Teachings of Christ Mind

Good afternoon. And welcome to everyone who’s joining us on the Internet as well.

How many of you have the feeling that when we get together like this, it’s wonderful, but then you go home and what we’ve talked about seems so far removed from your daily experience that it’s hard to see any relevance? Well, the idea that it’s far removed is absurd. If it’s not relevant to every single moment of your day, it’s useless, and we might as well all go home right now. But it’s far from useless, and it’s absolutely relevant.

The last couple of weeks, we’ve been using the word “Singularity,” indicating that your Mind is a Singularity, and it is inseparable from and identical with the Mind of God. And that’s where you get in trouble, because you go home and you forget that your Mind is the very Presence of God, individualized by God as Himself Expressed right where you are. God does not express Himself and create an entity called you, and you, and you, so that there are a whole lot of created entities that God created, but are somehow distinctly different or separate from God. God is embodying Himself infinitely; infinitely individualizing Himself without dividing Himself up in any way, shape, or form.

Now perhaps an easier way to see your week in between these Gatherings, these meetings, as not so irrelevant to what we’re discussing is to understand that you only have one Mind. You don’t have two. You don’t have a Divine Mind that God Is Being right there where you are, and then another mind called an ego. You don’t have two minds. You are yourself a Singularity. That Singularity is pure Conscious Awareness—Mind—and it’s either being used truly or it’s being used poorly. But there’s just one Mind. And what the Course does is to help bring you back into an awareness of this fact, so that you may choose to use your Mind well, instead of in a conflicted manner.

You are each the Christ at this moment, either fully aware of What You Truly Are, or you have filled your awareness with a concept of yourself and definitions you have made-up, and you’re governing your lives, your consciousness of things, by means of those definitions or concepts. But it’s a Singular Mind. It’s the one and only Conscious Awareness that is the Presence of You. So, again, what you’re beginning to learn to do is to use this one Mind that is the Christ of You well, instead of in a sloppy, careless and confused manner.

I’ve brought out that there is a Place of Excellence in each of you. Well, this word “excellence” can be used in a general way like, “Yes, I can choose to do things excellently.” The word “excellent” has a small “e”. Here’s a real practical way of putting it. As you were growing up, your mom and your dad said, “Now you be a good girl. You be a good boy.”, and then you would go and do things, “Oh, good girls don’t do that. Good boys don’t do that.”, and so you began to acquire a set of ideas as to what a good boy does and what a bad boy does; and what a good girl does, and what a good girl doesn’t do. Right? And, if you were a cooperative type person, you tried to embody all the things that a good boy and a good girl does, and if you were an angry girl or boy, you chose to do all the things that a bad girl does and all the things that a bad boy does, just to get even. Either way you were choosing to act on the basis of a set of rules. And in that way, let’s say that you chose to be a good girl and a good boy, you grew up learning to do things in a way that you could call excellent.

Now, when I say there’s a Place of Excellence in you, that’s not the Excellence I’m talking about. Because that excellence is an educated excellence. You see what I’m saying? It’s not something inherent in you as an unalterable State of your Being. The Excellence in you has a capital “E”, because it’s derived from your Source, That Which Is Being right there where you are—God.

When you get up and go through your day, most of you go through it … mm … trying to be a good girl or a good boy still, no matter how old this boy and girl are. And you can go through your whole week without ever thinking about God, without being aware that you have a Partner, at the least, that you have a present, active Source of your Being which is Being You each moment new.

The Course and I are encouraging you to remember God, to bring the Awareness of the Presence of God into your day so that you might remember that you have a resource that is really a Source, with a capital “S”, that you can draw upon if you invite It in, that will allow you to be quote “in the world” from a Real Place of Excellence that is healing and transformational.

So if you go out, if you go home today, back into the world, and remember that it’s a simple matter of choosing to come from a Place of Excellence in you, and then remembering that that Place of Excellence has a capital “E”, that it is Divine, and therefore it is intrinsically Valuable, with a capital “V”, then you will be able to bring that Excellence into a more relevant position in your mind as you encounter every activity of your day. And you will be able to do it without becoming spiritual, weird.

We’re talking about healing. Healing of your mind. Healing of your mind means the transition from independent activity based upon the idea that you are an independent mind that somehow is lodged in a brain in your body, and all of it is purely physical, we’re talking about transitioning from that to a renewal of your Connection with God, so that God becomes pertinent in the most practical of ways in your daily life. So that everything that you have been doing, because you have based your actions upon concepts and definitions of yourself that were learned, may begin to break down, dissolve, and yield to a new way of Being, which is really your original way of Being. So that you might be the Light of the world. So that you might be that which is a determining factor in uncovering the Kingdom of Heaven which is the only thing in your face right where you had been seeing a physical world with physical human beings, and nothing else. It’s time for the Kingdom of Heaven to be re-illuminated to you and to your Brothers.

Let’s go to the book.

The heading is:

… what potentials? Well, the potentials I’ve been talking about. The Illumination of the Kingdom of Heaven. The Illumination of Reality. Where? Not out there, but in your Mind. Because the definitions you have in your Mind are determining what you’re seeing out there. It isn’t changing the Kingdom of Heaven that is out there, but it’s determining whether or not you’re seeing the Kingdom of Heaven, or a physical universe that has nothing to do with God and started from a big bang.

Continuing …

Well, do we have any healers in the room? Do any of you think of yourselves as healers? Not usually. But if you’re looking at things and not seeing What They Really Are, and if everyone else is looking at them and not seeing What They Are and you all agree on what you’re seeing, then there is a call for healing. And because it is your Birthright to be in your right Mind, then it’s your Birthright to be the ones who uncover Reality more clearly by becoming open to the direct experience of It right here and right now. So you’re all healers. Why? Another reason is because you need to be healed, because you deserve to see What’s Really Going On here.

The unhealed healer doesn’t even know he has a vocation.

Continuing …

Can you see that?

Your behavior expresses always the way you identify yourself. If you are identifying yourself as a private mind, or even a private “I”, one that can see things the way it chooses to see them and can make-up imaginative descriptions and definitions of things and then believe them, and thereby make them true, your behavior will express that and healing can’t come from it.

On the other hand, if you choose to go within to that Place of Excellence, because you know that Place of Excellence has a capital “E” and it means something beyond whatever your current best definitions are, you are choosing to join with something outside your memory banks. You are choosing to join with That Which Is Divine. Now because of that decision and choice, you prime yourself for inspiration, the influx of vision that is True, and when that happens, your behavior changes. But still, the behavior isn’t what does the healing. It’s the Clarity of Mind. It’s the Movement of Conscious Awareness back into its natural Singularity where it is not choosing to act independent of the Father, and the inspiration of True Vision causes you to see with new eyes.

It is that inspiration which is then communicated to the Brotherhood, because there are no private thoughts and it blesses everyone because, remember, this Singularity is all-inclusive. Remember that I said when you move into that Singularity, although it feels as you do it as though you’re becoming more private and more separate and more tiny, you find that as you move into that Experience of Singularity, it is huge, it’s Infinite, and it does include All of Creation.

Again …

Now it’s very easy for all of you to teach what it’s like to be a human being. It’s very easy for you to teach each other what foods are not healthy for you and what foods are. You can all teach each other how to avoid the illnesses, the sicknesses, that come around seasonally. It’s very easy for you to teach how not to be sick as a defense against being sick. Right? That’s confused thinking, because you are stating sickness is real. It’s inevitable or very likely, but you can avoid it by behaving in such-and-such a way and doing such-and-such a thing.

But you know what? You have a capacity to teach each other how to overcome the liability to be ill. Period. That, however, comes not from training, not from learning, not from education, but from moving into that Experience of Singularity that occurs when you, with persistence and gentleness, choose to go within to the Altar and to open up to the Holy Spirit. In other words, to go into that Place of Excellence in you so that the Truth might be revealed to you, where you Know it down to the tips of your toes, and in that Knowing, are aware of your utter invulnerability to anything other than perfect, pure Harmony in which dissonance, or dis-ease, cannot occur.

Now, if you will let yourself into that Experience and nurture it by continuing to invite it, you will begin to teach how to—and this isn’t the best word—overcome the liability to be ill. This is significant. You all have the capacity to use your Mind in an unconflicted way so that what you teach, you learn, and what you teach well, you learn well, because you’re not teaching conflict. Because you’re not teaching conflict, you don’t learn conflict.

Now, every day, unconsciously, you teach each other how to be human beings. You do it without even thinking about it. It’s pure habit. But what the world needs is someone who’s willing to teach how to be Divine Being; not Divine Beings, but Divine Be-ing—a verb.

And again, you can do that without being spiritual and weird. I’m saying that repetitively today so that you might embrace what I’m talking about more easily, knowing that what comes forth within you to be taught will be recognizably of value, and will come across in a gentle and unsurprising way that will nevertheless be transformational, because it will not reinforce the mutually-agreed-upon definitions and will leave an opening for aha’s to occur in those around you. And as you provide those opportunity for aha’s, you learn the aha’s yourself. You see, there’s the Singularity of it again. What you give, you get. What you teach, you learn. The Love you extend is the Love that you receive. Why? Because there’s only one thing going on—a Perfect Singularity.

That’s why nothing works well when you give to get, because you’ve divided up a Singularity and you are being in an un-singular or divided way, and so what you get back is not a Singularity. What you learn is continued confusion. It’s really very simple. It’s not punishment. If you do something that doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. And when you change and do something that does work, it does work. Just because that’s the way it is. Not because in one instance you were a bad girl, or a bad boy, and the next instance you were a good girl, or a good boy, and got a gold star. You see?

Continuing …

You see? You see why? Because it’s all a Singularity. So if you want to be healed, you’ve got to be a healing Presence.

Again …

Why is that? Because it’s the Holy Spirit’s Function to bring you back into your right Mind. It’s the Holy Spirit’s Function to disclose to you that It is your right Mind. It is your right Mind’s Purpose to bring you back into full awareness of It so that you may be wholly (w-h-o-l-l-y) Sane.

Continuing …

… the Holy Spirit …

… form of communication …

What does that mean, “the body confused with the mind”? It’s simple. When you think that your mind is a result of circuitry and synapses in a piece of flesh inside your skull called a brain, you think that your body is your mind. And you think that your mind is the seat of intelligence for your body telling it what to do, keeping it running. You see? Body and mind are synonymous. They’re inseparable according to the current definitions of human beings. You see? Mind and body are seen as the same thing.

Again …

In other words, in the service of the ideas and concepts which you believe identify you to you.

“Oh, my God, if I have a real healing, if I have a sudden shift of perception and a miracle happens to me, and I suddenly see things as they are and my life is transformed, my body is transformed, everybody will be able to see that I’m Divine, and that will utterly ruin my life. I won’t fit in any more. I’ll stand out like a sore thumb. I’ll be the object of fascinated attention that I won’t ever be able to get away from. I’ll be the center of attention, because obviously in everyone else’s eyes, I will be very special. Oh, my God! Don’t let this happen to me. I don’t want real healing. I’d rather have magic. I’d rather have a potion, a medication, a system of thought, do it for me so that nobody ever thinks that my own Clarity of Mind, my own Singularity of Mind, might be responsible for healing and transformation.”

Continuing …

Why? Because healing is a shift of perception that brings you back into Singularity, the absence of conflict. Singularity, without parts that aren’t functioning well together, is another description of Integrity, isn’t it? That which is integrated.

You might say, “Healing only integrates. Healing only uncovers Singularity.”

Why? Because it’s always making one thing responsible for another. This against that. This for that. And it’s always things doing things to things without one’s mind having to change.

Continuing …

So when you think you have a gift of healing that someone else doesn’t have, you are energizing a mind that is believing the impossible—that two opposing things can exist simultaneously, that there is not a Singularity which holds everyone and everything unalterably in equality.

Continuing …

In other words, because You are the Christ, and because the desire to be good and the desire to have affection for your Brother and the desire to care for your Brother is inseparable from the Christ That You Are, then, if, even in your confusion about Who You Are, you have moments of truly caring for your Brother, even though at the same time you think you have a talent given to you by God that your Brother doesn’t have, that which is genuine in your desire becomes embodied. In other words, you do manage to create with God that which is Eternal, even in the midst of your dreaming.

Again …

In other words, the Extension of Love has been made, and the willingness of the magical healer to be blessed by the influx of Love passing through him, blesses him as well. Because, you might say in a moment of weakness, he didn’t see himself as the source of the healing, and he was willing to be the recipient of the healing, just as the one needing healing was willing to stand in receipt of the healing. And so that willingness constituted a Singularity.

Continuing …

… [laughing] coincidental. And the magical healer might say it was a fluke.

Here we have the Singularity again. The healer may not think that he’s being truly helpful, but the one that he’s extending the help to sees the healer as an agent for change, as being helpful. And so the one being healed, seeing the healer as helpful, is seeing something True about the healer, and that Gift is made, making it possible for the healer to be blessed. Why? Because it’s all a Singularity. It’s not this being done to that. It’s a Wholeness always.

It’s important to get this point because you’re all, I’m going to say, bound in this Singularity of Being. You’re all held in this Singularity of Being, and what you think and what you believe is communicated. So what are you going to be teaching? You better be teaching what you want to be learning. You better be giving what you want to stand in receipt of, because you shall surely receive it. Because whether you are ignoring the way things are Truly, or not, it’s still a Singularity, it’s still the Ultimate.

Continuing …

… that which is nothing more than your right Mind …

… meaning the Holy Spirit …

Or, are a Singularity.

You could say, “He is therefore inconsistent and teaching inconsistency.”

Or valuable.

Why? Because healing is the Idea and Fact of Singularity being extended for the Purpose of Conscious Reception and Conscious Awareness of It. And what is Singular has no variations, no exceptions.

Here it is again. Integration. The coming into Conscious Awareness of the Singularity of Being that is all-inclusive.

With all of this talk about healing, is there any possible way that you could think that the Course is not about healing? Is there any way you could think that the experience of healing—physical, mental, the healing of a Brother or a Sister by virtue of your going within and listening for the Voice for Truth—is there any way you could think that healing is not inseparable from the Truth that we’re talking about, and that somehow you could experience a blissful state of mind in which the need for healing didn’t disappear, but you were no longer bothered by it, where you were at peace with your infirmity? Is it conceivable to you that such a thing is what the Course is talking about? I hope not.

Continuing …

That’s like saying, “Awakening is inevitable.” It’s predictable because it is inevitable.

In other words, Perfection is your Birthright when? At every moment that you are Conscious. I’m not even going to say now as opposed to the future. It doesn’t have anything to do with time. It has to do with Mind. And every moment that you are experiencing Being, which is a an Experience of Being Conscious, is the time for healing, because Wholeness is what the Conscious Experience of Being is about. It is what it is an experience of. So it is inevitable that you will come into that experience because it’s the only one going on.

But it’s one that you don’t see and will not see as long as you are entertaining conflicted thinking. There is illness. There is disease. There are medical solutions to it which are called magic. You don’t have to be ill; all you have to have is antibiotics. You don’t have to be ill; just don’t get around somebody with a contagious disease. Let me ask you this. What more inspiring thing could happen than for someone to dare to be in the presence of another with a contagious disease, who not only has no fear of disease, or of catching it, because he’s coming from a place beyond the liability to be ill, whose Peace and Equanimity, Balance and Love are so different from what this person with a contagious condition has been confronted by, because all he’s been confronted with is fear of him, what more inspiring thing could happen than for this person, this fearless person of Singular Awareness, would present by being in the presence of the one with the contagious disease?

What singular thing might have a more profound effect for that one’s healing than this kind of experience? Because if this person who everyone believes is subject to the communicable disease, whatever horrible one it is, if this person is not afraid, if this person is teaching invulnerability by being the presence of the absence of fear, what do you think the effect of that might be? That the person who has the communicable disease doesn’t need to be afraid either. And if he doesn’t have to be afraid, then in the absence of that fear, he can experience spontaneous remission or spontaneous healing. What needs to be taught is that one can get beyond the liability to be ill, beyond the conflict of threat of disease and successful battling of it and overcoming of it.

Again …

… God’s …

[laughing] That means that there are no lumps in God. The consistency is smooth.

Why? Because it’s all a Singularity. Whether we’re talking about God and you, or you and your fellowman, it’s all one Singularity. So whatever is God’s is yours, and whatever is yours is your Brother’s, and whatever is your Brother’s is yours. That’s why your choice to let in Truth as your Conscious Experience, not as a fantastic thought but as your Conscious Experience, blesses your Brothers, because it’s all a Singularity. And that’s why your conflicted thinking tends to support your Brother’s conflicted thinking.

Again …

… God’s …

… I said, “He’s not lumpy. He’s smooth.”

… What?

And I’m going to say, “as You.”

… the worker of magic …

You see, when you think you have something that your Brother doesn’t have, and you give it to your Brother, you think you have lost something, and therefore you have no reason to be grateful to the Brother you gave it to.

[To someone in the audience] Are you frowning? No.

Continuing …

In other words, the unhealed healer is not inspired by the Conscious Experience of Singularity, which is an Experience of Wholeness and Equality.

Continuing …

… the unhealed healer’s …

You see? If you think you’re giving something to somebody that doesn’t have, and if you think you are losing something in the process, and if you think the process is not a Wholeness occurring, it’s impossible to think that you’re standing in a position of receiving anything in return. And so you won’t see your act of giving as something you can stand in receipt of.

… the unhealed teacher’s …

Remember that. Ingratitude is a lesson in sickness.

If you’re sick, don’t take an antibiotic, take a good dose of gratitude. No, give a big dose of gratitude. Embody gratitude yourself.

Again …

And that device is the Mind, the Conscious Experience of Being. Now, when we use the word “Mind,” you think of it as a noun, as an object. But Mind means the Conscious Experience of Being, which is a Living, Moving Experience.

Now this is important. Continuing …

Listen to this.

You must abandon the confusion, the confused idea that mind and body are one and the same thing, that mind is a function of a brain, chemical interactions and electrical spurts, and that you have this mind because, in order for the body to be what it is, it requires government, it requires something disciplined to keep it all in order, and it’s all physical. You need to be willing to abandon that. And you need to be willing to shift into the Conscious Experience of You as being Consciousness, being Conscious Awareness in which all form is being experienced, and, as I’ve said before, that every single form that you’re experiencing is not physical, but is a pure Idea.

Again, whether it’s the flowers in front of you, or the glass-topped table, or your fingernails, it’s not matter. It’s Ideas. And Ideas, again, are perfectly recognizable and tangible to the Mind that formed them. So they will be Experienceable, they will have Substance, they will have Tangibility, but it’s simply the fullness of the Experience of the Idea. And just to keep you from becoming dense about what I’ve just said, because it’s an Idea—the table—and because it’s an Idea—your body—your body can pass through the table without interference. You can move through the table instead of bunging up your shin against it, because your body and the table are pure Ideas, even though they are experienced as having Substance and Form and Tangibility and what I’m going to call Endurance, they continue to be present.

Again …

… in other words, that which is only his right Mind.

… your Brother …

… change his Mind …

And here we’re talking about the Singularity again.

Again, this is because it’s all a Singularity.

Every night Paul says a prayer. He asks for healing for everyone who has asked for healing, even if the desire for healing was only expressed as a hope with little faith. Do you see? Paul in his mind does not ask for healing and express the desire as a hope, and he does not bring little faith to it. But many do. Many hope things will get better, but they don’t bring a lot of faith to that expressed desire. You and Paul can speak on behalf of the Brother who has only hope and very little faith backing it up. You can ask for your Brother from the confidence you have in the inevitability of healing that doesn’t require hope, because you feel its inevitability. Because it’s that one’s Birthright to experience what God has set into place about him, and I’m going to say, by Law, according to God’s Laws, according to the Perfection of God’s Being.

And so you could say that you can have confidence for your Brother in the face of his lack of faith, and that someone is standing on behalf of him from a strength that he does not currently experience, blesses him and makes it easier for him to feel the influx of strength, and firmness replacing the infirmity. All of this because everything is a Singularity already.

Again …

Well, what have you done? You’ve acknowledged the Truth. You have seen What Is True about him, that he’s already Whole. That no matter how successfully he thinks he obtained a bill of divorcement from his Father, it didn’t work, and he’s inseparable from his Father, and his Birthright is still his. It’s still active. It’s still sitting there, held in trust while he dallies in ignorance. And that which is held in trust is his Divine Self, and it’s called the Holy Spirit, the Place of Excellence, the Altar that’s in him. It’s already there and it’s already full of What He Has Always Been.

So …

Let me promise you, those are the only choices you have. You can’t see in three ways, or four ways, or ten ways, or a hundred ways. You can only see in two ways. One is clearly and one is unclearly. You can see Truly, or you can see What Is True in a distorted way. And those are the only two choices you have.

And the you that is making the choice is the one Singularity called Mind, or Conscious Awareness, that is absolutely Singular. There may be two ways of seeing things, but there aren’t two minds to see them with. There’s one Mind seeing clearly or unclearly. Now I’m trying to simplify this for you so that you are not confused. You are the Christ right now, behaving as though you’re not, and believing your behavior. Now I’ve said it. I have described the problem of being and the answer of Being in one sentence, and I haven’t violated the Fact of the Singularity of Being.

And if you will contemplate that sentence, you will find that it describes the problem that you’re having, but it also states the unalterable Truth about You that empowers you to abandon the confusion that seems to govern you. Why? Because you aren’t an unlearned mind trying to learn and refine itself through eons of time. You’re the one and only Mind there is, being a little wacko at the moment, which you’re quite capable of doing. It serves no purpose. It creates for you a meaningless experience which you can imaginatively apply meaning to. But you can’t change the fact that right at this instant, you’re the Christ, You are the Ultimate, and you don’t have to behave wacko any more. Knowing that let’s you know that a new decision now will give you a new experience now. You’re not stuck in anything. This is the good news.

Again …

You all do understand that. You get somebody to take something, take less for more. You can either charge someone more than it’s worth and so you’ve taken from them, or if they have something that they don’t know the worth of that they’re selling, you can buy it for the price they’re selling it, knowing that you just gypped them out of a lot more, because they were ignorant of its real value.

Again, here’s the Singularity. By being the way you were created, you add to the Kingdom. The thing to remember, however, is that you can’t do this all by yourself. You can only do this as you let the Movement of God move through you. And it’s in that way that God expresses Himself through you, and your Gift of the Singularity, and all that it includes, becomes embodied.

Continuing …

Yes, you do. And it’s pressuring to get out. It’s pressuring to be given. It’s pressuring to be extended. And you know what? As long as you’re committed to your definitions of things, you feel that pressure as being against you, because it requires you to abandon the limits that you have imposed upon yourself. And it requires you to participate in the extension of something that you can’t take personal pride in having created, because you know you weren’t the exclusive author of it. And that’s too great an expense, too great a cost for you to pay. And so you find yourself more and more miserable, trying to abide in your definitions, in your concepts, because the push of the more of What You Truly Are against the little that you’re trying to be, is causing your littleness to be a painful experience.

Yes, you do. And the Holy Spirit is constantly insinuating Itself, constantly gently pressuring you, constantly, in an un-controlling way, getting your attention. And you treat It like a mosquito flying around your face, bugging you, bugging the hell out of you, bothering you, distracting you. But it will continue.

So when you leave here today, remember that it’s not that unreasonable a thing to choose to drive home embodying in your driving habits that which comes from a Place of Excellence in You. Just let there be a desire to be in the Movement of God that everyone else on the road is in, whether they realize it or not. If they’re behaving poorly, it’s because they don’t realize it. Somebody needs to be the one to realize it. Because when you truly realize it, you have also realized it for the one in the other car, making it easier for him to get it, whether he does or not. But the point is you’re not joining him in conflicted confusion by coming from the same place he is. So what we’re talking about truly is relevant. And you don’t need to look at everything as though it’s so completely different and completely at odds with what we’re talking about.

Everything, because it is some Aspect of Creation, with a capital “C”, everything, because it is the Visibility and Tangibility of God, is susceptible to the acknowledgement of God in it. Even when it thinks it’s something else, it’s still susceptible to the acknowledgement of What Is True about it by anyone who dares to engage in being conscious of it. You got it! I can tell. You’ve got the idea.

You see, this book isn’t about words and concepts and ideas. It’s about you, and it’s about the way you’re being. So this week, be a little bit more consciously.

And I look forward to being with you next week.

Okay. You are welcome.