Teachings of Christ Mind

^6.1 We now will discuss being the true Self while becoming the true Self—the time in between your awareness of and access to Christ-consciousness, or unity, and your sustainability of Christ-consciousness, or unity, in form. As was said earlier: To realize the state of becoming is to realize that an in-between exists between the time of learning and the time of being the elevated Self of form. This is what our time on this holy mountain is largely comprised of. We are in an in-between state of time. We stand at the intersection point of the finite and the infinite in order to complete the creative act of becoming.

^6.2 While you know this is the focus of our time together, few, if any of you, feel as if you have truly taken leave of the everyday world of your “normal” existence and feel fully present on the holy mountain. This is not a second-best situation. Although it is being handled in this way partially because to ask you to walk away from your “normal” life for forty days and forty nights would cause too much anxiety and exclude too many, this is not the only, or even the major reason for this chosen method.

^6.3 Before we can continue to expand on your awareness of the difference you have chosen, we thus must address this time so that any confusion it seems to be causing will not delay your progress.

^6.4 Since we have often discussed the similarity between the creation of art and the work we are doing here, we will return to this example. We have spoken of becoming as the time of movement, being, and expression coming together. We have further spoken of your point of access to unity as one of convergence, intersection, and pass-through. Can you see the similarities between these actions despite the difference in language used?

^6.5 Movement, Being, Expression; Convergence, Intersection, Pass-through.

^6.6 How might these things be linked to the example of creating art? I choose this particular example to address this particular time of being in-between. Let us consider the creation of a piece of music. The creation of a piece of music, like the creation of a painting or a poem, takes place in stages.

^6.7 At one time the creation of a piece of music is only an idea in the mind and heart of the creator. The creation of a song or a symphony may begin as simply as with a few notes “running through the mind” or a particular turn of phrase that inspires the creator to see these words as lyrics. At some point after this gestation within the mind and heart, the artist puts pen to paper, or picks up a guitar, or sings into a tape recorder. Much starting and stopping may be done, or the piece may find its expression easily, in a way that the artist might describe as flowing. Depending on the disposition of the artist, the piece of music might be shared with others at each step of the process, or only late in its development. But at some point, the sharing will take place, and the reactions of those with whom the music is shared will impact the artist and the piece. Positive reactions might validate the artist’s instinct and encourage even more boldness. Negative reactions might cause the artist to doubt her instincts, to make changes, or to be more determined than ever to see the piece through to the point where it will be appreciated. Finishing touches will be put on the piece. Some collaboration might take place to get it just right. By the time the artist has completed the piece of music she began, it may have little resemblance to the piece originally intended, or it might be quite true to the original idea.

^6.8 Every creative piece of art that comes to completion includes a choice. At some point along the way a commitment is made between the artist and the piece of art. A commitment to see it through. This commitment may come because the artist knows it is “good enough” to deserve the time and attention, or the commitment may come as a recognition that a relationship of love has developed, and “good enough” or not, completion is necessary. It may even be a commitment simply to practice, with the artist feeling no certainty about the value of the piece, but determining to see the project through, knowing that it will make the next piece or the next a better piece of music.

^6.9 In all stages of its creation, the piece of music exists in relationship to its creator. Be it only an idea, a partially completed rhythm, lyrics without notes, or a completed work that will qualify more as practice than as art, the piece exists. In each stage of creation it is what it is. Only when it is a complete, and full, and true expression of the artist’s idea, however, will it and the artist be one.

^6.10 You are a work of art headed for this oneness of full and true expression. No stage you pass through to reach this oneness is without value. Each stage contains the perfection of that stage. Each stage contains the whole and each whole contains each stage.

^6.11 You have been told you are in the final stage of becoming. You have committed to completion of the becoming that will create oneness between Creator and created. You have developed the creative relationship that is union. You are in and within the movement of the creative process where there is no distinction between Creator and created. You are being who you are right now and eliciting the expression that will take you to the final stage of being who you will be in oneness.

^6.12 You are not separate now from who you will be when you reach completion! You are in and within the relationship of creation in which created and Creator become one.

^6.13 Now, in returning to one of the main themes of this chapter—the simple truth that you are having to go about this creative process while remaining embroiled in daily life—I want to acknowledge the difficulty some of you will seem to be experiencing even while pointing out to you that life is life.

^6.14 Let’s begin with the seeming difficulty. It may take on many forms, but its main source is almost surely a desire to focus on the relationship developing between us, and a corresponding desire not to have to focus on the details of daily life. You may be thinking that the ease so often spoken of in our conversations would be there if only you could be truly “taken away” from it all and experience nothing but our relationship, focus on nothing but your point of access, have a chance to really begin to invite abundance without having to look at the bills that arrive by daily mail or worry about the many other aspects of your simple survival.

^6.15 Yet realize that if you were told to leave these worries behind and get away from it all, you would likely rebel and find many reasons not to make it so. And so, abundance will have to come first, lack of cause for worry will have to come first, an ability to focus on other than daily life will have to come first. These are what these continuing dialogues will facilitate.

^6.16 They will facilitate this by facilitating the acceptance of life as it is. This is why this dialogue is occurring on the holy mountain without taking you away from life as you know it. We are, after all, speaking of the elevation of the Self of form. This elevation must occur in life, in your life as it is, rather than in some idealized situation away from what you consider normal life.

^6.17 This does not, however, mean that this elevation can be postponed, put off, or can wait for some convenient time. Quite the contrary. We are having our dialogue on the holy mountain while you remain within your life for the very purpose of not allowing this to happen.

^6.18 It also does not mean that many of you will not have changed or will be changing the very fabric of your daily life. Changes you feel called to make are not discouraged here. The point being made is simply that removal from life is not possible or desirable.

^6.19 Learning takes the student away from “normal” life and creates a place for teaching and only calls this place elevated. Awareness, acceptance, and discovery cannot occur in a place set apart from “normal” life. Believe me when I tell you that the elevation you are currently experiencing is the only elevation you would want. As within, so without is the operative phrase here. It is not the other way around. You cannot find a place outside of yourself that will allow for the elevation of which we speak. There are no hallowed halls of learning that will accomplish this. There is no mountain top in any location on Earth that can accomplish this. It is only the relationship we are developing in this elevated place within that will bring to your full realization and manifestation without the accomplishment that already exists.

^6.20 I know it doesn’t always seem so. Give your attention for a moment to the temptations associated with the mountain top of my own experience. They were temptations of the world, of the normal, daily life of my time. They were attempts to distract me from my purpose, to change my focus, to engage me in debate, to lure me from the place of elevation I knew I had attained. The temptations of the human experience are the same now as they were then. They are the same on the mountain top as they are on level ground. A “place” that seems externally removed from them cannot remove them. Only a created place within can do so.

^6.21 This place within is what we are creating here. It is a truly elevated place. It is as real as a mountain top, in fact much more real. Were your scientists to know what to look for, they would find it. It is being created to exist both within the body and beyond the body. It is, in truth, the portal of access we have spoken of, a connection with the state of union as real as if a tether were stretched from here to there.

^6.22 The point here, however, is this: Quit trying to remove yourself from life! If this were required it would be done! Think not that I cannot arrange the ideal environment for our dialogue. This is it!

^6.23 Think a moment about a new job or some other endeavor in which you apprenticed. In such a situation a person is taught and shown the skills and activities needed for the accomplishment of the tasks he or she is to perform. But often it is only when the teacher steps aside, and the apprentice is able to gain experience, that the apprentice is in a position to be able to begin to perform with any certainty. Even learning is accelerated by hands-on activities, by doing what one has previously only learned.

^6.24 You have done your learning and your teacher has stepped aside as a teacher and become a companion. Would you desire to prolong your time as an apprentice by being removed from the performance of your tasks? Perhaps you would. But as has been stated from the beginning, there is an urgency to your task.

^6.25 Thinking of our relationship as that of colleagues as well as companions, as fellow workers or work-mates with a task to accomplish, as well as conversationalists, is not an erroneous way to think of our relationship. We are both friends and co-workers. Colleagues as well as companions.

^6.26 Our dialogue is not without purpose. You know this or you would not be here. You know this or you would not feel the devotion to me and to what we do here that you do. And what’s more, you feel the eagerness of your brothers and sisters. If you felt our goal was unlikely to be accomplished, or that it would elevate only a few and leave all others behind, you would not feel this devotion. You know our task is holy and incomparable. You know there is nothing more important for you to be involved in. All other areas where you might previously have placed your devotion pale in comparison to our task.

^6.27 As your belief grows in our ability to accomplish together our given task, you are almost surely feeling this devotion extend to others, particularly those who, along with us, work toward its accomplishment. In doing so you are not creating new special relationships but the true devotion that will replace special relationships forever.

^6.28 But this very knowing of the sanctity and incomparability of our task is what seems to create the difficulty so many of you are currently experiencing in one way or another. Your desire is where it belongs—here—in the passionate acceptance of our work together. And so the lack of desire you are experiencing for other areas of the life you still seem so deeply involved in is disturbing to you. Yet why should this be disturbing? Why should you continue to desire the life you have had?

^6.29 Now let’s address this seeming paradox. You have been told to do only what you can feel peaceful doing, to do only what allows you to be yourself, and yet here are you told not to try to remove yourself from life.

^6.30 Do you need to feel desire for what you do in order to do it peacefully? Do you need to be other than yourself in order to navigate your daily life? What you are being shown here is that you do not. What you are going to realize from this time of seeming difficulty is an end to difficulty and the growth of your ability to do whatever you do peacefully and to be who you are in any situation in which you find yourself. There is no time to wait while you learn, or think you learn, the qualities that will allow this. This is the point of movement, being, and expression coming together. The point of convergence, intersection, and pass-through. This is it! Right here in your life as it is right now.

^6.31 There is, thus, no call to be discouraged. This is not delay, but what you might think of as trial by fire. Be encouraged rather than discouraged that you are able to embrace this dialogue and remain in your life. Realize that this is just what we work toward! This difficulty will pass through you as you allow for and accept where you are right now and who you are right now.

^6.32 Does this work of acceptance seem never ending? It is until it is replaced by reverence, just as learning was unending until it was replaced by acceptance. The conditions, however, of this time of acceptance are not the conditions of the time of learning, and so you will soon see that the difficulty of the time of learning truly is behind you.

^6.33 Let us speak now of the conditions of the time of acceptance, for these will cheer you.