Table of Contents
Good afternoon. It’s good to have you here. And I welcome everyone on the internet as well. Before we begin, I would just like to touch on a couple of things that we discussed last week.
Remember that an Idea leaves not Its Source. Therefore the visibility and tangibility of that Idea, in other words, the recognizablity of It by the Mind that formed It, is not something different or separate from the Source. It is the Idea Itself. It is such an ingrained habit to think that creation is something separate from its creator, like a clay pot is something different from the one who threw it, the one who formed it. It is such an ingrained habit that there’s a tendency to think when I spoke last week about the spring in the sprinkler head as though that spring is an idea that was in the mind of the one who conceived of it but that the spring in the sprinkler head is itself matter. Or the same with the signal light at the intersection.
But what I want you to understand is that when I’m talking about the spring and the signal light at the intersection, or the leaf, or the glass-topped table, I am saying that you are seeing right there an Idea. It never left Its Source. It isn’t a manifestation of an Idea. It is the Idea Itself directly experienced. It is pure Spirit.
Likewise, there could be a tendency to think when I spoke of the arteries that had become misshapen so that they blocked the flow of blood that it was important to recognize that the artery is pure Spirit so that it wouldn’t interfere with the blood that kept your material body functioning. You see what I’m saying? It’s easy to be selective still and to say, “Okay, I’m going to see my arteries as Spirit, but at the same time think that this will allow the blood in your body to circulate more freely, allowing for less stress and therefore keeping your material body from dying.” You see what I’m saying? The blood, the arteries, the veins, the corpuscles, all of it is an Idea that never left Its Source and therefore is an Idea still. And therefore is pure Spirit.
When you hear the word “manifestation” translate it into the meaning visibility and tangibility or the experience of recognizability. Manifestation is not something separate from the Idea. It is the Idea recognized. Don’t leave any part of your experience of the world and universe outside of God by thinking that in any respect any part of it is material and is influenceable by knowing the Truth or influenceable by calling it Spirit. It is Spirit and nothing else.
Well, the thought can come up, “Well, why would God create a sprinkler head if grass is eternal? Why would it need to be watered? That’s a human idea, a human concept, and therefore in Reality there couldn’t be a sprinkler head. That has to be part of the human dream.” Well, I’m telling you that you’re thinking too much. You don’t know what it means yet.
And that’s exactly why I’m inviting you all to look at everything with innocent eyes, with freshness and without your pre-existing definitions. You don’t know just how infinitely and wonderfully and uniquely and originally the Wholeness of Eternal Being is manifest, is rendered visible, is rendered recognizable. So stop making snap judgments or assumptions that say, “Well, this couldn’t be part of Reality because blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” And be willing to assume that the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah that you follow the statement with, “this couldn’t be part of the Kingdom of Heaven,” is the means you utilize to keep yourself locked into and limited by your love of giving definitions to everything, your love of determining by yourself what this part or that part or the other part of the Kingdom of Heaven is, and giving preference to your definition over the Reality of it.
Now the second thing I want to comment on is that during the week, the question was presented, “How much of Reality spills over into our dream or your dream of Reality?” Again, this suggests a split that isn’t there, as though you’re having some sort of autonomous dream that is entirely different and separate from Reality, when the fact is that your dream, every part of your dream is based in Reality. Your dream is nothing more than an altered perception of Reality. It is Reality perceived with a bias. You have not succeeded in going someplace, like to sleep, and having a dream that is entirely separate and apart from Reality.
What I am referring to as the dream is nothing more than a biased perception of Reality. It’s Reality you’re seeing unclearly. So Reality doesn’t spill over into your dream. It’s what every single one of you is using as the basis for a biased, slanted, distorted perception that you’re claiming is real.
So, what does this mean? It means you don’t have to wake up from the dream before you can see Reality. Reality is what is in your face as I’ve said over and over. Reality is what is confronting you at every instant, whether you call it a rose, or the glass-topped table, or the fabric of your pants, or the hair on your head. Reality is what is confronting you. How you are perceiving it, or misperceiving it, is what constitutes the illusion, the dream.
And because that’s so, you don’t have to wake up before you can see Reality. You can start with what’s right in front of your face and say, “That’s not matter. That’s Spirit. That isn’t a manifestation of some act of Creation. That is an Idea that God is having at this instant. And that Idea never left Its Source. And therefore, aside from my current perceptions, misperceptions of what it is, I choose to become undefended against experiencing this Idea that never left Its Source and never became matter, and is pure Spirit, and is embodying the Will of God, the Nature of God, the Love of God, at this very instant. I choose no longer to defend myself against experiencing that by having an opinion or a definition of my own.”
The expression of that desire to Experience the Truth of that rose, or whatever it might be, is the way you open up to God. It’s the way you turn toward the Altar. And it’s the way you manage to let God register with you and yield to Him.
Okay. Let’s go into the book. Page 46.
Judgment and the Authority Problem1
We have already discussed the Last Judgment, but in insufficient detail. After the Last Judgment there will be no more.
No more judgments. Continue …
Judgment is symbolic because beyond perception there is no judgment. When the Bible says “Judge not that ye be not judged,” it means that if you judge the reality of others you will be unable to avoid judging your own.
It’s a very simple fact the same measuring stick you use to judge others, you judge yourself by absolutely. You do not have a different measuring stick for yourself—a better one, a more lenient one—than you have for others.
The choice to judge rather than to know is the cause of the loss of peace.
To know what? To Know the Truth, to have the direct Experience of What The Father Is Being there where the rose is.
Continue …
Judgment is the process on which perception but not knowledge rests. I have discussed this before in terms of the selectivity of perception, pointing out that evaluation is its obvious prerequisite. Judgment always involves rejection. It never emphasizes only the positive aspects of what is judged, whether in you or in others. What has been perceived and rejected, or judged and found wanting, remains in your mind because it has been perceived. One of the illusions from which you suffer is the belief that what you judged against has no effect. This cannot be true unless you also believe that what you judged against does not exist. You evidently do not believe this, or you would not have judged against it. In the end it does not matter whether your judgment is right or wrong. Either way you are placing your belief in the unreal. This cannot be avoided in any type of judgment, because it implies the belief that reality is yours to select from.
Indeed. The minute you look at that rose or the minute you look at the spring in the sprinkler head and you determine that it’s matter, you determine that it has had its source in a material evolution or a mechanical process of manufacture and you make commitment to that idea, that belief, you’re choosing for the unreal. You’re anchoring the unreal. And you are creating a temporary inability on your part in your mind to perceive What It Really Is.
Now, when you say that the rose is alive and the spring in the sprinkler head is not, and that therefore the rose is a more valuable material object, you’ve made a judgment. If you say that the white rose to you is more beautiful than the red rose, you’ve made a judgment. But you know what? No matter how many judgments you make between objects in this so-called material world, it’s meaningless because you haven’t made the one distinction that is essential to your salvation. And that distinction is not between objects, but it is the distinction in your mind that you have made that says, “What I have determined a thing to be is what it is. And I choose to value it, rather than the other choice that I have available to me which is to inquire What It Really Is as God Is Being It.”
The moment you provide a definition for any thing, an explanation, an understanding of it that wasn’t derived from Its Source which is God, you have made a distinction and a judgment, a value judgment, and that judgment has separated you from the Experience of Reality. That’s the only distinction that needs to be made because that distinction is the one which will allow you to make the choice for Reality and get out of the bondage of the mutually-agreed-upon definitions that constituted your choice to be able to apparently be an authorizer in your own right.
Let’s continue …
You have no idea of the tremendous release and deep peace that comes from meeting yourself and your brothers totally without judgment. When you recognize what you are and what your brothers are, you will realize that judging them in any way is without meaning. In fact, their meaning is lost to you precisely because you are judging them.
And I would use a capital “M” there for Meaning. In fact, their capital “M” Meaning, their Divine Meaning, their Real Meaning, is lost to you precisely because you are judging them.
Continue …
All uncertainty comes from the belief that you are under the coercion of judgment. You do not need judgment to organize your life, and you certainly do not need it to organize yourself. In the presence of knowledge all judgment is automatically suspended, and this is the process that enables recognition to replace perception.
Yes, it does. It also deprives you of the hit that you get from thinking that you can be the originator of an idea, the originator of a meaningful definition. It deflates the ego. [pause] It deflates the ego.
Continue …
Raj, can I make a comment or two? 2
Not yet.
You are very fearful of everything you have perceived but have refused to accept. You believe that, because you have refused to accept it, you have lost control over it. This is why you see it in nightmares, or in pleasant disguises in what seem to be your happier dreams. Nothing that you have refused to accept can be brought into awareness. It is not dangerous in itself, but you have made it seem dangerous to you.
Yes. Nothing that you have refused to accept can be brought into awareness. Your decisions, your use of your mind is absolute. So, what you have refused to accept, you will not experience.
Now, you could say there are lots of things you have refused to accept. And psychology helps you go on an internal search to find out what those things are that you have refused to accept so that you can embrace them. But that’s like going through all of your definitions, mutually-agreed-upon definitions of things, like roses are more valuable than the spring in the sprinkler head, and helping you to stop making the judgment, help you to somehow re-embrace the spring in the sprinkler head as much as you do the rose.
But you know what? If you manage to do that and you go on this internal hunt for all of the things you have refused to look at, and you manage to re-embrace them all without making judgments one over the other, you still haven’t addressed the one fundamental thing that you’ve rejected, which was that all of this, all of these things about which you have mutually-agreed-upon definitions, are the visibility and tangibility of God. You have rejected the God-ness of them. And so, no matter how much you work at reducing the judgments you have for or against the various things about which you have made-up definitions that you are committed to, you still haven’t done anything valuable.
The one thing, you might say the cornerstone that the builders rejected, the builders of mutually-agreed-upon definitions, is that All Is God, that All Is Spirit. And that includes you, and your Function is to be that consciousness which recognizes God in everything you see. Your Function is to be that which glorifies God by recognizing the Divinity of absolutely everyone and everything, including yourself. So when you reject the cornerstone, when you make the one simple rejection of the God-ness of everything and then look at everything minus God and give your definitions to it all, no matter how many definitions you’ve given to it and no matter how much work you do to bring your assessment of all those things you’ve defined into perfect balance and into perfect equilibrium where you love and appreciate them all equally, you are still flat out in the dream. You are still flat out unconscious of the God-ness of it. You haven’t brought God back into the picture. And yet, as I said earlier, you are using All That God Is as the basis for creating the definitions you want to give to All That God Is. So you’re using Reality to your own ends, while ignoring what Reality is and where you fit into it. And rather than witnessing to God, you are choosing to witness to definitions you have given to everything.
In other words, you are trying to enjoy a position of authorship that was never given to you, and therefore you can’t have, even though you can imagine you have it and make commitment to that imagination and thereby create a belief that you believe.
When the word “belief” is used, it’s not a very strong word. When you hear of a person’s beliefs, you recognize immediately by the choice of words that they are not anchored in anything eternal, because beliefs change. But when you say, “I believe this,” you give more substance to it in your mind. And what you believe becomes important and you want everyone else to honor what you believe. In fact, you want everyone else to believe what you believe so that you can feel as though your belief really is meaningful.
Nothing that you have refused to accept, including the Allness Of God and the God-ness Of All, can be brought into your awareness. Your refusal is absolute and will govern your perception until you modify your refusal.
What you have refused to accept is not dangerous in itself. God is not dangerous. Reality is not dangerous. The Divinity of Everything is not dangerous. The Substance of Love that Everything is constituted of is a Love that embraces you and that you can feel loved by. That is not dangerous. But you have made It seem dangerous to you. And you’ve made It seem dangerous to you because if you embrace It, It will take away this supposed authority that you think you have which is the basis you use for self-respect. And so you’ve made yielding to the way things really are a threat to your respectability, to your credibility, to everything that’s important to you. You see?
That’s how you’ve made God a fearful thing and Reality a fearful thing. You think you derive energy for existing from being a clever, ingenious, creative presence creating out of the Stuff Of God what you would have the Stuff Of God be defined as. And this you will lose if you yield to God, if you dare to really want to see the Divinity of the rose, the capital “M” Meaning, the Divine Meaning that God is embodying there, or of the spring in the sprinkler head.
Continue …
When you feel tired, it is because you have judged yourself as capable of being tired.
Oh, and of course, the only thing … Spirit can’t be tired, so if you’re tired that means that you’re a hunk of matter. Only matter can wear down. Only matter can wear out. Only matter can become exhausted.
Continue …
When you laugh at someone, it is because you have judged him as unworthy. When you laugh at yourself you must laugh at others, if only because you cannot tolerate the idea of being more unworthy than they are. All this makes you feel tired because it is essentially disheartening.
And part of this tiredness accumulates through the years, and you begin when you’re 40 to be more tired than you were at 20. And at 50, more tired. And at 60, Ohhh. And why? Because what’s really happened is that in your commitment to your mutually-agreed-upon God-less definitions, you have disheartened yourself. You have disheartened yourself. And when you become disheartened, less and less feels worthwhile to engage in. And so, without challenging it, you acquiesce to the disheartening and you slowly give up.
Continue …
You are not really capable of being tired, but you are very capable of wearying yourself. The strain of constant judgment is virtually intolerable.
I’m going to interrupt there. “Virtually intolerable” has new meaning this day in terms of “virtual reality.” It’s a virtual intolerance. It’s not real. It becomes virtually intolerable. The strain of constant judgment is virtually intolerable, just as all of Creation that you’re looking at and calling matter is virtually unreal.
Continue …
It is curious that an ability so debilitating would be so deeply cherished. Yet if you wish to be the author of reality…
Oh, there it is. If you wish to be the author of reality. You might have thought that judgment and the authority problem would have something to do with, you know, your mother, or your husband, or your wife, or your father, or your boss, exerting authority over you and the authority problem you’re running into as a result of the contest of wills between human beings. But the authority problem is what I’ve talked about before as the original sin, the origin-al sin, the false belief about one’s origin. The original sin is not the first sin. It is the sin, the belief, the misperception of your origin. It’s the origin-al sin. It’s the origin-al false belief. And the authority problem is that problem. When you think that God is not the origin of you, but that you are the origin of yourself and you’re a self-made man, and when you have your mutually-agreed-upon definitions and you all agree that the universe came from a big bang and had nothing to do with God and is not spiritual, you are asserting an authority that has its basis in a misunderstanding about your origin. So the authority problem and the origin-al misunderstanding are one and the same thing.
So we’re not going to find out how to win in a contest of wills here and learn how to express authority well so that it blesses everyone. We’re talking about challenging the wish to be the author of reality yourself, so that in the willingness to abandon the wish to be the author, you can turn toward the Author, with a capital “A,” and say, “I want to Know the Truth about All That Is, including me.”
Continue. Start that sentence over.
Yet if you wish to be the author of reality, you will insist on holding on to judgment.
It’s the only way that you can continue to seem to be an author, an ego, a separate entity.
Continue …
You will also regard judgment with fear, believing that it will someday be used against you.
Oh, and it’s more than a belief. It’s a confidence. You know that someday it will be used against you. You know that some day authority, someone else’s authority, something else’s authority will supersede yours. You are absolutely confident about it.
Continue …
This belief can exist only to the extent that you believe in the efficacy of judgment as a weapon of defense for your own authority.
You see? Absolutely. The marvelously wonderfully insulting Truth is that you don’t have any authority. You don’t need any authority, because it’s not your function to have authority. It’s your Function to be that which recognizes the Authority Of God in the Movement of Being that constitutes Creation as the same Mind that is God recognizing Himself in the Movement of Creation as the Source and Condition and Visibility and Tangibility of Creation. It’s your Function to let God’s Mind be in you so that you have no other consciousness of anything than that which God is having of His Infinite Being.
When God sees what He has made and recognizes Himself in it, He’s glorifying Himself, and that Conscious Experience is the definition of Sanity. And that Experience is your Function. It’s your Birthright. It’s you in your Right Mind, not as a private little separate part having its own mind that can be in its right mind. It’s you letting the Mind Of God be, I will say, in your mind so that your puny little mind takes on its full stature, its Sanity, and you become God recognizing Himself in the Movement of Creation.
I know you cannot conceive of what I’m saying without interpreting what I’ve said as you being swallowed up in some kind of Infiniteness in which there is no sense of identity, and that is not what I am saying, and that is not what the experience is. Because I will tell you this. When that experience is allowed by you and your mind is transformed, you will still relate to each other as well as all of the Brotherhood, and you will relate to each other with more beauty, and more harmony, and more kindness, and more thoughtfulness, and more involvement. And every aspect of your involvement with each other, with your world, with the universe, will be something that you cherish because it is so rich and so full of Meaning.
Let’s continue …
God offers only mercy. Your words should reflect only mercy, because that is what you have received and that is what you should give. Justice is a temporary expedient, or an attempt to teach you the meaning of mercy. It is judgmental only because you are capable of injustice.
God offers only mercy, the unending opportunity for you to realize that all that you are attempting to do and think that you are succeeding in doing that has arisen from a loveless foundation, you haven’t done. And therefore, there is no call for judgment on you. And you are not guilty for what you could not actually accomplish. You cannot even be judged for trying to do the impossible.
You are still the Son and Daughter of God. You are still the full, whole Expression of the Father that He has never stopped expressing. If you can’t become less than that even if you believe you have, there’s no recourse for the Father except to say, “’Tain’t so. It’s okay, Child. ’Tain’t so.” And to Love you so that you might not judge yourself and detain yourself from coming Home again, from re-embracing what you have judged as frightening or threatening, meaning the Divinity of You, the God-ness of You.
So God offers only mercy. God offers only the Love that reveals to you that no matter what you think you’ve done, you have done nothing wrong. You haven’t succeeded at creating a lie. You haven’t succeeded at actually manifesting an illusion. To have caused yourself to experience a misperception is not a sin. And misperceptions can be replaced with Truth easily.
Now God offers you … God offers only mercy. Your words should reflect only mercy because that is what you have received. And that is what you should give. And you will experience this mercy if you will turn toward the Father and say, “Thy Will, not mine be done. I may not be able to abandon my willfulness completely in this instant, but I do, Father, want to experience more and more of What You’re Being right where that rose is. What You’re Being right where that spring in the sprinkler head is. What You’re Being right where my obstinate boss is. What You’re Being right where my sick cat is being.” You see? And when you do that, you will be answered and you will feel the mercy of it and you will feel loved. And it will be easy for you to extend it. And that’s the beginning of the end of independence, of private authority, and it’s the beginning of awakening.
Justice is a temporary expedient, or an attempt, to teach you the meaning of mercy. God’s Love saying to you that the loveless thing you’re attempting to do, you can’t succeed at doing because you don’t have that capacity. It was never given to you. Can seem to you to be a deprivation that authority that you ought to have is being taken away from you. And this Act of Love, because you’re in a judgmental state of mind, will be seen as judgmental, as something against you. But the only reason it will seem to be judgment is because you have opted to operate from within a framework where judgment is essential.
In order for you as a group of people to have mutually-agreed-upon definitions, judgments have had to have been used. That’s the way you come upon definitions. And that’s the way you come upon agreements. And so, when you’re in that mutually-agreed-upon state of mind, you are expressing a capability to be unjust. When Love comes along and says, “You’re not doing anything at all. You’re not succeeding at doing anything loveless. You don’t have any authority to act lovelessly. The concept of yourself, the definition of yourself that says ‘you are a creator on your own’ is false.”, you say, “Oh! You’re going to take away my identity? You’re going to take away my authority? Why are you against me? Why do you want to undermine my respectability, my dignity, my very being?”
And the Father says, “Because that isn’t your Being. I am your Being. You and I are One. And in that Oneness, you are Infinite. And in that Oneness, you are unending Love. And in that Oneness, the Glory Of All That Exists dawns upon you as the Glory of the Infinitude of your Being inseparable from Me. And I cannot agree with you when you say that this authority that you think you have is real. And I cannot agree with you when you say that if I take that away from you, you will be less than whole. Because when you let go of it, you will be Whole beyond conception. You will Be And Experience Wholeness beyond your most ingenious, imaginative definition.”
Yes. Michael.
So the idea here is to lay judgment aside. And that becomes a process in that, for instance, I’m looking at the roses and I say, “Oh, that’s a beautiful rose.” Or I may even say, “Oh, look at the roses. I like the white ones better than the red ones.” Where the alternative would be to say something like, “Oh, what a beautiful rose. Father, how do You see this rose?”
And what I’m getting at is there’s two things. One is the process just looking at things and saying, “Father, how do You see this? Father, how do You see this? Father, how do You see this?” And the other thing that comes to mind is I’ll see something and automatically it’s judged. It’s like … I mean I realize that I’m doing it but it’s so habitual that I make the judgment before I can even say, “Father, how do You see this?”
Yes.
So there’s two things. One is how do you live your life in the process of putting judgment aside on a minute-by-minute, second-by-second basis? And the second thing is when you see yourself, when you recognize that there’s nothing that you don’t judge all the time, do you just let that be and then the judgment comes in and reminds you to say, “Father, how are You seeing this?” What’s the process?
It’s really not divided into two things. The fact is that unless you see something you haven’t seen before when you see a thing, there is judgment, at least to the extent that you think you know what that thing is and have stopped looking at it with fresh eyes. So, that’s the given. That’s the fundamental that you have to work with.
Now, as a result of our communion, you know that you have an option and you can ask, “What is the Meaning of this? I realize that I probably don’t grasp the Reality of what I’m looking at. Father, I’m curious now. I’m not fully committed to the judgment/definition I have placed upon this part of Creation.” And you just do it more and more and more frequently, because when you realize that you’re insane, you then know that you have another choice which is Sanity. And you want to be Sane. So, you choose for Sanity more and more and more consistently.
And then right here, it said when it talked about justice, it said that, “Justice is a temporary expedient, or an attempt to teach you the meaning of mercy.” I’m not sure what person that’s … Is that what we do or is that what the Real Meaning Of Justice is?
That’s the Real Meaning Of Justice.
So there is like Truth, Beauty, there is a Justice with a capital “J.” There’s a Justice, a Justice in the real sense.
There is indeed. There is Divine Harmony which could be called Divine Law and Order. There is the Way Things Work, with a capital “W.” The capital “W” Way Things Work which is just another way of saying there is a Way God Be’s All That Is. And when one chooses to behave in a loveless way by acting independent of the Father, one runs into the dissonance of the way they’re choosing to behave which is the way things don’t work, and the capital “W” Way Things Work.
And always when the capital “W” Way Things Work dominates, it is obvious that the result is Just because it blesses everyone. And so, in that sense, there is Justice. Yes. This Justice uncovers to you the Fact that the mistake you were making was not judgable. And therefore, there’s no penalty because you couldn’t actually succeed at doing what you thought you were doing. Therefore Justice becomes recognizable as the Father’s Expression Of Mercy, not judgment. Justice uncovers the correction of your mind as an Expression Of Mercy, rather than an expression of judgment. That’s very important.
Okay. Let us continue …
I have spoken of different symptoms, and at that level there is almost endless variation. There is, however, only one cause for all of them: the authority problem. This is “the root of all evil.”
The original sin. Continue …
Every symptom the ego makes involves a contradiction in terms, because the mind is split between the ego and the Holy Spirit, so that whatever the ego makes is incomplete and contradictory. This untenable position is the result of the authority problem which, because it accepts the one inconceivable thought as its premise, can produce only ideas that are inconceivable.
Yes. And the one inconceivable thought is, “I’d rather do it myself. I’d rather see it my way.” Such a thing is impossible. And therefore beyond conception, inconceivable. “I would like to look at things without You, God.” [laughing] Impossible. Inconceivable.
Continue …
The issue of authority is really a question of authorship. When you have an authority problem, it is always because you believe you are the author of yourself and project your delusion onto others. You then perceive the situation as one in which others are literally fighting you for your authorship.
Yes.
This is the fundamental error of all those who believe they have usurped the power of God.
Which itself is the one inconceivable thought and the one thing that can be corrected.
Continue …
This belief is very frightening to them, but hardly troubles God. He is, however, eager to undo it…
In a merciful fashion by uncovering your mistake and showing you that your mistake never succeeded at having any effect whatsoever, and that therefore you were—and still are—utterly innocent as His Perfect Self-Expression.
Continue …
He is, however, eager to undo it, not to punish His children, but only because He knows that it makes them unhappy. God’s creations are given their true Authorship, but you prefer to be anonymous when you choose to separate yourself from your Author.
Interesting thought, isn’t it? That when you choose to stand on your own, you become anonymous.
No name?
No name. No Presence. No real Presence of your own. You become, you might say, invisible, a non-entity.
Being uncertain of your true Authorship, you believe that your creation was anonymous. This leaves you in a position where it sounds meaningful to believe that you created yourself. The dispute over authorship has left such uncertainty in your mind that it may even doubt whether you really exist at all.
And most of you have at one point or another questioned your own existence. That is sad. That is really sad. Because the one thing that is absolutely certain in all this Universe is that you exist. That’s the one fundamental, unalterable Fact. And for you to arrive at a point where you might actually doubt your existence is such an extreme, such an extremely polarized state at the opposite end of the spectrum of Reality, that for you to be feeling that is sad. Sad because it’s a useless and meaningless experience that you have fooled yourself into believing is real.
And to suffer that impossible experience brings out all of the compassion of the Brotherhood in support of your finding that feeling dissolving rapidly so that you become free of it. You have no idea, all of you who have had that experience, you have no idea the extent to which and the infinite amount, if I may put it that way, of compassion and support is extended to you. Great illumination embraces you. But, of course, you will not see what you have chosen not to see. And so, you do not always feel this compassionate, loving embrace. But it is there and it does slowly penetrate. And it does slowly lift you out of it to a point where you are willing to abandon some of your commitment to the awfulness of your current sense of yourself and then your upliftment can happen much more rapidly.
Continue …
Only those who give over all desire to reject can know that their own rejection is impossible. You have not usurped the power of God, but you have lost it.
And you think you have usurped the Power of God.
Continue …
Fortunately, to lose something does not mean that it has gone. It merely means that you do not remember where it is.
Isn’t that wonderful? A simple clarity. Fortunately, to lose something does not mean that it has gone. It merely means that you do not remember where it is. In that realization, it’s easy to bring your curiosity into play and not get stuck in the lostness of it.
Continue …
Its existence does not depend on your ability to identify it, or even to place it.
Remember that “it” is referring to the Power of God.
Continue …
It is possible to look on reality without judgment and merely know that it is there.
It is possible. It is possible. It is possible to look on Reality without judgment. It really is.
Continue …
Peace is a natural heritage of spirit. Everyone is free to refuse to accept his inheritance, but he is not free to establish what his inheritance is.
Ah! So, you all have an inheritance. Wouldn’t you love to know what it is? You’re not free to choose what it is, but there is one. There’s a Birthright that is here for you.
And all of your personal, private, prized authority blocks you from experiencing it. And all I’m doing is trying to inspire you to become curious about what your Birthright is so that you will value opening up to It more than holding on to your mutually-agreed-upon definitions, your sense of personal authority.
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The problem everyone must decide is the fundamental question of authorship.
The one and only question really.
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All fear comes ultimately, and sometimes by way of very devious routes, from the denial of Authorship.
All fear, all fear no matter what it is, comes ultimately from the denial of Authorship, God’s Authorship.
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The offense is never to God, but only to those who deny Him. To deny His Authorship is to deny yourself the reason for your peace, so that you see yourself only in segments. This strange perception is the authority problem.
This strange perception is the Authority Problem. That’s all there is to the Authority Problem: a strange perception, a biased perception, an altered perception. Again, an altered perception of the only thing there is, period. Don’t pride yourself in some capacity you think you have to alter or bias or twist the experience of Reality and call it names you choose to call it, and create ways to be within those definitions that give you a sense of authority independent of God. Don’t pride yourself on this.
That’s not what your mind is for and that’s not your mind’s Function and no matter how real you think the results of doing it are, they are not real. And your commitment to their reality constitutes a form of insanity. Is it not interesting that you’ve never heard of terminal insanity? Insanity can never come to an end result. It’s more like … I’m going to put it this way. It’s more like what the world looks like when you are looking at it while having a really constipated bowel movement. It takes more effort than you can imagine to be so unnatural as to create a misperception of Reality.
Paul wondered whether I really wanted to say that and I really did.
When you look at a baby having a really difficult B-M and his face turns red and his eyes squinch up, can you imagine what his world looks like to him at that moment? When you are going to the effort to try to be something that you cannot be, it’s a strain. It’s hard work to do the impossible, and while you’re doing it and looking at everything, looking at the Kingdom of Heaven through the strain of it, you see it in what your ego calls fresh, new ways, but there’s no pleasure in it. There is no Love in it. There’s no Peace in it. And to forever be in the middle of the experience of a constipated bowel movement is not something for you to work at becoming comfortable with. It’s something to let go of. It’s something to abandon.
We are not going to read the last paragraph today. I want to leave it today just exactly where we’ve left it so that you might be with it.
I thank you very much and I look forward to being with all of you next week.
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