Teachings of Christ Mind

^27.1 We return now to what your being is. Being is. As love is. You have attached being to being human. In your quest to identify yourself, you simply narrowed yourself to the visible and describable. Thus you have identified death as the only means by which to reach oneness with your Father, knowing that such oneness is not compatible with the human nature you ascribe to yourself. In this one error do all errors lie. For what quest can be fulfilled when the only answer to life seems to be death? This is why and how my death and resurrection provided an answer and an end to the need for answers.

^27.2 Your being here is not futile or without purpose. Your being is itself all purpose, all honor, all glory. There is no being apart from being. There is no being alive and being dead, being human or being divine. There is only being. Being is.

^27.3 Yet being, like love, is in relationship. Thus, your purpose here, rather than being one of finding meaning, is one of coming to know through relationship. It is in coming to know through relationship that you come to know your Self.

^27.4 The purpose of this Course has been stated in many ways and is stated again here: The purpose of this Course is to establish your identity. The importance of this purpose cannot be overestimated. Let us address the question of why this is so important.

^27.5 You have been caught in a cycle of seeing the self as important for a period of time and then seeing the self as unimportant for a period of time. Seeing the self as important seems at one time like a function of the ego, and at another as a function of the divine. You become confused between the personal self and a true Self only because you have not as yet identified your true Self. Once you have identified your true Self all such confusion will end.

^27.6 We have already stated that relationship is the only “known” in an unknowable world. We have already stated that the only being who is not beyond the limits of total knowing is the Self. Thus it is in knowing the Self that all is known.

^27.7 When you fully realize that the only way to know the Self is through relationship, your concerns about concentration on the self will end. Life is not a matter of self versus other. Life is a matter of relationship. Life is not a matter of human versus divine, but a matter of relationship between the human and the divine. Life is not a matter of one living thing versus another, but of the relationship between all living things.

^27.8 If you can only come to know your Self through relationship, you can only come to know God through relationship. Christ is the holy relationship that exists between all and God, providing the bridge that spans the very concept of between and provides for the connection of unity. Thus your relationship with Christ always was and always will be. Your task here is to come to know that relationship once again.

^27.9 The thought of God by which you were created is synonymous with the Christ in you. It is your relationship with your Source and all that He created.

^27.10 Can you begin to visualize or perceive your true identity as relationship itself? And what of God? Can you unlearn all concepts and free your mind to accept all relationship instead? If all meaning and all truth lies in relationship, can you be other than relationship itself? Can God? Can you imagine relationship rather than singular objects and bodies, as all that exists, and thus who you are and who God is? Is it such a huge leap to go from saying you only exist in relationship to you only exist as relationship? You think it is, and feel yourself further diminished and lacking in identity just by contemplating such an idea. And so you must be reassured of the Self you are.

^27.11 This establishment of your identity that we seek to do here is not just so that you can better understand yourself or your world, or even so that you can bring Heaven to Earth. Although these are complementary goals, as stated before, these are goals that you cannot accomplish “on your own” or with the concept you now hold of yourself. Just as you can look about and see that no two bodies on this earth are exactly the same, the Self you are is a unique Self. A Self of relationship does not imply a Self that is the same as all the rest. But it does imply a Self that is integral to all the rest. You matter, and you matter as an interactive part of the relationship that is life. You are already accomplished as who you are. All is accomplished in unity. In separation you merely strive for all that is yours in relationship. Relationship is unity, and relationship is your natural state. It is who you are.

^27.12 Because you do not understand does not mean that you are not learning the truth. You do not understand because you think in terms of singularity rather than in terms of unity. This is why this Course has not concentrated on your thinking. Again you are bidden to turn to your heart for the truth that is hidden there yet waiting to be revealed. Your heart knows of unity and knows not any desire to be alone and separate. Your heart understands relationship as its source of being. You are not separate from your Source.

^27.13 Living in relationship is living in love and is living as who you are. Living in relationship is living in the present. How do you learn to move from living in separation to living in relationship?

^27.14 To live in relationship is to accept all that is happening in the present as your present reality, and as a call to be in relationship with it. It is the willingness to set aside judgment so that you are not contemplating what “should” be happening rather than what is happening. It looks past perception of “others” to relationship and wholeness. To live in relationship is to live in harmony even with conflict. It is an understanding that if conflict arises in your present there is something to be learned from your relationship with conflict.

^27.15 Living in relationship is living from your center, the heart of your Self. It is complete reliance on relationship itself rather than on the mind. Thus your actions reflect the proper response to the relationship that is occurring in the present rather than to your preconceived notions of others, the previous judgments your mind once made and relies upon out of habit, or your considerations of what the situation might mean to your future. It is not the individual “you” that dictates your responses to situations based on surface interpretations of what those situations entail. It is rather the you in and within the relationship that responds out of the knowledge gained through relationship.

^27.16 How often have you, even with the best of intentions, not known the proper response to make? You even wonder as you pray whether you should pray for specific outcomes or for God’s Will to be done. You fear being a miracle worker because you do not think that you will ever know what is called for.

^27.17 As you learn to live in relationship in the present, this confusion will pass. Your relationship will guide you surely to the proper response. I use the term “proper” here not as a measure of judgment, but as an indication that there is a way in which those who live in relationship become certain, and their willingness to act unimpeded by uncertainty. All uncertainty is fear. All fear is doubt about one’s self. How can you not know how to respond when doubt is gone and certainty has come? How can certainty ever come without an understanding of the relationship of all things?

^27.18 Does an understanding of the relationship of all things mean that you will have power that is not of this world? Will you see the future and the past, be cognizant of destiny and of fate? You do have power that is not of this world, but this does not mean power as you see it here, the power of details and the information of which you think when desiring or fearing a fate of prophecy. The power we speak of is the power of knowing.

^27.19 How often have you known the “right” thing to do without knowing the details of what came before and what was to come? Sometimes you have acted on this knowing, and at other times not. Living in relationship provides a constant knowing of this sort, a simple knowing of a way things are meant to be. It is a knowing felt within the heart for which there still will be no proof, but for which there will be the certainty you heretofore have lacked. The typical fears you have experienced in the past will not arise within this knowing.

^27.20 How will you know when you have achieved the state of grace in which you were created, and that you are living in relationship? You will know by the certainty you feel. If you do not feel this certainty, what can you do?

^27.21 You are ready now, and all that will prevent you from living a life of love is unwillingness to do so. There is only one remaining source of such unwillingness. Your willingness will now depend on whether or not you trust. Do you trust these words? Do you trust in God? Can you trust in your Self?