Teachings of Christ Mind

Good evening. And welcome to everyone who is joining us on the Internet.

We’ll go right into the book tonight. The section heading is:

Interesting thought …

… it’s your salvation because it’s the means by which you actively and conscientiously abandon your self-imposed isolation. The only way you can break your isolation is by joining with something, and all you have to join with is the Sonship (the Brotherhood) and Creation. When you join with your Brothers and Creation, you are joining with God. That’s all there is there for you to join with. And that’s all there is there for you to isolate yourself from. And so the Sonship is your salvation because they are what is there for you to join with.

You say, “Well, God is there for me to join with.” [laughing] Ah, yes, but the ego has a twisted sense of justice and a twisted sense of how things work. And it would suggest that all you have to do is join with God and to heck with your Brothers and Sisters. Let them join with God on their own. But it cannot work that way because God is the Movement of Creation, God is the Movement of Life—and Life is constituted of the Brotherhood of All That God Has Expressed of Himself and Embodied of Himself in everything.

“Well, can’t I just, can’t I approach this from the standpoint of nature, and go out and find a nice cave to be in, and meditate on the trees and on nature and become one with it?” No. That isn’t sufficient, because at some point you have to reestablish your Self as part of the Brotherhood.

The moment you say, “Father, I’m willing to acknowledge You as my Source. I’m willing to acknowledge You as my Father,” and you have the resulting experience of knowing that you’re His Son and not an independent, autonomous agent, you also have put yourself in the position of recognizing that if you are God’s Son, if you are God’s Daughter, so are all of the other individuals you know, and therefore they are—and Paul cannot stand this word—they are siblings. You are their Brother; they are your Brothers and Sisters. They are your Family. So if you’re going to accept God and realize your Sonship, you’re going to have to accept the fact that everyone else you know is also part of the Sonship and is therefore your Brother or Sister—Family.

And you’ve got to embrace them. Why wouldn’t you? Well, it isn’t your habit to embrace them. You have defined them as different things. “They can’t be … my salvation can’t lie in them! They are my competitors,” or, “They are my enemies,” or, [laughing] “They go to a different church than I do.” You see? “They are different from me. I am different from them. I’m different from them in a very special way”[small laugh]—and that act of separation, that act of rejection of them as not just like you. But, that they are part of the Infinitude of your Being, that they are essential to you in order for What You Divinely Are to be complete, you’re going to have to embrace them, not just tolerate them. You’re going to have to embrace them. You’re going to have to abandon the labels you’ve given to them—the labels that you’ve given to them in order to set yourself up as something specially different from them.

You’re going to have to take them into the status of Sonship that you are letting yourself back into. And you are going to have to come to the realization that since you have the same Father, the same Father/Mother/God as your Source, they are just like you, and they’re inseparable from you in the fullest meaning of the word “Family.” And you will have to take them Home with you. You will have to bring them along with you in your increasingly clear experience of yourself as the Christ, the direct Expression of God, right now.

And what you’re willing to give away, you get to keep. If you can’t keep something that you haven’t given away, that means there has to be someone to give it away to. And whoever it is that you can give it away to will be your salvation. It’s just the way it works. And that’s why the Sonship is your salvation—because they are there as the agent, you might say, for your experiencing the full meaning of the fact that you’re not an orphan, that you have a Father. They are the means for your breaking the isolation.

It’s not enough to just let God in, as though God were one thing amongst all of the Brotherhood. All of the Brotherhood is God In Motion, including you.

Meaning God’s.

Nothing that God has created is different or separate or apart from you. It’s part of the Wholeness of You.

… coupled with your conscious realization that it belongs to you …

God’s.

Your realization that you are the Son of God, in so many words, makes God, God—confirms God, glorifies God, because it’s no longer leaving God out of the equation.

For all good things. For being the Presence that uninhibitedly glorifies God, because there’s nothing in you denying God, nothing in you claiming a place of equality with God while separate from God.

You see? That’s why the Sonship is your salvation, because it is what is available to you to extend it to.

… you know, your enemy, your competitor—your hateful, selfish this, that, or the other one in your life.

… because every single one of your Brothers and Sisters is some part of the Infinitude of your Being.

The competitor you see, the selfish child you see, the dominating mother-in-law you see, the unscrupulous father you see, is a thing you have determined in your own mind as those things, and which you hold in front of God, covering God up to you. And so you’re denying the Presence of God there and giving adamant preference to your definition.

You see? It all lies in how you are relating to your Brother.

You say, “Well, you know, I love A Course In Miracles. And I love to sit out on my patio and read it during the afternoon, or I love to sit in my bed in the morning before anybody is up and have my quiet time with the wonderful and beautiful and comforting Truths that I read. But then I have to become involved with somebody else, I have to relate to somebody else, and that’s where all the trouble starts.”

Yeah. That’s because your Brother is your salvation, but you’re using your Brother or your Sister for a purpose other than your salvation. You’re using your Brother or your Sister to conform your own arrogant importance, your special differentness.

You’re using your Brother to compete with. “He is my competitor.” Well, if he is your competitor, you are his competitor. You’re both in competition, and each one of you is out to best the other.

You’re not treating your Brother, and your Brother is not treating you, as though your Function is to recognize God in each other, and in recognizing It and embracing It, glorifying God in each other. You each are denying God His Home right in the center of you, right as the center and circumference of What You Are. And so when you’re denying God, you’re denying your Sonship, your Sonhood. You are claiming to be an orphan. And so you deny God a Home, and you cannot experience being at Home yourself.

No.

In other words, they’re always successful at protecting you.

… you say, “Oh, when I deny the Father, [small laugh] I suffer. When I deny the Father, and I don’t see Him in my world and I don’t see Him in my Brother, but what I see is what I’ve decided they are, well, then I’m in a dog-eat-dog world. And I either have friendly competition, or I have strenuous competition that’s called war where my competitors are my enemies.” It’s not a pleasant experience.

When you claim to be an orphan, then you are claiming to be less than What God Has Created You To Be. You are attempting to lessen What You Are. And …

Now, let’s not jump to conclusions. This does not mean that God is a wrathful God. This does not mean that God is out to get you. It means simply, as I’ve described before, that when you are in the Movement of Being, when you are yielding to What Divine Life, Truth And Love Is Unfolding As Creation in your day, you experience no distress, no tension. You experience Harmony. You experience everything fitting together. You find everything that happens to be a blessing, not only for you, but for everyone else.

But, when you say, “But, Father, I’d rather do it my way,” then it’s as though there is a rubber band attached to your waist and the other end of it attached to the Movement of Being—attached to God, if you will—and when you say, “Father, I’d rather do it my way,” and you attempt to not move with the Movement and dig your heels in, immediately what happens? The rubber band begins to get taut. And you have to exert a great deal of energy to hold your place, and to move to the right or the left instead of forward, or to stand still against the forward Movement. You see?

And this is what it means when it says:

… Reality continues to be the Only Thing Going On, whether you’re choosing to pay attention to it or not. And if you’re choosing not to pay attention to it, then your experience of being becomes one of tension, stress, distress, discomfort, and all the rest—not because God has turned around and said a curse on you, but because Reality isn’t going to stop being, just because you’ve decided not to go along with it. And so as it continues to be What It Perfectly Is, you experience distress until you finally say “Uncle” and yield to the Father and say, “Hey, Dad, wait up. I’m coming. I’m coming,” and run forward to be with the Movement of your Being.

Is it beginning to sink in? You can’t wake up alone. You can’t wake up because you have an enlightened awareness of What You Are. Because until you give away what you’re aware of, you won’t be able to keep it. It doesn’t become an endorsement on your part. It doesn’t become yours as a full-fledged Conscious Experience.

And so your Brother is your salvation. And somewhere along the line, they have to become an object of your affection, where they are worth whatever energy you have to put forth to change your sorry perception of them for one that reflects the Truth About Them significantly enough for your behavior toward them to change.

Continuing.

You see? [small laugh] Limitlessness is the antithesis of privacy, isn’t it, of littleness.

… you see? “I’ll share it with you, but I won’t share it with you, you dirty-dealing competitor!” You see?

Must be covered up to you.

Not if you knew that it was the Light that was yours.

You see, your Brother is your salvation because the Light that is in him—that you’re denying at the moment while you’re satisfied with your awful definition of him—the Light in him that is yours, won’t be apparent to you as being yours until you honor it in him or her. Until you give it away, you will not have the experience of it being yours. Your Brother is your salvation.

You see, if you want to wake up, if you want to come back Home, you have to undo the act that caused you to seem to be separated. And the act was an act of independence. You had an independence day. And whatever you abandon your independence from, becomes your salvation. Because the act of undoing the separation, the act of abandoning independence, is what returns you to your right Mind, is what returns you to your Sanity.

What you don’t realize is that the most effective way you have of depriving yourself of something is by depriving your Brother of something—by always putting him at a disadvantage, by always making him responsible or her responsible for the way your life is going. You take away something from your Brother, when what’s called for is to give your Brother something, or your Sister.

And what is the one and only thing you can give that is Meaningful? It is the recognition and acknowledgement of God being right there where they are, and refusing to abandon that acknowledgement. That’s called Love. Love is the willingness to recognize that Which Is Real in each and every thing.

… and this should be underlined and not forgotten.

In other words, if you have been blaming everyone else for your woes and for the awful life you’ve been experiencing, and you realize that you are the only one that can limit yourself, then you can blame yourself and say, “I am responsible.” Except that usually the ego says, “You are the one that’s responsible, you stupid little thing. See how stupid you have been? You have ruined your whole life.” And you’re still listening to the voice for fear that at first said everyone else was responsible and which is now saying, “You are responsible. You have ruined your life.” And that’s even worse than the idea that you had that everyone else did—that everyone else was responsible. There is no difference because you haven’t stepped outside of the ego’s point of view. And it is the ego which is speaking in both cases.

Because they are part of you.

Blame must be abandoned, in other words.

I’ve been telling you repeatedly, you are neither behind the Point of Perfection, nor advancing toward it; you are at that Point and must understand yourself therefrom. And the same thing must be applied to your Brothers and Sisters as you look at them, because this is the only stance that you can take that steps out of the box, the frame of reference in which blame rules.

You have to abandon blame. And the only way to abandon blame is to step into an arena where it doesn’t exist. No matter what you think you’ve done in your ignorance, it hasn’t subverted God. It hasn’t changed or altered God. It hasn’t diminished God. And it hasn’t changed, subverted, or diminished you. Whatever you have thought you have done in your ignorance, has accomplished nothing, and therefore there is no blame due. But, in order to escape the illusion of suffering that accompanies believing that you have accomplished something, you must … you must come to where I am and look at yourself with me. You must go where your Guide is and look at yourself with him or her.

You must step out of the arena, the box, in which guilt seems to be real and justified. And if you want to have a different experience of your Brother or Sister, you have to lift your Brother or Sister out of that box as well in your own mind, so that in your consideration of that one, you are reflecting back to that one the Truth that heals—the Father’s Point of View.

We’ve spoken of your insistence upon being an authorizer of definitions and meanings as an attack on God, but it’s also an attack on you. It’s also a denial of Who You Are. And in that state, you give definitions, apply definitions to your Brothers and Sisters and world, and that constitutes an attack on them.

This is why the Sonship is your salvation—because the Sonship is what has been attacked and you have to withdraw your attack on them. And in withdrawing your attack on the Sonship, you undo the attack. And the Sonship becomes the reason for your undoing the attack, so that your act of withdrawal of attack constitutes an Act of Love, an Act of Defenselessness, which allows the Sonship to register with you in Its True Light.

When God’s Son …

… by saying, “I see God there. I’m willing to see God there. I want to see God there.”

When God’s Son …

… you see? You can’t just join with God.

Why? Because they aren’t separate from each other. The Movement of God is the Movement of Creation that looks like all of you, all of Us, and the world and the Universe. If you glorify one part of it, you are glorifying the Whole of it, because there aren’t really parts. And your willingness to even see the Father in a part of the Universe, leads to a spontaneous recognition of the Truth of your Love everywhere. But you’ve got to get the first domino to fall before the others will fall after it. And you start with your Brother.

… God’s …

Your Guide waits. The Holy Spirit, that which is nothing more than your right Mind, waits at the Altar in the center of your Being to welcome God’s Son.

Leave your definitions outside the door. Leave that which would determine that your Brother is something less than What God Is Being right there, which is a condemnation, at the door.

A very simple way of putting this is that if you wish to companion with or commune with the Holy Spirit, that which is nothing more than your right Mind, or with your Guide, you must manage to still your mind enough to abandon your preoccupation with your definitions, and your distresses, and your judgments, et cetera. Because if you try to bring them along with you, in effect you will not be in a state of mental peace or quiet, and you will not be able to hear the Holy Spirit or your Guide. Why? Not because They don’t answer, but because you are bringing with you too much noise. Too much of your attention is preoccupied with something other than listening for the Holy Spirit.

… waiting …

That’s just the simple fact. But if you have something you would rather be doing than coming in simplicity into the quietness of you where you can hear the Holy Spirit or your Guide, you will not hear anything, even though that’s where God would have you be.

And I say “refuse” in the sense of choosing to do something other with your mind than giving your full attention to listening.

… or come unto the Holy Spirit which holds it open for you …

… right in the center of you.

I am God’s Son and I wait for your realization that you are God’s Son, to return to you. And I hold the door open for that realization to return to you. And that door cannot be closed, not just because I hold it open, but because the Holy Spirit, that which is nothing more than your right Mind, stands holding your Divinity in trust while you dally with an ego sense of things, and holds it for you, if need be, forever—because your Divine Self, which you are ignoring at the moment, is Eternal as well.

… You …

God is approached by your appreciation of your Brother. Not for what your Brother is doing, but for What Your Brother Truly Is, in spite of what he may be doing.

You see? I am your salvation. The Sonship is your salvation. Because we wait for you to recognize us in yourself, because that’s how you remember Who You Are, and that’s how the Sonship becomes One again, in full Conscious Awareness of Itself, without having to wait for you to remember Who You Are while you insist upon playing at being who you aren’t.

You see? You’ve been trying to shine with glory of your own, thinking that that’s all there was for you to do. But there’s more for you to be, and you need to begin to take hold of it and be it more consciously.

… You …

You see? You’re at that Point—the Point of Perfection. And these words are describing you from that Point, which is the Reality of You at this moment.

And not at his own hand. Not of his own creation.

And I will add: And by sharing, being able to keep it for yourself.

… the Father …

In other words, until you endorse it, you won’t be able to keep it. You won’t have it as a Conscious Experience.

… and not in your own private, little goals; competitive goals.

If you were to go to a medical practitioner, or let’s say a health practitioner, no matter what area of health-care you might consider, you would go because you needed help. Because in one way or another, you were suffering. And you would expect the health professional to provide the best that was available on your behalf. Now, whenever a Brother or a Sister comes into your experience—walks into the room, walks past your line of sight—this one has come into your experience, and is there to be in relationship with, even if it’s only to notice that they are there and that they’re headed for the candy counter, or the checkout stand, or wherever. But, for that time, you’re in relationship with them. And you’re there to bless them. You’re there to bless them—not to evaluate their clothing, not to evaluate their tone of voice—but to give an acknowledgement.

You are there like the health-care professional. Every single one of you deserves the best health-care—the attitude and the behaviors that make you better than you were before the encounter. You have the option, in every encounter with a Brother, no matter how distant or intimate it might be, to bless them by remembering, to whatever degree you are able, that they are neither behind the Point of Perfection, nor advancing toward it—no matter what they think—but they are at that Point. Everyone needs that acknowledgement to be made about them and for them, because none of you remember it consistently. And every single one of you need the blessing of that kind of mindful attention. Health-care—mindful attention.

And no matter how obnoxious they are, no matter how unkind they are, no matter how much their behavior is governed by their fear, you need to remember What The Truth Is that they’ve forgotten, and not indulge in spontaneous, self-righteous judgment of their behavior, but to get beneath it, even past the fear that is generating the behavior, to the acknowledgement of the Ultimate Truth about them, because that, for lack of better words, is a health-care treatment. You must dare to be persistent and consistent.

Again, we read earlier:

… that only you can deprive yourself of anything.

You must become more diligent in the process of reorienting your attention. You see, you don’t reallocate blame. You reorient your attention.

You must step out of the level of blaming the other person for his or her problems, because the other person is having problems because he or she is blaming himself or herself for her problems, or blaming others for their problems. But it’s all in that arena in which nothing but conflict can be experienced, because there’s no premise being utilized of Innocence, of being at the Point of Perfection—of the acknowledgement of the fact that you never ever could have managed to separate yourself from God, and do something awful that you must be punished for, that you are guilty of, that blame can rightly be laid at your doorstep for.

You know, last week I spoke at some length about how loved you are, so that you might remember how loved you are, or so that you might have an “Aha!” about how loved you are, so that you might be lifted up out of your poor definition of yourself, your unlovable definition of yourself, into a new arena in which your lovableness is natural. I must do this for you, and you must do this for each other. Because in doing it for each other, you do the one essential thing that’s not been done—and that is the abandoning of an arrogant, private, special selfness in favor of joining with another in acknowledging the Truth About Them—and thus pushing that domino that causes the realization of your Divinity to register with you because you’ve endorsed it and made it your own, and demonstrated it in action with your Brother.

Now if your Brother or Sister is so damned convinced of their fearful definition of themselves and how full of blame they are—if they are so convinced of it that they can’t possibly hear any verbal expression of that fact that you might put forth, if they’re so convinced of it that no matter what you do, their behavior doesn’t change—it just means that as the health-care practitioner that you are, you are called upon to oppose steadfastly and without exception whatever their limited belief is in your mind, and not succumb to it and move into a state of reaction yourself, so that you continue to consider them in the Peace of the understanding of What The Truth About Them Is.

You must stop giving yourself permission to indulge in reaction—emotional reaction. Why? Because the moment you do that, you’re saying, “I’ll be back with You in a minute, God. I have some reacting to do.” And so you cut yourself off until you get your fill of hurting from reacting and you finally say, “Okay, I lost the beam. I’m going to stop this and get centered again. I’m going to get quiet, and I’m going to join with the Holy Spirit. I’m going to acknowledge God as my Father, and therefore myself as His Son or His Daughter. And then, although I haven’t done that yet, I, at this point, intend, once I get to that point, to include this lousy so-and-so that I’m so upset with, in the acknowledgement of his or her Divinity. And I will withdraw my joining, I will withdraw my partnering with this one in his or her lousy self-perception, so that I do not strengthen it by confirming it by joining through reaction.

You may not be able to change someone else, but you know the saying, “Misery loves company.” And if someone is miserable, and their misery makes you miserable, you join with them in their misery—and because misery loves company, it does confirm for them, and solidify further for them, their misery. That you don’t want to do. And the only way not to do it, is to steadfastly choose for your Peace, listen within, remember the Truth about them that they’re neither behind the Point of Perfection nor advancing toward it, but they’re at that Point. And you stay with that. You withdraw your part in the “misery loves company” scenario. And confirmation is lessened.

And the Extension of Love, the Acknowledgement of God there where they are that occurs in your mind, does bless you. And like a gift given but unopened, it remains with that one until that one is ready to open it. And you have not done anything in vain.

I love you all. And I look forward to being with you next week.

Okay.

Course In Miracles (reference pages)