Teachings of Christ Mind

Raj: There is much for us to talk about, and I am going to instruct you to take time, for the time being, to speak with me daily. And nothing is to interfere with this. That is not a command. It is, rather, a means of setting the tone. In other words, there truly is nothing else more important which takes precedence over our having this time together regularly. I say this so that you will not see this time we take as interfering with other important things, and also so that you do not feel that you are slighting something that you feel is more important. I say it so that you might allow yourself to be perfectly at peace in devoting yourself to your Self.

This series of conversations will be called Graduation.

Although Susan is listening, this material, until I say otherwise, is not to be shared with anyone. And, whether or not all of these conversations occur in your presence, Susan, you always have permission to listen to them.

Now, whatever excitement or trepidation might be being felt is, of course, not being felt by you, but by the ego—the fantasy sidekicks which both of you and everyone else who is not Awake thinks they companion with. In fact, they think that they are the fantasy partner. The excitement comes from the sense that what is going to be heard is foreign—therefore, perhaps threatening. And I am saying “threatening” with a certain sense of thrill, because the ego likes a little bit of threat. It provides the motivation for challenge. And it is all bull-shit!

Graduation. What could one possibly graduate into? Well, isn’t graduation the process of releasing education—an educational process, a learning process? Indeed, the movement into an ego sense of Self is like starting school, and graduation is what happens when you abandon the ego sense and all of the interesting dynamics of becoming educated. In effect, it is truly a moving back into the elemental and fundamental natural perfection of one’s Being, which I will say constitutes a complete invalidation of everything which was ever learned in the educational process. Therefore, necessarily, graduation means forsaking the value which has been placed upon the learning.

One does not, however, graduate by virtue of invalidating the learning, but rather by virtue of having arrived at a point of valuing essential, primitive, or shall I say original Being, and finding It to be more important and meaningful than the educational process and the sense of identity which that educational process has seemed to create. Therefore, one graduates by virtue of caring more about something beyond education, and the invalidating of the learning will occur because there is something more meaningful present, not because a conscientious effort is made to invalidate it.

Graduation is the shift from thinking to Being.

Now, this truly is not something foreign or unknowable or incomprehensible to either one of you, because to the degree that either of you have been Listening and Hearing, you have been getting experience at being out from Mind. You have learned that in abandoning thinking, you have continued to be conscious and have connected with, as you might put it, an experience of Knowing which you have identified as Guidance.

Although I am well aware that both of you are present and listening, and although I know that all of this will have meaning for you, Susan, I am specifically addressing Paul’s graduation. I say this because it is necessary for Paul to listen to me and not be distracted by what meaning it may be having for you, or how you might be reacting. Of course, as he is grasping the meaning of what I am saying to him, that aspect of him which would be considering your responses will fade out of the picture. But I need to insure that Paul is listening with no belief that what it sounds like to somebody else is of any consequence. It is how it sounds to him, and how that sound specifically triggers and promotes his inner movement. And so I embrace you by letting you know where the focus is, here.

Now, Paul, as I indicated a little bit earlier today, all of the elements necessary for you to make the shift have already been brought into play over the past nine years. When you have been Listening and Hearing, what you have “heard” is the experience of Knowing. This has not been a gift from me to you, because I am not present as a separated presence to give you anything. It is time for you to understand clearly that you, as some inconsequential little twirp, have not been the recipient of a beneficent gift which therefore has had nothing to do with you. Rather, it has been a direct experience of your Self.

As I have said, this “sidekick,” this imaginary partner, called “Bumbling Paul,” is losing strength. Its seeming actuality is fading. Because of this there is a more strenuous effort arising to find out where you fit in, and who you are. As I also said, you cannot afford to pursue that question. You have been in the picture all along.

The thinking which the fantasy partner or false sense of self has engaged in will be replaced with the Knowing which has been constituted of the direct experience of your Self. When it has seemed as though you were talking with me and drawing upon the infinite Knowing, you have been connected to You, and it has constituted the substance of You, even though as long as you were identifying with the fantasy sense of yourself it has seemed as though you were not connected with yourself and who you were was becoming less and less significant.

Literally, graduation, here, is going to involve forsaking thinking, and Listening always. When you feel inclined to think, stop, and desire to Know.

It is also important not to give too much attention to this apparent “questioner.” The expression of desire to Know doesn’t truly postulate the presence of a questioner, and this is a very important point to understand. The experience of the desire to Know is simply the means of giving permission to Know. That is perhaps the most important statement, the most transformational statement of Truth, the most earth-shaking statement of Truth that could be made.

The whole false fantastic sense of self has arisen out of an attempt to understand who is asking the question. Indeed, through an analysis of the questions, one could come to the conclusion that the questioner is fearful, jealous, confident, expectant. But that is like trying to see something through a mirror around and corner which allows you to see something that you cannot otherwise see directly. The sense of the questioner which is gathered from the nature of the questions is necessarily absolutely illusory. This, now, is a new way to describe what has been called “The Fall”—the means by which one experiences ignorance of Reality.

The experience of a question is nothing more and nothing less than the giving permission for Knowing to be experienced. It becomes quite obvious, then, that any attempt to understand the nature of the questioner by virtue of the questions constitutes a complete distraction from the real meaning of the question—which is a giving permission for Knowing—and thus Knowing is never arrived at. The experience of one’s Self remains hidden. The Fourth-dimensional Conscious experience of Being is swallowed up in a “mirror image” of something that doesn’t even exist.

Now, this graduation is constituted of a commitment to Reality and an abandonment of the illusory sense of self; a commitment to Knowing, which it now will be much easier for you to make since I am making it clear to you that you are not listening to something other than your Self, and therefore there is not a listener of dubious integrity. The presence of the experience of Knowing is truly an experience of Self, and not of someone else who is Valuable.

Why, indeed, would you continue to make an investment of trust and commitment in something that is Real and thus apparently borrow some value which never truly becomes yours, and therefore leaves you in your illusory sense of incompetence and limitation?

In the past, when you have thought, reasoned, come to conclusions and expressed those conclusions, you have felt an authorship, an authority, a sense of integrity. Indeed, that has constituted the addictive element. That sense of authorship has been a source of pride, which has given substance to a feeling of self-confidence. That becomes the bait. Indeed, that is what makes it almost impossible to find any value in the experience of Knowing, because in Knowing there is not that sense of authorship. There is not that sense of being able to take credit for what is Known. And I will tell you, that is because the Knowing is not an experience of something finite—an identifiable object.

Having no confinement, being unconfined, That which is Knowing has no personal sense of the authorship of the Knowing. It takes a finite source of experience to feel an authorship which is different from the authorship of other finite sources. Indeed, that sense of authorship contributes to the density of the sense of objective presence—which means finite presence. So, there is not the addictive element in the experience of Knowing which there is in the experience of thinking, reasoning, coming to conclusions, and then expressing them.

Now, the nature of addiction is that the addictive substance provides a thrill, a sense of utter well being which is not gained in any other way than through the use of that substance or element. So, in graduation, and the commitment to Knowing, it does indeed feel as though one is giving up that which is utterly meaningful—a sense of worth and meaning which is acquired through personal authorship.

The process of thinking, reasoning, and coming to conclusions—which is another way of saying “making judgments”—will be replaced by Knowing. And the actions and words which followed the thinking, reasoning, and judgment will be replaced by expressing the Knowing as you are Knowing it—not as you have heard it and repeated it at a later time.

Yes, it may seem as though you are channeling all the time. That is a way of conceptualizing it which is, for all intents and purposes, accurate. But really, what has channeling meant? That you were expressing what you were not personally responsible for. That you were not being a calculated controlled presence. And, indeed, what I have been telling you so far is: That is the real You being you, and the thinking, calculating, judging sense of Paul which you have thought was you has been an imaginary sidekick which, in the final analysis constitutes excess baggage of nonsense. You have had enough experience now, in the last nine years, to be able to hear that and understand that it is completely true and nonthreatening—not dangerous.

You see, you are still listening to me, aren’t you? You are still conceptualizing what is happening as though you are listening to me, and you are eager. This is wonderful, because it simply means that full permission is being given. But, I will remind you that it is your Self which you are listening to, and it is an experience of Integrity. It is an experience of You, and truly not something separate from you, because I am not a person. I am the Voice for Truth. And there are not many voices for Truth, there is just the Voice for Truth. And you are the Voice for Truth—the utterly same Voice for Truth.

When you listen to me, you listen to You. And when you listen to You, you listen to me. But what you must come to embrace and embody as your conscious awareness is the fact that it is You; that every word which is being experienced at this moment is You in the act of being Who You truly Are. Where is the imaginary sidekick, Bumbling Paul, at this moment? Nowhere! Never was anywhere.

So, conceptually speaking, you could say that you will either be talking with me/Yourself or opening your mouth and saying what me/Yourself is being the Knowing of. You are at a point where you truly can release the idea that an experience or sense of authorship will accompany true Being, and just be the experience, the presence of It happening!

You will remember that in the beginning, I mentioned to you that we would come in through the back door.¹ And, indeed, that is what we have done. I have engaged you in being You while implying that you were doing something else, and in that way have allowed you to get the feel for it. Whereas, if I had told you what you would be doing, and we confronted this sidekick of yours with its invalidity, there would have been such defensiveness and self-protection and self-substantiation that you would not have arrived at having the experience.

I point this out to you so that you might understand that this graduation is not really a movement into unfamiliar territory, but a shift of perception about what is already known. A redefinition, as it were. A slipping of the identification tag from the sidekick to the Real One.