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Study of Text, Chapter 13: VII. Attainment of the Real World, P 5. 10-3-16

VII. ATTAINMENT OF THE REAL WORLD, P 5
5 You have been wrong about the world because you have misjudged yourself. From such a twisted reference point, what could you see? All seeing starts with the perceiver, who judges what is true and what is false. And what he judges false he does not see. You who would judge reality cannot see it, for whenever judgment enters reality has slipped away. The out of mind is out of sight, because what is denied is there but is not recognized. Christ is still there, although you know Him not. His Being does not depend upon your recognition. He lives within you in the quiet present, and waits for you to leave the past behind and enter into the world He holds out to you in love.

Journal
I love the sentence where Jesus tells us that all seeing begins with the perceiver. I will perceive according to my understanding, and according to my desire for one thing or another to be true. What I desire to see, I will see even if it is illusion and not really there. What I judge against, I will not see though it is there. So what I see in my world is only and always what I choose to see, what I want to see. When I first realized that was true, it was a startling revelation.

How is it that I came to see some of the pretty awful things that have shown up in this life experience of mine? They are here because I have misjudged myself. I have judged myself worthy of nothing else. How is it that my life has become more peaceful and loving? I have stopped judging myself as much, and have given that function back to the Holy Spirit where it belongs. And so I am beginning to accept my true nature, rather than the ego version I made to take its place.

My true nature is love, and acknowledging that nature, I have begun to see love everywhere. I feel loved, and I give love. I feel cherished and valued, and I cherish and value others. This used to be a rare feeling for me, and undependable, coming and going for no apparent reason, and often questioned and doubted even when it occurred. That seldom happens anymore.

When some little doubt tries to find a place in my mind, it usually withers before it can grow. Doubt and fear cannot grow where peace abides. When it does find a place in my mind, I begin to weed it out immediately, asking the Holy Spirit to purify my mind once again.

I have so often in the past struggled to see the Christ in another, to experience that elusive Christ Vision the Course talks about. I finally began to realize that Christ isn’t seen with the body’s eyes, and is not realized with the ego thinking- mind. Now I am opening my heart to the Christ within that has seemed absent to me only in my confusion. I open my heart to know the Christ in me, and this is the prerequisite to seeing it in others.

The Christ resides in a peaceful mind, in a loving mind. This peaceful, loving mind is in me and always will be, having been established in my creation. I become aware of it, as I desire it. I learn that I desire the peaceful loving mind as I turn from the ego offering of self-will, which inevitably bring chaos, drama, hatefulness, fear and guilt. The more often I choose God over ego, the more certain I become that this is the choice I want to make every time.

And speaking of time, I have learned something about this through experience. The Course tells me that time is not real and that past and future do not exist. It tells me that Loves Eternal Presence can be found only in this present moment. I have seen that this is true and so I know it. Because I know it as true, and because being in the presence of Love is a blissful experience, I choose this as often as I can.

I am still in the practice stage of making this choice, but just thinking about it brings tears of joy to my eyes, so I know I will continue to make the choice. It feels hard right now because my mind is so used to wandering to the past or the future. Keeping it in the present sometimes feels like I am herding cats. But I have already, even with such little effort that I have made, experienced the effects of this choice and so I will keep doing this until wandering away from the present moment is a rarity.

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Study of Text, Chapter 13: VII. Attainment of the Real World, P 4. 9-27-16

VII. ATTAINMENT OF THE REAL WORLD, P 4
4 Yet the real world has the power to touch you even here, because you love it. And what you call with love will come to you. Love always answers, being unable to deny a call for help, or not to hear the cries of pain that rise to it from every part of this strange world you made but do not want. All that you need to give this world away in glad exchange for what you did not make is willingness to learn the one you made is false.

Journal
Love always answers every call for help, whether it is a call from one who knows he or she needs help, or one from someone who doesn’t even know help is available, or even from one who asks even in denial that help is needed. Love is not confused by the form of the request. It knows what is needed and gives answer to the call. However, we must accept the answer. Love will not force Itself on us. We will not be aware of the answer we do not want.

When I was divorced the first time, I lost the privilege of receiving the sacraments of the Catholic Church. I took this as a rejection of God because I had not learned to separate the laws of Love from the laws of religion. I was very afraid and so I was very angry with God who I imagined had abandoned me. I spent about a year ranting and raving at God.

What God heard was my desire to be loved and accepted. This call for love, he answered. But it took me some time to accept the answer. When I was ready, the answer was there waiting for me. Interestingly, when I was ready to put my own feelings aside in an act of love toward another, I discovered a God I had not learned about at church, a good I could trust and depend on. I suppose that in giving love I was receiving love.

Sometimes I still slip back into the idea that God is like me rather than the truth that I am like God. God is not a person with an ego. He cannot be hurt or offended. He cannot judge or condemn. It is essential that I remember this or I will hate and fear God. Here is an idea that helps me to see God differently.

I think of God as more like the law of gravity than as a person. Gravity simply is. If I step off a cliff I will fall. Gravity did not do it to me, gravity simply was. If I was then laid up in the hospital recovering from my fall, I would not lay there berating gravity for my accident. I would not feel abandoned by gravity, angry with gravity, or afraid of gravity. I would not curse gravity. I would just realize that I ignored the law of gravity and my fall was the consequence, and I would decide not to do that again.

It is the same with God. God is Love and there are laws of Love just as there are laws of gravity. For instance, if I hold a grievance this is going to solidify my belief that I am what I projected onto my brother. As a result, I am going to be unhappy. God did not make me unhappy. God did not want me to be unhappy. God simply is, and when we ignore the law of Love, we take a tumble and it hurts. God did not stop loving me, and is not responsible for my tumble.  I am the one that stepped off that particular cliff.

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