Realizing God's Will Is Oneness

By Rev. Barbara Kraetsch

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Holy Spirit’s Curriculum

In the sum of a person’s life there are many experiences of all types. These range from feelngs of sadness to joy, feelings of displeasure and feelings of unbridled contentment. What do they mean in the end? What were they for? Only Holy Spirit has the meaning for them. For some these candles of experience gently light the way to greater vision. For some these candles light a fire of flames so bright they can be confusing. Are they flames of new vision or so real they burn?

The other day I attended a meditation service given by another minister. During it we were guided to go twenty years in the future to meet our Future Self and receive a message. When I anticipated this experience, I expected to meet a wise and wonderful self full of peace and bliss. Instead I met with sadness and confusion. It was most puzzling to me but I went with it. We were to travel to a future home. I saw my current home which was filled with overwhelming sadness, and I was overcome by the sameness of it. I had expected change. After the meditation, we went through several other processes to come to a descriptive statement about self. As I let Holy Spirit guide me, I was amazed that from the words of sadness and confusion describing the experience, came a most beautiful affirmation of it being my function to question sadness and confusion in order to lead my mind to its sameness in God.

For these last few days, I have been open to the healing that Holy Spirit brings me in looking at sadness and confusion. It was almost as if deeper layers of ego beliefs were brought to the surface now instead of over the next twenty years. It was like a confused thought cluster being brought to the surface of my mind for healing in order to let go of seeing form as real. My ego thought system cajoles me into thinking its time for a holiday, time to take a break from looking at the layers of sadness and confusion. It says sweetly, give it to me, I’ll take care of it, I’ll hide it deeper where we won’t have to look at it. Of course, this is a holiday of hell and of no help whatsoever.

As deeper layers of false but entrenched beliefs come to the surface, it can be disconcerting and temporarily painful. The ego loves to hide the unforgiveness, confusion and guilt that is the result of accepting it as real. And when this comes up for healing, it is not so pleasant to look at and experience, and can at moments feel overwhelming. It is at these moments that I must really look at the stubborn ego and pride that I made real for myself over eons of time. But if I don’t let the sadness bubble up, look at it and own it, I cannot let it go completely. Holy Spirit does bring beliefs to my attention so that I can stand in the fire with them and Him so that they can be burned away. If I am willing to look without judgment at what I see and feel, giving all to Holy Spirit, then the conditions of my mind can be changed. The deeper levels that were hidden to me can come to light and disappear in truth. The ego wants to hold onto grievances forever, holding them to me with the glue of guilt. Only Holy Spirit can undo this and clean my mind of all traces of belief in separation.

Others in the group meditation all had a lovely trip. I joked that I was the only one that needed to go to the bad trip tent with Holy Spirit, but in fact I am quite grateful that I experienced deeper layers of my unhealed mind. Holy Spirit never says to me that my mess is too messy for Him. When I look at my experiences with Him instead of ego, there is always true help. Holy Spirit tells me to come on into the healing tent where my life experiences, with all their feelings, can be let go of with ease. The healing tent shows me the truth that comes from looking at everything with Holy Spirit in a light-hearted way. I made the judgment that illusion is real, but what I made has no force and Holy Spirit undoes it. As I honestly admit that I hide ego junk in my mind, but am grateful when it is shown to me, I allow Holy Spirit to do His healing work freely.

My life is my cirriculum, the circumstances where I practice letting go of the barriers to love. I used to think the cirriculum to learn was the words and concepts in ACIM. I see now that it is not just the words but also the circumstances of my life. It is in my relationships with self, others and things where I learn to let go of the barriers to the awareness of love’s presence. The story of my life is my cirriculum to remember love. As I embrace the cirriculum, I see it’s for my benefit and my healing. It is not fearful, nor too stressful, and not suffering and sacrifice. It is a blessing in disguise of illusion. As I learn to let go of my rigid ego expectations and beliefs by remembering to admit I have no answers and ask for help, I feel peace and acceptance. Hiding never helps because its a game of separation. Opening to what is and placing it unashamedly on my inner altar unifies.

Yes, I am grateful to be shown sadness and confusion in my meditation. It is a golden opportunity to practice giving it to Holy Spirit for healing. All mistaken thinking can be let go when I admit my mistake without judgment and surrender it to The Healer. The sum of all the experiences of my life, and all their feelings, add up to my healing journey. Holy Spirit sometimes gently lights my way and sometimes I seem to stand in the fire with Him. The happy news is that only the illusion is burned away. I am not burned in the flame, I am saved.

© 2005, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Barbara Kraetsch.

Only Love Is Real

Sometimes there are parts of life that seem bleak. Of course, there are those times we all don’t feel loved or appreciated. There are times when we don’t seem to have it all together and even small problems seem daunting, things just aren’t going our way. These times seem different from others when we feel happy and life is smooth sailing. Why do some days we wake up happy and some days sort of feeling off-kilter from which we can’t seem to recover? For some the days of feeling all is not well stretch into a period of time which seems to grow bleak and unbearable, and that is primarily what they focus on. For some, the unbearable life is ended.

Yesterday at my weekly prayer group, someone mentioned a nearby high school where a sophomore cheerleader had very recently commited suicide. Someone’s daughter knew the cheerleader’s younger sister. We prayed and sent love and light to all involved. The mention of her suicide brought to mind the funeral I had attended last spring for my sister-in-law’s nephew, a nineteen year old’s suicide.

What impressed me so much at that time was the minister’s message to all the young people present. The parents’ minister from their church would not officiate at the funeral because of the suicide. The “fill-in” minister spoke to the hearts of the young people, offering a beautiful message of hope, understanding and encouragement to go beyond grief to healing and looking at the purpose of life - which is love. He was very wise. Afterward I told him how much he had helped the family and all the young people present by his inspired message about the importance of remembering love. He had focused on the love of the young man’s life, family and friends, not the tragedy.

The young people seemed so hungry to make sense of their friend’s death. It was unexpected and puzzling to them. But, some of us make the ego so real and feel so tormented by it that we simply can’t stand it and want out. Now! Right now! Some remain living in body but feel dead when they have lost hope, and feel only sorrow. What difference about whether the body moves or not, rages or not, arms itself with weapons to kill or carries flowers of grief. What is real? Not all the coffins and flowers at funeral homes crowded with mourners, not the feelings of despair, grief, abandonment and guilt, and not the questions that seem to have no answers. What is real? Only the love present is real.

In the face of seeming tragedies, the product of despair, what can we affirm as real? Only love. That is all. The only thing real about the young man’s life and funeral was the love of all the teens and twenty-somethings for their friend who died so suddently. The love of his parents, brother, family, and friends. And the love for them. As the family and friends of the young man were led to remembr love instead of despair, their lives were forever changed. I know the family has been compelled to face their own beliefs of the meaning of life. No doubt the young man’s death compelled many young people to look at the meaning of life and the meaning of love. The young man helped many to remember to open their minds to God’s presence. Instead of being condemned that day, his life was honored, his love remembered.

As I and others spoke words of encouragement and comfort to all the family I know so well, and as I watched the procession of young people pay their respects, listened to the eulogies and minister, I was taken with the awareness of Love’s Presence in the room. It was powerfully affecting. It was healing. As I look back at the event, I always look at the reality of the love present. I do not remember the grief and tears as much as the overwhelming presence of love and appreciation of love. I had spent holiday dinners with this young man. He was loving and loved. His presence of love made a difference. Sometimes we cannot understand these bleak times of ego despair. Perhaps he heard the Call of Love so strongly he felt he had to go. I cannot understand and there is no need to try. I content myself with knowing and remembering only love.

I send the same remembering to all my brothers and sisters, young and old, who attack the body/ego for the last time of their body life. As I remember the love in one, I remember it in all. I remember their true Identity with them now. We are one in Love. That is all that is important. And I know that my remembering love helps, extending love helps. Extending love always helps.

I write this to honor every life. No matter the circumstances or events, every life is filled with love. In remembering only the love, we honor our brothers and sisters in Christ. We can honor those departed and the living in body equally. No matter what illusion of sorrow or despair seems present, let us honor every life by remembering that only the love about them is real. All are one in God. Today I am called to remember to honor oneness of love in all true living things. Please join with me in honoring the oneness we share with true life.

© 2005, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Barbara Kraetsch.

Holy Spirit - The Healer of All Illusion

Recently I had quite a case of the flu in my little dream world. As I lay in my bed, I wondered which part of my mind made this story and for what reason, but I let go of this wondering as it didn’t seem important somehow. The dream of sickness just was and I surrendered to it. Even during some of the more violent symptoms, I kept telling myself that they weren’t real even though in the illusion they seemed to be. The illusion is always with us as long as we are in a body. There is no escape from it, nor need we think of escape because there is nothing to escape from. As the days stretched on into over a week of illness, I found myself looking at the illusion of the world in quite a different way than I had before.

I recognized I had been feeling conflicted and lacking in time and energy before Christmas. I actually didn’t mind laying in bed, although the pain was not welcome. Certainly I made the sickness of body, but I felt no blame or guilt. I accepted the sickness as just part of the illusion and gave it to Holy Spirit to sort out. I felt there was nothing to fix and no need to ask for physical healing of any sort because the sickness wasn’t real. I didn’t struggle with it at all, but rather believed it was happening for my benefit because the Holy Spirit could use it for my greater healing.

Over the course of time I came to some powerful realizations about walking through the illusion with greater ease no matter whether there is pain in the body, illness, or any other part of life that could be described as unpleasant. I really learned that these moments are no different than others in which the body feels comfort or pleasure. The illusion is the illusion. There is only of God in my mind in truth. There is always the place of peace in my mind. This is all that is real. Everything in body life is illusion and unreal. There is nothing in body life to fix.

As I apply this to my whole life, I feel a great burden has been lifted. I feel more relaxed about life. There is nothing to fix in my life, nor in anyone elses. The illusion will always be there, but I can walk through it without giving it a lot of attention or feeling that I ought to do something to make it better or change its appearance because of guilt. That is a foolish waste of my time, along with feeling any guilt or blame for how the dream appears. The dream appears from the subconscious mind as well as the conscious mind. Some of the dream seems mysterious in nature, but all is used for great purpose by Holy Spirit. Even then, it is not real. Holy Spirit does not make the illusion real even though He uses it to good purpose for my healing. I can walk through what my mind has made and presented to me as real without blame or guilt because that is not the appropriate response to what I see. The appropriate response is just to see illusion as illusion.

As I let go of feeling any need to fix whatever I see, I can ask Holy Spfirit if there is anything I can do to be helpful. If there is nothing truly helpful, I continue to walk on recognizing the unreality but not trying to change it. When there is something truly helpful, Holy Spirit will stop me and show me what that is. He is only too happy to do so. What an incredible burden is lifted from me I proceed in life this way. No need to fret over disasters, medical conditions, attitudes, habits, lifestyles, or any seeming problem in the dream, in myself or anyone else. How can I fix what isn’t real? Why should I try? Why even bother paying much attention to all of it unless I am guided to something truly helpful? Rather than thinking this is unfeeling or uncaring, I am finding this quite freeing. I can truly trust Holy Spirit to provide the really helpful.

In every moment I have a choice to focus on the unreality of body life or the reality that there is only of God and nothing else. And just because I choose for a moment to focus on body life doesn’t change the reality that everything is of God and that is all that’s real and it needs no fixing. As I look at every person, circumstance or event, that is my response - there is nothing in front of me that needs fixing. The Son of God does not require fixing. The helpful thing is always to affirm for my brother that he is capable of listening to Holy Spirit and that he does already (although we could all listen more) and encourage him to continue. There is nothing else I can do unless Holy Spirit tells me what that might be. Ego attitudes do not need to change or be worked on for that is like trying to understand conflict that Jesus advises us not to do because conflict is not understandable. The ego is not understandable, the dream is not understandable, because its not real.

It is unworthy of the Son of God to label him as a broken ego or body that requires fixing. My brother is not this and neither am I. The body stories make no difference, no difference at all, big ones or little ones are all the same, meaningless in reality. This insight brings me such peace and release and healing from the dis-ease of perfectionism or trying to make body life conform to certain standards or ideals of circumstance of behavior defined as sufficiently good. There is no ease in living according to ego or body expectations. All such expectations are false, but there is no need to condemn ourselves for falling prey to them. There is no need to fix them. There is only the letting go of them, of giving them any importance.

As I withdraw from the importance of ego ideas and body life, that doesn’t mean it disappears - at least not right away! There it still is. I learned this while I had the flu. The body symptoms remained for a time, but is was okay somehow. I merely accepted them as part of the dream I walked through and returned again to the importance of the truth. I don’t have to make the body life disappear to reflect on truth. It is not necessary to have a pain-free or problem-free life to reflect on truth.

One can reflect on truth no matter what the circumstances or events. Holy Spirit can work through them all quite effectively. If seeming physical sickness or problems do not immeditately disappear, this does not mean we are doing something wrong, thinking incorrectly, or not getting the program. It simply means the illusion is the illusion. The illusion does not have to change in order to see truth. One looks through the illusion to see truth, the appearance of the illusion makes no difference. Body sickness or wellness makes no difference. It is the mind that is well when it rests in Holy Spirit’s awareness of the peace of God. This is all that is important. The illusion doesn’t need fixing. I just let it be what it is without struggle because it’s unimportant and then let Holy Spirit guide my actions.

Right now, I feel grateful that I had this illness episode because what I learned is so valuable to me. We truly cannot know what is valuable and valueless without Holy Spirit’s help. He is truly the Teacher as we walk in the world of illusion. He is the Navigator Who helps us as we stumble along seeking the way. He shows us the pathway to truth as we invite Him to do so. He sorts it all out and lights the way to wellness in the mind. This is true healing - the only kind worth having. He is the Healer of all illusion, not the changer of illusion. His healing work is truly helpful, let ours be as well.

© 2005, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

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Posted by Rev. Barbara Kraetsch.

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