUDGED IN THE END?
Indeed, yes! No one
can escape God's Final Judgment. Who could flee forever from the truth? But
the Final Judgment will not come until it is no longer associated with
fear. One day each one will welcome it, and on that very day it will
be given him. He will hear his sinlessness proclaimed around and around
the world, setting it
(the world, thus enabling the Kingdom of Heaven to come to our awareness,
here, on Earth; Jesus is the perfect proof of that)
free as God’s Final
Judgment on him is received. This is the Judgment in which salvation lies.
This is the Judgment that will set him free.
This is the Judgment in
which all things are freed with him
(how could it be any other way?).
Time pauses as eternity comes near, and silence lies across the world that
everyone may hear this Judgment of the Son of God:
Holy are you,
eternal, free and whole, at peace forever in the Heart of God.
Where is the world,
and where is sorrow now?
Is this your judgment
on yourself, teacher of God
(that’s all who choose, or will, to listen only to the Voice
for God, even if their hearing is not yet perfect. He will perfect it
in us.)?
Do you believe that this is wholly true? No; not yet, not yet
(this should definitely not be construed as meaning we should not yet
choose, right now, for it to be our truth).
But this is still your goal; why you are here. It is your
function
(here, in time and place, while still appearing to be with a body)
to prepare yourself
to hear this Judgment and to recognize that it is true.
One instant of
complete belief in this, and you will go beyond belief to Certainty.
One instant out of time can bring time’s end. Judge not, for you but
judge yourself, and thus delay this
(wonderful, liberating)
Final Judgment. What is your judgment of the world, teacher of God? Have
you yet learned to stand aside and hear the Voice of Judgment in yourself?
Or
do you still
(allow ego to persuade us to)
attempt to take His role
from Him?
Learn to be quiet, for His Voice is heard in stillness. And His
Judgment comes to all who stand aside in quiet listening, and wait for Him
(and this will be better for us and for all our brethren in the Sonship,
permanently).
You who are sometimes
sad and sometimes angry; who sometimes feel your just due is not given you,
and your best efforts meet with lack of appreciation and even contempt; give
up these foolish thoughts! They are too small and meaningless to occupy
your holy mind an instant longer. God’s Judgment waits for you to set
you free. What can the world hold out to you, regardless of your
judgments on its gifts, that you would rather have? You will be judged, and
judged in fairness and in honesty. There is no deceit in God. His
promises are sure. Only remember that. His promises have guaranteed His
Judgment, and His alone, will be accepted in the end. It is your
function to make that end be soon. It is your function to hold it to
your heart, and offer it to all the world to keep it safe.
(My emboldening, underlining and some italics, for emphasis)
Peace, joy and love, eternally,
Brian Longhurst
November 11th
2009
Dear
Friends,
At the beginning of the second measure of meal, which I have dubbed the
Jesus measure for obvious reasons, Jesus healed all who came to him for
healing, as well as performing many other miracles. He also told his
disciples that at that time
I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear
(understand)
them now.
(Jn. 16:12.)
He went on to say:
Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all
truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear
(him, Jesus, speaking to us, his brethren*),
that shall he speak
(or, repeat):
and he will shew you things to come. (Jn. 16:13.)
That time is now with us, at the beginning of the third, or Kingdom,
measure.
It is not just the speaking of Jesus and/or the Holy Spirit we can receive
if our motivation is sufficient. Healing is something we are also able to
receive if we perceive ourself as broken, separate, lacking in the peace of
God that passeth understanding, and we perceive that there is someone, a
brother in the Sonship, who has the ability to heal, and we are willing
to receive healing from that brother. Now, increasingly, it is and will be
not just Jesus who is empowered to perform miraculous healing. Anyone who
remembers, and therefore knows that they both have and are
wholeness can give healing to his brothers.
But bodily healing is not wholeness; it is a process that
demonstrates that wholeness is the healer’s to give. Wholeness is of the
mind. When our minds are restored to oneness, or wholeness, not only will
bodily ailments no longer be possible (who can imagine Jesus being ill?),
bodies will no longer be perceived as necessary.
The miraculous healings that Jesus performed in the long ago were mostly of
bodily symptoms because people believed themselves to be bodies. That did
not restore the recipients of such healing to wholeness of mind. If
it had, those recipients could have performed miracles just as Jesus did.
But they did not. In fact, Jesus is recorded as telling people, after
healing bodily ailments, to rethink their lifestyle, ‘lest a worse thing
befall you’ (Jn. 5:14).
Unconditional love does not seek, nor require, reciprocity, because it is
giving. At the eternal, all-knowing, higher, Christ Mind (which is one with
the Mind of God) level of awareness, which is the only place from where
unconditional love can come because it is the only place it has its Being,
love knows it is both given and received unconditionally. It is only
the identity-confusion caused by our belief in littleness, guilt, scarcity,
dis-ease and death that causes us to think that unless we are able to
receive something in exchange for giving (love, or anything else) we
will be losing because we have given it away.
Jesus knew this was not so because he had remembered who he is. Even if we
don’t feel love toward Jesus (or any other), most of us can accept the idea
that Jesus loves us all, unconditionally, even if, in our ego-dominated mind
we have no conscious cognisance of it. If we can accept that he loves us
unconditionally, it implies a willingness to accept that he desires the best
for us. The best cannot be other than wholeness.
This means Jesus truly, freely, unconditionally, desires to give, extend to,
share with us, wholeness. He, unlike most of the rest of us in the Sonship,
knows he is able to give, share or extend it because he knows he both has
and is wholeness. The difference — albeit, temporary — between him
and most of the rest of us is that his mind was/is whole, fully awake at the
Christ-reality, all-empowered, level of awareness.
His mind was no longer split between a ‘higher’ (Christ) and ‘lower’ (ego,
or time-and-place/three-dimension limited) mind, by which we have perception
of and functionality at only the lower mind level. This is because we
believe that is our reality and are therefore listening only, or mostly, to
that voice. This is a temporary difference, and Jesus’ job, along with the
Holy Spirit, with Whom he is now fully Identified, is to correct that
difference, in fulfilment of 1Jn. 3:2:
Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we
shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him;
for we shall see him as he is.
The GRP, or Atonement, goes forward toward its completion, and at the change
over between the second and third measure, a quantum leap of progress is
possible. That leap is exemplified by the unfolding of awareness, or
understanding, or remembrance, of the things we were not ready to ‘bear’ one
full measure ago. There is so much to remember — all knowing, when
we have forgotten everything, just like a newborn baby, who has to
start learning from absolute zero — that we can only remember, or re-learn,
one step at a time in order to not ‘blow a mental gasket’.
Jesus and the Holy Spirit are eager to restore us to wholeness as
quickly (linearly speaking) as we are able to be restored, but They know the
pace at which we are able to awaken (and it is different for each of us) and
maintain our mental equilibrium during the process, and They will not exceed
that pace, because They have our absolute wellbeing totally at heart. This
makes Them totally trustworthy.
The reason most of the fragmented Sonship, believing themselves to be in a
state of separation from God and each other, do not feel able to totally
entrust their lives into Jesus’ care is that they believe Jesus is going to
judge them, find them wanting (as unworthy, guilty sinners) and condemn them
to eternal damnation. For the peace of mind of all with such fearful
concerns, here is what Jesus says about the Last or Final Judgement on page
455 of the Workbook for Students:
This is God’s Final
Judgment: “You are still My holy Son, forever innocent, forever loving and
forever loved, as limitless as your Creator, and completely changeless and
forever pure. Therefore awaken and return to Me. I am your Father and you
are My Son.”
The key question therefore, would seem to be, ‘Are we willing to receive
restoration to wholeness of mind?’ The question really is ‘When will
we be willing to receive restoration to wholeness of mind?’ The choice is
ours. They who are all-empowered in Heaven and Earth know the answer to
that question for each and every one of us; that is what all-knowing gives
Them, and it will give us also, because that is our creation-right, and is
already ours, in our higher, Christ Mind; when we are ready to
relinquish our allegiance to following ego’s script in favour of that of our
true, eternal Self, the Christ.
As stated on previous occasions, until now we have been blind to the
realities of Eternity and our rightful place therein because we chose
instead to believe a lie about our true Being. We have accepted as our
reality mortal bodies made of dust of the Earth, destined to spend but a
fleeting moment in fear, guilt and scarcity (those of us who feel
comfortable, take a look at the News sometime, at the condition of so many
of our brothers; are we comfortable about the plight of those with whom we
share our Sonship of God?) before returning to dust in the blink of an eye.
Now is the time of awakening and we are in the hands of Them Who are able to
restore to us our fully wakened state that is immeasurably beyond whatever
tawdry, counterfeit grandeur time and place may be able to cobble together,
only to fade away to nothingness again in a moment.
Above, reference was made, as marked by an * to Jesus speaking words for the
Holy Spirit to give to us after his return to the Father. Quoted in the MoE
dated December 13th 2006 was a message given by Jesus to Olga
Park on Maundy Thursday 1976. It was a transliteration, in modern English,
of his words at the Last Supper as recorded in John chapter 14. Part of
that message is repeated here, and the part that confirms what is asterisked
above is shown in bold type:
‘I am going
away and where I shall be you cannot come. In the Father’s House are many
mansions and I am going to another mansion — the mansion where I was before
I was born into this life. I shall not then be able to communicate with
you, to teach or to answer your questions, except by special arrangement,
because you will not be able to hear my speaking.
It is
important for you that I go away because if I stay here you will never learn
to communicate with that realm, and at the end of your life here you will
not
(have been prepared, made ready, to)
come to be with
me
(there).
Meanwhile,
you will need a Teacher to be with you here, to give you what I am saying
that you are not able
(at the beginning of the Jesus measure of meal)
to hear.
The Teacher is here with you now but he is not speaking with you — while you
are still listening to me with your Earthly hearing.
In the mansion
to which I am going I shall be with my Father and I shall ask Him to
arrange for the Teacher to be with you and speak with you from within
you.
There is much
that you need to know about the Great Purpose of God for men and of His
Kingdom of Heaven, that I have not been able to tell you because you were
not ready; neither are you ready now!
But the
Teacher will be with you always. He will not be going away,
and there will be time for him to bring you to more complete understanding.
He will speak only that which he hears me saying to you. He is the
Spirit of Truth, who speaks the Word of the Father to me while I am in this
life. In that other mansion to which I am going I shall not need his
speaking because I will be with the Father.
He will speak
that which is new to you but which in reality is very old… from
Eternity to Eternity, ever the same.
All things
that I have said to you are of this Eternal Truth and the Teacher will bring
it into your mind as you have need of it...
The complete message is shown in the 13/12/07 MoE.
There is not one amongst us who does not have the potential for hearing this
speaking of Eternal Truth. All that is missing is willingness. Lack of
willingness is due to fear, doubt, guilt, confusion, caused by a willingness
to listen to another voice; the voice that speaks of littleness and
mortality. This is not our true Being. Our true Being is identical to
Jesus; one with him, in fact. He is trustworthy; is with us all, right now
and always; loves us unconditionally; will transform fear, doubt, confusion
and death into love, certainty, peace and joy-filled life, eternally.
Freely.
Love and light,
Brian Longhurst
November 18th
2009
Dear Friends,
The American declaration of independence famously states:
We hold
these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they
are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among
these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Most people around the world would likely agree this is a valid statement.
Yet happiness is a difficult state to define. Most of us perceive that it
would be ours if our circumstances were just a little different; like, if we
had a little more money; a less acerbic spouse; the kids were better
behaved; the boss was less bullying; the arthritis was less painful... the
list keeps stretching because when we get one of our wishes, another block
to happiness pops up. That’s how it is with ego.
However elusive happiness is, it is not lastingly possible without a
prerequisite: inner peace. Inner peace comes only from God, and is beyond
the comprehension or experience of anyone whose focus is on seeking
happiness ‘out there’ in any aspect of time and place illusions. Peace
comes from within us because its Source, along with His Kingdom, is within
us. Inner peace is changeless and endless, and renders outer circumstances
irrelevant because they are always changing and are therefore not of God and
therefore are not real; only changelessness is real and is of God.
Belief in the illusion of time and place denies us inner peace because the
greatest illusion of all is death. As Jesus says in M27:
Death is the central
dream from which all illusions stem. Is it not madness to think of life as
being born, aging, losing vitality, and dying in the end?
We can be certain beyond all doubt that death is an illusion because God’s
beloved Son is His creation, and all God’s creations are eternal,
indestructible, incorruptible; created in His likeness. All the while the
concept of death remains our mistaken belief, anything resembling inner
peace will be at best only a very pale imitation of the real thing and will
be transitory.
In the Bible story of raising Lazarus from the dead Jesus tells us
I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were
dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall
never die. Believest thou this? (Jn. 11: 25, 26)
There is a great deal of confusion about death, including amongst orthodox
adherents to the Christian religion. Christian believers say they do
believe Jesus, yet they, along with the rest of the fragmented, slumbering
Sonship, accept the ‘inevitability’ of death of bodies, believing in a
general, bodily resurrection at ‘the last day’. This is based on a mistaken
perception by Job:
And though ... worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God (Job
19:26).
Even if we ‘see’ God while still with a body, it can only be with our
single, spiritual vision/discernment that such awareness can take place,
because God is Spirit, which is not perceptible to fleshly senses.
In the first chapter of Genesis we are told that man is created in the
likeness of God. We can readily discount the idea that God has a body with
two arms, 2 legs etc., because one thing we can all agree on is that God is
eternal Spirit, not a body
(God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and
in truth.
Jn. 4:24.)
Therefore,
being created in His likeness refers to our being eternal Spirit, and
therefore, in spite of appearances, we are not a body. Paul also writes to
the Corinthians
...flesh
and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God... (1 Cor. 15:50.)
These references clearly indicate that not only is the idea/doctrine of the
resurrection of the physical body a non-starter, the body has no part in
Eternity, and must nullify Job’s statement. Throughout ACIM Jesus tells us
that the physical universe — including planet Earth and the very bodies we
appear to be inhabiting for a fleeting moment — is nothing but illusion; a
dream from which he, working in unison with the Holy Spirit, is in the
process of waking us back to our one true reality in the Kingdom of Heaven.
As soon as we wake from a bad dream we can rejoice in the realisation that
it was only a dream, and it is immediately able to be dispelled from our
mind. Or, we can allow it to haunt us as our reality, if we believe it is
so, even though it clearly is not, as any objective observer can readily
discern. The dream we believe is our reality is clearly seen by Jesus (who
has awakened from that dream, so he knows the truth about it) as only a
dream, having no reality at all.
Jesus tells us death is not real because he is the resurrection (of our
minds, not our bodies) and the life, and if only we can believe him, even
those who appear to be ‘dead’, yet shall they live, and we shall never die.
Yet we see death all around, and inevitable for us, so the evidence seems
overwhelmingly conclusive that it is real. Who is right? Is Jesus mad, or
does he know something, see something we don’t? That is the key to the
answer: he sees something we don’t.
Whose vision is clearer? It is not bodily vision, which is designed to
support the illusion of bodies and death (not just of living organisms but
of planets, solar systems, galaxies) but spiritual discernment that
counts in answering this question beyond all doubt. That spiritual
discernment will remain elusive to us all the while we choose to believe the
evidence of our bodily senses.
He describes spiritual vision as ‘single’ and bodily sight as ‘double’, or
flawed, saying that if our vision is single our whole being will be full of
light (which is life), and bodily sight is flawed since it shows us what is
not there because what appears to be there is an illusion. He goes
further, saying that if our sight, or perception, is flawed our whole body
will be full of darkness. It is not easy to see clearly in the dark
J
How can we find peace — which is reality, and is within us, because
it is part of the nature of God, and so are we — if we are committed to
seeking it amongst what appears to be ‘out there’ but exists only in our
flawed perception? Such perception is an egocentric perspective, like
saying the sun has gone behind a cloud. Of course it has not gone behind a
cloud, other than from our limited place of looking at what seems to be
happening.
If we change our perspective we can see past the illusion to the reality
that a cloud has got between our vantage point and the sun. So is it with
death. Death was nothing to Jesus and it is nothing to all who have joined
him by changing their perspective to the vantage point of Eternity.
Eternity is, and always can only be... you guessed it:
NOW. Waiting for now is, even
from our earth-mind, limited perspective, a futile endeavour, because it is
already with us.
So, peace, which is of God, and therefore, of Eternity, is with us now.
All we have to do to have awareness of it is to change our
perspective. Here is what Jesus says about it in M11:
11. HOW IS PEACE
POSSIBLE IN THIS WORLD?
This is a question
everyone must ask. Certainly peace seems to be impossible here. Yet
the Word of God promises other things that seem impossible, as well as
this. His Word has promised peace. It has also promised that there is no
death, that resurrection must occur, and that rebirth is man’s
inheritance.
The world you
(believe you)
see
(with flawed, bodily sight)
cannot be the world God
loves, and yet His Word assures us that He loves the world. God’s Word has
promised that peace is possible here, and what He promises can hardly be
impossible. But it is true that the world must be looked at differently,
if His promises are to be accepted. What the world is, is
but a fact. You cannot choose what this should be. But you can
choose how you would see it. Indeed, you must choose
this.
Again we come to the
question of judgment. This time ask yourself whether your judgment or
the Word of God is more likely to be true. For they
(our judgement and God’s Word)
say different things
about the world, and things so opposite that it is pointless to try to
reconcile them. God offers the world salvation; your judgment would
condemn it.
(What we perceive as a ‘little’ judgement may seem innocuous enough, but
Jesus reminds us that just as there is no order of magnitude in miracles, so
is it with judgement; a judgement is a judgement, and blocks our vision of
the truth of Eternity.)
God
says there is no death; your judgment sees but death as the inevitable end
of life
(see what an apparently innocuous judgement does!?).
God’s Word assures you that He loves the world; your judgment says it is
unlovable.
(What
he is saying here is, if we see anyone or anything in this world as
unlovable, we are seeing all, including ourself, as unlovable. Puts
a different slant on things, doesn’t it!?)
Who is right? For one
of you is wrong. It must be so.
The text
(of ACIM)
explains that the Holy Spirit is the Answer to all problems you have made.
These problems are not real, but that is meaningless to those who believe in
them.
(It takes steadfast, one-pointed commitment to desiring to change our
mind about what we believe is our reality. That is only likely to happen
with many of us when the illusion of egoland becomes so utterly intolerable
that we have nowhere else to turn. But it does not have to be that way; we
can choose out of sound reasoning instead, and that is much less
uncomfortable.)
And everyone believes
in what he made, for it was made by his believing it.
Into this strange and
paradoxical situation — one without meaning and devoid of sense, yet out of
which no way seems possible — God has sent His Judgment to answer yours.
Gently His Judgment substitutes for yours
(if — when — we are willing for it to be so).
And through this substitution is the un-understandable made understandable.
How is peace possible in this world? In your
(ego)
judgment it is not
possible, and can never be possible. But in the Judgment of God what is
reflected here is only peace.
Peace is impossible to
those who look on war. Peace is inevitable to those who offer peace.
How easily, then, is your judgment of the world escaped! It is not the
world that makes peace seem impossible. It is the world you see
that is impossible. Yet has God’s Judgment on this distorted world
redeemed it and made it fit to welcome peace. And peace descends on it
in joyous answer.
Peace now belongs here,
because a Thought of God has entered.
(God’s Son is a Thought of God. Jesus is restored to that reality and he
entered the world. Now it is our inescapable destiny to be so restored.
All that is asked of us to enable that is to desire it; Self does all
the rest for us when we are willing to co-operate with Him.)
What else but a
Thought of God turns hell to Heaven merely by being what it is?
The earth bows down before its gracious Presence, and it leans down in
answer, to raise it up again. Now is the question different. It is
no longer, “Can peace be possible in this world?” but instead, “Is it not
impossible that peace be absent here?”
(My emboldening, underlining and some italics, for emphasis.)
Peace is our natural, eternal estate. When we judge, we
condemn ourself to death because we are making real for ourself the
illusions of time and place, beginning and ending, birth and death. When we
forgive a brother we release ourself and him back to eternal life
because we are undoing the illusions of sin and guilt that falsely keep us
chained to the cycle of birth and death.
Peace be with us all,
Brian Longhurst
November 25th
2009
Dear Friends,
The cultures and religions that have evolved in time and place are founded
in the perception that time and place are real. Only Eternity is real.
Deep in the mind of the fragments is a conflict; that on the one hand there
is a Deity Who inhabits Eternity, and we are, somehow, separated from
Eternity and that Deity. That apparent state of separation engenders fear.
Fear and separation are inseparable. Fear is of the unknown, because
All-Knowingness, which is rightfully ours, has been veiled from our sight by
the acceptance of false beliefs that have turned our understanding upside
down. This causes us to perceive everything upside down. So we are
confused about whether God is unconditionally loving or vengeful.
That uncertainty leaves a question-mark hanging over us; ego-‘logic’ says if
we are separated from God, it must be because we have done something wrong,
therefore He is angry with us. This wrongdoing assuredly will require
correction, and, fearfully, insanely, we associate correction with
punishment.
Ultimately, we have to decide which we believe: that God is the source of
love, or the source of fear. He cannot be both, but because most of us have
what Jesus calls a split mind, we are trying to believe the impossible: that
God is the source of both love and fear. He cannot be the source of
both because they are irreconcilable opposites.
It is, of course, ego — a figment of our imagination that occupies the
split-off part of our mind, resulting in a self-perception of littleness,
guilt, unworthiness, mortality — that is the cause, or source of fear. But
ego would convince us that God is the cause of fear because we are sinners,
that God abhors sinners and He is out to punish us. All the while this
perception is anywhere in our mind (consciously or unconsciously) peace —
true, lasting, unassailable inner peace — is impossible. Without peace,
oneness with God, the Holy Spirit (our real Self; there’s an indicator of
our perceived predicament, that we cannot even be at one with our Self) and
our brothers in the Sonship, including Jesus, is impossible. Without peace,
Joy and Love are impossible because peace, joy and love are indivisible.
How can we ever sort this out? On our own we cannot, though ego would have
us believe we can, and that we must strive in ever more ingenious, inventive
and convoluted endeavours (what Jesus described to me as ‘the elaborate
theories of men’) to resolve the endless difficulties that beset our little,
fragmented selves. But we know someone who can help us, and his incisive,
succinct, logical (a quality unpossessed of ego) way of describing the
problem and the solution provides perfect clarity:
The
mind can be right or wrong, depending on the voice to which it listens.
Right-mindedness
listens to the Holy Spirit, forgives the world, and through Christ’s vision
sees the real world in its place. This is the final vision, the last
perception, the condition in which God takes the final step Himself. Here
time and illusions end together.
(C-1.5)
The ‘real’ world of which he speaks here is the Kingdom of Heaven on
Earth, when all the separated fragments of the Sonship have overlooked,
or forgiven, the illusions of guilt, fear, attack, separation — in our
brethren and in ourself — and remembered who we are. From that state of
right mindedness, or true perception, it is a small step to Christ
Mindedness, or true knowing, the end of all illusions, and as he
says, which step Papa takes for us, because He loves us so much and
is so eager for our completion, and restoration of our oneness, as Papa’s
Son, in Him. Jesus continues:
Wrong-mindedness
listens to the ego and makes illusions; perceiving sin and justifying anger,
and seeing guilt, disease and death as real. Both this world and the real
world are illusions because right-mindedness merely overlooks, or forgives,
what never happened.
(‘This’ world being the illusory world in which we still perceive — due to
ego-mind domination of our thinking — sin, anger, guilt, dis-ease and death
as being real. This is, even now, being transformed into the ‘real’ world,
an essential step of the GRP.)
Therefore
it
(right-mindedness)
is
not the
One-mindedness of the Christ Mind
(but is an essential, massive step toward it),
Whose Will is one with God’s.
(C-1.6)
By following the curriculum of ACIM it is inevitable not only that we will
safely complete the journey back Home, ending the cycle of birth and death,
but we will be helping the Holy Spirit to collapse the time it would
otherwise take us — without His help — to find our own way, by untold
millennia. Free. Can ego match that?
Here, in chapter 8 of ACIM, entitled
THE JOURNEY BACK,
is what Jesus tells us about the Course’s curriculum:
I. The Direction of the
Curriculum
Knowledge is not the motivation for learning this course. Peace is. This
is the prerequisite for knowledge only because those who are in conflict
(between right-mindedness and wrong-mindedness)
are not peaceful, and peace is the condition of knowledge because
it is the condition of the Kingdom. Knowledge can be restored only when
you meet its conditions. This is not a bargain made by God, Who makes no
bargains. It is merely the result of your misuse of His laws on behalf of
an imaginary
(ego)
will that is not His.
Knowledge is His Will.
If you are opposing His
Will, how can you have knowledge? I have told you what knowledge offers
you, but perhaps you do not yet regard this as wholly desirable. If you did
you would not be so ready to throw it away when the ego asks for your
allegiance.
(This is telling us how it is, straight from the shoulder. This begs two
questions: Are we listening? Do we believe him?)
The distractions of the ego may seem to interfere with your learning, but
the ego has no power to distract you unless you give it the power to do so.
The ego’s voice is an hallucination. You cannot expect it to say “I
am not real.” Yet you are not asked to dispel your hallucinations alone.
You are merely asked to evaluate them in terms of their results to
you.
(Since all of us who believe we are here — because we have not yet wakened
from the dream — cannot have true, unassailable inner peace because time and
place is the consciousness of fear, the continuing absence of
inner peace is the only result we can meaningfully expect by not changing
our mind about whose voice to listen to.)
If you do not want them
(ego-voice hallucinations)
on the basis of loss of
peace, they will be removed from your mind for you.
(Ego will resort to every trick in the book to prevent us from asking the
Holy Spirit to remove its voice from our mind. Its main trick is to
convince us that we have to sort out our problems ourself, and that ‘no Holy
Spirit is going to do anything for us; we got ourselves into this mess, so
only we — little self — can get us out of it.’ This is a primary
misperception of time and place, and one that takes steadfast commitment to
unlearn. Ego does not like steadfast, and employs many devices to get us to
fall by the wayside. All I can say is, ‘Hang in there; the magnitude of the
benefit is inestimable.’)
Every response to the ego is a call to war, and war does deprive you of
peace. Yet in this war there is no opponent
(because Holy Spirit does not oppose; He reinterprets our ego-devised
misperceptions, enabling us to discern their unreality, so they no longer
exist in our mind. This obviates confrontation, thereby engendering peace).
This is the reinterpretation of reality that you must make to secure peace,
and the only one you need ever make.
Those whom you perceive as
opponents
(our
brothers in the Sonship with whom we are experiencing a broken or
judgemental relationship)
are part of your peace, which
you are giving up by attacking them. How can you have what you give up?
You share to have, but you do not give it up yourself. When you give
up peace, you are excluding yourself from it. This is a condition so alien
to the Kingdom that you cannot understand the state that prevails within it.
Your past learning must
have taught you the wrong things, simply because it has not made you happy.
On this basis alone its value should be questioned. If learning aims
at change, and that is always its purpose, are you satisfied with the
changes your learning has brought you? Dissatisfaction with learning
outcomes is a sign of learning failure, since it means that you did not get
what you wanted.
The curriculum of the Atonement is the opposite of the curriculum you have
established for yourself, but so is its outcome.
(Alleluia!!)
If the outcome of yours has made you unhappy, and if you want a different
one, a change in the curriculum is obviously necessary. The first change to
be introduced is a change in direction. A meaningful curriculum cannot be
inconsistent. If it is planned by two teachers
(Holy Spirit, our true, higher Self, Who speaks only truth, and ego, an
hallucination),
each believing in diametrically opposed ideas, it cannot be integrated.
If it is carried out by these two teachers simultaneously
(which can only happen if we will it),
each one merely interferes with the other. This leads to fluctuation, but
not to change. The volatile have no direction. They cannot choose one
because they cannot relinquish the other, even if it does not exist.
(If we experience relinquishing ego as difficult, it is because ego is
dominating our thought system. That is precisely when we need to ask
Holy Spirit to help us, restore us to His thought system; remember, we
cannot relinquish ego alone. Any voice that says we can, or must, is a
false voice.)
Their conflicted curriculum teaches them that all directions exist,
and gives them no rationale for choice.
The total senselessness of such a curriculum must be fully recognized before
a real change in direction becomes
(desirable, and therefore,)
possible. You cannot learn simultaneously from two teachers who are in
total disagreement about everything. Their joint curriculum presents an
impossible learning task. They are teaching you entirely different things
in entirely different ways, which might be possible except that both are
teaching you about yourself
(that is, our split-mind lower, or little self, and our Higher Mind real
Self).
Your reality is unaffected by both
(because our true, eternal reality is unchangeable),
but if you listen to both, your mind will be split about what your reality
is.
(My emboldening and some italics, for emphasis.)
How much longer must we continue before we recognise that a quantum change
is desirable? If the chaos and confusion that engulfs the world today is
serviceable at all, it is that it is persuading people en masse that
the present arrangement, or curriculum, does not work and that change is
essential. That in itself will effect a massive time-collapsing, thus
demonstrating that the Holy Spirit can use anything and everything,
including insanity, to the furtherance of the Kingdom of Heaven. This
demonstrates that Jesus spoke truly when he said to me years ago, ‘When you
see chaos and confusion all around, then rejoice, for the
Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, even at the doors.’
To the restoration of right mindedness and true vision!
Brian Longhurst
December 2nd
2009
Dear Friends,
The dictionary defines Grandeur as
Splendid and impressive; high rank and
importance; magnificence, majesty, splendour, eminence...
You get the picture. It defines Grandiose as
Pretentiously
grand or stately, affected, puffed up, prideful, pompous.
Here is what Jesus says in this extract from ACIM chapter 9, section VIII
about the two, and their importance for our consideration and greater
understanding of who we are:
Grandeur versus
Grandiosity
Grandeur is of God, and only of Him. Therefore it is in you
(because we are created by Him, in His likeness; appearances to the contrary
are delusional, though ego perception sees the opposite).
Whenever you become aware of it, however dimly, you abandon the ego
automatically, because in the presence of the grandeur of God the
meaninglessness of the ego becomes perfectly apparent. When this occurs,
even though it does not understand it, the ego believes that its “enemy” has
struck, and attempts to offer gifts to induce you to return to its
“protection.”
Self-inflation is the
only offering it can make. The grandiosity of the ego is its alternative to
the grandeur of God. Which will you choose?
(Commerce and its promotional arm, Advertising, is dominated by ego, telling
us we are ‘worth it’ without any idea whatsoever just What we are
actually worthy of, and the meaninglessness of what it tells us we are
worthy.)
Grandiosity is always a cover
(mask or façade)
for despair. It is
without hope because it is not real. It is an attempt to counteract your
(perceived)
littleness, based on
the belief that the littleness is real. Without this belief grandiosity is
meaningless, and you could not possibly want it. The essence of grandiosity
is competitiveness ... It is a delusional attempt to outdo, but not to
undo...
The ego is immobilized
in the presence of God’s grandeur, because His grandeur establishes your
freedom. Even the faintest hint of your reality literally drives the ego
from your mind, because you will give up all investment in it. Grandeur is
totally without illusions, and because it is real it is compellingly
convincing. Yet the conviction of reality will not remain with you unless
you do not allow the ego to attack it.
The ego will make every
effort to recover and mobilize its energies against your release. It will
tell you that you are insane, and argue that grandeur cannot be a real part
of you because of the littleness in which it believes
(when littleness is preached from any pulpit, or is part of any liturgy,
this tells us who the preacher really is).
Yet your grandeur is not delusional because you did not make it. You made
grandiosity and are afraid of it because it is a form of attack, but your
grandeur is of God, Who created it out of His Love.
From your
(God-given)
grandeur you can only
bless, because your grandeur is your abundance. By blessing you hold it
(grandeur)
in your mind,
protecting it from illusions and keeping yourself in the Mind of God.
Remember always that you cannot be anywhere except in the Mind of God.
When you forget this, you will despair...
The ego depends solely
on your willingness to tolerate it. If you are willing to look upon your
grandeur you cannot despair, and therefore you cannot want the ego.
Your grandeur is God’s answer to the ego, because it is true. Littleness
and grandeur cannot coexist...
Truth and littleness
are denials of each other because grandeur is truth. Truth does not
vacillate; it is always true. When grandeur slips away from you, you have
replaced it with something you have made. Perhaps it is the belief in
littleness; perhaps it is the belief in grandiosity. Yet it must be insane
because it is not true. Your grandeur will never deceive you, but your
illusions always will. Illusions are deceptions. You cannot triumph, but
you are exalted. And in your exalted state you seek others like you
and rejoice with them...
Grandiosity is
delusional, because it is used to replace your grandeur. Yet what God has
created cannot be replaced. God is incomplete without you because
His grandeur is total, and you cannot be missing from it.
You are altogether
irreplaceable in the Mind of God.
No one else can fill your part in it, and while you leave your part of it
empty your eternal place merely waits for your return. God, through His
Voice
(the Holy Spirit, right there in our right mind),
re-minds you of it, and God Himself keeps your extensions
(such as love, peace, joy, blessing, that we give to, or share with, our
brothers)
safe within it. Yet
you do not know them until you return to them.
You cannot replace the Kingdom
(of Heaven with a counterfeit, ever-changing, three-dimensional substitute),
and you cannot replace yourself
(i.e., our true, eternal, unlimited Being, with a limited, little,
mortal substitute).
God, Who knows your value, would not have it so, and so it is not so
(though we can dream an illusion of it being so, because we have free will).
Your value is in God’s Mind, and therefore not in yours alone. To
accept yourself as God created you cannot be arrogance, because it is the
denial of arrogance. To accept your littleness is arrogant,
because it means that you (mistakenly)
believe your evaluation
of yourself is truer than God’s.
Ask the Holy Spirit
what it
(our value)
is and He will tell
you, but do not be afraid of His answer, because it comes from God.
(Most of the fragments of the Sonship, languishing in a state of spiritual
darkness — time and place — are fearful of God, Who is the Light; but God is
also Love, and so our fear, coming from ego which has no foundation in
truth, is entirely unfounded.)
It is an exalted answer
because of its Source, but the Source is true and so is Its answer. Listen
and do not question what you hear, for God does not deceive. He would
have you replace the ego’s belief in littleness with His Own exalted Answer
to what you are, so that you can cease to question it and know it for what
it is.
(My emboldening and some italics, for emphasis)
After reading this I decided to take Jesus at His word and ask the
Holy Spirit for His evaluation of me. Here is the transcript of that
communion:
AM November 28, 2009
Good morning, beloved Self .
Good morning, beloved.
Jesus counsels that we ask You for Your
evaluation of us, not to be afraid of it, because it comes from Papa; that
it is exalted, because of its Source, and therefore true. I have a
sense of my value in and to the Sonship but have been concerned that
arrogance — ego-driven — might get in and distort it. But after reading T-
9.VIII, I feel more able to ask, because it is being more honest and open
with myself. So, over to You because I feel that this will help remove some
blocks to hearing You that I seem to have placed between us.
Let us examine some truths, some realities that you already know,
because Jesus has told you, and you have already accepted them as so: you
and he are brothers in the Sonship; co-equal, for the Sonship is
equality, as created by Papa. You accept Jesus' grandeur, without
hesitation; in fact, you witness to it at every opportunity. You accept
Jesus’ statements about co-equality, therefore acknowledging that you are —
must be — everything he has shown himself to be. You accept that you
will do the works he did and greater works because he returned to
Papa, so that he might, from there, release you from the chains that once
bound you, prevented you from realising, performing, those works
— works which can only come from a mind
that knows Itself in truth. All that is fine.
Now comes the area of uncertainty for you: When will all this be
manifest in you? Concern yourself not with When. When is
of time, and time is an illusion. Such uncertainty is, as you know,
ego, clinging to your coat-tails, hanging on for dear life. Yet, here is a
chink of light: you know of a certainty, that I am performing this release
for you; that of yourself this is not possible because your
apparent self — persona B
—
is not the real you. But pB is, in accordance with his one true function
—
just as was Jesus — a communication device, for the
Spirit of Truth to communicate the Truth of Eternity, to his brethren in the
Sonship. By this mechanism, they can hear, and without such mechanisms, how
would the somnambulist brethren be able to hear, when they wear earplugs,
that their slumbering may be undisturbed by the truth of their eternal
reality?
You are being led — by One Who cannot fail, because He is of God — one step
at a time, to fulfilment of Jesus’ promise about greater works. This has
to be one step at a time, for the remnants of ego still in you cause fear of
change, especially your movement toward the Light. So the change has to be
subtle, almost imperceptible to casual observation. It is one thing to have
a Leader, Who leads you to Truth; it is another to follow that
Leader. How well have you been doing following that Leader? Be honest with
yourself.
I believe I have been steadfast, at least
within my heart, my desire, even if there have been times when outward signs
of that following were causing apparent lapses.
I am glad you said apparent. Steadfastness is in the heart, not in
outward appearances. How many times have you heard
— and used
— the term "One step at a time"?
Hundreds, if not thousands.
Do you believe this applies meaningfully in this context?
Yes, absolutely.
Then seek not to acquire grandeur. That is already yours,
because Papa gave it to you, forever. What is yours needs no outer display;
it simply is. As with bodily parts, you do not need to boast of, or
display the fact that you have a thumb, or an ear. It simply is so, just as
with all your brothers. To seek grandeur impatiently is an act of belief in
littleness. That is not who you are, so why seek to demonstrate
—
to yourself or any other —
that you are what you are not? Rest in the surety that you already
are Who you Are, and cannot not be, and that One Who knows the truth
is leading you, waking you to that eternal, unchangeable reality. And you
are, steadfastly, following. So, What
—
never mind the When —
do you believe can be the only
outcome?
Arrival at the only destination, at the
perfect moment, and then forever.
Good answer.
Thank You for being so relentless in Your
focus on Truth and Light.
That is My only function.
Alleluia!
Because of absolute equality within the Sonship of God, whatever is true for
one is also true for all. Awareness of that truth and its experience and
application in our lives comes in response to our desire for it. But to set
‘when’ as a prerequisite for it places a block between us and that awareness
and experience. As Jesus says, ‘Only infinite patience produces immediate
effects.’ (T-5.VI.12.1)
Infinite love,
Brian Longhurst
December 9th
2009
Dear
Friends,
Earlier this week we had a request for prayer for miraculous healing for
Linda, who was very badly injured in a car accident; please see case #13 on
the Prayers for Healing page for
details.
Healing is not wholeness, but it is a step toward wholeness. Wholeness is
not broken, or fragmented, or separated; it does not need healing because it
is completeness, a state of Being that is entirely unified.
In relaying that request for healing for Linda I wrote:
...Let us give thanks for the life of Linda, and give her
wholeness, which is ours to give because God has given it to us at our
creation, so it is irreversibly, irrevocably ours. It makes no difference
if any of us are consciously unaware of that wholeness; it is still
eternally ours, and giving it, with thanks, to Linda serves as a wonderful
reminder to us that it is ours, and thus are we able to freely give
it to Linda. We are all inextricably one in the Sonship of God, our Father
Creator, and so what we give to another, we give to ourself. This provides
a big step on the Path back to remembrance of our wholeness.
Of course we have to be practical in such matters; we can only do what we
believe is doable, and most of humanity feels utterly helpless in a
disaster. This is just how ego wants us to feel, and affirms our mistaken
belief in littleness. But we don’t have to feel little and helpless,
a negative state of mind, when we can, instead, remind ourself Who we are,
and own the wholeness that is rightfully ours, so that we can know it
truly is ours to give.
The misperception of littleness and helplessness appears to be a
block, an obstacle, to our ability, our will to give what we do not
appear to have. But appearances can be deceptive. In fact, they are
deceptive because appearances are perceived with our split-off, upside-down
mind, and are nothing to do with, and the opposite of, our right minded
awareness, understanding and knowing.
Jesus was not deceived by appearances when he raised Jairus’ daughter from
the ‘dead’. He told the mourners that she was not dead, but sleeping. The
mourners, who were perceiving with their ego-controlled, split-off mind,
were in no doubt that the 12-year old girl was dead, and laughed him to
scorn. How did Jesus respond? He said to Jairus,
Be not afraid, only believe (Mk. 5: 36),
an admonition we would all benefit from by heeding.
Jesus did not doubt, because ego had no part in him, and he saw past the
illusion of death to the truth of who we, including the young girl, really
are. That is faith beyond all doubting; a total, unflinching certainty of
knowing. The rest is history; the record states:
And he took the damsel by the hand, and said unto her, Talitha cumi; which
is, being interpreted, Damsel, I say unto thee, arise. And straightway the
damsel arose, and walked; for she was of the age of twelve years. And they
were astonished with a great astonishment. (Mk. 5:41, 42).
We cannot awaken to, or arrive at, our unavoidable destination of wholeness
without taking a first step. We do not take that step alone. The Holy
Spirit is with us every moment, and He knows the way, unerringly. So, we
entrust ourself into His care. We do not perceive wholeness with our bodily
senses, so we have to engage faith and trust as we take that step. Using
the giving of wholeness to another as an example, we could say:
‘Okay, Holy Spirit, I am taking you on trust because I
truly want to believe, even though my eyes and ears are telling me I am
little, mortal, limited, and my mind is doubtful of it being otherwise. But
I am willing to acknowledge that all things are not known to me, and I
really desire wholeness, so I could spread it around amongst my
fellows, and see fear dissolve from our lives, and love, peace, joy and
limitlessness take its place.
So, in faith and trust I am going to give the wholeness —
an end to doubt and uncertainty about Who I really am — that I truly want to
believe is mine to You, so that on my behalf — because in some way I don’t
yet fully understand, You and I are one — You can give it to (Linda, or
whoever sees themselves as broken). I am taking on trust Jesus’ statement
that in the reality of Eternity — which I accept is now, not in the future —
when we give to another we give to ourself because we are all one.’
It is worth keeping in mind that we do not need to have conscious awareness
of the outcome or its timing, for that is the function of the Holy Spirit.
Our only function is our willingness to believe it and to give it,
with a grateful heart, and nothing more. This provides an opportunity to
further demonstrate our willingness to trust Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
Here is what Jesus says about this in chapter 11 of ACIM, section II:
II. The Invitation
to Healing
If sickness is separation, the decision to heal and to be healed is the
first step toward recognizing what you truly want
(wholeness).
Every attack
(‘attack’ is any judgemental, spiteful, jealous, supercilious, or in any way
unloving thought or deed toward another)
is a step away from
this, and every healing
(loving)
thought brings it
closer. The Son of God has both Father and Son, because he is
both Father and Son.
To unite having and being is to unite
your will with His, for He wills
(gives)
you Himself. And you
will yourself to Him because, in your perfect
(higher, true-Self)
understanding of Him,
you know there is but one Will. Yet when you attack any part of God and His
Kingdom your understanding is not perfect, and what you really want is
therefore lost to you.
Healing thus becomes
a lesson in understanding, and the more you practice it the better teacher
and learner you become.
If you have denied truth
(about ourself and Eternity),
what better witnesses to its reality could you have than those who have been
healed by it? But be sure to count yourself among them
(the witnesses),
for in your willingness to join them is your healing accomplished.
Every miracle that you accomplish speaks to you of the Fatherhood of God.
Every healing
(loving)
thought that you
accept, either from your brother or in your own mind, teaches you that you
are God’s Son.
In every hurtful
thought you hold, wherever you perceive it, lies the denial of God’s
Fatherhood and of your Sonship
(and thus, the continuance of littleness and mortality being our perceived
reality).
And denial is as total
as love. You cannot deny part of yourself, because the rest will seem to be
separate and therefore without meaning. And being without meaning to you,
you will not understand it. To deny meaning is to fail to understand. You
can heal only yourself, for only God’s Son needs healing
(and we are all His Son, so giving wholeness to ‘another’ is giving it to
ourself).
You need it because you do not understand yourself, and therefore know not
what you do. Having forgotten your will, you do not know what you really
want
(and in spite of whatever ego may be shouting in our ear, we really do
want wholeness — the Holy Spirit’s definition thereof, not ego’s).
Healing is a sign that
you want to make whole
(Jesus healed, and he wants to make us whole more than anything. Our
destiny is to become like him).
And this willingness opens your ears to the Voice of the Holy Spirit,
Whose message is wholeness. He will enable you to go far beyond the
healing you would undertake, for beside your small willingness to
make whole He will lay His Own complete Will and make yours whole.
What
can the Son of God not accomplish with the Fatherhood of God in him?
And yet the invitation must come from you, for you have surely
learned that whom you invite as your guest will abide with you.
The Holy Spirit cannot
speak to an unwelcoming host, because He will not be heard. The Eternal
Guest remains, but His Voice grows faint in alien
(distraction-bent ego)
company. He needs your
protection, only because your care is a sign that you want Him.
Think like Him ever so slightly, and the little spark becomes a blazing
light that fills your mind so that He becomes your only Guest.
Whenever
you ask the ego to enter, you lessen His welcome. He
(the Holy Spirit)
will remain, but you
have allied yourself
(with ego)
against Him. Whatever
journey you choose to take, He will go with you, waiting
(with infinite patience, always).
You can safely trust His patience, for He cannot leave a part of God
(and we are a part of God).
Yet you need far
more than patience.
You will never rest
until you know your function and fulfill it, for only in this can your will
and your Father’s be wholly joined.
To have Him is to be like Him, and He has given Himself to you. You
who have God must be as God, for His function became yours
with His gift. Invite this knowledge back into your mind, and let
nothing that obscures it enter.
The Guest Whom God sent you will teach
you how to do this, if you but recognize the little spark and are willing to
let it grow. Your willingness need not be perfect, because His is.
If you will merely offer Him a little place
(in our mind),
He will lighten it so much that you will gladly let it be increased.
And by this increase, you will begin to remember
(God’s eternal)
creation
(as distinct from the illusion of time and place).
Would you be hostage
to the ego or host to God?
You will accept only whom you invite. You are free to determine who
shall be your guest, and how long he shall remain with you. Yet this is not
real freedom, for it still depends on how you
(choose to)
see it. The Holy
Spirit is there, although He cannot help you without your invitation.
And the ego is nothing, whether you invite it in or not.
Real freedom
depends on welcoming reality, and of your guests only the Holy Spirit
is real. Know, then, Who abides with you merely by recognizing what
is there already, and do not be satisfied with imaginary comforters, for
the Comforter of God is in you.
(My emboldening, underlining and some italics, for emphasis.)
We give wholeness to another rather than just healing because
wholeness is all-encompassing, not limiting, so that the Holy Spirit can
then use whatever part(s) of our gift He knows is right for that other
person according to their requirements and readiness of the moment.
I give you: wholeness
J
Brian Longhurst
December 16th
2009
Dear Friends,
If a six-year old child asks to be given the truth, a good teacher will say
Yes, and begin to teach him the truth. But a six-year old cannot
receive all truth, the whole truth, in one lesson or in one grade-year. The
Teacher knows this, and teaches what the child is able to receive, accept
and assimilate in that year, one step at a time. He then is ready to move
up a level, or year. And so the teaching/learning process builds upon
itself, one level upon another, until the process of teaching/learning the
whole truth of Eternity is complete.
If the child says ‘I want it all now or I will not be able to accept that
the teacher knows the whole truth, and therefore cannot be a true, reliable,
trustworthy teacher’, then the child’s perception is flawed. But we know
the child’s perception is flawed, or incomplete, anyway, because a six-year
old has not had the time or experience to develop the faculty for enlarged —
let alone complete — understanding.
We enter, or re-enter, the illusory realm of time and place — the separation
consciousness — with the disadvantage of having forgotten everything. That
disadvantage is actually much greater than might at first appear, for what
we have forgotten is the reality of Eternity and our true and rightful place
within It. That reality is esoteric, or hidden; of the within. It
is not able to be discerned with our bodily, or time-and-place, senses or
faculties because they are designed for perception only of the exoteric:
things that are pertaining to the outside, or without; exterior; external.
And everything of time and place is exoteric. This is perceived, generation
after generation, as reality, and so is taught to succeeding generations as
reality.
So from day one of each new incarnation we are starting off on the wrong
foot. This is ego’s ploy, designed to keep us going round and round
indefinitely on the illusory carousel of birth and death, stuck in the
unreal consciousness of time and place. Time and place is the consciousness
of ego, which has no existence in our realm, Eternity, so it has to keep
deceiving us into believing the physical universe is real. So far this has
worked; but all is now in the process of changing.
We absorb all that exoteric dysinformation because it is our basic instinct
to be trusting. But as Jesus said to his friends, ‘Beware the leaven of the
Pharisees’, meaning, don’t trust their false doctrines; it will turn you on
your head and land you in a state of bewilderment; the ‘wilderness’. Then,
after being taught to believe the exact opposite of reality — unreality
— we find it very hard to unlearn it. We need to begin our studies of what
is reality from scratch, just like the six-year old starting grade
school.
That is at least doubly hard because 1) by the time we start, we
wrongly perceive everything exoteric as reality and 2) there are very few
teachers in the without who know much about the within. So, where do we
find a trustworthy Teacher, who actually knows all about the truth of
Eternity, Which lies within us, contrary to what Scully and Mulder
believe? J.
Fortunately, there is a fully qualified, trustworthy Teacher, ready and
willing to begin as soon as we are ready. For When the student is ready,
the Teacher cometh. Actually, the Teacher is always there, awaiting the
student’s readiness.
Jesus taught us two thousand years ago that the Kingdom of Heaven (eternal
reality) is within, and assuredly, that is the only place we will
ever find it. As the old saying goes, ‘If we will not go within, we will go
without’. To go without is an error, not a sin. Just as Jesus told us at
the start of the second measure of meal, he was going to send us another
Comforter, Who would reveal to us all things.
Here are the 4 quotes from John’s gospel concerning that Comforter:
Jn 14:16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another
Comforter, that he may abide with
(in)
you for ever;
Jn 14:26 But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will
send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to
your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.
Jn 15:26 But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the
Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father,
he shall testify of me:
Jn 16:7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go
away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I
depart, I will send him unto you.
No doubt most of us believe Jesus knows more about these matters of
Eternity, and of how we can learn or remember them, than we do. Yet how
many of us are prepared to follow his guidance? It is assuredly few — at
this early stage in the third measure of meal — because so many false
doctrines (leaven of which to beware) have been preached about him for so
long. But his counsel to enter into our closet and
pray/speak/commune/attune with the Father in secret is the way in which we
can obviate those false doctrines and get to the core of the truth of
Eternity.
The Holy Spirit does not just dwell within us forever; He is our true
reality, which, just like Jesus, is one with the Father, and our true Self
will not only disabuse us of our mistaken beliefs or errors, He will
reinterpret them for us into the truth which we have obscured from our
awareness, by the exoteric distractions of the without, for so long.
Here is what Jesus says about this in section I of chapter 12 of ACIM:
I. The Judgment of
the Holy Spirit
You have been told not to make error
(misperception)
real, and the way to do this is
very simple. If you want to believe in error, you would have to make
it real because it is not true. But truth is real in its own right, and to
believe in truth you do not have to do anything. Understand that you
do not respond to anything directly, but to your interpretation of
it. Your interpretation thus becomes the justification for the
response.
That is why analyzing the
motives of others is hazardous to you. If you decide that someone is really
trying to attack you or desert you or enslave you, you will respond as if he
had actually done so, having made his error real to you.
To interpret error is to give it power, and having done this you will
overlook truth.
The analysis of ego motivation
(to convince us that time and place is reality, and is our kingdom, separate
from our Creator)
is very complicated, very
obscuring, and never without your own ego involvement. This is
shown by the fact that you react to your interpretations as if they were
correct. You may then control your reactions behaviorally, but not
emotionally. This would obviously be a split or an attack on the integrity
of your mind, pitting one level within it against another.
There is but one interpretation of motivation that makes any sense. And
because it is the Holy Spirit’s judgment it requires no effort at all on
your part. Every loving thought is true. Everything else is an
appeal for healing and help, regardless of the form it takes
(unloving thoughts, judgements, attacks).
Can anyone be justified in responding with anger to a brother’s plea for
help? No response can be appropriate except the willingness to give it to
him, for this and only this is what he is asking for
(in spite of appearances to the contrary).
Offer him anything else, and you are assuming the right to attack his
(true)
reality by interpreting it as you see fit
(incorrectly).
Perhaps the danger of this to your own mind is not yet fully apparent. If
you believe that an appeal for help is something else
(an attack)
you will react to something else. Your response will therefore be
inappropriate to reality as it
(actually)
is, but not to your perception of it.
There is nothing
(except ego, which is nothing)
to prevent you from recognizing all calls for help as exactly what they are
except your own imagined need to attack
(as a ‘defence’ against a perceived ‘attack’, which is actually a plea for
help).
It is only this that makes you willing to engage in endless “battles” with
reality, in which you deny the reality of the need for healing by making it
(the need for healing)
unreal. You would not do this except for your unwillingness to accept
reality as it is
(due to ego distortion of our perception), and which you
therefore withhold from yourself.
It is surely good advice to tell you not to judge what you do not understand
(though under ego persuasion we do this myriad times each day).
No one with a personal investment is a reliable witness, for truth to him
has become what he wants it to be. If you are unwilling to perceive an
appeal for help as what it is
(but perceive it instead as attack),
it is because you are unwilling to give help and to receive it. To
fail to recognize a call for help is to refuse help. Would you maintain
that you do not need it? Yet this is what you are maintaining
when you refuse to recognize a brother’s appeal, for only by answering his
appeal can you be helped. Deny him your help and you will not
recognize God’s Answer
(the Holy Spirit)
to you. The Holy Spirit does not need your help in interpreting motivation,
but you do need His.
Only appreciation is an appropriate response to your brother.
Gratitude is due him for both his loving thoughts and his appeals
for help, for both are capable of bringing love into your awareness if you
perceive them truly. And all your sense of strain comes from your
attempts not to do just this.
(Truly, ego’s yoke is burdensome and uncomfortable; deadly, in fact.)
How simple, then, is God’s plan for salvation. There is but one response to
reality, for reality evokes no conflict at all. There is but one Teacher of
reality, Who understands what it is. He does not change His Mind about
reality because reality does not change.
Although your interpretations of reality are meaningless in your divided
state, His remain consistently true. He gives them to you because they are
for you. Do not attempt to “help” a brother in your
(ego-dominated, wrong-minded)
way, for you cannot help yourself
(any who doubt the veracity of this statement might try watching the news).
But hear his call
(which is likely to be disguised as attack, for that is how ego-dominated
minds call for help, because they perceive everything upside down)
for the Help of God, and you will recognize your own need for the Father...
For the sake of your need, then, hear every call for help as what it is, so
God can answer you.
By applying the Holy Spirit’s interpretation of the reactions of others more
and more consistently, you will gain an increasing awareness that His
criteria are equally applicable to you. For to recognize fear is not
enough to escape from it, although the recognition is necessary to
demonstrate the need for escape. The Holy Spirit must still
translate the fear into truth
(thus releasing us from fear into peace).
If you were left with the fear, once you had recognized it, you would
have taken a step away from reality, not towards it.
Yet we have repeatedly emphasized the need to recognize fear and face it
without disguise as a crucial step in the undoing of the ego. Consider how
well the Holy Spirit’s interpretation of the motives of others will serve
you then. Having taught you to accept only loving thoughts in others and
to regard everything else as an appeal for help, He has taught you that
fear itself is an appeal for help. This is what recognizing fear
really means. If you do not protect it
(fear),
He will reinterpret it
(as a call for love). That is the
ultimate value in learning to perceive attack as a call for love... If
only attack produces fear, and if you see attack as the call for help that
it is, the unreality of fear must dawn on you. For fear is a
call for love, in unconscious recognition of what has been denied.
Fear is a symptom of your own deep sense of loss
(of the Love of the Father for His Son).
If when you perceive it in others you learn to supply the loss,
the basic cause of fear is removed. Thereby you teach yourself that
fear does not exist in you. The means
(love)
for removing it is in yourself, and you have demonstrated this by giving
it...
If you would look upon love, which is the world’s reality, how
could you do better than to recognize, in every defense against it, the
underlying appeal for it? And how could you better learn of
its reality than by answering the appeal for it by giving it?
The Holy Spirit’s interpretation of fear
(a call for love)
does dispel it, for the awareness of truth cannot be denied. Thus does the
Holy Spirit replace fear with love and translate error into truth. And thus
will you learn of Him how to replace your dream of separation with the fact
of unity. For the separation is only the denial of union, and correctly
interpreted, attests to your eternal knowledge that union is true.
(My emboldening, underlining and some italics, for emphasis.)
All this is actually already known to us and accomplished in us because the
separation, littleness, forgetfulness is a dream, and dreams have no reality
when we wake from them and realise nothing in reality changed as a result of
a momentary dream.
Hark! The wake-up Call is sounding even as we read these words. Alleluia!
Brian Longhurst
December 23rd
2009
Dear Friends,
The world speaks of this time of year as the holy season, or the season of
good will. This can only denote that there must be unholy seasons,
or seasons of ill will. This perpetuates the duality, or separation
consciousness of time and place. In Eternity, there cannot be a holy season
because there is only holiness. Holiness is not piety but joy,
peace, love unending, which is wholeness, undividedness, oneness. Is there
one amongst us who does not earnestly desire this on Earth?
Where can we begin to realise that as our reality other than our own within
from where it emanates outwards, just as it did from Jesus when he walked
the Earth? That is the only way we can experience the Kingdom of Heaven on
Earth, or ‘the real world’ as he calls it in ACIM.
Most of us believe we must change the world, but Jesus counsels us that
changing our mind about the world changes the world because all creation is
in our mind. The fear, chaos, disarray, madness we see is not permanent but
changeable, and therefore not real because only the eternal is real and
unchangeable.
By steadfastly choosing to see our reality only as being like our Creator —
joy, peace and love — we can extend that Being until that is all we see in
our brothers in the Sonship. Then is our true, single vision restored to us
and we see oneness, wholeness, holiness as all there is. Unholiness is no
longer part of our awareness, and ceases to appear as part of our reality.
Ego, whose existence depends on our perceiving only the without, has caused
us to be fearful of going within because we believe we will come into
contact with God, Jesus and/or the Holy Spirit, Who will judge and condemn
us for our sins. And life here in time and place is fearful enough without
Them making it exponentially worse. So let’s do everything we can to shut
Them out of our life, and put off the inevitable for as long as possible.
But none of that is true, of course; God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are
Love, Peace and Joy unending, with no judgement or condemnation. The Holy
Spirit, our true Self, is within us (where else might He be!?) and will
commune lovingly, openly, truthfully, gently, tenderly, with disarming
humour and candour — as apposite — whenever we are willing to allow Him to
enter our thoughts. Then, one step at a time, as we become more relaxed and
comfortable — less fearful and doubtful — in His presence, He will reveal to
us the truth of eternal reality and our rightful, glorious place in it.
What better gift to transform this season into holiness (love, peace and
joy) could any of us truly desire? For the encouragement of all who truly
seek after God and earnestly desire the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, here is
a recent communion exchange with the Holy Spirit. May it help to ease any
concerns that engaging with the Holy Spirit within is a fearful, heretical
endeavour, to be eschewed at all cost:
A.M. December 21st 2009
Dear, beloved Self: the more I read/study
ACIM, the more I am in awe at its message; and filled with love, joy and
unspeakable gratitude toward my brother Jesus. Truly, he is the Anointed
Messenger of the Holy One. And the more committed I become to remembering,
understanding, becoming one with the eternal truth and reality that it so
beautifully portrays.
And the more you become
one with him and his mind, which is your mind also. There is no such
thing as ‘his mind and your mind’, as if they were separate entities,
distinct from each other. There is but one mind — Christ Mind —
which is one with the Mind of Papa, from whence came Its creation, and
wherein is Its habitation.
How could it be
otherwise? The choice for separation could never really separate,
but it could allow the Son to place a mental blind between the reality of
his Being and the illusion of separation. But to ‘be’ separate required an
appearance of difference. Since reality is all the same,
unchangeable, you had to make the appearance, the illusion, of difference.
And this could only be ‘opposite’; the reverse of reality. This could only
be upside-down, back to front, illogical, insane, unloving; for to be other
would mean to be awake to the oneness of the Son in the Father. Sanity is
awareness and acceptance of reality, which is the Father, so to be
separate from Him can only be insane, in every sense.
The logic of what You say is flawless,
Self...
That is because, when one
has one’s eyes open to reality, one sees reality, and reality is
flawless. How could it be real and eternal, if it were otherwise?
Yet, by contrast, the fabrication of a split-off mind, cannot be
real, because the Mind of the Son is like the Mind of the Father, in Whose
likeness It was created. That Mind is eternal and unchangeable, for to
change perfection would result in imperfection, would it not?
Undeniably so.
For a split-off mind to
make something, it can only be like that which made it, for that is Law,
whether of extension or of projection. Thus, when you project guilt, or
fear, or hate, or attack on to your brother, you project what you believe
you are. It cannot be otherwise. But such projections cannot be real,
because they are not eternal and unchangeable. Like all in time and place,
they are temporal, and pass away when all things temporal have been seen for
what they are. They pass out of awareness, and only that which is real, and
therefore eternal, remains; for that is all there is, and it — reality —
is eternal.
What is eternal cannot
change, for how else could it be eternal?
Thank You, beloved Self, for more of the
same: flawless, logical presentation and demonstration of what is real from
what is unreal.
So, beloved, how do you,
in your as yet not-fully-awake state of mind, distinguish between reality
and unreality?
That has to be, can only be by asking
oneself: Is this — whatever one is considering — eternal or is it temporal?
You see how simple it is,
the Way to Remembrance!? So, when you see that which is temporal, you know
this is an error of perception. To react at all to errors of perception
makes them real for the beholder, even though they have no reality, for
reality is ...?
Eternal and unchangeable!
So, it is just as Jesus
says in ACIM: when you react at all to errors you are not listening to the
Holy Spirit. (T-9.III.4.1).
In a world of distraction, listening to the
Holy Spirit all the time is far from easy, and I know calls for steadfast
commitment even to listen some of the time. Even then, it is not a
five-minute job, but takes, it seems clear, multiple lifetimes.
Within the context of time and place this is a true statement. That is the
only purpose of time. Of course it is not possible to concentrate on
listening to or communing with Self every moment because daily activities
that are necessary to sojourning in time and place do require attention. But
someone who is in love will focus attention subliminally on the loved one
even while attending to daily routines and activities, and on frequent
occasions during the routines of the day that focus emerges into the active
thought processes, bringing joy.
There is none more lovable
than Self, and as you get to know and be more and more at ease — peace
even — with Self, so will the active thoughts of the sojourner engage with
Self with increasing confidence and frequency, because such encounters bring
an exalted state of peace and joy. That’s how it is with love. And
remember, you are never alone; ever. Ask for the Help you need to listen
to, and hear, the Voice for God and It is yours. But let the asking be
sincere, for otherwise, who would be deceived?
Only our persona self.
You see
— the answers come so
easily, and so obviously. This demonstrates that you are listening.
This is because above all, I desire, I will,
above all else, to remember and to know the truth of Eternity once more.
You do not doubt that this
has been well known to Me since afore time. Otherwise, how could we be
communing thusly?
That could be disheartening to someone
nascent on the Path to Wakefulness, because they might say, ‘This is a
journey of countless incarnations; how can I bear to go through all this
time and place stuff over and over again, making such slow — imperceptible —
progress toward Eternity?’
Of course, you already
know the answer to that. So, why don’t you give the answer, right
here, so anyone reading this and having such fearful, or at least
disheartening, thoughts, can be enheartened by it?
Well, several answers come immediately
to mind:
1) How does the enquirer know he has not
already had numerous ‘acts’, or incarnations, seeking after eternal truth?
That will have given him a very encouraging head-start. The likelihood is
that he will have done so, or he would not now be starting to
see through the illusion of time and place and seeking the reality of
Eternity, even if only initially very tentatively.
2) If he doesn’t make a start now, in the
‘present’ act, where will he be when he arrives at the end of this sojourn
in time, and how would that compare with where he would be if he did
make a start now? So, even if further acts are required to arrive at
full awakening, making a renewed start now will put him well ahead of
where he would be at the next act if he didn’t make a start in this one.
3) Time is an illusion, and he, along with
the rest of the Sonship, is already in Eternity. The more progress
he makes in his quest for awakening to truth the more he becomes aware of
the illusory nature of time, and the less it features in his increasingly
right-minded thought processes.
4) Each and every step forward we take toward
the light of remembrance of Who we are results in a further collapsing of
time as that step moves us closer to Eternity. The progress thus becomes
logarithmic rather than arithmetic. And this is ensured because of Your
unfailing Help, which is immeasurably more than anyone focussed within the
time and place consciousness can be aware — until they start to change that
focus from ego’s ‘script’ to Your script.
Well! I think that about covers it, Teach
J.
Nothing really for Me to add at this juncture. But that doesn’t mean I am
going away and leaving you. I am with you always, even unto the end of
time. As well you know, beloved, I cannot leave you, and would never
want to leave any part of the Sonship, for that would be
separation; and separation is a myth.
With love and blessings to all, until the Season of Goodwill and Holiness is
remembered by all the Sonship as the only season,
Brian Longhurst
December 30th
2009
Dear Friends,
The Keys to the Kingdom lie in giving, in trust and faith that we have
everything and so are able to give everything. In time and place we
appear to be lacking — the scarcity consciousness — so we believe we
are unable to give because we do not have; or if we have (things of time and
place) we believe by giving we are losing. This is the opposite of eternal
truth because God gave us everything — Himself — at our creation.
This is so because God created His Son in His own likeness. And because in
the eternal reality we are all one, we are giving to our Self, so we cannot
lose but only gain. However much giving may include material giving, real
giving is of wholeness. This is a mystical process, in the form of loving,
blessing and forgiving thoughts toward our brothers, and is accomplished by
the Holy Spirit on our behalf, but enabled by our giving. For the
Holy Spirit needs our giving, so that He has it, from us, to give to our
brother. But this must be sincere, from the heart, or it is not giving at
all.
Truth is true whether we are aware of it, or believe it, or not, so from
that perspective it does not matter if we are not consciously aware of
having everything. We do not have the awareness because we have believed
that we do not have it, so lack appears to be our reality. Now is the time
in the GRP of our illusory ‘reality’ changing, realigning with eternal
truth. It has to happen sometime or the GRP cannot be completed, and
it has been stated on previous occasions that the GRP is infallible and
unstoppable, because he who is empowered with all power in Heaven and Earth
is in charge. Now, in the third measure of meal, is the time of
fulfilment. All this requires faith and trust because we are asked to
believe we have what is not apparent to us.
Willingness to commit to faith and trust first in the act of giving leads
to knowing and to experiencing that everything is ours to give,
because Papa gave it to us at our creation. Jesus knew this, so his faith
and trust in Papa were absolute, knowing beyond all doubt. This is how he
was able to perform miracles. At present, our perception is upside down, so
we see everything askew. That is why most of us believe we cannot
perform miracles, so we have made that our ‘reality’. But it is not true,
so it is not the reality. Jesus had remembered the truth and so had
become one with it and was therefore empowered by it and able to demonstrate
it.
He knew it was, and could only be, reality for him by demonstrating it, or
giving truth, wholeness, everything to his brothers in the Sonship.
That is the Law of Eternity. Thus it can only become reality for us again
by realigning ourselves with the Law, just as Jesus did. By giving
everything, or wholeness, we demonstrate — to ourself — that everything is
truly ours. The deception of ego is tricking us into believing we don't
have everything.
By steadfastly refusing to accept that and instead, focussing on the reality
that wholeness is ours, now and for always, because there is
only now, (not just in some conveniently indeterminate future, as ego would
have us believe) — just as Jesus demonstrated — enables/empowers us, once
again, in the act of giving. We have to be willing to believe that
everything — wholeness— is ours and is our brothers’, regardless of flawed
appearances to the contrary.
We then, believing, in faith and trust, give that wholeness to whoever
believes they are lacking wholeness. Wholeness and peace are integral, so
when we believe we are separate, or fragmented, or broken, this may, and
often does, manifest in dis-ease of body or mind. Indeed, a mind that
believes it is separate is in a state of dis-ease. But Jesus refused to
accept the appearance of disease as real because he saw past the illusion to
the fact that we can only be whole because that was, and remains, the
irrectractible gift of our Father Creator. What we accept as truth
becomes our truth and our experience. So accepting wholeness
means it becomes ours.
Giving and receiving are one and the same thing, and occur simultaneously.
To ego-mind that does not appear to be the case, but that is because
ego-mind is upside down and sees only the laws of time and place; the
illusory laws of limitation. All the while we believe what our
flawed perception shows us it will remain ‘reality’ for us. It requires
what at first is, and can only be, blind faith and trust — because we
are blind to the truth of Eternity — to believe the opposite of what
all our time and place senses are telling us, but there are two
transformative and empowering helps to us in this realignment of our
perception:
1) Jesus demonstrated this and told us greater works would be ours if only
we could believe. He could not have demonstrated it if it were not true for
him, and if it was true for him, it cannot be other than true for us, his
brothers.
2) He and the Holy Spirit, our true Self, are with us, right within our
mind, able to inspire our thoughts and reveal truth to us, if we are
willing to believe, in blind faith and trust, and if we ask Their help.
They are willing — eager, in fact — to help, inspire, enlighten and
protect us but because of inalienable freewill, cannot do so unless and
until we ask. If we ask and then do not co-operate, we have withdrawn our
request for Their help, so They can no longer give it.
That seems, to ego mind, like inconsistency on Their part, but the
inconsistency is actually ours. This is where steadfastness pays
dividends. Ego does not do consistency or steadfastness but it does do
projection, so if we find ourself saying ‘Jesus and/or Holy Spirit have let
me down’, we can be sure this is ego-mind perception, and is a projection of
guilt (at our inconsistency) away from ourself onto Them.
Our faith and trust in our own wholeness and empowerment as the Son of God
will grow and become absolute certainty, beyond all doubt, just like Jesus’,
if we are willing to show, demonstrate that we have it by giving it to a
brother who perceives himself as lacking. So, by this act of believing, our
faith and trust grows, and metamorphoses our perceiving into knowing.
Thus our faith and trust becomes absolute, just like Jesus', because we are
one with him in the Sonship.
Wholeness is of Mind, which is the Cause of everything. A split-off
mind made bodies. The whole, restored, reunified Mind knows, remembers
that bodies are not part of eternal reality, so focus on wholeness can
realign from concern about bodies to remembrance of wholeness. Our body
reflects our state of mind, so if our mind is not at ease, it is likely our
body will become ill-at-ease.
It is concern about bodies that causes dis-ease because dis-ease is
loss of peace. Peace is an inextricable attribute and aspect of Life, as is
Joy. So loss or absence of peace leads to its opposite, which is dis-ease,
just as absence of light is darkness. The absence of peace — dis-ease —
leads to the apparent loss of life, or death. Life is Love, which is Papa,
and cannot be separated from Joy and Peace. Fear is the opposite of Love,
so fear is ego, which is loss of Love, Peace and Joy, which means
dis-ease and death. If we will to break the cycle of birth and death, we
will do well to focus on the principle of wholeness and leave the
details to the Holy Spirit regarding our well-being.
This is not copping out, opting out or abdicating our responsibility to
ourself because the Holy Spirit is our real Self, sees only truth and is
therefore immeasurably better equipped to provide for our well-being than
our separated persona-self, which perceives littleness, fear, dis-ease and
death, all of which are illusions.
Wholeness, then, is the true reality of our indivisible Sonship in God, the
denial of which ensures our continuing experience of littleness, dis-ease
and death. Here is how Jesus beautifully reminds us about our real,
undivided Being as Papa’s Son, and its benefits, in this extract from ACIM
T-11.VIII:
...Ask anything of God’s Son and his Father will answer you, for Christ is
not deceived in His Father and His Father is not deceived in Him. Do not,
then, be deceived in your brother, and see only his loving thoughts as his
reality, for by
(steadfastly)
denying that his mind is split you will heal yours.
Accept him as his Father accepts him
(and as Jesus accepted his brethren when he walked the Earth; he did
it and that is our absolute proof that we can, and will do it)
and heal him
unto Christ, for Christ is his healing and yours.
Christ is the Son of God
(the whole Sonship, which includes us all)
Who is in no way separate from His Father, Whose every thought is as loving
as the Thought of His Father by which He was created. Be not deceived in
God’s Son, for thereby you must be deceived in yourself. And being
deceived in yourself you are deceived in your Father, in Whom no deceit is
possible.
In the real world
(the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, which is here with us right now and has
always been; all that is needed for it to become our reality is for us to
attune to it instead of the unreal world of error and death)
there is
no sickness, for there is no separation and no division.
Only loving thoughts are recognized, and because no one is without your
help, the Help of God goes with you everywhere. As you become
willing to accept this Help by asking for It, you will give It because you
want It. Nothing will be beyond your healing power, because nothing
will be denied your simple request. What problems will not disappear in
the Presence of God’s Answer? Ask, then, to learn of the reality of your
brother, because this is what you will perceive in him, and you will see
your beauty reflected in his.
Do not
accept your brother’s variable perception of himself for his split mind is
yours, and you will not accept your healing without his.
For you share the real world as you share Heaven, and his healing is
yours.
(This is telling us plainly that unless and until we see only wholeness in
our brother, we cannot see, or experience, wholeness in ourself, because we
are, indivisibly, one.)
To love yourself is to heal yourself, and you cannot perceive part of you as
sick
(or an unworthy sinner)
and achieve
your goal. Brother, we heal together as we live together and love
together. Be not deceived in God’s Son, for he is one with himself and one
with his Father. Love him who is beloved of his Father, and you will
learn of the Father’s Love for you.
...Would you
not exchange your fears for truth, if the exchange is yours for the asking?
For if God is not deceived in you, you can be deceived only in yourself.
Yet you can learn the truth about yourself from the Holy Spirit,
Who will teach you that, as part of God, deceit in you is impossible.
When you perceive yourself without deceit, you will accept the real world
in place of the false one you have made. And then your Father will
lean down to you and take the last step for you, by raising you unto
Himself.
(My emboldening, underlining and italics, for emphasis.)
Luke 4:18 says:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the
gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach
deliverance to the captives
(of ego), and
recovering of sight to the blind...
Those words were first recorded by Isaiah 28 centuries ago and prophetically
read from that record by Jesus 8 centuries later in his home town synagogue
(as shown from Luke, above). Now, as the leavening of the third measure of
meal gets well under way, we are in the time of fulfilment of them. Could
there possibly be a greater cause for rejoicing?
Brian Longhurst
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