Teachings of Christ Mind

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Library of Christ Mind Teachings
A Course Of Love

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9.1 I ask you now to remember a time when you felt from another the desire to help or to meet your needs. Do not think that this desire is not present in all relationships. It is only the ego that stands between desire and the meeting of desire, needs and the meeting of needs.

9.2 The word “need” and the word “dependent” are only words and words that would be inconceivable to you in the state of unity before you left it. Now, they are just tools, as are many other means of practice that assist you in bypassing your ego-mind. Some practices more commonly thought of as tools might be meditation, exercises of the body such as yoga, or exercises of the mind such as affirmations. These tools are all means of releasing ego-mind and inviting the one mind, or unity into the present moment. When seen as such, all these tools, including needs, can ignite the combination of learning and unlearning, the letting-go of one so that the other can arrive.

9.3 We are now beginning to speak of the second aspect of treasure that was addressed in the beginning of this Treatise as something found that is kept secure and cherished. This aspect of treasure relates to your ability to let go. As many of you will find the idea of letting go of special relationships among the most difficult of ideas contained in this course of study, the ability to let go must be further discussed.

9.4 When a need is filled, you have been accustomed to having a reaction to this meeting of a need as if it takes place apart from you, or from outside of you. You assign the meeting of a need to a person or system or organization. You as often feel indebted as you feel grateful for the meeting of needs. When your life is running smoothly and needs are being continuously met, you begin to want to hang on to the relationships that you feel met these needs because of their ability to meet them. When your needs cease being met, you believe there has been a loss such as with the loss of a job or loved one or even of the promise of some service. When you think in such a way you believe in loss and gain rather than in the replacement belief that there is no loss but only gain.

9.5 It is perhaps best seen in the contrast implied by the intent to hang on. The desire to hang on to anything assumes that what you have is in need of protection or that it would not be secure without your effort to keep it secure. Inherent in this assumption is the concept of “having” or ownership. How does this relate to “having” needs? By identifying needs in such a way, in the same way that you identify “having” in regards to possessions, you but continue to feel as if you “have” needs even long after they have been met. Since I have already stated that you do have needs this may seem confusing.

9.6 In relationship, every need is met by a corresponding need. It is a dance of correspondence.

9.7 All needs are shared. This is what differentiates needs from wants. This is true in two senses. It is true in that all needs, from survival needs to needs for love are literally shared in the same measure by all. The other sense in which needs are shared is in the aspect of correspondence. They are shared because they are known. Every being inherently knows that it shares the same needs as every other being of its kind. Every being also inherently knows that needs and the fulfillment of needs are part of the same fabric—they are like puzzle pieces that fit together. Other beings that share life with you on this planet are not concerned with needs or need fulfillment. Doing what needs to be done in order to survive is hardly the same as feeling that one has a need. Needs are the domain of the thinking being only. Thinking beings share needs because of the way in which they think. That some seem to have more needs than others is a fallacy of perception. Not one has more needs than another.

9.8 What is shared by all is not owned. What all have is in no danger of being taken away. All that you are capable of having you already have as the already accomplished. All that you would give will take nothing away from you.

9.9 This could be restated as the belief that there is no loss but only gain.

9.10 The extent to which you deny your needs or are honest about your needs makes the difference in your connection or separation within relationship. The extent to which you are willing to abdicate your needs in order to attain something is the extent to which your belief in want or lack is revealed. This is the purview of special relationships. Thus the very compromises you are often prone to make in special relationships are but the symptoms of your fear.

9.11 As soon as you are content or self-satisfied, or, in other words, feel your needs are met, the desire to hang on to what you have arises. This is true of knowledge, or what you know, and of who you are, just as much as it is of special relationships and what you might more readily think of as treasure, such as a successful career or inspired creative project.

9.12 As soon as the desire to hang on arises, both learning and unlearning cease to occur. The desire to maintain a state you believe you have achieved and have labeled a state in which your needs are met creates a static level, that no matter how good or right or meaningful, loses its creative nature by remaining static.

9.13 So how do you remain within the constant creative flux or flow of creation without either constantly striving for more of what you already have or for what you consider progress? You need a means of disconnecting this drive that has become instinctual to you. As a being existing in form, you have honed certain instincts over millennia, such as the instinct to survive, in order to carry on in physical form.

9.14 There is no such thing as a static level in unity where creation is continuous and ongoing. You should have no desire to reach such a state and the awareness that you are in such a state can alert you, or serve as a sign, that the ego-mind and its fear-based thinking have momentarily returned. This does not mean that you will never be at rest or that you will be constantly seeking to arrive. As has already been said, you have arrived and rest exists only in the state of unity.

9.15 Because you have not thought previously of needs as tools every bit as valuable as the others mentioned here, this adjustment in your thinking may seem difficult to accept. How does the identification of needs or the dependency inherent in relationships bypass the ego-mind? They heretofore have not, only because of your perception of them as signals of what you are lacking. Once this perception has shifted, your ego-mind will cease to be fed by these concerns. What is food for the ego-mind is fear and the removal of these final fears will quite literally starve the ego-mind out of existence.

9.16 An understanding of the mutuality of needs will aid you in being honest about your needs, thus allowing them to be met. Then the need to define or to identify them ceases. Your needs only continue to be brought to your awareness as needs until your trust in their immediate and ongoing fulfillment is complete. Once this trust is realized you will no longer think in terms of needs at all. Once you are no longer concerned with needs and the meeting of needs you will no longer be concerned with special relationships. You will realize that there is no loss but only gain involved in letting them go.

9.17 Holding on to what you think will meet your needs is like holding your breath. Your breath cannot long be held. It is only through the inhaling and exhaling, the give and take of breathing that you live. Each time you are tempted to think that your needs can only be met in special ways by special relationships, remember this example of holding your breath. Think in such a way no longer than you can comfortably hold your breath. Release your breath and release this fear and move from special to holy relationship.

9.18 This phase of coming to accept need and dependency is necessary only as a learning ground of experience on which trust can grow. Once this trust is realized you will no longer think of trust just as you will no longer think of needs.

9.19 Ceasing to think in these terms will soon be seen as a valuable ability and a timesaving measure of great magnitude. As these old ways of thinking leave you, you will be left as who you are in truth.



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