Realizing God's Will Is Oneness

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Recapturing My Treasure

When I was a little girl, I lived in Morgantown, West Virginia with my family.  My father’s parents owned a little farm outside of town that I visited often.  I remember wandering over the cow pastures for hours on end.  I was a curious child and loved to explore.  The only fear I knew was of insects and other crawly creatures.  My grandmother had a large vegtable garden and every morning in the summer she would go out to pick bugs and worms off her vegtables and put them in a little can of kerosene that she carried.  She was a true organic gardner before there was such a term.  In order to keep me from wandering off while she was busy gardening, she would put me on a kitchen stool with an umbrella to shade me in the middle of the garden, knowing that I would not get down because I would have to walk through the buggy garden.  There I sat stupified by my fear and in awe of my grandmother’s courage as I saw it.  Naturally, we talked about my unfounded fear and my grandmother did her best to help me see things differently.  I can only say that she was not terribly successful regarding “curing” me.  Still, I didn’t see this fear as being me,  it was just something that was there, but partly outside of me.

When I was five years old in 1950, I came to know powerful fear.  I was to start school and had to take the city bus across town to get there.  My mother could not take me every day because she had to care for younger brothers and sisters, plus in those days my parents had no second car.  My mother taught me to use the bus system and even at those tender years, they exhibited great confidence in my ability to handle the circumstances quite well.  I expressed my great fear but to no avail, my mother went with me the first few days but then I was on my own.  Of course, I did my “duty” the best I could, and eventually I was emboldened to wander even farther than I ever previously did, whether in town or on the farm.  However this fear was different for it seemed that even though I overcame it in one sense because I had to fight it and move forward, it didn’t seem separate from me.

When I read the Course’s statement that my body is a learning device, not a lesson, I try to retrace the steps of my life to determine where I first remember feeling really caught by fear that changed me. I always come back to this time when I was very young and these formative experiences.  Sometimes in our earliest life events we can see how ego mind intrudes on our innocence and grips us with an iron hand of fear.  Our body is no longer a learning device to explore the world around us, no longer simply a tool to learn from experiences.  Ego is not satisfied with anything less than mind numbing fear and hard lessons of body discomfort.  Ego crushes our body with fear so that we cannot separate from it easily.  We now mistakenly think the fear is us.  We embody fear.

When I review those simple days of long ago,  I remember the carefree attitude of my early youth.  I remember feeling so connected to something good as I wandered about the countryside.  I had no worries or gripping fears.  I simply was.  I learned from where I was and what I was doing.  It was all good.  As I grew older I became attached to fears and everything became a lesson to do well, an endless series of questions about doing or being anything good enough.  I forgot that my life, my body, is a learning device, and that learning is a good in itself.  Everything is good enough to learn from because it is simply there for our learning.

Today, more and more, I try to recapture that attitude of being a carefree learner, free to wander the journey of life with all its seeming fears and travails, as well as delights, with the same same sense of ease and peace.  More and more I try not to “make” things hard for myself, not to “make” lessons that seem insurmountable and overwhelming.  Each instance is an opportunity to learn from, nothing more.  Each instance is a chance to see love at work in my life, not fear.  I wish I could say that I never felt fear anymore, but that is not true.  But, now when I feel fear I can see it more outside of myself as I used to do long ago.  It is not me but it is there to learn from.  It has only been in the past five years, since really digging into ACIM work, that I have been able to give up fighting my fears and to more peacefully learn from them what they have to teach.  As I do this they dissolve more and more.  I no longer need to physically wander to feel free.  I can be free in my mind.  My grandmother, I am sure, is so proud.

© 2004, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Barbara Kraetsch.

Feeling Part of the One Mind

Today in meditation I felt as if I were a bubble among an ocean of bubbles, all extending endlessly.  All bubbles were a part of God.  God surrounded us, yet was within us.  We recognized God in each other and we were comforted.  We were safe and secure, leaving all to God.  Only God knew of the total extension of Himself.  We were merely part of the Extension and we were supremely happy in this.  The part of ourself that projected ego images was infinitesimally small, so insignificant as to be nothing, and all that came from it was nothing.  We kept extending in joy and happiness, part of God’s Will, with no will of our own to do anything else.  We were content, and yet energized with Life itself.

I was surprised at how comfortable it was being in the mass of bubbles.  No one was squeezed.  There was no chaos, no confllict, no tension, no crowding.  There was only total joy in recognizing God all around us.  God energized the whole and everything of God was available to all. 

The Extension was endless, but there was no concern for time or boundaries.  We were not aware of any.  We left the Extension to God’s care.  We were simply happy to be a part of it, continually thankful that we were.  There was great peace in this.  There was nothing else.  We were swept along in the flow of God’s Love.  We formed the One Extension.  We were of One Mind in this, and all of the same purpose, to be God’s Will, God’s Love.  We were content to go wherever that took us for we moved in waves of energy.  We were living energy.  It was sort of a pinkish red colored light that sometimes seemed like ribbons of light.

We were content to be what we were because it was of God.  There was no thought to be anything different because we didn’t know what that would be for us and we wanted only to be part of God.  That was our only thought, that we were a part of God.  There was a great satisfaction in this.  There was a great peace in being surrounded by the same thought and purpose with no worry or concern that something other than Love could impact us.  We knew only Love and there was no fear.  We knew only God’s Love and its constancy.  We were totally fulfilled.  Ther were no beginnings and endings, only Love.  There was no thought that Love could not be present, for that was unthinkable.  We had only the thoughts of God in our awareness.  We wanted nothing other than this.

As I sit with these feelings, I feel comforted with awareness that Life in the One Mind can be truly blissful.  I can begin to look around me for the comfort of God’s Love because it makes no difference where I think I find myself.  It is there, it is always there.  Everywhere I am surrounded by the same thought and the same purpose, God’s Love and God’s Will.  I only think I can’t experience it, but I can.  I can choose to accept reality and deny false images of separation and conflict.  I can choose to flow with God’s Will, since I am anyway, instead of making images that oppose reality.  I can choose to watch my ego mind with objectivity and gently remind myself that its all illusion that I see in the physical world.  I can choose to be in the reality of Love.  Today, I can now see better the value of this choice because it brings me closer to the joy and peace of reality, and I am grateful.  Amen.

© 2004, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Barbara Kraetsch.

Let Us Be Candles For One Another

Sometimes I am so caught up seeing my projections and forgiving them, that I don’t always remember to see the Love Light shining for my encouragement.  However, there is so much inspiration, so many miracles, to be shared from the One Mind that it cannot all be given to one human mind.  So let us be candles for one another and see the gift of Light in persons around us when all we may really want to do is sit alone in front of a candle and pray for an answer from Holy Spirit.  The answer may present itself in quite unusual ways of shared experience. 

Sometimes at my ACIM discussion group, members have wonderful experiences to share.  Certainly, on this Pathways of Light forum there is sharing of great wisdom to encourage all readers to continue walking the path toward awakening.  Many times synchronistic events occur that show us great clues to our subconscious thinking process that needs to be healed.  When we share our inspiration and miracles with others, we can be candles of Light for them.  When we with humililty take the time to listen carefully to the Holy Spirit speaking through our brother or sister, we allow them to be candles of Light for us.  This is a great gift that we give each other because we are acknowledging our One Mind and One Presence.  There is great healing in this because we are reminded to keep ourselves miracle- minded, or in a constant state of willingness to see miracles.

All we have to do is be willling and ready to see and hear, and Holy Spirit will grant us vision and understanding.  This is unmistakable.  It is more than a promise - it our right as a Son of God.  When one of us experiences a miracle, we all share in it.  We can be candles for each other, sharing and reflecting the Light we see, encouraging each other to keep at our Course work everyday.  We must practice seeing with Holy Spirit eyes every day to overcome ego vision.  Every once in awhile, because we are miracle-ready, miracles will be seen.  After all, this is a course in miracles, isn’t it?  I now believe in miracles in a different way.  I see their greater reality as encouragers to continue walking the path toward awakening because it is really happening.  The concepts and lessons of ACIM aren’t just presenting us with a happier more peaceful life.  Although that’s great in itself, many other paths can achieve that same result.  ACIM is helping us to awaken in a direct and certain way and awakening to reality is everything.

Miracles seem to open port holes of awareness in the mind to new and higher levels of understanding, different levels of reality.  We see everything in a new way.  We practice our lessons in a new way.  We see more and are more aware and are much quicker to come to forgiveness.  We know the Christ Light lives and that it encourages us with its loving reality.  When something real happens to one us us, it happens to all of us.  Not only are we encouraged to remain miracle-ready, but we are also healed by its presence.  This is especially notable when the experience is shared.

Sometimes we are reluctant to share personal miracles, for whatever reason, and there are many.  However, in the sharing of our Light experiences, we are all guided and encouraged by the Holy Spirit.  That is, if we are willing to see and hear the wisdom that is shared.  Maybe that is why many are reluctant to share, because they feel no one will really listen and see the beauty of the experience.  But miracles are meant to be shared because they are symbols of living wholeness.

And so, today, let us share our experience of Holy Spirit at work in the world and in our lives.  Let us be happy for one another that such experiences happen.  Instead of wondering if someone else is trying harder or further along the spiritual path because they speak of such experiences, let us rejoice that they are possible.  Let us share in the healing and see a bigger picture at work.  And if we are experiencing miracles in our lives, don’t let ego fear hold us back from sharing what was meant for all because it came from the All. 

In gratitude that all things are possible and that we can share these possibilities, let us be candles of Love and Light for one another.

© 2004, 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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