DAY 8: #40DaysOfReflection on Christ Presence

We make the choice for Heaven as we wake,
and spend five minutes making sure
that we have made the one decision that is sane.
We recognize we make a conscious choice
between what has existence and
what has nothing but an appearance of the truth.
Its pseudo-being, brought to what is real,
is flimsy and transparent in the light.
It holds no terror now,
for what was made enormous, vengeful, pitiless with hate,
demands obscurity for fear to be invested there.
Now it is recognized as but a foolish, trivial mistake.
—ACIM (W-138.11:1-5)

I rest upon this page as “I forget what to decide.” I come for answers not to ponder more questions. I find remembering The Answer is already there, Given, is a much swifter way to restore awareness of peace than to orientate to any subjective idea of a world and my part in it.

Present—that is all that it serves to Be.

The scheduled storm once more has fallen short of my front door, and I look out to a snowy horizon with an almost perceptibly delineated boundary. It is like there is a dome over this space eschewing the possibility of disaster, and protecting peace. A patch of baby blue breaks the sheet white that erased the mountains for days and their low foot hills are foggily visible once more.

My Brother wrote this morning from Goa, and questions of pain and pressure to heal have arisen in the mind. What suffering comes from thinking we are personally responsible for the body—and that we must fix it.

For myself pain heralded a desire so deep to give up, and yield to something greater. And yet I notice in seemingly smaller things how I am still tempted to clutch to the task of alleviating guilt by minimizing pain instead of questioning it.

False responsibility is the great dismissal of Christ Presence.

You won’t find the term “false responsibility” if you search the Course or study the Bible. It is an inferred term being the opposite of our one true responsibility for sight. “Forgiveness offers everything I want,” because it restores the Vision of the Holy Spirit, who is The Answer.

What “I want” therefore; is to see clearly. Clarity is what is missing when “I” feel overwhelmed, and heavy burdened, or even tired and slightly perplexed by this world. It indicates “I” believe “I” am responsible for the resolution of the story “I” am witnessing instead of being “Passers-By.”

The teaching of A Course in Miracles, that this is ALL THE PAST is the key to The Spirit convincing us that relief from pain does not lie in attempting to change the form. You may be Guided to take a journey that looks rather similar to traditional approaches to health and care of the body. But with the purpose of seeing “all healing is in mind” out front, the experience is vastly different. Relief can be experienced in any moment rather than “when the back is better,” as the forgiveness opportunities brought forth through divine providence illuminate beliefs and desires in the mind, to be questioned and relinquished in favor of Peace, now.

It is only because we do not see the Peace of God
as containing EVERYTHING
that we fail to yield completely
and aspire to it as our sole goal.

Yet if we can remember that the story line we now appear to be intimately involved in is ALL THE PAST (as all reflections are) then we have a moments pause to consider: why we believe any change upon the screen would relieve suffering? All our activities, every single one is a defense against the truth. Every reactive doing in the world is motivated by fear, and we teach ourselves every day by our compliance to this slavish alien will that we are subject to it. It dictates the day, and what needs to be done to alleviate pain—not to find peace.

One of the great privileges of body malaise is the immediate full stop it demands. It is a cry for help, a Call for Love often not heard under less extreme circumstance to which we habitually find ways to maladapt.

So now that we have a moments pause we can use it to consider: why we believe any change upon the screen would relieve suffering? When every mirrored image is a communication, and not a cause! Imagine wanting to alter a mirror that accurately reflects the conflicting beliefs and desires in the mind? That is why manifesting is a delay maneuver! Because it obscures the benevolence of the reflection for Awakening. If pain is the persistent problem then let us look at where it is truly emanating from.

Imagine wanting to alter a mirror
that accurately reflects
the conflicting beliefs and desires
in the mind?

Pain is a perceptual problem. It arises from holding two contradictory desires simultaneously. Let’s not get lost in the morality of desire, it is as basic as this: I want my Brother to be happy (a noble enough seeming desire) and I want the Peace of God (an assured worthy goal)

Simply looking at these two deeply held desires with the Holy Spirit allows us to see that we have a goal other than peace. That is it—this is literally the split in awareness, now!

This is the last temptation of Christ.

The perception that the separation happened in some long lost moment aeons ago is the delusion of space and time. The whole idea of (belief in) separation boils down to a present question so the response may be invited voluntarily, now: I could see peace instead of this, but do I want to?

This is the point of power. So the loss of awareness of this choice point is where all malaise and victimhood comes from.

Yet who can make a choice between
the wish for Heaven and the wish for hell
unless he recognizes they are not the same?
—ACIM (T-26.III.5:3)

Firstly we do not believe that this other “noble desire” for our brother is hell. Because we have not fully questioned our beliefs to see that relinquishing this desire will make us happy by choosing peace now.

What tends to happen when choosing between our hypothetical options is that we decide for what we have been taught is the selfless choice. We choose that our Brother be happy instead of insisting on “our” peace of mind. Claiming that “his happiness” will result in “our” contentment. We choose The Peace of God for later and investigate options that he may pursue, for relief now. We deny that he is merely a reflection of that lack of choice for Peace.

Yet think you carefully before you allow
yourself to make this choice.
Approach it not lightly,
for it is the choice of hell or Heaven.
—ACIM (T-19.II.8:4-5)

This is what the role of a “mother” is, this is what a “dad” decides, this is what the good “daughter” does and what a faithful “wife” should want. Each personally caring role belies this choice for hell. Because it gives the reflections of pain a higher priority than Heaven. Christ alone, transparent and true allows the Love of God, to be reflected in all the seeming disparate ones. Acceptance of The Peace of God as my one goal, is the welcome for Christ Presence for all.

Secondly because we have not yet linked the pain (any disquiet we feel) to “the desire” for something other than peace, we have not yet felt the associated burn and so we still believe it to be the quick fix answer to minimize the guilt we feel and therefore inadvertently maintain it.

It is completely rational: in pushing off accepting peace until “later” what else can we expect to experience but the loss of peace in awareness now, which is all pain is. A loss of awareness of Loves presence. “If God is real then pain is not.” We literally chose a delusion; that we have control over the world we made and are responsible for fixing it, rather than choose the Peace of God; which contains all the Innocence and Joy my Self and my Brother could ever experience

This is the literal airplane scenario of: you must put on your own oxygen mask first! If you are knocked out, so is your brother. If you are up for Peace, by your decision so is your brother also, being one.

There is no compromise here for those we claim to love. We simply admit that “how we would like to see our Brother” is a preference to see him other than He is in truth! Our idea of a healed and happy “person” is sub par. It is actually an attack on our Brother. When we Aspire to Vision for our Self, we bare witness to Him truthfully!

Once fully seen the entire drop down menu of seemingly different desires can be closed as this singular desire is seen to encompasses and harnesses the direct juice of all wanting when given over to The Spirit.

We become happy learners, loving to question the beliefs that we newly suppose actually bring us pain! The more we look at this false responsibility, the more we begin to see these “other desires” more as preferences for how we would personally like things to play out in the story. When we humbly hand them over to the Holy Spirit—One who knows what’s best for all in every circumstance—then we are free to be utilized harmlessly in the plan of Awakening. We need not belittle or berate our brothers for the pain they are out picturing for which we desire a quick fix in form. We can instead face the fear and compromise in our own mind, by aspiring to choose The Peace of God, now.

The Peace of God, now is truly the only loving option. For it Calls on Christ, which is always “truly helpful.” This Presence is all anyone could ever need. The open gaze of God’s love—beyond all error—the Face of Christ.

The end is certain, and the means as well.
To this we say “Amen.”
You will be told exactly what God wills for you
each time there is a choice to make.
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.
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.
—ACIM (W-ep.5:1-7)

 

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