Teachings of Christ Mind

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

Well, I mentioned last week that the ego will take whatever the Course says and use it for its purposes, and it will take things I have to say and use it for its purposes. And, indeed, this has happened. [laughing] And so there are a couple of things I want to be very clear about again.

First off, when I gave these very spiritual words to be used to dismiss the invitation received (and I will not make Paul say the words again, but the words were “f— off”), many of you after having heard it and then remembering back to what I said, remembered me saying “f— you.” And there’s a great difference between “f— you” and “f— off.” “F— you” is a curse that you are specifically directing toward a person. Whereas “f— off” is a dismissal—and that was the pure and simple intent of the statement.

Misunderstanding it though and thinking it was a statement “f— you,” many have thought that I was giving permission, especially in light of all I said about honesty, that it gave you license to call each other on each other’s shit—point out their flaws, point out their errors, and clearly express how you felt about it. Now this is nothing more than careless and sloppy thinking, and careless listening.

And I invite you to listen more attentively to what I’m saying, because I am speaking very clearly. And I am saying exactly what I mean.

The statement, the dismissal “f— off” was a dismissal to an invitation. In other words, I was speaking in very narrow terms here. It was a dismissal of an invitation extended to you mentally. In other words, where you can feel the pull, whether the person is in your presence or not. You can feel the invitation to be drawn in to help them feel better without having to change the behavior they are expressing which is occasioning their suffering—and very specifically, an invitation from someone who is taking pleasure in keeping you, and anyone else they can, at a disadvantage. I referred to it as “sin.” One—and let’s listen carefully—one who takes pleasure in putting another at a disadvantage for the purposes of usury, for the purposes of manipulation, for the purposes of control—one who takes pleasure in this, and is committed to this kind behavior, is not suffering from sickness; they are suffering from sin.

When an invitation, or a ploy, or a pull, is extended toward you by someone who is wanting to engage you in a position of deception which will put you at a disadvantage, you must decline the invitation. I did not say you should curse them. You must decline the invitation. You must say, “I am not available for this tug-of-war. I am not available for this state of conflict you would invite me into. And it would be a state of conflict because what you’re inviting me into has a motive behind it different from what you are saying to me. I am not available for this.” Accept that you must decline the invitation in as absolute terms as you can muster. And that is why I used the dismissal “f— off” (a decline of the invitation, not a curse on the person).

Now I also made it very clear that in the last couple of chapters or sections that we’ve been reading, we have not arrived at a point yet where it is telling you how to effect a change in another, even though we are discussing how to be an agent for change, how to respond to a call for love, how to respond to a call for help that actually helps. We have not arrived yet at a point of extension toward the other. We are still talking about what you, within your own mind, are going to do in order to be an effective agent for change.

Now, most of you are familiar with Shakespeare’s statement: “To thine own self be true, and it must follow as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.” Okay, so we’re reading about responding to a call for love. And in effect, we’re talking about how you can respond without being false in any way. That’s what we’re talking about. And the question is, “How do you manage to talk to your fellowman and not be false in any way?” Well, it isn’t from book-learning. It isn’t from theories. It’s from a simple practice: Be true to yourself.

Know where you’re coming from. Be conscious enough of your own behavior to know whether you’re coming from a manipulative place, whether you’re coming from a controlling place, whether in your attempt to help, you have an agenda, a personal agenda of your own, which you would engage your Brother or Sister in so that their getting better is to your advantage, for example. You see? Or so that their healing has a reasonable amount of justice included in it so that they pay a “reasonable penalty.” You see? That’s not innocence on your part. That’s being unconscious yourself of what your real motive must be if you are the direct expression of God and nothing less.

As I said last week, last time, we’re talking about, at this point, getting your own head on straight. And so we aren’t discussing in any way, shape, or form, looking out there at another and calling him on his shit, or uncovering his flaws and proving his deceit. We’re not talking about acts on your part effecting a change on a Brother. We’ll get to that part, but that’s not where we’re at right now.

And what I said had nothing to do with giving you license to express your best perception of what’s going on, and to do an analysis of your Brother’s psyche, and come to conclusions, and then attack him or her on the basis of your assessment. Before you open your mouth when you are talking to a Brother or a Sister, ask yourself, “Would God be saying this to them? Would the Christ be saying this to them? Would the Holy Spirit say what I’m about to say?”

If you don’t ask that question, then all you’re doing is coming from your own best judgments. And you are doing it unjoined and unconscious of your inseparable unity with God, with the Christ, with the Holy Spirit. And so you are behaving, I’m going to say, in a state of denial of What You Divinely Are, blocking completely your capacity to reflect God, to reflect Love that heals. You’re covering yourself up and giving preference to the picture you have of yourself that is replacing What You Divinely Are. And you are being dishonest.

So when I’m talking about expressing yourself honestly, I’m talking about you expressing your Self, with a capital “S”, honestly; not you, who you think you are, expressing the way you think you feel from a separated place truly, straightforwardly, bluntly. That will never heal, because what comes from you does not come from a union. It does not come from a communion. It comes from a separate private place, from something that exists only in your imagination. And the only thing that will ever do is cause and promote and confirm confusion, for you and those around you, unless they are really alert in your presence.

So let’s be very clear on this. Being honest means behaving, acting out from that which is truly you underneath and behind any concepts, any pictures, you have of yourself. It’s you speaking from your connectedness with What You Divinely Are. And so, we’re still talking about, we’re still reading about consciously giving your attention in that direction, and then listening to see what the response would be.

And the response will never be a curse on your Brother or your Sister. On the other hand, you can count on it that it will be a dismissal, in your own mind, of any temptation that comes your way, inviting you to acknowledge in your Brother and Sister something that is not representative of what they truly are, and which invites you to participate in trying to accomplish what can’t be accomplished. When that is done from the very center of your Being, to the best of your ability, I’m going to say, the one whose invitation is being dismissed will have to work real hard to feel personally dismissed or snubbed in the process, because it will be impossible for him to find in you an edge, a hurtfulness, or even a satisfaction in being able to deliver hurt, which is another way of describing “extracting justice out of the situation.”

Okay, let’s go into the book.

… the Holy Spirit …

… the fear …

And again, to be perfectly clear: If you having experienced a call for love that has come forth as that which invites fear…

… the Holy Spirit …

To you.

To help you not take the bait (to see it as something other than a call for help). To help you not take the bait (to see it as attack and respond in a like manner with defense).

To you, in your own mind.

… to who?

… not the one who’s making the call for help.

You see? We’re talking about what’s going on in your mind.

You see? Someone expresses himself in a frightful way, expressing a great deal of fear, or expressing ideas that invite you to become fearful. If you listen to what is said, and you choose to believe that something fearful is happening, you will completely forget that there is another way to look at this, and to see it as a call for love from one who has forgotten Who He Is and forgotten what his connections are—his unchangeable oneness with God, Who loves him with a Perfect Love that casts out fear.

Why? Because you can see that there is delusion going on here, not something real. And you can see that the one who is deluded, is really the Christ, really the Son of God, having forgotten who he or she is, and in the lapse of memory, feels the loss of Identity, which is frightening, is unsettling. And when you see that, then whatever that one is presenting, becomes meaningless in light of what the Truth is about them. You see?

Tell me, why would any of you ever feel afraid? Well, because you’re attempting to be something you cannot be. You’re attempting to be an orphan. You’re attempting to be independent. You’re attempting to be as a sole (s-o-l-e) operator, which isn’t What You Are. You’re attempting to be something you cannot be. You are part of the Brotherhood. You are part of everything, and everything is part of you. You are a wholeness, and a part of wholeness, you might say. You have the capacity to experience yourself infinitely and specifically simultaneously.

But if you try to experience yourself specifically at the expense of your infiniteness, which is an impossibility, you will feel uncomfortable at the attempt, uneasy at the attempt. Why? Because the Truth of you, the Wholeness of you—that can’t be excluded even if you try to give your attention so specifically to one small aspect of the infinity of you—confronts you. The infinitude of you confronts you even in your attempt to be tiny. It pushes for, it calls for your conscious re-embrace of the rest of you. It calls you, with insistence, to abandon your denial of all the rest of you, to abandon your attempt to narrow your attention down to the miniscule. Why? Because you cannot successfully become insane.

And so, What You Divinely Are pressures you in your highly focused attentiveness, to abandon the high focus, the narrowed focus. The greater part of you says, “You can’t forget me.” And because you are whole and you can’t forget your wholeness, you will experience your wholeness right in the middle of your tiny focus as a pressure, as something that does not feel natural to you, to get your attention.

… in other words, in the presence of the pressure of your wholeness that you have repressed from your awareness, which is called an unconscious recognition. It’s felt, but you can’t quite identify it because you have repressed it so successfully.

In unconscious recognition of the rest of the infinitude of you that you are denying by giving preference to the highly-focused, tiny attention which you are occupying your mind with.

You see, when an event happens in your day and you respond to it based upon your memory and your best judgments, without ever tapping into the rest of you that is present, without ever inquiring of the Holy Spirit, “What is the Truth here?”—your private response is an active denial of your divinity, of the wholeness of you, that it’s really your Birthright to be experiencing and expressing. You’re leaving God out—which is another way of saying you’re leaving the Holy Spirit out—which is another way of saying you’re leaving out that which is nothing more than your right Mind. But when you do, you never feel totally at peace. Why? Because the pressure of What You Divinely Are will not let you be totally comfortable. It is impossible for you to be totally comfortable in your own private perception of the Kingdom of Heaven.

The next section is entitled:

Loss of what? The rest of you. The other ninety-eight percent of you that you are ignoring by giving preference to the two percent you’re choosing to look at and validate and define. You see?

… in other words, when you perceive in others, fear—which is a deep sense of their loss.

Let’s turn this around. If when I perceive in you a deep sense of loss because you’ve forgotten Who You Are or you’re denying Who You Are, I know to supply the loss, and the basic cause of your fear is removed.

I remind you of Who You Are. I don’t confirm who you think you are. I remind you of the other ninety-eight percent of you. I remind you of your connection with God. I remind you that the Holy Spirit is not part of the trinity off in the ethers, but is nothing more than your right Mind, so that you realize that there is more to you than you’ve been availing yourselves of, so that you might be inspired to avail yourself of it by giving your attention in that direction, rather than relying entirely upon your knee-jerk, habitual responses to everything out of your memory. And as I do that, your fear is reduced.

Now, again, with reference to your behavior toward your Brother.

Where? In your Brother. But first, it’s got to be removed in you.

Now if you’re willing to see your Brother’s behavior as a call for love, as a call for help, and you’re willing to give that help to your Brother, even if you don’t know exactly how you’re going to accomplish it, you have abandoned any prejudgments you have about that Brother that would block you from caring enough to want to extend love. And that opens the door for the influx of Love from the Father, in you, through you, to your Brother.

Of the two—fear and Love—one is false. And the one that’s false is fear.

… denial of what? Who You Are. What you divinely are, what you really are, in spite of what you’ve been educated to believe you are. The divine one. The Christ.

You see, you can’t deny nothing. The only thing any of you go around denying is something Real.

Fear is what we’re talking about, remember. If you are experiencing fear, it is because you have forgotten Who You Are, and are giving preference to something else. And in giving preference to something else, you are denying What You Really Are, and you are denying something that is Real. What You Truly Are is Real, What You Infinitely Are is Real, even though you think you are finite.

… I’m going to say:

In other words, for an act of denial to exist, you have to be opposing something that is Real. Therefore, if you are in a state of denial, the very practice of denial, by reversal, is a statement of the presence of What Is Truly True—Real, with a capital “R”. You have to be willing to practice the art of contrary thinking here.

Now listen to this using the art of contrary thinking.

You see, you, in spite of yourselves, believe that you are divine. In spite of your habitual thinking habits, you believe that you are Real, with a capital “R”, that you are eternal, and that you are, therefore, incapable of conflict of any kind. That is what you believe.

And because you believe it, you argue against your suffering. You do everything you can to avoid your suffering. Why? Because you believe you do not deserve it. And the reason you believe you don’t deserve it, is because you know, at the very roots of your Being, that conflict and suffering is not your Birthright.

Again.

“I am afraid because there’s an underlying Reality of me that it’s my Birthright to experience, and therefore I know that the suffering I’m experiencing cannot be valid. Therefore, I can use the experience of fear as a confirmation, as an affirmation, as a concrete conscious experience of my divinity, by using the art of contrary thinking. And I can choose to weigh, to place my anchor in that truth, and let it be dominant because it is dominant truly.”

And as that awareness goes through your mind, your fear diminishes. You are undermining the fear’s perceived usefulness by rendering it useless.

You automatically discard them when you see that they aren’t needed or they are a useless waste of energy.

… if you bring to the surface what’s behind the fear.

What’s behind fear?

What’s behind fear? You see, the ego would say, “Okay, what has gone on in your background? What are the foolish beliefs you’ve been employing that seem to make fear reasonable and justifiable? Let’s get behind the fear. [small laugh] Let’s get down to the root of the fear.” But you will always look within the confines, the context of a separated mind where the fear is going on.

When you get behind the fear, you discover what? You discover the Truth about you. You discover your omnipresence. You discover the Birthright of your omnipotence. You discover the actuality of Singularity as your Birthright, in which nothing conflicted can occur, and which therefore makes utterly, experientially clear to you that there is no cause for fear. When you get behind the fear, when you get to what the fear is covering up, you get to the Truth of you that says you are a divine Being, incapable of fear; needing not to exercise fear because you are invulnerable.

And what happens then? You simply abandon the fear because it serves no purpose. It is a useless activity. That’s what happens when you raise what fear conceals to clear-cut, unequivocal predominance. Fear becomes meaningless then.

… what?

Fear’s only purpose was to conceal love. But you all think that fear has the purpose of protecting you; that it’s useful, that it’s essential, if you’re going to survive in this dog-eat-dog world.

But, no.

Now, if “the mask which you have drawn across the face of love has disappeared,” it must mean that you have followed the direction quote, “To thine own self be true.” You see? Honest. You’ve gotten down to bedrock. You’ve gotten down to the foundation of your Being. You’ve gotten down to the Truth about you, which is that you’re not this little piss-ant mortal that you have thought you were, that you have been convicted in your belief about, and neither are any of your Brothers or Sisters, who have been suffering from the same belief.

… you see? No more of this, “The world is an illusion. The world isn’t real.”

… here’s the art of contrary thinking …

Well, you certainly won’t be able to give it if you are going to call “the call for love” something else, like hateful behavior, or, you know, the expected behavior from someone like that. You see? If you’re going to call “the call for love” an expression of hate that you better protect yourself against, you’re not going to be [in] any position to answer “the call for love” by giving it, because you’re going to withhold it. Why? Because you have decided to call “the call for love” something else.

Continuing.

… and you can’t say, “Oh, well, that’s fine and dandy. Yeah. I would imagine the Holy Spirit … the Holy Spirit’s interpretation would dispel it.” Well, remember, [laughing] the Holy Spirit is nothing more than your right Mind. So don’t just blow it off, else you’re blowing your Self off.

… the interpretation of that which is nothing more than your right Mind.

… here’s our art of contrary thinking …

Shakespeare in Macbeth wrote the line, “Methinks thou doth protest too much!” And the point of the statement is that when one is going around protesting something obsessively, unreasonably, it usually implies that whatever that one is defending himself against is probably the truth about them, else they wouldn’t be going overboard denying it.

Well, likewise, if you’re going around every day relying entirely upon your best judgments, you are in a constant state of denial of What You Are. You are constantly protesting your Birthright. You’re constantly protesting your divinity. And by virtue of the art of contrary thinking, you are demonstrating the fact that you believe that you are divine, that the Truth about you that you are denying really is the Truth about you, and therefore, isn’t unavailable to you; it’s just being ignored by you.

And as I’ve now repeated many times, where we are in this book and in the explanation of God’s Plan for salvation and your process of awakening, we are giving our attention entirely to your honesty, to your willingness not to be denying the Truth about you. Because as long as you are denying the Truth about you, you are as caught up and engaged in the practice of mutual defense as everyone else is. And you, therefore, are completely inhibited from responding to a call for love with the love that will make fear a useless and meaningless element of your existence or of your Brother’s, so that transformation of mind can occur.

Mind you now, I want you to remain aware of the fact that there’s a difference between sickness and sin. One does not take pleasure and make commitment to being sick. But one does take pleasure in and make commitment to indulging in sin. Therefore, what we’re reading right now does not apply to those who are indulging in sin. Those who are indulging in commitment to harming others and who take pleasure in it, will not hear the expression of love until they arrive at a point of recognizing exactly the mechanism they are using, and abandon it. But those who are sick are not committed to being sick, and do not have a defensive shell around them that keeps them protected from feeling love that the one who engages in sin does. Those who are taking pleasure in hurting others, do it from a highly-defended place, because they intend not to be swerved from their commitment. They intend not to be swerved from the high they get from succeeding at making someone else hurt.

Now let’s continue here, keeping in mind that we’re talking about the sick, not the sinner. And I’m going to back up.

How are they denying it? With simple, stupid beliefs. “Well, I’m a mortal. I’m just a physical organism. I’m part of an evolutionary process. I function within the limits of that process. I function within the limits of the normal processes of matter.” And on and on. “What can I expect? That’s just the way it is.” But none of that’s true about them. But what is true about them, they’re denying to themselves.

So:

Here we are talking about a stray animal that comes to your door that’s truly hungry for change. That’s what the sick are.

The sinners that come to your door are looking to be strengthened so that they might continue in their life commitment. And in the process of your helping them, they will screw you, if they can, as well. Until they see their behavior pattern, and until they recognize that it is not getting them fulfillment, and until after recognizing it, they abandon the practice, the shell, the well-reinforced shell will not dissolve and become permeable so as [to allow them] to feel their hunger for what they are denying—love; until they feel hunger for peace. Then they will be able to hear the response of love to the call for love.

… the sick …

The task of the miracle worker is to be able to stand there and say, “You know, what you’re believing isn’t true. And you’re not, you’re really not under threat. And you’re really not subject to physical processes that can leave you at a disadvantage, because you are the Child of God. And I see your lovableness. And it is perfectly clear to me that you are not in an environment of actual threat. And I will stand here with you as long as I need to and confirm to you the Truth about you until you can see it.”

That’s called “denying the denial of Truth.” Everything I’m doing with you is denying your denial of Truth.

You see, you need me to remind you of what is true about you. And I can remind you of what is true about you because it’s true about me—and I haven’t forgotten it.

… you see, you’ve still got to do the work. You’ve still got to take the apparently risky step of believing something that’s hard for you to believe.

“Oh, but the fog is so thick! The fog is so thick I can’t see! The fog is so thick!” No. No. Take a deep breath. [breathing deeply] Take another deep breath. [again breathing deeply]

Just stand with me. Give your attention to me. Forget about the fog for the moment. Even if you can’t see me through the fog, you can hear my voice and you can hear my tone and you can feel my meaning. Let your mind and attention be with me. And be aware of the Love with which I’m embracing you.

Now these are not words for you to write down and repeat, because your own clarity about the unrealness of the fog will provide you with the utterly appropriate words at the moment when you’re standing with your Brother and dispelling the fear by giving the love.

… the power he’s given to the fog …

And we could say: Remembering that all power is of Love.

That’s why, in the words I used, I invited that one to be aware of the Love that I was expressing and being with him.

But you know what? You can’t remember it for any of the Sonship if you haven’t first been true to yourself. And again, that is the step we’re on at this point in the book. “To thine own self be true, and it must follow as the night the day,” you can remember this for all the Sonship. But that’s the second step. That’s the result, not the act you engage in. You don’t engage in an act of remembering it for all the Sonship. You engage in the act of being true to yourself, and the result is that you will remember it for all the Sonship.

If you’re not remembering together, you’re not remembering fully, and it’s your loss.

If you wish to respond to the call for love that your Brother has expressed, you must, for lack of better words, prepare yourself for the task first, and you can do this in a moment. I’m not talking about a lifetime practice. You can prepare yourself by saying, “Okay, here is a serious call for love.” What I mean by that is, here is a legitimate call for love. “Therefore, I will honor it by not being frivolous and responding off the top of my head.” You don’t have to go through all these words. Instead of all those words, you can say, “Holy Spirit, what is the Truth here?” And in doing that, you abandon your memory banks and your conditioned reflexes, and you listen. You abandon your own thinking and you listen, so that the Truth about your Brother can dawn in your thought and inspire the words that will not confirm what he is ignorantly believing, but will inspire the release of them in favor of the much more desirable awareness of Truth that is being illuminated in their mind in a manner that is perfectly reasonable to them. So, bear with the process here of waking up, of becoming clear.

And do not be impatient to get to the part you are imagining is coming, where you will have learned something and now you can say, “Shazam!” and the person will be healed. And you will have been able to act authoritatively, but from a spiritual standpoint, from a divinely authorized standpoint, and will have become an effective healer in the world, in the horrible world that is in such need of healing. You see? We’re talking about the use you’re putting your mind to, and preparing your mind, what? To authorize something? No. To be the place that can be infilled with redemptive truth that redeems your Brother and you at the same time.

Speed over this, get through it quickly so you can get on to the good part, and you might as well put the book down, and you might as well abandon your awakening. This is very important.

I love you all. Be at peace. Having received a full meal, be at peace and let it digest, and let it move you. Let it mature you. Let it expand you. And don’t be wondering what you’re going to have for your next meal.

I look forward to being with you next week.